Phases of the Moon: Time at Sun

Over 16+ years at Sun, 1988-2005, I spent roughly equivalent amounts of time in Sales & Marketing, Product Engineering, and IT.

In sales, I learned to see through the customers' eyes and I developed the ability to simultaneously see from Sun's perspective. From this came the capacity to uplevel, focus and frame issues differently and find answers. I learned to tap dance and not be afraid when I didn't understand things completely (this is a skill that cuts both ways, however). I learned to swear and I learned a lot of jokes.

Working as an SE, I had a ringside seat to observe how the 99% male "sales pukes" (a Peter Young term) could deliver amazing results. As SEs, we were serfs in Puke hierarchy, but it did have its moments.

The Sun sales guys, at least in NYC, were extroverted, highly intuitive, extremely profane, ruthless, and wildly entertaining. They also knew great jokes.

Moving to California for a short stint in SoftSoft Corporate Marketing was rather similar, albeit a little less profane. I did learn by observation that once you become a VP, you are allowed to forget all the behaviors you were forced to adopt in kindergarten. Fortunately, not everyone took advantage of that.

In Product Engineering, I learned (over time) to stop swearing so much, how to become a manager of people and teams, the design center for building products (not just point solutions), and how to turn the crank (PLC). All these are asymptotic goals. You never quite get there.

In IT, I learned the great satisfaction in being able to solve a genuine business problem with technology. It was actually possible to transform how the company did some critical aspect of the business within a relatively short period of time.

I also learned about ubiquitous computing and security and those became my passions.

Managing through adversity was the bigger lesson. I learned that being in a part of the business that is a cost center and does not bring in revenue is a very precarious place, even in the best of times. And in the worst of times, it can be heart-breaking. Figuring out to transform, keep moving, deliver anyway, and try to keep up team cohesion was invaluable, if not always perfectly executed.

SunIT had an interesting relationship with various product groups, particularly enterprise software.

First of all, there was a general attitude that all the really good technical minds did not work in IT. Of course this is overly simplistic, but that was still the general attitude on the product side (and I knew because I'd been there).

Secondly, I saw the seeds of what I perceived as a problem for Sun that might prove fatal.

Sun's products had traditionally been successful because engineers (including former engineers now VPs) ran the show and they were designing workstations and operating systems and capabilities for people like themselves.

That success factor began to change with enterprise software. Suddenly we had extremely smart people who had never worked in an enterprise IT organization, but were now designing and developing enterprise IT applications. They also had a attitude problem when it came to valuing the issues raised by Sun's captive IT experts and for the most part they weren't used to looking to (or valuing) marketing or product management to help solve that problem.

The upper management chain did seem to understand this and there were even some notable successes, but the culture was deeply ingrained and overall the ship was too big to turn quickly.

I am not claiming that this was why Sun ultimately failed. That list could go on and on and I don't have enough insight into all of them. But for me this was significant because it was the first time I saw a situation where Sun couldn't seem to nimbly adapt to critical changes and that did not bode well.

I voluntarily left Sun in May of 2005. The final straw was that IT was going to outsource most of IT which they did a number of months later to CDC. I had no way of knowing whether I would be part of the group staying or going, but pragmatically I knew that I risked being sent to a company I'd never emotionally signed up for and then left with a 2-week notification period if I were laid off vs what I would get from having been a director with 16 years at Sun.

More importantly, it was time for me to go. I had learned what I needed to know and it was time to go re-invent another phase in my career plus it was very clear to me that Sun was not going in a healthy direction. It still felt like divorce because I had been so invested emotionally with Sun.

I don't think of myself as an emotional risk-taking type of person. I think things through.

But when I look at the amazing leaps of faith I have taken over the course of my career I realize that there might be a side to me that I don't fully appreciate.

I'm sorry Sun had to end and I greatly miss the place that it used to be, but that company was gone a long time ago. I hope the remnants find a good spot at Oracle.