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1-Page Summary of High Noon

In the Beginning

Vinod Khosla was born in India and moved to the United States when he was young. He always wanted to start his own company, but it took him a while to get into that position. After failing at one venture, he got an M.B.A., which helped him with his next business idea: Daisy Systems, which developed computer-aided design (CAD) software for engineers. The project didn’t succeed as well as he had hoped, but it gave him valuable experience that would help shape his future endeavors. In 1982 Khosla started Sun Microsystems Inc., a smaller version of what Stanford University had already built—a networked system where individual computers were connected and could share information between them all simultaneously.

Sun Microsystems was started by Vinod Khosla and Andy Bechtolsheim. In 1982, they wrote a business plan that described how they would build and sell the SUN workstation. The machine cost $25,000 to $100,000 back then but was more powerful than PCs or minicomputers. Sun used open systems and networking instead of proprietary hardware like Apollo Computer Inc., which had proven there was a market for workstations with their machines costing half as much as Sun’s did at the time.

Khosla and Bechtolsheim secured $284,000 from venture capitalists. They wrote a short business plan that outlined Sun’s mission to develop, manufacture, market and support graphics workstations for the CAD/CAM marketplace. The VCs liked their idea so much that they invested in it right away.

The scientific community was aware of Sun’s workstation because the founder had worked at Stanford. This helped Sun gain access to sophisticated buyers without any active marketing. In addition, by targeting technical computer users, it gained their camaraderie through word-of-mouth advertising.

Staffing the New Company

Khosla needed to start a company, so he thought of Scott McNealy. While at Stanford University, McNealy was known for partying and not academics. However, Khosla had been impressed by his people skills while working as the head of operations for Onyx Systems, another Unix start-up. Doug Broyles (Sun investor) gave him a recommendation because of his people skills which were critical to Sun’s success in the future.

Khosla, Bechtolsheim and McNealy worked quickly to develop a prototype of their first product. They were unhappy with the operating system they used so they recruited Bill Joy (a Unix expert) from Berkeley to fix it.

These four people helped Sun build a successful product. Vinod Khosla had the ambition and vision for the company, while Scott McNealy brought manufacturing experience to the table. Bill Joy and Andy Bechtolsheim also contributed critical technical expertise to help with production of this new product.

Early Days

Sun Microsystems was founded in 1982 and has been a driving force in the industry ever since. A lot of their success stems from early decisions that have remained consistent throughout the years. They worked long hours, had fewer resources than competitors, and used open systems to get technology from other companies instead of building it themselves.

Sun dealt with non-product related functions such as marketing and customer support in an unorganized manner. Their product’s engineering-driven technical aspects were the most important to them, so they put these other functions on the back burner. As Sun grew, this changed for a while but it was true for much of their history.

When Sun Microsystems was founded, McNealy emerged as the leader of the company. He talked to employees and dealt with morale issues, while Joy and Bechtolsheim were too busy focusing on technology. Khosla was also very busy running the company, so he didn’t have time to deal with employee needs.