Scott McNealy is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 business executive. He co-founded computer technology company Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

 in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla is an Indian-born American venture capitalist and an influential personality in Silicon Valley....

, Bill Joy

Bill Joy

William Nelson Joy , commonly known as Bill Joy, is an American computer scientist. Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003...

, and Andy Bechtolsheim

Andy Bechtolsheim

Andreas von Bechtolsheim is an electrical engineer who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and was its chief hardware designer....

.
Sun Microsystems, along with companies such as Silicon Graphics

Silicon Graphics

Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...

, 3Com

3Com

3Com was a pioneering digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw...

, and Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...

, was part of a wave of successful startup companies in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

's Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...

 during the early and mid-1980s. In 1982, McNealy, who was then manufacturing director at Onyx Systems

Onyx Systems

Onyx Systems, Inc., founded in Cupertino, California in 1979 by Bob Marsh and Kip Myers, was one of the earliest vendors of microprocessor-based Unix systems...

, a vendor of microprocessor-based Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 systems, was approached by fellow Stanford

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 alumnus Khosla to help provide the necessary organizational and business leadership for the fledgling company.