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Anyone heard of a guy called Scott McNealy? My neighbour claimed to have danced with him. Other than that? Most likely. He is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Bunch of entrepreneurs are meeting him later this afternoon to learn from Scott. Among them is Anish Kapoor from Yuuguu and moi! Here is some information about Scott.
Scott McNealy, 53, is chairman of the board of directors of Sun Microsystems, a company he co-founded in 1982 and chairman of Sun Federal Inc. From 1984 to 2006, McNealy served as chief executive officer and chairman at Sun, steering the Company to constant innovation in open, network computing.
In his 22 years at the helm, McNealy grew Sun from a Silicon Valley start-up to a leading provider of network computing infrastructure with 37,900 employees worldwide, all while positioning the Company as the model of corporate integrity. In 1986, he took Sun public, creating one of the most notable publicly traded technology companies.
McNealy has overseen the Company's deployment of world-class products. Today, Java powers over 3.5 billion devices; Sun's Solaris is one of only three remaining operating systems in the marketplace; the Niagara chip is a leading, high performance, low power, sustainable technology; and the world's most advanced multi-core system, SPARC, is taking market share.
Seeing the impact of the network on security and privacy long ago, McNealy responded by building security into every Sun product.
McNealy's vision and business acumen have made him one of the most influential and widely quoted leaders in the complex, fluid and fast-moving IT industry. His leadership and determination have enabled Sun to outpace its peers, to grow while others have collapsed, to leverage market opportunities in good economies and bad, and to claim the leadership mantle as one of the world's great technology companies.
McNealy has helped set the industry agenda through his vision of network computing which has served as a guide and barometer for the direction and pace of technology innovation. And, for more than a decade, he has been advancing Sun's slogan, The Network Is The Computer -- a succinct statement of the company's vision of seamless connectivity that is now driving the Participation Age.
McNealy never shies away from controversial issues in the industry. His tenacity and willingness to address tough issues head on has earned him respect and admiration. In 1999, McNealy predicted that "software will all go free," and the market is now moving in that direction. He also foresaw the service provider movement, predicted the rise of business models based upon free software, evangelized thin client architectures and predicted grid computing. And, McNealy's belief in innovation and commitment to R&D, even in a tough economic climate, helped Sun weather the storm of the dot.com collapse, leaving the Company well positioned to compete in today's marketplace.
A champion of Sun's 24-year old strategy to share, McNealy is always fighting for openness and choice: "Without choice, you have no innovation. Without innovation, you have nothing."
In his ongoing role as Chairman of the Board and his role as Chairman of Sun Federal, Inc., McNealy continues to put his leadership and vision to work for Sun. He is a strong advocate for open and competitive business practices and is furthering his commitment to education, working with Curriki, a global education and learning community dedicated to delivering global access to knowledge.
McNealy graduated from Harvard in 1976 with a BA in Economics and received an MBA from Stanford in 1980. He is an avid hockey player and a single digit handicap golfer. He is married and is the father of four boys.
My fellow MBA colleague from Manchester Business School has just joined MTI Partners from Rising Stars of Enterprise Ventures. Mark will be opening an office in Manchester for MTI Partners and will be working closely with innovation taking place at our local universities. This is good news for Northern StartUp 2.0 as:
- Provide access to an additional venture capital fund
- Create an opportunity for a wannabe Investment Manager to fill the vacuum created by Mark at Rising Stars
On behalf of our community, I wish Mark the best for his new challenging role of providing finance to support regional innovation
I have decided to postpone the inaugural event planned for 24th June 08 in Liverpool due to following reasons:
- Speakers, Anish Kapoor and Robert Wakeling can not attend due to overseas travel on business.
- Marie Mitchell and Helen Cross at Aimes and Merseryside ICT are in the process or have already left their organisations. These individuals are crucial to marketing this event.
- I also need to concentrate on edocr, as we now started the fund raising campaign
- Anything more than one event per month is too ambitious from my side without active support
- Need to find a sponsor to offset costs for Liverpool events
Crain's 40 Under 40 - We are covered
Posted by ManojRanaweera on Wednesday 11th of June 2008 | 0 Comment(s)I am happy to report that Scott Fletcher of ANS Group (Panel member at our last event on 14th May) is one of the contenders to the prestigious Crain's 40 under 40 to be celebrated on 19th June 08 in Manchester.
Here are the finalists
What is Crain's 40 under 40 - from Arthur Porter - Publisher, Crain’s Manchester Business
One day the President of the United States will have “40 Under 40 Winner” on his resume (CV to us Brits). That was always my dream as a Publisher of local weekly business journals in America, where I spent the past 13 years prior to us launching Crain’s Manchester Business. That dream might well become a reality in November when former Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40 Winner Barack Obama battles for his place in history in the race for the keys to the White House. Add to that the likes of other Crain’s 40 Under 40 Winners like Oprah Winfrey and, believe it or not, rapper Eminem and you will see the quality of our alumni of young talent that Crain’s has recognised through its 40 Under 40 programme.
In order to continue the tradition of Crain’s Manchester Business 40 Under 40 Winners, our inaugural Class of 2008 were very carefully selected by our editorial team from the outstanding nominations we received from you, our readers. The 40 we have chosen have shown that they will reach the top of their chosen professions, and in some cases already have. I congratulate them all and wish them even more success as they continue their ride to the top. I can now look forward to someday reading the CV of the Prime Minister of Great Britain where it will proudly state “former winner of Crain’s Manchester Business 40 Under 40”. It is no longer a dream.
Digital Futures - North West postponed
Posted by ManojRanaweera on Wednesday 11th of June 2008 | 0 Comment(s)Both Simon Grice and I decided today to postpone the Digital Futures North West event planned for afternoon of 17th June 08 at Daresbury Innovation Centre. Those who have notified us of their interest to attend will be advised via e-mail of our decision. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you.
Just got back home from spending a successful full day at Being Digital organised by my friends Simon Grice and Tony Fish from MashupEvents. The event broadly focussed on covering various web 2.0 topics through panel discussions and providing a show case for European StartUps to demo.
I am proud to say that the North was represented by two Northern Stars, Tim Panton's Phonefromhere and Webmission08 company edocr. The Demo hall was sponsored by another Northerner, Stewart Townsend from Sun Microsystems. Among the audience was our own David Hawdale.
I personally had the opportunity to showcase edocr as well as talk about the Northern Digital StartUps to VCs and other entrepreneurs. Among those was Doughty Hanson who promised to attend a forthcoming panel discussion in Manchester.
Here is a video from Seedcamp on entrepreneurship
On serial entrepreneurship: Extract from Library House Essential Intelligence Weekly Issue 111
Posted by ManojRanaweera on Tuesday 10th of June 2008 | 0 Comment(s)
Europeans punish entrepreneurs because they stigmatise past business failure; Americans encourage new businesses because they give entrepreneurs a second chance. The belief, writes Warwick Business School associate dean David Storey in the Financial Times, is that because entrepreneurs learn valuable lessons when their businesses go bust they should be given more leniency to start anew.
Storey summarises this belief to dismantle it, arguing that knowledge gained from a failed business makes little difference to future business success, due to the unpredictability of starting a business. ‘The best analogy is with a lottery,’ Storey writes, ‘it is not possible to learn to win a lottery.’
Storey points to research in the UK and Germany which indicates that experienced founders are no more or less likely to succeed in starting a new business than novices. It goes against one of the basic tenants of venture capital investing – focusing on the experience of the management team. Yet it is hard to refute research with only anecdotal evidence of successful serial entrepreneurs, as Nic Brisbourne of DFJ Esprit writes in his blog.
Success is, in this view, somewhat out of the individual entrepreneur’s hands - yet if boosting the number of successful start-ups in Europe is the goal, then this mindset itself may be an impediment. Storey extends his lottery analogy to say that the US has more ‘eventual winners’ simply because more businesses are founded, regardless of whether the founders are experienced or not.
Assuming this is the case, if entrepreneurs are not made aware of others’ successes and led to believe their hard work, vision and, yes, experience will help them achieve their goals, then they are unlikely to start new businesses in the first place – reducing the overall number of successes.
Regardless of whether a serial entrepreneur’s success will positively impact their next venture’s performance, they may certainly play a role inspiring others in their own ventures. While Storey’s op-ed focuses on the failed entrepreneur who tries again, Europe could benefit from more repeat attempts by entrepreneurs who have already succeeded.
Further investigation is required, but anecdotally it appears as though entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley rarely drop out of the race. They come back and back again for their second, third and fourth startups, and many make use of fortunes made from past successes to bankroll others’ startups. A number of successful European entrepreneurs are taking similar paths; more should be encouraged to follow. Whether or not experience truly matters, it’s more inspiring than leaving everything to fate.
If wish to speak to Nic informally, make sure you attend the event on 15th July 08 at KPMG Manchester.
Streaming Northern StartUp 2.0 DEMO
Posted by ManojRanaweera on Tuesday 10th of June 2008 | 0 Comment(s)
Please tune to Yaika from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm on 16th June 08 to listen to keynote speech given by Reshma Sohoni of Seedcamp and 12 pitches from number of digital startups.
There are 12 days to the next Northern StartUp 2.0 event in Manchester @ eOffice. If you have not registered, why not register now before you forget. Reshma Sohoni who runs the SeedCamp will be the keynote speaker. Reshma works for Saul Klein, one of the most prominent VCs in the UK. Saul founded OpenCoffee in addition to SeedCamp to ensure they have access to almost every startup in the UK (and Europe). We have already 10 companies signed up for Demo. There are two more slots left. So if you wish to demo, now is the chance to grab a place.
You are now one of the 120 profiles supporting the development of an ecosystem for digital product based companies in the North, especially in the North West. Our mail list is now well over 1000. Please take a moment to complete your profile, as there are fields in your profile page to describe the help you are looking from the community as well as how you can help others. Press is now beginning to have a look at our community seriously. So make sure your profile is as complete as it can be.
We also sold the first annual membership last month. Visit to take advantage of offers. I have also open the blog, do let me know if you would like to promote your company through NS20 blog.
We are also expanding to Liverpool. First event is scheduled for 24th June. If you wish to attend, here is the link to register
Special event scheduled for 17th June at Daresbury Innovation Centre is now split into two half days, one before and one after summer holidays. We had a fantastic response to this event, and took the decision to split based on overwhelming suggestions received. Thank you for those who made those suggestions. If you wish to attend, register here. The cost is GBP149 per delegate. If you do not know Simon, he is arranging Being Digital with Tony Fish. If you wish to attend, Being-Digital, drop me a line as I have special discounts for NS20 community.
On 15th July, we hope to have our fist VC from the US. We also have Nic Brisbourne, another prominent VC from London, plus my old buddy, Carl Allen from Gartner. Carl has extensive experience of Venture Capital market in Europe having previously worked for Forrester Research and HP ventures. You can register for the event at
I have also broadened the criteria for Northern Stars. Over time, you will be given control to update your company profile (just need to figure out how!). If your company name is not there, but believe it qualifies, please drop me a line. Some of the profiles are yet to be built. - I will also maintain more information on these companies including level of funding required, etc. Lot to work out!
We cleaned up the messy layout and do let us know what you think about the website.
Looking forward to our next face-to-face encounter (cannot be virtual all the time, can we?), best regards Manoj
