Hal O'Brien

No, not Libby. McNealy, as CEO of Sun.

Quoth MSNBC:

"Scott McNealy, the often acerbic co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc. and one of Microsoft Corp.’s most vocal critics, stepped down as CEO after 22 years Monday as the pioneering maker of computer servers reported a wider quarterly loss."

That's not the fun part.

Here it is, further down:

"Sun’s shares surged nearly 9 percent after the announcement of McNealy’s exit..."

I've made fun of Scooter before, but I've gotta tell ya -- I would've thought his departure would've generated a double-digit bump, at least.

So, even in defeat, he's managing to underperform.

I was in Wide World Books and Maps, and saw a book by John McMillan, titled Reinventing the Bazaar: The Natural History of Markets. McMillan quotes Scooter McNealy of Sun saying the following, in a speech to Stanford's Graduate School of Business:

"What is a tenured professor going to teach me about the market economy?"

Aw, heck, Scooter, that's easy. Same as every other person on the planet: nothing. And, no, it's not because those ivory tower types have nothing to teach... It's because you haven't been willing to learn a damn thing from anyone in the last thirty years, you arrogant dolt! You're capable, Scooter... But you do have more than a touch of a frat boy "You can't teach me nuthin'" about you...

I always love reading quotes from Scooter. I can never quite decide if he's intentionally self-parodying, or if he's a completely clue-free organism.