http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200609/20060920_transcript.h...

Tavis Smiley: Good evening. From Los Angeles, I'm Tavis Smiley.

First up tonight, a conversation with one of Silicon Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs, Scott McNealy, chairman and co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Recently, the computer networking titan stepped down from his day to day duties as CEO to concentrate on an education initiative called the Global Education and Learning Community. A nonprofit designed to help provide primary education to millions of kids around the globe.

Also tonight, actress Diane Lane stops by. The Oscar-nominated actress is once again receiving acclaim for her work, this time opposite Adrian Brody and Ben Affleck in the new film “Hollywoodland.”

We’re glad you’ve joined us. That’s all coming up right now.

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And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.

Scott McNealy

Learn more about this guest.
Tavis: Scott McNealy is the chairman and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, one of the leading suppliers of computer networking and infrastructure in the world. He recently stepped down from his post as CEO of the company to focus his energy on education. In January, he created a nonprofit organization called the Global Education and Learning Community, which hopes to shed light on the more than 100 million kids around the world without access to primary education. Scott McNealy, glad to have you on the program.

Scott McNealy: Great to be here, Tavis.

Tavis: Thank you, and first of all, it’s my first time meeting you, so congratulations on all the Sun Microsystems success. I'm a little late, but (laugh) better late than never, I guess.

McNealy: It’s been a fun 24 years.

Tavis: Yeah, take me back right quick, before I get to the education, and I definitely wanna talk about that. Take me back 24 years, and tell me how this thing got off the ground. That we all now know.

McNealy: Well, it started off as a little project by a German engineer, Andreas Von Bechtolsheim, at Stanford University. He wanted to do computing, and he had to share many computers, so he decided to build his own little workstation. And he called it the Stanford University Network, and SUN workstation. And a couple of Stanford business school students, including myself, got together with him and a guy from Berkeley who did the software for network computing. And we started Sun Microsystems. It was either that or Bun Microsystems, with Berkeley University. (Laugh) So we decided the logo would look better with Sun Microsystems, so.

Tavis: Yeah. Wise choice, you thinker, you. Your role in this has been fascinating, because you are not a programmer; you weren’t really a computer geek, in that sense. But you brought, I guess, the kind of business savvy to the project.

McNealy: Well, I'm not sure I brought savvy. We were all 27, all four of us, and I had three years’ business experience, which was more than the other three founders, combined. So compared to them, I was savvy, but I think the real advantage I brought, as opposed to focusing in on the product, the colors, and the engineering and all the rest of it, I focused on making sure the team worked well, and I think that was the value that I brought.

Tavis: So the mantra is cool, the network is the computer. But beyond the logo, beyond the brand, beyond the sloganeering, what’s your sense of what you think the legacy is, at this point, of Sun Microsystems? What have you guys brought to this silicon game?

McNealy: So there’s two major things. First of all, the current computing strategy that people think about is I gotta go out and buy my own computer. Which is kind of like going out and buying your own telephone switch or your own infrastructure. You shouldn’t have to do that. You should have access. You don’t buy a television station; you buy an access device to the network. And you buy an access device to the telephone network, which is called a cell phone or a phone.

And we wanna turn computing into a more thin, simple, less user-administrative kind of environment. Google, and the Google Desktop, is a classic example. All you need is a browser, and you get access to all of these things. So, one is we’re trying to move computing back into the network, so you don’t have to deal with it. Second thing we’ve done is we’ve opened up the interfaces to allow people to share and, and interoperate. Because there's been so many incompatible computing environments. By opening our interfaces and sharing, we’ve created a much more interoperable world, with lower barriers to exit.

Tavis: You don’t make a company as successful as Sun Microsystems without having to sometimes wrestle with other folk, and you have developed over the years as CEO a reputation for being aggressive, for not backing down, for…

McNealy: Moi?

Tavis: Yeah, you. (Laugh) Where you’ve been suing when you have to. You know a guy is serious and unafraid when you sue Microsoft not once, but a couple of times, in fact. Tell me where that kind of leadership style developed for you, and whether or not you think you have to be that way in a game that is as cutthroat and as competitive as technology is today?

McNealy: I don’t know where that comes from. Jack Welsh, I was on his board for a while at GE, and he made a comment that I agree with. You don’t really develop leaders. You can only identify them, and give them more experience. And some folks are just born to – our motto when we started Sun is if we’re gonna dive into the pool, if we do a belly flop, we wanna empty the pool out.

We don’t wanna try and slip in the water quietly. We wanna go in and be aggressive. And just go big, go large, and go strong. What the heck? It’s not a rehearsal here; it’s your one chance to go do it. So we’ve always taken on the big swings. And my view is the bigger the market, the bigger the opportunity. So.

Tavis: So one has to assume, then, that for a guy whose run this thing for as long as you’ve helped run it, when he steps aside, that means that something has changed beyond the obvious, that there’s somebody else sitting in that CEO chair, what happens to Sun Microsystems now that you’ve assumed a different kind of role?

McNealy: Well, I'm still working full time.

Tavis: Still the chairman, yeah.

McNealy: I'm chairman of the board; I'm chairman of our Sun Federal operation, focusing on that. I'm focused on our Japanese relationships. And I'm selling to our top 50 customers. And I'm doing what I want to do. I didn’t wanna do the CEO job. It’s a hard job. It’s a difficult job. It’s, and I've got four young boys at home. And when I get home, I like to be able to go spend time with them, rather than sitting in a staff meeting.

I was in the CEO piñata for 22-plus years. It’s a long time for anybody to be getting whacked by random (laugh), blind two-by-fours. And so, it’s kind of nice that I let the young kids go off and do that again, and I got a chance to step down from CEO on my own terms and timing at the age of 51. And I'm still pretty healthy and excited, and I can still help the company enormously, and probably more valuable to the company and the job I'm in. So I got the best job in the world right now, from that perspective.

Tavis: In my own mind, at least, I'm thinking that I understand why you still do this, but I wanna hear it from you, 'cause it may be different than what I'm thinking. That is to say, why it is that you, at this point, still sell? Even though you mentioned you (unintelligible) the top 50 customers, why are you still in the selling business?

McNealy: Business is selling. If you wanna buy something, you gotta sell them to give you the best price.

Tavis: You're a chairman. You ain’t gotta go sell stuff.

McNealy: Oh, man, business is all about selling. If you wanna hire somebody, you gotta sell them this is the best opportunity they could possibly find. If you wanna go sell a product, you gotta go out and sell it. And, and to me, that’s what commerce is all about. Selling, and selling an establishing, a level of credibility and trust and reliability and consistency that stands the test of time.

'Cause you know what? With the Internet now, with blogs and even eBay has a referral system that tells whether somebody’s a reliable seller or buyer. And you can’t hide. And you could get away with it in the old days. You can’t fool many people for very long with the Internet today.

Tavis: Let me put you on the spot and ask you, you can share one, two, or three, whatever. Doesn’t matter to me; I'm just curious. I'm gonna get inside your head here. Over these years of selling, and selling to top customers, and doing it obviously successfully, for all of those persons who are watching who are in the sales game, there are many watching, I suspect, who do this, what have you learned about selling, and selling successfully?

McNealy: Selling’s easy. You just can’t get disappointed by “no.” “No” is the most important answer you’ll get. So I'll say, “Will you buy my product?” You say, “No.” You come back with, “Why?” They explain it, “Here’s why I won’t buy your product.” You go fix it, come back and say, “Now will you buy my product?” “No.” So then you say, “Why?” And then you go back. And you just keep looking for the “no’s.”

'Cause eventually, you'll solve all of the no problems, and then they’ll say, “If I give you the order, will you go away?” (Laugh) And you can get the order that way. But too many people think “no” is the answer. “No” is a clue.

Tavis: I like that. I'll take that, I'll take that. The education project you're working on now. If you're gonna step aside from being CEO and focus your energies on anything else, there can’t be, in my mind, at least, a more noble venture than taking on trying to educate kids. So tell me about your work now.

McNealy: Well, I'm very excited about No Child Left Behind, but I'm also worried about the parents, teachers, and the children who are being held back. And I look at (unintelligible) young kids; I noticed we’re spending $130 on a third-grade math textbook, even though it hasn’t changed since Newton got hit on the head with an apple. And every four years, they gratuitously revise the book, force you to buy new ones, all the rest of it.

And there’s not self-paced, online, and certified content. Another thing we learned at Sun is that we use communities to build browsers in open source, open interface, community-developed operating systems and spreadsheets and word processors. Why don’t we all get together as an online community like Wikipedia, and build a curriculum online that’s a free, open source, internationalized, available to any and everybody, to go at their own pace?

I took one class at Harvard, self-paced. It was statistics. I started Monday morning, I was done Tuesday night. I hadn’t slept, eaten, or showered. I aced it. And if I could have taken Harvard undergrad online, I think I could have finished it in about 12 weeks. And I would have. 'Cause I might have starved myself to death, but I wanted to go as fast as I could. And the system slowed me down.

And the idea of putting all of this content, for free, it’s called GELC.org, or the Global Education and Learning Community, we’re building a community. And we’ve got the Ministry Of China, and we’ve got the Alberta School District, we’ve got the MIT curriculum. We've got all these folks coming together. We've got about 500 projects, and thousands of people now putting together this content.

In fact, we had a kid from Kuwait take a couple of introductory physics courses in about 18 days, and finish them. And what an opportunity for people to just go as hard and as fast as - in other words, let’s not let the system and the lowest common denominator. So the kids who are gonna solve bird flu are gonna be the ones who we’re probably holding back.

Tavis: The viewers I've heard me say this, I'm sure, more than once over years of hosting this show, which is to quote my grandmother, who said it’s a great idea, but it’s too much like right. It’s too much like right.

McNealy: I worry about that. (Laugh) I worry about that.

Tavis: So you understand my grandmother, yeah.

McNealy: In California, we spend $400 million a year on textbooks. And you know what? We don’t even know if they're good. And is it the PTA choosing, or a good sales rep who convinces the school district to buy them? Imagine we had chapter four on this third grade math curriculum, and somebody says, “I got a better chapter four for you.” Can you imagine giving half of the students online chapter four control, and half chapter four new?

And then in weeks, we’ll know who scores better on the test. And we’ll have statistical science and justification for whether we have – we can evolve the curriculum in a scientific way, as opposed to a random way. There’s a lot of advantages to doing this online.

Tavis: As I mentioned, I see the nobility in it. Tell me how you came to this, though, of all the things that you could do. What attracted you to this particular challenge?

McNealy: I'll be a little Al Gore-ish, and say that Sun Microsystems kind of invented open source and community development. Our company got started out of Berkeley, where Bill Joy, one of our founders, had invented the open source operating system called Berkeley Unix. And we kind of grabbed that. We did that with our networking code, and we kind of invented, and we’ve donated more code and patents to the planet, open.

We just made it available to anybody else. And I thought, why are we making browsers open source and free? Why don’t we make the most important thing, educational materials for our kids? Think about the billions of, China, India, Africa, they can’t afford $130 for a third grade math textbook. No way. Let’s make it free. And let’s get the best. I'll give you an example here in Hollywood.

Eighty, ninety years ago, there were 40,000 piano players playing piano in front of the movies in the silent movie era. Then we learned how to put music on the film, and now the two best piano players are in Hollywood, and everybody gets to share in their great music. And why can’t we do that with educational materials?

Tavis: Well, I'm sure if Scott McNealy is behind it, it’s gonna go somewhere, and particularly given the success he’s had over the last 25 years or so at Sun Microsystems. It’s an honor to meet you.

McNealy: Thank you, Tavis.

Tavis: Glad to have you on the program, and all the best with the project.

McNealy: Glad to be here. Thank you.

Tavis: We’ll talk to you down the road; see how it’s progressing, if you'll come back.

McNealy: I'd love to do that.

Tavis: Glad to have you back. Up next on this program, Oscar-nominated actress Diane Lane. Stay with us.

Diane Lane

Learn more about this guest.
Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Diane Lane to this program. The Oscar-nominated actress has become one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading women. With films like “Unfaithful,” “The Perfect Storm,” and “Under The Tuscan Sun,” her latest project is the film “Hollywoodland,” which tackles the story of TV’s original Superman, George Reeves. Here now, a scene from “Hollywoodland.”

[Clip]

Tavis: Diane Lane, you look great, but you're playing older. So, (laugh) how’d that feel?

Diane Lane: Oh, it felt very liberating and fun, and a great relief to not be struggling against time, and just embrace it and fall backwards into it and say well, it’s just a rehearsal for later, so. (Laugh)

Tavis: (Laugh) Well, you did very nicely in the rehearsal.

Lane: Thank you.

Tavis: I was just talking to one of my producers a moment ago. There is an ongoing, perhaps forever, fascination with, like, all things Superman. From the persons who played this character to the character itself. There is a forever fascination with Superman. Did you figure out what this was, doing this role?

Lane: I have my own theories.

Tavis: I'd like to hear them.

Lane: Well, first of all, I grew up watching George Reeves in the morning reruns in the seventies. I was late for school every morning, because that’s what I wanted to be doing, was watching George. And it’s like .007, you have your favorite. And George is the one for me, and I'm loyal to George. But I will also say, the original title of this film, which I don’t know if anybody knows, was called “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”

Which is a very, almost oxymoronical concept these days, because of the world we live in, and all this cultural, I don’t wanna say self-loathing. But what does Superman embody, and what does Superman have projected upon him? And this whole export of Superman as a concept from our country and imposing it on others. And he’s standing there in front of the flag, and it’s very old school.

And I like the fact that of that title originally, which of course somebody didn’t get paid, so we couldn’t use the title, we would up with an even better one, “Hollywoodland.” But the fact that George Reeves had to shoulder that in that era of the fifties, when there was no separation between church and state, or actor and character, or persona and celebrity, and all of those things that today, they would wanna know more about you, not your job.

Tavis: I don’t wanna get too philosophical…

Lane: Oh, sorry.

Tavis: …but since you went there, I'm gonna – no, since you went…

Lane: Okay, let’s go for it. (Laugh)

Tavis: Since you went there, can I follow you?

Lane: Please.

Tavis: All right. It seems to me, to your point, though, to your formulation, it seems to me that George Reeves would have had an easier time shouldering that then than now. I just came back from a month of traveling around the world. And you try to do that now?

Lane: Oh, yeah, you'll get henpecked for it.

Tavis: Absolutely.

Lane: At least, yeah.

Tavis: If not shot in the head.

Lane: (Laugh) Yeah.

Tavis: And I came back home hating even more this term anti-Americanism. Because it suggests that there aren’t reasons why they feel this way. They're just anti-American. So I don’t know if there would be any – I think it was probably easier for him to shoulder that than it would be for a modern day Superman.

Lane: Well, fear is the only thing to fear, right? That’s what they say. And I think that George had such success with this character, that he wasn’t allowed to do anything else. And that was almost a new thing. The diversity that an actor is supposed to attempt in their career, he wasn’t allowed. And it’s a funny thing, to be afraid of one’s own success. He thought nobody would see it. He was hoping it would just go away, and be some afternoon kiddie show. And it turned out to be – I'm still, if it were on TV, I'd probably watch it today.

Tavis: Let me segue, then, from the philosophical to the practical.

Lane: Okay.

Tavis: That is to say, let’s talk about the storyline and your character, and about “Hollywoodland” itself, yeah.

Lane: Well, I portray a woman who really lived, Toni Mannix. And she was married to Eddie Mannix, one of the very important heads of MGM Studios. And she had about seven years’ age over – seven years older than George was when they met, and she was married. That didn’t get in her way. (Laugh) And (unintelligible)…

Tavis: That was very nicely put, yeah.

Lane: Well, yeah, a lot of things didn’t get in her way. (Laugh) Get out of my way. And I think she figured what was good for the goose is good for the gander. Her husband had flings and paramours and things, and it was sort of the man’s domain. And she said well, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna do the same thing. And she found George. And they just had this chemistry.

And they had a long term relationship, certainly by Hollywood standards. It was a good, long run. And I think her worst fear did come true. What is that awful phrase about being a 40, and traded in for two twenties, or something?

Tavis: Yeah. (Laugh)

Lane: But yeah, (laugh) it’s challenging.

Tavis: I have a friend who just told me the other day – you're cracking me up. A friend of mine, we were walking, in my travels, walking on the sidewalk with one of my boys. And he looks over and we have this conversation. There’s a gorgeous woman, and she’s a 10. He says, ah, forget a 10, I'd rather have five twos. So anyway... (Laugh)

Lane: I think that was too fast for me.

Tavis: Yeah, it was (unintelligible).

Lane: Tavis, I'm gonna see the show, and I'll figure it out by then. (Laugh)

Tavis: Yeah, that’s okay. (Laugh) Anyway, you made a point a moment ago about George Reeves not being able to experience the diversity in his acting career that you're supposed to or ostensibly want to, if you get in this business. You don’t wanna be typecast. You have been able, it seems to me, to get not just beyond that, but far beyond that, because you, to my mind, have had the freedom, and I don’t know, maybe freedom’s the wrong word. But you’ve certainly made choices where you’ve played a variety of characters. I assume, then, that’s by choice.

Lane: Well, I have attempted to – everybody’s got some thing that they would rather not be in their way. And for me, I always kept coming up against this apple pie, American, just all-American type of thing.

Tavis: I'm glad you're on camera. Stay there, 'cause I'm about - no; get off of me, back on her. All-American, apple pie. I wonder why?

Lane: Well, I don’t know (unintelligible). (Laugh)

Tavis: I wonder why that is, yeah. (Laugh)

Lane: But you know what I mean? So, within those confines, I have been afforded a lot more opportunity than you would imagine. And I have a lot to say. If they knew how to make hits, they’d make more of them. So, I've been very lucky to be in movies people see. 'Cause I've certainly made plenty that they didn’t; and I learned on the job. And it’s great that I have had the success that I've had later in my career rather than at the beginning.

Because in the beginning, I think I would have panicked and not known what to do, or felt like I should have done something. And now I can just sort of realize that at this moment, I'm a happy statistic (laugh) instead of an unhappy statistic, because there is no control. You just follow you heart the best you can.

Tavis: I guess the question is, respectfully, whether or not you think it stays that way. That is to say, even with all your immense talent, whether or not it stays a happy statistic, and I ask that, back to your earlier point, about Toni and her being older than Mr. Reeves. And your age…

Lane: Where do they send them all at a certain moment in time, yes.

Tavis: It’s a tough business.

Lane: Well, it is a tough business. And I'm curious. I make lots of jokes about saying well, “I'm tired of being photographed for a living.” And that’s convenient, because they're gonna be tired of photographing me (laugh) at the same time. But no, I could get on the other side of the camera. I think one of the most noble professions, if it’s done properly, is writing.

Because that’s the one element that is not replaceable. You can fire the director; you can even reshoot with another actor. But you cannot change, if it’s not on the page, it’s not gonna get to the stage. Very little magic that isn’t part of the screenplay. So to find good material is, I think, the great quest. And everybody’s got a screenplay in this town. I lived in Santa Fe, and everybody was an artist there. But here, everybody’s got a screenplay.

Tavis: I don’t have one, so.

Lane: You don’t? Oh, I'm disappointed.

Tavis: Not yet. (Laugh)

Lane: (Laugh) Well, you will.

Tavis: To your point, I think I agree with you, and I wanna probe this a little further, though. When you say that there is a certain nobility in writing, what do you mean by that? I think I agree. I wanna agree, but I wanna hear what your take on it is.

Lane: Well, I think it’s a timeless craft. I think a good story doesn’t have, how can I say it? It steps out of the reference of the time frame that it’s within. And it has an arc, beginning, middle, end. A moral. I miss stories that have a moral to the tale. Even if it’s a cautionary tale. That’s worth seeing. You can sit in the dark and go ooh, I'm glad I learned from his mistake.

Now I don’t have to make that, hopefully. Etcetera, etcetera. So, I think that’s what unites people, and I think that’s what’s gonna keep actors working, (laugh) instead of being computer generated and improved upon, for better or for worse. And that is that people relate to the vulnerabilities and the mistakes and the frailties and the foibles of each other. And we take comfort in that.

Tavis: Well, I am glad that you were in “Hollywoodland” and all the other stuff that you have done. I'm glad you came to talk to us about it.

Lane: Thank you for having me.

Tavis: The new film starring Diane Lane and others like Ben Affleck. (Laugh)

Lane: Adrian Brody.

Tavis: Adrian Brody.

Lane: Bob Hoskins.

Tavis: Bob Hoskins. (Laugh) Thank you very much. “Hollywoodland.” I don’t need to tell you to check it out. I am sure you will. That’s our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A. Thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.

[Clip]

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