Sun CEO: Parting Is Such Tweet Sorrow
Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz was the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to put up his own blog. Late Wednesday night, he became the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to step down from that position via Twitter.
“Today’s my last day at Sun,” Schwartz tweeted. “I’ll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a #haiku. Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more.”
Fitting to end with a haiku broadcast to a microblogging service? Really? Seems a bit…precious. As Stowe Boyd observes, “Twitter can be used productively for many things, but resigning by haiku is not one of them.”
Schwartz’s departure, an inevitability if there ever was one, follows Sun’s (SUN) takeover by Oracle (ORCL) and the end of a nearly three-decade run as an independent company.
No word yet on what Schwartz plans to do next. But he’s leaving the company with a very fat chunk of change, so he’s likely in no rush to find something new. According to Sun’s definitive proxy statement, Schwartz stands to earn about $12 million from the severance package he negotiated, plus another $5.1 million or so for the shares he still holds in the company.
FURTHER READING:
- Ellison: “We’re Not Cutting Sun to Profitability, We’re Growing Sun to Profitability.”
- Departing Sun Co-Founder to Employees: Kick Butt and Have Fun!
- Sun CEO: Go Oracle, Beat IBM [Internal Memo]
- EU Approves Oracle-Sun Deal
- EU Poised to Approve Oracle-Sun Deal
- Oracle Sack Half of Sun’s Workforce? Ridiculous, Says Sun.
- Q: What’s the Difference Between Neelie Kroes and Larry Ellison?
- Ellison: Oracle Is the New IBM
- Oracle: IBM, Come Out to Play-ee-ay
- Mr. Ellison Asks That His Burgers Be Served With Freedom Fries Until Further Notice
