Bill Joy

About

Notable as the co-founder of the Sun Microsystems computer, software, and IT company, he is also famous as a developer of the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix operating system and of Unix's vi text editing program.

Before Fame

After earning his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, he completed graduate degrees in both engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Trivia

In his compelling Wired Magazine essay "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us," Joy argues that the very technologies that he and his colleagues worked tirelessly to develop are placing the human race's future generations in jeopardy.

Family Life

The son of William and Ruth Joy, he spent his childhood in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan.

Associated With

In the early 1980s, Joy established Sun Microsystems along with Vinod Khosla, Andreas von Bechtolsheim, and Scott McNealy.