Silicon Valley pioneer Scott McNealy: Tech is 'unstoppable' and part of our lives more than ever
- Google, Facebook and Amazon are the "big gorillas who have all the data and all of the insight and all of the volume and scale to go make things happen," says Sun Microsystems co-founder and former CEO Scott McNealy.
- Tech stocks are going to continue to do well as a whole, he says.
- Technology moves so fast, McNealy says, people don't have time to understand where it's heading or what's going on.
Technology has become an integral part of people's lives — and it's not likely to slow down anytime soon, said tech pioneer Scott McNealy.
"It's unstoppable," McNealy, co-founder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems, said Friday on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "We're getting more tech in our lives every day as we go to VR or AR and all of the machine learning and artificial intelligence and all the rest of it."
McNealy was part of the generation of innovative thinkers in the 1980s, including the founders of Apple and Oracle, to help develop successful tech companies in Silicon Valley.
But Apple and Microsoft are no longer dominating the tech sphere, McNealy said. Instead, Google, Facebook and Amazon are the "big gorillas who have all of the data and all of the insight and all of the volume and scale to go make things happen," said McNealy, who served as CEO of Sun Microsystems for more than 20 years, before Oracle acquired Sun.
In the last year, Google's stock has moved from approximately $819 a share to more than a $1,000. In that same time, Facebook's stock has increased from around $131 to approximately $169. Amazon's price tag also went up from $836 to nearly $1,300 a share.
"It's going to continue on, and tech stocks as a whole will continue to do well," McNealy said. "You see Amazon eating the world today and now going after the delivery business. What's next there?"
Earlier today, Amazon announced its plans to develop its own shipping service, much like UPS. Last summer the retail giant moved into the grocery space with the purchase of Whole Foods. In addition to its large-scale e-commerce presence, Amazon also opened a brick-and-mortar bookstore in New York City and has begun plans to move into the health-care sphere.
Google and Amazon declined to comment. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
"Technology moves so fast that naturally people tend to go with who they think is the safe bet," McNealy said. "And they don't have time to understand where everything is heading and what's going on."