The gang reconvenes after the holidays to discuss a pretty broad topic: success and failure in the technology industry.

The focus is Rich’s recent interview with Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, on what it takes to succeed. His company foresaw the prevalence of interconnected devices and shared data, and developed some of the technology that the Internet is based upon, and yet – after a stunning rise – experienced an even more stunning fall.

The consensus is that Sun lost its vision. It tried to be everything to everyone – “good enough” on multiple fronts but no longer great in any one. Its leaders quit pursuing the markets on which they made their name, and went off on tangents in terms of acquisitions and new projects.

So what have we learned? A lesson so blindingly obvious that it concludes the podcast… and leaves us to think of all the companies along the side of the road who failed to heed it.

Check the Radio Free HPC website for new episodes and more great content from Rich Brueckner of insideHPC, Henry Newman of Instrumental, Inc., and GCG’s Dan Olds.