Bill_Joy William Nelson Joy (born Nov 8, 1954), commonly known as Bill Joy, is an American computer scientist. Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim and Vaughan Pratt, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003. He is widely known for having written the essay "Why the future doesn't need us", where he expresses deep concerns over the development of modern technologies. He has two children, Hayden and Maddie.