Who was the tech CEO that back in 1999 said, “You have zero privacy anyway…”

Talking to attendees of a launch event for new infrastructure technology in 1999, Scott McNealy, the CEO and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, made a bold and controversial statement that stunned the industry. Addressing concerns about data privacy, he dismissed them outright, calling privacy a “red herring” and famously stating:

“You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”

McNealy’s words sparked immediate backlash from privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), who viewed the statement as dismissive of legitimate concerns about personal data security. At the time, the internet was rapidly expanding, and fears about how companies and governments would handle user data were already growing.

More than two decades later, his statement remains a most memorable in tech history. While some argue that McNealy’s blunt assessment was prescient – given the erosion of privacy in the digital age – others reject the notion that we should simply accept this loss as inevitable. The rise of social media, targeted advertising, government surveillance programs, and data breaches has only intensified the debate over online privacy.

McNealy later clarified that his statement was meant to highlight the need for stronger security measures rather than to suggest that people should stop caring about privacy altogether. Nevertheless, his remarks foreshadowed a future in which personal data would become a commodity, sparking ongoing discussions about the trade-offs between convenience, security, and individual rights in the digital era.