As it turned out, spotting technology that has the potential to generate lots of revenue is something Bechtolsheim has a talent for. After leaving Sun in 1995, disappointed over the company's refusal to jump on the x86 bandwagon, Bechtolsheim found success with Granite Systems, a gigabit Ethernet switching company that Cisco acquired after a year. His next company, Kealia, was acquired by Sun in 2004, returning Bechtolsheim to the fold. Somewhere in between, Bechtolsheim also wrote a now legendary US$100,000 check in 1998 to two more young Stanford grads -- Sergey Brin and Larry Page -- for what seemed like a promising idea: a search technology they called PageRank.'

What did he see in Google that few others did? "It was a complete no-brainer," Bechtolsheim answers. Using the Internet to find things, he was frustrated that he couldn't find anything anymore, especially as companies started to game the system, as he calls it, by using key words to get a better placement.

When Bechtolsheim heard about Google's ability to do page ranking, he knew that would solve the problem. It is said his $100,000 investment is now worth half a billion.

Back at Sun after a long hiatus, Bechtolsheim says he's determined to put the company back on the track to the innovation and big profits that characterized its first 18 years. Whether or not he continues to have the Midas touch remains to be seen.

-- Ephraim Schwartz