The life of a billionaire - Oracle cofounder and international playboy Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison, the 76-year-old billionaire cofounder of Oracle, is one of the most interesting men in tech. Whether yacht racing, buying whole Hawaiian islands, or trash-talking competitors, there's always a good chance we'll be surprised with what Ellison, who has a net worth of $75.7 billion, does next. Here's how he went from two-time college dropout to international playboy and tech titan.
Lawrence Joseph Ellison was born in the Bronx on August 17, 1944, the son of a single mother. When he was 9 months old, baby Larry came down with pneumonia. His mom sent him to Chicago to live with his aunt and uncle, Lillian and Louis Ellison.
Ellison originally attended the University of Illinois as a pre-med student but transferred to the University of Chicago, where he studied physics. While there, he was first exposed to computers, and he quickly became interested in the field. Like other tech giants – including Bill Gates – Ellison never graduated college. He attended both the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. Ellison dropped out of both of those institutions.
In 1966, a 22-year-old Ellison moved to Berkeley, California — near the future Silicon Valley and already the place where the tech industry was taking off. Ellison bounced around from job to job, including stints at companies like Wells Fargo and the mainframe manufacturer Amdahl. Along the way, he learned computer and programming skills. The turning point came when Ellison came to work for the electronics company Ampex Corporation, which had a contract to build a database for the CIA codenamed "Oracle".
In 1977, Ellison and two Ampex associates, Bob Miner and Ed Oates, founded a new company, Software Development Laboratories. The company started with USD 2,000 of funding, USD 1,200 of which came out of Ellison's own pocket. Ellison and company were inspired by IBM theories for a so-called relational database — a way for computer systems to store and access information. In 1979, the company renamed itself as Relational Software Inc and in 1982, it formally became Oracle Systems Corp, after its flagship product.
Thereafter, Oracle entered new markets, creating database products for Windows and Unix and entering an increasingly competitive marketplace. Oracle would continue to grow and expand under Ellison’s leadership, and from here, Ellison would become known for a variety of personal characteristics, including an intense competition and leadership style. As time went on, Oracle’s product offerings grew. They would eventually expand to a slew of database management, middleware, Enterprise options, applications, development software, and more. As one of the key drivers of the growing computer industry, Oracle grew fast. In 1986, Oracle had its initial public offering, reporting revenue of USD 55 million.
Still, in 1990, Oracle had to lay off 10% of its workforce, about 400 people, because of what Ellison later described as "an incredible business mistake". Oracle had allowed its salespeople to book future sales in the current quarter, meaning all its numbers were skewed. It resulted in lawsuits and trouble with regulators. It didn't get the decade off to a great start. After adjusting for that huge error, Oracle was said to be close to bankruptcy. At the same time, rivals like Sybase were eating away at Oracle's market share. It took a few years, but by 1992, Ellison and Oracle managed to right the course with new employees and the popular Oracle7 database.
Ellison even managed to turn a potential loss into a big win. In 1999, Ellison's protégé, Marc Benioff, left Oracle to work on a new startup called Salesforce.com. Ellison was an early investor, putting USD 2 million into his friend's new venture. When Benioff found out that Ellison had Oracle working on a direct competitor to Salesforce's product, he tried to force his mentor to quit Salesforce's board. Instead, Ellison forced Benioff to fire him — meaning Ellison kept his shares in Salesforce. Given that Salesforce is now a USD 250 billion company, Ellison personally profits even when his competitors do well.
In 2004, Oracle snapped up the HR software provider PeopleSoft for USD 10.3 billion. And in 2010, Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, a server company that started at about the same time as Oracle, in 1982. That acquisition gave Oracle lots of key technology, including control over the popular MySQL database.
Starting in the 2010s, Ellison started to take more of a back seat, handing more responsibilities to trusted lieutenants, like Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, then Oracle's co-presidents. In 2014, Ellison officially stepped down as Oracle CEO, handing control over to Hurd and Katz, who became co-CEOs. Ellison now serves as the company's chairman and chief technology officer.
Ellison didn't become a billionaire until age 49. Now, he has a net worth of USD 125+ billion. As of 2021, he is listed as the 10th richest person in the world.
What should we learn from Larry Ellison?
Believed in Your Ideas - Sometimes small ideas work very effectively, sometimes great ideas fail, Larry Ellison believes that Oracle clients no longer need convincing to use their products but just need a better software upgrade.
Be Addicted to Winning - Larry Ellison faced so many challenges in his personal and professional life, He was influenced by Genghis Khan who said that “Everyone should suffer and I should win”.
Degree can’t decide your Future - Education is a powerful weapon that will help you to face the world, but it doesn’t mean if you don’t have this weapon, you will lose your rounds. Larry Ellison, 2 times dropped out of two consecutive universities, even most of the top entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, don’t have a degree but still, they are leaders in the industry.
When you live your life in different ways, it makes people around you become uncomfortable. So deal with it. They don’t know what you are going to do.
― Larry Ellison
Sources
https://history-computer.com/larry-ellison-complete-biography/
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/larry-ellison.asp
https://businessconnectindia.in/larry-ellison-success-story/
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/larry-ellison-4932.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison