Larry Ellison - About Life and Some Superb Facts

Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate, co-founder and chief executive of Oracle Corporation, one of the world's leading enterprise software companies. As of 2012, he was the third-wealthiest American citizen, with an estimated worth of $41 billion. The bulk of Ellison's fortune comes from his 22.5 percent stake in Oracle.

Larry Ellison was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, New York. His mother, Florence Spellman, was an unwed 19-year-old of Jewish heritage and his father was an Italian American U.S. Air Force pilot, who was stationed abroad before Spellman realized that she had become pregnant by him. After Larry Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother determined that she was unable to care for him adequately, and arranged for him to be adopted by her aunt and uncle in Chicago. Lillian Spellman Ellison and Louis Ellison adopted him when he was nine months old. Lillian was the second wife of Louis Ellison, an immigrant who had arrived in the United States in 1905 from Russia. Larry Ellison did not meet his biological mother again until he was 48.

Although Ellison was raised in a Reform Jewish home by his adoptive-parents, who attended synagogue regularly, he remained a religious sceptic. Ellison states: "While I think I am religious in one sense, the particular dogmas of Judaism are not dogmas I subscribe to. I don't believe that they are real. They're interesting stories. They're interesting mythology, and I certainly respect people who believe these are literally true, but I don't...I see no evidence for this stuff." At age thirteen, Ellison refused to have a bar mitzvah celebration.

About Life and Some Superb Facts on Larry Ellison

• Lawrence J Ellison, popularly known as Larry Ellison, co-founded Oracle Corp in 1977 and has been its Chief executive officer since then. Known for his flamboyance, Ellison races sailboats, flies planes, and plays tennis and guitar. He is ranked among the top 10 richest business czars globally as of March 2011 with a personal net worth of $39.5 billion.
• Like technology honchos Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell, Larry Ellison too is a college drop out. Ellison left the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after his second year. Later he joined the University of Chicago, however, didn't complete it either.
• In 1977, Ellison jointly started Oracle Corporation with $12,000. Two years younger to arch rival Microsoft, Oracle went public a day before Microsoft in 1986.
• Ellison graduated from Eugene Field Elementary School on Chicago's north side in January 1958 and attended Sullivan High School at least through the fall of 1959 before moving to South Shore.
  Ellison grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in Chicago's South Shore middle-class Jewish neighborhood.
  Ellison remembers his adoptive mother as warm and loving, in contrast to his austere, unsupportive, and often distant adoptive father, who adopted the name Ellison to honor his point of entry into the USA, Ellis Island.
  Louis, his adoptive father, was a modest government employee who had made a small fortune in Chicago real estate, only to lose it during the Great Depression.
• In 1983 with the launch of Oracle Version 3, the company changed its name to Oracle. In establishing his company, Ellison exhibited the fanatical determination and aggression that were to make him legendary in the industry. His task was not only to get customers to buy Oracle databases but also to persuade them that relational databases in general were the way of the future. 
• To overcome customers' initial reservations, Ellison was required to exercise all his powers of persuasion to captivate and dazzle his audience. According to Symonds in Softwar, Donald L. Lucas, a company director, described Ellison as "like a spiritual leader, an evangelist for the relational data base model." In the early days of the company 
• Ellison developed one of his key skills—his ability to communicate his vision for the future of the information technology industry to those around him.
• Completely focused on gaining market share for the product, Ellison became notorious for his wildly exaggerated claims about what the software could do. In the race to gain market share before rivals in the industry could launch their own versions, Ellison was willing to take incredible risks. 
• The first versions of Oracle were notorious for their unreliable performance, and customers complained of late deliveries and broken promises. But the aggressive sales strategy seemed to work. In 1986, one day before Microsoft did, Oracle went public at $15 a share, closing the day at $20.75 a share, a market value of $270 million. Ellison's 39 percent stake was valued at $93 million. In 1987 Oracle posted revenue of $131 million, and Ellison predicted it was going to become the largest software company in the world.
• Determined to maintain the company's growth, Ellison developed a reputation for pushing his employees extremely hard. In 1985 he declared that the company would double its revenue every year. For a couple of years his boast seemed to be coming true. Ironically, however, Ellison's arrogance and recklessness, which partly accounted for the company's success, resulted in business practices that nearly led to the downfall of the company. 
• In 1988, facing intense competition from companies with superior products, Ellison decided to release Oracle Version 6 before it had been properly tested. The ensuing problems were disastrous for Oracle's reputation and its credibility with customers.
• The decrease in revenue resulting from the problems with Version 6 was exacerbated by Oracle's aggressive sales force. Spurred by the demands of their ambitious CEO, Oracle sales-people were willing to offer almost anything to close a deal, including huge discounts, and were selling to companies that did not have the money to pay. Because of these problems as well as a chaotic accounting system, by 1990 Oracle had lost control of its finances and faced a serious cash-flow crisis. In 1991 Oracle announced losses from the previous year of nearly $36 million, which severely affected the company's share price and nearly led to its demise.
• Larry Ellison dropped out of the University of Illinois for not writing his second year final exams after the death of his adopted mother. He later joined the University of Chicago, only to drop out again after one semester.
• In the 1970’s Ellison worked for the Ampex Corporation. It was here he coined the name ‘Oracle’ for database software he designed for the CIA. It was not until 1979 that he founded Software Development Laboratories, later to be renamed Oracle after what he took to be his initial success.
• Larry Ellison has been married four times. Each time has ended in divorce. His first marriage was to Adda Quinn from 1967 to 1974. Nancy Wheeler was number two, from 1983 to 1986. Barbara Boothe lasted from 1983 to 1986. His final marriage was to Romance Novelist, Melanie Craft, from 2003 to 2010.
• Aside from working for himself, from 1997 to 2002 Ellison remained a director of Apple Computers. He was appointed shortly after Steve Jobs was brought back to the company, as the two of them were close friends. The directorship ended with Ellison citing inadequate time to attend formal board meetings.
• The year 2000 saw a brief period where Larry Ellison was the richest man in the world. 2010 gave him the title of the sixth richest in the world. 2011 saw him even closer as the fifth. However, as of 2012, Ellison dropped to eighth richest in the world and third richest in America, just behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.
• Ellison also demanded at least 100 percent growth in sales of his company's software, a near impossible feat for a company that already boasts $100 to $500 million in sales. It would have been impossible for Oracle and Ellison, if it wasn't for some dodgy sales practices. 
• This may be considered one of Ellison's mistakes as it negatively affected Oracle's business reputation. Although Ellison's high demands led to a highly stressful work environment, it also led to high productivity and Oracle's present success.
• Oracle underwent some changes before becoming the multibillion-dollar corporation it is today. When first founded by Ellison, it was known as Software Development Laboratories and then reincarnated into Relational Technologies until it finally took on the name it is known as today; Oracle.
• Larry Ellison presently sits on the board of Apple Computer (a company he once dreamed of taking over along with Steve Jobs) and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, while the many honors and awards he received include Entrepreneur of the Year form the Harvard School of Business.
• As well as a billionaire, Ellison is also believed to be quite a multi-faceted character: playboy, world champion sailboat racer, sports nut, jet pilot, ruthless businessman, marketing genius, and avant-garde thinker. We weren't kidding when we said he is no ordinary businessman.
• Up until 2010, Ellison was the owner of the tenth largest yacht in the world. The Rising Sun is a motor yacht spanning 453 feet. This boat cost over 200 million USD to build, and consists of 82 rooms on five levels, Jacuzzi bathrooms, complete fitting of a gymnasium and spa, a plasma screen cinema and a basketball court cum helicopter pad. It is now owned by David Geffen of Geffen Records.
• Ellison also has a few airplanes to his name. These include both private jets and two fighter jets including a SIAI Marchetti S.211 and a decommissioned MiG-29.
• Ellison is a signatory of The Giving Pledge. This was a movement to encourage the richest of the United States to commit to donating most of their wealth to philanthropic causes. Others to sign the pledge are Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffet.
• Philanthropic causes are something Ellison truly believes in and he has donated to countless organizations over the years. He has donated many millions to causes he believes in, and claims he will continue to do so over the years both publicly and privately since charity to him is a personal matter.
• Ellison was raised as a Reform Jew by his adoptive parents; however, he never took on the religion fully. Although he attended synagogue service every weekend, at age thirteen, Ellison chose not to have a bar Mitzvah. While respecting the dogma and mythology of Judaism’s doctrines he claims that it is based more on mythology than fact.
• In 2010, one of Ellison’s US$ 8 million dollar yachts capsized in the San Francisco Bay during a sailing practice. But no worries, the crew collected salvageable parts and put it together as a plane to compete in a ‘wacky’ event in the San Francisco Bay Area. It still looked more like a boat than a plane, but it made the cut for the new event.
• The two heirs to the fortune Ellison leaves behind are his two children, David and Megan Ellison from his third marriage to Barbara Boothe. David and Megan are known for their own work in Hollywood circles as executive producers for hits such as True Grit, and Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
• Larry Ellison’s money also affords him the luxury of some incredibly expensive cars. A few noteworthy mentions are his Lexus LFA, the Acura NSX, the Audi R8, and the 24-carat gold plated cylinders of his McLaren F1 at US$ 1.5 million dollars.
• Not to be outdone in owning land, Ellison purchased 98 percent of Hawaii’s sixth largest island, Lanai. Although the exact purchase price is unknown, the asking price at the time was known to be between US$500-$600 million. Included in the purchase were its highly popular hotel resorts and club houses.
• Despite its success Oracle was still a small player in the technology industry and was far from achieving Ellison's goal of being the largest software company in the world. To his chagrin Ellison was far short of the wealth and influence wielded by the Microsoft cofounder William Henry (Bill) Gates III. Considerable foresight and vision on Ellison's part were needed to propel Oracle into the forefront of the industry.
•  In 1995, while the rest of the world was dazzled by the launch of Microsoft Windows 95, Ellison was predicting the eventual decline of the personal computer, which was the basis of Microsoft's computing concept. Although most experts dismissed Ellison's comments as ludicrous, few could have predicted the impact that the rise of the Internet would have on the information technology industry.
• From the mid-1990s Ellison focused his business strategy on the Internet. Because of Ellison's foresight Oracle was ideally positioned to take advantage of the dot-com boom. 
• By contrast, Microsoft, among others, was slow to recognize the significance of what was taking place in the business world. Oracle's powerful databases became an essential platform of business on the Internet, transforming Oracle into one of Silicon Valley's most powerful companies. 
• In 2000 Ellison even briefly overtook Gates as the world's richest person. This position was mainly achieved through the force of Ellison's visionary leadership. As David J. Roux, a former manager at Oracle, explained to Andy Serwer, Julia Boorstin, and Jessica Sungin of Fortune, "Is he a great technologist? No, there are 100 guys in the Valley as good as he is. Is he a great manager? No, but he's been smart enough to get them. What he is is a great leader. His great strength is to make exceptional employees do the impossible."
• In 1980 company had eight employess, total revenues less than $1 million. in1 year later adopted Oracle as mainframe system, Oracle sales doubled each year for the next 7 years. Renamed company Oracle Corporation for best-selling product.
• 199, Larry and his 78-foot yacht Sayonara win the Sydney to Hobart race, surviving near hurricane winds, drowning six participants

Superb Quotes by Larry Ellison

• We have been doing things that are contrary; the things that people tell us won't work from the beginning. In fact, the only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.
• The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion.
• To model yourself after Steve Jobs is like, ‘I’d like to paint like Picasso, what should I do? Should I use more red?’
• “I have had all of the disadvantages required for success.”
• Building Oracle is like doing math puzzles as a kid.”
• Being first is more important to me. I have so much money. Whatever money is, it’s just a method of keeping score now. I mean, I certainly don’t need more money.”
• “The most important aspect of my personality as far as determining my success goes; has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting experts and questioning authority. While that can be painful in your relationships with your parents and teachers, it’s enormously useful in life.”
• I have had all the disadvantages required for success.”
• Bill Gates wants people to think he is Edison, when he’s really Rockefeller. Referring to Gates as the smartest man in America isn’t right. Wealth isn’t the same thing as intelligence.”
• It’s Microsoft versus mankind, with Microsoft having only a slight lead.”
• Our goal is simply to become the desktop for e-businesses.
• when you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for people telling you that you are nuts.”
• You have to act and act now.”
• It's Microsoft versus mankind, with Microsoft having only a slight lead.”
• When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.”
• “I hope they can amend the constitution to let Bill Clinton run again... I'm very fond of Bill Clinton personally... the world's going to miss him. He's gifted, bright, charming and charismatic.”
• “They don’t call it the Internet anymore. They call it cloud computing.”
• Consumers just tell us everything about themselves”
• “The complexity is in the software”
• Steve Jobs was the best at translating a good idea into a brilliant finished product.”
• Life’s a journey. It’s a journey about discovering limits.”
• If an innovative piece of software comes along, Microsoft copies it and makes it part of Windows, ... This is not innovation. This is the end of innovation.”
• Microsoft is already the most powerful company on earth, but you ain't seen nothing yet,”
• It is absolutely true that we set out to expose Microsoft's covert activities,”
• I think the applications space will be diverse and complex five years from now,”
• "I'm addicted to winning. The more you win, the more you want to win."
• "I have had all of the disadvantages required for success."
• "Some people built their system with a Flash UI. I won't mention Workday by name."