Larry Ellison is an American businessman and the co-founder of Oracle Corporation, one of the world’s leading enterprise software companies.
Born in New York City in 1944, Ellison grew up in a middle-class Jewish neighborhood in Chicago. His father died when he was just a teenager, and Ellison was largely raised by his mother. He showed an early interest in technology and computers, and after graduating from high school, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Ellison dropped out of college after his second year and moved to California to pursue a career in business. He found work as a programmer for various companies, and in 1977, he and two partners founded Oracle Corporation.
Under Ellison’s leadership, Oracle quickly became a leading player in the enterprise software market, and today, the company has annual revenues of over $38 billion. Ellison is also known for his lavish lifestyle, including a yacht, a private jet, and several homes worldwide.
In 2010, Forbes magazine ranked Ellison the third-richest person in America, with an estimated net worth of $33 billion.
Table of Contents:
1. Early Life
2. Oracle Corporation
3. Personal Life
4. Philanthropy
5. Awards and Honors
6. Net Worth
7. Criticism
8. Legacy
9. Top Larry Ellison Quotes
Early Life
Larry Ellison was born Lawrence Joseph Ellison in New York City on August 17, 1944. His mother, Florence Spellman, was a 19-year-old unmarried Jewish woman from Brooklyn. His father, Louis Ellison, was a 25-year-old United States Air Force pilot of Italian Catholic descent.
Ellison’s parents met while working at a Jewish community center in Brooklyn. They married six months after Larry’s birth, but the marriage was not happy. Ellison’s mother later said that his father was a “tyrant” who would often beat her.
When Ellison was nine years old, his parents divorced, and he moved to Chicago with his mother and sister. His mother worked as a receptionist to support the family while Ellison attended public schools in the city.
Ellison showed an early interest in technology and computers. When he was 12 years old, he worked as a busboy at a Chicago steakhouse, where he could use the restaurant’s computer to play games. He later said that this was his “ introduction to computer programming.”
After graduating high school in 1962, Ellison attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He studied mathematics and computer science but did not find the academic environment conducive to his learning. Ellison later said, “I was way behind when I got there. I was two years behind everybody else.”
Ellison dropped out of college after his second year and moved to California to pursue a career in business. He found work as a programmer for various companies, including Atari and Amdahl Corporation.
Oracle Corporation
1977 Ellison and two partners, Robert Miner and Ed Oates, founded Oracle Corporation. The company was initially named Software Development Laboratories, but it was later renamed Oracle after the database software that Ellison and his team had developed.
Thanks to the success of its database product, Oracle quickly became a leading player in the enterprise software market. The company went public in 1986, and today, it has annual revenues of over $38 billion.
Ellison has been Oracle’s CEO since its inception and is currently its largest shareholder. He owns over 25% of Oracle’s worth billions of dollars.
Ellison is also known for his lavish lifestyle, including a yacht, a private jet, and several homes worldwide. In 2012, he purchased the Hawaiian island of Lanai for $300 million.
In 2010, Forbes magazine ranked Ellison the third-richest person in America, with an estimated net worth of $33 billion.
Personal Life
Ellison has been married and divorced four times. His first wife was Adda Quinn, whom he married in 1967. The couple had two children together, but they divorced in 1974.
Ellison’s second wife was Nancy Wheeler, whom he married in 1977. The couple had one child together, but they divorced in 1978.
Ellison’s third wife was Barbara Boothe, whom he married in 1983. The couple had no children together, and they divorced in 1986.
Ellison’s fourth and current wife is Melanie Craft, whom he married in 2003. The couple has two children together.
Ellison has also been romantically linked to several high-profile women over the years, including Diane von Furstenberg, Linda Ronstadt, and Nicole Kidman.
Ellison is a practicing Buddhist. He meditates for an hour each day. He is also an avid pilot and owns several private jets.
Philanthropy
Ellison is a major philanthropist who has donated billions of dollars to charitable causes over the years.
Ellison has paid significant sums to medical research, education, and the arts. He is a major contributor to the Ellison Medical Foundation, which funds research on aging and age-related diseases.
Ellison has also given millions of dollars to the University of Southern California and Stanford University. In 2006, he donated $115 million to USC to create the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine.
In 2010, Ellison founded the Oracle Education Foundation, which provides computer science education to underserved students.
Ellison has also given millions of dollars to the Obama and Clinton Foundation.
Awards and Honors
Ellison has received several awards and honors over the years. In 1998, he was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering.
In 2002, the American Academy of Achievement awarded Ellison the Golden Plate Award.
In 2008, Ellison was inducted into the Silicon Valley Hall of Fame.
2009 Ellison received the Bower Award for Business Leadership from the Franklin Institute.
In 2010, Forbes magazine ranked Ellison the third-richest person in America, with an estimated net worth of $33 billion.
Net Worth
Ellison has an estimated net worth of $77 billion as of 2020.
Ellison is the founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, one of the world’s leading enterprise software companies. Oracle has over $38 billion annual revenues, and Ellison owns over 25% of the company’s stock, worth billions of dollars.
Ellison is also known for his lavish lifestyle, including a yacht, a private jet, and several homes worldwide. In 2012, he purchased the Hawaiian island of Lanai for $300 million.
Criticism
Ellison has been criticized for his lavish lifestyle, which some have said is excessive.
Ellison has also been criticized for his comments about women, which some have said are sexist. In a 2004 interview, Ellison said, “Women are better than men at some things. But overall, I think that men are better than women.”
Ellison has also been criticized for his business practices, which some have said are unethical. In 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Ellison of insider trading. Ellison was cleared of wrongdoing, but the case cost Oracle $100 million in legal fees.
Legacy
Ellison is one of the most successful businessmen in history, and he is considered a pioneer in the enterprise software industry.
Ellison is also among the world’s wealthiest people, with an estimated net worth of $77 billion as of 2020.
Top Larry Ellison Quotes
“Taking care of your employees is extremely important and very, very visible.”— Larry Ellison
“You have to act and act now.”— Larry Ellison
“If I were 21 years old, I would go into biotechnology or genetic engineering.”— 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.”— Larry Ellison
“Building Oracle is like doing math puzzles as a kid.”— Larry Ellison
“Five years from now, I don’t know how I’ll think.”— Larry Ellison
“I think about the business all the time. Well I shouldn’t say all the time. I don’t think about it when I am wakeboarding. But even when I am on vacation, or on my boat; I am on email everyday. I am always prowling around the internet looking at what our competitors are doing.”— Larry Ellison
“When I do something, it is all about self-discovery. I want to learn and discover my own limits.”— Larry Ellison
“The only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.”— Larry Ellison
“You cannot innovate by copying.”— Larry Ellison
“Because software is all about scale. The larger you are, the more profitable you are. If we sell twice as much as software, it doesn’t cost us twice as much to build that software. So the more customers you have, the more scale you have. The larger you are, the more profitable you are.”— Larry Ellison
“Act confident, even when you’re not.”— Larry Ellison
“Once open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane.”— Larry Ellison
“Both my mother and I were determined that we weren’t going to stay on welfare. We always worked toward doing better, toward having a better life. We never had any doubts that we would.”— Larry Ellison
“A corporation’s primary goal is to make money. Government’s primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others.”— Larry Ellison
“The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion.”— Larry Ellison
“You realize that life is short and fragile; and when you are facing walls of water, you understand your own mortality can change and how quickly things could change.”— Larry Ellison
“Think of it as you want it, not as it is!”— Larry Ellison
“It’s my job for Oracle, the number two software company in the world; to become the number one software company in the world. My job is to build better than the competition, sell those products in the marketplace and eventually supplant Microsoft and move from being number two to number one.”— Larry Ellison
“Winning is not enough. All others must lose.”— Larry Ellison
“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.”— Larry Ellison
“I was vehemently against acquisitions. Now let’s buy everything in sight. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. We are a little more strategic than that. But everything was on sale.”— Larry Ellison
“Great achievers are driven, not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure.”— Larry Ellison
“You have to believe in what you do in order to get what you want.”— Larry Ellison
“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
“I’m addicted to winning. The more you win, the more you want to win.”— Larry Ellison
“What can a sales person say to somebody to get them to buy a product that they already use every day if they don’t like it? Nothing.”— Larry Ellison
“Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. Sure, there’s the talent, but there also has to be the will. Give me human will and the intense desire to win and it will trump talent every day of the week.”— Larry Ellison
“Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about.”— Larry Ellison
“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for people telling you that you are nuts.”— Larry Ellison
“I think I am very goal oriented. I’d like to win the America’s cup. I’d like Oracle to be the No 1 software company in the world. I still think it is possible to beat Microsoft.”— Larry Ellison
“When you’re the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you’re basically saying, “I’m right, and everyone else is wrong.” That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilarating and at the same time an invitation to be attacked.”— Larry Ellison
“Once the business data have been centralized and integrated, the value of the database is greater than the sum of the preexisting parts.”— Larry Ellison
“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.”— Larry Ellison
“To model yourself after Steve Jobs is like, ‘I’d like to paint like Picasso, what should I do? Should I use more red?’”— Larry Ellison
“I know some people are offended by the fact that I’m spending a lot of money trying to win the America’s Cup. I could have given all that money to charity.”— Larry Ellison
“Life’s a journey. It’s a journey about discovering limits.”— Larry Ellison
“See things in the present, even if they are in the future.”— Larry Ellison
“I believe people have to follow their dreams-I did.”— Larry Ellison
“All you can do is every day, try to solve a problem and make your company better.”— Larry Ellison
“I have had all the disadvantages required for success.”— Larry Ellison
“All you can do is all you can do.”— Larry Ellison
“You can’t spend as much money as I have, even if you try. I’ve been trying.”— Larry Ellison
“I’m right, and everyone else is wrong.”— Larry Ellison
“I have run engineering since day one at Oracle, and I still run engineering. I hold meetings every week with the database team, the middle ware team, the applications team. I run engineering and I will do that until the board throws me out of there.”— Larry Ellison
“I hate the PC, with a passion.”— Larry Ellison
“The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?”— Larry Ellison
“When you find errors in conventional wisdom-when everyone says A and A is not true-you gain competitive advantage. Only a few times do you have to find errors in conventional wisdom to make a living.”— Larry Ellison
“The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing with all of these announcements.”— Larry Ellison
“Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who is going to build.”— Larry Ellison