Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison
Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellisonis an American businessman who is co-founder of Oracle Corporation and was CEO from its founding until September 2014. He currently serves as executive chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle. In 2014, he was listed by Forbes magazine as the third-wealthiest person in America and as the fifth-wealthiest person in the world, with a fortune of US$56.2 billion...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth17 August 1944
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
It's Microsoft versus mankind, with Microsoft having only a slight lead.
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.
You have to take a broader view and realize this is an industry like any other - telecoms, Railroads; they went through consolidation. Why shouldn't the computer industry be any different? This shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody but it seemed to be, and a lot of people thought I was nuts when I said these things. And that's why they are alone as a consolidator.
We will still be enormously profitable and by far the most profitable enterprise software company.
There will be no new architecture for computing for the next 1,000 years.
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.
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.
So what makes me happy? I was really happy to build this house. That's it; building things. The trouble with software is that it's very hard to show your aunt in Florida what you've done.
I think you might see us growing much deeper into banking. You might see us acquiring companies in the banking area. You might see us acquiring companies in the retail area. I think you might see us acquiring companies in the telecommunications. I think you will see us getting stronger in business intelligence.
In order to grow at this pace, there will have to be a couple of acquisitions along the way. The tricky thing is to grow at this rate and maintain a 40 percent operating margin.
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.
Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who is going to build.
There's a wonderful saying that's dead wrong. 'Why did you climb the mountain?' 'I climbed the mountain because it was there.' That's utter nonsense...You climbed the mountain because you were there, and you were curious if you could do it. You wondered what it would be like.
In some ways, getting away from the headquarters and having a little time to reflect allows you to find errors in your strategy. You get to rethink things. Often, that helps me correct a mistake that I made or someone else is about to make.