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Larry Ellison Articles

The Billionaire Dropout: The Early Years of Larry Ellison - Click To Read Article
“Being first is more important to me,” says Ellison. “I have so much more money. Whatever money is, it's just a method of keeping score now. I mean I certainly don't need more money.”

The Wisdom of Oracle: Ellison Hits the Jackpot - Click To Read Article
It was after reading E.F. Codd’s paper called “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks” that Ellison got the idea for his first product. Codd had been working at IBM on the new concept of a Structured Query Language (SQL). While successful, IBM didn’t see any commercial potential in it. Ellison, on the other hand, did.

Lesson #1: Balance Work and Play - Click To Read Article
“I think about the business all the time,” says Ellison. “Well, I shouldn't say all the time. I don't think about it when I'm wakeboarding.”

Lesson #2: Be Ruthless - Click To Read Article
“It's my job for Oracle – the number two software company in the world – to become the number one software company in the world,” says Ellison. “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.”

Lesson #3: Question Convention - Click To Read Article
“The most important aspect of my personality, as far as determining my success goes, has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting the experts and questioning authority,” says Ellison. “While that can be very painful in relationships with your parents and teachers, it's enormously useful in life.”

Lesson #4: Break Through That Wall - Click To Read Article
“I have had all of the disadvantages required for success,” says Ellison. “There were lots of times, especially in the early days, that were very, very difficult.” From being given up for adoption by his birth mother to losing his adoptive mother to cancer to dropping out of school, Ellison could have been the poster boy for adolescent angst. But, whether it was rebounding in school or bring Oracle back from the brink, Ellison managed to find the determination that he needed to press on.

Lesson #5: Ignore the Critics - Click To Read Article
“When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts,” says Ellison. Indeed, there has never been a single point in Ellison’s career where one critic or another did not lambast him for his business strategy. But, learning to ignore them was an art Ellison would soon master

The Source of Oracle’s Wisdom: How Ellison Achieved Success - Click To Read Article
“There's a wonderful saying that's dead wrong,” says Ellison. “‘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.”

Larry Ellison Quotes - Click To Read Article
Larry Ellison Quotes





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