The billionaire’s path to building a $117 billion fortune once ‘declared war’ on Bill Gates

Billionaire dropped out of college twice

Larry Ellison was born in 1944 in the Bronx (New York, USA) and is the son of a single mother. When he was only 9 months old, he contracted pneumonia and was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Chicago. While in his sophomore year at the University of Illinois, Ellison’s aunt died, forcing him to drop out. Then, he enrolled at the University of Chicago but dropped out after only one semester to work to earn money.

In 1966, Ellison moved to Berkeley (California) near Silicon Valley – where the technology industry began to flourish. Looking for opportunities, Ellison kept changing jobs, including at companies like Wells Fargo and Amdahl, where he built his computer and programming skills.

“I never attended a computer science class in my life. I worked as a programmer. Mostly self-taught. I just read books and started programming,” Ellison once shared. shall.

The turning point in Ellison’s life came when he went to work for the electronics company Ampex, participating in a contract to set up a database for the CIA with the name “Oracle”.

In 1977, with a passion for computer technology, Ellison along with Ed Oates and Bob Miner founded their own company called Software Development Laboratories. The start-up capital is only 1,400 USD (almost Ellison’s pocket money).

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Photo: Forbes

In 1982, the company officially changed its name to Oracle Systems Corp after launching its flagship product in data management. Oracle sales quickly exploded. In 1986, Oracle went public (IPO) and raised $55 million.

However, in 1990, Oracle made “a terrible mistake” when it allowed sales staff to reserve sales for the quarter, causing the whole number to be skewed. As a result, the company got into litigation and trouble with officials, forced to cut about 400 employees. Then Oracle fell into a state of near bankruptcy, the market share was occupied by competitors.

By 1992, the company regained its footing with the introduction of the Oracle 7 database. At the end of the 20th century, Oracle “made a fortune” by selling databases to then booming Internet companies. explode.

Under Ellison’s leadership, Oracle grew and became one of the largest software companies in the world. He left the position of CEO of Oracle in 2014 and still holds the position of chairman of the board and chief technology officer at the age of 77.

According to Forbes ‘ Real Time ranking, Ellison is currently the 7th richest person in the world with a fortune of more than $117 billion.

Ambition to beat Microsoft and Bill Gates

Although extremely successful and rich, but for many years, Ellison has always reflected on having to beat Bill Gates and Microsoft. Both Bill Gates and Larry Ellison are hailed as geniuses and capable of greatly influencing the lives of others, but in very different ways.

Oracle conducted its IPO on March 12, 1986 with a market value of $270 million. Just a day later, Microsoft also conducted an IPO with a value of $ 700 million. Since then, the world has regularly watched the exciting race and chase between these two software giants.

Long before Apple launched the iPad, Larry Ellison decided to introduce the Network Computer, a simple, inexpensive computer that could send email, surf the web, and perform simple tasks.

More than just a computer, Network Computer also helps Oracle open a new business, competing with “strong enemy” Microsoft, while Larry Ellison has the opportunity to surpass rival Bill Gates.

Ellison is ambitious and aggressive, so to achieve his goal, he created a subsidiary company to specialize in developing this new market and launched advertising campaigns at private clients. core.

Unfortunately, Network Computer later failed when it failed to conquer the market as Ellison wanted. However, the founder of Oracle took the occasion to prove to the world that Microsoft cannot easily occupy a monopoly position in the market.

So far, Microsoft is still far behind Oracle in terms of market capitalization. While personally, Ellison is the 7th richest billionaire in the world on the Forbes list Bill Gate is at number 5. Still, it’s undeniable that Larry Ellison is one of the most talented leaders in the world with natural business talent.

Larry Ellison is currently the 7th richest person in the world on the Forbes list. Photo: AP

Lessons of success

Larry Ellison’s talent is admired by many people, including former employees of Oracle. Nutanix co-founder Dheeraj Pandey once shared that his time at Oracle gave him the opportunity to learn business lessons from Larry Ellison and this helped a lot when Pandey built his own company.

“The way Larry Ellison built the company was always strategic, and I learned a lot not only in how to run, but also in how to build a culture with a strong personality,” said Nutanix co-founder.

According to Pandey, one of the secrets of Ellison’s success is not giving in to opponents. The billionaire born in 1944 is considered the most powerful leader of Oracle, because he often does not hesitate to threaten, disparage opponents openly in the media, even sue opponents to court. Ellison once initiated a large lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of illegally using Java, the software created by Oracle when developing and building Android.

The Oracle co-founder is also not afraid to foster “rebellious” talent. According to Pandey, Larry never wanted to be around people who could only say “yes”. Notable tech executives including Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Siebel Systems’ Tom Siebel, PeopleSoft’s Craig Conway and former HP President Ray Lane were all employees of Oracle and were fostered by Larry.

“All of these people eventually became competitors to Oracle, but without them, Oracle wouldn’t be the Oracle we know today,” stressed Pandey.