California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (L) walks on stage with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison at the 2009 Oracle Open World conference on October 14, 2009, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2009
San Francisco, California, USA
Larry Ellison watches a demonstration during his keynote address at the 2009 Oracle Open World conference on October 14, 2009, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2009
San Francisco, California, USA
Larry Ellison watches a demonstration during his keynote address at the 2009 Oracle Open World conference on October 14, 2009, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2010
Valencia, Spain
(L-R) Oracle's helmsman, James Spithill of Australia, BMW Oracle Racing CEO and skipper Russell Coutts of New Zealand, and Oracle Corporation CEO Larry Ellison celebrate after the second race of the 33rd America's Cup off Valencia's coast on February 14, 2010, in Valencia, Spain. (Photo by Manuel Queimadelos Alonso)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2010
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Larry Ellison makes his way to center court during the BNP Paribas Open Players Party & Hit for Haiti at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 12, 2010, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Harry How)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2010
1301 Clay St #400s, Oakland, CA 94612, United States
Larry Ellison passes through security as he arrives at U.S. District Court on November 8, 2010, in Oakland, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2011
San Diego, California, USA
Larry Ellison (2nd from the left) and the crew of Oracle Racing celebrate their first-place win of America's Cup San Diego Match Racing Championship with a traditional jeroboam of Moet & Chandon champagne on November 19, 2011, in San Diego, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2012
961 Broxton Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024, United States
Larry Ellison and guest arrive at the 'The Guilt Trip' - Los Angeles Premiere at Regency Village Theatre on December 11, 2012, in Westwood, California. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2012
961 Broxton Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024, United States
Larry Ellison arrives at the 'The Guilt Trip' - Los Angeles Premiere at Regency Village Theatre on December 11, 2012, in Westwood, California. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2013
9876 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, United States
Larry Ellison arrives at the 10th Annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 18, 2013, in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2013
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Roger Federer of Switzerland, Rafael Nadal of Spain, Larry Ellison, tournament owner and CEO of Oracle, Ana Ivanovic of Serbia, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus and Novak Djokovic of Serbia pose for photographers after participating in a groundbreaking for the Indian Wells Tennis Garden expansion during the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 8, 2013, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Matthew Stockman)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2013
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Larry Ellison (R) and Nikita Kahn arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Star Trek: Into Darkness' at Dolby Theatre on May 14, 2013, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2015
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Larry Ellison arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "Terminator Genisys" at Dolby Theatre on June 28, 2015, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2015
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Larry Ellison and Nikita Kahn arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of "Terminator Genisys" at Dolby Theatre on June 28, 2015, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2015
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Larry Ellison, Producers Megan Ellison, and David Ellison attend the premiere of Paramount Pictures' "Terminator Genisys" at Dolby Theatre on June 28, 2015, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Lester Cohen)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2015
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, United States
Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp. and Nikita Kahn arrive for a state dinner in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan at the White House on September 25, 2015, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chris Kleponis-Pool)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2016
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Larry Ellison watches on during day four of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 10, 2016, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Julian Finney)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2016
Santa Monica, California, USA
Larry Ellison and Nikita Kahn arrive at the 3rd Biennial Rebels with a Cause Fundraiser on May 11, 2016, in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by David Livingston)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2016
Santa Monica, California, USA
Larry Ellison arrives at the 3rd Biennial Rebels with a Cause Fundraiser on May 11, 2016, in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by David Livingston)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2017
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Larry Ellison watches Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland play Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain during the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 18, 2017, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Matthew Stockman)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2017
Hamilton, Bermuda
(L-R) Jimmy Spithill, Larry Ellison, and Tom Slingsby of Oracle Team USA look on as Emirates Team New Zealand win Race 9 against Oracle Team USA to win America's Cup on day 5 of America's Cup Match Presented by Louis Vuitton on June 26, 2017, in Hamilton, Bermuda. (Photo by Clive Mason)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2018
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Larry Ellison watches the match between Milos Raonic of Canada and Sam Querrey of the United States during the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 16, 2018, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Harry How)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2019
San Francisco, California, USA
Larry Ellison delivers a keynote address during the 2019 Oracle OpenWorld on September 16, 2019, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan)
Gallery of Larry Ellison
2019
Los Angeles, California, USA
Larry Ellison attends the Rebels With A Cause Gala 2019 at Lawrence J Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC on October 24, 2019, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone)
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (L) walks on stage with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison at the 2009 Oracle Open World conference on October 14, 2009, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan)
Larry Ellison watches a demonstration during his keynote address at the 2009 Oracle Open World conference on October 14, 2009, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan)
Larry Ellison watches a demonstration during his keynote address at the 2009 Oracle Open World conference on October 14, 2009, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan)
(L-R) Oracle's helmsman, James Spithill of Australia, BMW Oracle Racing CEO and skipper Russell Coutts of New Zealand, and Oracle Corporation CEO Larry Ellison celebrate after the second race of the 33rd America's Cup off Valencia's coast on February 14, 2010, in Valencia, Spain. (Photo by Manuel Queimadelos Alonso)
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Larry Ellison makes his way to center court during the BNP Paribas Open Players Party & Hit for Haiti at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 12, 2010, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Harry How)
Larry Ellison (2nd from the left) and the crew of Oracle Racing celebrate their first-place win of America's Cup San Diego Match Racing Championship with a traditional jeroboam of Moet & Chandon champagne on November 19, 2011, in San Diego, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris)
961 Broxton Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024, United States
Larry Ellison and guest arrive at the 'The Guilt Trip' - Los Angeles Premiere at Regency Village Theatre on December 11, 2012, in Westwood, California. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer)
961 Broxton Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024, United States
Larry Ellison arrives at the 'The Guilt Trip' - Los Angeles Premiere at Regency Village Theatre on December 11, 2012, in Westwood, California. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer)
9876 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, United States
Larry Ellison arrives at the 10th Annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 18, 2013, in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez)
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Roger Federer of Switzerland, Rafael Nadal of Spain, Larry Ellison, tournament owner and CEO of Oracle, Ana Ivanovic of Serbia, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus and Novak Djokovic of Serbia pose for photographers after participating in a groundbreaking for the Indian Wells Tennis Garden expansion during the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 8, 2013, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Matthew Stockman)
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Larry Ellison (R) and Nikita Kahn arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Star Trek: Into Darkness' at Dolby Theatre on May 14, 2013, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer)
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Larry Ellison arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "Terminator Genisys" at Dolby Theatre on June 28, 2015, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire)
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Larry Ellison and Nikita Kahn arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of "Terminator Genisys" at Dolby Theatre on June 28, 2015, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire)
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, United States
Larry Ellison, Producers Megan Ellison, and David Ellison attend the premiere of Paramount Pictures' "Terminator Genisys" at Dolby Theatre on June 28, 2015, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Lester Cohen)
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, United States
Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp. and Nikita Kahn arrive for a state dinner in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan at the White House on September 25, 2015, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chris Kleponis-Pool)
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Larry Ellison watches on during day four of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 10, 2016, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Julian Finney)
Larry Ellison and Nikita Kahn arrive at the 3rd Biennial Rebels with a Cause Fundraiser on May 11, 2016, in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by David Livingston)
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Larry Ellison watches Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland play Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain during the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 18, 2017, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Matthew Stockman)
(L-R) Jimmy Spithill, Larry Ellison, and Tom Slingsby of Oracle Team USA look on as Emirates Team New Zealand win Race 9 against Oracle Team USA to win America's Cup on day 5 of America's Cup Match Presented by Louis Vuitton on June 26, 2017, in Hamilton, Bermuda. (Photo by Clive Mason)
78200 Miles Ave, Indian Wells, CA 92210, United States
Larry Ellison watches the match between Milos Raonic of Canada and Sam Querrey of the United States during the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 16, 2018, in Indian Wells, California. (Photo by Harry How)
Larry Ellison delivers a keynote address during the 2019 Oracle OpenWorld on September 16, 2019, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan)
Larry Ellison attends the Rebels With A Cause Gala 2019 at Lawrence J Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC on October 24, 2019, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone)
Larry Ellison is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. Ellison is best known as the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of a multi-billion dollar software company, Oracle Corporation, which earned him a spot among the wealthiest people in the world. Ellison’s most important work of his career is considered to be his invention of the Oracle database.
Background
Ethnicity:
Larry Ellison's biological mother, Florence Spellman, was Jewish. His biological father was said to be Italian-American.
Larry Ellison was born on August 17, 1944, in New York City, New York, United States. By that time, his biological mother, Florence Spellman, an unwed immigrant from Odessa, was only 19, and she was not ready to raise a child. Ellison’s father was a United States Air Force pilot stationed overseas before knowing he would have a son. After he had a bout of pneumonia at the age of nine months, she sent him to Chicago to live with her aunt, Lillian Ellison, and Lillian's husband, Louis. Lawrence was raised in a two-bedroom apartment on the city’s South Side.
Louis Ellison had emigrated from Russia in 1905 and arrived in New York virtually empty-handed, and came up with the last name "Ellison" in tribute to Ellis Island gateway where he immigrated to the United States. He moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he married and became an accountant and possibly the owner of apartment buildings. Louis Ellison married Lillian, his second wife, during the Great Depression, and their adopted son was their only child. They did not tell Larry he was adopted until he was 12 years old, and then kept from him the fact that his biological mother was the niece of his adoptive mother. He met his biological mother when he was 48 years old.
It was an ordinary family with the mother being kind, caring, and loving and the father being strict, stubborn, and exacting. Larry grew up independent, self-assured, and uncompromising, which led to constant quarrels and misunderstandings with his stepfather as well as with his peers later on. Ellison later cited his father's lack of faith in his son's abilities as an important factor in his own desire for recognition and success. He had been very close to his adoptive mother.
Education
Larry Ellison graduated from Eugene Field Elementary School in January 1958 and then joins Sullivan High School till the fall of next year before packing his bags and shifting to South Shore. Being mostly interested in complicated subjects such as spaceship construction, high technology, and engineering, he was bored by the schooling process. He was a mediocre student with sometimes a complex character. He enjoyed sports activities and played squash, volleyball, and hockey.
Ellison studied at both the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Chicago. His aim was to become a doctor. and he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1962. Ellison's academic career was undistinguished, and he dropped out of college after two years, after his adoptive mother died of cancer. Larry Ellison next entered the University of Chicago intending to pursue a degree in physics and mathematics. However, he lost his interest in the education process and as a result of the poor performance, was expelled after the first semester. In 1966, he moved to California at the age of 22.
In 1966, a 22-year-old Ellison moved to Berkeley, California - near the future Silicon Valley, already the place where the burgeoning tech industry was taking off. Ellison bounced around from job to job, including stints at companies like Wells Fargo and the mainframe manufacturer Amdahl. Along the way, he learned computer and programming skills.
The turning point came when Ellison came to work for the electronics company Ampex. He worked to develop databases, in particular for CIA; a program that he named "Oracle." In 1977, Larry Ellison met Bob Miner met at Ampex, who was Larry’s supervisor then. However, Bob Miner quitted Ampex soon, and on June 16, 1977, he co-founded a company called, Software Development Laboratories (SDL), together with Bruce Scott and Ed Oates with the investment of $800. A few months later Larry Ellison joined their enterprise as a business partner and invested $1,200 into the firm.
SDL was created to do contract programming for other companies. Ellison wanted SDL to do more. Inspired by a research paper written by British-born computer scientist Edgar F. Codd that outlined a relational database model, Ellison, and his colleagues saw commercial potential in the approach, which organized large amounts of data in a way that allowed for efficient storage and quick retrieval.
While the three young men were busy writing Precision Instruments software, they discovered something else. Programmers at IBM had been working on what was called a relational database. This was a database that could be queried or asked to retrieve certain pieces of information. The databases that existed up until then were good at holding information, such as lists of employees and how much money they made. But to find out how many employees, for instance, made more than a certain figure, the user had to go in and look at the data. The relational database, however, could tell the user who made how much money, and even go in and give selected employees a raise. This was what everybody wanted, and IBM programmers figured out how to do this using a simple computer language that could be typed on a keyboard.
When a paper on the relational database program appeared in a trade journal, Ellison and his partners got very interested. They realized their new company could finish its contract work for Precision Instruments and then drum up similar work for other companies. But the better alternative was to find a really good software product and sell that to whoever wanted it. Using the IBM paper, the three figured out how to write their own relational database software. They named their program Oracle, after the CIA project they had worked on earlier.
The company had fewer than 10 employees and revenue of less than $1 million per year, but in 1981, IBM signed on to use Oracle, and the company’s sales doubled every year for the next seven years. Ellison soon renamed the company after its best-selling product. In 1979, they renamed Software Development Laboratories (SDL) as Relational Software Inc. In 1979 the company released Oracle, the earliest commercial relational database program to use Structured Query Language (SQL), and the versatile database program quickly became popular. By 1982 the company reached a $2.5 million mark. Larry Ellison invested 25 percent of the revenue into research and development. In 1982 the company officially renamed Oracle Systems Corporation which was named after they launched Oracle RDBMS, which was an object-relational database management system.
In 1983, Oracle RDBMS of v.3 became commercially accessible and could be installed on all types of operating systems such as mainframes, workstations, personal computers, microcomputers, etc. Ellison was right, and Oracle’s investments paid off by doubling the company’s revenue to $5 million. In 1985, the company’s revenue sales reached $23 million, and in 1986, the revenue sales reached $55 million. Oracle focussed on leading clients such as government agencies and the largest international companies in the automotive, aerospace, pharmaceutical, and manufacture industries.
In 1986, Oracle Corporation held its IPO (initial public offering), but some accounting issues helped wipe out the majority of the company’s market capitalization and Oracle teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. In 1987 Oracle became the largest database-management company in the world. However, in 1990 an internal audit conducted in the wake of a shareholder’s lawsuit revealed that Oracle had overstated its earnings, and the company’s stock plunged dramatically. Ellison restructured Oracle’s management, and by the end of 1992, the company had returned to financial health.
In the mid-1990s Ellison saw an opportunity to compete with Microsoft Corporation by developing a cheap alternative to the desktop personal computer (PC) called the Network Computer (NC). The NC was not as fully equipped as a standard PC and relied on computer servers for its data and software in an early version of what later became known as cloud computing. However, both the continued fall in PC prices and delays in NC’s development meant that PCs running the Microsoft Windows operating system continued to dominate business users’ desktops. Ellison later admitted that the NC was technologically premature.
Ellison had more success with his early embrace of the Internet. Oracle developed products that were compatible with World Wide Web technologies, which helped the company to grow. In the early 2000s, Ellison started Oracle on an aggressive strategy of buying rival software companies. Dozens of acquisitions were made, including multibillion-dollar purchases of PeopleSoft (2005), Siebel (2006), BEA (2008), and Sun Microsystems (2010).
One of Ellison’s necessary steps was a takeover of PeopleSoft, Inc by Oracle Corporation for $10.3 billion in 2004. PeopleSoft, Inc was a large company with 12,750 customers. It provided human resource management systems, supply chain management, customer relationship management, financial management solutions, and enterprise performance management software.
On April 29, 2008, Oracle Corporation bought BEA Systems, Inc. for $8.5 billion. It was a company specialized in enterprise infrastructure software products. Larry Ellison was very determined in making Oracle Corporation number one in the computer technology industry and did all his best to catch up and surpass the giants in the software market.
On January 27, 2010, Larry Ellison agreed to buy Sun Microsystems, Inc. for $7 billion; that was one of the biggest acquisitions by Oracle. Once the deal has been finished, Oracle began to sell technologies, using new databases and services based on Sun Microsystems technologies.
In September 2014 Ellison stepped down as CEO of Oracle, though he remained involved with the company, serving as executive chairman and chief technology officer. Ellison founded a startup called Sensei that does hydroponic farming on Lanai in March 2016. Ellison has also invested in educational platform maker Leapfrog Enterprises.
Not all of Ellison's side-projects have worked out, though: He was an early investor in Theranos, the blood-testing startup that shut down in 2018 after founder Elizabeth Holmes was accused of fraud. He joined the board of directors at Tesla on December 28, 2018, where he's been a major investor.
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.
Politics
Ellison contributed $10 million to candidates and political action campaigns since 1991. He’s backed both Republicans and Democrats, funneling money to the Republican National Convention, Democratic National Convention, and both parties’ candidates for Congress and president.
He contributed $8,100 in 2017 and $2,600 in 2014 to Team Graham Inc., a campaign committee supporting Lindsey Graham's Senate bids. In 2014, he also contributed $10,000 to Graham Victory Committee, a joint fundraising committee that supports Graham and the South Carolina Republican Party.
On the Republican side, Ellison has contributed to former House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Devin Nunes. On the Democratic side, he’s backed former Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Anna Eshoo, and Zoe Lofgren.
He contributed $3 million to a political action committee formed for then-candidate Mitt Romney in 2012 and $5 million to a political action committee supporting Republican Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 candidacy. In 2020, Ellison held a fundraiser for Donald Trump, where supporters can pay $100,000 for a golf outing and photo op with the president.
Ellison rarely comments on his political views, but in an October 2018 sit-down interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo, he said he worried about the leftward lurch at companies like Facebook, Google, and Apple and applauded Trump’s aggressive posture toward China and decision to move the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Views
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. He claimed to have given millions for research and that he wants to give billions more for research, education, and medical training in the future as well.
Philanthropic causes are something Ellison truly believes in and he donates to countless organizations over the years. Larry Ellison has his own charity foundation along with the numerous charities that he donates in off and on.
Ellison joined fellow billionaires Bill Gates, his wife Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett in The Giving Pledge - Gates’ initiative to get billionaires to commit most of their wealth to charity. Ellison wants to give away 95% of his wealth.
After the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, Larry Ellison offered the government such software that will help them build, manage and generate such a national database that can be used for identification and production of ID cards. He offered to provide the software free as a charitable action but his offer raised many controversies and the government turned it down.
Ellison made a pledge to Harvard University of almost 115 million dollars but he refuses to honor his promise in 2006 as president Lawrence Summers is no longer a part of the university.
Quotations:
"A corporation’s primary goal is to make money. Government’s primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give to others."
"I have had all the disadvantages required for success."
"I think after a certain amount, I’m going to give almost everything I have to charity. What else can you do with it? You can’t spend it, even if you try. I’ve been trying."
"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."
"If you do everything that everyone else does in business, you’re going to lose. The only way to really be ahead, is to ‘be different."
"Life’s a journey. It’s a journey about discovering limits."
"You have to act and act now."
"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."
Personality
Ellison - a major sports car fan, particularly of the Acura NSX - has given them to employees as rewards for good work. An adventurer and adrenaline junkie at heart, Ellison suffered numerous injuries as a result of his participation in extreme sports, including mountain biking and body surfing.
Ellison is believed to be heavily influenced by Japanese culture. According to a 1995 interview with the Smithsonian, Ellison called the Japanese "at once, the most aggressive culture on Earth and the most polite."
Larry’s greatest motivation is a competitive spirit. He says it’s the main reason he goes to work every day. He loves to compete; he says that he is addicted to winning. Known for his flamboyance, Ellison races sailboats, flies planes, and plays the guitar and tennis. It is a known fact that Larry is found of Houses and Yacht. He spends most of the money he earned in buying luxurious houses and yachts.
When he’s not busy bolstering his software empire, Ellison races yachts (his yacht Rising Sun is over 450 feet long - one of the largest privately-owned vessels in the world), and in 2010 he joined the BMW Oracle Racing team and won the prestigious America’s Cup. The victory brought the cup to the United States for the first time in 15 years, a win the team repeated in 2013.
Larry Ellison made a cameo appearance in Iron Man 2 alongside Tesla chairman Elon Musk.
Interests
sports cars, yachts, playing the guitar
Politicians
Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Napoleon Bonaparte
Writers
Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography by Vincent Cronin, The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks Jr., A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin, Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove, The Age of Napoleon by Will & Ariel Durant, The Robber Barons by Matthew Josephson, Fate Is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith
Sport & Clubs
sailing, basketball, tennis, golf
Athletes
Michael Jordan
Connections
Ellison has been married and divorced four times. In 1967, he met his first wife, Adda Quinn, when he was a student. They lived together for seven years, and it ended up with Adda’s leaving. Nevertheless, she did not blame him for anything. Moreover, she always considered him great, unpredictable, and funny, still, very difficult to live with.
His second wife, Nancy Wheeler Jenkins, was a Stanford University student. She was believed to be the most beautiful girl at the university. Nancy and Larry got married in 1977. However, in the family life, Nancy Wheeler Jenkins did not stand the test, and in July 1978, she asked for a divorce.
In 1983, Larry Ellison got married to Barbara Boothe, who was a former receptionist at Relational Software Inc. The couple lived together for four years and even gave birth to David and Margaret. They got divorced in 1986.
Their son, David Ellison, is the CEO of Skydance Media. Over the past few years, David became one of the most influential producers in Hollywood. His company to co-produce and co-finance movies with Paramount. Skydance Media is responsible for such feature-length films as Star Track: Into the Darkness (2013), Mission Impossible: The Rogue League (2015), Star Trek Beyond (2016), etc.
Their daughter, Megan Ellison, (born January 31, 1986) is a founder of Annapurna Pictures and an American film producer. She is best known for producing the films Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Her (2013), and American Hustle (2013). All of the movies were nominated for the Academy Awards.
The fourth wife of Larry Ellison was Melanie Craft, a romance novelist. On December 18, 2003, the couple got married at his Woodside estate. As a wedding present, Ellison gave 911,744 Oracle’s shares worth $11.9 million to his fourth wife, Melanie Craft. The couple got divorced in 2010.
Now he is in a long-term relationship with Nikita Khan.