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
Everyone thought the acquisition strategy was extremely risky because no one had ever done it successfully. In other words, it was innovative.
I greatly admire GE, their utterly ruthlessly focused management, to get the cost out and get this integration done.’ Okay, we may make a few mistakes along the way but we are not going to waste any time.' They make decisions; they are incredibly disciplined and focused.
Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about.
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.
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.
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.
We will still be enormously profitable and by far the most profitable enterprise software company.
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 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.
Five years from now, I don't know how I'll think.
Our goal is simply to become the desktop for e-businesses.
Those that believe this is merely a downturn are mad. Our industry is going to mature and as something matures, the rate of innovation does slow.
I saw that we needed to grow but our top line wasn't growing, so we had to find other ways to grow the business. We had to reshape our business and acquire share in a non conventional way. But most tech leaders don't come out of a business background. They really have a parochial point of view. All they know are the go-go years of Silicon Valley. That's the environment in which they were raised.