Wu Zetian
91% Profile Match
Photo: Oracle PR, 2013, CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons, 'Larry Ellison 2013 (9887589546).jpg' -- photograph of Larry Ellison on stage, published by the Oracle PR account on Flickr ('Larry Ellison on Stage'), taken 23 September 2013; CC BY 2.0 on both the Flickr page (live check 2026-10-24 shows 'CC BY 2.0', taken 23 September 2013, owner Oracle PR) and the Commons page (flickrreview by File Upload Bot, 10 January 2014). Original 4288 x 2848 pixels (1,848,707 bytes, SHA-1 of the downloaded original d74c89e82c7b035c7c961632359db2c3db7f815e); stored file downscaled once to 1200 x 797, no crop, never upscaled. Caveats: the individual photographer is not named (credit is to the company's PR account, which published it under the licence); the licence rests on the Flickr owner's CC BY 2.0 and the bot review, not on an additional institutional statement. Alternatives not used: the January 2016 'Larry Ellison picture' PNG (Oracle PR Hartmann Studios, Flickr source dated 2010, no licence review on the Commons page) and White House images from 2025 (a politically themed event). · CC BY 2.0
entrepreneur · Contemporary
Larry Ellison
b. 1944
Known For
entrepreneurialtechnologicalindustrial
Not yet included in personality matching — the documented evidence doesn't yet cover enough of the personality model. Everything else on this page is fully available.
Trait Constellation
Key Achievements
He co-founded Software Development Laboratories in 1977 with Bob Miner and Ed Oates, the company that became Oracle, and took the lead as president in building a database business out of a consulting start.
Oracle developed and began selling an SQL-compatible relational database before IBM had an SQL product on the market, according to the National Research Council. Version 3, rewritten in C in 1983, let it run across many computer makers.
Oracle later grew through acquisitions, about $45 billion since 2004 by TechCrunch's count, including PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion and Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion, and Ellison announced its public cloud service in 2011.
Moments That Reveal Them
To make the database portable, the company rewrote it in the then-new C language over several years and froze new features meanwhile; the essay says engineer Bruce Scott pushed for it and Ellison backed him against co-founder Miner's preference for a quicker VAX port.
This is consistent with a willingness to accept a long, costly technical bet. Risk Tolerance
In September 2008 he told analysts cloud computing was 'complete gibberish' and that Oracle would change little beyond some ad wording; in October 2011 he announced Oracle's own public cloud service.
This is consistent with a late change of direction after an initially dismissive stance. Adaptability
Turning Points
After the first years as a contract-software consultancy, the founders stopped consulting and turned to a relational database product built from IBM's published System R work, and the CIA became the first customer.
This is consistent with an ability to see a commercial opening in work that a larger company had not yet shipped. Opportunity Sensing
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Sources
- Larry Ellison (Q92759) -- verified live via the Wikidata API (2026-10-24): English label 'Larry Ellison', description 'American internet entrepreneur and businessman (born 1944)', Korean label '래리 엘리슨', born 17 August 1944, no death date, citizenship United States. Orientation only; not used as support for any row.
- National Research Council, 'The Rise of Relational Databases', chapter 6 of Funding a Revolution: Government Support for Computing Research (National Academy Press, 1999): the relational database industry as a combination of industrial research, government-funded academic work and commercial competition; IBM's System R and its SQL, Berkeley's Ingres and QUEL; 'Oracle, founded by Larry Ellison, developed and began selling an SQL-compatible product even before IBM had an SQL product in the market', Ellison having learned of SQL through the System R team's publications; IBM compelled to ship SQL/DS by competing vendors; SQL's standardisation over QUEL. CANONICAL SIGNIFICANCE SOURCE. Institutional history of the field written by an outside committee; names Ellison in one passage, so it supports the significance of Oracle's early commercial move rather than any trait beyond it; read in full via local text extraction.
- Commoncog Case Library, 'When Databases Were a Hot Technology: The Rise of Oracle' (updated after September 2025, read in full): Ellison's path through Amdahl, Ampex and Omex; the 1977 founding of Software Development Laboratories with Bob Miner and Ed Oates and the 60/20/20 equity split Ellison proposed; the Oates/Miner/Bruce Scott team; a $400,000 bid at a third of the next lowest; the decision to build a relational database from IBM's System R papers for minicomputers; first customer the CIA and the 1979 renaming to Relational Software; cash running short while government payment took six to nine months and salaries being stopped; the rewrite of the database in C (version 3 in 1983) pushed by Scott and backed by Ellison, with feature work frozen for years; building a sales force; competitors Cullinet, Ingres (faster growth in 1984), Sybase (client/server lead, later unforced errors); SQL's adoption as ANSI standard in 1986; the 1986 IPO and Ellison's claim the company would double revenue every year ('a propensity for grandiosity and a penchant for hyperbole'). Analytical business-history essay that states it draws mostly on Matthew Symonds's authorised biography Softwar (so partly Ellison's own account) -- counted as ONE perspective with the Philstar and CBS self-account pieces for behavioural claims; its competitor narrative is the counter-voice.
- Philippine Star, 'Ellison recounts early days of Oracle', 26 November 2007 (report of Ellison's Oracle OpenWorld keynote): Ellison's own account of the early company -- Ampex and Precision Instruments, the SDL bid, the $48,000 first sale to the CIA and installing it himself, a nine-month wait for payment, the decision to move from consulting to product, and why there was no Version 1. Journalist's report of the subject's own keynote (self-account); the passage in which he says the founders 'made up numbers' on a first balance sheet for a bank loan was read but NOT used for any row (self-told anecdote about financial statements, not independently documented).
- Charlie Rose, 'The World's Most Competitive Man', CBS News 60 Minutes (2003): Ellison on the America's Cup, Oracle as the world's second-biggest software maker behind Microsoft, saying 'I'm addicted to winning', his remark that Microsoft was 'three times bigger than we are', the competition creed he said he took from a Japanese executive ('anything less than 100 percent market share was not enough'), and his account of reading IBM's research and deciding 'we can beat IBM to market with IBM's own technology'. Television news profile built largely on the subject's own interview answers; the family and private-life passages and the yacht-racing and real-estate material were not used (a hobby and a private matter, not documented professional conduct).
- TechCrunch, '$45 Billion Later, Larry Ellison Says No Major Acquisitions For Next Few Years', 2 October 2012 (read in full): Oracle spending at least $45 billion on acquisitions since 2004 by the article's count (citing Wikipedia for the figures), the 2004 PeopleSoft purchase for $10.3 billion after a bitter takeover contest that began with a $13 billion bid in 2003, the US Justice Department's suit to block it rejected by a federal judge and the European Commission declining to block it, Ellison reportedly cutting half of PeopleSoft's workforce a month after the deal (per Wikipedia, as the article itself says), later Siebel, Hyperion, BEA, Sun Microsystems, RightNow and Taleo deals, the journalist's remark that the Sun deal led to dismantling its open-source heritage, and Ellison saying on CNBC there would be no major acquisitions for a few years. Tech-press roundup; its figures are second-hand from Wikipedia and its judgments are the writer's; litigation involving Oracle is context only and unscored.
- CIO Insight staff, 'Larry Ellison Sounds Off on Cloud Computing', 26 September 2008: Ellison's remarks at an Oracle financial-analyst meeting that 'we've redefined cloud computing to include everything we currently do', that the industry is 'more fashion-driven than women's fashion' and that cloud talk is 'complete gibberish'. Short news item quoting him verbatim; read in full.
- Sipho Hlongwane, 'Oracle leaps into the cloud game too', Daily Maverick, 7 October 2011: Ellison announcing Oracle's public cloud service at OpenWorld not three years after calling the term 'complete gibberish', describing Oracle's cloud as both platform and application service built on industry standards, and criticising rival cloud providers (calling Salesforce a 'roach motel'); the writer calls him 'famously tactless'. Short South African business-press commentary; a critical reading of the reversal, read in full.
- Wikimedia Commons file page 'Larry Ellison 2013 (9887589546).jpg' and the Flickr photo page of the Oracle PR account (live check 2026-10-24) -- checked for the portrait: photograph by Oracle PR, taken 23 September 2013, CC BY 2.0.