The video explores the life and career of Larry Ellison, a formidable figure in Silicon Valley and the founder of Oracle. Known as a samurai warrior in business, Ellison's journey from humble beginnings in the Bronx to the heights of corporate success is both riveting and inspiring. His relentless drive and unique management style have helped Oracle become a backbone of global information systems, deeply impacting various industries and government operations worldwide.

Larry Ellison's aggressive business strategy and his bold moves in the tech world, such as daring mergers and acquisitions, have been game-changers in the industry. Despite facing early challenges and financial difficulties, Ellison's Oracle morphed into a premier software giant. Driven by a competitive spirit, Ellison has not only focused on technological advancements but also demonstrated an impressive penchant for sailing and sports.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. Brazen [ˈbreɪzən] - (adj.) - Bold and without shame.

The Brazen billionaire is an ambitious Provocateur with a singular management style.

2. Provocateur [prəˌvɒkəˈtɜːr] - (n.) - A person who provokes trouble or incites an action.

The Brazen billionaire is an ambitious Provocateur with a singular management style.

3. Flair [flɛər] - (n.) - A special or instinctive aptitude or ability for doing something well.

His flair for the fast lane was obvious early.

4. Tenacity [təˈnasɪti] - (n.) - The quality of being determined and persistent.

But he was Tenacious. He would never give up on anything.

5. Hostile takeover [ˈhɒstaɪl ˈteɪkˌoʊvər] - (n.) - An acquisition in which the target company does not wish to be acquired.

In 2003, he targeted the company Peoplesoft in a Hostile takeover attempt.

6. Redeem [rɪˈdiːm] - (v.) - To make amends or compensate for faults.

The company's real savior came in the form of a new product.

7. Acquisition [ˌækwəˈzɪʃən] - (n.) - The act of acquiring or gaining possession, especially for companies.

Ellison's appetite for acquisitions accelerated in 2009 with his $7.4 billion trophy purchase of the prominent hardware company Sun Microsystems.

8. Pinnacle [ˈpɪnəkəl] - (n.) - The highest or culminating point.

By 2000, Larry Ellison’s company, Oracle, was among the elite tech companies in the world.

9. Evangelist [ɪˈvæn.dʒə.lɪst] - (n.) - A person who enthusiastically promotes a particular cause, especially technology or innovation.

Ellison chased and cajoled customers, becoming the company's chief Evangelist.

10. Embody [ɛmˈbɒdi] - (v.) - To be an expression of or give a tangible or visible form to an idea.

But his success comes from something far less flashy, embodying some of the world's most essential software tools you use every day.

From Nothing to Software Titan: Larry Ellison's Journey

He's the samurai warrior of Silicon Valley. Larry's attitude is, if you want to compete against me, then be prepared to be crushed. Larry Ellison started Oracle software over 30 years ago and it has made him the highest paid executive over the last decade with a total compensation of $1.84 billion. There was nobody better than Larry at making a customer believe that he could change that person's business life with his product he sees around the corner. Well before many of us get to the end of the street, he'll do whatever it takes to win in the office. SAP, the german software firm, was ordered to pay Oracle $1.3 billion or on the ocean. There is absolutely no doubt that he hates to lose. His company's technology has become the backbone of the world's information systems, from government to online commerce.

The Brazen billionaire is an ambitious Provocateur with a singular management style. I have a theory that Larry's succession plan for Oracle is he is trying to figure out a way that when he's 6ft under in a grave, he can still run Oracle. Stand by, horizon. How do you read, captain? Loud and clear. Okay. If you know anything about Oracle's Larry Ellison, it probably goes something like this. I've got a Bugatti, the fastest car in the world. This home costs $200 million, the fastest sailboat that's ever been built. I'm addicted to winning. The more you win, the more you want to win.

He's a high flying Adrenaline junkie and an unapologetic collector of expensive toys and real estate that really takes my mind off of work. He spent $400 million to bring the 2010 America's cup, the oldest active trophy in sports, back to America for the first time in 15 years. But his success comes from something far less flashy. Some of the world's most essential software tools you use every day, but probably don't realize that it's his company making them work. Almost everybody in the world uses Oracle. They just don't know it. If you do any kind of government transaction with almost any government in the world, any business transaction with almost any Internet business in the world, or any traditional business, if you have a credit card, if you have a cell phone, if you have any of the modern things in life, if you live today, I think you probably use Oracle.

Larry Ellison arguably created the most important computer software you never heard of. He was the man behind the curtain for a tremendous change in the way we all live. Ellison remained behind that curtain when we tried to reach him to participate in this program born in the Bronx in 1944. Ellison grew up in Chicago. When he was twelve, his father bluntly gave him some surprising news. My dad just said right before dinner, oh, by the way, you were adopted and we're having meatloaf tonight. It was so shocking. I just put it away and thought about it for years without really confronting all and realizing all of the implications.

He dropped out of college twice. Ellison was a mediocre student and disliked formal education. Mike Wilson is an editor for the St. Petersburg Times and interviewed Ellison extensively for his biography. Larry was not interested in following the rules at school, in the family or anywhere else. Larry needed to get out from underneath the shadow of Lewis Ellison and prove to his father that he could make something of himself. His flair for the fast lane was obvious. Early, Larry went out and bought himself a turquoise blue thunderbird. He was a stylish guy. He wanted to impress people.

He got in that car and he drove it to California. Larry Ellison was a young man with a great deal of potential. His trip to California was critical to who he would become. Ellison settled in Berkeley and set out to make a living writing code. In 1973, he worked at the computer electronics maker Amdahl. There he met Stuart Fagan. They've remained friends for over 35 years. I went into my cubicle on the first day I worked there, and across the hall were a couple of guys who never seemed to do any work. They just talked all the time. And one of them did nothing but talk about himself. How smart he was, how stupid everyone else was, and how he really ought to be running everything. And that was Larry Ellison.

Ellison was a talented but impatient programmer, desperate to find something of his own to control. To say he had the attention span of a tumbleweed is to overestimate it. I would say more the attention span of a lightning bolt. But his attention focused when he landed a job at a company called Ampex. Ampex was struggling with a project funded by, of all places, the information driven CIA. The project was codenamed Oracle. The CIA needed a system to store and retrieve vast amounts of foreign intelligence concerned with its various sensitive operations and missions. For Ellison, it was the job of a lifetime and would plant the seeds for his future.

In the 1970s, information storage meant putting data on reel to reel tape, which was just too slow and inconsistent for the CIA and too slow for Ellison. He left Ampex and later started his own company with his friend and programming genius, Bob Minor. Bob and Larry were a perfect odd couple for Silicon Valley. Bob had all of the engineering smarts, the technical ability. LARRY on the other hand had the sales ability, the visionary ability, the ability to go to a customer and explain it. Here's how your business can change.

With this original handwritten sign and $1,200, they started software development laboratories, or Sdl. Ellison recruited friends Ed Oates and Stuart Fagan to help program. He did want me to join him and he's going to start some kind of company. And I thought that was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard because Larry wasn't famous for finishing things. I used to say he's a total flake and he'll never amount to anything. And I was half right.

Ellison's new company needed a product. And after reading an obscure IBM research paper, he thought he had it. A method of sorting information that was vastly superior to anything that had come before. It was called a relational database. According to Gary Bloom, who worked with Ellison for 14 years, it was a complex name, but a simple idea. Relational database, what is it? It's a collection of data and information that's very simply put into a format that makes it very easy to search and find that information. It's nothing more complicated than that. IBM didn't see the potential of what they had. Ellison did. I said, oh, my God, we can beat IBM to markets because IBM doesn't believe in their own idea. Ellison believed and asked programmer Bruce Scott to start writing code. For me, it's just cool technology and kind of fun. But for Larry, you know, he saw a company out of it, he saw a market out of it.

We weren't sure Larry was right, but we needed the jobs, and it was a struggle all the time. Larry was under a lot of pressure to get some money in somehow. In 1977, at age 34, Larry Ellison's startup software company was busy creating a smart database they thought would revolutionize how companies retrieve, manage, and analyze data. Three rooms and a little lobby area. There were four of us who were writing programs. Larry was mostly involved in finding customers, and that was a bizarre idea because we had no software. So all the things that you would read in books of somebody being a leader, he wasn't. But he was Tenacious. He would never give up on anything.

Ellison chased and cajoled customers, becoming the company's chief Evangelist. There was nobody better than Larry at making a business person, making a customer believe that he could change that person's business life with his product. Knowing they still needed a smarter solution for the monumental task of managing worldwide intelligence, Ellison sold his database to the CIA. His first customer. He called the new software Oracle version two. There was no version one because everyone thought, well, no one buys version one. It's buggy. So we started with version two. Well, our version two was at least as buggy as anyone's version one. And I described those early versions as the roach motel of databases. The data went in, but it didn't come out.

In 1982, Ellison also took the name Oracle for his company. He targeted government agencies and major corporations in his own unique way. I remember him telling me very distinctly one time, Bruce, we can't be successful unless we lie to customers. For some reason, Larry told the bank of America, I think he told us there were 15 of us when in fact there were five of us. I'm not sure why the bank of America would think differently of you if you were five or 15, but Larry had given them a number which was a little larger than reality.

Ellison also was sharpening a sales philosophy rooted in a trip he had taken to Japan in the early 1970s. I was in Japan and I was talking to a japanese business executive. He told me, you know, that the problem with America is that we just have no stomach for competition. In Japan, we believe our competitors are stealing the rice out of the mouths of our, you know, of our children. In Japan, we think anything less than 100% market share is not enough. His take no prisoners approach became known as the Oracle Way. The Oracle way, in the early to mid eighties was just to win almost by any means necessary.

Larry's attitude is, if you want to compete against me, then you better be prepared to be crushed or don't compete against me. His product, the Oracle database, took off like a jet fighter in one of his ads. And in 1986, Oracle went public. His 39% stake in the company was worth a stunning $93 million. The IPO was a huge hit, but was overshadowed the very next day by Microsoft's public offering, which made Bill Gates stake worth a whopping $350 million.

In 1989, Ellison moved Oracle to this mammoth campus in Redwood Shores, California, which became known as the Emerald City, a reference to the wizard of Oz, or as one newspaper described it, larry Land. And everyone knew who was the wizard. When I ordered a Ferrari 348 and I was going to get the first 348 in California, Larry ordered one from somewhere on the east coast and got it shipped in before I got mine. He didn't want to be the second one. He wanted to be the first one.

His obsession to be first took its toll. Oracle hit a wall. These aggressive sales practices started to cause serious problems. Oracle's aggressive sales practices in the eighties turned the company into an accountant's nightmare. The sales force was so aggressive, so willing to close a deal, and there were so few business controls over the makeup of those deals. Then we started having the problem of, we certainly signed some bad contracts. They were also selling products that hadn't yet been created. Oracle was selling a lot of futures. So you were taking a lot of money and a lot of revenue in for future delivery. Well, then the question comes, when you finally have those deliverables now, who do you sell them to?

You already sold it to everybody. You sold it to them three years before you had it. It didn't help the company's prospects that their latest product was a dud. Oracle version six was riddled with bugs. Customers were frustrated and sales plummeted. It's sometimes characterized as the near death experience of Oracle in the early nineties. And it was, we weren't cutting fat, we were cutting into muscle. And you might even say, we're in a couple of cases, we're cutting a couple limbs off. With Oracle's stock price and free fall, so was Ellison's personal fortune. By November 1, 1990, he had lost $790 million.

His company was nearly a billion dollar operation and it was failing. Larry was trying to achieve this greatness. He was building towards that all the time. And now he was, in a sense, a laughing stock. It was devastating for him. We were all a bunch of kids that grew up with the business and we weren't kids anymore. And the business wasn't a little business anymore. It was big business. And we had to replace virtually all of senior management. And it was a very painful process. He convinced well known management and sales consultant Ray Lane to join the company. And what he brought was what I'd characterize as operational discipline and a maturity around this is how a big business runs.

It was chaotic, it was painful. Nobody wanted to go through that again. And so the culture was kind of reset. But the company's real savior came in the form of a new product. Zach Nelson was Oracle's youngest marketing executive. Oracle Seven was a spectacular product. The future was incredibly bright and I think everybody within Oracle at that time certainly knew it and could sense it. It wasn't just Incrementally better, it was orders of magnitude better. Ellison's company had dodged its near death experience. In 1994, Oracle revenues passed the $2 billion mark and his stock as a result was worth nearly $3 billion.

For Ellison, that wasn't nearly enough to become software's sole heavyweighthouse. Ellison knew he had to pick a fight with the reigning champion, Bill Gates. He seemed to be personally disappointed he wasn't wealthier than Bill Gates. It's the scorecard, and if you weren't number one, if you weren't richest, you weren't on the top, you weren't the best. It was the scorecard and he was losing. I think that Larry thought he was in tremendous competition with Bill Gates, and maybe Gates didn't think so so much.

Larry wanted to be recognized as the greatest innovator, salesman, Evangelist in the world of software. And he had a steep battle going up against the guy who had put his software in every single personal computer practically in the world. Ellison was fixated on Gates. He would later admit publicly to hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on him. Gates new product, Windows 95, had the entire tech world buzzing, including Ellison himself, in this appearance on the Charlie Rose show. This Windows 95 is an enormously complicated piece of software. And the idea that people are going to install this in their households and manage these things in their household to me is hilarious.

And it's time for something that's easier to get things. Well, this is clearly part of our strategy to dethrone Microsoft. But the way you dethrone Microsoft is not something to throw darts at Bill Gates and hate and envy Bill Gates. You have to think about products and create products that are better than the products that Microsoft is selling. Ellison made a move into the consumer device market. He called it the network computer, or NC. He launched the network computer with great fanfare. The computers we currently make, personal computers are rather expensive, very, very complex. So we've introduced this new class of computer for normal human beings that's pretty, very low cost, very lightweight.

Now every person can use a computer because they're low cost and very easy to use. You can surf the net, you can do email on. And he said, and it's going to be $500. It's kind of an Internet appliance, so to speak, no different than your toaster. I can remember having a discussion with him saying, you know, the Internet makes it possible to imagine a world without Microsoft's operating system on every desktop. And that was really, you know, the birth of the NC. Ellison went on a campaign to promote the power of his new baby on the web while mocking the popular PC. I hate the PC with a passion. Put the stuff on the net. It's bits. Don't put bits in cardboard, cardboard in trucks, trucks to stores.

Me go to the store, you know, pick this stuff out. It's insane. I love the Internet. But falling PC prices meant the NC was destined to fail. I don't think there was anything wrong with the idea. I actually just think it was premature. Five years later, it would have won the world. And the only difference is all the PC manufacturers, Dell, HP, everybody else, gateway, what did they do? They created a $500 PC that surfs the web really well and it does email really well. And that shut down Ellison's venture into the consumer market.

His NC was too far ahead of its time. But his vision of the Internet was still right on Target. Oracle's database became the underpinnings of all of these Internet services that we take for granted today. Expedia, Amazon, eBay, go down the list of applications. All of those are storing all that information, retrieving that information, delivering that information, doing those transactions through the Oracle database. People thought Larry was crazy. Now he's a genius, trying to solve the biggest it problem in history.

By 2000, Larry Ellison's company, Oracle, was among the elite tech companies in the world. But internal struggles would soon force out the company's president and chief operating officer, Ray Lane, who had risen to second in command and heir apparent. He described the culture at the company he left. It wasn't good enough for a salesman to make their quota. They had to make 200% of their quota. It was, you know, the top 10% get rewarded millions, and everybody else, you know, falls by the webs. They're weak. Soldiers shoot them. A departing lane said he didn't fit into Oracle's system and that the only person making decisions at Oracle is Larry.

Lots of people that transitioned in and out of Oracle got confused who was in charge. And that's a pretty volatile, that's like a galactic collision. Yeah. Where two stars hit and it's a pretty violent explosion. Oracle, the company was on a roll, but was lagging behind in one key area. We're still fighting to be relevant in the applications world. We're the number two application provider in the world and we're number two in ERP behind SAP. Boy, this number two is getting old and we're number two. Not for long. We're number two. We're number two in CRM behind Siebel, but we're growing faster than SAP and we're growing faster than Siebel, and we're determined to become number one in applications like we're number one in database.

To get to number one, Ellison needed to do something. His company had long avoided, buying new technology through acquisitions. When he came to that conclusion, he opened his wallet and bet far bigger than anyone else did. And in fact, he did it far faster than anyone else did. Ellison wanted to bundle new application software with Oracle's successful product line. In 2003, he targeted the company Peoplesoft in a Hostile takeover attempt. The Department of Justice sued Oracle on Antitrust grounds, charging the takeover would empower the company to illegally raise rates and impair innovation. After a year and a half long battle, the courts sided with Oracle.

Ellison finally acquired Peoplesoft for $10.3 billion. It's very rare that someone gets sued by the government and they actually win, you know, I mean, it's just another testament to this guy's tenacity. Most guys would have maybe walked away from that. Instead, Ellison stepped it up. Over the next five years, he would spend close to $34 billion acquiring 52 companies. Heather Bellini is senior managing director of the technology research team at International Strategy and Investment group. She has covered Oracle since 2003. He started looking out and seeing how the landscape was changing and how the carnage that was done to some of his competitors was going to give him an opportunity to go make some acquisitions and buy some technology where he was behind.

And he really was the one that started the whole m. And a trend within the technology industry. Ellison's appetite for acquisitions accelerated in 2009 with his $7.4 billion trophy purchase of the prominent hardware company Sun Microsystems. But in 2010, his eyes were on another trophy, a decade long, $400 million obsession. BMW. Oracle Racing was launched in 2000 for Ellison's run at the Americas cup. It may be the oldest active prize in international sport, but what Ellison created was entirely new. The boat is a trimaran. It often appears to be nearly flying with only one of its three hulls actually in contact with the water. The oceans have never seen anything like it.

There is absolutely no, there is no doubt that he hates to lose. There is no doubt of that at all. Grant Dalton has competed against Ellison on the Americas cup circuit. My recollection in racing against him, and we will race against him in the future. This is a man that's very determined to win. On Valentine's Day 2010, Ellison brought the America's cup back to the United States for the first time in 15 years. He celebrated with his now ex wife, romance novelist Melanie Kraft. It was his fourth marriage.

The old samurai warrior re emerged when his friend Mark Heard resigned as CEO at Hewlett Packard amid allegations of sexual harassment and expense account irregularities. Ellison was outraged. He attacked the HP board of directors. Quote, the HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago. Exactly one month later, Ellison stunned the business world when he turned around and hired the ousted executive. The Silicon Valley soap opera continued when HP named Leo Apotaker as its chief executive. His former company, SAP, is Oracle's biggest rival in business software. SAP and Oracle had been locked in a nasty three year copyright infringement case that ended in November 2010.

SAP, the german software firm, was ordered to pay Oracle $1.3 billion. It was the biggest settlement ever for software piracy. Larry Ellison's brawl had drawn new blood on the information technology battlefield. And as always, he is more determined than ever to win. Larry Ellison is pretty similar to the New York Yankees. They're the team you love to hate. And as a competitor to Larry Ellison, I'm sure that he's the person that people love to hate, just given how successful he's been. While most visionaries, you think, are sort of just talking off their hat and saying, oh, this is how the world can be, you know, Larry sees how the world can be, and then he actually tries to make it that.

He started with a $1,200 stake in a little company, and by sheer force of will and Persuasion, he built it into one of the giant software companies of the world.

Larry Ellison, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Silicon Valley, Innovation, Competition