Larry Ellison

Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17 , 1944) is the co-founder and CEO of the major database software firm Oracle Corporation.

Ellison had an early aptitude for mathematics, and worked as a young man for Ampex Corporation. One of his projects was a database for the CIA, which he named "Oracle".

Ellison was inspired by the paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database systems named A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks. He founded Oracle in 1977, putting up $2000 of his own money, under the name Software Development Laboratories. In 1979 the company was renamed Relational Software Inc., later to be renamed Oracle after the flagship product Oracle database. He had heard about the IBM System R database, also based on Codd's theories, and wanted Oracle to be compatible with it, but IBM stopped this by keeping the error codes for their DBMS secret. The initial release of Oracle was Oracle 2, even though there was no Oracle 1. The release number was intended to imply that all of the bugs had been worked out of an earlier version.

Ellison is reported to be one of the richest people in America by Forbes. In 2005, Forbes reported that Ellison has a net worth of around $18.4 billion, making him the ninth richest man in the world.

At the Woodside estate (http://www.almanacnews.com/morgue/2002/2002_01_16.wslarry.html), Ellison married Melanie Craft, a romance novelist, on 18 December 2003. At the wedding, his best friend, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, was the official photographer. Craft was Ellison's fourth wife. He has a son and a daughter by previous wives.

Contents

1 Properties 1.1 Sea 1.2 Air 1.3 Home 1.4 Sports 2 External links

Properties

Sea

Ellison is also the leader and principal financier of Oracle-BMW Racing, who competed to be challenger for the America's Cup in 2003 on behalf of the Golden Gate Yacht Club of San Francisco. Now named BMW Oracle Racing due to increased financial support from [BMW], they are the official Challenger of Record for the 2007 [America's Cup] in Valencia, Spain.

Ellison won the disastrous 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in his boat "Sayonara". The storm that hit the race cost 6 other sailors their lives. This experience has caused Ellison to swear off ocean racing.

Ellison also has the second biggest yacht (as of 2004) in the world named "Rising Sun" which reportedly cost US$200+ million to construct . The Rising Sun is 452.75ft (138 m) long (the largest yacht is the Prince Abdul Aziz owned by the Saudi royal family, measuring 147.1m in length).

Air

Ellison has had several run-ins with San Jose Mineta International Airport concerning the noise from his private jet. The city of San Jose has a limitation on late night takeoffs and landings on planes weighing more than 75,000 pounds, and Ellison received several citations. In 2001, he was granted a personal waiver on the law.

Home

He had an estate styled like a Medieval Japanese village built in Woodside, California. He also owns a modernistic house in San Francisco's exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood on Broadway Street.

Sports

Ellison has also attempted to get involved in purchasing a professional sports franchise. He has made attempts to purchase the Golden State Warriors and then the San Francisco 49ers, only to be rebuffed both times. He is now pursuing ownership with a potential future franchise in Los Angeles, a location that the NFL is also pursuing.

External links

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• Oracle Official Site (http://www.oracle.com)
• Larry Ellison Oracle executive biography (http://www.oracle.com/corporate/lje_content.html)
• Forbes 400 listing (http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/54/2004/LIR.jhtml?passListId=54&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&uniqueId=JKEX&datatype=Person)
• FAQ about Oracle Corporation (http://www.orafaq.com/faqora.htm). This site contains some interesting factoids about Larry Ellison.
• America's 100 Largest Superyachts (http://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/megayachts/1104top100yachts/index1.html) Information on the 'Rising Sun'
• The Ellison Medical Foundation (http://www.ellisonfoundation.org/index.jsp).
• Zinko, C., et al. (2004). Larry Ellison's most important merger: Oracle CEO ties knot with novelist at Woodside estate; Steve Jobs takes wedding photos. Retrieved January 16, 2004. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/14/MNGS649LVB1.DTL)de:Larry Ellison

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