Oracle

Larry’s wife divorced him saying that he lacked ambition and was irresponsible. Three decades later, the same unambitious guy was amongst top ten richest men on the planet with a net worth of $48.6 Billion USD

‘Virtually everyone important in my life, my family, my teachers, (cis) my girlfriend wanted me to be a doctor. Over time, their dreams became my dreams. They convinced me I should be a doctor,’ said Larry Ellison, a billionaire, a philanthropist and a tech genius, in his USC commencement speech.

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t do it. After a few unhappy years in the pre-medical school it became clear to him that he didn’t like the courses he was taking. His anatomy class appeared to him as a pointless form of psychological torture. He couldn’t study something that didn’t interest him. He even thought of himself as a person who lacked discipline or was selfish. But he was not able to make himself into a person he wasn’t.

Eventually, he stopped trying and at the age of 21, he dropped out of college. He drove from Chicago to California, a ride that was about to change the course of database managements systems forever.

“It (Berkeley) was the perfect place for an undisciplined, selfish, twenty-something to begin his search for himself, a righteous cause and a job that he loved”, Larry said. In Berkeley he wrote songs, became an environmentalist and worked as a river guide and a rock climbing instructor. Although he loved the jobs, they didn’t pay him much, so he started working as a computer programmer. He got a similar satisfaction from programming as he got from solving math problems or playing chess.

It was here that he made real progress in his journey of self-discovery and he had also found a cause. He had jobs that he loved and one amongst them paid his bills. He was happy with his life. His wife wasn’t. She thought of him as a college drop-out who spent too much time doing stupid things. She wanted him to be a full time programmer. As a compromise, he took a job at UC Berkeley and started taking classes. One of the several classes he took was of sailing. After the class was over he was in love with the ocean and wanted to buy a sail boat.

According to his wife, this was the single stupidest thing she had heard in her entire life. She accused him of being irresponsible and lacking ambition. She kicked him out and divorced him.

His family was already mad at him for leaving the medical school. Once again, he wasn’t able to stand up to others’ expectations. He wasn’t disappointed with himself though. He enjoyed the company of nature around him. He had a job that he loved and made money which was more than he needed. For the first time he was certain that he was going to survive in this world. A huge burden of fear had been lifted.

Throughout his twenties he continued experimenting and kept changing jobs till he realized that most fulfilling programing jobs were found in a cluster of companies situated in Silicon Valley. He worked with various software start-ups and also with well-established companies but he never found a job that pleased him as much as sailing. Therefore, he created one.

He founded a company, Software Development Laboratories (SDL), later named Oracle, with an intention to create a satisfying job for himself. The initial investment was of $2000 USD of which $1200 USD was of Larry’s. He estimated that the company will employ no more than 50 employees.

Today, Oracle has employed more than 150 thousand people. He intended to establish the world’s first relational database. Everyone said it was a crazy idea. It turned out to be the craziest. And as his beloved friend, Steve Jobs, who was also the official wedding photographer in his fourth wedding, once said, ‘People who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.’

With this idea he became one of the richest man on the planet with a net worth of $48.6 Billion USD. He also loves flying and has two military jets at his disposal and is amongst 129 Billionaires to sign The Giving Pledge. In 2012 he bought an island called Lanai in Hawaii.

Oracle turned out to be one of the most successful software companies ever. In the year 2016, the annual revenue of Oracle was $37.04 Billion USD.