#124 Larry Ellison and Oracle

What I learned from reading Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds. ---- [0:01] Although much of my time with him coincided with a period of adversity for Oracle, I never once saw Ellison downcast. His unquenchable optimism and almost messianic self belief never faltered. [5:06] The single most important aspect of my personality is my questioning of conventional wisdom. My doubting of experts just because they are experts. My questioning of authority. While that can be very painful in terms of your relationships with your parents and teachers it is enormously useful in life.  [12:19] People — teachers, coaches, bosses — want you to conform to some standard of behavior they deem correct. They measure and reward you on how well you conform — arrive on time, dress appropriately, exhibit a properly deferential attitude — as opposed to how well you do your job. Programming liberated me from all that. [16:34] I had always believed that at the top of these companies there must be some exceptionally capable people who make the entire technology industry work. Now here I was, working near the top of a tech company, and those capable people were nowhere to be found. The senior managers I saw were conformist, bureaucratic, and very reluctant to make decisions.  [23:08] Oracle’s first product reflected Larry Ellison’s desire to do something no one else was doing: The opportunity was huge. We had a chance to build the world’s first commercial relational database. Why? Because nobody else was even trying. The other relational database projects were pure research efforts. If we could build a fast and reliable relational database, we would have it made. I thought that relational was clearly the way to go. It was very cool technology. And I liked the fact it was risky. The bigger the apparent risk, the fewer people will try to go there. We would surely lose if we had to face serious competition. But if we were all alone in pursuit of our goal of