- Company
- Oracle
- Role
- Co-Founder, Chairman & CTO
- Est. Net Worth
- $200 Billion (Est.)
- Stage
- Elite
- Industry
- Tech & SaaS
Larry Ellison
Co-Founder, Chairman & CTO at Oracle
About
Larry Ellison co-founded Oracle in 1977 and built it into the world's leading enterprise database and cloud infrastructure company. He served as CEO until 2014 and now serves as Chairman and CTO, continuing to drive Oracle's push into cloud computing and AI infrastructure.
Current Company
Oracle — Co-Founder, Chairman & CTO
The Relentless Competitor
Larry Ellison co-founded Oracle in 1977 with Bob Miner and Ed Oates, building a relational database system inspired by an IBM research paper. Born in New York City and raised by adoptive parents in Chicago, Larry Ellison dropped out of the University of Chicago and moved to California, where he worked as a programmer before starting the company that would become the backbone of enterprise computing. Oracle's database became the industry standard, powering everything from banks to airlines to government agencies.
Larry Ellison's management style is defined by relentless competition. He went head-to-head with IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and Salesforce over four decades, acquiring companies aggressively — PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems, Sun Microsystems, NetSuite, and Cerner among them — to build Oracle's product portfolio. Larry Ellison's willingness to engage in hostile takeovers and public feuds with competitors made him one of the most polarizing and effective leaders in enterprise technology history.
The Cloud and AI Bet
Larry Ellison was initially skeptical of cloud computing, dismissing it as a marketing buzzword. But once he recognized the shift, he committed Oracle to a cloud-first strategy with characteristic intensity. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has emerged as a credible competitor to AWS and Azure, particularly for enterprises running Oracle databases and applications. Larry Ellison's bet on building purpose-built AI infrastructure has attracted major customers including healthcare systems, financial institutions, and AI training workloads.
Now serving as Chairman and CTO of Oracle, Larry Ellison remains deeply involved in product strategy and technology direction. His personal investments in real estate, sports teams, and the Hawaiian island of Lanai reflect the same ambition he brings to Oracle — think big, move fast, and never stop competing. With Oracle's stock at all-time highs and its cloud business accelerating, Larry Ellison's sixth decade in technology shows no signs of slowing.