Larry Ellison Quotes
302 Larry Ellison Quotes
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[On his Japanese statues in his house.] These are temple guardians. They’re four hundred years old. These came to be because a museum wanted to get them but couldn’t afford them. So sometimes when a museum can’t buy something, they’ll notify me that a piece of art is available, and I buy it. And they just keep calling my doctor and asking about my health.
Larry Ellison
[On the fourth Mrs Ellison.] I’m looking for a woman who is smart and funny and compassionate – and great looking.
Larry Ellison
The whole idea is to give each and every one of those students a computer to use at school.
Larry Ellison
[In 2000] The internet changes everything.
Larry Ellison
[In 1998] The PC is a ridiculous device.
Larry Ellison
[In May 1998] The mainframe is not dead; it is just not at the center of the universe. The PC is not dead; it is just not at the center of the universe. At the center of the universe if the network, and the PC is a ridiculous device [to use to access information in this model.]
Larry Ellison
[In 2001.] They’ve been pitching a tent in our backyard. That’s an ugly place to be.
Larry Ellison
These are not products, they’re features.
Larry Ellison
[In 2001] We are the No. 1 provider of technology providing first-class Web services. But the idea that Web services will solve all known problems is just more of computer industry lunacy.
Larry Ellison
[In April 1995] We certainly have a very close relationship with Apple…
Larry Ellison
[In April 1995] We’re growing our support organization by 100 percent a year. But the standard of what people expect has been raised very substantially. I would guess support is still the biggest challenge, even though we’ve made a lot of progress.
Larry Ellison
[In August 1997] I have been using a Mac since 1984, and I am not about to stop.
Larry Ellison
[In September 1996] I don’t believe the killer app is browsing the Web. It’s e-mail.
Larry Ellison
[On Steve Jobs in July 1999] He’s my best friend. He’s an extraordinary human being.
Larry Ellison
[On him knowing about marketing.] I just learned from Steve [Jobs.]
Larry Ellison
The Apple Mac is different.
Larry Ellison
[In January 1996] Apple is Steve’s [Jobs] creation… They haven’t done much since he left.
Larry Ellison
To me the entire industry was headed in the wrong direction.
Larry Ellison
In marketing simple messages always win. The market itself has a different set of dynamics.
Larry Ellison
[On the world moving inexorably toward one network (The internet) and one database (From Oracle)] I really don’t think there will be another paradigm shift. This is it.
Larry Ellison
Building an integrated system out of several different software products that were never designed to work together is a very difficult task. A Oracle, we used to sell and deliver these best of breed systems; selling was easy, delivery was hard.
Larry Ellison
If Detroit ran like Silicon Valley, nobody would sell cars – just parts. Customers would have to figure out which were the ‘best’ parts a Honda engine, a Ford transmission, a BMW chassis, GM electrical system – and buy them and try to assemble them into a working car. Good luck. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s how companies put together business systems today.
Larry Ellison
Maggie just died. Cancer. She was ten years old… Sorry. She was my favorite cat.
Larry Ellison
Are you willing to pay less? That really is the question.
Larry Ellison
Dot-com mania was a fantasy, the world had gone a little bit crazy.
Larry Ellison
I’ll never forget when this reporter from The Wall Street Journal phones me to get my comments on a story he was writing on Grand Met’s [the international hotels and catering group] information strategy a few years ago. They decided that they were going to put a ‘low-cost’ database server computer into every Burger King. ‘What do you think of that, Larry?’ I was stunned. All I could say was ‘They’re putting databases in hamburger stores? What? Are they crazy? They shouldn’t put a database in every store.’ But they were kind of stuck… Good luck. It’s nearly impossible to manage all that distributed complexity… It was a ticking time bomb.
Larry Ellison
[On his network computer] If I’d been really smart I’d have called it an Internet computer. I called it a network computer partly because I liked Sun’s slogan – ‘The network is the computer.’ – and partly because the world ‘Internet’ was not all that well known in 1995.
Larry Ellison
We had to change the name… The big difference between the two? The name.
Larry Ellison
We used to deliver incomplete software, and you would finish it. Now we’re delivering nearly complete software – software that will meet eighty to ninety percent of your needs without any changes. So we’re asking customers not to try to put in the last ten, fifteen, or twenty percent. If you do, you’ll fall into the old trap. If you heavily modify our software, it will be difficult and expensive for you to take a new version of that software a year from now.
Larry Ellison
If you heavily modify our software and you call us with a question, we’ll have a hard time answering the question because you wrote a lot of the system, not us. You are better off, I submit to you, with an eighty percent solution install and working in six months than fantasizing about a hundred percent solution that you might finish in two years after you write lots of custom code.
Larry Ellison
It’s a classic business mistake to say, ‘This is how we do business; change your software so we can automate it.’ A new approach is needed. First, you must simply and modernize all your business processes, then move those newly standardized processes to the Internet. Only then can you expect the system to improve your business. Only then can you expect the system to be delivered on time.
Larry Ellison
I went to the University of Illinois for a couple of years, but during finals week my mother passed away, so I just packed up and left without taking exams. I didn’t like exams or the university or the town it was in, for that matter.
Larry Ellison
I recall one exam where I just sat there for an hour, unable to begin because I was so angry that I had to spend the next three hours writing answers to questions I cared nothing about. I never had the discipline to do things I didn’t like.
Larry Ellison
[On going to university for the second time.] I had such a short attention span that it was simply impossible for me to finish anything.
Larry Ellison
I was intrigued by physics because it seemed to answer the most basic questions about our world. Like a lot of young people, I was looking for answers.
Larry Ellison
[On learning basic computer programming.] I just read the book. It was similar to doing math proofs. It was logical, and I was good at logic.
Larry Ellison
No longer young, I am still looking for answers. Today the science I find offering the most insight into our world is molecular biology.
Larry Ellison
[On the initial ownership of Oracle.] Initially, I proposed splitting the company evenly between Bob [Miner], Ed [Oates], and me. Then I went home and thought about it. The company had been my idea, and so far I had done all the work. So I changed my proposal. I wanted sixty percent, while Bob and Ed would get twenty percent each. We agreed that this division was just a starting point and that both Bob and Ed could earn additional stock so long as they performed well. Bob did a great job, and his ownership was increased to thirty percent. Ed went through a messy divorce, which affected his performance, and he ended up leaving the company. Eventually Ed returned, but his ownership was reduced.
Larry Ellison
I wanted to get out of the consulting business. Consulting proved to be much more work than I ever imagined.
Larry Ellison
My ‘hard problems, cleverly solved’ business model did not scale up beyond a few people, proving I was not nearly as clever as I thought. I was working eight hours a week – at least.
Larry Ellison
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