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Larry
Ellison
is the founder and CEO of the enterprise
software company Oracle Corporation. He
is also a well known American billionaire
and philanthropist.
Lawrence
Joseph Ellison, better known as Larry
Ellison, was born in New York City on
August 17, 1944 to a young unwed Jewish
mother. In order to provide her son with
a better upbringing, Ellison's mother
gave him to Lillian Spellman Ellison and
Louis Ellison, her aunt and uncle in Chicago.
They formally adopted Ellison when he
was only nine months old. Ellison didn't
meet or reunite with his birth mother
until he was 48.
Ellison's
adoptive father took the name Ellison
when he entered the US from his native
Crimea as a tribute to Ellis Island. He
also hoped to conceal his Jewish heritage.
In his early years, Ellison grew up in
the middle-class neighborhood of Chicago's
South Shore. Although he fondly recalls
the nurturing and supportive nature of
his adoptive mother, his adoptive father
was often distant and cold.
Although
he was labeled as an intelligent child,
Larry Ellison was inattentive in his studies.
After graduating from South Shore High
School, Ellison attended the University
of Illinois but left at the end of his
second year after the death of his adoptive
mother. He spent the summer living in
Northern California with his friend Chuck
Weiss then continued his studies at the
University of Chicago. He only spent one
term at the University during which time
he discovered computer programming and
permanently relocated to Northern California.
He was 20 years old at the time.
Although
his short attention span worked against
him during his academic career, Ellison's
drive and impatience worked perfectly
in line with the needs of computer programming.
He worked for a variety of companies as
a computer programmer and spent his free
time hiking and climbing in Yosemite.
In 1967 he married Adda Quinn. The marriage
lasted seven years and ended in a divorce
in 1974.
During
the later years of his marriage, Larry
Ellison began working for Ampex Corporation
as a programmer on a database project
for the CIA. Ellison named the project
"Oracle", a name he would later
use to signify his own company. While
working on the project, Ellison read "A
Relational Model of Data for Large Shared
Data Banks" by Edgar F. Codd which
inspired him to front the initial $2000
as the start-up fee for his own database
systems company named Software Development
Laboratories. It switched names a few
times and ended up as Oracle.
Larry
Ellison wanted his Oracle database system
to be compatible with the IBM System R,
but IBM refused to share the code necessary
to make this possible. So Ellison was
forced to release his system as a singular
data sharing system. The original release
was called Oracle 2, despite the lack
of an original Oracle or Oracle 1. During
this time Ellison also married Nancy Wheeler
Jenkins from whom he divorced one year
later.
IBM,
Ellison's initial rival, was the primary
database system for companies but failed
to initiate a system for smaller companies
and microcomputers. Ellison, along with
other entrepreneurs took advantage of
the void and flooded the market with their
systems. Oracle, Sybase, and eventually
Microsoft took over the market.
Just
before the rise of Oracle, Larry Ellison
met and married his third wife, Barbara
Boothe, with whom he had two children.
They divorced in 1986 after three years
of marriage.
As
Oracle rose to power along with other
database systems, its primary competitor,
Sybase, was taken over by PowerSoft and
lost some of its hold on the market. Although
the original Sybase software was sold
to Microsoft and turned into the well
known "SQL Server", this merger
allowed Oracle to recover from a financial
fall and lead the open market in database
systems.
For
a short time Larry Ellison served as director
of Apple
Computer when Steve Jobs returned
to the company in 1997. He resigned the
position in 2002, sighting his inability
to attend formal meetings, and one year
later married his fourth wife, Melanie
Craft. Steve Jobs served as the official
photographer at the wedding.
Lawrence
Ellison has five children, two with his
third wife and three with Melanie Craft.
This Larry Ellison biography may
not be reproduced online.
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