Larry Ellison is a pioneering business leader and entrepreneur, best known for co-founding the software company Oracle in 1977.
He was born in 1944 in the Bronx, New York, to a single mother and sent to be raised by his great aunt and uncle in Chicago’s South Side nine months later. As a young adult, he was admitted to the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago but dropped out of both institutions without completing a degree. Over the next decade, Ellison wrote computer code for various technology companies before establishing Software Development Laboratories (which later changed its name to Oracle) with former colleagues Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
The company adopted the Oracle name in 1982 and went public in 1986. The following year, it ranked as the world’s largest database management company, with $100 million in sales and users in 55 countries.
Ellison stepped down from his role as Oracle CEO in 2014 but continues to serve as the company’s Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer. He owns around 1.15 billion Oracle shares, which equate to 42% of the company’s outstanding stock. Ellison’s net worth is $159.5 billion, according to Forbes, which ranks him as No. 5 on its list of billionaires.
Ellison owes much of his—and Oracle’s—success to a series of well-timed investments and acquisitions. Here’s a rundown of the most notable brands in his portfolio.
Oracle AcquisitionsSun Microsystems
Founded in 1982 by a group of Stanford graduates, Sun Microsystems was a provider of computers, computer components, software, and information technology services.
Oracle acquired the company for $7 billion in January 2010, enabling Ellison to tap into the hardware market and develop a high-performance infrastructure for the Oracle Database. The deal gave Oracle stewardship of two critical Sun software assets: Java and Solaris. “The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems,” Ellison said.
NetSuite
Founded in 1998, NetSuite is widely regarded as the world’s first cloud computing software company.
In November 2016, Oracle acquired NetSuite for $9.3 billion. At the time, NetSuite’s appeal was rooted in its broader client base, which included small- to medium-sized enterprises.
Today, the company offers an integrated system of cloud-based enterprise resource planning tools and omnichannel commerce software. It serves 38,000 customers in 219 countries and territories.
Hyperion Solutions
Hyperion was a leading global provider of performance management software solutions. In March 2007, Oracle acquired the company for approximately $3.3 billion.
"The acquisition of Hyperion makes Oracle the category leader in the high-growth enterprise performance management market,” Ellison said. At the time, 12,000 companies used Hyperion software, including 91 of the Fortune 100.
Today, Hyperion operates as a division of Oracle.
Siebel Systems
Founded in 1993, Siebel Systems is focused on designing, developing, marketing, and supporting customer relationship management (CRM) applications.
On September 12, 2005, Oracle announced its acquisition of Siebel—a long-time rival—in a deal worth $5.8 billion.
The acquisition saw Oracle gain 4,000 customers and 3.4 million CRM users overnight and was partly fueled by requests from the companies’ partners and customers. “Many of our largest customers, like General Electric, have encouraged the two companies to get together,” Ellison said.
PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft was founded in 1987 by Dave Duffield and Ken Morris, who were on a mission to develop cutting-edge human resource software to meet the changing demands of the business world. In 1988, they launched the world’s first high-end HR software application for a client/server system and, soon after, secured Kodak as a customer.
In December 2004, Oracle acquired PeopleSoft for approximately $10.3 billion. "This merger gives Oracle even more scale and momentum,” Ellison said. “We will have more customers, which increases our ability to invest more in applications development and support.”
Cerner
In June 2022, Oracle acquired electronic health records systems company Cerner in an all-cash $28.3 billion deal. “Combining Cerner’s clinical capabilities with Oracle’s enterprise platform, analytics, and automation expertise will change health and wellness in a way that simply hasn’t been possible before,” Oracle’s Executive Vice President, Mike Sicilia, wrote.
Cerner now operates as part of Oracle Health.
Additional Acquisitions and Investments
Tesla
Ellison has a stake of more than $1 billion in electric vehicle maker Tesla, which he said is his second-largest investment. He disclosed his stake in December 2018, when he joined the company’s board as an independent director.
Ellison stepped down from Tesla’s board of directors in June 2022. Today, the original three million shares he purchased would be worth about $6 billion.
Ellison is also a friend of Tesla’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk.
Read more about the companies owned by Elon Musk here.
Theranos
Healthcare start-up Theranos was founded in 2003 by Stanford University dropout Elizabeth Holmes. The company hoped to revolutionize the blood-testing industry using its cutting-edge technology, which it claimed could detect serious health conditions—such as cancer and diabetes—with just a few drops of blood.
Holmes, however, was later exposed and convicted as a fraud, deceiving investors, terminally ill patients, and many of her own employees to disguise the technology’s substantial failings. In 2022, she was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors and sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
Ellison, who was introduced to Holmes by the prominent Silicon Valley investor Don Lucas, became an early investor in Theranos. He joined the company’s Series C investment round, but the specific details of his investment have never been disclosed.
In the Hulu drama The Dropout, which tracks the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, Ellison is depicted as a close mentor of Holmes, but it is unclear if they maintained such a strong connection in real life.
Read more about the Holmes-inspired series, The Dropout, here.
X
In October 2022, Elon Musk completed a $44 billion deal to acquire the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter).
The takeover was funded, in part, by a $7.1 billion round of financing, to which Ellison contributed $1 billion. "It’s a real-time news service, and there’s nothing really like it,” Ellison said at the time. "If you agree it’s important for a democracy, then I thought it was worth making an investment in it.”
As Musk’s friend and a major X investor, Ellison benefits from superior customer service. Indeed, the X CEO reportedly helped Ellison when he forgot his password and found himself locked out of the site.
Sensei Ag
Larry Ellison and Dr. David Agus founded Sensei Ag in 2018. The agricultural technology company is committed to improving human nutrition using smart engineering and plant science.
The company is currently developing hydroponic farms on the Hawaiian island of Lanai. Ellison bought 98% of the island in 2012 for an estimated $300 million and it is now home to six solar-powered greenhouses, which have the capacity to grow over half a million pounds of produce a year.
Sensei Ag estimates that its innovative processes will use 10% of the water used in traditional farming. Ellison has also partnered with Tesla to power his farms with solar energy.
(Image Credit: Shutterstock/drserg)
