American entrepreneur and Oracle Corporation co-founder and CEO Lawrence Joseph “Larry” Ellison was born in Manhattan, New York on August 17, 1944. He was raised by his adoptive parents in a two-bedroom apartment located in the South Shore neighborhood in Chicago.

Larry Ellison was educated at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. However, he left the university after his 2nd year when his adoptive mother died. He eventually went to the University of Chicago and finished one term before he got into computer designing.
After relocating to Northern California at the age of 20, Larry Ellison began working as a computer programmer for different companies. His free time, though, was spent in Yosemite, where he biked and climbed to his heart’s content.

Several years later, Larry Ellison went to work with Ampex Corporation where he was a programmer on a CIA project database. The project was named “Oracle.”

A book he read while working on the said project gave him the inspiration to come up with $2,000 to start his own database systems company. He called his company Software Development Laboratories. The company changed names several times until Larry Ellison finally decided to settle with Oracle.

The company released its flagship database and called it Oracle 2 despite the fact that there was never an “Oracle 1.”

After Steve Jobs went back to the company in 1997, Larry Ellison became a director of Apple Computer, a position he held until his resignation in 2002.

Apart from his daily dealings with Oracle, Larry Ellison is also fond of sailing, cars, and is a certified pilot. He is the 2nd largest financier of BMW Oracle Racing. As a yachting enthusiast, he won the 1998 Sydney to Hobard Yacht Race on board his yacht Sayonara. His extensive car collection includes a McLaren F1, an Audi R8, and his favorite, the Acura NSX.

Larry Ellison is one of the world’s wealthiest persons, with an estimated net worth of $27 billion. Larry Ellison shares his many blessings with charitable donations to the Ellison Medical Foundation and a $115 million pledge to Harvard University.

Additional Information about Larry Ellison:

A brief biography of Larry Ellison.

In this Wall Street Journal article, Larry Ellison shares his thoughts about cloud computing.

The Academy of Achievement has a profile of Larry Ellison.

The Charlie Rose interview of Larry Ellison.