Ellison Stakes Oracle on $300 Billion AI Pivot, Media Dynasty

Bloomberg Originals

Driven by a lifelong fear of failure and ruthless competitive instinct, Larry Ellison is redirecting Oracle's predictable software cash flow into hyperscale AI data centers and Hollywood takeovers to cement an unchecked corporate empire.

AI-assisted summary of How Larry Ellison Built His Empire — original source. Check the original for full context.

Source published: 2026-09-14

Detailed notes

## Background Published by Bloomberg Originals on YouTube on September 12, 2026, this documentary profile explores how 82-year-old billionaire Larry Ellison built his Oracle software empire and continues expanding into media and artificial intelligence infrastructure. Through interviews with Ellison's former business partner and a childhood friend, the video investigates what drives the tech titan and why he shows no signs of slowing down.

## TL;DR The documentary examines Larry Ellison's rise from an adopted, defiant Chicago youth to the co-founder of enterprise software titan Oracle, driven by an intense fear of failure and an unapologetic, win-at-all-costs ethos. It chronicles his early commercialization of relational databases, survival of near-fatal accounting scandals, and legendary corporate brawls against Bill Gates, Tom Siebel, and PeopleSoft. Rather than retiring, the octogenarian billionaire has redirected Oracle's vast capital into hyperscale artificial intelligence infrastructure like Project Stargate, leveraged political connections to secure TikTok's US data operations, and financed his son David Ellison's high-stakes entertainment conquests at Skydance and Paramount.

## Atmosphere & style The piece unfolds like a fast-paced corporate thriller crossed with an incisive character study of an unapologetic, swashbuckling anti-nerd who modeled his public persona after Tony Stark. Sleek journalistic storytelling contrasts high-stakes Silicon Valley boardroom warfare and espionage with intimate, grounded recollections from childhood friends who view his ascent with mixed awe and unease. As the narrative progresses from database software to vast AI data centers and media consolidation, the mood shifts from swashbuckling tech bravado to an unsettling meditation on modern, unchecked dynastic power.

## Key takeaways - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=0s) Ellison's lifelong business philosophy is defined by a ruthless Genghis Khan adage: winning is not enough unless your competitors completely lose. - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=0s) Oracle built its multi-billion-dollar foundation not on glamorous consumer apps, but on managing the vital enterprise plumbing of global corporate data, finance, and supply chains. - [02:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=164s) Ellison's intense, stubborn ambition was forged in Chicago by an unsupportive adoptive father who claimed he would never amount to anything, cultivating a deep-seated fear of failure. - [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=300s) Ellison broke the mold of the humble Silicon Valley engineer by crafting an unapologetic playboy billionaire persona that directly inspired Hollywood's portrayal of Tony Stark in Iron Man 2. - [07:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=454s) Oracle was launched by commercializing IBM researcher Edgar F. Codd's relational database theory after working on a CIA contract codenamed 'Oracle'. - [07:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=454s) During Oracle's rivalry with Microsoft and Bill Gates, Ellison went as far as hiring private investigators to dumpster-dive for trade association records, unapologetically framing it as a public service. - [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=600s) An aggressive early-1990s revenue-recognition scandal nearly drove Oracle to bankruptcy and prompted regulators to overhaul software accounting rules nationwide. - [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=600s) Ellison demonstrated an unmatched appetite for predatory corporate combat through fierce battles with Tom Siebel and the hostile takeover and mass purge of PeopleSoft. - [13:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=792s) By retaining roughly 40% of Oracle's equity, Ellison exercises near-total corporate control while accumulating a personal fortune exceeding $100 billion. - [13:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=792s) Oracle shifted decades of predictable free cash flow into a high-stakes capital expenditure bet on physical cloud infrastructure and massive artificial intelligence server clusters. - [15:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=910s) Ellison translated strategic political alliances, including ties with Donald Trump, into massive commercial wins such as hosting TikTok's US cloud operations. - [15:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=910s) Oracle placed itself at the epicenter of the artificial intelligence boom through Project Stargate, a $300 billion supercomputing data center initiative partnered with OpenAI. - [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) Ellison is actively building a family media dynasty, backing his son David Ellison's Skydance with a personal $40 billion equity guarantee to acquire Paramount. - [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) Approaching his eighties with no plans to retire, Ellison is channeling vast wealth into life-extension research at the Ellison Institute of Technology while advocating for ubiquitous digital surveillance.

## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=0s) The Genghis Khan of Tech and the Modern Oracle Empire

Larry Ellison frequently invokes an adage traditionally attributed to Genghis Khan, repeating it so often that people have come to associate it directly with him: "It's not enough that I win, everybody else has to lose." This ruthless Mongol warlord mentality reflects Ellison's lifelong posture toward business, wealth, and competition. As one of the richest people on Earth, he openly embraces an unyielding drive, once remarking, "My personality doesn't allow me to quit while I'm winning." His corporate history is defined by the thrill of obliterating his adversaries—most famously demonstrated when Oracle pulled off a relentless, hostile takeover of rival software maker PeopleSoft. That win-at-all-costs ethos has become the primary lesson outsiders draw from his playbook, which now includes backing dynastic ambitions by throwing his personal billions behind his son David Ellison’s high-stakes entertainment maneuvers involving Paramount.

The company Ellison built, Oracle, is practically synonymous with the man himself, even if their public images appear entirely mismatched. While Ellison presents as a stylish, jet-setting octogenarian who casually owns a rhinoceros, Oracle has long suffered from the reputation of being unglamorous. At its foundation, it is a database and enterprise infrastructure giant that quietly manages the mundane scaffolding of the corporate world—workforce records, supply chains, and corporate accounting ledgers. Yet beneath that utilitarian facade sits a behemoth powering cloud computing, artificial intelligence infrastructure, enterprise application suites, specialized hardware, and defense and weapons systems.

Far from winding down in the twilight of his career, Ellison's appetite for expansion has accelerated. Oracle positioned itself at the center of geopolitical tech drama by joining the consortium tapped to acquire TikTok's American operations, partnered with fellow industry leaders on massive AI infrastructure initiatives like the Stargate supercomputer project, and pivoted its core business toward powering the next generation of artificial intelligence. At an age when observers expected his career to draw to a close, Ellison doubled down, wagering his entire legacy on high-scale computing bets that stretch back across eight decades of personal ambition.

- **Scale of Enterprise Scope:** Far beyond traditional relational databases, Oracle's modern portfolio spans hyper-scale cloud data centers, autonomous database systems, defense contracts, and massive AI clusters. - **Dynastic Expansion:** Backing his son David Ellison's Skydance and Paramount media expansion, bridging enterprise software capital with Hollywood studio power. - **Major Strategic Alliances:** Involvement in the proposed TikTok US corporate restructuring consortium and frontier artificial intelligence initiatives such as Stargate.

---

[02:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=164s) Chicago Roots, Adoption, and the Fear of Failure

The roots of Ellison's intense ambition trace back to working-class Chicago, where he grew up alongside childhood friends who find his astronomical ascent dizzying to look back upon. One next-door neighbor, who shared classes with Larry from kindergarten through the start of high school, recalled the formative emotional shock Ellison experienced at around age twelve. Ellison bounded up to his friend outside the house one afternoon and casually declared, "I'm adopted." His biological mother, Florence Spellman, was actually the niece of his adoptive mother, Lillian Ellison.

While Ellison's adoptive mother offered a warmth that neighbors admired, his adoptive father was a persistently harsh, skeptical presence in his life. The elder Ellison repeatedly denigrated the boy, bluntly telling him, "You'll never amount to anything." That constant belittling did not break Larry; instead, it sparked an unshakeable defiance. As Ellison later reflected, "I was told so often I wouldn't amount to anything, that I was very determined to amount to something."

Early signs of this obstinate drive surfaced in his local Boy Scout troop. In a bid to collect merit badges, the young city kid decided to earn one in farm design and management—despite never having set foot on an actual farm. He produced immaculate, highly detailed drawings entirely through independent study and secured the badge. That idiosyncratic instinct to master and lecture on obscure topics out of sheer self-reliance remained intact into his eighties; during a recent Oracle investor Q&A that Wall Street expected to focus strictly on quarterly financials, Ellison hijacked ten minutes to deliver a detailed dissertation on advanced agricultural methods, despite Oracle having no commercial agricultural business. As his childhood companion concluded, the relentless drive that spawned Oracle was shaped by a solitary instinct to prove himself without anyone's help: "I think most overachievers are driven not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure."

---

[05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=300s) The Anti-Nerd: Playboys, Superyachts, and the Real-Life Iron Man

In an industry largely defined by socially awkward engineers and low-profile technocrats, Larry Ellison consciously created an entirely different mold. Peers and observers describe him in stark terms: bright, articulate, erudite, and utterly ruthless. He has never cultivated an image as a "nice guy," nor does he concern himself with whether people like him. When told by acquaintances that he is nothing like what they expected, Ellison dryly retorts, "Well, it's a very low bar." Rather than hiding from public scrutiny, he embraces an unapologetic, aspirational machismo that treats market entry as a campaign for complete, total domination.

Even at eighty-two years old, Ellison retains an exceptional vigor, outlasting nearly all of his Silicon Valley contemporaries in active corporate power. He relishes public rivalries and treats his life as an open display of ultra-wealth. Rather than sticking to the archetypal nerdy tech-bro uniform, Ellison adopted the persona of a swashbuckling playboy: - **Aviation & Marine Sports:** A licensed pilot who races high-performance aircraft and has poured hundreds of millions into championship America's Cup sailing syndicates. - **Luxury Holdings:** Acquired his own premier professional tennis tournament (the Indian Wells Open), assembled one of the world's most extensive collections of 16th-century Japanese samurai swords, and purchased an African safari reserve. - **Architecture & Real Estate:** Modeled his sprawling Woodside, California estate after a 16th-century Japanese feudal castle, and famously purchased ninety-eight percent of the Hawaiian island of Lanai—where he famously received a speeding ticket from a local police officer on his own island.

Ellison's cultural footprint leans so heavily toward the flamboyant billionaire archetype that Hollywood borrowed him for the silver screen. In *Iron Man 2*, Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark encounters Ellison on his way into an expo, exchanging greetings with: "This is Larry. Hey, the Oracle of Oracle. What a pleasure." Ellison leaned into the cinematic parallel, savoring the comparison to a charismatic, self-made comic-book industrialist rather than an algorithmic coder. Yet behind the jet-setting bravura lay a calculating operator who recognized that visionary arrogance alone cannot execute massive projects. Ellison placed tremendous value on elite human capital, recruiting razor-sharp talent and driving his teams to the absolute edge of their human capabilities.

---

[07:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=454s) The CIA Project, Commercializing the Database, and War with Bill Gates

The journey toward creating the modern software market began when Ellison abruptly left the University of Illinois following the death of his adoptive mother. He loaded up his car, headed west to California, and plugged into the nascent Silicon Valley tech scene, picking up freelance programming gigs. At one company, he was assigned to a contract for the Central Intelligence Agency that went by the internal code name "Oracle."

It was the late 1970s, the dawn of commercial enterprise computing. Mainframes and mini-computers were beginning to enter corporations, generating vast amounts of operational data, but businesses lacked any standardized, efficient way to index, store, and query that information. IBM researcher Edgar F. Codd had theorized a mathematical framework for a "relational database," but IBM hesitated to commercialize it for fear of cannibalizing its existing database products. Ellison, along with co-founders Bob Miner and Ed Oates, seized upon Codd’s papers. IBM had invented the theory, but Ellison saw the commercial goldmine and built a working, market-ready relational database using SQL.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Oracle Genesis and Early Market Expansion accDescr: Diagram tracing Oracle from IBM research and a CIA contract through its commercial database launch and rivalry with Microsoft.

subgraph Origins ["Origins & Innovation"] A["Edgar F. Codd (IBM Research) Publishes relational database theory"] B["CIA Contract Project codenamed 'Oracle'"] C["Ellison, Miner & Oates Found Software Development Laboratories"] end

subgraph Product ["Market Breakthrough"] D["Commercial Relational Database First commercially viable SQL implementation"] E["Enterprise Dominance Tracking corporate finance, inventory & supply chains"] end

subgraph Showdown ["Rivalry & Public Markets"] F["March 1986 IPO Goes public one day before Microsoft"] G["Microsoft Antitrust Clashes Opposition against Bill Gates"] end

A --> D B --> C C --> D D --> E E --> F F --> G ```

Ellison frequently asserted that "nothing focuses a company like competition," and he soon locked horns with his ultimate corporate adversary: Bill Gates. The rivalry was cemented in March 1986, when Oracle went public exactly one day before Microsoft's IPO. While Ellison and Gates initially maintained a cordial rapport, the relationship curdled into deep hostility as their technology empires collided. Ellison later lamented their falling out: "Bill and I used to be friends a long time ago. That's before he turned mean and ran Netscape out of business."

During Microsoft's landmark federal antitrust battle in the late 1990s, Oracle went so far as to hire private investigative firms to snoop on pro-Microsoft trade associations—going through their literal trash dumpsters in Washington, D.C., in a hunt for incriminating ties and covert funding. When the dumpster-diving scheme was exposed, Ellison refused to apologize or feign embarrassment. Facing the press, he brazenly owned the operation, declaring that exposing Microsoft's covert lobbying front groups was an act of "public service." However, by the dawn of the 1990s, Ellison's aggressive, boundary-pushing corporate tactics and Oracle's hyper-aggressive sales culture were about to bring the company face-to-face with its first near-fatal financial crisis.

[10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=600s) Accounting Scandals and Ruthless Rivalries: The Siebel and PeopleSoft Wars

In the early 1990s, Oracle faced an existential crisis when the federal government revealed that the company had been overstating its sales. The fallout was swift and devastating: Oracle's stock plummeted by three-quarters, sparking active talks of bankruptcy. The aggressive revenue-recognition tactics Oracle used three decades ago were so disruptive that they prompted regulators to write brand-new software accounting rules that remain on the books today. Yet this brush with ruin did nothing to blunt Larry Ellison’s combative instincts. Ellison has long been notorious for publicly savaging his opponents—boasting at one point, "We fired that idiot"—and actively thriving when locked in combat with a direct challenger. As Ellison once framed his philosophy, "I just like competing as opposed to, you know, just going out and quietly watching the sunset."

That predatory drive was on full display in Ellison's relationship with former executives who dared to leave and challenge him. A prime example was Tom Siebel, a hard-nosed executive who once got mauled by an elephant on safari and subsequently hung a massive picture of the elephant in his office as a badge of resilience. While at Oracle, Siebel built an internal precursor to modern Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and urged Ellison to package and sell it commercially. Ellison had other priorities at the time, prompting Siebel to say, "See you later, bye," and walk out to launch Siebel Systems. When Siebel Systems quickly captured a dominant share of the lucrative CRM market, Ellison branded his former protege the enemy, publicly pledging to assign 3,000 engineers to crush them. Ellison waged an all-out media brawl and even dispatched ice cream trucks directly into Siebel Systems' corporate parking lot in an attempt to poach their staff. The bitter rivalry ended in the fall of 2005 when Ellison personally telephoned Siebel out of the blue, culminating in Oracle acquiring Siebel Systems in a landmark merger.

Ellison's appetite for hostile takeovers reached its apex during Oracle's contentious pursuit of PeopleSoft in the early 2000s. Co-founded by HR software pioneer Dave Duffield, PeopleSoft resisted Ellison's overtures in a protracted fight that Duffield later called one of the worst moments of his life. After forcing the buyout, Oracle abruptly laid off roughly half of PeopleSoft's workforce. Yet, when Duffield dusted himself off to co-found Workday directly in the same enterprise software arena, Ellison gave him a figurative "hall pass" to compete. Ellison's character has always balanced a thirst for taking down adversaries with an innate, pragmatic respect for formidable business operators.

- **Regulatory Legacy**: Oracle's early-1990s practice of booking future software licensing sales in current quarters led directly to fundamental overhauls in standard software accounting rules. - **Siebel Hijinks**: Beyond engineering 3,000-person development pushes, Ellison's psychological warfare against Siebel Systems included parking Oracle-branded ice cream trucks outside Siebel headquarters to recruit defecting engineers. - **The PeopleSoft Purge**: The hostile takeover ended with Oracle eliminating roughly 50% of PeopleSoft's headcount before Dave Duffield rebounded to launch competitor Workday.

---

[13:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=792s) From Software Titan to Trillion-Dollar Circles: The Financial Evolution of Oracle

Oracle's financial trajectory mirrors Ellison's relentless expansion. When the firm completed its initial public offering in 1986, annual revenue was a modest $55 million. Despite nearly being wiped out by the subsequent accounting debacle, Oracle rebounded powerfully, turning Ellison into a billionaire by 1993. In 2005, Ellison ignited a sweeping, multi-billion-dollar acquisition spree, rolling up competitors across enterprise software. While Ellison eventually stepped aside as Chief Executive Officer to become Oracle's Chief Technology Officer and Executive Chairman, the company's aggressive momentum never wavered. Today, Oracle stands as a $450 billion titan projecting roughly $90 billion in annual revenue, anchored across three primary pillars: enterprise cloud applications (ERP, finance, and HR tools), legacy database software, and modern cloud infrastructure (OCI).

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Oracle Revenue Pillars and Free Cash Flow Shift accDescr: Diagram illustrating Oracle's three revenue segments and the pivot in free cash flow toward AI data center capital expenditures.

subgraph RevenueEngine["Oracle Revenue Engine (~$90B)"] direction TB A["Cloud Applications (Finance & HR Tools)"] B["Traditional Software (Database Systems)"] C["Cloud Infrastructure (OCI Data Centers)"] end

subgraph CapitalAllocation["Capital Deployment Shift"] direction TB D["Historic Multi-Billion Free Cash Flow"] E["Massive CapEx Gamble on AI Infrastructure"] end

RevenueEngine --> CapitalAllocation ```

However, this transition into cloud infrastructure fundamentally altered Oracle's financial plumbing. For decades since the 1990s, Oracle enjoyed vast, predictable free cash flow reliably measured in the billions. That comfortable cushion has been redirected into a monumental capital expenditure gamble on physical cloud and AI infrastructure. Wall Street embraced the pivot, sending Oracle's market valuation soaring and taking Ellison's personal net worth along with it. Holding a massive equity stake of approximately 40%, Ellison wields virtually unchecked corporate control.

Ellison's fortune—pegged at over $100 billion, ranking him comfortably among the ten wealthiest people on Earth—closely tracks Oracle's equity. That wealth puts him well ahead of long-time peer Bill Gates (who has dispersed much of his wealth via philanthropy), placing Ellison in the rarefied orbit of close personal friends like Elon Musk. Their close camaraderie was highlighted when Musk stayed at Ellison’s home while deliberating whether to buy Twitter. When Musk reached out asking how much Ellison wanted to invest in the buyout consortium, Ellison nonchalantly responded, "A billion? Whatever you recommend," sealing the commitment with casual thumbs-up emojis.

- **Equity Control**: Ellison's personal retention of roughly 40% of Oracle's common stock ties his personal net worth directly to the company's trading performance while securing absolute governance authority. - **Wealth Milestones**: Ellison achieved billionaire status in 1993; by the 2020s, Oracle's stock rally lifted his fortune past $100 billion, briefly touching ranks among the very richest individuals globally. - **The Twitter Commitment**: Ellison committed $1 billion to Elon Musk’s private takeover of Twitter via a casual text exchange while Musk was a guest at his estate.

---

[15:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=910s) Betting the Farm on AI: Project Stargate, Cloud Infrastructure, and Political Alliances

While a billion-dollar text message was extraordinary, it was dwarfed by Ellison’s next strategic move: staking the entirety of Oracle on the artificial intelligence boom. Adhering to his lifelong dogma that "being first is very important," Ellison recognized a structural evolution in enterprise tech. Just as co-founding Oracle in the 1970s proved that enterprise database software would be a goldmine, the AI revolution meant that owning physical computing infrastructure—massive server clusters, gigawatt-scale power hookups, and specialized data centers—would be both astronomically lucrative and geopolitically essential.

This vision crystallized around Project Stargate, a monumental cloud infrastructure contract valued at roughly $300 billion, under which OpenAI partnered with Oracle to construct unprecedented, hyperscale data center facilities starting in Texas. The sheer magnitude of the project brought Ellison directly into the highest corridors of American political power. Ellison stood at the White House alongside Donald Trump to publicly unveil Stargate, noting that the world had never seen data centers built on such a scale and expressing pride that Oracle would serve as the operational backbone.

Ellison's calculated alignment with Trump has repeatedly unlocked strategic commercial windfalls. When the federal government threatened to ban TikTok on national security grounds—with lawmakers asserting that ByteDance was harvesting American user data daily—Trump issued an executive order requiring TikTok's US operations to partner with domestic investors. Oracle stepped in to secure the prized contract to host and secure TikTok's domestic cloud operations, reinforcing how Ellison seamlessly translates political relationships into monopolistic enterprise infrastructure.

- **Project Stargate Scale**: The infrastructure initiative involves roughly $300 billion in commitments to build custom, supercomputer-grade data center clusters, with initial construction centered in Texas. - **Geopolitical Infrastructure**: Ellison's cloud push shifts Oracle from being merely an enterprise software vendor into a mission-critical utility provider for global AI modeling and sensitive geopolitical data. - **The TikTok Rescue**: By positioning Oracle as a trusted domestic security partner, Ellison captured TikTok’s American cloud footprint amidst bipartisan regulatory threats of a federal ban.

---

[17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) The Ellison Octopus: Media Dynasties, Longevity, and Unchecked Power

As Ellison approaches his eighties, he shows zero inclination toward retirement, driven by an obsession with longevity and biotechnology. He directs massive tranches of his personal fortune into the Ellison Institute of Technology, funding moonshot initiatives spanning cancer treatment, biomedical science, and life-extension research. As an associate noted, "Like any ongoing adventure, I have no idea how it ends, but I know it will. Do I see him retiring? I don't know. I'll ask him. But I don't see any reason why he should." Short of conquering human mortality, Ellison has orchestrated a familial and technological dynasty designed to project power long into the future.

Ellison's influence is rapidly consolidating across Hollywood and mass media through his son, David Ellison, head of Skydance Media. With his father backing him with a personal guarantee of $40 billion in equity financing, David executed an aggressive, hostile pursuit to acquire Paramount and mount a play for Warner Bros. Discovery, positioning Skydance to become one of the most formidable media conglomerates in Hollywood history. Observers draw direct parallels between Larry Ellison's early corporate raids and David's cutthroat negotiating style, noting that Ellison is visibly thrilled watching his son emerge as a modern-day Rupert Murdoch.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: The Reach of the Ellison Empire accDescr: Diagram illustrating the tentacles of Larry Ellison's influence across enterprise tech, media, national infrastructure, and biotechnology.

Ellison["Larry Ellison's Spheres of Influence"]

subgraph Enterprise["Enterprise & AI Cloud"] OCI["Oracle Cloud Infrastructure"] Stargate["Project Stargate (OpenAI)"] end

subgraph MediaDynasty["Media & Entertainment"] Skydance["David Ellison's Skydance"] Paramount["Paramount & Warner Bros. Plays"] end

subgraph StateTech["Surveillance & National Reach"] TikTok["TikTok US Cloud"] PublicSafety["Ubiquitous Recording / Public Safety"] end

subgraph Science["Longevity & Biotech"] EIT["Ellison Institute of Technology"] end

Ellison --> Enterprise Ellison --> MediaDynasty Ellison --> StateTech Ellison --> Science ```

This staggering consolidation of enterprise software, artificial intelligence data centers, mass media assets, social networks, and surveillance capabilities evokes the famous Gilded Age political cartoons of the Standard Oil "octopus" wrapping its tentacles around every facet of public life. Ellison himself has openly embraced ubiquitous digital monitoring, remarking that in the near future, "The police will be on their best behavior. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on."

This concentration of authority causes deep unease, even among Ellison's lifelong confidants. A childhood friend reflected on the uncomfortable dissonance of holding affection for a lifelong companion who has ascended into an unaccountable billionaire ruling class: "Here's a person that I have a childhood loyalty with and no negativities. And now is a member of a multi-billionaire elite that has an amount of power that does have an effect on my life and the lives of all the people I know, without our giving them that power. That's a toughie for me." Nearly fifty years after founding Oracle, Ellison has demonstrated unmatched staying power, continually reinventing entire industries around himself. While many investors harbor deep anxiety over his high-stakes bets on AI debt and capital expansion, historical precedent offers a blunt warning: you do not bet against Larry Ellison.

- **The Media Dynasty Guarantee**: Larry Ellison put up a personal $40 billion equity backstop to finance David Ellison's Skydance takeover bids for legacy entertainment titans Paramount and Warner Bros. - **Biotech and Mortality**: The Ellison Institute of Technology serves as the primary vehicle for Ellison's philanthropic and personal obsession with solving human disease and extending life expectancy. - **Total Surveillance Philosophy**: Ellison envisions a society where pervasive, automated reporting keeps both law enforcement and ordinary citizens in check through continuous recording. - **Enduring Rule**: Five decades after Oracle's inception, Ellison remains one of Silicon Valley's most consequential and feared figures, having evolved from a scrappy database developer into an infrastructure and media sovereign.

## Notable quotes > [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=0s) It's not enough that I win, everybody else has to lose. — Larry Ellison

> [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=0s) My personality doesn't allow me to quit while I'm winning. — Larry Ellison

> [02:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=164s) You'll never amount to anything. — Larry Ellison's adoptive father

> [02:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=164s) I was told so often I wouldn't amount to anything, that I was very determined to amount to something. — Larry Ellison

> [02:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=164s) I think most overachievers are driven not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure. — Childhood friend

> [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=300s) Well, it's a very low bar. — Larry Ellison

> [07:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=454s) Bill and I used to be friends a long time ago. That's before he turned mean and ran Netscape out of business. — Larry Ellison

> [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=600s) I just like competing as opposed to, you know, just going out and quietly watching the sunset. — Larry Ellison

> [13:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=792s) A billion? Whatever you recommend, — Larry Ellison

> [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) Like any ongoing adventure, I have no idea how it ends, but I know it will. Do I see him retiring? I don't know. I'll ask him. But I don't see any reason why he should. — Associate

> [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) The police will be on their best behavior. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on. — Larry Ellison

> [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) Here's a person that I have a childhood loyalty with and no negativities. And now is a member of a multi-billionaire elite that has an amount of power that does have an effect on my life and the lives of all the people I know, without our giving them that power. That's a toughie for me. — Childhood friend

## Mentioned Larry Ellison, David Ellison, Florence Spellman, Lillian Ellison, Edgar F. Codd, Bob Miner, Ed Oates, Bill Gates, Tom Siebel, Dave Duffield, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Robert Downey Jr., Rupert Murdoch, Oracle, Bloomberg Originals, PeopleSoft, Paramount, Skydance Media, TikTok, ByteDance, OpenAI, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), IBM, Software Development Laboratories, Microsoft, Netscape, Siebel Systems, Workday, Twitter, Warner Bros. Discovery, Ellison Institute of Technology, Project Stargate, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Iron Man 2, Indian Wells Open

## Video description Larry Ellison built an empire on database software, but that was just the beginning. Now he's expanding into artificial intelligence infrastructure and media, placing his biggest bets yet. Bloomberg Originals speaks with Ellison's former business partner and a childhood friend to unpack what drives the 82-year old billionaire, and why he doesn't seem to be slowing down.

#Oracle #LarryEllison #Profile #Documentary

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[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g)

中文简报

埃里森押注甲骨文3000亿美元AI转型与传媒帝国在对失败的终生恐惧与残酷竞争本能的驱使下，Larry Ellison正将Oracle稳定的软件现金流投向超大规模AI数据中心以及好莱坞并购，以巩固一个不受制约的商业帝国。该纪录片审视了Larry Ellison如何从一名被收养且叛逆的芝加哥青年，崛起为企业软件巨头Oracle的联合创始人，驱动他的是对失败的极度恐惧以及理直气壮、不惜一切代价求胜的行事信条。影片记录了他早期对关系型数据库的商业化推广、在几乎致命的会计丑闻中逃过一劫的经历，以及他与Bill Gates、Tom Siebel和PeopleSoft之间传奇般的商业较量。这位耄耋之年的亿万富翁不仅没有退休，反而将Oracle的巨额资本导向了诸如“星门计划”（Project Stargate）等超大规模人工智能基础设施，利用政治关系锁定了TikTok的美国数据运营权，并资助其子David Ellison在Skydance和Paramount开展高风险的娱乐业并购扩张。 Ellison一生的商业哲学可用一句冷酷的成吉思汗格言来概括：仅仅自己获胜还不够，对手必须彻底失败。 (0:00) Oracle数百亿美元的基石并非建立在光鲜亮丽的消费级应用上，而是在于管理全球企业数据、财务与供应链等至关重要的企业底层基础设施。 (0:00) Ellison强烈而执拗的野心是在芝加哥养成的，冷漠的养父曾断言他终将一事无成，这让他内心深处埋下了对失败的极度恐惧。 (2:44) Ellison打破了硅谷工程师谦逊低调的固有形象，塑造出毫不掩饰的花花公子亿万富翁人设，这直接启发了好莱坞在《钢铁侠2》中对Tony Stark的塑造。 (5:00) Oracle是在执行了一项代号为“Oracle”的CIA合同后，通过将IBM研究员Edgar F. Codd的关系型数据库理论商业化而成立的。 (7:34)

Reading summary

In this Bloomberg Originals profile, Larry Ellison is examined as a relentless corporate competitor who built Oracle from a late-1970s database startup into a $450 billion enterprise giant. Now in his eighties, Ellison is leveraging his roughly 40% stake in the company to make massive bets on artificial intelligence infrastructure, geopolitical cloud contracts, and a family media dynasty. Defiance, Self-Reliance, and the Anti-Nerd Persona (2:44) Ellison's combative drive traces back to a working-class Chicago upbringing where he learned around age twelve that he was adopted, and where his adoptive father repeatedly told him he would "never amount to anything." According to a childhood friend, this fostered an overachiever's fear of failure and a fierce self-reliance—traits still visible when an octogenarian Ellison recently hijacked ten minutes of an Oracle investor Q&A to lecture on advanced agricultural methods. Rather than adopting Silicon Valley's low-profile engineer archetype, the 82-year-old cultivated a flamboyant playboy image, once making a cameo alongside Tony Stark in Iron Man 2. His holdings include the Indian Wells tennis tournament, a Woodside estate modeled after a 16th-century Japanese castle, an African safari reserve, and 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai. Behind the luxury, peers and observers note he remains a calculating operator who recruits elite talent and pushes teams to their limits. Database Commercialization and Ruthless Corporate Warfare (7:34) Oracle's foundation was laid in the late 1970s after Ellison moved to California and worked on a CIA contract codenamed "Oracle." With co-founders Bob Miner and Ed Oates, he commercialized IBM researcher Edgar F. Codd's theoretical relational database framework using SQL. After going public in March 1986 with $55 million in annual revenue—one day before Microsoft's IPO—Oracle nearly collapsed in the early 1990s when federal regulators found it had overstated sales, sending its stock down by three-quarters and prompting new software accounting rules. Ellison survived the crisis and embraced an adage attributed to Genghis Khan: "It's not enough that I win, everybody else has to lose." During Microsoft's late-1990s antitrust battle, Ellison unapologetically hired private investigators to sift through pro-Microsoft trade groups' trash, calling it a "public service." In the 2000s, he waged an aggressive campaign against former protege Tom Siebel's CRM company—pledging 3,000 engineers and sending ice cream trucks to poach staff before acquiring Siebel Systems in the fall of 2005—and executed a hostile takeover of Dave Duffield's PeopleSoft, laying off roughly half its workforce. Oracle’s Financial Shift Toward AI and Geopolitics (13:12) Following a multi-billion-dollar acquisition spree beginning in 2005, Oracle evolved into a $450 billion titan projecting roughly $90 billion in annual revenue across cloud applications, legacy databases, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Holding approximately 40% of Oracle's stock, Ellison became a billionaire by 1993 and now holds a fortune exceeding $100 billion, allowing him to casually text Elon Musk a $1 billion commitment for the Twitter buyout. After stepping aside as CEO to become Chief Technology Officer and Executive Chairman, Ellison redirected Oracle's historically predictable multi-billion-dollar free cash flow into heavy capital expenditures for AI data centers. This strategy anchors Project Stargate, a roughly $300 billion cloud infrastructure partnership with OpenAI starting in Texas. Ellison unveiled Stargate at the White House alongside Donald Trump, whose executive order on TikTok also helped Oracle secure the contract to host and secure TikTok's US cloud operations. Media Dynasties, Longevity, and Expanding Influence (17:35) Showing no inclination toward retirement, Ellison funds cancer, biomedical, and life-extension research through the Ellison Institute of Technology while expanding his family's reach into mass media. By providing a $40 billion personal equity financing guarantee, he backed his son David Ellison's Skydance Media in an aggressive pursuit to acquire Paramount and mount a play for Warner Bros. Discovery. The program compares this consolidation of enterprise software, AI infrastructure, social media hosting, and Hollywood studios to Gilded Age political cartoons of the Standard Oil "octopus." Ellison has also openly endorsed ubiquitous digital monitoring, predicting that continuous recording and reporting will keep both police and ordinary citizens on their "best behavior." While a childhood friend expressed unease over how a member of the multi-billionaire elite can wield unaccountable power over public life, investors harbor anxiety over Ellison's high-stakes bets on AI debt and capital expansion. Even so, the program concludes that five decades of corporate history offer a blunt warning against betting against Larry Ellison.

精炼阅读摘要

彭博原创（Bloomberg Originals）指出，甲骨文（Oracle）联合创始人拉里·埃里森（Larry Ellison）凭借极具攻击性的好胜哲学与对失败的深层恐惧，将一家早期数据库开发商打造成横跨企业软件、云计算、AI基建及好莱坞娱乐的万亿美元级商业帝国。成长逆境与成吉思汗式的竞争哲学 (2:44) 埃里森的野心深植于芝加哥工薪阶层的成长经历。他在12岁时得知自己实为收养，养父常年贬低他“一事无成”，这种持续的否定并未击垮他，反而激发了强烈的叛逆与对失败的恐惧。童年邻居回忆，埃里森曾凭自学画出精确图纸拿下未曾涉足的农场设计童子军徽章；即便年过八旬，他依然会在甲骨文财报电话会上脱稿详述先进农业技术。埃里森将这种个人意志上升为极端的商业信条，反复引用成吉思汗名言“光我赢还不够，其他人必须输”，并直言自己的性格不允许在获胜时停步。与硅谷内向沉闷的技术官僚不同，埃里森刻意塑造了一种张扬冷峻的“反极客”形象。他考取飞行执照驾驶战机、豪掷数亿美元组建美洲杯帆船队、买下印第安维尔斯网球公开赛与夏威夷拉奈岛（Lanai）98%的土地，并在加州仿建16世纪日本封建城堡。在电影《钢铁侠2》中，他甚至作为托尼·斯塔克的现实原型客串出镜。在埃里森看来，狂妄的公开姿态与对顶尖技术人才的残酷压榨，是企业在市场中实现绝对统治的必要手段。掠夺性扩张、会计风波与宿敌较量 (10:00) 1970年代末，埃里森在加州承接了美国中央情报局（CIA）代号为“Oracle”的项目，并敏锐捕捉到IBM研究员埃德加·科德（Edgar F. Codd）的关系型数据库理论。在IBM犹豫是否商业化以免冲击既有产品时，埃里森与合伙人创立公司率先推出商用SQL数据库。甲骨文于1986年3月抢先微软一天上市，拉开了埃里森与比尔·盖茨数十年宿怨的序幕。在1990年代末微软面临联邦反垄断审查期间，甲骨文甚至雇佣私家侦探翻查亲微软行业协会的垃圾桶寻找黑料，埃里森更公开宣称此类调查是“公共服务”。然而，激进的销售文化曾在1990年代初将甲骨文推向破产边缘：因提前计入未实现销售额，公司股价暴跌75%，并直接迫使监管机构全面重写软件会计规则。走出危机后，埃里森的攻击性丝毫未减。当前高管汤姆·西贝尔（Tom Siebel）离职创办西贝尔系统并在CRM领域占据先机后，埃里森扬言派遣3000名工程师彻底击溃对方，甚至将冰淇淋车开到对方公司停车场挖角员工，最终在2005年完成收购；而在强行敌意收购人力资源软件巨头仁科（PeopleSoft）后，甲骨文迅速裁撤了约半数员工，展现出极其冷酷的清剿风格。资本豪赌：AI基础设施与地缘契机 (15:10) 通过数十年大规模收购整合，甲骨文从IPO时期年营收5500万美元的小公司，演变为市值约4500亿美元、预期年收入约900亿美元的巨头，核心支柱由企业云应用、传统数据库和甲骨文云基础设施（OCI）构成。埃里森个人持有甲骨文约40%的股权，身价超过1000亿美元。不同于长期从事大额慈善捐赠的盖茨，埃里森的个人财富与公司估值紧密捆绑，且在商界随性展现资本影响力——在埃隆·马斯克留宿其住所商议收购Twitter时，埃里森仅通过短信便承诺出资10亿美元。面对人工智能革命，埃里森认定掌握物理计算设施才是根本，随即打破甲骨文坐拥数十亿美元稳定自由现金流的传统，将资金大规模押注于AI数据中心资本支出。其中最庞大的项目是与OpenAI合作、投资额达3000亿美元的“星际之门”（Project Stargate）超大规模数据中心计划。此外，埃里森积极利用政治资源变现：在联邦政府以国家安全为由威胁封禁TikTok时，埃里森通过与唐纳德·特朗普建立的紧密关系，成功推动甲骨文拿下托管TikTok在美云业务与安全保障的核心合同，完成了向关键基础设施公用事业提供商的转型。媒体王朝、长生执念与无界权力隐忧 (17:35) 步入80岁后，埃里森毫无退意，将其终极野心投向家族代际传承与生命延长。他为儿子大卫·埃里森（David Ellison）掌舵的天空之舞传媒（Skydance Media）提供了400亿美元的个人股权担保，支持其对派拉蒙（Paramount）实施激进收购，并伺机角逐华纳兄弟探索（Warner Bros. Discovery），试图建立横跨好莱坞的传媒托拉斯。在生命科学领域，他通过埃里森技术研究院（Ellison Institute of Technology）重金注资癌症攻坚与延寿科研，试图对抗死亡规律。这种融合了企业软件、AI算力、社交网络、大众传媒与生物技术的扩张，呈现出类似镀金时代标准石油“章鱼触角”般的集权状态。埃里森本人更公开推崇全方位数字化监控体系，认为无所不在的即时记录能确保执法者与公民均处于最佳约束状态。这种权力的高度集中引发了深层不安，甚至其儿时故交也坦言，面对一位拥有颠覆社会规则能力却缺乏公众问责的超级富豪统治阶层，人们在情感上感到无可奈何。该节目表明，尽管华尔街对甲骨文激进借贷与AI数据中心超额资本支出的财务转型深感担忧，但回顾埃里森近半个世纪不断通过边缘博弈与残酷竞争重塑产业格局的历史，商业界得出的核心教训始终是：永远不要轻易押注拉里·埃里森会失败。

Detailed notes — zh

## Background 本视频由 Bloomberg Originals 于 2026 年 9 月 12 日在 YouTube 平台发布。节目基于对拉里·埃里森（Larry Ellison）前商业伙伴与儿时好友的独家访谈，系统探讨了这位 82 岁的科技巨擘如何从企业数据库起家缔造商业帝国，并在步入耄耋之年依然激进押注 AI 算力基建与好莱坞传媒产业的深层驱动力。 ## TL;DR 节目详述了埃里森如何将童年被轻视的伤痛转化为“彻底消灭竞争对手”的狼性信条，抓住 CIA 数据库契机创立甲骨文（Oracle），并通过严酷打压微软、恶意收购 PeopleSoft 与 Siebel 等对手建立起千亿软件帝国。在打破常规押注云基础设施获得巨大回报后，82 岁的埃里森不仅手握甲骨文约 40% 股权，更与白宫紧密结盟，先后卡位 TikTok 核心云数据并推进规模达 3,000 亿美元的 OpenAI“星际之门”超大规模 AI 算力工程。与此同时，他还斥巨资支持儿子竞购派拉蒙等传媒资产，将触角延伸至文化霸权与无处不在的数据监控领域，打造出一个横跨算力、政商与传媒的现代权力寡头范本。 ## Atmosphere & style 叙事风格兼具商业调查的冷峻写实与好莱坞式人物传记的戏剧张力，将埃里森极尽享乐的花花公子派头与商业屠戮中的冷酷算计刻画得淋漓尽致。全片节奏紧凑、反差鲜明，既有顶级富豪谈笑间调动十亿资本的傲慢与洒脱，又穿插着发小面对故友掌控超凡权力时的撕裂感与警惕，给观者带来一种审视现代商业帝国“八爪鱼”式无限扩张时令人不寒而栗的压迫感。 ## Bulletin - [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=900s) 甲骨文全面押注人工智能基础设施，携手 OpenAI 推进规模高达 3,000 亿美元的“星际之门”（Project Stargate）超大规模数据中心项目。 - [13:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=822s) 拉里·埃里森个人净资产突破千亿美元，牢牢掌控甲骨文约 40% 的股权，并在马斯克收购推特等顶级资本运作中扮演核心资方角色。 - [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=900s) 凭借深厚的华盛顿政商关系网络，甲骨文成功拿下维护 TikTok 美国云服务的独家大单，牢牢卡位国家安全与底层海量数据合规要冲点。 - [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) 埃里森正全力支持其子大卫·埃里森（David Ellison）进军好莱坞，为其竞购派拉蒙提供高达 400 亿美元的融资担保，意图打造横跨科技与传媒的家族帝国。 ## Key takeaways - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=0s) 极端奉行“胜者通吃”的商业哲学：埃里森将成吉思汗的征服精神视作信条，不仅要求自己取胜，更执着于彻底击溃对手且决不在占优时收手。 - [02:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=157s) 芝加哥南区的童年创伤塑造极强掌控欲：被生母送养并长期遭受冷酷养父的情感打击，埃里森将对失败的深层恐惧转化为证明自我与攀登权力巅峰的终身动力。 - [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=300s) 颠覆传统硅谷极客形象的“钢铁侠”人设：驾驶战机、买下夏威夷拉奈岛、客串《钢铁侠2》并收藏日本武士刀，埃里森热衷扮演兼具享乐主义与铁血统治欲的商业枭雄。 - [07:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=442s) 抓住 CIA 情报项目历史机遇奠定软件根基：埃里森敏锐抢在 IBM 之前将关系型数据库理论商业化落地，依托代号为“Oracle”的情报数据库合约开创了巨额软件利润模式。 - [07:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=442s) 在与微软的反垄断激战中展现无情作风：埃里森坚信竞争能够激发极限潜能，甚至不惜雇佣私家侦探翻查微软关联机构的垃圾桶以获取打击对手的黑料。 - [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=600s) 历经会计丑闻考验后开启狼性并购狂潮：甲骨文早年曾因销售业绩造假险遭灭顶，危机后埃里森凭借强劲反弹跻身十亿富豪，并接连强行吞并 Siebel 与 PeopleSoft 等老对手。 - [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=600s) 转型 CTO 仍绝对支配 4,500 亿美元商业帝国：埃里森手握甲骨文约 40% 的股权，即便退居二线，甲骨文涵盖企业云应用、传统数据库与云基础设施的三大版图仍牢牢掌握在其手中。 - [13:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=822s) 孤注一掷豪赌云计算基础设施：埃里森打破甲骨文保持数十年的稳健自由现金流惯例，全面转向重资产的云基础设施（OCI）建设，最终获得资本市场的高度认可与重估。 - [13:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=822s) 顶级科技巨头间的资本共谋：埃里森与埃隆·马斯克私交甚笃，马斯克收购推特的核心决策即在其家中敲定，埃里森仅凭即时通讯轻松拍板 10 亿美元出资。 - [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=900s) AI 时代的“星际之门”与物理算力霸权：甲骨文与 OpenAI 达成价值 3,000 亿美元的云服务合作，将智能时代所必需的数据中心基础设施转化为兼具暴利与地缘政治价值的战略资产。 - [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=900s) 深嵌华盛顿政治圈层变现国家安全红利：借助与特朗普等核心政要的牢固联盟，甲骨文成功在 TikTok 危机中作为“受信任的技术伙伴”卡位数据安全防御中枢。 - [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) 提供 400 亿美元担保撬动好莱坞传媒版图：埃里森亲自注资力挺 Skydance 吞并派拉蒙并窥伺华纳兄弟，积极推进家族势力在主流文化娱乐产业的纵深扩张。 - [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) 无所不在的“八爪鱼”帝国与全景监控危机：从底层数据、AI 算力、社交媒体到好莱坞平台，埃里森构想的“全天候数据记录与汇报”引发公众对未受监管的超级寡头权力的深层担忧。 - [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) 82岁依然全速前行的商界常青树：埃里森一边巨资投向长寿抗衰医疗科研，一边在算力与传媒前沿持续下注，半个世纪的商业实践反复验证了“永远不要下注赌拉里·埃里森会输”。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=0s) 胜者通吃与现代帝国的起点有一句通常被认为出自成吉思汗的名言，因拉里·埃里森（Larry Ellison）频繁挂在嘴边，以至于许多人误以为是他的原创：“光是我赢还不够，其他人必须通统输掉”（"It's not enough that I win, everybody else has to lose"）。埃里森之所以在这位 13 世纪痴迷于欧亚大陆征伐的蒙古统治者身上看到自己的影子，源于他对极致权力、巨额财富以及彻底消灭竞争对手的渴望。作为全球最顶尖的富豪之一，他直言自己的性格“绝不允许在赢的时候收手”。从不惜代价恶意收购 PeopleSoft，到倾注个人财富资助儿子大卫·埃里森（David Ellison）旗下公司竞购派拉蒙（Paramount）与华纳兄弟资产以缔造家族传媒王朝，埃里森的人生信条始终是“不惜一切代价取胜”。埃里森与其一手创立的甲骨文（Oracle）几乎是同义词，但两者的公众形象却大相径庭。埃里森是一位生活在快车道上、甚至拥有一头活体犀牛的时髦八旬老人；而 Oracle 从表面看则是一家略显枯燥的数据库与数据中心企业，负责追踪员工、供应链和财务流水。但撕开这层沉闷的外表，Oracle 实际上已成为全球云计算、AI 基础设施、企业应用、硬件以及防务武器系统的核心巨头。随着 Oracle 参与收购 TikTok 美国业务、联合牵头 Stargate 等超大规模 AI 算力基础设施项目，在外界以为埃里森的传奇即将落幕之际，他再次将毕生基业押注在下一代技术变革之上。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Larry Ellison's Empire Ecosystem accDescr: An overview diagram showing Larry Ellison at the center connecting his core enterprise business, cutting-edge AI bets, and media empire expansion. subgraph Core["核心产业 (Core Business)"] A["Oracle 数据库与数据中心"] B["企业软件与云计算系统"] end subgraph Bets["前沿与算力押注 (Frontier Bets)"] C["AI 基础设施 / Stargate"] D["TikTok 美国运营财团"] end subgraph Media["家族与传媒版图 (Dynasty & Media)"] E["个人财富支持家族扩张"] F["Paramount 联合竞购"] end L["拉里·埃里森 (Larry Ellison)"] --> Core L --> Bets L --> Media ``` - 核心信条：奉行零和博弈与彻底战胜对手的极端竞争哲学。 - 产业跨度：横跨传统关系型数据库、政府与防务云服务、AI 超级算力集群及好莱坞传媒产业。 --- ### [02:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=157s) 芝加哥南区的童年印记与“一雪前耻”的执念这种横跨八十载的进取心，起点是芝加哥一个普通甚至带有刺痛感的童年。埃里森从幼儿园到高一时期的同班同学兼八年邻居回忆，当时根本无法想象这个社区的孩子未来会成为全球最有权势的富豪之一。在 12 岁左右，埃里森极其唐突地得知了自己的身世：他在家门前迎面跑向好友，脱口而出的第一句话就是“我是被收养的”。他的生母弗洛伦丝·斯佩尔曼（Florence Spellman）实际上是他养母莉莲·埃里森（Lillian Ellison）的侄女。养母虽性情温和，但养父却极度冷酷且经常贬低他，甚至当面断言“你这辈子绝不可能有出息”。正是这种深植骨髓的否定，彻底激化了埃里森向世界证明自己的决心：“我经常被告知自己一事无成，以至于我极其坚定地非要做出一番成就不可。”在当地的童子军时期，当所有孩子都在争夺常规徽章时，从未在农场生活过的埃里森竟然决定拿下“农场设计与管理”技能徽章，并凭借极具说服力的精美图纸成功拿下。这种行事风格数十年未变——在近年的某次面向华尔街的投资者业绩问答会上，其他公司高管都在详述财务报表，埃里森却花了足足 10 分钟大谈农业革新技术，即便 Oracle 根本没有该领域的业务。正如他自己所总结的：“大多数出类拔萃者并不是受对成功的渴望所驱使，而是源于对失败的深层恐惧。” - 出身背景：生母未婚生育后交由亲戚抚养，养父长期实行严苛的情感打击教育。 - 关键特质：将童年遭受的轻视转化为极端的个人驱动力与独立掌控欲。 --- ### [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=300s) “科技界的钢铁侠”：花花公子与无情领袖的双重面孔在科技界同侪与观察家眼中，现年 82 岁的埃里森被贴满了标签：“极具野心、聪明绝顶、博学、冷酷无情”。他从不在乎外界是否觉得他是个“好人”，面对别人说他与想象中不同，他会调侃称“那是因为公众预设的门槛太低了”。不同于硅谷常见的那种不修边幅、极客书呆子式的科技 CEO，埃里森自始至终都在扮演一个挥金如土、极尽享乐的花花公子角色。他组建顶级帆船队征战美洲杯、考取飞行员驾照驾驶战机、买下印第安维尔斯大师赛等顶级网球锦标赛、斥巨资收藏 16 世纪日本古董刀剑，并将硅谷豪宅打造成日式城堡；去年他还买下一座野生动物园，甚至直接买下了夏威夷的拉奈岛（Lanai）。即便在自己的岛上因为超速被巡警开罚单，他也毫不在意。埃里森不仅热衷于这种高调生活，还在电影《钢铁侠2》中客串登场，托尼·斯塔克走过走廊时与他迎面打招呼：“嘿，甲骨文的先知！”相比硅谷极客，他更享受自己被视作现实版钢铁侠的化身。但同时，埃里森深刻明白孤胆英雄无法打赢现代商业战争，他对顶级人才（Human Capital）极具嗅觉且要求苛刻，能够吸引全球最顶尖的头脑，并将他们压榨推进到人类能力的极限。 - 奢华版图：夏威夷拉奈岛、日式城堡庄园、战机、职业帆船队及古董日本武士刀收藏。 - 文化符号：打破传统硅谷极客刻板印象，塑造出反派色彩浓厚、兼具统治欲与享乐主义的商业枭雄形象。 --- ### [07:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=442s) CIA 代号“Oracle”与微软的宿命对决埃里森早年就读于伊利诺伊大学，在养母去世后毅然退学，开着一辆旧车孤身前往加州。正值 20 世纪 70 年代末计算机工业革命前夜，企业对程序员的需求爆发，埃里森在此期间参与了一个为中央情报局（CIA）开发数据库的项目，其内部代号正是“Oracle”。彼时计算机开始走向企业与商用市场，海量数据喷涌而出，却缺乏安全高效的存储与调用机制。尽管关系型数据库的核心理论最初由 IBM 提出，但 IBM 并未全力将其商业化，埃里森敏锐地抓住了这一历史机遇，创立公司并将这一看似枯燥却至关重要的技术做成了全球最赚钱的软件生意。埃里森坚信“没有什么比竞争更能让一家公司保持专注”，而他早期最强大的宿敌，正是 1983 年被《人物》杂志评为最具吸引力人物之一的比尔·盖茨。Oracle 与微软几乎在同一时期上市（Oracle 仅比微软早一天挂牌）。随着竞争白热化，两人的关系彻底破裂。埃里森公开嘲弄盖茨“以前我们是朋友，直到他变得尖酸刻薄、把网景公司（Netscape）逼入绝境”。在微软面临联邦反垄断审查期间，Oracle 甚至雇佣私家侦探去翻拣微软支持机构的垃圾桶寻找黑料；当手段被曝光时，埃里森毫无愧色，反而理直气壮地公开宣称这是一种揭露垄断真相的“公共服务”。然而，这种崇尚狼性、不择手段的打法，最终在 1990 年代初让埃里森和 Oracle 迎头撞上了险些覆灭的重大危机。 - 起源契机：承接 CIA 代号为“Oracle”的情报数据库研发项目。 - 商业突破：抢在 IBM 之前将关系型数据库理论实现真正的商业化规模落地。 - 商业暗战：在 1990 年代反垄断风暴中雇佣私家侦探翻查垃圾以寻找打击微软的黑料。 ### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=600s) 财务丑闻、商战宿敌与甲骨文的并购铁腕甲骨文在早年并非一帆风顺。联邦政府曾介入调查并指控甲骨文虚报销售额，导致公司股价瞬间暴跌四分之三，甚至一度传出即将破产的危机。由于甲骨文在30年前对会计准则的钻空子行为，监管部门甚至因此制定了沿用至今的新版软件行业会计准则。然而，拉里·埃里森（Larry Ellison）以公开抨击对手而闻名，他毫不避讳地说过“我们解雇了那个蠢货”，并在面对直接挑战者时显得异常兴奋。正如他自己所言：“我就是喜欢竞争，而不是安安静静地坐着看日落。” 在软件行业尤其是甲骨文公司，经常上演高管出走并创办新公司与老东家对抗的桥段，汤姆·西贝尔（Tom Siebel）就是最典型的代表。西贝尔曾遭遇大象袭击受重伤，事后却在办公室挂起一张巨大的大象照片——他和埃里森骨子里是同一种不服输的人。西贝尔在甲骨文时曾主持开发了如今被称为客户关系管理（CRM）的系统，并提议埃里森将其商业化推广，但当时埃里森另有重心。西贝尔随即离职创立了 Siebel Systems，迅速瓜分了利润丰厚的 CRM 市场。被激怒的埃里森将西贝尔视为死敌，公开宣布将调遣3000名工程师开发 CRM 系统彻底打垮西贝尔，双方在媒体上爆发了激烈的口水仗。埃里森甚至派出冰淇淋车开进 Siebel 公司的停车场当街挖角员工。然而商场如战场，到了2005年秋天，埃里森亲自致电西贝尔，最终甲骨文顺理成章地将 Siebel Systems 收购兼并。埃里森在并购领域的狠辣作风并非人人都能释怀。2000年代初，他发起了商业史上最著名的恶意收购之一，强行吞并了人力资源软件先驱 PeopleSoft。PeopleSoft 的联合创始人戴夫·杜菲尔德（Dave Duffield）称那是他人生中最黑暗的时刻之一——甲骨文收购后裁减了一半员工。但令人玩味的是，杜菲尔德后来再度创业成立了同领域的 Workday，而埃里森反而默许了他去公平竞争。这充分展现了埃里森的双面性格：他热衷于摧毁对手，但同时也打心底里尊重真正的商业竞争。 - 1986年甲骨文上市时年营收仅为 5,500 万美元，虽经历会计丑闻的重创，但凭借随后的强劲反弹，埃里森在1993年正式跻身十亿级富豪行列。 - 2005年起埃里森开启疯狂并购狂潮，先后吞并了包括 PeopleSoft、Siebel Systems 在内的众多行业竞争对手。 - 随后埃里森卸任首席执行官（CEO），转任首席技术官（CTO）和执行董事长，但甲骨文的发展轨迹依旧牢牢掌握在他手中。 - 如今甲骨文已成为市值 4,500 亿美元的科技巨擘，年营收逼近 900 亿美元，业务由云应用（财务与HR工具）、传统软件（甲骨文数据库）以及云基础设施三大支柱构成。 ### [13:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=822s) 孤注一掷云基建与千亿财富的权力联盟长期以来，甲骨文自90年代起便保持着极其稳健、以十亿美元计的自由现金流。然而，埃里森打破了这一惯例，做出了一场彻底颠覆现金流的巨大豪赌——全面押注云基础设施（Cloud Infrastructure）。虽然这一激进转型最初引发了华尔街的疑虑，但随后资本市场全面买账，甲骨文市值一路狂飙，埃里森的个人财富也水涨船高。埃里森至今仍持有甲骨文约 40% 的股权，不仅牢牢控制着这家帝国，其个人净资产也与公司股票紧密挂钩，一度达到 1,070 亿美元，位列全球富豪榜前列，甚至接近比尔·盖茨身家的两倍。埃里森与埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）私交甚笃。马斯克决定收购推特（Twitter）的念头正是在埃里森家里做客时定下的。当时马斯克为收购筹集资金向埃里森询问意向，埃里森随性地问：“投10亿美元怎么样？或者按你的建议来”，随后发了几个点赞的表情包便轻松敲定。这种视十亿资金如等闲的行事风格，折射出顶级科技寡头之间非同寻常的资本联结。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Larry Ellison AI Infrastructure and Political-Media Influence accDescr: 展现埃里森在云基建、政商联盟及跨媒体领域的战略扩张逻辑。 subgraph CoreEngine ["核心战略押注：云与AI基建"] A["甲骨文40%核心控股权"] --> B["豪赌云计算基础设施 (OCI)"] B --> C["OpenAI 3000亿美元星际之门 (Project Stargate)"] end subgraph DCAlliance ["政商联盟与数据特权"] D["华盛顿白宫战略同盟"] C <--> D D --> E["TikTok 美国云数据托管与审查防线"] end subgraph Expansion ["帝国版图扩张"] A --> F["资助大卫·埃里森 (Skydance / Paramount)"] F --> G["好莱坞巨型传媒集团 (拟收购华纳兄弟)"] end ``` ### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=900s) AI时代的“星际之门”与华盛顿的政商交织 “抢占先机至关重要”，这是埃里森的信条。手握庞大的个人财富与甲骨文的绝对控制权，埃里森几乎将整个公司的未来都押注在人工智能浪潮上。作为这场豪赌的核心，甲骨文与 OpenAI 达成了约 3,000 亿美元规模的巨额云服务合同——“星际之门”项目（Project Stargate），负责建造人类历史上前所未有规模的超大型数据中心集群。埃里森当年敏锐洞察到企业软件基础设施是时代金矿，而在 AI 时代，他再次认准为智能提供物理基础设施及配套设施不仅极其吸金，更具有重大的地缘政治战略意义。埃里森公开现身白宫宣布“星际之门”项目，首批超大规模数据中心已在得克萨斯州动工。这场亮相不仅展现了合同规模的震撼，更凸显了他与唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）之间的紧密纽带，埃里森盛赞对方是“不可思议的人与商业奇才”。两人的政治与商业互信同样体现在 TikTok 事件中：在华盛顿政界指责 TikTok 收集美国公民数据并威胁全面封禁时，正是甲骨文作为受信任的技术伙伴赢得了维护其美国云服务的核心合同，随后白宫签署行政命令推动美资控制 TikTok 业务，让甲骨文稳稳卡位国家安全与海量数据的咽喉要道。 - 埃里森坚信长寿与医疗科研能够对抗衰老，将巨额个人财富投入埃里森技术研究院（Ellison Institute of Technology），致力于生命科学、前沿医学与科研攻关。 - 面对是否会退休的疑问，埃里森的朋友直言看不到他退居二线的任何理由，他宛如在一场永不落幕的冒险中前行。 ### [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) 好莱坞新巨头与无处不在的“八爪鱼”帝国除了医疗与科技，埃里森的家族野心正在好莱坞掀起巨浪。他的两个子女已成为极具影响力的媒体大亨，尤其是儿子大卫·埃里森（David Ellison）执掌的 Skydance，正在迈向好莱坞史上最庞大的娱乐传媒集团。在这场好莱坞控制权争夺中，老埃里森亲自为大卫提供了高达 400 亿美元的股权融资担保。这场以收购派拉蒙（Paramount）并进一步觊觎华纳兄弟（Warner Bros.）的商业攻势异常凶悍，埃里森显然乐于全力支持儿子成为“新一代鲁伯特·默多克”。这种科技、政府、媒体与监控技术的结合，引发了深层的社会警惕。历史政治漫画中曾用“八爪鱼”（Octopus）来指代触手无所不及的强盗大亨（Robber Baron），而埃里森的商业帝国正在重演这一幕。甲骨文不仅掌握底层数据与热点 AI 基建，触角更延伸至好莱坞内容霸权与 TikTok 等大众社交平台。埃里森甚至曾公开描述过一种未来图景：“警察将规规矩矩，普通民众也会规规矩矩，因为我们将全天候记录并报告正在发生的一切。”这种近乎全景监控的论调，让硅谷寡头与华盛顿特权深度捆绑的现状更加令人不寒而栗。埃里森的儿时好友在片中感慨，面对这位相识数十载、毫无私怨的发小，内心却充满了撕裂感：曾经的朋友如今变成了超级亿万富豪精英阶层的一员，他们手中握有的滔天权力深刻影响着每个普通人的生活，而公众却从未赋予他们这等权力。在创立甲骨文近半个世纪之后，82岁的埃里森依然没有放慢脚步，他不断重塑行业与经济格局；尽管他在 AI 基建上进行的史诗级下注让许多投资人忧心忡忡，但半个世纪的商业史早已印证了一条准则：永远不要轻易下注赌拉里·埃里森会输。 ## Notable quotes > [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=0s) 光是我赢还不够，其他人必须通统输掉 — 拉里·埃里森 > [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=0s) 绝不允许在赢的时候收手 — 拉里·埃里森 > [02:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=157s) 你这辈子绝不可能有出息 — 埃里森养父 > [02:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=157s) 我经常被告知自己一事无成，以至于我极其坚定地非要做出一番成就不可。 — 拉里·埃里森 > [02:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=157s) 大多数出类拔萃者并不是受对成功的渴望所驱使，而是源于对失败的深层恐惧。 — 拉里·埃里森 > [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=300s) 嘿，甲骨文的先知！ — 托尼·斯塔克（《钢铁侠2》） > [07:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=442s) 没有什么比竞争更能让一家公司保持专注 — 拉里·埃里森 > [07:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=442s) 以前我们是朋友，直到他变得尖酸刻薄、把网景公司（Netscape）逼入绝境 — 拉里·埃里森 > [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=600s) 我就是喜欢竞争，而不是安安静静地坐着看日落。 — 拉里·埃里森 > [13:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=822s) 投10亿美元怎么样？或者按你的建议来 — 拉里·埃里森 > [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=900s) 抢占先机至关重要 — 拉里·埃里森 > [17:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g&t=1055s) 警察将规规矩矩，普通民众也会规规矩矩，因为我们将全天候记录并报告正在发生的一切。 — 拉里·埃里森 ## Mentioned 拉里·埃里森 (Larry Ellison), 大卫·埃里森 (David Ellison), 比尔·盖茨 (Bill Gates), 埃隆·马斯克 (Elon Musk), 唐纳德·特朗普 (Donald Trump), 汤姆·西贝尔 (Tom Siebel), 戴夫·杜菲尔德 (Dave Duffield), 鲁伯特·默多克 (Rupert Murdoch), 甲骨文 (Oracle), 中央情报局 (CIA), IBM, 微软 (Microsoft), 网景公司 (Netscape), Siebel Systems, PeopleSoft, Workday, OpenAI, 星际之门项目 (Project Stargate), TikTok, Twitter / X, Skydance, 派拉蒙 (Paramount), 华纳兄弟 (Warner Bros.), 埃里森技术研究院 (Ellison Institute of Technology), 拉奈岛 (Lanai), 《钢铁侠2》 ## Video description Larry Ellison built an empire on database software, but that was just the beginning. Now he's expanding into artificial intelligence infrastructure and media, placing his biggest bets yet. Bloomberg Originals speaks with Ellison's former business partner and a childhood friend to unpack what drives the 82-year old billionaire, and why he doesn't seem to be slowing down. #Oracle #LarryEllison #Profile #Documentary -------- Like this video? Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/Bloomberg?sub_confirmation=1 Get unlimited access to Bloomberg.com for just $1.99 your first month: https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions?in_source=YoutubeOriginals Bloomberg Originals offers bold takes for curious minds on today’s biggest topics. Hosted by experts covering stories you haven’t seen and viewpoints you haven’t heard, you’ll discover cinematic, data-led shows that investigate the intersection of business and culture. Exploring every angle of climate change, technology, finance, sports and beyond, Bloomberg Originals is business as you’ve never seen it. Subscribe for business news, but not as you've known it: exclusive interviews, fascinating profiles, data-driven analysis, and the latest in tech innovation from around the world. Visit our partner channel Bloomberg News for global news and insight in an instant. [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6ITxfEE6g)

Source quotes

[0:00] 拉里·埃里森: 光是我赢还不够，其他人必须通统输掉 [0:00] 拉里·埃里森: 绝不允许在赢的时候收手 [2:37] 埃里森养父: 你这辈子绝不可能有出息 [2:37] 拉里·埃里森: 我经常被告知自己一事无成，以至于我极其坚定地非要做出一番成就不可。 [2:37] 拉里·埃里森: 大多数出类拔萃者并不是受对成功的渴望所驱使，而是源于对失败的深层恐惧。 [5:00] 托尼·斯塔克（《钢铁侠2》）: 嘿，甲骨文的先知！ [7:22] 拉里·埃里森: 没有什么比竞争更能让一家公司保持专注 [7:22] 拉里·埃里森: 以前我们是朋友，直到他变得尖酸刻薄、把网景公司（Netscape）逼入绝境 [10:00] 拉里·埃里森: 我就是喜欢竞争，而不是安安静静地坐着看日落。 [13:42] 拉里·埃里森: 投10亿美元怎么样？或者按你的建议来 [15:00] 拉里·埃里森: 抢占先机至关重要 [17:35] 拉里·埃里森: 警察将规规矩矩，普通民众也会规规矩矩，因为我们将全天候记录并报告正在发生的一切。

Source quotes

[0:00] Larry Ellison: It's not enough that I win, everybody else has to lose. [0:00] Larry Ellison: My personality doesn't allow me to quit while I'm winning. [2:44] Larry Ellison's adoptive father: You'll never amount to anything. [2:44] Larry Ellison: I was told so often I wouldn't amount to anything, that I was very determined to amount to something. [2:44] Childhood friend: I think most overachievers are driven not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure. [5:00] Larry Ellison: Well, it's a very low bar. [7:34] Larry Ellison: Bill and I used to be friends a long time ago. That's before he turned mean and ran Netscape out of business. [10:00] Larry Ellison: I just like competing as opposed to, you know, just going out and quietly watching the sunset. [13:12] Larry Ellison: A billion? Whatever you recommend, [17:35] Associate: Like any ongoing adventure, I have no idea how it ends, but I know it will. Do I see him retiring? I don't know. I'll ask him. But I don't see any reason why he should. [17:35] Larry Ellison: The police will be on their best behavior. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on. [17:35] Childhood friend: Here's a person that I have a childhood loyalty with and no negativities. And now is a member of a multi-billionaire elite that has an amount of power that does have an effect on my life and the lives of all the people I know, without our giving them that power. That's a toughie for me.

Original transcript

[0:00] - There's a quote that actually is generally thought to come from Genghis Khan, but Larry Ellison says it so much that folks often attribute it to him. It's not enough that I win, Everybody else has to lose. Why might Ellison see something of himself in a 13th century Mongol warlord obsessed with Eurasian land acquisition? Well, there's the immense power and wealth. Ellison is one of the world's richest people. My personality doesn't allow me to quit while I'm winning. The thrill of eviscerating rivals. Oracle clinches the deal to buy people soft. Win at all costs. That's kind of the lesson that many have taken from him. The lure of spearheading a dynasty. Larry Ellison is throwing his personal fortune behind Paramount's bid for Warner Brothers. Larry Ellison is basically helping his son, David Ellison. It could dramatically reshape the Oracle founder's fortune. Then there's the actual empire itself. Oracle. Oracle. Oracle. Oracle has been on a tear. The company and its founder are practically synonymous. Though their public image could hardly be more opposite. One's a stylish, life-in-the-fast-lane octogenarian who owns a rhinoceros, and the other... It's a database and data center company. ...sounds a bit dull. Oracle built ways to keep track of your workforce, your supply chain, your financials. Still sounds a bit dull. Come on. He's one of the world's leading providers of cloud computing, AI, social media, enterprise application software, computer hardware, word devices, weapons, systems. - Okay, so actually not that dull then. And what's more, Ellison's ambitions just keep growing. - TikTok's US operations are set to be acquired by a consortium including Oracle. - These world leading technology giants are announcing the formation of Stargate. - And how at a moment where a lot of people thought his story was closing, He bets his entire legacy on a new generation of technology. The thing is, the more you understand Larry Ellison, the more these bets reveal themselves to be part of a fascinating pattern. One eight decades in the making and beginning in Chicago. It's hard for me to believe that growing up in this neighborhood, that one of us would become one of the more rich and powerful people in the world. That just blows my mind. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is me. And this is Larry. From grades kindergarten through about the first two months of high school, Larry Ellison and I were classmates, and for about eight of those years, we were next door neighbors. Around age 12, Ellison found out rather unceremoniously that his parents weren't exactly who he thought they were. I was waiting out in front of the house to meet him and he just bounded up to me and said, "I'm adopted." His biological mother, Florence Spellman, was actually the niece of his adoptive mother, Lillian Ellison. His mother had a warmth that I admired, but his father was very, very negative. Like, he would once said to Larry, "You'll never amount to anything." I was told so often I wouldn't amount to anything, that I was very determined to amount to something. And a good place to have started looking for evidence of that determination was Ellison's local Boy Scout troop. We tried to amass merit badges and he decided that he was going to get a merit in farm design and management. This is a kid who had never been on a farm and he showed me the drawings that he had done and they were great and he got the merit badge. Now this is so interesting because he did a similar thing much more recently to a very different group of people. When a lot of companies do investor Q&As, it's very focused on financial results. He spent 10 minutes talking about agriculture methods at this year's event. Oracle doesn't have a business there. strong way of saying, "I'm going to do it by myself. I don't need these other people." I have a feeling that that has to do with the beginnings of his coding and putting together Oracle. We'll come back to examine the intervening decades shortly, but first, let's look at the billionaire that that boy became. I think most overachievers are driven not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure. [5:00] Larry Ellison is someone described as hard charging. - Bright, articulate, erudite. - Ruthless. - They don't associate him as a nice guy. - Larry Ellison doesn't really care if you like him. - They say, "Oh my God, you're nothing like I thought you'd be." And I say, "Well, it's a very low bar." But they associate him often as an aspirational figure. Larry Ellison sort of CEO of everything. You should never sell Larry Ellison short. Ellison is 82 years old and a very vigorous 82 by all accounts. He's in the public eye long after many of his compatriots. It's a reflection of his intense competitiveness. He is emblematic of this high-tech ethos of, you know, if you're going to get into the market, you want to dominate it completely. And he tends to win. He loves to have a rivalry and to beat his opponents and kind of relishes in that. CEOs and founders tend to be that nerdy tech image of a CEO that you expect. Larry Ellison loves to be that Playboy figure. - He owns a sailing team. He has a lot of toys, a lot of expensive hobbies. - He's a pilot. He owns a tennis tournament. He has a huge collection of 16th century Japanese swords and modeled his estate in Silicon Valley after Japanese castle. He bought a safari last year because why not? He spares no expense living the way he wants to live and he doesn't care what you think about it. Classic Larry Ellison moment. A couple of years ago, I got a speeding ticket on the Hawaiian island he owns. on his tail. He's always had this kind of flashy bad boy of tech image. He made a cameo in Iron Man with Tony Stark making a shout out to Larry Ellison walking by. This is Larry. Hey, the Oracle of Oracle. What a pleasure. Nice to see you. And he likes to be that character where he's compared more to the Iron Man than perhaps that nerdy tech bro stereotype. Incidentally, we did ask Ellison to get involved We've all seen those other ones though, and no Iron Man needed the Avengers around him, and Ellison knew this too. Larry always put an enormous importance on human capital. He's always at the leading edge. He works very hard. He tends to attract very bright people. He drives them to do everything that they're humanly capable of delivering. This, it's been said, applied at college too, at least while he attended it. The story goes that when he was at the University of Illinois, he quit when his mom died. And just packed a car and moved to California. There, he found businesses in need of programmers. And it was through working at one of these companies, he started working on a project for the CIA that was codenamed Oracle. This was the late 1970s, at the dawn of the computer age. This is a time when, you know, computers were just starting to become a consumer-facing industry. All this information was being created and there wasn't a reliable way to store and access it. That's where Oracle came in. With its flagship product, the dull-sounding but bewilderingly important relational database. way to keep track of all your data. They didn't invent the database. IBM invented it. But they figured out how to sell it. Ellison often says publicly that nothing focuses a company like competition. And in the early days, there was none greater than the recipient of People Magazine's sixth most intriguing person of 1983 award, Bill Gates. Oracle went public a day before Microsoft. They've had this rivalry between their businesses that Ellison relishes. Bill and I used to be friends a long time ago. That's before he turned mean and ran Netscape out of business. When Microsoft was on trial for federal antitrust charges, Oracle, they were not part of the trial. But they paid investigators to go through Microsoft's trash. Mr. Gates, the court decision, how's that going to affect Microsoft? I'm a student here. I'm a journalist. He just wanted to find dirt on Microsoft. When they got caught, Larry Ellison was like, yeah, we did it. It was a public service. There was a moment, though, where it seemed Ellison's tactics had caught up with him. It was about the turn of the 1990s. [10:00] and the federal government came out and said, "Oracle has been overstating their sales." Oracle's stock went down three-fourths, there was talk of them having to go into bankruptcy. There were new software accounting rules that were put on the books that exist to this day just because of the way that Oracle was bending the rules 30 years ago. He's known for trashing his opponents publicly. We fired that idiot. And really thrives in an environment where he has a direct challenger, somebody to compete against. I just like competing as opposed to, you know, just going out and quietly watching the sunset. A classic tale in software, and particularly Oracle, is that an executive will leave the company and build a new company that competes with their old boss. Someone like Tom Siebel. - He got mauled by an elephant. and then hung up a big picture of an elephant in his office. You know, that's the kind of guy he is, and that's also the kind of guy Larry Ellison is. One of the things that I had built when I was at Oracle was what they call today a CRM system, a customer relationship management system. And I proposed to Larry that we come up with a commercial implementation of that and offer it to the world. Larry had other priorities at the time. So that's when I said, you know, see you later, bye. And decided to go off on my own. And launch Siebel Systems, which went on to capture a huge chunk of the lucrative CRM market. And so he decided that we were the enemy. He announced that he was going to put 3,000 people to develop a CRM system and put us out of business. There was this massive catfight in the media. CRM behind Siebel, but we're growing faster than SAP and we're growing faster than Siebel. He used to send ice cream trucks over to our parking lot to recruit people. So that was a little silly. I remember fall of 2005, my assistant said, "Tom, it's Larry Ellison on the phone." I thought, "Oh my goodness, this should be entertaining." And so one thing led to another. We combined Siebel Systems with Oracle. It was a great business combination. But memories of Ellison's approach to M&A aren't all held so fondly. Larry Ellison did one of the most famous hostile takeovers of all time. when he bought PeopleSoft in the early 2000s. The human resources software pioneer was co-founded by Dave Duffield, who'd later co-found Workday. Dave Duffield has said it's one of the worst moments of his life. Oracle acquired PeopleSoft, laid off half the staff, but then they turned around and Dave Duffield started a new company in the same space. And Larry Ellison basically gave him a hall pass to go compete. And so he's somebody who loves to take down his enemies, but he also respects business. All of this is reflected in Oracle's annual revenue over the decades. When the company went public in 1986, it was just $55 million. Growth was steady, and that infamous accounting scandal nearly bankrupted it. In 1993, though, Ellison became a billionaire due to Oracle's fortunes rebounding. By 2005, he kicked off that acquisition spree, swallowing up the likes of CEO to CTO and executive chairman. But the trajectory he'd set Oracle on continued. Today, it's a $450 billion giant of the industry, with revenue this year expected to land around $90 billion. That is made up of cloud applications such as finance and HR tools, traditional software like the Oracle database, and cloud infrastructure. And that last one is significant, not just because it's a huge slice of the pie. Look at Oracle's free cash flow. Since the 90s, it had been and comfortably in the billions. Not anymore. Ellison made a massive gamble on infrastructure, which we'll unpack shortly. Wall Street bought in for a while, Oracle's market cap surged, and along with it, Ellison's fortune. He's consistently owned a massive chunk of the company, today about 40%, giving him huge control of it. And because his personal fortune tracks the company's stock so closely, that stake made him the seventh richest person on earth in September, 107 billion dollars. That's not far from double that of Bill Gates, who to be fair has given a lot of his money away, although it's still a little short of Ellison's friend and one-time trillionaire. Elon Musk is very close to Larry Ellison. Elon Musk decided to buy Twitter when he was staying with Larry Ellison. He reaches out and says, "Hey, you know, I'm putting together some money for the Twitter [15:00] How much do you want to put in? Ellison goes, a billion? Whatever you recommend. You know, I'd do some thumbs up emojis. But even that was a drop in the ocean compared to what came next. Being first is very important. Ellison's vast wealth and control of Oracle meant he could effectively bet the business on the AI boom. deal and Larry Ellison shot up the world's richest person in return. Stargate is a huge cloud contract. It is about $300 billion OpenAI has agreed to pay Oracle to build a series of data centers at a scale the world has truly never seen before. Back when Larry Ellison co-founded Oracle, he recognized that having the software infrastructure for business was going to be a transformative and extremely lucrative business. And now in the AI era, he is recognizing that providing the physical infrastructure and everything that comes with it is also going to be incredibly lucrative and also geopolitically essential. you It was a remarkable moment early last year when Allison appeared at the White House. to announce Project Stargate. The data centers are actually under construction. The first of them are under construction in Texas. This is a very exciting program for Oracle to be a part of. Thank you. It was huge for Oracle in terms of the size of the deal and being out there, but also to show the relationship between an Allison and Trump. He's an amazing man and an amazing business person. The TikTok deal is another example, though, of how their respect for each other can parlay into business. of getting banned in the US. - We ought to be banning TikTok, they're collecting data on Americans every single day. - And then who got the contract to maintain their cloud service? So is Oracle. - President Trump has signed an executive order which advances plans for American investors to buy TikTok's US operations. - With these gains in power, influence and control, it's perhaps unsurprising he'd quite like to carry on. He's obsessed with longevity research and health. A lot of his fortune is going to be invested into his Ellison Institute of Technology and building out a science, research, medicine organization. Like any ongoing adventure, I have no idea how it ends, but I know it will. Do I see him retiring? I don't know. I'll ask him. But I don't see any reason why he should. Short of inventing a cure for mortality though, Ellison's legacy will be in the hands of his children and Oracle. - He has many children and two of them have become very prominent media moguls of their own, particularly his son David, who's now the head of Skydance, that is poised to become perhaps the biggest conglomerate that Hollywood has ever seen. Tens of billions of dollars of wealth is earmarked already for this. Larry Ellison agreeing to personally guarantee $40 billion in equity financing. David Ellison has gone for the jugular here and it's getting very hostile in its nature. It seems clear that he's excited by his son's bid to become, you know, the new Rupert Murdoch. There's a famous image of this robber baron and the octopus in a political cartoon. Ellison's been obsessed with this idea of the octopus. who already underpins the world and has a lot of influence. And it turned into a company involved in all these hot AI deals. He extended his empire through his son to buy Paramount. and is now making a play for Warner Brothers. Then Oracle gets TikTok, and you can really see how Ellison starts taking over many aspects of our world. The police will be on their best behavior. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on. I think it is something that gives one pause when we have a moment now where there are such close alliances between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. When figures like Ellison have so much wealth, so much power, when power is consolidated in just a few companies that have so much reach. I have to play with this in my mind because here's a person that I have a childhood loyalty with and no negativities. And now is a member of a multi-billionaire elite that has an amount of power that does have an effect on my life and the lives of all the people I know. [20:00] without our giving them that power. and That's a toughie for me. These are extraordinarily consequential figures and their influence expands far beyond the industries where they started and in fact have reinvented the industries and reinvented the economy around them. a significant shift The fact that we're still talking about Larry Ellison today, almost 50 years after he founded Oracle, it shows his staying power, his ability to reinvent, stay relevant. and continue amassing power and wealth all through his life. He's taken on an incredible bet that a lot of investors are pretty worried about. But history has shown you do not bet against Larry Ellison. Thank you. you