Larry Ellison
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"Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellison" is an American programmer, internet entrepreneur, adventurer, businessman and philanthropist. He was the Chief Executive Officer of the software company Oracle Corporation between its foundation in 1977 and 2014. In 2014, he was listed by Forbes as the Forbes 400/third-wealthiest man in America and as the fifth-wealthiest person in the world, with a fortune of $53.6 billion.

Ellison was born in New York City but grew up in Chicago. He studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the University of Chicago without graduating before moving to California in 1966. While working at Ampex Corporation in the early 1970s, he became influenced by Edgar F. Codd's research on relational database design, which led in 1977 to the formation of what became Oracle. Oracle became a successful database vendor to mid- and low-range systems, competing with Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server, which led to Ellison being listed by Forbes as the richest Californian in 2006.

Ellison has donated up to 1% of his wealth to charity and has signed The Giving Pledge. In addition to his work at Oracle, Ellison has had success in yachting, through BMW Oracle Racing, and is a licensed aircraft pilot who owns two military jets.

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It is absolutely true that we set out to expose Microsoft's covert activities.

Bill Gates wants people to think he's Edison, when he's really Rockefeller. Referring to Gates as the smartest man in America isn't right... wealth isn't the same thing as intelligence.

I think the applications space will be diverse and complex five years from now.

I hope they can amend the constitution to let Bill Clinton run again... I'm very fond of Bill Clinton personally... the world's going to miss him. He's gifted, bright, charming and charismatic.

Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who's going to build.

If an innovative piece of software comes along, Microsoft copies it and makes it part of Windows, ... This is not innovation. This is the end of innovation.

It's Microsoft versus mankind, with Microsoft having only a slight lead.

When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.

Microsoft is already the most powerful company on earth, but you ain't seen nothing yet.