Of all the top 5 richest people in the world, Larry Ellison is arguably the least known. And yet, he founded a company that changed millions of lives: Oracle.
Of all the wealthiest people in the world like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates… Larry Ellison is definitely the least known. And yet, Ellison possesses a net worth of staggering proportions, which makes him the fourth richest person on the planet.
Larry Ellison is a tech entrepreneur from the same generation as Bill Gates. He was born in 1944 in New York City and was always interested in science and mathematics. It would be while attending the University of Chicago that he first encountered computer science.
Ellison immediately started working in the computing industry, eventually designing a relational database design for IBM. While working for IBM, Ellison realized the importance of data analysis and storage. In 1977, he founded his own software laboratory and created his own database system.
The newly formed company will be known as Oracle, and its first product was the Oracle Database. Over the following decades, Oracle will emerge as the most prominent database company. Its products are not for the everyday user, rather for the wellbeing of the overall internet.
In 2022, Oracle’s revenues amounted to $42.4 billion. Oracle’s revenue comes from three main segments: services, hardware and, most importantly, cloud softwares.
The Oracle Suite
Larry Ellison figured out that businesses and internet providers needed a cloud space to operate on. That’s when the Oracle cloud was born: instead of selling softwares directly to internet users like Microsoft, Oracle provides a similar service but for businesses.
The Oracle Suite includes simple services like databases or data analysis softwares, as well as more in-detail products like financial services, procurement or project management.
The Oracle Suite allows businesses to arrange their workforce and resources, as well as personalize their customer experience.
While working in the “back-office” of the internet, Oracle and Larry Ellison were often accused of inappropriate use of customer data. In 2022, Oracle was dubbed a “surveillance machine” with a subsequent lawsuit on the company, accused of tracking real-time information of millions of people.
As it happened with Jeff Bezos, surveillance is what made Larry Ellison insanely wealthy. What these pioneers of the digital era realized is that personal data is incredibly valuable for advertisement, and it’s not that expensive to collect.
Indeed, Larry Ellison’s current net worth is $114.2 billion, making him the world’s fourth wealthiest man. Oracle remains a leading company in business-to-business operations, and its surveillance operations continue unabated.
