1. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corporation has an estimated net worth of US$ 41 billion dollars. The majority of this wealth is from the 22.5 percent shares that he owns in his company.
2. Ellison was born to Florence Spellman in August 1944. Spellman was unwed and nineteen at the time, and Ellison’s father was a United States Air Force pilot stationed overseas before knowing he would have a son. At the age of nine months, Larry contracted pneumonia after which his mother had him adopted by an aunt and uncle in Chicago. The next time Larry met his mother he was 48 years old.
3. Larry Ellison dropped out of the University of Illinois for not writing his second year final exams after the death of his adopted mother. He later joined the University of Chicago, only to drop out again after one semester.
4. In the 1970’s Ellison worked for the Ampex Corporation. It was here he coined the name ‘Oracle’ for database software he designed for the CIA. It was not until 1979 that he founded Software Development Laboratories, later to be renamed Oracle after what he took to be his initial success.
5. Larry Ellison has been married four times. Each time has ended in divorce. His first marriage was to Adda Quinn from 1967 to 1974. Nancy Wheeler was number two, from 1983 to 1986. Barbara Boothe lasted from 1983 to 1986. His final marriage was to Romance Novelist, Melanie Craft, from 2003 to 2010.
6. The official photographer for the wedding of Larry Ellison and Malanie Craft was Apple founder, Steve Jobs.
7. Ellison and Jobs first met as neighbours in Woodside California. Larry Ellison walked over to his then neighbor Steve Jobs to complain about a peacock that had wandered into his property and woken him up. Jobs’ replied by telling him about how he detested the bird just as much and the two needed to convince his girlfriend to get rid of it.
8. Aside from working for himself, from 1997 to 2002 Ellison remained a director of Apple Computers. He was appointed shortly after Steve Jobs was brought back to the company, as the two of them were close friends. The directorship ended with Ellison citing inadequate time to attend formal board meetings.
9. Another close friend of Ellison’s was Mark Hurd, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. In 2010, when the H.P. board let Hurd go from his post, Ellison had much to say. He stated that the board of Hewlett Packard had made the biggest mistake since Apple and their fiasco with Steve Jobs years before. He was then hired as one of Oracle’s co-presidents.
10. The year 2000 saw a brief period where Larry Ellison was the richest man in the world. 2010 gave him the title of the sixth richest in the world. 2011 saw him even closer as the fifth. However, as of 2012, Ellison dropped to eighth richest in the world and third richest in America, just behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.
11. In 2010, Ellison was reportedly the best-paid executive of the decade. He collected a total income of US$1. 84 billion according to the Wall Street Journal.
12. Up until 2010, Ellison was the owner of the tenth largest yacht in the world. The Rising Sun is a motor yacht spanning 453 feet. This boat cost over 200 million USD to build, and consists of 82 rooms on five levels, Jacuzzi bathrooms, complete fitting of a gymnasium and spa, a plasma screen cinema and a basketball court cum helicopter pad. It is now owned by David Geffen of Geffen Records.
13. Ellison also has a few airplanes to his name. These include both private jets and two fighter jets including a SIAI Marchetti S.211 and a decommissioned MiG-29.
14. Ellison is a signatory of The Giving Pledge. This was a movement to encourage the richest of the United States to commit to donating most of their wealth to philanthropic causes. Others to sign the pledge are Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffet.
15. Philanthropic causes are something Ellison truly believes in and he has donated to countless organizations over the years. He has donated many millions to causes he believes in, and claims he will continue to do so over the years both publicly and privately since charity to him is a personal matter.
16. Ellison was raised as a Reform Jew by his adoptive parents; however, he never took on the religion fully. Although he attended synagogue service every weekend, at age thirteen, Ellison chose not to have a bar Mitzvah. While respecting the dogma and mythology of Judaism’s doctrines he claims that it is based more on mythology than fact.
17. In 2010, one of Ellison’s US$ 8 million dollar yachts capsized in the San Francisco Bay during a sailing practice. But no worries, the crew collected salvageable parts and put it together as a plane to compete in a ‘wacky’ event in the San Francisco Bay Area. It still looked more like a boat than a plane, but it made the cut for the new event.
18. The two heirs to the fortune Ellison leaves behind are his two children, David and Megan Ellison from his third marriage to Barbara Boothe. David and Megan are known for their own work in Hollywood circles as executive producers for hits such as True Grit, and Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
19. Larry Ellison’s money also affords him the luxury of some incredibly expensive cars. A few noteworthy mentions are his Lexus LFA, the Acura NSX, the Audi R8, and the 24-carat gold plated cylinders of his McLaren F1 at US$ 1.5 million dollars.
20. Not to be outdone in owning land, Ellison purchased 98 percent of Hawaii’s sixth largest island, Lanai. Although the exact purchase price is unknown, the asking price at the time was known to be between US$500-$600 million. Included in the purchase were its highly popular hotel resorts and club houses.