Larry Ellison An Unlikely Entrepreneur
Larry Ellison's Difficult Beginnings Did Not Lend Themselves to Entrepreneurship The Oracle of Oracle started out with very humble beginnings.
Adopted by his aunt and Uncle before he was one Larry lived on the south side of Chicago in a small apartment.
His success was contingent on him pulling himself up by his bootstraps, money was not easy to come by and he needed to rely on his drive and focus to get him through school.
He saw his adoptive father lose his real-estate company before Larry became a teenager and he lost his adoptive mother during his second year of college.
But through his younger years Larry Ellison showed signs of being a rebellious kid, which perhaps was a part of the drive that allowed him to be a successful entrepreneur.
Because of the loss of his mother, Larry dropped out of school.
While he tried to return later on, he ended up dropping out yet again which prompted his father to guess that Larry would never amount to anything.
Clearly, one of the talented leaders of the software industry proved him wrong.
He also proved that becoming a successful entrepreneur you don't always require a college education.
Entrepreneur's Like Larry Ellison Have A Burning Desire To Succeed What Larry may have lacked in education he made up many times over for with his drive and dedication.
This was not just true in his professional life but also true in his personal life as well.
Many who know Larry, or know of him have watched him drive himself to the point of injury to become the best he could be at any sport he desired to succeed at.
Larry took this, win at any cost, position and built himself up from a programmer at Ahmdal to starting his own software business in 1977.
With his partners Ed Oates and Robert Miner Larry Ellison received a two year contract with IBM to create a relational database software solution.
He completed the project ahead of schedule which allowed him to focus his skills on creating a product for the private sector.
The product code name was "Oracle", which, as we know, later became the name of his company.
Entrepreneurs Know That You Always Have To Adapt Your Business You would think that the rest was simple and that Larry now had his company on a glide path towards the multi-billion dollar company it is today.
But, while there were a lot of successful years, Oracle experienced several rough patches as well.
This was a real test of Ellison's ability to steer his company as well as adapt and grow to the changes inside the market.
Riding high on the product success's Oracles young management team made several mistakes that nearly bankrupted this company in 1990 when capitalization fell by roughly 80%.
But being someone fully committed to success, Larry looked at where his problems were and made the modifications in management essential to right his corporate ship.
Since then he has never looked back, he has used his keen grasp of the market to continually change his product offerings to keep his company one step ahead of the market.
Moreover he has continued to make strategic acquisitions which has pushed him ahead of his competition and when he didn't beat them he acquired them.
Larry also saw a change in the way that companies were buying and owning their software which permitted him to adapt his entire business model to a service and support model, as well as a software development business.
This has allowed him to stabilize his revenues even through the slump in the economy, making his company a solid player in the 21st century and setting Oracle up for continual future growth.
What we are able to learn from Larry Ellison and Oracle, is one of the most typical threads that passes through most people who become entrepreneurs.
It's not their schooling or where they start out in life.
It's not, in many cases, their natural intellect.
While Larry would be considered a brilliant man, it had been his drive, determination, persistence and willingness and ability to adapt that made him the success he is today.
We observe this over and over again when we take a look at entrepreneurs.
It doesn't matter if they're in software or hamburgers, or if they came from a rich family or a lower income family like Larry Ellison did.
It is that fire in the belly, don't quit at any cost mentality that we can learn from.
If you are serious about becoming an entrepreneur, and things are going rough, remember Larry Ellison, a kid who was adopted at a young age, dropped out of college and was told he probably wouldn't amount to much.
Adopted by his aunt and Uncle before he was one Larry lived on the south side of Chicago in a small apartment.
His success was contingent on him pulling himself up by his bootstraps, money was not easy to come by and he needed to rely on his drive and focus to get him through school.
He saw his adoptive father lose his real-estate company before Larry became a teenager and he lost his adoptive mother during his second year of college.
But through his younger years Larry Ellison showed signs of being a rebellious kid, which perhaps was a part of the drive that allowed him to be a successful entrepreneur.
Because of the loss of his mother, Larry dropped out of school.
While he tried to return later on, he ended up dropping out yet again which prompted his father to guess that Larry would never amount to anything.
Clearly, one of the talented leaders of the software industry proved him wrong.
He also proved that becoming a successful entrepreneur you don't always require a college education.
Entrepreneur's Like Larry Ellison Have A Burning Desire To Succeed What Larry may have lacked in education he made up many times over for with his drive and dedication.
This was not just true in his professional life but also true in his personal life as well.
Many who know Larry, or know of him have watched him drive himself to the point of injury to become the best he could be at any sport he desired to succeed at.
Larry took this, win at any cost, position and built himself up from a programmer at Ahmdal to starting his own software business in 1977.
With his partners Ed Oates and Robert Miner Larry Ellison received a two year contract with IBM to create a relational database software solution.
He completed the project ahead of schedule which allowed him to focus his skills on creating a product for the private sector.
The product code name was "Oracle", which, as we know, later became the name of his company.
Entrepreneurs Know That You Always Have To Adapt Your Business You would think that the rest was simple and that Larry now had his company on a glide path towards the multi-billion dollar company it is today.
But, while there were a lot of successful years, Oracle experienced several rough patches as well.
This was a real test of Ellison's ability to steer his company as well as adapt and grow to the changes inside the market.
Riding high on the product success's Oracles young management team made several mistakes that nearly bankrupted this company in 1990 when capitalization fell by roughly 80%.
But being someone fully committed to success, Larry looked at where his problems were and made the modifications in management essential to right his corporate ship.
Since then he has never looked back, he has used his keen grasp of the market to continually change his product offerings to keep his company one step ahead of the market.
Moreover he has continued to make strategic acquisitions which has pushed him ahead of his competition and when he didn't beat them he acquired them.
Larry also saw a change in the way that companies were buying and owning their software which permitted him to adapt his entire business model to a service and support model, as well as a software development business.
This has allowed him to stabilize his revenues even through the slump in the economy, making his company a solid player in the 21st century and setting Oracle up for continual future growth.
What we are able to learn from Larry Ellison and Oracle, is one of the most typical threads that passes through most people who become entrepreneurs.
It's not their schooling or where they start out in life.
It's not, in many cases, their natural intellect.
While Larry would be considered a brilliant man, it had been his drive, determination, persistence and willingness and ability to adapt that made him the success he is today.
We observe this over and over again when we take a look at entrepreneurs.
It doesn't matter if they're in software or hamburgers, or if they came from a rich family or a lower income family like Larry Ellison did.
It is that fire in the belly, don't quit at any cost mentality that we can learn from.
If you are serious about becoming an entrepreneur, and things are going rough, remember Larry Ellison, a kid who was adopted at a young age, dropped out of college and was told he probably wouldn't amount to much.
