The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison
A recent Forbes issue listed Larry Ellison as the fifth richest man in the world, and the second richest active player (behind Bill Gates of Microsoft) in the technology world. Oracle Corporation, of which he is founder and CEO, is the fastest-growing software database company in the world. Oracle software allows people to withdraw cash from an ATM, make an airline reservation and hook up your TV to the Internet. Ellison began Oracle with a $1,200 investment and doubled its sales in eleven of its first twelve years. He is also a daredevil sportsman with a 78-foot yacht and a number of fast jets. Mike Wilson interviewed more than a hundred of Ellison's friends and enemies as well as Ellison himself to create this portrait of an enigmatic and visionary businessman.
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- 'The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison[0]', Mike Wilson. It's a worthwhile read, and I think the joke is funny.
[0] - God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison
- It's quite old and so doesn't include the rise of the Internet and subsequent innovations but, Accidental Empires is pretty good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Empires
Where Wizards Stay Up Late - on the creation of the Internet
The Soul of a New Machine - On computing in the 70's and 80's
The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison - On the rise of Oracle (also has the best title)
Masters of Doom - A history of id Software
What The Dormouse Said - How the 60's counterculture influenced computing
The New New Thing - Follows Jim Clark around while he creates SGI, Netscape, etc...
- The following is a list of my favorite books on software engineering, cyber-security, and the history of IT business development.
Bowden, Mark (2011) Worm: The First Digital World War
Brooks, Frederick (1995) Mythical Man-Month, 2nd ed.
Christensen, Clayton (1997) Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
Hafner, Katie and Matthew Lyon (1996) Where Wizards Stay Up Late: Origins of the Internet
Hunt, Andrew and David Thomas (1999) Pragmatic Programmer
MacCormick, John (2012) Nine Algorithms that Changed the Future
McConnell, Steve (2004) Code Complete, 2nd ed.
Mitnick, Kevin and William Simon (2002) Art of Deception
Poulsen, Kevin (2011) Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cyber-Crime Underworld
Raymond, Eric (2003) Art of Unix Programming
Stone, Brad (2013) The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Torvalds, Linus and David Diamond (2001) Just for Fun: Story of an Accidental Revolutionary
Wallace, James and Jim Erickson (1992) Hard Drive: Bill Gates and Making of the Microsoft Empire
Williams, Sam (2002) Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software
Wilson, Mike (1996) The Difference between God and Larry Ellison: Inside Oracle Corp
- If anyone wants to read more about Ellision, you should read
The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison
https://www.amazon.com/Difference-Between-God-Larry-Ellison/...
- For anyone interested in learning more about Larry Ellison and Oracle, I'd highly suggest "The difference between god and Larry Ellison (god doesn't think he's Larry Ellison)."
Oracle is a 150 billion dollar company, similar in market cap to Intel. Once you've read histories on these people, it suddenly makes sense that Warren Buffet and Bill Gates hang out, while Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison were BFFs. Like with Jobs and Apple, Ellison and Oracle are aggressively polarizing.
I see a future of declines for Oracle; Salesforce.com is redefining and taking their market (corporate IT budgets). There is simply no way other than lock-in and being dicks that they'll be able to see the profitability they once had, let alone sales growth (unless by acquisition). You can see it already with their patent suits; they're out of ideas. But if you work in the business of software, Oracle's history is worth knowing.
- Here is my short list of favorite books on finance and economics:
FINANCIAL SECURITIES / BANKING / VENTURE CAPITAL
Bruck, Connie (1988) Predator's Ball: Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and Rise of Junk Bond Raiders
Draper, William (2011) Startup Game
Graham, Benjamin and Jason Zweig (2006) Intelligent Investor, revised ed.
_________ and David Dodd (2008) Security Analysis, 6E
Greenblatt, Joel (1999) You Can Be a Stock Market Genius
Greenwald, Kahn, Sonkin, Biema (2001) Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond
Henwood, Doug (1997) Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom
Levitt, Arthur (2003) Take on the Street: How to Fight for Your Financial Future
Lewis, Michael (1989) Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
_________ (2010) Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
STATISTICS
Ayres, Ian (2007) Super Crunchers: Why Thinking by Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart
Bernstein, Peter (1996) Against the Gods: Remarkable Story of Risk
Kahneman, Daniel (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow
Silver, Nate (2012) Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail, but Some Don't
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2005) Fooled by Randomness, 2E
_________ (2010) Black Swan: Impact of the Highly Improbable, 2E
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT / ENTREPRENEURSHIP / INNOVATION
Christensen, Clayton (1997) Innovator's Dilemma
Stone, Brad (2013) Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Wallace, James and Jim Erickson (1992) Hard Drive: Bill Gates and Making of the Microsoft Empire
Walton, Sam with John Huey (1992) Sam Walton: Made in America
Wilson, Mike (1996) Difference between God and Larry Ellison: Inside Oracle Corp
POLITICAL ECONOMY / THEORY / ECONOMIC HISTORY
Arrighi, Giovanni (1994) Long Twentieth Century
Braudel, Fernand (1979) Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th Century, vol. 3: Perspective of the World, trans. Siân Reynolds
Brechin, Gray (2006) Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin
Heilbroner, Robert (1999) Worldly Philosophers: Lives, Times & Ideas of Great Economic Thinkers, 7E
Marx, Karl (1867) Capital, vol. 1
Stiglitz, Joseph (2003) Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World’s Most Prosperous Decade
_________ (2010) Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy
Vallianatos, E.G. (2014) Poison Spring: Secret History of Pollution and EPA
Vilar, Pierre (1976) A History of Gold and Money: 1450-1920
Yergin, Daniel (1992) Prize: Epic Quest for Money, Oil and Power
Would enjoy email correspondence with anyone interested in these subjects: mitchelldeacon9@gmail.com All the best
