Oracle Corporation founder Larry Ellison is an American billionaire entrepreneur who made his name by building a database management system.
Ellison, who has vowed to give away a significant portion of his wealth for philanthropic causes, is the fifth richest person in the United States and the eighth richest in the world, according to Forbes as of 2018. It should come as no surprise, then, that he is able to indulge in very expensive hobbies which include owning and being licensed to fly two military jets.
Larry Ellison, whose full name is Lawrence Joseph, was born on August 17, 1944 in the Bronx, New York City to a single Jewish mother, Florence Spellman. Few details are known about his biological father, except that he was a United States Army Air Corps pilot of Italian descent.
Ellison’s mom had a hard time caring for her baby all by herself. She finally decided to give him up after he contracted pneumonia when he was just nine months old. His mother sent him to Chicago to be raised by her aunt and uncle, who adopted the baby.
His adoptive parents; Lillian Spellman and LoiusEllison raised him in the middle-class neighborhood of Chicago’s South Shore, where they owned a two-bedroom apartment. As a child, Ellison could understand math and science that were way ahead of his time. However, he was very rebellious, which strained his relationship with his father.
After high school, Larry Ellison decided to attend University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he showed promising signs. Although Ellison was named Science Student of the Year, he left school in his sophomore year after the death of his adoptive mother. A year later he tried to go back to school. This time he enrolled at the University of Chicago, but only managed one semester before dropping out. However, it was during this time that he discovered computer design, which shaped his career path.In 1966, at a young age of 22, Larry Ellison decided to move to Northern California, where he took up primarily computer-related jobs. He worked for companies like Wells Fargo, Amdahl Corporation, and Ampex Corporation before he and two other friends founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL), which was commissioned by the CIA to build a database management system called Oracle.
SDL has barely managed to stay afloat with their average revenue stream. The company changed its name to Relational Software Inc. in 1979 before opting for use by Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982 in honor of its first product, the Oracle database, which larger companies such as IBM had subscribed to.
Oracle Systems Corporation grew from its size, although the company flirted with bankruptcy at one point, it was the leader in database management by the mid-’90s, when Larry Ellison became one of the richest people in the world.
Larry Ellison has been married four different times to four different women. His first marriage was to Adda Quinn in 1967 and it lasted seven years before they divorced. In 1977, a few months before founding Software Development Laboratories, he married Nancy Wheeler Jenkins. The marriage proved to be his shortest as the couple divorced a year later in 1978.
In 1983, Ellison exchanged vows with Barbara Boothe, a former receptionist at his company. The wedding was nearly called off by Boothe hours before the ceremony after Ellison presented her with an 11-page marriage agreement. She eventually signed the documents and became Mrs. Ellison, although it was just three years when they divorced in 1986. Together the couple had two children; David and Megan Ellison.
Between 2003 and 2010, Ellison was married to novelist Melanie Craft. He has been in a long-term relationship with actress and model Nikita Kahn since their fourth divorce.
Larry Ellison’s daughter Megan, born on 31. January 1986, in Santa Clara County, California, is a film producer. She founded the company Annapurna Pictures, which is best known for films like “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012) and “American Hustle” (2013).
Birth name: Lawrence Joseph Ellison
Date of birth: August 17, 1944
Place of Birth: New York, United States
Occupation(s): Businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist
Height: 6 feet 3 inches (191 cm)
Weight: 67kg
Wealth (income and earnings): $54.5 billion (June 2018)
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