Children's Literature
Tired of his adoptive father's nagging that he should make something of himself, twenty-two-year-old Larry Ellison left Chicago for Berkeley, California, sure that he could become rich and famous there. His is a remarkable story of a charismatic young man with a reputation for not being totally honest who quit college and jumped from job to job, only to become a "fantastically successful businessman" and a billionaire to boot. Before he left the University of Chicago, Larry learned computer programming. His timing was also good for starting a computer software company with a couple of acquaintances. That company, Oracle Corporation, developed the first widely-used relational database for computers. (A two-page Tech Talk section explains relational databases.) Ellison's life and personality are addressed frankly-he can be intelligent, charming, brash, adventurous, egotistical, generous and highly competitive. This is a story of a complex individual with a goal of being rich and famous who was at exactly the right place when computer software companies were going public. An index and bibliography are included.