Larry Ellison: Billionaire Samurai Warrior of Silicon Valley - Bloomberg

BLOOMBERG GAME CHANGERS follows Larry Ellison from his early days in Chicago through the founding of the multi-billion-dollar software company to his rise as the highest paid executive of the last decade with a total compensation of $1.84 billion. (Source: Bloomberg)

A samurai warrior of Silicon Valley, Larry Ellison, grew up in Chicago and at the age of 12 he was shocked with the news from his father that he was adopted. He was a mediocre student who had always disliked formal education and later on dropped out of college twice.

Addiction to money, no interest in following the rules and expensive tours around the world show that he is a stylish lad who lives a luxurious life. His Japanese-style house, worth of 200 million dollars, consists of a tea house, a man made lake, a koi pond and a bath house. He was the one to spend 400 million dollars to bring 2010 America's cup - the oldest active trophy in sports - back to America for the first time in fifteen years.

Larry Ellison, the man with obsession to be first at everything, wanted to prove to his father that he can make something of himself. About 40 years ago, he got himself job at Ampex where his project included producing a large-scale database for CIA. The database project was later on named Oracle. Soon he left Ampex to start his own company, Software Development Laboratories Corporation (SDL), which was later named Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982. In early 1990s, the company began to face crisis and the reason was the marketing strategy.

The company happened to be on the verge of bankruptcy as they began to sale the products which were not even materialized yet. He was known to be a genius for launching a Network Computer which supported the internet facility back in 1996 but due to the falling prices of PCs, his venture was shut down. Now, he is known to be the highest paid executive over the last decade with total compensation of $1.84 billion.

Larry Ellison does whatever it takes to win and according to him the more we win, the more we earn. His company's technology has become the backbone of the world's information system and almost everyone in today's world uses the products of Oracle.