God Doesn’t Think He’s Larry Ellison

In 1997, I was technically homeless.

I worked eighteen hours a day and slept in the conference room at 39 East Central Avenue—our Pearl River office. The lights never really went off. Neither did my mind.

* * *

Around that time, a new Larry Ellison book had just been released. I picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble. It turned out to be far more compelling than I expected.

In The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn’t Think He’s Larry Ellison, author Mike Wilson explored Ellison’s early years and the mindset that shaped Oracle. One story in particular stayed with me. It came from Bruce Scott, one of Oracle’s earliest employees and a key technical figure in the company’s beginnings.

Scott described his first experience working with Ellison at SDL, before the company was even called Oracle. He was trying to connect computer terminals between two rooms when he ran into a wall. When he asked Ellison how they were supposed to route the wiring through, Ellison didn’t hesitate. He picked up a hammer and smashed a hole straight through it.

Scott later said that moment captured Ellison’s entire philosophy.

Find a way—or make one.

* * *

In the 1990s, media still ruled the technology world. Before the internet, the only way software companies could announce new products was through press tours to magazines. Executives flew in constantly, scheduling back-to-back meetings with publishers like us.

Our office sat above Yossi’s Bagels. The roof leaked. The walls were cracked. There were holes we kept meaning to fix and never did. Yet despite the surroundings, we had become one of the top technology publishers in the country.

PR teams grew accustomed to the contrast—polished executives in expensive suits walking into a visibly worn office. We, in turn, grew used to the expressions on their faces.

* * *

That night, after finishing Bruce Scott’s story, I slipped a piece of paper into the book to mark the page and fell asleep under the conference room table.

The next morning, we had PR visitors scheduled.

Three or four people walked in. Gail Schultz greeted them, and business cards were passed around the table.

As introductions went around, I heard one man say his name.

“Bruce Scott.”

I leaned forward, reached for the book, opened it to the page I had marked the night before, and looked up.

“This Bruce Scott?” I asked.

He laughed.

“Yes,” he said.

That morning, sitting in a leaking office above a bagel shop, we talked about Oracle’s earliest days—the same story I had read just hours earlier, now suddenly seated across the table from me.

* * *

I had read his story the night before, alone in the dark.

By morning, it was sitting across the table from me.

In my world, that’s how things always seemed to happen.