Americas cup 2014 larry ellison biography

When Charlie Rose asked Oracle CTO and former CEO Larry Ellison last year why he had to win the America's Cup yacht race for the second time in a row, Ellison replied, "It's funny, because I realized after losing twice that my personality wouldn't allow me to quit while losing. And then after winning the America's Cup, I discovered my personality doesn't allow me to quit while winning! I don't smoke, but I do sail."

Ellison didn't get into the boat alongside his US Team Oracle as he did in 2010, but as team sponsor and manager he led the team to its second victory in 2013.

That second victory was actually one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, with Team Oracle USA winning eight races in a row to steal the victory from Team Emirates New Zealand. Ellison made it clear from the beginning that he expected his team to win.

When Team Oracle's crew walked into their training compound each day, they had to pass the hull of Ellison's boat that won the 2010 America's Cup. They did cardio and weight training underneath the boat's sail.With the 35th America's Cup scheduled for sometime in 2017, Ellison has victory in his sights once again, proving that total domination of the sport of elite international yacht racing — from winning the America's Cup to pushing competitors to ditch sailboats for futuristic-looking, advanced vehicles — is a natural extension of his legendary drive to win at all costs.

A Love Of The Sea

Ellison enrolled at a sailing course taught at the University of California shortly after he moved to the state in 1966 at the age of 22. At 25, he bought a 34-foot-long racing sloop, a single mast sailboat, according to About Sports.

I don't smoke, but I do sail.

Ellison didn't respond to our request for comment, but he's previously said that,"I was passionate about sailing and the idea of sailing ... the idyllic independence … traveling with the

(1944-)

Background and Early Career

Larry Ellison was born in the Bronx, New York, on August 17, 1944, to single mother Florence Spellman. When he was nine months old, Ellison came down with pneumonia, and his mother sent him to Chicago to be raised by her aunt and uncle, Lillian and Louis Ellison, who adopted the baby.

After high school, Ellison enrolled at the University of Illinois, Champaign (1962), where he was named science student of the year. During his second year, his adopted mother died, and Ellison dropped out of college. The following fall, he enrolled at the University of Chicago, but he dropped out after only one semester.

Ellison then packed his bags for Berkeley, California, with little money, and for the next decade he moved from job to job at such places as Wells Fargo and Amdahl Corporation. Between college and his various jobs, Ellison had picked up basic computer skills, and he was finally able to put them to use as a programmer at Amdahl, where he worked on the first IBM-compatible mainframe system.

In 1977, Ellison and two of his Amdahl colleagues founded Software Development Labs and soon had a contract to build a database-management system—which they called Oracle—for the CIA. The company had fewer than 10 employees and revenue of less than $1 million per year, but in 1981, IBM signed on to use Oracle, and the company’s sales doubled every year for the next seven years. Ellison soon renamed the company after its best-selling product.

Oracle Corporation

In 1986, Oracle Corporation held its IPO (initial public offering), but some accounting issues helped wipe out the majority of the company’s market capitalization and Oracle teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. After a management shakeup and a product-cycle refresh, however, Oracle’s new products took the industry by storm, and by 1992 the company was the leader in the database-management realm.

Success continued, and as Ellison was Oracle’s largest shareholder

American businessman and entrepreneur (born 1944)

Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American businessman and entrepreneur who co-founded software company Oracle Corporation. He was Oracle's chief executive officer from 1977 to 2014 and is now its chief technology officer and executive chairman.

As of February 4, 2025, Ellison is the fourth-wealthiest person in the world, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated net worth of US$194 billion, and the fourth-wealthiest person in the world according to Forbes, with an estimated net worth of $211 billion. Ellison is also known for his ownership of 98% of Lānaʻi, the sixth-largest island in the Hawaiian Islands.

Early life and education

Ellison was born on August 17, 1944, in New York City to Florence Spellman, an unwed Jewish mother. His biological father was an Italian-American United States Army Air Corps pilot. After Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption. He did not meet his biological mother again until he was 48.

Ellison moved to Chicago's South Shore, then a primarily Jewish middle-class neighborhood. He remembers his adoptive mother, Lillian Spellman Ellison, as warm and loving, in contrast to his austere, unsupportive, and often distant adoptive father, who had chosen the name Ellison to honor his point of entry into the United States, Ellis Island. Louis Ellison was a government employee who had made a small fortune in Chicago real estate, only to lose it during the Great Depression.

Although Ellison was raised in a Reform Jewish home by his adoptive parents, who attended synagogue regularly, he remained a religious skeptic. At age 13, Ellison refused to have a bar mitzvah celebration. Ellison states: "While I think I am religious in one

The Billionaire and the Mechanic is a non-fiction book by Julian Guthrie about Oracle Team USA's quest to win the America's Cup, the oldest trophy in sport. The billionaire in question is Larry Ellison, founder and chairman of Oracle Corporation, and the car mechanic in question is Norbert Bajurin, the Commodore of the Golden Gate Yacht Club.

Synopsis

The book covers the quest of Larry Ellison to win the America's Cup yachting trophy, his establishment of Oracle Team USA under the banner of the Golden Gate Yacht Club, and his various Cup campaigns, at the 2003, 2007 and 2010 Cups. And at the 2013 Cup in the second edition. The book opens with Ellison's experiences at the catastrophic 1998Sydney to Hobart yacht race, where a freak storm with hurricane-force winds sunk several yachts, killing several sailors. Ellison vowed to transition from open water racing to inshore racing, and in that, go after the oldest trophy in international sport, the America's Cup. Basing out of San Francisco, it covers his troubles with the high brow St. Francis Yacht Club, leading to a search for an alternate sponsoring squadron. In conjunction with this search, the election of a new commodore at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, a club with middle class blue collar membership, lead to Norbert Bajurin, a car radiator shop owner and mechanic, winning. Bajurin discovered the financial difficulties of the Golden Gate Yacht Club, and sought Ellison to be their sponsoring yacht club in a Cup campaign, solving the pending insolvency of his beloved squadron. Then, covering the partnership between the billionaire and the mechanic, and the establishment of Oracle Team USA at the Golden Gate Yacht Club. The book then follows the unsuccessful cup campaigns at the 2003 and 2007 America's Cups, which re