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Wonder Boy
The Wall Street Journal ^ | November 7, 2003 | SPENCER REISS

Posted on 11/07/2003 6:24:46 AM PST by OESY

Edited on 04/22/2004 11:50:19 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

The denizens of Silicon Valley, joined by a peanut gallery from Wall Street and elsewhere, have long held two divergent views of the man who runs Oracle Corp. Call them Larry the Bad and Larry the Good.

Larry the Bad runs a pirate ship masquerading as the world's second-largest software company. When he's not zooming around in his Marchetti S211 jet fighter -- spoilsports in Washington turned down his request for a personal MiG-29 -- he's trash-talking the "morons" who run most corporate IT shops and the "monopolist" (guess who?) who peddles them "old garbage." His salesmen push half-baked goods and train on "Sopranos" reruns; his accountants moonlight at Cordon Bleu. He is the only person in history who has lost a billion dollars a week for a year. As long as Stanford keeps turning out good-looking 22-year-old blondes, he will date them. And he has never met a new technology he didn't like.


(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: books; ellison; everyoneelse; softwar; southwick; symonds

1 posted on 11/07/2003 6:24:47 AM PST by OESY
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To: OESY
Does Larry make enormous contributions to charity like Bill Gates does? Or is his income self-serving?
2 posted on 11/07/2003 6:34:29 AM PST by sarasota
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To: sarasota
He is going to spend it some day, the only difference is where. He can't take it with him.
3 posted on 11/07/2003 6:46:01 AM PST by PeterPrinciple
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To: sarasota
Does Larry make enormous contributions to charity like Bill Gates does? Or is his income self-serving?

An astute observation. One uses an endowment of $24 billion to fund global medical research while the other buys an $85 million fighter jet and the biggest yacht ever built.

4 posted on 11/07/2003 7:53:13 AM PST by OESY
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To: OESY
One uses an endowment of $24 billion to fund global medical research while the other buys an $85 million fighter jet and the biggest yacht ever built.

Thus contributing millions to the economy. It's his money who cares how he spends it. As long as he's not contributing it to democrats or democrat ideas then more power to him.

5 posted on 11/07/2003 9:51:56 AM PST by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: John O
As long as he's not contributing it to democrats or democrat ideas then more power to him.

Ellison was a major Clinton donor. (Probably trying to buy favors from Clinton's DOJ during the MS anti-trust suit.)

6 posted on 11/07/2003 9:59:32 AM PST by r9etb
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