A strategic businessman who managed to transform Oracle from a small startup into one of the world’s most influential and valuable companies. His chances of surviving the poor, tough Bronx were minimal. He had neither wealthy relatives, nor adequate support from family, nor promising education. Nevertheless, this man managed to live a life that placed him in the same league as “business sharks” like Bill Gates and Elon Musk. How he achieved this and what exactly Larry Ellison is known for is what we’ll explore next on bronx1.one.
Fighting for Life and a Place “in the Sun”
Larry Ellison was born on August 17, 1944, in the Bronx. When the boy was nine months old, he became severely ill with pneumonia. His mother, nineteen-year-old single Florence Spellman, unable to care for the child, sent her son to Chicago. There, he was adopted by his aunt and uncle, Lillian and Louis Ellisons.
Life in his new family was complicated. Lillian became a loving and gentle mother to Larry, while Louis was strict and distant. He often told the boy that he would never amount to anything. But, as it turned out, those very words became a challenge and an internal driving force for Ellison.
Larry was a good student in high school and was even named the natural science student of the year at the University of Illinois. However, in 1964, he dropped out after the death of his adoptive mother, to whom he was very close. An attempt to continue his education at the University of Chicago lasted only one semester. It was there he first encountered computers, but Larry never formally finished his education.
Instead, Ellison chose a different path, heading to California in 1966. With almost no money but boundless curiosity, the young man began working as a programmer. Initially, these were odd jobs at various companies, including Wells Fargo and Amdahl Corporation, where he contributed to the development of the first IBM-compatible mainframe.
In 1973, Ellison took a job at Ampex, where he met his future partner, Ed Oates. His manager was Bob Miner. Both would later play a key role in founding Oracle. A few years later, Larry moved to Precision Instruments, where he served as Vice President of Research and Development.
Thus, the journey from a sickly infant in the Bronx to a young programmer in Silicon Valley was a series of losses, challenges, and new beginnings for Ellison. All of this merely set the stage for the story of one of the world’s largest tech companies.
How the Oracle Empire Was Born
In 1977, Larry Ellison, along with Bob Miner and Ed Oates, founded a small company called Software Development Laboratories (SDL). The initial idea was to take programming contracts from other firms, but Ellison dreamed bigger. He was inspired by a scientific paper from British researcher Edgar Codd, which described the concept of relational databases—a completely new way to organize large volumes of information.
The team quickly realized that this technology had the power to revolutionize data processing. Soon, they got the chance to prove it in practice. SDL won a contract from the CIA to build a database management system under the code name Oracle. This development became the foundation of their future breakthrough.
In 1979, the company’s first commercial product, Oracle 2, was released—the world’s first relational database that used SQL. The software allowed businesses to store and quickly process massive amounts of information. It instantly gained popularity and paved the way for large-scale growth.
The major breakthrough came with the deal signed with IBM in 1981. In 1986, the company went public, but the initial years were challenging; financial manipulation and accounting errors nearly led to bankruptcy. But thanks to strict management decisions and the launch of the new product, Oracle 7, in 1992, the company not only recovered but conquered the global market.
In the mid-1990s, Ellison bet big on the Internet and was among the first major players to adapt Oracle’s products to new technologies. By the early 2000s, Oracle was synonymous with Ellison himself—a charismatic, aggressive, and strategically minded leader who knew how to anticipate changes and outmaneuver competitors. It was then that he even briefly surpassed Bill Gates on the list of the world’s wealthiest people.
In 2014, Larry stepped down as CEO but remained the Chief Technology Officer and Chairman of the Board.
Larry Ellison in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
In the 2020s, Oracle made a decisive shift: from “classic” corporate software to creating a massive cloud infrastructure that became the foundation for the development of artificial intelligence. Under Larry Ellison’s leadership, the company signed long-term deals with tech giants worth over $300 billion. Clients include OpenAI, Meta, NVIDIA, SoftBank, and the startup xAI.
The most ambitious project was the “Star Gate” initiative, unveiled in 2025. It involves a $500 billion investment in a network of data centers intended to serve as the “energy system” for the world’s largest AI models. The project was backed by major investors, including even President Donald Trump.
Ellison chose not to compete in manufacturing his own chips but instead formed a close alliance with NVIDIA, securing priority access for Oracle to the most scarce resource of the AI era—GPUs for model training. The result was astonishing. In September 2025, Oracle shares soared by 38% in a single day, marking the largest jump since the early 1990s. Analysts project that Oracle’s cloud infrastructure revenues will jump from $18 billion in 2025 to over $140 billion by 2029.
The Conqueror of Hearts
Larry Ellison is a person whose private life has always been full of surprises and twists. In September 2024, the world learned of his marriage to Jolie Zhu, a University of Michigan graduate who is almost half a century his junior.
However, this story is just the latest chapter in the billionaire’s long romantic biography. His first marriage was in 1967 to Adda Quinn, but they divorced seven years later. A few years after that, Ellison married Nancy Wheeler Jenkins; however, that union also proved short-lived. In 1978, they parted ways, and Nancy sold her shares in the company for just $500—a deal that would later become one of the most discussed in business history.
In 1983, Ellison married Barbara Boot, who worked as an administrator at RSI. This marriage gave him two children, David and Megan, who both chose careers in film. A particularly notable chapter of his life was his marriage to romance novelist Melanie Craft. Their wedding at Ellison’s luxurious estate in Woodside was a true celebration. His friend, Steve Jobs, took on the role of official photographer. But even that story didn’t have a “happy ending”—the couple divorced in 2010.
Ten years later, the world discussed Ellison’s relationship with Ukrainian-American model and actress Nikita Kahn. She inspired Larry so much that he even opened a restaurant in Malibu named “Nikita.” However, that relationship also ended in 2020.
Yet, despite numerous disappointments, Ellison has not lost the ability to fall in love and build new stories. His marriage to Jolie Zhu is fresh proof that he remains a man of passion—just as reckless and unpredictable in love as he is in business.
Wealth, Public Image, and Hobbies
In September 2025, Elon Musk momentarily lost his position as the richest person on the planet. He was overtaken by 81-year-old Larry Ellison. The surge in the company’s stock was so rapid that Ellison’s net worth exceeded $400 billion. He became only the second person in history to reach this level. Although Musk reclaimed his crown the next day, Ellison held onto the second position with a fortune that Bloomberg estimated at $383 billion.
But Ellison is not just a tech magnate. He is an avid sailor. His yachts, “Rising Sun,” “Musashi,” and “Katana,” have long become legends among oceanic racing enthusiasts. And in 2010, the BMW Oracle team, led by him, won the America’s Cup, bringing the trophy back to the U.S. for the first time in fifteen years. They successfully defended the victory in 2013.
The billionaire is equally known for his taste in large purchases. In 2012, he bought 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai for $300 million. He also helped his son David establish the studio Skydance Productions, which merged with Paramount in 2025, thereby opening the door to the cultural industry for Ellison.
However, great wealth is paired with generosity. Ellison signed the “Giving Pledge,” supporting universities, medical research, and military initiatives. He donated $200 million alone to establish a cancer center at the University of Southern California. Institutes in the U.S. and Europe bear his name, and his donations are in the hundreds of millions.
At the same time, his figure remains controversial. Lawsuits, scandals involving insider trading, and even his proposal to create a national identification database after the 9/11 attacks—all form the complex image of a man who always operated on the edge.
Today, Ellison is more than just a billionaire; he’s a symbol of an era. A man who rose from the Bronx, built an empire in Silicon Valley, conquered the oceans, and is now shaping the future of technology and culture.