创业与商业steveblank.com
看 Larry Ellison 成为 Larry Ellison
Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison
2014 — 2017，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是 Steve Blank 博客上的一篇回忆文章，实际作者是风投先驱 Kathryn Gould；她回顾自己观察 Larry Ellison 逐步成为后来那个 Larry Ellison 的过程，并剖析其性格与 Oracle 早期文化。评论区补充了 Ellison/Oracle 的传记、公司产品复杂性和商业争议。
为什么经久不衰：它把 Ellison 的争议性格放回具体创业现场，既有亲历者视角，又有大量传记与行业补充，今天读仍是理解硅谷创始人魅力和销售文化的经典案例。
HN 评论精选
推荐 Ellison/Oracle 传记，认为 Oracle 靠锁定和强硬维持利润、未来面临 Salesforce 挑战，但其历史值得软件从业者了解。
想更多了解 Larry Ellison 和 Oracle，我强烈推荐《The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison》。Oracle 是市值约 1500 亿美元的公司，和 Intel 相近。读完这些人的历史，就会明白为什么巴菲特和盖茨一起玩，而乔布斯和 Ellison 是好朋友。和乔布斯与苹果一样，Ellison 与 Oracle 也极具两极分化。我认为 Oracle 未来会下滑；Salesforce 正在重新定义并夺走他们的市场（企业 IT 预算）。除了锁定客户和强硬行事，他们很难再看到过去的盈利能力，更别说销售增长（除非靠收购）。专利诉讼已经显示他们江郎才尽。但如果你做软件生意，Oracle 的历史值得了解。
dave_sullivan查看英文原文
For anyone interested in learning more about Larry Ellison and Oracle, I'd highly suggest "The difference between god and Larry Ellison (god doesn't think he's Larry Ellison)." Oracle is a 150 billion dollar company, similar in market cap to Intel. Once you've read histories on these people, it suddenly makes sense that Warren Buffet and Bill Gates hang out, while Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison were BFFs. Like with Jobs and Apple, Ellison and Oracle are aggressively polarizing. I see a future of declines for Oracle; Salesforce.com is redefining and taking their market (corporate IT budgets). There is simply no way other than lock-in and being dicks that they'll be able to see the profitability they once had, let alone sales growth (unless by acquisition). You can see it already with their patent suits; they're out of ideas. But if you work in the business of software, Oracle's history is worth knowing.
无论对 Oracle 观感如何，Ellison 作为创始人与长期领导者的商业成功值得创业者学习。
我原以为这里会有很多 Oracle 黑，看来已经开始了。不管你今天怎么看 Oracle，很难否认 Larry Ellison 是成功的创业者和商人：共同创办了 1500 亿美元公司，几十年留任高层，为股东带来极高利润。你可能不喜欢他个人、产品或其公司的工作环境，但任何有抱负的创业者都能从 Ellison 身上学到很多。
whack查看英文原文
I was expecting to see a lot of Oracle hate here, and looks like the train's already started. Regardless of your perspective of Oracle today, it's hard to dispute that Larry Ellison was a successful entrepreneur and businessman. He co-founded a $150B company, remained in the senior leadership position for decades, and guided the company towards extremely profitable outcomes for shareholders. You may not like him personally, you may not like his products, you may not like his company's work environment, but I'm sure any aspiring entrepreneur can learn a lot from Larry Ellison's example.
推荐《Softwar》，并以 Oracle 前员工身份说明其产品栈庞大复杂、外界低估理解门槛，Ellison 面对唱衰常能淡定。
关于 Ellison 的好书是 2004 年的《Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle》。看起来 Larry 本人校读过，因为有些页底有他的评论和更正。Oracle 和世界上任何科技公司都不同。大部分软件不面向消费者，所以很多人（包括程序员和 IT 人士）除非花数周研究其产品栈的某一部分，否则很难理解这家公司。我 1998 年加入 Oracle，以为自己能很快上手，错了；花了很久才建立信心。主产品 Oracle 数据库是庞大的一体化技术，文档能塞满书架。每隔一阵就有人在发布会或网上攻击 Larry，暗示 Oracle 过时、某家新热门公司会超越他们。花点时间研究 Oracle 和 Larry Ellison，你就明白他为什么总对这些提问微笑。
cha-cho查看英文原文
A good book about Larry Ellison is “Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle” from 2004. It looks like Larry himself proofread the book as he offers comments and corrections at the bottom of some of the pages. Oracle is unlike any other technology company in the world. The majority of their software offerings are not aimed at consumers, so many people (including programmers and IT-savvy folks) have a hard time understanding the company unless they’ve spent weeks studying one piece of their product stack. I started working for Oracle in 1998. I thought I would be able to get up to speed quickly on everything Oracle. I was wrong. It took a long time to get a feeling of confidence. The main product, the Oracle database, is a vast monolith of technology and features that is constantly being updated. It has a documentation set that could easily fill a bookshelf. Taker a look: http://docs.oracle.com Every so often someone takes at shot at Larry at a press conference or online, implying that Oracle’s time has passed, that some new hotshot company was going to overtake them in some way. Spend some time studying Oracle and Larry Ellison, and you’ll understand why Larry always smiles at these questions.
Steve Blank 补充文章真正作者是 Kathryn Gould，硅谷早期女性风投先驱，2015 年早逝。
Kathryn Gould，这篇文章的真正作者，是我的导师之一。她是硅谷最早的女风投之一，而且讨厌别人老提这一点。她说她希望以最好的风投之一闻名——不带性别限定——而她确实是。她在芝加哥大学的毕业演讲值得一读。她 2015 年过早离世。
sblank查看英文原文
Kathryn Gould, the real author of the post was one of my mentors. She was one of the first woman VC's in the valley and hated being reminded of it. She said she wanted to be known as one of the best VC's - period - and she was. Her commencement speech at the University of Chicago is worth a read. https://steveblank.com/2014/08/05/pioneering-women-in-venture-capital-kathryn-gould/ She passed on way too early in 2015.
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