4. Never Promise Something That You Cannot Deliver
Ellison always had one rule in business – offer the customer what they are looking for, no more and no less. Ellison never over promised with his software products, and so there was never a complaint about Oracle not delivering what was promised.
Oracle products were never the greatest, but they were fully functional and satisfied the immediate customer requirements. Later, further iterations were made on the software and the products were improved with time.
3. Fire Anyone Who Doesn’t Measure Up
Ellison always overpays his employees, whether they are high level managers or junior executives. In return, he expects them to perform according to the demanding standards set by him. Anyone who fails to perform will be out of a job soon, as slackers are not allowed at Oracle. When you join Oracle, it really is perform or perish.
2. College degree not required
Larry Ellison certainly isn’t the only billionaire college dropout to find success in Silicon Valley but he was one of the first: Before Bill Gates, before his best friend Steve Jobs, before Michael Dell.
Ellison dropped out of college not just once, but twice, before moving to Northern California at age 22, in 1966.
He stayed in school long enough to learn about computer design and, a few years later, invented a database by reading a paper about it written by an IBM scientist.
1. Never retire
He was the longest-running founder CEO the tech industry has ever seen. He held the CEO role at Oracle since 1977.
Back then, a 70-year-old CEO would have been unheard of. Even today, IBM has a tradition where CEOs are asked to retire at age 60.
With Ellison as a role model, other CEOs have decided to staying on longer, too, including Cisco’s John Chambers and EMC’s Joe Tucci.
Ellison has never even publicly discussed retirement and even though he will no longer be CEO, he still isn’t really retiring. He will stay on as both executive chairman of Oracle and as its CTO.