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Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

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Re: Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

#61

Post by dllthomas »

javajosh wrote: post #37
parasubvert wrote: post #15

You can tell who is an entrepreneur and who isn't by those who talk shit about Larry and Oracle. Some here seem to think Entrepreneurship has changed into a kumbaya group hug where we just attend conferences together , check code into GitHub, might make a bit of money if we ask nicely, or sell "ads", and hope for an early exit because of our sheer brilliance, leaving the dirty work to our future parent. The most valu…

> You can tell who is an entrepreneur and who isn't by those who talk shit about Larry and Oracle. There is room for a variety of entrepreneurial styles. In economics as in a natural ecosystem, there is room for an astounding variety of survival strategies. The Disney movie "The Lion King" just isn't referenced enough on HN. Your comment is roughly equivalent to saying "You can tell who is a successful species on the…

"Live long enough to reproduce, die happy."

I'm not sure it's relevant to your central thesis here, but this conflates the experience of the individual with the workings of evolution. Living long enough to reproduce (more precisely, having a high inclusive fitness, which typically includes reproducing but strictly doesn't have to) is roughly equivalent to nature saying "more like that" which can be counted as "a win" - but the dying animals are still probably dying in pain.

Re: Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

#62

Post by parasubvert »

javajosh wrote: post #37
parasubvert wrote: post #15

You can tell who is an entrepreneur and who isn't by those who talk shit about Larry and Oracle. Some here seem to think Entrepreneurship has changed into a kumbaya group hug where we just attend conferences together , check code into GitHub, might make a bit of money if we ask nicely, or sell "ads", and hope for an early exit because of our sheer brilliance, leaving the dirty work to our future parent. The most valu…

> You can tell who is an entrepreneur and who isn't by those who talk shit about Larry and Oracle. There is room for a variety of entrepreneurial styles. In economics as in a natural ecosystem, there is room for an astounding variety of survival strategies. The Disney movie "The Lion King" just isn't referenced enough on HN. Your comment is roughly equivalent to saying "You can tell who is a successful species on the…

Some good points, but I wasn't trying to equate entrepreneurship with individual success or happiness. I was talking about our broader economic ecosystem, with the managed organization as the primary unit, not the individual.

The question was, what approaches are required for the individual (an entrepreneur) that creates such a managed organization to build a sustainably, very high wealth producing capability?

In this, I do not think your analogy of apex predators follows. Most companies live and die quickly, those that become pillars of wealth and last 50 years+ have tended to carve out monopoly (by their apex predator?) status in certain areas such that they can diversify into new ones.

This is not to say that all organizations need to be pillars of wealth and last two generations. There's plenty of room for survival and happiness with lifestyle organizations. But I wouldn't necessarily call people that start such companies entrepreneurs, I'd call them "small business owners" or "self employed".

Re: Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

#64

Post by unclebunkers »

parasubvert wrote: post #60
unclebunkers wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, Notch seemed to do alright for himself. Having made at least a billion as a result of starting his own company. I suspect that qualifies as an entrepreneur. He didn't seem the KKND type, but I could be wrong.

Notch isn't an entrepreneur, he's said so himself. He has no interest in creating or running companies. He's the success story of a brilliant founder that hands off his work to a parent (Microsoft) to do the dirty work.

You're simply presenting a "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Notch created his own company, ran it, and made a billion in selling it. If that's not an entrepreneur, most of HN is going to need to change their business cards.

Re: Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

#65

Post by idlewords »

parasubvert wrote: post #58
idlewords wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an entrepreneur and I think Larry Ellison is a turd. Am I blowing your mind? People start and run companies for a variety of motives. Obliterating the competition is one of them, but it seems to correlate with being a pretty awful person to be around, so not everyone chooses to play by those rules. Ultimately you get to choose-and are responsible for-the rules you play by. If there's one big lesson of entrepreneu…

Generally I think of entrepreneurs as wanting to create a growth business with sustainable competitive advantage, which in turn creates great wealth for customers, employees, and investors. The alternative is starting a lifestyle business. This is fine, but not a source of great wealth beyond your family. It's more aptly described by "small business owner" or "self-employed". Either angle can shape the person you bec…

This is a "no true Scotsman" argument about the nature of entepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are people who start businesses, which is a much wider category than what you seem to have in mind.

Re: Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

#66

Post by Someone1234 »

parasubvert wrote: post #60
unclebunkers wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, Notch seemed to do alright for himself. Having made at least a billion as a result of starting his own company. I suspect that qualifies as an entrepreneur. He didn't seem the KKND type, but I could be wrong.

Notch isn't an entrepreneur, he's said so himself. He has no interest in creating or running companies. He's the success story of a brilliant founder that hands off his work to a parent (Microsoft) to do the dirty work.

> He's the success story of a brilliant founder that hands off his work to a parent (Microsoft) to do the dirty work.

All Minecraft versions combined have sold over 50 million copies, and the product is on the decline (since people only buy it once). So what "dirty work" did he hand it off for Microsoft to do?

Re: Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

#67

Post by notacoward »

res0nat0r wrote: post #57
notacoward wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it was. I merely said he had enough luck for his strengths to outweigh his faults.

I find it actually pretty ironic that Larry is so derided here. It seems to come out more due to jealousy (also see: Google, Apple, Facebook, Craigslist now that also have lots of money) than anything else.

Attribution of motive in lieu of an argument? Really?

Re: Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

#68

Post by LandoCalrissian »

mikestew wrote: post #44
adventured wrote: post #5

"Larry was loathe to sell any of the company stock; he generally took a dim view of VCs and preferred to bootstrap" Which is why 37 years after its founding, and after 28 years as a public company, he still owns 25% of the company (per Bloomberg). All the more remarkable considering Oracle is worth $173 billion.

Kind of old-fashioned, don't you think? All that hard work and patience, building a solid product that people actually need. Much easier to win the VC/exit lottery with a Cat-Pictures-as-a-Service product. On a side note, boy, I'm at a loss to come up with a reason for someone to down vote you. Factual statement, complete with a reference to where you got your information, and some little shit who doesn't like facts…

"Cat-Pictures-as-a-Service"

Brb, working my billion dollar exit now.

Re: Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

#69

Post by idlewords »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #36
idlewords wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you want to grow big". There's plenty of room at the bottom.

Do you think that anyone who runs a large software company is a turd?

What an odd question. I imagine some of them are very nice people, but I would have no way to know.

Re: Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner

#70

Post by idlewords »

unclebunkers wrote: post #64
parasubvert wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notch isn't an entrepreneur, he's said so himself. He has no interest in creating or running companies. He's the success story of a brilliant founder that hands off his work to a parent (Microsoft) to do the dirty work.

You're simply presenting a "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Notch created his own company, ran it, and made a billion in selling it. If that's not an entrepreneur, most of HN is going to need to change their business cards.

The "no true scotsman" fallacy is not a true fallacy.
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