Watching Larry Ellison Become Larry Ellison – The DNA of a Winner • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by notacoward » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 4:53 PM UTC

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…

So anyone who believes in basic business ethics doesn't get to be an entrepreneur in your book? Like many others here, I don't have a problem with Oracle making money or even dominating its market. I have a problem with how they've done those things, and all of the potential innovation they've stifled in the process. Look at some of the lawsuits they've been involved in, or some of the promising projects they've killed by acquisition.

I have personally seen Oracle try to steal my employer's ideas (while I was at Dolphin) and code (while I was at Clam). I was in one of their machine rooms when I caught them making an illegal copy of our source tree, and I most definitely did not get the impression that it was a rogue developer acting on their own initiative. In another life, I've seen how they treat partners, contributing almost nothing to a "joint effort" on a port (impeding it by only providing machine-obfuscated source) even though they were clearly going to benefit most from its completion.

That kind of crap has nothing to do with being hungry, or competitive, or even aggressive. It has to do with being immoral. That's why even real entrepreneurs "talk shit" about Larry and Oracle.

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

#52

Post by oracleverer » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 4:53 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #34

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…

If you don't want to obliterate the competition, then software is probably a bad place to be if you want to grow big. Winner take all seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

I usually don't comment but this just hits the nerves so hard I couldn't resist; Larry Ellison is as not an entrepreneur, he is a public figurehead chosen to be the face of a company started by a small team of programmers with ties to the intelligence community who then mysteriously got a huge government contract with no company history to speak of despite competitive bids by established, larger companies with experience and concrete histories. Like how, oh, I don't know, another company these days is being shoved in our Face(book)s as a model of success for no other reason than its strategic value to the intell community. Or how Steve Wynn was marketed as a genius developer but it turned out he was just a front for the mob who needed stay in and compete with corporations but couldn't raise funds on wall street due to criminal records. Or how Bill Gates was a "genius" because he insisted on licensing Winblows instead of selling it even though history went on to show that he actually tried to sell it to IBM numerous times but IBM's then CEO, who was a friend of his family and lived a few blocks away in the same neighborhood actually came with the idea to the table and insisted that IBM license the software instead of buying it, which basically set Microsoft with a huge source of un-earned cash just as it was starting up and helped create the mythos of the "genius" entrepreneur.

The only thing this is proof of is inexperience, gullibility and lack of insight into the real workings of the world.

You want to see a good example of an entrepreneur? Look at Jack Ma. No social background, no spoon in mouth, just a lot of optimism hard work and a sense that success can be mutual and open-looped. Started in China, a country notorious for government/business/family-relation corruption but chose not to seek help from the obvious places and instead earned business the hard way - going door to door and manufacturers and asking them to sign up, one boring conversation at a time.

You couldn't make a hollywood movie out of that because its so boring. But it's reality. Any startup story that can have a hollywood movie around it is usually just a public business sockpuppet around a group of allied interests with money to throw around at the next "genius" they want to prop up to create a magical story/script for the next IPO.

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

#53

Post by marincounty » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 4:54 PM UTC

unclebunkers wrote: post #2

"It's not enough to win, all others must fail" This isn't the DNA of a winner, this is the DNA of a sociopath.

Yea, this I don't like this whole "it's legal--I'm just a great Entrepreneur(Winner!). Make your money, but don't step on the little guy. Oh yea, a hand shake means more than a contract in my world. I hope it's not a generational thing? I've been no angel on my life, but I have never taken advantage of someone poor, or naive. I know a few very wealthy Winners. They have all the toys, but very few friends, and even the third wife really doesn't give a chit about them. Oh, once their kids realize how daddy/mommy made all that money--the love turns to co-dependent despise wrapped in a smile. That said, there are financial and personal heros--Wosniak comes to mind?

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

#54

Post by notacoward » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 4:55 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #46

notacoward wrote: post #6

What a fawning piece of tripe. Uncle Larry's monomania and "others must fail" sociopathy might have worked for Oracle in a particular market and time, but it would be a recipe for utter failure in a modern startup where adaptability and collaboration are more valued. He didn't have unique entrepreneurial DNA. He had some skills that were valuable, others that were deficient, and enough luck that the former outweighed…

"He didn't have unique entrepreneurial DNA. He had some skills that were valuable, others that were deficient, and enough luck that the former outweighed the latter." Luck plays a part in every success story. However, I find it dubious at best to consider that luck is the main factor in Ellison's and Oracle's success.

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

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

#55

Post by dllthomas » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 5:01 PM UTC

spindritf wrote: post #19

dllthomas wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if we let it be.

That's not really true. There's a very serious collective action problem and limits on what humans (can) find genuinely attractive. Which is why I added "in the modern world." In a tight-knit community sociopathic traits are probably much less beneficial than in an atomized, largely anonymous society.

We address some collective action problems, with varying degrees of success (certainly, some things we fail horribly at are collective action problems).

My statement wasn't meant to say, "Oh, it's simple, we just X!" Just that it's not necessarily outside the realm of things we could address. In particular, "adaptive" - when it comes to humans - is only relevant at time scales of many generations. Much changes over those time scales.

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

#56

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 5:04 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #42

jiggy2011 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle is a better steward of these projects than a bankrupt Sun would have been. Besides , Oracle has been an active contributor to Linux for years.

Ask anyone who worked on Sun or MySQL whether they think Oracle has been a good steward, even compared to a volunteer-run foundation after the initial sponsor went bankrupt. For example, let's see what Sun's Bryan Cantrill had to say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc No, Oracle isn't a steward. At best they're just using those projects at cash cows. At worst they intended to destroy their erstwhile competi…

1.3% is likely more than most meaningful contributions of most of the latest web 2.0 of startups. Most startups do not contribute to open source at all, especially not any parts of their core product.

The rest of this comment is weird personal attacks.

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

#57

Post by res0nat0r » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 5:05 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #54

josefresco wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He didn't have unique entrepreneurial DNA. He had some skills that were valuable, others that were deficient, and enough luck that the former outweighed the latter." Luck plays a part in every success story. However, I find it dubious at best to consider that luck is the main factor in Ellison's and Oracle's success.

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.

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

#58

Post by parasubvert » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 5:07 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #30

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…

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 become, but I'm not sure it's so easy to correlate "awful" with "growth company founder". Certainly Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are in this category, and they've been brutal to their competition. Are they turds too?

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

#59

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 5:09 PM UTC

orbifold wrote: post #45

jiggy2011 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle is a better steward of these projects than a bankrupt Sun would have been. Besides , Oracle has been an active contributor to Linux for years.

They kind of have to contribute to Linux in order for their database software to be fast.

Sure, but we could probably say the same about say Valve's contributions.

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

#60

Post by parasubvert » Thu, Sep 25, 2014, 5:10 PM UTC

unclebunkers wrote: post #50

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…

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.