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Oracle founder shares secrets of success
February 13, 2009
If your cash is about to run out you have to cut your cash flow. CEOs have to make those decisions and live with them however painful they might be. You have to act and act now, and act in the best interests of the company as a whole, even if that means that some people in the company who are your friends have to work somewhere else.
You have to take a broader view and realise this is an industry like any other -- telecom, railroads. They went through consolidation. Why shouldn't the computer industry be any different?
In some ways, getting away from headquarters and having a little time to reflect allows you to find errors in your strategy. You get to rethink things. Often, that helps me correct a mistake that I made or someone else is about to make. I'd rather be wrong than do something wrong.
Building Oracle is like doing math puzzles as a kid. I was vehemently against acquisitions. Now, let's buy everything in sight. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. We're a little more strategic than that. But everything was on sale.
Microsoft's new revenue model might be ads. I think that is ridiculous. It is hard to believe that Microsoft has Google envy. We're in the software business -- we don't do ads. We're not going to sell ads on top of our database.
Image: Ellison with his wife, Melanie. | Photograph: Robert Galbraith/Reuters
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