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Oracle founder shares secrets of success
February 13, 2009
The good news is software is not a capital intensive business. You can do it with on a shoestring. And all the great software companies have started pretty much that way. Not all of them, but certainly that's how Microsoft started. But I think we had less; we had nothing. We had no outside investment whatsoever.
Whenever you can find flaws in conventional wisdom is when you get real competitive advantages. Whenever you're just doing the same thing everyone else is doing, the best you can hope for is parity, you know, or small advantages, to do it 10 percent better or 20 percent better or even 30 percent better, but not a thousand times better.
There is really nothing riskier than not taking risks.
So what makes me happy? I was really happy to build this house. That's it. Building things. The trouble with software is that it is very hard to show your aunt in Florida what you've done. But what do you think of this building? 'Ah, it's beautiful, I love it. You did such a good job.' Thank you.
We have not tried too many things that are radical; you don't need too many things that are radical to get ahead… You need about one of those every five years. You have to take these big risks on a regular, though not too frequent, basis.
Image: Ellison sprays champagne with crew members after they won the Marseille Louis Vuitton Cup Act 1 in southern France. | Photograph: Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters
Also read: Don't blame H-1B workers for America's woes
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