Larry Ellison

Strategic Concepts & Mechanics

Signature MoveShadow First, Decide Later

Cornerstone MovePatent Shakedown as Bridge Financing

Cornerstone MoveIPO Week of Toy Story to Buy Negotiating Power

Signature MovePoint Richmond Isolation as Innovation Shield

Signature MoveDaily Phone Calls With No Off-Hours

Operating PrincipleMutual Resolution Over Imposed Outcomes

Competitive AdvantageBrand Billing War With Your Own Distributor

Cornerstone MoveOne Basket Watched Obsessively, Not a Slate

Capital StrategyFilm Library as Compounding Asset

Risk DoctrineCarrying Costs as Animation's Silent Killer

Decision FrameworkWhiteboard Leverage Audit Before Negotiation

Signature MoveSteve Writes the Check, Not the Script

Cornerstone MoveSell the Castle Before the Walls Crack

Identity & CultureBureaucrat-Artist Tension as Operating System

Signature MoveNo Backup Position in Any Negotiation

Signature MoveThirteen-Hour Meeting as Onboarding Ritual

Relationship LeverageFoxconn's Loss-Leader-to-Lock-In Playbook

Risk DoctrineTacit Knowledge as Accidental Export

Competitive AdvantageApple Squeeze: Invaluable Experience Over Margin

Identity & CultureVerbal Jujitsu Procurement Culture

Signature MoveDesign the Impossible Then Manufacture the Impossible

Signature MoveFifty Business Class Seats Daily to Shenzhen

Operating PrincipleZero Inventory as Theological Doctrine

Strategic PatternUnconstrained Design Not Cost Arbitrage

Cornerstone MoveSecret $275 Billion Kowtow to Keep the Machine Running

Signature MoveSilk Tie Competitions to Train Negotiators

Cornerstone MoveScrew It, iTunes for Windows

Cornerstone MoveBuy the Machines, Own the Factory Floor Without Owning a Factory

Signature MoveDrive Off the Cliff to Prove the Brakes Don't Work

Cornerstone MoveTrain Everyone Then Pit Them Against Each Other

Risk DoctrineRule By Law as Corporate Leash

Decision FrameworkBig Potato Small Potato: Positional Power Over Fairness

Identity & CultureCalifornia Sky Entrepreneurship

Signature MoveNever Judge Wealth by Appearance

Cornerstone MoveUpgrade the Stage, Keep the Craft Pure

Competitive AdvantagePartner Who Covers Your Blind Spot

Signature MoveCounter as Fixed-Point Observatory

Strategic PatternHideout Prestige Over Visible Location

Signature MoveSeating Diplomacy as Silent Service

Cornerstone MoveBootstrap Through Regulars, Not Location

Competitive AdvantageEarly IT Adoption for Analog Business

Signature MoveCelebrity Treated as Regular Customer

Operating PrincipleCombine Experience With Theory

Identity & CulturePaper Napkin Ideas Over Boardrooms

Relationship LeverageKunto: Invisible Influence Over Time

Strategic PatternObsession Follows Admiration

Primary Evidence

"We could see our symbol PIXR for the first time. We were live. Pixar was a public company. But the trading did not begin at $22. That was the price the first investors paid to Pixar to acquire the stock. It immediately jumped up into the high thirties. Demand was off the charts. We all stared at it, partly beaming, partly in disbelief. Todd Carter broke the silence. He turned to Steve. “Congratulations, Steve,” he said. “You’re a billionaire.” At the end of the first day’s trading, Pixar’s stock was at $39. That gave Pixar a market value of close to $1.5 billion and did indeed make Steve a billionaire. I later heard that while I was glued to the computer screen watching Pixar’s trades, Steve had stepped into a nearby office and made a phone call to his friend Larry Ellison, the founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation. All he apparently said was “Larry, I made it.”"

Source:To Pixar and Beyond

"Two years after the death of Steve Jobs, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison claimed it was inevitable Apple would struggle under Tim Cook. You only had to look, he said, at what happened to the company in the period after Jobs was ousted in 1985. “We already know. We saw. We conducted the experiment,” Ellison told talk show host Charlie Rose in 2013. His finger tracing an upwards curve, he said Apple had been an extraordinary success during Jobs’s first spell at the company, only to slump—his finger dropped—when he left. “We saw Apple with Steve Jobs” when he returned in 1997—up went his finger. “Now, we’re gonna see Apple without Steve Jobs”—another drop. “He is irreplaceable. They will not be nearly so successful.”"

Source:Apple in China

"By the way, we secretly think that Steve, a beginner at Japanese cuisine, might have a “teacher.” That would be Larry Ellison, co-founder of the globally known software company Oracle, and still its CEO. Larry is also known as a great Japan enthusiast, maintaining a home in Kyoto and regularly visiting Toshi’s Sushi. Observing the orders, it seemed Larry was more familiar with Japanese cuisine than Steve. Larry’s favorites were tuna, yellowtail, and tekka maki, and he also enjoyed roll sushi made with deep-fried softshell crab. For a period in the late 1990s, there were frequent opportunities to gather around the table with the Jobs couple, Larry, and his partner. During this time, Steve seemed to pick up the taste of the sushi Larry ordered."

Source:Steve Jobs' Chef (translated)

Appears In Volumes

To Pixar and Beyond Apple in China Steve Jobs' Chef (translated)