Everyone Else Must Fail: The Unvarnished Truth About Oracle and Larry Ellison

Book Description

Karen Southwick’s unauthorized account provides the full story of Larry Ellison’s brilliant, controversial career. Ellison’s drive and fierce ambition created Oracle out of the dust and built it into one of America’s great technology companies, but his unpredictable management style keeps it constantly on the edge of both success and disaster. The hostile bid for PeopleSoft is just the most recent example. With one clever strategic move, Larry Ellison threw much of the business software field into play.

The saying “It’s not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail” has been so often used by or associated with Ellison that most people think it originated with him. It’s actually attributed to Genghis Khan, but it’s a dead-on way to describe not only the way Ellison thinks about competitors but the way he runs Oracle. His weapons are not marauding hordes, but Oracle’s possession of database technology that is crucial for keeping mission-critical information flows working at thousands of organizations, corporations, nonprofits, and government agencies.

Inside Oracle, Ellison has time and again systematically purged key operating, sales, and marketing people who got too powerful for his comfort. Most notable was Ray Lane, Oracle’s president for nine years, who was widely credited with bringing order out of the chaos that was Oracle in the early nineties and growing it into a ten billion dollar company. Ellison got rid of the one key person who was building confidence with Wall Street, business partners, and customers that Oracle was no longer flying by the seat of its pants and had its act together. Ellison’s mania for absolute control and his inability to coexist with the very lieutenants who bring much-needed stability to the company have brought Oracle to the brink of collapse before, and may well do it again.

Ellison is a throwback to an earlier, much more freewheeling version of capitalism, the kind practiced by the nineteenth-century robber barons who ran their companies as private fiefdoms. Larry Ellison is one of the most intriguing and dominant leaders of a major twenty-first-century corporation, and Everyone Else Must Fail raises the question of whether Oracle’s products and the reliance placed in them by so many are too important to be subject to the whims of one man. While giving credit to Ellison’s brilliance and devotion, the book sounds a warning about an ingenious man’s tendency to be his own company’s worst enemy.

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Karen Southwick's unauthorized account provides the full story of Larry Ellison's brilliant, controversial career. Ellison's drive and fierce ambition created Oracle out of the dust and built it into one of America's great technology companies, but his unpredictable management style keeps it constantly on the edge of both success and disaster. The hostile bid for PeopleSoft is just the most recent example. With one clever strategic move, Larry Ellison threw much of the business software field into play.

The saying "It's not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail" has been so often used by or associated with Ellison that most people think it originated with him. It's actually attributed to Genghis Khan, but it's a dead-on way to describe not only the way Ellison thinks about competitors but the way he runs Oracle. His weapons are not marauding hordes, but Oracle's possession of database technology that is crucial for keeping mission-critical information flows working at thousands of organizations, corporations, nonprofits, and government agencies.

Inside Oracle, Ellison has time and again systematically purged key operating, sales, and marketing people who got too powerful for his comfort. Most notable was Ray Lane, Oracle's president for nine years, who was widely credited with bringing order out of the chaos that was Oracle in the early nineties and growing it into a ten billion dollar company. Ellison got rid of the one key person who was building confidence with Wall Street, business partners, and customers that Oracle was no longer flying by the seat of its pants and had its act together. Ellison's mania for absolute control and his inability to coexist with the very lieutenants who bring much-needed stability to the company have brought Oracle to the brink of collapse before, and may well do it again.

Ellison is a throwback to an earlier, much more freewheeling version of capitalism, the kind practiced by the nineteenth-century robber barons who ran their companies as private fiefdoms. Larry Ellison is one of the most intriguing and dominant leaders of a major twenty-first-century corporation, and Everyone Else Must Fail raises the question of whether Oracle's products and the reliance placed in them by so many are too important to be subject to the whims of one man. While giving credit to Ellison's brilliance and devotion, the book sounds a warning about an ingenious man's tendency to be his own company's worst enemy.

Customer Reviews:

Read it, you will like it!!.......2005-06-15

"Everyone else must fail" by book by Karen Southwick is a must read if you want an example of how the goddess of luck favors those who grab their opportunities. When Oracle cofounders Ellison, Miner and Oates land a consulting assignment to feed themselves they know they can spend some time building a relational database without having to worry about their bread and butter.

A few decades later 98 of the top 100 companies in the world would use Oracle software in their businesses. This well researched book gives us inside glimpses of a company which overcame the growing pains of crossing the billion dollar mark, faced bankruptcy, shot itself in the foot with insensitive customer support and successfully completed the largest acquisition in the enterprise software industry. The author also tracks the maturing of the relational database, middleware and enterprise application business. If you want to understand technology trends especially those in the enterprise application industry, grab this opportunity to educate yourself. This is one of the best I've seen on Oracle thus far. I wonder whether anyone will have the energy to write another!!

Adventures in LarryLand.......2004-02-18

If you haven't figured out that Larryland is run like a private empire and the founder has an ego to match his billion dollar bank account, then this book is a good place to start. Karen Southwick, a former Forbes ASAP editor has written this book without any direct access to Ellison. Ok, at least it's not the softball co-authored love letter that SoftWar is, but unfortunately, not by much.

The book covers the history of Oracle from its development of the first commercial relational database (written for the CIA based on published articles by IBM) to its present day situation as a multi-billion dollar behemoth that is hated by both competitors and, in Southwick's views, customers. The book covers the rise of Oracle in the go-go 80's when it paid sales reps in gold coins to sell software that wasn't ready, to its adolescent financial crisis, the unceremonial firing of every known Oracle executive other than Ellison himself, and finally the resurgence of Oracle as a major industry force. Unfortunately the book has less drama than the average hair-band "Behind the Music" episode on MTV.

I admit when I read excerpts, I had high expectations for the rest of the book. There may be an interesting story about Larry Ellison and Oracle, but this isn't it. On the other hand, if you're eager to compile a who's-who list of fired Oracle execs (Bennioff, Bloom, Conway, Jarvis, Lane, Nussbaum, Scholes, Siebel, Sumner...) and you want to hear them dish, hey it's cheap.

Unbalanced yet interesting.......2004-01-17

I was expecting a more balanced account of Larry Ellison and the rise of Oracle as a software giant. As an unauthorized biography, I expected the author to dish some dirt. However, other than praise for being a technical visionary, Ellison is portrayed as the Darth Vader of Silicon Valley. That being said, the text is a compelling read. On the business side, the text focuses on problems and solutions within sales and customer service. Very little was presented on Oracle's development practices.

Hard-hitting and fast-paced.......2004-01-10

The book seems to accurately portray Larry Ellison's strengths and weaknesses, especially his arrogance in dealing with other people. Too bad the author couldn't have gotten Ellison himself to say more.

Ray Lane.......2004-01-10

Ray Lane is a great business man.
Larry Ellison is a bad person.
That about sums up this book.

Very onesided book. She repeats herself a lot.

On the plus side you can learn some of the history about the world's greatest database company.

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Everyone Else Must Fail: The Unvarnished Truth about Oracle and Larry Ellison
Karen Southwick
Manufacturer: Crown Business
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MC15J6

Book Description

Heroes, villains and saving the day! Magic Capes, Amazing Powers explores why children are so strongly attracted to superhero and weapons play, and addresses the resulting concerns of parents and teachers. Unique in its approach to this wildly popular type of play, Magic Capes describes how teachers can use redirection, story-telling, dramatic play materials, anti-bias curriculum and clear limit-setting to guide superhero play in a positive direction that allows children to play and satisfies the concerns of adults.

Eric Hoffman is the program coordinator for the Cabrillo College Children's Center in Aptos, CA. He has worked with preschool-age children since 1970 and cofounded the CRADLE Project, which assists teachers and parents who do conflict resolution with children.

Customer Reviews:

Superhero Play.......2007-03-10

Great info, important topic and very relevant to preschool teachers...I'm still unsure how to deal with gun play in schools, however.

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Video Invaders: Everything You Want to Know About Video Games Plus How to Beat Them!
Steve Bloom
Manufacturer: Arco Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0668055189

Amazon.com

Larry Williams's The Right Stock at the Right Time: Prospering in the Coming Goods Years is a marriage of investment advice with attempts at formalizing what is, essentially, market speculation.

The first three chapters trace cyclical behavior over the history of the U.S. stock market, behavior that Williams summarizes as the "10-year pattern," the "sure thing seven years," "the four-year phenomenon," the "straight eight factor," and "the October effect." Pulling these all together, he makes predictions about the likely best times in the coming decade for investors to adjust their portfolios.

While these chapters often leave the underpinnings of each cycle unexplained, by chapter four, he increasingly grounds his advice in measurable market activity, including decreases in credit, behavior of the bond market, and cash on hand in mutual funds. Later, Williams turns to more traditional investment advice about which stocks to actually pick. Here, he is committed to tracking price-to-earnings ratio and finding discounted stocks where growth is coupled with declining share price.

The Right Stock at the Right Time is not recommended as a first book for those just entering the world of investments. Williams is s seasoned veteran who has weathered years of up and down markets, and his experience will make interesting reading for those who already share his fascination for timing the market. Ultimately, he sees the investor as akin to a casino: even a slight advantage means that, over the long run, the house makes money. The claim Williams is offering--one that each reader will have to judge for himself--is that his "10-year pattern" and other market trends bring this advantage. --Patrick O'Kelley

Book Description

Praise for THE RIGHT STOCK AT THE RIGHT TIME

"It is a fundamentally good time to consider the strategies in this book. Macro-market timing, stock-specific approaches, money management revelations, and intermarket analysis. Even better that it is written by someone who has actually done it himself."
—Lindsay Glass Global Market Timing Specialist, Bloomberg LP

"This book delivers a knock-out punch to investor pessimism, with an uppercut of bullishness and hard facts."
—Ray Mercer Former World Heavyweight Champion

"The stock market is a major stream of income and Williams clearly shows the best time and stocks to buy."
—Robert Allen, New York Times bestselling financial author and millionaire maker

"No other book on the horizon comes close to this one. Larry lets you stand on his shoulders and view the market from the vantage of a master."
—Yale Hirsch Chairman, The Hirsch Organization Inc.

Customer Reviews:

lacking lots of info.......2006-08-09

the first few chapters have built the anticipation for a good strategy to learn , HOWEVER, there were no formulas, nothing to learn.
book talks about theories about market timing with no proof.
i wouldent take it seriously as i thought

A Good Book on Market Timing.......2006-01-17

There are a number of good books on "Market Timing" and this would be in the top five. If you could afford to read three books on market timing, I would get Les Masonson's book, Deborah Weir's, and this one. If you want to first learn about market timing one a book at a time, get them in the same order I just listed them.

Each book covers some of the same ground but each offers a few nuggets that aren't as well covered in the other two. Larry William's book has the better documentation on the "Decade Effect", an interesting correlation between each year in a decade and how the market has done in each of those ten years.

So, all in all, buy those three books and you will have a pretty complete understanding of timing the market on a macro-basis.

Excellent research on the stock market.......2006-01-04

Good research into the stock market, presented in a clear and positive manner. Best of all it works I bought in early 2003 and have a handsome profit on all my stocks.

A keeper.......2005-03-23

We all get different things from a book depending on our personality, experience, investment style, etc. I look for the positive things I can get from a book, not for things to critize.

I have over 300 books in my Investment Library,and this is one of the few I set aside as a reference.

I always read Larry's books. He is not just an academic, a writer, or a peddler of his products. Larry Williams is one of the premier investors of our time. You can count the people more successful at investing on a few fingers. Anytime a person like this writes, I want to read it. Is the book perfect? Of course not. I too wish there were more detail and clarity. I count my- self lucky if I get one good idea from a book, I got several from this one. I have investment books that I have paid well over a hundred dollars for. I paid less than twenty dollars for this book. I can't imangine why anyone would hesitate to purchase a inexpensive book like this from an author with Larry's credentials. I am not the least concerned if he includes a few commercials.

Definitely worth the price ! ! !.......2005-01-13

Easily this book paid for its self in the first couple chapters. If I knew before I bought it how enlightening it would be, I would have been willing to pay much more than the retail price.

Book Description

This historical compilation of Martin Luther King, Jr. features live recordings of "The Great March To Freedom," "The Great March To Washington" and the immortal "Free At Last" speech. Plus, a poignant eulogy by Robert F. Kennedy. Run time: 70:02

Customer Reviews:

King Speeches.......2006-03-20

I've searched for speeches by Dr.Martin Luther King and I was please with the choices available through Amazon. This is a good look back in history.

Being one with history..........2001-03-22

MLK: The Martin Luther King tapes is the first Audio CD I've ever purchased. I am a new student of our great orators, and Martin, from what I've read, is the best. One of my only regrets concerning Dr. King's speeches is that I haven't been able to hear them all as spoken by his eloquent, yet powerful oratory style. This Audio CD has eliminated my concern. I can now hear Dr. King anytime I want to at work. I feel like I'm right there, listening with his audience. If this product is any indication of what to expect from future Audio CD's by other great orators such as JFK, FDR, and even Winston Churchill, then count me in! The only reason for the four stars as opposed to five stars is due to the rudely shortened eulogy of Robert Kennedy during Dr. King's funeral. There should have been more of it.

Book Description

From ancient times to the present day, astrology has captured the imagination -- is it possible that human fate is influenced by the stars? Astrologers throughout the ages have advised the powerful, from popes to presidents to royalty, and their influence can be seen as a hidden history behind the great events of the past. In The Fated Sky, historian Benson Bobrick writes the first serious history of astrology and takes a fascinating look at its origins and impact on human events.

Astrology is the origin of science itself, as astronomy, mathematics, and other disciplines arose in part to make possible the calculations necessary in casting horoscopes. In earlier times, it was a science that won the respect and allegiance of the greatest thinkers and rulers of the ancient world, and eventually claimed adherents among the great astronomers of the scientific revolution -- Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton among them. Statesmen such as Churchill and de Gaulle consulted astrologers, and St. Thomas Aquinas thought astrology not incompatible with Christian doctrine. It is even said the Incas submitted to the Spanish conquistadors without a fight because their arrival coincided with an astrological prophecy. And astrology permeates our cultural consciousness, from references in the Bible and Shakespeare to expressions such as "ill-starred" or "lucky stars."

Rich in historical anecdote and astrological lore, The Fated Sky shows us that while the true power of astrology may be open to debate, the belief in its power has been -- and continues to be -- an enduring and intriguing influence on history and the history of ideas.

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"In a horoscope he cast in 1647 for Charles I, William Lilly, a noted English astrologer, made the following judgment: ""Luna is with Antares, a violent fixed star, which is said to denote violent death, and Mars is approaching Caput Algol, which is said to denote beheading."" Two years later the king's head fell on the block. ""Astrology must be right,"" wrote the American astrologer Evangeline Adams, a claimed descendant of President John Quincy Adams, in a challenge to skeptics in 1929. ""There can be no appeal from the Infinite."" The Fated Sky explores both the history of astrology and the controversial subject of its influence in history. It is the first serious book to fully engage astrology in this way. Astrology is the oldest of the occult sciences. It is also the origin of science itself. Astronomy, mathematics, and other disciplines arose in part to make possible the calculations necessary in casting horoscopes. For five thousand years, from the ancient Near East to the modern world, the influence of the stars has been viewed as shaping the course and destiny of human affairs. According to recent polls, at least 30 percent of the American public believes in astrology, though, as Bobrick reveals, modern astrology is also utterly different from the doctrine of the stars that won the respect and allegiance of the greatest thinkers, scientists, and writers -- Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Arab, and Persian -- of an earlier day. Statesmen, popes, and kings once embraced it, and no less a figure than St. Thomas Aquinas, the medieval theologian, thought it not incompatible with Christian faith. There are some two hundred astrological allusions in Shakespeare's plays, and not one of their astrological predictions goes unfulfilled. The great astronomers of the scientific revolution -- Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler -- were adherents. Isaac Newton's appetite for mathematics was first whetted by an astrological text. In more recent times, prominent figures such as Churchill, de Gaulle, and Reagan have consulted astrologers and sometimes heeded their advice. Today universities as diverse as Oxford in England and the University of Zaragoza in Spain offer courses in the subject, fulfilling Carl Jung's prediction decades ago that astrology would again become the subject of serious discourse. Whether astrology actually has the powers that have been ascribed to it is, of course, open to debate. But there is no doubt that it maintains an unshakeable hold on the human mind. In The Fated Sky, Benson Bobrick has written an absolutely captivating and comprehensive account of this engrossing subject and its enduring influence on history and the history of ideas. "

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding Book About a Neglected Subject.......2007-01-23

The Fated Sky is an outstanding history book about the neglected subject of the history of astrology. According to Bobrick, "astrology is the oldest of the occult sciences," and he also points out that it "is the origin of science itself." The modern science of astronomy has its origins in astrology and Bobrick makes a spirited case that other sciences, such as botany, have their origins in astrology as well.

Bobrick's definition of astrology is "an applied science, insofar as it is based on stronomy; an exact science, insofar as its judgments are based on mathematical calculations; and an empirical science insofar as its deductions are based on data gathered over the course of time."

According to Bobrick, astrology is about the influence of heavenly bodies sich as stars and planets upon human behavior. Rulers ranging from popes to kings to emperors to caliphs had their own court astrologers and European universities had their own professors of astrology.

Bpbrick's work covers the history of astrology from the Chaldeans, the Greeks and the Egyptians through the Middle Ages and into our own presnt time. Bobrick also confronts critics of astrology ranging from the Roman orator Cicero to Saint Augustine. Astrologers were able to successfully defend their craft against these critics so much so that the likes of Saint Thomas Aquinas were able to integrate astrology into Christian thought.

The Fated Sky is an excellent work about the history of astrology and as such is greatly recommended.

jacket art.......2007-01-05

I am interested in finding out more information on the jacket cover by Tito Lessi. Does anyone know about this artist? I love the cover more than the book.
Thanks

Good readin' for classicists and other fine folks.......2006-11-06

I appreciated that this book was written by a non-astrologer who was nevertheless willing to actually research his subject and present astrology in an objective light. Classical astrological techniques (Ptolemy, Ficino, et al.) come off looking especially good in this work, and left me eager to read more of the classical works. Historians will like this book as well, since many of the major classical astrologers knew or had a connection with royalty, politicians, artists, and writers of their day. I found Bobrick's presentation of astrologers as people who varied widely in their ethics a bit disturbing, as this may reinforce the ideas people sometimes already have of astrologers as quacks and fringe players out to abuse the public. Nonetheless, the book did not gloss over the realities of these astrologer's lives, pointing to the fact that skill in astrology is not necessarily a guarantee of ethical behavior unless the astrologer chooses that it shall be so. This also points to the value of codes of ethics that have been put in place in modern astrological organizations, such as the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NCGR).

Fundamentalist Spin.......2006-09-27

The author's bias in this book can serve as a useful teaching tool, since it illustrates how Pluto's transit through Sagittarius has brought an ugly fundamentalism to the forefront in virtually every aspect of human activity - including astrology. The fantasy that retreating into the work of ancient astrologers - who may have have calculated fewer charts in a lifetime than a modern astrologer using a computer looks at in a year, and who never tell us about the times when their techniques failed - will magically restore the respectability of our profession is truly pathetic, but all the rage since 1995. But if you're one of those people who think that older is always better, you'll love this book. And to correct one of the author's many slanders against contemporary astrology, no credible modern astrologer reading Hitler's chart would have missed his cruel, sadistic, egotistical, recklessly overconfident nature. But they likely would have attempted to dissuade him from invading Poland or planning the Holocaust - instead of attributing responsibility for his crimes to his horoscope or "fate". For a much better introduction to a defensible contemporary astrology, I enthusiastically recommend either Dennis Elwell's Cosmic Loom or Richard Tarnas' Cosmos and Psyche.

Exceptional.......2006-09-26

Bobrick does what most other texts of this nature fail to do: take an even-handed approach to the subject. Too many books dealing with the history of astrology take a dismissive viewpoint, as if current thought and 'science' is all that we really need to know, and astrology is but an amusing antique. Far from it!

This book sets the record straight, to some extent. It's aimed at the general reader, and aquits itself well on this count. Bobrick presents a clear and easy to follow history of the astrological tradition, clearly pointing out some of the notable high (and low) points.

Bobrick is wise to remind readers that what passes for 'astrology' today is a pale imitation of what has gone before. Modern astrology, from about 1900 onwards, is a dumbed-down shadow of the art as was practised for thousands of years beforehand. This book is an excellent overview of those thousands of years, and reminds us of the rich heritage astrology has to offer.

My only quibble is that some astrological knowledge is assumed - some terms are often not clearly explained. I've studied the subject for many years, so was not a problem.

Book Description

Dominic Head demonstrates how the novel yields a special insight into important areas of social and cultural history in the second half of the twentieth-century. His study is the most exhaustive survey of post-war British fiction available. Placing novels in their social and historical context, it includes chapters on the state and the novel, class and social change, gender and sexual identity, national identity, and multiculturalism. Accessible and wide-ranging, this is the most current introduction to the subject available.

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Head, Dominic. The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction, 1950-2000.(Book Review) : An article from: Style

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Head, Dominic. The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction, 1950-2000.(Book Review) : An article from: Style
David Herman
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Style, published by Thomson Gale on December 22, 2004. The length of the article is 912 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Head, Dominic. The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction, 1950-2000.(Book Review)
Author: David Herman
Publication: Style (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 22, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 38 Issue: 4 Page: 527(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

THE CAMBRIDGE INTRODUCTION TO MODERN BRITISH FICTION, 1950-2000.

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THE CAMBRIDGE INTRODUCTION TO MODERN BRITISH FICTION, 1950-2000.
Dominic: Head
Manufacturer: Pan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000W2TV7E

Book Description

The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basins contain the largest number of the world's poor in any one region. The population is increasing steadily and unless the current development trends are broken, poverty will become even more pervasive. The region is endowed with considerable natural resources that could be used to foster sustainable economic development. In Sustainable Development of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basins, leading technocrats and intellectuals discuss how, through cooperation between the countries concerned and by taking a holistic development approach, the quality of life of the people of the basin could be improved significantly within a reasonable time-frame.

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