Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Steve Jobs
At age 69, the man has achieved just about anything anyone could dream of achieving:
- He's a self-made billionaire, worth about $44 billion, the fifth richest man on the planet.
- He's a pilot with a huge collection of airplanes, as well as fast cars and art;
- His massive real estate portfolio includes a good chunk of Malibu and the Hawaiian island of Lanai;
- He's a world-class sailor and has repeatedly won the world's most prestigious sailing race, the America's Cup.
- The company he co-founded, Oracle, generates $37 billion in revenues.
- He's the longest sitting CEO of a tech company, running Oracle since he co-founded it in 1977.
- Both of his children are hugely successful Hollywood movie producers.
- He was also famously best friends and next-door neighbors with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
And although Jobs is gone, Ellison says that Jobs still inspires him, he told an audience Thursday night in Las Vegas, speaking at an Oracle event.
When asked by an attendee what motivates him, Ellison said:
What drives me is this constant testing of limits. Constant learning.
I'm very interested in making Oracle as successful a company as we can make it. And to me success is not the number of employees, or even the revenue or the profit. ... As my best friend of many years Steve Jobs would say, how many insanely great products can you bring out?
How can you move the world just a bit, make a difference, change lives ... and how much can I help [while] discovering my own limits?