Business Insider
Larry Ellison at USC.
Ellison's commencement speech was quite the coup for the USC class, but there's a good reason why he was there.
Ellison was granted an honorary doctorate by USC, a Doctor of Humane Letters. He has just donated $200 million to the university, one of the largest donations in USC's history, to establish a first-of-its kind holistic cancer treatment and research center.
The center will be run by famed cancer research doctor and best-selling author, Dr. David Agus. Agus is known for treating the cancer of many the tech elite, including Ellison's best friend, Steve Jobs.
During the speech he revealed something about himself that puts that donation into perspective.
"When I was your age, I used to dream about this place. My dream was to go to med school at USC," he told the class.
Instead, Ellison went to two different colleges, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Chicago, and dropped out of both. But he learned enough about computers to move to Northern California find work in the tech industry. He then helped create a new kind of database, cofounded Oracle, and built it into one of the world's biggest software companies.
He was born of modest means and is now the 7th richest man in the world.
Ellison's commencement speech was filled with quotable tidbits and words of wisdom. Here's a few: