Larry Ellison

"Its Microsoft versus mankind, with Microsoft having only a slight lead"

"I hate the PC, with a passion."

"Really great blogs do not take the place of great microprocessors. Great blogs do not replace great software. Lots and lots of blogs does not replace lots and lots of sales."

"When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal."

"Twenty minutes compared to never, thats a lot. Our customer, the Central Intelligence Agency, would get very upset [if] somebody looks in their database."

"If the Internet turns out not to be the future of computing, were toast. But if it is, were golden."

"The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than womens fashion. Maybe Im an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? Its complete gibberish. Its insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"

"If an open source product gets good enough, well simply take it. So the great thing about open source is nobody owns it – a company like Oracle is free to take it for nothing, include it in our products and charge for support, and thats what well do. So it is not disruptive at all – you have to find places to add value. Once open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane. … We dont have to fight open source, we have to exploit open source."

"Great achievers are driven, not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure."

"I had all the disadvantages necessary for success."

"So remember this graduates: when people start saying youre crazy, you just might be on to the most important innovation of your life."

"Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything thats going on."