Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I look at how Oracle’s leadership transition reflects Larry Ellison’s long-term succession plan.
Highlights
00:05 — I wanted to mention here that after 40 years, the long-running show called Larry Ellison’s Story Hour has ended. Now, I’m taking a little bit of license here. The Story Hour was the quarterly earnings call for Oracle, and it was 40 years ago that Oracle went public.
00:30 — While he would certainly talk occasionally about the numbers, the financial results, he used those occasions, those earnings calls, to tell the stories of what was going on not just within Oracle, but in the outside world, the direction in which technology was headed, where the business world was headed, and then where the technology was following.
01:15 — Larry Ellison did not make any opening remarks for the first time in 40 years. Last week on their Q4 earnings call, Ellison wasn’t even on the call itself. The three executives handled everything. I believe they did a great job, so no disrespect toward them, but it’s just kind of not going to be the same.
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02:24 — In about two months, Larry Ellison is going to have his 82nd birthday. He has been building up to this moment for about the last 12 years. Larry Ellison, I think, clearly believes he does not need to be on these earnings calls anymore because the company is in great hands with its new CEOs.
04:10 — I am not trying to say that Larry Ellison is riding off into any sunset, but I do think it was just a momentous occasion here when he decided 40 years of the Larry Ellison Story Hour on these earnings calls is enough, and time for a new chapter. Larry Ellison has a lot of work in a lot of different areas, and clearly he is deeply focused on them.
