Larry Ellison

  b. 1944 | American entrepreneur

At The Bottom

— 1991

After doubling its sales almost every year since 1979, the company nearly imploded...

Larry Ellison was never the sort of person to shy away from danger, but on Christmas Day 1991, the 47-year-old software executive took a risk that nearly killed him.  While bodysurfing in Hawaii, Ellison was caught by a fast-moving, 13-foot wave that heaved him onto the beach.  Later, he described the sound of his own bones breaking as being like the sound of someone crushing shredded wheat.  He heard his ribs snapping and felt a piece of his board — shattered by the impact — slam into his neck, breaking it at the 16th vertebrae.  Before he could fully recover from his surfing mishap, Ellison ventured out on a mountain bike ride that led to  a second accident; one of his arms was shattered, requiring extensive surgery.  Although Ellison survived these accidents with no permanent damage, his physical rehabilitation was made more challenging due to the adversity that had come to surround his professional life.  Oracle — the database software company he had co-founded in 1977 with $1400 of his own money — was on the brink of destruction.  After doubling its sales almost every year since 1979, the company nearly imploded when it revealed that dubious accounting practices had overstated corporate earnings for many years.  In 1990, Oracle’s profits were practically non-existent; in early 1991, it posted its first-ever loss, and later that year it was forced to revise previous years’ earnings statements. Compounding the company’s problem, Oracle had released a software package that performed badly and became the subject of jokes throughout the world of high technology.  Oracle laid off 400 workers — the largest cuts in its history. Oracle stock lost 80 percent of its value, tumbling from $25 a share to $5.  Many observers wondered if the company could survive.