1991 -- 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.
2000 -- In late April 2000, Larry Ellison went to bed as the richest man in the world, barely surpassing Bill Gates with a fortune topping $53 billion. More importantly, by this time Oracle had returned to its position of dominance within the industry. Ellison had driven Oracle to launch a series of innovative products, including a database with a built-in web server and the first Internet file system. Throughout the 2000s, Oracle acquired one software company after another and became the third-largest revenue producer in the software industry, trailing only IBM and Microsoft. Ellison's success with Oracle guaranteed that he would be remembered as one of his generations' greatest technology entrepreneurs.
Ellison's return to the top began with a frank admission: He had been an ineffective leader. The risk-taking attitude that had nearly killed him in Hawaii had also worked out badly for Oracle over the years. Like everyone in business, he needed to figure out how to be aggressive without sabotaging his chances at success. He had allowed quality control to slide and placed the wrong people in charge of accounting. He had put unreasonable demands on his sales staff, creating an incentive system that encouraged them to dump as much product on the market as they could, as quickly as they could, regardless of whether clients could actually pay for it. His body -- like his company -- was badly injured, but it could recover, and similar accidents could be avoided with the right amount of caution and foresight. Ellison admitted that he needed help managing his own company, so he brought in a new CFO and even took the surprising step of replacing himself as chairman for a period of time; in the end, half of the executives at Oracle were replaced with more experienced officers. As Ellison nursed his physical wounds, his company charted a course for recovery. He never lost his aggressive edge -- he continued to believe that his own success required others to fail -- but he and Oracle did not repeat the recklessness of earlier years. Over the next decade, the company regained the trust of its investors and customers; it broadened its reach by acquiring smaller software companies that specialized in health care, banking, retail, and insurance among other niches.. Betting on the growth of the Internet, Ellison focused on acquiring and developing products that could run via web browsers. Ellison maintained his active lifestyle -- especially through yacht racing, including several appearances in the America's Cup -- but he remembered a few lessons about taking risks. When a storm killed six sailors (none from his ship) during a 1998 race in Australia, Ellison decided to leave ocean racing to the professionals.