Larry Ellison

Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American businessman and entrepreneur who co-founded software company Oracle Corporation. He was Oracle's chief executive officer from 1977 to 2014, and is now its chief technology officer and executive chairman. As of June 2023, he was listed by Bloomberg Billionaires Index as the fourth-wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated fortune of $135 billion. Ellison is also known for his 98% ownership stake in Lanai, the sixth-largest island in the Hawaiian Archipelago. Early life and education Ellison was born on August 17, 1944, in New York City to Florence Spellman, an unwed Jewish mother. His biological father was an Italian-American United States Army Air Corps pilot. After Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption. He did not meet his biological mother again until he was 48. Ellison moved to Chicago's South Shore, then a middle-class neighborhood. He remembers his adoptive mother, Lillian Spellman Ellison, as warm and loving, in contrast to his austere, unsupportive, and often distant adoptive father, who had chosen the name Ellison to honor his point of entry into the United States, Ellis Island. Louis Ellison was a government employee who had made a small fortune in Chicago real estate, only to lose it during the Great Depression.