💻 Oracle Corporation — Key Facts
| Stock Listing | NYSE: ORCL |
| Founder & CTO | Larry Ellison (co-founded 1977; ~42% stake) |
| Co-Founders | Bob Miner, Ed Oates |
| CEO | Safra Catz (CEO since 2014) |
| Founded | 1977, Santa Clara, California |
| Revenue (FY2024) | ~$52.9 billion |
| Market Cap | ~$400+ billion (as of 2025) |
| Key Products | Oracle Database, OCI Cloud, NetSuite ERP, Cerner Health |
Oracle Corporation is one of the world’s largest enterprise software and cloud computing companies — publicly traded on NYSE (ORCL) and uniquely characterized by the outsized influence of its founder, Larry Ellison, who owns approximately 42% of Oracle’s shares even decades after co-founding the company. This massive personal stake makes Ellison the effective controlling shareholder and regularly places him among the world’s three or four wealthiest individuals.
Who Is the Owner of Oracle?
Oracle is a publicly traded company (NYSE: ORCL), but Larry Ellison holds approximately 42% of outstanding shares — a stake worth hundreds of billions of dollars — giving him de facto control over the company despite its public ownership structure. Ellison co-founded Oracle in 1977 with Bob Miner and Ed Oates as Software Development Laboratories, later renaming it Relational Software Inc., then Oracle Systems Corporation. The day-to-day CEO is Safra Catz, who has been Oracle’s chief executive since 2014. Ellison serves as Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, retaining enormous operational influence beyond his ownership stake alone.
Larry Ellison — The Founder Behind Oracle
Larry Ellison is one of the most distinctive figures in Silicon Valley history. Born in New York City in 1944 and raised in Chicago, Ellison dropped out of two universities before moving to California to work in tech. His insight — applying Edgar F. Codd’s relational database theory to build a commercial database product — became Oracle Database, which has dominated enterprise data management for over 40 years. Ellison is known for his competitive intensity, lavish lifestyle (including a Japanese-inspired estate and racing yachts), and an early rivalry with Bill Gates for the title of world’s richest person. His personal net worth has regularly exceeded $100 billion.
Oracle’s Modern Cloud Transformation
Oracle has aggressively expanded beyond its database heritage into cloud computing (OCI — Oracle Cloud Infrastructure), competing against Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Oracle acquired Cerner Corporation (healthcare IT) for $28.3 billion in 2022 in its largest acquisition, and acquired NetSuite (cloud ERP) in 2016. Oracle has also emerged as a significant AI infrastructure provider, with partnerships including a major deal with OpenAI for cloud computing resources.
