1962 - Larry Ellison Home
Founder of Oracle Software, made $750 million in 2000
I opened a PC computer software business in 1980 in Bonita Springs, Fl. In my business I researched several databases as possibilities for me to base my software on and came across a product called 'Oracle' put out by a company in California founded by Larry Ellison. I eventually figured out that this was the Larry that had been in my calculus class at the University of Illinois in 1962.
I entered the U. of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana in the fall of 62. I particularly remembered this fellow named Larry who sat two rows to the right of me in my first semester calculus class who was an exceptionally forceful individual. One reason that I remembered him was because on the first day of class he got really irritated when the female teacher mispronounced his name. I was a little surprised myself to see a female calculus teacher as she was the first one I had heard about. I think he was really irritated about having a female teacher and he asked her how anyone with half a brain could have pronounced "E-L-L-I-S-O-N" (and he spelled it out for her) "Allison." I was really embarrassed for the teacher (who I thought kept her composure well) and my first impression of him was that he was a real dickhead, but as the class progressed I realized he knew the subject matter better than I did and I learned to respect him.
On the last day of class as we were leaving I approached him to ask him if he was taking the second semester of calculus when he told me he was dropping out and going to California for a programming job. He mentioned the name of the company which I had never heard of. I later read that he went to work for a company that provided a database for the CIA. I was surprised that he was quiting because he was probably the best student in the class and I didn't see him as dropping out.
I remember feeling excited about the prospect of going to California for a programming job and wishing I could go also. I later did get a degree in electrical engineering and mathematics and went to work for Northrup Nortronics in LA in February 1968 as an Associate Engineer, but dropped out in August 68 to protest the war and went back to Champaign-Urbana.
As you will see when you read my encounter with Bill Clinton at the 1967 anti-Vietnam demonstration, I was probably in the CIA's database in 1967 and have since wondered if Larry would have come across my name in their database and realized he knew me. I also wondered if he ever met James Jesus Angleton the head of counterintelligence at the CIA until 1974 and the creator of the illegal domestic spying program (“Operation Chaos”) and in my opinion the mastermind of the JFK Assassination.