It's not only an American Dream. Several international entrepreneurs have had similarly meteoric rises. Talk to Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who started his career as an English teacher and is now worth over $20 billion after taking his company public.
These rags-to-riches stories remind us that through determination, grit, and a bit of luck anyone can overcome their circumstances and achieve extraordinary success.
Vivian Giang contributed research to this article.
Jan Koum, the CEO and cofounder of WhatsApp, once lived on food stamps before Facebook made him a billionaire.
Koum, 37, came to the US from Ukraine when he was 16 years old. His family, struggling to make ends meet, lived on food stamps that they picked up a couple blocks away from Koum's future WhatsApp offices in Mountain View, California.
In 2009, he and cofounder Brian Acton launched the real-time messaging app with an aim to connect people around the world. It essentially replaces text messaging.
Born in Hangzhou, China, Ma grew up in poverty. He couldn't get a job at the local KFC. He failed the national college entrance exams — twice — before finally graduating and starting his career as an English teacher.
Then, in 1995, he had his first visit to the US. He saw the internet for the first time.
Recognizing that there was little in the way of Chinese content online, he started China Pages, a directory that was arguably the very first Chinese web startup. It promptly failed.
In 1999, he founded Alibaba. Today, the online retailer handles double the merchandise of Amazon. With September's IPO, Ma became China's richest person.
Elizabeth Holmes started her blood diagnostics company when she was 19. Now at 30, she's a billionaire.
When Holmes was a 19-year-old sophomore at Stanford University back in 2003, she started Theranos, a blood diagnostics company that makes blood testing cheap.
The Palo Alto startup has 500 employees, a reported $400 million in funding, and a $9 billion evaluation.
Holmes has always been precocious — she taught herself Mandarin in her spare time when she was growing up in Houston. She was filing patents before getting to Stanford. And now she's worth billions.
This week, the actual Cup, the oldest sports trophy in the world, is on display San Francisco, under a huge canopy made from the winning boat itself.
To recap: The final race series was between Oracle America's team and Emirates Team New Zealand in a best of 17 series (the first team to win 9 races, won). Oracle entered the finals down two "points" — two wins — from a penalty when Ellison's team was caught cheating in the preliminary race series that led up to the finals. New Zealand quickly wracked up eight wins, and Oracle came from behind to take the Cup.
It was also a race wracked with controversy. The design was Ellison's own for a superfast type of boat — a 72-foot catamaran called the AC72 — that was so expensive to build, Ellison effectively made the 2013 Cup too costly for all but a few teams. Ellison got to choose the boat design because he won the last Cup.
These boats, capable of going 50 miles per hour (44 knots) were very dangerous. A British sailor on Sweden's Artemis Racing was killed when his boat capsized during a practice session in the San Francisco Bay. Ellison lost a boat when it capsized. (The wrecked boat was reborn as an airplane.)
All this week, anyone attending the show can come by and look at the Cup at the center of it all.
The trophy was newly polished. It's so shiny that the red carpet reflects off it.
The trophy travels with two guards, both wearing lapel pins that are mini-versions of the cup. They are full-time employees of a private security company. They wouldn't tell us their names or the name of the company.
When not traveling, the cup is stored in a top-secret location.
The Cup is technically not Larry Ellison's, either. It belongs to the Golden Gate Yacht Club.
There is one rule that governs it: No one can touch it with their bare hands. The guards wear white gloves.
If someone did try to touch it, "That's when we would do our job," one guard told us. "If things get too aggressive, we would take the Cup away."
The catamaran that won the cup is unbelievably big.
Oracle has put it on display as a canopy for a lounge area. It reminds us of one those dinosaur exhibits at the Natural History Museum, except it's modern and made with carbon fiber.
Here's another view of the winning catamaran as it straddles Howard Street in San Francisco.
The tech world is still stunned that after 37 years, Larry Ellison is no longer CEO of the company he founded, Oracle, even though his change in job title is largely symbolic.
His top two executives, formerly known as presidents, are now co-CEOs, while Ellison has become executive chairman and CTO. The trio has insisted that this change in titles will pretty much not affect anything. All of them will keep doing the jobs they were already doing. Co-CEO Safra Catz even said point blank, "There will actually be no changes, no significant changes."
But at a press conference on Monday during Oracle's big customer conference happening this week in San Francisco, Mark Hurd offered a better explanation.
When a journalist asked why Oracle needed two CEOs to replace Larry Ellison, Hurd explained, "We're a big company. This is bigger than the salesforce. It's bigger than Safra and me. Bigger than Larry, Safra and me. ... It's the development team, other teams. We have over 130,000 people. We need a lot of leadership in our company."
We can't help but wonder if the co-CEO plan is really a years-long job interview between Catz and Hurd. Ellison is 70, and though he shows no signs of slowing down or retiring, this is a first step in a succession plan. When that retirement day comes (when he's 75? 80?), perhaps one of them may have emerged as the ultimate single CEO.
That would be a very Ellison-like way of finding his replacement. Ellison says that the thing that keeps him going and motivated is competition.
Five bigwig institutional shareholders want to force Oracle to make radical changes to the way it pays it top three executives: executive chairman and CTO Larry Ellison and co-CEOs Safra Catz and Mark Hurd.
They are concerned that Oracle's board of directors isn't independent enough from management and "insufficient board accountability and poorly designed compensation programs create significant risks for shareholders."
Of Oracle's 11 directors, three of them still earn their living at Oracle (Ellison, Catz, and Hurd), and one of them is the company's former CFO and chairman.
"We equate the recent announcement on changes to Oracle’s leadership structure as simply a rearrangement of the deck chairs which serves to further empower executive management," according to a letter sent to shareholders. "The CEO has stepped down — in title only — to become an Executive Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Officer. ... It is clear who remains in charge of the Board and why independent director representation is needed more than ever at Oracle."
The shareholders behind this proposal are California State Teachers’ Retirement System; The Nathan Cummings Foundation (the charitable foundation formed by Sara Lee founder Nathan Cummings); PGGM Investments, a Dutch pension fund service provider that manages EUR 178 billion; the RPMI Railpen Investments, a UK pension fund service provider; and the retirement fund for U.S. autoworkers, UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust.
They want to be able to elect independent board members from the shareholders at large.
This is not an attempt for activist shareholders to take over the board and the company, they say, because their proposal requires the new board member to have owned 3% of the company for at least three years.
These types of shareholder proposals almost never pass if the standing board of directors don't get behind them. And in Oracle's case, a shareholder uprising is next to impossible, since Larry Ellison holds a 26% stake of the company.
We write to you as long-term shareholders in Oracle Corporation and as co-sponsors of the proxy access proposal that your fund will be asked to vote on at the upcoming annual meeting of Oracle Corporation on November 5, 2014.
We urge you to vote FOR Proposal No. 7.
We believe the case for proxy access is particularly compelling at Oracle Corporation, where insufficient board accountability and poorly designed compensation programs create significant risks for shareholders.
We equate the recent announcement on changes to Oracle’s leadership structure as simply a rearrangement of the deck chairs which serves to further empower executive management. The CEO has stepped down - in title only - to become an Executive Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Officer. In his place the Company appointed two CEOs from the executive suite to serve coextensively - an unsustainable model that further consolidates the former CEO's control. It is clear who remains in charge of the Board and why independent director representation is needed more than ever at Oracle.
BOARD GOVERNANCE CONCERNS
Independent Directors Needed. We have long held concerns as to whose interests the Board of Oracle is serving and proxy access will allow long-term shareholders a mechanism to nominate independent candidates who can better represent broader shareholder interests and instil a culture of accountability.
Captive Board of Directors. All three Compensation Committee members received withhold votes of 60% or more from non-insider shareholders at Oracle’s 2013 annual meeting. Given the number of shares held by Mr. Ellison, the Compensation Committee has, in effect, been elected only because Mr. Ellison presumably cast his vote in support of their re-elections. We believe Board members are being insulated from the preferences of non-insider shareholders.
Unresponsive Board. The failed say-on-pay votes at two consecutive meetings should have resulted in measurable changes to Oracle’s compensation quantum and structure, but in our view, the structure remains largely the same. The lack of response from the Board to these votes raises broader concerns around board governance and accountability to non-insider shareholders.
PROXY ACCESS
Our proposal provides a reasonable mechanism to nominate director candidates, including an ownership requirement of 3% for 3 years. Director candidates would be elected upon approval from a majority of all shareholders, thus access could not be used by a shareholder seeking to obtain control of the Board. We believe that the need for proxy access is clearly evident at Oracle Corporation given the significant risks to shareholders from insufficient board accountability and poorly designed compensation programs.
We therefore urge you to vote FOR our resolution to give shareholders access to the proxy and the ability to improve board accountability at Oracle Corporation.
This is NOT a solicitation of authority to vote your proxy. Please DO NOT SEND us your proxy card but return it to the proxy-voting agent in the envelope that was or will be provided to you by the Company. The Nathan Cummings Foundation, CalSTRS, PGGM, RPMI Railpen, and UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust are not able to vote your proxies, and this communication does not contemplate such an event. This communication is meant to inform you about The Nathan Cummings Foundation’s, CalSTRS’, PGGM’s, RPMI Railpen’s, and UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust’s opinion and to give you valuable decision-making information when you review your shareholder proxy for the 2014 annual shareholders’ meeting of Oracle Corporation.
Sincerely,
Anne Sheehan Director of Corporate Governance California State Teachers’ Retirement System
William Dempsey Chief Financial Officer The Nathan Cummings Foundation
Catherine Jackson Senior Advisor, Responsible Investment PGGM Investments
Despite his image as a larger-than-life lavish billionaire, deep down Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison is really just a geek who loves to code.
He made that clear on stage Tuesday as he cracked jokes and giggled through his keynote speech at Oracle's customer conference in San Francisco.
Ellison was demonstrating how Oracle's database could easily move from a customer's data center to Oracle's cloud with a few clicks of a mouse. When it came time to show off the product, he didn't hand off the demo to another Oracle exec but stayed on stage alone.
And he was downright giddy about it, saying stuff like ...
"Because of my new job, I’m CTO now, I have to do my demos by myself."
"I love my new job. Almost no one works for me now."
(He was joking. He's also executive chairman and Oracle's largest shareholder. Oracle has 120,000 employees.)
As he walked people through the steps of using the new Cloud service he quipped:
"I’m going to sign in with John Smith. They took away my CEO title, took away my name – it's been a rough few weeks."
He said he wanted this demo to include him writing the code live for a new "Employee of the Month" program, to show how easy it is to write apps on Oracle's cloud.
"I am CTO now, so I thought I'd show me writing but [Oracle CMO] Judy [Sim] said I could not. No one wants to see an 11-hour demo," he giggled, adding, "A few years ago, I did have a demo that took a long time. I learned my lesson. Not going to actually write code during the demonstration."
Later when showing off a retail application, he joked about his reputation for spending money.
"I’ve always liked retail. I’ve spent a lot of time in retail, both by myself and waiting for others. I’m kind of an expert."
Of course, underneath the cheerfulness was a serious message.
Oracle is heavily pushing its cloud services to its customers this week, and for good reason. Enterprise customers no longer want to buy software via huge, expensive contracts and install it in their own data centers. They want to rent their software and all the tech that supports as a cloud service paid for by subscription. Oracle needs to persuade its customers to buy Oracle's cloud services instead of moving to competitors like Salesforce.com, Workday, or Amazon.
The demo itself wasn't really new, but it was still impressive. It scanned 4 billion rows of data in a second, Wikipedia's actual, live database.
The Oracle database that Ellison was showing off competes with SAP's database HANA and, ironically, the man who invented SAP HANA was on Oracle's stage just moments before Ellison came out.
HANA was created by SAP star engineer Vishal Sikka who suddenly left SAP a year ago, thanks to internal politics at the company, sources told Business Insider at the time. Sikka landed as CEO of Indian outsourcer Infosys, an Oracle partner. So Oracle showcased Sikka as a keynote speaker. It was a subtle dig at SAP in a week full of subtle and not-so-subtle digs at competitors.
There are 12 million millionaires in the world, but only 2,325 billionaires.
That's an exclusive club, of which the likes of Warren Buffett, Jack Ma, and Oprah Winfrey are members.
Digging into research firm Wealth-X's new Billionaire Census, we found that billionaires have some commonalities.
Such as:
• If there is an average billionaire, he or she is worth around $3 billion. Or roughly one Snapchat.
• Billionaires have a combined wealth of $7.3 trillion, a 12% increase from last year. That's higher than the market capitalization of all the Dow Jones companies put together. Put another way, if all the world's billionaires decided to join forces and become a country, their combined wealth would be greater than the GDP than Japan.
• For every three million peopleon earth there's a single billionaire. Lonely, right?
• Europe has more billionaires than any other region. The Old World has 775 of them.
• The US has more than any other country. America has 571 billionaires, with 57 newly minted members since last year.
• 60% of billionaires made their wealth themselves, like Jack Ma and Larry Ellison. Meanwhile, 26.9% became billionaires from re-investing inherited wealth, and 13% of them inherited their billionaire status straight out.
• Getting to billionaire status takes a while. Your average billionaire is 63 years old, and 93% of the world's billionaire population is over 45.
• Billionaires invest a lot in real estate, at about $160 million per person. They tend to have four properties — it supports "the billionaire lifestyle," the report says.
• Billionaires tend to have "non-real estate luxury assets." They sound really fun. "For example, one in 30 billionaires owns a sports team or a racehorse," the report says. "Other significant luxury assets include yachts, planes, cars, and art."
• Billionaires are into matrimony. 65% of them are married.
• Billionaires love the Ivy League. While billionaires went to over 700 different universities, the Ivies have the most grads: 25 went to the University of Pennsylvania, 22 went to Harvard, and 20 went to Yale.
• But a surprising number of billionaires don't have a college degree. 35% never finished undergrad.
• Billionaires tend to work in finance. Almost 20% of billionaires made their careers on Wall Street or its equivalents.
In 2012, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison — who stepped down from his position as CEO on Sept. 18 — bought a 97% stake in the Hawaiian island of Lanai for a reported $300 million.
His enormous purchase includes pretty much everything on the island — small businesses like local restaurants, shops, and galleries, and large businesses like the two Four Seasons hotels on the island. He owns two golf courses, the community swimming pool, the water company, and a cemetery. He also owns nearly a third of all of the island's housing.
Ellison's plans for Lanai are still rather mysterious, and the transition of ownership to the Oracle billionaire has been controversial among residents.
Lanai has played a number of roles in a fascinating history stretching hundreds of years, and there's plenty to see here.
Lanai is 140 square miles of land, the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian islands and the smallest that's publicly accessible.
The island has 47 miles of gorgeous, dramatic coastline.
Lanai has some fabulous beaches, like this secluded spot on the northwest shore called Polihua Beach. Located just across the channel from Molokai, this beach is frequented by endangered green sea turtles and humpback whales.
Workers at major Silicon Valley companies like Facebook and Google may enjoy some pretty amazing meals in their corporate cafeterias, but that wasn't always the case.
In the late 1980s, Fedele Bauccio was in the process of building Bon Appetit Management Company, a Palo Alto-based restaurant company that he hoped would change the way businesses fed their workers.
"My office was in the area where all of the venture capitalists were at the time, starting new companies," Bauccio told Business Insider.
He soon became acquainted with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who wanted to build a paninoteca, or traditional Italian sandwich shop, at his young company's new headquarters in Redwood Shores.
"Being Italian, I said, 'I could do that,'" Bauccio said. "But we knew a small sandwich shop wasn't going to last long."
As Oracle continued to grow, Bon Appetit created a series of unique concept cafes for the campus. There's now a Japanese noodle bar, an Indian curry house, and a Mediterranean marketplace, among other delectable options located in different buildings beside a lake.
It wasn't long before other tech firms in Silicon Valley caught on to the idea.
"Other companies saw what we did and said, 'We want to do that too.' Other companies were doing these large cafeterias (and we do have some large facilities, too) but there was obviously a benefit in doing these smaller cafes where you have a personal connection to the food and have different seating options," Bauccio said. "Silicon Valley took off like crazy, and now we have a whole new crop of companies — Google, LinkedIn, Amazon — that weren't even in business back then."
As these companies have grown into massive global operations, Silicon Valley office culture has also changed significantly. Workers spending long hours at the office often look to their employers to provide healthy, authentic meal experiences at all times of the day.
"It challenged us to create what I call 'casual collisions' — that as people break bread together, they come up with new ideas and innovations," Bauccio said. "The days of huge cafeterias are over."
A commonly held belief in Silicon Valley is that the happier, healthier, and better-fed employees are, the more productive they'll be. That's where all of the perks come in.
And with initiatives that aim to bring nutritious and locally sourced ingredients into corporate cafeterias, Bon Appetit ensures that employees don't have to leave the office to eat good food.
"I think food is a huge perk, and I think it’s expected now," Bauccio said. "These people creating new products now — there’s no beginning or end of the day for them. They’re here all the time. We have to create experiences that start earlier and last longer, because it's not just lunchtime anymore."
Here are some examples of dishes you can eat at Oracle's cafes today.
Oracle's Larry Ellison is known for his fierce competitiveness in the world of sailboat racing, especially the America's Cup. Yet he also once described the sport as “idyllic independence.” Now I understand what he meant — and why he loves it so much.
Over an intense weekend of learning and racing, I took the sailing challenge myself. Strong winds gusted as Charlotte Matthews, my instructor at Hudson River Community Sailing, and I navigated the sparkling waters of lower Manhattan.
The lessons culminated on Sunday in a competition against eight much more experienced crews. My colleague and producer, Justin Gmoser, crawled around the boat, documenting the whole adventure. In the end, he came away just as thrilled and exhausted as I did — and only lost one GoPro overboard in the process.
When Charlie Rose asked Oracle CTO and former CEO Larry Ellison last year why he had to win the America's Cup yacht race for the second time in a row, Ellison replied, "It's funny, because I realized after losing twice that my personality wouldn't allow me to quit while losing. And then after winning the America's Cup, I discovered my personality doesn't allow me to quit while winning! I don't smoke, but I do sail."
Ellison didn't get into the boat alongside his US Team Oracle as he did in 2010, but as team sponsor and manager he led the team to its second victory in 2013.
That second victory was actually one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, with Team Oracle USA winning eight races in a row to steal the victory from Team Emirates New Zealand. Ellison made it clear from the beginning that he expected his team to win.
When Team Oracle's crew walked into their training compound each day, they had to pass the hull of Ellison's boat that won the 2010 America's Cup. They did cardio and weight training underneath the boat's sail.With the 35th America's Cup scheduled for sometime in 2017, Ellison has victory in his sights once again, proving that total domination of the sport of elite international yacht racing — from winning the America's Cup to pushing competitors to ditch sailboats for futuristic-looking, advanced vehicles — is a natural extension of his legendary drive to win at all costs.
A Love Of The Sea
Ellison enrolled at a sailing course taught at the University of California shortly after he moved to the state in 1966 at the age of 22. At 25, he bought a 34-foot-long racing sloop, a single mast sailboat, according to About Sports.
I don't smoke, but I do sail.
Ellison didn't respond to our request for comment, but he's previously said that,"I was passionate about sailing and the idea of sailing ... the idyllic independence … traveling with the wind."
He had to sell the boat after a few years because he became too busy building his company Software Development Laboratories, founded in 1977. SDL eventually adopted the name of its flagship Oracle product in 1982. Oracle went public in 1986, making Ellison $93 million from his 39% stake in the company.
The popularity of Ellison's enterprise software company allowed him to grow his fortune exponentially. Today, Ellison is 70 years old and worth an estimated $48.7 billion, according to Forbes, making him the fifth richest man in the world.
His fortune has allowed Ellison the chance to not only buy a Hawaiian island, fighter jet, Bugatti, and luxury yacht, but it also allowed him to get back into sailing.
"Sayonara"
In the 1990s, he bought a 78-foot racing sailboat he named Sayonara and started competing at a high level. Ellison's skills as a yachtsman and team leader shined, winning him five Maxi World Championships.
But in 1998, Ellison skippered his boat through a race that was so traumatizing, he swore off open ocean races forever. He won that competition, too, but he told the Courier Mail that he didn't actually "win," but just happened to be the first to survive.
That December, Sayonara and 114 other yacht teams entered the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race off the coast of Australia. A hurricane developed during the race, and only 44 boats made it to Hobart. Twenty-four boats were abandoned and 55 sailors rescued. Six sailors drowned.
Ellison told the Courier Mail in 2008 that he's never forgotten the race. The storm's winds were so powerful that Sayonara was practically flying — but not in a good way. "After what was a beautiful day on Sydney Harbour the wind got more intense and the skies slowly, slowly darkened and I remember after 12 hours we were further ahead than the record holder was in 24 hours," Ellison said.
His brush with death may have gotten him to swear off races on the open ocean, but he was far from ending his love of sailing.
In Pursuit Of The Cup
Ellison's next sailing objective was to win the America's Cup, a yacht race founded in 1851, which generally takes place every three or four years. He put together Team Oracle in 2003 and partnered with BMW the next year. In both '03 and '07, Ellison's team lost in the America's Cup qualifying competition, the Louis Vuitton Cup, reaching the finals the first time and the semi-finals the second.
Things got complicated in 2010 leading up to the 33rd America's Cup, but Ellison's tenacity brought him victory.
Because Louis Vuitton temporarily ended its affiliation with the America’s Cup for the 2010 race, reigning champion Alinghi from Switzerland could choose its challenger. It selected a Spanish club that was determined by a judge to be fraudulent — a new team created solely for the purpose of keeping the Swiss victorious and having Alinghi agree to keep the race, and its tax revenue, in Valencia.
Ellison was the first in the yacht racing community to file a lawsuit against Alinghi, and after a long and complicated court battle, it was determined that BMW Oracle Racing would be Alinghi’s official competitor in the America’s Cup in a special best out of only three races.
Ellison, in the role of afterguard, led BMW Oracle Racing to two straight wins.
As the challenger, Ellison now had the power to determine where the 34th America's Cup would be held and what boats were going to be used, and by the end of 2010 BMW stopped sponsoring the team, giving Ellison full control. Ellison decided that the races would be held in the San Francisco Bay, and that instead of a traditional catamaran, the teams would compete in AC72s, which look more like Michael Bay's Transformers than a sailboat.
Ellison acted as principal backer and visionary for the team rather than an actual sailor, since these 72-foot-long beasts with 13-story-tall, 3,000-pound wings require elite athletes to operate. The boats require five "grinders" in charge of rapidly operating pulleys, and all 11 sailors need to run and jump across a trampoline-like net from side to side of the boat according to where the wind is blowing. The AC72s reach speeds of nearly 50 mph (compared to closer to 15 mph) and appear to fly over the water.
In his 2013 interview with Charlie Rose, Ellison explained that it was all part of his initiative to revolutionize the sport. "We've got to modernize it. It can't be unchanged since 1851," he said, adding that it will not only keep it exciting but keep it relevant to a younger generation.
We've got to modernize [the sport]. It can't be unchanged since 1851.
Not everyone was convinced. Critics in the sailing community pointed out that a challenger would need to spend $100 million to compete, a price they considered overblown. And in a training accident in the Bay, Swedish team Artemis member Andrew Simpson died when one of the boats capsized.
And then Team Oracle got caught using illegal modifications to their smaller AC45 models they used in the preliminary competition, America's Cup World Series. Two sailors were banned from the America's Cup and Team Oracle started the best of 17 series with negative two points.
At the start of the twelfth race, Oracle was down 8-1, putting Team Emirates one win away from humiliating Ellison's team on his own turf. And then they won eight races in a row, putting them down in history as achieving one of the greatest comebacks in all of sports.
It is notable that Team Oracle's tactician for races 6-19 was British Olympian Sir Ben Ainslie, the winningest Olympic sailor of all time. The Telegraph's Tom Cary noted that since it's a team sport, it's impossible to measure just how much of an impact Ainslie's expertise had on the team, but it's no denying that his "absolutely ruthless" approach played a major role in the comeback.
"All 11 guys on the boat believed we could do it," skipper Jimmy Spithill told an America's Cup reporter. "We just wanted it. We knew we could pull it off."
After the win, Ellison hopped on a powerboat and met the team on its ship. "Do you guys know what you just did? You just won the America's Cup!" he told the team, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Today the team is preparing for the 2017 America's Cup, which will be cheaper for entrants and will use the more manageable and affordable AC62s.
After stepping down as Oracle CEO in mid-September, Ellison as CTO has been more focused on developing and marketing Oracle's cloud computing services.
But when the America's Cup rolls around, his winning addiction will kick into overdrive and his sights will be set on winning race after race — plain and simple.
NOW WATCH:Business Insider's Christina Sterbenz spends an intense weekend sailing around lower Manhattan:
Oracle's Larry Ellison is known for his fierce competitiveness in the world of sailboat racing, especially the America's Cup. Yet he also once described the sport as “idyllic independence.” Now I understand what he meant — and why he loves it so much.
Over an intense weekend of learning and racing, I took the sailing challenge myself. Strong winds gusted as Charlotte Matthews, my instructor at Hudson River Community Sailing, and I navigated the sparkling waters of lower Manhattan.
The lessons culminated on Sunday in a competition against eight much more experienced crews. My colleague and producer, Justin Gmoser, crawled around the boat, documenting the whole adventure. In the end, he came away just as thrilled and exhausted as I did — and only lost one GoPro overboard in the process.
When Charlie Rose asked Oracle CTO and former CEO Larry Ellison last year why he had to win the America's Cup yacht race for the second time in a row, Ellison replied, "It's funny, because I realized after losing twice that my personality wouldn't allow me to quit while losing. And then after winning the America's Cup, I discovered my personality doesn't allow me to quit while winning! I don't smoke, but I do sail."
Ellison didn't get into the boat alongside his US Team Oracle as he did in 2010, but as team sponsor and manager he led the team to its second victory in 2013.
That second victory was actually one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, with Team Oracle USA winning eight races in a row to steal the victory from Team Emirates New Zealand. Ellison made it clear from the beginning that he expected his team to win.
When Team Oracle's crew walked into their training compound each day, they had to pass the hull of Ellison's boat that won the 2010 America's Cup. They did cardio and weight training underneath the boat's sail.With the 35th America's Cup scheduled for sometime in 2017, Ellison has victory in his sights once again, proving that total domination of the sport of elite international yacht racing — from winning the America's Cup to pushing competitors to ditch sailboats for futuristic-looking, advanced vehicles — is a natural extension of his legendary drive to win at all costs.
A Love Of The Sea
Ellison enrolled at a sailing course taught at the University of California shortly after he moved to the state in 1966 at the age of 22. At 25, he bought a 34-foot-long racing sloop, a single mast sailboat, according to About Sports.
I don't smoke, but I do sail.
Ellison didn't respond to our request for comment, but he's previously said that,"I was passionate about sailing and the idea of sailing ... the idyllic independence … traveling with the wind."
He had to sell the boat after a few years because he became too busy building his company Software Development Laboratories, founded in 1977. SDL eventually adopted the name of its flagship Oracle product in 1982. Oracle went public in 1986, making Ellison $93 million from his 39% stake in the company.
The popularity of Ellison's enterprise software company allowed him to grow his fortune exponentially. Today, Ellison is 70 years old and worth an estimated $48.7 billion, according to Forbes, making him the fifth richest man in the world.
His fortune has allowed Ellison the chance to not only buy a Hawaiian island, fighter jet, Bugatti, and luxury yacht, but it also allowed him to get back into sailing.
"Sayonara"
In the 1990s, he bought a 78-foot racing sailboat he named Sayonara and started competing at a high level. Ellison's skills as a yachtsman and team leader shined, winning him five Maxi World Championships.
But in 1998, Ellison skippered his boat through a race that was so traumatizing, he swore off open ocean races forever. He won that competition, too, but he told the Courier Mail that he didn't actually "win," but just happened to be the first to survive.
That December, Sayonara and 114 other yacht teams entered the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race off the coast of Australia. A hurricane developed during the race, and only 44 boats made it to Hobart. Twenty-four boats were abandoned and 55 sailors rescued. Six sailors drowned.
Ellison told the Courier Mail in 2008 that he's never forgotten the race. The storm's winds were so powerful that Sayonara was practically flying — but not in a good way. "After what was a beautiful day on Sydney Harbour the wind got more intense and the skies slowly, slowly darkened and I remember after 12 hours we were further ahead than the record holder was in 24 hours," Ellison said.
His brush with death may have gotten him to swear off races on the open ocean, but he was far from ending his love of sailing.
In Pursuit Of The Cup
Ellison's next sailing objective was to win the America's Cup, a yacht race founded in 1851, which generally takes place every three or four years. He put together Team Oracle in 2003 and partnered with BMW the next year. In both '03 and '07, Ellison's team lost in the America's Cup qualifying competition, the Louis Vuitton Cup, reaching the finals the first time and the semi-finals the second.
Things got complicated in 2010 leading up to the 33rd America's Cup, but Ellison's tenacity brought him victory.
Because Louis Vuitton temporarily ended its affiliation with the America’s Cup for the 2010 race, reigning champion Alinghi from Switzerland could choose its challenger. It selected a Spanish club that was determined by a judge to be fraudulent — a new team created solely for the purpose of keeping the Swiss victorious and having Alinghi agree to keep the race, and its tax revenue, in Valencia.
Ellison was the first in the yacht racing community to file a lawsuit against Alinghi, and after a long and complicated court battle, it was determined that BMW Oracle Racing would be Alinghi’s official competitor in the America’s Cup in a special best out of only three races.
Ellison, in the role of afterguard, led BMW Oracle Racing to two straight wins.
As the challenger, Ellison now had the power to determine where the 34th America's Cup would be held and what boats were going to be used, and by the end of 2010 BMW stopped sponsoring the team, giving Ellison full control. Ellison decided that the races would be held in the San Francisco Bay, and that instead of a traditional catamaran, the teams would compete in AC72s, which look more like Michael Bay's Transformers than a sailboat.
Ellison acted as principal backer and visionary for the team rather than an actual sailor, since these 72-foot-long beasts with 13-story-tall, 3,000-pound wings require elite athletes to operate. The boats require five "grinders" in charge of rapidly operating pulleys, and all 11 sailors need to run and jump across a trampoline-like net from side to side of the boat according to where the wind is blowing. The AC72s reach speeds of nearly 50 mph (compared to closer to 15 mph) and appear to fly over the water.
In his 2013 interview with Charlie Rose, Ellison explained that it was all part of his initiative to revolutionize the sport. "We've got to modernize it. It can't be unchanged since 1851," he said, adding that it will not only keep it exciting but keep it relevant to a younger generation.
We've got to modernize [the sport]. It can't be unchanged since 1851.
Not everyone was convinced. Critics in the sailing community pointed out that a challenger would need to spend $100 million to compete, a price they considered overblown. And in a training accident in the Bay, Swedish team Artemis member Andrew Simpson died when one of the boats capsized.
And then Team Oracle got caught using illegal modifications to their smaller AC45 models they used in the preliminary competition, America's Cup World Series. Two sailors were banned from the America's Cup and Team Oracle started the best of 17 series with negative two points.
At the start of the twelfth race, Oracle was down 8-1, putting Team Emirates one win away from humiliating Ellison's team on his own turf. And then they won eight races in a row, putting them down in history as achieving one of the greatest comebacks in all of sports.
It is notable that Team Oracle's tactician for races 6-19 was British Olympian Sir Ben Ainslie, the winningest Olympic sailor of all time. The Telegraph's Tom Cary noted that since it's a team sport, it's impossible to measure just how much of an impact Ainslie's expertise had on the team, but it's no denying that his "absolutely ruthless" approach played a major role in the comeback.
"All 11 guys on the boat believed we could do it," skipper Jimmy Spithill told an America's Cup reporter. "We just wanted it. We knew we could pull it off."
After the win, Ellison hopped on a powerboat and met the team on its ship. "Do you guys know what you just did? You just won the America's Cup!" he told the team, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Today the team is preparing for the 2017 America's Cup, which will be cheaper for entrants and will use the more manageable and affordable AC62s.
After stepping down as Oracle CEO in mid-September, Ellison as CTO has been more focused on developing and marketing Oracle's cloud computing services.
But when the America's Cup rolls around, his winning addiction will kick into overdrive and his sights will be set on winning race after race — plain and simple.
NOW WATCH:Business Insider's Christina Sterbenz spends an intense weekend sailing around lower Manhattan:
Earlier this fall, Lawrence J. Ellison announced his retirement as chief executive of Oracle, the company he co-founded in 1977 that has transformed the way businesses use technology and made him one of the world's richest people.
I first met Larry when his company was working on one of the first implementations of a new and creative database paradigm called SQL. They were developing a version for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on a DEC model PDP 11 minicomputer, the only machine they could afford at the time.
Whenever I was in San Francisco, we would have lunch to discuss strategy, and we eventually contracted with his company to develop an IBM mainframe version of his database for use with our computer time-sharing service. I had the opportunity to experience his strategic thinking behind the scenes.
As I reflect today, I recognize just how many insights I learned from Larry during those early years.
Location matters
Larry chose a strategic location for his initial office, a Sand Hill address where Silicon Valley's venture capital firms had offices. Casual conversations at the shared office facilities led to relationships that assisted Oracle's transition to a successful public company.
The lesson is simple: Help fate make you "lucky" by making sure you are in the right place at the right time.
Brand identity is crucial to success
When I met Larry, his company was named Software Development Laboratories, which aligned with its initial source of funding, contract system programming for the Amdahl Corporation. In 1979, after developing the initial version of its SQL database and winning a CIA contract to produce it, the company changed its name to Relational Software, Inc., which suited its targeted technology.
In 1982, RSI was renamed Oracle Systems Corporation to align more closely with its flagship product, Oracle Database. Every product it has produced since leads with the Oracle brand.
Every marketplace is large and cluttered. As a small company you need to project a larger-than-life image.
Although product developers like to give their creations distinctive names, five products with different names create five tiny splashes in the marketplace. Five products with the same brand name create 25-times the splash. (Each mention of one product promotes the other four products. Five product mentions are then worth the same as 25 splashes.)
Demand professionalism
Back in the '70s and '80s I was accustomed to system programmers being free spirits who sported long hair, dressed in tattered jeans and laughed at the professional standards of our clients. We kept them hidden from sight and put up with a lot of nonsense because they were "the talent."
I was struck by Larry's well-mannered and professionally dressed programming staff. Oracle provided a rich technical environment. The programmers who worked from home were given the latest equipment and ultra-fast dedicated telephone lines. In return, Larry demanded and got professional behavior.
You can and should manage the talent rather than allow them to manage you. Provide the best tools, respect their opinions, and expect professional behavior.
Expect excellence and fire anyone who doesn't measure up
Larry took advertising legend David Ogilvy's insight to heart: "Pay peanuts, get monkeys."
People lined up for the opportunity to work at Oracle. I was repeatedly struck by how quickly Larry would fire someone who wasn't performing to the company's demanding standards. If you performed at Oracle, you could get rich. If you didn't, you could expect to be out the door quickly.
Hire slowly but fire quickly.
Dress for success
Larry was very happy with his original company car. The board wasn't. When Larry picked me up in his new luxury car, he explained why he upgraded.
"The board told me that we were grooming Oracle to become a Fortune 500 contender. They said I needed to project the image of a successful, major company CEO to enhance the success of our IPO," he said. I also noticed that Larry had started wearing better tailored suits.
To quote one of my personal mentors: "If you want to hunt buffalo, you need to dress like a buffalo." When you are a startup, customers expect you to be lean and mean. As you grow and their commitment to your products or services grows, they expect to see the trappings of a successful company because it validates their decision to bet their future on you.
Keep your people focused on the vision rather than today's competition
At one point, Larry found his people were getting fixated on their closest competitor. He forcibly had his people shift their focus to the long-term vision for Oracle. That vision, loosely stated, was to see "a copy of Oracle running on every brand of computer in every business."
Challenge yourself to offer the best product or service possible with today's technology and resources. This focus will create more sustainable competitive offerings than will just trying to go one better than one of your current competitor's offerings.
The only practical limit to growth is your ability to remain in control
Oracle doubled in size 13 years in a row. Larry had a simple response when asked about the mathematical impossibility of doubling every year forever.
"What would you have us do, hold growth back?" he asked.
Instead, Oracle put systems in place so that when they did eventually hit the wall and shift to a more conventional growth rate, they could recover and prosper. Not only did they survive the "crash," but Larry was able to retain control.
Put control systems in place consistent with your growth.
Understand the actual value your clients get from you
I used to tease Larry about the fact that the early versions of the Oracle database didn't work. "You're going to have to produce a fully working product pretty soon or you'll lose your customers!" I'd say.
What I didn't appreciate at the time was that most customers were installing Oracle to position themselves for the future. While the product wasn't yet robust enough for mission-critical use, it was more than functional enough to satisfy a data center manager's immediate goals.
Oracle's resources were focused on making Oracle the standard relational database on any brand and size computer. Once their customers got serious about deploying the database in mission-critical applications, Oracle made the transition to a fully working product.
This lesson is a hard one for technical people to accept. Sometimes a mostly working prototype today provides more value to the customer than a fully functional product sometime in the future. To pull this off, make sure that when the time comes you are capable of delivering on your promise.
Much of Oracle's success was due to early strategic decisions. I wish Larry luck in his new role as executive chairman and chief technology officer. I expect he will continue to help his creation "be lucky."
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is in a small college town located about 150 miles south of Chicago.
Surrounded by corn and soybean fields, Urbana-Champaign doesn’t strike you at first as a place where future tech leaders would emerge.
It’s why many people fail to realize that UIUC has bred some of the most remarkable tech visionaries in history. They built companies that essentially changed tech history as we know it.
Marc Andreessen - Netscape, Andreessen-Horowitz
Marc Andreessen invented Mosaic, the browser that popularized the web, when he was still at UIUC in 1992. He graduated from UIUC’s computer science program in 1993, and was only 22 years old when he was recruited by the legendary entrepreneur Jim Clark to start Netscape Communications. Together, they created Netscape Navigator, one of the first and most widely used commercial web browsers ever.
Andreessen also co-founded Opsware (formerly Loudcloud) and sold it to HP for $1.6 billion in 2007. He’s now running Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most prominent VC firms in the Valley.
Larry Ellison - Oracle
Oracle’s founder Larry Ellison grew up outside of Chicago and went to UIUC for two years. Although he dropped out after his sophomore year because his adoptive mother had died, Ellison showed signs of brilliance at an early age, even being named the science student of the year at UIUC.
Since its founding in 1977, Oracle went on to become one of the largest enterprise tech companies in the world. Last year, it had over $38 billion in revenue, with more than 122,000 employees worldwide. Ellison is the third richest man on the Forbes List with a net worth of $52.5 billion.
Max Levchin - PayPal
Max Levchin, a computer science grad in 1997, is one of the co-founders of the online money transfer service PayPal. The co-founders of PayPal, widely known as “PayPal Mafia,” include Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Acura has finally released the first teaser photos of its long-awaited production NSX supercar.
The actual car, which will debut next month at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, is the culmination of a decade's worth concepts and design studies that gave fleeting glimpses of what the Japanese supercar could become.
Over the years, the NSX has built a cult following of supporters around the world. Celebrities ranging from comedian Rowan Atkinson of "Mr. Bean" fame to Oracle founder Larry Ellison are owners and true fans of the Acura.
In fact, during the first generation NSX's 15-year production, Ellison was known to purchase a couple of examples every year to give out as presents and bonuses to friend and employees.
According to Acura, the production NSX will be powered by hybrid gas-electric powertrain. Although, rumors of a V8, V10, or even a V12-powered car had been bandied about, the car that will eventually make it to dealer will be powered by a twin-turbo charged V6 gasoline engine assisted by a pair of electric motors.
That's right, it's going to have three engines and two turbos. The new NSX should be a rocket.
"The next-generation NSX will deliver a 'new sports experience' true to its heritage and to the supercar concept that originally gave rise to the name NSX," said Acura's general manager Mike Accavitti in a statement.
"The NSX will serve as the ultimate expression of Acura performance that is fueling a reenergized brand."
In what could be the most protracted automotive teasing in recent memory, the car's existence has long been rumored since the first generation NSX was discontinued in 2005. In fact, for a while the new Acura super car seemed to be an automotive white whale of sorts. Many fans had given up hope of its return and begrudgingly accepted that the NSX would be lost to automotive history like its Japanese compatriots — the Toyota Supra and Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4.
The musical equivalent would be Dr. Dre's "long-delayed" follow up to his iconic "Chronic 2001."
Fortunately, the dream of a new NSX was rekindled when Acura introduced the concept in 2012 that would spawn the new generation.
For Ellison and his fellow fans, Acura is going to reveal the production version of the Ohio-built supercar in all its glory to the public on January 12, 2015.
Entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for the next big problem to solve, and in recent years, a handful of the richest ones have decided to tackle an age-old frustration: death.
PayPal co-founder and investor Peter Thiel, 47, has long been interested in longevity research, and he's personally invested in the extension of his own life. Thiel told Bloomberg that, as part of his efforts to reach age 120, he takes human growth hormone (HGH) pills, follows the Paleo Diet, and tries to limit his sugar intake as much as possible.
Thiel said that HGH lessens the likelihood of arthritis, but increases his risk for cancer. And when asked if he's worried about that, he said, "I'm hopeful that we'll get cancer cured in the next decade."
For more on Thiel and other multimillionaires who are bullish on anti-aging research, read on.
Peter Thiel
"I think understanding aging in and seeing if there ways to slow it or even reverse it remains one of the great scientific projects of all time," Thiel said at TechCrunch Disrupt this year. Thiel has given more than $6 million to researcher Aubrey de Grey who founded Methuselah Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to extending the human lifespan, according to The Telegraph. De Grey has famously said he believes that the first person who will make it to 1,000 years old is already alive.
Larry Ellison
"Death makes me very angry," Oracle Co-founder Larry Ellison once told his biographer Mike Wilson. "Death has never made any sense to me. How can a person be there and then just vanish, just not be there?” Ellison, now 70 years old, created the The Ellison Medical Foundation in 1997 to support aging research. The nonprofit has awarded nearly $430 million in grants since then, according to the San Francisco Business Times. However the foundation stopped making new grants in 2013 due to financial strain, the paper reported.
Peter Diamandis
Peter Diamandis, 53, founder and chairman of the nonprofit X PRIZE Foundation, believes that the answers to medical questions on aging lie in genomics and stem cell sciences. His new venture Human Longevity Inc., which has $70 million in private backing, focuses on both.
"Over the next decade, Human Longevity Inc. has the objective of sequencing 1 million individuals at a minimum, but in addition to their sequence we will also be collecting phenotypic data, microbiome data, imaging data and metabalomic data," Diamandis explained in a discussion on Reddit. "In the arena of stem cells, we will begin harnessing stem cells as the regenerative engine of the body."
Cancer is the first age-related disease Human Longevity will focus on, according to Reuters.
Dmitry Itskov
New Media Stars founder and Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov is taking an entirely different approach to the problem of aging. Since our bodies will inevitably fail us, Itskov proposes ditching them for a durable avatar. Itskov, who is in his early 30s, founded the 2045 Initiative, named for the year he hopes the project is completed, reports the New York Times. In the end, he hopes to upload a digital copy of your brain into a lifelike, low-cost avatar, totally immune from the ill effects of aging.
Sergey Brin
In 2013 Google introduced Calico, a company that was founded by Arthur Levinson, former CEO of Genentech, and aims to research the biology that affects lifespan. Google co-founder Sergey Brin, 41, is known to support projects "on the cusp of viability" as he's told The Guardian, and Google CEO Larry Page credited Brin for helping to bring Calico to life. Brin has a somewhat more defined stake in anti-aging research compared to many, as he discovered in 2008 that he has a flawed gene, which gives him a 50 percent chance of developing Parkinson’s disease by age 70, according to Bloomberg.
John Sperling
The late John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, hated the idea of saying goodbye to the ones that he loved. That's why, in order to buy more time with his dog, Missy, he funded pet-cloning research at Texas A&M University, according to a Bloomberg obituary. Sperling was also interested in extending human longevity. He poured millions into therapeutic cloning, stem cell medicine, and genetic engineering, hoping the research would help "to alleviate human suffering and the fear of death," Wired reported. Sperling died in August at the age of 93.
Honda's Acura luxury division has finally debuted its long-awaited NSX supercar at the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The futuristic Acura is the culmination of a decade's worth concepts and design studies that gave fleeting glimpses of what the Japanese supercar could become.
Over the years, the NSX has built a cult following of supporters around the world. Celebrities ranging from comedian Rowan Atkinson of "Mr. Bean" fame to Oracle founder Larry Ellison are owners and true fans of the Acura.
In fact, during the first generation NSX's 15-year production, Ellison was known to purchase a couple of examples every year to give out as presents and bonuses to friend and employees.
Although, rumors of a V8-, V10-, or even a V12-powered car had been bandied about, Acura has instead chosen to take a page out of the LaFerrari, McLaren P1, and Porsche 918 playbooks and settled on a hybrid powertrain.
The car that will eventually make it to dealer showrooms will be powered by a 3.5-liter twin-turbo charged V6 gasoline engine assisted by a trio of electric motors.
That's right, it's going to have one engine, two turbos and three electric motors. The new NSX should be a rocket.
One electric motor will be placed between the V6 engine and the rear-mounted trans-axle to help boost torque. The other two electric motors will power the front wheels.
Although Acura has yet to announce official performance figures, media reports indicate the hybrid NSX is expected to produce more than 550 horsepower. That's a significant boost over the 290 horsepower 3.2-V6 engine that powered the final examples of the first generation cars.
All of this power will be harnessed by a 9-speed dual clutch gearbox.
"Our commitment was to create an all-new NSX that is true to the heritage of NSX — a supercar that delivers a new driving experience, one where every part of the vehicle is respectful of the smartest part of the car, the driver," said senior vice president and general manager Mike Accavitti in Detroit.
"The soul of a car is the emotional connection it makes with the driver. With the NSX, that connection will be intense and immediate."
In what could be the most protracted automotive teasing in recent memory, the car's existence has long been rumored since the first generation NSX was discontinued in 2005. In fact, for a while the new Acura supercar seemed to be an automotive white whale of sorts. Many fans had given up hope of its return and begrudgingly accepted that the NSX would be lost to automotive history like its Japanese compatriots — the Toyota Supra, Mazda RX-7, and Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4.
The musical equivalent would be Dr. Dre's "long-delayed" follow up to his iconic "Chronic 2001."
Fortunately, the dream of a new NSX was rekindled when Acura introduced the concept in 2012 that would spawn the new generation.
Although the new production NSX is a product of a Japanese brand, its American roots are undeniable. The new car is a completely original design, whose global development was headed up by engineers at Honda's development center in Raymond, Ohio. The NSX will be produced by a 100-person team at the company's Performance Manufacturing Center in Marysville, Ohio.
For Ellison and his fellow fans, the Ohio-built supercar is expected to hit showrooms in all its glory later this year. Official prices for the NSX have not been announced, but reports from Detroit peg the sticker at more than $150,000.
Here's a up close look at the production Acura NSX courtesy of the good people at CNET:
Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison's latest venture doesn't have much to do with tech.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, Ellison has teamed up with California's Peninsula Humane Society to construct a wildlife refuge and rehabilitation center on 170 acres of land in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Though workers at the center will care for all kinds of wild animals, the breeding center will focus on local invertebrates, reptiles, and amphibians.
Breeds that haven't gotten much attention, like Lange's metalwork butterfly, the San Francisco garter snake and the Pacific giant salamander, will be a special focus at the proposed center, which is a reported five years in the making.
The complex will total about 80,000 square feet of space, including 50 rehabilitation enclosures, the breeding center, and a greenhouse that will grow organic food for the animals.
Ellison's exact contribution hasn't been disclosed, but sources told the Mercury News that it is a substantial amount. The center will cost an estimated $50 million to construct.
"He has been very kind to this organization. There's not enough money for any charitable causes, and there's even less for those involving animals," Ken White, president of the Peninsula Humane Society, said to the Mercury News. "And among those causes, ones benefiting local wildlife are at the bottom."
This isn't Ellison's first contribution to the environment. When he bought the Hawaiian island of Lanai in 2012, he told reporters that he planned to turn the island into a model for sustainable living.
He helped raise $600,000 for the California Wildlife Center during a party he held in July, and he's also made donations toward saving gorillas and stopping ivory poachers overseas.
A beachfront home owned by Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison will be available to rent this summer, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Th 2,880-square-foot cottage is one of some two dozen properties Ellison owns in the Carbon Beach area of Malibu. The home will be available for $65,000 a month in June and September.
Renters will also have to pay a $35,000 security deposit.
The home is charming, with beamed ceilings and amazing ocean views.
The home is located on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, near Los Angeles. At the front entryway, you'll find a pleasant garden filled with flowers.
Inside, the home has hardwood floors and beamed ceilings.
In the living room, wide doors open to let in the ocean breeze.
A wrongful termination suit filed by a former sailor on Oracle Team USA is revealing secrets about how billionaire Larry Ellison runs his championship America's Cup sailing team.
According to court filings shared by the Wall Street Journal, fired Oracle sailor Joe Spooner was being paid $25,000 a month — or $300,000 a year — as compensation for his work as a grinder.
There are six grinders on a typical 12-person sailing team, and they tend to be the lowest-paid of the bunch. Sailors responsible for more difficult tasks, like standing at the helm, might be paid even double what a grinder makes, according to the WSJ.
Spooner reportedly asked for his compensation to be raised to $38,000 a month so that he could relocate from San Francisco to Bermuda, where the next America's Cup race will be held in 2017.
Team Oracle declined to increase Spooner's pay as the request was outside of their relocation policy, and Spooner was dismissed from the team in January.
"For these reasons, and in the light of the stated position that you will not otherwise relocate to Bermuda, this letter constitutes prior written notice of termination," team Oracle general manager Grant Simmer wrote in Spooner's termination letter, court filings show.
Spooner is seeking $725,000 in wages over a 2.5-year period. He was part of the team that won America's Cup in 2013, a campaign that Oracle team executives have said Ellison paid more than $115 million in total to win.
The boat that was sailed in the 2013 race was seized by federal marshals Monday. Spooner had filed a lien to prevent the boat being shipped to Bermuda.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is in a small college town located about 150 miles south of Chicago.
One electric motor will be placed between the V6 engine and the rear-mounted trans-axle to help boost torque. The other two electric motors will power the front wheels.
