Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle

by Matthew Symonds

“Most people are so in love with their own ideas that it confines their thinking—creates boundaries and limits their ability to solve problems. Bill, however, has this Asian-like ability to manage his intellectual vanity and take ideas, regardless of where they come from, and put them to work for Microsoft.6 The terrifying thing about Bill is that he’s smart enough to understand what ideas are good—what’s worth replicating—and he has the discipline and resources to get on with it and make it just a little bit better. That’s very Japanese. That’s very scary. Add that to Bill’s ruthless perseverance and the fact that Microsoft has more money than God, and you get a most formidable foe—the ultimate foe, the perfect enemy. We pick our enemies very carefully. We decided to pick a fight with the biggest, most dangerous bully in the schoolyard. There’s no way to avoid this fight, so let’s start it.”