If you ever wonder how a tiny software shop became a $200‑billion empire, you need to meet the three guys who started Oracle. Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates teamed up in 1977 with a daring idea: build a relational database that could run on cheap hardware. They weren’t trying to change the world – they just wanted a product that paid the bills – but the world ended up listening.
Ellison grew up in Chicago, Miner in Chicago too, and Oates lived in the Bay Area. They all quit stable jobs to work for a small government contractor called Ampex. When the U.S. Navy announced a grant for relational database research, they saw a chance. Together they wrote a program called “Oracle” (named after a CIA project they heard about) and secured the first contract.
The first version of Oracle ran on a PDP‑11 minicomputer – a far cry from today’s cloud data farms. Still, the software could store data in tables, link them, and let users query the information with a language called SQL. That was a game‑changer for businesses stuck with flat files and endless paperwork.
Within a year they moved to a rented office in Santa Clara and renamed the company Software Development Laboratories (SDL). By 1979 they hired a sales team, and the product began to sell to banks, airlines, and government agencies. The cash flow let them upgrade their hardware and hire more engineers.
Larry Ellison became the public face of Oracle, driving its aggressive growth, acquiring rivals, and pushing the company into cloud services. He’s famous for his bold statements and a love of sailing. Even after stepping down as CEO in 2014, he stays involved as CTO and a major shareholder.
Bob Miner, the quiet genius of the trio, focused on building the product’s core engine. He left the day‑to‑day business in the early 1990s to run his own software consulting firm but remained an Oracle board member until his death in 1997. His legacy lives in Oracle’s focus on performance and reliability.
Ed Oates slipped back into the background after Oracle went public in 1986. He invested in real‑estate and helped mentor young tech founders in Silicon Valley. Though he never chased the spotlight, his early sales instincts helped Oracle land its first big contracts.
Today, Oracle employs over 130,000 people worldwide, runs massive data centers, and offers everything from autonomous databases to AI‑driven applications. Yet the DNA of those early days – a small team building a product that solved real problems – still shows up in the company’s culture.
So if you’re thinking about startups, remember the Oracle story: find a genuine need, build a simple solution, and surround yourself with people who can turn a garage idea into a global brand. The co‑founders didn’t have fancy tech; they had grit, a shared vision, and the willingness to bet on themselves.
Next time you log into a cloud service or run a SQL query, you’re probably using technology that traces back to Ellison, Miner, and Oates. Their story proves that a handful of curious minds can rewrite the rules of an entire industry.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, now topping some rich lists, has quietly married Jolin Zhu, a University of Michigan alum 47 years his junior. The union surfaced via a Michigan booster thank-you tied to NIL-era recruiting. Here’s how the private fifth marriage fits into Ellison’s long personal history, his sports investments, and what it could signal next.
