Brilliant Tech Visionaries #4

from Fortune 500 magazine 2012 enhanced by Peter@ Wiz4.biz 6/13

ORACLE billionaire Larry Ellison, (co-founder & chairman ), has helped create the first commercial database to use SQL (Structured Query Language). Today, Oracle remains the largest supplier of proprietary Information management software and one of the first companies to make its business applications available through the Internet.

Oracle’s Larry Ellison is known as an outspoken, savvy businessman with a penchant for dramatic public declarations. In 2010, he was “speechless” over Hewlett-Packard Co.’s new CEO, Leo Apotheker, suggesting that the HP board “resign en masse … right away” because “the madness must stop.” An HP spokeswoman told the Wall St Journal that such comments don’t “deserve the dignity of a response.” (Apotheker was fired in September and replaced by billionaire businesswoman Meg Whitman

Origin of Oracle was first conceived in 1977 and grew quickly during the ’80s, not only because of its Database management products but also because of its software company acquisitions. Oracle is now also focusing on hardware, and acquired hardware company Sun Microsystems in 2010.

GOOGLE co-founders, Larry Page & Sergey Brin forever changed the way we use the Web. Google is now a verb, not just a company. The world’s most popular Search Engine (80%) is widely considered one of the fastest and most accurate ways to find information online. To stay relevant, Google’s search algorithms are continually changing to adapt to people’s search habits, and to prevent content providers from hijacking search results.

Google in evolution acquired YouTube in 2006, and subsequently became the top online video distributor. But with the rise of Facebook and Microsoft’s Bing, Google faces new challenges compounded by its efforts to expand into other territories such as online SW programs, TV ads & Travel search.

Sergey Brin was born in Moscow and his family came to American in 1979. Page’s father taught at Univ of Maryland and Sergey graduated there before going to Stanford. They started the company from a dorm room at Stanford University in 1998 and it now brings in $29 billion in revenue. The founders spoke to ABC News anchor Peter Jennings in 2004, describing their ascent; from borrowing money from professors, family & friends to running a Silicon Valley powerhouse. “I am sometimes something of a lazy person, so when I end up spending a lot of time using something myself, as I did with Google in the earliest of days, I knew it was a big deal,” Brin told Jennings. The Google Guys are estimated to have a net worth of $15 billion each, according to Forbes magazine.

Larry Page is from Lansing, Michigan. Page’s father Carl was a pioneer in Computer Sience & Artificial Intelligence and his mother taught Computer Programming. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Michigan, Page decided to concentrate on Computer Engineering at Stanford University, where he met Sergey Brin and they decided to start a Search Engine.

[ Next Visionaries: Bill Hewlett & David Packard of HP, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Marc Andreessen of Netscape (the original Web Browser) ]