Larry Ellison's comeback: At 81, he becomes the world's richest person, as Oracle bets on AI.

On September 10th, 81-year-old Larry Ellison officially became the richest person in the world. In just one day, his net worth rose by over 100 billion dollars, directly surpassing Musk from second place—this move is quite remarkable.

Key Information Overview

Core Data of the Day:

• Ellison's net worth reached $393 billion, surpassing Musk's $385 billion.
• Oracle stock rose over 40% in a single day, reaching a new high since 1992
• The reason for triggering this rise: Oracle announced a $300 billion, 5-year cooperation deal with OpenAI.

Why did Oracle suddenly take off?

Oracle has actually been suppressed by AWS and Azure in the cloud computing field in recent years, but they timely shifted their focus to AI infrastructure. This summer, they massively laid off their traditional business department while frantically investing in building data centers. The gamble paid off – now the market demand for AI computing power is exploding, and Oracle has become one of the few companies able to supply such services.

The Legendary Life of Ellison

From being an orphan abandoned by his mother, to dropping out of college twice, and then honing the Oracle database prototype in a CIA project, finally building a small company into a tech empire step by step. Keywords: resilience, competitive spirit, willingness to take risks.

Over the past 40 years, there have been countless transformations in the industry—from being the king of databases, to being impacted by the wave of cloud computing, and then to taking off again in the AI era. This old guy just doesn't give up.

The details of life are magical

• Owns 98% of Lanai Island in Hawaii
• In 2013, the sailing team made a historic comeback at the America's Cup.
• In 2024, he quietly married a Chinese woman who is 47 years younger than him.
• Self-discipline maniac: Over 80 years old and still works out every day, only drinks water and green tea.

Someone put it well: he loves surfing and also loves falling in love. Both pursue extreme thrills.

Politics + Family Expansion

Son David recently acquired Paramount for 8.2 billion dollars - the whole family is now a dual monopoly in technology and entertainment. Politically, Ellison is also not ambiguous, being a long-time financial backer of the Republican Party, and this year he even appeared at the White House with the CEO of OpenAI and others to announce a 500 billion dollar AI data center project.

Underlying Logic

Ellison was able to rise from an abandoned orphan to the world's richest person, and the core secrets are just three points:

1. Keen Sense of Smell: Discovering the commercial value of databases and planning AI in advance.
2. Strong Execution: Changes are made immediately without fear of layoffs or adjustments.
3. Strong psychological quality: Having seen too many ups and downs, still daring to surf at 97 years old.

The whole story is: old soldiers never die, they just get fiercer. While all the tech giants are anxious about being left behind by the times, Ellison instead proved with a beautiful turn that age is not the issue; the question is whether you have that greedy spirit.