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Bruce Scott, the co-founder of Oracle says, “I remember Larry very distinctly telling me one time: Bruce, we can’t be successful unless we lie to customers.” An

• hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  > But he was tenacious; he would never give up on anything. To be fair, in my mind this is the one most common trait I find in successful entrepreneurs and leaders. I've seen leaders who I didn't think were particularly bright, or extroverted, or empathic, but man, did they not get stressed out by obstacles that came in their way. They either sidestepped them or overcame them, but they did not dwell on them and let those obstacles lead to self doubt. This is one reason why I think sociopaths are over-represented in leadership positions. They are not burdened by a conscience that can lead to self doubt in times of stress. Of course, it's possible to have this "does not get discouraged by big obstacles" attitude and not be a sociopath, but it is certainly an area where sociopaths have a natural advantage.
  • zepearl 8y ago
    I agree but I'd like to add that in my opinion "successful" is probably quite risky to use in general, meaning that there are multiple levels (e.g. successful for yourself, for the company/government, for the investors/people, for the future maintainability, etc...) and timelines (e.g. now, in 1 year, in 10 years, ...). For example Stephen Elop can probably be considered "successful" as having managed to be CEO of Nokia for a while, but not the same could be said for the company itself (not sure about its investors)? In any case I think that it would be safe to say that sociopaths have at least the embedded advantage of being "quicker", as they most probably ponder less than other people about in/direct consequences of their actions.
    • hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
      Agreed. I was referring to people that are able to get to the top of their games because they are able to "get shit done." Whether that shit is good or bad is another issue entirely. Without getting too political, take Donald Trump, who in my mind kind of exemplifies this definition of success. Whatever your thoughts about Trump, he's definitely not lazy, and his early morning tweet storms seem to signify that he gets by on little to no sleep. Of course, he may cause WWIII in the process.
      • zepearl 8y ago
        Concerning D.Trump: being swiss, if he gets little or no sleep (because or routine work or anything which he triggered himself) I would judge that as mismanagement :)
        • darkpuma 8y ago
          Good leaders identify good delegates. Poor leaders micromanage.
          • hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
            I hear this a lot, and while I generally agree with it, I feel like it ignores the significant counterexamples. You can argue whether Elon Musk and Steve Jobs were good leaders, but I think it's difficult to argue they weren't able to accomplish something uniquely remarkable. In my experience, good leaders may not micromanage but the best leaders are able to, and often do, "get into the weeds" and are actually able to understand and act on the nitty-gritty details even better than the people doing those jobs.
  • jen729w 8y ago
    I think there's a driver there that "the rest" of us just don't have. I enjoy an easy life. I don't want to work hard; that's not my driver in life. Therefore by this measure I will never be "successful". Fortunately for me I'm happy with my own definition of "success".
  • shostack 8y ago
    Is it that they don't get stressed, or that they are great at hiding it to project an air of confidence at all times. And how would you tell the difference?
    • hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
      > Is it that they don't get stressed, or that they are great at hiding it to project an air of confidence at all times. I wouldn't say it's that they don't get stressed, but that they are able to quickly compartmentalize it and move on without dwelling on it. On the "are they just great at hiding" question, at least in my experience this isn't really possible. Personally, I have severe negative physical effects in response to long term, chronic stress. I sleep poorly, get severe intestinal issues, etc. At some point it becomes pretty impossible for me to just "hide it" - I'd LOVE to be able to quiet my body's physiological responses, but I'm just not capable. In seeing how some of my colleagues dealt with the same stressors, I can assure you they weren't just "hiding it" - if they were experiencing the same physical effects I was, at some point it would have been impossible to hide.
• omarforgotpwd 8y ago
  Sounds like the opinion of someone who doesn't like Larry Ellison.
  • skj 8y ago
    Doesn't make it wrong.
    • zepearl 8y ago
      Whenever I hear those names I personally link immediately Elon Musk to "genuinely enthusiastic & a bit crazy", but in the case of Larry Ellison I get only "dark side"-thoughts... .
      • pas 8y ago
        I'd still want to know his opinions. With great knowledge comes great power, and thus responsibility.
        • zepearl 8y ago
          I think that Larry was so far only in Iron Man (http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/mp/G9UGuzVE1g-l.jpg http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/mp/G9UGuzVE1g-l.jpg), not in Spider-Man movies => so, sorry, he's most probably not carrying such a huge ethical burden :) Edit: I would be absolutely interested in hearing Larry's wished next steps, but I don't think that board members usually release statements (I think that they only "steer" the CEO, help "facilitating" whenever issues arise and perform overseeing activities), right?
          • pas 8y ago
            They do whatever the bylaws of the corp allow/require them to do, but yes, in general they are steering thr CxOs. And if we hear anything about what he says/does it'll be through Elon, I guess.
  • golfer 8y ago
• darkpuma 8y ago
  > "Elon stretches the truth constantly." That's putting it gently. Putting aside his twitter spats, Tesla is still prominently advertising "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars"[0] even though their cars do not contain LIDAR, which essentially every expert in the field unconnected to Tesla seems to agree is necessary to implement Level 5 self driving cars[1][2]. [0] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/autopilot [1] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/mobileye-ceo-tesla-self-driving-cars/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/mobileye-ceo-tesla-self-d... [2]https://www.wired.com/story/lidar-self-driving-cars-luminar-video/ https://www.wired.com/story/lidar-self-driving-cars-luminar-...
  • hndamien 8y ago
    I think “every expert” may be stretching the truth, unless you are proclaiming that Tesla has no experts working on this.
    • theptip 8y ago
      They said > every expert in the field unconnected to Tesla
      • hndamien 8y ago
        The edit button is a wonderful tool. Besides, the fact that I can drive my car relying primarily on two eyes and a brain suggests that it must be possible to extract and process the information to drive a car with stereo vision, and without LIDAR. LIDAR may become cheap and small enough that it should be added purely from a safety perspective - more better information is better. However, I think plenty of experts would agree that theoretically it is possible without. Here are some experts that think it works without LIDAR, so you may wish to edit “every”. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.09839.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.09839.pdf
        • darkpuma 8y ago
          Even if they can make it work, they note that Tesla's hardware is still inadequate. Tesla boast 8 cameras providing 360 degree coverage, but the authors of that paper are unimpressed: >"The autopilot feature [19] in cars produced by Tesla Motors enables autonomous driving on highways through a combination of a forward-looking camera and radar. Due to the limited field-of-view, these cars cannot execute autonomous driving in cities which require surround perception." So while you may have found some experts who think Level 5 automation can be done using only CV, you've only reinforced my main point that Elon Musk is not a trustworthy person.
• wisecommentator 8y ago
  Larry Ellison is a visionary. Seems like all visionaries have been called liars by some. Steve Jobs is said to have had a “reality distortion field”. Elon Musk is a visionary. Are they all “liars” or do “visions” seem like stretching of the truth to us? Are visions simply extensions of the “truth”?
  • gameswithgo 8y ago
    What did Larry envision, exactly?
    • wisecommentator 8y ago
      Where should I start? Ellison made the first commercial implementation of SQL. (Granted, Ellison didn't invent SQL, but he instantly recognized the importance of it and made it commercially successful, just like Steve Jobs didn't invent graphical interfaces, but instantly recognized its importance when he saw it Xerox Parc.) Ellison has been talking about what he called "Network Computing" since the mid 1990s. He said "We need computers that do less not more". He was laughed at and ridiculed, but today Chromebooks are the implementation of his "Network Computer" vision. "Computers that do less" are now a reality. What we know today as "cloud computing" was first envisioned by Ellison in the mid 1990s. He called it "network computing". He talked about why it is important to "centralize complexity" and keep the end-user devices simple. Meanwhile Steve Ballmer was touting the "power of the local hard drive". Ellison's vision seems like commonsense today, but it wasn't back then. There are lots of other things. For example he was the first to move Enterprise applications to the Web when web-based applications weren't a thing yet. Oracle Parallel Server was his idea. He even wrote the first implementation himself.
      • phs318u 8y ago
        I think you'll find that Ellison's "vision" of network computing was literally acquired when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems. Sun's fifth employee, John Gage, coined the phrase "the network is the computer" in 1984 [0]. Ken Olsen (Digital Equipment Corp) is also reputed to have shared this view as far back as 1987 [1]. [0] https://www.computerworld.com.au/slideshow/334210/pictures-remember-rise-fall-sun-microsystems/ https://www.computerworld.com.au/slideshow/334210/pictures-r... [1] https://slidex.tips/download/don-t-forget-the-network https://slidex.tips/download/don-t-forget-the-network EDITED to fix URL [1]