In a recent commencement speech given to the University of Southern California, Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison passed on a lesson he learned from Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs about wealth and money. The anecdote came among other life lessons and advice Ellison passed on to the graduates, but the tale involving Jobs took place, according to Ellison, in 1995 -- as the two men watched Apple's rapid decline, and thought about ways to save the company.
"If there was something that Steve wanted to talk about, and there always was, we'd go for a walk," said Ellison, and on one particular occasion in Castle Rock State Park near Los Gatos, the pair took a long walk to discuss Apple, and how they might team up to retake the company away from the current management of the time. The decline "was all too painful to watch and stand by and do nothing," he told the graduates. Ellison, as he recounted for Jobs' biography by Walter Issacson, proposed simply buying the company outright (then only worth about $5 billion) and installing Jobs as CEO.
"All Steve had to do was say 'yes,'" he said. Instead, Jobs told Ellison he hoped that Apple would acquire his current company, NeXT, add him to the board of directors, and then come to the conclusion on their own that Jobs was the best man to save the company by returning as CEO. Ellison countered that buying the company would be a much faster method of assuring that end result, but Steve stopped the walk and talked Ellison out of the idea.
"Larry, this is why it's so important that I'm your friend," Jobs told him. "You don't need any more money, [and] I'm not doing this for the money. I don't want to get paid. If I do this, I need to be standing on the moral high ground." Ellison, already a billionaire through Oracle, and Jobs -- financially set for life from his previous stint at Apple as well as the success of his Pixar acquisition -- were both more than wealthy enough as individuals. Jobs convinced Ellison that compromising Apple as an independent business might not be the most savvy decision from a strict monetary viewpoint, but it was the right thing for the company.
"The lesson here is very clear to me. Steve was right," Ellison said. "After a certain point, it can't be about the money. After a certain point you can't spend it, no matter how hard you try. I know, I've tried hard." Jobs was interested in helping Apple as a point of pride and to right the ship rather than as a deal to add to their personal fortunes. This version of the story differs slightly with his previous recountings of the tale (in Issacson's book, the talk happened in Hawaii in early 1996), but the lesson remained unchanged: sometimes, even in business, it's not just about profits and losses.
The rest is mostly history, and followed the path Jobs imparted to Ellison -- though Jobs made a show of seeking another CEO after Gil Amelio left before the board eventually agreed to return Jobs to the CEO role. He went on from there -- using many lessons learned during his 10-year absence from Apple -- to lead the company to the single greatest "second act" in American business history, putting the company on the path to becoming the most influential and valuable firm in the world.
Jobs groomed COO Tim Cook to eventually take over the CEO role as his health declined over the late "aughts," having Cook fill in during Jobs' leaves of absence. Some have said that Jobs picked Cook rather than one of his former NeXT colleagues in part because as Apple grew, the company would need a CEO capable of managing the vastly larger entity that Apple had become, following its near-death experience in 1996.
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