ORACLE:
Which company do you think violates your privacy the most? Google? Facebook? Maybe Microsoft?
Well, you’re not wrong in that these companies do violate your privacy, but they’re likely not the
worst offender. First of all, you know who they are and you can take certain steps to mitigate
how much data they collect or even eliminate their data collection altogether by not using
their services. There is someone though that not only has more data than all of these companies,
but you also have no chance of cutting them out, and their name is Oracle. Within tech circles,
Oracle is a classic, but outside tech circles, most people have never even heard of the company.
This is quite surprising given that Oracle is the 38th largest company in the world with a market
cap of over $200 billion. And Oracle’s founder, Larry Ellison is the 7th richest person in the
world with a net worth of just over $90 billion. Not only is Oracle massive and rich, but they’re
also extraordinarily powerful. A few weeks ago, you may have seen our video on SAP and SAP’s
domination within the enterprise solutions market. Well, SAP only has one competitor and that’s of
course Oracle. 98% of Global Fortune 500 companies use Oracle, and Oracle has over 430,000 customers
around the world who are virutally all 10 million dollar plus businesses. They’re not just
limited to enterprise solutions either. In fact, they own a lot of random tech products and IP
here and there. For example, Oracle literally owns the programming language Java, and they
even went as far as suing Google for quote on quote plagiarizing Java. In 2021, they were even
trying to buy TikTok. And back in 1997, they were actually trying to buy out the entirety of Apple
on multiple occasions actually. Considering all this, I don’t think you’d be surprised to hear
that Oracle has a total of 5 billion end users which is more than any of the FAANG companies.
And yes, even Google only has 4.3 billion users. Likely the only companies that boast a larger
customer count are consumer brands like Nestle and Coca Cola or someone like Johnson and
Johnson. But, these aren’t tech companies, so they don’t exactly have a bunch of data
on you like Oracle. A couple of years ago, Larry Ellison even made a presentation in which
he made his intentions of controlling the entire population blatantly obvious. He said quote
“How many people are on Earth? Seven billion, Two billion to go.” On my last video about SAP, a
lot people commented that SAP isn’t actually all that powerful given that they simply sell software
to companies, but like I said in that video, that’s because SAP doesn’t do anything nefarious
with it even though they could. And Oracle is a perfect example of just what they could do. Just
a few months ago, a class action lawsuit was brought against Oracle for allegedly collecting,
profiling, and selling the data of 5B users. So, here’s the story of how Oracle became the most
discrete giant within the entire tech industry. THE ORIGIN OF ORACLE: Taking a look back, the story of Oracle dates
back to 1977 to three men named Bob Miner, Ed Oates, and Larry Ellison. The company started
off as a database software developer. In fact, the company’s original name was actually Software
Development Laboratories or SDL. The inspiration for the company was from a research paper
written by Edgar F Codd that described the intricacies of relational database management
systems. At first, Ellison’s goal was to create a piece of software that was compatible for
IBM’s System R Database. But unlike Xerox, IBM wasn’t absolute idiots who just handed out
their intellectual property like candy. So, the trio would have an extremely difficult time
trying to troubleshoot error codes and they would eventually shift their focus onto an easier
target: the government. The US government has this policy of giving everyone an equal chance
of trying to land government contracts. They post their contracts publicly and virtually any
US citizen can bid on these contracts. The trio would do exactly this and somehow they would win
a contract to build a database from the CIA. The project was called Oracle and this is what would
eventually become the company’s name. With a project under their belt, the team would get to
work on creating the world’s first commercial relational database program that used SQL. And
this program would eventually get deployed at an airforce base in Dayton, Ohio. Fun fact, the
first commercial version of their product was actually called Oracle V2. The team figured that
less people would be willing to buy a V1 product, so they just went ahead and named it V2. And it
seems like this along with the fact that they serviced the CIA gave them quite a solid
reputation. Not to mention, it’s not like there were many other options anyway, so more and
more companies started to adopt Oracle for their database software. This was really the bread and
butter of the original Oracle. Year after year, they just kept iterating on their database
software coming out with Oracle V3, V4, V5, V6, V7, and so on. This was quite lucrative
given that tech companies were rapidly growing and basically all of them needed database
software which they didn’t want to develop themselves. By 1989, they reached annual
revenues of over half a billion dollars, but Oracle was just getting started. Throughout
the 1990s, they would try to expand their business and move away from databases, but this didn’t
work out all that well. For example, in 1995, they tried to break into the internet market
by launching a browser called PowerBrowser. Similarly, in 1997, they tried to break into
the computer market by launching something called the network computer. The network computer
was actually a brilliant idea. It aimed to remove much of the components inside of a computer
and instead have it run off servers, networks, and databases similar to a chromebook. But, Oracle
quickly found out that the public just wasn’t ready for this product. While these products
didn’t quite work out, Oracle’s core business was still growing exponentially, and soon they
actually found a viable expansion opportunity. ORACLE PRODUCTS: While Oracle wasn’t able to break into those new
markets, something they could do is buy companies that were already successful. And luckily for
Oracle, they would get the buying opportunity of a lifetime with the Dotcom crash. While Oracle’s
stock also got destroyed by the dotcom crash, the same could not be said about Oracle’s
fundamentals. Their business itself was as strong as ever which gave them the perfect opportunity
to buyout everyone else at record low prices, and that’s exactly what they did. Oracle’s entire
acquisition history is way too long to actually go through, so we’ll just focus on their five
biggest acquisitions starting with PeopleSoft in 2005. PeopleSoft was an ERP or enterprise resource
planning company that focused on creating software for common business tasks. Their product line
included 5 main pieces of software including a human resource management system, a financial
management solution, supply chain management, customer relationship management, and
enterprise performance management. These products accomplish exactly what they sound
like. The supply chain management software for example helps companies keep track of demand,
supply, inventory, procurement, order management, and so on. Similarly, the human resources system
helps companies keep track of new hires, employee turnover, vacation hours, payroll, benefits, and
so on. I think you can see why basically every company would need this software. Oracle would
follow up this acquisition by purchasing Siebel Systems. Siebel was also an enterprise software
company, but they didn’t sell ERP software. Instead they sold a different branch of enterprise
software called CRM applications or customer relationship management applications. This
software helps companies manage and coordinate their marketing and customer service efforts.
Moving onto Oracle’s 3rd major acquisition, we have yet another enterprise solutions company
called BEA systems. BEA systems focused on offering a suite of business process management
tools with an emphasis on e commerce. The even called themselves the E-Commerce Transactions
Company as they specialized in creating software and servers tha allowed for high volume e-commerce
transactions. After that, we have Oracle’s most famous acquisition of all time: Sun Microsystems.
Unlike the other companies, Sun wasn’t just focused on one product. They were a massive tech
conglomerate that did everything from developing software to selling hardware. Likely the most
interesting part of Sun, however, is their various inventions. These were the guys who created the
Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, NFS, and SPARC microprocessors. They
also made significant contributions to Unix, RISC processors, thin client computing, and virtualized
computing. Essentially, this acquisition gave Oracle access to a boatload of IP. And that brings
us into Oracle’s last major acquisition which was Netsuite in 2016. Netsuite rounded out Oracle’s
enterprise suite by giving them access to the last piece that they were missing: the cloud. Netsuite
was an expert at cloud based enterprise software, cloud computing, and cloud ERP. And all of these
acquisitions bring us to where we are today. ORACLE TODAY: If you’re still wondering what Oracle sells, the
answer is virtually anything and everything that companies need to stay operational on the backend.
They started off with just database software, but they have gone on to acquire basically every
enterprise solutions giant in the world except for SAP. And today, they offer all of this. As
this Quora user put it, “it would take a very dedicated effort for a large organization like a
Fortune 500 to not be running Oracle somewhere.” And that’s how Oracle gained access to data of
5 billion people. But what exactly are they even collecting? Well, allegedly, Oracle has been using
cookies, tracking pixels, device identification, and cross device tracking to collect three subsets
of information starting with personal information. This includes users’ names, home and work address,
email address, and phone numbers. The second subset of information consists of behavioral
information. This includes websites viewed by users, online and offline purchase, where they
shop, and their mode of payment. The third subset of information is even more personal given that it
includes things such as income, political views, and hobbies. And the worst part is that you
virtually have no way of avoiding them. Heck, people usually complain about large corporations,
but even they can’t avoid using Oracle. Oracle has become an omnipresent backend giant
that’s reputable, has scale, is reliable, and has basically everything you would need. So,
Oracle isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, they’re only growing stronger and more powerful.
As Ellison said, only 2 billion people to go. But, what about the class action lawsuit? That should
be able to deal some damage to Oracle right? Well, probably not. Even if Oracle ends up being found
guilty, it’s not like a fine would really change their ways or stop them. Even if Oracle was
fined $10 billion, it would at max set them back one year. So, there’s really no choice but
to simply deal with it just like we deal with Google or Facebook. On the brightside, Oracle
does make our modern tech based world possible, but with that being said, it’s probably still
not all that great for an individual company to have so much power, control, and influence, but
that’s just what I think. Did you realize how much power Oracle has? Comment that down below. Also,
drop a like if this video helped you understand Oracle’s business better. And of course, consider
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