{"id":16660,"date":"2026-04-08T15:02:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/16660\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T15:02:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:02:19","slug":"larry-ellison-yields-spotlight-to-oracles-new-ceos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/16660\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Ellison Yields Spotlight to Oracle’s New CEOs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

After being the dominant voice in more than 150 Oracle earnings calls across more than 40 years, chairman Larry Ellison stepped back and played only a minor role in Oracle\u2019s most-recent call, allowing CEOs Mike Sicilia and Clay Magouyrk to articulate the company\u2019s strategy and direction.<\/p>\n

Ellison\u2019s decision is the latest tangible indication of the profound evolution taking place at the highest levels of the company he cofounded 49 years ago, and that he and longtime CEO Safra Catz led in an extraordinary collaboration for 26 years.<\/p>\n

While Ellison continues to be vigorously involved in Oracle\u2019s long-range vision, product strategy, market positioning, and high-level partnerships, the dynamics of that March 10 earnings call reveal that six months after Catz\u2019s decision to step out of the CEO role, Ellison is supremely confident in the ability of Magouyrk and Sicilia<\/a> to be the new public faces and voices of the company.<\/p>\n

While I realize this is the way life works \u2014 nothing lasts forever \u2014 these early indications of Ellison\u2019s willingness and perhaps even eagerness to step out of the Oracle spotlight he has dominated for the past half-century are momentous because Ellison and his achievements have made him one for the ages:<\/p>\n

the transformation of the database from a gritty and not-well-understood technology into one of the world\u2019s most valuable and strategic assets;<\/p>\n

his early recognition that the database business and applications would be more valuable together than they are separately;<\/p>\n

his decision to leap into the hardware business when most other enterprise-tech companies were scrambling to abandon it;<\/p>\n

his foray into sailboat racing, where he transcended the caricature of a rich guy playing with expensive toys by not only winning the America\u2019s Cup but also totally overhauling the sailing industry and how it engages with the world via his astute reliance on advanced technology;<\/p>\n

his absolutely audacious decision to begin competing directly against three of the world\u2019s largest, most-powerful, and wealthiest corporations \u2014 Google, Amazon, and Microsoft \u2014 in the cloud-infrastructure market, and confounding cynics and supporters alike by then becoming enormously successful and forcing others to play catch-up;<\/p>\n

his stupendous achievement in getting those same three extraordinary competitors to turbocharge Oracle\u2019s success by agreeing to sell the Oracle Database to *their* customers via *their* sales organizations;<\/p>\n

his vision to create massive \u201cAI data centers\u201d to power the AI Revolution; and<\/p>\n

Ellison\u2019s ability to pursue \u2014 amid all of the wild stuff Oracle was pursuing \u2014 simultaneous adventures in professional tennis, restaurants, hotels, robotic farming, medical research, philanthropy, art, and more.<\/p>\n

Let me pause here to emphasize that I certainly am not saying that Larry Ellison\u2019s riding off into the sunset. Rather, what I am saying is that Ellison is clearly taking the first essential steps in ensuring that Oracle\u2019s leadership is in the best possible hands so that when Ellison does decide to begin backing away from running Oracle \u2014 an outcome that is inevitable even for Larry Ellison \u2014 he can be fully confident in the company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

And that speaks directly to his supreme confidence in Sicilia and Magouyrk, which has become increasingly evident over the past six months.<\/p>\n

Safra Catz steps aside. On Sept. 22, two weeks after Oracle announced explosive growth in its fiscal-Q1 earnings call, the company issued a press release saying Catz had decided to step away from the CEO role<\/a> and take on the newly created position of executive vice-chairman. In that announcement, Ellison offered this assessment of the transition: \u201cSafra led Oracle as we became a hyperscale cloud powerhouse \u2014 clearly demonstrated by our recent results. In her role as Vice Chair, Safra and I will be able to continue our 26-year partnership \u2014 helping to guide Oracle\u2019s direction, growth and success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two CEOs replace Catz. Simultaneously, Oracle promoted Magouyrk and Sicilia to CEO, pointedly avoiding the \u201cco-CEO\u201d title. The company held a special call with financial analysts to discuss the transition, and throughout that call, Catz graciously deflected questions directed to her and instead asked Sicilia and Magouyrk to address them. <\/p>\n

While Ellison also deliberately steered some questions to the new CEOs, he also gave several detailed answers to analysts\u2019 questions. In addition, the press release offered this comment on the new CEOs from Ellison<\/a>: \u201cA few years ago, Clay and Mike committed Oracle\u2019s Infrastructure and Applications businesses to AI \u2014 it\u2019s paying off. They are both proven leaders, and I am looking forward to spending the coming years working side-by-side with them. Oracle\u2019s future is bright\u201d (emphasis added).<\/p>\n

Sicilia and Magouyrk make their marks. Three months ago on Oracle\u2019s fiscal-Q2 earnings call in December, Ellison made some opening remarks as he always does \u2014 well, as he always did, as I\u2019ll explain in a moment \u2014 while both Sicilia and Magouyrk offered extensive opening commentary. Magouyrk focused on the infrastructure business he\u2019s led for the past decade while Sicilia discussed customer trends and Oracle\u2019s apps\/agents business. During the Q&A session, Ellison was an active participant, offering extensive commentary on the fast-changing and rapidly growing AI marketplace while also ensuring Magouyrk and Sicilia received plenty of airtime.<\/p>\n

Ellison shifts to supporting role on Q3 earnings call. While it\u2019s possible that I\u2019m making too much of the staging of Oracle\u2019s March 10 earnings call<\/a>, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the case. First of all, for the first time I can recall, Ellison did not make an opening statement \u2014 both Magouyrk and Sicilia did, and in my estimation did excellent jobs of laying out how Oracle\u2019s business is doing, where it is headed, and why the company believes, as Ellison said above, \u201cOracle\u2019s future is bright.\u201d So that was a fundamental break with how the company has presented itself to the market for the past four decades. <\/p>\n

The second big shift was that during the Q&A session, seven questions were asked and all seven questions were directed to the new CEOs and not to Ellison. In fact, Ellison did not say a single word on the 50-minute earnings call until the very end, when he added some follow-up thoughts to a question that Sicilia had answered. <\/p>\n

Ellison concluded his response with a comment that is vintage iconoclastic Ellison: \u201cAnd thank God we have these coding tools now that allow us to build a comprehensive set of agent-based software to automate a complete ecosystem like healthcare or financial services. That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing at Oracle. That\u2019s why we think we\u2019re disruptors. And that\u2019s why we think the SaaSpocalypse applies to others, but not to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Final Thought<\/p>\n

While I think these latest changes in the momentous evolution taking place at the top of the company are highly significant and are surely indications of more adaptations still to come, I want to reiterate that I am certainly not saying or suggesting that Larry Ellison has decided to step away from Oracle.<\/p>\n

But I think the public presentations from Oracle leadership over the past six months have made it abundantly clear that Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia are very much in charge at the #2 company on the Cloud Wars Top 10,<\/a> and that Ellison as well as Catz very much want them to be perceived as running the entire company and not just distinct business units.<\/p>\n

As Ellison himself said (noted above), \u201cA few years ago, Clay and Mike committed Oracle\u2019s Infrastructure and Applications businesses to AI \u2014 it\u2019s paying off. They are both proven leaders, and I am looking forward to spending the coming years working side-by-side with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming from Ellison, that\u2019s an extraordinary endorsement for Magouyrk and Sicilia, and an unmistkably clear message to the market that Oracle\u2019s future leaders are not only in place but also in charge.<\/p>\n

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