Larry Ellison's Personal Life

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Larry's first wife left him because he did not work "hard enough." He would do just enough contract work to be able to pay his share of the bills. He has said he "screwed through my 20s." He went ahead and bought a boat. That sent the wife into therapy. She decided the choice was between going crazy and getting a divorce. She picked divorce. During the counseling before the divorce Larry promised to make "a million dollars," the first time he ever talked such big numbers. The wife laughed.

Larry's second wife left him because he worked "too hard." He got on the phone with the first wife and asked, "How does this work?"

Larry's third wife left him for a Harvard MBA. He sent an email to a friend: "Congratulations on getting and staying married."

Larry's fourth wife - from an "aristocratic" Kentucky family, his word - when it was time for her to leave, she had a choice between the family pickup truck and Oracle stocks. She picked the truck.

Somebody around this point described Larry's personal life a "train wreck."

The fifth wife refused to remarry saying her divorce was better than most of her friends' marriages. By now Larry was wealthy beyond imagination.

He has had a steady girlfriend since the late 1990s: Melony. Melony was engaged when he met her: at a mall. She did not know who he was. She feared he might be one of the "suites." Her fiance was an artist. Larry pursued her for over a year. Once he arranged for her and the fiance to show up for an event where Steve Jobs was going to show up. That was his "Melony strategy." Maybe Steve Jobs will impress you. She was a Mac user.

He has said about being a college dropout: "I could not have started a college, but I could have started a company."

About his many failed marriages and an eventual relationship he has said, "I needed to find me first."

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