HUMOUR — On Aug. 17, Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison failed to attend his own office birthday party in order to sit in on a casting session for his upcoming biopic, The Oracle of Oracle, which he also wrote and pledged to finance. The birthday party, organized by the company’s board of directors and Pam Duncan, Ellison’s personal secretary, was designed to bolster investor confidence in the 69-year old’s ability to lead the company, particularly his responsibility to attend high-level inter-office celebrations.
This summer’s no-show came to light after he was conspicuously absent during a first-quarter earnings call earlier this year and failed to deliver his own keynote address at Oracle’s OpenWorld Conference so he could watch his yachting team race in the America’s Cup.
“Look, I know it looks bad. Pam and the board worked really hard on that party. I mean, as far as I know, it’s the lightest and most aerodynamic racing-yacht-inspired birthday cake ever baked! Wait, need more altitude, just a sec,” exclaimed Ellison in a phone interview while piloting his Gulfstream jet.
“Anyway, after watching that Steve Jobs flick, I can’t have some schmuck like Ashton Kutcher make a mockery of my life!” Ellison’s leaked screenplay, to be directed by Michael Bay, is a semi-fictional account of the founding of Oracle. It also features him moonlighting as a Navy pilot who single-handedly repels a Soviet-led invasion of the United States while on sabbatical from the company. As of press time, Ellison refused to confirm Robert Downey Jr.’s involvement in the project, but said, “[Tony] Stark wishes he could be me.”
Duncan, 46, tearfully explained that her confidence in Ellison’s ability to show up at his own damn party was severely shaken. “I mean, if he can’t even do that, what makes me think he can successfully roll out Oracle’s next-generation enterprise-level database management system?”
Shareholders of Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) were furious at Ellison’s snub of Duncan, who in a joint letter to the board declared that she “totally didn’t deserve to get bummed out like that.” According to representatives of BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK), one of Oracle’s largest corporate shareholders, his “totally un-chill” treatment of Duncan and his failure to adequately thank BlackRock for their present (a $100 Best Buy gift card) should compel the board to reconsider Ellison’s generous compensation package, which was valued at nearly $77 million USD in the last fiscal year.
Ellison’s treatment of Duncan is slated to be on the agenda for Oracle’s upcoming annual meeting on Oct. 31, which was already predicted to be tense due to the company’s declining share price and flat sales for two consecutive quarters. Unexplained acquisitions on the company’s books are also eroding profits, which, according to insiders, is a smokescreen for Ellison’s rumoured effort to find the Ark of the Covenant.
When asked about his relationship with Duncan, Ellison said, “It’s fine, it’s fine. I handed her a couple of million, told her to get herself some shoes or something, and all she does is tell me that she’s disappointed in me. I mean, I’m paying top dollar for that movie about me, and I deserve to know who plays me! I’ve only got one shot at this. She can plan my birthday any year, but Hollywood never makes two biopics of the same person. They’re not that dumb.”
