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A
biography of Larry Ellison? One can't help but compare him with
Bill Gates. One is a computer-like being who makes all the right
decisions for Microsoft (even funding a political system that he
only has disdain for), and the other is a principles-stickler who
stops funding a buddy's Presidential campaign because he disagrees
on some issue. Gates is a regular family guy, while Ellison has
risked his life many a times just for fun and even smashed his bones
speeding downhill on a cycle in Napa. The irony is that the reckless
guy's software powers some of the largest corporations across the
world, whereas the steady guy's software is considered unstable.
The book's first part is all about Oracle and
how it got built-the strategy, the people and Ellison's everyday
life details. It grips you. And stops you comparing him with Gates
any further. Larry is Larry. He's no loser, and certainly not a
churlish playboy who takes potshots at Gates. This is the Larry
who sticks his neck out (gets it wrong too) to back his beliefs.
An engineer obsessed with perfection. Someone who can take complex
systems down to their simplest, a relentless evangeliser who insists
on changing the game. It helps that he has a wicked sense of humour.
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Software
By Matthew Symonds
Simon & Schuster
Price: Rs 980
PP: 509
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His biggest idea now is centralised worldwide databases. After 9/11,
he wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal selling a single security
digital id database for all of America. "A single national
medical records database could save thousands of lives every year
by preventing dangerous combinations of drugs being prescribed.
It would also save billions of dollars-cheaper than running separate
systems. You have to be willing to save money if you want to save
lives." That's Ellisonese. It goes well with all his other
theatrics-such as whipping out his cool American Express card to
show how shoddy his aviation license looks. Or having the nerve
to suggest the CIA and FBI share a database.
A company's DNA is determined by its CEO, and
more so if he's the founder. Read the chapter 'Life after Oracle'-where
Ellison says why he likes Bill Clinton (he could actually be describing
himself). "He is so interesting: brilliant, complex, ambitious,
troubled, talented. And you can't help feeling the same passion
for life when you are with him. Melanie and I had a great time jazz
clubbing with him in New Orleans. The man heightens your senses
and teaches you what it means to be alive." Ellison funded
Clinton millions when he was campaigning for Presidency in 1992,
till he picked Al Gore as his running mate. Ellison had had a run
in with Gore earlier, when the veep-to-be dropped hints that his
view of tech policies were somehow dependent on who was how sympathetic
to his campaign.
Larry's admiration for people who have unwavering
convictions of their own is apparent. The list is long-from Johnny
Cash (who sang for Native Americans) and Steve Jobs (with his "greater"
sense of aesthetics), to Joshua Lederberg (a Nobel-winning geneticist
and director of an Ellison funded start-up), Paul Discoe (an eccentric
Zen Buddhist architect who helped with his sprawling Japanese mansion)
and Jon Brannenberg (his boat designer).
A man of convictions himself, Larry even talks
about running for Governor. But wouldn't the prurient press have
a field day with his 'personal history' (read: string of women)?
It all depends, he feels, on how fed up people are with traditional
politicians by that time-with their incompetence, pandering to special
interest groups and their dreary political correctness. Well, he
lives in California.
This book is one hell of a good read. The author
Matthew Symonds, till recently the technology editor of The Economist,
seems to have had unlimited access to him. Symonds is sympathetic
to Ellison, but only mildly. Ellison hasn't concealed his own self-doubts
either. All said, the book cheers you up-to know there are people
in the world who have made it so big without selling out to the
system. And continue to question it, and loudly to boot.
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The Structure Of Indian Industry
Ed. Subir Gokarn, Anindya Sen, Rajendra Vaidya
OUP
Price: Rs 595
PP: 365
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Few
attempts have been made in India to analyse the differing performance
of various industries through a common framework. Fewer still, to
fit it all into a unifying paradigm. The so-called Structure-Conduct-Performance
(SCP) model for industry studies has been in existence since the
1950s, but to little effect. Besides, this sort of exercise has
acquired value only recently, after industrial performance stopped
being a function so much of government policy, and more of strategic
decisions taken by firms in the context of their markets.
That is reason enough to read The Structure
of Indian Industry, edited by Subir Gokarn, Chief Economist, CRISIL,
Anindya Sen, Professor, IIM-Kolkata, and Rajendra R. Vaidya, Associate
Professor, IGIDR, Mumbai. The book offers industry prescriptive
studies on 10 sectors-tea, tobacco, textiles, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals,
steel, computer hardware, electronics, auto components and banking-through
a theoretical framework that encompasses strategic as well as economic
factors.
And the trio has done a splendid job of it,
too. The book traces the policy history of these 10 industries,
technological conditions/innovations that influence growth, factors
that determine demand, competitive strategies of its firms (in the
context of a dynamic policy environment) and everything else that
would be relevant to researchers of industrial economics. Moreover,
it also submits prescriptions for each industry's future.
But still, at the end, the editors concede
that despite the vast amount of data generated by researchers on
these industries, it is virtually impossible to fit it all into
a single conceptual framework, a unifying paradigm, so to speak.
The book remains a collection of essays on specific industries,
a useful baseline for future generations to carry out further analyses
of the specific environments these industries operate in and the
strategic responses of their constituent firms.
-Ashish Gupta
 Economic
Policy Of India
By Y. Venugopal Reddy
UBS Publishers
Price: Rs 375
PP: 328
A collection of lectures by the man who has recently taken charge
of India's monetary policy. The broad theme, however, is change.
Specifically, managing the transition to a more dynamic market economy.
The macroeconomic perspective.
 Winning
Legal Wars
By Ranjeev C. Dubey
Macmillan India
Price: Rs 430
PP: 393
Need a legal eagle for corporate warfare? This book, by a law firm
partner, addresses the lay reader with advice on when you should
seek legal recourse, how you must prepare, and what the '7 rules'
of legal strategy are.
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