Larry Ellison on what made Steve Jobs great

July 19, 2024

“Steve was my best friend for about 25 years. We were neighbors in Woodside and his peacock wandered onto my property and woke me up. His girlfriend had given him a peacock and I came over to complain.”

Steve replied: “You don’t like that bird either?”

Larry recalls how Steve made him watch 73 different versions of Toy Story:

“I said I’m not coming over if you make me watch Toy Story again… Now I know the new version is 4% better than the one I saw last week, but I’m not watching this thing again. And he’d say: ‘Larry, you won’t believe how different the shadows look.’ But that was Steve. Until it was perfect. And then once it was perfect, he moved onto the next problem.”

Larry believes obsessing over a product until it was perfect was a huge part of what made Steve Jobs great:

“If you want to know you’re like Steve Jobs, it’s very simple. You’re unable to think about anything other than serious problems at work. That’s all you can do, and you obsess about it until you solve it. And then you move on to the next thing. And you obsess about that until you solve it… If you have that kind of obsession combined with Picasso’s aesthetic and Edison’s inventiveness, then you are the next Steve Jobs.”

He continues:

“Apple became the most valuable company on earth and it wasn’t even one of Steve’s goals. He wasn’t trying to be rich. He wasn’t trying to be famous. He wasn’t trying to be powerful. He was obsessed with the creative process and building something beautiful.”