The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed Up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the America's Cup, Twice
, subject: Larry Ellison, Norbert Bajurin, Oracle Team USA, and the America's Cup, 2014
Larry Ellison's drive to win never settles, and the sailing story sets that hunger against two demands: be different, and deliver results, not excuses.
About the book
The America's Cup, first awarded in 1851, is the oldest trophy in international sports. Guthrie's account begins in 2000, when Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison decided to compete for it and found a partner in Norbert Bajurin, a car radiator mechanic newly named commodore of the blue-collar Golden Gate Yacht Club.
Why read it
Best if you want to understand a restless, extreme competitor, what he turned to as his company neared failure, and why a different approach still comes down to results.
Key themes
- A drive that never settles
- History's heroes, then the next step
- Different, and accountable
Evidence and original sources
Sources: official Founders episodes — #126, #127, #128, #144, #196, #214, #227, #229, #235, #366
This record is supported by 13 public evidence rows linked to original Founders episodes.
- Larry Ellison (The Billionaire and the Mechanic) — Host names Julian Guthrie's The Billionaire and the Mechanic as the book featured in this episode.
- Larry Ellison (Oracle) — David returns to The Billionaire and the Mechanic for the unsatisfied drive that keeps pushing Larry Ellison.
- Henry Leland (Cadillac) — David returns to the book's Jobs-Ellison debate over history's greatest person, contrasting Gandhi and Napoleon with Henry Leland's choice of Abraham Lincoln.
- Ernest Shackleton — David returns to the book's comeback story and its lesson from Navy SEAL training: manage perspective by focusing only on the next step.
- Winston Churchill (Leadership during WW2) — David returns to the book's Jobs-Ellison walk about history's greatest people and Ellison reading Churchill while Oracle neared failure.
- Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography — David uses a Larry Ellison anecdote from this book about dot-com era euphoria.