Oracle's New CEOs: Uniquely Qualified to Fulfill Larry Ellison's Vision for AI Revolution

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I analyze Larry Ellison’s decision
to appoint Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia as the company’s new
co‑CEOs.


Highlights


00:21 — Oracle's entering a new era now with two
new co-CEOs being named to replace Safra Catz. On Monday, Oracle
announced that Safra Catz, is going to be stepping out of the CEO
role and becoming executive vice chairman. She clarified in a
follow-up call that she's still an Oracle employee.


01:10 — She'll still be there, eager to work
with the two new CEOs along with Larry Ellison, as they've done,
but that it's time for her, she said, to hand over the reins of
CEO. Both Catz and Ellison appear to be extremely confident and
bullish on the capabilities of the two new CEOs, Clay Magouyrk
and Mike Sicilia. Why these two? Why now?


02:15 — Magouyrk has been the leader of OCI,
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. He's been the one behind a lot of
the plans that has made OCI one of the fastest-growing businesses
the tech industry has ever seen. The other executive, Mike
Sicilia, came in as part of Oracle's industry solutions unit
through the Primavera acquisition, focused on project management.


03:07 — Sicilia has gotten deeply into the
business models of various industries: the way they use
technologies, the way they want to use technologies, and how AI
can be a true game-changer for their revenue models. They've been
picked because Ellison believes that they can pull off his
ultimate vision: hardware and software engineered together to
drive incredible performance.


04:10 — They become indistinguishable, so their
performance gets much greater, and that is going to be so
important here in the AI Revolution. Also, Oracle wants to build
this notion of fully integrated, end-to-end industry suites — not
just, you know, complementary suites for HR or finance or ERP,
but rather industry-specific solutions.


04:46 — Why is the co-CEO model appropriate
here? I have not been a fan for a long time of the co-CEO model,
but here's why I think it makes sense. Somebody had to come in
and replace the legendary Safra Catz. That's huge shoes to fill.
I think it's good for the two of them, Sicilia and Magouyrk, to
know that neither of them is going to be expected to be a
one-for-one replacement for Safra Catz.


05:24 — Larry Ellison, as always, has set a
wildly ambitious technology agenda for the company. So, in
addition to running the technology parts of their business,
they're going to have to handle all the other things that a CEO
has to handle — from finances and Wall Street investors to more.
They've also got to fill what is rapidly approaching a
half-trillion-dollar pipeline.


06:01 — I think Larry Ellison said in the press
release announcing this, “I look forward to spending the coming
years working side by side with Magouyrk and Sicilia.” Ellison is
signaling he's not going anywhere. And Catz said again, she's not
disappearing. We'll be talking lots more about this and related
issues in the weeks to come, leading up to Oracle AI World,
October 13.


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