But back then, the collective wisdom of computer experts
was that while relational databases could be built,
they would never be fast enough to be useful.
I thought, all those so-called computer experts were wrong.
When people start telling you that you're crazy,
you just might be on to the most important innovation in your life.
Growing up in a lower middle class community on the south side of Chicago,
medicine was considered the pinnacle of professions,
noble and humane. Virtually everyone important in my life,
my family, my teachers, my girlfriend wanted me to be a doctor.
Over time, their dreams became my dreams.
They convinced me I should be a doctor.
But as hard as I tried, I couldn't do it.
After a few difficult and unhappy years as a premed student,
it became painfully clear to me that I did not like the courses I was taking.
I thought my comparative anatomy class was a perversely pointless form
of psychological torture, especially the dissection labs.
And I just could not make myself study something that didn't interest me.
At the time, I thought I lacked discipline and that I was selfish, maybe so.
But whatever the underlying reasons, I was unable to make myself into the
person that I thought I should be. So I decided to stop trying.
I was 21 years old when I dropped out of college, packed everything I owned,
jeans, T-shirts, leather jacket, guitar into my car
and drove from Chicago to Berkeley, California. During my California springs and summers,
I spent most of my days in the high Sierras in Yosemite Valley
working as a river guide and a rock climbing instructor.
I loved those jobs, but unfortunately, they didn't pay that well.
So I also got a job working a couple of days a week
as a computer programmer back in Berkeley. I had learned to program in college,
I didn't love programming, but it was fun and I was good at it.
And computer programming gave me the same kind of satisfaction
as solving math problems and playing chess,
both things I enjoyed before I became a confused teenager.
At this point in my life, I thought I was making real progress
on my journey of self discovery. I had found a cause,
I had a couple of jobs that I loved, and one that was fun and paid the bills,
I was pretty happy with my life, my wife was not.
What she saw was a college dropout who spent too much time in the mountains
doing foolish things. She wanted me to work
full time as a computer programmer or go back to college and finish my degree,
she accused me of being irresponsible and she told me I lacked ambition.
She kicked me out and then she divorced me.
My family was still mad at me for not going to medical school,
and now my wife was divorcing me because I lacked ambition,
it looked like a reoccurrence of the same old problem,
once again, I was unable to live up to the expectations of others.
But this time, I was not disappointed in myself,
for failing to be the person they thought I should be.
Their dreams and my dreams were different, I would never confuse the two of them again.
I had discovered things that I loved, the Sierras, Yosemite, the Pacific Ocean,
these natural wonders brought me great joy and happiness
and would for the rest of my life.
I had an interesting job programming computers and more money than I needed,
for the first time, I was certain, that I was going to survive in this world.
A huge burden of fear had been lifted,
I'll never forget that moment, it was the time for rejoicing.
Throughout my 20s, I continued experimenting, trying different things,
racing bikes and boats and constantly changing jobs,
it didn't take me long to discover that the most interesting
and rewarding programming jobs were found at a cluster of companies
located south of Stanford University in north of San Jose.
Silicon Valley was in its infancy. I searched and I searched,
but I just could not find a software engineering job
that I loved as much as I loved sailing, so I tried to create one.
I put together a plan to start my own company,
that way I could completely control my work environment,
I would hire the most talented programmers I knew, and we would all work together
on the most interesting and challenging software projects.
My goal was to create the perfect job for me, a job I truly loved,
I never expected the company to grow beyond 50 people.
So maybe I really did lack ambition or vision back then, I don't know,
it was a long time ago and I was very young. Anyway, today, Oracle employs
around one hundred and fifty thousand people, but when I started,
it was not my intention to build a big company. What happened?
Well, at first, we did exactly what we set out to do,
hired the most talented software engineers in Silicon Valley,
we assembled an all star team of gifted programmers
who were among the best in the world in what they did.
That team, plus one crazy idea, gave birth to a giant company.
I call it a crazy idea because at the time everyone told me it was a crazy idea.
The idea was to build the world's first relational database,
several theoretical papers about relational databases
had already been published, and IBM was building a
prototype in their research labs, but back then, the collective
wisdom of computer experts was that while relational databases could be built,
they would never be fast enough to be useful. I thought,
all those so-called computer experts were wrong. When people start telling you that you're crazy,
you just might be on to the most important innovation in your life.
I was constantly learning on the on the job training, I think they call it,
every day I learned something new and interesting, something that I did not know the day before,
I like that. My new job was challenging,
captivating, consuming, I worked all the time,
but thinking back, I'm pretty sure I didn't love it,
or maybe I was just too tired to even know how I felt,
but I had found a place in the world,
my family finally forgave me for not going to medical school,
and nobody ever accused me of lacking ambition again.
I believe the answer is that deep inside of all of us, all of us,
there's a primal desire to do something important with our lives.
And Freud said, “there are only two things important in life,
love and work”. He did not say, love and work were the same thing.
In a constantly changing world, what is possible is a moving target,
don't be afraid to experiment and try lots of different things.
Don't let the experts discourage you when you when you challenge the status quo.
Like Mark Twain says, “what's an expert anyway,
just some guy from out of town”.
Each of you has a chance to discover who you are rather than who you should be,
a chance to live your dreams, not the dreams of others.
Each of you has an obligation to commit to a righteous cause,
one that elevates you and improves the conditions of humanity and the planet.
It might take a while,
but keep searching until you find a job that ignites your passions like I did,
even better, you just might find one that you love.