Larry Ellison and Ted Turner: Prophets of Innovation

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Academy of Achievement

Film, Politics, Arts, Self-help, Sports, Society & Culture, Success, Literature, Humanitarian, Military, Social Justice, Technology, Podcast, Achievement, Music, Science

4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One of these tycoons changed the way businesses collect and use data. The other transformed television and created the 24 hour news cycle. One was born the son of a successful businessman. The other was born the son of a single teen mother, who gave him up for adoption. One became a liberal activist and philanthropist. The other became a backer of conservative political candidates. One made billions. One made tens of billions. But what connects Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, and Ted Turner, founder of CNN, share, is a competitive drive and an ability to see opportunity, where others see only pitfalls. Both men talk here about their journeys to mega-success in business, and in sailboat racing too! (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2021

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Alice. If you were an insomnia, living in Atlanta in the mid-1970s, you probably
0:06.4	caught a TV newscast delivered at 3 a.m. by a guy named Bill Tush, and his co-anchor Rex, a German Shepherd wearing a shirt and tie.
0:17.0	The news was real. The presentation, hilarious if you hadn't slept in days.
0:23.0	For more on that story, here's Rex, Rex.
0:25.0	Federal mediators say in Heiser Bush and striking teamsters.
0:29.0	Ted Turner had hired Bill Tush after buying a local station, Channel 17, and renaming it, WTCG.
0:37.2	They mostly aired secondhand sitcoms.
0:40.4	Gillegans Island, Green Acres, I Love Lucy.
0:45.0	But Turner had a first-hand vision.
0:48.0	He would take advantage of developments in cable and satellite technology to create something called a
0:54.6	super station. It wouldn't just broadcast locally as all TV stations had done
0:59.8	until then with some national programming from a network,
1:03.7	now it would send its own signal out to the whole country,
1:08.0	Bill Tush and Rex, nationwide.
1:11.3	That was followed by another vision, a 24-hour news channel,
1:16.0	unimaginable to others, but clear as day to Ted Turner.
1:20.6	CNN and the 24-hour news cycle were born.
1:25.0	This is CNN breaking news.
1:28.0	Right around that same time,
1:30.0	Larry Ellison was having a different kind of vision in a different realm of technology, computers.
1:37.0	He'd read a theoretical paper about a different way of organizing data, something called a relational database. If it could be made to work,
1:46.5	businesses would have incredibly fast and flexible ways to make use of the information they stored.
	...

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