Creative people who say they don't care about money, hate Oracle. People with unpronounceable names from obscure small towns who come to America to turn geeky XML whatever into money love Oracle. People who know that software markets are not romantic comedies understand Oracle. People who know how hard it is to build and maintain successful products for DECADES respect Oracle.



What you need to know about Oracle is this: 99% of the people who use computers to get a job done care more about getting the job done than anything else. Oracle software gets the job done. Now add this capitalist understanding A fair price is what the market will bear. Oracle charges exactly what people are willing to spend to get the job done. And that is what turns computer geekery into money. The kind of money that dreamers only dream about, and what *most* people want. Oracle is not romantic about software or computing.



Oracle is all about market share. That's what they care about more than anything. They are a beast of natural selection. They don't give a crap about intelligent design. They buy companies and technologies that they believe they can sell, they turn them into Oracle products, and if they survive then they get market share, and that pays the bills for tens of thousands of employees, partners and shareholders. Period.



If you've ever been to Redwood Shores, then you will best understand that place if you have seen Glengarry Glen Ross and the cube farm of telesales reps on the fifth floor. Oracle is full of smart, young, energetic people who are turning your geeky XML whatever into money by beating every bush on the planet and separating software buyers from their money. That's all you have to understand. It's a business.



I doubt you'll find anybody universities and incubators are turning out that are interested in building the world's greatest call center software. But somebody has to get that job done. If you appreciate that world class software isn't always fascinating and sexy (and that the world doesn't revolve around 'fascinating' and 'sexy'), but somebody's got to make it work and pay the bills, then you understand Oracle.



Engineers know how to constantly improve technology. That cycle moves very fast in their heads, but very slowly in the sort of markets where Oracle dominates. As an engineer, you will hate working at Oracle if you have very valid 3.0 ideas, but the other 4,000 people involved with your product are making good money with 1.0, thank you very much. On the other hand, if you're a crafty engineer, you'll figure out how to trickle out improvement over the course of years.