We might have to rename our 12g release

Remember how I said that San Francisco's Frank Chu is the greatest undiscovered technologist in the history of the world? And how in honor of his tremendous contributions to Oracle we named our new top-secret database 12g, after Frank's 12 galaxy concept? Well, it turns out that we might have to rename it 1000g, because Frank had a major breakthrough a couple days ago. Believe it or not, my main man has started talking about another 988 galaxies. Oracle's R&D people aren't quite sure what it all means yet, but they're working on it round the clock. One thing's for sure. We'll have to push back the new database release by at least a year or so. Don't worry, people -- the new features will be well worth the wait. Trust me on this one.

Is this good for the company?

So I walk into the office this morning and Safra says, where the hell have you been? Because IBM's been waiting in the board room for four hours and they're madder than hornets trapped under Bill's toupée. And I'm like, Safra, baby. Whoa. Slow down and start from the beginning. And so then she tells me how IBM apparently scheduled a meeting with me months ago to see our new top secret 12g release and talk to Frank Chu about some of the new mind-blowing components. She says they're here now and they've brought their golf clubs and golf carts and mainframes and hummer limos.

I tell her no way. The meeting's not going to happen. Call it off, do whatever she needs to do, but I'm not going to talk to those flakes. Why the hell would I give those punks our trade secrets? And she says, Larry, you told them it was all set last week. You can't just cancel now. And I'm like, uhh, yes I can. I'm Larry f'ing Ellison. I own this company, and I do what I want.

But then she got that sad puppy dog face and I knew she was right. So I pulled the fire alarm. It was the only logical thing to do. And here's the best part. Since I wrote all of the fire alarm evacuation procedures myself, nobody goes back into the buildings until Safra gets every single employee to sign her clipboard. Insane, right? She's so cute. She puts on this little orange vest and screams employee names through a bullhorn until they come up and sign. The entire process could take days.

Oh, I almost forgot. I paid the fire department to tow away the IBM hummer limos and golf carts. You should have seen the IBMers. One of the security guys was crying his eyes out. I almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

A reader asks...

"Are you really Jewish? I know you're in Israel right now, and I know you were born to a Jew, but do you believe in God and go to church?"

No, I don't believe in God. That's just silly. You might as well believe in a giant pink fairy living on the dark side of the moon. Actually, I don't have faith in much of anything except myself and Oracle Corporation. And I only practice Judaism when it's expedient. I.e., when I meet a really hot Jewish girl or need to talk to the reporters at the New York Times or need to pray for better-than-average quarterly results or shipping an Oracle product on time. Oh, no. Wait. I don't pray for shipping an Oracle product on time. That's the customer's job.

Anyway, I think the underlying message here is to believe in yourselves and Oracle and our upcoming 12g release. Forget the stupid dogmas, people. Or, if you insist on believing in supernatural beings, know that God created Oracle on the eighth day. We're paying to have that written into the Holy texts. Because if it appears in the Bible, it must be correct, right?

Employees are our most valuable asset

That's why we're treating them right, starting today. Look, I know Oracle has a bad rep here in the valley. People seem to think we're some kind of heartless soulless evil corporation that's worse than AOL or Microsoft. That or they think we're a high-tech anthill with a bunch of worker ants and baby ants and one big fat queen ant. Or something. Actually, I don't really know what people think about us, but I know it's not good. That's why they go to work at places like Google and Apple before they come to Oracle. We're getting the sloppy seconds of Silicon Valley.

Fine. But get ready people, because we're unveiling our secret weapon today. The program is code-named K.E.G., which stands for Kegs for Engineers and Gurus, and it aims to keep Oracle employees happy with plenty of beer, weed, and whatever else people want or need on their lunch breaks. The HR people tested this on our interns over the summer, and let me tell you, it boosted productivity by about 200%. At least, it did after the strippers stopped coming.

So watch out financial flakes. Because between K.E.G. and our 12g release, we're going to make you look like turds in a turd-bowl.

I get all my best ideas from Frank

People come up to me sometimes and say, Larry, how did you come up with all this stuff? Where did you find the inner-strength and creativity to invent things like the relational database, BMW Oracle Racing, and the kegerator? You're an f'ing genius, Larry. Well, yes. It's true that I invented the relational database, but I can't take credit for BMW Oracle. That was all Paul Cayard's fault. And just because I have over 300 hand-made kegerators on my yachts doesn't mean that I invented those either. Even if I wanted to take credit for something as cool as the kegerator, I wouldn't. It's just wrong.

But anyway. Back to where all of my creative juices come from. To be honest with you, I tap my main man Frank Chu for all the big juicy ideas. Most of you probably know him as San Francisco's most famous protester or whatever, and maybe you think he's a mental case, but let me tell you. Frank here is a modern day visionary. Kind of an Oracle in his own way. Dude's a genius when it comes to string theory, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory as it relates to databases.

I get the guy, you know? We understand each other. Frank knows that Oracle is the chosen corporation, and I know that Frank is going to help us build the next generation database. The one that's going to crush MySQL and all the other kiddie databases out there. The one that's going to bring peace and harmony to enterprise computing. The one that's going to make me the richest man in the world. Again.

So I fly him out to Aspen every once in a while. I wine and dine the dude behind closed doors, let him take a couple hits on the monster bong, and watch him do his thing. Let him talk about the new schemas and tablespaces. Let him talk about the 12 galaxies and the government corruption. It all starts to make sense after you listen to him for a couple hours. We're incorporating all of this information into our 12g release. You probably think 12g is just another version number or something, but it's not. It's short for Frank's 12 galaxies. My R&D people won't let me say much more at this point, but take it from me. This is one release you're not going to want to skip.