Oracle of Truth
Claim: While delivering the commencement speech at Yale University in 2000, Oracle
CEO Larry Ellison said:
"Graduates of Yale University, I apologize if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I want you to do something for me. Please, take a good look around you. Look at the classmate on your left. Look at the classmate on your right. Now, consider this: five years from now, 10 years from now, even
30 years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser. The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle?
What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude."
Status: False.
Origins: In July 2000, an inventive story about Oracle CEO Larry Ellison bestowing an unusual commencement speech upon the graduating class of Yale University began popping up in various inboxes. Some were left wondering if this could be the real thing, given what is known of Ellison's famed ego, and because the wide circulation of the 1997
Kurt Vonnegut commencement speech hoax had prepared the way for this piece to sound plausible. In truth, Ellison did not give a such a speech at Yale, nor anywhere else. The article was the fanciful creation of Andrew Marlatt, a writer for the satire website, SatireWire. It was reprinted (with SatireWire's express permission) on BBspot, another satirical web site. The full text of the piece:
ELLISON TO GRADS: DIPLOMAS ARE FOR LOSERS
Oracle CEO Urges Students to Drop out, Start up
NEW HAVEN, CONN. (SatireWire.com) - In one of the more controversial commencement addresses in memory, Oracle CEO and college dropout Larry Ellison told Yale's Class of 2000 they were "losers" whose hard-won diplomas would never propel them into the ranks of the super rich.
The evangelical Ellison, noting that college dropouts Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and
Michael Dell were, like himself, on Forbes' recent top 10 list of billionaires, urged freshmen and sophomores at the ceremony to "drop out
CEO Larry Ellison said:
"Graduates of Yale University, I apologize if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I want you to do something for me. Please, take a good look around you. Look at the classmate on your left. Look at the classmate on your right. Now, consider this: five years from now, 10 years from now, even
30 years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser. The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle?
What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude."
Status: False.
Origins: In July 2000, an inventive story about Oracle CEO Larry Ellison bestowing an unusual commencement speech upon the graduating class of Yale University began popping up in various inboxes. Some were left wondering if this could be the real thing, given what is known of Ellison's famed ego, and because the wide circulation of the 1997
Kurt Vonnegut commencement speech hoax had prepared the way for this piece to sound plausible. In truth, Ellison did not give a such a speech at Yale, nor anywhere else. The article was the fanciful creation of Andrew Marlatt, a writer for the satire website, SatireWire. It was reprinted (with SatireWire's express permission) on BBspot, another satirical web site. The full text of the piece:
ELLISON TO GRADS: DIPLOMAS ARE FOR LOSERS
Oracle CEO Urges Students to Drop out, Start up
NEW HAVEN, CONN. (SatireWire.com) - In one of the more controversial commencement addresses in memory, Oracle CEO and college dropout Larry Ellison told Yale's Class of 2000 they were "losers" whose hard-won diplomas would never propel them into the ranks of the super rich.
The evangelical Ellison, noting that college dropouts Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and
Michael Dell were, like himself, on Forbes' recent top 10 list of billionaires, urged freshmen and sophomores at the ceremony to "drop out