Who among us hasn't skipped out or provided a less than 100% truthful excuse to get out of work and go sailing? Well in that way Larry Ellison, owner of Oracle Team USA and third richest man in the country, is no different for the rest of us.
The theme of the 34th Americas Cup should probably be "Go Big or Go Home," with the cup being defined by big money, big disasters, and big comebacks. Ellison certainly kept to that motto by skipping out on his keynote address at the Oracle Open World Conference to be out on the water to see Jimmy Spithill and company win race 17 and 18 on the San Francisco Bay yesterday. The 60,000 attendees at the conference did not seem to take too kindly to Ellison's absence.
"I was disappointed," Steve Katz, a Hewlett-Packard Co. employee who traveled from Hartford, Conn., to attend Oracle OpenWorld told Fox News. "I guess Larry's boat is more important to him than all these people here."
Jonathan Bloom of Bloomberg TV posted this tweet soon after it was announced Ellison was skipping out.
People are flooding out of #oow13 keynote after hearing that CEO Larry Ellison is at the America's Cup, and not here.
— Jonathan Bloom (@BloomTV) September 24, 2013
But some of the irate techies may have begun to see the light on the magic of the America's Cup because less than an hour later Bloom sent out another tweet.
Watching America's Cup live on my laptop during #oow13 keynote. Other conference attendees are craning their necks to watch.
— Jonathan Bloom (@BloomTV) September 24, 2013
Regardless of how attendees at Oracle World feel, you can bet that Ellison is going to be back out on the water today at 4:15 when Oracle Team USA and Emirates team New Zealand face off in a winner-take-all race 19.