Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle $ORCL (Fintwit Book Club July 2025, Podcast #327)
In this episode of Yet Another Value Podcast Book Club, host Andrew Walker is joined by Byrne Hobart of The Diff to explore Softwar, the 2003 biography of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Together, they dissect the contradictions of Ellison's public and private personas, Oracle's aggressive sales culture, and the book's surprisingly prescient predictions about tech's future. They reflect on ERP nightmares, Oracle's early brushes with collapse, and its surprisingly fertile alumni network. The conversation probes the blurred line between visionary leadership and red flags, while tracing Ellison’s uncanny resemblance to figures like Elon Musk. From petty footnotes to PR plays, it's a sharp look into one of tech’s most enduring empires.
Fintool is ChatGPT for SEC Filings and earnings calls. Are you still doing keyword searches and going to the individual filing and using control F? That’s the old way of doing things before AI. With Fintool, you can ask any question and it’s going to automatically generate the best answer. So they may pull from a portion of an earnings call, or a 10k, whatever it may be and then answer your question. The best part- every portion of the answer is cited with the source document.
Now- if you’ve tried to do any of this in ChatGPT you may know that the answers are often wrong or hallucinations. The way Fintool is able to outperform ChatGPT is their focus on the SEC filings. If you’re an analyst or a portfolio manager at a hedge fund, check them out at https://fintool.com/
Please follow the podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or most other podcast players, as well as on YouTube if you prefer video! And please be sure to rate / review the podcast if you enjoy it, or share it with someone else who would enjoy it (more listeners is a critical part of the flywheel that keeps this Substack and podcast going!).
Disclaimer: Nothing on this podcast or on this blog is investing or financial advice; please see our full disclaimer here. The transcript below is from a third party transcription service; it’s entirely possible there are some errors in the transcript
Transcript for paid subs begins below