Courtesy of Eddie Awad

Larry Ellison b. 1944

Larry Ellison grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in Chicago's South Shore, a middle-class Jewish neighborhood. In 1977, Ellison founded Oracle Corporation, a major enterprise software company that specializes in database management systems, and he has been its CEO ever since. In 2009, Forbes ranked Ellison the third richest American and the fourth richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $22.5 billion. He is a generous philanthropist; Forbes reported that, in 2003, Ellison donated more than $150 million to charity.