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Larry Ellison’s Yacht Musashi: Everything You Want To Know

American billionaire Larry Ellison was the co-founder of Oracle Corporation and is believed to have a net worth of nearly $114 billion. Ellison is no stranger to the yachting world and used to co-own a yacht with David Geffen for many years. There was a rumor he sold his stake to Geffen because he thought their 453 foot yacht the Rising Sun was just too big for him. That was back in 2010. Since that time, Ellison has gone on to purchase his own yacht

Design and Features of Larry Ellison’s Yacht

Ellison’s yacht is known as Musashi. It was built in 2011, just after he sold his previous yacht to David Geffen. It was built by the company Feadship with an exterior design by De Voogt naval architects and interior handled by Sinot Yacht Design.

The vessel has a steel hull and an aluminum superstructure. The decks are teak. The superyacht features at-anchor stabilizers to increase comfort. The on board water tanks store around 88,000 liters of fresh water.

What’s with Larry Ellison and Miyamoto Musashi?

Other yachts that Ellison has owned included the Ronin and the Katana. All four of these yachts have a noticeable theme in common and that is Japan with a strong leaning towards samurai culture. 

While Rising Sun is a reference to Japan itself, often called the Land of the Rising Sun, the other names are more samurai inspired. Ronin is the name of a masterless samurai while a katana is a type of sword that is often associated with the warriors. As for Musashi, that comes from a famous samurai warrior and Japanese swordsman named Miyamoto Musashi. It was said Musashi was a master swordsman and was undefeated in over 60 duels. 

This appreciation for Japanese culture also inspired some of the design elements of the yacht seen in the Sinot yacht architecture. That includes things like an overall minimalistic Japanese style, clean lines along the exterior to the materials and art found within which either reflect Japanese style or design esthetics.  One of the most notable pieces is a Hiroshi Senju painting.

Interior of Larry Ellison’s Yacht

The Musashi superyacht has been designed to accommodate up to 18 guests at a time, in addition to the crew who run the ship. That includes 10 guest suites, two of which are VIP cabins. Among the many features available for guests you can find

• a movie theater
• a swimming pool
• basketball court
• volleyball court
• beach and water toys

The 5 deck yacht can be accessed easily thanks to an elevator to take you where you need to go. Failing that, there’s a stainless steel and glass staircase that can take you through the structure. The design is a little unusual and where a tender garage would normally be kept on the lower decks is the gym and spa and then crew quarters as well as access to the inner workings of the ship are down below.

The Musashi also features a basketball court on board as well that can be converted for playing other sports like football and volleyball as a crane that can launch racing boats.

There is a tender garage, of course, but it’s located on the main deck as part of the giant beach club. You can also find a cinema on the main deck that converts to a lounge and then most of the guest cabins are on this level as well.

Heading to the upper deck, half of this entire space is reserved for the largest of the VIP suites. 

How Much Did Musashi Cost?

According to various reports, Musashi cost Ellison about $160 million. That doesn’t put it in the running to be the most expensive yacht in the world by any means, but it’s definitely an expensive superyacht.

The annual expense for running the yacht which includes everything from taxes and licenses, salary for the crew and fuel expenses is believed to run between $10 million and $20 million per year. That may seem like a lot but it’s pretty standard for a yacht of this size. This is part of the reason why many billionaire yacht owners will put their yacht up for charter during times when they are not using it. It’s much easier to cut those expenses when other people are paying them. 

That said, Ellison has not opted to make his yacht available for charter. At least not yet, anyway.

Speed and Propulsion

Musashi is powered by twin 5,766hp MTU 20V4000 M93L diesel engines.

• The yacht has a fuel capacity of 335,000 L (88,000 US gal).
• That means that Musashi has a maximum range of 6,000 nmi (11,000 km) at 12 knots (22 km/h).
• Cruising speed is 18 knots and a top speed of 21 knots.

The crew of the Musashi numbers around 24 and there are 10 crew cabins on board. This includes the crew needed to actually operate the vessel as well as additional crew members such as a chef and others who are able to see to the needs of the passengers for whatever they might require.

Musashi is a large yacht, though far from the largest yacht in the world.   It measures 288 feet in length, and has a beam of 45.6 feet. The draft is 13.5 feet and the gross tonnage of the megayacht is 2,463 tons. 

How Does The Musashi Yacht Compare to Other Luxury Yachts?

One of the most obvious comparisons you can make is between this luxury superyacht and Ellison’s previous yacht the Rising Sun , owned by David Geffen. The Rising Sun is 453 feet which is 165 feet longer than Musashi. The Rising Sun was also said to have a cost of around $200 million compared to the $160 million of Musashi. 

While $160 million is nothing to sneeze at, the current reigning title for most expensive yacht seems to belong to the Eclipse, owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich which, after the initial purchase and various retrofits and upgrades, is said to have cost him $1.5 billion.

In terms of size, Musashi also falls short of the largest yacht in the world which is the massive Azzam. It measures in at 180 meters which is nearly 600 feet in length.

The Bottom Line

Larry Ellison was the founder of Oracle and is one of the top ten richest people in the world. He spent $160 million on his yacht Musashi, named after a historical samurai. Musashi measures in at 288 feet in length and can handle up to 18 guests on board. The yacht features a pool, spa, gym and other amenities and is very much inspired by Japanese design elements. 

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Inside Musashi: Oracle Co-Founder Larry Ellison’s $160 Million Superyacht

Larry Ellison sails in style on his $160 million superyacht Musahi.

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Larry ellison’s ownership of the superyacht musashi, the samurai connection of the superyacht, a minimalist, japanese-style vessel.

It is a common knowledge that the world’s wealthiest people like blowing millions of dollars on collectible vehicles, opulent homes, private planes, and other luxuries. Others own a lot of stocks and corporations all over the world and tech billionaire Larry Ellison is among them. Nothing really compares to a multimillion-dollar superyacht when it comes to establishing your super-rich social hierarchy, and it is pretty obvious since the Oracle co-founder has more than one superyacht.

Superyachts can be purchased for hundreds of millions of dollars and maintained for millions more annually. It is regarded as the foremost symbol of prosperity and exemplifies excellent affluence. Many billionaires possess enormous superyachts that are the ideal signs of their opulent lifestyles.

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Superyacht Musashi, owned by American billionaire Larry Ellison, is one expensive example and is amazingly featured in one of Netflix's series, The Dropout. Fans were astonished at the sight of the superyacht seen in the series. The peculiar designs and architectural layout are remarkable that this raises queries about it and the identity of the yacht's enormous owner.

Larry Ellison, full name Lawrence Joseph Ellison, was the Oracle's software corporation co-founder and CEO from 1977 to 2014. With a net worth of $93 billion and a co-founder of Oracle Corporation. He is the eighth richest person in the world. He is considered one of the highest-paid CEO in the US. Although it has been announced that Ellison will be leaving the board of directors in 2022, he also owns shares in Tesla valued at the US $1 billion.His Musashi is revered by all as a classic illustration of the most luxurious pastime a millionaire like Ellison enjoys. It is an 88-meter vessel designed in the Japanese style and unveiled in 2011 by the Koninklijke De Vries yard of Feadship in Makkum, the Netherlands.

Musashi measures 87.78 m (288.0 ft) overall and 13.90 m in beam (45.6 ft). Together with her sister ship Fountainhead, she is ranked as the 79th-largest yacht in the world. Her well-chosen name reflects the appreciation for Japanese styling that her very skilled owner shares. Additionally, the billionaire has made no secret of his admiration for Japanese tradition and has acquired a precious collection of Japanese artwork that dates back thousands of years.

Ellison is well-known for having owned numerous high-end superyachts during his life. The 58-meter Ronin, the 75-meter Katana, and the 138-meter Rising Sun are some of them. When you get here, you'll see that the names of all these vessels are strongly associated with the country of the rising Sun. With its name derived from the illustrious samurai Miyamoto Musashi in Japanese history, the Musashi also adheres to this tradition. Musashi, who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries, was a skilled swordsman, philosopher, military leader, author, and Roman.

At the age of 13, Musashi killed a guy in single combat, launching his career as a fighter. He claimed to engage in more or less 60 separate sword fights, all of which he claimed to have won, many of which were to the death. Legend has it that he remained undefeated throughout his life and was renowned as a "sword saint" because he set out on a personal quest to learn excellent sword skills. Ellison's choice of the name reveals his love of samurai mythology and Japanese culture. In reality, the billionaire also owned a Japanese art collection in an exhibition that debuted over a weekend at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

Feadship delivered the superyacht, which cost an estimated amount of $160 million and was the largest vessel ever constructed by the shipyard at the time.  With a crew of 23, Musashi can accommodate 18 guests. Japanese art and design elements are mixed throughout the room. The aesthetic sensibility of the Eastern nation is reflected in every piece of furniture, material utilized, work of art, and sculpture. The ship has five decks, which is a very unusual layout. The tender boats are again positioned on the main deck and prepared to transform into a mobile beach club once they are released into the sea. Downstairs are technical areas and crew accommodations, a gym, and a garage, although this is often a garage for tender motor boats. Musashi's theater room, which can be transformed into a comfortable living room when necessary, is one of its best features. The passenger compartments are located in the main deck's remaining space.

Meanwhile, a master suite fills half of the upper deck. It contains a theater room that can be converted, and the living room on the main deck has a breathtaking outlook. The glass and stainless-steel elevator system must be mentioned, encircled by a glass staircase that winds across the boat's floors. Musashi has an average speed of 18 knots and can operate continuously at over 6,000 knots.

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Sources: SCMP , Billionaire's Press , Boat International

Nominees > Contributor , Sailing

Living , Modern

Larry’s Ellison’s passion for sailing has led to technological advances and innovations in sailing that have trickled down for the rest of the sport.

Beyond winning five Maxi World Championships on his 78-foot yacht, Sayonara , and winning the America’s Cup twice (2010, 2013), Larry has contributed to the development of sailing at the highest levels by creating pathways for younger sailors coming up through the sport. Beginning with the inclusion of the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup in San Francisco, to developing SailGP and the F50 as a new niche of the sport, he has had a profound impact on the sport of sailing in the United States.

“I was passionate about sailing and the idea of sailing … the idyllic independence … traveling with the wind.” – Larry Ellison

Accomplishments and Honors • In the 1990’s, on 78-foot Sayonara , won 5 Maxi World Championships • Oracle Team USA: following success racing Maxi yachts, Ellison founded BMW Oracle Racing to compete for the 2003 Louis Vuitton Cup. The BMW Oracle/Oracle USA team has owned several boats, including:

• USA 71 trial boat for the 2003 America’s Cup.
• USA 76 race boat for the 2003 America’s Cup.
• USA 87 used in preparations for the 2007 Louis Vuitton Cup.
• USA 98 raced in the Louis Vuitton Cup 2007 campaign.
• USA 17, trimaran. Sailing with a rigid wing sail, she won the 2010 America’s Cup, in a Deed of Gift match against SNG/Alinghi Valencia.
• USA17, an AC72 catamaran for the 2013 America’s Cup defense. Extensively damaged in an October 2012 capsize. Successfully defended in the 2013 America’s Cup.
• 17AC50 wing sail catamaran. Unsuccessfully defended the 2017 America’s Cup.
• In 2002, Ellison’s Oracle team introduced kite yachting into the America’s Cup environment. Kite sail flying lasting about 30 minutes was achieved during testing in New Zealand.
• In 2019, Ellison, in conjunction with Russel Coutts, started the SailGP international racing series. The series used F50 foiling catamarans, the fastest class of boat in history with regattas held across the globe. Ellison committed to five years of funding to support the series until it could become self-sustaining. The first season was successful with global audiences of over 1.8 billion.

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Larry Ellison’s Yacht Preoccupation

By Vauhini Vara

As Larry Ellison, the C.E.O. of Oracle and the world’s fifth-richest man, watched his team win the thirty-fourth America’s Cup, the Internet was far more interested in his decision , on Tuesday, to skip his own keynote address at Oracle’s annual conference for customers so that he could hang out in San Francisco Bay to cheer on Oracle Team USA. As he watched the team’s seventy-two-foot catamaran glide across the bay, a product-development executive was dispatched to speak to the conference crowd.

“Yes, Oracle customers, you are chopped liver,” one person wrote on Twitter. “Time for someone to retire,” another said . Even the official Twitter account for the conference got in on the party, if unintentionally: Minutes before his keynote address was set to start, it urged people to tweet photos of the scene as they waited for Ellison’s appearance with the hashtag #waitingforLarry.

People who are extraordinarily rich—and their slights, real or perceived, against the rest of us—have long provided a target against which we can unite. But where other countries have kept their royal families around, for that purpose if for no other, Americans have to content ourselves with old-fashioned billionaires. In recent years, they have offered little in the way of fodder. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett—the only Americans richer than Ellison—are generous philanthropists; Buffett, famously, still lives in a five-bedroom home he bought in the fifties. What’s the ninety-nine per cent to do for entertainment?

So thank goodness for Ellison. In 2000, he sued San Jose, California, over the regional airport’s rule that kept him from landing his personal jet there in the middle of the night. Last year, he agreed to buy most of a Hawaiian island. And now he shuns the people who, by buying Oracle’s software, help pay his salary, so that he can watch a yachting race featuring the team he bought with his Oracle wealth.

For people who care about Oracle’s finances, however, this could add up to a more serious matter—especially coming as it did after another, less publicized missed appearance. Not long before his OpenWorld no-show, Ellison also skipped Oracle’s call with analysts about its first-quarter earnings so that he could watch his team race. (In case the reason for the snub was not explicit enough, Safra Catz, Oracle’s C.F.O., told listeners, “Larry isn’t with us today because he’s at an important race for the America’s Cup.”)

It came after a period of lackluster growth. Oracle’s revenue for the quarter that just ended was up two per cent, less than analysts expected; the news arrived after two quarters of flat growth. The company makes software used by businesses for tasks such as filing expenses and keeping track of customers; some have criticized it, and Ellison, for not moving quickly enough to the Web as potential customers started using Internet-based services for those tasks rather than traditional software. When Brent Thill, an analyst at UBS, asked on the earnings call what Oracle could be doing to get back to better growth in licenses—a measure of software sales—Catz’s reply wasn’t particularly inspiring: “We just have to execute, and we have to avoid any kind of economic deterioration or things like that. Some of those things are out of our control—you just have to execute.”

Ellison’s absence on the conference call got significantly less attention, in the world at large, than the keynote no-show—probably because OpenWorld is sexier, as these things go, than a conference call about financial performance. But investors surely noticed. The public likes to needle C.E.O.s for big pay packages, but investors generally tolerate outsized compensation—as long as the C.E.O.s earn their keep.

A few days after the earnings call—but before the OpenWorld snub—the company said Ellison’s pay had dropped eighteen per cent, to seventy-eight million dollars, in its 2013 fiscal year, after the company missed some internal financial goals and Ellison gave up an annual bonus. Still, he remains among the most highly compensated C.E.O.s in the country. Already, some investors are growing fed up with Oracle’s high pay for executives including Ellison; one investor, CtW Investment Group, wrote in a letter to an Oracle board member on Wednesday that it would vote against the company’s compensation practices, and possibly try to unseat directors on its compensation committee if Oracle doesn’t improve its policies on pay, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Ellison, like his late friend Steve Jobs of Apple, is one of those chief executives whose larger-than-life persona is inextricably linked to that of his company. He founded Oracle in the 1970s, and remained at its helm long after he could have retired; his customers are willing to pay thousands of dollars to attend the conferences where he promises to appear in person, and investors tolerate his eccentricities in return for his leadership.

None of that is expected to change anytime soon. The company has underperformed recently, but it is by no means collapsing: its stock price is up a perfectly respectable four per cent over the past year. Still, with observers raising questions about the company’s performance—“the broad-based slowdown reflects innovative rivals starting to eat Oracle’s lunch,” Rolfe Winkler wrote in the Wall Street Journal in June, after the company missed its fourth-quarter targets—Ellison could face more tough questions pretty soon. But first: champagne !

Photograph by Noah Berger/AFP/Getty.

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Allen Vs. Ellison

• By Barry Pickthall
• Updated: October 4, 2007

They may not be blood brothers, but Paul G. Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft, and Larry J. Ellison, the CEO of Oracle Corp, the world’s second largest software company, are the Cain and Abel of the silicon set. Their rivalry knows no bounds. They compete with the same intensity as the characters in the Jeffery Archer novel, at every level in business, sport and pleasure-particularly in the yachts they own. Lastly, and most ironically for two titans whose head-butting contests have raised such a heavy wake, both men are obsessed with secrecy.

When Allen ordered his latest superyacht, the 416-foot Octopus from the Lürsson yard in Germany, Ellison was soon to follow with an order for the monster 452-foot Rising Sun , which became the second-largest private yacht when he had the hull extended from 387 feet during construction. Naturally some amateur psychologists say the extension was done simply to steal Allen’s thunder.

If so, lightning may have struck twice, from an unexpected quarter. Rising Sun was launched from the same German yard as Octopus last autumn, but surprisingly, Ellison, a dropout from the University of Illinois, has yet to accept delivery-the sort of pouty ploy practiced by billionaires who’ve learned to throw their weight around. The latest word suggests that he has now lost interest in her since the $270 million vessel has been superseded in the size league by the 525-foot Platinum , launched for engine trials in April and currently being completed in Dubai for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The Crown Prince of Dubai makes a most worthy foil, being the owner of the Emirates airline-which just placed a $28 billion order for the new Airbus.

Allen, 51, is known for indulging his enthusiasms with more zest than sensibility. He owns both of the Northwest’s underperforming professional teams, the football Seattle Seahawks and basketball’s Portland Trailblazers, and bankrolled the Experience Music Project-a Frank Gehry-designed museum-cum-technological marvel that includes a giant walk-through of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar and a Sky Church for rockers. He plays electric guitar (when not smashing it, a la Jimi), sometimes on board his 199-foot Feadship Meduse , which has an onboard recording studio. He’s ranked seventh in the latest Forbes 400, two places ahead of the 60-year-old Ellison, whose stock took a tumble when the IT bubble burst and who has also had to navigate through the choppy waters that surrounded his third divorce. Ellison, whose abiding ambition is to drive Oracle above Microsoft as well as springboard ahead of Allen in the Forbes list, did have the consolation of bettering his rival in the 2003 America’s Cup in New Zealand.

Ellison and Oracle mounted a traditional syndicate approach to the Cup. Allen, however, came to the world’s most exclusive competition by accident-stepping in to support the Seattle-based OneWorld group when founder Craig McCaw found himself overextended. Along with the Cup team, Allen inherited the McCaw-commissioned 301-foot Tatoosh . For Allen, the Cup experience proved to be a familiar fizzle-first with accusations of design espionage prior to his takeover, followed by a humiliating defeat at the hands of Ellison’s Oracle BMW in the semifinals of the Louis Vuitton Challenger series.

But though Allen has since dropped out of the America’s Cup scene, he did find his bliss-and a winner-backing Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, which won the $10 million Ansari X prize last October for the first privately funded spacecraft to reach 330,000 feet and return to land. Ellison, meanwhile, has been busy reconfiguring his San Francisco-based America’s Cup team for a second tilt at the trophy, to be sailed off Valencia in 2007.

Ellison also owns the maxi Sayonara , which won the infamous 1998 Sydney-Hobart race that cost the lives of six sailors from other yachts. Sayonara was in such another league that it literally outran a storm of epochal brutality across the Tasman Sea-further proof, if needed, that the rich do indeed lead different lives and play under different rules. And sail on different yachts.

Such as Octopus . The fifth largest private yacht in the world is Paul Allen’s flagship. Launched late in 2003, Octopus was built under a shroud of secrecy by a consortium of two yards in Bremen, and then took off immediately for a winter cruise around the Caribbean. She has a permanent berth at the International Yacht Club Marina in Antibes, in the South of France, which Allen only acquired by purchasing the sitting tenant-the 162-foot Hanse, which he quickly sold. So great is the shore power required when Octopus is in dock that Allen had to install his own three-phase electrical substation alongside to avoid tripping the fuses for the whole harbor.

Like Allen’s second yacht Meduse , Octopus is lavishly equipped for extended cruising, including an ice-classed hull that will give him the opportunity to also explore both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The ship’s own helicopter is housed on the aft deck and guests are encouraged to land their aircraft on a separate helipad situated on the foredeck. She also has a canal within the bowels of the hull with lock doors at the stern to allow a 60-foot submarine-which reportedly carries eight and can run submerged for two weeks-as well as a powerboat and other water toys to embark and dock. When the vessels are safely inboard and resting on their chocks, the water is then pumped out to provide a drydock facility.

Allen’s third yacht, Tatoosh , named after an island in the San Juans, has to be one of the most attractive throw-ins on a deal in history. When fellow American billionaire Craig McCaw handed the keys to Allen, along with his America’s Cup syndicate, he was delivering quality. On this HDW-Nobiskrg 301-footer, Allen and his family have the entire top deck to themselves. The owner’s suite includes a full-width bedroom, two other staterooms, a communal family room, an office, gymnasium and an observation lounge above. Six guest staterooms, panoramic lounge and dining saloons and a cinema are positioned on the lower decks.

Toys include a McDonnell Douglas MD500 helicopter (and a second helipad for guests to drop in on); a 40-foot German Frers all-carbon daysailer that, given the right winds, will outperform its mothership; a 37-foot speedboat to starboard and a swimming pool. A tender, PWCs and other watersports equipment are stored in the stern garage where there is also a diving room and decompression chamber.

Then there’s Meduse , which may be Number 90 in the list of top 100 superyachts but remains a favorite within Paul Allen’s fleet. Built in 1996, and named rather ominously after the opera Le Naufrage de la Méduse (“The Wreck of the Medusa,” written in 1839 by the German-born French composer Baron von Friedrich Flotow), the yacht has served the Microsoft cofounder on cruises up the Amazon River and many other undisturbed areas of the globe. A keen student of music who has broken his share of Fender Stratocasters, Allen had her fitted out with a full digital recording studio with the reported assistance of Peter Gabriel, who has cut tracks on board, as have other stars, including the Eurythmics. The vessel also boasts a 12-seater acoustically optimized cinema. This Feadship has the owner’s and principal guest suites on the main deck and four other staterooms below, together with a gymnasium for guests to work off the five-star a la carte fare. Essential toys include a helicopter and a garage full of tenders, PWCs and scuba equipment. Meduse has a maximum speed of only 16 knots, but a range of more than 5,000 miles that allows her to “disappear” from the prying lenses of the paparazzi for long periods, reappearing almost anywhere in the world.

Larry Ellison also retires to his yachts to avoid prying eyes-but also uses them to enjoy the limelight. Dubbed “the Playboy Philanthropist,” he’s endowed medical research, and hosted wild parties-though he seems to have settled down with fourth wife Melanie Craft, a romance novelist. As befits a man whose biography is titled The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison , his yachts are impressive. The Rising Sun , christened like all of Larry Ellison’s yachts with names linked to Japan, was extended during her building from 387 to 452 feet to include an internal canal to carry a personal submarine and other toys. The owner’s personal quarters take up the entire top deck and have suites for 16 guests on other decks, all styled by Jon Bannenberg Ltd. She also boasts a basketball court, a billiard room (suitably gimbled we presume) and a theatre. Considering that she produces 48,000 hp, her top speed, said to be 28 knots, seems reasonable. She was launched last autumn but at the time of going to press, she had still to be handed over to her owner.

Where is Rising Sun today? Track her by AIS:

Before the Rising Sun there was a striking Martin Francis design was built in 1991 for the late Mexican media mogul Emilio Azcarraga. When he died, the 32-knot vessel, originally named Eco, was snapped up by Larry Ellison to act as a fast mothership for his racing maxi Sayonara and the Oracle America’s Cup campaign in New Zealand. Ellison replaced the flying boat on the stern for a more fitness-orientated basketball court and changed her name to Katana , a type of Japanese sword. During the America’s Cup he held frequent “Silicon Valley All-Star” basketball games to stay fit and hypercompetitive. Her twin diesels are used for slow-speed running and to help her get on the plane, which is where the gas turbine takes over to push her speed up to 32 knots.

Ellison used her to shadow Sayonara in the 2002 Newport-Bermuda Race. On arrival in St. George’s Harbor, she was refueled by two aircraft-fuel bowsers driven over from the nearby airport in preparation for a high-speed hop across the Atlantic to the South of France. She covered the 3,000-mile distance in little over three days, but not without stopping midway across to refuel. Where do you find a filling station in mid-Atlantic? You send your own fuel barge out for a little rendezvous. One can only guess the number of frequent-flyer miles Ellison pocketed with each fill-up.

Katana has since been sold to the Barclay brothers, two British entrepreneurs who own several national newspapers and hotels and live on a secluded Channel Island castle; they have renamed her Enigma .

Built in 1995, Larry Ellison’s maxi racer Sayonara won four consecutive ILC Maxi Boat World Championships and also took line honors in the storm-ridden 1998 Sydney-Hobart Race and the 2001 Chicago-Mackinaw Race. A well-known campaigner, she has given Ellison a well-respected reputation in an uncompromising field of endeavor-and an area where he trumps Allen resoundingly…for now.

The Spoiler: The man with the Golden Star

While Paul Allen and Larry Ellison were busy duking it out, metaphorically speaking, over whose yachts are bigger, the world’s largest yacht quietly took its place on the throne over in Dubai. The 525-footer began taking shape in the shipyards of Lürssen and Blohm + Voss under the name of Platinum , for Prince Jefri of Brunei. When bankruptcy overtook Prince Jefri in 1998-he was accused of diverting $14 billion of his father’s sultanate’s oil money into his own accounts-another prince was waiting in the wings.

But Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is not just another prince. The de facto ruler of Dubai because his brother prefers to spend his time in the UK, Sheikh Maktoum is an ambitious businessman and national visionary who has put Dubai on the map with bold construction projects and newsworthy plans. Chairman of the Emirates Group, which owns Emirates airline, he has led a recent $28 billion purchase of airplanes, including 45 new Airbus A380s. Emirates will likely cut the seating aboard the new 850-seat jumbojets in half, and devote the space to individualized luxury onboard “suites.”

When you live on such a scale, buying an unfinished super-yacht probably qualifies as bargain hunting. In any event, the yacht was barged to Dubai to be completed and launched in early April under a new name: Golden Star . Interior design is said to be by Philippe Starck, who made his name creating trendy hotels; like most of the new breed of superyachts, she is expected to carry a submarine, a helicopter or two, multiple tenders and a landing craft to ferry a complement of cars to distant shores.

Whether Maktoum knew he was spoiling the Allen-Ellison rivalry or not, he certainly must have known his choice of a name could be seen as a tweak of another royal’s cheek. For years Prince Khaled of Saudi Arabia has carried on a tradition of “golden yachts.” Besides his 265-foot Blohm + Voss Golden Odyssey , he acquired a “toy caddy,” Golden Shadow , which carries among its complement of toys a nine-passenger Cessna turboprop Caravan.

But like Sheikh Maktoum, Prince Khaled isn’t all about excess. In addition to being minister of defense, Prince Khaled is president of a foundation that works for the protection of coral reefs, and Golden Odyssey is a veteran of several expeditions with scientific overtones. To remind himself and others of his charge, there is a living reef in an aquarium beneath the swimming pool.

The Golden Shadow is a 219-foot Campbell. To assist in the expeditioning of its larger sibling, it carries a decompression chamber for those coral reef divers and a medical suite that also caters to the underwater set-with staff.

Will Prince Khaled respond to Sheikh Maktoum’s throwing of the gauntlet? Only the oil cartel at OPEC may know for sure, but odds are that somewhere at this moment an even bigger yacht than Golden Star is on somebody’s drawing board. And with the way gas prices are rising, it will be a whopper.

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The $1million match race: Ellison and Coutts unveil SailGP circuit for 50ft foiling catamarans

• Helen Fretter
• October 4, 2018

The new SailGP circuit will see six teams compete at five events around the world in one-design 50ft catamarans for a $1million prize purse

There had been many rumours and speculative stories, but last night at a glitzy ceremony in London the highly anticipated SailGP circuit was confirmed.

Funded by Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle and former America’s Cup holder, and run by Russell Coutts, the new SailGP circuit will see last year’s America’s Cup catamarans, the AC50s, re-engineered and reworked to create a one-design class.

They will be raced by six teams, sailing under national flags – Britain, France, Australia, the United States, China and Japan – on a global circuit. The 2019 circuit will begin in Sydney in February 2019 before moving on to San Francisco in May, New York in June, Cowes, UK, for the first weekend of Lendy Cowes Week, and then onto Marseille, France in September.

Racing will be over two days, with evening races planned for some city venues, such as New York. Each grand prix will begin with five fleet races, before culminating in a final match race between the two leaders. The exception will be the season finale in Marseille, which will have three days of racing culminating in one, 20-minute match race for the two overall season leaders, racing for a prize of €1million.

The wing-sailed Foiling 50s are developed at Core Composites in New Zealand, which is owned by Ellison. Coutts said a staff of 110 has been working for a year on the catamarans, which are being stripped of their America’s Cup team development components and converted into a one-design. 

According to Coutts, rather than having grinders (or cyclors) working constantly to provide hydraulic power, the F50s will instead have battery powered foil and rudder controls. Each cat will be sailed by a crew of five (one fewer than on the AC50s), with one dedicated to ‘joystick’ control of the foils, a helmsman and wing trimmer, and two grinders.

At last night’s opening presentation, Coutts said that whilst the boats will be one-design the aim is to allow them to evolve and adopt latest technology, with the Core engineers tasked with continually developing the catamarans. There was much talk at the launch night about how they will be regularly sailing at 50 knots or upwards.

“SailGP is the evolution of sailing,” said Ellison, SailGP founder, in a pre-recorded video message. “With equally incredible technology across our one-design fleet, we expect to see thrillingly close and competitive racing amongst national teams. And, with a modern, consistent format, SailGP will provide a new opportunity for talented sailors who want to race for their countries.”

“SailGP distills all of the most successful, exciting and relevant elements of high-performance, professional racing, while adding the extra edge that comes with nation-versus-nation competition,” commented Coutts, SailGP CEO, in the official press release. “We are aiming to be pioneers of new technologies, boat design, commercial partnerships and global audience engagement. But with every crew on the same groundbreaking F50 catamaran, this isn’t a tech arms race, rather the ultimate test to establish the best sailing team in advanced foiling catamarans.”

The opening show, for which an open air amphitheatre was built on London’s South Bank, was big on razzmatazz (smoke machines! fire! laser beams!). Whilst some details were forthcoming – for example how the nationality rule will be applied – others have yet to be unveiled, such as how the boats and circuit will tour the globe.

A 100 percent nationality rule will be applied to Britain, France, Australia and the US teams, while China and Japan will be required to have 40 percent of the crew from their home nation, increasing by a further 20 percent each year. World Sailing will sanction which sailors do, and which do not, qualify as which nationality. Effectively the rule forces countries like China and Japan to develop an elite foiling training programme.

The circuit is backed heavily by Oracle, Ellison’s cloud computing firm, with luxury goods house Louis Vuitton and Land Rover cars joining as founding partners. The plan is for the circuit to become commercially viable, and to increase to ten teams, racing at ten events.

The Great Britain SailGP Team was also introduced to home fans during the London launch. It will be skippered by Rio 2016 Olympian and 49er world champion Dylan Fletcher, with Olympic bronze medalist and highly experienced foiling cat sailor Chris Draper as team CEO and wing trimmer. Olympic silver medalist Stuart Bithell is flight controller, while Olympic rower Matt Gotrel joins Extreme Sailing Series winner Richard Mason, as the two grinders.

SailGP Great Britain Team (L-R): Stuart Bithell, Chris Draper Matt Gotrell, Dylan Fletcher, Richard Mason

“The concept of SailGP immediately excited me,” said Great Britain helmsman Dylan Fletcher. “This league allows us to compete with and against the best, and to challenge ourselves in every way possible while sailing the world’s fastest catamarans. We have the opportunity to push the limits of our sport, and this is a very proud chapter in my career. What Larry and Russell have created is truly unique, and I am confident it will capture the attention of audiences around the world.”

See SailGP.com  for more information. We will be taking an in-depth look at the concept in the December issue of Yachting World.

Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison is the founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, which earned him a spot as fifth wealthiest person in the world in 2014.

Background and Early Career

Larry Ellison was born in the Bronx, New York, on August 17, 1944, to single mother Florence Spellman. When he was nine months old, Ellison came down with pneumonia, and his mother sent him to Chicago to be raised by her aunt and uncle, Lillian and Louis Ellison, who adopted the baby.

After high school, Ellison enrolled at the University of Illinois, Champaign (1962), where he was named science student of the year. During his second year, his adopted mother died, and Ellison dropped out of college. The following fall, he enrolled at the University of Chicago, but he dropped out after only one semester.

Ellison then packed his bags for Berkeley, California, with little money, and for the next decade he moved from job to job at such places as Wells Fargo and Amdahl Corporation. Between college and his various jobs, Ellison had picked up basic computer skills, and he was finally able to put them to use as a programmer at Amdahl, where he worked on the first IBM-compatible mainframe system.

In 1977, Ellison and two of his Amdahl colleagues founded Software Development Labs and soon had a contract to build a database-management system—which they called Oracle—for the CIA. The company had fewer than 10 employees and revenue of less than $1 million per year, but in 1981, IBM signed on to use Oracle, and the company’s sales doubled every year for the next seven years. Ellison soon renamed the company after its best-selling product.

Oracle Corporation

In 1986, Oracle Corporation held its IPO (initial public offering), but some accounting issues helped wipe out the majority of the company’s market capitalization and Oracle teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. After a management shakeup and a product-cycle refresh, however, Oracle’s new products took the industry by storm, and by 1992 the company was the leader in the database-management realm.

Success continued, and as Ellison was Oracle’s largest shareholder, he became one of the wealthiest people in the world. Ellison set his sights on growth through acquisitions, and over the next several years he gobbled up several companies, including PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems and Sun Microsystems, all of which helped Oracle reach a market cap of roughly $185 billion with some 130,000 employees by 2014.

America's Cup

When he’s not busy bolstering his software empire, Ellison races yachts (his yacht Rising Sun is over 450 feet long—one of the largest privately owned vessels in the world), and in 2010 he joined the BMW Oracle racing team and won the prestigious America’s Cup. The victory brought the cup to the United States for the first time in 15 years, a win the team repeated in 2013.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Larry Ellison
• Birth Year: 1944
• Birth date: August 17, 1944
• Birth State: New York
• Birth City: Bronx
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: male
• Best Known For: Larry Ellison is the founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, which earned him a spot as fifth wealthiest person in the world in 2014.
• Business and Industry
• Astrological Sign: Leo
• University of Chicago
• University of Illinois at Champaign
• Nacionalities
• Interesting Facts
• In 2014, Larry Ellison hit No. 5 on the list of the world's wealthiest people.
• Occupations
• Entrepreneur

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Larry Ellison Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
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• Url: https://www.biography.com/business-leaders/larry-ellison
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• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 15, 2019
• Original Published Date: May 23, 2014

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

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The life and career of Oracle's Larry Ellison, who went from college drop-out to jet-setting playboy and 7th-richest person in the world

• Larry Ellison, the 77-year-old cofounder of Oracle, is one of the most interesting men in tech.
• Whether it's yacht-racing, buying Hawaiian islands, or trash-talking competitors, Ellison keeps it interesting.
• ow, he's one of the world's richest people with a net worth of $122 billion.

Lawrence Joseph Ellison was born in the Bronx on August 17, 1944, the son of a single mother named Florence Spellman.

When he was 9 months old, baby Larry came down with pneumonia, according to Bloomberg . His mom sent him to Chicago to live with his aunt and uncle, Lillian and Louis Ellison.

According to Vanity Fair , Louis, his adoptive father, was a Russian immigrant who took the name "Ellison" in tribute to the place in which he entered the US: Ellis Island.

Ellison went to high school in Chicago's South Side before attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When his adoptive mother died during his second year at college, Ellison dropped out. He tried college again later at the University of Chicago but dropped out again after only one semester.

Source: Bloomberg

In 1966, a 22-year-old Ellison moved to Berkeley, California — near the future Silicon Valley and already the place where the tech industry was taking off. He made the trip from Chicago to California in a flashy turquoise Thunderbird that he thought would make an impression in his new life.

Source: Inc ., Vanity Fair

Ellison bounced around from job to job, including stints at companies like Wells Fargo and the mainframe manufacturer Amdahl. Along the way, he learned computer and programming skills.

Source: Vanity Fair

The turning point came when Ellison came to work for the electronics company Ampex, which had a contract to build a database for the CIA codenamed "Oracle."

Source: Inc .

In 1977, Ellison and partners Bob Miner and Ed Oates founded a new company, Software Development Laboratories. The company started with $2,000 of funding, $1,200 of which came out of Ellison's own pocket.

Ellison and company were inspired by IBM computer scientist Edgar F. Codd's theories for a so-called relational database — a way for computer systems to store and access information, according to Britannica . Nowadays, they're taken for granted, but in the '70s, they were a revolutionary idea.

The first version of the Oracle database was version 2 — there was no version 1. In 1979, the company renamed itself Relational Software Inc., and in 1982, it formally became Oracle Systems Corp., after its flagship product.

As one of the key drivers of the growing computer industry, Oracle grew fast. In 1986, Oracle had its initial public offering, reporting revenue of $55 million.

Still, in 1990, Oracle had to lay off 10% of its workforce, about 400 people, because of what Ellison later described as "an incredible business mistake."

Oracle had allowed its salespeople to book future sales in the current quarter, meaning all its numbers were skewed, according to CRN . It resulted in lawsuits and trouble with regulators.

It didn't get the decade off to a great start. After adjusting for that huge error, Oracle was said to be close to bankruptcy . At the same time, rivals like Sybase were eating away at Oracle's market share.

It took a few years, but by 1992, Ellison and Oracle managed to right the course with new employees and the popular Oracle7 database.

Source: Oracle

Ellison is known for his willingness to trash-talk competitors. For much of the '90s, he and Oracle were locked in a public-relations battle with the competitor Informix, which went so far as to place a "Dinosaur Crossing" billboard outside Oracle's Silicon Valley offices at one point.

Source: Fortune

But Oracle just kept steamrolling over the competition. And with Ellison as Oracle's major shareholder, his millions kept rolling in. He started to indulge in some expensive hobbies — including yacht racing. That's Ellison at the helm during a 1995 race.

He also sponsors the Oracle USA sailing team, which won the America's Cup in 2010.

Ellison even managed to turn a potential loss into a big win. In 1999, Ellison's protégé, Marc Benioff, left Oracle to work on a new startup called Salesforce.com. Ellison was an early investor, putting $2 million into his friend's new venture.

Source: Business Insider

When Benioff found out that Ellison had Oracle working on a direct competitor to Salesforce's product, he tried to force his mentor to quit Salesforce's board. Instead, Ellison forced Benioff to fire him — meaning Ellison kept his shares in Salesforce.

Given that Salesforce is now a $250 billion company, Ellison personally profits even when his competitors do well. It has led to a love-hate relationship between the two executives that continues to this day, with the two taking shots at each other in the press.

In fact, Salesforce aside, the dot-com boom of the late '90s benefited Oracle, too: All of those new dot-com companies needed databases, and Oracle was there to sell them.

Source: Investor's Business Daily

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO in 1997, he asked Ellison to sit on the board. Ellison stuck around for a while but felt that he couldn't devote the time.

Source: Inc.

With the coffers overflowing, Ellison was able to lead Oracle through a spending spree once the dot-com boom was over and prices were low.

In 2004 , for example, Oracle snapped up the HR software provider PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion.

And in 2010, Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, a server company that started at about the same time as Oracle, in 1982. That acquisition gave Oracle lots of key technology, including control over the popular MySQL database.

Starting in the 2010s, Ellison started to take more of a back seat, handing more responsibilities to trusted lieutenants, like Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, then Oracle's co-presidents.

In 2014, Ellison officially stepped down as Oracle CEO, handing control over to Hurd and Catz, who became co-CEOs. Ellison now serves as the company's chairman and chief technology officer. Following Hurd's death in 2019, Catz became the sole CEO.

In 2016, Ellison scored a personal coup: the purchase of NetSuite.

Back in 1998, Ellison had made a $125 million investment in ex-Oracle exec Evan Goldberg's startup business-management software firm, NetSuite. It ended up working out well for Ellison when NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson negotiated the sale of the company to Oracle for $9.3 billion , netting Ellison a cool $3.5 billion in cash for his stake.

NetSuite investor T. Rowe Price tried to block the deal , citing Ellison's conflict of interest, but the sale closed in November 2016.

Ellison didn't become a billionaire until age 49. Now, he has a net worth of roughly $122 billion, according to Forbes, after racking up $50 billion in gains thanks to Oracle and Tesla stock. That makes him the seventh-richest person in the world.

Source: Bloomberg, Markets Insider

He's used his billions in a variety of ways: he invested in educational platform maker Leapfrog Enterprises ...

... and was an early investor in the ill-fated blood-testing Theranos, which shut down in 2018 after founder Elizabeth Holmes was accused of fraud.

In December 2018, Ellison joined the board of directors at Tesla, where he's been a major investor. Earlier in 2018, Ellison described Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a "close friend," and defended him from critics.

Source: Business Insider , Wall Street Journal

Ellison has also spent lavishly over the years, so much so that his accountant, Philip Simon, once asked him to "budget and plan," according to Bloomberg.

But Ellison's spending didn't slow down. In 2012, he bought 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai.

Ellison founded a startup called Sensei in 2016 that does hydroponic farming and owns a wellness retreat on Lanai.

He also purchased Hawaiian budget airline Island Air in 2014, before selling a controlling interest in the airline two years later after it struggled financially.

Ellison also owns the Astor Beechwood Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island ...

... and this home in Malibu. Ellison also has houses in Woodside, California, and Rancho Mirage, California.

In 2009, Ellison purchased the Indian Wells tennis tournament for a reported $100 million.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Ellison is also a philanthropist. In 2010, he signed the Giving Pledge, promising to donate 95% of his fortune before he dies. And in May 2016, Ellison donated $200 million to a cancer treatment center at the University of Southern California.

Source: Forbes, Bloomberg

Ellison has been married and divorced four times. Coupled with his extreme wealth, it's given him a reputation as an international, jet-setting playboy. He most recently dated Nikita Kahn, a model and actress.

Source: South China Morning Post

Ellison has two children. His daughter, Megan, is an Oscar-nominated film producer and the founder of Annapurna Pictures. The company has produced films like "Zero Dark Thirty" and "American Hustle."

Ellison's son, David, is also in the film business. His company, Skydance Media, has produced movies like "Terminator: Dark Fate" and films in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise.

Source: Variety

Ellison was one of the few tech leaders who had a friendly relationship with former President Donald Trump.

Ellison said publicly that he supported Trump and wants him to do well, and hosted a Trump fundraiser at his Rancho Mirage home in February, though he did not attend . The fundraiser caused an outcry among Oracle employees, who started a petition asking senior Oracle leadership to stand up to Ellison.

Catz, the CEO of Oracle, also had close ties to the Trump administration, having served on Trump's transition team. 

Ellison and Trump remained close during Trump's time in office and reportedly spoke on the phone about possible coronavirus treatments. Trump also supported Oracle's bid to buy TikTok , calling Oracle a "great company."  

In December 2020, Ellison revealed that he moved to Lanai full-time.

The announcement came after Oracle decided to move its headquarters to Austin, Texas, leading Oracle employees to ask Ellison if he planned to move to Texas too, he wrote in a company-wide email.

"The answer is no," Ellison wrote . "I've moved to the state of Hawaii and I'll be using the power of Zoom to work from the island of Lanai."

He signed the email: "Mahalo, Larry."

Matt Weinberger and Taylor Nicole Rogers contributed to an earlier version of this story.

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Larry Ellison is stepping down as Oracle CEO. Here's how he got so rich.

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Billionaire software mogul Larry Ellison  announced today that he's stepping down as the CEO of the company he founded and has led for 37 years. If you're like most people, you probably have only the vaguest idea why Oracle is an important company and why Ellison is so rich.  Read on for details.

What is Oracle?

Oracle, founded in the late 1970s and based in Silicon Valley, is one of the world's biggest enterprise software companies. It sells a line of software products that help large and medium-sized companies manage their operations.

Oracle is best known for its database product, which it has sold since the late 1970s. Oracle was founded at a time when database products — and, for that matter, software companies — were a relatively new concept. Oracle quickly established itself as one of the world's most popular database products, and as the information technology sector grew, Oracle grew with it.

In the last decade, a series of acquisitions has helped Oracle evolve from a database company to a more general enterprise software company:

• In 2004, after a brutal  takeover battle , Oracle acquired PeopleSoft , which sold a range of enterprise software products — such as software to manage human resources, supply chains, customer support, and other functions.
• The next year, Oracle acquired Siebel Systems , another company that produces software for big companies.
• In 2008, Oracle bought yet another enterprise software company, BEA Systems .
• In 2010, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, which is best known as the creator of the Java programming language, but also produced an operating system, database, and other software and hardware products.

The result: Oracle is now a massive conglomerate that sells a broad range of software products and services to large companies. Thanks to the Sun acquisition, the company also produces some computer hardware. In 2013, Oracle had revenues of $37 billion and profits of $11 billion. For comparison, that same year, Google had revenues of $60 billion and profits of $13 billion.

Oracle's campus in Silicon Valley. ( Håkan Dahlström )

These products sound really boring, and I don't know anyone who uses them. How does Oracle make so much money?

Selling software to big companies is really, really lucrative.

Oracle will make extensive modifications to its products to serve the needs of individual customers

In fact, Oracle isn't even the biggest company in what's called the enterprise IT industry. IBM, the company that basically invented the enterprise IT market in the 1960s, had revenues of almost $100 billion in 2013, though it posted a net loss for the year of $16 billion. HP had revenues of $113 billion and profits of $5 billion. SAP earned about $4 billion in profits on revenues of around $22 billion.

The enterprise software market is a lot different than the market for conventional packaged software products that you might be familiar with. Microsoft can create a single version of Microsoft Office and sell millions of largely identical copies to customers around the world. In contrast, enterprise software tends to be much more customized. Big companies want software that's precisely tailored to their needs. Often this means that a company like Oracle will make extensive modifications to its products to serve the needs of individual customers.

One consequence of this is that there's a tremendous amount of vendor lock-in in the enterprise software market. Once a company has signed up to use IBM, HP, Oracle, or SAP software, they tend to continue using it for years or even decades. Typically, they'll sign long-term service contracts, in which the software vendor provides service and support in exchange for regular payments.

Because they do so much custom software work (and because selling to large companies requires a large sales force), enterprise software companies tend to have large workforces. Oracle employed 122,000 people in 2013. The same year, IBM had 431,000 employees, HP had 317,000, and SAP had 66,000. For comparison, Google, which generates almost twice as much revenue as Oracle, has less than half as many employees: 52,000. Creating web-based consumer software isn't nearly as labor-intensive.

Who is Larry Ellison?

Larry Ellison's yacht in 2010. (DEAN TREML/AFP/Getty Images)

Until this week, Larry Ellison was Oracle's founder and CEO. His management of Oracle has made him one of the richest people on the planet, with an estimated net worth of about $50 billion.

A college dropout, Ellison worked on a variety of software projects in the 1970s. At the time, computer scientists were  developing a new concept called a relational database — a separate computer program that would help organize information and respond to queries about it. Recognizing the potential demand for a commercial database product, he founded the company that became Oracle in 1977.

By the 1990s, he was a billionaire, and he became known for his lavish lifestyle. Until he sold it in 2010, he owned  one of the ten largest yachts in the world . Ellison leads  one of the best sailing teams in the country. He has been married and divorced four times.

Ellison owns 98 percent of the island of Lanai, the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian islands, which he purchased in 2012 for a rumored $300 million.

Why is Ellison stepping down as CEO?

Ellison recently turned 70 years old, and he says the change is part of Oracle's succession planning process. He's going to become Oracle's chairman and will continue to work on Oracle's technology.

Who is replacing him?

Oracle has chosen an unorthodox arrangement to replace Ellison. The company will have two people who will both carry the title of CEO.

Mark Hurd (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Mark Hurd, 57, was the CEO of HP from 2005 to 2010. He resigned from that job after a woman  accused him of sexual harassment . HP's board concluded that the sexual harassment charges were unsubstantiated, but they found evidence that he had misreported expenses related to the woman, a misuse of company funds. Hurd was hired by Oracle a few weeks later. Hurd will run Oracle's service and sales divisions.

Safra Catz (KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images)

Safra Catz, 52, has been at Oracle since 1999. She was previously in banking. She will oversee Oracle's manufacturing, finance, and legal divisions.

Ellison will continue leading Oracle's engineering team.

What was Oracle's biggest claim to fame?

Oracle was an early pioneer in the market for a technology called relational databases.

A database is software that manages large amounts of data and facilitates efficient queries. It's not something ordinary users interact with, but it's an important part of almost every large software project. Most complex websites are based on databases, as are the computer systems of banks, insurance companies, airlines, and other companies.

A relational database is a database that organizes data into tables with well-defined columns. The predictable structure of a relational database allows users to perform queries using something called the structured query language (SQL — both "S-Q-L" and "sequel" are acceptable pronunciations). Here is an example SQL query:

select name from customers where zip_code = '55121'

This SQL query tells a relational database to open the "customers" table and return a list of all the names of customers who live in zip code 55121. More complex SQL queries can perform complex comparisons and can combine data from multiple tables.

In addition to the value of being able to perform complex queries, relational databases are also used because they are engineered to be highly reliable. When programs try to organize large amounts of information themselves, they're more likely to make mistakes that lead to data loss, which a database where data is already organized can avoid.

Demand for relational database software surged in the 1980s and 1990s, and Oracle grew into a large and profitable company.

Are there alternatives to Oracle's database?

Yes, a number of other companies and organizations create competing databases. IBM's DB2 database has been a major Oracle competitor since the 1980s. Microsoft sells a database called  SQL Server.

There are also a number of open source database products. Until recently, one of the most popular was called MySQL. The company behind MySQL was acquired by Sun in 2008, which in turn was acquired by Oracle in 2010. Still, because MySQL is open source, users can use the product without paying Oracle for it. In recent years, the open-source  PostgreSQL database has been growing in popularity.

The constantly-falling cost of computer software may prove to be a challenge for Oracle

In the last five years, there's been a trend away from relational databases. As websites have gotten larger, programmers have found that traditional SQL database become a bottleneck — it's just not possible to organize data from hundreds of thousands of users into a single table.

To solve this problem, a new generation of database products don't organize data into regular tables at all. They use simpler storage techniques that make it easier to distribute data storage across thousands of servers. One downside of this technique is that the these programs don't support all the functions of SQL — for this reason, they're sometimes called "NoSQL databases" — but they allow websites like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to handling trillions of data points from hundreds of millions of users.

One of the most popular NoSQL databases is  MongoDB .

What challenges will Hurd and Catz face?

In the long run, the constantly-falling cost of computer software may prove to be a challenge for Oracle. The company made its fortune by selling its proprietary database product for thousands of dollars per customer. Many companies continue to do that — and will likely continue to do so for many years to come. But the increasing sophistication of free alternatives, not to mention the shift to non-SQL alternative models, is going to make it difficult to attract new customers.

Other parts of Oracle's business face similar challenges. A growing number of companies may choose to rent computing power from cloud computing services offered by Amazon or Microsoft instead of buying dedicated servers manufactured by Oracle's hardware division. The open source software company Red Hat offers a free operating system and other free software that serve the same purpose as many Oracle products.

Still, the stickiness of the corporate IT market means that Oracle is likely to enjoy healthy revenues for many years to come. Large companies need a ton of custom work done on their software, and they tend to turn to established brands like Oracle to do it. That will provide plenty of work for Oracle even if some of its product lines are commoditized.

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Oracle AI buzz means Larry Ellison's worth $15B more today

And here you were saying tech hadn't yet made a difference to someone special.

Larry Ellison's personal wealth is inextricably linked to Oracle and yesterday it ballooned by more than $15 billion following a 12 percent rally of Big Red's stock on the news that it is building an AI datacenter and has a deal with AI darling Nvidia.…

The Oracle founder owns upwards of 40 percent of the company’s shares so the spike in stock price yesterday to more than $127 per unit had a material effect on his fortune, estimated to be closer to $146 billion now.

This is despite revenues crossing the Oracle's Q3 finishing line below analysts' expectations. The chat on a conference call with analysts where Ellison outlined some of the corporation's AI proposals was sufficient to excite Wall Street.

"We're building an AI datacenter in the United States where you could park eight Boeing 747 nose-to-tail in that one data center. We're bringing on enormous amounts of capacity over the next 24 months because demand the demand is so high," he said. Also mentioned was something about a soon-to-be-announced deal with Nvidia, which has seen its own share price rocket on the back of its GPUs used to train LLMs.

Yesterday's rally on Oracle stock follows a swing that moved in the opposite direction in December, when the price plunged 12 percent and Ellison lost $16 billion, according to Forbes.

Oracle's share price is up 52 percent in the past year, helping to swell Larry's wealth by $50 billion.

Although it is hard to keep up these days, the Oracle founder is circa the fifth richest man in the world, so the money won’t make a huge amount of difference to Larry’s lifestyle, it might just mean he can upgrade the laser cannon on his Hawaiian island.

He is still well behind fellow tech tycoons in the rich list stakes, with Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk above him, and fashion brand entrepreneur Bernard Arnault topping them all with an estimated fortune of $230.5 billion.

It is an insane amount of money being amassed by the wealthiest in the world, and jaw dropping movement are based on there share prices of the organizations they run. No wonder some see AI as the 21st century gold rush. ®

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Equipped with ice-breaking technology, these huge fancy yachts are the only river cruisers running all year around. The round trip journey takes two and a half hours and floats past all the big sights like the White House, Novodevichy monastery and the Kremlin. There’s a large open air observation deck up top, while the main body of the ship houses a restaurant with a dance floor for a romantic post dinner dance. For a particularly romantic experience take one of the evening boats and admire the bright lights of the city skyline at night.

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Government Headquarters ("the White House")

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10 Countries With The Most Billionaires

The world's billionaires' wealth doubled over the last ten years, increasing through the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis since 2020. According to the Executive Director of Oxfam International, "this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires." $26 trillion (63%) of all new wealth went to the richest 1% and $16 trillion (37%) to the rest of the world. In other words, a billionaire gained about $1.7 million for every $1 earned among the bottom 90%. 

According to the World Bank, the world has been facing the most significant increase in global inequality and poverty since the Second World War . Half of the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax for direct descendants, deriving income from asset returns and only four cents of every tax dollar from taxes on wealth. An up to 5 % increase in the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires' annual wealth tax (or implementing inheritance tax, property and land taxes, or net wealth taxes) would raise $1.7 trillion a year to lift 2 billion people out of poverty or provide universal healthcare and social protection for all low-income countries.

The current 3,311 billionaires worldwide hold almost $11.8 trillion in collective wealth acquired from publicly and privately held businesses. Europe saw the highest growth of billionaire wealth in 2021 at 22%, with collective wealth comprising $4.45 trillion. Even Africa's billionaire wealth grew 16.5% year-over-year, holding collectively 2 trillion dollars. These are the ten countries with the most billionaires in 2021, according to Altrata Billionaire Census.

1. United States - 975 billionaires (worth $4.45 trillion)

The US is the world's wealthiest nation, with 975 billionaires and $4.45 trillion in collective wealth. The top rich hardly felt the pandemic's effects on the rest of the economy, coming out with a collective wealth of $4.56 trillion in April 2021, almost double that of the bottom 50% of Americans' $2.62 trillion. Amidst the pandemic, recession, and rocked financial markets, 719 billionaires had more wealth than 165 million people in 61 million households (the bottom half). About a quarter of the US' wealthiest reside in California , the state with the fifth-largest global economy and home to Silicon Valley .

The Golden State has been leading America's economic growth for half a decade, packing more wealth than most countries. California is a densely populated state with an “open, experimental culture” motto that attracts entrepreneurs. Its world-renowned movie scene, aerospace, and tech industries keep expanding and giving, with trending prosperity for the state and more wealth in its global economy. There is also no system or requirement for Americans to report their total wealth to the government. 

2. China - 514 (worth $1.737 trillion)

China packs a lot of wealth with 514 billionaires, including Hong Kong's 114, for a total of 1.737 trillion net worth. According to Forbes 2021 World’s Billionaires List, the number of Chinese billionaires rose by over 60% from 2000 to 2021, paralleling its astonishing economic growth with GDP per capita increasing more than ten-some and nearly 50% growth in the last six years.

China demonstrates idiosyncrasy with unheard-of billionaires appearing, others shifting, and disappearing, without a coherent pattern. Hong Kong's wealthiest families remain on the list since 1997, with Li and Lee leading wealth with nearly 70% of its entire real estate business. Many rich people find paradise particularly in the Hong-Kong SAR (special adminstrative region), whose government traditionally relied on land auctions' highest bidders for revenue. When Beijing came into power in 1997, it continued limiting competition and favoring the same tycoons, now dominating major economic sectors of retail and infrastructure.

The vibrant Chinese market economy is ballooning from the rapid growth of high-tech infrastructure and shifting priorities, but limited by Hong Kong's failure to produce new wealth and diversify from a lack of startups. Hong Kong claims to be Asia’s financial hub and aspiring world city, a highly-contested statement for unwillingness to explore new engines of growth. Despite heightened instability from a lack of economic diversification, the Hong-Kong SAR showed the highest net increase in billionaires among global cities and the second-largest number among the world’s urban centers.

China is a dualistic capitalist-socialist economy with a solid central government orchestrating through top-down dynamic policies. It values entrepreneurship and strong business skills, with  People's Daily , the official newspaper of China's Communist Party, stating that "there is no contradiction between regulating under the law and supporting development." Chinese volatility in billionaires is just "the imprint left by the strong hand of China’s authoritarian government ."

3. Germany - 176 (worth $602 billion)

Despite soaring inflation, Germany places third with 176 billionaires, and millionaires, flying by 7.4% since last year, with today's 1.6 million millionaires, or one in roughly 52 people, for about 2% of the population. Capgemini agency explains Germany’s expanding wealth in the face of the pandemic due to its relentlessly-rising overall GDP. Despite the federal epidemic control restrictions and sky-high property prices, many Germans saved money by withholding disposable income through the holidays, giving-up trips, expensive events, and festivals. The high-income country, with a strong workforce saving every cent, saw many steps into the millionaire category.

Dieter Schwarz, a billionaire owner of Europe’s low-cost supermarket giant Lidl, had a successful year with a net worth increase of over $10 billion to $47.1 billion. Many were buying groceries rather than going out as part of the saving money scheme and tight COVID-19 regulations. Klaus-Michael Kuehne, a logistics magnate, recently emerged as one the wealthiest Europeans, making $11 billion in a year for an estimated $37.3 billion with Kühne + Nagel, his grandfather's shipping empire, demonstrating people's preference to order online through the pandemic. Another billionaire out of Germany's seven newest is Christian Angermayer, an investor in life sciences, fintech, AI, psychedelics, and cryptocurrencies. 

4. India - 166 (worth $384 billion)

Since last year, India's increasing number of billionaires has held the fifth-largest collective wealth globally. While the country has been suffering through multiple crises, including malnutrition and unemployment, its ten wealthiest doubled their wealth since last year by enough to fund education for 26 years or guarantee employment for 38 years in India. Its richest man is Gautam Adani, with a $150 billion net worth, which is about twice the amount of his runner-up, Mukesh Ambani. From 2012 to 2021, 40% of new wealth belonged to 1% of the population and 3% to the bottom 50. India’s billionaires soared in wealth by 46% in 2022, and as of January 16, 2023, 5% of Indians own more than 60% of the country’s wealth, and the bottom 50 still possess only three. The “obscene inequality” results from no progressive taxation, while a 20% tax on the wealthiest billionaire’s unrealized gains from 2017–2021 could employ more than five million primary school teachers for a year.

India's poor suffered through the pandemic, unable to afford survival necessities, with the number of hungry increasing by 160 million since 2018. Sixty-five percent of the country’s deaths are kids under five. India is “on a fast track to becoming a country only for the rich," where Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, women, and informal sector workers are marginalized “in a system which ensures the survival of the richest.” India’s government reduced the corporate tax slabs from 30% to 22% in 2019. Some 64% of the total GST came from the bottom 50% of the population last year, 33 % from the middle 40, and 3% from the top 10.

5. United Kingdom - 120 (worth $266 billion)

Sir James Ratcliffe is the wealthiest man in the UK with an estimated $16.3 billion, followed by Michael Platt with an estimated $15.2 billion. There are no new British billionaires. Seven fell out, like Geeta Gupta-Fisker of electric vehicle startup "Fisker," Matt Molding of THG beauty and protein, and Eddie & Sol Zakay of the Topland Group real estate. Many of the world's super-rich favor living in London, particularly as the HQ location for big business owners to expand their companies. London attracts many Indian oligarchs, including those committing financial fraud and seeking refuge, such as Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya, and Lalit Modi. The extradition treaty between the UK and India protects economic fugitives from the latter's harsh prison terms and the government’s attempts to influence investigating bodies.

The United Kingdom judiciary allowed Modi to stay, stating that his extradition was politically inclined. Among them, billionaires and criminals settle in London and live a wealthy life benefitting from British tax laws, the absence of a financial regulator, and money evasion opportunities. Others come for the British commodity trading markets, the renowned National Lottery System, and sports betting avenues. Lastly, the UK favors foreign investment and offers the lowest corporate taxes.

6. Switzerland - 111 (worth $365 billion)

The founder of Checkout.com, Guillaume Pousaz, is Switzerland’s most prosperous European top tech entrepreneur, worth some $23 billion, while Stéphane Bonvin, CEO of Investis real estate group, is the only new Swiss billionaire since last year. Switzerland's native and foreign-born 111, primarily white, male billionaires hold the sixth-largest collective wealth in the world. The few resident female billionaires include the Heineken heiress Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, and Marina Picasso, Picasso's heiress. Many Swiss immigrants who come for traditionally-favorable taxation acquire Swiss citizenship. Roughly two-thirds of Switzerland’s 50 richest come from Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, along with numerous wealthy Russians, Swedish, Belgians, Dutch, and four Africans.

Swiss-made products, luxury housing, and the alps attract born-rich heirs and heiresses, with only a third of billionaires hailing from a middle-class background who build up from scratch. Most rich live in Geneva, with sizable families, like Theo Müller, with nine children. They come from exciting backgrounds, including Jorge Lemann, a former tennis star, or former L’Oréal Chairman Lindsay Owen Jones, a race car driver. Unlike US computer geeks, the Swiss' wealth spun out of investment and banking, food and beverage processing, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, hospitality, real estate, and everything in between.

7. Russia - 107 (worth $475 billion)

According to Forbes 2021 Billionaire List, Russia’s billionaires were worth a collective $808.06 billion (US $584 billion) upon gaining much wealth during the pandemic. Many started as typical wealthy businessmen with privatized state companies sold by then-president Boris Yeltsin to raise cash and transition to capitalism. These included oil, gas, and media enterprises, which snagged at rock-bottom prices before Russia's economy returned to a degree of order. Russia's top billionaire today is NLMK Group's Vladimir Lisin, with an estimated $18.4 net worth from leading manufacturers of steel products. There are 34 fewer billionaires than last year, following a weakened ruble, plunging company valuations, and only two new billionaires. Denis Sverdlov owns an electric vehicle company, while Egor Kulkov is a pharmaceutical magnate.

Russia places seventh by the number of billionaires and boasts the fourth-largest collective wealth in the world, despite its wealth being under a massive hit from sanctions by the EU , UK , and the US. The billionaires' prospects are grim, with the West going after its elite to weaken the country and deter a full-on invasion in Ukraine. The sanctioned wealthy individuals with Kremlin ties face travel bans and have immense, vulnerable assets in the West. The US plans to freeze the Russian oligarch's assets, ban Americans from engaging in Russia's business and cut the country from the global financial system with no dollar access. All of Russia's banks took a big hit, along with VEB and Russia's military bank, sanctioned by the US. Germany and the US are attempting to stop the progress of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany .

8. Saudi Arabia - 71 (worth $192 billion)

When rising oil prices sharply reversed for the first time since the financial crash a decade ago, the whole Middle East experienced a 7.9% fall in billionaire numbers in 2018 and a 6.5% fall in collective wealth. While Europe retained the most number of billionaires through the recession, the Middle East held-onto most billionaires' net-worth. In 2019, the kingdom was home to 57 billionaires with a net worth of $157 billion and gained more ultra-rich during the pandemic through positive equity markets and expanding economies. Saudi Arabia then placed ninth with the most billionaires and retained this ranking into 2021, although their fortunes worsened since last year.

A corruption case in 2017 regarding top businessmen in the oil-rich kingdom saw many arrested following orders from the anti-corruption committee. Among the detained, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Kingdom Holding had a net worth of $18.7 billion in 2017, whose firm has high stakes in Twitter, Citigroup, and the Four Seasons. Unable to assess the wealth of the wealthiest men in the kingdom, Forbes has excluded Arabs from the global rich list since 2018. Today, Al Waleed Bin Talal Al Saoud is Saudi's richest person with a net worth of $16.5 billion, followed by Mohamed Al Amoudi with $6.29 billion.

9. France & Italy - 68 both (France: worth $294 billion; Italy: worth $217 billion)

France and Italy have 68 billionaires each, but France leads with the seventh-largest collective wealth in the world of $294 billion, while Italy has $87 billion less. Both nations are billionaire hotspots for high fashion, rich culture, expansive art, and luxurious coastal mansions. France's economy is driven by the most-famous luxury, beauty, and fashion brands, and those who invest in big names like Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (L'Oréal), François Pinault (Kering), and the Wertheimer brothers (Chanel). French brand owners are among top-ten richest people in Europe, including the richest, Bernard Arnault with $158 billion, Rodolphe Saade with $41 billion (fifth-richest), and Francois Pinault with $40 billion (sixth-richest). There has been one more French billionaire since last year, and 7% added to the total net worth. 

Likewise, in Italy, brand owners are the richest. As of August 14, Giovanni Ferrero is number one with $33.8 billion, and Giorgio Armani is the second-richest with $6.9 billion. Among the world's richest men in 2002, Silvio Berlusconi and his family are now third with $6.1 billion. Massimiliana Landini Aleotti is the richest female billionaire, with $4.9 billion. According to Italy’s inheritance tax records, the wealth of the top 0.1% or 50,000 adults doubled from 5.5% to 9.3% from 1995 to 2016, while the poorest 50% wealth fell from 11.7% to 3.5%. The middle class, about 40% of the population, keeps its wealth relatively high. Italy has one of the highest wealth-to-income ratios where some 8.5 trillion euros equals about seven years of national income.

10. Canada - 60 (worth $270 billion)

Some Canadians struggled during the pandemic, rationing little money for food and utility bills, while others got richer than they ever dreamt. Billionaires' total assets have grown by 51% since the pandemic's start, accelerating Canada's trend of already-high wealth inequality. As of August 4, 2022, the richest are David Thomson with 51.7 billion U.S. dollars, Changpeng Zhao with $17.4 billion, and Jim Pattison with $12.1 billion. Since 2020, billionaires' collective wealth has risen by $78 billion.The top richest, with $249 billion, has about the same as the bottom 40%, with $248 billion in assets. According to Ian Thomson, policy manager of Oxfam Canada, the accelerated wealth increase among billionaires is a shocking trend, where "things just picked up dramatically ever since 2020 and during the pandemic time period.” Out of every $100 of new wealth created in Canada within the last ten years, the richest 1% gained $34, while the bottom gained $5, or seven times less, among many more people. 

According to Oxfam, nearly two-thirds of all new wealth of $42 trillion since 2020 went to the richest 1%, for almost double the amount the rest of the world gained in two years. Many surged in wealth in 2022 from food and energy profits, where 95 food and energy corporations more than doubled in earnings since last year. At least half of inflation in Australia, the US, and the UK was from excess corporate profits. The Waltons, who own half of Walmart, made $8.5 billion, while India's energy magnate Gautam Adani soared with $42 billion more in 2022 alone. 

Depending on the country’s economy and a billionaire’s role, many dropped to millionaire ranks during the pandemic, while others gained more wealth. Favoring the mega-rich is a 40-year trend, where many governments slash income tax rates on the richest while upping taxes on goods and services. Out of 15 countries by billionaire population, all but the UK, Russia, and France saw a fall in numbers, and all Asia-Pacific billionaires declined in population and total wealth. In 2018, North America was the only region with an increased billionaire population.

While some bathe in money, entire countries face bankruptcies, and 1.7 billion workers live amidst inflation that is outpacing wages. Over 820 million people (one in ten on Earth) are hungry, with nearly 60% of women and girls as the world’s hungriest. The poorest countries spend quadruple to repay loans to wealthy creditors than on healthcare. At the same time, three-quarters of the world governments plan public sector spending cuts of $7.8 trillion over the next five years, including healthcare and education.

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Restaurant-Yacht Chaika

Ratings and reviews, location and contact.

Pleasantly surprised, service is good so is the food. Great selection of Fusion food, a mixture of Italian, Japanese, European, Asian etc. A pleasantly nice dining experience, highly recommended, a must try!

Thank you for your feedback and invite you to have lunch or dinner again aboard the ship in an atmosphere of high standards of yacht hospitality.

everything was perfect - the food, the service, the desserts were the best, nice atmosphere and the location - magical

Best food, best view in Moscow. absolutely faultless from arrival to finish. Best risotto i had for many years absolutely perfectly cooked. The view on Ukrainian hotel and the white house by night is amazing

Had to wait for the food for 1.5 hours and then another 20 minutes for the check. Finally called for the manager and he offered... a 10% discount as a compensation. Simply pathetic! The food is mediocre at best. Not bad per se, but one... would expect something better considering the prices. There are many places to eat in area that are much better. Avoid this one at all costs. More

Hello, Alexander Your comment is extremely important for us, thank you a lot for it. We are terribly sorry for your time that you`ve spent waiting your order and we have already taken actions to improve quality of our service and it would be realy... More

Food is very expensive,very pretentious, doesn't worth that money. Portions are very small. We ordered ravioli and there were 4! Four raviolis! For almost 15 euros. Then we asked to bring us dessert menu but nothing, they didn't even bothered, so we payed and left... without dessert. Very poor service for that price. More

This is a very good restaurant. The food is really good, maybe the best in Moscow. The service is also good. The view from the restaurant is great. The prices are very high.

I often visit this restaurant and must say it’s one of the best in Moscow in terms of quality and service. Staff really try hard to make sure that you are happy and satisfied. Customer service is a huge problem in Moscow but Chaika sets... a great example for others in the industry! Food is delicious and the menu has lots of options for everyone! Atmosphere is great and view is beautiful on the embankment. Special thanks to German & Oleg! More

Thank you for your feedback! Again aboard the yacht restaurant "Chaika" in accordance with the high standards of yacht hospitality.

Highly recommended, great location in the city center of Moscow with a superb atmosphere. Too many menu choices, though all delicious!

Thx a lot for your review! We are looking forward to see you in our restaurants.

Visited this lovely restaurant with a friend of mine. It was relaxingly warm August evening - so the place on the river seemed like a good idea. We came quite early and the restaurant was not full. The hostesses kindly offered several places to sit... and we chose to sit on the sofas. We had some wine, which was good. We struggled a bit when deciding about the food as few options (scallops) were not available. Fish on ice on display did not look very fresh. To be honest it was an unusually hot August and it is probably understandable that some see food options were not available. However, we did manage to order something and sat waiting and looking onto the river. My long-legged friend struggled sitting at the low sofa and the manager noticed that, offering as a very good, proper table beside the open window. It was nice touch and I was very pleased by their polite observations and immediate reaction to solve the problem. Food was quite good and presentation was perfect. Perhaps I can something about the food, but 1 visit is not enough to criticize or make a definitive opinion. Overall, quality place, which of course, does not come cheap. I would recommend this restaurant without hesitation. More

Good afternoon! Thank you for your detailed feedback! We are looking forward to seeing you again, we are sure that you will be delighted with our dishes!

I've been here several times during two business trip in Moscow. The overall quality for both service and food is absolutely top-notch, plus the location is very unique.

Hello! Thank you for your feedback! We are looking forward to visiting again!

Located on a boat at Krasnopresenskaya River Bank this 5 Star Restaurant transforms into a party location due to multiple groups hosting events. Impressive wine selection, Asian and European kitchen...

Thx a lot! We are waiting for you!

It is a nice place to gather specially at the lounge The service and staff very good I like the river view The food is almost like all restaurants in Russia they serve different cuisine. Staring Russian appetizer till Asian dishes Presentation and taste amazing... I consider it overpriced little bit More

Good location. Nice views. Good choice of food and drinks. European and Asian menu. Nice service. Pricey enough.

Had a large group dinner here. Food was above average and service quite good. The real attraction is the view of Moscow from the river on a nice night. Great place for a larger group dinner. More

Hello, John We are really pleased by reading that you and your friends were satisfied by our service, client`s experience is the highest value for us. We will be happy to see you again, come and enjoy some new dishes from our chef and nice... More

The luxurious atmosphere of this place, the view and the location make it quite outstanding. We had dinner here with friends and the dishes were amazing, accompanied by a chilled bottle of Chablis, it really made me feel as if it was a part of... the classic Russian movie. More

RESTAURANT-YACHT CHAIKA, Moscow - Presnensky - Menu, Prices & Restaurant Reviews - Tripadvisor

• Service: 4.5
• Atmosphere: 4.5