Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was best friends with Steve Jobs for 25 years.
Ellison also said he believes that Jobs is “irreplaceable” at Apple.
“I am not shorting Apple.
I like Tim Cook,” he said.
“Apple will not be nearly so successful because [Jobs] is gone.”
Rose: Did you watch him die?
Ellison: Oh, close.
Was I there at the last moments?
Rose: No, did you watch him go through this?
Ellison: You know, I’d go over there all the time.
And the walks – we’d always go for walks.
… And the walks just kept getting shorter.
And you just watched him getting weaker.
And this is the strongest guy I knew.
This was absolutely the strongest, most willful person I have ever met.
After seven years, the cancer even wore him out.
And that’s what it was.
He was just tired of fighting.
Tired of the pain.
And he decided, shocked Lorraine, shocked everybody that the medication was going to stop.
He just pulled off the meds – I think on a Saturday or a Sunday.
And by the following Wednesday he was gone.
Ellison: Yeah, it had reached the point where he was definitely suffering.
It’s just so much pain.
Rose: There is no other Steve Jobs?
My eulogy began, you know, I guess we’re all told that no one’s irreplaceable.
I don’t believe that.
I just don’t.
