Forbes_USA_June_13_2017

LeaderBoard
THE 10-Q
How to Survive a
Stampeding Elephant
Billionaire Tom Siebel on why small firms outperform mammoth rivals,
GE’s innovation problem and one very memorable safari.
Your 2009 elephant goring: What’s
the story?
Daybreak in the Serengeti. I’m armed with
a Nikon. Herd of 15 elephants, 200 yards
away. Gust of wind. Matriarch charges us.
Then?
She hurls the guide about 12 yards away
and races up to me. I can smell her. I took
a tusk through my left leg. She stepped on
my right leg, and my foot came off.
By “off,” you mean . . . ?
Detached! Hanging on by a flap of skin.
That’s your pattern: Start a company.
Then get almost killed.
We started Siebel Systems in 1993. Two
years later, I was kicked by a horse. The
prognosis: “permanent, irreparable brain
damage.” It’s hard to tell whether that
prognosis turned out to be accurate or
not [laughs].
What makes IoT software a hard problem
to solve?
Integration. You need a base of big-data
and predictive-analytics capabilities, and
a platform for third-party apps.
So does this mean Silicon Valley wins the
IoT sweepstakes?
No. The next generation of IoT apps in,
say, the aerospace industry probably come
from Honeywell, not Silicon Valley. Same
in health care. And so on.
How did Oracle, your alma mater, spin
off so many great entrepreneurs: you,
Marc Benioff and others?
Larry Ellison hires bright, type A, thinkoutside-of-the-box-type
people. But
Oracle never encouraged a lot of internal
entrepreneurism. So people who were
entrepreneurs needed to go get that experience
someplace else.
ENTERTAINMENT
Richest Rappers
THE ONLY THING more predictable than
a Diddy name change? His place atop our
annual list of the wealthiest hip-hop artists.
But the man formally known as Sean
Combs now has some real competition.
Jay Z’s fortune has jumped 30% in the
past year after a $200 million investment
from Sprint reportedly put the valuation
of his music-streaming service, Tidal, at
$600 million, more than ten times what he
paid for the company two years ago.
Which rapper will hit billionaire status
first? Hard to say. Diddy has a lucrative
Cîroc vodka deal with Diageo, while Jay Z
augments his portfolio with a champagne
brand, Armand de Brignac, and a growing
entertainment company, Roc Nation.
1.
DIDDY
NET WORTH:
$820 MIL
Perhaps the verdict comes through your
latest startup, C3 Internet of Things?
The Internet of Things needs a software
platform. Today there are 19 billion
sensors. In five years, 50 billion.
But why your startup? Huge companies like
GE plan to own the IoT market.
GE is the world’s greatest 19th-century
company. Its market value the last 17
years has gone from $475 billion to
about $250 billion. Nice job. These
guys make valves and pumps.
So, small companies always win
during transitions?
Microsoft built its first
product with two people.
Apple did it with four.
GE takes 3,000 mediocre
people and says, “Build
a software stack.”
TOM SIEBEL SPOKE WITH RICH KARLGAARD, OUR EDITOR-AT-LARGE
AND GLOBAL FUTURIST. THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED AND CONDENSED.
FOR THE EXTENDED CONVERSATION, VISIT FORBES.COM/SITES/RICHKARLGAARD.
3.
DR. DRE
$740 MIL
2.
JAY Z
$810 MIL
4.
BIRDMAN
$110 MIL
5.
DRAKE
$90 MIL
RICHEST RAPPERS BY ZACK O’MALLEY GREENBURG WITH NATALIE ROBEHMED
TIMOTHY ARCHIBALD FOR FORBES (LEFT); KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES; MIKE
COPPOLA/GETTY IMAGES; AMANDA EDWARDS/GETTY IMAGES; DAVE KOTINSKY/
BET/GETTY IMAGES; ANDREW LIPOVSKY/NBCU PHOTO BANK/GETTY IMAGES
28 | FORBES JUNE 13, 2017