Just got around to reading Softwar (Oracle and Larry Ellison) and The Perfect Store (eBay), tech companies that couldn't be more different.

1) Larry Ellison is the type of founder who likes to stick with his company to the very end; eBay's founder, Pierre Omidyar, is the opposite, wanting to get out of the way as early as possible. Which he did. He's chairman, but Meg Whitman gets the CEO limelight

2) Oracle (Larry's company) focuses on powering databases and corporate (read: 'business-to-business') back-end infrastructure. eBay (Pierre's company) operates a marketplace for end-users to sell their wares (that's 'consumer-to-consumer' to you)

3) Larry's an egomaniac loved by his peers and hated by his enemies. Pierre is the libertarian loved by his peers, though envied by competitors

4) Larry's roots are Russian-American. Pierre's is French. (In light of recent events, you do the math.)

5) eBay is built on providing the platform for empowering people to trade. (As in everyone.) One of Oracle's thrusts is its 'one database' policy-- yes, just one-- where a single database handles everyone's data instead of a hodgepodge of different systems laid out everywhere. In other words, Pierre's idea is almost utopian in seeing a better world when markets are efficient and available to all. Larry's is, well, conquest.

The list could go on forever, but the contrasts are sharp, and both companies' successes are similarly staggering.