Larry Ellison gets a beatdown

“Even billionaires need to budget.”

That quote is one of my favorites from yesterday’s SF Chronicle article on Larry Ellison’s spending. His accountant actually wrote him an email in 2002 telling him he needed to cut his spending and start to budget. Him. A billionaire. I love it.

Other great quotes:

If you were to look in the textbook for how a financial plan should work, this would be in chapter one under, ‘Never do this,’ said Cynthia Harrington.

[...]

At the bottom of a document that detailed Ellison’s 2000 debt load, Simon had scrawled a rough accounting of Ellison’s lavish spending, according to deposition testimony:

1) Life Style — annual $20m
2) Interest Accrual — annual $75m
3) Villa in Japan — $25m
4) New Yacht — $194m — over 3 yrs
5) America’s Cup — $80m — over 3 yrs
6) UAD — 12m over 3 yrs.

Read the Chronicle article.

See the actual email from Ellison’s accountant.

Start your own budget.