Larry Ellison: You won't be successful doing the same thing everyone else is doing “My standard advice to entrepreneurs is you can’t be successful as a small company doing the same thing everyone else is doing… If you’re an entrepreneur, you have to find errors in conventional wisdom.” When you tell people your startup idea, most of them should say, “None’s doing that. You’re crazy!” Ellison continues: “When you hear that, there are two possibilities: One is you’re first with a really good idea. Unfortunately, the other is that you’re crazy.”