After learning the rudiments of programming in a brief spell at Chicago University, Ellison worked as a programmer in the 1970s. Seeing the commercial potential of Codd’s work on relational databases, Ellison founded Software Development Laboratories in 1977, which in 1979 released ORACLE, the first commercially available relational database management system. In 1983 the company itself was renamed Oracle. Ellison served as CEO from the company’s foundation until 2014, having led it to the position of the world’s second-largest software company.