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Candice McQueen's instinct told her she had heard Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison correctly. But the magnitude of what he said still required a bit of convincing herself.
Ellison floored a Nashville hotel ballroom of a few hundred people — including McQueen, who is president of Lipscomb University and the state's former education commissioner — when he declared April 23 that Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) will make Nashville its world headquarters.
The pronouncement comes almost three years after Oracle committed to bring 8,500 jobs to Nashville by 2031, at a $1.35 billion riverfront office campus. In that time, Oracle spent $28.3 billion buying a health tech company named Cerner Corp. The deal plunged the software company deep into Nashville's legacy business, and Ellison spoke about his ambitions and "moral obligation" to solve problems in that industry.
McQueen had come to the Oracle-hosted health care industry summit to hear Nashville health care royalty, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, lead a "fireside chat" with the fifth-wealthiest person on Earth. She left in near-disbelief.
"I wasn't sure what he had said," McQueen told the Business Journal, "but when Sen. Frist clarified it again, my gut was, 'This makes sense.' [Ellison] is really tying the technology he has cared so much about … the multiple decades of work he has done, now to health care. This is an unbelievable win for Nashville. What that shows is Nashville is not only seen as a health care capital, it’s also now a technology epicenter as well."
McQueen said the headquarters designation is "definitely in the top five" developments to happen to Nashville in the last few decades. "Maybe even top two to three," she said.
Nashville technology entrepreneur Steve Proctor compared the moment to the arrival of the now-Tennessee Titans NFL franchise in the 1990s.
"I couldn't even imagine all the things that could impact," Proctor said of his immediate reaction back then. "You look at what the Titans impact today … it just feels like it opened up everything on this level of this major-league feeling. That's what this is for tech. That gap between what we have now, and Oracle … everything fills in quicker."
In the '90s, the NFL team was leaving Houston. Whenever Oracle makes the Nashville switch official, Music City will take that title from Austin, which has served as Oracle's headquarters since 2020.
"It's like, 'Hey Austin, come pick up my dry-cleaning,'" Proctor said.
Proctor worked in sales for Oracle in the 2010s, and later sold his e-commerce company Edgenet for close to $100 million. On Wednesday, he already was thinking about the possibility of Oracle hosting its OpenWorld conference in Nashville — an event that can draw 60,000 attendees or more from around the world. Oracle is a $50 billion-a-year business with 150,000 employees worldwide.
"We're kinda ready," Proctor said. "It's graduation day."
As Frist was asking Ellison about the company's Nashville presence, Jeff Hite was standing up in a conference room to address the board of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce about the region's economic development pipeline.
Then Hite's colleague, Lori Odom, texted from the hotel, relaying Ellison's remarks. Hite, who is the chamber's chief economic development officer, read the message aloud to the board.
"The reaction from the board was applause. Just giddy, right?" said chamber CEO Ralph Schulz.
"What he's really saying is that Nashville has captured the magic in the bottle," Schulz said. "To me, his commentary is just evidence of 35 years of intentional growth in Nashville that makes it that desirable community."
The news no doubt lifted the 130 participants on a chamber study mission to Phoenix, which began Wednesday morning.
Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell is on the trip. Ellison's "world headquarters" proclamation caught the administration by surprise, though O'Connell, who was elected in September, said it has been clear to him that Oracle had greater local ambitions than when the company first announced its expansion.
"We are a complete city that also checks the box for business," O'Connell said in a statement. "As mayor, I want you to know: Nashville is a great place to live and a great place to do business. Give me a call."
Revenue 2022
| Rank | Prior Rank | Name/Prior rank (*not ranked)/URL |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | HCA Healthcare Inc. |
2 | 2 | Dollar General Corp. |
3 | 3 | Delek US Holdings Inc. |
