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Silicon Valley, 1998.
Evan Goldberg picks up the phone. On the other end is Larry Ellison—the billionaire founder of Oracle, the man who interviewed Goldberg for his first job out of college over a decade ago, and now his investor in a startup that isn't working.
mBed, their web development platform, is struggling. After three years, it can't sustain itself. Goldberg has to deliver the bad news.
But something happens in that conversation. Goldberg mentions his frustration: "Startups don't seem to have a lot of things to use to help them grow." No good software. No affordable tools. Just spreadsheets and chaos.
Ellison's mind starts turning. Software for small businesses. But not the traditional kind—not something you install on a computer, something that founders would have to maintain and upgrade.
"It would have to run on the internet," Ellison says. "Founders are sick of managing various software on their computers."
Five minutes. That's all it takes.
By the end of the call, they've agreed to shut down mBed and start something new. Ellison will write a check. Goldberg will build the software.
The year is 1998. Cloud computing doesn't have a name yet. Salesforce won't launch for another month. And in a small office above a hair salon, Evan Goldberg is about to create the first cloud ERP company in history.
Harvard to Oracle, 1987
Evan Goldberg was a software engineer fresh out of Harvard when he walked into an interview at Oracle in 1987. The company had about 900 employees—still small enough that the CEO did interviews himself.
Larry Ellison liked what he saw. Goldberg got the job.
What followed was a decade-long education in database software, enterprise applications, and how Oracle dominated the business world. Goldberg rose through the ranks, working on core Oracle products, absorbing how enterprise software was built and sold.
But more importantly, he built a relationship with Ellison himself. Oracle's small-company culture in those early years meant that a young engineer could actually know the CEO—could discuss ideas, get feedback, become a trusted collaborator.
By the time Goldberg left Oracle to start his own company, he had something most first-time founders could only dream of: a billionaire mentor who trusted him.
mBed: The Failed First Attempt
In the mid-1990s, Goldberg founded mBed with Ellison's backing. The concept was ahead of its time: rich website development delivered as a service.
For three years, they tried to make it work. The technology was solid. The market wasn't ready. By 1998, mBed was failing.
Some founders would have crawled away in shame. Goldberg called his investor and told the truth.
That phone call didn't end the relationship. It started the next chapter.
1998: NetLedger is Born
The timing was chaotic. In 1998, Evan Goldberg got married, had his first child, moved to a new city, and launched a company—all within months.
The company was called NetLedger (later renamed NetSuite). The first office was above a hair salon. The initial funding was approximately $125 million from Larry Ellison through his venture capital entity Tako Ventures, with additional backing from StarVest Partners, ADP, and UBS PaineWebber.
It was, by 1998 standards, an enormous bet. Cloud computing wasn't proven. Most businesses still thought software belonged on their own servers, under their own control.
The Vision: Business Software in the Browser
Ellison's instinct on that phone call proved prescient: the internet was the right delivery mechanism.
NetLedger started with accounting—the bread and butter of business operations. But the vision was bigger: a complete suite of applications that small businesses could access through a web browser. No installation. No upgrades. No IT department required.
Accounting led to CRM. CRM led to inventory management. Inventory led to e-commerce. The suite grew.
Before Salesforce
Here's a fact that often gets overlooked: NetSuite launched roughly a month before Salesforce.
Marc Benioff gets the credit for coining "cloud computing" and for the "no software" campaign. But Goldberg was there first, building the same vision with less fanfare.
NetSuite became the pioneer of cloud ERP for small and medium businesses—the segment too small for SAP, too big for spreadsheets.
Growing with Customers
NetSuite's genius was growing with its customers.
A startup would sign up for basic accounting. As the company grew, they'd add modules: CRM, e-commerce, inventory, HR. The platform scaled from a five-person startup to a thousand-employee enterprise without requiring a rip-and-replace.
This created extraordinary customer loyalty. Once you were on NetSuite, everything was connected. Your sales data flowed to your accounting. Your inventory levels synced with your e-commerce site. Leaving meant rebuilding everything.
The SMB Sweet Spot
NetSuite carved out territory that enterprise giants ignored.
SAP and Oracle (ironically, given Ellison's involvement) focused on massive enterprises. They required million-dollar implementations and armies of consultants. NetSuite targeted the companies just below that threshold—businesses with $10 million to $500 million in revenue that needed real ERP but couldn't afford the enterprise price tag.
Going Public
In December 2007, NetSuite went public on the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO raised $161 million and valued the company at over $1 billion.
The office above the hair salon was long gone. Goldberg had built a genuine enterprise software company from scratch—twice, if you count his time at Oracle.
The $9.3 Billion Acquisition
On July 28, 2016, Oracle announced it would acquire NetSuite for $9.3 billion.
The deal faced intense scrutiny. Larry Ellison owned nearly 40% of NetSuite—he was, in effect, buying a company from himself. Regulators examined the transaction carefully. Independent committees verified the fairness.
In the end, the acquisition closed. Goldberg's second company had been bought by his first employer—funded by the same man who had backed him since 1998.
Symbiosis, Not Absorption
Unlike many acquisitions, NetSuite wasn't absorbed into Oracle and dismantled. It continued operating as a distinct unit, with Goldberg remaining as leader.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz would later call Oracle "the largest cloud ERP company in the world and NetSuite the second-largest cloud ERP company in the world." The two products served different markets and continued to grow independently.
Evan Goldberg's Journey
Goldberg has now worked with Oracle and Larry Ellison for nearly four decades—as an employee, as a backed founder, as an acquisition target, and as a division head.
When asked for advice, he emphasizes relationship-building: "Befriending my former boss Larry Ellison led to founding a multibillion-dollar business."
The five-minute phone call that killed one company and birthed another happened because of trust built over years. The largest check Ellison ever wrote to a startup went to someone he'd known since 1987.
Where NetSuite Is Now
Today, NetSuite powers over 37,000 customers worldwide. It remains the dominant cloud ERP for growing businesses—the software that takes companies from startup to scale-up.
And it all started with a five-minute phone call from a failed entrepreneur to his mentor, where honesty created opportunity and disappointment became disruption.
