Oracle is a safe haven for incompetent managers and so called team leads. I know a few ex-colleagues of mine who left Oracle to join other companies and were shocked to see how fast and agile other companies were.
It is not in Oracle's DNA to hold managers accountable or fire them for management blunders or shoddy management. So when some of these managers and team leads from Oracle joined other companies, they found much to their surprise that they were answerable to higher management for the state of the project they were managing. They could not keep up with the pace of development or having concrete responsibility, and returned to Oracle to live a purposeless but relaxed life where one would earn less but otherwise thrive in the company by doing little to no actual work.
I've heard much the same about Microsoft's program managers.
Making his point about the "creepiness," not only with Ellison but with Oracle's power structure, Gosling said he sparked a notion to try to improve morale amongst the Sun faithful who endured the Oracle acquisition. He said the company decided to rent out the Great America amusement park in Santa Clara, Calif., and allow the Sun folks to have a day of fun. Scott McNealy and Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz signed off on the project that came in well under budget and all systems were go, Gosling said. Except a few days before the event was to occur, Oracle Co-President Safra Catz got wind of it and put the kibosh on the thing.
"Safra found out and had a fit," Gosling said." The word came down that Oracle does not do employee appreciation events. So she forced the thing to be cancelled. But they didn't save any money because the money had been spent - so we ended up giving the tickets to charities. We were forced to give it up because it wasn't the -Oracle Way.' On the other hand, Oracle sponsors this sailboat for about $200 million."