Oracle Corporation (ORCL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
November 10, 2021
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
operatorWelcome to the Annual Meeting for Oracle Corporation. Our host for today's call is Jeff Henley, Vice Chairman of the Board. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to your host. Mr. Henley, you may begin, sir.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveThank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Jeff Henley, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. Along with my fellow directors and executive officers of Oracle, I would like to welcome you to our Annual Meeting of Stockholders. In accordance with the notice of the meeting, I call to order the 44th Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Oracle Corporation. We will first conduct a formal portion of the stockholders' meeting in accordance with the agenda you see on your screen. Following the adjournment of the formal portion, there will be an opportunity for us to answer stockholder questions. Some of you may have already submitted questions. Stockholders may also submit questions at any time during this meeting in the space provided on the virtual meeting screen. We ask that you please identify yourself when submitting a question. As a reminder, this meeting is being recorded. Before proceeding to the business of the meeting, I'd like to introduce myself and other directors, all of whom are standing for election and joining us remotely today. As I mentioned, my name is Jeff Henley. I've been a director since 1995 and Vice Chairman since 2014. Previous to that, I served as Chairman. I was also previously Oracle's Chief Financial Officer from 1991 to 2004. Larry Ellison was appointed Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Officer in 2014. Previously, Mr. Ellison was our CEO and has been a director since he founded Oracle in 1977. Safra Catz has been a director since 2001 and was appointed CEO of Oracle in 2014. Prior to that, Ms. Catz served as President and Chief Financial Officer. Dr. Michael Boskin has been a director since 1994. Dr. Boskin is the Tully M. Friedman Professor of Economics and Wohlford Family Hoover Institution Senior Fellow at Stanford University. Jeff Berg has been a director since 1997. He is Chairman of Northside Services, a media and entertainment advisory firm. Mr. Berg was formerly Chairman and CEO of International Creative Management. Naomi Seligman has been a director since 2005. She is a senior partner at Ostriker von Simson, a technology research firm that chairs the CIO Strategy Exchange. George Conrades has been a director since 2008. He is an executive adviser to Akamai Technologies and previously served as Akamai's Chairman and CEO. Bruce Chizen has been a director since 2008. He is an independent consultant and serves as a senior adviser and PGO partner at Permira Advisers and as a venture partner at Voyager Capital. He previously served as CEO of Adobe Systems. Secretary Leon Panetta has been a director since 2015. Secretary Panetta previously served as the U.S. Secretary of Defense and as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is the Co-Founder and Chairman of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy. Renée James has been a director since 2015. She is the Chairman and CEO of Ampere Computing, a producer of high-performance semiconductors for hyperscale, cloud, storage and edge computing. She's also an operating executive at The Carlyle Group. She previously served as President of Intel Corporation. Wick Moorman has been a director since 2018. He is currently a senior adviser to Amtrak, previously served as Amtrak's President and CEO. He also previously served as Chairman and CEO of Norfolk Southern Corporation. Bill Parrett has been a director since 2018. He previously served as CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Rona Fairhead joined the Board in 2019. She previously served as Minister of State for Trade and Export Promotion in the Department for International Trade in the United Kingdom and prior to that, served as Chair of the BBC Trust. Vishal Sikka joined the Board in 2019. He is the CEO of Vianai Systems, a start-up company that provides advanced software and services in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Also present at this meeting is Brian Higgins, Oracle's Senior Vice President, Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. We are also joined here today by representatives from Ernst & Young, our independent auditors. And they will be available during the meeting -- during the question-and-answer session after the formal meeting to respond to appropriate questions. Finally, Oracle has appointed Broadridge Financial Services to act as inspector of elections. [ Katherine Blackwell ], representing Broadridge, is with us today and has taken the oath of the inspector of elections. The minutes of last year's annual meeting are available, and any stockholder wishing to inspect the minutes should contact our Corporate Secretary. Now let's move on to the formal portion of the meeting. Brian Higgins will report on the mailing of the notice of this meeting.
Brian Higgins
executiveThanks, Jeff. This meeting is held pursuant to a notice dated September 24, 2021. I have an affidavit of distribution from Broadridge Financial Solutions certifying as to the giving of notice of this meeting and the sending to stockholders of record as of September 13, 2021, the proxy materials, all of which Broadridge commenced distributing to stockholders on September 24, 2021. I also have a copy of the 2021 annual report, which includes financial statements certified by Ernst & Young. A copy of this annual report was sent or made available to each stockholder entitled to vote at this meeting, and an electronic copy of the annual report is available on the website used to access this meeting. I also have the list of the holders of record of common stock of the company at the close of business on September 13, 2021. This list of stockholders has been open for examination for any purpose relevant to this meeting for the past 10 days. This list is available for inspection during this meeting by any stockholder on the website used to access this meeting. All documents concerning notice of the meeting, including proof of mailing, will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. This meeting is being held in accordance with Oracle's bylaws and Delaware law. A copy of the rules of conduct that govern today's meeting can be found in the Meeting Materials section of the web portal for the virtual meeting. We ask that you abide by these rules in order to facilitate an orderly meeting.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveBrian will now advise whether a quorum is present at the meeting and canvass the stockholders present. Those stockholders who have returned proxies have authorized the persons identified in the proxies to vote on the proposals coming before the meeting.
Brian Higgins
executiveOn the record date, there were 2,733,686,038 shares of Oracle's common stock issued outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. I have been informed by the inspector of elections that a majority of these shares is present in person or by proxy, and therefore, a quorum necessary to transact business is present. It is now approximately 1:10 Central Time, and the polls are open but will close shortly. All Oracle stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting have the ability to do so online. If you are a stockholder entitled to vote and have not yet voted or if you want to change your previously cast vote, please do so now. Please remember that if you have already voted by proxy, it is not necessary to vote again. Once we complete the formal portion of this meeting, we will close the polls.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveThank you. I declare a quorum is present at this meeting. On behalf of Oracle's Board, I would like to express my appreciation to all stockholders who returned their proxies or submitted ballots. There are 7 items of business on the agenda for this year's meeting: 4 management proposals and 3 stockholder proposals. All voting results announced today are preliminary. Final vote totals for each of the proposals voted upon today will be made publicly available on a Form 8-K within 4 business days. Okay. So we will start with the management proposals. The first matter of business is the election of 14 directors to serve until the next Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The nominees recommended by the Board of Directors are Larry Ellison, Jeff Henley, Safra Catz, Michael Boskin, Jeff Berg, Naomi Seligman, George Conrades, Bruce Chizen, Leon Panetta, Renée James, Wick Moorman, Bill Parrett, Rona Fairhead and Vishal Sikka. Additional information about each of the nominees can be found on Pages 11 through 15 of Oracle's proxy statement. Will the secretary announce the results of the vote?
Brian Higgins
executiveEach nominee for election to the Board of Directors has received the affirmative vote of a majority of Oracle's shares of common stock present and entitled to vote at this meeting.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveI declare that all the nominees for director have been duly elected. The next item of business is the nonbinding advisory vote by stockholders on the compensation paid to Oracle's named executive officers as disclosed in Oracle's proxy statement filed in connection with this meeting. This is commonly referred to as say-on-pay vote. Will the secretary please indicate the results of the vote?
Brian Higgins
executiveThis proposal received the affirmative vote of a majority of Oracle's shares of common stock present and entitled to vote at this meeting.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveThank you. The say-on-pay proposal has been approved. The next matter is the approval of an amendment to the Oracle Corporation 2020 Equity Incentive Plan. Will the secretary announce the results of the vote?
Brian Higgins
executiveThis proposal also received the affirmative vote of a majority of Oracle's shares of common stock present and entitled to vote at this meeting.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveThe equity plan proposal has been approved. The next matter is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as Oracle's independent registered public accounting firm by the Finance and Audit Committee of the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors recommends the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young as our independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year 2022 or 2022. Will the secretary announce the results of the vote?
Brian Higgins
executiveThis proposal received the affirmative vote of a majority of Oracle's shares of common stock present and entitled to vote at this meeting.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveThe appointment of Ernst & Young as Oracle's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2022 has been duly ratified. The next item of business is the proposal submitted by Service Employees International Union Pension Plans Master Trust, a stockholder of Oracle. The proposal, which appears on Page 78 of Oracle's proxy statement, requests that the company perform a racial equity audit. We understand that Armando Pintado will represent the SEIU at this meeting. Pursuant to the rules of conduct, Mr. Pintado has 5 minutes to present the proposal. Mr. Pintado has submitted a recorded presentation of the proposal in advance of the meeting. Operator, please play Mr. Pintado's presentation.
Armando Pintado
shareholderHello. My name is Armando Pintado, Senior Researcher in the Service Employees International Union Capital Stewardship Program. On behalf of the Service Employees International Union Benefit Plans Master Trust, we are the proponents of proposal #5. The proposal calls for Oracle's Board of Directors to oversee a racial equity audit analyzing Oracle's impacts on non-white stakeholders and communities of color with input from civil rights organizations and employees. The report will be conducted at reasonable cost, omitting confidential and proprietary information, to be disclosed publicly on Oracle's website. Specifically, we are calling for Oracle to conduct and disclose the results of a racial equity audit that would, one, analyze the full range of adverse racial impacts caused by Oracle's business and operations; two, allow Oracle to identify steps it could take in its own business to combat systemic racism; and three, help address racial inequities that are curbing economic growth and potentially depressing investors' returns. Much of Oracle's statement and opposition is irrelevant and unresponsive to the proposal. Oracle touts the female diversity of its board, which is completely unrelated to its lack of Black representation at the Board and executive levels. Oracle points to its diversity and inclusion policies, the implementation of which seems to have no effect on improving Black and Hispanic diversity and inclusion in the company, judging by the diversity data disclosed on its own reports. As regards the impact of Oracle's business practices on non-white stakeholders and communities of color, Oracle opts to wash its hands of how its customers use their products rather than examine and redress ways in which its products may be misused or otherwise improved to avoid unwanted discriminatory impacts. Identifying and analyzing the racial impacts of Oracle's business activities is particularly important given the company's involvement in facial recognition technology and predictive policing, both of which have adverse impacts on people of color. As noted by ISS in its recommendation to vote for proposal #5, in Oracle's most recent Form 10-K under Risk Factors, the company states that, "Public perception and standards related to the privacy of personal information can shift rapidly in ways that may affect our reputation or influence regulators to enact regulations and laws that may limit our ability to provide certain products and services." Facial recognition technology has recently been the subject of controversy due to growing concerns related to violations of privacy and civil rights and that the technology may lead to unfair treatment of African Americans. A racial equity audit has the benefit of being conducted by an outside person or organization, which avoids blind spots and provides a fresh perspective. We believe increased transparency regarding Oracle's impacts on non-white stakeholders and communities of color will protect against damage both to the company's reputation and its ability to achieve long-term value creation. And thus, we urge the Board to conduct and disclose the results of a racial equity audit. Once again, we ask shareholders of Oracle to vote for proposal #5. Thank you.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveOkay. Thank you. The Board opposes this proposal for the reasons described in the proxy statement. Will the secretary announce the results of the vote?
Brian Higgins
executiveThis proposal was defeated by a majority of Oracle's shares of common stock present and entitled to vote at this meeting.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveI declare that the stockholder proposal regarding a racial equity audit has been defeated. The next item of business is the proposal submitted by Kenneth Steiner, a stockholder of Oracle. The proposal, which appears on Page 82 of Oracle's proxy statement, requests that the Board adopt a policy requiring the Board Chair to be an independent member of the Board. We understand that James Ritchie (sic) [ James McRitchie ] will represent Kenneth Steiner at this meeting. Operator, please unmute the line of James McRitchie. Pursuant to the rules of conduct for the meeting, you have 5 minutes to present the proposal.
James McRitchie
shareholderThank you. This proposal requests the Chair of the Board of Directors, whenever possible, be an independent member of the Board. The policy could be phased in. The role of the CEO is to run the day-to-day operation. A major role of the Board is to monitor the CEO. Combining the roles of CEO and Chairman is an obvious conflict of interest. This proposed topic won 52% support at Boeing in April 2020, and Boeing responded by naming an independent Board Chair. The topic also won 50% plus support at 5 major U.S. corporations in a year, including 73% support at Netflix. Four Oracle directors received more than 400 million negative votes each at the 2020 Annual Meeting. These 400 million negative votes are worse than they've seen since Mr. Ellison controls 35% of the vote and is assumed to have voted in favor of directors. These directors unfortunately also had an oversized influence on key committees such as compensation. There is a long history of shareholders rejecting Oracle's excessive management pay. In 2015, 51% rejected; 2016, 55%; 2017, 50%; 2018, 46%; 2019, 42%; and 2020, 42%. Most companies have rejection rates of 5% to 10%. Again, the 42% to 55% rejection at Oracle is worse than it seems since Mr. Ellison controls 35% of the vote. We assume he voted in favor of excessive management pay. Oracle has underperformed the NASDAQ during the most recent 2- and 5-year period. This topic won 44% at a previous Oracle meeting and represents a majority support from non-insiders. Now let me just say that this meeting is really got a bogus because they're announcing the votes right after presentation of proposals, giving you, those attending this meeting absolutely no time to use your computer and change your vote. So I encourage Oracle to change their behavior, to give shareholders a chance to change their votes. Please vote yes, independent Chairman, proposal #5. Thank you.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveThank you. The Board opposes this proposal for the reasons described in the proxy statement. Will the secretary announce the results of the vote?
Brian Higgins
executiveThis proposal was defeated by a majority of Oracle's shares of common stock present and entitled to vote at this meeting.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveI declare that the stockholder proposal regarding an independent Board Chair has been defeated. The next item of business is the proposal submitted by Eric and Emily Johnson, stockholders of Oracle. The proposal, which appears on Page 85 of Oracle's proxy statement, requests that Oracle require third-party organizations that engage in political activities and receive financial support from Oracle to report on set spending and that these reports be posted on Oracle's website. We understand that Bruce Herbert will represent Eric and Emily Johnson at this meeting. Pursuant to the rules of conduct for the meeting, Mr. Herbert has 5 minutes to present the proposal. Mr. Herbert has submitted a recorded presentation of the proposal in advance of the meeting. Operator, please play Mr. Herbert's presentation.
Bruce Herbert
shareholderGood afternoon. I'm Bruce Herbert of Newground Social Investment in Seattle here to move proposal #7, which seeks transparency of Oracle's political spending. Following the January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, Oracle stood with dozens of companies that paused PAC spending to the 147 legislators that voted to subvert the Electoral College results. In a very dark moment for our country, Oracle rightly chose to take a stand, and this proposal calls on them to do so again. Just after the insurrection, The Conference Board's publication called Under a Microscope: A New Era of Scrutiny for Corporate Political Activity warned companies, "In this era of intense political polarization and with the immediacy and ubiquity of social media, companies are subject to ever greater scrutiny for their political activities." The report then continues. This risk is especially high when companies donate to 501(c)(4) groups since it is not always clear where that money is going, and it may very well end up in a cause that clashes with the company's core values and positions. Public records show that Oracle has contributed nearly $4 million to third-party groups. These groups don't report well enough for shareholders to assess the potential risk to stockholders or whether the group spending is aligned with Oracle's core values, objectives and policy positions. Without this information, neither the Board, senior management nor share owners can assess the risk that inevitably swirls around undisclosed political spending. It's simple really. When trade associations or other third-party groups spend Oracle donations, these causes and those candidates become inextricably linked to Oracle. Shareholders need to be able to assess the risk the spending creates, and that's what this proposal is about. Recently, 62.4% of FedEx shareholders voted for a proposal like this one. Shareholders are increasingly dissatisfied with companies who exhibit abstinence in regard to full and transparent reporting, and the FedEx vote proves it. Oracle must be in a position to assure all stakeholders that its political spending creates value and does not risk misalignment. The company cannot do this without knowing which candidates and which political causes are being supported. Therefore, we invite the company to demonstrate a robust commitment to risk management and responsible civic engagement by again taking a stand, this time to embrace political spending disclosure. Please join me in voting for proposal #7. Thank you.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveThank you. The Board opposes this proposal for the reasons described in the proxy statement. Will the secretary announce the result of the vote?
Brian Higgins
executiveThis proposal was defeated by a majority of Oracle's shares of common stock present and entitled to vote at this meeting.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveI declare that the stockholder proposal regarding political spending has been defeated. So it's now approximately 1:25 Central Time, and the polls are closed. This concludes the formal part of this meeting, which is now adjourned. So we are now at the part of the meeting providing for general questions and discussion. If you have questions regarding Oracle and its business, please follow the instructions provided on the virtual meeting screen. We ask that you please identify yourself when submitting the question. Please note that our answers to stockholder questions may include expectations, predictions, estimates or other information that might be considered forward-looking. While these forward-looking statements represent our current judgment on what the future holds, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You should review our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q for a discussion of risks that may affect our future results or the market price of our stock. You're cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which reflect our opinions as of today. Please keep in mind that we're not obligating ourselves to update these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events.
Brian Higgins
executiveThanks, Jeff. Though we may not be able to answer every question, we will endeavor to answer as many stockholder-submitted questions as time permits that comply with the meeting rules of conduct and are germane to Oracle's business. The first question for Safra, how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected Oracle's business?
Safra Catz
executiveThanks, Brian. So obviously, when COVID hit, we had to first focus on our employees and our customers, and we did that extensively. However, we also put our focus on trying to fight COVID and figure out what to do, including building applications that we ultimately donated to the United States government to help both manage the entire vaccination -- sorry, to figure out all of the adverse reactions to any of the vaccinations. In addition, our products were used for the clinical trials of most of the vaccines that were successful. We also worked with national governments of several African countries to make sure they were receiving systems to help manage their vaccination and public health programs. What COVID actually showed most of the customers is that they really needed a digital connection to both their customers, to their employees and to their suppliers. And our products have been really used extensively to help our customers have those digital connections. It's very clear that those customers that move quickly and were able to adopt digital technologies have done better through this COVID period than those who stayed on older systems and that we're unable to use the modern systems, including those in our cloud.
Brian Higgins
executiveGreat. Thanks, Safra. Larry, the next question is that Oracle has long been a market leader in database. Can you tell us more about why you believe Oracle will extend its market leadership position in the database?
Lawrence Ellison
executiveWell, we are kind of reaching the full light of day of the information age, and there is no more important technology for managing information than database technology. It's interesting that Oracle's name, the name of our company and the name of our most famous product is the same. It's the Oracle Database. And Oracle has long been the leading provider of databases in the world. We're larger than our 2 closest competitors combined in, if you will, the previous generation of databases, which ran on-premise. The leaders of an on-premise database was by far Oracle, followed by Microsoft and IBM, and we were bigger than Microsoft and IBM. As we move into the cloud era, data and large-scale databases become even more important. As Safra pointed out, during COVID, COVID exposed severe deficiencies in our public health systems around the world for managing a pandemic. We were unable to get timely information about how many hospital rooms were available in the United States, how many COVID tests have we run the previous day in the United States. Oracle built database systems to address some of these deficiencies with the system that you have on your smartphone called v-safe, which keeps track of every single person who's vaccinated in the United States. We also manage vaccine programs around the world, including throughout Africa. But let's just focus on the United States for a second. So this v-safe system actually -- every time someone was vaccinated, that person was entered into the v-safe system. And the person could opt in to communicate -- continuously communicate about their vaccine experience. And that's this little v-safe system that run on your smartphone. Now something amazing happened because of this modern database system tracking vaccines. It turns out the clinical trials, which Safra correctly pointed out, we ran most of them. The clinical trials did not test pregnant women. So they were not included in the test. So when the clinical trial concluded that the Pfizer vaccine was safe and effective, for example, it never tested pregnant women. They were excluded from the clinical trial. Therefore, the vaccine was not approved initially for pregnant women. But guess what? When people -- when the vaccine was approved, a lot of people came in and got the vaccine, and women don't always know that they're pregnant. So it turns out because we keep track of everyone we vaccinated and those people can optionally share their vaccine experience with us through their smartphone via v-safe, it turns out that 150,000 American women voluntarily let us know that they were pregnant at the time they got the vaccination. They didn't know when they got the vaccination, but subsequently, they determined they were vaccinated after they were pregnant. And there were no adverse effects from the vaccine. By gathering that data, by having this database system that gathered all of that data, we were able to persuade, or the data was able to persuade, the science was able to persuade the people -- the public policymakers in health care in the United States that, in fact, the vaccine was safe for pregnant women. And it was subsequently approved for pregnant women, not only in the United States, but also the data we have in Israel showed it was safe, other places. And the vaccine was approved for pregnant women even though it was -- pregnant women were never included in the clinical trial. That's because of a modern cloud-based database system that collected all of this data for every single person who was vaccinated. It's remarkable. So databases are not becoming less important. They're becoming more important. And Oracle built -- has the technology, the only one that has a technology to build these sovereign national public health databases to track the population, to see who's vaccinated, to see who's in need of a third booster shot, notify the person they're in need of a booster shot and track the fact they get the third shot. So this is absolutely crucial moving forward that we have these cloud-based database systems that manage our public health that are vastly superior than the [ totally ] inadequate provider-based systems we had in the past right now. So soon, in the not-too-distant future, when you go into a hospital, an American citizen goes into a hospital, that hospital will have immediate access to all of their health records, all the person's health records. So your doctors, your caregivers will be fully informed of all of the -- they've got all the information they need to give you the best possible care. You cannot do that -- you cannot do that with our existing provider-based systems. So databases are becoming more important, not less important, databases that are moving from on-premise to the cloud. And Oracle is leading that, not only with its Oracle database, but also with its fantastic open-source database called MySQL. The 2 most popular databases in the world are Oracle and MySQL. And both of those databases are developed by Oracle Corporation. We have a bright future in this new era of cloud computing.
Brian Higgins
executiveThat's great, Larry. Thank you. Our last question, I think, is also for you. Can you please discuss Oracle's Gen2 Cloud Infrastructure and specifically the advantages you're seeing over your competitors?
Lawrence Ellison
executiveIs that me again?
Brian Higgins
executiveThat is you. Yes, Larry.
Lawrence Ellison
executiveOkay. All right. Okay. So Oracle's cloud, people have pointed out, while we led the way -- Oracle led the way with applications in the cloud, we were followers with infrastructure in the cloud. So let me be much more specific. The very -- the cloud is made up of 2 businesses. There are applications and companies like Salesforce.com, NetSuite, pioneered the cloud. They were the first cloud companies. In fact, to be specific, NetSuite was the very first cloud company. And NetSuite was started by Evan Goldberg and Larry Ellison. That was the very first cloud company in the world. And as everyone knows, Oracle subsequently bought NetSuite, and it's now part of our portfolio of ERP applications that run in the cloud. The infrastructure -- so we were the leader. We actually invented the cloud, the very first cloud company, NetSuite, belongs to Oracle Corporation, developed and embedded by Evan Goldberg and Larry Ellison. Okay. Amazon embedded the infrastructure cloud. Credit where credit is due. Brilliant move. And we watched Amazon build their infrastructure cloud. We watched Microsoft follow and build an infrastructure cloud. We watched Google. And we had the advantage of seeing the work they did, recognizing certain deficiencies in their cloud. And we decided to come out with a cloud that's quite different than their infrastructure cloud. That's what we call the second-generation cloud. We have the advantage -- they had the advantage of being first mover. We had the advantage of seeing all the first movers, recognizing what worked and what didn't and improving and fixing what didn't work. And our Gen2 Cloud has a layer of hardware that the other clouds don't have, which provides absolute security and isolation for customers in our cloud who want to avail themselves of that level of security. It also allows us to [ tune ] because the customers are isolated on their own private, if you will, they can get -- they can share a computer with other customers or they can -- if they're concerned about privacy and they're concerned about security, they can have their own dedicated computers that are isolated from other -- isolated from their neighbors. So they're not sharing their computers. There's no risk of data being seen by other companies and other customers. So we've added that additional layer of security for customers who want it. And that's one of the huge advantages we have. The other huge advantage is we have this notion of autonomy in our second-generation cloud. Maybe the thing that really distinguishes first-generation clouds like Amazon and Microsoft and Google and a second-generation cloud is this notion of autonomy. When you put up an Oracle database in our second-generation cloud, human beings do not configure that database. Robots configure that database. And people say, well, okay, you see you're saving me some cost of labor by having robots drive the -- like autonomous driving. Okay. So I don't have to drive the car. I can read a book when I'm traveling from A to B. That's great. That's really nice. Actually, that's not the biggest saving. That's not the biggest savings with autonomous driving. The biggest savings on autonomous driving is not -- you don't have -- it's not a labor saving. It's a safety saving. The robot drives the car much more safely than you do, and you're much more likely, orders of magnitude more likely, to get to your destination safely because you're being driven by a robot. Similarly, if you take the human labor out of configuring a database, human beings cannot make errors because there is no human labor. No human labor, no human error. No human labor, no human mischief. The only way to secure your data, to make sure people don't make mistakes or affirmatively try to steal the data is get them out of the loop and do it autonomously. The Oracle Cloud has Autonomous Linux built into it. The Oracle Cloud has the Oracle Autonomous Database built into it. The Oracle Cloud has the MySQL Autopilot built into it. When robots are configuring the system, there is -- not only do you save money because there's no human labor, but your data is safer because there are no human errors. And it's errors. It's pilot error that cause data to be stolen from other clouds. That is not the case, that has never been the case, that cannot be the case in the Oracle second-generation cloud. Your data is safer, but you've got to be willing to pay less because you eliminate the labor. Our second-generation cloud has huge advantages in security, reliability and data privacy over the clouds that came before it. Thank you.
Brian Higgins
executiveThank you, Larry. I don't see any other active questions on the site. So I'll turn it back to Jeff to close the meeting.
Jeffrey Henley
executiveOkay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending today's meeting, and be well.
Operator
operatorThis concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.
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