Oracle execs share plans about exiting the ad business in leaked audio

Oracle this week disclosed plans to wind down the business, which brought in just $300 million in the most-recent fiscal year, down from $2 billion in 2022. The latest ambitions of Oracle’s cofounder and chair, Larry Ellison, involve healthcare.

“Probably everyone has heard by now Oracle has announced an exit from the global advertising business,” Mollie Spilman, Oracle’s advertising chief revenue officer, told employees on the call. “This is given with the backdrop of third-party-cookie deprecation and a market which is increasingly litigious, which makes for a difficult environment for our space.”

Oracle spent more than $4 billion trying to build an advertising- and marketing-products giant. But it took a hit when Meta stopped allowing third parties like Oracle to sell advertisers data used to buy targeted ads, and its plans to pivot were largely unsuccessful. Significant layoffs hit the division in 2022.

“Everyone on this call is going to have different emotions and questions about what’s happening, and Stevan and I do, too,” Spilman said, referring to Stevan Vlaović, the company’s senior vice president of product and engineering. “What we do know is the exit is going to happen in phases and every group and country is going to be different. Unfortunately, we don’t have a catch-all answer for every question, and we don’t have a catch-all date for any of the transition activities.”

Vlaović joined the call to ask employees of the division to continue working as Oracle figured out the exit.

“We want to emphasize to everyone that we are working diligently around the clock with Oracle, our customers, and partners to develop a thoughtful transition plan, including finding alternative positions to redeploy talent,” Vlaović said. “In the meantime, please try to focus on what you are doing, and we will come back to you as we learn more.”

Oracle did not respond to a request for comment.

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