A Fifth Startup? It's All In A Workday

Dave Duffield was alone in a hotel room 3,000 miles from home when he got the news that PeopleSoft Inc., the company he had started and built over 17 years into a software powerhouse, had been snatched away. It was Dec. 10, 2004, and Duffield was preparing to give testimony in a shareholder lawsuit when the call came from longtime colleague Aneel Bhusri. "I've got some very bad news" was all he needed to hear.

PeopleSoft's independent board members had voted to accept an enhanced $10.3 billion buyout from Oracle Corp. (ORCL ) Oracle Corp., the megacompetitor Duffield had taken to calling "the bad guys" because he feared there would be layoffs and product cuts if it took over. He felt like some- one had punched him in the gut. "I was in the middle of nowhere," he recalls. "It was totally depressing."