Adda Quinn was married to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison for seven years, from 1967 to 1974, long before he became one of the wealthiest people on the planet. After their divorce, she walked away from the orbit of Silicon Valley’s future elite and built a quiet, accomplished career at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, where she managed 45 PhD researchers and an annual budget of roughly $45 million. Her exact birth date has never been publicly confirmed, and she has spent the decades since her divorce carefully guarding her privacy.
Ellison went on to marry five more times, buy a Hawaiian island, and accumulate a fortune that fluctuates north of $200 billion. Quinn took the opposite path. She remarried once, to a man named George Sublett, and stayed at EPRI until retirement. The two trajectories, one exploding into global fame and the other receding into deliberate obscurity, began in the same one-room Berkeley apartment in the late 1960s.
Who Is Adda Quinn?
She is an American business professional best known as the first wife of Larry Ellison, the co-founder and former CEO of Oracle Corporation. Beyond that connection, she built a notable career in environmental research management at EPRI, one of the largest nonprofit energy research organizations in the United States.
Almost everything confirmed about her comes filtered through Ellison’s biography. She was reportedly born in the United States, likely in the mid-1940s, though her exact birthdate has never appeared in any public record. Her parents’ names, her childhood hometown, and her educational background all remain unconfirmed. This is not an accident. By every available account, she has actively and successfully avoided public attention for more than five decades.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Adda Quinn |
| Known For | First wife of Larry Ellison (Oracle co-founder) |
| Marriage to Ellison | 1967–1974 (7 years) |
| Second Marriage | George Sublett (until his death in 2010) |
| Career | Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Palo Alto |
| Role at EPRI | Managed 45 PhD researchers; ~$45 million annual budget |
| Birth Date | Not publicly confirmed |
| Net Worth | Not publicly disclosed |
Meeting Larry Ellison in 1967
Adda Quinn met Larry Ellison at a Berkeley employment agency in 1967. He was 23 years old, a college dropout from the University of Chicago, drifting between short-term programming contracts. She was working in or near Berkeley at the time. According to accounts that have circulated in Ellison’s biographical coverage, Quinn once described him as “the most charismatic man I had ever met.”
They married the same year. Ellison had no money, no degree, and no clear career path. He bounced between jobs at Amdahl Corporation and Ampex, never staying long enough to build anything. The young couple made do with very little: a one-room apartment that doubled as their entire world for three years.
The financial pressure was constant. Ellison, by his own later admission, was more interested in chasing interesting technical problems than steady paychecks. Quinn was the one who kept things grounded, and by most accounts, she was the stabilizing force in a household that ran on unpredictability.
Seven Years of Marriage and the Breaking Point
The marriage lasted seven years. For the first three, they lived in that single room. Eventually they scraped together enough to buy a small house in Oakland, but the upgrade did little to fix what was already cracking. Ellison’s restlessness and ambition were pulling in one direction. Quinn’s desire for stability pulled in another.
The divorce was finalized in 1974. Ellison would go on to co-found Oracle three years later, in 1977, with $2,000 of his own money. The company would eventually make him a billionaire many times over. Quinn, meanwhile, was already on a completely different path, one that had nothing to do with startups or Silicon Valley speculation.
It is worth pausing on the timing. She was married to him during the years that, in hindsight, look like the prelude to one of the great tech fortunes. But at the time, there was no fortune. There was no Oracle. There was just a charismatic programmer who could not hold down a job and a wife who eventually decided that was not enough.
Building a Career at EPRI
After the divorce, Adda Quinn joined the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, California. EPRI is a nonprofit organization funded by the electricity industry that conducts research on energy generation, delivery, and environmental impact. It is not a household name, but within the energy sector, it carries real weight.
Quinn rose to a management role in EPRI’s Environmental Division, where she oversaw 45 PhD researchers and an annual budget of approximately $45 million. The division’s work covered air quality modeling, water resource analysis, and ecological impact assessments. These are the kind of large-scale, data-heavy projects that shape actual energy policy.
This is where the contrast with Ellison’s story gets sharpest. While he was building a database company that would reshape enterprise software, she was managing environmental scientists and allocating tens of millions of dollars to research projects. Her career had substance, structure, and measurable impact. It just had no audience.
Second Marriage to George Sublett
At some point after her years at EPRI, she married George Sublett. Details about their relationship are sparse, consistent with the pattern of her entire post-Ellison life. What is known is that Sublett passed away in 2010, leaving her widowed.
She has not remarried since. There are no confirmed reports of children from either marriage. The absence of information is itself the story: a woman who was once married to a man who would become one of the most documented human beings alive has managed to leave almost no public trace of her personal relationships.
Adda Quinn Today
As of 2026, Adda Quinn is believed to be living in the United States, likely in California. Reports from competitor publications suggest she enjoys travel and maintains an active lifestyle, though these details come from secondary sources rather than direct confirmation. Her exact location, daily routines, and current activities remain private.
Her net worth has never been publicly disclosed. Unlike Ellison’s subsequent wives, some of whom received substantial divorce settlements, Quinn’s separation predated Oracle entirely. She built her financial independence through her professional career at EPRI, not through her former husband’s wealth. Any estimate of her net worth would be pure speculation.
The most remarkable thing about Adda Quinn in 2026 is not what she has done, but what she has consistently refused to do. She has never written a tell-all. She has never given an interview about her marriage to Ellison. She has never leveraged her connection to one of tech’s founding figures for fame or financial gain. In an era where proximity to power is routinely monetized, that silence is extraordinary.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Adda Quinn?
Adda Quinn is an American business professional known as Larry Ellison’s first wife. She was married to the Oracle co-founder from 1967 to 1974, years before he founded the company. After their divorce, she built a career at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto.
When did Adda Quinn marry Larry Ellison?
Adda Quinn and Larry Ellison married in 1967, the same year they met at a Berkeley employment agency. Their marriage lasted seven years and ended in divorce in 1974, three years before Oracle was founded.
Did Adda Quinn work at EPRI?
Yes. After her divorce from Ellison, Adda Quinn worked at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto. She managed 45 PhD researchers in the Environmental Division and oversaw an annual budget of approximately $45 million.
What is Adda Quinn’s net worth?
Adda Quinn’s net worth has never been publicly disclosed. Since her divorce predated Oracle’s founding, she did not receive a settlement tied to Ellison’s later wealth. She built her financial independence through her career at EPRI.
Does Adda Quinn have children?
There are no confirmed public reports of Adda Quinn having children from either her marriage to Larry Ellison or her second marriage to George Sublett.
Where is Adda Quinn now?
As of 2026, Adda Quinn is believed to be living in the United States, likely in California. She maintains a deeply private life and has not appeared in any public interviews or media coverage in recent years.
The Silence That Speaks
There is a type of public curiosity that treats the ex-spouses of famous men as footnotes, minor characters in someone else’s story. She has spent more than fifty years refusing that role. She was there at the beginning, when Larry Ellison was nobody. She left before the Oracle story even started. And then she built something entirely her own and chose, at every turn, not to talk about it.
That is not the absence of a story. It is the presence of a very specific one, about a woman who decided, decades before privacy became a luxury good, that her life was not for public consumption. In the context of Silicon Valley’s relentless self-mythologizing, that decision looks less like withdrawal and more like a quiet kind of defiance.
Last modified: June 25, 2026
