[shouldbeworking]

I don't see becoming CTO as heading for retirement. If he wanted to semi-retire he could adopt some other title like Chief Software Architect.

Also your mention of his eventual death sounds insulting. There are plenty of better things to pick apart Ellison for besides his age, and he isn't all that old. There isn't a single mention of his health in the wikipedia article about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison

[commandar]

I didn't read it as an attack so much as saying that Ellison may very well never step away from the company, short of being forced to by death.

[atlantic]

It's odd that you would see a reference to someone's eventual death as an insult. For a 70-year-old man, death looms large, whatever Wikipedia has to say on the subject.