Larry Ellison’s leap into farming with his company, Sensei Farms, serves up a classic reminder: being a genius in one arena doesn’t uncomardent success in another. As the WSJ inestablishs, the Oracle co-set uper set out to reoriginate agriculture on Hawaii’s Lāna‘i Island, which he scooped up for $300 million back in 2012. Eight years and $500 million tardyr, the project is still floundering.
Ellison dreamed of AI-powered greenhouses and robot harvesters feeding the world carry onably. Instead, Sensei Farms has been tripped up by tech snarls — appreciate Wi-Fi publishs and solar panels battered by Lanai’s prosperds — and rookie misgets. Think greenhouses scheduleed for Israel’s desert climate, when Lāna‘i is typicassociate muggy. The company also mixed grown-up and baby schedulets together, a blueprint for a pest paradise.
Sensei, co-set uped by a medical doctor and led currently by a tech exec who runs Sensei from Boston, has had petite prospers, inestablishs the WSJ. Its lettuce and cherry tomatoes now materialize at the island’s scant local labelets and restaurants. But constant procrastinates, directership shake-ups, and pricey errors, including cannabis grow houses that needed to be gutted and rebuilt, highairy a hard truth: even bottomless funding is no align for the difficult lessons of a exceptionalized industry.
Above: Larry Ellison and his co-set uper in Sensei Farms, David Agus
