LARRY ELLISON: Yeah, it had reached the point where he was definitely suffering. (Credit: James Martin/CNET) 
 
 It's no secret that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison greatly admired Steve Jobs, and he spells out this esteem for the late Apple co-founder in an upcoming interview with Charlie Rose on "CBS This Morning." "He was brilliant," Ellison tells Rose in a preview of the interview released Monday. "He was our Edison, he was our Picasso. He was an incredible inventor." My eulogy began, you know, I guess we're all told that no one's irreplaceable. In an upcoming interview with Charlie Rose, the Oracle CEO extolls Jobs' virtues and hints that Apple could be on the downward slide without the former leader at the helm. LARRY ELLISON: We saw — we conducted the experiment. I mean, it's been done. We saw Apple without Steve Jobs. And he decided, shocked Lorraine, shocked everybody that the medication was gonna stop. It sounds like Ellison is referring to the last time Jobs was away from Apple, following his ouster in 1985. Ellison was a close friend of Jobs and has frequently commended the Apple co-founder's skill, insight, and attention to detail.
– One bigwig in the tech industry is making headlines this morning for dissing another. Oracle CEO didn't mention Apple's Tim Cook, but he made clear in an interview with CBS that he thinks Apple will flounder without Steve Jobs. Asked by Charlie Rose about the post-Jobs era, Ellison said "we already know" how it will turn out because of Jobs' history with the company: "We saw Apple with Steve Jobs." (Finger in the air.) "We saw Apple without Steve Jobs." (Lowers finger.) "We saw Apple with Steve Jobs." (Finger back up.) "Now, we're gonna see Apple without Steve Jobs." (Finger swoops low.) Ellison and Jobs were close friends, notes CNET, so he may be biased. On the other hand, "if anyone has insight into the way Jobs worked at Apple, it's him," writes Steve Kovach at Business Insider. Ellison also offered up insight into Jobs' final days, notes a separate Business Insider post: "We'd always go for walks. And the walks just kept getting shorter. Until near the end we'd kind of walk around the block or maybe—maybe four blocks. And you just watched him getting weaker. And this ... was absolutely the strongest, most willful person I have ever met. And after seven years, the cancer even wore him out. He was just tired of fighting. And he decided—shocked Lorraine, shocked everybody—that the medication was gonna stop. He just pulled off the meds, I think on a Saturday or a Sunday. And by the following Wednesday he—he was gone.