- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is hiring again–with a particular focus on ‘boomerang’ employees: ‘It’s okay, come back’ Fortune
- Salesforce to Hire 3,300 in Sales, Engineering, Data After Earlier Job Cuts Bloomberg
- Salesforce to hire 3300 people after layoffs earlier this year, Bloomberg reports Reuters
- Salesforce to hire over 3,000 people despite brutal job cuts earlier this year Business Insider
- Salesforce to hire 3,300 people following layoffs earlier this year: report MarketWatch
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Tag Archives: Benioff
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff warns Dreamforce could leave – SFGATE
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff warns Dreamforce could leave SFGATE
- Salesforce boss Marc Benioff warns he may pull headline conference from San Francisco over rampant homelessness and drug use—but he’s donating $1 million to try to help Yahoo Finance
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff warns upcoming Dreamforce may be last in San Francisco MarketWatch
- Marc Benioff: Next month’s Dreamforce could be last in S.F. if it’s affected by homelessness, drug use San Francisco Chronicle
- Salesforce CEO says San Francisco homelessness, drug use could force relocation of Dreamforce conference Fox Business
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Salesforce’s Benioff sees recession with shades of past crashes – Markets Insider
- Salesforce’s Benioff sees recession with shades of past crashes Markets Insider
- Salesforce shocks Wall Street with ‘monster quarter’: Here’s what analysts are saying Yahoo Finance
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: This Is How We’re Going To Win Yahoo Finance
- Salesforce’s Marc Benioff ‘wished he could employ staff for life’—now he’s asking if he should ‘unleash his inner Elon’ to slash staff headcount Fortune
- Salesforce earnings highlight how expectation beats can move markets, says Kari Firestone CNBC Television
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Salesforce (CRM) CEO Benioff Praises Activist Investors After Stock Rally – Bloomberg
- Salesforce (CRM) CEO Benioff Praises Activist Investors After Stock Rally Bloomberg
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: ‘We have hit the hyper-space button’ Yahoo Finance
- Salesforce is prioritizing profitability in a ‘New Day’ strategy Business Insider
- Interview: Marc Benioff reminds Wall Street that ‘this isn’t my first recession,’ saying Salesforce’s activists ‘made a lot of money today’ MarketWatch
- Good Earnings for Salesforce Might Give Activist Investors a Chill Pill The Motley Fool
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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: ‘We have hit the hyper-space button’ – Yahoo Finance
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: ‘We have hit the hyper-space button’ Yahoo Finance
- Salesforce is prioritizing profitability in a ‘New Day’ strategy Business Insider
- Interview: Marc Benioff reminds Wall Street that ‘this isn’t my first recession,’ saying Salesforce’s activists ‘made a lot of money today’ MarketWatch
- Salesforce (CRM) CEO Benioff Praises Activist Investors After Stock Rally Bloomberg
- Marc Benioff is following Oracle’s playbook with Larry Ellison’s help Business Insider
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Salesforce’s Marc Benioff hints at more potential layoffs
Marc Benioff, co-chief executive officer of Salesforce.com Inc., between panel sessions on day two of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on May 24, 2022.
Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Marc Benioff, Salesforce’s co-founder and soon to be sole CEO, indicated in an all-hands meeting on Thursday that more downsizing could be coming, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The virtual meeting came a day after Salesforce announced that it was cutting 10% of jobs, amounting to over 7,000 positions. Hours later, Amazon said it would lower headcount by 18,000. Tech companies are shrinking their workforce for the first time in years as they reckon with slowing growth, rising interest rates and a potential recession.
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Benioff expressed concerns about productivity in parts of the sales organization. About half of Salesforce account executives brought in more than 95% of deals, he told the employees, according to two people who attended by video. The meeting had been scheduled for an hour but ran for over two hours, another person said.
One of the attendees told CNBC that Benioff said the lack of productivity was largely from new account executives.
Fortune reported earlier on the meeting.
During the pandemic and in the years leading up to it, Salesforce expanded rapidly as cloud adoption soared. The company fueled its growth in part through large acquisitions such as Slack and Tableau.
Now Salesforce is retrenching as revenue growth is slowing and as it faces an activist investor concerned about operating leverage. In November, co-CEO Bret Taylor, who was seen as Benioff’s heir apparent, announced his surprise departure after a year sharing the top job. He’s slated to leave at the end of January.
Last month, Benioff posted a Slack message to all employees asking for ways to make new staffers more productive. During Thursday’s meeting, Benioff expressed frustration about media reports that surfaced regarding his comments.
“One of our core values is trust,” Benioff said, according to one of the attendees.
The person said Benioff took a long time to respond to an answer about what Salesforce’s future holds.
Salesforce didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
WATCH: Jim Cramer says more tech layoffs are coming after Salesforce cuts 10% of its headcount
Marc Benioff says newer Salesforce employees are less productive
Marlena Sloss | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff told employees in a Slack message on Friday that the company’s newest hires aren’t being productive enough, and he asked for feedback as to why that’s the case.
“Are we not building tribal knowledge with new employees without an office culture?” he asked in a message viewed by CNBC. He said he was “asking for a friend,” a phrase people often use on the internet to humorously reveal their curiosity about a topic. The message included an emoji showing a smiling face with a halo hovering over it, suggesting innocence.
Benioff’s companywide message addresses what’s become a hot-button issue in Silicon Valley. Since the arrival of Covid sent workers home almost three years ago, companies have been trying to reimagine a future workplace that allows more employee flexibility than in the past. Some businesses have allowed employees to work from anywhere permanently.
Salesforce, the biggest private employer in San Francisco, was among the first tech companies to tell its workforce they didn’t have to come back. Last year, Salesforce acquired communications app Slack, and Benioff said people can work very effectively from their homes. Salesforce said it would let teams decide how much time they would be in office.
But Benioff may be recognizing some of the challenges remote work presents. On Friday he highlighted an issue that he said was affecting employees who joined Salesforce this year and last. Salesforce’s headcount grew by 32% in the past year, and last month it cut hundreds of jobs.
A Salesforce spokesperson declined to comment on Benioff’s message but sent a statement on the company’s policy.
“We have a hybrid work environment that empowers leaders and teams to work together with purpose,” the spokesperson wrote. “They can decide when and where they come together to collaborate, innovate, and drive customer success.”
Benioff is contending with slowing revenue growth as the economy weakens, and a thinning of the upper ranks within Salesforce. Last month, the company said Bret Taylor would be stepping down from his position as co-CEO in January. He’d just been promoted to share the top job with Benioff a year earlier. And days later, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield announced his departure.
Here’s the full text of Benioff’s Slack post:
How do we increase the productivity of our employees at salesforce? New employees (hired during the pandemic in 2021 & 2022) are especially facing much lower productivity. Is this a reflection of our office policy? Are we not building tribal knowledge with new employees without an office culture? Are our managers not directly addressing productivity with their teams? Are we not investing enough time into our new employees? Do managers focus enough time and energy on onboarding new employees & achieving productivity? is coming as a new employee to salesforce too overwhelming? Asking for a friend. (Im leaving this open ended to get the broadest level of response.)
The message prompted a variety of comments.
Some reacted with an emoji stating “THIS” alongside an up arrow. Others chose emojis that read “WFH” or “citation needed.” Dozens went with a standard emoji known as thinking face.
Benioff chimed in again in the responses.
“Asking hard questions of employees (and customers and each other) for their answers is one of the most effective ways to get answers as a leader today,” he wrote. “It’s why we bought Slack because there is no better way to ask questions and crowd source answers quickly. Already today we have almost 500 replies to these questions — amazing and incredibly useful!”
He was displeased that his message found its way to the press, ultimately ending up on Twitter.
“I hope you will agree it is also disappointing that our private conversations here were almost immediately given to the public media,” he wrote. “I wonder how do we reinforce that Trust is our highest company value? How do we demonstrate the power of Trust and Transparency without an immediate public disclosure. It gets to the heart of who we are at salesforce.”
His responses were shared with CNBC.
WATCH: Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff on Bret Taylor’s departure from the company
Marc Benioff would buy Twitter if he could
Benioff, Salesforce (CRM) chairman and co-CEO, told CNN’s Poppy Harlow in an interview that if it were up to just him, he would “absolutely” buy Twitter.
To be clear, he’s not actually going to do it. “I will never buy Twitter,” Benioff told Harlow. “Because I want something doesn’t mean I’m going to have it…I would like to go have a sundae right now with three scoops of ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream and a cherry. But I’m not going to have it.”
Benioff added that he still thinks Twitter “is the greatest, most unrealized, most un-monetized brand” in tech and that “it’s an amazing company, amazing brand, amazing platform and can do incredible things for the future,” adding that “I’ve always been in love with the product. I use it every day and I believe very strongly that this has got still a huge amount of potential ahead.”
Salesforce considered a Twitter deal in 2016. But it was not to be, as Salesforce investors balked at the idea of a Twitter takeover.
“When I went to buy Twitter and I was having those conversations, all of my shareholders came to me and said, ‘You can stop that now. You will not pursue this vision,'” he said, adding that “it was a tough moment for me.”
Salesforce went on to make another bold deal, though, agreeing to buy the workforce collaboration app Slack for $27.7 billion in late 2020.
Benioff’s net worth is $6.2 billion, according to Forbes, while Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk is the wealthiest person on the planet with an estimated net worth of $254.6 billion.
Helping the planet, and employees
Aside from his Twitter comments, Benioff also discussed with Harlow his concerns about what’s next for the global economy. Investors are clearly nervous as well. Shares of Salesforce have plunged more than 40% so far this year.
Benioff said that deflation in Japan and Europe are potential problems, and he believes Europe and the United Kingdom are “going into recession.” But he does not think the US is in a recession.
He also talked about climate change, abortion rights and other topics in the wide-ranging interview. Benioff told Harlow that big companies like Salesforce, which is one of the 30 stocks in the Dow, have a responsibility to do more to help the planet.
“We can use our businesses for platforms for changes,” he said. “It’s about lowering emissions. It’s about all of us going net zero,” adding that Salesforce is still a company generating billions of dollars of annual revenue and earnings even as the company continues to focus on doing good.
“We can do it all. We can have super high revenue, super high profit, super high cash flow and we can manage for all stakeholders,” he said. “That means we’re managing for our employees, our customers, our communities, our homeless, and yes, the planet is a key stakeholder as well.”
Benioff was inspired by the Patagonia’s founder’s recent decision to transfer his ownership and ensure the company’s future profits go to charitable organizations focusing on environmental causes.
“I love what he has done. I think we [Salesforce] also need to do more,” Benioff said.
Doing more also means standing up for all your employees, he added. Salesforce helped employees in Indiana relocate due to strict abortion laws, for example, and he said the company has no tolerance for discrimination due to sexual orientation or gender preferences.
“We have to be for the equality and dignity of every human being,” he said, “and if you’re not for equality and dignity then…this is not something that I can work with. And we’re going to have to exit your city or your state.”
Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff touts strong sales guidance, says ‘$30 billions are now ahead of us’
Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff on Tuesday broke down the enterprise software giant’s latest financial results, telling CNBC’s Jim Cramer it was “maybe the best quarter we’ve ever had.”
Shares of Salesforce, which have struggled mightily over the past three months, jumped 3% in extended trading Tuesday, as Wall Street reacted to the company’s fourth-quarter figures. Both revenue and per-share earnings topped estimates, while full-year outlook for fiscal 2023 also is better than analysts expected.
“This was an extraordinary quarter, maybe the best quarter we’ve ever had, and you can really see it not just in the quarterly guidance, but where we’re looking for next fiscal year,” Benioff said, noting San Francisco-based Salesforce is expecting revenues between $32 billion and $32.1 billion in fiscal 2023.
That’s above the $31.78 billion that analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had projected.
Salesforce saw revenues of $26.49 billion in fiscal 2022, so the high end of its revenue 2023 guidance would represent an increase of just over 21% year-over-year.
“We’re leaving the $20 billions behind, and the $30 billions are now ahead of us,” said Benioff, who co-founded Salesforce in 1999.
He said Salesforce’s next leg of growth continues to be propelled by the digital transformation and its customers needing a broad range of tools to support their own clients. That’s why Salesforce has worked to stitch together all of its recent acquisitions, Benioff said, pointing to data analytics firm Tableau, integration software provider MuleSoft and chat app Slack.
Benioff also said he’s pleased with Salesforce’s operating cash-flow performance and projections. The company reported $6 billion for fiscal 2022, up 25% year over year, and with expectations of 21% to 22% growth in fiscal 2023.
Dow-component Salesforce shares are up 7% over the past five sessions, but they remain down nearly 27% over the past three months as investors have rotated away from growth-oriented technology companies toward more defensive parts of the market.
Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Salesforce (CRM).
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‘It must stop now.’ Marc Benioff says Facebook doesn’t care about disinformation
“This digital revolution really kind of has the world in its grip. And in that grip, you can see the amount of mistrust and misinformation that is happening,” Benioff told CNN.
“Look at how it is affecting the world. You can talk about the political process. You can talk about climate. You can talk about the pandemic,” Benioff said. “In each and every major topic, it gets connected back to the mistrust that is happening and especially the amount of it being seeded by the social networks. It must stop now.”
‘Level of deceit’
The Salesforce (CRM) CEO is ramping up his criticism of Facebook following an investigation from The Wall Street Journal that used internal documents to show the company is not only well aware of its platforms’ negative effects on users — but how it has repeatedly failed to address them.
Over the summer, the White House pressed tech companies, including Facebook, to get a handle on vaccine misinformation. Facebook took action against the so-called “disinformation dozen” a month later.
“Some of these social media companies, especially Facebook, you can see that they don’t really care that their platform is filled with all of this disinformation,” Benioff said.
The tech billionaire called for Congress to crack down on Facebook’s disinformation problem.
“I own Time and I am held accountable for what is produced on my platform,” Benioff said, adding that CNN and other media outlets are also held accountable. “In regards to Facebook, they are not held accountable. So they do not have an incentive from the government. That has to change.”
Benioff urged Congress to review existing laws to try to stop the “level of deceit” happening on social networks.
Facebook did not respond to requests for comment on Benioff’s criticism.
However, the company published a seven-paragraph blog post last weekend defending itself and pushing back on the Journal investigation.
“At the heart of this series is an allegation that is just plain false: that Facebook conducts research and then systematically and willfully ignores it if the findings are inconvenient for the company,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, wrote in the post. “This impugns the motives and hard work of thousands of researchers, policy experts and engineers at Facebook who strive to improve the quality of our products, and to understand their wider (positive and negative) impact.”
After Texas abortion law, Benioff offers to move unhappy workers
Beyond social media, Benioff has been outspoken on social issues — including the Texas abortion law.
After that law took effect earlier this month, Salesforce announced that it would relocate Texas employees — and their immediate families — if they are concerned about access to reproductive care.
“We have this happening on a regular basis,” Benioff said. “We have a governor or president or some ministry of some country that makes some kind of discriminatory statement that upsets our employees and our message to our employees is very simple: If you don’t like it, you can move. And we’ll move you.”
Asked if the Texas abortion law gives him pause about doing business or expanding in the state, Benioff suggested Salesforce isn’t taking a stand on the law itself and added that employees will have different views on these issues.
“That isn’t what this is about. What this is about is telling our employees that we have their back, that if they want to move and they’re unhappy that we’ll move them,” Benioff said, adding that if they want to stay “that’s also great.” He said, “Our job is to make sure that they have the freedom, and also the liberty, to do what they want to do.”
Salesforce is based in San Francisco, but the company also has an office in Austin.
“I’m a fourth generation San Franciscan. We are the home of gay rights and freedom…Of course we’re going to act like this,” Benioff said. “If you don’t like it, we’re going to be there for you.”
‘We’re in a climate emergency’
Salesforce recently became one of the only major corporations to publicly support the climate investments in President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan.
“We’re in a climate emergency,” Benioff said when asked about his company’s support.
Salesforce also announced this week it is a net zero company across its value chain and now relies on renewable energy for 100% of its operations.
Although Salesforce supports the climate investments in the Build Back Better plan, the Business Roundtable has opposed the legislation. The influential group, which Benioff is a member of, has warned that tax hikes to pay for the new spending would put millions of jobs at risk, stunt wage growth and suppress business investment.
Asked if he would quit the Business Roundtable, Benioff said the debate isn’t about the Business Roundtable and stressed the importance of cutting carbon emissions.
“All of us need to become net zero. And that needs to happen right now,” he said.
The tax hike debate
During a speech last week, Biden sought to draw attention to unfairness in the US economy by calling out the fact that 55 large corporations paid zero in federal income taxes last year despite making billions in profits.
Salesforce is one of those companies.
“We, of course, just pay the tax bill that we’re given,” Benioff said in response to Biden’s remarks. “And in many cases, we fought for higher taxes.”
The Salesforce CEO pointed to his support for a San Francisco ballot measure that would fund homeless services by taxing large corporations.
Asked if he supports efforts by Democrats to raise the corporate tax rate to 26.5%, Benioff said stressed that tax reform must not put US companies at a disadvantage on the global stage.
“If they’re going to raise the corporate tax rate, then just make sure you keep American companies competitive,” Benioff said. “That’s the single most important thing today.”