Marc Benioff
Marc Benioff
Marc Russell Benioffis an American internet entrepreneur, author and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, a leading enterprise cloud computing company. As of March 2016, he owns approximately $3 billion worth of Salesforce shares. Benioff started Salesforce in March 1999 in a rented San Francisco apartment and defined its mission as The End of Software®. He is “credited with turning the software industry on its head” by using the Internet to “revamp the way software programs...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth25 September 1964
CountryUnited States of America
Our customers are not just customizing fields and tabs--they are building their own applications across a wide range of functional areas.
This is a fulfillment of our vision of 'The Business Web,' enabling companies of any size to manage, organize and share all of their business information on demand.
They have created a culture of acquisition instead of innovation. It's a lot easier just to write big checks than it is to innovate.
I never thought that's what Oracle would be doing today.
You need to have a beginner's mind to create bold innovation.
You must always be able to predict what's next and then have the flexibility to evolve.
Learning how to interact with customers is something that anyone starting any business must master. It's an amazing opportunity to be able to learn the ropes at an established company and then employ your expertise at your own company.
Nothing is going to make you happier in your life than giving
One problem we discovered, for example, was that our "create a new account" button was in the wrong place...By simply moving it to the left side, mirroring the way people read, we saw a huge improvement in the way people used the site.
I've seen how important this concept is in business. To be truly successful, companies need to have a corporate mission that is bigger than making a profit. We try to follow that at salesforce.com, where we give 1% of our equity, 1% of our profits, and 1% of our employees' time to the community. By integrating philanthropy into our business model our employees feel that they do much more than just work at our company. By sharing a common and important mission, we are united and focused, and have found a secret weapon that ensures we always win.
I'm amazed by the potential of more companies employing integrated philanthropic initiatives at earlier stages in their life cycle. What if this were done on an even more massive scale? Consider what would happen if a top-tier venture-capital firm required the companies in which it invested to place 1% of their equity into a foundation serving the communities in which they do business.
Learning to code at a young age opened my eyes to the incredibly exciting world of technology and entrepreneurship. Our youth deserve the opportunity to learn the skills that will enable them to succeed in our connected world.
The concept that I like the most, and the one that I've taken most to heart, is the belief that people can't be united or focused unless they share a common philosophy-a philosophy that gives their effort a greater meaning.
We strive always to have a beginner's mind.