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Marc Benioff Quotes

Marc Russell Benioff is an American internet entrepreneur, author and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, an 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 in a marketing statement as “The End of Software.”

Benioff has long evangelized software as a service as the model that would replace traditional enterprise software. He is the creator of the term “platform as a service” and has extended Salesforce’s reach by allowing customers to build their own applications on the company’s architecture or in the Salesforce cloud.

Benioff is a noted philanthropist. In 2000, he established the “1-1-1 model,” whereby the company contributes one percent of product, one percent of equity, and one percent of employee hours back to the communities it serves globally. As of March 2016, Salesforce.org has delivered more than $115 million in grants, 1.3 million employee volunteer hours and powered 28,000 nonprofits with Salesforce technology. More than 700 companies have adopted the 1-1-1 model through the Pledge 1% movement. Benioff and his wife, Lynne, have focused their personal philanthropy on improving public education and advancing children’s health care through UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, at the University of California, San Francisco.

As CEO of Salesforce, he has addressed social causes such equal pay for women, as well as leading efforts by business leaders to publicly oppose legislation in Indiana and Georgia that would allow discrimination against LGBT communities.

He is the author of three books, including the national best seller, Behind the Cloud.



✵ 25. September 1964
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Marc Benioff: 5 quotes0 likes

Famous Marc Benioff Quotes

“This idea that somebody put into our heads — that companies are somehow these kind of individuated units that are separate from society and don’t have to be paying attention to the communities they’re in — that is incorrect. We need to have a more enlightened view about the role of companies. This company is not somehow separate from everything else. Are we not all connected? Are we not all one? Isn’t that the point?”

Marc Benioff

The New York Times: "Marc Benioff of Salesforce: ‘Are We Not All Connected?’" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/business/marc-benioff-salesforce-corner-office.html (15 June 2018)

“If you want to innovate at scale, you have to get really clear about your values. What do you really want in your company? What is really important to you?”

Marc Benioff

Diginomica: "Connect18 – Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on what happens next with MuleSoft" https://diginomica.com/2018/05/09/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-on-what-happens-next-with-mulesoft/ (9 May 2018)

“The only constant in the technology industry is change.”

Marc Benioff

Forbes: Marc Benioff to Write Age of Context Foreword https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelisrael/2013/03/18/marc-benioff-to-write-age-of-context-foreword/ (18 March 2013)

“When I went to business school, they said, "Focus on your shareholder, Marc. The business of business is business." That no longer applies. We have to erase that from our history books. The business of business is improving the state of the world.”

Marc Benioff

CNBC: Marc Benioff: We bought Time Magazine because 'business is the greatest platform for change' https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/benioff-bought-time-because-business-is-greatest-platform-for-change.html (25 September 2018)

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so that makes Google my best friend.”

Marc Benioff

Quoted in Miguel Helft, " Google and Salesforce Join to Fight Microsoft http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/technology/14google.html?_r=1&oref=slogin", New York Times (April 14, 2008).

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