Marc Benioff, the co-founder and chief government of $262bn software program large Salesforce, all the time has loads to say.
The decabillionaire is Silicon Valley’s arch salesman and a ubiquitous determine in San Francisco. His 61-storey tower dominates the skyline and Dreamforce annual convention takes over town for every week in September, the place he’s flanked by celebrities like Will.i.am and Matthew McConaughey.
Benioff’s fortune has allowed him to change into a serial angel investor and mentor to dozens of entrepreneurs in tech. He labored underneath Larry Ellison at Oracle for a decade earlier than organising the cloud software program group in 1999. In 2018, he and his spouse Lynne purchased Time journal from Meredith Company for $190mn in money.
Most lately, he has wager the way forward for Salesforce on synthetic intelligence, relying on digital brokers to revolutionise all the things from customer support to produce chain administration.
On this chat with Stephen Morris, the Monetary Occasions’ San Francisco bureau chief, Benioff discusses how AI is disrupting work and each side of our lives. The audio of the dialog is included.
Stephen Morris: Marc, you’ve been round Silicon Valley and the Bay Space for a really very long time. You had been born right here, you run considered one of San Francisco’s most seen corporations, and have a greater perspective of what’s occurring proper now in expertise than nearly anybody else. So how are you going to characterise this second, with AI wanting set to disrupt nearly each trade all over the world. It’s an thrilling however overwhelming second.
Marc Benioff: Effectively, you’re proper. Our trade hits these moments. Now and again, there are these Steve Jobs moments the place an entire new a part of the trade will get invented. So, it may very well be Tom Watson with the mainframe, it may very well be Steve Jobs with the private pc, it may very well be Marc Andreessen with the browser. We’re in a second the place we see a degree of innovation and functionality and funding, and all of the magic of Silicon Valley.
You’re seeing it first-hand. You should be thrilled to be in Silicon Valley as a result of you may’t perceive it except you’re proper there seeing what’s occurring. And that magic is going on principally in San Francisco, which is sort of cool. It’s a huge, huge deal.
SM: So, the flip facet of that’s, all the cash, hype [and] guarantees: you’ve been by way of bubbles earlier than; is there any a part of you that worries that AI is simply the newest iteration of this?
MB: In case you don’t have all these parts, you’re not going to get the breakthrough. Since you’re going to need to throw loads in opposition to the wall earlier than you determine what sticks. And that’s the magic. So that you’re like, “wait a minute, this doesn’t make any sense. These 10,000 corporations simply acquired funded, and solely 100 of them are good.” However it’s important to fund all of them to get to the 100.
We noticed that within the web revolution — we didn’t know who was going to be Google and who was going to be Ask Jeeves and Yahoo. It’s a development. Techniques are going to dictate technique over time. However you’re in a second now the place there’s a large cycle. In case you’re not getting a hype cycle or funding cycle — or you could possibly name it a bubble, you could possibly name it loads of issues — you’re not going to finish up with the unimaginable consequence on the opposite facet.
SM: You don’t simply run Salesforce, you additionally run Time journal. Just lately, you place DeepMind founder Demis [Hassabis] on the duvet of your 100 most influential folks. He is among the, if not the, foremost scientist and proponent of expertise, whether or not it’s by way of AlphaFold or the AI Lab DeepMind. He has some fairly stark warnings about what may occur if people lose management of this expertise, or dangerous actors deploy it maliciously or unwisely. The place do you sit on this ‘Doomer versus Boomer’ AI scale?
MB: Effectively, I don’t make the editorial choices on Time journal, however I do personal it. And also you’re proper, we made Demis considered one of our 100 most influential folks on the earth. That may have additionally been influenced by his Nobel Prize. Individuals like Demis, particularly these within the core AI world — it may very well be [AI pioneer] Geoffrey Hinton, it may very well be so many others: I’ve an inventory of people who find themselves, a) extremely revolutionary, very excited, after which, b) additionally, hey, there may very well be a darkish facet to this expertise.
Know-how itself is rarely good or dangerous. It’s what you do with it that issues. All expertise can be utilized for good and dangerous. And that may very well be genetic, nuclear or AI expertise.
We may checklist the flicks that undergo the nice and the dangerous eventualities. However it’s good to have our eye on all this stuff. One of many folks that I work intently with is Peter Schwartz, who’s our futurist, and he was a key contributor, author on Minority Report, on WarGames, on Deep Affect.
If you have a look at motion pictures like these concerning the future, sure, there are darkish eventualities. That’s how we strive to determine find out how to get to the correct place. We’ve got to speak about what may go improper additionally.
SM: Are you extra optimistic than pessimistic?
MB: I’m naturally extra optimistic. However I believe that individuals do have a look at what these potential darkish facet eventualities are and make changes. Even our buddy Elon Musk, who’s sort of an incredible visionary, he began a few years in the past with an extremely darkish imaginative and prescient of AI. He’s change into extra optimistic over time.
So issues are continuously altering. It’s how individuals are utilizing it and the way they’re adjusting. Look, none of us desire a Hiroshima second. No person desires a second the place the expertise is utilized in a horrible approach, and folks find yourself dying. That’s the worst attainable scenario. Or a human-engineered virus that finally ends up killing lots of people. No person desires this stuff, and no one desires a darkish AI state of affairs both, the place you lose autonomous weapon programs.
Individuals need to be completely happy and wholesome and maintain their youngsters and their households. I do know you do, and I do. And that’s what we wish. We need to guarantee that expertise is used for good. However there are loads of totally different actors on the earth, you already know that.
SM: You could have made a giant wager with your personal firm on AI. We’re not speaking about killer robots or genetically engineered viruses right here, however you, final yr, relaunched it underneath this model Agentforce. I’m questioning how that’s going. There’s loads of speak concerning the potential of the expertise and loads of questions concerning the income generated on all sides of the equation, from the mannequin builders to these deploying brokers. Are you seeing significant buyer pick-up and a tangible enhance in your revenues because of this?
MB: We’re. We’re constructing a multibillion-dollar enterprise on this easy concept, which is we’re seeing what will be a multitrillion-dollar alternative in digital labour. That’s unfolding earlier than our very eyes. This concept that the world will find yourself spending $3tn to $12tn on types of expertise, together with brokers such as you talked about but additionally robots and others, to supply digital labour, to usher on this new world of abundance: that’s a really actual concept.
SM: Might it even be a menace to your corporation mannequin? For a very long time we’re actually locked in to huge corporations by way of [customer relationship management] programs promoting software program as a service. You helped corporations organise their knowledge and offered them with software program options. We’re attending to the purpose now the place you may ask AI to design a chunk of software program or piece of code. You may give it entry to your organization’s knowledge, direct to considered one of these mannequin start-ups, kind of obviating the necessity to purchase these huge programs, which for years have underpinned your corporation. If you began Salesforce in 1999, you stated it was the top of software program. How are you fascinated by this second? Might it’s the top of SaaS [software as a service]?
MB: It’s all the time the top of one thing and the start of one thing new. However you hit on it if you stated these brokers are going to have entry to all of your firm’s knowledge. And for our clients, banks, insurance coverage corporations, governments, tech corporations, media corporations, they’re all managing their knowledge. And that knowledge is a federated useful resource. Federated means linked, a useful resource inside their firm the place they’ve linked these knowledge sources collectively. As a result of inside a giant firm, you don’t have success if that AI isn’t fed with the correct knowledge.
SM: One of many points that lots of people are involved about on the extra social facet is that definitely there’s loads of productiveness, and doubtlessly some huge cash to be made, by way of promoting corporations these brokers. However there are going to be some job losses over the following decade as these fashions and brokers change into extra succesful. Do you suppose authorities and society is doing sufficient to arrange for this upheaval?
MB: I don’t know if it’s an upheaval. I might say that you will need to realise that, when new applied sciences seem, there may be adjustments within the workforce. And this one isn’t any totally different, particularly after we speak concerning the emergence of digital labour: you could possibly have basic productiveness will increase in GDP with out including extra folks. That hasn’t occurred too many instances in historical past, in order that’s very thrilling.
That may get to a brand new degree the place a whole nation could also be extra profitable and extra productive as a result of they’ve deployed the correct degree of functionality. You speak concerning the US going by way of this transformation, desirous to convey again extra manufacturing than ever. It’s going to have to return again by way of digital labour as a result of we don’t have folks to placed on these factories. So it’s going to need to be a robotic and an agentic layer to make these factories extra profitable and ship these merchandise.
You’ve been in a Waymo and so have I. There was nobody driving. I’m positive the primary time you had been in there, you’re going, “wait a minute, what’s occurring?”
You’ll be able to name the automotive, it comes and picks you up. There is no such thing as a one within the Uber, it’s known as a Waymo, and off it goes. It’s a robotic on wheels. That’s digital labour. This concept that our society goes to alter with AI and transformation, that’s occurring, and now we have to be prepared for it. We’ve got to consider what these implications are. And we shouldn’t attempt to conceal these conversations. We must always say, sure — identical to it might need gone from the horse and buggy to the automotive, to the taxi driver, to the Uber driver, to the Waymo.
SM: You touched on the largest subject on the earth: tariffs and the financial coverage of the second Trump administration. US tech corporations, together with yours, have loved a de facto international dominance for many years now, primarily based on the concepts of free markets and globalisation.
Is there a hazard to incumbents, resembling your self, that the shock and awe of those tariffs, the coverage flip-flops, the assaults on your complete precept of globalisation, the singling out of China, will result in a basic lack of confidence of the remainder of the world in American decision-making and stability?
MB: Each single considered one of our clients has to wrestle with this new actuality, that now we have a democratic system within the US so we are able to get a brand new president. And that president can are available in with totally different insurance policies and concepts, and that these presidents change over time.
So our clients need to be prepared to alter. Hardly ever does a day go by the place I’m not serving to clients handle their tariff scenario. It requires an enormous quantity of knowledge administration. Guess how they’re going to handle that. They’re going to handle it with our expertise. That’s an especially vital a part of what’s occurring.
It’s a shift in the place we had been and the place we’re going. However these shifts are occurring everywhere in the world on a regular basis. That’s what makes life extra fascinating. If all the things stayed static, it might be fairly boring, and I assume there wouldn’t actually be a use for or want for the FT or Time journal.
SM: Salesforce hasn’t been immune from the market sell-off, and its inventory is down 25 per cent this yr. Is that this simply market strikes, or is that this additionally a mirrored image of fears that clients, of each firm, each US and worldwide, are beginning to get nervous about spending on this financial surroundings, and so they would possibly in the reduction of on providers?
MB: We’re going to rise and fall with the market, there’s no query about that. We delivered 1 / 4 with document revenues and income, and steerage that was appropriately conservative. Our money circulate was as sturdy because it’s ever been, I believe one of many strongest money flows of any firm within the historical past of enterprise.
We’ve got to proceed to do what we’re doing, which is making our clients profitable. Nothing is extra vital than that, and guiding them by way of this unimaginable interval of change and transformation. They’re going to construct all types of recent programs and capabilities.
SM: Might you speak extra broadly concerning the adjustments in politics? Many, however clearly not all, of your friends in Silicon Valley campaigned for Trump from the enterprise capital neighborhood. We’ve seen a number of tech CEOs like [Meta’s] Mark Zuckerberg and [Google’s] Sundar Pichai attempt to rebuild bridges with the brand new president. You’re a Democrat, you’re a giant donor. How do you clarify the altering nationwide political surroundings, but additionally the connection of huge tech with it?
MB: Effectively, I’m not a Democrat, however I do stay in San Francisco. I’ve by no means been a Democrat, which could shock you . . . I labored within the Bush administration.
I used to be the chairman of the president’s IT Advisory Committee. That was my spherical of labor with the presidential administration. I used to be glad to have my time within the barrel with that, and I’m grateful for others who’re prepared to do their time now.
In California, it’s closely Democratic, and in San Francisco. However a few of that might change for lots of the explanations that you just’re speaking about it. Issues change, the world adjustments, political tastes do change. Issues have gotten extra conservative. Individuals need sure points addressed that weren’t being addressed by the Democratic get together, which is why you noticed such a major pink wave.
After my time with the Bush administration, I turned extra unbiased and determined that I wasn’t going to change into a Republican or a Democrat, that I used to be going to be extra of an American. Once I purchased Time Journal, it bolstered that for me, as a result of I made a decision I wasn’t going to make political contributions any extra.
It’s been a metamorphosis for me. Once I suppose again, it’s been about 20 years since I used to be working in Washington and dealing on issues like cyber safety, healthcare and computational sciences. Once I look ahead now, over these 20 years, it’s a totally totally different Republican get together.
I don’t suppose I’ve actually resonated with both get together for fairly a while. I’m completely happy to be extra within the center.
SM: How had been you navigating this? Have you ever been to Mar-a-Lago or the White Home but?
MB: I haven’t accomplished that as a result of I do must maintain that political stability. I’ve been cautious on how I’ve approached not simply this administration but additionally the final a number of. As a result of since I purchased Time journal, I assumed I wanted to be extra neutral.
SM: We all know journalism is an more and more tough job. You’re the proprietor, not the editor, however you continue to have to make sure that the publication you personal walks this tightrope between sturdy, sincere and doubtlessly essential protection, whereas additionally not coming underneath assault from the Trump administration or anti-mainstream media figures like Elon Musk. That’s a tough path.
MB: Oh, I’ve a superb story for that. Time journal has been round for greater than 100 years. We do a Individual of the 12 months. We’ve got one other one known as our Time 100. Individual of the 12 months was Donald Trump this yr. We’ve got a convention of placing the elected president on the duvet and saying he’s the Individual of the 12 months, as a result of it’s a robust case that he’s.
I can’t inform you what number of indignant emails I acquired from associates saying that I ought to have by no means accomplished such a factor. And, in fact, they’re very huge, heavy Democrats. Once we did that Individual of the 12 months cowl, we despatched considered one of our greatest photographers to Mar-a-Lago, our editor, our CEO, an entire group. We made positive it was a superb cowl, possibly considered one of our greatest ever.
In case you go to Mar-a-Lago, which I haven’t accomplished: associates of mine have despatched images of partitions of Time journal covers. I believe Donald Trump will quickly be on Time’s cowl greater than every other human in historical past.
That concept that it doesn’t matter what we write — and I’m positive you’ve this expertise your self — you’re accused of being too left or too proper.
I simply ignore it. Our editors do a remarkably good job. We need to be goal. We need to be extra centrist. I’m positive that as a result of a few of them are in New York Metropolis, they’re extra left-leaning than they realise. However it’s laborious to be a journalist right now and never be aligned with one political get together or the following. And but, that needs to be a key purpose of being a part of a significant media organisation.
SM: One in every of your higher qualities, from a journalistic perspective, is your outspoken nature. And there are a number of points you haven’t sat on the fence on. You’ve been essential of a few of your rivals’ merchandise, particularly Microsoft Copilot, which is their model of an agent, primarily based on OpenAI’s GPT fashions. You flat out known as it Clippy 2.0, which ruffled fairly a number of feathers in Redmond, with considered one of their executives firing again: “Marc doesn’t know what he’s speaking about.”
You speak regularly concerning the breakdown within the OpenAI and Microsoft Information Centre relationship. Inform me what’s occurring right here. What’s your beef with Satya [Nadella]?
MB: I seen that these executives stopped saying these issues when it turned out that what I used to be saying was proper. There are a few belongings you’re hitting on, in all probability two of crucial. Primary, you’re proper, Microsoft did disappoint loads of clients with Copilot. It seemed extra like Clippy, clients didn’t discover worth in it.
Within the developer productiveness space we noticed this unimaginable new firm Cursor seem out of nowhere. In the course of Silicon Valley, you noticed OpenAI announce they’re going to purchase Cursor’s competitor, Windsurf, for $3bn. It is because Microsoft’s Copilot and GitHub additionally failed, so it didn’t ship the extent of productiveness that it may have.
The second level which you hit on was this concept that Microsoft is only a ChatGPT reseller. That’s their AI technique at its very core. They’ve change into very annoyed with that. In order that they employed Mustafa Suleyman, Demis’s associate in DeepMind, to run a brand new Microsoft AI division, to construct a brand new mannequin, which is a part of their Prometheus programme. This concept that they’re going to have their very own fashions, and never going to have ChatGPT on the coronary heart of Copilot.
And also you noticed it additionally play out the place Sarah Friar, who’s a former Salesforce government, now the [chief financial officer] of OpenAI, did a presentation at a Goldman Sachs convention. She laid out a stack diagram, which is the normal tech approach of explaining your technique. Within the knowledge centre degree and the appliance degree and the API degree and the mannequin degree, there wasn’t any Microsoft software program in any respect. And the Azure knowledge centres weren’t even talked about.
I seen that Microsoft’s executives [have] stopped saying I don’t know what I used to be speaking about. It’s all enjoying out proper in entrance of our eyes that there’s a large breach between Microsoft and OpenAI. It’s a full proximal rupture. And it’s not coming again collectively.
SM: Inside that, there’s a bigger criticism. You’re saying that these massive language fashions, whether or not they’re constructed by Anthropic or Google or OpenAI, have gotten more and more commoditised? Prospects in the end don’t care which mannequin they’re utilizing. They constantly leap over one another in capabilities and league tables. OpenAI, particularly, has a $300bn valuation, and among the others should not far behind. Then you’ve the astronomical sums being spent on knowledge centres, energy and the opposite infrastructure wanted. Are you frightened a few bubble in that individual facet of the tech sector? And if it pops, what’s the collateral harm?
MB: This is among the most misunderstood points of this whole AI revolution, which is the position of the mannequin. AI has acquired to the place it’s during the last 20 years by way of open supply. Salesforce is a large contributor to the physique of labor, together with the immediate engineering and different essential components of those mannequin applied sciences. Open supply has made all of this attainable. It’s the driver of the innovation.
To that time, let me add that DeepSeek might be probably the most basic transformation this yr. This unimaginable [Chinese] mannequin got here alongside, an open supply mannequin with an MIT licence, which implies it’s principally free, and you’ll put it in your product. And Salesforce, for instance, may simply do that and scale back our price of utilizing our mannequin by 90 per cent as a result of they got here up with very revolutionary new methods to deploy fashions that can save corporations billions.
The present commercialised fashions had not provide you with these approaches. They had been transferring to those. It’s a metamorphosis from a technical mannequin known as transformer to a different technical mannequin known as MOE [mixture of experts] that’s like, “wow, if we do that, we’re going to avoid wasting some huge cash”.
It’s forcing different corporations — not simply Meta however all of them — to have their very own open supply mannequin. Numerous this magic and functionality is out there without spending a dime in open supply. And so that you’re proper if you say, “hey, don’t you suppose that these corporations ought to be frightened about this or that piece?” However at one degree, they provide an open source-capable platform that’s possibly interchangeable. At one other, they provide a client service that’s branded.
I take advantage of ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, You.com, which I’ve an funding in. There’s one other one known as Anthropic that Salesforce has an funding in, their product known as Claude. After which we make a few of them accessible inside our product Slack [which Salesforce acquired from Microsoft in 2021]. However you don’t even know which one now we have there. We simply choose the one which’s finest for us and our clients.
The mannequin will more and more be a commodity. They’re all principally doing the identical factor. I’m positive an neutral observer would agree with that. They usually’re following one another inside six months. The businesses are nice. I’m thrilled they’re doing the work, and it’s an accelerant on AI. However the final accelerant is that the overwhelming majority of the work has been in open supply.
SM: Now, your first job after graduating was for Larry Ellison, Oracle. He turned kind of a mentor to you over a few a long time. He’s made a giant wager on Sam Altman and OpenAI alongside [Masayoshi] Son of SoftBank. Are you in touch? Do you continue to chat about AI and enterprise? And what do you make of this Stargate partnership to spend half a trillion {dollars} on knowledge centres within the subsequent three to 4 years?
MB: An enormous mentor for me, Larry Ellison. Unimaginable individual. I began my very own software program firm in highschool. Then, I labored at Apple. I wrote among the first meeting language natively on the Macintosh in 1984. After which in 1986, I went to work for Oracle for 13 years. He had a big impact on my life and taught me all types of wonderful issues that I nonetheless use.
We talked about Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He lives proper there, within the coronary heart of all the things that’s occurring. It’s fairly superb. I’m simply shocked. He’s 80 years outdated, and he’s as revolutionary and as pioneering as I’ve ever seen. And also you’re proper, he simply introduced this new Stargate knowledge centre, the place he’s going to assist Sam Altman separate from Microsoft, and supply him the expertise platform and the info centre platform.
That concept that he discovered this firm, Crusoe, who was constructing this knowledge centre in Abilene, Texas, after which helped, along with his buddy Masa Son who runs SoftBank in Japan, to place collectively the $500bn in a partnership with OpenAI. Nobody noticed that coming. And it was a White Home announcement. It was a shocking factor. Solely Larry Ellison may have pulled it off. I’m as huge a fan and admirer of his as ever.
SM: Do you suppose there’s an inherent danger? You had been early in saying there’s some huge cash and energy going into these knowledge centres. However we additionally see analyst reviews each week saying Microsoft, Amazon, Google are pulling again on this and that knowledge centre. There does appear to be a softening and actual concern about overspending.
MB: We talked about this in Davos. It’s all performed out, identical to we thought it was going to, which is the fashions are commodities. They’re going to be relegated to sure client providers. Enterprises are going to have their choose of the litter by way of selecting what’s finest for them. It’s going to get dropped down into this line of enterprise resolution.
Our job at Salesforce is to make these options, not simply assist them choose the correct expertise however to future-proof them. They’re selecting our merchandise and platform so that they don’t need to make that mannequin determination. They’re going to have the ability to select what mannequin they need over time and alter it in the event that they run it on the Salesforce platform.
That’s the center of how Agentforce is constructed. I’ve put my philosophy into my expertise as properly, in order that my clients received’t get burned as winners and losers are chosen by the market over time.
This transcript has been edited for brevity and readability