Trailblazer

by Marc Benioff

  My grandfather’s futuristic vision for BART wasn’t just about shiny fast trains. He didn’t believe in building impressive things just for the sake of building impressive things. His vision was also guided by the way he defined progress. In his mind, no civic project really mattered unless it also furthered what he saw as San Francisco’s bedrock values: opportunity, equality, and inclusion.

  By enabling the city’s residents to travel quickly and inexpensively between downtown and the suburbs, he knew BART would give them access to better jobs and more opportunities for life enrichment. He also knew it would reduce the growing congestion on the bridges spanning the Bay and mitigate the environmental problems this traffic caused.

  My grandfather’s commitment to opportunity for all wasn’t an affectation. During our walking tours, we sometimes came across a homeless person on Market Street. He’d pull out his wallet and hand over a $20 bill, a considerable sum to give a stranger back then. To him, BART was an extension of the same altruism. He thought the city owed it to its citizens to invest in ambitious infrastructure projects, provided they served the common good.

  My father’s influence on Salesforce was foundational, but it was mostly quiet, pragmatic, and compassionate, much like the man himself. Grandpa’s contribution, on the other hand, was loud, ambitious, spiritual, and altogether impossible to ignore.

  On the day we signed the incorporation papers, I knew that the measure of my success as a CEO—and, in truth, as a person—would be the extent to which every future employee found meaning in his or her work. If my father’s example had taught me anything, it was that meaning isn’t about what kind of work you do or how much money you make. It’s grounded in a mindset in which your work, and the integrity with which you perform it, really matters.

  That’s when I made it my top priority to create the kind of culture where people felt that what they did when they arrived at the office every day truly mattered, that they were consistently contributing to something other than just the company’s bottom line with their efforts. By incorporating volunteerism and giving back at the start, we could build a culture with meaning.

  So I decided that no matter how much Salesforce grew, it would donate 1 percent of its product, 1 percent of its equity, and 1 percent of its employees’ time to help nonprofits and charities. There’s no doubt in my mind that this decision was inspired, at least in part, by my grandfather’s view that progress is supposed to lift people up.

  We wrote down our first set of values upon the founding of Salesforce in the spring of 1999. Even as a tiny start-up, we had a grand vision to create a world-class Internet company and leader in sales force automation. Achieving this would demand more than simply hiring good people and shipping a functional product. Our success would rest upon our ability to build a culture that adhered to our values.

  The great miscalculation of the age is the idea that businesses have to make a choice: to become profitable, or to become platforms for change. This is not the case. According to a 2018 Global Strategy Group study, 81 percent of Americans agree that “corporations should take action to address important issues facing society,” and 76 percent agreed that corporations should “stand up for what they believe politically regardless of whether or not it is controversial.” And these numbers have been rising steadily, and will continue to rise in lockstep with the complexity of the world in which we live.

  Salesforce has done well by any measure, but it’s also done good. As I write this, two decades later, our 1-1-1 corporate philanthropy program has already generated nearly $300 million in grants and 4 million hours of employee volunteer time. More than forty thousand nonprofits and nongovernmental entities (NGOs) use Salesforce’s products for free or for a steep discount. I’ve always seen this as a tribute to my grandfather, and part of what makes our company different from most.

  But it wasn’t until a few years ago that the degree to which Salesforce truly is a distillation of my grandfather’s legacy came into focus. More than anyone else I’ve ever known, he embodied a pioneer spirit. He had a vision for how a better world might look and the personal conviction to pursue it. Conceiving of BART, and putting together the financing to make that vision a reality, wasn’t the work of a pragmatist. It was a triumph of imagination guided by values.

  Imagination Guided by Values

  I realize that the personal stories I’ve shared here might give you the wrong impression about this book. It’s not intended to be a memoir, or some exercise in hagiography.

  At the same time, companies are ultimately defined by people, and those people either choose to absorb the lessons of their teachers and mentors or actively work against them. As Salesforce’s founder and co-CEO, I can’t expect you to evaluate what I think about the future of business unless you understand where I’m coming from. The ideas I want to share in these pages won’t stick if they sound like empty platitudes.

  Maybe you saw some similarities between my upbringing and yours, or perhaps none whatsoever. In either case, that’s okay. I think we can all agree that there are thousands of paths to the same destination. My hope is that you will find something useful in the lessons I absorbed from my earliest and most formative business mentors: my dad, who gave me an unvarnished look at the small, ceaseless operational challenges and pain points of small-business owners and showed me the value of honesty, trust, and putting employees and customers first, and my grandpa, who taught me to think about the world in expansive terms. From him I learned that you can’t live your beliefs to the fullest unless you develop the imagination and the confidence to express them in bold, meaningful ways.

  These weren’t my only mentors, of course, and you’ll read about others throughout the book. But it would be impossible to introduce the concept of mentorship without telling you about the strong women I’ve been fortunate to have in my family—and from whom I’ve learned different but important life lessons. My paternal grandmother, Helen Benioff, showed me the meaning of dogged determination; after her husband took all the family’s money and left her with their two young sons, she seized control of the family fur business and became a successful woman proprietor, a rare feat at the time. My maternal grandmother, Frederica Lewis, made sure I learned the value of patience and hard work, as she drove me to odd jobs so I could earn enough money to buy my first computer at Radio Shack (and then wrote the music for my Atari games). My mother, Joelle Benioff, taught me that nothing is more valuable than a parent’s love and encouragement when few others believe in you, and she is and always has been my biggest supporter.

  My wife, Lynne, is my ultimate inspiration, my partner in all things, and the core of our family. When I come home, she often tells me: “Get down from your soapbox and let’s talk about what’s really important here.” We discuss the urgency of what needs to be done, from helping to eradicate San Francisco’s homeless crisis and getting families off the streets, to improving healthcare for children by building world-class hospitals in the Bay Area, to protecting the planet’s oceans from pollution. It’s impossible to overstate how much wisdom there is to be gleaned from the people closest to us about the things that truly matter.

  Today, more than ever, we need to be seeking out as much wisdom as we can. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has advanced our knowledge and unleashed new transformative capabilities. It’s also brought us to an urgent moment in history as we confront the challenges of increasing inequality and growing concern for our planet. The Fifth Industrial Revolution will demand a fundamental change to the nature of business, and our roles in it, to address the global challenges ahead and improve the state of our world.

  Whether you manage thousands of employees, lead a small team, or have just draped an ID badge around your neck for the first time, it’s important to stop thinking like a passenger along for the ride. You must set aside the fear of the unfamiliar, use your values as a compass, and start blazing
a new trail.

  It’s time we all developed a passion for progress, and the imagination to realize it.

  A better future depends on us.

  TWO

  VALUES

  What You Do Matters

  I was in a car crawling through the fog on Interstate 280 toward San Francisco when the call lit up my phone. I glanced at the screen to check the number.

  I recognized the Indianapolis area code immediately.

  I’d just spent a couple of hours giving a talk at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View and I’d been looking forward to having a little time on the road to decompress, maybe even let my mind wander a bit. Those plans were instantly abandoned. I knew I had to pick up.

  The caller, Scott McCorkle, wasn’t one to ring me at the end of a workday for a chat. As the head of Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud division, Scott oversaw twelve hundred people in Indianapolis, our largest hub outside San Francisco.

  Scott had been dealing with a disturbing situation, and I assumed that he needed my input. As soon as I answered, I could tell from the ominous tone in his voice that I’d assumed correctly.

  “Look, Marc,” he said, “you don’t understand what’s happening here.”

  On that foggy March day in 2015, my executive team and I had been monitoring events in Indiana, where the state legislature had passed a bill called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. On its face, the bill would enable people of faith to resist unwelcome governmental infringements on their principles. In practice, however, we knew it was designed to give the state’s business owners legal cover to discriminate against LGBTQ customers if their religious views compelled them to do so.

  We’d sent a letter asking the governor to reject the bill. As one of the state’s largest tech employers, we thought that our strong opposition, combined with similar protests from Indiana-based businesses such as Cummins, Eli Lilly, and Roche Diagnostics, would ensure it never became law. Even so, we’d sent word to our employees in Indiana that if they felt threatened, Salesforce would move them to another office. I felt great relief that Cindy Robbins, our Head of Employee Success (Human Resources) at the time, was already on the case.

  Indiana was just one of several brushfires we’d been dealing with, and it hadn’t been at the top of my mind. In a matter of seconds, that changed. Scott had called to deliver the worst possible news: Indiana governor Mike Pence had decided to sign the legislation.

  “This is just not right,” Scott said. “It’s discrimination. Our employees are afraid.”

  I agreed with Scott completely and thanked him for calling to let me know. But he wasn’t just reaching out to keep me updated. He’d called to pose a question that caught me completely off guard:

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  In 2015, I thought I was doing a fine job running Salesforce. After sixteen years of hard work, we were the clear global leader in CRM, with annual revenues approaching $10 billion. We’d become one of the world’s top software providers and had recently expanded our product line. By every possible standard, Salesforce was a roaring success. Beyond that, I was proud of the positive, purposeful culture we’d built around our three founding values: trust, customer success, and innovation.

  So I’ll admit it. Riding up the highway, I thought I was standing on pretty firm moral ground. I’d grown so contented with the state of things that before Scott punched in my number, the thought of doubling down in Indiana hadn’t crossed my mind.

  I told Scott I would have to call him back.

  All at once, the doubts poured in. I knew this law was terribly wrong. But I also knew that as a native San Franciscan, I took the notion of tolerance for granted and couldn’t fully comprehend the forces behind this initiative. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure how Salesforce, or any company, ought to handle an act of government that expressly discriminated against its LGBTQ employees. After all, I was the CEO of a tech company, not a politician. It’s always been the government’s job to keep businesses in check, not the other way around.

  The employee emails and phone calls started trickling in from every corner of the company and soon picked up steam. Our people weren’t just encouraging their CEO to do something bold to fight this law, they were demanding it. Just when I thought I had the world figured out, I found myself alone in unfamiliar territory.

  I’d grown accustomed to taking on industry competitors like Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP, but fighting a state’s legislature and governor was another story. I am a staunch believer in the democratic process, and in this case the voters, through their elected officials, had spoken.

  At the same time, I knew there was something larger at stake. How we responded would say a lot about the kind of company Salesforce had become. Our employees in Indiana were telling me they feared living and working in a state that allowed discrimination and it was my job to protect and reassure them.

  It might surprise some readers to learn that when it comes to politics, I was at one time a Republican, but now I’m an independent. I’ve given advice to both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. I personally held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, but I had no problem coming to the Trump White House in my capacity as a business leader to talk about workforce development and technology training programs. Salesforce is not a political organization and our values don’t come with party affiliations.

  As I stared out the car window, I could see the outlines of landmarks along 280, so familiar I could see them in my sleep. But in my mind, I felt I was wandering the remote Himalayas.

  I thought about my grandfather Marvin Lewis, who had taught me that progress and principle were only effective when served together. We were going to have to let our values guide us.

  I knew that what I was about to do was not a well-thought-out corporate strategy. It would be seen as a major escalation of what was quickly becoming a national controversy. There would be a backlash. Some people, even those I respected, would surely question whether it made sense for me to get embroiled in a political battle.

  Nevertheless, I took out my phone and opened the Twitter app. I typed out a statement of 134 characters: “We are forced to dramatically reduce our investment in IN based on our employees’ & customers’ outrage over the Religious Freedom Bill.”

  I posted the tweet, and entered the fray.

  In the otherwise silent cabin of my car, I could feel my heart thumping. I’d meant every word I’d written, of course, but I was just one person and Salesforce was just one company. I knew I’d have to be prepared to stand behind my not-so-thinly-veiled threat.

  Okay, I asked myself, what next?

  * * *

  Within twenty-four hours, I was relieved to discover that I wouldn’t be traveling this road alone, as statements similar to mine began to reverberate across the Twittersphere (although not yet from other business leaders). “We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees,” the NCAA, the nonprofit college student-athlete association based in Indianapolis, said in a statement. Even Greg Ballard, the Republican mayor of Indianapolis, responded to the news by saying that his city “strives to be a welcoming place that attracts businesses, conventions, visitors and residents. We are a diverse city, and I want everyone who visits and lives in Indy to feel comfortable here.”

  Shortly thereafter, Salesforce’s general counsel, Amy Weaver, and our government affairs head, Jim Green, activated a team to liaise with like-minded corporations, the state government, community groups, and LGBTQ advocacy groups who wanted the law repealed or amended. They flew to Indianapolis and camped out near the Chamber of Commerce, which had become ground zero for outside advocacy groups.

  If I was serious about sending a message about our values as a company, I knew I couldn’t delegate this effort. So I began holding videoconferences with our employees and custom
ers. I reached out to friends; I emailed dozens of CEOs and lobbied others over dinner to join me in speaking out.

  While I’d kicked open the door, many more people needed to enter it, and convincing them to do so wasn’t easy. Although they had powerful platforms, many CEOs in 2015 were loath to wade into social issues, especially those with political undertones. Some of them never got back to me. Others chastised me for putting my own values ahead of shareholder value, and one person warned that my challenge to Indiana would put “a target on my back.” Even my longtime mentor, the former U.S. secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell, warned me that my advocacy might subject the company to unwanted scrutiny. “Be careful how far you climb up the tree,” he told me, “because it will expose your backside.” I began to worry that I’d opened myself, and the company, up to a slew of undesirable consequences.

  I’ll admit, I was starting to feel a bit discouraged. Then I remembered the recent events in Arkansas, where Walmart, which is headquartered in the state, and Acxiom, a company with seventeen hundred employees based there, had denounced a similar bill. Their opposition had helped prompt Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson to urge state lawmakers to make changes, which they did.

  I told the media that Governor Pence had been advocating for Salesforce to expand and invest in Indiana, but that this was something we simply couldn’t do as long as the state permitted discrimination. We announced that we planned to move an annual customer event in Indianapolis to New York, sending its ten thousand participants and $8 million in spending out of the state.

  In the days that followed, some politicians called me a “corporate bully” bent on using economic blackmail to disrupt the democratic process. Several shareholders and customers told us they were selling our stock or ditching our software.