Marc Benioff Quotes

The world is being re-shaped by the convergence of social, mobile, cloud, big data, community and other powerful forces. The combination of these technologies unlocks an incredible opportunity to connect everything together in a new way and is dramatically transforming the way we live and work.

The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.

I don't look at business as a zero-sum game. I don't. I've never seen it play out that way in our industry, and I think you innovate and you add value, deliver value back to customers, and you get value back from the world.

You need to get to the future, ahead of your customers, and be ready to greet them when they arrive.

There is no finish line when it comes to system reliability and availability, and our efforts to improve performance never cease.

The only constant in the technology industry is change.

Most of all, I discovered that in order to succeed with a product, you must truly get to know your customers and build something for them.

Once you know what you want and what is important for you to achieve, also define the values associated with it. What is important? That is something a lot of entrepreneurs pass by too quickly. For us, the things that were important were, No. 1, customer success. Nothing is more important to us than making sure every customer is successful in our service.

You must always be able to predict what's next and then have the flexibility to evolve.

You have chosen the wrong path if it's not fun. And you are probably not taking enough risk if it's not hard and rocky sometimes.

If there wasn't any competition, I'd be very worried, because it would mean we were not doing very well.

I think a critical part of being successful in our industry is having a beginner's mind

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.

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.

Presentation skills are key. People who work for you represent your brand. You want them to present themselves - and represent you - in a certain way.

I know Donald Trump quite well. We've never shared values, he and I. But I respected his ability to turn it around. So I respect somebody who can turn things around and be successful. I think the president's communication style is the most difficult thing because he actually does care, people who know him know he cares. But his style of communication, his combative approach, the elements of ego that are obviously there in all of us but seem to be more easy to see in the president sometimes than other people, get in the way of his capacity to lead, unfortunately.

As we talk about devices, you should never forget that behind every one there is a person - a customer. It“s not the Internet of Things, but the Internet of People - of customers. We are moving to one-to-one relationships.

I always tell people: Life is the dance between what you desire most and what you fear most. You've got to be able to deal with the threshold of control.

All this green stuff is great, it's great we don't have plastic bottles or plastic bags and all of that, but how about some great schools?

Life grows relative to one’s investment in it.

The future of communicating with customers rests in engaging with them through every possible channel: phone, e-mail, chat, Web, and social networks. Customers are discussing a company's products and brand in real time. Companies need to join the conversation.

You don't want to be the only car company. When you're the only car company and there's no competition, customers may not know what a car is, the roads may not be developed for cars, there may not be gas stations everywhere.

Our focus was directed at developing the best possible and easiest to use product, and this is where we invested our time. Realize that you won't be able to bring the same focus to everything in the beginning. There won't be enough people or enough hours in the day. So, focus on the 20 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference.

This is what our customers are asking for to take them to the next level and free them from the bondage of mainframe and client-server software.

The elites - or managers in companies - no longer control the conversation. This is how insurrections start.

Philanthropy isn't just about big gifts; it's about participation. It is about the grace that comes from working together.

Staying relevant is key. When you're telling your story, you better have a modern story to tell. If I was still saying the same story I was saying 10 years ago, it would not be that interesting.

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.

Business requires an unbelievable level of resilience inside you, the chokehold on the growth of your business is always the leader, it's always your psychology and your skills - 80% psychology, 20% skills. If you don't have the marketing skills, if you don't have the financial-intelligence skills, if you don't have the recruiting skills, it's really hard for you to lead somebody else if you don't have fundamentally those skills. And so my life is about teaching those skills and helping people change the psychology so that they live out of what's possible, instead of out of their fear.

The real joy in life comes from giving. It comes from service. It comes from doing things for other people. That is what is so powerful about this. Nothing will make you happier than giving.

In school all I wanted to do was build technology. That's what I loved.

I love software and I love technology.

When I explain our company values and the foundation to prospective employees, they realize that they have an opportunity to do much more than change the way businesses manage and share information. When you take a workforce of smart, creative, dedicated people and say "take this company time to serve your community, and bring along your coworkers, customers, and partners" great things happen.

I just cannot understand why we can't have better schools. That private schools are the only option for the kind of high-net-worth crowd, I think, is ridiculous. It should be a major initiative. It should be something we're all working on. We have to get our head out of the clouds.

Multi-Tenancy is a requirement for a SaaS vendor to be successful

We believe in the art of war. We are trying to get our competition to attack us with angry, virulent energy, so we can transform that into larger market share.

90% of the world's data was created in the last two years

I believe a balanced life is essential, and I try to make sure that all of our employees know that and live that way. It's crucial to me as a manager that I help ensure that our employees are as successful as our customers and partners.

The cloud services companies of all sizes; the cloud is for everyone. The cloud is a democracy.

In business, we say that people overestimate what you can do in a year and underestimate what you can do in a decade. This is true in philanthropy as well.

Customers want new functionality, but they don't want the traditional complexity that has marred products in the past.

You need to have a beginner's mind to create bold innovation.

Don't forget to do something for other people.

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.

When I look out from my own business career, I tried to learn from some of the best people, regardless of the industry.

I also think that employees these days expect less of a separation of work and personal life. That doesn't mean that work tasks should encroach upon our personal time, but it does mean that employees today expect more from the companies for whom they work. Why shouldn't your workplace reflect your values? Why is "giving back" not a part of our jobs? The answer for us is to integrate philanthropy with work.

I've worked with a variety of presidents over the years on both sides of the aisle and congressmen and senators, so I'm not into trying to demonize anybody. It used to be that people would fight like hell on the floor of the house and they'd go have a beer together. Now it's like you're radioactive if you talk to the other side, which keeps us from getting anything done. I'm an independent personally, and I vote for who I believe will make the biggest difference.

You never want to be completely alone at what you do. Competition is good for everyone.

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.