Nonstop Benioff
Forbes|September 13,2016

In an age that celebrates manic entrepreneurs, none is more frenetic than the Salesforce founder, whom we consistently rate as America’s most innovative CEO. Come along for a wild ride with Marc Benioff as he tries to turn hyperactivity into a new model for tech growth and corporate activism.

Alex Konrad
Nonstop Benioff

Salesforce cofounder Marc Benioff spends several months a year in Hawaii, where he owns a sweeping beachfront house on the Big Island and pals around with billionaire Michael Dell and aging rock star Neil Young. Little surprise, then, that for a retreat with 400 of his top executives in August he has summoned them to an air-conditioned ballroom near the white sands and volcanic cliffs down the shore.

In this expected venue an unexpected scene plays out: Benioff, his massive 6-foot- 5 build wrapped in a white Hawaiian shirt patterned with blue palm trees, his head topped with a Mauna Kea baseball cap, begins speaking to his cofounder in German.

“Ja, ja, ja,” Benioff grins. 

Two months hence, at Salesforce’s gargantuan Dream force conference, which draws 170,000 people to San Francisco, Benioff will unveil the product he claims will steer the company to a new decade of growth. Its name: Salesforce Einstein, which explains the schmaltzy German—and the extravagant predictions. “If this is not the next big thing, I don’t know what is,” says the CEO of the world’s fourth-biggest enterprise software company.

Einstein, whose details are being revealed here for the first time, explains a lot of things. Why Benioff spent $390 million two years ago to acquire a hotshot young lieutenant, 35-year-old Steve Loughlin, and his responsive e-mail and calendar product, and why Salesforce has gobbled up at least half a dozen artificial intelligence startups in the months since. Why the CEO of one of those acquisitions, MetaMind’s Richard Socher, a longtime Stanford academic specializing in AI, will now build the company’s first-ever pure research lab. And why after 17 years running Salesforce, Benioff can still get excited about his own products like a kid who’s found a new toy.

This story is from the September 13,2016 edition of Forbes.

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This story is from the September 13,2016 edition of Forbes.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.