Marc Benioff: The Future of San Francisco and What He Would Do if in Charge | E1064

1. 0:00 – 2:13

   Artificial Intelligence

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:00

      So, Mark, I have been looking forward to this one for a long, long time. First, thank you so much for joining me today.

   2. MBMarc Benioff0:06

      It's always great to see you, Harry. Thanks for having me on your show.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:10

      Not at all. I'm very much looking forward to this. I wanna start, we had Dreamforce last week. I wanna start with a broad question, but tell me about your vision for AI. How do you see AI moving forward from here, from this point forward?

   4. MBMarc Benioff0:23

      Well, I mean, we're going through an unbelievably great and exciting time for AI, and I have to be honest with you. I thought this moment was gonna happen about 10 years ago. I had a bit of an existential freakout myself at that moment, and ended up making a lot of major investments for Salesforce in AI, building our teams, uh, acquiring a number of exciting companies, and then we, um, built our Einstein platform. And that's kinda how we became the number one enterprise AI today. We're moving obviously, and everyone knows, the new version of AI, which is b- beyond predictive into, into generative. And then we've got another big wave coming very, very close, which is gonna be autonomous and agents. And then of course, we'll get to AGI. And I think that these four waves are all happening in a way simultaneously, um, in a way that I think far exceed my expectations.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings1:17

      When you sit in the Salesforce boardroom, what are the reasons that Salesforce wouldn't win the next five to 10 years for AI? What are the hurdles you have to overcome?

   6. MBMarc Benioff1:26

      Well, we are in a remarkably good position, number one, because we're in San Francisco, which is the number one AI city in the world. That's where all the talent is and all the great startups and companies. And it gives us a leg up on the ability to invest in these companies, but also to tap into the universities like Berkeley and Stanford, which have had such huge impacts on the AI world. So, I think the other great thing about Salesforce is the nature of our product is that we command a lot of data. So, we don't look at our customer's data, but we've built our AI... in fact, we were really the first AI that was built where it was able to operate on the data without us, uh, seeing the data. And that's really the magic of Einstein, is that Einstein operates with a complete trust layer.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings2:12

      Many people

2. 2:13 – 5:58

   San Francisco

   1. HSHarry Stebbings2:13

      suggested that, you know, you mentioned SF being the center there. Many people suggested that you're in Hawaii. How do you respond to them? Is that fair? Is that not fair? Are they missing something?

   2. MBMarc Benioff2:26

      Um, I've always lived half and half, back and forth. I've just loved both places and I'm fortunate that I can go back and forth. It's a short flight. Last week, you know, I was in San Francisco all week. This week I'm in Hawaii. Next week I'll be back in San Francisco. And so it goes. Usually I'm with customers, that's my number one place where I'm living. You know, people who say something like that, maybe they look at my life as being kind of how they operate their life, but my life is not static. It's a quite a dynamic, uh, moment and every... I'm constantly on, on the move.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings3:01

      Uh, absolutely. (laughs) Uh, I'm sure you are. Uh, you mentioned SF being at the center there. Can I ask you, you know, you've tweeted also about kind of SF, uh, real estate and how the demand for it is going significantly up with especially the rise of AI startups demanding more office space. If you're in charge of San Francisco today, what would you do?

   4. MBMarc Benioff3:19

      You know, the thing that I've noticed, um, especially on social media about San Francisco is that there's a, and this has always been true about San Francisco, is that there tends to be a bit of a political group who is trying to jockey for a certain level of power in the city. And by doing that, they kind of position San Francisco in a certain way, which is not true. If you look at any of the interviews that I did, like with Matthew McConaughey or with Gavin Newsom or with Sam Altman, you'll see I asked the audience constantly, "How many of you are seeing a totally clean San Francisco?" You'll see all the hands going up. On independent press interviews that are done, you'll see reporters asking that to people walking around the city. Part of that is there's this whole thing that they've created, this concept of this, uh, doom loop narrative. And the doom loop narrative, which is that there's like this, um, doom loop going on. And Harry, you and I should come into San Francisco and walk around, and I assure you, you will not say that it is a doom loop. And in fact, to that point, uh, real estate is on fire. We just subleased a quarter million square feet of space in one of our buildings, the former Slack headquarters, to a company that didn't exist a year ago. And, uh, I think that San Francisco real estate will shortly be, uh, sold out again because of the huge amount of startups that are happening in San Francisco, but because of this kind of political, uh, group that has, like, trying to commandeer social media for a lot of different reasons. To eliminate taxes, to this, to that. They aren't even San Franciscans, by the way, and we can go into that. Why that is true? I'm not sure. But it's always been true in San Francisco that you end up with a group of people like this.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings5:05

      So, what would you do if you were in charge a- as it remains? Like...

   6. MBMarc Benioff5:09

      I have a 10-point plan I could walk you through.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings5:12

      (laughs)

   8. MBMarc Benioff5:13

      Um, or I'll send it to you, Harry. It'll be much easier. And it goes through in detail exactly what I would do, and it's something that I evangelize with all these folks. We, we must enforce our laws. I don't think it's a lot to ask. We have to fund our police force. The... We have a great police force in San Francisco, but from the time that Gavin Newsom was mayor to today, we've gone from a little over 2,000 cops on the streets in San Francisco now to about 1,400. That's completely unacceptable and we need to now expand our police force. It's the most beautiful city in the world, and the safest, and the cleanest, and we have the statistics to prove it, but sometimes it doesn't deliver the goods every single day. And it's kind of a funny thing about San Francisco, but it's also one re- reason I love it so much.

3. 5:58 – 7:57

   Matthew McConaughey

   1. HSHarry Stebbings5:58

      You mentioned Matthew McConaughey there. I- uh, people don't know this, I run every single day and I listen to his commencement speech on the 13 truths. I find it actually centers me. Fuck meditation, that's what I need. And he says one thing, he says ... Well, he says many things, but he says, "Life is not easy. Most things are more rewarding when you have to break a sweat to get them." And I was listening to this and I was like, "I wonder what Mark would say to that when I ask him, 'When you reflect on the immense success of Salesforce, what comes to your mind when you think about breaking a sweat to get it?'"

   2. MBMarc Benioff6:30

      Well, he's one of my closest friends and we spend a huge amount of time together. And I'll just tell you that, you know, what he says is, "Don't half-ass it." And that really comes from his dad, you know, and his mom I know very well. This family is a family of people no ... Who, they, they get it done, you know? That's why I think he'd be a very good ... A mayor or governor, or even a president, because he's a get-it-done person. When he was working on his book, he's like, "Oh, I'm gonna write a top book." I said, "Matthew, you're gonna write the number one book." And then he became the number one book. He, like, completely goes for it, and it's incredible how he lives his life. He's an amazing person. He's a father, he's a son, um, he is a CEO, he is a philanthropist, he is an actor, he is a writer, he is a song and dance man. When it gets right down to it, he's an incredible person in all these things because he believes that he can do all these things, he will do all these things, that he must do all these things, and he does, and it's a incredible thing to watch. I've never really met anybody like him in my life.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings7:31

      When you think about the Salesforce journey, what was the thing you had to break a sweat for, and how did that feel?

   4. MBMarc Benioff7:38

      You know, inspired by people like Matthew, I feel like I need to continue to work harder, do more, go plow more places. Obviously if Dreamforce is gonna be a success wh- like it was last week, I'm gonna have to be there and, uh, be a huge participant. And that's true in a lot of things that I do all over the world. So, you gotta go there and make it happen.

4. 7:57 – 9:28

   Inevitability of Success

   1. MBMarc Benioff7:57

   2. HSHarry Stebbings7:57

      I have to ask, when you were young, did you always have an inevitability of success about you? Did you know that you would be successful?

   3. MBMarc Benioff8:04

      I don't look at it as success, so maybe that's part of it. You know, when I was young ... And yeah, I worked very closely with my partner from my high school software company as one of our primary engineering leaders and architects, uh, Steve Fisher. And when we started our software company in high school, we were both about 14, 15 years old, and we were writing software on, uh, Atari 800 and Commodore 64 and Apple II. And it was an amazing time because nobody knew what we were doing. We were building these, uh, entertainment software products and different titles and cartridges and some of it you can find now on YouTube, people recorded all the software. It's ama- it's amazing. The thing that's cool about all that is that, you know, when we were doing all that, we were just entering the software industry. We're just doing it 'cause we love software. That's what I love. I love talking about seeing software evolve, go forward. We talked about AI, and also the other thing that I love, philanthropy and giving back. And giving back to San Francisco, you know, we're the ... Salesforce is the largest philanthropist in San Francisco. We've given more than $100 million to the public schools, more than $100 million to the public hospitals. That's abo- a lot about giving back. Not, not to mention all, a lot of other NGOs and nonprofits in the city and all of the incredible mentoring and tutoring and volunteerism our employees do. Those are the two things that I love, I guess, software and philanthropy. And that's the yin and yang of my life that go back and forth that I

5. 9:28 – 14:21

   Marc’s Decision-Making Process

   1. MBMarc Benioff9:28

      do every day.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings9:28

      I just have to ask, when you think about the array of different options you always have at your disposal, you mentioned the different frontiers of AI, the different ways you can spend your time. How do you analyze your decision-making framework today, and has it changed over time?

   3. MBMarc Benioff9:41

      How old are you now, Harry?

   4. HSHarry Stebbings9:43

      27.

   5. MBMarc Benioff9:44

      27. So when I was 27 at Oracle, I was already a vice president. I was actually just become about a senior vice president, and I was inexperienced and I didn't have a lot of leadership skills. And I was working for an incredible CEO, Larry Ellison. He was awesome. And what I learned rapidly was I needed more skills, more capabilities. So I started to do a lot of personal development. There was no leadership training at Oracle. Oracle's leadership training was trial by fire. I was, uh, lucky to be able to hold my own because I was a, a, you know, an engineer, but I also had a business background, a sales background, a marketing background. So I started taking a lot of, uh, courses and a lot of personal development courses. And I'd be working at Oracle and it w- it w- ... It would not be a shock to find me in a Tony Robbins seminar, a Stephen Covey seminar, Deepak Chopra seminar. All of a sudden, I had this breakthrough thought, which was, there were five questions that I needed to answer before I started any project. Because I am an ADHD person, maybe one of the first (laughs) that I knew, it was hard for me to focus and get around a certain project. I wasn't ready to take any of the ADHD meds, so I came up with something else. The something else was called V2OM. It was five questions that let me really focus on my company, myself, a product, a customer. And the first thing I do before I do anything is number one, I say, "What do I really want?" You know, like we just had Dreamforce. I wanna have the biggest and best Dreamforce ever. And as part of that, I want a totally safe San Francisco. I wanna release Salesforce's incredible new AI product lines. Number one is we want to have the number one AI CRM. Nothing is more important than that right now for Salesforce. Number two is we do wanna have the best Dreamforce ever. And number three is we wanna have an incredible San Francisco. So, let's get clear about our vision. Now, what's the most important value associated with those three things? It's gotta be trust. Customers are coming to San Francisco. They wanna learn about our new Einstein 1 platform, which is our amazing new AI platform that has not just our core applications, but our Einstein and our new data cloud all integrated as one metadata platform. That's critical for us. There's nothing more important than that.... they're gonna have to trust it, they're gonna have to find the success in that, they're gonna have to find the innovation in that. But they're also gonna have to find the safety of being in San Francisco as well. If they don't have safety or they don't feel safe on the streets, we can't do Dreamforce, we're not gonna be able to communicate all these things. So, we need to get clear about what are our core values that are really gonna guide Dreamforce last week. Trust, safety, innovation, customer success. Oh, by the way, it was the most sustainable Dreamforce ever. Sustainability, equality, to make sure everyone is treated well. We've learned a lot in doing, you know, more than 20 Dreamforces, about how we have to deal with every stakeholder group. So, what do I want? What's important about it? How do I get it? What is preventing me from having it? And how will I know that I have it? And those five questions really are guiding me. Uh, that's my V2MIM process.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings12:59

      You mentioned that priorities, uh, takes me to Matthew McConaughey's talk where he talks about kind of the different checks and balances in his life. Where he has work, he has his marriage, he has, you know, being a good father, being a good friend, and you know, his career. Can you take me to a time when your priorities have been out of whack and missed something's gone wrong there, and what you've learned from it?

   7. MBMarc Benioff13:19

      Well, my priorities are constantly out of whack. (laughs)

   8. HSHarry Stebbings13:23

      (laughs)

   9. MBMarc Benioff13:23

      So, you know, my priorities are like my spiri- spiritual health and well-being, my physical health, my family, my friends, my business, my ability to give back. It's a dance, you know, when you have a dynamic life, I think it's a dance because different things are coming at you. It's the constant battle between the urgent and the important. In 1992, I started to really to take meditation classes and work with people. That also has really kept me, you know, going down the straight and narrow and keep my head in the game, and also to really constantly consider the questions that you're asking me. What, what is important and what do I really want and what is the prioritization and is it in balance or is it out of balance? That's been an incredible part of my life. I'm so happy to have that as well.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings14:09

       You mentioned values. Uh, I know (laughs) a fanboy, clearly. Uh, Matthew McConaughey says, "We financialized our values in society so much," in his speech. I'm literally, like I know it for word for word after about 4,000 runs.

6. 14:21 – 16:15

   Marc’s Relationship with Money

   1. HSHarry Stebbings14:21

      But my question to you is, Mark, and I hope it's not too personal, how do you reflect on your relationship to money today? And does money make one happy?

   2. MBMarc Benioff14:29

      Well, money's never gonna make you happy. And I guess that's one of the reasons that, uh, I'm so into philanthropy. I've given away more than a billion dollars to all kinds of organizations, mostly in San Francisco, mostly our university, mostly UCSF. I've built two children's hospitals. I built an, an ocean program. I've done all kinds of things. Wherever I go or where I live, I make sure that I'm always giving back at scale to the community. Personally, I feel that to who much is given, much is, you know, required. I wanna build a great company, but I also want to give back. Now, I want to tell you why that's selfish, because it gets to your point. I'm not gonna be happy unless I'm giving.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings15:06

      I've interviewed, uh, maybe 50 billionaires. The single biggest challenge that they have is how do you bring up children with the same tenacity, hunger, work ethic when brought up in very different financial environments? The university across the board, I, I actually analyzed it before this, 48 out of 50 said that was their (laughs) biggest challenge. How would you say you do it? How do you bring children up to have that same hunger and tenacity in very different financial environments?

   4. MBMarc Benioff15:31

      Matthew McConaughey probably has, uh, said it best in his books, which is, you know, you have to pay attention to are you spending time as a parent? Are you spending time, I'll say as a son, my mother also is still alive. So, you know, in many ways I'm also still very much her child and saw her last week, she was in San Francisco. People come to Dreamforce, see her, she's in all of my programs. It's probably a better question for her. You know, she's obviously still working on me. Fortunately, this, some of these questions about happiness aren't things that I have to wrestle with because I was able to cross those bridges so many decades ago.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings16:08

      If you could call yourself up the night before you had your first child and say, "Mark, you should know this," and give yourself some advice,

7. 16:15 – 16:56

   Marc’s Simple Exercise to Boost Happiness

   1. HSHarry Stebbings16:15

      what would that advice be?

   2. MBMarc Benioff16:16

      I think the number one thing that everyone needs to do is enjoy every moment. And I'll say to people the same thing and maybe it'll help you, "Tell me, what are 10 things that make you very happy? Now let's make a list of 10 things that make you not so happy. Now let's look at these two lists. How about doing a little bit more of what makes you happy and a little bit less of what makes you unhappy?" Everybody knows what makes them happy and what makes them unhappy. But I think they have to have the permission to do less unhappiness and more happiness. And I think then you will be obviously happier if you're doing things that are making you happy.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings16:52

      I'm going there, Mark. Fuck it. It's mi- it's v- very late in the UK, so why

8. 16:56 – 18:43

   Remote Work vs In-Person

   1. HSHarry Stebbings16:56

      not? Something that makes people happy for the millennial generation, maybe I'm gonna get in trouble for this, is working from home. My team wanna work from home, I want them in the office. I won. Uh, (laughs) my point is, how do you feel about the, what, what if it's work from home that makes you happy and how do we feel about the reversion back to work in office?

   2. MBMarc Benioff17:17

      Well, I think for different kind of workers it's different. And I think like start with our engineers. Our engineers only have to come in the office 10 days a quarter. You know, for our engineers, we want them to come together to collaborate and to hang out and to get to know each other, but they're very productive at home. I work mostly at home. I have for my entire life. I just have never been able to work well or be successful in an office. I can't tell you why. Today, I think there's a balance between working at home and working in person. I need to be with my customers all the time. Now that can be digital, like I was just with a customer before we had this conversation, and I'm in my Zoom room here and I'm like hanging out today. And, uh, it's a digital day. You know, last week I was with thousands of customers. And it has to be a balance of being in person and digital today. I think for everybody it has to be a little bit different. I think that for our sales and marketing people, we tell them that four days a week we want to see them, you know, in person.... with a customer. For our sales and for our marketing people and our GNA people, we like to see them in person three days a week. Obviously, I'm in an office right now. I'm not really at home. I have my chief of staff and other employees here working on various things. One of my futurists was just here. We're doing a variety of things. I think there's a lot of benefits to being at home. I think there's a lot of benefits to being in person, and I think there's a lot of benefits to being with customers. I think you have to do all those things.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings18:42

      I totally agree with

9. 18:43 – 29:37

   Quick-Fire Round

   1. HSHarry Stebbings18:43

      you. Um, listen, I wanna move into a quick fire round. So I say a short statement and you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

   2. MBMarc Benioff18:50

      Sure, absolutely. Harry, has anything been off, uh, subject so far?

   3. HSHarry Stebbings18:54

      Mark, I have to go through your team, and so I'm kind of like battling with a shield. (laughs)

   4. MBMarc Benioff18:57

      Harry, er, I told you everything's o- on, on the table, and, uh, you shouldn't listen to my team. That was never part of any deal we had.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings19:05

      What does great fatherhood mean to you?

   6. MBMarc Benioff19:06

      You know, I look at my mom and I look at my dad, and my dad was just one of the greatest people, and I just am so fortunate. He, he passed away when he was 83. That was about 11 years ago. Uh, he died of prostate cancer. It's one of the reasons that I fund a lar- one of the largest prostate cancer research programs in the world at UCSF. My mom also, you know, is a cancer survivor. She's had cancer four times: breast cancer twice, lung cancer, kidney cancer, oh, and skin cancer. That's one of the reasons why, you know, I fund, uh, oncology and breast cancer as well. I think about my dad. I think about the incredible life he had. That's my role model. So that, that's what great fatherhood is.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings19:47

      What is your biggest insecurity today?

   8. MBMarc Benioff19:49

      I guess trying to do it all. You know, I do try to get, as I kinda said before, Making It Happen, I've got that Matthew McConaughey motion where I'm trying to do it all, be in that every, bring that every, you know, every season, every man, The Renaissance. It's, it's not easy in trying to do it all. It's not always working, but, uh, sometimes it is. When it is, there's nothing better. So it's a lot about, like you said before, staying in balance and keeping things in the right priority.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings20:17

      What do you believe that few around you believe?

   10. MBMarc Benioff20:19

       I believe I'm hi- I'm guided and, you know, that I'm part of something much larger, whether it's the universe, whether it's God, whether it's something on a spiritual basis. I feel that, that, that remains an incredible part of my life. People in my life, like my father or my grandfather, my grandmother, who were incredibly spiritual people who had major impacts on my life. Spirituality remains a major part of everything I do. Last night before I went home, I did, you know, an hour meditation and prayer.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings20:50

       If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and why them?

   12. MBMarc Benioff20:55

       Abraham is like the centerpiece of this week. It's the start of th- the world, and I would say that that is someone who I would really like to have a long conversation with. I think that we need more, uh, understanding, uh, from him to kind of come back together and unify our divisions in the world, and, uh, that's somebody who I, uh, would like to have, uh, a meal with if I could. That would be an amazing thing.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings21:21

       You gave me permission, so I'm going for it. Elon or Zuck, who would win in a cage match?

   14. MBMarc Benioff21:26

       I would say I know Elon much more than I know Mark, and, um, uh, it seems like Mark is training really exhaustively, and I think Elon has... I won't go into it 'cause it's not appropriate, medical conditions that would prevent him from winning any kind of match.

   15. HSHarry Stebbings21:42

       Typical day for you, as much as you can, so maybe make it in Hawaii where maybe it's more standard, but like what does Marc Benioff's day look like as much as you can standardize it?

   16. MBMarc Benioff21:51

       I get up, I like to start my day with meditation and prayer. I like to have breakfast, do my email and texts, and then get going. And it's not unusual for me to meet with customers like I did before this, be with my family, and also, you know, my mother, uh, s- still lives, uh, with me. And so, that's an incredible, you know, part of my life, and, uh, all of that is kinda how it kinda comes together every day. It goes pretty fast. Oh, uh, there's a workout in there as well usually. I try to get in the gym.

   17. HSHarry Stebbings22:20

       Where do you think you still need to improve as a leader?

   18. MBMarc Benioff22:23

       I just love innovating and love creating and love growth more than anything, and I sometimes sacrifice things to grow the company, to grow innovation, to do new things. I love creativity, and so my team's job is to kind of keep me in the zone to bring me back so that we always have solid, balanced financials like we've had, for example, in the last three quarters especially at Salesforce, because that's where I really want to have my head, in where the world is going, not, not either where we are or where, where we've been.

   19. HSHarry Stebbings23:01

       Single biggest highlight moment from the Salesforce journey where you're like, "I remember that mo- that moment when I did this, the first Dreamforce, the first customer, the bringing your mother to the first Dreamforce"?

   20. MBMarc Benioff23:14

       It was really last week when I got on stage and I did one slide that said, "Salesforce is now San Francisco's largest philanthropist, and we've given more than $100 million to the children's hospital and more than $150 million to the public schools." I wasn't sure it was really possible. Probably the best decision we made was when we started Salesforce 25 years ago, we put 1% of our equity, 1% of our product, and all of our employees' time, 1% of our employees' time into a foundation. And it was simple then, Harry, because we had no money, capital-

   21. HSHarry Stebbings23:50

       (laughs)

   22. MBMarc Benioff23:50

       ... you know, uh, employees. I always felt like if you just could take 1% of everything and let it scale that it would be an amazing way to give back, because while I love building product and I love innovating and I love creating and I love doing all that, I have to say that if that's all you're doing, you're not gonna end up with a lot of fulfillment in your life. You're only gonna get to the happiness and fulfillment if not only are you creating, but you're giving. You've gotta give back, and you have to find a way to give back at scale.And so many of my friends have, you know, they- they've died, and when they've died, they've left these huge fortunes. And then, well, they've left their family to give back, you know, at that point, and that was kind of their motto. "Well, I'm gonna go until the end, and then at the end, that's when my family will have the money and they could do the phil- the philanthropy."

   23. HSHarry Stebbings24:42

       What's the hardest part of giving effectively? I was chatting to David Velez at Nubank the other day about this on the show. What's the hardest part about actually giving effectively?

   24. MBMarc Benioff24:49

       I think the number one thing that people must do is just start giving and find what works for them effectively. I know people who do very effective global philanthropy. That's not me. I've tried to do global programs. It's very difficult. I have a program called 1t.org, the Trillion Tree Program, trying to sequester 200 gigatons of carbon with a trillion trees. There's a lot of fulfillment and a lot of fun. And while building the AI version of Salesforce is amazing and all the things that are going on, never forget that you're gonna ultimately get the most happiness and the most fulfillment is not- not just setting your intention for a great company with great products, but something that's gonna give back and impact the world in a positive way.

   25. HSHarry Stebbings25:33

       You're famous for your shoes as well.

   26. MBMarc Benioff25:36

       Okay. (laughs)

   27. HSHarry Stebbings25:36

       What's your favorite- what's your favorite pair of shoes, Mark?

   28. MBMarc Benioff25:39

       It changes a lot. I have a lot of different customers. Today, I'm wearing these, uh, shoes that, uh, Louis Vuitton just sent me. They're Air Force Louis Vuittons, and they're extremely comfortable, and I'm- I'm wearing them today without socks (laughs) and they're fantastic. They're a size 14, very comfortable shoe, and, uh, I highly recommend them.

   29. HSHarry Stebbings26:01

       Will Dreamforce always be in San Francisco?

   30. MBMarc Benioff26:03

       Well, I hope so. I mean, I had to kind of lay down the gauntlet. You probably saw that I had to threaten the city and all the leaders and say, "If you guys don't get your act together, we're not coming back." And, um, they delivered. So, we are looking at all the data. You know, there's only a few safety incidents. I'm allowing my team to make the decision. Um, we have a new CMO who, you know, moved the Oracle conference out of San Francisco and moved it to Vegas, so it's definitely on his mind that that's a real possibility. I'm gonna obviously advocate for San Francisco, but I'm not gonna make the final decision. I'm letting the team do that, as I do with most of the major decisions in the company. They were power washing the streets every morning. Now, it's a small city. We're only seven square miles, so it's very easy to say, "Here's San Francisco." But those 40,000 people went out through the city and then came back and said, "Wow, this is the cleanest we've ever seen any city." And I'm like, "Well, why can't we do that every single day?"

Episode duration: 29:37