Marc Benioff

Benioff was raised in a Jewish family[4][5] in the San Francisco Bay Area.[6] He graduated from Burlingame High School in 1982.[7] Benioff received a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, in 1986.[7][8]

Benioff is a second cousin of showrunner and television writer David Benioff, known for Game of Thrones.[9] He is married to Lynne Benioff and has two children. The family lives in San Francisco, California.[2][7]

While in high school, Benioff sold his first application, How to Juggle, for $75.[7] In 1979, when he was 15, Benioff founded Liberty Software, creating and selling games such as Flapper and King Arthur's Heir for the Atari 8-bit.[7][10][11] Royalties from these games helped Benioff pay for college.[7][12]

While at USC, Benioff had an internship as a programmer at Apple.[13] He joined Oracle Corporation in a customer-service role after graduating.[7] Benioff worked at Oracle for 13 years in a variety of sales, marketing, and product development roles before founding Salesforce.[2] At 23, he was named Oracle's Rookie of the Year. Three years later, he became the youngest person in the company's history to earn the title of vice president.[2]

Benioff founded Salesforce in 1999[14] in a San Francisco apartment and defined its mission in a marketing statement as "The End of Software."[15] This was a slogan he used frequently to preach about software on the Web, and used as a guerilla marketing tactic against the dominant CD-ROM CRM competitor Siebel at the time.[16] Salesforce was the first company to offer software as a service, which allowed people and companies to rent software over the internet instead of installing the programs on machines.[17] Benioff extended Salesforce's offerings in the early 2000s with the idea of a platform that allowed developers to create applications.[18]

Benioff also serves on the World Economic Forum's Board of Trustees and USC Board of Trustees.[2][19]

On September 16, 2018, Marc and his wife Lynne bought Time for $190 million.[3]

Benioff during the WEF 2013

In 2003, President Bush appointed Benioff co-chair of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee.[22] In 2009, Benioff was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and is a member of its Board of Trustees.[23][24] In 2012, he was named one of the "Best CEOs in the World" by Barron's[25] and received The Economist's Innovation Award.[26] In 2014, Fortune readers voted him "Businessperson of the Year."[27] In 2016, Fortune magazine named him one of the "World's 50 Greatest Leaders."[28]

Marc Benioff in 2009

Benioff founded the Salesforce Foundation in 2000.[29] Marc and Lynne Benioff have been included in lists of top givers by Forbes and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.[30][31][32][33]

In 2010, the Benioffs donated $100 million to UCSF Children's Hospital.[34] In 2014, they donated an additional $100 million to the hospital and $50 million to fund research on premature birth.[34]

In October 2020, Marc and Lynne Benioff were founding partners of Prince William's Earthshot Prize, a program for finding solutions to environmental issues.[35] In October 2021, Benioff pledged a $200 million donation to plant trees and fund ecologically-focused entrepreneurs.[36] Salesforce also donated $100 million to the same causes.[36][37]

In 2019, the Benioffs donated $30 million to the Center for Vulnerable Populations for the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative to study the impacts of homelessness, housing, and health.[38]

In March 2015, Benioff announced Salesforce would cancel all employee programs and travel in the state of Indiana after the passing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a bill that would allow companies and individuals to choose not to serve LGBT individuals based on religious beliefs.[39] Benioff led an effort of business leaders fighting back against the legislation, leading to a revised version of the bill being signed into law that prohibited businesses from denying services to someone based on sexual orientation or gender identity.[40]

In April 2015, Benioff announced that he would review salaries at Salesforce to ensure men and women were paid equally.[41]

In February 2016, Benioff announced that Salesforce would reduce investments in Georgia and cancel a conference if HB 757, a bill that would allow businesses to decline services to same-sex couples, was passed.[42] The governor vetoed the bill.[43]

In an October 2018 interview with The Guardian, Benioff criticized other technology industry executives for "hoarding" their money and refusing to help unhoused people in the San Francisco Bay Area.[44] In November, Benioff announced his support for San Francisco's Prop C measure that would increase taxes on large corporations to aid unhoused residents in the city.[45]

In September 2021, Benioff announced that Salesforce would relocate any Texas employees who wanted to move after an abortion law went into effect.[46][47]

• Colin, Chris (December 11, 2019). "The Gospel of Wealth According to Marc Benioff". Wired.

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• Official company biography