Marc Benioff | |
|---|---|
 Benioff in 2021 | |
| Born | Marc Russell Benioff (1964-09-25)September 25, 1964 (age 61) San Francisco,California, U.S. |
| Education | University of Southern California (BS) |
| Known for | Founder, chairman and CEO,Salesforce Co-chair and owner,Time[1] |
| Spouse | Lynne Krilich |
| Children | 2 |
Marc Russell Benioff (born September 25, 1964)[2] is an Americaninternet entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman and CEO of the software companySalesforce, as well as being the owner ofTime magazine since 2018.[3][4]
Marc Russell Benioff was born on September 25, 1964, inSan Francisco, California.[5] He is of Jewish heritage.[6] He is the grandson of Marvin Lewis, a California trial attorney and member of theSan Francisco Board of Supervisors who championed the creation of theBay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.[7][8] Benioff grew up inHillsborough[9] and graduated fromBurlingame High School in 1982.[10] Benioff received a Bachelor of Science inbusiness administration from theUniversity of Southern California, where he was a member of theTau Kappa Epsilonfraternity, in 1986.[10][11]
While in high school, Benioff sold his first application, How to Juggle, for $75.[10] In 1979, when he was 15, Benioff founded Liberty Software, creating and selling games such asFlapper andKing Arthur's Heir for theAtari 8-bit.[10][12][13] Royalties from these games helped Benioff pay for college.[10][14]
While atUSC, Benioff had an internship as a programmer atApple where he wroteassembly code for theMacintosh.[15][16] He joinedOracle Corporation in a customer-service role after graduating.[10] Benioff worked at Oracle for 13 years in a variety of sales, marketing, and product development roles.[3] At 23, he was named Oracle's Rookie of the Year, and later became the youngest vice president in the company's history.[3]
Benioff founded Salesforce in 1999,[17] while working from a San Francisco apartment. He defined its mission in a marketing statement as "The End of Software."[18] This was a slogan he frequently used to preach about software on the Web; it was used too as aguerilla marketing tactic against the dominant CD-ROM-basedcustomer relationship management (CRM) software provider at the time,Siebel.[19] Benioff extended Salesforce's offerings in the early 2000s with the idea of a platform that allowed developers to create applications.[20]
In November 2021, Benioff became co-CEO of Salesforce when Bret Taylor's promotion to co-CEO was announced.[21] One year later, Bret Taylor stepped down as Salesforce co-CEO, leaving Marc Benioff as sole CEO again.[22]
In January 2023 Benioff announced the mass dismissal of approximately 7,000 Salesforce employees via a two-hour all-hands meeting over a call, a course of action he later admitted had been a 'bad idea'.[23] As of 2024, Salesforce is one of the biggest employers in San Francisco[24] and the anchor tenant ofSalesforce Tower, the tallest building in San Francisco.[25]
In September 2025, Benioff reduced Salesforce's support workforce from 9,000 to about 5,000 employees because he "need[ed] less heads". Salesforce stated thatAI agents now handle half of all customer interactions and have reduced support costs by 17% since early 2025. The company added it had redeployed hundreds of employees into other departments within the company.[26] The decision contrasted with Benioff's earlier remarks suggesting that artificial intelligence would augment, rather than replace, white-collar workers. It follows similar workforce reductions atMicrosoft andKlarna to automate human jobs.[27]
On September 16, 2018, Marc and his wife Lynne boughtTime for $190 million.[4] In 2019, Benioff started Time Ventures, a venture capital fund that has invested in multiple companies, includingCommonwealth Fusion Systems, Universal Hydrogen and NCX.[28][29][30][31][32] In 2021, two companies Time Ventures backed, Planet Labs and IonQ, went public.[33][34][35]
Benioff is on the board of trustees at the World Economic Forum and USC.[3][5] Benioff is a member of theBusiness Roundtable, an advocacy group of CEOs, andThe Business Council.[36][37] As of February 2022, Benioff had an estimated net worth of US$8.31 billion according toBloomberg Billionaires Index.[38]
Benioff has co-written four books about business and technology. In 2004, he co-wroteCompassionate Capitalism: How Corporations Can Make Doing Good an Integral Part of Doing Well with Karen Southwick.[39] In 2006, he co-wroteThe Business of Changing the World: 20 Great Leaders on Strategic Corporate Philanthropy with Carlye Adler.[39] In 2009, he co-wroteBehind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company and Revolutionized an Industry, also with Carlye Adler.[40] In 2019, he again co-wroteTrailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change, withMonica Langley.[39] The book became aNew York Times bestseller.[41]
In 2003, PresidentGeorge W. Bush appointed Benioff co-chair of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee.[42] In 2009, Benioff was named a Young Global Leader by theWorld Economic Forum, and is a member of its board of trustees.[43][44] In 2012, he was named one of the "Best CEOs in the World" byBarron's[45] and receivedThe Economist's Innovation Award.[46] In 2014,Fortune readers voted him "Businessperson of the Year."[47] In 2016,Fortune named him one of the "World's 50 Greatest Leaders."[48] In 2019, he was recognized as one of the 10 Best-Performing CEOs byHarvard Business Review,[49] and was elected to be a member of theNational Academy of Engineering.[50]
Benioff was named CNN Business CEO of 2020,[51] and wasChief Executive's CEO of the Year in 2022.[52]
He was appointed aKnight of the Legion of Honour by the French government in 2022.[53][54] He was also named toThe Chronicles of Philanthropy’s Top 50 list for the 10th time in 2024.[55]
In addition to founding Salesforce in 1999, Benioff also founded the Salesforce Foundation. The foundation uses a "1-1-1" approach to corporate philanthropy, where the company gives one percent of employee time as volunteer hours, one percent of its product and one percent of its revenue to charitable causes.[56][57][58]In 2014, Benioff andScott Farquhar founded Pledge 1%, a San Francisco-based nonprofit focused on this concept.[59]
From 2010 to 2019, the Benioffs donated a total of $275 million toUCSF Children's Hospital, to fund research, and to create the UCSF Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine.[60] They donated an additional $100 million to the hospital in 2025.[61] They have also donated $10 million toStanford University for the Microbiome Therapies Initiative, and $35 million to theUniversity of California, San Francisco, to establish a prostate cancer research initiative.[62]
Since 2016, Benioff has donated over $80 million as part of the Benioff Ocean Science Initiative at theUniversity of California at Santa Barbara.[63][64]
In January 2020, Benioff announced that he and his wife would provide financial backing for 1t.org to support a global initiative to plant and conserve 1 trillion trees over the next decade.[65]
Benioff procured 50 million pieces ofpersonal protective equipment for hospitals andCOVID-19 first responders in the United States in March 2020.[66]
The Benioffs were founding partners ofPrince William'sEarthshot Prize.[67] In 2021, they were founding members of the World Economic Forum's Friends of Ocean Action initiative, and later pledged $300 million donation to plant trees and fund ecologically focused entrepreneurs.[68][69] The Benioffs also pledged $12 million to theNational Fish and Wildlife Foundation over a five-year period (2022-2027) to support cleanup of theMidway Atoll.[70]
A 160-acre plot of relatively undeveloped land was purchased by Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne in 2022, which makes up the majority of his 300 acres in Hawaii. In addition to the 282 acres they have previously donated to the Hawaii Island Community Development Corporation, the pair plans to use it for charitable purposes. Aside from that, Benioff has owned a home in Hawaii for the past 20 years in addition to a few other residences that his family members occupy.[71]
In 2024, Marc Benioff succeededWarren Buffett as host ofGLIDE’s annual charity lunch auction, raising $200,100 and a $1.5M pledge. The winner chose to remain anonymous.[72] In 2025, Benioff returned, and the auction was won by AI entrepreneur Yi Shi, a previous Buffett lunch attendee in 2015.[73] All proceeds support GLIDE’s anti-poverty work in San Francisco.[74]
In September 2021, Benioff announced that Salesforce would relocate any Texas employees who wanted to move after anabortion law went into effect.[75][76]
In March 2015, Benioff announced Salesforce would cancel all employee programs and travel in Indiana after the passing of theReligious Freedom Restoration Act.[77] This led 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.[78]
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.[79] The governor vetoed the bill.[80]
In April 2015, after the issue was raised by Salesforce chief personnel officer Cindy Robbins, Benioff announced that he would review salaries at Salesforce to ensure men and women were paid equally.[81] He subsequently dedicated $8 million between 2015 and 2017 to "correct compensation differences by gender, race, and ethnicity across the company".[82]
In an October 2018 interview withThe Guardian, Benioff criticized other technology industry executives for "hoarding" their money and refusing to helpthe homeless in theSan Francisco Bay Area.[83]
In 2019, the Benioffs donated $30 million to the Center for Vulnerable Populations for theBenioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative to study the impacts of homelessness, housing, and health.[84]
In July 2023, Benioff stated[25] that San Francisco "will never go back to the way it was before the pandemic" and recommended that city leadership convert old office space into housing and hire more police. He used his platform on X to call for “refunding the police” numerous times in 2023.[85]
Benioff was registered as aRepublican before switching to independent.[86] He hosted a fundraiser forHillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016.[86]
Benioff had become an outspokenDonald Trump supporter by 2025.[86] Benioff called onTrump to send the National Guard into San Francisco, Benioff's hometown, in October 2025.[86] The comments generated significant controversy for Benioff and Salesforce,[87] including push-back from San Francisco mayorDaniel Lurie and District AttorneyBrooke Jenkins[88] and the resignation ofRon Conway from the Salesforce Foundation board.[89] Benioff subsequently apologized for his National Guard comments.[90]
Benioff is married to Lynne Benioff and has two children. Benioff and his family lived in San Francisco prior to the COVID-19 pandemic; since that time they primarily live in Hawaii, where they have several parcels of land.[86][3][10] He is a second cousin ofshowrunner and television writerDavid Benioff, known forGame of Thrones, and Zach Lloyd, founder and CEO ofWarp.[91][92]
A 2024 investigation byNPR journalist Dara Kerr found that Benioff has purchased more than 600 acres of land inHawaii, mostly near the town ofWaimea onthe Big Island. Benioff's purchases, which totaled $24.5 million as of February 2024, have sparked concern among Waimea locals regardingrising housing prices.[93]
According to a Benioff spokesperson, the Benioffs have given away nearly 75 percent of the land they purchased in Hawaii as of March 2024, including a total of 440 acres to the non-profit Hawaii Island Community Development Corporation.[94] In March, Benioff donated $150 million to a group of Hawaii medical organizations to build additional facilities and to link theHawaii Pacific Health system with other local hospitals.[95][96][97]
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