socialmedian: Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff: ‘Many CEOs are afraid to get too personal’

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Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff: ‘Many CEOs are afraid to get too personal’

Source: VentureBeat

Oct 30, 2009

Summary

Marc Benioff has been the reliably outspoken chief executive of Salesforce.com for 10 years. Salesforce was one of the pioneers of the software-as-a-service business model, where traditional software is replaced by a web-based application that customers pay for via subscription, and he trumpeted the model with ads declaring that software is dead. Now that SaaS and cloud computing are becoming an increasing part of tech business models, Benioff said this spells big trouble for companies like Microsoft — he describes the software giant’s leaders as “trapped in their own psychosis” and says they will “drag their company into the gutter.”

Benioff has a new book out, Behind the Cloud (co-written with Carlye Adler). Billed as “the Salesforce.com playbook,” the book gives Benioff’s perspective on Salesforce’s history, and distills a business lesson from each anecdote. I interviewed Benioff over email about his book, his tips for entrepreneurs, and how Microsoft is “its own worst enemy.”

VentureBeat: In Behind the Cloud, you talk about dreaming up the software-as-a-ser

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