Biz Innovators

Biz Innovators – Marc Russell Benioff Marc Russell Benioff is one of those larger than life figures. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, which is a cloud computing company. He started his company in 1999 in a small apartment in San Francisco. His mission was to revamp the way software programs were designed and distributed. His unique approach was to allow customers to build their own applications within Clouds on salesforce. Marc could be classified extravagant and has cause to be so. He is a self-made billionaire and Salesforce is estimated to be worth at least $2.71 billion. Not all of his wealth has come from Salesforce though. During the period of 1986 – 1999 he ran Oracle, by the age of 26 he was making $300,000 per year. Earlier than this he was writing video games at the age of 15. He founded his first company, Liberty Software and wrote the Atari video games. Due to his Atari success he got hired, while still a teenager, by Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. He was working for the company when the Macintosh was introduced. He found Steve Jobs to be an inspiration and attributes his success with Salesforce to Steve. The two shared many things in common. Including their passion for spiritual ideas. They both turned to mediation when they felt the need to. Marc also enjoys yoga and was invited to Deepak Chorpra’s daughter’s wedding. Other activities that Marc likes to indulge in is walking on hot coals with the likes of Tony Robbins. Jumping 60 feet off bridges in the middle of the night into a raging river. He often works out with his friend Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Computers. Marc Benioff enjoys a lavish lifestyle. He built a huge home in Hawaii. It is said to be over 9, 821 square feet and has six bedrooms and seven bathrooms! The land alone cost him $12.5 million, and that was back in 2000. On top of that he decided to launch a construction company to have the home built.