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On top of that, she added that tech companies will give people in AI-related jobs bonuses for performance and plenty of equity compensation. About half of the people came from Big Tech companies. Gill said the new Kognitos hires who haven't come from Big Tech have jumped ship from other startups. Some AI talent are even striking it out on their own to start their own companies. He left his tech job to form an AI startup after seeing another large fundraise from another new AI company.
Persons: , Sam Altman, Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Dan Portillo, Goldman Sachs, Jaclyn Rice Nelson, Nelson, that's, Claude chatbot that's, Binny Gill, Kognitos, Gill, he's, haven't, David Steinberg, Steinberg, AI's Nelson, There's, Greg Selker, Stanton Chase, Selker, hemming, hawing Organizations: Service, Business, Meta, Sweat Equity Ventures, OpenAI, Big Tech, Zeta Global Locations: Anthropic, ChatGPT
It's not just Stubblebine who plans to continue cutting cloud costs. The cloud industry refers to cost-cutting as "cloud optimization." Last year, cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft cited cloud optimization as the reason cloud sales growth had slipped to historic lows. As growth has crept back up in recent months, these same companies have declared the days of cloud optimization to be over. But Stubblebine thinks that cloud optimization is part of a broader mentality shift sweeping the pre-IPO startup world.
Persons: , Tony Stubblebine, What's, Stubblebine, It's, We're, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Service, Business, Barclays, Amazon Web Services, Savings, Microsoft Locations: Snowflake
A record surge of data center construction is underway to provide the computing and storage that underpins society's fast-expanding digital footprint and powers artificial intelligence. In areas of the country where data centers have clustered, utilities have unveiled plans to spend billions of dollars to keep up. asked David Springe, the executive director of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. "Then you have the data centers that are having exponential load growth," Nelson said. Data centers also don't deliver the number of long term jobs – a key yardstick for public benefits – that other industries do.
Persons: Mike DeWine, David Springe, they're, Ryan Augsburger, Augsburger, Ron Nelson, Strategen, ratepayers, Nelson, Steve Helber, That's, PJM, David Lapp, Lapp, Jeffrey Shields, Shields, Kantele Franko, Shelby Moore, Meta, behemoth Blackstone, QTS, John Gavan, Daniel Tait, Tait Organizations: Amazon, Ohioans, Business, Wall, Boston Consulting Group, National Association of State, Consumer, Ohio Manufacturers ' Association, Web Services, Energy, Dominion Energy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Tech, Wall Street titans, American Electric Power, Buckeye Power, AEP, Buckeye, AEP Ohio, Staff, Intel, Policy Institute Locations: Ohio, ratepayers, Chester , Va, Virginia, PJM, Chicago, New Jersey, New York City, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Columbus , Ohio, Denver, New Albany , Ohio, Minnesota, Columbus, Mississippi
A deal like this would allow Google to better compete with Salesforce in customer relationship management software, and it makes sense strategically as Google looks to grow its share in the cloud market. Deal or no deal, all the talk has made one thing clear: Wall Street is kind of obsessed with HubSpot. "With Salesforce, you need a Salesforce administrator," said Rishi Jaluria, managing director of software equity research at RBC Capital Markets. If Google does make an offer to acquire HubSpot, it will be up to HubSpot whether to accept — and it may not accept, Havemeyer wrote in the note. HubSpot has also disclosed that it is a Google Workspace customer and uses Google Cloud as its international cloud.
Persons: , HubSpot, Salesforce, Rishi Jaluria, William Blair, cohead Arjun Bhatia, Fred Havemeyer, Havemeyer Organizations: Service, Reuters, Google, Business, Wall Street, Big Tech, RBC Capital Markets, HubSpot, Macquarie Locations: HubSpot
Walmart's internal systems had more than a dozen "major incidents" in the last two months alone. An additional two major incidents occurred this past weekend, the person said. Walmart's global technology platform runs the retailer's core business operations, including in-store point-of-sale systems, e-commerce, and distribution and fulfillment centers. Internal emails obtained by BI show that Walmart's business is interrupted by issues with its global tech platform at a far more frequent rate than previously reported. Last year, Walmart spent $11.8 billion on supply chain, customer-facing initiatives, and technology, according to a recent SEC filing, up from $9.2 billion the year before.
Persons: Mark Cohen, Daniel McCarthy, Jessica Ramírez, Jane Hali, " Ramirez, Cohen, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Walmart's, Business, BI, Walmart, Street, Amazon, SEC, Columbia Business School, Emory, Goizueta Business
Two of the tech industry's biggest AI champions are backing Rep. Abigail Spanberger's run for governor of Virginia in 2025, campaign finance records show. Hoffman donated $250,000 on November 30, and Scott donated $125,000 on December 22. The donations, representing a total of $500,000 are the three largest individual contributions on record for Spanberger's campaign, which ended 2023 with over $3.6 million in funds received. Aside from their personal connections to the state, Virginia is home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world. Hoffman has previously donated over $300,000 to WinVirginia, a PAC that supports Democratic candidates in the state.
Persons: Abigail Spanberger's, Reid Hoffman, Kevin Scott, Hoffman, Scott, Shannon Hunt, Hunt, Prince William County, they're, Spanberger, Glenn Youngkin, Ohio US Sen, JD Vance, Joe Biden's, Nikki Haley, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Microsoft, Business, Democratic, Spanberger, University of Virginia, Culpeper ., CIA, Virginia Gov, Republican, LinkedIn, Ohio US, Trump Republicans, South Carolina Gov, PAC Locations: Virginia, Greylock, Prince William, Spotsylvania, Culpeper, Richmond, San Francisco Bay, Rural America, Silicon, Hampshire
The company laid off 10% of its workforce, which had reached nearly 80,000 employees, last year. AdvertisementJust a year after Salesforce laid off nearly 10% of its workforce, the company's head count is beginning to creep back up. "We're investing into our most productive areas — AI and data," CFO Amy Weaver said this week on the company's fourth-quarter earnings call with investors. The company reported a non-GAAP operating margin of 30.5% for the fiscal year, above the 30% threshold that activist investors had pushed for. New hires, Weaver said, are being added to Salesforce in "cost-effective ways," such as hiring people from areas that have "high talent pools and low cost of living."
Persons: Salesforce, Marc Benioff, , Amy Weaver, Weaver, Benioff, Larry Ellison —, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Service, SEC, New, Business, Oracle Locations: New York, San Francisco, Salesforce
Snowflake's Frank Slootman just announced his retirement. BI reported last year on rumors of Slootman's impending departure. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementWhen Business Insider approached Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman in June to ask him if internal chatter about his impending retirement was right, Slootman said it was "completely untrue." You are regurgitating competitive FUD," Slootman wrote in an email to BI in June in his famously direct, no-nonsense style.
Persons: Snowflake's Frank Slootman, , Snowflake, Frank Slootman, Slootman, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Service Locations: Snowflake
Read previewNew Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones has hired at least three high-level employees from Slack, where she had been chief executive for about a year until joining the dating app company in January. chief product officer Ali Rayl, chief people officer David Ard, and vice president of global communications Gabrielle Ferree. Rayl, who until recently served as Slack's senior vice president of product, had been at the workplace messaging app for over 11 years. Ard had served as its senior vice president of employee success, while Ferree was its senior communications director. AdvertisementJones, then an executive vice president at Slack parent Salesforce, replaced Butterfield as CEO of Slack in January 2023.
Persons: , Lidiane Jones, Bumble, Jones, Ali Rayl, David Ard, Gabrielle Ferree, Ard, Ferree, Slack, Jones's, Stewart Butterfield, Slack's, Tamar Yehoshua, Jonathan Prince, Butterfield, Whitney Wolfe Herd, Denise Dresser, Cal Henderson, Fortune, Parker Harris, Salesforce, MuleSoft, Antoine Leblond, Selby Drummond, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Service, Slack, Business, Elliott Management, Sonos, Microsoft Locations: ethomas@insider.com
The major cloud service providers are saying their customers are winding down last year's optimization efforts. While the optimization outlook from the cloud service providers is rosy, it doesn't quite match what customers are reporting. Google Cloud revenue grew 26% year-over-year, up from the quarter before. Customers and cloud companies tell a different storyExecutives at all three major cloud companies said that the impact of cloud cost-cutting was behind them. 35% reported cloud cost overruns in the last 12 months, nearly half of which were over $100,000 or $500,000.
Persons: Brian Olsavsky, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Bryan Woodworth, Woodworth, Olsavsky, Pichai, David Linthicum, Linthicum, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Microsoft, Google, Business, Amazon Web Services, Companies Locations: ethomas@insider.com
Salesforce set a goal for all employees to achieve "Ranger" status on Trailhead, the company's internal training software, in 2023, BI previously reported. Becoming a Trailhead Ranger requires the accrual of 50,000 points on Trailhead, earned by completing various training modules, quizzes, and challenges. In January, Salesforce employees took to a companywide Slack channel named "airing-of-grievances" to bemoan an upcoming deadline for achieving Ranger status. One employee mentioned a "rumor" that staffers who failed to earn Ranger status would have their bonuses withheld. The downsizing comes after a year of aggressive cost-cutting and mass layoffs that had already reduced the company's workforce by 10%.
Persons: Srini Tallapragada, Salesforce, Marc Benioff, Benioff, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Rangers, Business, BI, Street, Elliott Management Locations: Benioff, Salesforce, ethomas@insider.com
Salesforce wanted all employees to reach a goal on its training software Trailhead in 2023. 91.4% of employees achieved the goal of achieving "Ranger" status, a company spokesperson said. CEO Marc Benioff is still at the lowest level on Trailhead, according to his employee profile page. Salesforce "set a bold goal in 2023 of having all employees hit Ranger status on Trailhead," a spokesperson told BI via email. 91.4% of employees achieved Ranger status in 2023, they added, up from 48% the year prior.
Persons: Salesforce, Marc Benioff, , Marc Benioff didn't Organizations: Service, Business
Brad Burns, the now former chief communications officer at Salesforce, has joined Snowflake in the same role, the data-cloud company said Wednesday in a press release. At Snowflake, Burns will spearhead communications strategy and advise company leadership. Snowflake's revenue growth and that of the rest of the cloud industry slowed earlier this year as customers tightened cloud budgets after a pandemic-fueled spending spree in 2020 and 2021. Related storiesFrank Slootman, Snowflake's chair and CEO, was previously rumored to be leaving the company, Business Insider reported. Burns joined Salesforce as chief communications officer in 2018.
Persons: Brad Burns, Burns, He's, Frank Slootman, Slootman, Bob Muglia, Bret Taylor's, Salesforce, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Business Locations: Snowflake, ethomas@insider.com
Generative artificial intelligence won't take jobs from retail workers; instead, it will make them better at their jobs, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told attendees at the National Retail Federation's annual conference in New York last week. They're not going to need as many agents," Benioff said. The system was able to augment those agents and make them better," Benioff said. With generative AI, he added, Gucci had taken its customer service agents to "a whole other level." "They're pretty incredible people, using generative AI for the first time," Benioff said.
Persons: Marc Benioff, Benioff, NRF, John Furner, Loro Piana, Gucci —, They're, That's, bam, Gucci Organizations: Business, Walmart, LVMH, Gucci, Kering Locations: New York, Italy
With the promise of generative AI fueling investment in technology, industry experts expect 2024 to be an active year for cloud software M&A. The market is right for buyers and sellers, as companies like Salesforce and Nvidia enter 2024 with cash on hand and mature startups face a slowed venture market. "There's so much demand for amazing talent in AI," Somasegar said. Deals in 2024 will likely be at smaller valuations, Jaluria noted. Jaluria expects that several companies that flourished during the pandemic — only to lose momentum with the rise in return-to-office mandates — are likely candidates for M&A in 2024.
Persons: Somasegar, Rishi Jaluria, Jaluria, Jaluria's Organizations: Business, Nvidia, Madrona Venture Group, RBC Capital Markets, Activision Locations: Seattle, Figma
Insider has compiled a list of 100 people at the forefront of artificial intelligence . download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementCloud companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have been building AI offerings for years, and now they are opening the door to generative AI. This year, generative AI took hold of the world. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud soon followed suit with their own investments and AI products — Google invested in the AI startup Anthropic.
Persons: Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Google, Web Services, AWS, Business Locations: OpenAI
Several former Salesforce employees rejoined the company this year as "boomerangs." There were also high-profile departures of longtime executives. See below for Salesforce's leavers and joiners in 2023. The end of 2022 was marked by a series of executive departures at Salesforce, including the exit of co-CEO Bret Taylor, who had been heir apparent to CEO Marc Benioff. In the wake of pressure to up profit and cut costs from a group of activist investors, including Elliott Management and Starboard Value, some longtime company veterans left, and former executives have returned to help.
Persons: Bret Taylor, Marc Benioff, Benioff Organizations: Elliott Management, Business Locations: Salesforce
Amazon Web Services' Global AI Innovation Center, led by Sri Elaprolu, launched in July. Elaprolu said AWS customers are getting serious about moving ideas from concept to production. Still, most AWS clients don't quite know where to start with generative AI — that's where the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center comes in, Sri Elaprolu, the global head of AWS Generative AI Innovation Center and an 11-year AWS veteran, said. Interest in the Generative AI Innovation Center has been high since the company announced it in June, Elaprolu said. Many AWS customers are just beginning to think about generative AI, but an increasing number are starting to bring ideas into production.
Persons: Sri, Elaprolu's, , Sri Elaprolu, Elaprolu, It's Organizations: Amazon Web Services, AI Innovation, Service, Web, Center, PGA Tour, Bridgewater Associates, Business, Bridgewater, AWS Locations: Sri Elaprolu, Sri
Salesforce has moved slowly on AI, RBC Capital Markets managing director Rishi Jaluria told Insider — at least that's what the company's partners and customers told him. One said they were encouraging customers to start first with Einstein, the original AI product Salesforce launched in 2016, before adding new generative-AI services to their bills. The question was the first of many moments during the conference when a Salesforce executive brought up trust and safety when talking about generative AI. Despite that, Salesforce continues to invest in other companies via its venture arm, which includes a $500 million Generative AI fund. Jaluria said that with the exception of Microsoft, he doesn't expect software companies to see meaningful revenue gains from generative AI until at least 2025.
Persons: Salesforce, Rishi Jaluria, , Jaluria, they've, Einstein, Matthew McConaughey, pensively, Patrick Stokes, Salesforce's, Stokes, it's, There's, John Somorjai, McKinsey's, Somorjai, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Company, Business, RBC Capital Markets, World, Salesforce Ventures, Microsoft Locations: New York, ethomas@insider.com
Either way, one thing is certain: Companies are getting serious about cloud spend. And while Wall Street analysts hope the excitement over generative AI will drive customers to spend more money on cloud services next year, it's clear that optimization won't go away. "Cloud spend got big enough at most of the Fortune 500s that it's actually material now," Storment said. Cloud cost-cutting servicesTo save money on cloud services, customers often must first spend money. Customers aren't spending much on generative AI yetEven though "generative AI is the new sexy thing that everyone is exploring," the technology didn't come up in many conversations about budget, Lowell said.
Persons: Adam Selipsky, Werner Vogels, Sid Nag, Gartner, Nag, wasn't, Dave Linthicum, , Storment, Craig Lowell, Lowell, Linthicum, they're, Bernstein, Mark Schilsky, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Amazon Web, Business, AWS, Wall, Microsoft, Google, Deloitte, FinOps Foundation, Fortune, Venetian Convention, Expo, Companies Locations: Las Vegas, DoiT, ethomas@insider.com
Equinix is preparing for the generative-AI boom by arming more than 100 of its data centers with advanced liquid-cooling technologies. Its 250 data-center facilities rent space, hardware, and broadband to other companies to store data and run workloads in the cloud. The data centers will include new liquid-cooling technology, which helps lower the temperatures of Equinix's machines. The first of the company's data centers to host the new technology will be completed in the first quarter of 2024. Lin said Equinix already offers in-rack heat exchangers at most of its locations and has typically provided more advanced technologies on a "bespoke" basis.
Persons: Jon Lin, Lin, Equinix Organizations: San, San Francisco Bay Area, Business Locations: London, San Francisco Bay, Singapore, Equinix
One in particular is open only to very important cloud customers: a meeting for "XXL" or "extra-extra-large" AWS users. Roughly 50 people attended the meeting, they said, including about a dozen AWS representatives and employees from eight large AWS customers, including Salesforce and Adobe. Not all of the largest AWS customers attended the meeting. Though the meeting is for important customers, AWS CEO Adam Selipsky did not attend, the people said. Do you have information or insight to share about AWS or other large cloud providers?
Persons: Adam Selipsky, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Web Services, AWS, Business, Venetian Convention, Expo, Adobe, FinOps Foundation, Microsoft, Google Locations: Las Vegas, ethomas@insider.com
Denise Dresser, a longtime Salesforce exec, will become the new CEO of Slack. AdvertisementAdvertisementSalesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Monday that Slack had named Denise Dresser as its next chief executive. Dresser, who has worked for Salesforce for 12 years, is president of accelerated industries at Salesforce. Salesforce said in August that its chief people officer, Brent Hyder, would leave to "pursue a new opportunity." To contact Ellen Thomas with insight or information about Slack or Salesforce, reach out at ethomas@insider.com or call/text (646) 847-9416 using the encrypted-messaging app Signal.
Persons: Denise Dresser, Slack, Lidiane Jones, Marc Benioff, , She'll, who's, Dresser, Denise, Benioff, Jones, Whitney Wolfe, Stewart Butterfield, Bret Taylor, Mark Nelson, Gavin Patterson, Ebony Beckwith, Salesforce, Brent Hyder, Salesforce's, Vikram Rao, Ariel Kelman, Oracle's, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Bumble Inc, Service, Salesforce, Elliott Management Locations: Salesforce
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Monday the company would name a new Slack CEO. Slack's current CEO, Lidiane Jones, is leaving the company at the end of the year. Salesforce is set to name a new chief executive at Slack next Monday, CEO Marc Benioff wrote to the entire company in a post on the workplace-communications app viewed by Insider. "Lidiane, this a hugely-deserved achievement for you one of our most incredible executives," Benioff wrote. "While we will all of course miss you greatly (especially me), I recognize what an amazing opportunity this is for you becoming a public company CEO."
Persons: Marc Benioff, Lidiane Jones, Jones, Slack, Benioff Organizations: Slack
Rates of cloud-computing sales growth slowed to historical lows this year as customers slashed IT budgets. Microsoft and Google, the next two biggest American cloud providers, also saw rates of cloud-revenue growth slow this year. Microsoft's Azure and other cloud services saw revenue growth of 29%, down from 35% this time last year. Google this week reported a 22% year-over-year increase in cloud revenue the past quarter, down from 28% the previous quarter. The company attributed this to customer "optimization," or looking for ways to save money on cloud services.
Persons: Karl Keirstead, they're, they'd, Rishi Jaluria, Andy Jassy, Jassy, Ellen Thomas Organizations: Microsoft, Web Services, Google, Enterprises, UBS, Wall, RBC Capital Markets, Amazon Locations: Ukraine, Israel, ethomas@insider.com
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