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☆ Salesforce drops after reports it is in talks to acquire Informatica
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-15 | by ( Alex Koller | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

People pass by the Salesforce Tower and Salesforce.com offices in New York City on March 7, 2019. Salesforce stock fell 5% Monday after reports over the weekend that the cloud software company is in advanced talks to buy data-management firm Informatica. The price being weighed is below Informatica's closing stock price on Friday of $38.48, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the talks on Friday. It would also be its largest deal since purchasing workplace chat developer Slack for nearly $28 billion in 2021, Salesforce's largest acquisition to date. Before paying for Slack, Salesforce bought data visualization company Tableau for $15.3 billion in 2019, and MuleSoft for $6.5 billion in 2018.

Persons: Slack, Salesforce Organizations: Informatica, Wall Street, Reuters Locations: New York City, Redwood City , California

☆ Salesforce's behind-the-scenes co-founder is tackling Slack as software company turns 25
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-09 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +16 min

"The V2MOM had nothing about generative AI," Parker Harris, who co-founded the company with Benioff, told CNBC in an interview. Harris, a Salesforce board member and now the technology chief of Slack, which Salesforce bought in 2021, said he'd rather avoid the limelight. Without the Data Cloud, Harris told CNBC, "I think we would have been in a much worse place." He told Benioff he'd redo the plan, the person said. They'll be talking more frequently, as Harris said they're about to kick off weekly meetings on Slack and Salesforce integrations.

Persons: Parker Harris, Marlena Sloss, Marc Benioff, ChatGPT, Benioff, Salesforce, Harris, Slack, he'd, Sam Altman, Noah Berger, Robin, Batman, Frank Dominguez, Dave Moellenhoff, Bobby Yazdani, Larry Ellison, Yazdani, Dominguez, Brett Queener, who's, Queener, Salesforce.com, He's, Ruth Asawa, Josef Albers, Miles Davis, Donald Trump, Jason Alden, Marc, Kara Swisher, David Paul Morris, Adam Selipsky, it's, Stewart Butterfield, Lidiane Jones, Cal Henderson, Benioff's, Parker, Noah Weiss, Denise Dresser, Weiss, Parker Harris emoji, They'll, Salesforce integrations, Stefan Slowinski Organizations: Salesforce, Bloomberg, Getty, CNBC, Google, Microsoft, Middlebury College, Apple, San, San Francisco Bay Area, Metropolis Software, Software, Saba Software, Oracle, San Francisco's Telegraph, YouTube, Facebook, Economic, Salesforce.com Inc, Web, VMware, Employees Locations: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, English, Vermont, North Carolina, San Francisco Bay, Moellenhoff, Kincaid's, Burlingame, San Francisco's, Salesforce, France, Italy, Nantucket, San, Pacific, Davos, Switzerland, Cliff, New York, Las Vegas, Hawaii

☆ 'The gorilla is gone for the moment': OpenAI's rivals see ways to profit from a Silicon Valley drama
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

An in-demand talent pool"Many previously poorly understood secrets will be more widely disseminated across the ecosystem," one European AI founder who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. But European competitors can still benefit from OpenAI's implosion. The startup had been on an uninterrupted run for the past year, said EarlyBird VC partner and Aleph Alpha investor Andre Retterath. The turmoil at OpenAI has also galvanized both AI founders and investors in Europe. The company's top expenditure, besides employee salaries, is manually cleaning and sourcing the data they use to train their models, a European VC said.

Persons: Sam Altman, unseats, Nathan Benaich, Altman, Marc Benioff, Salesforce, Silvio Savarese, Einstein, 1RXoc9ekeo, Benaich, Alpha, EarlyBird, Andre Retterath, Retterath, Mariam Pettit, they've, OpenAI, Andrew Scott, 7percent, David Grimm, Grimm, Rebecca Gorman Organizations: Air Street Capital, Business, Aleph Alpha, Microsoft, Google, Alpha, Global Founders Capital, Albion Locations: Europe, OpenAI

☆ Salesforce CEO pledges to match contracts of OpenAI researchers who resign and join Einstein Trusted AI team
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Marc Benioff promised to match the contracts of OpenAI researchers who resign to join Salesforce. The offer comes amid the chaotic ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and rumors Altman could return to the job. "Salesforce will match any OpenAI researcher who has tendered their resignation full cash & equity OTE to immediately join our Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese," Benioff, the Salesforce CEO, posted on X in a pledge to buy out the OpenAI researchers' contracts, along with any unrealized profits and sales incentives. As many as 95% of OpenAI workers have also threatened to quit if Altman, the company's co-founder, is not reinstated. AdvertisementSalesforce's Einstein is the company's generative AI program built for managing relationships with customers.

Persons: Marc Benioff, Sam Altman, Altman, —, Salesforce, Silvio Savarese, Einstein, Benioff, Greg Brockman, OpenAI, Jakub Pachocki, Szymon Sidor, Aleksander Madry, Savarese, Stanford — Organizations: Salesforce, Service, Enterprise, Business, OpenAI, New York Times, Stanford

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, speaks during a keynote at the Dreamforce 2023 conference in San Francisco on Sept. 12, 2023. Salesforce announced in a Tuesday social media post that the business software maker's Dreamforce conference for customers and partners will remain in San Francisco for one more year. In an X post of his own, Benioff said San Francisco is "now the AI capital of the world." Salesforce used this year's Dreamforce conference to show off AI capabilities integrating with technology from Anthropic and OpenAI. San Francisco reported 620 accidental drug overdose deaths in 2022, down from 640 in 2021 and 725 in 2020.

Persons: Marc Benioff, Salesforce, Sam Altman, Benioff Organizations: Salesforce.com, San Francisco Chronicle, Google, Oracle, Police, CNBC, London, Golden State Warriors, Banana, Nordstrom, Foods, CNBC PRO Locations: San Francisco, Salesforce, Francisco's, Francisco, Anthropic

☆ Salesforce turns to 'boomerangs,' luring back former execs to help reignite growth
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-18 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Marc Benioff, chief executive officer of Salesforce.com Inc., right, greets attendees after a keynote at the company's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco on Sept. 12, 2023. Ariel Kelman had been away from Salesforce for over a decade, when he received a direct message on Twitter from CEO Marc Benioff earlier this year. "I just thought it was good timing," Kelman said in an interview at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco last week. Kelman spent the few months prior running marketing at a startup called Fireblocks before rejoining Salesforce in June as chief marketing officer. Kelman and Milano are among at least eight ex-Salesforce execs who have rejoined the gang in 2023, as the company approaches its 25th birthday.

Persons: Marc Benioff, Benioff, Ariel Kelman, who'd, Kelman, Miguel Milano, Milano, Brian Millham, Millham, Dreamforce . Kelman, Salesforce, Bret Taylor, it's Organizations: Salesforce.com Inc, Amazon Web Services, Oracle, Salesforce's, Salesforce, CNBC Locations: San Francisco, Salesforce, Madrid

☆ Salesforce launches AI assistant across its apps including Slack and Tableau
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The company logo for Salesforce.com is displayed on the Salesforce Tower in New York City, U.S., March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsSept 12 (Reuters) - Enterprise software maker Salesforce (CRM.N) on Tuesday launched a generative AI tool that would be available across its suite of apps from instant messaging service Slack to data visualization tool Tableau and can be tailored by its clients to meet their needs. Salesforce says its Einstein Copilot can tap customer and enterprise data available on its Data Cloud to generate appropriate responses. Users will be able to embed the assistant into their websites or integrate them with messaging platforms such as Slack and Meta Platform's (META.O) WhatsApp. The company also doubled its venture capital fund for generative AI startups to $500 million in June.

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Slack, Einstein, Salesforce, Marc Benioff, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Zaheer Kachwala, Tasim Zahid Organizations: REUTERS, Enterprise, Tuesday, Meta, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, San Francisco, Bengaluru

☆ Salesforce rallies as profitability push pays off
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The company logo for Salesforce.com is displayed on the Salesforce Tower in New York City, U.S., March 7, 2019. Salesforce raised its annual forecast for adjusted operating margin on Wednesday to about 30% from 28%, with CFO Amy Weaver stressing the new figure "is a floor, not a ceiling". Wall Street analysts lauded the move, noting the benefits from an aggressive profitability push at a company that has traditionally focused on growing bigger through acquisitions. While the 11% rise in second-quarter revenue was much slower than historic growth rates of around 20% to 30%, the figure breezed past Wall Street expectations, and Salesforce also raised its annual revenue forecast. Salesforce trades at 25 times its forward 12 months earnings estimates, compared with the industry median of 15.14.

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Salesforce, Amy Weaver, Marc Benioff, Raymond James said, Raymond James, Aditya Soni, Shounak Dasgupta Organizations: REUTERS, Wall Street, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, Bengaluru

"This quarter puts Salesforce in a league of its own and isn't being appreciated nearly enough at these prices," Jim says. CRM YTD mountain Salesforce's year-to-date stock performance. That is likely why Salesforce stock traded at a valuation "well below" its peers, Smith argued at the time. For context, here's the full list of Salesforce peers included Starboard's presentation: Club holding Microsoft 's (MSFT) productivity and business processes segment, Adobe, Club holding Oracle (ORCL), Intuit (INTU), ServiceNow, Workday and SAP (SAP). Importantly, that $265 target is strictly the result of applying current average peer valuation to Salesforce's current growth/profit mix.

Persons: Marc Benioff, Jim Cramer, Jim, Salesforce, Jeff Smith —, Smith, Salesforce's, —, it's, Jim Cramer's, Patrick T Organizations: —, Club, ServiceNow, Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle, Intuit, SAP, CRM, CNBC, Salesforce.com Inc, Global Technology, Fallon, Bloomberg, Getty Locations: That's, TurboTax, Salesforce's, Laguna Beach , California, U.S

☆ Bridgewater's tech chief is leaving the hedge fund giant for Microsoft to focus on the 'relentless tide of cyber threats'
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Bianca Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

He told Insider he's making the move to help combat cybersecurity on a broader scale. Igor Tsyganskiy, chief technology officer and president, is leaving the world's largest hedge fund after seven years, Insider has learned. Prior to Bridgewater, Tsyganskiy ran database.com, a division of Salesforce.com, and was the cofounder of Tealeaf Technologies, which was sold to IBM. Bell recently told Insider that AI would give Microsoft the upper hand to "finally turn the tables on the attackers." "Basically, end-to-end strategy on how Microsoft approaches the cybersecurity sector is my job," Tsyganskiy told Insider.

Persons: Igor Tsyganskiy, Tsyganskiy, Greg Jensen, Bridgewater's, Oliver Radwan, Kevin Brennan, Ray Dalio, Nir Bar Dea, Bridgewater, Charlie Bell, Bell Organizations: Bridgewater, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Tealeaf Technologies, IBM, Web Services Locations: Bridgewater, Bay Area, Connecticut, Westport , Connecticut, Salesforce.com

☆ Salesforce raises prices for the first time in 7 years. What it means for the stock
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | In Kevinstankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Salesforce (CRM) on Tuesday took another step to deliver profitable growth — a welcome development for investors, like us, which sent its stock price higher. Investors appeared upbeat around the list price increases, which Salesforce said are the first in seven years. "I don't expect it to impact churn much," said Berg, who has a buy rating and $230-per-share price target on Salesforce stock. It's worth noting, large customers will usually negotiate with Salesforce to secure a discount to a product's list price. Previously, a customer who bought 100 licenses at a 20% discount to the old list price would've generated $24,000.

Persons: Salesforce, Needham, Scott Berg, Berg, Mizuho, Marc Benioff's, Benioff, He's, Jim Cramer's, Jim Cramer, Jim, Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com, David Paul Morris Organizations: Service, Industries, Nasdaq, Nvidia, Palo Alto Networks, Devices, CNBC, Salesforce, Mizuho Securities, Bloomberg, Getty Locations: Palo, San Francisco

☆ Salesforce, Caterpillar and Disney are in the news. Here's our take on the headlines
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Meanwhile, analysts who cover Caterpillar (CAT) put out fresh research that cuts against our own thinking, and layoffs will soon begin at Disney (DIS). The Salesforce co-founder echoed the we-can-learn-from-everybody philosophy he laid out on March 1 in an interview with Jim Cramer. Salesforce shares, which rose modestly Monday, has surged more than 44% this year, the third-best performing Club stock behind Nvidia (NVDA) and Meta Platforms (META). Baird turns bearish on CAT CAT 1Y mountain Caterpillar's 12-month stock performance. "It's very hard to get in and out of CAT," Jim said Monday.

☆ Salesforce follows Microsoft in launching A.I. tools for salespeople with help from OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The company said Tuesday that it will release software incorporating artificial intelligence to help salespeople, customer service agents and marketers do their jobs. Salesforce is calling the offering Einstein GPT, drawing on OpenAI's technology that's taken the tech industry by storm since the Microsoft-backed startup opened ChatGPT to the public in November. These AI models sometimes display incorrect information, prompting companies that sell to big businesses and governments to proceed carefully. Like Salesforce, Microsoft is trying to keep the spread of incorrect information to a minimum as it brings AI features to its competing Dynamics 365 software. Salesforce is also touting a new ChatGPT app for Slack that can display information derived from Salesforce.

☆ Salesforce faces an underappreciated risk: Platform customers jumping ship like Veeva
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Veeva built its core software on top of Salesforce's app-development platform, but that will be coming to an end in 2025. Peter Gassner, Veeva's founder and CEO, ran the Salesforce platform before starting Veeva in 2007. "Peter has been an outstanding CEO," Benioff was quoted as saying in 2017, as the two companies deepened their partnership. The agreement between the companies holds that Veeva is on the hook to pay Salesforce as Veeva customers use Salesforce's platform — and costs have risen as more people have come to rely on Veeva. But it has grown into a profitable publicly traded software company with $2 billion in annual revenue and a $28 billion market capitalization.

☆ At Marc Benioff’s Salesforce, It’s One Big Family—Until Trouble Hits
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Tom Dotan | Katherine Bindley | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Through the sky’s-the-limit boom years, Marc Benioff , the co-founder and chief executive of Salesforce.com Inc., told employees they were bound together like family. In today’s leaner times, he is laying off thousands of them. Since its founding in 1999, the San Francisco-based business-software company has grown fast and spent big. Salesforce put its name on skyscrapers in San Francisco, Tokyo, London and New York City and, according to people familiar with the arrangement, agreed to pay actor Matthew McConaughey more than $10 million a year to be a creative adviser and TV pitchman. Mr. Benioff added around 30,000 employees from the start of 2020 until the end of last year, roughly a 60% increase.

☆ Exclusive: Alphabet spinoff Sandbox AQ raises $500 mln for cyber security, other work
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Feb 14 (Reuters) - Sandbox AQ, a startup spun off from Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) last year, said on Tuesday it raised $500 million as it helps customers prepare for a quantum computing future. Former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt is the startup's chairman as well as an investor. Other investors include Breyer Capital, T. Rowe Price funds and Salesforce.com Inc founder Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures. Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee; editing by Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Exclusive: Alphabet spinoff Sandbox AQ raises $500 mln for cyber security, other quantum work
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Jane Lanhee Lee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

OAKLAND, Calif., Feb 14 (Reuters) - Sandbox AQ, a startup spun off from Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) last year, said on Tuesday it raised $500 million as it helps customers prepare for a quantum computing future. Quantum computers, whose processors run based on quantum physics, could one day carry out certain calculations millions of times quicker than today's fastest super computers, yet they remain years away from making a big change, such as breaking encryption. The simulation does not currently need quantum computers to work, said Hidary. When quantum computers are ready, that work would speed up even further. Sandbox AQ is also using existing types of sensors based on quantum physics.

☆ The largest hedge fund in the world just named a 37-year-old woman as a co-CIO. Meet the top 11 execs leading Bridgewater into its new era.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Alyson Velati | Michelle Abrego | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Karen Karniol-Tambour will join co-CIOs Greg Jensen and Bob Prince to oversee the hedge fund's investment strategy. Despite a breakout year for many multi-strategy and macro hedge funds, Bridgewater lagged behind its peers. Nir Bar Dea, co-CEOBar Dea. Bridgewater AssociatesAs cochief investment officer, Jensen oversees Bridgewater's investment strategies and research efforts as well as its investment talent. Since joining Bridgewater in 1986, he has been a partner in building the hedge fund's investment process and products.

☆ More than 500 Salesforce employees wrote to execs demanding layoff answers. Read the leaked messages showing how management responded.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Salesforce appeared to have responded to employees' questions through a Q&A titled "Top Questions from Employees," posted to an internal Slack channel by Salesforce executive vice president of employee communications and engagement Jill Unikel. Are you a Salesforce employee or do you have insight to share? SELECTION CRITERIAQuestion: What criteria was used to decide who was in the 10% of employees affected? If an affected employee finds a new role internally before their termination date, they will remain a Salesforce employee and not receive their communicated severance. BENEFITS FOR AFFECTED EMPLOYEESQuestion: Did affected employee receive benefits included in their severance?

☆ Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff hints at more potential layoffs after this week's job cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The virtual meeting came a day after Salesforce announced that it was cutting 10% of jobs, amounting to over 7,000 positions. Tech companies are shrinking their workforce for the first time in years as they reckon with slowing growth, rising interest rates and a potential recession. Now Salesforce is retrenching as revenue growth is slowing and as it faces an activist investor concerned about operating leverage. During Thursday's meeting, Benioff expressed frustration about media reports that surfaced regarding his his comments. WATCH: Jim Cramer says more tech layoffs are coming after Salesforce cuts 10% of its headcount

☆ Blockchain Fails to Gain Traction in the Enterprise
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Isabelle Bousquette | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. Some companies say they haven’t found a compelling enough reason to use it. Many didn’t have digital record-keeping systems and had to make large upfront investments before they could start using blockchain, Walmart said. Walmart is using blockchain to track leafy greens and green bell peppers. Earlier this year, the state of Jharkhand in eastern India began using blockchain to track seed distributions to farmers.

☆ Exclusive: Microsoft seeks to settle EU antitrust concerns over Teams -sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Foo Yun Chee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] Microsoft Teams app is seen on the smartphone placed on the keyboard in this illustration taken, July 26, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationBRUSSELS, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O) is seeking to address European Union antitrust concerns about its business practices prompted by a complaint from Salesforce.com's (CRM.N) workspace messaging app Slack, people familiar with the matter said. Microsoft found itself in the European Commission's crosshairs again last year after Slack alleged that the U.S. software giant has unfairly integrated its workplace chat and video app Teams into its Office product. Microsoft introduced Teams in 2017, aiming for a slice of the fast-growing and lucrative workplace collaboration market. It has made a preliminary offer of concessions to allay the EU competition enforcer's concerns, one of the people said.

On Monday, the company announced the departure of Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, who joined Salesforce last year as part of its biggest acquisition ever. Taylor, who joined Salesforce in 2016 through the acquisition of his startup Quip, said he'd "decided to return to my entrepreneurial roots." While Taylor and Butterfield are the highest-profile exits, they're far from alone among Salesforce's executive ranks. Noah Weiss, senior vice president of product at Slack, will succeed Yehoshua, Butterfield said in a Slack message. Butterfield is being succeeded by Lidiane Jones, an executive vice president at Salesforce who joined in 2019.

☆ Salesforce shares slump nearly 10% after co-CEO Bret Taylor announces surprise departure
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Salesforce shares were down about 10% by mid-day Thursday as analysts and investors digested Wednesday evening's earnings report and the surprise news that co-CEO Bret Taylor will depart by the end of Jan. 2023. Taylor's departure will leave founder Marc Benioff as the sole CEO at the tech giant. Taylor was appointed co-CEO and vice chair in Nov. 2021, having previously served as president and chief operating officer. Taylor was also chairman of the board of Twitter before billionaire Elon Musk took the company private. Taylor joined Salesforce in 2016 when his startup, Quip, was acquired by Benioff's company.

Salesforce said Wednesday that Bret Taylor will step down as co-CEO on Jan. 31, leaving Marc Benioff alone again at the top of the cloud software company he co-founded in 1999. Benioff closely embraced Taylor, who joined the company in 2016, when he sold his productivity software startup Quip to Salesforce. "I am grateful for six fantastic years at Salesforce," Taylor said in a statement on Wednesday. Before Quip, Taylor sold FriendFeed to Facebook and helped to create Google Maps. But the company's stock was down as much as 6% in after-hours trading.

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