or is it foyer [pronounced foy-yay]? fast in the hallway. i feel like i've been here before. switch now and get the fastest wifi everywhere. comcast business. built for business. ♪ emily: he may be the most influential man in san francisco. marc benioff, founder of salesforce, has transformed the way businesses do business. he's pioneered the flight to the cloud and a new model for philanthropy along the way. he launched his career at apple under steve jobs, became a star salesman at oracle under larry ellison, then went on to start what's now one of oracle's biggest competitors. joining me today on this special edition of "studio 1.0" from dreamforce 2014, salesforce ceo and chairman marc benioff. marc: always great to be with you.

emily: so great to be here at dreamforce, the largest software conference in the world. how many people are here today? marc: we have more than 145,000 registered to attend physically. and there's more than 5 million who are going to attend online -- in fact, 3 million have already attended online, so it could be even bigger than that. emily: now, i'll never forget the first time i saw your dreamforce keynote. it was like seeing moses part the red sea. you are a force up there. how much practice goes into that? marc: this year, i have not been on tour, so it was a brand-new show, and so i actually had to practice it quite a bit. emily: you announced wave, a cloud-based analytics platform. what does this give your customers that they did not have before? marc: analytics is just a category that just is rich for innovation. a lot of companies in our industry have kind of sat on

their, kind of, kingdoms too long and kind of kept the status quo going. there's a long list of those companies and a long list of those ceo's. and one of those areas is analytics. it is a completely new way to think about analytics, and mobile visualization, and it's really analytics for the rest of us. emily: there are myths about the greatest founders that are boiled down into legend. what is the myth of marc benioff, and what is the reality? marc: the reality is getting to this point in your career is a lot of hard work over a long period of time. the fundamental reality of our industry is that people are always overestimating what you can do in a year, and they underestimate what you can do in a decade. and in our industry, if you work hard, and focus, and have a clear vision, you can have a phenomenal outcome, and that is what we are doing here at salesforce. emily: you started your first company when you were 15. marc: i did. emily: then you went to apple, you worked under steve jobs. marc: i did. emily: what was the single most important thing you learned from him? marc: passion. steve jobs was one of the greatest, most passionate people

i ever met. and i still remember in 1984, i was programming assembly language, which is kind of the language at the core of the microprocessor, down at apple headquarters. and we were writing the first software that did assembly language on the macintosh. well, steve jobs came storming down the halls, motivating the developers. his energy was infectious. and everybody wanted to work as hard as they could, because he was there, and he was working so hard. and i learned that, i learned that you have to be all in. and that is something i try to bring to salesforce, too. emily: how confident are you in the future of apple under tim cook? marc: i think that tim is doing a great job. we have seen some great new products this month with the new iphones. i have one in my pocket right now. i have a 6 plus i'm really enjoying. and apple is a great company. i think it's the greatest story in american business. and look, steve does not -- steve -- steve was the greatest of the greatest, we all know that. and so, being the follow-on is going to be tough no matter what, i think. just that point makes tim a success. emily: steve jobs and larry ellison were great personal

friends, but i wonder, how were they different as bosses? marc: both are actually phenomenal visionaries. you know, both are able to really have a feeling for where the industry is going and work hard with their teams to create that reality. i think that where they are a little bit different is, you know -- larry was maybe a little bit more of a suit and tie person, steve was always in his jeans and black turtleneck. you know, their aesthetics were a little different. their styles were remarkably the same. you know? i think that is why they got along so well together. emily: in what way? marc: well, it gets back to that passion. they were very passionate, dedicated, focused people. and the number one issue for both of them, their business. nothing was more important to steve than apple, nothing is more important to larry than oracle. there is a message in that. if you want to put everything above everything else, you are going to achieve that. whatever you focus on, you are

going to get. and for both of those executives, the number one thing in their life was their work. we all know larry ellison is a force of nature, and what larry ellison wants, larry ellison is going to get. ♪

♪ emily: when larry ellison stepped down as ceo, you tweeted, "there has been and always will be one ceo at oracle." what do you mean by that? how optimistic are you about mark hurd and safra catz being co-ceo's? marc: well, i am sure mark and safra will continue to do a good job, just like they have over the last two years, but we all know larry ellison is a force of nature, and what larry ellison wants, larry ellison is going to get. so whoever is the ceo is going to have to bend to larry's desires. emily: all right. now, larry gave you money to start salesforce. marc: he did. he did. he was our first investor. emily: and salesforce has now

become the main competition of oracle. marc: that might be true. emily: so, what did salesforce do right over the years that oracle has done wrong? marc: well, we really got singularly focused on a vision of the cloud. a lot like what google or yahoo! do, you can log on a website, but instead of delivering books or delivering search results or something like that, well, we are delivering business functionality. and we have stayed very focused and dedicated to that idea for 15 years. and because of that singular focus, we have been able to achieve a great success. and there is a message in that around business, which is you have to be dedicated. emily: and is there another message that oracle missed the cloud? marc: well, oracle has a different business. on my way out of oracle, jeff henley, who just retired as the chairman and who was the cfo at the time, took me into his office, said, "marc, you know, it's a good thing you are leaving oracle." and i said, "whoa, jeff, why is that?" and he goes, "well, it's going to be hard for us to do a

brand-new technology model and a brand-new business model," because everything from the way you deliver the software to the way you recognize the revenue is completely different in cloud computing. emily: you and larry ellison have had a rivalry over the years and more recently a partnership. what is your relationship really like behind the scenes? marc: larry and i have a great relationship. i just saw him on sunday night where, you know, it's -- we're always hugging and kissing. [laughter] emily: frienemies? marc: frienemies. we have been friends for 30 years. so that's been very exciting. and look, i do not think -- i have had some great mentors in my life. people, you know, who i've been thrilled to have. of course, my parents, my grandparents. but also, i've had, like you mentioned, steve jobs, colin powell. dramatically influenced me in philanthropy. and in business, i don't think anyone has influenced me more than larry ellison. i would not be the ceo that i am today, salesforce would not be the company that it is, not just because of his money, but because of everything that he continues to teach me, and that i learn from him.

emily: so big tech companies are splitting up. from hp to ebay. why is that happening? and are we going to see more of it? marc: well, i think that there's a lot of different reasons why that is happening. one might be these companies are just too big, they have become so big, unmanageable and you want to get them to be smaller units. smaller units are easier to manage. and so in an organization like hp, you know, it's solomon's baby, they are going to have one for each and that's going to be a great strategy for them. with two ceo's. i think the same thing is a great strategy for ebay. there are probably a lot of other companies will follow this. emily: will oracle follow? is oracle one of those companies? marc: i think that with oracle, it's hard to do. number one, because the distribution organization is going to be the same no matter what. the most important thing is that oracle has to innovate at a

higher rate. that's what we just have not seen oracle do in the last decade. emily: salesforce has been a big acquirer. how do you continue to buy companies without losing focus, without getting bloated? marc: well, number one, acquisitions are hard no matter who you are. i can tell you firsthand, after doing 25 acquisitions over the last five years, acquisitions are hard. but you can transform your company through acquisitions. and the other thing that acquisitions do is they bring all these incredible people into your company, and if you can nurture those people, well then, you can end up phenomenal results. emily: so what do you do from within to overcome the hard part, and the challenges when you buy another big company? marc: the number one thing you've got to do is you've got to be, as a ceo, you have to choose which one you are going to be in. because it's going to dramatically increase the success of it. i only have so much time. [laughter] emily: right. marc: so where i spend my time is super important. i kind of divide my time into four quadrants. and in a certain quadrant, which is my transformation quadrant, that is where i spend the majority of my time. the things that i know that, if i do not do them, they are not

going to get done. there's going to be other things, around operating the business, or maybe nurturing things that are coming two to five years from now or maybe things around the efficiency of the business, that i do not have to be as involved in. of course, i still have to be involved at some level. but those transformational things, i have to pick and choose carefully. and then i can really deliver a great result. emily: we hear a lot about google investing in moonshots, internal products and technologies, the self-driving car. google glass. how much time and how many resources do you devote to innovating from within? marc: for us, innovating from within is what it is all about. when i sit there with our teams, we are really kind of figuring out -- and i think wave is a great example -- we wanted to do three things. we wanted, number one, build a product that would be for everyone in the company, not just the analysts, which had never been done in analytics. number two, that it would run great on these mobile devices. and it's built for this product and this platform. that is really important to us. and then the third thing is behind us is a lot of developers and a lot of software ceo's. and they want to build on that

platform and build their own companies. and so, we build a platform as well. so by doing great, great, great kind of democratization, you know, great consumerization, and then great platform, we're delivering a whole new type of product. emily: what is salesforce's strategy to get into china? one of the most crucial markets of the future. marc: well, china is a super important market. it is very exciting. we work closely with our customers there. we also have to work very closely with the government. we have to work with our partners. all of those things come together to help create something in china. emily: now, the nsa revelations, i wonder how those specifically have impacted your business, because you are dealing with so much sensitive data. you have built data centers in germany, france, the u.k. will you have to have one in every important country? marc: oh yeah, you're going to have to have one in every important country, but it's not because of that, it's another reason. because the cloud is going mainstream, every president of every country wants to have their own cloud.

i was just in germany. i was with angela merkel. she wants the german cloud. i was with francois hollande in france. he wants the french cloud. abe wants the japan cloud, you know? cameron wants the u.k. cloud. emily: you are the cloud maker. marc: you know what. they should have one. they should have their own clouds. i'm all for that. and for every important country in the world, they will have their own clouds. they will all interoperate, if that's what they want as well, or they can just have their own local versions. it's whatever they want. that is my job. emily: how does that work from a security and privacy perspective? marc: well, from a security and privacy perspective, you know, we are using the best practices in the industry. but i am going to tell you something that you already know, and every viewer will know, there is no finish line when it comes to security. we are in a very dynamic and difficult situation in cyber security. and it doesn't matter what company you are, what executive you are. if you take any position except for that this is a tough environment, you're going to

have challenges. so, we take it super seriously and we are super cautious. and it is going to be a complex environment going forward. emily: we have spoken about your mentors. how does marc benioff want to be remembered? ♪

emily: you have sold tens of millions of shares in the last year. why? marc: well, i have sold a lot of stock over the last 10 years, and i've diversified out of a percentage of my stock. but still, i have a very large position in salesforce. i am either the largest shareholder or one of the very largest shareholders. emily: so no shareholder should be worried? about your confidence in your own company? marc: as one of the largest shareholders, i have never been more excited about salesforce. emily: you created the 1-1-1 model, giving 1% of time,

equity, and profits to philanthropy. why is this the best way for companies to give back? marc: on day one, we put 1% of our equity, 1% of our profit, and 1% of all of our employees' time into a 501(c)(3) public charity. it was very easy at the time because we had no stock, we had no employees, we had no products. a very easy decision. now though, it is paid out, we have delivered more than 680,000 hours of community service, over $70 million in grants to nonprofits all over the world, including big grants here locally to our public schools and our public hospitals, and -- this is what i am most excited about -- more than 23,000 nonprofits and ngo's use salesforce for free. and that's a huge part of our philanthropic focus. emily: you are san francisco born and raised. i wonder, obviously the business is so important to you.

but why is giving back so important to you? marc: because i knew that i would never have real joy and happiness and fulfillment in my life without giving. i had already been through a pretty awesome ride, if you will, at oracle. 13 years. being with oracle from $50 million in revenue when i joined in 1986 to when i left in 1999 about the size that oracle is now, i had already seen that trajectory, but what i recognized is that just building a product and just selling that product to a customer is not going to make you happy and fulfilled as an executive. i had seen that across the board, and what i did see, though, was if we could somehow tie and integrate philanthropy into our business, we were going to have not just a great finance result, technical result. i was maybe too confident in my own ability as a technical leader. but i wanted to have fulfillment to enjoy in my life.

i knew i would have to do something philanthropic to achieve that. emily: the venture capitalist chamath palihapitiya criticized your philanthropy efforts as marketing. how do you respond to that? i believe you saw that when that happened. marc: right. well, i think it is just amazing to me, you know, that anybody could say that. because we are so dedicated, for a decade and a half, to helping other people. and we are so through-and-through that this is what we are about and what we want to leave behind. at the end of the day, i am not sure people will ever remember salesforce. maybe they won't even remember cloud computing.

but i know that they are going to remember all the work that we did in the world while we were a successful business. and all the things that we did to give back. and that is what is really important to me. emily: inequality protests have broken out right here in san francisco. google buses have been attacked. you have become, kind of, the social conscience of the tech industry. you have said the tech community has to do more. how satisfied are you with their response? marc: well, i am kind of a protestor and activist in the technology industry, seeking change, so i feel very aligned with these protesters. and i will tell you, what is exciting for me is that it gives me a vehicle to say to companies, give. do more. that if you want to, somehow, quell these voices, show them that you are not just extracting value from society, but that you are giving value back. you know, our corporate leaders are phenomenal leaders. if they can partner with the mayors, the superintendents, we can do a lot of good. and the more that we can make that happen, the more result we are going to get. we've see that in san francisco and we are going to prove that out. emily: but you have been disappointed, haven't you? in terms of the response of some of these companies? i mean, i guess i wonder why aren't we seeing more? marc: i can give some examples -- look, i can give you great examples of where i will say to

someone, "hey, we should do more," and i can see them fully give and go all in. and then i, you know, a very famous ceo of a hot technology company -- i'm not going to call him out on your show -- just talking to him and say, "hey, don't you want to give back?" and he wrote me an email and he said, "well, what have i been given?" i said, "what do you mean?" "well, what have i been given? i created all this. i did this. i made this happen." and i was like, you know -- i am taken aback by that, honestly. where it's like, ok, well. it is a point of view. and the reality is, look, we are all working together to make this a better place. and if we do not work together, it will not happen. taking that position is not going to anyone anywhere. emily: you are also very active politically. you've hosted multiple fundraisers for president obama. how satisfied are you with his presidency? marc: number one, i am not a democrat and i'm not a republican. i actually give money to a lot of different politicians, including the president and also some of his competitors in the race for the presidency. i am an american.

and i want to advocate for my causes that are important to me, and things like those kind of programs give me the opportunity to get access to them and make my case on why we should do things like philanthropy, why we should increase cyber security -- emily: how closely are you keeping your eye on the startup community and what could become the next salesforce? your next big nemesis? marc: i spend a lot of time with startups and entrepreneurs. i love startups and entrepreneurs, because i am, i think, a startup and an entrepreneur. we're just a $5 billion a year startup with 15,000 employees. and i love spending time with them. i only get a limited amount of time. but, in my next life, whatever that is, i would like to spend more time helping entrepreneurs. emily: what is next for marc benioff? marc: well, one thing is going to be a lot more philanthropy, a lot more giving. we've built these two great children's hospitals now with oakland and san francisco. and then, i would love to spend more time with entrepreneurs as well. both of those things are highly constrained because i have a day job --

[laughter] emily: right. marc: -- which is running salesforce. and i really love that. i love my job, i love our industry, i love making all these people behind me happy. that's why they come to dreamforce. emily: we have spoken about your mentors. how does marc benioff want to be remembered? marc: well, i hope that if i, as i mentioned, if i leave anything behind, it's not just cloud computing or crm or the democratization of enterprise software, but that it's -- you know, that the true joy of life comes through giving. and that you can be in business, you can be the ceo, you can have a great company, and that can be one of the greatest vehicles for giving that you will ever have. so use that platform to give back, and you are going to be -- not just have great success, but you will even be happier than you will even be successful. emily: marc benioff, thank you so much for joining us. this has really been a phenomenal opportunity. marc: thank you for coming to dreamforce. and i hope you come back next year. emily: i will be back for sure. ♪

emily: from pier three in san francisco, welcome to the best of "bloomberg west." i am emily chang. every week and on the "best of west," we bring you the top interviews with the power players in technology and media companies that are reshaping our world. we begin with google. the search giant faces biggest issue ever when the eu began