Early Life
Marc Russell Benioff was born on September 25, 1964, in San Francisco, California. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and is of Jewish heritage. During his youth, Benioff displayed an interest in technology, creating games and selling software. He attended Burlingame High School, graduating in 1982, and later earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in 1986.
Rise to Success
Benioff's career began with early entrepreneurial ventures, including founding Liberty Software at age 15, creating and selling games for the Atari 8-bit. He also worked as a programmer at Apple during an internship. After graduating from USC, Benioff joined Oracle Corporation, where he quickly advanced, becoming the youngest vice president in the company's history at age 26. In 1999, he founded Salesforce in a San Francisco apartment, pioneering the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.
Key Business Strategies
Salesforce's mission was defined as "The End of Software," and became a leader in cloud computing. Benioff has expanded Salesforce's offerings with a platform for developers to create applications. He has also made strategic acquisitions, such as ExactTarget, which enhanced Salesforce's marketing capabilities. Benioff has also implemented an aggressive AI strategy, which has led to some investor concern.
Philanthropy
Benioff is a strong advocate for corporate philanthropy and established the Salesforce Foundation, which uses a 1-1-1 approach. Salesforce donates 1% of employee time, 1% of product, and 1% of revenue to charitable causes. He and his wife Lynne have also made significant donations to various institutions, including UCSF, to establish a prostate cancer research initiative, and to the University of California at Santa Barbara, for the Benioff Ocean Initiative.
