On with Kara Swisher - Marc Benioff’s Toughest Conversation with Kara Swisher

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Kara has interviewed Salesforce CEO and co-founder Marc Benioff many times but he says she'd never been as prepared to grill him as she was this time. It’s a showdown between a savvy CEO who is deft at turning the tables…and an interviewer who is unafraid to pin him down. Taped in front of a live audience at the Upfront Summit, the two tackle whether Marc will be able to keep up the victory lap of a surprisingly strong earnings report, his succession plan, their divergent takes on a divisive Elon Musk – and why having activist investors breathing down his neck is “fun” for Benioff.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature, Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Master Plan 26 from Elon Musk. Yet another sequel, but with even fewer good ideas to save the earth. I actually call it masturbating. Just kidding. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. Masturbating. All right. I'm Naima Raza. And he didn't have a good plan for investors, but he had a plan to save us all, Kara. It was literally plagiarized from Bill Gates' book from two years ago that we did a podcast with Cara. It was literally plagiarized from Bill Gates's book from two years

ago that we did a podcast with him on. Not literally plagiarized. Oh, okay. Liberally borrowed from, allegedly. Liberally borrowed from. Yeah, heat pumps. You're kidding. Wow, we never thought about that. Thanks for telling us, Elon. Until Elon comes to save us, you and I are here. We're sitting at the Upfront Summit in LA. It's nice to see you in real life, Cara. You're even taller than I remembered. No, I'm still short, but big on stage, big on stage. In just a little bit, you'll be big on stage with Mark Benioff, who you last interviewed, I guess, a little over a year ago at Code, right?

Yeah. Fall 2021. Yeah, we talked about a lot of things and things have changed rather significantly. Yeah. He pulled a Bob Iger. What a difference a year makes. When you spoke to him last time, it was just off the heels of the Slack acquisition for a cool $27.7 billion.

Too much. I think at the heels of the Slack acquisition for a cool $27.7 billion. Too much. I think at the end of that year in 2021, the Salesforce stock price on the heels of that deal was about $300. And it's now to about $185 as we're taping this. He was in a bit of distress with a lot of activist investors on his tail. And then he pulled out a quarter that was really spectacularly impressive. He's a very good CEO. There's been a recent rally,

but he is under fire from the bottom up and the top down right now. He had to lay off 8,000 employees. Like a lot of tech companies, let's be fair. Like a lot of tech companies, you're right. And we had to stack rank the rest of what he called his big happy family of employees. And probably more problematic for him, he has six activist investors breathing down his neck, including the big dogs at Elliott Management. So what kind of mindset do you think he's walking in this interview with? Jolly. I would say he's been texting me all this week, all these different stories about him and doing well. Read us some texts. What has he said? No,

it's just, he's just saying like, look, I did a good job this quarter. And I think he, I think he's trying to handle it and take it head on. It's a very classic Mark is he's not hiding from it. He knows there's problems. And I think he wants to say, I've got it. I got this, Kara, and I've got this world kind of thing. And so we're going to go over some of the problems, including the problematic acquisitions, the same thing that's going on at Disney, the heir apparent situation, which has gotten problematic. And then what happens secularly to his business which has issues. Corporate spending is pulled back

especially on stuff that he sells. I mean, he's obviously hoping to put the sharks at bay for a bit with this fantastic Erling result. Do you think he has?

I mean, yeah. Elliot has said that much work remains and that Salesforce needs a quote sustainable leadership plan which sounds like a coup on the horizon.

That is correct. So does Disney. So do a lot of people. It's not a coup. You're not going to coup Mark Benioff out of a job. He's uncouable? It's tough. It's tough. It's tough. He lost a lot of his top brass, including the co-CEO, Brett Taylor. And according to the Journal, Benioff didn't like how much time Brett had been spending on Twitter. Brett became the chairman of the Twitter board just before Elon took over. You know these people. I do not. So what do you tell me about these characters?

It's hard to find an... I like Brett Taylor, a nice guy, but I'm sure he was spending a lot of time on Twitter. That was occupying a lot of his time. And then he did a great job for shareholders there. But he works for Salesforce, right? His day job is for Salesforce. So again, a very smart guy. Probably he had hoped that he would be taking over as CEO. smart guy. Probably he had hoped that he would be taking over as CEO. But these guys are, these big, bigger than life CEOs are hard to replace. These are the first generation CEOs. And so it's always going to be a difficult issue. It's worked out well for Apple with Tim Cook, obviously taking over Steve Jobs or Satya Nadella taking over for Steve Ballmer who took over Bill Gates, but that was the same package. And so this is going to be a big shift for this company. And at some point,

there's life after Mark Benioff, and we'll see what he has to say about that. Well, I hope that you find out what really went down for them when you're on stage. But Benioff has been backing Elon's Twitter takeover a little bit. He talked about CEOs not be thinking if they should unleash their inner Elon. He's gotten some heat for that of late. There was a little more context, what he was saying. Yeah, there was more context of that. He's not unique in this. A lot of CEOs are saying Elon's had the gumption

to go do what needs to be done as if it were your money, your business, running it. And yet you and Mark have had a little back and forth that you disagree. We have. I texted him after he did the first time when he praised Elon for something. And I said, were you aware of these three texts that he, tweets he wrote? And he was not aware. And he's

like, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that. One was about Paul Pelosi, who Mark is friends with them, with the Pelosi's. And I was like, this is appalling. And you can't separate the two right now at this moment. Maybe you should. I get what you're saying about visionariness but honestly this is not someone to admire at this moment in time in the way you're doing it it's hard to pull apart and we had a good he's you know mark's a thoughtful guy i always enjoy talking to him and he was what he's like i get it apologetic or yeah i would say apologetic he's done that a number of times we had a back and forth about calling uh lorraine powell jobs' widow, and only referencing her that way when she's done a ton of stuff. So I call him on a lot of stuff.

And he's always open to hearing and learning. That's one of the things I do like about him compared to a lot of people. And he doesn't get in a lather about it. He just goes, okay, and he'll have a good debate. And so I appreciate that. That's all you could ask for, someone to listen. All right, let's send you into the ring.

But before we do, we should disclose that amongst the spending that Salesforce was doing in the pandemic, they sponsored videos for your other podcast, Pivot. They did. Yeah, they were an advertiser. And we don't do it anymore.

It's done. Yeah. I'm not getting Matthew McConaughey money, but it was a good sum of money. I don't care. Yeah. He's not getting any softball questions from us, but, you know, it was a good sum of money. I don't care. Yeah, he's not getting any softball questions from us. He's not, not in any way whatsoever.

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It is on. What? Are you going to? Oh, God. What are you doing? Okay. Oh, God. They love to hug me, and I really don't like being hugged.

So, I like you better than most, but it's a low bar. Anyway, so we talked about a year ago, right? You did not have a voice. I did. You had laryngitis, and so you brought in Stephanie Ruhl to be your surrogate voice. Yes, I did. And I still have that same cold since I— Oh, wow.

Yeah, having toddlers at an advanced age. She was a lovely surrogate voice for you. Well, she's got a lot of voice. Anyway, let's start with you. Let's focus on you. One of my favorite topics, So thank you for going there. I'm going to let you, when I booked this, when I got Mark to come to this, things were not going so well for Mark Benioff at Salesforce. Oh gosh, is that why you called me? That's your pleasure? I did. I thought. You're like, finally. Kick him

when he's down. That was my goal. I'm sorry to disappoint you. But you've since, I know you did this. I know. It's a bummer, isn't it? I know, it's okay. You thought you had me, finally. Oh, I still have you. So let's begin and start with, I'm going to let you start. I'm giving you a softball here. This week's earnings report, Salesforce beat profit estimates, it's stronger than expected forecast, and it's an expansion of the share buyback.

Oh, you have cards, okay. Everybody going there. All right, I am. That's the first thing. It's the news. Hello. All right. Okay. Take everything out. All right. I am. That's the first thing. It's the news. Hello. All right.

Okay. Take everything out. Get yourself all situated. Oh, my God. Question I don't know the answer to. All right. You got it all? I think so, but I don't know.

Let me see. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, the internet. Go ahead. Go ahead. All right. Well, I mean, next year, we're all going to be just like, hey, chat GPT. What was the performance of the... Oh, yeah, the internet. Go ahead. All right. Well, I mean, next year we're all going to be just like, hey, chat GPT. What was the performance of the... No, we are not.

Oh, yeah, we are. Okay, we'll talk about that. I think generally AI is an issue for you. Okay, let's talk about it. So expansion of the share buyback program. Yeah. Does that give you some breathing room with your 103 activist investors that are... Yeah, that's a good question.

We had a great quarter. We did 17% growth. We did 29.2% in our margins. For the year, we did... It was supposed to be 27, I think, correct? Well, that's for next year. We're going to do 27. We really were going to be about 22, which is where we have been.

And then we really kind of have... We delivered four additional points for this year. We're doing four and a half additional points for next year. And then we delivered 7.1 billion in positive cashflow for the year, which is very healthy for a company our size. And it was a great quarter. And then for next year, we'll do about 35 billion in revenue. And we gave the punchline 27% margins and kind of you know we're heading towards this 30 number very fast i think we're going to get there in fiscal year 25 so that's very exciting so essentially you bob eiger did but what happened so let's what what tell did you

or like these i bob eiger did but it's it's a love by the way. Okay, fine, but it's now a verb. I just made it one. So you have these activist investors. He had just one. You have many. I think, I believe it's five. Is that correct? I am not sure exactly. I actually need a CRM system just to keep track of them all.

Yes, yes. Here they are. Besides, I'll get to Vivek Ramaswamy. Sorry, right. Oh, yeah. We'll not get to him. Thataswamy. Sorry, right. Oh, yeah. We'll not get to him. That's another one. I wouldn't exactly call him a...

No, I own more sales. He's running for president. Yes, I know that. I'm very excited about that run. Are you voting for him? I wouldn't say hello to him, so no. Okay, I guess that's a no. Let's get to you.

So you're staying with Trump is what you're saying. Well, you're staying with Elon, so here we are. All right, well. Anyway, you told me. Hey, you're the one who has the photo of him on the Twitter page. Can you stop talking so I can ask a question? All right. In 2021, you told me you'd double revenue in the next five years, now 2023.

You want to revise that projection for 2026, or are you still on track? What was the question? In 2021, you told me you'd double revenue over the next five years you did um whoa i would just say um oh you mean last year yes where am i going to be five years from now yes i'm trying to figure out where i'm going to be five minutes from now. Okay. All right. All right. I mean, next, I can say that this year we just finished at 31.4 billion and next year we're going to do about 35 billion. And, you know, the economy is not where it was. And so I think when we look at, you know, here's what happened, I think, for a lot of tech companies, which I think is a story that is not really being really well told, but forget about our fiscal years for a second and just go to calendar years. In 2021, it was like the best year tech

ever had. It was like incredible. It was the best buying environment. Our fourth quarter, you know, in that year, which is only exactly 12 months ago, was the best quarter we've ever had. And I think this was true for a lot of companies. It was. And everyone, us, all of our peers, were all surging employment to kind of get ready for another year like that because we thought that was a normalized buying environment. But then we started to see some unusual macro issues. Currency has really started to change aggressively. We saw inflation start to come up. The stock market basically imploded. And the buying environment changed, and CEOs especially became more measured. And when that happened, that's when all of a sudden everybody had to start thinking about,

well, we need a slightly different plan here. Right. And we're kind of looking like, oh, that year was an anomaly, and then we're back into a new normal. So that is kind of what happened. So to kind of get through that year and deliver like we did, that was kind of an incredible moment. So what did you do to do that? Because you clearly had to show these investors, you had to sort of slap them around a little bit, presumably. It's not really about them, though they would like it to be. Right. I would say it's really about our customers. I think when you focus down on the customer success and probably the best metric in the quarter is that we hit a record low attrition in customer.

And the reason why is when you focus on the customer success, which is really in concert with trust, our highest value, everything starts to really work for you. And that is what we did. We really doubled down, especially in our fourth quarter. We took a 90-day extreme focus on customer success, and we were able to deliver some phenomenal numbers. We did not think we would do $8.4 billion when we started the quarter. We thought we were going to do about $8. So you feel like you had no pressure that Activist Investor didn't sort of get you going, all of them?

It's actually been a lot of fun, and I'll just tell you why. I've been doing this 24 years. Yeah, Dan Loeb is a laugh riot, but go ahead. He's a friend of mine, so been a longtime friend of mine. I think over here, friend of mine, so been a longtime friend of mine. I think over here, running the business, you know, we understand how to run our business, make our customers successful, innovate. You know, this is what we do for a living. Now, some of these investors show up. I'm like, oh, let's get to know them. I like to just talk to people, so I'll talk to them. Now, you have a wide variety of folks in this category, and they have a wide variety of expertise, especially when it comes to our industry, which is highly specialized.

So while some of them add a lot of value, some of them don't. Some of them have great ideas, some of them don't. So I just enjoyed really getting to know them. One person in particular who I've known for a while and then his founder, I don't know if you know Jeff Ubin, who's a San Francisco person. I do. Very close with a friend of mine, Lars Ulrich, who's the head of Metallica. Another San Francisco person. And his new CEO of ValueAct is Mason Worthit,

who was on the board of Microsoft for five years. Yep. And when I met with Mason, it was pretty awesome because he's like, hey, let's, like, he was at Dreamforce. He spent time with our customers. Yeah, you just appointed him to the board. And then, yeah, and the reason why is he came in and he said, what about this for the distribution strategy? What about this for pricing? What about this for bundling?

You found him helpful. what about this for the distribution strategy? What about this for pricing? What about this for bundling? You found him helpful. Oh, beyond helpful. And I think the board is like, wow, this is amazing. We'd love to have you as part of the board.

And I think that was a really great moment because, I mean, we're leveraging one of the great moments in Microsoft's history when they really were able to kind of go through this incredible surge. And he was there and I spent a lot of time with him. I remember Steve Ballmer's reaction was not yours right now. He was. I think it was that fucker, but go ahead. He was really actually already out before Mason came in. That was really John Thompson really exited him. And I was spending a lot of time at Microsoft at that time. So I was

watching the transformation and very impressed. But I think Mason coming in was very... So you find this valuable. So one of the things was the opportunity that they took was your stock price is up since the start of the year, but still down 11% from where it was last March. Along with the layoffs, we'll get to those and the departures. When you had that stock price doing that, which was below some of your competitors and rivals, were you worried about this, this idea that you're vulnerable? It's such a good question. You know, it was an atypical moment in the market. And, you know, smart investors, not just these guys, because really our long investors are really amazing.

I've been talking to them today, of course, because we did our earnings yesterday. So when I talk to incredible investors who actually own a lot of stock, these guys actually, all those activist investors combined own less stock than I do. So the people who really have significant positions in the company are like the big companies like Fidelity and Vanguard and T. Rowe. And by the way, these have been our partners all the way along. And I think that they'll say to me, hey, you need to pay attention to us. We've been in business and we've actually held sales for a stock longer than they've even been in business. So that's where I really have focused on the long investors. The long investors really

are part and parcel of our partners. But they also want the stocks to go up, right? Absolutely. This was an opportunity. So do I. Talk about Elliott, which was one of them. They reportedly made a multi-billion dollar investment. This week, they reportedly nominated a slate of directors. Do you like their picks? And after the earnings report, which again was impressive, they said, quote, much work remains. How are you getting along with them? I really have not spent that much time with them, honestly. So it's really handled by my. So you're not hanging with him the way you are Mason Moffitt, for example.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they're a fine firm, but we had just. I'm not doing anything. I just have not had that much experience with them. So I can't. I mean, I'm sure they're a fine firm, but we had just, I have not doing anything. I just have not had that much experience with them. So I can't, I don't really know. What were you surprised when they say that? Cause they're known for, you know, shoving operational improvements down the throats of CEOs. I think that everyone has great ideas and I'm happy to learn from everyone. Right. So, well, could they control you, Kara? Oh, you don't listen to me. You never listen to me.

Oh, I do. You know I love you. Sometimes you sort of slough me off in text, but that's okay. I don't care. That has not been for quite a few years. That is true. And I apologize for that. That's okay. How far are they from controlling the board and what protections are in place in that regard? Well, we have an incredible board. Many of the board members you know. You know, we just added three amazing board members. Talked about Mason. We added Sachin, who is the CFO of MasterCard, is incredible. And we added Arnold Donald, who's probably one of the great CEOs of all time, a Fortune 100 CEO, Carnival.

two board members are leaving after 20 years. Sandy Robertson, who you know very well, probably godfather of Silicon Valley, has been like by my side from the beginning. Alan Hasenfeld, former CEO of Hasbro. And then we have incredible people. John Roos, who you know, was the CEO of Wilson Sonsini and then became the ambassador to Japan. Neely Cruz, you know, is the vice president of the European Commission. Robin Washington was the chief financial officer at commission um robin washington was the chief financial officer at gilead and was the controller of people soft the former ceo of people soft you have a board that you have control i don't think there's a better board and that you don't feel just in technology elliot now i'm getting a different slate do you have

you looked at their choices i really don't know honestly i would tell you exactly i really have no idea all right let's go down from there to Vivek Ramaswamy, who's running for president. He invested through Thrive. This is an activist noted for his anti-wokeness. It's a quarter of his presidential bid. So you've rejected his vice president partnership. I did, indeed. Yeah, especially when he thought gay and lesbian people should be reformed. All right, so that didn't go well over with you? It did not, I would have to say. And how did you feel about that? I felt badly. Not really, but you know, whatever. I know some are saying his, quote, ridiculously puny steak, which I agree, is going to get you less woke. He attacks you personally. You and I have talked about this.

What do you make of this? Political. It's a political motion. You know, I see that a lot because we are a big company. We do have 70,000 people. We are one of the three largest software companies now in the world, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce. And we see a lot of political shenanigans. And whether it's a politician who's running for president who buys a share of stock, or it could be a governor of a state, or we've been through these, you know, it could be all kinds of folks, not just here. It could be all over the world, and they'll try to use or manipulate. And the worst part is when they want to discriminate against our employees.

And I think that this is what is the saddest part. And you and I have talked about the story, but just to bring everyone up to speed, you know, it really started in Indiana. That is what really got us going. And in Indiana, there was a governor who we all know, Mike Pence, who was a friend of mine. And I was working with him because we're the largest employer in Indiana, tech employer. And very successful operation there. Great people, Indianapolis, great city.

We have Salesforce Tower, Indianapolis. And my employees started saying to me, Mark, you've got a big problem on your hands. I'm like, what problem do I have? Well, the governor is going to sign a law that is going to discriminate against the LGBTQ community. And I'm like, explain that to me. This is going to happen. This is going to happen. This is going to happen. I'm like, it's not possible. No one would ever sign such a law. Now, I'm a fourth generation San Franciscan, born and raised in the city. You know, this is the home of gay rights, the gold rush. Everybody knows San Francisco. In my mind, it's not possible. So then they call me again. You need to send him a letter now. I'm not going to. Why would I send him a letter?

Why are you getting me involved in this? No, you need to send him a letter. I'm like, fine. If it's important, you will send him a letter. Then they call me back. You need to send him a second letter. You can't believe this is still happening. Right. It's still happening. Okay. He signs the law. I could not believe it. Right. I was in a car, an Uber, on the way from the Rosewood Hotel in Palo Alto. Very nice, swanky thing.

On my way home, back down 280 to San Francisco. Maybe I had had a couple of glasses of wine. Okay. It was a nice night. And I'm reading on my phone that this has happened. He signed the bill. Yes. And I just go to Twitter and I said, well, if he is going to discriminate against our employees, then we're going to de-invest in the state of Indiana. the state of Indiana, because we can't send our employees and our customers to a state where they're discriminating against the LGBTQ population. I went to sleep that night. Fine.

Everything was fine. I wake up in the morning. It's eight o'clock. I turn on the television. My tweet is on the TV. I'm like, I'm watching CNN. Is this a bad dream? Was it a nightmare? My tweet is on the TV. I'm like, I'm watching CNN. Is this a bad dream? Was it a nightmare? What is happening? This can't be true.

Right. But it was. It was right on the television. And I was like, well, I hope I spelled everything correctly. Yeah. And you're committed. And then a number of my friends in tech were on at that point. And then I realized my phone was filled with voicemails. Yeah.

And then I realized my phone was filled with voicemails. And then what was amazing was over the next 24 hours, over 200 CEOs of companies all over the country all said that they were going to do the same thing. Same thing. Okay. So, drunk tweeted. And Mike Pence called me. And he's like, Mark, how are you? I'm like, Mike, how are you doing? It's great.

Great to talk to you. And he said, listen, what's going to happen next? I'm like, I don't know, Mike, I guess we're going to have to have rolling economic sanctions against the state of Indiana. He's like, what does that mean? I'm like, I don't know. I just made it up. He's laughing. I'm laughing. I'm like, Mike, listen, I'll just, why don't I just put a couple attorneys on an airplane? We'll come out here. We'll negotiate this. This will all be resolved. And that is what we did. And we worked it out.

And that's the way it should be done. Well. You know, and having that kind of dialogue and we were able to reduce that. Now, it wasn't the end of the end. Certainly not. It was the end of the beginning. Right, right. And that was how it kind of started. And then we've seen

there's other moments. So you get dragged into this. I mean, beyond incredible naivete that he wouldn't have signed this. I'm just telling you, of course he would have. And you're drunk tweeting. It makes a fascinating story. But how do you feel when you get pressured that way in terms of being the woke CEO? Do you feel nervous about it? I know you're nervous about going to see Trump. I don't feel like I am a woke CEO. It's kind of funny. I just feel like I've got my employees back. That's all I feel. In my heart, all I want to know is that my employees, whoever they are, whatever their sexual orientation is, their race, their gender, their religion, that they know that we want them just to have a great work experience and we'll have their back.

And if someone is coming after them, like in that case, we're going to step in and do what we can. We can't do it in all situations. You know that. But we'll do our best. And I think that we have. You know that. But we'll do our best. And I think that we have. And then it was a moment in business. And I think that it, you know, it was scary for me because I haven't. It's not like you take a class in business school at USC a couple blocks away from here where I went in 1986 on this kind of let's hear it for USC, right? Yes, half the school is here. Congratulations. Fight on. But the thing is, is that you don't, there's no class there, or maybe there is now, but there's no class on how to handle, you know, or gender equality. There's no class on, you know, how does business handle handle environmental all the things that are important today to our employees this is new and i think you have to kind of dive in you're going to try things there's gonna be mistakes but you go you go you keep going that's all you can do all right speaking of which it leads us into these layoffs you know one of the things you used

is the word ohana for uh family yes a lot which sometimes i'm like the family's the family word of... I know what it means, but lately it's felt a little more like the Soprano family at your company. Yeah, all right. You announced... You keep getting me out. Now you keep pulling me back in. Okay.

Right, right. No, that's Godfather. Darren is going to cast me in his new movie. That's Godfather. Yeah, okay. I know. Godfather is whatever it is. Get your murderous...

All right. Sorry. Murderous mobsters, correct. All right, thanks. But nonetheless, you're laying off about 8,000 workers, like a lot of tech companies. Again, a far cry from the pandemic years when you hired 30,000. Yes, that's true.

Is 8,000 enough to get you through? Well, I really think it's, like I said, when we started, like you just said, when the pandemic started, call it January of 2020, here we are now in March of 23. Between 2020 and March of 23, we went from 50,000 employees to 80,000, and now we've reduced, just like you said, by 10%. And I think that that's the story for every large tech company. That's the story for every large tech company. Right. I think anyone who's telling you that they're not doing that, then they probably were not doing that well during the pandemic because they weren't really riding that buying motion. Well, Apple hasn't, but go ahead.

That's the only one. Yeah. I really think for the large companies in our area, it's consistently true. So is it enough? Is it enough? Well, I think you can see by the numbers, we've had a great result. And I think that we're going to, I feel good about our trajectory. The key is, is that this is not my first recession. I went through 01, 02, that was extremely difficult. We also had to have an employment action. We went through 08, 09,

we had the same situation. And now here we are today. And I think that when you, you know, over 24 years, it's not the same company. It's the company has transformed. It's changed. It's evolved. It's grown. It's done all these things. But what happens is, is that as the company matures and grows, you have to constantly reshape. We have today, we don't have one product like we had in 2000. We have 75 products and we have a constant need to recalibrate the company. So I think it's extremely important. Some of your employees were upset. They point out, you said Salesforce was a family. You use that term quite a lot. Sure, it is. Did you think you did a good job of handling the cuts and what could you have done better? I prefer Microsoft strategy.

I really looked at it. You know, they had a layoff that night. They did had staying at a party in Davos and that was one way to handle it. I think the other way is that I'm a lead. I'm a lead from the front person. You know that. So I'm not afraid to get on an all-hands call for two hours. And it was tough, you know, because you're having to explain the unexplainable.

And yes, exactly what you said. We don't have lifetime employment. And it's sad because we do feel like these are family members and we're working to place them into our ecosystem and take care of them. A lot of them we'll hire back, but it's not easy. There's no rule book here and there's different ways to handle it. I could just have not said anything. That's much easier, but I don't think that that's the right thing to do. I think the right thing to do is to actually take the bullets.

Is there one thing you could have done better? I really think that, you know, you have to be willing to get, you have to be willing to take the cuts. Over 24 years, I have a lot of cuts. They could be difficult situations just like this. That's how you end up with a thick skin. And I think that it's just a hard situation. In business, there's hard situations, and that's one of them. And it's just difficult. But still, we're working with people every day to make sure that they land well. All right. And what are the costs you're cutting? You got heat for that $10 million contract

with Matthew McConaughey, but what other costs do you need to cut? Well, I really am executing a four-point plan. And the first point is short-term and long-term restructuring. So I think that I'm looking at the whole company and saying, we've been through 24 years of growth. What are the things that we can do structurally to really address our cost structure? Yes, we've delivered great profits.

Yes, we have great margins. We delivered 29.2% margin in the quarter. But the company for sure has more long-term restructuring to do, just looking at it, all the acquisitions we've done. Mark Sester runs the conference. He was like our first acquisition we did when we bought Coral. And you'd look at, we've done about 60 acquisitions to kind of shape our vision of what Customer 360 was. He was a critical part, actually, of that way back in the beginning. And I think based on that, you can say we're going to have short-term and long-term restructuring. We also, you know, when you go through the pandemic, we definitely are seeing that we still have things we need to do in productivity and performance improvements. Yeah, I'm going to ask about that.

For sure, it's important. And number three is, as I said, we have 75 products, but the world in our tech industry is changing rapidly, as you know, and the prioritization of those products is really changing. And putting certain products first will let us invest in the right areas. And the fourth thing is we have to improve our relationships with our shareholders. It's incredibly important right now. Because of what happened last year, we have to be much more diligent in how we're communicating with them, much more clear, much more specific. So like this morning when I woke up at 8.30, I'm on the phone with our top investors explaining exactly how the quarter is, not just letting them read about it in the newspaper. What about selling off any of the many companies you've acquired? You were an acquisition

fiend in lots of ways. You said you disbanded the M&A group. Do you feel like that's done? That's the growth through that is over for Salesforce? Well, there's two different things there. I think one thing is, no, I think that we have some great assets. You know, we took one, well, ExactTarget, which was a major company we brought, which is how we became the largest tech employer in Indiana. When we bought it, it was doing about $300 million in revenue. It'll do about $3 billion. We look at MuleSoft, again, the same thing. It went from a couple hundred million to a couple billion. Also, Tableau, sub-billion, you know, a couple billion.

And then Slack, which is exciting. Again, we bought at sub-billion, and we're looking at it being a multibillion-dollar product. And I think these are jewels, and I think that the key is we've been able to weave them together, some at different rates than others. But our long-term vision is very clear that we're building a platform that lets our customers connect with their customers in a whole new way. But not on a buying spree. You don't see Salesforce being on that same kind of buying spree. I think we have enough. Because some people criticize the Slack acquisition. Yeah, I think that we have enough right now. And we're, I mean, I think that's a great product, honestly. I just love it. I use it constantly during the day. I don't know. How many people

here on Slack? Raise your hands. Okay, enough said. said. So it's like 60 or 70% of the audience just raised their hand. Do you push back on those investors to say it was overpriced and you shouldn't have bought it, for example? That's not a conversation with our investors. I think when they see these numbers, there was no conversation like that. I would tell you if there was, by the way, but I have not had a conversation with any investor like that ever, actually. Okay. So I feel very good about that. Journalists actually ask the question

because I think that they actually love Slack. Like most of the journalists, like at Time, we are on Slack. A lot of the media companies are on Slack. I would say love is a strong word for that. I would say love is a good word, accurate. Yeah, I would say. Yeah.

It doesn't suck is how Will Mossberg would put it. I have to say it's great and I like the sounds and the whole thing has been a very good product. Let's move on. In 2021, you told me CEOs at other Fortune 100 companies were angry at you for saying publicly that we're not going back to the office. Do you feel validated? Have you changed your point of view? Well, after hearing that cough, I don't know. I should be worried maybe.

I would say. I'm well. Thank you for asking. I don't know. That's a big term, well. You try having toddlers everywhere. Go ahead. I'm not going to... Okay. No, I mean, you know, we just... I'm going to send them over to your house. Hey, it was my first pandemic. What can I say? Okay. Yeah. You know, I think that we are in a post-pandemic reality. Yeah. And because we're now in a post-pandemic reality, we have a much more clear sight over the last three years. And I'm sure everyone here who went through this, we all went through this together as one humanity, would say, well, you know, next time we have a pandemic, how about this, this, and this instead?

But we learned. So I think that when we look at business today, for our new employees who are coming in, we know empirically that they do better if they're in the office meeting people, being onboarded, being trained. And if they are at home and not going through that process, we don't think they're as successful. So now you're shifted. In December, you sent a Slack message saying that workers hired during the pandemic weren't as productive. This is the most homework you have ever done for any interview that we have done. Usually just shooting from the hip, like randomly. I have some shooting from the hip.

This is really impressive. Thank you. Like you have a staff person who's helped you. Yes, thank you. Thank you. I can't believe it. You've gone to another level of excellence. It's impressive.

Well, thank you. I appreciate the compliment. Okay. Well, you're just usually not that organized, but it's good. All right. Thank you. I appreciate the compliment. Okay. Well, you're just usually not that organized, but it's good.

All right. Are you bringing back people to your big-ass, giant-ass, idiotic building in San Francisco? Boom. That is the kind of thing you get away from the cards and you'll be much better. Yes, it's right here. Giant-ass building. I typed it myself. So we have a lot of those. We have a great, gorgeous-ass building. I typed it myself. So we have a lot of those.

We have a great, gorgeous New York one. And we have a brand new one coming to Chicago and Sydney. We have London, Tokyo, right on the Imperial Palace grounds, whole thing. All right. And the thing is about that is that I think that we have two kinds of people. This is how I think about it.

We have people who are remote. And if your manager agrees that you're remote. Now, by the way, 20% of all of our employees from day one have always been remote. That is, they are at-home workers. That's going to increase. It's going to increase dramatically. Right. Okay.

How many of you work at home? Raise your hands. How many of you work in the office? Raise your hands. I think that this is kind of the world we're moving into. We're going to have remote and we're going to have return. And then for return, it's going to be different by, like engineering, we've said only comes in 10 days a quarter. For GNA, if you're not classified as remote, then we'd like you to be in three days a week, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then if you're sales

and marketing, we really expect you to either A, be with a customer, because that's what we prefer, for you to go out and be with the customer in their office. And if not, we're going to want you to be in the office. And that's more of a four-day a week executive. Other countries, they're much higher, right? 70, 80% back in the office. Do you think the U.S. will do that? Do you see forcing people back into the office? Is that critical if they're not as productive? I don't really want to force anybody. I think you got two things. You got mandates and reasons. I think if you do a mandate like what you just said, are you going to force them back into the office? You're going to be in a bad situation with attrition. And I don't think that's, and you know, we don't want to lose our stars. So we don't want mandates. We want reasons.

We want to show them, here's the five reasons why we think you should be back in the office. And they're like, you know what? I moved to Timbuktu and I just want to be classified and remote. I'm like, great. I totally resonate with that. Let's go. You can be remote. So I think this is the right way for us to think about it. Probably every company thinks about it differently. You know, if we talk to some of the big banks in New York, they have a whole different perspective. Some tech companies are going to say they're going to be 100% remote forever. I think that that may work for some companies, but I think for, and by the way, it's worked for some great companies like, you know, WordPress.

They're like been a hundred percent. Sure, they've been forever. Yeah. We own a significant part of that company and I've been very inspired with Matt and how he runs his company virtually. But I think that for us, I can speak for us. Our folks are going to be better, especially the new folks, people who really need to learn. To be in the office. Yeah, meet people. especially the new folks, people who really need to learn. To be in the office. What about your commitment to places like San Francisco

where you need people in the office? Is that still important to you? It's really more important, I think, to them. I don't think this is about me. I think it's more about I want the best for them. I want them to be successful. Yeah. I want them to be successful. I want them to be successful. Yeah. I want them to be

successful. I want them to learn the products, make money, enjoy the environment, enjoy the culture. You know, it's not just a big building. It's pretty gorgeous inside. You've been there and it's stunning. I have issues with your building, but go ahead. All right. Well, I always love, I have a beautiful view and I always looking at, and there's the penis. There it is. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I didn't build the building. So I apologize on behalf of Boston Properties.

I apologize. Honestly, I hate your building, but go ahead. I asked the whole world to forgive me and I will forgive the world. Okay. All right. Okay. So you, so it could be a mixed thing is what you're saying. You think you're validated in saying this is going to change rather drastically. I know a lot of you are out front of that.

We've written our business plan for fiscal year 24, which we started February 1, and it's called V2MOM, our V2MOM process. And we are collaborating, I'm collaborating directly with our employees on Slack. And there are employees who are very passionate about being at home. And my message to them is just ask your manager to classify you as remote. And it's totally great. Like we have one person in particular that I've gone back and forth with her maybe a dozen times and she's like, oh no, this, I'm like, and what I said to her, what's right for you may not be right for all 70,000 folks. And I think that it's not right for what she's saying, which is she just wants the company to be 100% remote. I think that the right thing to do is that different classifications of folks should have different approaches.

And if her manager says that it's fine that she's remote, in my opinion, she should be remote. She's doing a task that I think can be done great at home. Fine. But in some cases, folks should be in the office. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things, and it's never too late to reinvent yourself. The all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle that's been completely revamped for urban adventure.

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Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. All right. Speaking of not in the office, Brett Taylor left at the end of January as your co-CEO after playing a large role in the $27 billion acquisition of Slack. Slack CEO Stuart Butterfield also left in January and Tableau CEO Mark Nelson left in December. Why the exodus? And tell me if it's problematic because obviously heir apparent is something that's also on the list of things people talk. And you're not the only one. It would be Iger, Disney, lots of people, Schultz at Starbucks. Talk about this. Okay. Well, I think, you know, number one,

Brett is amazing. You know that. And I do. Very inspired. I think he's very inspired with the next generation of AI. He's recruited this head of Google to start this new company. He's announced the new company. Look, I have to fully support him. You know that. And of course, I don't want him to leave the company. But I also realize he's an entrepreneur, a great one, started many companies. And I have to let him do what he's going to do. And it's impressive, his vision, his ideas. It's great. A lot of folks in Silicon Valley, and you know this, think that we're about to go into

an AI tsunami. And there is a wave of that going on, and he's in that wave. Stuart is a little different. That was something that we planned for a long time, and he did very well on the acquisition. And so... Live in his best life. Thank you. And he's a great person. I think he's probably one of the greatest people I've met. Your succession here, you've had a co-CEO before, Keith Block, his role for 18 months. Why not, Brett, was he spending too much time with the Twitters? That sort of jumped up in

the middle of nowhere. That was definitely, I'm sure, a major component. but I would say that for me, I believe that every executive should always have a successor in place and ready to go. And all, I require all of my managers to do that. And I'm required to do that also by our board. And I have that successor in place. So if something happened to me, like for example, it's not something that I'm currently discussing the name, but I will, something happens to me here, you know, with you on stage, we're ready to go, if that's what you're asking. Okay, so you have a succession plan. Of course. You do. We have to have governance.

Were you attempting to do it with these? What was this then about these co-CEO? I never like a co-CEO, but that's just me. Yeah, no, I understand that. Especially when one is as big a personality as you. Well, I had a really great conversation last week with Ray Dalio, who's been a mentor of mine. And he was telling me, Mark, the co-CEO model is a great model. You need to execute. I'm like, Ray, I just did that twice. I think right now I can't jump completely back to that.

I do think it is a great model. I've said are, I've said this before, these are big jobs. It's great when you're two in the box. It can really work. It was working, I think, really well with both of these executives. But at the same level, you know, you want to always make sure you have your successor in place. That, I think, is the key thing. And that is, I think, a requirement for an executive at my level. But it wasn't, they didn't leave because you wouldn't go.

I mean, there is this, there can be only one blank Mark Figer Schultz. No. No, in those cases, those executives did leave. Yeah, then they came back. Yeah. They came back because they unfortunately had to. Right. I don't think either one of them really, I know them both very well.

Yeah. So I think, well. I didn't leave, by of them really, I know them both very well. Yeah. So I think, well, I didn't leave, by the way. No, I know you haven't left yet. Are you trying to get rid of me? You know, I am the best performing enterprise software executive of all time. Okay.

Just so we have a little clarity on that. There is a 5,000% shareholder return since we went public in 2004. Okay, I'm going to let you have one. Okay, I just wanted to be clear about that. But you have a success story in place. This is a concern of yours. You have a success story in place. You know what Harvard and Yale says about me, don't you, Kara?

No, but you have it right there, and I wish you wouldn't read it. All right, then. I don't have it, but I should have it, actually. If I had your assistant, I'd be ready. You have like 50 cards. This is crazy. Stop touching my cards. i've never seen so many cards you know i've had them in my head before this is not right it's right people should look

at your other interviews with me zero cards let me just much easier i did have cards you're wrong this is like no it's like whoa it's like whoa that's right you better be ready with your red shoes all right speaking of overwhelming ceos you and i have butted heads. I wore these for you. I wore these for you. Okay. Thank you. You and I have butted heads over your defense of Elon. I texted you. Oh yeah, you did. I forgot all about that. That's so funny. You praised him on Twitter an hour and a half. What did I say? Well, let me just say, you praised him on Twitter and I get the visionary part. I think that's what you were going for. Yeah. But it was almost immediately after he posted an incredibly anti-gay, homophobic tweet about Paul Pelosi.

You were angry. I was not angry. You were super angry. I was because I expected more from you. I was like, really? Right. Well, no, you were just angry already before you ever saw my tweet. I think that was appalling that you praised him. You were pretty pissed off. I was, but you were not pissed off.

And we had to call you because you were so mad. You weren't pissed off enough. How about that? I didn't even know what you were angry about. That's correct. I think you needed to be. You had to educate me. All right.

I was actually responding to something completely different. Yes. And then I got into your reality and I'm like, oh, I am so fucked right now. Yes, yes, I agree. Because it was horrible. Well, it was unlike you. Well, I just felt I was getting taken apart by you and i didn't even know why okay i'm willing to agree when i'm like oh my gosh i did something terrible i'll follow my sword we had an argument the same thing about lorraine powell jobs if you remember that when you i don't remember

that either but oh god let's not go there you called her the widow of steve jobs but anyway that's okay i think she's a person in her own right. No, she is. Absolutely. She's amazing. And what was nice is you actually said that and said, you know, I was wrong and I learned it. But talk about this. I'm usually wrong, by the way. No, I know you were not aware. But how do you remember all these things? You have a catalog of all the things that I've done wrong. Is this what it's going to be like when I get to heaven? You're the one who's going to be there and say yes now you know mark i've got your card here and i'm like oh let me just say i have all the texts of everybody oh all right great you're looking at all of our texts oh i have chat gpt would you please summarize this conversation

send it to my email now thank you i have everybody's text thank you Andreessen should probably be worried. Anyway, how do you separate him as a visionary? Mark Andreessen? No, not Mark Andreessen. Let's not talk about him. He gives me a headache. Elon Musk, how do you separate the visionary part from what's happening, which is clearly problematic, I would say. None of which I think you agree with. You are not anti-gay. You don't do misogynist things. You don't do lame-ass, like a lot of this stuff that's going on. But in an interview this week,

I'm going to read it all correctly. Every CEO in Silicon Valley has looked at what Elon Musk has done and asked himself, do they need to unleash their own Elon within? Explain what that means. Is it appealing to the id? Oh, I can't believe he did this.

We should do it because some of it is crude. And against almost everything I think you stand for, I was angry on your behalf. Yeah. And I think I'm able to separate the wheat from the chaff more than you can. There's a lot of chaff. I know. And I think that that's, you know, I think there is good in everyone. And I see the good in everyone. And maybe in everyone and I see the good in everyone.

And maybe I'm too focused on the good in everyone. And maybe you're the opposite. I think that I am not always able to see, you know, the dark parts. And that's why I like being friends with you, because you help me to see all sides of the equation. Well, it's hard not to see the dark parts because within every... But I think in this case... Scott Adams is great, according to Elon, but let's move on. Okay, so in this case, I think that there are parts of what he is doing where I just... I think the tweet you got upset was said, don't underestimate Elon. And this is a man who is landing rockets on surfboards in the

ocean. He has got cars going down the highway by themselves. He's drilling holes in the brains of monkeys, connecting them to video games, you know, without joysticks. And he thinks he's going to And he thinks he's going to drill a tunnel on Mars and drive a Tesla through it. And we are going to wake up with our own consciousness in the car. Right. And I'm going to be a red car and you're going to be a white car. And we're going to honk at each other and wave, hey, Kara, how are you? I'm fine. And it's going to be like the movie Cars.

Yeah. But it's going to be like we're how we are now. And that's his vision for his life. And I think it's quite extraordinary. But I understand what you're saying because, yes, our core values may be different. But I think that we can look at that his level of, I mean, innovation has been extremely. Certainly, but you wouldn't put up with this kind of shit from Mike Pence. So why do you put up with it here? Well, I would just say that I was responding more. Because he can land a rocket. What's that?

Because he can land a rocket. I would agree with all those things you said. Although I think some of them are bullshit promises. Some of them are real. Yeah. And I would say in regards to some of the things that are these kind of, you know, personal values that you're talking about, you know, I think that we're at a moment in time in history where we have to try to actually understand people. I think it is better to listen, to understand, to try to understand

who people are, look at their values, try more to find more common ground. And at the same time, I think you're also right that we have to hold up and stand up for what's right. And I think I've done that. You know that. And so it's a balance. And I think that you were, but I know I got right into it. I know I got you really upset. I mean, I haven't really seen you that upset. It's easy to say upset. I'm not upset. It's appalling. And it's beyond that because it doesn't just stop there. It goes everywhere. Do you think his divisiveness has been helpful to this world? It's purposely divisive.

It's intentionally divisive. I certainly think that the way I would handle certain things might have been different and have. And at the same time, I also have a lot of respect for some of his ability to execute and innovate. So I think you have to look at that there's two sides of the coin. And I understand the side of the coin that you're looking at. And I think that I was looking at the other side of the coin. And that's where I think that we are coming together. I feel like we're in a living room right now having this conversation.

Yes, okay. Versus being in front of a thousand folks. You looked into buying Twitter. I will just go back and just say that tweet said, don't underestimate Elon Musk. We put him on the cover of Time Magazine, person of the year. I think if you go back, I think that was the right decision. It was incredible. He is somebody who is going to be a major player. Could he improve

in some of these areas? I think we can all improve in a lot of these areas. I think he has amazing power and he's abusing it in a way that is unfortunate, given how talented he is. I completely understand how you feel. Okay. That was a good answer. Thank you very much. He said, I get how you're feeling, Kara. How about a hand for her? Because isn't she doing a good job? A couple more questions and we got to go. You looked about buying Twitter. Oh, no. She's still got 10 more cards.

We got all night. Don't worry about it. I have two more questions. The sign is flashing out of time, by the way. I know that. We have two more questions. Very quickly. Two more questions.

You looked about, just relax. You looked about buying Twitter. Okay. Are you regretful you didn't buy Twitter? Way back when? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was very interested. I had a vision that was very different than what's happened, but we don't have enough time to talk about it. But I think it's one of the great companies, brands, platforms. I think it has huge potential. And I love it. I've always been in love with it.

So you still would be? I feel like it's a video game with no winners. Okay. That's a good way to put it. Last two questions. Speaking several years ago at top of Salesforce Tower, which I hate, overlooking the smoke from the wildfires, you said Facebook- You and I were sitting up there and we couldn't see out of the building because the smoke was horrible. But you called Facebook a cigarette company, which one of the first CEOs who did stand up and talked about the problems. What do you think today? And let's broaden it to Twitter and TikTok and the rest of them. I had a bet with Brad that I just lost that you wouldn't ask this question. So it's really upsetting that you did because it's going to cost me so much money.

And so I said, there's no way she's going to ask me this again for like, we've been talking about this for like ever. It's changed. TikTok, there's no way she's going to ask me this again for like, we've been talking about this for like ever. It's changed. TikTok, there's issues are in China. They're passing bans on it, et cetera, et cetera. Brad, you are good. Anyway, my head of communications is here. Very good.

Answer the question. Okay. Here's the answer. Business is the greatest platform for change. Let's connect it to what you just talked about. the greatest platform for change. Let's connect it to what you just talked about. Look, I think that today business leaders do have a responsibility to have a set of decorum, core values, look out for their employees, to act in a way of leadership that was not true maybe 20 years ago or even 10 years ago. And that because of variations in society today, as well as with our political

leadership, that CEOs have a requirement, a need, you know, that even in the business roundtable has said there's a purpose to a corporation. It's stakeholder capitalism, not just shareholders. Shareholder Milton Friedman said that, you know, the business of business is business. It's all about profits. But really, it's about stakeholders. Yes, our employees are critical. Our customers are critical. Our partners, our communities.

In San Francisco, we've given $125 million to our local San Francisco and Oakland public schools. You know that we've given hundreds of millions of dollars to our public hospitals. We've given significant money to our public parks. hundreds of millions of dollars to our public hospitals. We've given significant money to our public parks. We've passed laws to increase the amount of taxes that businesses pay to support our homeless crisis in San Francisco, started research programs to support and getting homeless off the streets, which has happened. But I feel that in my heart as a San Franciscan with the CEO of the largest company in San Francisco, that that's a moral obligation. And that isn't the traditional approach to business. I think that CEOs have moved more in that direction, not all CEOs.

Yeah. But a lot of CEOs have moved in that direction. And it is important that we do the right thing. that we do the right thing. And I've seen more CEOs in the last five years since that Indiana example do the right thing than in the previous 20. So you definitely avoided the question, do you still think of social media as a cigarette company?

I think in those social media companies, you can see that that was a struggle for a long time. I think when we first started having the conversation, they were taking a long trip up the river denial. And I think today, you know, they're a lot more snapped back into those things. I think you understand it probably much better than I do. I mean, I'd love to hear what your commentary is. Do you think that they've changed and transformed? I think their business model is collapsing, and Congress is zeroing in, finally, maybe, not effectively. But I think the jig is up, and so they congress is zeroing in finally maybe not effectively but i think the jig is up and so they have to find a new thing i don't think they're doing it

out of the kindness of their hearts what's the one thing you think that those media companies need to do now that they're not doing i think they should pass antitrust legislation privacy legislation and they need to be more transparent about the impact they're having on our society i think they should get out of the editorial business because they just get sucked up into it and stuff. Lots of stuff. And how do you think the... And get out of the advertising business. Anyway, there's lots of...

What do you think is going to happen with the Supreme Court and their decision? On 2.30? They're not going to... They're going to leave it in place. It was... You could listen to them. And do you think that'll be a seminal moment? Leave it in place?

No, it's just it was a bad case. There'll be other cases. We'll see. You could hear to them. Do you think that'll be a seminal moment? Leave it in place? No, it's just it was a bad case. There'll be other cases. We'll see. You could hear the judges. Let me just go to my next question now. My very last question. And then we have, very nice though. Well done, well done.

Last question. How do you assess the threat of generative AI to your business? Didn't we already have the last question? You're like eight minutes over. Oh, stop it. Relax. Will you stop? Wow, you're good.

Listen to me. This is the most organized I've ever seen you. Again, thank you for stressing it. But generative AI, last word on that. This crowd is interested in that. Well, I think we are in a threshold moment for artificial intelligence. And I was kind of joking, but it's true that I think that pretty soon we will say something like we'll be at home or we'll be on the phone and we will say,

hey, chat GPT, I'm just using that as an agent. Send me a transcript of this conversation I just had with Kara and summarize it to my email and text now. And it's always listening to what's going on. I think that it's, we're not that far away and where there is a device, a commodity device that is on our ceiling or on our floor that's maybe moving around or following us or maybe that we're wearing like the humane device that is like paying attention to what we're doing and trying to augment our experience. And that is a new moment. I think AI is not completely there. We can all see that chat GPT is exciting, but we all have seen what the boundaries are as well. It's also, you know, chat GPT is the ultimate plagiarizer, right? All of the things that it's learning, it got from somebody else, you know? So, its boundaries are the

boundaries of the content that it's trying to grab. That said, you know, we've seen incredible advancements in AI in the last decade, machine learning, deep learning. Now we're seeing generative AI. It's going to continue. And this is something that's going to require incredible innovation, growth. It's going to transform how all of us work and live. I mentioned my V2 mom that I just have been writing with my employees. I've been using AI to kind of help me to do that. I think it will augment our human

experience. And that I think is probably the most optimistic, positive part of it. There's probably a lot of dark parts of it as well that you've articulated very well in the past. We don't need to go there. Go there. But honestly, I think you do just as well with drunk tweeting. I have actually will write a tweet, go to chat GPT and say, rewrite this tweet for me. And it's fascinating to see like how it doesn't edit or whatever. And it's trained me on my own writing, make this more inspiring, make this more motivating, turn it into a song, turn it into a poem, turn it into a song turn it into a poem turn it into a screenplay wow it's kind of cool it's fun to see like how this stuff works you've got a lot of free time on your hands anyway i do mark let's keep going no no we gotta go we got a great way to see you

there's two sides of a coin. Yeah. What did you think of that? I didn't think much of it. And Mark knows that. I've already texted him. I've already been texting about it. You know, I think the issue is that's how they do it in Silicon Valley.

It's like, you know, he kills puppies, but man, did he do great software. And you're like, I'm back at killed puppies. By the way, I think that's the one thing that a feline did. People would walk away. I don't know. They'd be like, those rockets land on surfboards. kill the puppies. By the way, I think that's the one thing that if Elon did, people would walk away. I don't know. They'd be like, those rockets land on surfboards. So killing puppies, that's one thing all Americans can't get behind. It's a joke, but it's compartmentalizing people as opposed to what they're doing.

They always admire what they're doing more than the entire picture. And I think it's an entire picture. But Elon Musk has always been someone who we've had to compartmentalize when he was calling the Thai cave diving rescuer a pedo. Yeah, I guess. You know, his tweets about 420 and the Tesla stock prices, tweets about COVID, the workers. He's always been someone we had to compartmentalize. He's never been someone who's... I think it's a thing that Mark admires. They all admire, even Mark, who is, I would say, one of the more, and I'm not using the term woke, I think he's really quite, he tries to learn, can't help it. They can't help celebrate like he landed a rocket on a thing.

Anyway, it was an interesting interview and I liked that he didn't back away from it and he explained it and we had a good debate about it. And so I appreciate that. From a CEO perspective, I see what they're saying because I've heard this from other CEOs too. It's like in this current environment, people do feel constrained. There's this pent up, like, what can I do? How much can I get done in my own business? Which, oh my God, I put all the sweat into building

and now I need to walk on eggshells around my employees. And I think that's what, they look at Elon and they say, hmm. They still can't do it the way he does. They can say, oh, he did that. I could do that. A lot of them just can't. They're not capable of it.

Yeah. And Mark is able to take a lap because of the results. He's obviously vibrant and in charge. And he says he has an heir apparent plan. He never named a name, but. I was going to ask you to speculate. It would be rampant speculation. Can you?

No, because it's like below a lot of these CEOs, you don't see an obvious candidate. Like you didn't see Satya coming? Oh yeah. I actually picked him when, yes, I did. There were all kinds of crazy names being thrown about. I thought Satya was the choice because he was so well-liked internally. There were big, big names being put out. Guy used to run Lockheed and Ford. Like there were all these big names and I thought, no, you can't bring someone into Microsoft. Anyway, it'll be an internal candidate. And I don't think he's going anywhere. So that's one of the- Maybe he's going to give the keys to you, Kara.

Yes, that's right. Because you love that big fat building. You're going to pick a bulldozer to it that day. It's called a giant ass building and a giant penis. That's what I called it. I also love that you asked, that last question made somebody very rich about social media companies being like tobacco companies. Yeah. I wanted him to address that because he really went under the limb when he did that. And he slightly backed off.

Yeah, he backed off. I think they've gotten better. I mean, you know, he does his whole, you know, meditation, Ohana thing all the time, trying to see the best in people. And that's his excuse on the Elon stuff. So I do think he's actually like that. And he spends a lot of time. Maybe you need the Ohana meditation to rectify your relationship with Mark Zuckerberg. We can leave you to do that now. No, it's Ohana. Ohana.

Ohana means layoffs. That's what I was trying to say. Family to layoff. Family. Family. A really bad dysfunctional family. Look, he's in a bind and he's a very strong CEO. And so whether he was able to keep other CEOs there or whatever, he's able to turn it around if he needs to. And that's what he did. We're taping this on Friday, the day after the event, and already Twitter is buzzing about this interview. And amongst this is Ravik Ramaswamy, who says, I heard from friends that Mark Benioff was, you know, being mean to me or something like that on stage with Kara Swisher. Whisper, whisper, whisper.

It was a secret elite event. You couldn't hear. It was ridiculous. I love that in all the newsmaking elements of, you know, if he were doing this post-brief, Vivek Ramaswamy, the only thing he would hear was his own name in the last hour.

We're not going to be hearing from Vivek Ramaswamy. Sorry, Vivek. I don't know. It would be interesting to have him on the show and practice some wahana layoff. No Wahana for Kara. Never. All right. Read us out, Kara. Today's show was produced by Naima Raza, Blakeney Schick, Kristen Castor-Rossell,

and Raffaella Seward. Special thanks to Haley Milliken, and also a giant thank you to the team at the Upfront Summit. It was a great event, even though it was freezing in Los Angeles. Fernando Arruda engineered this episode, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get an all-inclusive yoga retreat at the Trailblazer Ranch. If not, you get a Vivek Ramaswamy for President pin. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things,

and it's never too late to reinvent yourself the all-new reimagined nissan kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle that's been completely revamped for urban adventure from the design and styling to the performance all the way to features like the boast personal plus sound system you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new reimagined nissan kicks learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature. Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere

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