The rise of Marc Benioff, the bombastic founder of Salesforce, who just got a new co-CEO (CRM)

It seems like Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff never leaves the spotlight.

Between Salesforce's annual Dreamforce mega-conference in San Francisco, his philanthropy, and his willingness to take political stands, it seems like he's always in the spotlight — even if, sometimes, it's because he's facing protests over Salesforce's work with the United States Customs and Border Patrol.

Salesforce itself is in a good position: Under Benioff's leadership, the company has swelled to a $106 billion market cap, even as it hit $10 billion in annual revenue for the 2018 fiscal year. It's gone from an upstart Oracle rival to a cloud computing behemoth in its own right. And on Tuesday, Salesforce named former Oracle exec Keith Block as Benioff's co-CEO, giving Benioff some backup in the highest echelons of the company.

Here's how Benioff, with an estimated net worth of $6.3 billion, worked his way up to the national stage from humble origins.

SEE ALSO: The rise of Larry Ellison, the jet-setting billionaire founder of Oracle

Marc Russell Benioff was born in San Francisco on September 25th, 1964, the son of Joelle and Russell Benioff. Benioff is something of an anomaly among Silicon Valley CEOs — he was actually born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.

His father, Russell Benioff, owned a local department store in San Francisco. "I learned my work ethic from him," Benioff once said.

While in high school, Benioff sold his first app — software called "How To Juggle" for the TRS-80 Model 1 computer — to a computer magazine for $75.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Contributer : Tech Insider https://ift.tt/2KF9aNX

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