“It’s much harder when things are contracting than when things are expanding,” Benioff says of bringing people into his view of the world and business’s role in it. That was fine when those stakeholders were happy and the economy was growing. (In yet another recent gut punch, former co-CEO and heir apparent Bret Taylor left in January Benioff called the resignation “bittersweet.”) Then there’s the other, even more legacy-shaping test of his mettle: Over the past few years, Benioff has become the poster child for stakeholder capitalism-the idea that financial stockholders are not the only interests a business should consider. For starters, the current era of economic uncertainty is far from over, and activists are still pushing Benioff not just to keep increasing profits but to prove he can put a viable succession plan in place. But that doesn’t mean the longtime tech leader is in the clear. The earnings report was good news for Benioff and for his company’s stock price. Revenue in the company’s last quarter was up 14% year over year while adjusted margins (excluding things like $828 million in restructuring charges) rose to 29.2%, the highest in its 24-year history. Luckily for Benioff, at least the numbers have been kind: In early March, Salesforce released its most recent quarterly results, beating analyst estimates and setting better-than-expected projections for its next fiscal year. “That’s what you have to do as CEO, especially through difficult times.” “I’m willing to take the bullets and the cuts and the vilification,” Benioff, 58, tells me during a wide-ranging interview that took place via phone while he was on a flight to the East Coast.
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