Marc Benioff on Elon, AI Agents, and the “DOGE”

Summary

Podcast Summary: On with Kara Swisher – Episode: Marc Benioff on Elon, AI Agents, and the “DOGE”

In this insightful episode of On with Kara Swisher, host Kara Swisher engages in a candid and thought-provoking conversation with Marc Benioff, the charismatic CEO of Salesforce. The discussion delves deep into the realms of artificial intelligence (AI), business strategy, media ownership, and the interplay between technology and societal issues. Below is a comprehensive summary capturing the essence of their dialogue, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps for reference.

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1. Introduction and Relationship Dynamics (00:00 – 06:19)

Kara opens the episode with a light-hearted exchange, recalling her long-standing relationship with Marc Benioff. She highlights their history of spirited debates and mutual respect, setting the tone for an engaging discussion.

Key Quote:

• Kara Swisher [00:10]: "I think he was working for Oracle or somewhere else, but he's a really interesting entrepreneur and he hasn't changed a lot."

2. Salesforce’s Stellar Performance and AI Integration (06:19 – 09:50)

The conversation shifts to Salesforce's recent impressive earnings report. Marc shares that Salesforce's stock soared by 9% following the announcement of an 8.3% revenue jump to $9.44 billion, surpassing analysts' expectations. He attributes this success largely to Salesforce's investment in AI, particularly their new AI agent platform, Agent Force.

Key Quotes:

• Marc Benioff [06:19]: "So how much do you attribute those numbers to an AI boost, would you say?"
• Kara Swisher [07:14]: "We've shipped this to all 135,000 Salesforce customers, and they can just flip it on with a light switch and I think transform their business."

3. Agent Force vs. Microsoft Copilot: A Comparative Analysis (09:50 – 15:09)

Marc introduces Salesforce's latest innovation, Agent Force, positioning it as a superior alternative to Microsoft’s Copilot. He criticizes Microsoft's approach, branding it as a "flop" and attributing its shortcomings to merely repackaging existing AI technologies without true innovation. In contrast, Agent Force is portrayed as a groundbreaking tool that integrates seamlessly with Salesforce's CRM, offering high accuracy and low instances of AI-generated errors (hallucinations).

Key Quotes:

• Marc Benioff [09:50]: "I've been going after them pretty hard. You've been calling the new Microsoft Copilot365 Clippy 2.0."
• Kara Swisher [08:46]: "This is an agentic layer that is... like a digital worker."

4. Strategic AI Investments and Fiscal Responsibility (15:09 – 22:15)

Kara delves into Salesforce's strategic approach to AI investment, explaining that despite major competitors like Microsoft pouring vast sums into AI, Salesforce maintains efficiency through proprietary models and strategic use of external data centers like Amazon and Google. This approach allows Salesforce to invest less in capital expenditures while still driving innovation and maintaining high margins.

Key Quotes:

• Marc Benioff [12:43]: "Andreessen Horowitz published a blog post titled Death of a Salesforce. Basically that incumbents... shouldn't feel too comfortable if they aren't investing heavily in AI."
• Kara Swisher [14:09]: "Our models are incredibly efficient. Two out of the top models in the industry were written at Salesforce."

5. AI’s Implications on Workforce and Government Efficiency (28:06 – 42:15)

The dialogue transitions to the broader implications of AI on the workforce, touching upon the concept of a "post-labor economy." Marc expresses concerns about significant job cuts driven by AI automation, while Kara emphasizes the necessity of rebalancing workforce responsibilities. She advocates for using AI to enhance efficiency rather than merely reducing headcount, highlighting Salesforce's strategic layoffs that ultimately paved the way for substantial hiring and growth.

Key Quotes:

• Kara Swisher [17:21]: "I have seen the movies, but that's not where we are yet."
• Marc Benioff [30:56]: "He can tweet and run and ruin the people in a day. Is that worrisome to you in any way?"

6. Political Views and Social Responsibility (42:15 – 38:09)

Marc and Kara touch upon the intersection of technology, politics, and social issues. Kara discusses her stance on LGBTQ rights and her proactive measures in Indiana to counteract anti-LGBTQ legislation by leveraging Salesforce's influence to negotiate more inclusive policies. Marc raises concerns about tech leaders like Elon Musk wielding undue political influence, prompting a dialogue on the responsibilities of tech moguls in the political arena.

Key Quotes:

• Kara Swisher [28:13]: "I have a great relationship in Indiana. We have an Indianapolis."
• Marc Benioff [30:18]: "He's going to be a kingmaker here. He has an AI company. Obviously there's some conflict of interest."

7. Media Ownership: The Acquisition of Time Magazine (51:16 – 58:27)

The conversation shifts to media ownership as Kara discusses her acquisition of Time magazine. She defends the decision amidst industry skepticism, emphasizing the challenges of sustaining a traditional media outlet in the digital age. Kara highlights Salesforce's successful integration of AI into media, such as using Agent Force to enhance customer engagement and streamline operations at Time.

Key Quotes:

• Marc Benioff [51:16]: "Is this true that you're in conversations to sell it?"
• Kara Swisher [55:30]: "We have phenomenal digital journalism. We even make our paywall free because we think free people should read freely."

8. Reflections on Susan Wojcicki and Personal Loss (58:27 – End)

In an emotionally resonant segment, Kara reflects on the recent passing of Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of YouTube and a close colleague. She shares personal anecdotes, expressing profound gratitude for Susan's mentorship and friendship. This segment underscores the human aspect of tech leadership, highlighting the personal connections that drive industry leaders.

Key Quotes:

• Kara Swisher [58:46]: "She was always there for me and I miss her every single day."
• Marc Benioff [61:45]: "Indeed. Well said, Mark. Keep that in mind."

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Conclusion

This episode of On with Kara Swisher offers a multifaceted exploration of AI's transformative impact on business and society, Salesforce's strategic initiatives, and the personal philosophies of Marc Benioff. The insightful dialogue not only sheds light on the future of AI in enterprise applications but also delves into the ethical and societal responsibilities of tech leaders. For listeners interested in the intersection of technology, business strategy, and social issues, this episode provides valuable perspectives from one of the industry's foremost figures.

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Note: Timestamps are approximate and correspond to the segments where the quotes were mentioned in the transcript.

Transcript

[Kara Swisher]

Hi, Kara.

[Marc Benioff]

Hey, how you doing?

[Kara Swisher]

I'm doing great. I'm just rolling in here. Give me a second to improve my beauty here.

[Marc Benioff]

I don't think it's possible.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, God. Thank you.

[Marc Benioff]

Just tell me when you're ready. Pretty. It's on. Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher. And I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Marc Benioff again, the CEO of Salesforce. I've known him since the last century. I've interviewed him, I don't know, dozens of times. I can't remember where I first met him, but I believe he annoyed me on some level. I think he was working for Oracle or somewhere else, but he's a really interesting entrepreneur and he hasn't changed a lot. The only thing he did that I refused to do is meditate with him, which I declined. And we got in an argument. We've been arguing ever since, but we've gotten a lot of disagreements on and off the mic. But we've always agreed on value stuff for the most part. I thought he was very brave when it came to LGBTQ issues in Indiana many years ago. That said, we also argue about lots of things, like how Elon Musk has become a toxic force. He always looks for the good in people. I look for maybe they could be better. But anyway, right now he's evangelizing for what he's calling the adjantic era. I think that's the correct way of pronouncing it. It sounds familiar because we've been talking about it a lot. In September, Salesforce came out with their own autonomous AI agents. They're calling it Agent Force. Everything is for something with him. It could be built on top of their existing customer relationship management platform, which is rather robust, and it's already given their business a huge boon. Their last quarter earnings report just came out last week and it was really very good. And he had been struggling for a little bit there, and it sent their stock soaring. Mark also seems to be leaning into the new Elon Trump era. He's been something of an Elon fan, but now he's calling him the Edison of our era and posting on X about getting rid of government bureaucracy. I think he's been a little bit overboard, so I wanted to talk with him about his thoughts on the Department of Government Efficiency and whether he's worried about Elon exerting undue power in the market. And by the way, Mark wrote about his Agentic era in an essay. In Time magazine, which he bought in 2018. Like so many tech moguls, they're really deep into media. So our expert question today comes from former CNN media critic Oliver D'Arcy. He now writes his own media news and analysis newsletter, which I love, called Status, and he's got a great question. I also wanted to talk to Mark about Susan Wojcicki, former CEO of YouTube, who is a close friend and colleague of both of ours. She died earlier this year. She was also on the board of Salesforce. She's a person I have long valued in Silicon Valley and there are precious fewer of her as the years go on and more of the toxic brand. And so I want to talk to her about that. Support for this episode comes from sas. How is AI affecting how you learn, work and socialize? And what do you need to know to make responsible use of it as a business leader, worker and human in the world? Find out when you listen to Pondering AI, a podcast featuring candid conversations with experts from across the AI ecosystem. Pondering AI explores the impact and implications of AI for better and for worse, with a diverse group of innovators, advocates and data scientists. Check out Pondering AI wherever you get your podcasts. Support for this show comes from Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. We've all had turning points in our lives where the decisions we make end up having lasting consequences. No one knows this better than the founders of some of today's most influential tech companies. Crucible Moments is a podcast series that lets listeners in on the make or break events that define major companies like Natera, Drop Bucks, New bank and more. Tune into the new season of Crucible Moments. Now you can [e-mail] or wherever you listen to podcasts. Support for on with Kara Swisher comes from ELF Beauty. If you ever wondered what happens when a boardroom is a majority women, look no further than Elf Beauty. Out of about 4,100 US publicly traded companies, Elf is the only one to have a corporate board of directors that is 78% women and 44% diverse. They're making the best of beauty, accessible to every eye, lip and face, and changing the board game while they do it. Visit elf.com changetheboardgame to learn more. It is so Mark, we meet again. We meet again from our last go round, which was public, I think in a live space.

[Kara Swisher]

Sarah we have all had a lot of good times together.

[Marc Benioff]

We have, we have. So last time we spoke was at the Upfront summit where you took all of your note cards and said the next time we'd be consulting ChatGPT. Do you have that ready? Feeding you your answers right now.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, I could do that.

[Marc Benioff]

Do you want me to? No, I don't. I want to.

[Kara Swisher]

I've been really enjoying Gemini.

[Marc Benioff]

Oh, tell me why.

[Kara Swisher]

Gemini app. What a good question that is to ask.

[Marc Benioff]

Tell me why that. Why are you picking that over Claude or any of the others?

[Kara Swisher]

I really love this. Like, hey, tell me everything about Kara Swisher. Is she amazing or what?

[Marc Benioff]

And what's the response? So to add two numbers together, you just need to say them both. For example.

[Kara Swisher]

I think it got a little confused.

[Marc Benioff]

Yeah, it always does. It always does.

[Kara Swisher]

Hey, will you tell me everything you know about Kara Swisher? Is she amazing or what?

[Marc Benioff]

Kara Swisher is definitely a major player in tech journals.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, she is.

[Marc Benioff]

She's super well known for her.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, my God.

[Marc Benioff]

Oh, my God. Don't suck up to me, Mark. It's not gonna work anyway.

[Kara Swisher]

Tara, it's not me. It's Gemini trying to suck up to you. Google wants your full attention.

[Marc Benioff]

Is there others you use? What are the ones you use? What are the.

[Kara Swisher]

I've move. Move to Gemini.

[Marc Benioff]

Why?

[Kara Swisher]

I love the voice that. It's like, no latency voice. It's amazing.

[Marc Benioff]

Right? Okay.

[Kara Swisher]

And just being able to talk about it. So when I'm not using Salesforce's Agent Force, I'm using Gemini.

[Marc Benioff]

Okay. So let's talk about your recent earnings report. It came out Tuesday. You texted me immediately. Sales in the quarter ending October 31st jumped 8.3% to 9.44 billion. So you beat analysts expectations. Subscription revenue was up 9% year over year, bringing in 8.88 billion. Stocks soared on the news, up 9%. Hit a high. So congratulations. So how much do you attribute those numbers to an AI boost, would you say?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I think all of it is about AI right now. I think that Agent Force is really the most exciting thing I've ever done. I've never been more excited about my career and what's happening in technology, and it's just amazing. One of the reasons that I was a few minutes late for this interview is I was on the phone with a customer of mine in Copenhagen, of all places. But my job was to really explain to him what an agentic layer is. And I don't think he'd ever even heard of an agentic layer.

[Marc Benioff]

We'll get to agentic in a minute, but go ahead.

[Kara Swisher]

But that idea that agents can really accelerate his business And I am having this conversation day and night with chief executives and actually all kinds of people all over the world to really explain the power of agents, because we've now shipped this to all 135,000 Salesforce customers, and they can just flip it on with a light switch and I think transform their business.

[Marc Benioff]

Agent force. That's the agent force. You came out with this new platform in September. Explain what it is and how it works. Now everybody's sticking AI on the front of their companies, and it's not always the case.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, what we've done is something really unusual, and I guess I'll use my own example to start. You know, of course, we use Salesforce to run Salesforce. And we have 9,000 people in customer support. We have 135,000 customers. And it's very important for us to have a great customer support experience for all of them. And we have a site where customers start their customer journey with us called help.salesforce.com and then if they aren't able to kind of resolve their issue, we can get on the phone with them and do all kinds of things, help remotely administer their system, et cetera. So we moved help.salesforce.com to Agentforce. And what that does is it delivers it as an agent. So kind of like ChatGPT or Gemini, but grounded, which means connected into your data, into your customer data, and all the information we know about you and your company.

[Marc Benioff]

How is that different? You had Einstein copilots. Were you trying to avoid name confusion with Microsoft Copilot or how is it different? Agent force?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, that's for sure. One major issue that people think copilots don't work because Microsoft has done such a horrible job with their copilot. Let's put that issue aside for a second, because I think with AgentForce, it is different in that this is an agentic layer that is. It's an agent that is. You're actually collaborating with what seems to almost be like a human being, but it's not. It's like a digital worker. It's digital labor. You know, for the last 25 years at Salesforce, we've been helping companies manage and share their information, keep track of their customer information. Now we're providing digital workers. So these are now support agents on the front end helping to resolve these customer issues. And they're pretty good. They have very high levels of accuracy, very low hallucinogenic. And they're basically letting me now rebalance my labor in my company so I'm able to move Support people now to become salespeople. It's very exciting.

[Marc Benioff]

So you mentioned Microsoft. I'd be remiss because it's always been one of your biggest competitors. You've been going after them pretty hard. You've called the new Microsoft Copilot365 Clippy 2.0. For those who don't know, Clippy was their little bouncing paperclip. That was.

[Kara Swisher]

That was a good one.

[Marc Benioff]

That was a good one. You said that Microsoft is deceiving customers. It's not just Microsoft. You've been ranting about AI priests delivering false prophecies. Now you're talking about agent force working so well. Explain why people.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, you're not the only witty person in the tech industry.

[Marc Benioff]

Yes, I understand that, but explain why people should believe your Kool Aid is not laced as everybody else's, just saying.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, they should talk to our customers. I mean, I think that when we have success with AgentForce, we're talking about how we've transformed companies. I'll give you an example. Wiley, you know, this amazing textbook company, they probably made some of the books behind me. And so they usually are like staffing up with all these additional sales and service workers for a couple months. And they're not doing that this year because we provided them digital labor, what we call agent force. And that gave them the ability to start selling and servicing without hiring more people. And it's been super successful for them.

[Marc Benioff]

What are you talking about? When you're talking about AI priests, Microsoft deceiving customers? What are you implying? That's pretty clear. But what is your implication?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, well, Salesforce is now the second largest software company in the world, and Microsoft is the first. And one of the things that has happened in the last two years is Microsoft has come out with this product called Copilot. But if you talk to our customers and ask them what they're using it for, you'll find out Microsoft Copilot is really a flop. It's really disappointed so many customers, way more than any other Microsoft product that's ever existed. And I thought that was hard to have happen, but they've done it again. And the reason why is they just repackaged Sam Altman's product, which is ChatGPT, and it's not very good. And I think the real value for AI for companies is digital labor.

[Marc Benioff]

So just last fiscal year, Microsoft spent more than 55 billion on capex, mostly to boost AI. Analysts estimate it's a lot more than I spent. Yes, I know. I'm going to make that point. Analysts estimate the company will spend 80 to $90 billion on it in 2025. Salesforce's capex this year was fraction of that, less than, I think, 620 million. You said you weren't planning to increase spending to build AI. I'd love to understand why. And let me just follow. Andreessen Horowitz published a blog post titled Death of a Salesforce. Basically that incumbents, meaning you, shouldn't feel too comfortable if they aren't investing heavily in AI. So talk a little bit about this because are you spending enough or why aren't you spending? And are you concerned that companies are going to cut spending on your products, your enterprise applications and replace it with others?

[Kara Swisher]

So you know, Salesforce has been doing artificial intelligence for about more than a decade, I would say. And most people know us for our Einstein platform, which was our first version of artificial intelligence that's evolving very rapidly into Agent Force. This week, this week we will do more than 2 trillion transactions artificial intelligence transactions on our platform. And that's predictive. It's machine learning, it's machine intelligence, it's Generative and it's agent force. So 2 trillion transactions, that's more than any other enterprise provider in the world. And the reason why we don't have those Capex expenditures is two reasons. One is our models are incredibly efficient. Two out of the top models in the industry were written at Salesforce. We have an incredible AI team that has done amazing work. Even prompt engineering itself was invented at Salesforce in 2018. A tremendous amount of the deep learning work came out of Salesforce and our research team and a huge amount of Generative and some of these incredible new models. But we do things a little differently, the way we train, the way we write the software and also we tend to use other people's data centers. So we will use Amazon and Google and others and not rely on too much of our own hardware, which we, although we have some, it's not our, not, not our philosophy.

[Marc Benioff]

So you don't need to spend. The spending gulf is enormous. Talk about why do. I mean, there is an enormous spending situation going on with these companies with not clear if they're going to make it back, but they feel they need to make these massive investments.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, it's the same message we have to our customers. Like we were just talking about Disney. You love my shirt. But Disney is also not spending more on Capex because they rely on us. And the way we've architected our platform is we don't have to Buy hardware and all kinds of AI training systems.

[Marc Benioff]

We don't have to suck up to Nvidia, for example.

[Kara Swisher]

We love Nvidia and they're a great customer and partner of ours. And I love Jensen, I love his philosophies. But I think that we have a really, really exciting strategy and you can see how it played out. And our numbers were incredible, by the way. We did 38 billion in revenue. And, you know, we're going to deliver about 33% in our margins this year, $13 billion in cash flow, which is.

[Marc Benioff]

A lot better than previous years, which you were struggling a little bit. But what, what is the.

[Kara Swisher]

These are incredible numbers.

[Marc Benioff]

What, what about the spending? How do you look at the massive amounts of fundraising spending and everything else that going on?

[Kara Swisher]

I think in some cases it's excessive, and I think also in some cases it's becoming a race to the bottom for some of these companies. So while there is a big movement of a lot of companies into these kind of public clouds, you know, I think that we have to be careful exactly how much we're investing. And you can see it even in the energy use, I think, also has to be managed. We're seeing companies even, like, buy nuclear power plants to run their data centers. This is really an unusual development.

[Marc Benioff]

Where will the spending go?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, I think they're going to keep spending and. And it's going to be expensive for them and it's going to drive their margins down.

[Marc Benioff]

Okay. And you just want to ride on top of that. That's what you're essentially saying. And.

[Kara Swisher]

And I'm going to take advantage of their spending to make my products better and lower cost and easier for my customers.

[Marc Benioff]

Yeah, right. Okay. So you call it this word, ajantic. Satya Nadella of Microsoft also calls Agentic its agent. Essentially, it's its agents. So when you reallocate these funds and you drift into AI, does that. You know, I've been talking to a lot of CEOs lately, like you, who are sort of using the AI and are not going to be making the AI necessarily. And they think they're going to cut half their workforce. They're going to cut all kinds of people. How are you re engineering? Salesforce itself.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, well, that. Those were aggressive numbers, and I have never heard numbers like that before. But I do think you're going to be rebalancing your workforce. And, you know, the AI is not. We're not at AGI, you know. Yeah, we have very good AI, but it's not sentient. So I have seen the movies, but that's not where we are yet. I would say that we have an opportunity, though, to rebalance our workforce because there is a percentage of things that our employees have been doing that can now be done by our software. And that's exciting because I have a lot of things that need to get done that are not getting done. And I'm going to rebalance my employees over to those functions.

[Marc Benioff]

To those functions. So getting back to Microsoft, they've invested, as you noted, heavily in OpenAI. Microsoft's connection with OpenAI is something the FTC is actually looking into right now. You recently made a couple of offhand remarks about Gen AI not curing cancer, which have been interpreted as digs at, I guess, Sam Altman and OpenAI. And you've also directed Fridge.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I'm not attacking any one particular person and I love Sam Altman and he's a great person and a great leader of the San Francisco tech community. What I really have a problem with is when people mischaracterize where AI is today. And I think AI is very cool. But we just saw a good example where I am working with AI even in our interview here. And we could see sometimes it gets it right and sometimes it gets it wrong. We all have that experience and that's the reality of where we are right now. And we haven't cured cancer, we haven't stopped climate change. And while AI may help us get there in the future, I think it's possible we should be really grounded right now, to use an AI term in today's reality of what's possible.

[Marc Benioff]

But you're using Einstein, is using OpenAI's LLMs, correct. What is your collaboration with a company like that look like? And how do you figure out who to collaborate with?

[Kara Swisher]

We use many models of the front. Well they call the frontier models like OpenAI Anthropic. Google. There's a lot of choices cohere. We're investors and some of them were.

[Marc Benioff]

Investors like you invested in Fei Fei Le's new AI company.

[Kara Swisher]

Personally, I'm a advisor and I've been investing and her husband runs my research at Salesforce. Silvio and I would say that there's so many exciting things going on, but today you have a lot of choices on how to what to plug in. But we also have built a lot of our own custom models and our own specialized AI as well inside Salesforce. So it's a little bit of a hybrid. So we're many things that Salesforce do and we don't Want our customers to have to worry about any of that. We don't want them to diy, which means do it yourself AI, you know, and we're helping them build their own models. And if they already have a model, they can bring that model. It's called, you know, they can bring their own model into Salesforce. So we, we think of models are changing and evolving very fast. Fei, Fei Li's company is a good example. You know, she's building a new world model. You know, the idea that there's going to be a lot of different ways to understand the world through AI. Like for example, the model that we just used in the phone example doesn't have a time space understanding. Like it only operates in the current time, in the current space. Her models are independent of time and space and geography and can do things that other models cannot do today, even.

[Marc Benioff]

Though there's a cornucopia of spending happening. And so you have a lot of choices and you're riding off of their rails, essentially. Do you worry about it being only a few big companies that you will be subject to just three or four? There's only.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I don't believe that at all. And I think.

[Marc Benioff]

Tell me why. Because you're not worried about concentration in power.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, there's a lot of good choices. Right now you go for a little French company, if you like the French. You know, I myself am a member of the French Foreign Legion, you know, so I'm very a big advocate for France. Mistral is a great model. There's so many. There are many great models and there's kind of a competition like who's the best model. They're all fighting it out. But right now that current generation model is also starting to crest a little bit. You hear that there's an innovation ceiling that they're hitting on the current technology. This is very common where all of a sudden it looks like this and then it gets stabilized at the top. And that's not the first time this has happened in our industry, not just with models, but with technology. And then it tends to commoditize while we wait for the next model. And then we go through sometimes what we call an AI winter. So the model will kind of get mature and then everybody's kind of at the same level. Then the price gets rationalized, then things start to slow down and then we wait for the next great idea to emerge.

[Marc Benioff]

We'll be back in a minute. Support for on with Kara Swisher comes from Deleteme. Your data is important and that's why data brokers value it so much. And it's not just your own data, it's the data of everyone who you plan on spending the holidays with. Data brokers can compile information like names, contact info and addresses just to sell it later, but you can help protect yourself with Deleteme. When you sign up for Deleteme, you provide exactly the information you want deleted, and their experts take it from there. Deleteme sends you regular personalized privacy reports showing what information they found, where they found it, and what they removed. And if that sounds like something that would benefit a loved one, you can gift a subscription to them. I've tried Deleteme myself and I find it really helpful to find out how much incredible information is out there about me that I do not want out there about me. So this holiday season, give your loved ones the gift of privacy and peace of mind with Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com Cara and use the promo code CARA at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com Cara enter the code Cara at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com Cara code Cara support for this show comes from Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. It's easy to think that the success of tech giants like YouTube, Dropbox and Reddit was inevitable. I was there and it wasn't. Trust me. One thing these companies have in common is that they all survived the make or break moments that nearly took them down. And each of them had these. On this season of Crucible Moments, you can hear the unvarnished histories of some of tech's influential companies told by the founders themselves. Like how Dropbox's disastrous public launch paved the way for the company's viral success. Hosted by Roloff Bota of Sequoia, Crucible Moments provides a behind the scenes look at some of the most defining milestones in tech's history to show the moments of turmoil that can sometimes become great moments of triumph. I have to say, Roloff's a really good VC and I've covered him over the many years and I have seen a lot of these companies and it's really great actually to hear from founders of what their problems was. YouTube was very touch and go. Reddit. Oh my God, I can't even tell you how many crises they had. Same thing with every company I've ever covered. Tune in to the new season of Crucible Moments. Now you can [e-mail] or wherever you listen to podcasts. Support for on with Kara Swisher comes from Lingo by Abbott. Talking about healthy habits is a lot easier than actually implementing them. The key is finding out what works for you and your body. That's where Lingo comes in. It's a new bio wearable that tracks your glucose in real time. It gives you personal insights and recommendations that can help you learn to eat in the way that works for you. What I like about Lingo is the ability to track a lot of different things in your day. Whether it's the stress of dropping off your kid or putting too much sugar in your coffee, which is I do every day and I'm going to continue to do it in any cases. Knowing about the effect is really important and understanding it in a discreet, water resistant way that lasts two weeks and then is available on an app is really helpful so you can really see things in real time. So don't just eat right, eat what's right for you with Lingo. The Lingo glucose system is for users 18 years of age or older, not on insulin. It is not intended for diagnosis of diseases, including diabetes. For more information, please visit hellolingo.com you joked in our last interview that I'd be voting for Trump and you would be voting for Elon. Sort of kind of like you did on X. You recently called him the Edison of our time, by the way. Edison was not a very nice person, FYI. You also sent congrats to President Elect Trump and wrote the Time of Great Promise for our Nation. A lot of CEOs did this. I'm not giving you a hard time for that. Have you flipped in your thing because you supported Hillary Clinton 2016? President Obama before her, I think you were a Biden supporter, as I recall. Have you shifted Elise agencies like you.

[Kara Swisher]

Forgot to mention that I was in the Bush administration also as the chairman of the ptac.

[Marc Benioff]

Yes, except for your great Elon Love, you've been pretty quiet, but go ahead.

[Kara Swisher]

I would say you have a couple two things that I want to directly address it. Number one is that when I bought Time magazine in 2018, I agreed with management. Maybe incorrectly, but I agreed nonetheless that I would no longer fund any political party or campaign smart and I would not endorse any political candidate.

[Marc Benioff]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

So I've been remarkably neutral and down the middle. I mean, some of the things that I believe in, I believe in innovation. I mean, you know, the things I believe in. I believe in trust. I believe in customer success, innovation, equality. I believe in. I believe in sustainability, and I also believe in fiscal responsibility. I also believe very strongly in the balanced budget. It's one of the reasons that brought me to the Bush administration is the idea of something that is what we used to call budget neutral, which really is a balanced budget, something we've gotten away from in the country. These are a lot of the things.

[Marc Benioff]

That I believe, you know, that Trump was the worst defender of that. But go ahead, Go ahead.

[Kara Swisher]

I am not endorsing anybody, but I do think when someone is elected president, we should want the best for our country and our best for our president.

[Marc Benioff]

We don't want them to crash into a tree, all of us, into a tree with us.

[Kara Swisher]

I agree that we should. You and I think could agree on that one point.

[Marc Benioff]

One point.

[Kara Swisher]

We should all be as supportive as we can for our country and our president.

[Marc Benioff]

Right. And so do you feel Mark Zuckerberg just went to Mar a Lago. I know you didn't go to that famous meeting in 2016. You and I talked about it in the Trump Tower Tech leaders meeting. And I believe you weren't invited. I think as I, as the Trump people told me, because I think we.

[Kara Swisher]

Were too small at that point. We weren't the second largest software company at that point.

[Marc Benioff]

Right. I think they said you were too liberal to me. I think that's what they told me. But do you feel like you have to do the, the visit and sit there and listen to YMCA with him while eating lunch?

[Kara Swisher]

Look, I, if I was invited, I would go. I went actually, in Trump, the first Trump administration, you'll find photos of me. I've met with him several times. And, you know, of course I would support him. And what he's, what you know, is trying to do as the president of the United States, especially if it aligns with what I'm doing. But, but one thing that I've noticed is that, and I've worked with five or six presidents now and six administrations or something, that presidents are changing, but I'm not changing. My core values aren't changing. My company and who we are has not changed. And we're going through this. We're also a large supplier to the US Government.

[Marc Benioff]

You are.

[Kara Swisher]

So that is something that's very important to us as a company, that the US Government is successful.

[Marc Benioff]

Right, right. That makes sense. Someone who did change was Elon, who's gone, as you and I both know, changed rather dramatically in his point of view. He has. There's no question you have. Not that I would, I will, I will agree with you there. Have you, have you worried about, you know, he's now the BFF or the best buddy to Trump.

[Kara Swisher]

I thought he was the vice president at this point.

[Marc Benioff]

I mean, he feels like, honestly, he feels like the president, honestly. That's what he feels like.

[Kara Swisher]

But go.

[Marc Benioff]

Why? What's amazing? What's amazing to you?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I mean, I think it is amazing that we are having somebody who you could call him the Hedison of our time. I have. That's because I find him to be very inventive, creative. I think it's amazing how he runs all these companies. I say to him all the time, I don't understand how you can run all these companies. I can barely run two. So, you know, it's, it's, it's incredible what he has done. We could go through his list of accomplishments I.

[Marc Benioff]

You've done.

[Kara Swisher]

I do. I think that, unlike you, I try not to throw the baby out with the bathroom water.

[Marc Benioff]

You know, I see I'm throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Kara Swisher]

You know what? I kind of go back trying to.

[Marc Benioff]

Save the fucking baby, Mark. But go ahead, go ahead. So I, I want the bath water gone. The fetid, racist, anti immigrant bathwater gone. But go ahead, go ahead, keep going.

[Kara Swisher]

So, you know, Carol, we're, you know, that you and I align on a lot of things. And I would just say that in this one area, I am much more about innovation. And I think that, hey, if we can bring a little innovation to the United States of America, that's only going to make us stronger and better.

[Marc Benioff]

Are you worried about him using his political HUD to influence the tech market, especially AI? I mean, he could be a kingmaker here. He has an AI company. Obviously there's some conflict of interest. He's suing OpenAI. And Sam Altman told the Times it would be profoundly un American to use political power to hurt your competitors and advantage your own business. How do you feel with a single tech person being in that position? I know the people at Meta are worried. I know a lot of these companies are worried.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, one thing I've learned when presidents are running for office and how they operate in office is that it usually is two different things. And this is, I think, something that we get collective amnesia around. That what you say to get elected doesn't tend to be the reality when you're actually in office and actually have to manage something or run something.

[Marc Benioff]

What are though, the Implications of some like Elon, who is unelected. He just spent a lot of money and got Trump elected. I do believe he was critical to that. He can tweet and run and ruin the people in a day. Is that worrisome to you in any way?

[Kara Swisher]

It can be. But I think, you know, we are still at the beginning of this and I think that I don't think there should be judgment made. I think it's okay to have judgment once we get in and we're going and then we can say this went well and this did not go well. I think that in all cases there will be things that work and things that did not work. And I don't care who you are as a leader, that is going to be something that you're going to be subjected to.

[Marc Benioff]

You talked about family values at Salesforce all the time. Last time you pushed back on the idea that you were a woke CEO. But you have put your neck out for LGBTQ issues in the past, like taking a stand against anti gay laws in Indiana. You and your wife have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to climate issues. One of the things I said when I interviewed you, you said you see the good in people, not the dark parts. But some of it is very dark. And I'll focus on some Elon quotes.

[Kara Swisher]

For example, I call you when I want to see the dark parts and people there.

[Marc Benioff]

Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

[Kara Swisher]

I know how to call a friend a lot.

[Marc Benioff]

I think you need to see them. But he said no. For example, Elon said the Woke mind virus killed his child Vivian, and he refuses to use her new name and gender. A video from his pack began. Kamala is the C word. The ad flashed over at image. A cat with a meow sou was obviously referring to, not communists. He reposted an interesting observation that women are incapable of independent thought, that only alpha males should make policy decisions. The anti immigrant conspiracies are all over the place and Trump also reflects those. How do you still see the good in people when some of this is extraordinarily dark? We're going to keep having this debate, but how do you not react to that?

[Kara Swisher]

Let me tell you the part that's not a debate, and let's start there. There's two parts. First is my part as the CEO of Salesforce and then who I am as a person. So, number one, as the CEO of Salesforce, there are parts of our world that can get very dark and toxic for our employees. We have 75,000 people Salesforce is a large company. We just went through that. We have offices in every major city, state and country in the world. And we will have employees who end up in a state or a country or a city or a with a mayor, a president, a governor, whatever that they feel they're being discriminated against and they will call me. And we have a lot of stories around that. You and I have gone through them for more than a decade. And I would say that in those cases, I will say to this, to those employees, number one, I have your back. I'm your CEO. I have a huge responsibility. You are working for us. We're going to take care of you. I know that you work 247 for Salesforce. I'm going to make sure we take care of you. And if you are unhappy right now or feel like you are threatened or in danger or that you're in a toxic environment, I'll do what I can politically for you. But in some cases, there's not a lot I can do, but I can move you. And I have moved more than 300 employees. So in those cases where those employees feel that they are in a situation that is no, no longer tenable for them, I will get them on an airplane and their family and get them into a safe environment. And that is the number one thing I can do for them, for them as an employer on the second side, what I can do. Well, let's stay with Salesforce for a second. You know, when we. We started Salesforce 25 years ago, you know this story, we put 1% of our equity, profit and time into a 501c3 charity foundation. And it was very easy because we had no employees, shareholders or anybody. And today, that foundation has given away more than a billion dollars. It runs more than 50,000 nonprofits for free on our service. And also we've done 10 million hours of volunteerism. These are approximate numbers, but it's scaled and it's been incredible.

[Marc Benioff]

Right, so this is your acting safety.

[Kara Swisher]

This is what we do at the.

[Marc Benioff]

Company rather than speaking out against some of these.

[Kara Swisher]

You know this because you've been there and you saw this is real for 25 years.

[Marc Benioff]

Is it impossible?

[Kara Swisher]

Wait, now, the second piece is me personally. I've also given away more than a billion dollars to the public hospitals, the public schools, the public parks, public safety, the environment. You know, I love the trillion trees, which I started with Trump the oceans. I have an ocean lab at ucsb, two children's hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland, and three hospitals in Hawaii, which I love very much, and that's what I do also. And so this is who I am. It's all out in the public. There's no mystery.

[Marc Benioff]

But is it impossible for public company CEOs now to be. Do you think you could have done your thing you did in Ohio today without real repercussions in Indiana? Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. It's not Ohio, it's Indiana. So let's talk about what happened. And there's so much confusion about that, and I think it's extremely important for the current time, but also for the LGBTQ community. So you might remember that what was happening was the governor at the time did sign law against the LGBT community, and I know him very well, and I called him and I said, why did you do that? Because now I'm going to have to disinvest and not be able to hire as many people and bring customers there. And he's like, let's talk about this. And we actually resolved it and negotiated something within a couple of days. But we did have to get involved and we did have to work it out.

[Marc Benioff]

Could you do that?

[Kara Swisher]

200 companies joined us for Indiana companies.

[Marc Benioff]

I have admiration, but could you do that today? Would you be worried?

[Kara Swisher]

Of course.

[Marc Benioff]

Because you want to get government contracts, you want to continue to participate?

[Kara Swisher]

Of course. We didn't lose any government contracts on that.

[Marc Benioff]

I feel like there is a retribution.

[Kara Swisher]

I have a great relationship in Indiana. We have an Indianapolis.

[Marc Benioff]

I don't mean Indiana. I mean, if you are too. If CEOs in general are too, you know, loud that they will have, you know, be denied California.

[Kara Swisher]

I think you should take my example and actually talk to people. I think that even the current governor in Indiana, Eric Holcomb, who I'm a huge fan of, I, you know, talk to him, and I don't agree with everything. I don't agree with you on everything, Karen.

[Marc Benioff]

No, we don't agree on much, actually. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

[Kara Swisher]

But we have a good dialogue.

[Marc Benioff]

Right, Right.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. And we respect each other. And also, I'm not afraid to talk to you about things. And this idea that we're watching a Super bowl and that there's two teams and we're not able to cheer for either side. This seems to end like we're all on the same team here, and this is the United States of America, and we should be fighting for America and our country and try to bring people together and have a great tech industry and a great economy and fight for our values.

[Marc Benioff]

There are some issues when, for Example with California, Trump has threatened to defund cities. He's threatened to keep away federal stuff. He said it. He said it explicitly. And that is not we're on the same team. It's if you're not on our team, you're not on a team at all. And you're not getting, you know, a lot of transgender people are moving states worried about new laws. So it's not exactly we're on the same team. It's be on our team or else. In some cases with some.

[Kara Swisher]

I think we have to separate what is said during the campaign from what happens in an administration. And one of the things that I noticed in Trump 1, I would call it, he has a huge Trump club in California, and he's here all the time playing golf. And, you know, even there's a lot of pictures of him and Gavin Newsom together in Trump one. And they did a lot together and they worked on a lot of projects together. So I understand when you're running, there's a huge amount of confrontation. And then once you get into administration and you're the president, you're the president of the whole country. So, you know, that's when all of a sudden people tend to move a little bit more to the center. And I hope that's what happens.

[Marc Benioff]

We'll see. Because, I mean, some of his appointments look crazy and some look very reasonable. That's.

[Kara Swisher]

That was true in. Trump won also.

[Marc Benioff]

Yeah. Okay, so let me, let me finish up on what's happening here with the federal government. So you are. One of the things that's going to happen is this, this DOGE thing. A lot of it has to do with job cuts. And you wrote a Time article. I'm surprised they published it, called how the Rise of Digital Workers Will Lead to an Unlimited Age. I want to know your position on the Department of Government efficiency and the idea of cutting all these workers, because you're talking about AI agents that could make companies more profitable, government more efficient. You've talked of the post labor economy, which is scary for people. So talk about this push for efficiency with people worried. So how do you square that?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, this is a moment in time that we have to get real about what's really happening with technology. And that's why I wrote the article, because I think maybe it's the first article that was ever written about agentic or agents as early in them or agent force, in time and probably in a lot of places. This is the first time mainstream media has written about agents and what could happen. I take that article very seriously. I think it's important that we do talk about what is going to potentially happen with digital labor and human labor and how they're going to work together and how there can be changes. I think at a lot of government agencies, there probably is a lot of inefficiency. In my own company, there's a lot of inefficiency. For the last two years, I've been trying to work on that. That's one of the reasons why we actually just had a great quarter. You know, we not only had great revenues, but we had great margins and cash flow because we have to address where we have overlap or we've overhired or we've created too much bureaucracy and your garden is not complete until you've taken everything out of it. And that is true in managing an organization as well. And I think that we have to do that more in government. I hope that there are practical things that we can do to make things happen. And I think in the case of where we want to maybe hire more people into the government, we're going to use recruiting agents and where we're going to, for example, help maybe provide more citizen access or direct interaction with the government, with citizens, agents can be a huge opportunity.

[Marc Benioff]

Right, but if you address the worries.

[Kara Swisher]

You can envision that yourself.

[Marc Benioff]

Yes, absolutely. But address the worries of. Vivek Ramaswamy and Ilan have talked about $2 trillion in cuts. This is.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I put that on the COVID of Time magazine. I think it's actually a good idea.

[Marc Benioff]

Yes.

[Kara Swisher]

I think we must get back to a balanced budget. I've been saying this for three decades. So this is not new. This is not a political position. I believe that this should be a bipartisan position. I have been appalled that our most recent presidents have not been trying to get to balance budgets. I have had direct conversations with presidents in both parties that this is a critical part of our future. We cannot be running these huge deficits. Everybody understands.

[Marc Benioff]

So it's a question of numbers are.

[Kara Swisher]

Just, you know, unreasonable. What's happening with the amount of interest that we're paying. So if he can find a way to do that and we can rebalance our government, it's going to make for a much better economy overall.

[Marc Benioff]

What in the short term happens to those people, though, in this shift, whether it's gigantic or just let's cut. Cut the fat out. Some of it's not fat. It just. We're not going to do that anymore.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, people will have to find new jobs. And right now, unemployment is an incredibly low level there. I can't even find people to hire myself. So, you know, this is an idea that every organization must be constantly rebalancing and looking at its efficiency. And the government is not one of those organizations. So they should adopt some of the best practices from America's best companies. That's one of the reasons we have great companies, is because we do have practices. And no one likes the word layoff. The first time we did a major layoff, which was two years ago at Salesforce. I mean, people were so mad at me. Everyone's upset. It's terrible. I hated doing it myself. It was one of the darkest moments in my career that I even had to do it. But how else can I kind of got to where I am now, where I'm hiring thousands of people? So it was a moment where I had to restructure to get to where I would get to. I could not get to where I am today without doing what I did then. I didn't like it. I didn't want to do it. It was horrible. I think we had conversations about it.

[Marc Benioff]

Yes, we did.

[Kara Swisher]

And you knew how upset I was. But now look at how happy I am that I'm here. And now I just told everyone yesterday I'm going to hire, you know, hopefully another 2,000 salespeople. I'm grow. The company is growing. It's amazing.

[Marc Benioff]

One of the people do say one of the reasons tech is so thriving is there's no very regulations hitting you the way it is other industries. And I think probably you'd agree with that. There's not as many guardrails. Talk about any regulations you think should happen. When Joe Rogan interviewed Marc Andreessen, you wrote that he unpacks the dangers of government overreach in crypto and AI. Do you think the government's overreaching or do you see tech regulation as important? I couldn't tell because there haven't been many regulations.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I think in one area, you know, that I feel that. What is those called? Is it section 230?

[Marc Benioff]

Yes, section 230. Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, I've said social media, that should be restructured. So that is an area that should be looked at and evaluated and restructured is not appropriate based on where technology is today.

[Marc Benioff]

You called Facebook, I recall in a famous interview with me, you called Facebook a cigarette company.

[Kara Swisher]

I think, as I recall, you may I said that there are aspects of this technology, and I've been very clear about this, that can be addictive. They can go after Our kids. There, there needs to be oversight for our children. And I have a lot of admiration for what Australia did. Yeah, if you're under 16, you can't have a phone or social media or something.

[Marc Benioff]

Not your phone.

[Kara Swisher]

They said this stuff is too dangerous and addictive for kids. I'm like, probably a smart idea and I think that we should be like thinking that way, that we are dealing with explosive technologies, that this is very serious. A lot of this technology is amazing, it's magical, it's incredible. It's going to transform our lives, it is going to make us healthier, it is going to make our climate better, it is going to educate us, it is going to do all these incredible things. But wow, is it dangerous. And we need to be really careful with that.

[Marc Benioff]

So what AI regulation would you put in? What, what would you advocate for in AI, for example?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I think that I would be cautious in over regulating AI right now because it's very nascent and I don't see a lot of.

[Marc Benioff]

That's what they said about Section 230, didn't they, Mark? Remember, I was around for that.

[Kara Swisher]

Here's the difference what I'm going to say and I think I just said it and I think this is actually a good point. When they put in section 230, that was a moment in time. We can't just put something in and then never reevaluate it. You know, that was put in decades ago. It wasn't put in last year.

[Marc Benioff]

Right.

[Kara Swisher]

Over that period, three or four decades, technology has changed. It has gotten dramatically lower cost, easier to use and far more powerful. And you can't just put something in like that and then not reevaluate it on a regular and consistent basis. If you're quote, unquote regulating the tech industry. And I think that that is where we are. But this stuff is moving fast and that's why people like you are successful, because you're able to report on all the changes. And it's why people like me are successful, because I'm able to build it and create it and sell it and market it. And it offers a lot of value to our customers. But you know, the government needs to adapt.

[Marc Benioff]

So right now, no AI, but maybe change to 230. Correct.

[Kara Swisher]

I would say that there should be kind of oversight and funding and research and evaluation, but we should be cautious with over regulating.

[Marc Benioff]

So speaking of actually doing things you're not going to, there's a lot of people. Elon and Vivek are the new dogemasters. Whatever that ends up meaning many other tech people are infiltrating the government. Joe Lonsdale, your best friend, wants to be in it. Emil Michael, who is the number two executive at Uber? Obviously Peter Thiel has his connections. Should there be this many tech dudes there? Do you think that's a good thing? Would you like to take a more active role?

[Kara Swisher]

I've had my time in the government.

[Marc Benioff]

So no, you're not going to join it, but who should?

[Kara Swisher]

I think everybody should have their chance. And, you know, that's when I was 40 years old. I'm, you know, 60 years old now. I don't, I don't know if this is exactly my moment to roll back into the government.

[Marc Benioff]

We'll be back in a minute. Support for on with Kara Swisher comes from Elf Beauty. What does it look like when a majority of a company's board of directors is made up of women? Well, it actually looks like Elf Beauty. Elf Beauty is making the best of beauty accessible to every eye, lip and face. And they're changing the board game while they do it. Out of about 4,100 U.S. publicly traded companies, they're the only one to have a corporate board of directors that is 78% women and 44% diverse. With the latest campaign, their goal is to double the growth of women and the diverse candidates on corporate boards by 6% by 2027. I cannot tell you in the many years I've covered corporate issues how unusual these statistics are. And to point it out is critical. A company's board should reflect a company's customers. You cannot create great products without understanding those customers, and you cannot create those products unless there is diversity of all kinds, not just gender diversity in the executive and C suite roles. It's time to change the board game. It's easy to start there. Visit elfbeauty.com changetheboardgame to learn more. Support for on with Kara swisher comes from GiveDirectly. There are so many ways to support causes you care about this time of year. But if you're looking for a way to directly support people who need it, consider making a donation to GiveDirectly. GiveDirectly believes that every person, regardless of their financial status, has their own specific needs, preferences and aspirations. And that the best way to uplift people in poverty is to give them cash and freedom to choose how to improve their own lives. With that in mind, GiveDirectly sends cash transfers via mobile money or simple SMS based digital transfers to some of the poorest communities in the world. And according to GiveDirectly, they've even used AI to deliver cash to at risk communities before floods and other natural disasters hit. Your donation this holiday season can help lift families and entire communities out of extreme poverty. You can learn more and send money directly to people living in extreme poverty by visiting GiveDirectly.org Cara support for the show comes from Pilot. As a startup founder, you don't have time for accounting, but you can't afford to get it wrong. Pilot is the largest startup focused accountant in the world and they understand what's at stake. That's why the biggest names in tech Companies, companies like OpenAI and Airtable, trusted pilot with their books from the start. If you're planning on building the next big thing, you'll want Pilot in your corner. You have one team for everything from bookkeeping to taxes to CFO level strategy so you can stay focused on making your startup successful. With Pilot, you'll stay confident with bookkeeping services that deliver accurate financials on time, every time. And you'll stay compliant with your taxes without worrying about missing deadlines or surprises from the irs. Plus, if you need help with fundraising or scaling, Pilot's CFO services team can partner with you to make it happen. Don't settle for less. Pilot is the team startup's trust to handle what matters most. Start the new year with a peace of mind that comes from knowing your finances are in expert hands. Kara swisher Listeners get $1200 off their first year at pilot.comcara that's pilot.comcara so I want to finish up. I have just a couple more questions. You bought time magazine for $120 million, $190 million. In 2018, there was reports that you were in talks to sell to Greek international media company Antenna Group. Is this true that you're in conversations to sell it?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, time is a small company and time's amazing. I really enjoy time. I love it, I love working on it. And look Kara, if you're interested in buying it, we could have a conversation. But I don't have any art.

[Marc Benioff]

Have you chopped it?

[Kara Swisher]

I don't have any deal on the table to sell time.

[Marc Benioff]

Have you been in talks to do so? And why?

[Kara Swisher]

There are always people who are approaching us to buy time. It is so well regarded, the brand. Here's a funny story, okay, I will go all over the world because I have customers all over the world and I'll be meeting with these customers. I'll be meeting with media like yourself. Or others. And we'll be talking about things. I'll be like. And people that I don't know will say, hey, tell me, what do you do? And I say, I'm the CEO of Salesforce. And I've, you know, we're the second largest software company in the world, and if 75,000 people do $38 billion in revenue this year, and, you know, we're pioneering the agentic platform. It's very exciting. And I also own Time magazine. What? You own Time magazine?

[Marc Benioff]

Right.

[Kara Swisher]

What. What does that mean?

[Marc Benioff]

Right? You know, what does that mean?

[Kara Swisher]

Tell me everything about what you're doing with Time magazine.

[Marc Benioff]

All right?

[Kara Swisher]

And I'm like, okay, well, this is a company of like 200 people and is, you know, has a physical magazine, a digital magazine. We do events. We have a Time studio. A small business.

[Marc Benioff]

Is there a way to make it anything but a small business in this day and age?

[Kara Swisher]

It's a great business. I think that was funny. You know, we've been talking about the Trump administration. I just read, literally on the way to the interview that Jared Isaacman, who.

[Marc Benioff]

Is going to be NASA head. Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

I did a huge documentary on him called Inspiration four, which is amazing on how he went to Space and SpaceX and Elon. And it's on Netflix. And if you haven't seen that documentary on Netflix, it is awesome. Right?

[Marc Benioff]

Right. It's a Time.

[Kara Swisher]

And it's a great piece of journalism from Time. And I would say, like, things like that are super fun. We also did genius on Kanye West.

[Marc Benioff]

It's like a. I think you're making fine things, but can it ever be a very good business?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I mean, it's. It's fine. But Salesforce is a very good business.

[Marc Benioff]

Right. So is it a vanity project? How do you look at it?

[Kara Swisher]

It's just fun and enjoyable and it's more of a hobby, honestly. It's. Look, it's a small. It's a small business, and it's fun and it's enjoyable. That's why I'm. That's why I've been doing it. And I wouldn't say I'm especially good at it. You know, I would say that I'm not great media owner, visionary media person. You know, no one. People will say that I'm a vision. Like, I've won a lot of awards for being visionary, prophetic in the tech industry. Mark is a great visionary. You've given me awards that, you know, all kinds of things. The leadership awards. You've handed me all kinds of pieces.

[Marc Benioff]

Of glass with my name, but I.

[Kara Swisher]

Have gotten no awards.

[Marc Benioff]

We're going to get to that. We have two final questions about that. So every week we get a question from an outside expert. Let's have a quick listen. And this is what you were just discussing.

[Kara Swisher]

Hello, Mark Oliver Darcy from Status. A few years ago, there was hope that billionaires like yourself would rescue the media. But recently that notion has been punctured. Jeff Bezos blocked the Washington Post from endorsing Kamala Harris in the election, plunging the paper into turmoil. Patrick Sun Xiong at the LA Times, who seems to be rather mega curious, did the same thing. Meanwhile, you're reportedly looking to sell Time magazine after making cuts this year. Was the public wrong to put so much faith in wealthy men like yourself saving the fourth estate?

[Marc Benioff]

Thoughts?

[Kara Swisher]

Number one, it's not wealthy men because I own it with my wife.

[Marc Benioff]

Okay, wealthy. You're right. I know that that is something I didn't say. I've texted you whenever you don't give women credit, but go ahead.

[Kara Swisher]

Thank you. The second piece is that media is hard. It's gone through a lot of transformation in the last 20 years. Technology has changed media. And yeah, there are people in media like myself or Bezos who are working on these kind of established brands and media properties. It's not easy. It's a lot of hard work. But in the case of Time, I think the reason that we've been successful, and I do think we are successful, is we still have the magazine, which I love reading every week. And by the way, so does your good friend Donald Trump, if you go to Mar a Lago, they have huge walls of just Time magazine covers. It's amazing.

[Marc Benioff]

That's your demographic, Mar A Lago people. But go ahead, go ahead.

[Kara Swisher]

Number two, we have phenomenal digital journalism. You can go to time.com and we even make our paywall free because we think free people should read freely. We're very grateful to our sponsors who make that possible. And number three is we bring have physical events because we love bringing communities of people together like our time 100. And you've been to some of those programs. They're awesome. And also we do Time Studios to bring heroic work like the work of Jared Isaacman or other creative.

[Marc Benioff]

Have you been good stewards as a group?

[Kara Swisher]

I can't speak to Patrick and Jeff, which was just brought out, but I can speak to what we've done, I think has been really somewhat hard and difficult work individuating it from this, from Meredith, which was hard. Creating its own Independent company building new products and product lines and getting to the point where it's actually now a profitable business. That was really hard creative work. We even went through all kinds of other product and creative iterations to get there. And we're there, but, wow, it's a journey.

[Marc Benioff]

It's not a great business. Whenever tech people say they're going to compete with me, I'm like, it's not a very good business.

[Kara Swisher]

Did I mention agentforce?

[Marc Benioff]

This is really a great opportunity. Last two very quick questions. When we talked about this acquisition in 2018, you told me, and I want you to listen to this back and forth. Go ahead.

[Kara Swisher]

It can be anything it wants to be.

[Marc Benioff]

What's your role? You're not using my company.

[Kara Swisher]

Visionary.

[Marc Benioff]

What does that mean? What, are you going to walk around and say things?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I'm going to walk around and try to inspire a vision for the future of the.

[Marc Benioff]

What does that mean? I don't even understand what that means.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, that's why I am a visionary leader, Kara, and you're not.

[Marc Benioff]

But I actually make content. So I would like to know what if you were the owner of something I had what your business was.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, here's how I look at it, which is I think we are going through a lot of change in our society today. And for a lot of people, they're not really sure how to make context of this change and is it going to really help them or is it going to hurt them? And I think that having a trusted guide like Time magazine and having that in the right hands and giving the leaders of that magazine the support they need to do what they need to do, I think that's most critical.

[Marc Benioff]

You're going to give them more money?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, yeah, we're going to invest. That's for sure. The last part.

[Marc Benioff]

Yeah, I know it's a lot of your money. You still had to make layoffs too, which are difficult, as you said, we.

[Kara Swisher]

Had to invest a lot to get it to the point where it is now.

[Marc Benioff]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

So I think all those things were really true. I didn't realize actually I was as visionary as I am. When I go back and look at.

[Marc Benioff]

The pavement, if you do say so.

[Kara Swisher]

You'Re saying, yeah, well, you are a visionary in the media industry. But no, I think that that's very true. Everything I said, yeah, okay.

[Marc Benioff]

All right. So you're still the visionary. You still claim visionary status.

[Kara Swisher]

Cara, you are also very much a visionary.

[Marc Benioff]

I am a. I know that for sure. So, last question. You and I have someone that we Totally agree on Susan Wojcicki, who tragically died this year. She was also.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, gosh, now you're just gonna make me cry. That's the whole point of this interview.

[Marc Benioff]

I'm gonna make you cry. I want you. Someone who knows her, she was one of the good ones. And there's. They're dwindling, let me just say. And Susan's death underscores that for me. So I'd love you to take a moment and reflect on her impact.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I would just say that and I'll do what I can. I'm not prepared for this. I would say this was a great woman. She is a great mother. She had incredible children. She was a great wife, she has an incredible husband. She is a great daughter. Her incredible mother, father, who I both know the father has also passed away. A great sister. She has two amazing sisters who I know very well. Just a great person in many ways, a great role model to me. A great leader in the tech industry, helped create Google. This comes after all of those things. She also led YouTube through its incredible surge to be one of the dominant parts of our whole world. She also was very much values based. She has done so much for her family and her friends, including me. She also joined my board at Salesforce when I was going through some difficult times and led me through difficult times. She was always there for me and I miss her every single day. I have a huge photo of her in my main office, which I look at every day and I think about that all of our time is fleeting. That for all of us life is precious. It's fleeting. We have the present moment. Thank God that we can be happy in and enjoy this moment and also realize that take our life very seriously. That, you know, when I think about what am I doing with my self, my family, my friends, my health, my happiness, my career, my spirituality, my love of God, all the things that are important to me, I take them all into my heart against the frame of Susan. You know that I look at Susan as someone who in her life and in her death is a vision for me and an inspiration for my own life and has guided me. And I have made changes in my life based on her life. Like I really miss her. And also I had another friend of mine that I lost this year, Sandy Robertson, who I miss also. Every single day I think about these people, friends that I've lost. I made a list of them now in my phone and I look at that list and I think about who has left and what is the message that they left us with. And I think, you know, this is where we have to get back and really think about how much love do we have in our hearts for ourself and others, because when they leave, that's really all that is left.

[Marc Benioff]

Indeed. Well said, Mark. Keep that in mind.

[Kara Swisher]

Thank you, Kara.

[Marc Benioff]

You've got to make these guys not be so jerky. Be kinder. You have to. I rely on you and Mark Cuban now. That's where I am, Mark. That's right.

[Kara Swisher]

You're the best. I hope we have more conversations.

[Marc Benioff]

All right, Mark, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[Kara Swisher]

I love you, Karen. Wish her you're the best.

[Marc Benioff]

Oh, thank you, Mark. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro Rossell, Kateri Yocum, Jolie Myers, Megan Burney and Kalyn Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher. Our engineers are Aaliyah Jackson, Rick Kwan, and Fernando Arruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you are a visionary, just like me and Mark. If not, remember, time is fleeting, so I don't know what to say. 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. You've probably sent hundreds of cards in your life. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. But unfortunately, most of those tend to end up in boxes, closets, or worse, the garbage. Not with MoonPig. MoonPig is here to level up your card game and add that personal touch. With MoonPig, you can upload photos directly from your phone, browse message inspirations, set reminders, and even add your own handwriting for that extra little touch. They'll even mail the cards for you. No stamps or post offices required, either on the go or from your sofa. Easy peasy. Everyone deserves a MoonPig card. Try your first card, free with code [e-mail] Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI. For all the talk around its revolutionary potential, a lot of AI systems feel like they're designed for specific tasks performed by a select few. Well, Claude by Anthropic is AI for everyone. The latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, offers groundbreaking intelligence at an everyday price. Claude Sonnet can generate code, help with writing and reason through hard problems better than any model. Before you can discover how Claude can transform your [e-mail] Claude.