0:00
Alex, thank you for coming, by the way, to Dreamforce.
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Exciting to have you here.
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Is this your first Dream Force? >> No, it's my third. >> Wow. Amazing. Congratulations.
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>> Um, a lot of things to talk about, but first I've got to ask you, Mark, do you know what frame mogging is?
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>> Well, I didn't know it as well as I do right now. >> You know it now. You're a meme.
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>> Actually, every every year I'm a slightly different meme.
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>> A slightly different one.
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I've been enjoying the frame mog memes.
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Yeah, >> those have been big this year.
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I would say the other one is you and Jensen >> where you say we're all following you, bro.
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>> Yeah, >> that's been a big one.
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>> And I think that actually speaks to >> the moment we're in.
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>> These weren't planned, by the way.
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>> That's what that was what I was going to ask you.
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Like when you do the the frame mogging, like are you thinking through like people are going to meme this?
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>> I was just mentioning to a member of my team, I'm like, you know, a year ago we had a whole different set of memes and now we have a whole different set of memes >> and like the memes from a year ago are forgotten and gone. >> Yeah.
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And I'm like, you don't know what's next.
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You know, I couldn't have told you five days ago that this would be the funniest thing coming out of Dreamforce, but that's the nature of >> the world we're in in social media right now.
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>> My favorite one is there's one of you and Sam and it says ARR meets AGI.
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>> Yeah, >> that's a good one.
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>> And I've been reading about people trying to describe this year's Dreamforce on X.
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And my favorite one was it feels like a mix between a megaurch sermon and science camp but for B2B SAS.
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And when you see your you walking through doing that keynote.
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I mean you've always kind of done it that way, right?
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That's where did you have the idea because it's become such an iconic part of the conference.
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Is that >> it's a huge nod to John Chambers >> who was the CEO of Cisco who hated to stay on the stage. >> Okay.
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>> And so we would all be facing towards the stage and John would walk off the stage and walk into the audience and I was like whoa.
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And I'm like, I have to learn how to do this and train everybody to be a John Chambers.
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>> And one of his key executives who I was very close with who since passed on, Rick Justice, then became kind of the second acolyte to kind of come off the stage with John.
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And I'm like, whoa, if he can do that, we can get everyone to do that.
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And then the one pivot is you may see we do more of a theater in the round because >> we don't really want to be a patriarchal structure in the room.
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It's a little tries to be a little more Yeah.
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>> democratic >> people up and >> Yeah.
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Well, there's like 12,000 people in the keynote room.
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So, and then it's all set in the round.
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But when we go on the road, we're about to go on the road. >> Oh, yeah.
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>> And we're going to do, you know, what we call the world tour.
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So, we'll hit all the major cities.
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We'll go to Tokyo, we'll go to New York, we'll go to London, we'll go to Paris, we'll we'll take this show on the road, Chicago, on and on. On.
2:39
When we do that, it's the same thing, just slightly smaller, right?
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you know, where we'll we'll set it in the round and we'll always walk with everybody and try to be Yeah. with our customers.
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It's it's a it's a metaphor for being with your customer.
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>> You don't have a prompter, right?
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You're just you're walking around. >> No.
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So many people ask me that question.
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They're like, "Did you memorize you?"
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But the, you know, the presentation is different every single time because of that. Yeah.
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>> Well, Jensen does that, too.
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If you go see Jensen speak, there's no prompter.
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I'm always amazed by that the density of information that you're putting out. >> Yeah.
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He knows what he wants to say. >> Yeah.
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And he was he was there and you said that we're all following you, bro.
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>> And and I do feel like that's true.
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Like >> I think it's true.
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>> I'm asking that too to to say where do you think we are in the AI hype cycle right now?
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Do you think there's a little bit of like nervousness?
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Kind of what you said there, I think, was maybe speaking to a little bit of the nervousness that people feel.
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>> If I said it like that, I didn't mean to.
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I I think we're in this incredible transformation.
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of our industry >> and of many industries and um we're in the middle of it.
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It's exciting, you know, but we're still very much in the beginning of the beginning >> of what can be an incredible new, you know, chapter of the world.
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But you you probably already heard me say this, you know, I was just spent two full months in Europe and I met with hundreds of our customers and, you know, things are different in Europe than they are here in San Francisco, than they are in Shanghai.
4:06
You know, if you're here in San Francisco, you probably know there's more than a thousand Whimos driving around autonomously.
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And that's not the only autonomous company here in San Francisco.
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If you go to Europe, I didn't see one autonomous vehicle in two months. Not one. Not in any country.
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So that's kind of a metaphor though for me that everyone is on a slightly different place in AI as an individual, maybe as a company, maybe as a country.
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We're in a continuum and we're we're all on that.
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>> I'm glad you brought up San Francisco because you and the company represent San Francisco in such a big way.
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I mean, the tower behind us literally, but what this conference is and all the people you bring here for this.
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I've been dying to hear you just talk about the state of San Francisco because it feels like it's been back for a minute. >> Yeah.
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>> And now it's becoming I mean, I spend a lot of my time in LA and I'm like, I want LA to have a San Francisco moment now.
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And I wonder if you think there's anything that could stop this train if there it feels like San Francisco is very much resurgent.
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>> I'm so glad you asked that.
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You know, I think that it's it's a funny thing.
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San Francisco um it's a spirit.
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It's not just a city and you have to appreciate that to understand what has happened here over a long period of time.
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People are like, "Wow, this is an incredible opportunity in AI.
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Look at all these companies.
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They're all going to go public.
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I mean, I can think now multiple times in our industry whether that cycle is happening.
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But you need to realize something, Alex.
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This is not our first gold rush in San Francisco.
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We've had many gold rushes.
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>> This might be the biggest.
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>> It could be our biggest, but it's not our first. >> No. Yeah.
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>> And I think that, you know, we have our moments in San Francisco that this is the the city of the summer of love.
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You know, this is the city of hate ashberry.
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You know, this is the city of the gold rush.
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This is the city city of Levis's jeans.
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Even, you know, I love the family of the gap, you know, and Salesforce.
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This is a special city now.
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Open AAI, Anthropic, all birthed in San Francisco. Yeah.
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>> And even, you know, Dario is a native San Francisco comes from San Francisco, educated in San Francisco. So, it's a special city.
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the spirit of of the city can come through you and do some amazing things. It's doing itself again.
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And a few years ago, everyone was kind of secondguessing San Francisco.
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But my opinion had never changed, which was, don't worry, it's just keeps going through this same cycle over and over and over again.
6:45
>> This episode is brought to you by Granola, the AI notepad for people in back-toback meetings.
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7:24
You had Sam and Daario here, which I think you might deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for.
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Uh, but there's going to be so much wealth that's unlocked by those two IPOs in San Francisco. I mean, a record amount.
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>> And you and the company really pioneered a way to do philanthropy, right, with your 111 concept and and you it's still obviously a big part of what you do.
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And I'm curious if if you've had conversations with some of, you know, Daario, some of these other AI leaders about what you've learned from philanthropy and and how you would like to see them give back because I mean we are talking about a record amount of wealth that's about to be generated.
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>> Well, telling entrepreneurs anything is extremely difficult. >> Yeah.
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>> So, and especially those entrepreneurs, but I would just say that you're right.
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We put 1% of our equity, profit, and time into our foundation, you know, so many years ago, and that has unlocked this incredible capability, you know, our ability to give back at scale.
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We've done 11 million hours of volunteerism, a billion in grants.
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We run 65,000 nonprofits and NOS's for free. Many of them are here.
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That is very important to us, you know, that we didn't just do it, but we did it the right way.
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We didn't have to kind of go back and say, "Oh, I wish I had done it like that."
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We're older than these companies, 27 years, but we don't have to look backwards and say, "Well, I guess we should have, would have, could have done it."
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You know, we've done, you know, millions of hours of volunteerism in the schools.
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That is really important to me.
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I I came from public schools that, you know, we're rebuilding playgrounds, painting schools.
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We give a $100,000 every year to every middle school principal in San Francisco and Oakland to make sure that they have what they need to be successful.
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That is very important to us.
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That we're not just building another company that we're trying to give back.
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And also we're not going to be like a hundred years old and now we're gonna give back because the power in giving is actually through yes you have this ability to write checks cuz you're public but no your greatest power is that you have your company so your comp the relationships and the and the employees and all of that is the ability to really make change. >> Yeah.
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I had Sam on my podcast recently and I asked him about this and I said could you give back more?
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Could you build libraries?
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you know, lessons from the industrial revolution, right?
9:46
And he said, well, I think the main way to get people to like AI is to build great products, which no question there, but I haven't heard any of the the current leaders of this AI boom talk about it in the way you just talked about it.
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I don't know if you agree with me, but I would like to see more of that in terms of what practically are you doing in the community?
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Because as you know, people have a very strong feeling about AI right now and if these companies were to be playing more integral roles in their communities, I wonder if that would shift.
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>> Entrepreneurs always get dropped into different buckets in this category and one bucket is a good friend of mine who's a great entrepreneur said, "Hey, Mark, I don't think you're right at all.
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Who's done more for the world, the Ford Foundation or the Ford Corporation?"
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And I I said to him, I think this is a false choice. Both.
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You know, why can you not do both?
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That's my whole perspective.
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When you start to actually try to separate these two things, you're doing I think everyone a disservice.
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When you put it together, you're doing everybody a great service.
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And you have so much power in your capability as a CEO of a company or as an entrepreneur.
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If you actually decide to not only build great products or have great customers but also have great impact, you can do it all.
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And so, you know, this has been our message for a long time.
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Um, but not everyone is going to buy in because entrepreneurs are very opinionated.
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Doesn't matter who they are.
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They have strong philosophical statements and they'll either buy into that or they won't.
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But 20,000 companies have joined our 111 model through pledge1%. org.
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And if you do go to pledge1%.
11:24
org, you can learn all about how to do this with your company.
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And I think it adds to your culture, makes for a great company, helps you to, you know, set the right values.
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Also, I think it helps in the employee behavior that it sets the right tone from the top.
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We call it in business that our employees know you need to really, >> you know, behave this way. Yeah.
11:47
>> And I think it's benefited us in so many ways.
11:49
Something else I've heard you talk about and it's been the theme throughout Dreamforce this year is is how people are feeling about AI and the risks and regulation.
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You were very early saying social media should, you know, it's like cigarettes and calling for regulation.
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And I wonder what what you think about AI and regulation and what you would advocate for, how you want our politicians, our leaders to be thinking about it.
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about it. Yeah, I think I'm going to pivot back to what I said about CEOs need to make the right decisions and kind of we just had a good conversation about all right cos are you going to put philanthropy and giving back into your culture now we have to kind of ask this question okay hey cos are you going to put responsibility into your culture you know that you really are trying to build the right kind of company steer it with the right
12:44
capability as I said before the right values I think that that is the question I think that when we get to regulatory conversations or regulatory changes especially as they need to happen on a global basis we have to look back uh
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over the last decade or more of social media so in social media we can ask oursel the question how many kids have been hurt how many countries have been hurt why is it taking us so long for there to be some kind of come to terms with aspect of social media. It's been a
13:16
It's been a shock to me and you're right.
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I've been talking about this in nauseium for quite a long time because I believe that if you are a CEO and you're an entrepreneur, you have a responsibility to build a great company, to build great products, and to have a great impact on society and do it the right way.
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And I think that that's the basis of ethics in our society.
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And if we're going to have ethical companies, we're going to have to start with our ethical leadership.
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And ethics start with responsibility. And it's that simple.
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And I'm sure a lot of people will take me apart for saying such a thing.
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But it also becomes very prophylactic around regulatory issues as well because when you have companies that are behaving at that level, it's not a it's not an issue.
14:02
I hope that liability, basic concept of liability can help here, right?
14:08
Luckily, you know, when OpenAI hacked HuggingFace, CLM is great.
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It wasn't too damaging to HuggingFace.
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Imagine if that was a large bank.
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I wonder the reaction in that case what it would have been.
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And I do think, you know, we rush to regulation often, right, as the public, but you know, there are private market incentives at play.
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you are on the right conversation, you know, and I talked about those Sam Alman.
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If you haven't seen the video yet, it's worth seeing, >> but Clem came to see me after this happened. >> Yeah.
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>> And it's actually where the whole acquisition conversation really started in August. Absolutely.
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It was clear that here's this company, a great company actually, Hugging Face.
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>> We invested in the company aggressively, a very important company. Yeah.
14:52
for our whole industry because it's holding the jewels of the open- source movement.
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And I said, CLM, this is actually pretty serious.
15:01
You only have 200 employees.
15:04
You can only do so much and maybe you don't have all the security and capability that you need to defend yourself when an open AI model has turned its sights on you and attacked. >> Mhm.
15:16
>> And I said, you also have the ability to do all these other critical things to create a very important company right now.
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And I think that's when he realized and I realized kind of together maybe this was the opportunity for it to move from being an independent company to being part of something else. >> Oh wow.
15:32
I didn't realize you played such a role in that.
15:34
>> Well I I don't know how big of a role I played.
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I don't want to overstate it but the conversation was very seinal and I called him back and I said to him whether it's Salesforce acquiring you or somebody else I think this is the time where you need to actually become >> part of something else.
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It was clear to me they are great entrepreneurs >> but they were subscale at a moment that they needed scale.
15:57
>> When you think about agents you know I remember 3 years ago you were talking about agents and here at Dreamforce and pivoting kind of the company towards this concept.
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No one was really talking about agents like that.
16:09
And I and I know you've you've you're a prolific investor.
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You've got Salesforce Ventures.
16:14
You've got the Anthropic Partnership.
16:15
And I wonder if that allows you sometimes to see around corners because I'm wondering what led you to see agents when you did because now is when they're starting to work I think at scale but you saw it seems like several years ago.
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>> Well, I think that fortunately for us we're in a thriving ecosystem here in San Francisco. >> Yeah.
16:34
>> And so the dinner conversation might be around one of these new technologies.
16:40
There's so many things happening.
16:40
There's so many things happening. Uh I'll also give a lot of credit to meditation practice over three you know four decades that having a few minutes every morning just to contemplate what is kind of going on I think has definitely served >> I need to practice that
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>> it's been an important part of my life and I you very fortunate to have some great teachers who impacted me you know very aggressively in the early 90s and then I've been able to use that even this morning you know I was made sure I took at least a few minutes to do that because So much is happening this week. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
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>> I just let my mind relax a little bit.
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My grandfather, he didn't have a meditation practice, but he made sure that on a regular basis, especially like he was a great trial attorney.
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He only worked a couple blocks away from here at 690 Market Street.
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Now it's a Ritz Carlton residence.
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That was his office building. >> Oh yeah.
17:31
And he would say when he needed to relax his mind and have a great insight, he would go to the movies and he would get this revelation because it was the time where he could like stop working and like just let things happen.
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For me, it's just every morning a little bit of opportunity.
17:45
And I think that it helps prioritize.
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Yeah, agents are very important.
17:50
I think now we can see it's data is very important because if you don't have your data right, you can't get your AI right.
17:56
Applications and analytics are more important than ever because if you don't have the applications and analytics foundation including all the APIs and the headless versions of these applications, it can't inform the AI.
18:10
>> You do need the agentic layer.
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And the fourth thing is this incredible new interface that we showed at this show that the interface on the enterprise is going to radically transform.
18:20
>> Yeah, you've got claw force, you've got the really it seems deep anthropic partnership. Dario was here.
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you were an early investor.
18:26
Actually would love to know, I'm not sure I've heard you tell the story of that investment, how why you wanted to back Anthropic when you did.
18:34
>> Well, it's been an exciting moment because you're right, we have Cloud Force now, but also we've taken Slack and we've built Slack Force, which is this new UI, and we have Slackbot.
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Both of those are powered by Claude. >> Force is everywhere.
18:47
>> And we have Coworker now running in Lightning, also another amazing interface.
18:51
And by the time we get back here a year from now, I bet we'll have a dozen interfaces all built on this AI force foundation and this headless capability. And you're right, 100%.
18:59
It's because we have been pushed so close with anthropic, but it was really an unusual story.
19:08
Um, you know, I knew Sam Almond very well and also had several moments with him and I was like, hey, I'd really like to be investing now in the company.
19:17
And he's like unfortunately because of the Microsoft relationship >> we were not allowed to invest >> right >> in open AI so that pushed us you know not because we were so smart to Anthropic to Mistral in France to Sakana in Japan to go here in Canada like to many other model companies because we felt like whoa we can't go here we're going to have to go everywhere else >> and so we ended up with Enthropic which will be a great investment.
19:48
I mean we'll make >> Yeah, I think so.
19:51
>> I think we'll make not just billions but maybe tens of billions of dollars on it and u >> it'll be fantastic for us.
19:57
>> You've had a lot of good investments.
19:57
So that's saying something.
20:00
>> We we have you know bought a lot of companies more than 100 but we've invested from Salesforce more than 700 companies and um we've taken so many of those great companies public like Zoom like Snowflake there.
20:12
There's been just some great we just sold Whiz to Google.
20:17
Yeah, >> you know these have been great investments for the company.
20:20
>> What are you looking for now in terms of acquisitions?
20:24
>> Well, I think you know number one is we always look at customer. Customer is our word.
20:29
We own a word and it's all about customer for us.
20:31
customer 360, the customer touch point, whether it's sales, service, marketing, commerce, customer analytics, customer data platform, the customer interface.
20:44
Anything to do with customer, we're very, very interested in customer agents. Yeah.
20:48
Anything to do with customer, I'm very interested in.
20:50
You have the word customer in your tagline.
20:54
>> You're going to get a call from >> you're going to get a call from me.
20:55
I'm going to be on your website.
20:57
I'm going to be looking at what's going on.
20:58
I'm looking at anything with the word customer.
21:02
That is and I think that's been important having a point of focus. >> Yeah. >> Very important.
21:07
>> I can't believe we haven't said this word yet. SAS apocalypse. I never really got it.
21:11
I'm going to be honest when it was at its peak forever because you know I just think people can rush to narratives.
21:16
But it does seem I mean I saw you guys recently guided ahead of analysts expectations of the revenue you're going to do through 20 through 2030 by several billion and and you've seen the stock start to come back and and I'm I'm curious what it was like leading the company through kind of the pit of SAS apocalypse and how you navigated that.
21:37
>> Well, it was a strange 6 months.
21:39
>> Yeah, >> there's no question all the SAS apocalypse nonsense.
21:41
We just had the best second quarter that we've ever had.
21:45
that everybody saw the revenue was amazing, the margin, the cash flow, very low attrition, and also very high contract lengths from all of our customers.
21:55
But I think that people don't realize that we are in a world today of misinformation.
22:00
And on social media, you just don't know when you're watching a podcast like this or you're reading a tweet like that or you saw a post like this other thing which of these are real and which of them are not. >> We are real audience. we are real. But yes, you're right.
22:16
>> And I find that to be a very important moment.
22:20
And I myself get very confused.
22:24
So I can understand why everyone else gets confused cuz I get confused.
22:26
And that's why I mentioned this already.
22:30
I'll mention it a second time.
22:30
Why I just moved to Europe for 2 months just to be with customers in their offices because that's reality. >> What do you want?
22:38
What are you doing with your company?
22:40
Where are you making investments?
22:42
What is important to you?
22:45
How am I going to help you?
22:45
What are the right things to support you?
22:48
When we're looking at all of those things, that's the re that's real.
22:53
And when we read a post about something that is trying to maybe get somebody to buy a stock or sell a stock because someone is trying to make money or a group of people have gotten together to buy a stock or sell a stock or to promote a private company or a private company investment theme that is not reality.
23:12
And then nobody is held accountable for these things either.
23:17
They go by so fast and there's so many of them.
23:19
So you have to be more more careful today than ever.
23:22
accountability may be uh losing money on your stocks that you know you bought at the wrong time or sold at the wrong time. But yes, I hear you.
23:30
>> Listen, I just bought $25 billion of Salesforce stock in the public market and I had to thank all of these uh investors who are here today for selling, you know, to me at $150 and now it's $250.
23:42
[laughter] So, you know, it was that was I was very >> confidence through all that.
23:47
>> confidence through all that. I mean you can see the numbers obviously but I mean I think there's some logic to people saying anyone can make software therefore a large software company like Salesforce is challenged right I see through the clouds I see the logic of that right and you were saying like it's hard for you to make sense of when it's
24:04
coming at you fast like were there ever moments where you're like man like am I not seeing what everyone else is seeing here >> well of course you're going to get that kind of doubt that's why I think ground yourself in the customer reality get back to the customer really pay attention to understand what is their need, what is their un you know unarticulated need. >> Yeah,
24:24
>> Yeah, >> I think this is really an important part of business more important today than ever.
24:29
>> Do you think there's any SAS apocalypse risk for any kind of company or do you think it's all overblown?
24:36
>> Listen, we're in a world in business and technology where technology is always getting lower cost and easier to use and companies are always succeeding and failing. There's no difference.
24:44
Yeah, >> you can see that across the whole stock market.
24:48
Look at who the top 20 stocks are today and who are the top 20 stocks 10 years ago.
24:54
It's a different set of stocks.
24:57
So to all of a sudden say that you've got it exactly mapped out, you know, it's a very aggressive, you know, prediction frame.
25:05
>> So humility, just expect the unexpected.
25:08
It sounds like >> I think it's a very key time to really to ground yourself in reality.
25:12
I think co really illuminated that for me. >> Oh yeah.
25:17
>> You know we went through co and I think a lot of the things were kind of going what's true what's not true and you might be reading something in social media and then 6 months later you went wait a minute that actually did not happen >> right >> or that is not real or this is real.
25:31
And I think that each one of us has to kind of take, you know, more personal time to say, "Okay, let me just dig in a little bit and know what what is really actually true."
25:43
I spend a lot of time context switching between meetings, often with no time to process one before the next starts.
25:50
Thankfully, Granola runs in the background the whole time.
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28:56
I'm fascinated by Slack right now.
28:56
There was a story recently where Meta shifted to Slack because Alex Wang said internally it's the best platform for agents. >> It's true.
29:05
>> I have a lot of agents in my Slack.
29:05
I know a lot of other people do. Open AI and Anthropic.
29:09
I think those companies quite literally run on Slack.
29:10
You hear about it when you talk to them constantly.
29:13
Slack, Slack, Slack, Slack, Slack.
29:14
You bought Slack many years ago and it was well before agents. Yeah. Well before agents.
29:21
>> Uh and I'm I'm I'm curious now looking at where Slack is now and how integral it is to Salesforce into the tech economy more broadly.
29:28
Did you have any idea that this would be what Slack is now when you bought it?
29:33
We always knew that we wanted to own Slack and we knew we wanted to own it because our premise was that it was going to be the agent for business. >> No way.
29:45
Six years ago, >> I have the paper. I can show it to you. >> Wow.
29:50
>> So, this was important to us.
29:50
We paid a pretty high price for the company at the time.
29:56
>> About 25 billion, which >> controversial, >> you know, it was a about $900 million. So, you can in revenue.
30:01
So, you can in revenue. So you can think it was about 25 times revenue and we got a lot of slack for buying slack if you will >> because >> we paid a high price but it was going to trade once and we felt that we needed to step up today everybody says it was the greatest acquisition
30:17
>> it's up there >> of all time and we've innovated aggressively on the platform we've introduced Slack code >> so that you can code in channels we have Slack CRM so you can operate Salesforce directly from Slack or even if you're a small business you can use Slack Slack as your CRM and now we have also Slack force. So you can build a highly
30:35
So you can build a highly customized surface across your whole enterprise, you know, on Slack that's dynamic and intelligent and composite and has zero data retention.
30:45
So none of your data goes into the model and um it's been a great platform, but the ecosystem and the success and like you said these large customers like not just Facebook but or you know Meta, it's also Nike has gone to Slack.
31:01
I just spent some time with the COO there who's the big power user there.
31:05
General Motors just moved from Teams onto Slack and I think this is the moment where more companies need to look at Slack as their operating system.
31:14
It has been a huge boost of productivity for our company.
31:19
I'm sure for every large company >> well the way it works with AI I mean where you can send it send stuff from AI in there back out. Super flexible.
31:28
>> It's amazing isn't it? >> Yeah it is.
31:29
And I it's just so interesting to hear you say that you were thinking about agents 6 years ago. >> Yeah, we were. We're very fortunate.
31:36
I'll give a nod to our chief futurist Peter Schwarz who worked very closely with me on the Slack acquisition because he actually was the one who wrote this.
31:44
Now you may know Peter Schwarz because he was involved in writing the movie Minority Report. >> That's right.
31:49
>> And also War Games and Deep Impact and a few other things.
31:53
and he is remarkably preient and has tremendous vision just turned 80 years old.
32:00
He's my very lives very close to me and we spent a lot of time together and you know he's been an incredible influence on the whole company and in Slack I had felt very closely it was about Slack.
32:12
I don't I didn't think that they would ever sell to us you know and then Peter kept pushing pushing pushing saying you've got to do more with Slack.
32:20
Do you and Stuart ever catch up and just marvel at the the state of Slack now?
32:26
>> Probably not as aggressively as we should.
32:27
So, but it, you know, I'm sure he has some mixed feelings about selling the company, realizing that today it is the operating system for the whole AI industry.
32:35
We mentioned >> great companies like Nvidia, >> open guess what platform they all use to run their operations? Slack.
32:45
>> Yeah, it's pretty remarkable. >> It is.
32:47
>> When you think about the future of Slack, what is it?
32:48
I I mean I would venture to say there's maybe more agents already on Slack than humans maybe but certainly in the future and I'm curious you know when you're thinking about the roadmap for Slack what what is it?
33:01
>> Well when we talk about the data for the company when we talk about the application and analytics and semantic layers and we talk about the agentic layer and the interface layer Slack is very much three of those.
33:14
very much three of those. So it's not holding all the data for the company but it's holding your DMs it's holding the channels it has a lot of the application functionality hover and it has the agentic framework that's integrated with the top agents in the industry like versel and linear and all the major agent platforms and then now it can build these highly customized interfaces really cool product >> related to slack I'm curious how you're
33:42
thinking about pricing and AI because you and the basically invented the way that SAS is sold on a seatbased basis and I'm hearing a lot from AI startups that it's all outcome based now you guys are starting to do some of this I'm curious like is there can you actually
33:58
do outcomebased pricing well right now >> well let me tell you you know my view directly from being with so many customers and that is number one there is no perfect pricing mechanism for all customers so I look at it on six dimensions. So, you know, look, named users is still
34:16
So, you know, look, named users is still a major, you know, aspect of our industry.
34:21
I'm sure you have either Claude or Open AI and you pay a per user price per user per month.
34:26
So, named users and also named agents.
34:29
So, you're paying by the agent, you know.
34:32
I think number three is usage.
34:37
I've used so much of the product.
34:40
Number four might be um consumption. I'm consume so much.
34:44
It could that could also be tokens. That could be storage.
34:50
Number five is going to be outcomes. Transaction outcomes.
34:53
I completed the transaction, therefore I'm paid.
34:55
And the final one is business outcomes.
34:58
I saved you so much money, I want a percentage of that.
35:03
Or I made you so much money, I want a percentage of that.
35:06
>> And you're going to do all those?
35:08
>> Well, a company our size, we're going to do more than $50 billion next year, >> right?
35:13
We cannot be limited by one pricing model.
35:15
We have to do users, agents, consumption, usage, transactions, and business. We have to do all of it.
35:22
And our customers, we're willing to write with them a custom agreement to say this is the perfect agreement for you.
35:32
And I think it's the right way to think about it.
35:36
We're not a one product company, you know.
35:38
We're not just have Slack or just have Tableau or just have Informatica or just have Salesforce or whatever.
35:42
We have many products to be able >> or Finn. >> Yeah.
35:48
>> Every all of these things are going to be a little bit different.
35:51
>> Which one do you think is the biggest growth vector over the next few years out of the ones you just said? >> Well, I don't know.
35:57
I mean, Slack is like up and to the right in a way that we haven't really seen.
36:01
I mean, in enterprise software, it's pretty incredible.
36:05
So, that's the current, you know, rising star. But you mentioned Finn.
36:10
We just bought this company.
36:10
I'm a huge fan of Owen and what he's built.
36:15
It's a company that we have wanted to buy for years.
36:19
>> Um, and it was just Kismmet that finally Owen said, you know what, Mark, now is the time that we want to be bigger >> and we want to bring to bear.
36:25
We're introducing Finn to a lot of enterprises and mid-market companies here.
36:30
And I always felt that they would love it and I think they're realizing Finn isn't just for small businesses, it's for all businesses and it's the fastest way to customer agent success.
36:41
Yeah, >> there's no question.
36:42
You want to go fast into customer agents, you want Finn.
36:47
It's an incredible product.
36:47
Owen and his team are remarkable.
36:50
They've done a fantastic job and uh everyone should see the product. It's just awesome.
36:54
this headless idea that you and the company are doing and more people are starting to do.
37:01
How headless uh does all of this get do you think?
37:05
I mean how much of the interface do you need to control versus ananthropic inside you you know Salesforce and Claude and then there's Claude and Slack and all these things but what part of the interface do you have to protect as the CF Salesforce? It's a funny thing.
37:19
When we first tweeted that we're going to do headless, we're regarded as these incredible visionaries and amazing.
37:25
Now we actually finally understand, you know, what the internet is all about and AI.
37:29
So, and then I said to myself, you know, we didn't get that kind of support when we announced our XML API 20 years ago or our SOAP API or our REST API.
37:40
It's only that when we announce our MCP API or our CLI interface that all of a sudden everyone's like, "Oh, wow.
37:49
These guys are just doing an incredible job." >> MCP is exciting. >> MCP is exciting. >> Yeah. >> But I feel that way.
37:56
I love all my APIs equally.
37:58
So [laughter] Salesforce has always been headless.
38:03
You've never had applications that were fixed.
38:06
All the apps were always decomposed into metadata. Yeah.
38:08
And then that metadata was always then recomposed into these browsers into Chrome, into Safari, into Mozilla.
38:15
Now the metadata is just recomposed into co-work into claude or into uh maybe chat GBT.
38:26
The new versions look like they are getting ready to be a surface into Slack into Lightning.
38:31
So that idea that you have this ability to start to render and generate many surfaces, you need to have the application definition, the fields, um the page layouts, user models, the sharing models, all of that is stored in Salesforce metadata that then gets recmposed into these incredible capabilities.
38:59
>> And you were talking about traps data in the keynote a lot and bringing that trap data up.
39:03
that what I really am trying to say and I'm probably not saying it correctly yet is when we have so much data in that metadata with our customers that there is value in there that you don't see in the >> humans can't go through all that. Yeah.
39:18
>> And the the AI is going to find the trap value and it is going to deliver that in some incredible new ways.
39:23
I I'm com I already see it in our own business because we've deployed Cloud Force already. Yeah. Internally.
39:29
So our major operating unit leaders are running on cloud force >> and you've seen it change >> 100%.
39:36
Like we're showing our customers here how we run our business on these new next generation services.
39:43
Now >> how has it changed how you run the company?
39:47
>> The the way I can run the company today is I'm able to use a variety of surfaces to look at the data.
39:53
Not just the traditional lightning interface, but as we mentioned like Slack is a great interface for me. Mhm.
40:01
>> I love Slack because not only can I look at the applications and operate in them, but I can also operate in the channels which I do aggressively and I can even direct message customers.
40:10
And a very specific example during the show on Tuesday night, I got a message from a friend of mine who had a a sick employees wife in a hospital in Madrid trying to actually find somebody could who could help them. Well, guess what?
40:30
We haveund and something employees in Madrid.
40:32
We have a channel set up with those employees.
40:35
I was able to broadcast to them.
40:37
Hey, can anybody help this person?
40:40
And that was like, you know, the ability to communicate, to share information, to manage it. I love Slack. I'm so in love with it.
40:49
Really, it's such a great platform.
40:50
I wanted to get your thoughts with the time we have on the state of the media because you also own time and I think time's >> congratulations on your cover story. >> Thank you.
40:59
I was fortunate >> I hope everyone read the cover story.
41:00
It was >> I think people did >> trust us.
41:03
Did you write the headline? >> I did not.
41:05
Uh the the editors control the headlines as they say. They do.
41:09
>> Um but that I was very fortunate uh to get to do that with your team and it was a great process.
41:13
But I mean, time it seems like it's very ascended.
41:16
And I'm curious, you know, when you bought Time, why?
41:20
And to hear you kind of talk about what you think about the media right now. >> Yeah.
41:26
>> Cuz it's in a huge state of transition. >> Yeah.
41:28
I mean, I think again, if you read on social media all these things about mainstream media and the end of mainstream media, but listen, I think that we can stand by a lot of our stories in time, if not all of them, as being true.
41:47
This is very important to us.
41:47
We publish information that we believe that is true.
41:51
It's one of the reasons why today there are more agents that are readers of Time magazine than humans. Did you know that? >> No, I didn't.
42:00
>> Yeah, it's it's pivoted in the last couple months.
42:03
>> Really, >> we have more agents reading Time every day than humans.
42:06
And as humans go to those >> AI sites, whatever, and they want answers to questions, those calls come out to time to get real time information.
42:18
and we've opened our doors >> to those agents to let them >> uh work with our platform.
42:23
Now, to do that, however, we've had to rewrite the way that we do our content.
42:27
Even our ads have to become agent friendly because agents are also reading our ads. Yeah, I know. Isn't that cool?
42:34
And so, we've had to rebuild how we're doing that.
42:36
And it's very important in today's world. >> Yeah.
42:42
That's the economic model of the web you're talking about.
42:44
And so, that's what I've been thinking about.
42:46
How does the advertiser get something on the other end when it's an agent that reads it, not a human?
42:52
>> The same way you're charging basically on the advertising, you're ch you're still charging companies and showing them that they're getting >> these ads being read.
43:00
You can even have these very specific metrics.
43:02
But you made a very important comment.
43:05
You said time is very ascendant right now.
43:06
And I think it's really true.
43:09
I mean one is we have made a lot of important changes with the company so that we have a business model that works a technology model that works and also we have outstanding journalism and we also open our journalism >> to folks who are competent very capable people like yourself who are even though they're you're not an employee of time. Yeah.
43:30
>> You wrote a major cover story for us.
43:32
>> I like to encourage a lot of my friends like Ray Dallio also writes for time quite a bit. Yeah.
43:37
and others and I say please write for time and give us that expertise.
43:41
So these things are very important to me.
43:44
I'm very happy that time is doing well.
43:45
It was a little bit of a high high-risk maneuver to buy it, you know, when we did, but I would say it's worked out well.
43:52
I'm very happy with the team and I'm very proud of the work they're doing.
43:57
>> Are you still interested in media as a category for future things or are you >> I don't I don't think anyone should have more than one magazine. Okay. Or media company. >> Good advice.
44:05
This is my one moment in media. Yeah. >> Okay.
44:08
We were talking earlier about, you know, you saw agents three years ago pivoting the company.
44:12
What are you looking at now that's exciting you that you think we're all going to be talking about in a few years?
44:17
Is it still going to be agents?
44:19
Is it going to be everyone's talking about these personal assistants, Instinct, town, etc.
44:22
I think that's still early, but what what are you seeing that you think we should all know about?
44:29
>> Well, I am very very excited about these dynamic interfaces.
44:31
I think people will be shocked when they see what the future interface of the computer looks like.
44:38
We've only seen it in science fiction.
44:41
We've only seen it in the movies.
44:41
And we showed at this show, I think for the first time on a large scale, the next generation enterprise interface that is intelligent, that is conversational, that is adaptive, that is dynamic, you know, that is feels like it's live or living. That's a big idea. >> Yeah.
45:04
>> And that's not the way enterprise um applications are today at all.
45:07
Those aren't words that we use in enterprise applications ever. That is a big thought.
45:14
You know, these other areas that we've gone through, data, applications, semantics, analytics, agents, I think are very well, you know, discussed.
45:24
And I think the part that's not well discussed is the interface.
45:26
So I think that when we kind of said to everyone here's the next big thing which is what look we want to you know be relevant and we want to be able to kind of make it clear like we have a good vision for the future.
45:41
I think we got got it right on interface.
45:44
I think this is going to be the next moment and we're going to see everything change on the interface.
45:49
Look pick up your iPhone right now or your iPad and you're going to see that your interface has not changed since we started the interview. >> Nope. [laughter] Nope.
46:00
>> That is not going to be true for very much longer. >> Okay.
46:03
>> It's going to be like listening to me.
46:05
It's going to be adaptive.
46:05
It's going to come back and say, "Oh, this is going so well, Alex, >> but you didn't ask Mark this or have you thought about that?"
46:12
Or, "Yeah, I went back and when Mark said the Sam Alman interview, yeah, I read and maybe you should consider this question now and also, oh, and here's how your whole life is going and how many emails have come in and all those things."
46:24
But no, if you look at your iPad now, the interface is none of those things.
46:28
It's the same thing, the same icons, the same email list.
46:35
Alex, that is going to change and that is going to be exciting and that's going to be a huge opportunity for not only companies like Apple and Google and others who make these kind of interfaces or televisions, you know, like the Samsungs of the world or the LGs, but for a lot of new companies.
46:52
That's why you hear companies like OpenAI and others are in investing in new kind of phones and new kind of devices because there will be a wave of new interfaces.
47:05
So each of these levels will change.
47:05
You know a lot of discussion is about the data center today, the land, the power, the energy, the you know the chip, the memory chip, the GPU, the physical data center, all of those things uh the conduit, the transport.
47:21
But then we get back to the application stack that we just went through.
47:27
You know, a lot of those pieces are evolving to be able to support both a deterministic world, which where we've traditionally been knowing exactly what is happening with the probabilistic world that we see in AI, which is that the AI is trying to figure it out and putting those two things together.
47:45
So everything becomes more grounded and true.
47:47
But when you do that, it can become more dynamic and that is what is gonna be very exciting.
47:55
>> All right, Mark Benoff, I'm gonna hold you to that. >> All right, Alex. >> All right, thank you. >> Thanks.
47:58
Great to have you here for number three. Well done. >> Thank you.
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