Billionaire Profile: Marc Benioff

Marc Benioff is one of the nation’s biggest billionaires. Born in September of 1964, Benioff founded his own company, salesforce.com by the age of 35 in March of 1999. He started the business with a bold mission, to end all software; in essence to render it defunct. In many ways, he has been successful, turning his small operation out of a rented apartment into a multi-billion dollar corporation. Salesforce.com is a cloud computing company and has largely changed the way that software programs are currently designed as well as how they are distributed to their demographic via the Internet. Benioff coined the phrase “platform-as-a-service,” Today, customers are able to create their own applications on the Salesforce.com cloud.

Prior to his successes with Salesforce.com, Benioff had his share of experience in entrepreneurship and high-tech corporations. While still in high school Benioff founded Liberty Software who designed microcomputer games, which he sold for the Atari gaming system. Benioff attended the University of Southern California and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Following college, he did a term in the Macintosh Division of Apple Computer Inc. as an assembly language programmer. Then he was hired at Oracle Corporation where he served for thirteen years. At age 23, he was named Rookie of the Year and three years later at age 26 he was promoted to become the youngest Vice President in the company.

Since Salesforce.com’s enormous success, Benioff has been recognized with a number of honors and awards. He was even appointed by President George W. Bush and served as the co-chairman of the President’s Information Technology and Advisory Committee. Benioff is also is a prominent philanthropist donating money to and supporting publicly a wide variety of causes and programs. Not only does he contribute to the realm of technology but also to other efforts. For instance, in June 2010 Benioff donated $100 million to the University of California at San Francisco Children’s Hospital. He has also written a best-selling book entitled Behind the Cloud.

Benioff’s continued success is an excellent example of the kind of attitude and dedication one needs to adopt in order to be successful. His most noticeable attribute is his boldness. He is not afraid to make challenges that many may view as impossible or unrealistic. Limiting oneself is the best way to guarantee that one is limited. He also demonstrates the ability to persevere and take charge of a situation; be a leader rather than a follower. However, be flexible and take other people’s perspectives into account. The biggest lesson anyone can take from Marc Benioff is to aim high and to never back off from that ambition.