What is Marc Benioff’s Net Worth and Salary?
Marc Benioff, an American businessman, author, and philanthropist, has a net worth of $6.7 billion dollars. He is best known as the chairman, founder, and CEO of Salesforce, a highly successful and profitable cloud computing company that generates over $17 billion in revenue annually.
Interestingly, Marc shares the same grandfather with his distant cousin David Benioff, who produced the widely popular HBO series Game of Thrones.
Apart from his accomplishments in the tech industry, Benioff and his wife Lynn have also ventured into media, purchasing Time for $190 million in 2018.
Marc Benioff’s Early Life and Career
Marc Russell Benioff was born in San Francisco, California in 1964. He attended the University of Southern California and earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration. However, his passion for programming began during his high school years when he started selling applications and video games. At age 15, he founded Liberty Software and created successful video games for the Atari 8-bit. By age 16, he was earning over $1,500 per month in royalties.
Despite his business education, Marc’s programming skills would eventually lead him to co-found Salesforce, a cloud-based software company that has revolutionized the industry. Today, Marc Benioff is known as one of the most successful tech entrepreneurs in the world.
Marc Benioff and the Rise of Cloud Computing
Marc Benioff started his career as an intern at Apple Computer and later landed a job at Oracle Corporation, where he spent 13 years rising through the ranks. In 1999, he founded Salesforce from a rented apartment in San Francisco, becoming one of the first to see the potential of “Software as a Service” or SaaS. His early marketing slogans included “The End of Software” and he coined the term “platform as a service.”
Today, cloud computing is becoming the norm for many businesses, and a report projected that businesses would spend at least $106 billion on SaaS products in 2016. Salesforce was early to the cloud computing rush and ended the 2015 fiscal year with $5.37 billion in revenue. Marc predicted that Salesforce would eventually double that figure and become the fastest enterprise software company to surpass $10 billion in revenue. As of now, Salesforce generates north of $25 billion in annual revenue.
Marc Benioff’s Wealth is Mostly Tied to His 4% Ownership of Salesforce
Marc Benioff currently owns 4% of Salesforce, a company with a market cap of over $160 billion. This is where the majority of his net worth comes from.
Over the years, Benioff has sold approximately $1.5 billion worth of stock.
Notable Acquisitions and Microsoft’s Failed Attempt to Buy Salesforce
Marc Benioff, the founder and CEO of Salesforce, has made several notable acquisitions over the years, including ExactTarget for $2.3 billion in 2013, Buddy Media for $689 million in 2012, and Golnstant for $70 million in 2012.
However, Microsoft has also tried to purchase Salesforce multiple times, with a $55 billion bid being the highest offer. Benioff refused to sell for less than $70 billion and the deal fell through. Benioff has been critical of Microsoft in the past, particularly former CEO Steve Ballmer.
Marc Benioff’s Impressive Real Estate Portfolio
With a net worth in the billions, it’s no surprise that Marc Benioff has accumulated an impressive real estate portfolio. One of his most notable properties is a six-bedroom compound on Hawaii’s big island, which he purchased in 2000 for $12.5 million and spent years designing and building from the ground up.
In addition to his Hawaiian estate, Benioff also owns a $28 million mansion on San Francisco’s Billionaire Row, a neighborhood consisting of just 10 ultra-exclusive homes. He also reportedly purchased a 15,858-square-foot house for $27 million in Southern California, a hub of the “big tech” industry.
Marc Benioff’s Philanthropic Contributions
Marc Benioff, a well-known philanthropist, has donated approximately $250 million towards the creation of a new children’s hospital with the University of California at San Francisco. In 2020, he pledged $100 million to the same hospital.
Benioff is also credited with popularizing the 1-1-1 model of philanthropy, which involves startups donating 1% of their equity, 1% of their products, and 1% of their employees’ time to charity. This model has been adopted by many companies, including Google, resulting in significant benefits for various charity groups.
Benioff runs the Salesforce.com Foundation, which has an annual budget of about $20 million, as a separate philanthropy wing of his company.
