Salesforce once again has co-CEOs, but that doesn’t mean longtime CEO Marc Benioff plans to retire anytime soon…or ever.
Salesforce is one of the few big tech companies to rely on co-CEOs, rather than a single person at the top spot. While Benioff has held the top position for years, the last co-CEO was Keith Block, who resigned in February 2020.
Bret Taylor was recently appointed to join Benioff as co-CEO, even being seen as Benioff’s heir-apparent. Despite the perception, Benioff has set the record straight that he has no intention of leaving the company he founded.
“I love Salesforce. You see me with our customers and how much fun I have with all of our stakeholders. I’m never leaving Salesforce. This is my life’s pursuit,” Benioff told Mad Money’s Jim Cramer.
“But I couldn’t be more thrilled to have a great partner here with Bret Taylor, and he’s just amazing,” Benioff continued. “This is my dream, that Bret would come in the company and we could work it and run it together and lead it together in a trusted partnership, and that’s happening.”
Marc Benioff: Employees ‘Can Be Successful From Anywhere’
Mad Money’s Jim Cramer interviewed Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff about the surge in Delta cases and whether people would return to the office.
Benioff compared pandemic response in San Francisco and Geneva, saying it felt like A Tale of Two Cities. Whereas there are a number of restrictions in place in San Francisco, when he traveled to Geneva a day later there were no restrictions, with in-person meetings and far less concern over the COVID variant.
Nonetheless, Benioff expressed his belief the pandemic has fundamentally changed the new normal for the workforce.
“The phenomenon that I see happening globally, is not as many employees are coming back into their offices globally as any CEO expected,” Benioff said. “And you’re really starting to see some very low attendance numbers in offices because employees are so productive at home.
“So they can do their job at home, they can be successful from anywhere. The companies and our customers are successful. It’s incredible, but the way they’re being successful has completely changed.
“The pandemic is A Tale of Two Cities, but the new normal is not. We’re starting to see this new normal appear, and business is going to be quite different as we come into this new world.”
Mad Money’s Jim Cramer sat down with Akamai CEO Tom Leighton to discuss the impact 5G will have on the web.
Akamai Technologies is one of the premier content delivery networks, providing critical services to companies around the world. As a result, the company has unique insight into new internet technologies, especially those that promise the transformative effect of 5G.
Cramer asked Leighton about streaming platforms, and whether they were all Akamai customers.
”We work with Netflix, but don’t deliver the long-form videos today. We’re much more diversified today, so there’s no single really large customer on our platform. We work with pretty much all the world’s major brands, including the sporting events.”
The interview then turned toward 5G specifically, with Cramer asking if 5G would essentially do away with the need for TVs.
”You’ll have a device always. Maybe it’s not your traditional TV. I think the devices are obviously changing. And I think 5G is a really exciting technology for the future, not just for watching video, but for the potential of all the IoT applications. The whole paradigm of the web could be changing. You know, we already operate an IoT platform. We have dozens of customers that are early adopters. The protocols there are all different than the web, and they’re a lot more efficient. The paradigms are different. I think that’s an exciting part of the future…”
Leighton then expressed that the switch to remote work, remote learning, online banking, home entertainment and other post-pandemic changes were providing tailwinds for the company. As a result, their profits are up 30% year-over-year.
Akamai CEO Says 5G Will Change the Paradigm of the Web
VMware is synonymous with virtualization software. Everyone from data centers to end users rely on the company’s software to be able to run multiple operating systems on a single set of hardware.
In an interview with Mad Money’s Jim Cramer, VMware COO Sanjay Poonen commented on the current state of telecommuting during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as VMware’s role in 5G.
On The Impacts of the Coronavirus Pandemic
“This is unprecedented times. We’ve always been a trusted advisor and, as you know, we know a thing or two about virtualization. Our customers run their critical apps on our infrastructure.”
On How Long-Lasting the Impacts Will Be
“I think there’s part of our life, Jim, that’s going to change forever. Behind me I have a saying from Winston Churchill that says, ‘when you’re going through hell, go through it.’ Another one I like from Winston Churchill is ‘never waste a crisis.’
And I think that’s part of our life that’s forever going to change. We will, perhaps, have a place where, for instance, less travel is good for the planet.”
On Collaboration
“We want to make sure that if you are at home, you are productive, you’re able to work continuous, just like it was at work…We were one of the early customers that used Zoom. We love it. We use Slack. We use Microsoft Teams. These are all ways in which you can collaborate.”
On VMware’s Role in 5G and the Network Strain the Pandemic Is Causing
“We have tremendous relationships with the telco players—they are some of our biggest customers—and the cloud infrastructure players. In many cases, we are between software, compute, storage and networking. Software defined architecture is really where the world of 5G is going.
“So a lot of these big companies have started relying on us for that future world of 5G. And software is a lot easier to manage. It’s also just as reliable, more reliable, because you can fix things. And we’re working very closely with our customers. Bandwidth is going to be something we watch very carefully.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. To no one’s surprise, the stock market took a nosedive in the aftermath of the announcement, leading business owners and shareholders alike to wonder how this will impact their bottom line.
Jim Cramer discussed the topic on Mad Money, making a point of highlighting how the markets survived the last time this happened.
“We have something else to worry about. We have partisan acrimony per share.”
Mr. Cramer went on to highlight that—in the wake of revelations that President Trump may have tried to pressure Ukraine into investigating a political rival—Democrats seemed determine to impeach Trump, sending articles of impeachment to the Senate.
“Before you freak out, for those of you who don’t remember civic classes, let me explain. Even if the House impeaches Trump, you can’t remove a sitting president without a two-thirds majority in the Senate. So until the Democrats can convince at least 20 Republican senators to turn on their guy, impeachment remains a sideshow.
“Still, I get why people sold today. It made a lot of sense. We haven’t seen this level of partisan acrimony in the United States since the Civil War. And when things in Washington turn hostile, that can and always will hurt the stock market.”
Despite the potential for stocks to take a beating, Cramer sees a silver lining. Ultimately, with the Senate under Republican control, the likelihood of impeachment leading to anything is virtually nil.
“The Senate will most likely acquit. How much will that matter to the stock market? You know what? We’ve seen this movie before. When the Republican House of Representatives impeached President Clinton, everyone knew he’d be acquitted in the Senate. So how did the Clinton impeachment impact the market?”
Cramer goes on to highlight how much the stock market dropped when impeachment proceedings were announced against Clinton, with the Nasdaq and tech stocks bearing the brunt. However, as Cramer points out, the market quickly recovered with tech leading way and showing some of the biggest gains.
“If you let the impeachment story shake you out of the market, well, guess what happened? You missed one of the greatest moves of all time….Every pullback during that period—every one—was a buying opportunity….If this turns out like 1998 all over again, then you may want to buy at the moment of maximum rancor.”
The message is clear: While stocks may take a short term hit, over the long term, impeachment may represent a significant economic opportunity.
