Marc Benioff quotes: Sir Salesforce sounds off.
“Seize the opportunity in front of you. Imagine. Invent. Disrupt. Do good. I know that you must be passionate, unreasonable, and a little bit crazy to follow your own ideas and do things differently. But it’s worth it. Life grows relative to one’s investment in it.”
“You have chosen the wrong path if it’s not fun. And you are probably not taking enough risk if it’s not hard and rocky sometimes.”
“Life is the dance between what you desire most and what you fear most. You’ve got to be able to deal with the threshold of control.”
“I think a critical part of being successful in our industry is having a beginner’s mind. You need to have a beginner’s mind to create bold innovation.”
“I respect somebody who can turn things around and be successful.”
“When I look out from my own business career, I tried to learn from some of the best people, regardless of the industry.”
“Staying relevant is key. When you’re telling your story, you better have a modern story to tell. If I was still saying the same story I was saying 10 years ago, it would not be that interesting.”
“One idea alone is a tactic, but if it can be executed a number of different ways, it becomes a great strategy.”
“Realize that you won’t be able to bring the same focus to everything in the beginning. There won’t be enough people or enough hours in the day. So focus on the 20% that makes 80% of the difference.”
“Keep in mind that the landscape is always changing; you must always examine what’s working, evolve your ideas, and change the way you do things.”
“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
“Whether you’re starting a business, managing a team, or running an entire company, trusting your instincts can be essential in bringing a vision or idea to life. I now understand that trusting yourself is only half the story. To be effective as a leader, you need a reservoir of trust to draw from.”
“Here’s the thing about values: you have to use words to identify them, but they won’t create true value for you unless they turn into consistent behaviors.”
“Doing well by doing good is no longer just a competitive advantage. It’s becoming a business imperative.”
“In order to remain relevant, you must establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.”
“The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.”
“Presentation skills are key. People who work for you represent your brand. You want them to present themselves—and represent you—in a certain way.”
“Learning how to interact with customers is something that anyone starting any business must master. It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to learn the ropes at an established company and then employ your expertise at your own company.”
“If you wanna be successful as an entrepreneur, you need to be able to start to visualize and have clarity of where you are going in the future.”
“You must always be able to predict what’s next and then have the flexibility to evolve.”
“Once you know what you want and what is important for you to achieve, also define the values associated with it. What is important? That is something a lot of entrepreneurs pass by too quickly.”
“A genuine culture built on fundamentals like trust and aimed at the goal of business for good is more than enough, but only if it genuinely outweighs the traditional business motives of driving revenue, growth and profit.”
“It’s about how to create a culture where doing well is synonymous with doing good in order to thrive in a world where a company is only as strong as the principles it adopts.”
“Most of all, I discovered that in order to succeed with a product, you must truly get to know your customers and build something for them.”
“You never want to be completely alone at what you do. Competition is good for everyone.”
“There is a Japanese belief that business is temporal, whereas relationships are eternal. That’s true. One day you compete. The next day you partner. One day someone is your subordinate; the next day he or she may be your superior. At its finest, business is friendly competition, just like a game of tennis.”
“Don’t ever let the competition make you angry. You must have clarity of mind to make your own decisions—not the ones that your competitors want you to make.”
“Reliability is a tech problem, but the way you solve it is not with technology alone; it’s with communication.”
“Technology will never stop evolving. In the years to come, machine learning and artificial intelligence will probably make or break your business. Success will involve using these tools to understand your customers like never before so that you can deliver more intelligent, personalized experiences. The second point is this: we’ve never had a better set of tools to help meet every possible standard of success, whether it’s finding a better way to match investment opportunities with interested clients, or making customers feel thrilled about the experience of renovating their home. The third point is that customer success depends on every stakeholder. By that I mean employees who feel engaged and responsible and are growing their careers in an environment that allows them to do their best work—and this applies to all employees, from the interns to the CEO.”
“The future isn’t about learning to be better at doing what we already do, it’s about how far we can stretch the boundaries of our imagination. The ability to produce success stories that weren’t possible a few years ago, to help customers thrive in dramatic new ways—that is going to become a driver of growth for any successful company.”
“I believe we’re entering a new age in which customers will increasingly expect miracles from you. If you don’t value putting the customer at the center of everything you do, then you are going to fall behind. Every company should invest in helping its customers find new destinations, and in blazing new trails to reach them. To do so, we have to resist the urge to make quick, marginal improvements and spend more time listening deeply to what customers really want, even if they’re not fully aware of it yet. In the end, it’s a matter of accepting that your success is inextricably linked to theirs.”
“The world is being reshaped by the convergence of social, mobile, cloud, big data, community and other powerful forces. The combination of these technologies unlocks an incredible opportunity to connect everything together in a new way and is dramatically transforming the way we live and work.”
“You need to get to the future, ahead of your customers, and be ready to greet them when they arrive.”
“In business, we say that people overestimate what you can do in a year and underestimate what you can do in a decade. This is true in philanthropy as well.”
“Business requires an unbelievable level of resilience inside you, the chokehold on the growth of your business is always the leader, it’s always your psychology and your skills: 80% psychology, 20% skills. If you don’t have the marketing skills, if you don’t have the financial-intelligence skills, if you don’t have the recruiting skills, it’s really hard for you to lead somebody else if you don’t have fundamentally those skills. And so my life is about teaching those skills and helping people change the psychology so that they live out of what’s possible, instead of out of their fear.”
“I strongly believe the business of a business is to improve the world.”
“One person at a time, one company at a time.”
“Don’t forget to do something for other people.”
“The real joy in life comes from giving. It comes from service. It comes from doing things for other people. That is what is so powerful about this. Nothing will make you happier than giving.”
“Philanthropy can be integrated into business. I believe strongly that companies can be incredible agents of good in the world.”
“Philanthropy isn’t just about big gifts; it’s about participation. It is about the grace that comes from working together.”
“You can do things in every part of the world. You can do things in every discipline. You can do large things, you can do small things. But it takes a while to figure out what you actually want to do. And it changes. As you change your interests and desires in philanthropy change, I think you have to be open to that change.”
“Although I loved working on technology, I’ve always been a computer geek at heart. My professors encouraged me to get a real-world job working with customers.”
“I like to be in locations that I kind of feel are very creative, that stimulate me in a creative process.”
“I believe a balanced life is essential.”
“When I get something in my head, it’s hard for me to just let it go.”
“Learning to code at a young age opened my eyes to the incredibly exciting world of technology and entrepreneurship. Our youth deserve the opportunity to learn the skills that will enable them to succeed in our connected world.”
“I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I started my own software company in high school and went to college to study entrepreneurship.”
“Early in my career, during my first few years at Oracle, I defined my success by making money and achieving power. By my early thirties, however, I realized that these superficial achievements did not provide real meaning or true happiness. Despite a list of impressive titles and a pile of material possessions, I felt that something was missing, and began to consider my place in the world and how I could make a difference.”
“Life grows relative to one’s investment in it.”
Related: Larry Ellison quotes.
