Salesforce
Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, and application development.
Formerly
Salesforce.com, Inc. (1999–2022)
February 3, 1999
- Marc Benioff
- Parker Harris
- Dave Moellenhoff
- Frank Dominguez
- Marc Benioff
(Chairman & CEO)
US$34.86 billion (2024)
US$5.011 billion (2024)
US$4.136 billion (2024)
US$99.82 billion (2024)
US$59.65 billion (2024)
72,682 (2024)
- Quip
- Heroku
- MuleSoft
- Tableau Software
- Acumen Solutions
- Slack Technologies
Founded by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff in February 1999, Salesforce grew quickly, making its IPO in 2004. As of September 2022, Salesforce is the 61st largest company in the world by market cap with a value of nearly US$153 billion.[2] It became the world's largest enterprise software firm in 2022.[3] Salesforce ranked 491st on the 2023 edition of the Fortune 500, making $31,352 million in revenues.[4] Since 2020, Salesforce has also been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.[5]
Controversies[edit]
Phishing attack[edit]
In November 2007, a phishing attack compromised contact information on a number of Salesforce customers. Some customers then received phishing emails that appeared to be invoices from Salesforce.[117][118] Salesforce stated that "a phisher tricked someone into disclosing a password, but this intrusion did not stem from a security flaw in [the salesforce.com] application or database."[117]
‘Meatpistol’ presenters let go at Def Con[edit]
In 2017, at DEF CON, two security engineers were let go after giving a presentation on an internal project called MEATPISTOL.[119] The presenters were sent a message 30 minutes prior to the presentation telling them not to go on stage, but the message wasn't seen until after they finished.[119][120] The MEATPISTOL tool was anticipated to be released as open-source at the time of the presentation, but Salesforce didn't release the code to developers or the public during the conference.[119] The terminated employees called on the company to open-source the software after being let go.[121]
RAICES donation refusal[edit]
The not-for-profit organization Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) rejected a US$250,000 donation from Salesforce because the company has contracts with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.[122]
2018 taxes[edit]
In December 2019, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Salesforce was one of 91 companies who "paid an effective federal tax rate of 0% or less" in 2018, as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Their findings were published in a report based on the 379 Fortune 500 companies that declared a profit in 2018.[123]
Sex-trafficking lawsuit[edit]
In March 2019, Salesforce faced a lawsuit by 50 anonymous women claiming to be victims and survivors of sex trafficking, abuse, and rape. The suit alleges that the company profited from and helped build technology that facilitated sex trafficking on Backpage.com, a now defunct website.[124] In March 2021, a judge granted partial dismissal of the case, dismissing charges of negligence and conspiracy, but allowed the case to proceed regarding charges of sex trafficking.[125]
Salesforce Ventures[edit]
In 2009, Salesforce began investing in startups.[132] These investments became Salesforce Ventures, headed by John Somorjai[132][133] In September 2014, SFV set up Salesforce1 Fund, aimed at start-ups creating applications primarily for mobile phones.[134] In December 2018, Salesforce Ventures announced the launch of the Japan Trailblazer Fund, focused on Japanese startups.[135]
In August 2018, Salesforce Ventures reported investments totaling over $1 billion in 275 companies, including CloudCraze (e-commerce),[136] Figure Eight (artificial intelligence),[137] Forter (online fraud prevention),[138] and FinancialForce (automation software).[139] In 2019, SFV's five largest investments—Domo (data-visualization software), SurveyMonkey (online survey software), Twilio (cloud-communication), Dropbox (cloud storage), and DocuSign (secure e-signature company)—accounted for nearly half of its portfolio.[140] In 2021, Salesforce announced that its investments had resulted in $2.17 Billion annual gain.[141] In June 2023 Salesforce increased the size of its Generative AI Fund for startups from $250 million to $500 million.[142]