Marc Benioff: preference

Transcript context

…It's one of the most legendary launch events in startup history, so I've heard of it many times at this point. It was a crazy moment. I mean, Siebel, who was really the enterprise software company doing CRM, was doing a user conference. I was looking for an opportunity to launch our product, so we hired a bunch of actors. They were doing this event in San Francisco, and San Francisco is very woke, so people expect a good protest. So we got some picket signs at Home Depot and made some signs that said, "The end of software is near," and all kinds of other... "No software," and all these things. We had a lot of funny things on signs. We were running a protest outside of Siebel that they were in the software business, but we were like, "Oh, no, we've got to get out of software. We've got to create the end of software." So we have picketers outside of the streets. Anyway, he comes out himself out of the building and really gets super upset. Right then, we hit a button, and we have other actors in a van who come out, and they are staging themselves as news crew. So they are like KNMS, K No More Software, and we're like... They're interviewing the protesters. So now he thinks that it's a media thing. He calls the police. He got very upset. He's a great guy. By the way, I love Tom Siebel. I think he's also one of the great entrepreneurs of our generation. He's just fuming, and he doesn't know what's going on. He doesn't exactly know it's us, and we're just having the best time. That night, we had our huge launch event at one of the top theaters in San Francisco. We hired a great band, and it was really... We just had so much fun. It was just a really great time. That was all happened. I remember very well. It was February 22nd of 2001 or 2000, 2000, February 22nd, 2000. I love this. I haven't heard that interview, the reporter part of that story before.…

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