1. Marc Russell Benioff was born on September 25,1964 and is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist.
25 Facts About Marc Benioff
1. 2.
Marc Russell Benioff was born on September 25,1964, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Marc Benioff is the grandson of Marvin Lewis, a California trial attorney and member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who championed the creation of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.
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Marc Benioff grew up in Hillsborough and graduated from Burlingame High School in 1982.
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Marc Benioff received a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, in 1986.
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In 1979, when he was 15, Marc Benioff founded Liberty Software, creating and selling games such as Flapper and King Arthur's Heir for the Atari 8-bit.
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Marc Benioff joined Oracle Corporation in a customer-service role after graduating.
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Marc Benioff worked at Oracle for 13 years in a variety of sales, marketing, and product development roles.
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Marc Benioff founded Salesforce in 1999, while working from a San Francisco apartment.
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Marc Benioff extended Salesforce's offerings in the early 2000s with the idea of a platform that allowed developers to create applications.
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In November 2021, Marc Benioff became co-CEO of Salesforce when Bret Taylor's promotion to co-CEO was announced.
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In January 2023 Marc Benioff announced the mass dismissal of approximately 7,000 Salesforce employees via a two-hour all-hands meeting over a call, a course of action he later admitted had been a 'bad idea'.
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In 2019, Marc Benioff started Time Ventures, a venture capital fund that has invested in multiple companies, including Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Universal Hydrogen and NCX.
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Marc Benioff is on the World Economic Forum's board of trustees and USC board of trustees.
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Marc Benioff is a member of the Business Roundtable, an advocacy group of CEOs, and the Business Council.
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In 2009, Marc Benioff was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and is a member of its board of trustees.
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Marc Benioff was appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour by the French government in 2022.
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Since 2016, Marc Benioff has donated over $80 million as part of the Marc Benioff Ocean Science Initiative at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
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In January 2020, Marc Benioff announced that he and his wife would provide financial backing for 1t.
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In September 2021, Marc Benioff announced that Salesforce would relocate any Texas employees who wanted to move after an abortion law went into effect.
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In March 2015, Benioff announced Salesforce would cancel all employee programs and travel in Indiana after the passing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
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In February 2016, Marc Benioff announced that Salesforce would reduce investments in Georgia and cancel a conference if HB 757, a bill that would allow businesses to decline services to same-sex couples, was passed.
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In July 2023, Marc Benioff stated that San Francisco "will never go back to the way it was before the pandemic" and recommended that city leadership convert old office space into housing and hire more police.
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Marc Benioff is married to Lynne Marc Benioff and has two children.
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Marc Benioff is a second cousin of showrunner and television writer David Benioff, known for Game of Thrones.