Behind the Cloud Quotes

“One idea alone is a tactic, but if it can be executed a number of different ways, it becomes a great strategy.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“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. As”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“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 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“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.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“the V2MOM process. You might have more than one answer to each question; be sure to prioritize your answers: VISION (What do you want?): ________________________________________ VALUES (What’s important about it?): ________________________________________ METHODS (How do you get it?): ________________________________________ OBSTACLES (What might stand in the way?): ________________________________________ MEASURES (How will you know when you have it?): ________________________________________”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Life grows relative to one’s investment in it.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“1) Out of clutter find simplicity; 2) From discord find harmony; 3) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“you must always examine what’s working, evolve your ideas, and change the way you do things.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“It’s amazing to consider that no matter what size customer we were pitching, or where in the world we were selling, a singular idea drove all our accomplishments: we never sold features. We sold the model and we sold the customer’s success.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“My summers at Apple had taught me that the secret to encouraging creativity and producing the best possible product was to keep people fulfilled and happy. I wanted the people who built salesforce.com to be inspired and to feel valued.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Our differentiators were ease of use, a business model of shared risk, and low-risk commitment—everything that software was not.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Every experience you give a journalist or potential customer must explain why you are different and incorporate a clear call to action.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“focus on the 20 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“intellectual challenge inasmuch as it had to be highly scalable, reliable, and”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“The total cost for 200 people to use a low-end product in the 1990s could exceed $1.8 million in the first year alone.2”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“build a new technology model (on-demand, or delivered over the Internet—now called cloud computing), a new sales model (subscription based), and a new philanthropic model (integrated into the corporation).”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“the power of each customer exchange. If the exchange was executed as well as possible—if we made the customer truly successful—we had the opportunity to transform him or her into an Apple loyalist and evangelist. This opened my eyes to the importance of customer success.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Hiring the best requires diligence.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Recruiting Is Sales”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“The more developers you have, the more products you can build. Essentially, recruiting is the engine that drives distribution”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“After all, the better the developers you have, the better the product you build.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“There’s a lot of controversy when it comes to theories about evolution, but when it comes to evolution in the software industry, there’s only one theory that makes sense: surviving by learning from experience and usage patterns.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Value of a corporation should be distributed not only to its leadership but also to the communities in which it operates and to the world”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Reliability Is a Tech Problem, but the Way You Solve It Is Not with Technology Alone—It’s with Communication”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“(If you want a successful event, you have to project success; your attitude will help make it a hit.) Although”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“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.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“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.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“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 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference. Play”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“guiding principles about the system: “Do it fast, simple, and right the first time (and did we mention fast?).” They wrote these “laws” on a white board, and they stuck. They forced us to create code that was simple and efficient, and this is what ultimately gave us the ability to scale.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Do it fast, simple, and right the first time (and did we mention fast?).”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry