“Within four years, I had been promoted to vice president, the youngest person ever in that position. Soon I had the multi-million-dollar salary, stock, and perks to go with it. Yet there I was on a workday morning, frozen in place under the covers in my apartment on Telegraph Hill. I did not feel happy or fulfilled. I was supposedly living the American dream, but I was lost. Later that day, I managed to drag myself to the office, where I found Larry and told him about the malaise that had sunk in. His proposed solution was easy and direct: “Why don’t you take a sabbatical? Take three months off, go take a look around.” He added, “And pull yourself back together.”
“In your quest to succeed and make money, don’t forget to do something for others.” With these words, the idea for Salesforce began to take shape. I knew in my head that I wanted to build a company that harnessed innovative new technology, but in my heart, I also wanted it to be committed to giving back. On that day in Trivandrum, the seed was planted. Two years later I left the Oracle nest to do just that.”
“But I now know the most powerful engine of our success hasn’t been our software, our people, or our business model, but rather, the decision we made in 1999 to orient our culture around values.”
“This isn’t just my opinion; there’s a growing pile of evidence that markets reward businesses that do good and that companies that have a social mission tend to be more successful. In a competitive business such as tech, where luring top talent can be the difference between profit and loss, it’s often something intangible—like a diverse, inclusive, values-driven culture—that determines where the best and brightest talent decide to work.”
“When it was my turn to speak, I said, “Trust has to be your highest value in your company. And if it’s not, something bad is going to happen.”
“A culture rooted in values creates value. My sincere hope is that this book will inspire you to look inside yourself, ask the right questions, and blaze your own trail. What you do next matters.”
“Once, when a kindergarten teacher asked me to draw a circle, I looked her straight in the eye and defiantly drew a line. Even though Mom left countless teacher meetings in tears, she continued to give me a long leash to pursue my projects.”
“Looking back, I continue to marvel at the fact that my parents not only tolerated my eccentric behavior, but gave me enough independence to fully indulge it. When I tell people about how I was allowed to turn our basement into my own private residence at age twelve, they are always (justifiably) astonished. In retrospect, I imagine my mother was less than thrilled when I announced, on the very day I got my driver’s license, that I needed to make a business trip to a computer company in Mountain View, much farther than I had ever driven on my own. But she let me go. And that summer, when I asked if I could fly to England, alone, to research castles for my games, Mom gave me her blessing, so long as I stayed with friends of hers in Leeds and promised to call home every night. My mother claims that she indulged me because she knew I was stubborn and wouldn’t take no for an answer. The truth, I know, is that she saw something in me that others didn’t and allowed me to pursue it, even if doing so made it nearly impossible for her to get a good night’s sleep.”
“but they respected my drive, my strong will, and my unwavering commitment to things I cared about, and sensed that these values would serve me well when I got older. They turned out to be right.”
“Even as a teenager, when I would think about how much time my dad spent traveling to meet with suppliers, ferrying inventory around, and minding the company ledgers, I was astounded by how difficult it was to run a business in the analog age. To me, he seemed enslaved by the rudimentary tasks of commerce; he got so buried in the weeds that he rarely had time to focus on the big picture.”
“Another time, during a stop at Mission Bay—then a desolate area that was once home to shipyards, foundries, warehouses, and factories—he boldly (and correctly) proclaimed that one day, “this will be the future of San Francisco.” I was convinced he had the power to see the future. Grandpa also dabbled in politics, and at the close of the Second World War he began an eleven-year stint as a San Francisco city supervisor. In that role, he focused his considerable powers of persuasion on one civic priority: building a new, thoroughly modern mass transit”
“His vision was also guided by the way he defined progress. In his mind, no civic project really mattered unless it also furthered what he saw as San Francisco’s bedrock values: opportunity, equality, and inclusion. By enabling the city’s residents to travel quickly and inexpensively between downtown and the suburbs, he knew BART would give them access to better jobs and more opportunities for life enrichment. He also knew it would reduce the growing congestion on the bridges spanning the Bay and mitigate the environmental problems”
“in truth, as a person—would be the extent to which every future employee found meaning in his or her work. If my father’s example had taught me anything, it was that meaning isn’t about what kind of work you do or how much money you make. It’s grounded in a mindset in which your work, and the integrity with which you perform it, really matters.”
“our 1-1-1 corporate philanthropy program has already generated nearly $300 million in grants and 4 million hours of employee volunteer time. More than forty thousand nonprofits and nongovernmental entities (NGOs) use Salesforce’s products for free or for a steep discount. I’ve always seen this as a tribute to my grandfather, and part of what makes our company different from most.”
“From him I learned that you can’t live your beliefs to the fullest unless you develop the imagination and the confidence to express them in bold, meaningful ways.
“Beyond that, I was proud of the positive, purposeful culture we’d built around our three founding values: trust, customer success, and innovation.”
“It might surprise some readers to learn that when it comes to politics, I was at one time a Republican, but now I’m an independent. I’ve given advice to both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. I personally held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, but I had no problem coming to the Trump White House in my capacity as a business leader to talk about workforce development and technology training programs. Salesforce is not a political organization and our values don’t come with party affiliations.”
“While I’d kicked open the door, many more people needed to enter it, and convincing them to do so wasn’t easy. Although they had powerful platforms, many CEOs in 2015 were loath to wade into social issues, especially those with political undertones. Some of them never got back to me. Others chastised me for putting my own values ahead of shareholder value.”
“Then, little by little, other business leaders began stepping over the threshold. Yelp Inc.’s Jeremy Stoppelman thanked me for “creating aircover for the rest of us, so we can feel OK about speaking out.” Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube and a Salesforce board member, supported me too, and Apple CEO Tim Cook published an op-ed in The Washington Post saying that “America’s business community recognized a long time ago that discrimination, in all its forms, is bad for business” and encouraged others to stand up and oppose such legislation.
“But let me be clear: What Indiana ultimately showed me is that no one person is in charge of the moral compass of a business. The phone calls and messages from my employees proved that if the leadership won’t act, they’ll have to face the bayonets poking up from below. Gone are the days when companies can recruit and retain top talent without upholding a commitment to values. In the coming era of business for good, everyone who taps their alarm button in the morning and heads to work can play a role. This isn’t just a matter of what the C-suite does. It’s about what happens on the shop floor or in the rows of office cubicles. Just as CEOs can’t look away when social issues clash with their values, employees can’t pretend that whatever its leadership decides to do is above their pay grade. If leadership won’t act on a company’s values, employees at every level need to hold them accountable.”
“They want to learn, to better the world, they aren’t afraid to explore, they crave innovation and enjoy solving problems and also giving back,” Sarah wrote. “They are people that care about culture and diversity. They are trailblazers.” I was convinced. To my astonishment, the word “trailblazer” caught fire among our extended family of employees, customers, and partners, to the point that we quickly exhausted the supply of black hoodies we’d made with the term emblazoned on the front. I even used “Trailblazer” as the theme of my next keynote speech at Dreamforce, the annual blowout software conference we host in San Francisco.”
“I recognized the significance of this humble gesture immediately. Loss of face, symbolized by such a bow, is a powerful cultural totem in Japan—a tradition embodied by samurai and military leaders who, when defeated or facing a loss of personal honor, fell on their swords. I could tell his apology was heartfelt. I also knew it wouldn’t be enough. Every CEO has to perform a delicate dance between two priorities: trust and growth. Intellectually, we all know that whenever growth is put before trust, a problem will eventually appear. It can happen to the best of leaders, and to the most respected of companies. Speaking before the U.S. Congress, Toyoda-san acknowledged it plainly: “We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should be sincerely mindful of that.”
“Whenever I touched down in Japan, I felt a heightened sense of clarity, along with an immediate desire to reinvigorate and reinspire myself. To this day there is something about the atmosphere on those magical islands to which I’m deeply connected. So it’s no coincidence that when I decided to explore the teachings of Zen, I bought a train ticket to Kyoto.
“It was there, at the Ryoan-ji temple in the northwest part of the city, that I began a lifelong journey toward developing a “beginner’s mind,” or what the Japanese call shoshin. (I’ll talk more about this later on.) I began to make annual trips, often inviting friends to join me. I relished introducing them to the Japanese way of life. Part of the allure of Japan for me is how its companies have a knack for creating brilliant, efficient, and beautiful things, from mass-market products like cars and cameras to designer T-shirts, food, and fine art. It’s a country that treasures masters of innovation and design. So it should come as no great surprise that one year after we founded Salesforce, Tokyo became the location of our first office outside the United States.”