San Francisco has become an easy target for complaints about rampant homelessness, crime rates and legislators' perceived inability to turn things around. And while Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has long been one of the city's strongest advocates, even he appears to be getting fed up.
Speaking at the company's 2023 Dreamforce conference, an annual event that has long been hosted in downtown San Francisco, Benioff said he's been leading a pressure campaign to get local leaders to help the city "clean up its act" not only for the three-day convention but at all times in order to speed up the city's otherwise stagnant economic recovery.
“I’ve put a lot of pressure on the city and really ramped it up in the last few weeks,” Benioff said. “When the city of San Francisco wants to look good and get shiny, clean and safe, it knows how to do that. If they can do it for Dreamforce, why can’t they do it every day?”
The CEO's comments come as San Francisco struggles to regain momentum lost to the pandemic, which has gutted office buildings and left the city facing a nearly $800 million budget deficit.
Salesforce, the city's largest private employer and one of its biggest office occupants, has built a reputation for helping to address some of San Francisco's most challenging socioeconomic issues, a commitment led by Benioff. For using his company's annual gathering to speak out about the city's issues, he is Person of the Week.
WHO: Marc Benioff is a tech entrepreneur and co-founder, chairman and CEO of San Francisco-based Salesforce, one of the largest customer relationship management software companies in the world.
STREET CRED: The billionaire executive and philanthropist was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he returned to live with his family after graduating from the University of Southern California with a degree in business administration. His career started as an intern with Silicon Valley tech giant Apple. He went on to work with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, whom Benioff has said remains a close mentor and friend. He founded Salesforce in his San Francisco apartment in the late 1990s and has since donated hundreds of millions of dollars to local initiatives aimed at children's health, cancer research, public health and homelessness. He also helped spearhead the development of Salesforce's namesake tower in downtown San Francisco that redefined the city's skyline as the tallest office building.
WHAT HAPPENED?: Salesforce's top executive has long defended San Francisco and, even as other major conference hosts relocated their events elsewhere, Benioff has kept Dreamforce in the city. However, the CEO recently said the annual 40,000-person event would have to move if it is affected by the city’s homelessness and drug-use issues.
WHY IT MATTERS: If Benioff decided to pull the plug on Dreamforce's 21-year run in San Francisco, it would have resulted in a $90 million loss in attendee spending that Salesforce projected the conference would generate for the city this year. That would have been a sizable economic punch to a city that already lost a string of major events hosted by Oracle, Google, IBM and other companies as it contends with crime and homelessness and other social issues.
Editor's Note: CoStar News has launched a new feature called Person of the Week, highlighting someone whose actions, statements or issues have affected the commercial real estate industry. If you'd like to nominate someone for consideration, please email news@costar.com.