Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A CEO business book which doesn't follow the tired Gilda Radner formula of `Enough of me talking about me...let's hear what others think about me!'. This is a fun to read book chock-full of no-holds-barred advice on everything a growth company faces. In short easy to read chapters, Benioff writes instructively about everything from fostering an innovative product development and marketing machine, to driving explosive sales in existent and new/emerging markets, to focusing on customers while simultaneously inspiring a culture of employee hyper-success. His chapters on giving back to the community should be standard reading at all business schools today. In short, this is a practical guide on how to grow a successful business without selling your soul to Mephistopheles. The enthusiasm infused in the writing is contagious. For those looking for MBA jargon, four quadrant charts, circles with arrows, new buzzwords, or formulaic bromides on business success brought about by `the cult of the leader', don't pick up this book. Benioff and Adler have penned an easy to read practical, no-nonsense step-by-step `how to' guidebook on building and running a great company. John Henry - Danville, CA

I have founded and run two small, but successful, SaaS businesses and I like to think I have acquired the scar tissue of experience. However reading the book Marc and Carlye have written has been an inspirational learning experience. It describes a journey that as a technology entrepreneur I can empathise with. But it does far more than this. It is jam packed full of ideas and approaches that I can use in my business and it encourages a mindset that I know will help me. Marc's phenomenal track record provides the authenticity that is so often lacking in business books and together the authors have ensured that each bite-sized chapter succinctly and clearly conveys its intended points.

CEOs often feel the need to share their wisdom with the rest of us common mortals, and end up sharing nothing but their own sense of superiority. Marc Benioff, CEO of [...], does a wonderful job of actually sharing teachable moments along the road to creating a very successful company, and arguably a new way of doing business. He also shows how he built his company to be socially responsible from the outset.
Without the pompous cadence of the motivational speaker, Benioff and his co-author, Carlye Adler, actually manage to impart useful information for anyone looking to start their own company while remaining interesting to the casual reader. There's also a lot of information about the prevailing technology culture and insights that help those of us who don't live on the West Coast understand the special brew of technology, entrepreneurship and spirituality that make it what it is.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is open to the positive side of capitalism and disappointed by what they've experienced thus far. Marc Benioff has done more than create a great company; he's set a great example.

This book gets one star for the 20% of genuine biography, interesting business story and knowledge imparted by the author. The rest of the book comprises 40% narcissism with relentless name dropping (needless to say the Dalai Lama is name dropped early with Al Gore following shortly after ... you get the idea) and marketing blurb-style anecdotes of the impact SalesForce has had on its clients. The other 40% consists of preaching about his charitable causes. The subtitle of this book "The Untold Story of How [...] Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry" is completely misleading unless it refers to how the story remains after you've read the book ... untold.

It's so disappointing as I have so much respect for the success that Mr Benioff's has achieved, all the more so as he is self-made, but frankly he should be paying me if all he wants to do is tell me how wonderful he, his product and his charities are. I'm not one to write reviews but I hated this book and the misleading pretense under which it was sold to me. I look forward to some day reading the actual story of SalesForce and the inception of cloud computing however without a colossal dose of humility towards himself and his readership, this author will not be the one to write it.

Marc Benioff's Behind the Cloud is a quick, interesting and informative reading about Benioff's experience, personal philosophy and a personal memoir about the formative years of [...]. This book is not a book about cloud computing, how it works, what is important to get right, how to move your company into the cloud. So you are warned.

The book is a cross between a business success story, personal basking in success and a playbook for creating new companies. The book is a piece of corporate self promotion, but it goes beyond boosterism for the company and its offering to provide some real advice and insight. It is an example of the `different way' sales and marketing that [...] has become known for.

Benioff covers all of the major areas associated with setting up and leading a company. This gives the book a comprehensive nature normally not found in a piece of corporate marketing. This difference makes the book recommended, not as a book about Cloud Computing, but as a look into the mind of a business leader and innovator.

The book is organized around 111 `plays' representing concepts and ideas behind starting a business in general and [...] in particular. These `plays' are organized into parts covering strategy, marketing, events, sales, technology, philanthropy, globalization, finance and leadership.

So recommended reading for people who want to know more about Benioff and [...] and recognize the hyperbole that is in the book. Not recommended if you want to understand how the cloud works.

This is a solid book ... easy read and somewhat common sense, but it has some good nuggets. I think Marc's greatest genius is his unrelenting vision around 'no software' and his ability to market in ways that are both unconventional and press-worthy.

This is not a specific cookbook around starting a business and all the areas you need to master and understand. I see it more as a story that has entrepreneurial themes interwoven - secure 'excess' capital early-on, watch your cash flow like a hawk, only hire when necesssary, etc. I particularly liked the story of he started and when - coming out of the dot-bomb cycle, in a recessionary environment, against the on-premise software grain, etc. It has all the makings of a good story - Silicon Valley setting, timeless themes, antagonists/protagonists, conflict - you get the picture.

Three main things stood our for me ... the 1-1-1 mission, always looking for 'talent', and continually testing and iterating your product. They sound basic, but many firms do not execute them well or think about their social responsibilities and how they create a brand that attracts talent, customers and investors.

As CEO and founder of a young SaaS company I found this book both interesting and extremely useful. Although not going into any major detail about any one thing per se it does cover a number of the big high level questions and pitfalls facing many SaaS companies. Topics such as attaining international customers and various marketing, pricing and customer service ideas. It's also a well organised book and a quick read.

There are some wonderful business ideas in this book, including Benioff's ideas on philanthropy and guerilla marketing.

The "101 sales plays" format got tired after about 20 plays. The plays tended toward being repetitious and repetitious, if you know what I mean. I think salesforce.com is great, but this book is a little on the eye-rolling side.

If you like reading books where the author/entrepreneur is always grinningly telling you how smart, clever, and popular he or she is, then you'll like it.

There are certainly some good tips in here about building a company but, as other reviewers have pointed out, the tips' format gets a little tiring. I do like how Benioff admits some mistakes and is on occasion surprisingly candid. This is a well-written book I would have preferred some more in-depth stories rather than a series of management platitudes. Also, Benioff is right about the disruption that his company has caused--and about the naysayers back in the day.

In sum, this is a good but not great book.

Now that Do More Faster is out and I appreciate how hard it is to write and publish a book, I read every book through a different (more appreciative) lens. This morning, I spent three hours on the coach and plowed through Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry. It was excellent.

Marc Benioff, the founder and CEO of Salesforce.com, tells the story of Salesforce.com in 111 short stories. He mixes each story with clear advice, from his perspective, about creating, building, and scaling a business. I loved the format that Benioff used to organize these stories into clear themes, while still marching linearly through the story of Salesforce.com.

This is a book aimed at entrepreneurial CEO's but scales nicely to any founder of a company. It also reminds us of the actual evolution of Cloud Computing, which several very large technology companies continue to try to claim credit for. When reading this book, you realize how deep and clear Benioff's vision was from the beginning.

It was well worth the time to read and gave me some structural ideas for some writing that I'm working on.