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Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry 1st Edition
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In Behind the Cloud, Benioff shares the strategies that have inspired employees, turned customers into evangelists, leveraged an ecosystem of partners, and allowed innovation to flourish.
- ISBN-109780470521168
- ISBN-13978-0470521168
- Edition1st
- PublisherWiley-Blackwell
- Publication dateOctober 19, 2009
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6.1 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
- Print length304 pages
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Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
How did salesforce.com grow from a start-up in a rented apartment into the world's fastest growing software company in less than a decade?
For the first time, Marc Benioff, the visionary founder, chairman, and CEO of salesforce.com, tells how he and his team created and used new business, technology, and philanthropic models tailored to this time of extraordinary change. Showing how salesforce.com not only survived the dot-com implosion of 2001, but also went on to define itself as the leader of the cloud computing revolution and spark a 46 billion-dollar industry, Benioff's story will help business leaders and entrepreneurs stand out, innovate better, and grow faster in any economic climate.
In Behind the Cloud, Benioff shares the strategies that have inspired employees, turned customers into evangelists, leveraged an ecosystem of partners, and allowed innovation to flourish. Benioff shows how salesforce.com pioneered a simple idea (delivering business applications as a service over the Internet) to change the way all businesses use software applications and, ultimately, change the way the software industry works.
With Marc Benioff's candid, unconventional advice and unusual call-out lessons from the Salesforce.com Playbookincluding Benioff's proprietary management tool, V2MOMany business can go against the grain, rapidly change the game, and learn how to achieve lasting success.
From the Back Cover
Praise for Behind the Cloud
"Salesforce.com and Google share a vision for how the cloud will revolutionize computing. Behind the Cloud gives us a rare glimpse at the development of one of the most important trends in business today."Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google
"In Behind the Cloud, Marc Benioff takes us through the ups and downs of building one of the most extraordinary businesses of our time and reveals the tactics that gave salesforce.com its amazing edge. This book will show you how to focus your vision, think differently, align your organizationand transform your business and your life." Anthony Robbins, author, Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power
"Reading this book, I laughed out loud many times as Marc told his story, a story of great ideas, thunder-stealing pranks, and a world consciousness that is at the heart of salesforce.com."Neil Young
"Reading, but also afterwards, practicing the 111 plays described by Marc Benioff opens the door for entrepreneurial success much better than any MBA program."Klaus Schwab, founder, World Economic Forum, and cofounder, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
"Cisco and salesforce.com share a vision of how the network is the platform to transform business. In his book, Benioff outlines how salesforce.com has used cloud computing to disrupt and reshape the enterprise software space. It is clear that we are just beginning to understand the potential of networked business and the future benefits and productivity gains of the next phase of the Internet."John Chambers, chairman and CEO, Cisco
"Behind the Cloud demonstrates what happens when companies act as good citizens. Everyonefrom employees to shareholders to the communitywins. Get ready to be inspired and make a difference."Charles Moore, executive director, Committee EncouragingCorporate Philanthropy
About the Author
Marc R. Benioff is the chairman and CEO of salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), which he cofounded in 1999. Under Benioff's direction, salesforce.com has grown from a groundbreaking idea into a publicly traded company that is the market and technology leader in enterprise cloud computing. Salesforce.com has received a Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, been lauded as one of BusinessWeek's Top 100 Most Innovative Companies, been named No. 7 on the Wired 40, was selected for the past two years as a Top Ten Disrupter by Forbes, and been voted one of the world's most ethical companies by Business Ethics Magazine. Benioff is the recipient of many awards for pioneering innovation, including the 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2000, Benioff launched the Salesforce.com Foundationnow a multimillion-dollar global organization. He lives in San Francisco.
Carlye Adler is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in BusinessWeek, Departures, Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, Portfolio, Wired, and Time. She cowrote, with Marc Benioff, The Business of Changing the World. She lives in New York City.
Product details
- ASIN : 0470521163
- Publisher : Wiley-Blackwell; 1st edition (October 19, 2009)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780470521168
- ISBN-13 : 978-0470521168
- Item Weight : 1.05 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.1 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #70,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #91 in E-commerce Professional (Books)
- #115 in Company Business Profiles (Books)
- #172 in Sales & Selling (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the authors

Carlye Adler is an award winning journalist and coauthor of many books, including four New York Times bestsellers. Her writing has been published in BusinessWeek, FastCompany, Fortune, Forbes, Newsweek, TIME and Wired. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, two daughters, and skateboarding bulldog.
For more information, please visit www.carlyeadler.com or www.caspermediagroup.com

Marc Benioff is chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. He founded the company in 1999 with a vision to create an on-demand information management service that would replace traditional enterprise software technology. Benioff is regarded as the leader of what he has termed "The End of Software," the now-proven belief that multi-tenant, cloud computing applications democratize information by delivering immediate benefits at reduced risks and costs. He reveals the story of salesforce.com--and offers unconventional tools for any business to achieve lasting success--in the national best-selling book, Behind the Cloud.
Under Benioff's direction, salesforce.com has grown from a groundbreaking idea into a publicly traded company that is the leader in enterprise cloud computing. For its revolutionary approach, salesforce.com has received a Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, been lauded as one of BusinessWeek's Top 100 Most Innovative Companies, named No. 7 on The Wired 40, and selected for the past two years as a Top Ten Disrupter by Forbes. The product has won the Software & Information Industry Association Codie Award for Best CRM for the past six years, and the Codie Award for Best On-Demand Platform in 2007, as well as multiple "Editor's Choice" designations from PC Magazine.
Benioff has been widely recognized for pioneering innovation with honors such as the 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, the SDForum Visionary Award, and Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year by the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business. The San Francisco Business Times named him as its 2009 Executive of the Year. Additionally, Benioff has been ranked named No. 7 on the Top 100 Most Influential People in IT survey by eWEEK, one of the Top 10 Greatest IT Chief Executives by VNU, and among the top 10 most visionary CEOs in the technology industry by InternetNews.com. He was appointed by President George W. Bush as the co-chairman of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and served from 2003-2005, overseeing the publishing of critical reports on health care information technology, cybersecurity, and computational sciences.
Throughout his career, Benioff has also been committed to using information technology to produce positive social change. In 2000, he launched the Salesforce.com Foundation--now a multimillion-dollar global organization--establishing the "1-1-1 model," whereby the company contributes one percent of profits, one percent of equity, and one percent of employee hours back to the communities it serves. Benioff authored The Business of Changing the World, in which 20 great leaders reveal how businesses can go beyond writing a check and leverage the full scope of their resources to make a difference. Compassionate Capitalism, also authored by Benioff, is the first-ever best-practices guide for corporate philanthropy that illustrates the success of the integrated model. Acknowledging his commitment to building partnerships between business and society to improve the state of the world, the members of the World Economic Forum named Benioff as one of its Young Global Leaders. In 2007 the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy presented Benioff with the coveted Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award and a year later welcomed Benioff to its distinguished board of directors. In 2008, for his thought and action leadership in corporate responsibility, CRO Magazine named Benioff CEO of the Year.
Prior to launching salesforce.com, Benioff, a 30-year veteran of the software industry, spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation from 1986-1999. In 1984, he worked as an assembly language programmer in Apple Computer's Macintosh Division. He founded entertainment software company Liberty Software in 1979 when he was 15 years old. Benioff received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in 1986.
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The problem with such playbooks is that they are often heavily influenced by survivorship bias. An entrepreneur succeeds at something, believes they know why they succeeded, and then use that insight to pass on advice to others. Unfortunately, much of what works for one company during a specific time period often does not work for most others. While there is a lot of content in this book, that is noteworthy at a high level, I would caution new entrepreneurs to seek a more modernized, realistic guide more fitting for 2021. One such book is “Lean Startup,” which is also written by the founder of a software company, but it is also much more open about dealing with major struggles.
As an entrepreneur myself in the startup space for the past 10 years, I can vouch for the fact that grit in the face of uncertainty and coping with financial struggle is by far the most difficult challenge that normal entrepreneurs face. This book will not help you in this area of your development. Salesforce was very fortunate with its early profitability, but most startups will need to spend a great deal of energy staying afloat, learning to survive before they can thrive.
We all know how the vision turned out. I am talking about the company founded by Marc Benioff. salesforce.com. But do we know what were driving factors and deciding events behind the success story of salesforce.com. This is what the author and founder of salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, tells in this book. With a dream to change the world and limited resources, salesforce.com innovated to become a market pioneer and also leader. Humble beginning with respect to resources(both manpower and capital), they set out for a David-versus-Goliath battle against Siebel. Instead of building ground up, they capitulated on the successful and time-proven technologies available. When it comes to attract attention to their product, they came out with out-of-box ideas. All these are interesting and also inspiring to read.
Starting from basics and turning successful was just one of the hurdles. But when salesforce.com became successful, the company as a whole has to adapt without changing their core values. Sometimes after defeating Goliath, David turns into Goliath. Instead of transforming into the undesirable giant, salesforce.com assimilates some of the good characteristics of Goliath as part of the adaptation process. When salesforce.com files for IPO, there are other challenges they face. They create a new market which did not exist before. Being the first means there are no written set of rules. This is the most interesting part of the book and makes it a must read for any budding entrepreneur. Disruptive technologies also has lot of challenges in addition to creating and capturing the market.
This books is recommended for two types of people. The first type are entrepreneurs(even if you are already one or you hope to be one in the future) and the second type are people associated with information industry. For the first type, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from Marc Benioff's experience while for the second type, it is a history lesson.
Not all entrepreneurs have Marc's chutzpah, but his 111 recommendations to entrepreneurs will all be extremely precious to anyone. Sure, you may not dispatch a commando unit on bicycle to circle the Los Angeles Convention Center at a Microsoft launch event and instead settle for less spectacular tactics, but the message is clear: if you are an underdog, you can't be too subtle either, and you have to find a way to force the big guys into adopting your message. Regardless of who they are. Frankly, when Tom Siebel from Siebel Systems started to talk about software-as-a-service after he acquired Upshot, most of us smiled at the recollection that only two years before, Siebel had been repeating that SaaS was the type of stuff for [...] kids. "Don't fear competition: welcome it and leverage it," Marc concludes - provided, though, that you keep it under tight control.
And you do so by maintaining an all-out high energy level. High energy (sometimes high voltage) is the tone of the book. It has a lot to do with Marc's personal style. But guess what? Low-energy doesn't work. So find what your own high-energy level can be, and make sure that your employees and your customers turn into fervent evangelists of the company anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, enjoy dozens of great anecdotes.
There is one section of the book I especially like: The Corporate Philanthropy Playbook. This section is a must read for entrepreneurs of for-profit companies, of course, but also for any executive director of any foundation who does not want a foundation to stagnate or simply "survive": "Innovative nonprofits have historically achieved true sustainability by embracing a revenue-generating business model."
Great book. Very well worded (no siliconite verbiage), co-authored with an excellent writer, Carlye Adler.





















