Marc Benioff: “I don’t work well in an office”

https://fortune.com/2023/09/15/marc-benioff-salesforce-says-hes-remote-worker-office-return/

by wazokazi • 3 years ago

128 117 3 years ago

wazokazi• 3 years ago

Remote is ok if your personality doesn't mesh with an office. And you are the CEO. This should do wonders for feeling of "ohana" at salesforce.

aurareturn4• 3 years ago

A little misleading since the CEO is always on the road meeting customers - while the brand of WFH HN advocates is never having to leave the house.

fakedang• 3 years ago

Business development what?

Salesforce is a publicly traded billion dollar company, not an early stage startup.

Gareth321• 3 years ago

While true, it does highlight the fact that white collar jobs are diverse, and not all of them require one to be in the office. In fact, most of probably do not.

rgrieselhuber2• 3 years ago

I think more remote is inevitable. Think of how much time is stolen from you in a daily commute. Remote is better for the environment too.

FirmwareBurner2• 3 years ago

It is, but companies are too stubborn.

Gigachad5• 3 years ago

Think of how much time is stolen from you in a daily commute

Not that much. And I just read hacker news while sitting on the train which I was going to do if sitting at home anyway.

rjh295• 3 years ago

Idk I loved my hour of walking every day. My mental health tanked when I became full remote.

flakeoil4• 3 years ago

Stolen? You were paid for and took the job you knew was a certain distance and commute away from your home.

I believe employees have to start to get used to being paid less when working remote. People who work in an office or factory have to be rewarded for this commute. Some jobs cannot be made remote.

I assume a lot of people working remote also like the fact that they can do the laundry, clean the house, do some errands etc during the working day. This flexibility should also allow the salary for remote workers to be lower than for people working in an office.

justinclift• 3 years ago

https://archive.li/43jZA

DoreenMichele2• 3 years ago

Eh, sounds like the title is possibly either poor communication or a comment cherry-picked for the purpose of being provocative.

He seems to have some nuance and flexibility on the issue that some people lack.

15457345234• 3 years ago

SOMEONE'S BEING PROVOCATIVE ON THE INTERNET IN 2023

TELL ME MORE

WE MUST STUDY THIS NEW PHENOMENON CLOSELY

tyingq• 3 years ago

It seems fair to use some amount of propaganda to push the "I want to work from home" agenda, since companies pushing "return to work" are also playing that same game.

I agree that he seems to have nuance on the topic, but the playing field seems to have already abandoned fair play.

DoreenMichele2• 3 years ago

It may be fair to do so but not necessarily effective. People tend to start tuning out what they see as hyperbole.

The companies may seem to get away with it, but not because they use a particular language tactic. They have the power to back up their "opinion" by firing people. People who want to keep their job may stop arguing, not because they buy the BS framing but because they have bills to pay.

The folks who hope to take a stand in the interest of worker's rights would be better served by trying hard to stick to the facts, promote nuanced discussions and not let the companies drag them into this kind of pissing contest.

Mandatum• 3 years ago

Stewart Butterfield must be having a very heavy celebratory drink this evening, likely Suntory.

KptMarchewa• 3 years ago

Maybe he'll succeed with finally launching the MMO game at his third company.

havkom• 3 years ago

I am now back to a developer role, rather than being a manager (by my own choosing). I am much more productive (and actually communicate more with my colleagues (!)) when I work from home. Luckily my terms allow me to choose where I work from when by my-self.

mpeg4• 3 years ago

Off topic, but I’ve been thinking about doing the same, I’ve seen other people at my level take pay cuts of only 10%~ going from management to IC while erasing meetings from their calendars

I’m kinda jealous, the only thing that is keeping me in management roles is the fantasy that the perfect company will come along with the right product, right growth stage but that is looking unlikely in this economy.

prmoustache• 3 years ago

Recently someone posted an office etiquette post on our intranet, citing all you should do or avoid so that your coworkers can work and focus comfortably.

The person posting it probably though it was helpful, but it was just showing how an hell of a place offices have become since they went the open space route.

sshine• 3 years ago

I’d like a good write-up. My current boss has this tendency to interrupt anyone when he is not doing something, let daily stand-ups go into 30-40 minutes, and ask everyone to gather for spontaneous group meetings regardless of their ability to contribute or how important their current task is. I’m not very good at phrasing this criticism positively, and while I have addressed some of them, little has happened. I try to educate myself to become a better leader, and I only want to help him do the same.

ethanbond• 3 years ago

http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Try this?^

HenryBemis• 3 years ago

Could you please give us some of the examples? (4-5 and do change the wording to protect yourself)

tiffanyh2• 3 years ago

Just remember ... the CEO role of a major company is radically different than any other job.

What Marc calls "work", you and I can't relate too.

He's spending a disporportionate amount of time talking to investors, talking to customers, talking to his Board.

I wouldn't be surprised if he's traveling 100 business days a year as a result.

Which if you're not at home because you're traveling for work, or if you are at home but just talking phone calls - that's a very different type of "working remote".

===

EDIT: why the downvotes? Please comment if you disagree with something I said so that we can have a health discourse.

mpeg4• 3 years ago

Yes, when he says he doesn’t work well in an office people here are reading he wants to work from home.

In reality, he’s probably thinking he’d rather be on the road than stay in his SV ivory tower.

Two stories about Benioff you might find interesting; when we were selling our startup there were two bidders on the table, Google and Salesforce.

Google sent out minions, Larry and Sergey were only reachable via email/call.

Benioff flew over to wine and dine our founders, they found common ground and he charmed them with his vision of where he saw our product going. He won with a lower bid than Google.

After the acquisition closed, he flew over to London too to visit my business unit, we met with him in the office and the senior management team were again taken out for some 1:1 time with him over dinner. Any skepticism they might have had was washed away after that evening, they all came back “brainwashed” into the Salesforce way — he even gifted us one of the domain names from his personal collection to use for our product (my email was marcos@social.com for a while, which I did find really cool)

The second story, he once logged into an all hands call using a shitty satellite connection from his yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean. He could have delegated while he was on holiday, but I don’t think Benioff ever switches off, hence why working from anywhere is his default mode of operation.

tiffanyh2• 3 years ago

Thanks for sharing that story, really enjoyed reading it.

> "He won with a lower bid than Google."

Off topic: why would a company every sell to a lower bidder? If you have any investors in the company (not bootstrapped), don't you have a fiduciary responsibility to always sell to the highest bidder.

somsak22• 3 years ago

Salesforce is 1/10 the size of Google. SF should have much more time for an aquisition of the same size.

ltr_• 3 years ago

in my experience all middle management people that wants everyone to go back to the offices are useless pieces of crap.

adverbly• 3 years ago

This is quite an editorialized title... it makes the CEO look like they have an extreme viewpoint, but in reality it sounded like the CEO had a pretty based and nuanced take: never enforce remote, and recognize that different kinds of work require more in office than others.

The only thing that I disagreed with was the "we don't want to lose our stars" mentality. Your mentality should not be about pushing people as far as you can until you have retention problems. Rather, it should be to inform people and provide them with opportunities to be productive in whatever way they prefer, and cut them lose if their output is not sufficient. Make decisions by outputs - not inputs.

somsak22• 3 years ago

I guess "drops a bomb" is a little over the top but the rest of the title are just facts. Salesforce really did ask people to come back, and he did indeed say he doesn't work well in an office.

nunez• 3 years ago

If you have a job where you're constantly travelling (for sales calls, customer meetings, relationship building, etc.), then, yeah, having to report to an office when you're back at home base doesn't make any sense.

I have a job like this (presales; previously consulting). I'm usually on the road/in the air every week and, COVID aside, have been for the last seven years. An office hasn't made sense for me in a long time.

However, the co-CEO saying this just after pushing an RTO mandate feels really out of place. Many will definitely not get the nuance.

aaomidi• 3 years ago

The nuance?

There’s no nuance here. There is not a single way in the universe that __everyone else__ needs to be in office but his job is so special that he has to WFH.

strip_e• 3 years ago

Some in my company argue that remote is the way to go but when it comes to traveling to another office on another continent, it suddenly becomes so important to meet colleagues in person and they stay here for weeks or months, all while making weekend hops to vacation destinations.

Marc Benioff: “I don’t work well in an office”

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