💃 Salesforce's 2023 Letter to the Stakeholders🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! Our last current events article was not the sunshine ☀️ and rainbows 🌈 we strive for here at the 💃 ChaCha🕺.

Today's brings all the unicorns 🦄 and glitter ✨ you can handle!

And it's not just lip service. Salesforce, led by Marc Benioff, is dedicated to adding value outside of shareholder gains (often to the dismay of shareholders...)

Marc just published the 2023 Letter to Stakeholders and it is typical Marc fare - bold, do-good, and progressive. Let's craft his message into compelling dinner table discussion!

Agenda for today includes

• Marc Doing Marc Things 😎

• Daily Principle

• All the Memes

Marc Doing Marc Things

Let's breakdown the 2023 Stakeholder Letter into 3 sections

1. The BIG Numbers

2. The Planet

3. Social Equality

But first, SalesforceChaCha gonna do SalesforceChaCha things - we are gonna kick it off with the takeaway!

Takeaway

Salesforce is a $200 billion public company, beholden to their stakeholders. Growth, revenue and profits are the name of the game. Salesforce has been winning this game for awhile.

Marc's letter to stakeholders is atypical for a company of this size. It is bold, do-good, and progressive....and noticeably missing traditional "Letter to Shareholder" characteristics like revenue growth initiatives, go-to-market strategies, and 10,000ft views of economic state-of-the-things.

Some shareholders would prefer the traditional. They have invested their hard earned money and would appreciate insight into how that money is being used to make more money. The other side appreciates their investment is doing well financially, and doing good socially.

That Salesforce is a money-making-machine is the buffer that gives Marc the freedom to write the letters how he sees fit. Make no mistake, if Salesforce was riding the line of profitability, there would be a chorus of investors demanding changes.

Love it ❤️ or hate it ☠️ , when you ride with Marc Benioff, you will not be going on a traditional ride.

1) The BIG Numbers 💥 

Marc has been consistent in his desire to give back. Consistency, over time, compounds huge-ly. Here is how huge - over 24yrs, Salesforce has-

• Granted $614 million to education and non-profit organizations 👏 

• Salesforce employees have volunteered 7.8 million hours 👏 

• 50,000 schools and non-profit organizations use free or discounted Salesforce products (NPSP and Education Cloud, as examples) 👏 

All of this, while being a growing 📈 AND profitable 💰 company. Impressive! 👏 👏 👏 

2) The Planet 🌎

Last year, Marc added Sustainability as a company core-value. Along with investments in contributing and promoting sustainabiltiy, Salesforce, as a product company, developed Net Zero Cloud, in true Salesforce-fashion

Marc has a personal goal of planting 1 trillion trees 🌲, by 2030, for the betterment of the planet. He committed Salesforce to plant 100 million trees, and they've already hit 45 million in just a couple years.

Salesforce has multiple other Earth-friendly initiatives and contributions -

• Funds and Policy in support of Sustainability

• Uplink - A platform for "ecopreneurs" to connect with their peers, investors, corporations, and other organizations who share a desire to make positive impacts on people and the planet

• Continued investment out of Salesforce's $100 million Ecosystem Restoration and Climate Justice Fund.

3) Social Equality

Salesforce has never been shy about being on the vanguard of social issues. This year, they added a new representation goal of employing 40% woman identifying and nonbinary employees globally by the end of 2026.

They also completed, and exceeded, their goal of investing $100 million in black-owned businesses.

Since 2020, Salesforce has donated $128 million dollars, and Salesforce employees have contributed 610,000 volunteer hours to support racial equality and justice.

Daily Principle

Excellent advice. Also an attack on the useless historical sports stats we refuse to forget 🙂.

and now....Your Daily Memes