In my book The Profit Motive, I talked about Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff:
A 2017 Slate essay claimed that “Fortune 500 companies today are socially liberal, especially on areas surrounding diversity, gay rights, and immigration; they are unabashedly in favor of free trade and globalization, express concern about climate change, and embrace renewable energy.” Robert Miller similarly concludes “that, at the current time, a sizeable majority of individuals in the socio-economic class from which public company directors, partners at elite law firms, senior officers at institutional investors and proxy advisory firms, politicians, and academics are drawn overwhelming favors one particular political agenda—i.e., the largely progressive political agenda that emphasizes issues such as climate change, environmental concerns, racial and gender diversity, systematic racism, and so on.” Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, to cite but a single prominent example, energetically promotes social responsibility and woke activism. ...
Even true social justice warrior CEOs like Marc Benioff abandon their stakeholder capitalism commitments when push comes to shove. ... To cite but a single high profile example, the Wall Street Journal reported on August 29, 2020, while the pandemic was still raging, that one day after “Salesforce.com Inc. posted record quarterly sales, the business-software company notified its 54,000-person workforce that 1,000 would lose their jobs later this year.” As John Stoll opined in the Journal, Salesforce CEO and Business Roundtable 2019 statement signatory Marc “Benioff called the company’s strong earnings a victory for stakeholder capitalism.” Benioff claimed to have done “a great job” for both shareholders and stakeholders. One might reasonable ask, however, as Stoll did, “how does the billionaire founder justify this claim when shortly after that interview Salesforce notified staff of plans for around 1,000 layoffs? This despite Mr. Benioff’s no-layoff pledge in March on Twitter and the challenge to other CEOs to follow his lead.” One might add to that inquiry a question about how Benioff would justify telling Salesforce employees that in a few months down the road 2% of them would be fired, leaving them to twist slowly in the wind for months while worrying whether they would be among those who get fired.
Benioff's morph from social justice warrior to shareholder capitalist continues according to today's WSJ:
Through the sky’s-the-limit boom years, Marc Benioff, the co-founder and chief executive of Salesforce Inc., told employees they were bound together like family. In today’s leaner times, he is laying off thousands of them.
Why? Because, as Benioff now acknowledges, "ultimately, the success of the business has to be paramount.”
“Layoffs are always hard,” Mr. Benioff said, but the Salesforce culture of family bonds only goes as far as business allows. “You can continue to keep a company going with excess employees, but it’s not healthy for the company,” he said.
Salesforce has struggled recently and its executives admitted--until they got scared off by their employees--that the firm's embrace of corporate social responsibility was part of the problem:
Salesforce executives ... said “wellness culture overpowered high performance culture during the pandemic” to explain the company’s recent headwinds. After employees complained on Slack—“Most disturbing and tone deaf is this sad excuse,” one post said—the line was changed.
It seems like Benioff is not alone:
Silicon Valley companies for years sold workers on the idea that they operate as communities with shared values and where people come first. Highflying firms could easily afford such amenities as on-site dry cleaners, workout classes and free food.
Management is now cracking down.
As I predicted.
