Marc Benioff, co-chief executive officer of Salesforce.com Inc., during a panel session on the second day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on May 24, 2022.
Jason Alden Bloomberg Getty Images
Marc Benioff, Salesforce’s co-founder and soon to be the sole CEO, indicated at an all-hands meeting on Thursday that more downsizing could come, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The virtual meeting came a day after Salesforce announced it was cutting 10% of its jobs, with more than 7,000 positions. An hour later, Amazon said it will reduce the headcount by 18,000. Tech companies are shrinking their workforce for the first time in years as they consider slowing growth, rising interest rates and a potential recession.
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Benioff expressed concern about productivity on the part of the sales organization. About half of Salesforce’s account executives bring in more than 95% of deals, they told employees, according to two people involved in the video. The meeting had been scheduled for an hour but went on for more than two hours, another person said.
One attendee told CNBC that Benioff said the lack of productivity was mainly from new account executives.
Fortune was informed earlier in the meeting.
During the pandemic and in previous years, Salesforce grew rapidly as cloud adoption increased. The company has fueled its growth in part through large acquisitions such as Slack and Tableau.
Now Salesforce is pulling back as revenue growth slows and as it faces activist investors concerned about the impact of its operations. In November, co-CEO Bret Taylor, seen as Benioff’s heir apparent, announced his surprise resignation after a year of sharing the top job. He is scheduled to leave at the end of January.
Last month, Benioff sent out a Slack message to all employees asking for ways to make new hires more productive. During Thursday’s meeting, Benioff expressed his frustration about the media reports that have surfaced about his comments.
“One of our core values is trust,” Benioff said, according to one attendee.
The person said it took Benioff a long time to come up with answers about Salesforce’s future.
Salesforce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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