The rise of Marc Benioff, the bombastic Salesforce CEO and owner of Time Magazine, who has a $6.5 billion fortune and owns a 5-acre compound in Hawaii (CRM)

It seems like Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff never leaves the spotlight.

Between Salesforce's Dreamforce mega-conference in San Francisco, his philanthropy , and his willingness to take political stands, it seems like he's always in the spotlight even if, sometimes, it's because he's facing protests over Salesforce's work with the United States Customs and Border Patrol.

Salesforce itself is in a good position at the moment: Under Benioff's leadership, the company has swelled to a $121 billion market cap , even as it hit $10 billion in annual revenue for the 2018 fiscal year. It's gone from an upstart Oracle rival to a cloud computing behemoth in its own right.

Here's how Benioff, whose estimated net worth now stands at $6.5 billion , worked his way up to the national stage from humble origins.

Marc Russell Benioff, 54, was born in San Francisco on September 25th, 1964, the son of Joelle and Russell Benioff.

BusinessInsider USA Images

REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

Source: Bloomberg

Benioff is something of an anomaly among Silicon Valley CEOs he was actually born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He graduated from Burlingame High School in 1982.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Getty Images

Source: Bloomberg

His father, Russell Benioff, owned a local department store in San Francisco. "I learned my work ethic from him," Benioff once said.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Business Insider

Source: Inc.

Benioff got his first job at a jewelry store to save up for his first computer. He was eventually fired for cleaning the floors with the wrong soap.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Bethany Biron/Business Insider

Source: Entrepreneur

While in high school, Benioff sold his first app software called "How To Juggle" for the TRS-80 Model 1 computer to a computer magazine for $75.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Gabriel Rojas Hruska/flickr

Source: Entrepreneur

At age 15, Benioff founded Liberty Software, his one-man company making games for the Atari 800 computer. Titles included "King Arthurs Heir," "The Nightmare," "Escape from Vulcans Isle," and "Crypt of the Undead."

BusinessInsider USA Images

Matt Weinberger

Source: Entrepreneur

By age 16, Benioff was pulling in $1,500 a month enough that he was able to pay for his own tuition at the University of Southern California. He graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration in 1986.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Wikimedia Commons / Bobak Ha'Eri

Source: Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to billion-dollar company and revolutionized an industry , Salesforce

USC named Benioff an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2014. He now sits on the Universitys Board of Trustees.

BusinessInsider USA Images

REUTERS/Noah Berger

Source: Salesforce

While at USC, Benioff took a summer internship with Apple, working as a programmer in the Macintosh division under cofounder Steve Jobs. "That summer, I discovered it was possible for an entrepreneur to encourage revolutionary ideas," Benioff would later write.

BusinessInsider USA Images

AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

Source: Entrepreneur

Jobs became one of Benioffs mentors. There would be no Salesforce.com without Steve Jobs, Benioff said in 2013.

BusinessInsider USA Images

David Paul Morris/Getty Images

Source: Entrepreneur

Benioff planned to stay in programming for the rest of his career, but a USC professor suggested he might have a mind for business. And so, he took a customer support role at high-flying database company Oracle right out of college.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Oracle

Source: Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to billion-dollar company and revolutionized an industry

Young Benioff rapidly made it up the ranks. At age 23, Benioff was named Oracles "Rookie of the Year."

BusinessInsider USA Images

Flickr/ D. Miller

Source: Entrepreneur

At 25, Benioffs salary from Oracle made him a millionaire.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Reuters

Source: Vanity Fair

By age 26, he was named a vice president the youngest person to attain the role in the companys history.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Kimberley White/Getty Images

Source: Entrepreneur

While at Oracle, Benioff caught the attention of its billionaire playboy founder Larry Ellison. The two became very close, with Ellison mentoring the younger Benioff.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

Source: Inc.

Carlye Adler wrote in Fortune: They sailed to the Mediterranean on Ellisons yacht, visited Japan during cherry blossom season, spent Thanksgiving together, and even double-dated.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Ian Mainsbridge/AP Images

Source: Fortune

After 13 years with Oracle, Benioff started itching for something new. With Ellisons permission, Benioff took a sabbatical to travel the world. He spent part of that time studying meditation in Hawaii.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Ron Kosen / AP Images

Source: Entrepreneur

Benioff came up with the idea for Salesforce while swimming with dolphins. He soon started working on the company with a few other Oracle veterans.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Business Insider

Source: Entrepreneur

The big idea behind Salesforce was that where most companies including Oracle sold enterprise software that companies had to install on their own servers, they would let people access business apps from the web browser. For the late nineties, this was revolutionary.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Flickr/Jon Mountjoy

Source: Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to billion-dollar company and revolutionized an industry

At first, Ellison was supportive of Benioff. Ellison even gave Salesforce $2 million in funding from his own pocket to get it started, and sat on its board of directors.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Ezra Shaw/Getty

Source: Business Insider

But things turned sour between the two. Benioff found out that Oracle was working on a direct competitor to Salesforce. Benioff tried to force his mentor to quit the companys board. Instead, Ellison forced Benioff to fire him meaning Ellison kept his shares in Salesforce.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Getty

Source: Business Insider

It kicked off an epic rivalry for the ages, with the two taking shots at each other in the press. Note the Salesforce jet shooting down the Oracle biplane in this early Salesforce ad from 2001.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Eric Risberg/AP

Source: Business Insider

The dot-com bust of the early 2000s was a difficult time for Salesforce. "Suddenly everything around us was falling apart," Benioffs cofounder Parker Harris said.

BusinessInsider USA Images

AP Photo/Ben Margot

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Salesforce survived and kept growing, becoming one of the earliest and biggest companies in the modern cloud computing market.

BusinessInsider USA Images

REUTERS/Lily Jamali

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

And in June 2004, Salesforce held its IPO, raising $110 million at $11 per share.

BusinessInsider USA Images

AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

Source: Bloomberg

In addition to Ellison, real estate magnate Paul Pelosi the husband of Nancy Pelosi, the US Speaker for the House of Representatives was an early investor in Salesforce, making them both a lot of money.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla

Source: Inc.

Beyond just business, Benioff is a best-selling author of the business book "Behind the Cloud," a 2009 memoir on Salesforces early success.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Amazon

Source: Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to billion-dollar company and revolutionized an industry

Benioff is also a big believer in corporate philanthropy: Under his leadership, Salesforce invented the "1-1-1" model, where the company gives 1% of employee time as volunteer hours, 1% of its profits, and 1% of its resources to charitable causes.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Marc Benioff

Source: Salesforce

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee declared March 7 "Global 1/1/1 Day" in honor of Salesforces 15th birthday in 2014. Benioff keeps a copy of the proclamation in his office.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Justin Sullivan/Getty

Source: Forbes

Benioffs philanthropic efforts focus on childrens health, the environment, public education, and homelessness, according to his biography on Salesforces website.

BusinessInsider USA Images

AP

Source: Salesforce

"I hope that our city leaders will wake up & realize that Homelessness is our #1 crisis," Benioff tweeted in July 2019.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Kimberly White/Getty Images for Fortun

Source: Twitter

Benioff donated $250 million to the University of California, San Francisco in 2010 to found UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospitals.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Source: Salesforce

In 2016, Benioff and his wife, Lynne, launched the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara to study marine life.

BusinessInsider USA Images

US Navy

Source: Salesforce

"The business of business is improving the state of the world," Benioff said.

BusinessInsider USA Images

REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

Source: Salesforce

Benioff also serves on the World Economic Forums Board of Trustees.

BusinessInsider USA Images

REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Source: Salesforce

Benioff credits former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Hindu guru Mata Amritanandamayi who he met on a trip through India with encouraging him to put Salesforces resources to work helping others.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo

Source: Inc.

Benioffs belief in social justice also led him straight into the fight against proposed bills in Indiana and Georgia that would allow discrimination against gay people. He rallied other business leaders to the cause, with a positive result.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Robert Galbraith/Reuters

All the while, hes earned a reputation as one of Silicon Valleys most boisterous CEOs. He rarely appears in public without his custom cloud sneakers.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Getty Images/Justin Sullivan

Source: Business Insider

Benioff is also a Star Wars fan. He keeps an R2-D2 figurine on his desk.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

Source: Forbes

And while he may not be the globetrotting playboy that his mentor Ellison is, Benioff has lots of friends in the celebrity and political worlds.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Getty Images/Justin Sullivan

Benioff is married to philanthropist Lynne Benioff.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for J/P HRO

Source: Salesforce

The pair has two children.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Trisha Leeper / Stringer

Source: Salesforce

The Benioffs have several homes, including this 5-acre compound in Hawaii.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Bing Maps

Source: The Wall Street Journal

He also has fractional ownership of two Gulfstream IV jets.

BusinessInsider USA Images

General Dynamics

Source: The Wall Street Journal

All the while, Salesforce has grown to a $120 billion company, while its annual Dreamforce conference has ballooned to take over much of San Francisco every autumn.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Robert Galbraith/Reuters

Source: Business Insider 1 , 2

Dreamforce is also always a huge party, with acts like Metallica and Foo Fighters headlining its after parties.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Salesforce/Glassdoor

Source: Business Insider

Salesforce has gotten so big, that at one point, the company had to abandon plans to move into a new San Francisco campus, because it had already outgrown it. Instead, it opened Salesforce Tower, its new headquarters and the tallest building in San Francisco in 2018.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Cushman & Wakefield

Source: Business Insider

Oh, and yes, Marc Benioff is distantly related to David Benioff, of "Game of Thrones" fame.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Marc Benioff

Source: Business Insider

In August 2018, Salesforce named one-time Oracle exec Keith Block the companys co-CEO, putting him on an even keel with Benioff.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Salesforce

Source: Business Insider

In 2018, Marc and his wife Lynne Benioff announced that they intend to purchase Time Magazine for $190 million.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Time

Source: Business Insider

In 2018, Salesforce paid Benioff a $1.5 million salary, in addition to a $2.3 million bonus for the fiscal year 2019 and 195,872 stock options.

BusinessInsider USA Images

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Source: Business Insider

Benioff thinks he should pay more taxes on that money, however. "Well get an economy that works for everyone when 1) create educational system that works for everyone & 2) Affordable Higher education & 3) strengthen our local K-12 public schools 4) We must focus online reskilling that brings everyone along & 5) higher ind & Crp taxes to pay for it," Benioff tweeted in June 2019.

BusinessInsider USA Images

AP Photo/Eric Risberg

Source: Business Insider

The rise of Marc Benioff, the bombastic Salesforce CEO and owner of Time Magazine, who has a $6.5 billion fortune and owns a 5-acre compound in Hawaii (CRM)

Marc Russell Benioff, 54, was born in San Francisco on September 25th, 1964, the son of Joelle and Russell Benioff.

Benioff is something of an anomaly among Silicon Valley CEOs he was actually born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He graduated from Burlingame High School in 1982.

His father, Russell Benioff, owned a local department store in San Francisco. "I learned my work ethic from him," Benioff once said.

Benioff got his first job at a jewelry store to save up for his first computer. He was eventually fired for cleaning the floors with the wrong soap.

While in high school, Benioff sold his first app software called "How To Juggle" for the TRS-80 Model 1 computer to a computer magazine for $75.

At age 15, Benioff founded Liberty Software, his one-man company making games for the Atari 800 computer. Titles included "King Arthurs Heir," "The Nightmare," "Escape from Vulcans Isle," and "Crypt of the Undead."

By age 16, Benioff was pulling in $1,500 a month enough that he was able to pay for his own tuition at the University of Southern California. He graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration in 1986.

USC named Benioff an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2014. He now sits on the Universitys Board of Trustees.

While at USC, Benioff took a summer internship with Apple, working as a programmer in the Macintosh division under cofounder Steve Jobs. "That summer, I discovered it was possible for an entrepreneur to encourage revolutionary ideas," Benioff would later write.

Jobs became one of Benioffs mentors. There would be no Salesforce.com without Steve Jobs, Benioff said in 2013.

Benioff planned to stay in programming for the rest of his career, but a USC professor suggested he might have a mind for business. And so, he took a customer support role at high-flying database company Oracle right out of college.

Young Benioff rapidly made it up the ranks. At age 23, Benioff was named Oracles "Rookie of the Year."

At 25, Benioffs salary from Oracle made him a millionaire.

By age 26, he was named a vice president the youngest person to attain the role in the companys history.

While at Oracle, Benioff caught the attention of its billionaire playboy founder Larry Ellison. The two became very close, with Ellison mentoring the younger Benioff.

Carlye Adler wrote in Fortune: They sailed to the Mediterranean on Ellisons yacht, visited Japan during cherry blossom season, spent Thanksgiving together, and even double-dated.

After 13 years with Oracle, Benioff started itching for something new. With Ellisons permission, Benioff took a sabbatical to travel the world. He spent part of that time studying meditation in Hawaii.

Benioff came up with the idea for Salesforce while swimming with dolphins. He soon started working on the company with a few other Oracle veterans.

The big idea behind Salesforce was that where most companies including Oracle sold enterprise software that companies had to install on their own servers, they would let people access business apps from the web browser. For the late nineties, this was revolutionary.

At first, Ellison was supportive of Benioff. Ellison even gave Salesforce $2 million in funding from his own pocket to get it started, and sat on its board of directors.

But things turned sour between the two. Benioff found out that Oracle was working on a direct competitor to Salesforce. Benioff tried to force his mentor to quit the companys board. Instead, Ellison forced Benioff to fire him meaning Ellison kept his shares in Salesforce.

It kicked off an epic rivalry for the ages, with the two taking shots at each other in the press. Note the Salesforce jet shooting down the Oracle biplane in this early Salesforce ad from 2001.

The dot-com bust of the early 2000s was a difficult time for Salesforce. "Suddenly everything around us was falling apart," Benioffs cofounder Parker Harris said.

Salesforce survived and kept growing, becoming one of the earliest and biggest companies in the modern cloud computing market.

And in June 2004, Salesforce held its IPO, raising $110 million at $11 per share.

In addition to Ellison, real estate magnate Paul Pelosi the husband of Nancy Pelosi, the US Speaker for the House of Representatives was an early investor in Salesforce, making them both a lot of money.

Beyond just business, Benioff is a best-selling author of the business book "Behind the Cloud," a 2009 memoir on Salesforces early success.

Benioff is also a big believer in corporate philanthropy: Under his leadership, Salesforce invented the "1-1-1" model, where the company gives 1% of employee time as volunteer hours, 1% of its profits, and 1% of its resources to charitable causes.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee declared March 7 "Global 1/1/1 Day" in honor of Salesforces 15th birthday in 2014. Benioff keeps a copy of the proclamation in his office.

Benioffs philanthropic efforts focus on childrens health, the environment, public education, and homelessness, according to his biography on Salesforces website.

"I hope that our city leaders will wake up & realize that Homelessness is our #1 crisis," Benioff tweeted in July 2019.

Benioff donated $250 million to the University of California, San Francisco in 2010 to found UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospitals.

In 2016, Benioff and his wife, Lynne, launched the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara to study marine life.

"The business of business is improving the state of the world," Benioff said.

Benioff also serves on the World Economic Forums Board of Trustees.

Benioff credits former Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Hindu guru Mata Amritanandamayi who he met on a trip through India with encouraging him to put Salesforces resources to work helping others.

Benioffs belief in social justice also led him straight into the fight against proposed bills in Indiana and Georgia that would allow discrimination against gay people. He rallied other business leaders to the cause, with a positive result.

All the while, hes earned a reputation as one of Silicon Valleys most boisterous CEOs. He rarely appears in public without his custom cloud sneakers.

Benioff is also a Star Wars fan. He keeps an R2-D2 figurine on his desk.

And while he may not be the globetrotting playboy that his mentor Ellison is, Benioff has lots of friends in the celebrity and political worlds.

Benioff is married to philanthropist Lynne Benioff.

The pair has two children.

The Benioffs have several homes, including this 5-acre compound in Hawaii.

He also has fractional ownership of two Gulfstream IV jets.

All the while, Salesforce has grown to a $120 billion company, while its annual Dreamforce conference has ballooned to take over much of San Francisco every autumn.

Dreamforce is also always a huge party, with acts like Metallica and Foo Fighters headlining its after parties.

Salesforce has gotten so big, that at one point, the company had to abandon plans to move into a new San Francisco campus, because it had already outgrown it. Instead, it opened Salesforce Tower, its new headquarters and the tallest building in San Francisco in 2018.

Oh, and yes, Marc Benioff is distantly related to David Benioff, of "Game of Thrones" fame.

In August 2018, Salesforce named one-time Oracle exec Keith Block the companys co-CEO, putting him on an even keel with Benioff.

In 2018, Marc and his wife Lynne Benioff announced that they intend to purchase Time Magazine for $190 million.

In 2018, Salesforce paid Benioff a $1.5 million salary, in addition to a $2.3 million bonus for the fiscal year 2019 and 195,872 stock options.

FOLLOW BUSINESS INSIDER AFRICA

Recommended articles

Top 10 African countries with the most centi-millionaires in 2024

7 most influential Africans in the world 2024 -TIME

5 African countries with the least expensive freelancers

African billionaires are fleeing their home continent amidst economic downturn

Fear of a new epidemic pushes President Putin to collaborate with Africa

Nigerian chess master to begin 58-hour Guinness World Record attempt at Times Square today

5 African countries with the highest number of people not connected to the internet

10 African countries with the highest price changes in household commodities

Nigeria hits a puzzling roadblock on its path to an economic recovery