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Marc Benioff | All-In Summit 2024

September 15, 2024 / 40:41

This episode features Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, discussing technology's impact on society, philanthropy, and the future of AI in enterprise software.

Mark shares his commitment to philanthropy, emphasizing the importance of integrating values like generosity into company culture. He highlights his support for UCSF and the groundbreaking work of researcher Shinya Yamanaka, who developed methods for regenerative medicine.

The conversation shifts to Salesforce's growth and its innovative cloud solutions, including the introduction of AI-driven tools like Agent Force, which aims to enhance customer service and operational efficiency.

Mark reflects on the importance of trust and accuracy in AI applications, particularly in healthcare, and discusses the potential of AI to transform enterprise software.

He concludes by stressing the need for core values to guide technological advancements, reinforcing his belief in the positive role of business in driving societal change.

TL;DR

Mark Benioff discusses philanthropy, AI innovation, and the future of enterprise software at Salesforce.

Video

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it is the center of the technology world
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right now it's not what Mark did it's
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when he did
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it and the king of the cloud is
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Salesforce please welcome Mark
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Ben one of the things that really
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matters me is having a positive Global
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impact technology is not good or bad
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it's what you do with it that matters in
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your quest to change the world don't
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forget to do something for other people
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and that was a moment in time when I
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said wow when I start a company I'm
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going to make sure that philanthropy and
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giving and generosity and these values
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are in the culture of the company from
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day
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one you want to stay
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here are you want the couch you want to
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sit on the couch where you want to sit
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I'll give you the couch I'll sit
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here you deser you deserve the couch you
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deserve it the big couch
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okay it's little little too close it's
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nice to see you also I I warned you that
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I I'm not the the interviewer in the
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group you but this is you chose me so
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I'm
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honored but you're the nice one oh okay
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thank
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you well it is am I right is he the nice
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one and you're the one that all the
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women really like like I'll talk to my
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friends at dinner there like you know
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sax what's he like he's amazing let's
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just say we're honored to have Mark
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Benny off here and uh truly who's a
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Visionary in the world of software and I
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would say you know there's probably a
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lot of and I thank my mother for writing
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that video by the way is well Mom thank
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you for writing that for me great you
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know in the in the world of business
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offer in particular we don't have that
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many people who you can describe as
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Visionaries but you consistently have
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been one you really it's true
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you got the I think the whole we're
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sitting now on the edge of the couch
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okay here we go maybe we'll end up on
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the floor I don't know what's going to
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happen I'm trying to keep it engag
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around a lot oh okay all
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right is this how it's going to be the
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whole
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time way worse way worse okay all right
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let me finish the this little intro here
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um I forgot where I was so can I just
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before we start you know
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listen so I want to just do something I
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would not normally do and this is like
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going to be a little bit of a thing but
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I just have to do a little Riff on this
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but we just heard some an extraordinary
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presentation on an extraordinary man and
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there's somebody who's amazing that most
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people don't get to hear of and we just
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heard his name quite a few times his
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name is shin yamanaka Yaman nakasan he
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is um based in Kyoto Japan but he works
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halime at UCSF
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and it's amazing what his vision for the
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world is that he thinks basically that
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we're salamanders and we're going to be
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able to regenerate ourselves and that's
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amazing and so I've been friends with
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him maybe for a decade but I fund his
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research and so a lot of these things to
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watch him have these breakthroughs and
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you heard about the yamanaka factors the
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yamanaka factors which are basically
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this idea that
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yamanaka had this breakthrough in Kyoto
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you know basically hanging out there in
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his lab eating the sushi the whole thing
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and
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then boom and he goes if I take these
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four things I can take an ordinary skin
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cell just any little skin cell and turn
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it into a stem cell which is like the
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the heart of human existence and he did
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it and he was able to repeat it and
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repeat it and repeat it and he won the
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Nobel Prize for it pretty cool and then
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he and I'm going to get the
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pronunciation of this wrong but but he
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then was able to take that stem cell put
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it into your eye if you have tacular
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generation and
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boom healed the eye because the eye
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regenerated then he worked with a buddy
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of his in the lab next door and he took
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the same thing took the stem cells and
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he turned it into on a cookie
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sheet and it looked like it was like a
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plastic thing on the cookie sheet it was
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really cool and then he's like took out
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somebody's cornea that was all screwed
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up cut the material out of the cookie
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sheet popped it in the eye and the guy
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could see it was like amazing then he's
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like listen this is
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amazing I bet I can grow a
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brain so he took the step cells and he
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started growing brains called
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organoids and he's like got a cookie
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sheet of brains and I'm like really he's
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like this is amazing look at all the
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brain brains and I's like and then I
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went and saw him and had lunch with him
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and like I'm like what's happening with
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the brains he's like I stopped the
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brains I'm like why did you stop the
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brains I think they can feel the pain
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I'm like oh
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scary then he's like then I said to him
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now what are you doing oh I'm growing
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intestines I'm like whoa intestin is
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that good he's like huge idea I can now
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grow intestines on the cookie sheet and
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taking the you know stem cells I've got
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a whole intestine here and then like he
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can do like turn it into a lab for all
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the horrible things that people get in
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their gut and all these diseases that
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have never been cured but now you have a
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real simulated environment this is an
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incredible person anyway where do you
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want to go with that I'm going I'm going
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with this you got to stay with me trying
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to help bring the energy up in here okay
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listen follow just hold on hold on hold
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on hold on hold wait wait wait this is
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going to get good okay so then I'm like
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you heard the story like at the end they
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said listen how do I get these
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regenerative factors going inside myself
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so UCSF just published research based on
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funding grant that I and others have
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given them and they had a breakthrough
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that the regenerative Factor inside your
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own blood is called
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pf4 and the way you get pf4 and I'm not
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going to get this exactly right because
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you know I'm in software I'm not a
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doctor so just follow with me I thought
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that's what we're going to talk about
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today that I know but I got to tell you
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this cuz I'm got so jacked watching that
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one is it was either that or those crazy
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shots you have backstage I don't know
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okay number one is P4 you get more
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regenerative factors in your body like
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what you know calorie restriction and if
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you know David and I that does not sound
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very
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good two working out with weights also
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not exactly our top thing
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parabiosis do you know what that is so
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parabiosis kind of came out of research
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published a decade ago in New York Times
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and others which is came from salval
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another person I work with at UCSF where
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they took the blood of a young Mouse and
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put it into an old mouse and then the
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old mouse got young again and that was
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moving the pf4 into that old mouse so
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that's and the fourth thing is cloth
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theapy which is a genetic therapy that I
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don't really understand and these four
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things can start to generate more of
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these things inside your body so then
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I'm like getting excited I'm like God I
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have these problems maybe I can
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regenerate different parts of myself
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whatever and so I'm talking to my doctor
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at UCSF because I'm going through my own
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serious problem where I'm like my left
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leg is like a half an inch shorter than
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my right leg and I'm running on the
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treadmill and I'm always ripping my
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achilles ripping ripping and all of a
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sudden my achilles looks like it has a
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dut and in fact I went to UCSF and
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there's like an MRI you know well how
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many of you have had an MRI raise your
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hand so you know what as horrible it is
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anyway you get in this big machine
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they're looking at my Killers they're
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come out they're all like this oh sorry
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about this really horrible and I'm like
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so I kind of took this thought and I'm
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like talking to my doctor I'm like why
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can't we like do use some of this figure
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out what we can do so he's like all
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right I'm come back on Wednesday so I
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come back on Wednesday at 5: CL you know
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I'm in Mission Bay at UCSF and I'm like
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hey Anthony where is everybody we're
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going to talk about it come into my lab
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so I come into the lab they've got like
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a centrifuge there all this stuff going
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on I'm like well this is interesting
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it's like did you work out today yes I'm
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work out do you're following the P4 I'm
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doing it okay this is what we're going
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to do it's going to be very
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straightforward because we have two we
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have two things we can do with you mark
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number one we can just take your kill
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and we bring you into surgery right now
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we'll just shave off half your Achilles
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and then put you in a boot and see where
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you are in 6 months I go doesn't sound
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great second idea what we're going to do
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is we're going
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to we're going to take a scalpel B right
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here we're going to cut into your
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Achilles like 20 times and into your
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ankle I'm going to take your butt I'm
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going to spin it I'm going to try to
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find the pf4 in your plasma I'm going to
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inject it into your Achilles and into
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your plasma slice into it with my
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scalpel I go sounds great goes one
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problem I go with that we don't use
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anesthesia to do that why because it
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destabilizes the PRP and the plasma and
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all the pf4 and all that I'm like let's
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rock let's rock so he did the whole
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thing and then boom like an I'm like a
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salamander they grew me a new Achilles
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right in place so that thing that you
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just heard that is real
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and you know it's pretty awesome what
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can what and uh it's yeah I have a
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question for you um so if he can sell
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three billion into his startup I should
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probably start I'm ready to go got the
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pitch did do you ever consider that you
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missed your calling as a scientific
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researcher definitely not definitely not
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you're happy with the choices you made
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well no that's an incredible story so
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you are one of the first to actually try
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using the yamanaka factors on yourself I
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wouldn't think I'm one of the first but
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I think that it's very real and it's
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going to going to have a huge impact on
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our whole on our lives and I think that
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we should be supporting these medical
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researchers I think it's it's one of the
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reasons that I've you know put almost a
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billion dollars into UCSF of
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philanthropy because I believe in these
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people who have absolutely yeah they've
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dedicated their lives you know to basic
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science and doing and meeting them they
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so inspiring to me and like I just had
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lunch with yamanaka and salval and
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Anthony Luke and another incredible
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researcher Mark moiser at my house and
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like we're talking about the
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intersection between oncology and
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regenerate medicine which is like two
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completely different worlds that don't
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talk to each other and it's what
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inspires me that you know we can you
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know work with others to kind of get
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give them the entrepreneurial push to go
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do something incredible and these people
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are just awesome each one is amazing
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that is that is incredible so let's
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shift gears and talk about something
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else nice coincidence with the yeah no
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it's incredible it's a great story I
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know you you're very philanthropic and
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do a lot with UCSF so uh kudos to you
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for encouraging that type of research uh
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let's shift to to another thing that's
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having a huge impact in our lives which
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is the cloud and software where you were
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a Pioneer you started Salesforce back in
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1999 25 years ago 25 years ago and how
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long have you been a public company for
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at this point
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24 to 20 years 20 years and one of the
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things I noticed count 80 earnings calls
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yeah well actually speaking of earnings
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let's here let's see if we have this
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slide do we have earnings well first oh
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yeah oh boy what's what slide is that
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this is your stock chart over 25 I think
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25 years 20 years yeah you're almostly
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your all I guess there's no linear
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success exactly right yeah really good
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point yeah we had a keep basically had a
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bubble we had a bubble inate 21 we had a
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huge correction in 22 there was I need
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to make a note of that we should talk
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about that but you're your basic back to
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where you were this is one of your
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tweets actually this is one of the
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things I appreciate about the way you do
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earnings calls is you just put out this
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really simple tweet and it just and it
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shows a
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progression and if you know if you like
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looking at numbers the way I do and
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seeing patterns in them one of the
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things I noticed a while ago was that if
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you start at the bottom and work your
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way to the top that Salesforce is
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growing by about 20% a year and if you
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look at it over 3 years that's roughly a
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dou
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so every 3 years Salesforce was doubling
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and that means that over a decade it's
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growing 10x and so every decade is
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basically an exponential if you can
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stick with it long enough that was one
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of the patterns I noticed with sales
00:13:13
look I I think that you know that the
00:13:15
growth obviously is incredible to 38
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billion and obviously the cash flow is
00:13:20
incredible you know it's more than C
00:13:22
Coca-Cola did I think last quarter and
00:13:24
the margin is incredible but let me just
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say probably the best decision we made
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in not on the slide which is the day we
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started the
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company um we put 1% of our Equity 1% of
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our profit 1% of our product 1% of all
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of our employees time into a 50613
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foundation now at the time it was very
00:13:46
easy because we had no employees we had
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no equity we had no profit we had no so
00:13:51
wasn't very complicated but that idea
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though really kind of created the
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foundation of the company because we're
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able to do now and I think you know the
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numbers right where you know almost 10
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million hours of volunteerism we've been
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able to give away almost a billion in
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Grants we run almost 100,000 nonprofits
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and NOS for free on our service and I
00:14:12
think it really set the stage that
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business could be the greatest platform
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for change when it came for Salesforce
00:14:17
it un it gave it that philanthropic
00:14:19
platform so is there two billion in
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equity sitting in that 501c3 at this
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point a lot well there's more I think
00:14:27
there's about a half a billion in the
00:14:28
foundation and a lot of has been already
00:14:30
given out and then we give out more
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every year and every month every day
00:14:35
whatever but like on Monday we'll give
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another $25 million approximately to the
00:14:40
San Francisco and Oakland Public Schools
00:14:42
and that is you know we've given them
00:14:44
about $150 million I mean it's it's
00:14:48
obviously I went to Public Schools it
00:14:50
was very important to me but all my
00:14:52
mother was a teacher in the San
00:14:54
Francisco Public Schools but also our
00:14:58
employees you know have 75,000 employees
00:15:00
their kids are in the public schools and
00:15:03
so it's a key part of our Mantra and our
00:15:06
culture that we're trying to support
00:15:09
public education I adopt a public school
00:15:12
I really think that each one of us can
00:15:14
needs to focus more on the public educ
00:15:16
education system in the United States
00:15:18
it's something I encourage in not all my
00:15:21
employees but whenever I do a
00:15:22
presentation I'm like you know my public
00:15:25
school is like a block for my house
00:15:27
procedo middle school and I just went
00:15:28
down there and knocked on the door and
00:15:32
they're like who are you and I'm
00:15:34
like what do you how can I help you and
00:15:37
what can I do to support you they need a
00:15:39
new playground they need this they need
00:15:41
that and maybe they just need some me
00:15:44
some support moral support um but uh
00:15:47
it's been a great thing to really anchor
00:15:50
the company in those values and I think
00:15:52
it's an important thing uh for every
00:15:54
company so what did you think when you
00:15:56
saw that open AI started with a non
00:15:59
profit not as 1% but as 100% but then it
00:16:01
became a for-profit what did you think
00:16:03
of that Innovation confusing I you know
00:16:08
I mean 18,000 companies have now
00:16:10
followed our 111 model you can find out
00:16:12
about it at pledge
00:16:14
1.org that other model I don't really
00:16:17
understand I think we've proven our
00:16:18
model this is important you know we came
00:16:20
out with three models the cloud model
00:16:22
which you also have been part of that
00:16:25
the subscription model you've also been
00:16:27
part of that and the philanthropic model
00:16:29
and you've been part of that and those
00:16:31
ideas that we're doing three models
00:16:33
that's continues to be the fuel for the
00:16:36
company and extremely important and I
00:16:38
think that for a lot of these companies
00:16:40
that have followed us that have gone
00:16:41
onto scale and have had huge IPOs and
00:16:44
whether it was slack or whether it was
00:16:46
at lasan or whether it was eilo or
00:16:49
whatever they have these huge
00:16:51
foundations and have had huge impact and
00:16:54
business can be the greatest platform
00:16:56
for change and you can do a lot with
00:16:57
your business and you you know we are
00:16:59
all building great products okay that's
00:17:02
great and we're selling them that's
00:17:05
great too but we can also do a little
00:17:07
more with our business and we can use it
00:17:09
in a positive way and try to move the
00:17:12
world maybe a little bit more in the
00:17:14
right direction okay so let's talk about
00:17:16
the cloud part of that Innovation where
00:17:19
do you think we're at right now I mean
00:17:20
is it it's is it all AI all the time how
00:17:24
how are you thinking about it we're at
00:17:26
the precipice of the greatest moment in
00:17:29
the history of enterprise software and
00:17:31
of cloud computing there there's no
00:17:34
question we you know I had a moment I
00:17:37
would say more than a decade ago which I
00:17:39
call my kind of AI freakout moment where
00:17:41
I really felt I mean maybe it's you know
00:17:44
obviously we've all spent how many of
00:17:45
you watched Minority Report all right we
00:17:49
saw that movie and what about war games
00:17:51
War Games anybody remember that from
00:17:53
okay uh
00:17:54
her um yeah we all saw these movies
00:17:57
Terminator Okay that one's a little
00:18:00
scary but we all seen the movies and you
00:18:03
know like Peter Schwarz who wrote or was
00:18:05
a key part of writing Minority Report
00:18:07
and um also war games uh you know as our
00:18:11
chief futurist at Salesforce and a
00:18:13
decade more than a decade ago I had this
00:18:15
moment where I was like okay this is
00:18:17
really happening here we go and bought a
00:18:19
bunch of companies and put together
00:18:21
Einstein and Einstein has done amazing
00:18:23
you know it's doing trillion
00:18:25
transactions trillion and a half
00:18:26
transactions a week predictive
00:18:28
generative I really thought okay this is
00:18:30
was going to be the moment but now I'm
00:18:33
really convinced that we are now really
00:18:36
at the moment right now where enterprise
00:18:40
software is going to be completely
00:18:42
transformed with artificial intelligence
00:18:44
and we're going to see it and obviously
00:18:46
I'm getting tuned up for dreamforce
00:18:49
which is going to be Tuesday of next
00:18:50
week how many of you are coming to
00:18:52
dreamforce not enough
00:18:55
anyway sad these aren't my people I'm
00:18:58
leaving now
00:18:59
well it's good you well they look but no
00:19:01
let me just tell like since you're not
00:19:03
going to be there let me tell you what's
00:19:04
going to
00:19:06
happen thanks for being part of my team
00:19:09
anyway number one
00:19:11
is you know we're going to you know we
00:19:14
really see a moment right now where we
00:19:17
are 100% focused on one thing and one
00:19:20
idea and I can tell you why that is if
00:19:22
you're interested but it's agent force
00:19:24
and agent force is the most exciting
00:19:27
thing I have ever worked on in my
00:19:30
career um it's the culmination really of
00:19:32
everything that we've done at Salesforce
00:19:34
because to make agent force really
00:19:36
deliver we had to have all of our
00:19:38
customer touch points wired up which we
00:19:40
do we have to have an Amalgamated data
00:19:43
Cloud because we need the data
00:19:44
especially to achieve the AI accuracy
00:19:47
and the metadata as well and we have to
00:19:50
have the agents it's these three layers
00:19:53
that are really going to deliver this
00:19:55
next generation of capability and I was
00:19:56
just with Disney last night and Disney
00:19:59
has agent force they have the newest
00:20:01
version which we call Atlas which is our
00:20:03
most accurate not just model but we have
00:20:05
an extremely unusual technique that
00:20:07
we'll talk about and Atlas delivers for
00:20:10
for Disney for their cast members which
00:20:12
are their employees through extremely
00:20:16
complex uh problems that it's solving
00:20:18
for them more than 90% accuracy and
00:20:21
almost no hallucinations and in some
00:20:23
cases 95% accuracy and almost no
00:20:26
hallucinations and that idea that we can
00:20:29
kind of come into a very difficult and
00:20:32
complex and sophisticated data set now
00:20:34
with now with Disney if you go to
00:20:37
disneystore.com that's Salesforce if you
00:20:39
go to the Disney parks do you still go
00:20:41
to Disneyland sometimes yeah okay you
00:20:42
ever get a Disney guide sometimes yeah
00:20:45
it's great because you get to cut around
00:20:46
the lines and all that how many of you
00:20:48
have done the Disney guides thing we got
00:20:50
like a lot of poor people here
00:20:54
actually sad anyway she get these Disney
00:20:57
guides cuz they're like get you around
00:20:59
the lines you got do 30 rides a day and
00:21:02
it's much better than having to wait
00:21:04
okay but
00:21:06
anyway Disney guides run on sales force
00:21:09
they just SL they have slack too they've
00:21:10
got we do disneystore.com we have Disney
00:21:13
plus because you know the service now
00:21:16
like fell over and we had to like
00:21:18
replace that inside the Disney plus call
00:21:20
center we have we're do the Disney
00:21:23
Cruises and the Disney real estate and
00:21:25
we have every Disney customer test Point
00:21:27
all wired up so The Amalgamated data set
00:21:30
that we have around Disney is awesome so
00:21:32
when we can take that Disney data set
00:21:34
and then we apply Atlas and agent force
00:21:37
okay so how do you define we are able to
00:21:38
deliver a level of accuracy that has
00:21:41
been incredible and I've got a couple
00:21:43
more examples I can tell you that are
00:21:44
just blowing my mind and I never thought
00:21:46
it was really possible but now it really
00:21:49
is go ahead yes well I just wanted to
00:21:52
you want me to ask you a question
00:21:54
also no no no um what do you mean by
00:21:59
agent because we're starting to hear
00:22:00
this term a lot but I think a lot of
00:22:01
people here may not know what that means
00:22:03
in the context of AI did you see the
00:22:05
movie The Matrix yes I did so are we
00:22:07
talking about agent Smith or what are we
00:22:08
talking about well we're at some level I
00:22:10
mean I think like I'll give you an
00:22:12
example that you know um we're working
00:22:14
with a large medical company not so far
00:22:17
away from her Kaiser they've got 20
00:22:19
million patients they have a super
00:22:21
complex data set they have all of the
00:22:23
data from epic they are the largest epic
00:22:25
customer in the world and more than 90%
00:22:30
of all patient inquiries and scheduling
00:22:32
requests and schedule my doctor schedule
00:22:35
my CT scan my MRI my this my that are
00:22:38
being resolved by agent force and Atlas
00:22:41
that idea that we can resolve through a
00:22:44
autonomous agent a deep and complex
00:22:48
customer interaction is a breakthrough
00:22:50
thought obviously we have to do a few
00:22:52
things to make it really work for our
00:22:53
customers number one is it's got to be
00:22:55
trusted because our customers Trust
00:22:58
we're running the largest banks
00:23:00
insurance companies media companies cpg
00:23:02
companies blah blah blah blah blah in
00:23:04
the world number two is it's got to be
00:23:06
easy for them it can't be some separate
00:23:08
team that they're going to spin up it's
00:23:10
their existing Salesforce team it's
00:23:12
happening within the Salesforce platform
00:23:14
it's got to be open it has to have be
00:23:17
able to work with and interoperate with
00:23:18
other systems it's going to have to be
00:23:21
multimodal so it's going to have to
00:23:22
speak to them and have voice and video
00:23:25
and do all of those kind of incredible
00:23:27
capabilities and one other key thing
00:23:29
because evidently the humans have not
00:23:32
gone away the doctors have not gone away
00:23:35
from Kaiser and the cast members have
00:23:37
not gone away from Disney and on and on
00:23:40
so we're going to have to handshake
00:23:42
seamlessly with our apps so even though
00:23:44
we have all these apps and we've wired
00:23:46
up all these customer touch points the
00:23:48
agents are autonomously interacting with
00:23:51
and building the data and metadata and
00:23:53
extending it and by the end of this
00:23:56
month we'll have more than a thousand
00:23:57
customers on our agent force platform
00:24:00
the efficiency and productivity that
00:24:03
we've been had with agent force is like
00:24:05
nothing I have ever seen with any of our
00:24:07
customers or technology in the history
00:24:09
of software but there's a second point
00:24:12
it isn't just about this kind of ease of
00:24:14
use it's that that they have the ability
00:24:16
to do things that are truly astonishing
00:24:21
and that is also generate Revenue so
00:24:23
they can go out and like on a day like
00:24:25
today like it's 10 something degrees
00:24:27
outside or if you been out there it's
00:24:28
pretty
00:24:29
hot and Disneyland may not be as full
00:24:33
today as it's going to be and they knew
00:24:34
that was going to be true two days ago
00:24:36
that a heat wave was coming Disney can
00:24:38
proactively go out to their consumers
00:24:41
and their customers and say hey come
00:24:43
enjoy the heat with us all you know
00:24:45
Disneyland and we're going to give you a
00:24:47
special promotion or Price or contest or
00:24:49
whatever it is to come to Disneyland so
00:24:52
we want to be able to proactively go out
00:24:53
and generate revenue and we also want to
00:24:56
be able to kind of bring that customer
00:24:58
service in I think last night I had
00:25:00
dinner at Beverly Hills at the grill
00:25:02
have you been there great right cream
00:25:04
spinach well I did something different B
00:25:06
what do you want what do you prefer um
00:25:09
well I like like potatoes you know
00:25:11
potatoes okay po you know any kind of
00:25:13
potato you like any kind of potato baked
00:25:15
potato steak fries all so I'm on Open
00:25:17
Table Right anybody here use Open Table
00:25:21
not it's very weird group
00:25:24
anyway
00:25:26
so oh I'm using anyway you can use Open
00:25:28
Table to make restaurant
00:25:31
reservations and there's 160 million
00:25:34
consumers on Open Table they're not in
00:25:36
this room but they're somewhere and
00:25:39
they've got also 60,000 restaurants and
00:25:42
they've got a lot of complex issues you
00:25:45
know in regard you know I didn't get my
00:25:46
table or my food wasn't right my potato
00:25:48
didn't get cooked whatever it is these
00:25:51
things are going to get worked out but
00:25:52
also all of a sudden the restaurant's
00:25:54
like oh look we're not as full tonight
00:25:55
as we want to be and we're willing to do
00:25:57
let's go out to our customer base and
00:25:59
bring them in but let's do it through a
00:26:01
complex conversation you know an
00:26:04
empathic conversation as an agent with
00:26:06
our customers I think it's going to be a
00:26:08
rocket ship okay so so how long will it
00:26:12
be until when you call a customer
00:26:14
support center you're talking to an AI
00:26:18
that sounds like a human and you can't
00:26:19
tell the difference are we there yet or
00:26:22
we're there yet we are already at that
00:26:23
point we already have that live and we
00:26:27
will have that scaled for thousands of
00:26:30
customers before the end of um live for
00:26:34
with thousands of customers live before
00:26:36
the end of this year and we just I just
00:26:39
demoed it I was just just at a
00:26:40
conference and spoke uh mile couple
00:26:42
miles away from here at KPMG and we
00:26:44
showed them that exact situation where
00:26:47
you know through you know we used to
00:26:49
call you know this kind of voice
00:26:51
response system whatever but you would
00:26:54
kind of hit a wall pretty quickly with
00:26:56
your Bot you know but these aren't Bots
00:26:59
these are not the Bots you're looking
00:27:01
for these are like we're really getting
00:27:04
to like another level capability and I
00:27:07
think that it's pretty impressive and I
00:27:09
think in the example of Disney you know
00:27:10
Google has some great products I know
00:27:11
Serj was here yesterday and they've done
00:27:13
a great job with AI as you know but in a
00:27:16
head-to-head Benchmark of sales forces
00:27:18
agent force against Google's AI uh we
00:27:22
twox them on accuracy and the reason why
00:27:25
is we'll explain it next week um you
00:27:28
know it's a couple of things not only is
00:27:30
there our NextGen models but it's also
00:27:32
new techniques involving Next Generation
00:27:35
retrieval augmented generation rag
00:27:37
techniques that no one has seen before
00:27:39
and it's really incredible what's
00:27:40
possible so you're kicking Google's ass
00:27:43
I'm cool with that well they're good
00:27:45
partner also customer and I love them
00:27:47
but yeah it's it's competitive just yeah
00:27:49
let me keep let me keep holding on this
00:27:51
we're trying to all make AI a little
00:27:52
more accurate and a lot of less a little
00:27:54
few less hallucinations along the way
00:27:56
let me give the audience a little update
00:27:58
about something we just heard at open AI
00:28:00
they just did a a a day where they
00:28:03
brought in relatively small number of
00:28:06
investors and kind of give gave us all a
00:28:07
update on their product road map and it
00:28:09
sounds kind of similar because
00:28:10
everyone's moving in the same direction
00:28:12
so there are three big takeaways number
00:28:14
one was that they said that llms would
00:28:17
soon be at PhD level reasoning right now
00:28:20
it's more like a smart high school or
00:28:23
college student in terms of the answers
00:28:24
we're going to be at the next level
00:28:26
shortly behind that is agents like
00:28:29
you're talking about and then third and
00:28:31
closely related is that agents will have
00:28:33
the ability to use tools and a tool can
00:28:36
be a website so if you think about it
00:28:39
now you've got this llm it's really
00:28:41
smart it's got you know it's like a
00:28:43
PhD it you can give it an objective it
00:28:46
will break that objective into a list of
00:28:48
tasks and those tasks can include using
00:28:52
other pieces of software and thanks to
00:28:55
things like open AI just launched the
00:28:58
audio API which developers can use it's
00:29:01
in private beta we have some companies
00:29:03
using it the llm can now basically
00:29:06
pretend to be a human and you know
00:29:08
there's it won't be hard to find a piece
00:29:10
of software to enable a phone call so
00:29:12
you can imagine telling a a personal
00:29:15
assistant agent that and it could be you
00:29:18
know it could be open table that hey
00:29:21
book me book me a a dinner reservation
00:29:23
at the grill and it could place a phone
00:29:25
call on your behalf and actually talk to
00:29:27
the grill it could also go on open table
00:29:29
and just use open table and book it but
00:29:31
if for some reason that didn't work it
00:29:33
could literally place a phone call on
00:29:34
your behalf and the person picking up at
00:29:37
Open Table wouldn't even know that your
00:29:39
agent actually isn't a human it's an AI
00:29:42
but here's where I think it gets really
00:29:44
crazy is when the phone gets picked up
00:29:47
on the other end that could be an AI too
00:29:49
pretending to be a human so you could
00:29:51
have two AIS pretend to be humans
00:29:53
talking to each other and resolving
00:29:55
tasks on your behalf and I I literally I
00:29:57
think that's where it's at it we're
00:29:59
definitely moving in this direction but
00:30:01
there's a cautionary tale here and I
00:30:03
think that I'll just tell you the real
00:30:05
world experience with my customers and
00:30:07
what I'm the problems that I'm trying to
00:30:08
solve for them I I think in the last few
00:30:11
years we've kind of heard and you know
00:30:13
some of it has come from open AI but
00:30:15
especially from Microsoft that we're in
00:30:17
this co-pilot world and these co-pilots
00:30:19
have universally failed the level of
00:30:22
accuracy the spillage of information the
00:30:24
lack of trusted environment co-pilot has
00:30:26
been a complete disaster
00:30:28
and that idea that this kind of amount
00:30:31
of Technology got you know released and
00:30:34
sold into these very large customers
00:30:36
telling them that the all promise of AI
00:30:38
is here but didn't do it in a trusted
00:30:41
way didn't do it with the level of
00:30:42
accuracy didn't do it with the level of
00:30:44
security needed and one of the things
00:30:46
that was interesting because I was with
00:30:47
one of the customers would trying to do
00:30:49
this exact technique that you're talking
00:30:51
about which is a large
00:30:52
telecommunications company in
00:30:54
Seattle and what this company did is
00:30:57
take model of nope going to just tell
00:31:01
you training a model retraining a model
00:31:04
building their own model Mark we have to
00:31:06
have our own models we're going to DIY
00:31:08
it we're going to DIY our Ai and it's
00:31:11
going to be awesome then we're going to
00:31:13
write our own agents and we're going to
00:31:14
do this we're going to do that the other
00:31:15
thing and I'm sitting there and I'm
00:31:17
going through it and whatever and I'm
00:31:18
then I finally I'm like now show me your
00:31:19
benchmarks and show me all these
00:31:21
different pieces and and you know for
00:31:23
them it's a bit of a science project and
00:31:24
I've seen this now with a number of our
00:31:26
customers that they're kind of DIY and
00:31:28
their Ai and you know DIY I think it's
00:31:32
fine if you're like Neil Young and it's
00:31:34
homegrown and it's Canada and it's you
00:31:36
know Ontario but this is not what you
00:31:39
should be doing with your artificial
00:31:40
intelligence but what are you guys using
00:31:43
as your foundation model is it llama 2
00:31:45
like what do you guys use we have a lot
00:31:46
of our own models our own techniques our
00:31:49
own and then we let you bring in the
00:31:51
model that you want but we are all about
00:31:53
achieving your accuracy because what
00:31:55
I've seen with these kind of approaches
00:31:57
especially the one that you just
00:31:58
outlined is that yeah you can get maybe
00:32:01
30 or 40% accuracy you know in this case
00:32:04
this customer is 25% you had somebody on
00:32:07
the stage yesterday I won't tell it is
00:32:09
who's a common friend of both of ours
00:32:11
who tried to take this approach for a
00:32:13
large telecommunications company that he
00:32:15
owns and he said he was getting about a
00:32:16
25% accuracy with this homegrown model
00:32:19
and I'm like why are you doing that
00:32:21
instead in our platform the platform is
00:32:23
building the model for you you're not
00:32:25
having to train and retrain your own
00:32:27
models you're building your own models
00:32:29
in our platform and we're going to
00:32:31
deliver much higher levels of accuracy
00:32:33
for you and we're going to deliver AI
00:32:36
this is the AI that you want this is
00:32:39
this next generation of AI and I think
00:32:42
that we'll have to prove that with
00:32:43
benchmarks and with bake offs and to
00:32:45
show customers because the promise is
00:32:48
amazing but at a very deep level
00:32:50
customers are going to need you know
00:32:52
what you and I have done for the last
00:32:54
you know 20 years of our life which is
00:32:55
build professional Enterprise software
00:32:57
and delivered to them and a capability
00:32:59
And in regards to an agent running
00:33:01
enterprise software I mean you just saw
00:33:03
like that was the
00:33:04
fundamental business model of adept
00:33:06
which was David Lewan's company you know
00:33:09
and that's he built gpt3 then he left
00:33:11
open AI to start Adept and this idea to
00:33:13
build agents that are going to drive
00:33:15
apps I'm sure that all of those things
00:33:17
are going to happen but again you have
00:33:20
to get to a level of accuracy because
00:33:22
everyone in this room and you and I
00:33:24
we've all had this experience where on
00:33:26
these models and it's like this is not
00:33:29
really more than hallucinations and
00:33:32
that's no good or as we say here in Los
00:33:34
Angeles no es bueno when it comes to
00:33:38
okay Kaiser and you're dealing with
00:33:40
health care you know when you're dealing
00:33:42
with health care and you've got a
00:33:43
patient and you're reading their medical
00:33:45
records you better be delivering more
00:33:47
than 90 or 95% accuracy because the 50%
00:33:50
accuracy thing is no good well I can see
00:33:54
you're ready for dream Force I'm trying
00:33:55
to go find it I'm testing mat out here a
00:33:58
little bit what do you guys think I'm
00:34:04
like are you are you guys excited for
00:34:06
the rise of Agents yeah it's going to be
00:34:10
a really big deal I think that
00:34:12
everything we've seen so far with llms
00:34:14
has been again about reasoning and and
00:34:17
generating but with agents the AI is
00:34:20
going to be able to take actions and and
00:34:22
they're going to know how to use tools
00:34:24
which until now it's been some the only
00:34:25
human I got to tell you a really good
00:34:26
story because you're like inspiring me
00:34:28
around uh you know Steve Jobs had a huge
00:34:32
impact on my life and at I worked at
00:34:34
Apple in 1984 when I was a I was uh in
00:34:37
high school and coming into college and
00:34:40
I was an assembly language program I
00:34:42
wrote the first Native Assembly Language
00:34:44
um on this Macintosh know the 68,000
00:34:48
assembler and sitting there in the cubes
00:34:50
and Steve is running whatever it is and
00:34:54
thank God you know I have this
00:34:55
relationship and influenced me so much
00:34:57
in my life and then called me on a
00:34:59
series of times and after I started
00:35:01
Salesforce gave me really key advice
00:35:03
anyway it was 2010 and he calls me come
00:35:07
down here I need to talk to you I'm like
00:35:09
what the hell what did I do this
00:35:11
time so I go down there to his office
00:35:13
and I always bring a few Salesforce
00:35:15
employees with me and I've got some
00:35:16
great folks with me and we're sitting
00:35:19
there and he's like I'm going to show
00:35:20
you this and I'm like all right let's go
00:35:23
and he brings out the iPad and he's got
00:35:25
two of them he's got the big one and the
00:35:27
small one
00:35:28
and he's like yeah Mark here it is you
00:35:30
know but I don't like the small one I'm
00:35:32
only going to have one size you know
00:35:34
that I'm like yes sir and he's like uh
00:35:37
listen you know I've been working on
00:35:39
this concept for a long time and you
00:35:40
know in
00:35:42
2007 um I introduced a iPhone and you
00:35:45
know I said thank you for sending me one
00:35:47
I love it it's great like but do you
00:35:49
know why now we're doing the iPad I'm
00:35:51
like no because I know you had that too
00:35:54
in 2007 oh yeah but you know what the
00:35:56
real situation here is that couple I'm
00:35:58
like what is it Steve he's like we only
00:36:00
have one a team here one a team so we're
00:36:03
only focused on one thing at a time and
00:36:05
then he lays out like five or six
00:36:08
products on his coffee table and he goes
00:36:10
and we will never have more products
00:36:11
than can fit on my coffee table and I'm
00:36:14
like well that's really awesome and he's
00:36:16
like I've been focused on 2007 on the
00:36:18
iPhone and now I'm gonna zero in and I'm
00:36:20
only going to do iPad one focus at a
00:36:24
time remember that Mark that's the way
00:36:26
you need to rent
00:36:28
Salesforce and I'm like okay is that why
00:36:31
you brought me down here yes you may
00:36:34
go and and that's how I feel right now
00:36:38
about agent force this is all I am doing
00:36:40
just try to take our company you know we
00:36:42
have a great company 38 billion Revenue
00:36:46
75,000 employees hundreds of thousands
00:36:48
of customers and one Focus agent force
00:36:51
this is the because of what you're
00:36:53
saying this is the moment this is the
00:36:56
greatest opport opportunity in the
00:36:58
history of enterprise software and it
00:37:00
must be executed with absolute Acuity
00:37:02
and excellence and that is what I think
00:37:05
we all need to
00:37:08
do you know so so I agree with you I
00:37:12
mean I think the agents are going to be
00:37:14
huge and Elon say something kind of
00:37:16
similar to the other day um he said we
00:37:18
was we got him talking about Optimus you
00:37:20
know his his robot heard about the farm
00:37:22
animals I didn't know about the what was
00:37:24
was there another part of the
00:37:25
presentation he said well he was talking
00:37:26
about he's talking about Optimist and um
00:37:30
oh you the the thing thing about these
00:37:32
jokes are all each one is kind of dying
00:37:34
very fast it's sad took me a second to
00:37:36
to realize that you were talking about
00:37:38
his
00:37:40
um but now I got it okay um no he was
00:37:44
referring to um it's great how you bring
00:37:46
this humor into uh the Allin yes it's
00:37:49
very subtle I understand
00:37:52
um so what Elon mentioned that really
00:37:55
stuck with me is he said that humanoid
00:37:58
robots the creation of these humanoid
00:37:59
robots are the biggest Economic
00:38:01
Opportunity in the history of the world
00:38:05
the average person is he making some of
00:38:06
them by any chance he is but well it's
00:38:09
kind of like you saying that uh agents
00:38:11
are the biggest opportunity in the
00:38:12
history of Enterprise sofware let me
00:38:14
write that down thank you for letting me
00:38:16
know that it's it strikes me that
00:38:18
there's something similar here which
00:38:19
isan is a good salesman is that your
00:38:20
point well I'm I'm saying there's an
00:38:22
analogy here between he didn't give you
00:38:25
the regenerative pitch is that my
00:38:28
well no what here me the point is this
00:38:30
is that is that where we're going with
00:38:33
AI is it's going to be able to take real
00:38:35
actions and in the case of Optimus is in
00:38:37
the physical world and it's going to be
00:38:38
the brain for these humanoid robots in
00:38:41
the Enterprise it's basically the brain
00:38:43
for these agents I think these things
00:38:45
are actually pretty they're on Parallel
00:38:49
tracks I wouldn't say they're competing
00:38:51
and these are the droids you're looking
00:38:53
for so I think anyway I think that uh I
00:38:56
I think you're right about this
00:38:57
opportunity and what I'm saying is I
00:38:59
think it's analogous to what Elon is
00:39:00
seeing with robotics I think there's no
00:39:03
question and I think that for our
00:39:05
customers they're going to augment their
00:39:07
employees they're going to make things
00:39:08
lower cost they're going to increase
00:39:09
their revenues they're going to increase
00:39:11
their margins we're going to take some
00:39:12
customers and just turn them into margin
00:39:14
machines and I think that the
00:39:17
opportunity in the Enterprise is
00:39:18
unbelievable he's also directly
00:39:20
addressing the consumer Market which I
00:39:22
think is very exciting obviously he's an
00:39:24
expert in that area and yeah we're about
00:39:27
to move into this new world of AI of
00:39:29
droids of all these things and you know
00:39:32
it's a bunch of waves of you know where
00:39:34
you know look technology is getting
00:39:36
lower cost and easier to use it's a
00:39:39
Continuum and we're all rioting that
00:39:41
Continuum this is extremely important
00:39:43
but also what's very important is
00:39:45
especially as we move into this we all
00:39:48
have to think about what are the values
00:39:50
that are going to guide this technology
00:39:52
because each of us have seen the movies
00:39:54
we all watched the movies that was the
00:39:56
one place where I got the hands to go up
00:39:58
right so we know how it can go really
00:40:00
wrong right everybody saw that part of
00:40:02
the movie so what are the values what's
00:40:06
going to be really important to us will
00:40:07
it be trust is it customer success is it
00:40:09
Innovation is it equality is it
00:40:12
sustainability is what are the values as
00:40:14
we kind of guide into the next level of
00:40:16
the future because those core values
00:40:18
that we need to manifest and really
00:40:20
focus on that is I think still out there
00:40:23
as a major discussion item it's got to
00:40:25
be figured out and that is why we're
00:40:27
very lucky that you are one of the great
00:40:29
Visionaries of our industry because
00:40:31
you're not just a great entrepreneur and
00:40:33
CEO but you're a great human being so
00:40:35
thank you
00:40:37
Mark thank you

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 75
    Best concept / idea
  • 70
    Most inspiring
  • 70
    Best performance
  • 70
    Most influential

Episode Highlights

  • Mark's Vision of Technology
    Mark emphasizes that technology's impact depends on how we use it.
    “It's what you do with technology that matters.”
    @ 00m 20s
    September 15, 2024
  • A Moment of Generosity
    Mark shares a heartfelt reminder to prioritize helping others in our pursuits.
    “Don't forget to do something for other people.”
    @ 00m 25s
    September 15, 2024
  • The Philanthropic Foundation of Salesforce
    From day one, Salesforce committed 1% of equity, profit, and product to philanthropy.
    “Business could be the greatest platform for change.”
    @ 14m 15s
    September 15, 2024
  • AI in Customer Service
    Mark reveals that AI is already capable of handling complex customer interactions.
    “We already have that live and we will have that scaled for thousands of customers.”
    @ 26m 22s
    September 15, 2024
  • AI Accuracy Challenges
    Mark discusses the ongoing efforts to improve AI accuracy and reduce errors.
    “We're trying to all make AI a little more accurate and a lot less hallucinations along the way.”
    @ 27m 52s
    September 15, 2024
  • The Rise of Agents
    Mark emphasizes that agents will revolutionize enterprise software, increasing efficiency and accuracy.
    “This is the greatest opportunity in the history of enterprise software.”
    @ 36m 58s
    September 15, 2024
  • The Future of AI
    The opportunity in the Enterprise and consumer market is immense, with technology becoming more accessible and affordable.
    “The opportunity in the Enterprise is unbelievable.”
    @ 39m 17s
    September 15, 2024
  • Guiding Values for Technology
    As we advance into AI and new technologies, we must consider the core values that will guide us, such as trust, innovation, and sustainability.
    “What are the values that are going to guide this technology?”
    @ 39m 48s
    September 15, 2024

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • Tech Impact00:20
  • Philanthropy First00:25
  • Disney Guides20:59
  • AI Breakthrough22:48
  • DIY AI Models31:08
  • Technology Waves39:32
  • Core Values Discussion40:18
  • Heartfelt Gratitude40:37

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown

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