Salesforce Founder Benioff Warns Startups Stay Private Too Long
Marc Benioff argues that delayed IPOs allow bad governance to fester at private companies like WeWork and Uber. He also calls for a national privacy law and declares that traditional capitalism is dead.
Salesforce founder Marc Benioff criticizes modern startups for staying private too long, arguing that public markets provide necessary oversight. He points to companies like WeWork and Uber as examples of businesses that suffer from governance issues because they avoid the "great reckoning" of going public.
Benioff contrasts these delayed IPOs with Salesforce, which went public at $100 million in revenue to absorb necessary adjustments early. He emphasizes that public investors keep executives on the straight and narrow before internal problems become too large to fix.
Beyond IPOs, Benioff calls for a national privacy law to replace a confusing patchwork of state regulations and repeats his belief that Facebook requires regulation like cigarettes. He also declares that traditional, profit-only capitalism is dead and predicts a new form of socially conscious capitalism is emerging.