Bret Taylor Named Salesforce Co-CEO As Shares Fall Following Weaker Than Expected Forced Release

Bret Taylor was promoted to co-CEO of Salesforce Inc. on the same day the company’s shares fell out of trading hours on a lower forecast than predicted in his latest earnings report.

Appointing Taylor as co-CEO is a big step for Salesforce, given that founder Marc Benioff has been running the company since 2001.

“Bret is a phenomenal industry leader who has helped create incredible success for our customers and drive innovation across our business,” Benioff said in a statement. “He has been my trusted friend for years and I couldn’t be happier to welcome him as co-CEO.

Bret Taylor first rose to prominence as the founder of FriendFeed, a feed aggregator and social network from the first decade of the century that luckily didn’t have the same issues as Twitter Inc. today. . FriendFeed was acquired by Facebook Inc. in 2009 and then closed in 2015.

Taylor, after acquiring FriendFeed, was CTO at Facebook – now Meta Inc. He left Facebook in 2012 to start a productivity startup called Quip which Salesforce then acquired for $ 750 million in 2016. With the acquisition, Taylor was named President and Chief Product Officer of Salesforce. In 2019, Taylor was promoted to President and COO of Salesforce. With the new promotion, he is now Vice President and Co-CEO of Salesforce.

While it’s not entirely uncommon, it’s quite rare that a tech founder can be described as a nice guy versus a money-hungry egotist. Taylor is one of the kind founders of technology. During his reign at FriendFeed, he gained a reputation for being open, friendly and even humble at times, even though he sold himself to Facebook. With him ready to take on the role of full CEO of Benioff, Salesforce couldn’t be in better hands.

Earnings

For the quarter ended Oct. 31, Salesforce reported revenue of $ 6.86 billion, up 27% year-over-year compared to non-generally accepted accounting principles, earnings per year. $ 1.27 share. Analysts were forecasting $ 6.8 billion in revenue on non-GAAP earnings of 92 cents per share.

Salesforce’s quarterly numbers were generally positive. Sales increased 27% from the same quarter last year to $ 5.32 billion. The company’s remaining performance obligation stood at $ 18.8 billion at the end of October, up 23% year-on-year.

“We had another phenomenal quarter, fueling strong growth in revenues, margins and cash flow,” said Marc Benioff, president and now co-CEO of Salesforce in the company’s income statement. “Salesforce is more relevant and strategic than ever, as every business accelerates its digital transformation journey. “

“Salesforce’s strong third quarter earnings report is not surprising as the company is benefiting from demand across its growing portfolio of cloud offerings,” Matt Fairhurst, CEO of the deskelss Skedulo Holding Inc. productivity platform. “Organizations are clearly investing in technology infrastructure as they embrace hybrid work models. As digital transformation becomes mainstream over the coming year, we expect Salesforce and the other platform companies to continue to thrive. “

Trevor White, Research Director at Nucleus Research, noted that “Strong global demand for digital modernization projects continues to drive up-sales and new customer acquisition. Salesforce continues to expand in other business areas such as revenue optimization, and increased investment in verticalization drives continued growth on target. “

However, the better-than-expected results for the quarter were overshadowed by lower-than-expected forward-looking estimates and investors took notice as Salesforce shares fell 6.19% after the bell. Salesforce is forecasting fourth-quarter revenue of $ 7.224 billion to $ 7.234 billion on non-GAAP earnings of between 72 and 73 cents per share. Analysts had predicted earnings forecasts of 81 cents per share.

Photo: Brian Solis / Wikimedia Commons