The antidote to inequality is equality. The question is how do you achieve equality? I believe that, for business, which is where I can speak, we have to shift from shareholder maximization to stakeholder maximization.
Interpretation
Achieving equality requires prioritizing the interests of all stakeholders rather than just shareholders.
In this quote, Marc Benioff emphasizes that addressing inequality fundamentally involves promoting equality across different groups within society. He argues that businesses should transition from a focus on maximizing profits for shareholders to considering the needs and interests of all stakeholders, including employees, customers, and the community, to create a more equitable environment.
In practice
This quote can be used in a presentation about corporate social responsibility.
Once you know what you want and what is important for you to achieve, also define the values associated with it. What is important? That is something a lot of entrepreneurs pass by too quickly. For us, the things that were important were, No. 1, customer success. Nothing is more important to us than making sure every customer is successful in our service.
I strongly believe the business of a business is to improve the world.
The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.
I don't look at business as a zero-sum game. I don't. I've never seen it play out that way in our industry, and I think you innovate and you add value, deliver value back to customers, and you get value back from the world.
Although I loved working on technology - I've always been a computer geek at heart - my professors encouraged me to get a real-world job working with customers.
The only constant in the technology industry is change.
Too many companies are running their business into the ground, I would argue, by being myopically short-term focused on the shareholder.
We are not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other company.
We used to think that everything started in the lab. Now we realize that everything spins off the consumer.
Businesses fail when they over-invest in what is at the expense of what could be.
Conscious business.. business that is conscious of inner and outer worlds.. would therefore be business that takes into account body, mind, and spirit in self, culture, and nature. Put differently, conscious business would be mindful of the way that the spectrum of consciousness operates in the Big Three worlds of self and culture and nature.
Almost all decisions based on cost accounting are utterly wrong.
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