Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon and good morning to those joining us from Asia. It's my great pleasure to welcome you to the World Economic Forum's Inaugural Global Technology Governance Summit hosted by Japan. To start off our summit, we'll turn to a special address from Prime Minister, Suga Yoshihide.

[Interpreted] I am Suga Yoshihide, the Prime Minister of Japan, Executive Chairman Schwab, distinguished attendees. I offer my wholehearted congratulation on this occasion of this Global Technology Governance Summit of The World Economic Forum today. I understand that government and business leaders from around the world are all coming together in this summit, which will serve as avenue for discussion leading to the societal implementation of digital technologies, focused firmly on the post COVID-19 era. I consider this to be a very timely forum indeed. The world over, the battle against COVID-19 is still raging. Yet, what has accelerated all in one stroke during this time is digital transformation. At the same time, our recent experiences have highlighted various challenges, including sluggishness in digital transformation in both administrative service and the private sector. I have redoubled my belief that it is only through boldly pressing forward with digital transformation that we can succeed in reshaping Japan, being able to take care of a wide range of procedures without setting foot in government office, being able to have a same kind of job and lifestyle in the countryside as you can live in a city. That is the kind of society we're aiming for seeks to accelerate our reform all at once, aiming to create the world's most advanced digital society where everyone can enjoy utmost benefit of digital transformation. I believe that as we work to make this a reality, there are 3 roles that government should play in the digital age. The first of these is for the government itself to take a bold step forward by making digital investments. In September this year, we will establish an agency in charge of digital transformation as symbol of and a control tower for reform. This agency will overcome bureaucratic sectionalism and take the lead in the digital transformation of the entire country as a powerful organization with strong overall coordinating function and a budget of JPY 300 billion in its inaugural difficult year over the next 5 years. We will also unify and standardize the system used by local government. Furthermore, we will maintain company related information and other basic data, a so-called base registry and advance the sharing, utilization and application of data. At the same time, the viewpoint of leave no one behind is essential for reforms brought about through digital technology, and we will be sure to give consideration to accommodate those who are averse to the digital world. In Japan, the country, which is also at the very forefront of dealing with the issue of a declining birth rate and aging population in order to create a society that leaves no one behind, we intend to make the greatest possible use of the power of technology. The second role of government is to prepare a sound competitive environment. Working in cooperation with other countries, we will advance our domestic legal structure and promote both investment and innovation by industry. The third role of government is to contribute to shaping the international order. While internationally, we do see data protectionism, what lies in the background to that is a lack of trust. In order for all countries to reap the benefits of the digital economy equally, I believe now is the time to create the rules that will bring concrete shape to the data free flow with trust that Japan has been advocating. We will also contribute to the preparation of guidelines on smart cities, discussions on basic principles regarding the use of robotic automation and other matters. Coupled with this digitalization, another driving force putting Japan's economy back on to a growth trajectory post COVID-19 will be green initiatives. Last year, I declared that by 2050, Japan will realize a carbon-neutral society. Working towards this, we will mobilize truly all possible measures as we promote all investment and innovation by private companies in generating a changeover in our industrial structure and vigorous growth. In addition, Japan will announce an ambitious 2030 target by top 26, who joint research, developing international standards, infrastructure cooperation and other endeavors we will deepen our collaboration with other countries and promote global decarbonization. In closing, I wish to express my high hopes, therefore, the discussions held at the summit, social demonstrations of new technologies will make progress leading to the resolution of social issues. Thank you very much for your kind attention.

Thank you, Prime Minister, for your inspiring remarks and for spotlighting the importance of data in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Now technology in the fourth IR is no longer something distinct from the human experience. In contrast, our interactions with technology shape the entire fabric of society, sometimes overtly, but often in ways that are so subtle that they're almost invisible. The very concept of what it means to be human is mediated by our increasingly fluid engagement with technology. And in some cases, the separation between who we are online and who we are in real-life is so blurry, it's almost meaningless. At the same time, for the 3.4 billion people in the world with no access to the Internet, technology can still feel distant, and there remains untapped potential for solving real-world problems. So it makes sense that the use and governance of technology is something we should be paying very close attention to. Now of course, let's consider the pandemic. The pandemic has accelerated technological change and the world is a different place than it was even a year ago. We have a chance to reinvent the way we operate in this new context, everything from government services, education and health care, to the way business interacts with and provides value to its customers. The roles of the private sector, public sector, civil society, media, academia in shaping this landscape has never been more critical or more undefined. Technology governance refers to the systems and processes that underline the creation, deployment and use of technology. How do we ensure that governance models are accelerating benefit and mitigating risk? How do we move away from siloed thinking to an intersectional approach that considers technology across industry verticals and across geographies? And how do we ensure that our regulations and policies both for creative and beneficial innovation while ensuring that we don't exacerbate existing social inequality if, or even worse, exploit vulnerable populations. Technology governance needs to take into account all of these considerations and many more. To help explore these exciting but complicated topics, we're joined today by a panel of distinguished guests. The honorable Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister In Charge of the Smart Nation initiative of Singapore; Susan Wojcicki, the Chief Executive Officer of YouTube; Executive Chairman of Hitachi, Mr. Nakanishi, who is also a member of the Forum's International Business Council; and of course, the panel would not be complete without Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce and a member of the Board of Trustees at the Forum. Welcome to you all, and thank you for joining us. To kick us off, I wanted to acknowledge that there's a lot of criticism these days about technology, much of which is fair. But also there have been huge advances in the past year alone. So I thought we'd start on a positive note, and I'll turn it to you, Marc, first.

What are you most optimistic about when it comes to the technology landscape?

Well, thank you, Sheila. And also thank you so much to our Prime Minister, Suga, because we are just at an incredible moment today that I think that we can deeply embrace. And I'll tell you I had an inflection point myself, which really occurred in Davos 2020 and really got accelerated by Digital Davos this year. And it's around the environment. We've been working on the Fourth Industrial Revolution now for quite a few years. We've built this network through the World Economic Forum of these amazing Fourth Industrial Revolution centers all over the world. And we've seen phenomenal progress and advancement in accelerating technology around so many key areas. But one area that is really -- grab me is climate change. It's really become my #1 priority. And let me tell you, you saw that in that Davos 2020, I created and founded something called 1t.org that we launched at the conference that has been embraced by the World Economic Forum. That's the 1 trillion tree initiative, that we're going to plant 1 trillion trees to sequester over 200 gigatons of carbon. And I've been so impressed with how so many companies and countries have embraced it. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, Canada announced that they're going to plant 2 billion trees. So thank you of Canada. But the other thing that occurred, besides 1t.org in Davos 2020 was UpLink. We created a platform and a partnership between Salesforce and Deloitte and the World Economic Forum to provide a kind of a digital convening capability for the world's ecopreneurs. ecopreneurs are entrepreneurs who are dedicated to improving the environment. And over 10,000 ecopreneurs have now come into UpLink. And as I've been able to spend time in UpLink and look at what's happening, I've never seen such exciting innovation. They're taking in the fourth IR, the 4 IR, the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And they're creating the 5 IR, which is they're changing and improving the state of the world. It's incredible. And I think we can now ask ourselves this question, how do we create global carbon markets and therefore, sequester even additional 100 gigatons of carbon with these 1 million ecopreneurs who are ending up in UpLink. That's what I'd like to see over the next decade. How do we accelerate our march towards reducing the impact of climate changes. You heard it in the Prime Minister's remarks. The Prime Minister Suga, has been deeply committed and amazing because he's really in the job now only a few weeks, but one of the very first things, Prime Minister, Suga, did, he said, "We are going to net 0 faster in Japan than ever before." So thank you to him, and thank you to the Japanese people for this incredible commitment. When we think about climate change, we think about it on 4 elements: emission reduction. How do we just emit less to how do we sequester. That is, how do we grab the carbon that's already out in the environment, there's about only a couple of hundred gigatons since the first industrial revolution and bring it back down; and three, how do we educate people on lifestyle practices to reduce climate change; and four, how does it create new innovation and move things forward. This is really talking about addressing the 4 types carbons in the world, the green carbons, the blue carbons, the brown carbons and the gray carbons. The trees, the oceans, the soils and, of course, just being able to grab that carbon and solidify it, like we see by companies like Climeworks, which is an amazing company in Singapore, very close to you, Sheila, who is now doing this amazing work grabbing the carbon. We look at amazing company like SilviaTerra, they're actually using biometricians and satellites and AI to quantify biodiversity and preserve it. You see amazing companies in the 4 IR by Planet Labs. Who has created these low-hanging satellites that could quantify carbon and methane from satellite. We just never have that capability before a Heliogen is using solar technology to create green hydrogen. All of these things just kind of accelerate this idea that we can use technology to improve the state of the world that we can decarbonize. We can address over fishing, we can look at reforestation, we can really use biometricians to understand our world in a new way using these new technologies. And all of these things give me the hope and optimism that we can use technology to improve the state of the world. So I especially want to thank Klaus Schwab for really addressing this and also accelerating our work to thinking about this for a multi-stakeholder dialogue because when we think about what Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide said in regards to accelerating our path to net 0. When we think about this idea of how do we use the Fourth Industrial Revolution to accelerate our progress forward, but we have to think about CO2 is the #1 issue on the planet today, how do we address climate change? Thank you, Sheila.

Thanks so much, Marc. I really appreciate that. And the reminder that ESG, we talk about these metrics sometimes, and that's really a critical underpinning of the 4 IR and the opportunity for us to harness data and these technologies in ways that can make the world more sustainable. So Minister, I'd love to turn to you now and get your thoughts on what's giving you energy and keeping you optimistic.

Well, thanks, Sheila. I think COVID-19 has been a tragedy, but also in the midst of this strategy, I see some green shoots. And let me just give you a couple of reasons why I'm optimistic. First, on the political front, I think we are at an inflection point when all over the world, politicians will now have to roll out a program for a greener world as what Marc has just evangelized, a fairer world and a smarter world. And if you think of it in those terms, COVID-19 did not invent or create new technology. In fact, many of those technological -- technologies rather were already available. But what it's done is to really turbo charge the innovation and the use of the technology. And I can just give you some examples on a Singapore perspective. Today, 95% of all government transactions in Singapore are conducted online, which means there's no paper, there's no signature, and it's cashless. Now in the past, we would have to push a string to get to this kind of figure. Today, that's cool. Another example. Because of this need for information and accurate information, I mean we launched a government .sg watchdog channel. And now it's gone over 1 million subscribers. Every day, messages go out and it reaches effectively to the entire population who's interested and who wants to read it, not because we push it, but because they need it. Another example in Singapore, because of the needs of contact tracing, we were able very quickly to spin up a Bluetooth proximity detecting system for contact tracing. And today, it has shortened a bit our contract tracing time for what used to take a 4-day process. Today is a 1.5 day process. So it's made a difference, a real difference. So if we just look at it this way, there's always a silver lining to a cloud. And COVID-19 has been a catalyst, has been a stress test of our competence, capability, technology and social capital. And it has also, as Marc has alluded to earlier, been a reminder that we do need more resilient and more sustainable and a better world. So there are green shoots of all.

Thank you so much, Minister. It's so important and challenging in the time of the strategy to remember that as we pull out, as the world starts to move ahead, are a lot of lessons that we need to take forward. And some of those, you highlighted so well. Thank you so much. Susan, I'd love to turn to you now and get a read from you on what you find most exciting about the technology landscape.

Sure. Well, first of all, thank you so much, Sheila, and thank you so much to Prime Minister, Suga, for hosting the Global Technology Governance Summit. And as was mentioned beforehand, COVID-19 has definitely changed our lives in so many different ways. And we certainly saw an acceleration of a lot of trends that we had beforehand but that due to the online life that we all are living now, really accelerated those. And 2 of them that I'm most optimistic about, and I believe, will really have important long-term impacts for the world are education, learning. I see YouTube playing a real role there. And the other one is job creation. And then I'll also just say, I don't see this directly with my work, but I also believe that there will be huge innovation in medical. And the way that we detect -- do early detection as well as drug discovery and other core areas. So with regard to learning, I'll just start there. So I think about YouTube as being a global public video library, which is accessible to anyone who has an internet connection in any kind of device. And if you think about YouTube, what we have is the ability to learn pretty much anything you wanted to learn, whether it's a language, a musical instrument, hear a talk from a university on a topic, get trained for a skill and it's pretty -- whenever I meet people and they learn that I'm the CEO of YouTube, they almost always tell me some personal story about how they learned something or how they were able to fix something in their house that they didn't think they could do. And so I really see that as we roll out more devices and continue to grow this library, the ability for people all over the world to have access to information that they never would have had beforehand and be able to enrich their lives in new and different ways. And we certainly have seen that during the pandemic so there was this study that said that over 75% of people used YouTube in the past year to learn something new. And unfortunately, due to the pandemic, we all had a lot of new things to learn. So I see -- I am very optimistic that we will continue to be able to further and grow human capital as a result. I think the other thing that I see from running YouTube is just the opportunity to offer new and different points of views that we wouldn't have heard from before and tell stories that just would not have been told. So I remember when I was a kid and I was growing up, there were just a couple of channels on TV. I don't want to say how many, but it was small. They sit on a dial, and you would just turn that dial in and maybe the largest channel I ever went to was like a double-digit number, like 44. And now we look at YouTube and we have millions and millions of channels. And so what that means is that people can explore so many new topics. But also, you can see a large variety of different points of view that you never would have heard beforehand. So there are a lot of underrepresented groups. You get to have the global perspective. We have seniors who are creating channels. We have like Pasta Grannies from Italy. We have Korea Grandma who started her career at 70. I actually think we have a creator who started her career at almost over 100 with her granddaughters. So it's just amazing to see the points of view. And it's a large diversity of content that otherwise never would have been available. And I really hope, going forward, we'll continue to see that to grow. So we also pay out the majority of revenue to our creators. And we've paid out over $30 billion over the last 3 years to artists, creators and media companies. And so every creator is a next-generation media company. That's what I call them. They have a global audience. They have a brand, a lot of times, they have other product. And so really continuing to grow the next-generation of media companies can make them successful. And also there's so many people who benefit from those points of view, of hearing from people that are not like them. Like I just did an event with Molly Burke. She's a blind fashion YouTube create or anti talks about being blind, but she also has so much great traction and lifestyle information. And so this is an example of someone that we probably would not have seen with traditional media. And then lastly, I'd just say medical, I'm super excited, just personally of the opportunities. I can't wait to see all the drug discovery and early detection and work that comes out of applying technologies, AI, better drug discovery or detection that I think will make a huge difference and help people to be able to live longer, healthier lives. So thank you for the opportunity to sit in.

Yes, there's so much happening. I feel inspired just hearing about all the different opportunities. Nakanishi, I'm really eager to explore your reaction to the previous comments and to really understand if you think things are different in Japan given the context there and what your views are?

Yes. That's -- I clearly remember 5 years ago, that is 2016, that depends, the same type of discussion we had. Assuming that people get together, that some of them come from the technology companies, the other is a human rights politicians and then the others comes from the very sphere of the digital technology for the military use. So those kind of things get together. And part -- the final goal of the post industrial revolution is that's a very complicated discussions. Some of them is that please remind that some of the -- no human beings can be controlled by the digital. But now at that times, Japan decided to set up the technology and science, a basic plan for 5 years. That was already devised this year. But at that time, the Japan proposed of the Society 5.0. All the digital technology is to be create the potential base for the improving of the social issues. That is quite unique for that. Digitization cannot be stopped by anybody and going forward every day. But now how to utilize those kinds of the technology to solve the real social issues. That is a very key point for the features. So the meanings of the GTGS Tokyo is also that this -- we would like to emphasize those kinds of discussions based on such as digital transformation, also anywhere. That's my basic designer point. my background is computer designs and also system designs. Those can be a very enjoyable. Results, I had that. But now, then those kinds of technological outlook is to vote for more clear purpose for the society. How can solve the overall humankind disease. I'm -- in that point, I'm very much optimistic for the future technology. That's the background of this GTGS, I believe so. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Nakanishi. We've heard about everything from climate, the ocean, learning, media, fashion, to the creator economy, government services, it seems very clear that if we want to achieve the greener far smarter world that you mentioned, Mr. Balakrishnan, we are going to have to work together. And I'm curious to understand, and maybe I'll turn to you first, Minister. How do you think about technology governance? What does that mean to you as a leader when it comes to thinking about how we might maybe some of these concept forward and move kind of the benefit -- accelerate the benefit and mitigate risk around the use of technology. What does governance need for you?

Well, I think you look behind the technology. The key political and social issue is trust. Do people understand it? Do people believe that it is being used for their good? Do people appreciate or have confidence that the data, which is really what we are all contributing, is used appropriately, is not abused. So there's a whole key question about trust that needs to be answered. The second dimension is about utility, meaning does this system or does the technology behind the system actually work and actually deliver. And again, as I said earlier, COVID-19 has been a stress test of this. And that brings us in turn to the need for governance for an ethical framework with access to the foundation for the policies, the programs, the projects and the legislation that govern and pass. So I would just highlight a few of these dimensions.

What do others think? Certainly, we've -- there's a focus on ethics, a level of bias, making sure that there are not just trusted systems but trustworthy systems. I'd be curious to hear from others about your thoughts on why governance matters and how it can help affect some of these goals. Anyone who wants to jump in?

Well, I think one of the things that you can get very excited about is the work of the World Economic Forum IBC and the SDGs -- and the SDG reporting that's happening. The -- some of the world's largest companies have now committed to being fully transparent in their reporting of some of the most important sustainable development goals, not just their carbon reporting, but even equal pay. Other critical aspects of running companies to fit in terms of the kind of the world view that you just heard articulated or as Nakanishi has talked about is Society 5.0. But the idea that CEOs are now willing to commit to the transparent reporting, I think that's a very exciting progress.

Right. Susan?

Yes. No, I definitely agree with that too, Marc. And I mean, I think on -- there's been a lot of discussion about technology and governance and a lot of times media has been part of that. So I can give some of my perspective, which is that we work very closely with governments all around the world. And I believe that's critical that we continue to do so. We're currently seeing as technologies has played a more important role, a significant rise in the interest of governments and the significant rise in the number of bills. And there already are a very significant number of governance that we exist, and I believe there'll be a lot more going forward. But what -- there are also a lot of challenges. So first of all, I see a lot of issues around speech and what should or should not be allowed on platforms, for example. And that's a really tough area. Now certainly, countries pass their own laws, and we comply with all the laws that the different countries pass. But a lot of times, there is content that is legal but could be seen as harmful. And it's hard for governments to necessarily find the right way to regulate it. It also is content that can change very quickly. Like we just saw that with COVID-19 with a number of different types of misinformation that would be hard for governments all around the world to all pass different regulations about that and have compliance. It's really quick, too, at the same time. So there's this category of content that I would say is content that is technically legal, but could be harmful. And that's where we'll put a lot of time to try to make sure we put the right policies in place. It is challenging when governments pass different roles, and we have a patchwork of different products like identity strains of YouTube operated differently in every country, depending upon the different policies there. But what we have seen that has been really effective is, first of all, continuing to work with governments but also different organizations when they come together. So one of them, an example would be Gift CP, for example, which is an organization that works to fight on fighting extremism, that's funded by governments. It has a lot of experts. That's an example of where you really can get a good coalition to be able to come up with how do we handle this tough topic but do so globally and do it in a consistent way. We've also seen that with technology coalition with regard to children, the right policies there. And so I'm very supportive of coming up with organizations that can be global, that can span industry as well as government have experts and come up with ways for us to be able to better manage some of these tough questions. And so I'm looking forward to more collaboration in the future and hopefully setting up more organizations like these that can help us address some of the toughest issues that we face.

I think there's -- you make such a great point about the patchwork in times of regulation that companies do have to navigate as they look around the world, nowhere is that more true than really in the data kind of space. And part of that is rooted in different cultural notions of concepts like privacy, for example. There are different understandings of what privacy is and different expectations of that around the world, some of which eventually become codified in regulation. When we're talking about the magnitude of the kinds of problems that we are trying to solve, right, as technologists, climate change, learning, access, new financial systems to the unbanked, like all these big, huge kind of societal problems, how do we look to create a global understanding about some of these concepts? So how do we encourage partnerships that can really move forward with that concept? And these are all -- these are problems that we face around the world. And while we may have a different lens on them, ultimately, we do need to be cooperating in order to really see movement. Thoughts on that? Marc, I'd love to hear from you on the content -- please Nakanishi first. And Marc, over to you to talk about maybe oceans. And I know we can...

That -- anyway that digitalization is a great tools for the analyzing or the recognizing of the what is happening in the world. And Sheila you pointed out so many issues to be solved, but those kind of issues is so integrated and not in the independent items. So some of the -- those 2 factors is a very clear evidence of the technology progress is one of the future of human kind. That's a starting point of this, but simultaneously, Minister already pointed out that the price is one of the keyword to setting up the -- how to utilize those kinds of data. And how to making a clear path to utilize all the data to recognize the what is happening. And then how to build up the trust? Trust is a very wide range of the world. The -- from not only the digital world. But of course, digitalization is very powerful. So it's a very important concept for the future. For the GTGS is very important, that how to govern the trust buildings. From the viewpoint of the business activities, building trust is one of the starting point of the -- to setting up the business environment. But now those kinds of the path is not so clear yet. That we have to discuss how to setting up the next path to building up the trust. There is a very simple communication channels and how to -- making a more secure and safer message, so those kinds of things is very important to the discussion target. But that's the GTGS major issues. The recently that the Japanese government, the staff that's part of the Singapore whole industrial revolution in Japan is to give the and propose of the white paper to build up those kinds of the trust building approach. Those times of discussion will be very much important target setting for this GTGS. That's how we did so. Those kind of discussions, we very much more have to do. Thank you.

Thank you. Marc, did you want to comment?

Well, I think when you like to bring it down to some like a specific example. And I think that everyone on this panel agrees, we need to take better care of our oceans. And I know we're all very worried about the extension motion with whales and dolphins. We want to stop killing whales. We want to stop killing dolphins. And we especially want to stop it through inadvertent ship strikes. That is ships have never moved faster or more efficiently. And as they go through high-traffic areas, you're much more likely to have a strike of a whale than ever before. Now by using technology developed by the University of California, Santa Barbara, and you can actually see this today. It's a great example of the 4 IR. It's whalesafe.com. It's a project between UCSC, the World Economic Forum and our own ocean initiative. And by using artificial intelligence, combined with audio technology, combined with drone technology, we're able to identify where the whales are and where the ships are and notify ship captains before those strikes occur. And it's a very exciting development. It's already been deployed in Santa Barbara, you can try it yourself. But it's really an example of how technology can improve very significant problems that we have in the world. And I think as we look to make everything go further, we could just kind of start to take what are those pieces of the 4 IR that we like and apply them to these very complex problems. And if these ecopreneurs, like, for example, Doug McColly at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who's created this amazing whalesafe.com system, this is a tremendous advancement. And I think that we can encourage this. It's one, again, one of the most -- one of the reasons I'm so excited about UpLink.

Thank you. We talk a lot at the forum about systems thinking. And I think have a new understanding in the post pandemic world of the global public comments. And Marc, I think the work you cited about oceans is an example of how we've always somewhat thought about the oceans as a public commons, that legally in terms of maritime laws actually legally how the oceans are governed, the jurisdiction there flows quite fluidly. But we're now seeing, I think, about other things like access to medicine, vaccines, these kinds of things, the Internet itself as also having elements of the global public commons. And I think that leaves the way or the path forward to a really new way of approaching technology governance and thinking about this in a more systemic way as opposed to each technology being governed independently within its own silo, within its own sector. And so I'm curious if there are thoughts on global commons or digital public infrastructure, these concepts that are coming up more and more and how do you think they intersect with technology governance and move the world to a more cooperative model? Perhaps Minister, I'll turn it to you.

I'm half-suspected movements.. It struck me when you mentioned the global public commons. And if you think about sustainability, the term that comes to mind is the tragedy of the commons. And the point there is that this idea that this inexhaustible source of goodness out there, just waiting to be tapped and harvested at will really isn't fit for purpose. Now I'm going to be slightly provocative because I'm moving to actually incite to Marc and Susan to come back at me. If you -- we are now at a point in which the digital world is merging with the real world. And in the real world, you would not accept a contract that anything goes or trust us, we know what we're doing or that there's no regulations and there are no limits, whether it's limits fishing or limits to the type of speech or the purpose behind which sometimes in the hate speech or divisive speech is useful. So if we accept the hypothesis that we're now merging a digital world with the real world. Then the question arises, whether many of those foundational myths on which the Internet as we know it was created, actually, it needs a reset and a reboot. And by that, I'm really referring to political -- the politics of it, the policy, the legislation and how we come to terms with this new technology. I mean the key thing is, as Susan has said, is if you look at YouTube, the volume, the share scale of material being generated. It's steep. The fact that it's distributed on like the speed of light and the diversity of it all. I don't think in the real world, we've actually adapted ourselves for something on this scale. So we have a scale of problem which we need to deal with. And I just want to leave it there and see how Marc and Susan will come back at me.

Marc and Susan?

Sure. I mean, I would say that I agree frontally that we've seen how the Internet has matured and grown. And I mean, I've been working in the Internet for 23 years now. And so if I look at what it was like when I first started versus what it is today, of course, it's vastly different. Like I wouldn't have been here 23 years ago, nobody would have wanted it. No one at West probably would have went -- wouldn't -- hasn't necessarily been relevant, but today it is. And -- but I also want to just push back on this idea that anything goes or there's no limits. Like I 100% agree with you that there are limits, and not everything goes. So I'm agreeing with you, but I'm not -- I'm disagreeing that we would have a policy or philosophically say, that, that would be okay. And if I look at the number of policies that we've had to put in place over the last, I don't know, I'm just going to say the last 4 years, and the work that we've done there is tremendous. And the reason that we can operate at scale and that we can do -- operate at the level that we can and have a global video library is because of technology. Ironically, like this technology is enabled because of AI. So we use AI to be able to manage and make sure that all the uploads that we have are meeting and are compliant with all the different policies that we have put in place. And we're actually able to remove and identify all those videos very, very quickly because we have that technology. So -- but what happens is there'll be a lot of content that governments and us will all agree, of course, I content that shouldn't be allowed. Anything that a government passes and says illegal, we will not have on its platform. But I do believe there are a lot more conversations that need to happen about how we work together in some of these more gray areas where content is legal, but is potentially harmful. And there, what we try to do is we try to work with experts to be able to try to understand what are the philosophies or what are the approaches that we can come up with. And I mean, I would love it if there was a global group that came up with a number of different maybe philosophies or processes in terms of where they think some of those limits are, and we could work to try to interpret them and what that would actually mean for our platform. But right now, we work with governments individually that -- and sometimes there's a lot of differences. So we do our best to both explain the technology, work with them to show how we are either in compliance are working to be so. And we care deeply about our communities, about the users, the impact that we have. And a lot of times, I find that these questions are complicated. They're more complicated, the more you dig into them, the more complicated they turn out to be. And they have all these unintended consequences. And so I just think there needs to be a lot more discussion between companies and platforms and technology and government, so they understand, and we can make the best decisions together to keep our community safe.

I was just in Singapore twice over the last 6 months. It's an amazing country. It's handled the pandemic incredibly well. The government should be incredibly proud of how they have been able to keep the virus at bay there. And using aggressive information technology, like contact tracing, like we heard is probably one of the most advanced contact tracing systems in the world today, one of the probably greatest challenges for Singapore today is really becoming net 0. And what we're really looking for is, I don't know the exact numbers, but I think that Singapore emits about 50 million tons of CO2 a year. So when I was there, I had an opportunity to speak to the government and one thought that was in my mind, is how can Singapore create a carbon bank, maybe with Australia or maybe with another country, that has scaled ecosystems to preserve the amount of biodiversity needed to really sequester those 50 million tons? Today, you don't really think about that when you're in Singapore, it's very much -- you're encapsulated in the country. But I think the way to think about carbon emissions and sequestration, emission reduction, education and innovation. Like I said, those 4 key elements of reducing those 50 million tons is to think about a relationship with biodiversity in that Singapore can come in and preserve and conserve and help to innovate around creating a carbon bank where it can store that carbon to say we are a net 0 country, and here is the evidence. And I think we can do that today. I think that with the power of biometricians, the people who are actually able to quantify these levels of biodiversity and have a clear addressable issue, like how do we reduce Singapore's emissions, this can be addressed. So when we think about scale, I think that this is an area where we have to think aggressively about scale because I'm sure the minister, and I know the Prime Minister as well want to get to necessary as fast as possible, just like we just heard from Suga. So this is I think the right way to think about it, how are we going to do that?

Yes. Well, I'll give you one minute, Minister, to respond, and then I'm going to have to unfortunately wrap us up for this fascinating conversation Minister, please.

Well, thanks, Marc. I mean, you know as well. You know how tiny we are. We are a city state. Imagine Manhattan being independent. But yet in this tiny rock, 1/3 of it is covered in trees. There's more biodiversity in Singapore than the entire continent of the United States. And because we are low lying, we are extremely vulnerable to climate change. So this is something we take seriously. It's not a debating point. The key point, which you have reached is that Singapore has to be part of a global planetary ecosystem. And that's why we've introduced things like the carbon tax. We're looking for development of carbon markets globally. We're looking to deploy the latest and the best technology to make this place a greener, fairer and smarter place. So this is an exciting moment driven both out of need as well as opportunity. So there's a lot more that I need to take up with you, Marc, on your next comment. And Susan, on that, I just wanted to affirm your point on the critical need to have this conversation and to do it in a transparent way which generates public confidence. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Minister, and thank you to all of our panelists for joining us today. The Global Technology Governance Summit continues, and you will be hearing more of the need and articulated concepts around cooperation, whether that's globally, whether it's how we think across our silos, the places where we've all landed, whether that's an industry vertical, whether it's a particular or cultural point of view, it's so important now more than ever that we're working together. Thank you so much to everyone for attending, and we look forward to seeing you over the course of the next few days.

[Presentation] Greetings to everyone tuning in around the world. I'm Rebecca Blumenstein with the New York Times, and I'm very happy to be here with Marc Benioff, the CEO and Chairman of Salesforce for the past 22 years, which is quite an impressive run. Marc, Salesforce has played a key role in the pandemic. You've enabled remote work and business. And you're also known as, in many ways, the original activist CEO, which has been a big topic around the World Economic Forum these days.

I'd love to start with that, especially over the past week, given the controversy here in the United States about Georgia and the restrictive voting rules that were passed. It's kind of reignited what the role of companies should be. What is your stand on that legislation?

Well, my stand, Rebecca, is that voting is the foundation of our democracy. And everyone is entitled to their votes, and we should encourage and have everyone legally voting as often as possible in these elections so that our democracy can continue. I think that's extremely important. And so I'm in favor of the activism. I think it's important that these companies and these individuals realize that they have a voice, and that companies do have a role in making a statement. And I'm all for what the major league baseball did. They made a clear statement that they don't support it. They gave it a thumbs down. And of course, Salesforce gave the same thumbs down before the vote happens.

Have you been involved in trying to convince other CEOs to take a more active stand both in Georgia and in other -- on other issues?

No. I think you know that I believe business is the greatest platform for change. I believe that CEOs really have an opportunity using their businesses to improve society. And that could be directly making a commentary to politicians or building great products or making sure that their companies are net zero. I think in all of those cases, business are improving the state of the world.

Do you think -- I think, at least in the U.S. business community, there was a hope. And Rich Lesser, who we both know the CEO of Boston Consulting Group, was quoted in The Times this week, saying that there have been some who thought that hope this will become easier after Trump. But in many ways, workforces, people are getting more activists, companies are being held to higher account and it's getting harder. How do you view this? I think a lot of people did think that post-Trump that the role of business would become clearer.

Well, I look at more about the employees. And when I look at our own company and when we've had to take certain activist roles like we've done in Indiana, for example, many years ago now, it's really driven by the employees. People always say to me or like, as you mentioned, our friend wrote a headline that Marc is the activist CEO. It's not me. It's really -- I'm just acting on behalf of my employees. They make a case. And I -- we're 1 team. We're -- I'm not making some unilateral decision. It's -- I'm trying to take their voice and their energy and channel it as they want me to. And I think employees today are really the true activists. You can see that in your news room. You can see it in your industry. You can see it in my industry where the employees have a voice and a role and say -- are able to say things and have action in ways that maybe previously, they could not. And that's really where we are. And to that point, the CEOs have a responsibility to listen to their employees and then act on their behalf. And I think in the case of Indiana where there was laws being signed that constrained and started to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, our employees said to me, "Hey, Marc, you have a responsibility to go out there and use now the power of the company that collectively we have and have it changed." And of course, we negotiated with the governor, and we had that law changed. We found a mutual resolution. And you can see that in lots of places in the world. In the United States, but also in other countries, the companies can have a role in shaping policy and expressing their pleasure or displeasure with certain policies.

So are we getting closer to what's known as stakeholder capitalism? I mean many people have criticized that term slightly, just kind of considering it PR, in a sense, and it's not really taken hold. Do you see this leading to a meaningful change ultimately in how capitalism works?

Well, it came out of the World Economic Forum and the founder here, Klaus Schwab, who's currently the Chairman of the World Economic Forum, really conceptualized and evangelized this idea that companies must be about all stakeholders and also their shareholders. So that means their employees are important, their customers, their partners, their local communities, their public schools, that the environment is a key stakeholder. We can't have a successful business without a successful environment. And that CEOs can't just manage for shareholders. They have to have a bigger mindset. And with that idea of stakeholder capitalism that you're -- you're really thinking about everything a lot more holistically, that is a winning idea. And it's not the idea that I had when I went to business school back in the '80s. This is a relatively new idea. And it's an idea that has a lot more traction today than it's ever had. And when I talk to CEOs, they aim to operate for all stakeholders. And in some cases, they become exactly, as you said, theoretical activist CEOs. But really, they're just saying, "Hey, on behalf of all of our stakeholders, we think that this company needs to take this action or this action or this action." In the case of MLB baseball, you saw this week, they basically said we're moving the game because we don't think this supports all stakeholders. So this is a powerful motion in business, and I encourage it, and I think that everyone has to be a part of improving the state of the world, including companies, CEOs and their employees.

So you think in a sense, all of these moves are part and parcel of growing stakeholder capital as a movement?

Well, one of the most exciting things that happened this year, Rebecca, is the World Economic Forum's IBC, which is their International Business Committee, which is 200 of the top CEOs in the world basically decided that they were going to begin to be fully transparent in what is, I would say, 22 well-established metrics or KPIs, kind of key performance indicators, in their companies that they have never published before. And of course, companies publish their revenue and profits, and they're audited by these big 4 accounting firms. You know that, and you look at those reports. But those reports don't include things like emissions or pay equality or community investment and a couple of dozen other key KPIs. And these CEOs, for the first time in business history, have standardized on these 22 well-established metrics. And now the 4 accounting firms have agreed to publish them and audit them. This is a big moment. But if you connect it back to what you were just talking about, what it means is that we're moving more towards stakeholder capitalism because these things are really stakeholder issues. They're not just pure financial metrics. They are about all stakeholders. And that is very exciting, and that's a new moment in business.

So today, Jeff Bezos made headlines here in the United States when he called for an increase in the corporate income tax to support President Biden's infrastructure plan. That's almost a classic squaring off of the 2 interests here, like traditional shareholder interest would not allow for support of such move. Do you also support an increase in the corporate tax rate?

Well, I think you saw several years ago, Salesforce advocated aggressively and helped get passed and even through the Supreme Court, the tax rate in San Francisco of a very small percentage of our revenue designed to support the homeless. The homelessness became a major issue in San Francisco. And so we advocated for proposition C and that has passed. And now that generates about $30 million a month in additional services for the homeless in San Francisco. We felt it was starting to impede our ability to be successful. So we advocated for an additional tax. I think in the case where businesses believe, like you just said with Amazon, and I think Salesforce also believes this as well, that it's appropriate to have increased taxes that they should advocate for those taxes, and they should make the case why that is. And I think in the case of the United States, we probably do need revisions and have conversations about what our tax rates should be, but we also have to balance that against the United States' ability and need to be competitive in the world. So whatever that final tax rate is, it needs to be set in a competitive framework.

So are you agreeing with Bezos on this? Or saying that you think that you would support a general push to look at this with fresh eyes?

I'm in favor of looking at it with a beginner's mind and say, let's look at the tax rates, and let's find the correct number, and let's have a conversation and do it together. And so mostly, I would say, I'm in favor of what Jeff is saying. But at the same time, I'm also saying, let's also do it in the framework of competitiveness and global competitiveness.

So the environment is obviously something that you're very committed to as a leader and as a company. Salesforce is already net zero. And you've called on all other businesses to get to net zero. How realistic is that? I mean it's a little easier for a cloud computing company than, say, General Motors or some heavily emitting industries.

I think it's very realistic. I think that companies today, all companies, have the ability to become net zero companies. I think all countries have the ability to be net zero countries. We just saw Prime Minister Suga. We're doing that under the auspices of Japan, calling and saying that he was going to accelerate Japan's push to become a net zero country. I'm very grateful to him for doing that. I think climate change and the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere is the #1 issue in the world today. We need to do 4 things in regards to that. We need to reduce emissions. We need a sequester and get the 200 gigatons of carbon that we've put out into the environment. It's the first industrial revolution out of the environment. We need to educate people on how their behavior and their diets impact the amount of CO2 in the environment. And we need new innovations to achieve all of that and to hit these major goals. Personally, I'd like to see a broad effort to sequester 100 or 200 gigatons of carbon out of the atmosphere. It's one of the reasons why I founded, 2 years ago at the World Economic Forum, 1t.org, which is the 1 trillion tree initiative. The idea that we're going to plant 1 trillion trees to sequester a couple hundred gigatons. And another reason why I'm so grateful that Canada just joined that effort and so they're going to plant 2 billion trees because we know that whether it's reforestation or other key things that we can do in the environment, we can make major impacts on the amount of CO2 that we are currently moderating against.

You were successful in getting President Trump to sign on to support this initiative, which many people felt at the time would be impossible to do. How important do you see your role as a CEO in terms of trying to make climate less of a partisan issue than it's become?

Well, I think that climate is our #1 issue. And I think when we look out over the next 20 years, like we just heard from that fabulous video, we have all these amazing new technologies. How can we use it to improve the situation in the climate? And when we look at the climate, we see that there's a need to change how we're interacting with the environment that we have to reduce the amount of CO2 that we're putting out there. So we have to look at basically 4 types of carbons, if you will. There's green carbon trees, like I just mentioned. This idea of planning 1 trillion trees. We used to have 6 trillion trees on the planet. Now we have 3 trillion trees. Each 1 trillion trees sequesters 200 gigatons of carbon. So as we reduced from 6 trillion to 3 trillion trees, we basically released 600 gigatons of carbon. That carbon basically gets either absorbed into the soils. They absorb about 3,000 gigatons of carbon or the oceans. And the oceans sequester about 20,000 gigatons of carbon. That's why the oceans are getting hotter because they're pulling more of that carbon down. So we need to look at: how are we going to add more trees; how are we going to nurture the soils or maybe move to regenerative soils or no-till farming to sequester more carbon; how we're going to create more environments in the ocean, whether it's through mangroves or sea grasses to sequester more CO2 in the ocean successfully; or new kinds of gray carbon where we even have technology like the technology being built, for example, in Switzerland, by Climeworks to create gray carbon, be able to actually remove it from the atmosphere and turn it into blocks of -- to be used for construction or buried in the ground. But that idea that there's 4 types of carbon, green, blue, brown, gray, that we need to put together a portfolio of that carbon, that's what I'm thinking about. And I've been inspired by a lot of companies who are using fourth industrial technology, like we just heard about. Maybe things like artificial intelligence, where we can see that they are able to, like have clarity on where the biodiversity is on the planet and either how to conserve it or how to mitigate it or how to get corporations or even countries to say, okay, we're going to protect this because this is going to be our carbon bank. This is really a moment where we have the ability to do all of those things.

So ahead of the climate talks this fall, I had the honor of interviewing Secretary Kerry soon after he started his role as the U.S. Climate Czar. There was a broad consensus that business needs to do more. Aside from the WEF goals, would you support businesses committing to new pledges to become net zero or to more aggressively tackle climate change and many of them are now?

Well, absolutely. And I think that the United States, having a key administration official dedicated to the environment, is an incredible first step. And that idea that businesses have to be part of the solution, I, of course, have got to fully agree with that. And I think that technology and next-generation companies also have to be part of that solution. I've been very impressed, for example, with the work of a company called SilviaTerra, who's taken AI and biometricians to really be able to look at maps generated by companies like Planet Labs to say, here is where the carbon can be stored or here is where biodiversity is that needs to be protected. And then for companies to come in and say, we're going to pay for that conservation or for that growth or for that enhanced biodiversity. Or for companies like Heliogen, who are kind of building next-generation solar systems that are architected and managed by graphical processing units to create green hydrogen, that there's these next-generation capabilities that we can really harness to be able to deliver this climate solution that we're all looking for.

I'd like to talk about the pandemic and how it's changed the world and the very nature of work. Salesforce actually benefited to a certain extent by the sudden rush to do so much work remotely. How much do you think work has changed for good? And you've announced some pretty aggressive plans yourself that really a small fraction of your workforce is going to be coming back to the office for 5 days a week.

Well, last year, I've been working out of my home, and that's where I am right now. And I've been trying to mix -- start to mix back in going to the office, which I've done a number of times. And I'm even starting to do in-person customer events. I was just in Singapore, and I was able to meet with customers, and I also have an event and present to them like I would normally do in my business. And last week, at Washington, D.C., I actually was able to go to Washington, D.C. and present to customers. It was outdoors. Unfortunately, it was raining, but we had to do it outdoors to be safe, and -- but I did. I was presenting to customers in the United States in a live event. For me, that was a milestone that we're kind of getting back gradually. And you mentioned Secretary Kerry, I went and saw him at the State Department. I walked through the State Department, but I realized when I was there, most people are still working from home, that it's still very much a work-from-home environment. So that's actually a bit of a metaphor for me that we're all still very much at home. We're slowly, gradually coming back. Some people who are vaccinated can come back to work. People who are using testing environments aggressively can have events and can come back to work, like I did last week, and we're going to have to find our way into new normal. Now does that mean that I'm going to get rid of my fancy camera and computer here that I have in my home, and then I'm going to only work in the office? No, it doesn't. I'm going to continue to take the skills here that I've learned how to use in this environment and continue to use them in the future. And I will mix that with my physical environment, whether it's in-person events or in-person meetings in my offices around the world that I'll bring it all together as one integrated working strategy that I'll do both. And I didn't have these skills before. I didn't even have this nice camera that I have plugged into my computer. And there's nobody here in the studio helping me, I'm all by myself doing this just like you are. And this is a skill that I have. I'm planning to use this work-from-home skill. And that's also why Salesforce has entered into an agreement to buy Slack because we believe that all of our products have to become work from home first. And so that will be a major strategic motion. We also built a product called Salesforce Anywhere so that our customers can be successful from anywhere and sell from anywhere, service from anywhere, market from anywhere, conduct commerce from anywhere, collaborate from anywhere. And so we're in a new world. And Salesforce is going to be a leader in that world. I want to pioneer these new models myself, and I'm very excited about getting back into the new world and out of the pandemic.

So my colleague, Kevin Roose, has written a book about the push to automation, which many feel has accelerated. We've literally been in an environment where companies are rethinking human contact. And as we use AI more and really get this downstream into business, do you worry about the impact on workers who could be displaced as a result of this? So some say that basically years of work has been accelerated by the pandemic toward automation.

Well, I think that we know that we have new types of software, new types of hardware, new types of robotic, and there's going to be growth in automation and growth in certain types of jobs that are going to be automated. At the same time, there's growth in new jobs and new capabilities. It's one of the reasons that Salesforce created a service called trailhead.com to help reskill millions of workers into new types of digital high-value jobs because we know that workers need to move from maybe what jobs were and what jobs need to be. And of course, that's constantly happening through history. Technology is moving forward. It's constantly getting lower costs. It's constantly getting easier to use, but the workers need to be reskilled, and we can use technology to reskill workers and enter them into this new world. So as the U.S., for example, reopens and we see jobs come back and unemployment figures turn into employment figures, there's going to be some jobs that are not coming back. In those cases, those workers need to be reskilled and really guided and helped into new positions, and that's a role that Salesforce wants to play and be a very important part of.

Also during the pandemic, we've seen the tech companies, your company and many of the other giants get even bigger and more powerful. You've come out pretty strongly in favor of more stringent regulation of tech, especially the social media platforms. You famously compared Facebook to smoking, the new -- to being the new cigarette. What is your view of the best way to do this? And do you think it's going to happen quickly?

Technology has moved so quickly. I don't think everyone realizes the power of artificial intelligence and the power of disinformation. Technology -- maybe they saw for the first time this year in social media, the impact of this technology or box or even on an election. But it's happening every day in every facet of our life, whether we realize it's happening or not. And there are certain moments where the government needs to come in and revise and enhance regulations that no longer apply or used to apply and now no longer apply. And that's something that I've been advocating now for several years exactly like you mentioned, that the government needs to become more active and more aggressive in the regulation of these companies and what is happening. And I think it's happened a little too slowly for my taste. And I think that society has -- in some parts of society, specifically, have been damaged because governments have not moved quickly enough, and there's been not enough regulation and new regulation written to kind of support the new world that we're in today.

Do you think Facebook and Google are doing enough to combat disinformation? They say they're trying. But does it take them being subject to Article 230, some real changes in the law to make them actually legally liable?

Well, I certainly called for that law to be looked at and enhanced or changed or for that whole section of the law to evolve. That's been important to me. I also believe that while those companies have made some changes and enhanced some of their policies, which I think is more than appropriate, I don't think that any of them have gone far enough. And I think there's plenty of examples where they just have not been aggressive. We're pulling those companies into the future. They should be pulling us, and they should be not protecting their old revenue models, but instead, they need to be aggressively going after how they're going to protect us as their users, as society. That should be their primary point of view. That's true stakeholder capitalism, not just focusing on your shareholder, but focusing on all of your stakeholders. And one of your key stakeholders is society and even your users and the structure that you're existing in. So only focusing on your business model, which is, I think, a lot of those companies have been behaving was completely inappropriate, and they need to pivot to supporting all of their stakeholders and protecting us. And as an example, some of them now have products, like you've mentioned, Facebook, just for children. And these technologies targeted and pointed towards children, well, that's where I think things have to cross the line, and you say that has to stop. And that's why I'm such a supporter of the work and policies that have been advocated by Common Sense Media because they have really said, "Hey, when you're going after children, you need to protect them and not turn them into your product," but that is what is happening at Facebook.

So our time is quickly passing. I have 2 last quick questions probably. But you're own future, Jeff Bezos has given up the CEO title. Some have said that you have a worthy successor in Bret Taylor. Do you have any plans to make a change to your own status anytime soon?

Well, I mean, Rebecca, every year that I've been the CEO of Salesforce, I get that question. That's a common interview question for a CEO. And all I can tell you is, I'm here and very excited. I've never been more excited about the future of Salesforce. It's been an amazing 22 years of Salesforce. And I think the next 22 years for Salesforce will be even more amazing.

Finally, you brought Time Magazine. I thought you were going to say that. But you bought Time Magazine, which is in the process of issuing NFTs and doing some business in Bitcoin. You become a believer in those technologies, I assume.

Well, I think you have to look at Bitcoin and NFTs and cryptocurrencies as an exciting part of the future. It's really incredible technology. At Salesforce, we've been using them for years. We've built those blockchain technologies deeply into our platform. We've helped customers provide everything from transparent food networks so that consumers can see exactly how their food was delivered, to helping sneaker companies automate their supply chains and making sure that they're net zero, all using the blockchain. Now I think when you look at the next-generation of blockchain killer apps, of course, Bitcoin is a killer app for the blockchain. Another killer app for the blockchain is NFT. Well, for media companies, it's an exciting monetization capability for their digital assets. And for Time Magazine, you can see how they have now been able to turn quite a few of their covers into NFTs, and I'm confident that there'll be a number of other amazing cover opportunities coming for collectors of Time Magazine in the future. And it's exciting to work with those collectors to offer them products like the NFT versions of Salesforce Time covers so that they can add those to their collections. Maybe we should add some Salesforce covers in there, too.

Marc, thank you so much for a fascinating conversation.

Some New York Times covers, too, Rebecca. Some New York Times.

Well, thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you. Take care. And thanks to everybody.