
Benioff, 56, does not appear to be fazed. The faster the nature of work transforms, the more valuable victory will become, and the fiercer the competition. Microsoft has been slugging it out with Slack in the pandemic-fueled rush to enable remote collaboration through communications tools.

He is now set to directly compete against Microsoft, one of the world’s most valuable companies, in its own favored territory. Benioff did something much more difficult. With Tuesday’s news that Salesforce was buying Slack for $27.7 billion, Mr. If the deal had gone through, he would have been richly rewarded - but, in the end, just another employee of the tech colossus. SAN FRANCISCO - Five years ago, Marc Benioff negotiated to sell Salesforce, the software company he co-founded in 1999 and has run ever since, to Microsoft.
