The billionaire founder of Silicon Valley company Salesforce (CRM) declared on Tuesday modern capitalism is “dead”, saying business leaders now have a “responsibility” to think beyond just shareholders.
“Capitalism as we have known it is dead,” Marc Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce, said at Davos. “This obsession that we have with maximising profits for shareholders alone has led to incredible inequality and a planetary emergency.”
Benioff, who is worth $7.7bn (£6bn) according to Forbes, made the comments during a panel on ‘Stakeholder Capitalism’ — the idea that companies should work to maximise the value for all ‘stakeholders’ such as employees and society, rather than just maximising shareholder value.
“Stakeholder capitalism is finally hitting a tipping point,” Benioff said.
“Does it mean I have to fight for my employees? Yes. If they’re being discriminated against and if they’re LGBT employees, yes, we will fight for them.
“Does it mean I have to fight for our customers? Of course. Or even our local stakeholders in our community like our homeless? Yes. Every CEO has a responsibility to think about all stakeholders.
“And yes ... The planet is a key stakeholder. We’re in a planetary emergency.”
Benioff also called for higher taxes on the rich to help tackle inequality and the climate crisis.
“The wealthiest among us, people like me, we need to pay higher taxes,” he said.
- — Maybe we should convince Mr. Benioff to buyout Molina