Salesforce.com relishes its role as an upstart innovator. Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff, once an executive with larger rival Oracle Corp., seldom misses a chance to poke a finger in the eye of his former employer or other larger companies such as Microsoft Corp.. Benioff's interest in Hawaii and surfing was the inspiration for the names of the company's conference rooms.
Philanthropy is integrated into Salesforce.com's culture in unique work/life balance approach it calls a 1/1/1 model:
-- 1% time (employees get six paid days a year to volunteer);
-- 1% product donations (discounts given to nonprofits using its CRM software) and
-- 1% equity (company stock provides funds for grants and other assistance for employee-inspired volunteer projects).
Fortune and ComputerWorld magazines have ranked the company on their best companies to work for lists.
