In business, we say that people overestimate what you can do in a year and underestimate what you can do in a decade. This is true in philanthropy as well.

My summers at Apple had taught me that the secret to encouraging creativity and producing the best possible product was to keep people fulfilled and happy. I wanted the people who built salesforce.com to be inspired and to feel valued.

The CMO is expected to spend more on technology than the CIO by 2017.

Philanthropy isn't just about big gifts; it's about participation. It is about the grace that comes from working together.

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’ve seen how important this concept is in business. To be truly successful, companies need to have a corporate mission that is bigger than making a profit. We try to follow that at salesforce.com, where we give 1% of our equity, 1% of our profits, and 1% of our employees’ time to the community. By integrating philanthropy into our business model our employees feel that they do much more than just work at our company. By sharing a common and important mission, we are united and focused, and have found a secret weapon that ensures we always win.

If you look at the top 10 enterprise software companies, a lot of them are important but irrelevant companies. It's really important to be relevant and important.