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Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff and his philanthropist wife Lynne Benioff have bought Time Magazine soon after Meredith Corp. announced they were selling the publication, completing the sale at a staggering $190 million in cash.
While the Benioffs are purchasing Time personally and the transaction is unrelated to Salesforce.com, Meredith revealed that they would not be involved in the day-to-day operations or journalistic decisions at the publication.
Time’s current executive leadership team will continue to make these decisions and the announcement stated that: ‘We’re pleased to have found such passionate buyers in Marc and Lynne Benioff for the Time brand.
Meredith president and CEO Tom Harty said: ‘For over 90 years, Time has been at the forefront of the most significant events and impactful stories that shape our global conversation.’ But what is Marc Benioff’s net worth?
Marc Benioff speaks at the opening of the Salesforce Tower, tallest building in San Francisco
Who is Marc Benioff?
Marc Benioff is the Chairman, co-CEO and co-founder of Salesforce and under his leadership, has ensured that the cloud computing company was the fastest-growing top-five enterprise software company and the top provider of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software around the world.
According to Salesforce, since being founded in 1999, the organisation is now a Fortune 500 company and employs over 30,000 people, also being recognised as the Most Innovative Company by Forbes, the number one Best Place to Work by Fortune and the 15th Most Admired Company in the World by Fortune.
Marc was also named Innovator of the Decade by Forbes, ranked third on Fortune’s 2017 Businessperson of the Year list and has been recognised as one of the World’s 25 Greatest Leaders by Fortune and the 15 Best-Performing CEOs by the Harvard Business Review.
His efforts in transforming equality in leadership have earned Marc honours by GLAAD, the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative and Variety Magazine with its EmPOWerment Award. Alongside this, Marc also created the 1-1-1 philanthropy model, that uses Salesforce’s resources to improve communities.
Marc Benioff delivers the keynote speech during the DreamForce Conference in San Francisco
With his wife Lynne Benioff, they have also focused on improving children’s health, the environment, public education and homelessness. The Benioffs have also given over $250 million to the University of California, San Francisco to build children’s hospitals in both San Francisco and Oakland.
Marc and Lynne also created the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara to progress the study and research in ocean issues. Marc also serves as an inaugural Chair of WEF’s Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Before founding Salesforce, he spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation, where he was the youngest Vice President in company history, and his penchant for technology and business was clear from the age of 14, when he sold his first piece of software How to Juggle for $75.
Marc also founded his first company Liberty Software, which created video games, a year later. He also received a BS in Business Administration from the University of Southern California, where he was on the Board of Trustees. In 2014, he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
Marc Benioff and Lynne Benioff attend will.i.am’s i.am.angel Foundation TRANS4M 2017 Gala
Time Magazine
It was announced that Meredith Corp. had sold Time Magazine to Marc and Lynne Benioff on September 16 for $190 million in cash, the purchase of Time and other publications of Time Inc. having been completed earlier this year.
The Benioffs are purchasing Time as a personal investment and the transaction is unrelated to Salesforce.com, where Benioff is chairman, co-CEO and co-founder and would not be involved in any journalistic decisions.
Meredith President and CEO Tom Harty said in a statement: ‘We’re pleased to have found such passionate buyers in Marc and Lynne Benioff for the Time brand. For over 90 years, Time has been at the forefront of the most significant events and impactful stories that shape our global conversation.’
The publisher of magazines such as People and Better Homes & Gardens put four Time Inc. publications up for sale in March, but negotiations for the sale of the three other publications – Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated – are continuing.
Before the sale was revealed, Benioff revealed in an interview that he and his wife were investing ‘in a company with tremendous impact on the world, one that is also an incredibly strong business. That’s what we’re looking for when we invest as a family.’
Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne pose for photos with San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown
Marc Benioff net worth
Marc Benioff’s net worth has accumulated to approximately $6.6 billion, according to Forbes and the publication also lists the Salesforce pioneer as the 404th richest billionaire in the world, owning around 5 percent of the cloud computing firm he founded back in 1999.
Alongside this, he ranked 150th in the 2017 Forbes 400 list and was the 56th Richest in Tech in the same year also. His net worth has grown from $3.4 billion in March 2015 to $4.9 billion, but Forbes calculated that today, he is worth $2 billion more than at the start of this year, perhaps because of the Time purchase.
The Time acquisition will reportedly cost Benioff around 21 percent of the estimated $900 million that he earned between the months of March 2017 to March 2018, which is only 4 percent of his previous $4.9 billion net worth, according to Business Insider.
Bloomberg reported that Marc is 242nd on their Billionaires Index and probably earns staggering amounts, especially being a co-founder of Salesforce, which reported revenue of $10.5 billion in the twelve months leading up to January 31, 2018.
