By Kevin Truong : sfstandard – excerpt

The walk up to the Moscone Center on Day 1 of Dreamforce had a sentimental air, with winding registration lines of techies in Allbirds or t-shirts advertising their favorite enterprise software under Patagonia vests…

The 20th iteration of Dreamforce tried to create a feeling of a return, underscored by the keynote presentation theme of “The Great Reunion” delivered by Salesforce co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor. As usual, Benioff played a starring role in the day’s events and used the stage to tout his commitments to the city and its recovery.

“This needs to go well so we attract more business back to San Francisco. This will be a key way of reopening downtown, reopening these areas and giving everybody a big boost,” Benioff said in an interview. “We invested a lot in Moscone, and this is the first time Moscone’s really being used. Everything is open for the first time so let’s see if this can be a great convention city.”…

Benioff said that as he traveled the country and observed the economic recovery in major business centers, San Francisco’s downtown stood out for its overwhelming reliance on office space…

“If you go to a city like Philadelphia it looks like it’s a lot more open. Why is that? Because you have office, residential, university, arts, all these things mixed in the downtown,” Benioff said, calling for “a lot more housing” in San Francisco’s downtown. “You have to rebalance, restructure, refill your downtown if you want it to feel alive.”…

And return-to-office mandates are not on the horizon: Benioff said recently at an event in New York City that “office mandates are never going to work” …(more)

RELATED

Benioff Speaks  about a number of subjects during Dreamforce week.

Being as he is one of the only tech titans standing who holds much sway in San Francisco since the out of office exit turned the downtown into a deserted nightmare of streets and sidewalks with a threat on every corner, he is one of the few people who may be able to knock some sense into City Hall. We will share a few pearls of wisdom that he handed out from a number of media sources.

““There’s no finish line when it comes to security and social engineering,” He was commenting on Uber hack and the social engineering is puzzling but, perhaps it lack context.

“Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on quiet quitting: Do what makes you happy”

Benioff Says San Francisco homelessness is improving as City’s performance scorecard shows 3.5% decline. He backed Prop C to fund homeless projects by taxing gross receipts on corporate revenue above $50 million.

The market ‘doesn’t fully appreciate how committed we are to growth and margins’, which means acquisitions of other tech companies are on the horizon.

Marc is inspired by Patagonia founder’s giving away his company. will he do something similar?