Salesforce
Salesforce, founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, took the unglamorous world of customer relationship management software and turned it into a $200 billion tech juggernaut. Benioff, with his penchant for self-promotion and Hawaiian shirts, built the company on the then-radical idea of cloud computing, a move that left competitors scrambling to catch up. Salesforce’s IPO in 2004 was a runaway success, and its stock has been a Wall Street darling ever since, despite occasional grumbles about its aggressive acquisition strategy. The company’s relentless growth, fueled by snapping up smaller firms, has made it a behemoth, but not without critics who question its ever-expanding empire. Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce event, part tech conference, part carnival, perfectly encapsulates the brand: a mix of innovation, spectacle, and more than a little hype. The legacy? A tech titan that redefined enterprise software, proving that even in the cloud, the sky’s not the limit.