Salesforce spent $100,000 to send three execs to mysterious 'motivational' and 'leadership' events (CRM)

Salesforce/Glassdoor

Salesforce is known for throwing extravagant parties. Its smaller events are often punctuated with private concerts from rock stars and its big annual conference, Dreamforce, is like a music festival, self-improvement retreat and giant party with a tech conference sprinkled in on the side.

Out of the $6.7 billion of revenues Salesforce generated in its last fiscal year, it spent almost half, $3.2 billion, on sales and marketing.  That's one of the major reasons Salesforce spends more than it makes. It lost $47.4 million in its last fiscal year.

In fact, Salesforce threw one or more mysterious events in which the bill for just three execs came in at around $100,000, according to a recent disclosure made on an SEC form.

Salesforce wouldn't reveal what the event, or events, were when we asked. In the SEC form, it described the event attended by COO and head of sales Keith Block and CFO Mark Hawkins as "a motivational company sales team event."

Block's attendance cost the company $58,663 and Hawkins attendance cost the company $29,362. That amount includes the tax bill both men would have faced because the event was added to their pay as a taxable perk.

The company also company picked up the tab for Chief Product Officer Alexandre Dayon to attend "a company leadership event" which Business Insider estimates to be on the order of $21,000.

That experience was part of Dayon's $54,791 of other taxable income (He made $9.7 million last fiscal year).

Most of his other income was an alarming perk of $33,400 for using the company's jet to "evacuate" a member of his family "from a foreign country for a medical emergency." Some unknown bit of that was also spent on some kind of "apparel for an employee event" (Salesforce's cofounder Patrick Harris has been known to attend company events in elaborate costumes, so maybe Dayon did the same?)

And the rest was for the leadership event, including a $10,300 tax bill for it.

Since the company won't reveal what the event/events were, here are some possibilities:

Salesforce is known for its lavish Presidents Club retreats for its star salespeople, like trips to Hawaii.

The company is also into fear fighting and team building events. Benioff, for instance, is fond of the motivational retreats put on by Tony Robbins ranging from walking on coals to bungee jumping. 

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