The Real Reason Dario Is Playing Nice

0:00 So, this is from CNBC's Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says the SaaS apocalypse is nonsense and here's why. basically Salesforce turned in some incredible earnings. The share surged more than 12% after the enterprise software giant delivered a strong quarter and issued better than expected guidance. Earlier this year, this is from again from CNBC, investors feared that increasingly capable AI models could allow the businesses to accomplish more with fewer traditional software subscriptions undermining the industry's pricing model. Wall Street also worried that companies could use AI to create the software tools they're paying for and Salesforce shares went down 22% this year through Wednesday's close. But, guess what? Salesforce has rebounded and so have many of the other software names. I guess what Benioff was saying as as trying to say and what the market is finally accepting is that if AI replaces software, it's going to be slow. It's not going to happen overnight.

0:56 which to me has always been the case. I don't know if the fundamentals changed, but certainly the SaaS apocalypse is on pause. So, Ron I just want to get your broader reaction to this. you know, was it an overreaction by stocks in the be by yeah by Wall Street in the beginning and what do you think we can read into what's happening now? >> All right. I wanted to This is very relevant to my life here in Enterprise AI. So, let's talk through this at a couple of different levels, but I want to start with the announcement itself on Claude 4 and Dario and Marc sitting next to each other at a table and I definitely want to get into the dynamics of that, but what's amazing to me in terms of the marketing chops of Salesforce and Marc Benioff is the actual announcement. I don't want to say it's a complete non-event, but you could already do this in Salesforce and Claude. You I at Writer where I work, people connect to Salesforce and run all types of queries. It's actually one of the most valuable things I found for my day-to-day. You can do things in chat GPT. So, so the actual connecting Salesforce data with an AI entry point as a layer over it is not really news, but to package it all up, to have Dario sitting next to you, and to have your stock pop 22%.

2:15 God bless Marc Benioff, cuz that man can market like no other. to me the most interesting part in like again, definitely want to get into the actual kind of what it means for each business, but seeing Dario sit next to him in that context, and that's every the meme world got it, was kind of wild. Like, Dario goes and says, you know, you know, my chief commercial officer was just demoing this for me where he asked what the biggest biggest accounts that Anthropic is trying to close now. Talk me through the risks of each one. All that data comes from being managed in Salesforce. These are not things Dario ever says or talks about. Like, the most pedestrian mundane ways of using AI.

3:00 Like, how do you think he ended up sitting there? Cuz it really that power dynamic and the way he was speaking shocked me. >> Well, Salesforce is a investor in Anthropic. >> Investor, but their stake, I believe I saw is 5 billion. Come on. >> Yeah. You're going out of >> 2 trillion. This is not your lead here. This is This is not from a pure financial standpoint in terms of who your investors are. This isn't a big deal.

3:36 >> Can I tell you what I thought when I saw them sitting together? >> Yes. I want to hear. I'll I'll I'll get more into >> I just thought it's the last week of summer, nothing's happening. Dario's bored. Like, this is like the one opportunity that they got to get him with Benioff, and they just did it cuz nothing was happening this week anyway. >> That is a very generous interpretation, but what's >> What's your What No, tell me what your perspective is. Why do you think he's there?

4:01 >> I think he's there because pre-IPO, I think this is the first time, and maybe this is reading too much into it, where Dario like has been influenced by the investors in the company, and they're telling him all this talk about you're the last private company to be standing, and you're going to subsume and every company and scare everyone is bad for the IPO. So, you need to go out there and put on a friendly face and show how you're not this kind of like Death Star looking to destroy all companies and are actually a friendly face and just sit next to Mark, and this is a perfect opportunity to do that. I think this was like heavily influencing him pre-IPO.

4:48 >> Okay. All right, very interesting. >> So, let's like kind of back up a little bit, right? And kind of talk about what's going on here. So, so, what what happened it was you talked about Claude first, right? Basically, that's being the ability to use Claude to query your Salesforce records and get insights like yeah, again, like like we talked about, who are the accounts we need to close or if you're if you're Anthropic, the worry has been from the software companies would be that you would go basically, you would you would stop finding ways to make money selling the models themselves, and you would need to go upmarket. So, you start to take over the things that you know, Salesforce are doing. So, what you're saying here is basically that like instead of playing on those fears, what Anthropic is doing is saying they're going to play nice with enterprise software. If I'm an Let Let me just put it this way. If I'm an investor in Anthropic, why do I want that?

5:43 Wouldn't I want this company to say, instead of that, instead of you know, the vision that these multi-billion dollar companies are going to be okay, why wouldn't I have the vision that that is my market? Like, wouldn't I be better suited having Dario basically introduce a instead of Claude Force, Claude Customer Solutions, where and and this is kind of the >> Salesforce, Salesforce. >> Now, this is Salesforce. That is a great name. >> Salesforce. >> Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

6:12 you know, the the software this is kind of the bottom line here. The software companies are getting a reprieve. They're the basically the the news is, okay, they're not going to be, you know, disrupted right away. but it doesn't mean the long-term disruption is off the table. It doesn't mean long-term like long-term, wouldn't your AI assistant, if they if they hit AGI, you wouldn't need a Salesforce. You would just dump everything into your AI assistant. You would have it listen to all your conversations. You would have it do all your customer interactions. Like, you don't need Salesforce. That's the whole thing. So, I don't understand what the logic is from your perspective of them having to play nice with business software.

6:47 >> I I No, no. So, I do think and and like I I definitely think this is pure PR and comms. I think the big risk that they've identified on the IPO is that everyone like the more evil and death-stary Anthropic seems and the more evil Dario seems, that's a net negative. I think there was a moment 6 months ago where that played well. Like, Claude will destroy all software and and and that the people were into it and liked it and it was fun. That still needs to be the $2 trillion valuation story. So, I think this was purely just to be like friendly face, look, he can sit next to another technology leader and smile and say we can work together. I think that's it. I don't cuz when you actually dig into the mechanics of it and I let's do that, I do think this doesn't make sense really for either company the way they're pitching it.

7:46 >> Right, so it doesn't make sense for either company because of the sort of because of what I just brought up basically that like this is going to be Anthropic's market over time or why would you say it wouldn't make sense? >> So, two levels. One, Anthropic, you nailed it. It's you need to destroy Salesforce to get to a $2 trillion market valuation. Now, you do like you the whole vibe coming from your CRM >> it's that's exactly right.

8:11 >> Yeah, no, no. I mean, it's it's it's that is the story. That's been the story. That's what got all the hype in the market. So, to walk away from that, I do think is not doesn't make sense in the medium and long term. For Salesforce, what's so fascinating about this, the central question, even Dario started by saying, "Salesforce has all the data. It's basically a machine for managing your CRM." The way Salesforce is positioning themselves, if you give up the UI layer, I think that's a big mistake because in reality and this is a big question, whose data is it? Is it the customer's data or is it Salesforce's data? Now, I do think there's an opportunity and again, we think and talk a lot about this at Writer like there is a tremendous value in fact in terms of being the governed data layer and the structured data layer and Salesforce dominates and owns that.

9:08 So, there's definite value in simply being a secure governed structured place for all of the customer data. But, how valuable is that? Is that valuable in the same way traditional software margins have been? I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe it will be, but but in reality in the end, it's the customer's data. So, to kind of build the entire story around it's our data and Dario even saying it's Salesforce has all the data." To me it's just weird. Like I I don't know. I I don't see I'm still trying to figure out. I mean Benioff is Marc Benioff and I'm sure even to get Dario sitting next to him like that, obviously the man can play the game well. But to me the what the bigger story is around this by giving up the UI layer is still kind of surprising or confusing to me.

10:06 >> Yeah, that's right. I mean I think you hit it right on the nail the nail right on the head with the UI part of the conversation, which is that basically like, all right, if you're Salesforce, now people are going to access your software by having conversations with an assistant. Right? Is it that big of a leap to over time, you know, say, "Okay, well, since sales, you know, Salesforce is the database and Claude is the conversation, why don't we just move the Claude the database over to Anthropic with Sales Claude and then away we go?"

10:35 >> Yeah, no, I mean the whole that that was the SaaS apocalypse story, which is again going back to it's kind of still Salesforce stock jumping 22% in a single day, the second biggest jump it's ever had in its existence when they're actually going to market with and maybe it's not a dumb database now. They're going to say it's a smart database, but still giving up that entire side of the way you the interaction point. Where is what is someone opening in their morning to ask questions about what does my day look like? I it's I'm I still don't quite understand it. But it made the stock jump 22%, so something worked.

11:21 >> Part of this was Salesforce's earnings, right? So Salesforce is having good earnings, you know, even as AI is rising, even as AI capabilities are rising, and even as AI capabilities are rising, Dario's there with Benioff. And this is something that I think is worth talking about with this whole SAS apocalypse thing, which is like there's a certain level of craziness to how the market has been playing this. Because, you know, just because over time people might have the capability to vibe code, you know, their own CRM, or the real threat that I think is just because over time Anthropic may go up market take some of what Salesforce is doing.

11:56 doesn't mean it's going to happen overnight. Doesn't mean it's going to happen in a quarter. Doesn't mean it's going to happen in a year. Doesn't mean it's going to happen in 2 years. All right, I think that's one of the things that as people have seen some of the AI capabilities get better exponentially, they've expected the business disruption and the diffusion to happen just as fast. And there's a real gap between the rise in capabilities and how they get implemented, right? And how people decide to use them. Like if you're a company that's using Salesforce for years, just because you can do some of your CRM activity doesn't mean you're going to go overnight to to Claude.

12:31 And so I think that like even if there was a Claude force, right? That was better. That says something that takes maybe 3, 4, 5 years. And so I think that's what we're seeing we're going to see a lot of this where like there's going to be headlines that says apocalypse is on, the says apocalypse is off, the says apocalypse is on, the says apocalypse is off. Where in truth, what we're really going to see is some volatility, but you know, we're going to need much longer time horizons to actually measure what's happening here.

12:55 And to actually see these changes meted out both in the says apocalypse, but also with everything in regard to AI's capabilities. Don't you think? >> Oh no, I I fully almost uncomfortably agree to such a wholehearted degree that I need to come up with a reason to not agree so much. That this is it's all I've said that I mean it's a timeline issue. Like this stuff will take a long time to play out. And in reality it gives the Salesforces of the world plenty of time to figure out a new model or a better model or what's their winning strategy. But Cloud Forest to me, at least the way it's been positioned, like I mean, when you dig into it, doesn't make sense for either company to me to go get this excited about it and make such a big splash around it.

13:45 Obviously, the earnings mattered, but to me again, the PR coms marketing side of it, like to me, if you're Salesforce, it is incredible like the the power communication of Dario sitting next to you talking about looking up risks around biggest When's the last time you heard Dario talk about like commercial stuff publicly? Something so pedestrian and mundane and everyday like closing a deal. Like I've never I don't think I've ever heard him, right?

14:20 So >> But I will say he is he is like when you speak with Dario about business, he is business-minded. Like he knows the numbers. He's not like pure scientist. Like he is definitely a business guy. But you're right, you haven't seen him like sit with a at like a SaaS company leader, even if it is Benioff. He's probably the most famous of them. And, you know, sort of go through go through, you know, why their partnership is good. You you know what? I The more that we're talking about it, the more I'm coming around to your to your way of thinking in terms of like the the mar- marketing and branding of all this. It's what you saw with the two of them is almost like the the anti-Alex Karp, right?

14:55 >> Where it's like >> Yes. >> There've been so many CEOs like kind of sitting on their chairs or standing on their chairs and talking about how Dario is evil. And Dario is just like, "Get me one on the line and let's go on CNBC together." >> Yeah, let's let's go sit down together. I'm friendly. Look it, I'm not pulling out like a like trying to attack Mark Benioff live on TV. And, let's let's go IPO market. You can trust me. That's That's my read.

15:25 So, from June 22nd, 2026 till today, August 28th, 2026, guess how much Salesforce stock is up? 72%. I mean, this This is This is like where we It It is amazing what we're we're seeing now in the stock market where like investors have really cooled on this idea like this disruption is going to happen overnight, which it was always like like we said, kind of kind of fanciful. And it's not just Salesforce, by the way.

15:56 Like if you look at IGV, the software ETF, IGV is up 19.68% over the past month. Salesforce again up 41% over the past past month and 72% since late June. Adobe is up 16.49% over the past month, and Microsoft's up 29% over the past month. So, you know, one of the interesting and obviously not investment advice, but one of the interesting things that, you know, you'll be able to see in this moment is like man, there's just going to be this like volatility and investors running one way and then, you know, because of some headlines and then running right back because of some earnings. And there you know, there's real opportunity there.

16:41 Has anyone who ever said not investment advice not followed up with investment advice in the history of podcasting? Well, I think that you have to, you know, you have to caveat it cuz if you're you don't want You don't want people I I get it. I get it, but you just don't You don't want people trading off of it off of these, you know, observations. like trade based off of what your financial advisor tells you to do.

17:11 It's like I don't know. I think it's a It's a worthwhile caveat. Any Any time not to be racist, but not to give investment advice, but >> >> I'm just giving you >> I'm moving on. I'm moving on. >> I'm moving on. >> Well, Ron John, just because Go ahead. >> No, no. I I >> Bash me. >> No, no. I I think >> What are you supposed to say? You're supposed to say trade on it, so the listeners come and they they they trade on it, and then when it doesn't go right, they sue you? Like, no. You you don't you need to you need to give like the appropriate context here.

17:45 >> Well, it's funny though, cuz I would say even that caveat, so much of like you watch the All-In podcast or whatever else, like I mean, there's just so much investment advice that it's just given in any kind of conversation nowadays that I I do a pro Okay, you know what? I appreciate the caveat. We're we're we don't want our listeners, as we'll get into the South Korea trading stories at the end of this podcast, ending up in any of these kind of situations.

18:18 All right. Pro caveat. >> So, are you are you going to after after hearing me talk after hearing me talk, are you going to go buy IGV? >> I I was already >> >> Mhm. Robinhood's already open. It's already done. Just cuz you said it, Alex. >> >> I hold you responsible. >> Well, I Okay, because of this I was going to say you're too late. The bounce already happened. But, okay. >> That's more investment advice.

18:43 >> window has closed. >> That's more investment advice. >> You're going to you're you're going to get this show shut down cuz like some lawyer's going to replay this and be like, "Well, my client is now in shambles after shorting and then longing IGV after hearing >> Well, actually to to to to bring it back to our 28th episode, to to kind of I think wrap this, how much do you think Salesforce stock is up from the beginning of the year?

19:10 >> Oh, oh, you want Okay, I thought you were going to ask me to predict something. I was like I don't know. What do you think? Maybe 3% maybe. >> It's down 1.94%. It's almost flat. So, it's fascinating. I mean, again, in terms of thinking back through this year and this story, it is kind of a perfect round trip of software is dead, a cloud code hype back in like February, March, April, vibe code your CRM, and now back to no one knows what's going to happen, and we're back to flat for the year.

19:43 >> No, I mean, I I think that you could have your your convictions in terms of where it's going to go. You just have to realize that it's not going to happen overnight.