Interview Vivek Kundra part 2, Salesforce

So now I'm working for Salesforce.com, and what I'm so excited about is the work that we're doing in industries. Whether you look at the work we're doing in the healthcare space, where we've partnered with Philips to fundamentally transform the entire sector, or where you look at chronic diseases that represent 90% of the cost in most healthcare systems, how do we make sure that we're shifting that power to the patient, giving the patient the ability to not just monitor their healthcare in real time and get feedback loops, but also collaborate with nurses and doctors to get better healthcare at home? Or you look at the work we're doing in the public sector, the ability for citizens to engage with their government and not accept the answer that you have to wait in line, hold on the phone, or submit a three-part paper form. The big comparison that I draw is in the consumer world there's an app for that; in the government world there's a form for that. And we're trying to close that innovation gap in the public sector space. Or the work that's going on when you look at financial services, communications, or the auto industry, each of these is being transformed. And what's so exciting about Salesforce is that it is in the middle of that transformation because we've got the first customer success platform that allows people to connect in ways that were not possible in the past.

Well, what was interesting about that is after I left the White House, I went to a fellowship at Harvard, and I had met Mark Benioff and he said, you know, he was telling me about Salesforce and talking to me about what an amazing company it is. But I didn't know much about it until I went to Dreamforce, and Mark basically said you've got to come to Salesforce. And when I looked at the company, what was so exciting is the customers were super, super excited and inspired by the company itself and were doing amazing things as a result of the technology. And the technology represents the future. It represents the ability to connect with people, the ability to fundamentally change the way you service, the ability to build apps on the fly, the ability to slice and dice and cube big data and drive analytics in ways that haven't been possible before. So that was so exciting. I feel like a kid in a candy store.

Yeah, I mean, we look at where the world is headed right now. And if you really think about the last four decades, we've gone from a universe where you had mainframes and mini computers with thousands of users to LANs and WANs and server-client environment where you had millions of users, to what you have in terms of the world we're living in today with billions of users with social, mobile, cloud, to where we're headed now with sensors, with the things people talked about the third phase of internet. First we were gathering information, then was the social media part, now it's digitizing the physical world.

We already are. So if you look at what we just launched in terms of our Analytics Cloud, we are so excited about the ability now to take all this data that's coming in from sensors across the world, the ability to slice, dice, cube and provide insights, because at the end of the day big data is useless unless you have deep insights to be able to find meaning. And how do you do that across multiple platforms, how do you do that across multiple systems of record? And that is what we're able to do with our Analytics Cloud, to abstract a lot of that complexity and allow you to run your business on your mobile device.

Well, there are a whole host of challenges and I would argue opportunities that we see in this space. So first is, for most organizations, the challenge of your business being irrelevant. And what I mean by that is if you think of different models of disruption, a company like Uber could come out of nowhere and fundamentally change the definition of what it means to be in the transportation sector. Or a company like Airbnb fundamentally redefining what it means to be in the hotel business. So two examples, Airbnb and Uber, and I can give you a lot of other examples. But those are examples where we focus very much on the benefits that provide the consumer.

Well, I have a very optimistic view of where we're headed. So let's take Uber as an example and distill that a little further. If you really think about it, what's happened as a result of Uber, they've created a platform and have created net new more jobs than were there. And on a personal level, I'll give you an example as a customer. Because the cost to park where I work is about $35 a day, whereas the cost of an Uber one way for me is about $12. And so I end up taking an Uber every day to and from work, where normally I would never have done that. So they've redefined the market. So I don't see this as a destructive force as you're describing it. I see it as a net new job creator. And on top of that, when I talk to people who are Uber drivers, you know what they say? They love the ability to be able to decide when they want to work, how long they want to work, when they don't want to work. So it gives them the degrees of freedom that they never had before. And to me, that is a fundamentally different model. Same thing with Airbnb, right? It's created an amazing market where again, this shift in power, the shift in power is what's more important here, where the power is being shifted to the individual rather than the centralized organization. So think about that. You had in cities around the world, medallions for cabs, for example in New York City, they're going up to $1 million, and most people couldn't even afford that. Right? In hotels, cities around the world, a few very wealthy people would make a fortune price setting what it would cost one night to stay in a hotel. And to me, I think it's a great democratizing force that is allowing the individual to be the entrepreneur, to be the master of their own destiny, and to architect their own destiny. That is what's so exciting about these transformations.

Well, I wouldn't presume to know all the details of what's happening here, but what I would advise is to be very open and transparent around government IT spending, to make sure you're driving accountability when it comes to how these IT projects are performing. The other thing I would say is it's very, very critical to make sure that the government is putting in place systems of engagement with its citizens, because citizens' expectations have been reset. When they deal with the consumer web, they're used to being able to book a flight anywhere in the world in seconds, the ability to search online and find the answer to the problem or question they had, and the ability to make a reservation to their favorite restaurant in a second. They expect the same level of service from their government. So I would close that gap as fast as humanly possible.

Not only that, but that's what elections are going to be about, right? Because we're beginning to see across the world where people are standing in a line and they're tweeting and putting it on Facebook and mentioning the mayor or the prime minister of any given country. And that is the future, which is people are going to hold, because you have this shift in power, they're going to hold elected officials accountable.

Absolutely. Have technology provide that, enable that. Absolutely. And I think that is the role of technology, is to shift that power where it belongs. The old model of having people come to office and not be held accountable and not respond to the needs of their people, and to operate under the framework that there are people who govern and there are subjects that need to be governed, those are old models.

Thanks for having me.