Marc Benioff hired former Oracle sales star Keith Block in 2013 and can't stop heaping praise promotion and gifts on the guy.
In fact, he was so happy with Block, he had Salesforce buy him a $41,000 watch, according to documents filed with the SEC.
To be precise, the watch cost $40,564 and its value was called a "bonus" in Salesforce's proxy form, which discloses how much executives are paid, including perks and gifts. Salesforce explained that the watch was because of Block's performance in just one quarter:
"Represents the value of a watch awarded in recognition of Mr. Block’s leadership of our sales organization in the first quarter of fiscal 2016."
The expensive timepiece is in addition to a big promotion Block got in February, when he was named COO.
The title was nice, but it wasn't a big leap in total compensation for Block.
Before his promotion, he was paid $12.5 million, mostly from $10.4 million worth of stock options. After his promotion he was paid $12.4, including $10 million in stock options.
Benioff spent most of 2015 telling the world that Salesforce is on track to become a $10 billion company. It didn't hit that number last year, finishing up with $6.7 billion in revenue.
But there's no question it's on a roll with a lot more money already under contract.
In its last quarter, Salesforce signed a new contract worth "9 figures" – i.e. somewhere in the $100 million dollar range– with an unnamed customer that Block describes as "one of the world's most respected companies."
And it convinced another customer to renew its Salesforce contract, a deal that was also in that 9 figure/$100 million dollar range.
Plus the team signed more than 600, seven-figure plus deals ($1 million or more) in that quarter.
Then, last month Salesforce announced that the US Department of Health and Human services signed a $100 million "blanket" contract" with Salesforce. This contract also included a whopping $503 million budget just to spend on related consulting services.
So you can see why Benioff is happy with Block.
As for any more details about the gift of the watch, Salesforce declined comment.
