Marc Benioff explains what it was like going to ‘guru’ Steve Jobs for advice

• Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has no shortage of stories about late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.
• Benioff interned at Apple in college and got to know Jobs as he moved on to Oracle and Salesforce.
• On a recent podcast episode, he recalled advice Jobs gave him when he had “entrepreneur’s block.”

Ask a major tech CEO for a Steve Jobs story, and you’ll probably get one.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff certainly has his fair share of stories regarding the late Apple cofounder.

Benioff interned at Apple while in college, and the two got to know each other as Benioff moved on to Oracle and ultimately cofounded Salesforce.

On a recent episode of “Lenny’s Podcast,” Benioff recalled some advice Jobs dispensed when Benioff was going through “entrepreneur’s block.”

Jobs said, “There’s three things you need to do right now.”

First: “Your company, it better get 10 times larger than it is now in 24 months, or it’s over.”

Second: “You better sign a huge customer for this Salesforce automation product like Avon.” (Benioff notes: “The CEO of Avon was on his board at the time, so that was on his mind.”)

And lastly: “You better go build an application economy.”

Benioff recalls being confused and asking Jobs what he meant by that, to which Jobs responded, “I don’t know, but you’re going to go figure it out.”

As he thinks back on that conversation, Benioff says it was “like meeting with your guru and getting a zen koan or something where now you have a puzzle I have to solve.”

“I literally went away, and I had all the notes from the meeting,” he said. “I went through it over and over again. Then, finally, I’m like, ‘I think he wants me to build an app store.'”

Salesforce launched AppExchange, its apps and services store, in 2006. Apple launched its app store in 2008. Benioff later gave the App Store trademark and the appstore.com domain to Apple as a gift.

Benioff, looking back, said he was “very grateful to have that relationship” with Jobs, which “dramatically influenced me in my career and my whole life.”