Marc Benioff, CEO of US-based cloud software company Salesforce, has said that many companies are wrongly blaming artificial intelligence for layoffs, arguing that the current wave of job cuts is being misunderstood.
In a recent interview with tech company Forward Future, Benioff said Salesforce now employs a record number of people, exceeding 83,000, but acknowledged that the company went through an “uncomfortable period” of rebalancing its workforce over the past five years. He noted that the balance of where employees are placed today is different from five years ago.
Benioff said that when companies cut jobs, the reasons vary. Some are reducing headcount because costs have become too high. Others are trimming staff because they have made financial commitments, particularly to data centres, that they need to pay for. There are also those cutting to rebalance their workforce in response to changes brought by AI.
He warned against lumping all these cases together, adding, “I don’t think most people still really understand what is really going on, and it’s too easy to make AI the scapegoat. I think for some CEOs it’s the lazy way out.”
Benioff argued that leaders should be more specific about the real reasons behind their decisions, even if they face criticism. “You’re gonna take bullets no matter what because that is your role as CEO,” he said. “You have to look forward and put everything back together.”