Pasadena Not a No Go
There’s a peculiar dance tech CEOs love to do, and it’s not the Zuckerberg dance this time at all.
It’s more that tech CEOs seem able to make a bold, politically-charged statement from behind a lectern or keyboard (or, if you’re Elon a Tweetstorm). As the horror and pressure grows (and share price tanks) the leader will think about how to row back their comments and rescue the situation.
Which is what happened with Marc Benioff (Salesforce CEO) recently. Think about a leader with a dose of illogical thinking and a big pinch of politicking.
Call in the National Guard
Marc Benioff, the man behind Salesforce (and now, apparently, military deployments?), suggested that Trump should send in the National Guard to San Francisco. Yes, you read that right. The CEO of a CRM company advocated for troops on the streets because… he was nervous about his Dreamforce conference?
Now, I get it. Hosting a big event in a city with high-profile challenges is no walk in the park. But come on. Deploying soldiers to handle conference logistics? That’s not how you fix broken city infrastructure, nor is it how you make friends in California’s political circles.
It’s all a little bit scary, and I’m not talking about the streets of San Francisco.
It’s not unusual
This isn’t just a Salesforce problem. Benioff’s fumble is only the latest in a string of tech executives who mistakenly believe their success in writing JavaScript or raising venture capital qualifies them to make sweeping public policy recommendations. The real kicker? He once funded a tax to help San Francisco’s homeless population, and now wants troops to patrol the sidewalks he helped pay for. That’s like planting a tree and then bulldozing it for a parking space.
I’ll keep out of it
This isn’t about The Secret Developer getting overtly political. I want to stay out of this, and that’s kind of the point.
I’m a software developer. I keep my code lean and my political takes even leaner. Not because I don’t care, but because I know better than to pretend I understand how to solve complex geopolitical and societal issues with the same tools I use to debug a broken build pipeline.
This is the lesson here. Tech CEOs (and all of us in tech, really) should stick to what we know. I know that for me geopolitics is a black box that I’m never going to understand. Urban crime policy, national defense, they’re not really any of my business.
I want to stick to debugging my team’s Git history rather than trying to fix democracy.
Yet others aren’t following this. They make public pronouncements and public stunts that are about anything other than genuine concern. They’re often a thinly veiled PR maneuver to preemptively deflect criticism or signal alignment with whatever crowd they think might cancel their keynote slot next.
Why it’s Bad
Here’s the thing. The average developer doesn’t need to weigh in on every crisis. And this is really impacting the opportunity to talk about what matters, which is the code.
Oxygen is sucked out of the debates we should be having and conversations that it would be worth spending time on.
So my take it that it’s better to log off. Push commits, and let people with actual experience in city planning, criminal justice, or international relations do their jobs. That doesn’t just go for CEOs, it goes for jobbing software developers too.
In the end, Benioff’s apology said he was just being cautious. But if he were really cautious, he would’ve kept quiet in the first place.
And couldn’t we all do with a little less noise in this space?
About The Author
Professional Software Developer “The Secret Developer” can be found on Twitter @TheSDeveloper.
The Secret Developer doesn’t talk politics. Mostly because they once crashed a company Slack channel by asking if “JavaScript frameworks count as a religion”.