126. The Mission Shouldn’t Run on Luck with Bill Pessin, SVP of Missionforce at Salesforce

[SPEAKER_00]: our country needs second fund to help these vendors do it. [SPEAKER_00]: Not every vendor has the well of funding that, let's say, a sales force has. [SPEAKER_00]: And yet our country needs the intellectual property of those particular vendors. [SPEAKER_00]: If you can help them get their, get them to their faster, that acceleration is incredibly important.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is all quiet on the second front. [SPEAKER_01]: Podcasts where boring conversations around defense tech and national security come to die. [SPEAKER_01]: Join me, Tyler Sweat, and my second front homies. [SPEAKER_01]: As we dismantle the mundane and cut through the bureaucratic bullshit to demystify the world of defense tech.

[SPEAKER_01]: But be warned. [SPEAKER_01]: This is not a typical government podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: We ready to get weird. [SPEAKER_01]: What's up, everybody?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Tyler Sweck. [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to another episode of All Quite On The Second Front. [SPEAKER_01]: The podcast we're pouring defense talk goes to you guys. [SPEAKER_01]: Super exciting.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've been threatened to do this for a long time. [SPEAKER_01]: As long as I can remember, brother. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So we've got the one and only bill passing with us today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for swinging by, brother. [SPEAKER_00]: It's great to be here with Tyler. [SPEAKER_00]: It's awesome to be here. [SPEAKER_00]: I watch your podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's an honor to be here. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much. [SPEAKER_01]: Heck yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: and build drives a lot of the pubsack work at Salesforce and he's been doing it, you know, it's a before it was cool. [SPEAKER_00]: Salesforce has always been, no, I made the pubs outside of it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, there's obviously obviously. [SPEAKER_01]: For folks that don't know your story, I like to start with kind of like a who are you?

[SPEAKER_01]: What's your story, how'd you get to where you are and what do you do? [SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, take it a little bit, brother. [SPEAKER_01]: All right, thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I've been at Salesforce almost 13 years.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been an amazing journey. [SPEAKER_00]: We'll talk a little bit about that. [SPEAKER_00]: What we're up to here at Salesforce, but. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll start with, I came from a military family, my dad, when he was 17, went to his dad, my grandfather and said, I'm going to join the Marine Corps, and my grandfather, evidently, said, [SPEAKER_00]: No, absolutely not.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to do it. [SPEAKER_00]: Korean War was going on at that time. [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I agree. [SPEAKER_00]: I absolutely forbid you from doing that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the next day, you know, the Army were creating office, and he enlisted in the Army. [SPEAKER_00]: And he started 40 plus year career in the Army with that. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, young kid graduated from my school [SPEAKER_00]: and deployed to Korea. [SPEAKER_00]: And fought in Korea.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was a recon guy. [SPEAKER_00]: He was out in the front lines, and unfortunately, you know, got caught up in an ambush and got stuck behind any in the lines. [SPEAKER_00]: The soul survivor of his unit. [SPEAKER_00]: But he stayed there for over 90 days, reporting on what he could observe until the lines caught up to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: and then he stayed in the fight and went to another unit and kept going. [SPEAKER_00]: So he came out, yeah, he came out of Korea, airborne, pathfinder, [SPEAKER_00]: and then they started the Greenberg special forces. [SPEAKER_00]: And he was one of the early guys to go through that school. [SPEAKER_00]: And he was enlisted when he started, when he came out, he was worn off.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did some more training, and then he was on the plane on his first deployment to Vietnam, and while on the plane, they commissioned them. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wow. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's all the time. [SPEAKER_00]: So it goes in.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember which group he wanted in first, whether it's fifth group or seventh group, he did two tours, want to meet each other groups. [SPEAKER_00]: He comes back, goes back again as a captain. [SPEAKER_00]: This time he comes out and he's like, I can't keep doing this. [SPEAKER_00]: But he wanted the reserve.

[SPEAKER_00]: And back then, there was a special force as unit up in Massachusetts. [SPEAKER_00]: So he stayed in the reserve component. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where he finished out the rest of his career [SPEAKER_00]: but the culture of military, I was born into it. [SPEAKER_01]: I was a baby.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was a baby and I'm wearing a t-shirt that says, you know, death from a buff, you know, stuff like that, you know, we would do, you know, trips down to Fort Bragg and that was our summer vacation when he was doing it. [SPEAKER_00]: He was saying he was, I was saying he was training. [SPEAKER_00]: But it was just amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: So years later, I was an athlete in high school and everyone liked that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd get all these letters all the time from the military about joining up. [SPEAKER_00]: And then I get a letter from the Navy. [SPEAKER_00]: And they invite me to apply for Navy ROTC scholarship. [SPEAKER_00]: Not to date myself, but Top Gun had just come out, who didn't want to be mad?

[SPEAKER_00]: Great, it's recruiting pitch ever, yeah, I want to fly, you know, 16s, let's go, let's do it. [SPEAKER_00]: So I get accepted to Boston College, and you know, I get into the Navy program, which then was run out of Boston University. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I show up and I, you know, I get all my knee be gear and then we're like that. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, where are the dress whites?

[SPEAKER_00]: Cause that's what I wanted to like, yeah, you don't get that right away. [SPEAKER_00]: I know. [SPEAKER_01]: So we're gonna go to the bar. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway. [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't feel like with what I grew up with. [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't grow up in an AV family grew up in an army family.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then one day at Boston College, I'm walking through the bowels of one of the buildings I confer one of my classes. [SPEAKER_00]: And I see this army major sitting at a desk and he just opened the first on Boston College property or campus army ROTC since Vietnam. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I walk in and I introduce myself and we start having a conversation. [SPEAKER_00]: And by the end of it, I'm like in love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like this is my love language, I speak to Army. [SPEAKER_00]: And I look at the major, I said, can I switch teams? [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, how, yeah? [SPEAKER_00]: So we get paperwork going, you're like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And within a few weeks, I'm doing Army ROTC, a Boston College, OK? [SPEAKER_00]: It was fantastic. [SPEAKER_00]: So, I T90, like all, I think they still do this, you go to your advanced kit. [SPEAKER_00]: My advanced kit was down at Fort Bragg, amazing experience, and then I come out of that, and I go to this [SPEAKER_00]: It's called CTLT Cadet True Leadership Training.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think they still do this too. [SPEAKER_00]: You get to be play lieutenant at a real act of army installation and unit. [SPEAKER_00]: Mine was Fort Stewart, Georgia. [SPEAKER_00]: Nice.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I signed in last week of July of 1990. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you remember history, a couple of days after that. [SPEAKER_00]: So don't be saying invade, go away. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm at Fort Stewart, and General Barry McAfrey is the 24th [SPEAKER_00]: For those that remember, he was on the news all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for many years after us, of course, on a contributing member for, I think, NBC. [SPEAKER_00]: My batai commander at that time was then Lieutenant Colonel Mids Stevenson, which then went on to become, think the deputy chief of staff for logistics in the army. [SPEAKER_00]: I was in really good company. [SPEAKER_00]: I think these people that I fell into.

[SPEAKER_00]: one of my fellow real, real lieutenant that I was working with, he's the current CIO for Defense Health Agency. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: These are, it was this incredible walk that I landed in such great company. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, the balloon goes up. [SPEAKER_00]: I remember calling my dad and he's like, I had a blowover and I'm looking up in the sky and I'm seeing like, it is filled with C5s and C130s and it's just not stopped. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a train and then all the trains coming to get all the tanks. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think so. [SPEAKER_00]: I think this is. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it feels pretty real. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, General McCaffrey calls us into his office all the cadets. [SPEAKER_00]: The West Pointers of the RTC cadets were all there. [SPEAKER_00]: He's got a cigar.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, [SPEAKER_00]: Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to more, and we need you. [SPEAKER_00]: You're all going to be commissioned tomorrow and you're coming with us. [SPEAKER_00]: I wore a look at a round of like holy shit. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, is this real going to plan B, Danny?

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, every one of us, we're all like, this is happening. [SPEAKER_00]: So we walk out, you know, we start getting our stuff together. [SPEAKER_00]: We go back to our units, and they're like, you're really coming, we're like, now we're going to be, we've got it. [SPEAKER_00]: The next day, the Jack calls us in, he's like, yes, I'm happy.

[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta go through like 13 weeks of actual training. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, all these things and, you know, we don't have time for that. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're gonna get real good kind of it's. [SPEAKER_00]: So then my assignment after that, I'm gonna work with my unit, but they set me over to the gymnasium.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I walk in, and there's huge gymnasium at Fort Stewart. [SPEAKER_00]: all across the floor were maps of Iraq and Kuwait and Saudi Arab maps, physical maps. [SPEAKER_00]: Then everything was a map, you remember the last time, and they all had to be organized and they needed help doing this because in a matter of probably hours, the units who can become through and pick up their maps. [SPEAKER_00]: And they needed these maps, these are fresh off the printer maps with the latest, you know, all the details that they all need.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I do all that. [SPEAKER_00]: And I say all this because the world I'm in today, it's still connected to all these things. [SPEAKER_00]: 100%. [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, I do that training. [SPEAKER_00]: We go to get commissioned. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm thinking, I got 20 years active duty. [SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, yeah, we're not sure what to do with all these new latinists now, because we're doing a drawdown.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I got commissioned into transportation court. [SPEAKER_00]: So I go to Fort Eusis, loved it, and just incredible, incredible experience. [SPEAKER_00]: Learn how to do logistics. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, more in that later.

[SPEAKER_00]: We come out of that and I get my first assignment, I'm on active duty, my first assignment is the Pentagon. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a brand new second lieutenant going to the Pentagon. [SPEAKER_00]: So when I sign in I'm working logistics in there's a an initiative going on. [SPEAKER_00]: about transforming army logistics, from lessons learned from this, you know, from the first Gulf War, about how to do mobilization from home, mobilization to port of embarkation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all sorts of challenges getting those units mobilized with that. [SPEAKER_00]: And what the army was realizing is that all these years, decades of getting right in the fight Soviets, we had a totally different doctrine that we needed to install and train and deliver on. [SPEAKER_00]: And this was all perian news stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: And they wanted [SPEAKER_00]: The brand new latinids that knew absolutely nothing to help them figure out like this new path forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So I was literally on a council of kernels as I brand new, secondly, latinite writer and the Army program at that time, it was called Velocity Management and that I believe it was myder some of the years ago, but it really wasn't about Velocity. [SPEAKER_00]: It was really about acceleration, you know, you know, going fast is one thing, but going [SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, great experiences way back then, through there, I got picked up to go to Central America on an army mission down there, 22 or 23-year-old Lieutenant, doing logistics out in the field, doing real mission stuff, and I didn't realize how cool it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was having a blast. [SPEAKER_00]: We're doing saloon mood stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: All these incredible things left and right. [SPEAKER_00]: The years later, I reflect on all of those moments.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't believe the amount of responsibility that they were doing me, from managing the men of women, leading them in the work that we were doing. [SPEAKER_00]: to the types of equipment that I was in charge of to just an incredible amount of responsibility. [SPEAKER_00]: And I have kids now that are, that are my age back then. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's crazy perspective, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It is unbelievable. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, so those experiences shaped me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what I find even today that sales force and beyond are that these experiences, these lessons, they stay with you. [SPEAKER_00]: And I draw on them almost every day, you know, sometimes often multiple times a day. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, back then, I remember there was an engineering issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the engineer said, well, that's a transportation problem now, because they were trying to get across a river or something, and it was really steep on both sides. [SPEAKER_00]: And every time they would bring their engineer equipment down, they would, you know, the trucks would slide, they couldn't do it. [SPEAKER_00]: So it became a logistics problem. [SPEAKER_00]: So they said, okay, you figured out.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're trying to build a daily bridge. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, well, why do we just take one of the Chinux and build the bridge here where we're not gonna be like going into these ravines and just fly it, fly it in, send it. [SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, yeah, you figure that one out. [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I had a contact from the phone when I was working on the Pentagon.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I picked up the phone and I called and I said, OK, I have a Bailey Bridge is going to be about these types of dimensions, roughly this much weight. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to be starting at this altitude and ending at this altitude. [SPEAKER_00]: And here, the ravine, one of the notches on the Sun [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, oh, let me, let me crunch the numbers and I get back to it. [SPEAKER_00]: And we had satellite phones.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was about the extent of the hard debt and the tech that we had back then. [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know, a day or two later, it calls me back and so if you try this, try that. [SPEAKER_00]: Try it, okay. [SPEAKER_00]: So I get with our, you know, aviators and they're like, okay, well let's try it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the first one didn't work out so well. [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody got hurt even like that, but it wasn't the right setting since then. [SPEAKER_00]: They got, we got their feedback who tried it, and we did it. [SPEAKER_00]: And it was just incredible to be able to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, today, those types of problems are permanently solvable. [SPEAKER_00]: I was fortunate that I had a relationship from somebody that I met at some meeting in the Pentagon that I wrote the person's name down in my Franklin planter, which is what we all were using way back then. [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I had a satellite phone and I called this person and he happened to be at his desk and you know, was able to help me with this problem, but those types of logistics problems don't need to have that type of fortune at luck of like a relationship like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, having an agent that's going to help you today with solving those problems. [SPEAKER_01]: Discover the data that already exists. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll bring it to the right person. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, those examples shaped me. [SPEAKER_00]: My father shaped me. [SPEAKER_00]: My, you know, my sister went into the military as well. [SPEAKER_00]: She was, she was, she was the Airborne hardcore.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was the Air Defense Artillery here and branched detailed into transportation as well. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I mean, [SPEAKER_00]: I am military through and through. [SPEAKER_00]: This is my army. [SPEAKER_00]: And with that, I am so proud about some of the things that we've just announced about bringing.

[SPEAKER_00]: our agent force and data data 360 to the army so that they have this ability that they just talked about so that the junior officers and the service members today have the ability to be able to get their mission done, get to the right information and do it with acceleration. [SPEAKER_01]: And not have to depend on luck. [SPEAKER_01]: Not have to depend on luck, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Having that information at the [SPEAKER_00]: Human Resources Command, and they're one of the earlier doctors of our agent force, and freeing up the personnel that help keep all of our army personnel trained and equipped and move through different assignments, taking away the mundane, allowing the agents to be able to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: giving the information to the workfighters themselves so that they can do self-service entering the questions, getting the answers to the questions that they need accurately, and securely, and compiling. [SPEAKER_00]: It's so exciting. [SPEAKER_00]: never been more proud. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like this every day of Salesforce that we're bringing more and more capability to the world for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I've like enjoyed, I mean, you and I have had this really ship since I think Salesforce invested in a few years ago. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember talking at the time to Larry Dillard. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who would? [SPEAKER_01]: to go full, you know, small world, small circle. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, taught me money and banking at West Point, read me my oath of commission while my parents and my wife pinned my lieutenant bars on is like a foundational pillar into your point on like, hey, my military experience is shaped me like Larry played a huge role. [SPEAKER_01]: I remember talking to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: be like, why would you guys want to invest in us? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't understand, what is what is Salesforce do with public sector? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'd always, I think, like, folks, maybe who haven't had the the opportunity to really engage sort of on the public side. [SPEAKER_01]: I'd been like, yeah, cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you guys have a CRM. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's awesome. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: and then hadn't equated transferability to like that underlying tech to mission.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like, yeah, for folks that maybe don't clock Salesforce as like a public sector, but and they're seeing, you know, the data 360 at Agent Force, they saw the army now. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're like, wait, what is it? [SPEAKER_01]: What does it look like with Salesforce and public sector? [SPEAKER_01]: How should folks think about that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, excellent. [SPEAKER_00]: So I started the basics, right? [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, [SPEAKER_00]: Salesforce as a, as a name doesn't, doesn't conjure up military, you know, or, or intelligence, or whatnot, but in actuality, it's exactly what it is, right? [SPEAKER_00]: The, on the intelligence side, you know, human intelligence is all about connecting people to people, you know, it's forming relationships, and that is the core of what we do.

[SPEAKER_00]: commercially worldwide everywhere. [SPEAKER_00]: It is connecting people to people, or people to businesses, or businesses to businesses, or people to things. [SPEAKER_00]: The platform itself is the world's greatest workflow platform. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, whether it's the Army, the Department of War writ large, an intelligence agency.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are large organizations that have to get worked up. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's moving through processes, it's leveraging data, it's connecting people, it's engaging. [SPEAKER_00]: We are outstanding at that, we're the best on the planet at that time. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a essential nervous system on the planet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So Salesforce started in 1999, Mark Benioff had a vision of being able to bring enterprise applications to the cloud, making it as easy as being able to go on to Amazon and or something. [SPEAKER_00]: That was literally the vision. [SPEAKER_00]: It's still a vision realized and expanded upon considerably since then.

[SPEAKER_00]: government has engaged with Salesforce almost from the beginning. [SPEAKER_00]: In 2013, Salesforce achieved its first federant authorization. [SPEAKER_00]: I joined the company in 2014. [SPEAKER_00]: My job coming in was to bring it to the then Department of Defense in the intelligence community and the surrounding aerospace and defense government systems integrator community.

[SPEAKER_01]: the Brolic Mission ecosystem. [SPEAKER_00]: All of that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And they were these emerging standards with Fedram, the DOD at that time was launching their impact levels.

[SPEAKER_00]: And impact level two, they had an impact level three, impact level four, five and six. [SPEAKER_00]: And this was beyond vision at the time, but the policy documents really weren't. [SPEAKER_00]: They were still evolving. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of [SPEAKER_00]: How do you do it activity?

[SPEAKER_00]: When we were one of the first to go through it. [SPEAKER_00]: And those of us at one first, we would all collaborate together with the DOD. [SPEAKER_00]: And we still do that today because it's together, these great American companies, that make up the American tech industry, that industrial base is what powers the harms you know, the our war fighters and our intelligence officers. [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so we moved into doing a pack of law before.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of tried those to that, you know. [SPEAKER_00]: How we have to wait and check what and but we got there and and so now that we got there that's what you know we made you realize what we got to get to take a look at what we start the plan for them. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean you get through one door you're like we made it yeah we crap. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no proper exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Burling early on and those early use cases they were HR centric use cases. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I'm strongly that for recruiting to [SPEAKER_00]: different personal management, but Salesforce, again, starting as a CRM back in 1999, CRM was still relatively nascent, and it was something that sat somewhat in between ERP and MRP. [SPEAKER_00]: So an appraisal resource planning and manufacturing resource planning. [SPEAKER_00]: So CRM is customer relationship management.

[SPEAKER_00]: So large companies have today ERPs and ERPs are the financial management systems and the HR systems and the back office and MRP, if you're in the manufacturing space, that's the manufacturing resource planning. [SPEAKER_00]: And those two together combine to run a large manufacturer or a large enterprise. [SPEAKER_00]: And then the evolution of customer relationship management, the central [SPEAKER_00]: What it meant for Salesforce is that we, we had to interact with these systems that were already there.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had to be open. [SPEAKER_00]: We had to be able to do retrieve data from the system of records and update those systems of record. [SPEAKER_00]: We get back then in the beginning CRM was not necessarily a CRM. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, a September record.

[SPEAKER_00]: So over time, CRMs are now in many cases, they are these central point of an enterprise. [SPEAKER_00]: Back then, in the beginning, it wasn't like that. [SPEAKER_00]: Salesforce has always been open, always able to connect with those other enterprise systems. [SPEAKER_00]: And that is a core element of what makes Salesforce so great today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Data is the lifeblood of any enterprise and especially an agent to kind of price. [SPEAKER_00]: And getting that data right is critical and again, back to these announcements of being accredited with IL5 for not just our core platform, but our agent forcing data 360. [SPEAKER_01]: It's massive in the in the guys of that and sort of the [SPEAKER_01]: the sort of data underpinning that the systems of records sort of becoming that like modular context engine, you know, for the broader sort of mission enterprise, when folks hear mission force, like what should they be thinking?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean? [SPEAKER_00]: All that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, excellent.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, like I said, I've been doing this with Salesforce since about 2014. [SPEAKER_00]: And the Madam Women that are [SPEAKER_00]: Working with me and supporting me, we are all connected on mission. [SPEAKER_00]: All of us, I'm an Army veteran, we have former intelligence officers on our team, we have lots of Army, Navy, Air Force, et cetera, Marine, this is our military, this is our intelligence community, and we are all in out of the mission. [SPEAKER_00]: So a little over a year ago, [SPEAKER_00]: We assembled for what is an offsite that our leadership does, so the senior leaders get together four times a year, each quarter, so we assembled for the second quarter leadership offsite, and Mark Beningoff, our CEO, is doing his opening.

[SPEAKER_00]: and then starts talking about a military, and not that peace on a fault in it, but that was a little bit unexpected in the opportunity we were off side. [SPEAKER_00]: And as he's sharing with the leaders, and this is also Samo Castra to the rest of the company, he's talking about [SPEAKER_00]: A recent event that he participated in, he was a chair, that he still is a chair, the Council Foreign Relations, and there was a dinner in Hawaii, and he participated in this dinner.

[SPEAKER_00]: And while he's at the dinner, he meets the commander of then called Indo-Pakong today. [SPEAKER_00]: So he and the admiral are sitting together at the dinner, [SPEAKER_00]: they are talking about, it marks asking questions left to write. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know, it's asking questions left to write. [SPEAKER_00]: They are to very big brain individuals who really understand and understood each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mark walks away with, we've got to be doing more. [SPEAKER_00]: And so we're back in this meeting and he's talking about this. [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, we have to be doing more for our militant. [SPEAKER_00]: And anyways, he finishes that segment.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a little bit of a break. [SPEAKER_00]: a bunch of us are right off to Mark or like, where did this come from, he's like, we are going and we're going to do more and we're starting now. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was a week or maybe two weeks later, mission four is born. [SPEAKER_00]: Now he's then chief of staff, Kendall Collins, who was part of this conversation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in that conversation there, on that coffee break, he turns to Kendall, he says, Kendall, I want you to work with you know, work with the public sector team. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go. [SPEAKER_00]: We've got to go faster. [SPEAKER_00]: We've got to give more.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, since then, mission forces born, candles are CEO. [SPEAKER_00]: It's been an incredible influx of ideas and energy. [SPEAKER_00]: Not that it wasn't there before, but I mean, it's now front and center. [SPEAKER_00]: It's colors.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've never been more proud of our company and what we're doing for our military and our intelligence officers. [SPEAKER_00]: It's incredible. [SPEAKER_00]: It's awesome. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Taking that one sort of step further maybe from kind of where we started, you talked about the role in the ecosystem. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's sort of being that. [SPEAKER_01]: that's sort of connective tissue that central nervous system between a lot of the different players making sure you know the right officers or operators or analysts have the right data at the right time for the right decision.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's the role you guys play and are looking to be able to play in the broader ecosystems? [SPEAKER_01]: I think you alluded to it now. [SPEAKER_01]: You're seeing, like for the first time in my adult life, like private capital injecting intent defense and national security, you're seeing non-veterian founders and operators taking on like a mission-based ecosystem. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that puts you guys in an interesting spot as they can ecosystem sort of power.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we are a partner-centric, friendly organization. [SPEAKER_00]: We want our product to be very democratic, meaning easy to buy. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no software install, there's no hardware install. [SPEAKER_00]: The trusters are no more in value, so we focus in on all of our customers and the industries that we support, making sure that we comply with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in the military and the DOW, those are the impact levels we talk about. [SPEAKER_00]: And the intelligence community, it's the classified fabrics that we operate on. [SPEAKER_00]: we take these very, very seriously, and, and again, our intention is to be able to deliver this always available, always on capability. [SPEAKER_00]: We want the ecosystem to be able to not just support our customers and whether it's configuring Salesforce to do the specific workflows or applications that they want need, but to extend it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we also recognize that we are going to be the ones that are going to build every can do everything. [SPEAKER_00]: We can't. [SPEAKER_00]: So we want to be open to independent software vendors that are either built on our platform natively [SPEAKER_00]: We talked about that quite a bit in the area of App Exchange as example. [SPEAKER_00]: Or built on another platform but able to seamlessly and Interoperate with Salesforce Again, securely and compliant.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that that [SPEAKER_00]: our customers, no matter the industry, be able to do the end-to-end workflows and get their jobs done and do for them for those workers to do the best jobs of their lives. [SPEAKER_00]: That's our intent. [SPEAKER_00]: So, our partnership and second fund. [SPEAKER_00]: Your game board and platform, your ability to help independent software vendors.

[SPEAKER_00]: really grapple with the very necessary but also challenging requirements to to move through whether it's the DOD impact level or Fedramp authorization or in the intelligence community that the different ATO requirements to be able to operate on a classified network over and [SPEAKER_00]: our program, our country needs, second-front, help these vendors do it. [SPEAKER_00]: Not every vendor has the well of funding that, let's say, Salesforce has. [SPEAKER_00]: and yet our country needs the intellectual property of those particular vendors.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you can help them get to their faster, that acceleration is incredibly important. [SPEAKER_00]: We see a lot of value in them. [SPEAKER_00]: So I mentioned Apricchange. [SPEAKER_00]: We have an Apricchange.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Apricchange is for those that have iPhones and whatnot, the story is that we actually had the App Store first in Kendall Collins, bought it and he actually gave that to Apple with Mark's blessing on down. [SPEAKER_00]: But the app exchange was formed and is the largest business to business application exchange for a platform. [SPEAKER_00]: And it is phenomenal. [SPEAKER_00]: Thousands and thousands of independent software vendors are registered in our app exchange.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we have a part of the app exchange that focuses on FedRAMP and the DOW's impact gloves. [SPEAKER_00]: But we also know that there needs to be more. [SPEAKER_00]: And when we start getting into, especially into the I.C.

[SPEAKER_00]: into the other areas, we have to do things differently. [SPEAKER_00]: We see tremendous opportunity in doing those things in partnership with the second fund. [SPEAKER_00]: And you and I have had many conversations about how to do it. [SPEAKER_01]: What do I think we see at least think about?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you brought the point of like, hey, South Shore sort of can't do everything, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like capital access, not what's standing, but it's the same for for us and for ISVs, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like we want to build rails so that the right software can get to the right people, but [SPEAKER_01]: we're not going to go build all these sort of like DS and trick sort of systems of record and an entire sort of orchestration layer like A, that's not a good Gs for our time, B, we're not going to do it as good as folks like you and C, like if it already exists, how do we find ways [SPEAKER_01]: to bring more nodes into the ecosystem, and then have that ecosystem component like really create a network effect for the mission that translates to capability, that then translates to offset.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that to me is how we do national security, like one plus one equals four. [SPEAKER_00]: That's right, that's right. [SPEAKER_00]: And hugely important, like I said, I mean, there's a, [SPEAKER_00]: there's such a need for the incredible talent across our country, you know, that these new innovative up-store companies have, or even older companies that have a product that they just didn't know how to bring that, you know, to this particular market. [SPEAKER_00]: The barriers to entry are deliberately high.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have to be the advanced persistent threat. [SPEAKER_00]: These are things that they would want to disrupt. [SPEAKER_00]: And so being able to do this confiantly, doing it with security, doing it with trust is tantamount for everyone since that's for our country's success. [SPEAKER_00]: Our country needs second fund to be able to do the things you've got to do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our number two value in our company is customer success. [SPEAKER_00]: We are a SaaS model, subscription based. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a selection here for us every year. [SPEAKER_00]: And if we're not good with it, we're not really good with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, if we're not making our customers feel alive, yeah, we're easy to get in. [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to get out. [SPEAKER_00]: The data and our systems are customers data. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know in the data.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't control it. [SPEAKER_00]: Even when it gets transformed and it's easy for our customers, we want them to stay. [SPEAKER_00]: When our customers succeed, we succeed. [SPEAKER_00]: When they grow, we grow with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how that works. [SPEAKER_00]: Having a large ecosystem, [SPEAKER_00]: having the ability for the work flow that is in Salesforce to extend into another product that's not our IP that helps out customer, we want that. [SPEAKER_00]: And you help bring that to life. [SPEAKER_00]: Real company does that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're super excited about the partnership that we have with you about the investment. [SPEAKER_00]: You guys are doing great. [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, it's awesome to work with you too. [SPEAKER_01]: It's the best.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's great to be here. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's the best, you guys keep hiring great talent, too. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like it started where I had like a handful of you guys like, is it really good friends and I'm like, oh, we could do like a whole happy and hard work and we should have, we should have more of those. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, last two questions sort of as I turn the corner here. [SPEAKER_01]: This one is like maybe a little bit of a wild card that I don't mean it, too. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Is, and again, I've had the benefit of the last couple years, you know, getting closer and closer and more integrated with you and the team and mission force and we have been fortunate to spend some time with Mark and really get to know the organization and the ethos.

[SPEAKER_01]: For folks that maybe haven't had similar, like, what's something you wish? [SPEAKER_01]: the broader community knew about Salesforce that you find people sometimes don't. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'll change that a little bit. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it's so much that they don't know about Salesforce. [SPEAKER_00]: Because I feel like, especially in the last 18 months, as we've been moving forward with Mission Force and Kennell's very good at making sure that we are amplifying what are messaging it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's tremendous.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, breathtaking. [SPEAKER_00]: and the company just keeps rolling out new capability that gets authorized for use like what we just talked about with Agent Force for IO5. [SPEAKER_00]: The one thing that I would love to see get better is the idea of SaaS, especially in these highly controlled environments, whether it's ILSX, which is the separate or secret environment or into the higher levels for top secret.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are areas that are the DOW and the intelligence community, real large. [SPEAKER_00]: They are [SPEAKER_00]: They're moving forward with now, but it's new. [SPEAKER_00]: And we see a lot of policy and a lot of exploration on SAS that is really focused in through a hyperscalers. [SPEAKER_00]: And for a company like Salesforce, that's not the model.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we've announced previously that we are accredited on AWS's top secret fabric. [SPEAKER_00]: How we did that is really, really important. [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't fork our code. [SPEAKER_00]: We were very deliberate about the process that we did in the partnership with AWS.

[SPEAKER_00]: And with the agency and the intelligence community that's sponsored us. [SPEAKER_00]: And they just drew commercial clients that we're bringing in. [SPEAKER_00]: Doing SaaS at scale at the DOW can't be just a bolt-on marketplace activity. [SPEAKER_00]: It needs to be direct.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of SaaS providers, large-scale SaaS providers, like Salesforce. [SPEAKER_00]: And in the... [SPEAKER_00]: Right now, there isn't really a path for this. [SPEAKER_00]: So, this is the work that I've largely been focusing in on the last several years is bringing that in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm excited about what's coming and there's more announcements coming in this area. [SPEAKER_00]: But I'd love to see the government. [SPEAKER_00]: take advantage of what we, the, the, the path that we just paid up and that like that. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, last question. [SPEAKER_01]: This is the, the last structure. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the show. [SPEAKER_01]: Are you king for a day?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So you're king. [SPEAKER_01]: You get a magic wand. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's called a wizard for a day. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you get to make one thing happen to change anything. [SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, so what would you change and why? [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll give you sort of like the.

[SPEAKER_01]: some contextual parameters, right? [SPEAKER_00]: We've got everything from, like, I would change this statute to like, I would bend physics to, yeah, I would have to politely serve dessert because after I eat my burrito bowl, I won't let that go. [SPEAKER_00]: Not what those peppers are. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, now that I've got it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe not right now, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So what's one thing you changed? [SPEAKER_01]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm going to, I'm going to kind of zero in on maybe, you know, a very specific area, but building off what I just talked about, you know, they're bringing South, bringing the large South providers and into the D.O.W.

[SPEAKER_00]: and into the intelligence community, love to see our government, the agencies, [SPEAKER_00]: really streamlined the security clearance process too. [SPEAKER_00]: All right, it's, uh, to keep thread into. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And, and, uh, and they will.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but this is an area where, uh, again, the security clearance is hugely important, uh, very serious stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, but when you're in an agency and you're working on a program and there needs to be another program, that process of moving the clearance from one program to another program, even in that same agency, it's [SPEAKER_00]: little cumbersome. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and there's there's some tech out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yep. [SPEAKER_01]: I know some tech. [SPEAKER_01]: Yep. [SPEAKER_01]: That can help.

[SPEAKER_01]: My no guy. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know guy that can actually solve that. [SPEAKER_00]: Those are the types of things that I remember going from date myself, you know, 10 years ago as you know senior captain, 15 years ago maybe at this point. [SPEAKER_01]: go in from need to like Andrews.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going from one agency to another agency. [SPEAKER_01]: Same human, same blue badge, same everything. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, you're on the system.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, no, no, I'm on the system. [SPEAKER_01]: I was just in this building on the system. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, we're on this version of the system. [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

[SPEAKER_01]: okay cool like you just need to call me like how's this work and they're like no, it would be like six weeks and I was like sorry, what exactly? [SPEAKER_01]: I just like sat there and was like cool, I mean, I'm at work. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, can't do anything. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a yeah, I understand the importance of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, point like he's got to be like no fail from a security standpoint because there is so much insiders throughout there's so much persistent. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, whether it's peer, whether it's insider, or whatever, but we've got to find a way to take friction out of that system. [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there's going to be corner cases that require the, yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think for the bulk of it, there's some. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, there should be, should be easier. [SPEAKER_00]: And that ease, it's not making it easier, like lowering the standard. [SPEAKER_00]: It's about being able to move faster through the mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I'd love to see that change. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's a great answer, brother. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: We'll do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for swinging my mind. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you. [SPEAKER_01]: This was awesome. [SPEAKER_01]: Great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you. [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks everybody for tuning in. [SPEAKER_01]: Cheers. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.