• AI is radically reshaping business at Salesforce.
• That doesn't mean that CEO Marc Benioff sees AI as a future mass killer of white-collar jobs.
• Instead, Benioff forsees "a radical augmentation of the workforce."

Marc Benioff said that while artificial intelligence is drastically reshaping Salesforce, it doesn't mean that it will wipe out white-collar workers.

"That isn't how I see AI," Benioff, Salesforce's CEO, told Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson during a recent onstage interview at the 2025 AI for Good Global Summit. "Maybe they have AI, I don't have. But in the AI I have, it's not going to be some huge mass layoff of white-collar workers, it is a radical augmentation of the workforce."

Benioff's broader view of AI contrasts with how other in tech view the next decade. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who was not mentioned directly during Benioff's appearance, has said AI may eliminate half of entry-level, white-collar jobs within the next five years.

People need to get past this type of general "fear," Benioff said.

"When I'm talking to our customers, I'm not hearing them say, "Oh, now I'm laying off these people because this A,B,C technology increase because of AI.' So, I think we need to somehow shed the fear of what that all means."

For his own company, Benioff says he's paused Salesforce's hiring of engineers, lawyers, and customer service agents for the year so the company can "let AI productivity really take hold."

"Right now, for engineering organization, because of the incredible productivity opportunity, for AI in engineering this year, let's take some time to actually incorporate that in so we're not focused on hiring another thousand, 2,000, 3,000 engineers," he said.

At the same time, Benioff said Salesforce is ramping up sales-related hires due to customer demand to deploy AI. That's likely because, in his view, we're on the edge of "a radical explosion in small and medium businesses."

"You're just going to see a lot more SMBs and a lot more general business and mid-market business, because their capabilities are radically amplified by the AI," he said.

• Silicon Valley executives are big fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings."
• Many founders have turned to the series for inspiration when naming their companies and products.
• From Erebor to Rivendell, here are all the tech industry's nods to "The Lord of the Rings."

"The Lord of the Rings," or LotR to those in the know, isn't just standard reading among those in the tech industry.

It also inspires their ventures.

Billionaire PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel, for instance, has started several companies inspired by the J.R.R. Tolkien series.

The fantasy trilogy, a sequel to 1937's "The Hobbit," was first published in the mid-1950s. It follows an unlikely hero, Frodo Baggins, as he and a team of allies adventure across Middle Earth to destroy a powerful ring that could bring darkness to the world if it fell into the hands of Sauron, the dark lord.

On Halloween in 2018, the Salesforce Tower, a hallmark of the San Francisco skyline, was lit to resemble the ever-watchful "Eye of Sauron."

"'Lord of the Rings' represents a group of people going out and doing something extraordinary," Quinn Reilly, a longtime fan who helped organize the Salesforce tower lighting, previously told BI. "That's not unlike the mission that most startups set out to go on."

Here is an ongoing list of Silicon Valley's top "Lord of the Rings"-inspired companies.

Erebor

Billionaire tech founder Palmer Luckey's new digital bank for startups and cryptocurrency companies is named after the Lonely Mountain, the wealthy subterranean kingdom and Dwarven stronghold in "The Lord of the Rings."

The bank is set to be valued at $2 billion, sources told BI, and has funding from Thiel, via his Founders Fund, and Joe Lonsdale, via 8VC.

Anduril

Another Luckey venture, the defense-tech startup Anduril, founded in 2017, is named after the legendary sword used by Aragorn, a hero in "The Lord of the Rings" story. Anduril means "Flame of the West."

The company has been at the forefront of AI-powered innovations in warfare, from drones to autonomous weapons systems.

Palantir

Palantir — founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp — is a government-focused software giant. It takes its name from the mystical, all-powerful seeing stone in "The Lord of the Rings" series.

Mithril Capital

Thiel launched Mithril Capital in 2012 to invest in late-stage startups. The firm, which counts Vice President JD Vance among its alumni, takes its name from a valuable and rare precious metal used to make armor and jewelry in "The Lord of the Rings." It's a symbol of wealth and status.

Durin Mining

The startup, founded by Ted Feldmann last year, builds and automates drill rigs for mineral discovery. Its name is inspired by a lineage of dwarf kings in "The Lord of the Rings." Dwarves are famous for their mining skills.

Rivendell One LLC

Rivendell, often described in the novels as a hidden sanctuary in Middle Earth, is home to the elven kingdom. It is also a trust that Thiel uses to invest and manage his Facebook shares.

Lembas LLC

Lembas, another investment vehicle Thiel founded, is a special food made by elves in "The Lord of the Rings" series. It's light and nutritious and a good snack that sustains elves as they travel across Middle Earth.

Valar Ventures

Valar Ventures, a venture capital firm cofounded by Thiel, Andrew McCormack, and James Fitzgerald, is a reference to a group of powerful beings with godlike powers revered in Middle Earth.

There's also a startup called Valar that is building gigasites for nuclear reactors.

Sauron Systems

This home security system that leverages AI is named after Sauron, the main character of "The Lord of the Rings," who seeks the powerful ring to rule all of Middle Earth. The Eye of Sauron is ever-watchful and all-seeing.

• Salesforce exec Patrick Stokes advises against going into management by default or simply to advance up the ladder.
• He told BI that he became a manager because he wanted to lead others and share his vision.
• Stokes said if you value personal growth, you should be willing to try out new roles that aren't necessarily a level up.

Transitioning to management might feel like a natural next step in your career. However, Salesforce executive Patrick Stokes cautions that it might not necessarily be the right path for everyone.

"I think it's easy for people to be enamored with the growth of kind of, moving up the ranks, rather than the growth of themselves personally," the executive vice president of product and industries marketing told Business Insider.

Stokes, in a conversation during Salesforce's Agentforce World Tour in New York City, said whenever people tell him they want to move into management, he asks them why. Usually, people say that "it's the next step," he told BI — and that's not enough of a reason.

"No, you need to know why you want to be a manager, because now you have to inspire a team," Stokes said. "You have to think about your day-to-day job very differently."

Salesforce EVP of talent growth and development Lori Castillo Martinez echoed a similar sentiment in a previous interview with BI. "Being a deep expert isn't always an indicator of being a great manager," she said, adding that collaboration and task management skills are more important, and the best managers are those who can analyze their teams and maximize productivity.

Responsibilities naturally shift when you transition from an individual contributor to a manager. Stokes said that if you take on a management role, you may not be able to do some of the things you value.

Stokes, who started out as a developer and transitioned multiple times in his career, said he moved into management because he wanted to be a leader, and he was already acting like one.

The Salesforce executive showcased the contrast in responsibilities between an individual contributor and a manager at the company's Agentforce conference. At the executive level, the job involves more than simply managing massive teams — it can often include public speaking at high-profile events. Stokes, for example, gave a keynote address at the event, opening with an energetic anecdote about recent events in New York City. Then, he introduced the company's digital workforce of AI agents, Agentforce, along with other speakers, all while walking through an auditorium of hundreds of people and talking directly to a video camera that trailed him.

Stokes said he's always had strong opinions and a desire to rally others around his vision. From the time he was in high school, he found himself leading projects, despite frequently sitting in the back of the classroom. He said he didn't announce himself as the leader, but he was often the one coming up with ideas and convincing others to get on board.

"That's what you really need to have if you want to go into leadership," Stokes said.

Stokes said that as soon as he feels "not nervous" about an event or meeting, he wants to try something new, and he's a big advocate for changing roles. The exec said some people tend to "think too narrowly" about changes and only want to switch roles if it's "growth within the org chart." Stokes said that can be tough to find.

"If you value the growth, the personal growth that you're gonna get from that new role, enough, you should be willing to take a step back to go forward," Stokes said.

Outside of leading Salesforce's product and industries marketing team, Stokes said he likes to play chess. He said there's a concept in chess called a "gambit" — fans of the hit Netflix show "The Queen's Gambit" will be familiar — where you make what appears to be a bad move, but is actually designed to get a reaction from an opponent. Stokes said that's how he likes to think about his career changes — seemingly risky but strategic long-term.

"When I first went into marketing, a lot of my peers and product were like, 'Why are you going to marketing?' And I'm like,'Just wait. It'll be fine. I'm gonna be great,'" Stokes said.

• Salesforce is launching AI tools to up-skill employees and help them transition internally.
• Salesforce piloted its Career Connect service last year and 28% of users applied for jobs on the platform.
• The company is investing in AI career coaches in preparation of major workforce changes due to AI.

Brooke Grant was working as a change manager at Salesforce when the company's internal AI Career Agent pinged her on Slack to suggest an open role in sales enablement.

"It said, 'this is your career path,' but you also have these skills that are very interchangeable to these other paths," Grant said in an interview with Business Insider.

While Grant didn't have any sales experience, she had been skilling up in sales, AI, and customer success for a few months leading up to the opportunity. She said the platform, which highlighted her transferable skills, gave her the confidence to go for it.

Grant received the Slack notification for the open role in February, and by March, she started the new role.

While many companies are chasing productivity gains, Salesforce is taking a broader approach to AI adoption by investing in internal AI career tools to help employees pivot to new roles and skill up.

Last year, Salesforce launched Career Connect, an AI-powered internal talent marketplace. Once users create a profile, the platform infers skills based on their job history and helps employees create personalized career paths based on their skills and goals, Salesforce told BI. The tool also helps Salesforce track trending skills so it can invest in targeted training, the company told BI.

The platform is also available in Slack through a version called Career Agent. Employees can go back and forth with the tool to get actionable insight on reaching their career goals. Salesforce told BI that employees can ask the agent about open career opportunities or how to develop a skill. The AI-powered tool recommends courses, relevant contacts, and job opportunities based on the user's interests.

Salesforce filled half its roles internally in Q1

Salesforce piloted Career Connect last year with 1,200 employees across its customer success, employee success, and business technology teams. The company said 74% of employees were active on the platform, logging in multiple times throughout the three-month pilot. Just under 40% of participants enrolled in courses and training that were suggested to them, the company said.

Grant isn't the only employee who found success with Salesforce's AI career coaches. In the first three months of the pilot, 28% of participants applied for jobs through Career Connect, and over 90% of the roles filled by participants were discovered using the platform, the company said.

Salesforce president and chief people officer Nathalie Scardino also said in a press briefing that with Career Agent, the company was able to fill half of its roles with internal applications in the first quarter of 2025.

Some of the career transitions employees made were more unconventional. Salesforce executive Lori Castillo Martinez told Business Insider in an interview that one employee recently used Career Connect to transition to a cybersecurity role after spending 19 years as a program manager in human resources. Martinez said the platform connected the employee to a mentoring program with someone from the cybersecurity team, which encouraged him to pursue the role.

"I hadn't even thought about cybersecurity as a pathway for some of our HR program managers," Martinez said.

Preparing for transformation

Salesforce is pushing these efforts as the company has already seen changes to its workforce as a result of AI. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff previously announced a 2025 hiring freeze on engineers following a 30% productivity increase from new tools.

Recent data also indicates that workforce transformation will evolve further in the coming years. Salesforce released the findings of a research study on Monday that surveyed 200 chief people officers, chief human resources officers, and other global HR leaders.

The study revealed that CHROs expect to redeploy 23% of the workforce into new teams or roles in the next two years. While 61% of the workforce is expected to stay in their positions, the roles are expected to change. About 80% of CHROs surveyed are either planning to reskill employees for roles with better future opportunities.

"Every industry must redesign jobs, reskill and redeploy talent — and every employee will need to learn new human, agent and business skills to thrive in the digital labor revolution," Scardino said in a statement.

• Tech giants are known for their challenging interviews.
• Google, Meta, and Nvidia top the list of rigorous interviews with multiple rounds and assessments.
• But tough questions show up across industries, according to employee reports on Glassdoor.

It's tough to break into high-paying companies.

Google is notorious for having a demanding interview process. Aside from putting job candidates through assessments, preliminary phone calls, and asking them to complete projects, the company also screens candidates through multiple rounds of interviews.

Typical interview questions range from open-ended behavioral ones like "tell me about a time that you went against the status quo" or "what does being 'Googley' mean to you?" to more technical ones.

At Nvidia, the chipmaking darling of the AI boom, candidates must also pass through rigorous rounds of assessments and interviews. "How would you describe __ technology to a non-technical person?" was a question a candidate interviewing for a job as a senior solutions architect shared on the career site Glassdoor last month. The candidate noted that they didn't receive an offer.

Tech giants top Glassdoor's list of the hardest companies to interview with. But tough questions show up across industries — from luxury carmakers like Rolls-Royce, where a candidate said they were asked to define "a single crystal," to Bacardi, where a market manager who cited a difficult interview, and no offer, recalled being asked, "If you were a cocktail what would you be and why?"

The digital PR agency Reboot Online analyzed Glassdoor data to determine which companies have the most challenging job interviews. They focused on "reputable companies" listed in the top 100 of Forbes' World's Best Employers list and examined 313,000 employee reviews on Glassdoor. For each company, they looked at the average interview difficulty rating as reported on Glassdoor.

Here's a list of the top 90 companies that put candidates through the ringer for a job, according to self-reported reviews on Glassdoor.