Dreamforce Special: How do we prepare for the next waves of AI, using kindness as our guiding value?

welcome to the special edition of executive conversations filmed amid the energy and excitement of dreamforce 2023 I'm Leandro Perez ready to be inspired Again by the vision of our global leaders we've already had so many incredible conversations if you've missed an episode you can catch up at [Music] Amy Weaver is our president and Chief Financial Officer at Salesforce and formerly our chief legal officer Amy is a force to be reckoned with not just in matters of global growth and profitability where she is vastly experienced and a genuine innovator but in her Fierce commitment to kindness as an essential quality for authentic leadership thanks for joining us Amy as dreamforce happens right around us little Icebreaker to kick us off what did you want to be when you were growing up well when I was growing up believe it or not I wanted to be president of the United States incredible and in fact I took it very very seriously and when I was 12 years old I actually lined up my friends and chose a cabinet and I still remember turning to my best friend Jenny roller and telling her I just didn't think she was vice presidential material I I told her she could be Secretary of interior and she skipped off all happy about that and I thought see I told you she wasn't vice presidential material so hopefully hopefully my style has mellowed a bit over the years that's incredible I was not thinking like that when I was 12 so that's a great story I was a very serious 12-year old so tell me uh there's a whole backstory into coming into Salesforce and where you are today can you share a little bit of that Journey with us today so well coming to Salesforce was definitely not um what I had in my plans I was living in Seattle I got a call from Salesforce I wasn't familiar with the company about interviewing for the general Council role and I said no I was happy in Seattle I had three kids who have just started school great house and they finally convinced me just fly down meet a few people so my husband and I came down spent a day interviewed with executive after executive learned more about the company learned more about the values and I went back to the hotel that night and I remember my husband asked me how did it go and I said terrible and he said why and I said I think we're going to have to move and it was this huge mix during the day I just kept needing you know more and more amazing people I kept learning about this company I'd never seen a company that I thought had this much opportunity ahead of it but I just remember the sinking feeling in my stomach because I knew I knew what the trade-off was going to be but I'll tell you a decade later I if anything I underestimated the opportunity it's been an incredible experience well we're very glad you made that you know that choice it was the right choice at the time and let's fast forward because you know that's where you started but now CFO of Salesforce I don't know if you would have thought that when you were joining tell us a little bit about that I absolutely would not have in fact it it's almost three weeks ago or three years ago this week that Mark called me out of the blue and asked me to consider being CFO and I'll tell you I was so stunned I didn't say anything for a while Mark told me later he actually was worried I had either disconnected or fallen off the chair and it took me a while to get my head around um it was a huge change I don't think this has ever happened for a Fortune 500 company um in the past with someone going from the legal seat to the financial seat but what I really had to learn was I had to be able to make the role my own and it meant I wasn't coming in with the traditional background the traditional skill set so I needed to figure out what were my strengths and how could I make that role something that really worked for me and worked for the company so it was uh a little terrifying but I'm so glad I did it wow a Trailblazer truly like many of our customers but you too are a Trailblazer so thank you Amy for sharing that now the CFO role as you mentioned you've made it your own you now talk to CFOs all around the world you know what's top of mind for CFO obviously right now we're in a unique uh macro environment so maybe you can share a little bit about those conversations well it's interesting just looking at the role of C CFO to begin with I think of all of the roles in the SE Suite it's probably evolved the most over the last couple of decades you know you go back 20 years years ago the CFO was almost inevitably an accountant uh almost inevitably male yes and it's kind of where you went to to get the books closed and that was fine now I view it as one of the most strategic roles in the company it's everything flows through Finance the strategy where the company is going you have to know the products you have to know your customers you have to know how to get things done the role has changed and I see that with CFOs too talked to CFOs all over the world and they come from every back ground you can imagine in terms of what they're looking at what really strikes me is how similar the issues are so I meet with CFOs in Australia and in Europe and in the US all sorts of uh sizes of companies in different Industries they're all focused right now on efficiency they're focused on how they can get time to value and they're still focused on growth I think there's a real mistake that CFOs are all about the bottom line but more than anything else I think CFOs want grow and they want to see how they can get there and get there quickly well in marketing we love growth so I think we've got a shared goal there for sure now Amy obviously at dreamforce we're going to be talking a lot about AI it is the AI event of the year what are you hearing about Ai and how it may change our business and maybe From perspective that you have with some of the leaders you're talking through you know I think it's interesting I think we are just scratching the surface on AI and I we tend to talk about it as if AI is one kind of uniform thing that's out there but I think that there are waves we're going through so you know starting way back in 2014 for Salesforce we started getting involved in predictive AI so literally just predicting the next step for a salesperson for Amazon predicting the next book someone would buy and we're still very much involved in that this year it felt almost like a tsunami waving over us with generative AI so suddenly the AI is going to be helping to write those emails generating reports but I think we've got two more waves coming the next one is autonomous so instead of AI just helping us AI actually replacing some of the things we do so think self-driving cars or robots that stock shelves for Amazon we're starting to use those they're still kind of in beta mode but I think the fourth wave is going to be what they call artificial general intelligence that's when it gets really interesting that's when they're training themselves and they are starting to learn and when you look at that the potential for how that could change business change the world is almost unlimited it's also a bit terrifying and that's where I really think we need to start looking at who do we trust what's the compliance what are the roles how do we Safeguard this it still a way is off but we've got to be asking those questions right now let's pull a little bit on that thread there so clearly uh you're talking to many leaders like you mentioned some people listening to this all their employees might be a little concerned whether it's for their job or even future Generations how can lead through kindness to use a phrase that you've used before through this time you know I think there's two aspects to that whenever I was working with companies and we were going through a difficult time I think in the past I would rely on trying to paint the picture of the future you want employees to know they're going to go through a tricky time but it's going to be better in the future and you they're going to make it to the promised land I no longer think that's the most important part of it I think you also have to talk about what isn't going to change what is going to be the same about their job what's important to them that they're still going to have along the way and at Salesforce I really think it's our values the job might look different our Focus might look different but you know we're going to be focused on trust you know it's going to be customer success Innovation equality and sustainability almost go without saying you we need to talk about what isn't going to change and I think it sales force it really is our values and our vision well look Amy we final question here we've got leaders from across the globe listening in what's one piece of advice during this time that you can tell them to get started if they're you know unsure where to go next I think you can't go wrong with kindness you know it is the most powerful of all the leadership traits people tend to M mistake kindness for weakness and it's just the opposite taking care of your employees caring about them treating people with civility I don't think it's ever been more important and I think it can be a superpower for everyone well very Sage advice thank you so much Amy for spending a few moments with us and as always a pleasure love to be here I want to thank all of our incredible guests for sharing their thoughts on some pivotal subjects including their AI perspectives for more of this special dreamforce edition of executive conversations head over to conversations dream for special see you next [Music] time I think we need to get one of these for I really I really do Marker sticks one anything you want I was trying to get to your so I threw an extra one in okay I was like hold on there's an extra question