Salesforce founder Marc Benioff tossed $2.3m in return for bumper company growth

Salesforce.com has had a rummage down the back of the sofa and awarded CEO Marc Benioff $2.3m in small change.

He'll receive the bonus on 15 April, having soldiered on since his last bonus payout, a mid-year windfall on 30 September last year of $775,000.

Benioff, who is also founder and chairman of the CRM-cum-platform company, shares the spoils bonuses with fellow top team leaders.

Mark Hawkins, president and chief financial officer, and Parker Harris, co-founder and chief technology officer, are to be given $750,000 each, while Bret Taylor, president and chief operating officer, and Srinivas Tallapragada, president and chief engineering officer, got $675,000 each, according to company stock market filings [PDF].

To put it in perspective, Benioff's net worth is thought to be around $6.5bn, depending on the day's share price. The median (50th percentile) US family net worth is $97,300, so the tech CEO's annual bonus is proportionately the same as a $34.43 bonus for the average American family – probably not enough to take them all out for pizza. Perhaps that's a bit too much perspective.

The annual bonuses to the Salesforce top team are based on meeting company goals as well as individual performance during the company's fiscal 2020, and far be it from The Register to suggest that Salesforce has not performed.

Announced in February, its full-year results for fiscal 2020 ended 31 January showed annual revenue of $17.1bn, a 29 per cent lift on the previous year in constant currency.

Nor should it ever be suggested that the flamboyant founder, who started the cloud-based CRM firm in a small San Francisco apartment, does not do his bit for the environment. He is leading an initiative joined by 300 companies to plant 1 trillion trees by the end of the decade. "I think everybody realizes we're in a planetary emergency and we need to make changes, and business is the greatest platform for change," Benioff said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.

The tech chief has also talked about his commitment to philanthropy. He has backed local taxes to combat homelessness and donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity, according to reports.

But perhaps it is The Register's place to say that if he gets $2.3m in lunch money, Benioff can sometimes afford to be generous with his cash. ®