<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/51255db86bb3f7356f000017-740-555/larry-augustin-1.jpg?maxX=400&amp;maxY=300" border="0" alt="Larry Augustin" width="400" height="300" /></div><p class="source"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/roebot/2895799183/sizes/l/in/photostream/">Flickr/Roebot</a></p><p class="caption"><keyword id="998204" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="SugarCRM">SugarCRM</keyword> CEO <keyword id="1766081" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Larry-Augustin">Larry Augustin</keyword></p></div>SugarCRM, the maker of an open-source alternative to Salesforce.com, just <a href="http://www.sugarcrm.com/newspress/sugarcrm-blazes-2013-after-another-record-breaking-year">released some growth figures</a> which are sure to catch the eyes of investors.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Revenues grew 60 percent year-over-year in 2012, the company said. </span></p>
<p>That's sure to spur talk of an IPO—especially given the recent vogue for <keyword id="6356323" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Enterprise">enterprise</keyword> companies in both private and public markets. Our sources tell us an offering <a href="http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-deals/2012-11-02-salesforce-com-competitor-sugarcrm-may-shoot-for-ipo-in-2013/">could happen in the second half of 2013</a> or early 2014.</p>
<p>CEO Larry Augustin wouldn't confirm that time frame.</p>
<p>Still, we know SugarCRM is hot. The company, which like larger, public rival Salesforce.com, offers software for managing customer relationships, is starting to sign some multimillion-dollar deals.</p>
<p>In April 2012, the company raised <a href="http://www.sugarcrm.com/newspress/sugarcrm-completes-33-million-financing-round-further-expansion-enterprise">$33 million</a> from investors, bringing its total to $79 million. Now it plans to go after more and larger customers, putting it on a collision course with Salesforce.com and Oracle.</p>
<p>Those companies outspoken CEOs, Marc Benioff and Larry Ellison, have actually helped SugarCRM, Augustin told Business Insider.</p>
<p>Both "are very vocal" about customer-relationship management, or <keyword id="200550" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="60" keywordseo="CRM">CRM</keyword>, and that's "good" because it "helps get publicity for everyone," Augustin said. "It's been fun to be part of that."</p>
<p>He also credits Benioff for "being in the CRM business when it was not sexy to be in CRM business."</p>
<p>That's an about-face from the company's early days, when SugarCRM pulled a Benioff-like guerrilla marketing prank against Salesforce.com.</p>
<p>Augustin, previously an angel investor and board member,  became CEO in 2009. A few months after he took the top job, SugarCRM wrote a parody of Benoff's book "Behind the Cloud" and distributed at Salesforce.com's own customer conference.</p>
<p>SugarCRM called its book "Behind the Smoke Screen: The untold story of how Salesforce.com still manages to sell 1999 technology 10 years later."</p>
<p>The <a href="http://crmoutsiders.com/2009/11/19/sugarcrms-behind-the-smokescreen-campaign-a-huge-success/">prank generated a lot of press</a>. But since then, the book, which used to be published on the SugarCRM website, has quietly disappeared.</p>

The CEO Of SugarCRM Loves The Crazy Antics Of Archrival Marc Benioff

<p><table class="image-container float_right" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4fa45b58eab8eaeb0100000f-400-300/sugarcrm_larry augustin (2).jpg" border="0" alt="SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin " /></div><p class="source">SugarCRM</p><p class="caption">SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin </p></td></tr></table>There's a new trend in the venture funding world where <keyword id="6362513" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Startups">startups</keyword> are landing really big seed rounds of well over $1 million.</p>
<p>They're doing this by getting handfuls of angel investors involved, says Larry Augustin, a longtime angel and CEO of <keyword id="998204" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="SugarCRM">SugarCRM</keyword>, a maker of business-application software.</p>
<p>Huge seed rounds are driven in part by social networks like LinkedIn, he believes, because it's become so much easier to find angels or stay in touch with the ones you know.</p>
<p>While this sounds like good news, a large seed round "changes the dynamics of how those companies get built," Augustin told Business Insider.</p>
<p>Specifically, he said:</p>
<ul>
<li>With more angels giving money to the same company, fewer get personally involved, so there's less handholding.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Investors have higher expectations of the founders and how fast they can show success.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>When more funds are needed, a venture capitalist will want the business to be in good shape, commanding a high valuation, before it invests.</li>
</ul>
<p>It's an interesting observation. A quick search on CrunchBase showed 65 seed deals of $1 million or more since the start of 2012.</p>
<p>There is an upside. With smaller investments spread over more people, more startups are  getting funded.</p>
<p>That's good for  "fostering innovation," Augustin says.</p>
<p>But, he adds, "My guess is that failure rates are going to be higher as well."</p>
<p>Augustin is both a former venture capitalist and a famous angel. He's been a big name in the open-source software world since founding SourceForge in the Internet bubble days.</p>
<p>He's funded lots of companies including SugarCRM before he became CEO.  He's currently invested in and/or on the boards of startups like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-eyes-appcelerator-acquisition-2013-2">Appcelerator</a>, DotNetNuke, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/zenpayroll-joshua-reeves-2012-12">ZenPayRoll</a>. His previous startups include Pentaho, JBoss, and XenSource.</p>

LinkedIn Is A Reason Startups Raise More Money, Angel Investor Says

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57fbc6d48109eef7018b49f5-802/marc benioff 7.png" alt="Marc Benioff" data-mce-source="Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff" /><p class="source"><span>Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff</p></div><p></p></div></div>Although Microsoft executive vice president Scott Guthrie <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-promises-not-to-close-access-to-linkedins-data-2016-10">has said </a>that Microsoft will share LinkedIn data with other software makers after it completes its acquisition, the devil is in the details.</p><p>Apparently one devilish detail is that Microsoft is talking with other software makers like SugarCRM about giving them direct access to a small portion of LinkedIn's data, <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/how-linkedin-defused-protest-over-microsoft-deal">reports The Information's Steve Nellis</a>.</p><p>Salesforce has been complaining to the European Commission about Microsoft's purchase of LinkedIn. It is worried that Microsoft will block access to LinkedIn's vast store of professional data and it wants the EU to either block the acquisition (unlikely) or put conditions on the deal (unlikely but more plausible).</p><p>Both Microsoft and Salesforce compete head to head in a software field known as customer relationship management (CRM), which helps salespeople track prospects and manage interactions with customers. Salespeople rely heavily on LinkedIn to help them find prospects and make cold call emails. That's why both companies tried to buy LinkedIn.</p><p>SugarCRM is another player, as is Oracle (plus, there are a bunch of automated marketing companies, like HubSpot, which compete less directly).</p><p>To nullify Salesforce's complaints to regulatory agencies, Microsoft had apparently approached a few CRM and marketing players, including SugarCRM, about becoming data partners, Nellis reports. Microsoft was offering somewhat limited access to LinkedIn data that they could integrate into directly into their software products. The access would include name, photo and current title, a minimum data set to help salespeople target leads from their software, instead of how they do it today, manually sifting through LinkedIn.</p><p>The hope from Microsoft is that this data access, limited as it is, will appease the people who could join Salesforce's formal protest with the EU. If no others join the protest, then the EU could be less likely to impose restrictions.</p><p>On the flip side, after Microsoft closes its purchase of LinkedIn without restrictions, it could indeed restrict access to LinkedIn's data in all sorts of other ways - exactly what Salesforce fears. Microsoft has already said it plans to start a price war with Salesforce.</p><p>Microsoft says the acquisition has received regulatory approval in the US, Canada, and Brazil and Microsoft and it expects it to close by year end.</p><p>Microsoft could not be immediately reached for comment.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-underrated-unknown-television-shows-on-netflix-2016-10">The 7 best TV shows on Netflix you've probably never heard of</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="huZ3ZyMzE6rGxAguTdCEVzFAvdxaEa5B" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'huZ3ZyMzE6rGxAguTdCEVzFAvdxaEa5B',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

It looks Marc Benioff does have reason to worry about the LinkedIn-Microsoft deal

<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5dea9ff3fd9db21e3d7bd3ec-2400/ap19339802436006.jpg" alt="Andy Jassy" /><p class="source"><span>Associated Press</span></p><p class="caption">Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy.</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>We've identified the 14 top executives that directly report to Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy.</li><li>Jassy and his executive team are expected to face a challenging year as AWS growth slows and competition intensifies, especially from Microsoft.</li><li>AWS is still the cloud market leader with over $35 billion in annual revenue.</li><li>The list reflects the rise of Larry Augustin, a software industry veteran who came to AWS last year - and shows how more AWS execs than ever are sitting on Jeff Bezos's elite S-team of advisors.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>While Amazon Web Services remains the leading cloud provider, it stands to face a challenging year in 2020, as growth slows and competition intensifies.</p><p>AWS reported 34% revenue growth in its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-earnings-q4-2019-aws-cloud-2020-1">most recent quarter</a>, the slowest since disclosing that figure in 2015 (it still reported a record $35 billion in sales for 2019). Microsoft, meanwhile, continues to narrow the gap with AWS, expanding upon its deep network of existing business customers. Last year, Microsoft beat AWS for the highly-coveted JEDI cloud deal with the Defense Department (the deal is now being <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/judge-order-pentagon-pause-jedi-microsoft-amazon-2020-1">reviewed</a> by Federal courts after Amazon protested the win).</p><p>"2020 is going to be an inflection year for AWS," Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Business Insider. "Certainly, a big focus is to defend its share versus Microsoft."</p><p>That makes AWS CEO Andy Jassy and his team's job all the more important this year. Business Insider has identified 14 of the most powerful people at AWS who report directly to Jassy, based on an internal document. His executive team includes roles ranging from infrastructure management and software development to the head of its Twitch livestreaming service.</p><h2>The biggest changes</h2><p>One of the biggest changes from last year is the reassignment of Adam Bosworth, a former Microsoft and Salesforce executive who joined AWS in 2016. He no longer reports directly to Jassy, and is now under <strong>Larry Augustin</strong>, a software industry veteran who came to AWS last year. Augustin was most recently CEO of SugarCRM, an open source customer management software company. His experience running a software company will prove valuable for AWS as it looks to move further into the business application space - and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-web-services-neo-ai-open-source-2019-1">boost its appeal to open source developers</a>.</p><p>Ariel Kelman, AWS's former marketing chief, has left <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/13/oracle-hires-aws-marketing-vp-ariel-kelman-as-new-cmo.html">earlier this year</a> to join competitor Oracle as its chief marketing officer. In his place, AWS has put Rachel Thornton, who spent the last 5 years in various marketing roles at the company. </p><p>Meanwhile, <strong>Matt Garman</strong>, former VP of Compute Services, is seeing an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-13/amazon-names-new-cloud-sales-chief-amid-rivalry-with-microsoft">expanded role</a> this year as the newly appointed VP of sales and marketing. His team now includes AWS's top salespeople in government and commercial sectors, Teresa Carlson and Mike Clayville, as well as the marketing chief Thornton.</p><p><strong>Elaine Chang</strong>, the head of AWS China, also reports up to Jassy, reflecting the region's importance. Chang replaced Alex Yung as the VP of AWS Sales China <a href="https://jumpstartmag.com/elaine-chang-named-corporate-vp-and-managing-director-of-aws-greater-china/">in June</a>. While Amazon shut down its retail business in China, it has a growing presence in the country's cloud market.</p><p>Other notable changes to Jassy's team include the addition of <strong>Sean Boyle</strong>, the former CFO of AWS. Boyle left his CFO role this year to run a new project within AWS, Business Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-direct-reports-2020-2020-2">previously reported</a>. Jassy's new technical advisor - better known as his "shadow," with the privelege of following the CEO to his every meeting - is now <strong>Soo Lee</strong>, who replaced Doug Yeum last year.</p><p>One interesting aspect of Jassy's team is that its responsibilities are not confined to the traditional cloud business. <strong>Emmett Shear</strong>, CEO of the Twitch streaming service, is one of his direct reports, as is <strong>Babak Parviz</strong>, who runs a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/amazon-grand-challenge-moonshot-lab-google-glass-creator-babak-parviz.html">mysterious health-focused team</a> called Grand Challenge. <strong>Bing Gordon</strong>, a former board member of Amazon, is a strategic advisor for AWS, and is reportedly helping its "gaming-related efforts," according <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/amazons-secret-weapon-in-gaming-ea-veteran-bing-gordon">to The Information</a>. Amazon's chief technology officer <strong>Werner Vogels</strong> also reports up to Jassy.</p><p>Perhaps the most meaningful change, however, is the increased number of AWS executives sitting on Amazon's "S-team," a group of top leaders that advise CEO Jeff Bezos on key business decisions. Over the past year, two AWS executives, Garman and Peter DeSantis, have joined the S-team, making it a total of four members, alongside Jassy and SVP of Utility Computing Services Charlie Bell. The growing presence of AWS leaders among Amazon's most senior executive team shows how important the cloud business has become to the broader company.</p><h2>Meet the 14 people reporting directly to Jassy:</h2><p><strong>Babak Parviz, VP of Grand Challenge</strong></p><p>Parviz, the former head of Google's moonshot lab X, joined Amazon in 2014 to lead a secretive team called Grand Challenge. His team is comprised of a number of health experts, indicating a focus on health-related projects. Parviz was previously an electrical engineering professor at the University of Washington.</p><p><strong>Bing Gordon, Strategic Advisor</strong></p><p>Gordon is a strategic advisor for AWS, and is reported to be helping the company's gaming business. He stepped down from Amazon's board in 2017, and is currently the chief product officer for the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Gordon also served as a long-time executive at Electronic Arts previously.</p><p><strong>Charlie Bell, SVP, Utility Computing Services</strong></p><p>Bell, who's been at Amazon since 1998, is one of the most senior executives at the company. He was responsible for the early development of AWS's infrastructure team, leading a group of engineers across datacenters, network, and servers. He's one of the few S-team members from AWS.</p><p><strong>Elaine Chang, VP AWS Sales China</strong></p><p>Chang was named as AWS China's lead last year, succeeding Alex Yung. She's responsible for the region's sales, marketing, and engineering teams, and oversees AWS's relationship with the Chinese government as well. Chang spent nearly 20 years at Intel before joining AWS in 2013.</p><p><strong>Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch</strong></p><p>Shear is the founder of Twitch, the video streaming service Amazon acquired for $970 million in 2014. He went to Yale University and graduated with a computer science degree in 2005.</p><p><strong>James Hamilton, VP/Distinguished Engineer</strong></p><p>Hamilton is one of the most high-profile executives at AWS, often representing the company at public events. Before joining Amazon in 2008, Hamilton spent nearly 20 years at Microsoft and IBM.</p><p><strong>Larry Augustin, VP</strong></p><p>Augustin, who most recently was CEO of SugarCRM, is a well-known software executive and a pioneer in open source technology. He was part of the group that first came up with the term "open source," and he's done extensive research in the area, according to his Linkedin profile.</p><p><strong>Matt Garman, VP of AWS Sales and Marketing</strong></p><p>Before Garman was put in charge of AWS's sales and marketing in January, he spent 7 years running its compute services team. Prior to that, he was part of the core EC2 server team. Garman is the latest addition to Bezos's S-team.</p><p><strong>Michael Frazzini, VP of Game Services and Studios</strong></p><p>Frazzini has spent over 15 years at Amazon in various roles including the books category manager. He joined the video games team in 2009 and was promoted to VP of Amazon Games in 2014. His team is in charge of creating "awe-inspiring games for players, broadcasters and viewers and game technology for developers," according to his Linkedin profile.</p><p><strong>Peter DeSantis, VP of AWS Global Infrastructure</strong></p><p>DeSantis was one of the first employees of AWS and played a critical role building up its technology from its early days. He currently runs all of AWS's core infrastructure business. Amazon promoted DeSantis to Bezos's S-team last year, signifying his rise in the ranks.</p><p><strong>Sean Boyle, VP </strong></p><p>Boyle, who joined Amazon in 2006 and was most recently CFO of AWS, has taken on a mysterious new role at AWS this year. It's unknown what exactly he's working on, but the fact that he now reports up to Jassy indicates its importance. </p><p><strong>Soo Lee, Technical Advisor</strong></p><p>Lee has been Jassy's technical advisor since June. Her role, better known as the "shadow" advisor, is highly-coveted within Amazon because she gets to follow Jassy to every meeting for 12 to 18 months, with the goal of learning about every aspect of the business. Previously, Lee was a director of financial agencies worldwide.</p><p><strong>Stephen Schmidt, Chief Information Security Officer</strong></p><p>Schmidt is in charge of information security at AWS. He first joined Amazon in 2008. Prior to that, he spent 10 years at the FBI as a senior executive.</p><p><strong>Werner Vogels, VP and CTO</strong></p><p>Vogels has been Amazon's CTO since 2005. He's one of the most visible executives on Jassy's team and gives a keynote speech every year at AWS's re:Invent conference. </p><p class="tagline"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/30-big-tech-predictions-for-2020?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;itm_content=amazon&amp;itm_campaign=30-big-tech-predictions-for-2020"><img src="https://static.businessinsider.com/image/5e3895ed5bc79c3adb162707" alt="Exclusive FREE Report: 30 Big Tech Predictions for 2020 by Business Insider Intelligence" style="margin: 0 auto !important; width: 100% !important; min-width: 280px !important; max-width: 640px !important" /></a></p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-unveils-new-galaxy-s20-phone-2020-2">Watch Samsung unveil the Samsung Galaxy S20</a></h3>                    <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/IWhiZcHq-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;"></iframe>            

Meet the 14 most important executives at Amazon Web Services who report directly to CEO Andy Jassy as the $35 billion cloud faces an 'inflection year'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/536372b5eab8ea517f5b9500-1200-924/lila-tretikov.jpg" border="0" alt="Lila Tretikov" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lila_Tretikov_addressing_Wikimedia_staff_for_the_first_time.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Good morning! It looks like a bright, sunny spring day in New York City. Make sure you get out if possible. And now, the news:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/05/01/wikipedia-names-software-executive-tretikov-as-new-chief/">Wikimedia has a new chief, Lila Tretikov, who was born in Soviet Russia.</a></strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Previously, she was at SugarCRM.</span></li>
<li><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/foursquare-just-gambled-everything-and-split-its-business-in-two-2014-5">Once hot startup Foursquare made its pivot away from check-ins permanent.</a></strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> It split its app in two. Foursquare will be a Yelp-like competitor, and a new app, "Swarm," will be used for checking in. </span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-q1-earnings-2014-5"><strong>LinkedIn reported earnings, and everything was better than expected.</strong></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> And yet, the stock dropped a little after hours.</span></li>
<li><a href="http://9to5mac.com/2014/05/01/os-x-10-10-focus-planned-for-wwdc-ios-8-features-pushed-to-ios-8-1-new-apple-tv-os-in-the-works/"><strong>A new report from Mark Gurman on Apple's first major event of the year, WWDC, says that it will focus on the Mac operating system which is getting a major overhaul.</strong></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> It also says that some iPhone software features might be delayed because Apple has all of its resources focused on finishing the Mac software.</span></li>
<li><a href="http://recode.net/2014/05/01/read-this-jason-hirschhorns-newsletter-business-just-raised-a-seed-round/"><strong>Jason Hirschhorn, the well-loved media insider who once ran MySpace, has raised $2.5 million for his newsletter business, Media ReDEF.</strong></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></li>
<li><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://yahoopolicy.tumblr.com/post/84363620568/yahoos-default-a-personalized-experience">Yahoo has pulled the plug on its "do not track" policy.</a></strong></li>
<li><a href="http://9to5mac.com/2014/05/01/samsung-attempts-to-preempt-apples-healthbook-launch-with-a-health-focused-event-of-its-own-in-late-may/"><strong>Samsung announced plans for its own health-focused event just days before Apple has WWDC where it is expected to unveil Healthbook.</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/JanDawson2/us-wireless-market-trends-q1-2014"><strong>Here's a big presentation full of good charts on trends in the U.S. wireless market.</strong></a></li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apple-facebook-others-defy-authorities-increasingly-notify-users-of-secret-data-demands-after-snowden-revelations/2014/05/01/b41539c6-cfd1-11e3-b812-0c92213941f4_story.html">Technology companies are increasingly telling users about when the government is looking for their data.</a></strong> It's a bit of an FU to the government.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/30-under-30-influential-young-people-in-tech-2014-4"><strong>And here are 30 influential people in technology under 30.</strong></a></li>
</ol>

10 Things In Tech You Need To Know This Morning

<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/543d974c6bb3f74124f704ef-942-707/salesforcecom-marc-benioff.png" border="0" alt="Salesforce.com Marc Benioff "><span class="source"><span>Business Insider/Julie Bort</span></span><span class="caption">Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff </span></img></span><p></p></span></span>In October, Salesforce introduced a major <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/salesforces-marc-benioff-explains-wave-2014-10">new product called Wave,</a> which brings the company into the uber important "big data" market.</p>
<p>Flash forward a couple of months and the engineer who led Wave, Fayyaz Younas, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayyaz">has left Salesforce</a> for a tiny startup known as Kahuna, reports the <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/12/23/startup-kauhuna-lures-a-top-salesforce-com-engineer/">Deborah Gage at the Wall Street Journal.</a></p>
<p>From CEO Marc Benioff's point of view, this one likely hurts. Benioff reportedly tried to convince Younas to stay, but that's hard to do. While Salesforce is still known as a growing, energetic company, the 15-year-old company has long since crossed the line into big corporation, <a href="http://investor.salesforce.com/about-us/investor/investor-news/investor-news-details/2014/Salesforce-Signs-Agreement-to-Purchase-50-Fremont-Street-Building-Expanding-Worldwide-Headquarters-in-San-Francisco/default.aspx">with more than 15,000 employees worldwide. </a></p>
<p>For engineers in the Valley, it's not about money. An engineer like Younas can make lots of money anywhere. He left to follow the startup dream, Gage reports.</p>
<p>He was actually thinking of launching his own company until the Kahuna guys convinced him to take up with them.</p>
<p>The founders of Kahuna have the pedigree to do well. It was launched in 2012 by CEO Adam Marchick (who previously worked at Oracle via its acquisition of Siebel and Facebook and did six years as a VC ), and CTO Jacob Taylor (co-founding CTO of SugarCRM among other accolades).&#xa0; It has raised $13 million so far from Sequoia Capital, SoftTech, and a bunch of angels, <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kahuna">according to Crunchbase.</a></p>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5499b279ecad04006da81911-365-273/kahunas-fayyaz-younas.jpg" border="0" alt="Kahunas Fayyaz Younas"><span class="source"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/fayyaz_younas">Twitter/Fayyaz Younas</a></span></span><span class="caption">Kahuna vice president of engineering Fayyaz Younas</span></img></span><p></p></span></span>Younas joined because Kahuna is working on an interesting problem, he told Gage. It is helping companies deliver relevant marketing messages to millions of customers over lots of different mediums, like email, mobile web and apps, and social networks. It claims Yahoo, Fox, Hotel Tonight and "hundreds of others" as customers.</p>
<p>Salesforce is increasingly<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/8-startups-founded-by-ex-salesforce-employees-2014-9"> fertile ground for startup entrepreneurs. </a>The founders of&#xa0;Okta, Zuora, and Heresay Social all came from Salesforce.</p>
<p>Over the past few months, several big names have left or been poached, too. For instance, Salesforce's Chief Customer Officer <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-jim-steele-left-salesforce-for-insidesales-2014-12">Jim Steele left the company </a>for startup Insidesales. Alex Bard, executive vice president and general manager of Service Cloud, left Salesforce in September to become CEO of Campaign Monitor. In the summer, ExactTarget co-founder and CEO Scott Dorsey <a href="http://www.wthr.com/story/25670934/2014/06/02/dorsey-talks-about-exacttarget-departure">left Salesforce as well</a>.</p>

Salesforce Just Lost One Of Its Star Engineers To A Startup

<p>Nestled away in the announcement that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-office-2016-pushes-subscription-2015-9">Microsoft Office 2016 for Windows is now available</a> is the news that Microsoft GigJam, one of the company's weirdest and most experimental new apps, is entering a private preview phase for a few trial customers. </p><p>When <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-cortana-gigjam-analytics-suite-2015-7">GigJam was first announced</a> this past July, it was hard to understand.</p><p>But I witnessed a demo at a Microsoft Office press event last night, and I have to say: GigJam is so crazy that it just might work.</p><p>"We've invented a new method of communication," says Microsoft engineer Vijay Mital, head of the GigJam project.</p><p>Basically, you pull up a bunch of business data from various sources - Salesforce, Outlook, Microsoft Office 365, LinkedIn, whatever - either by typing or by simply telling Cortana (Microsoft's virtual assistant) what you want. In the demo, a Microsoft employee pulled up his list of Salesforce projects just by saying "bring up my projects." </p><p>Once you have the data you want to work with, you literally use your mouse or finger to circle it. Anything you specifically don't want to share, you X out.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5600cae7bd86ef1d008bbeff-1632-1224/slack for ios upload (6).jpg" alt="microsoft gigjam 1" data-mce-source="Matt Weinberger" /><p class="source"><span>Matt Weinberger</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In this example, all three columns will get shared - with the exception of an internal project number and the fact that that he's using Outlook, because the employee X'ed those out. </p><p>Mital calls each individual bit of separate, shareable data "the molecules of work."</p><p>Then, you invite others to work with you.</p><p>Microsoft is readying GigJam apps for Windows 7 through 10, the Mac, iOS, and eventually Android, Mital says, so it shouldn't be too hard to find a GigJam buddy. But they'll still need the app to see it, and there's no browser-based version currently planned, Mital says.</p><p>They only see what you let them see. On an iPhone, it works in exactly the same way, and they can add and send their own information back:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5600cfc8bd86ef10008bc06b-1224-1632/slack for ios upload (7).jpg" alt="gigjam ios" data-mce-source="Matt Weinberger" /><p class="source"><span>Matt Weinberger</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>It's designed to provide a little more privacy than just broadcasting your entire desktop to a coworker or outside contractor, since you can control what gets shared.</p><p>And it's a little more productive than e-mail, since you don't need to take the time to take screenshots or copy and paste the relevant data before you send it along.</p><p>You just pull up your stuff, choose what you want to share, and go. GigJam may never kill e-mail or phone calls, but it can at least save you a lot of "15-minute phone calls" or pointless back-and-forth e-mail threads, Mital says.</p><p>"We don't want to talk. We want to get work done," Mital says.</p><p>Out of the box, GigJam supports a bunch of common workplace apps, including Microsoft Outlook, Asana, SugarCRM, and Salesforce, Mital says. With those officially supported apps, you get the full ability to circle and cross out data fields with impunity. </p><p>But a bunch of other apps will have limited, but functional, GigJam integration. So long as those apps use a just-about-standard REST-based API (programmer-speak for the hooks that apps use to talk to each other), GigJam can at least suck in their data. </p><p>And to further the movement, Microsoft is also going to release a set of tools so developers can build in more GigJam-friendly features.</p><p>Of course, those outside developers will only do that if GigJam catches on. But from just a short demo, GigJam went from a big mystery to something that I can't wait to experiment with. Fortunately, once it's out of preview, GigJam will be available to Office 365 subscription service customers.</p><p>And who knows? Maybe it'll start saving us all a few extra 15-minute phone calls every day.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-edge-new-features-windows-10-2015-7">Meet 'Edge,' Microsoft's bold answer to Google Chrome</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/MDlhYjRhYmQyMjA2NWM2Yzg4YTJkYzcz"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="92OTZrdjq8hoE0ZvMElCcFUu9wNUpZFq" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', '92OTZrdjq8hoE0ZvMElCcFUu9wNUpZFq',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

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