Sohn Conference

Palihapitiya says Workday is worth $100 billion

Chamath Palihapitiya
David A. Grogan | CNBC

Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Capital, told the crowd at the Sohn San Francisco Investment Conference that Workday, an enterprise cloud software company will be worth $100 billion in 10 years. The company's market value is currently a little more than $18 billion.

The hedge fund and venture capital investor, who was an early executive at Facebook, made waves during the New York Sohn conference in May when he predicted Amazon.com would be a worth $3 trillion in 10 years. This is his new big cloud software platform bet.

Workday is "a company that we think is purpose-built to really stand the test of time," said Palihapitiya, saying that following Salesforce's growth trajectory puts the company at $17.6 billion of revenue in 10 years. Yet, Workday "is better on every single metric" than Salesforce, he said.

The manager lauded the launch of Workday Financials, which current human capital management software customers are adopting at a fast-paced rate. Palihapitya presented a slide that showed Netflix used Workday Financials to cut the amount of days it takes to file quarterly to the SEC to 28 from 20.

"This land and expand concept can only be available when you understand your customer and innovate quite quickly," said the investor, who took shots at competitors Oracle and SAP, along with Salesforce, during his presentation.

Workday has a "fantastic leadership team...there is no churn here..people come and they never leave," he said. "When you're a really talented engineer and working at a place that has become sales and marketing driven [like Oracle and SAP] you quit and go to Workday."

In closing his presentation, the investor said Workday has 97 percent customer satisfaction.

"This is the way people react to Google or Facebook so we should probably pay attention."

Wednesday's event is the West Coast version of the prominent conferences which began in New York. The Sohn conferences, which are known for hedge fund managers making market-moving presentations to their peers, benefit pediatric cancer and other causes for underserved youth. The conference is presented in partnership with CNBC..