The new year won't wipe the slate clean for tech companies, according to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
Benioff addressed issues facing Silicon Valley in a wide-ranging interview with journalist Kara Swisher that aired Sunday on MSNBC.
When asked if tech could "redeem itself in 2019," Benioff answered, "No."
"I think that these problems are big," Benioff said on the "Revolution" special. "I think that they are multistakeholder. I don't think it's just about technology. I think it's also about government. It's gonna be also about other key stakeholders including consumers that everybody's gonna really have to come together to understand where we're going in a society."
Benioff has been a vocal critic of his peers, most recently opposing CEOs including Jack Dorsey of Square and Twitter by favoring a tax on businesses including Salesforce intended to help mitigate San Francisco's homelessness. During the interview, Benioff said his peers are responsible for the problems that have resulted from actions their companies have taken.
"They're 100 percent responsible for the disasters that they're creating, not just for their brand but in society itself because they just won't say, 'We're gonna make sure trust is our highest value,'" Benioff said, adding that the proof was in the fact that executives, employees and customers were "walking out" of these companies. "And that's gonna continue to happen if they don't change their values."
