Marc Benioff has found more ways to keep his name in the news and that of his company than virtually any other tech exec I have ever seen. He is a master promoter. He took an ASP and guided it through the most turbulent tech market we could have had and somehow made it through to a successful IPO and has gotten to the point where Salesforce.com and Siebel are typically mentioned in the same sentence.

Even if you think he is over the top or too much of a promoter or just not buttoned down enough, you have to give him tremendous credit for what he has achieved.

Here is his latest announcement:

The on-demand revolution has never shown greater momentum. As the legacy client-server world consolidates, Salesforce.com has been posting record revenue, profit and subscriber growth. In its second fiscal quarter, salesfore.com posted a 77% increase in revenue and 331% increase in profit. Highly-qualified employees are a key part of that success. As of July 31, 2005, salesforce.com employs 1059 people worldwide, up from 594 a year ago.
We are actively hiring worldwide and need the most qualified people we can find to help us further expand our growing community of success. As you all know we already have a \$5000 referral fee program in place for all employees worldwide who identify outstanding candidates that we go on to hire.

We are today also announcing a \$5000 signing bonus for current Siebel employees that we hire before December 31^st. Following the proposed acquisition of Siebel by Oracle many existing Siebel employees may be concerned about their career prospects, we want to offer them an alternative to an environment of declining commissions, confused customers and uncertainty around career viability. We would be delighted to hear from any Siebel employee that would like to join our company that meets our rigorous standard for excellence and dedication to customer success. Siebel employees can email us for a confidential discussion or meeting with a Salesforce.com executive through siebelsurvivor@salesforce.com  We will also be holding recruitment events on October 19^th in both Boston and San Mateo, at which interested Siebel employees may want to schedule a confidential meeting with Siebel Alumni now working at Salesforce.com.

Please note that most -- but not all -- Siebel employees are currently eligible for hire at salesforce.com today and that the recruiting department will screen for eligibility.

Aloha,
Marc