Salesforce Exec Breaks Down His ~$100B M&A Playbook and the AI-Native Acquisition Era
a16z Podcast · rss · 2026-11-06
The a16z Podcast hosts John Somorjai, Salesforce's M&A chief, unpacking nearly $100 billion in acquisitions during his tenure, from Slack and MuleSoft to a new generation of AI-native companies.
Key points:
- What makes a startup worth acquiring when software has never been easier to build: roadmap acceleration, exceptional talent, and instant access to 15,000 Salesforce sales reps.
- Salesforce's build-versus-buy framework and why outcome-based pricing is replacing seat pricing in parts of enterprise software.
- What founders should weigh before selling and what kills deals in diligence; parts of today's venture market are overvalued.
- Salesforce Ventures is expanding from enterprise software into frontier AI and robotics.
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