Slack insider: life after Salesforce bought us felt like a culture shock

A former Slack insider has published a first-hand account of life after Salesforce bought the workplace chat company, and the theme is culture shock. Slack had about 4,000 employees. Salesforce had about 80,000. Slack's CEO, Stewart Butterfield, says he got only about one hour with Salesforce founder Marc Benioff before the deal was announced. The account comes from Johnny Rodgers on the Building Slack blog.

What changed day to day

At Slack, a person who needed help asked in a chat channel and a human answered. At Salesforce, the writer says, a request meant filing a ticket and getting an automated email, often followed by another automated message with a link.

• Salesforce used email for internal talk. Slack's CEO had joked that anyone doing that would be fired.
• Staff had to complete required training quizzes on Salesforce's learning platform, Trailhead.
• The quizzes were easy to game but gave Salesforce a record that staff were up to date on policies.
• On one office visit in fall 2021, the writer's reserved desk had monitors and a mouse but no keyboard.

The bigger complaints

The account says Butterfield was frustrated with how the company ran. It describes executives approving costly celebrity appearances while cutting things like travel between offices. It also describes vice presidents hiring thousands of people, then laying off thousands in later quarters. A yearly event in Hawaii for longtime and senior staff reportedly cost millions.

Butterfield gave feedback and proposed fixes to Bret Taylor and Benioff several times, the writer says, but it seemed to go nowhere. The headline summary says Butterfield later quit after a Davos panel with will.i.am. The part of the account available here does not explain that.

Why it matters to customers

Slack is a tool many businesses use every day. When a small company is bought by a giant, the people who build and support a product can work very differently afterward. That can affect how fast problems get fixed and how easy it is to reach a real person.

What to ask your vendors

• If a tool you rely on is being bought, ask how support will work afterward.
• Ask whether you will still reach a person or only a ticket system.
• Ask whether pricing, plans or product direction are expected to change.

What is not known

This is one insider's view, and the account covers the period around fall 2021. The text available here is cut off before it reaches its practical lessons, and no response from Salesforce is included.