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The Renegade Master
Back once again. Founder-CEO Marc Benioff repeated his well-worn trick of tossing all the losers - sorry valued coworkers - under the bus right before the company delivers a whomping great quarter. Genius!
Elliott Management however has his number and is pressuring the Great One to have a board that actually does some, you know, boarding as opposed to just agreeing with the Prime Directive.
There are three catalysts driving the stock upwards right now.
One, the market is looking for reasons to go up. Software company prints an OK print? Stock up. Good print? Stock up a lot.
Two, Benioff is nobody's fool and can read the room better than most. Elliott pressuring for change? We suspect they will be outfoxed and the board will end up being certainly more independent but still, y'know, respectful of everything Marc has achieved. We do think Benioff will shoot the lights out on the numbers if only to prove Elliott wrong.
Three, Elliot aren't wrong and change is needed. The company will atrophy into Oracle if it isn't careful. Stories about dumping a massive number of recent hires sound good to us. We subscribe to the Musk theory of staffing ie. you don't need most staff, you only think you need that many people. Or you get off on having a lot of people calling you boss, which is even more sad. So, huge headcount cuts in our software universe? Yes please. Stocks up.
Now for numbers, valuation, chart and rating.