"I need less heads."¹

That's Marc Benioff. CEO of Salesforce. $248 billion company.

Not "employees." Not "people." Not the customer service professionals who built his empire.

Heads.

He cut support staff from 9,000 to 5,000 while his stock crashed 35%.² Spent $16 million on Super Bowl ads featuring Matthew McConaughey.³ Claimed AI "augments, not replaces" workers — in the same interview where he discussed eliminating 4,000 jobs.⁴

But here's what haunts me:

None of the cruelty was necessary.

He could have offered generous severance. Job placement support. Honest communication about strategic failures. The financial outcome would be identical.

Same headcount reduction. Same margin improvement. Same quarterly numbers.

So why the dehumanizing language? Why the wanton cruelty?

Because when you can't grow, you extract. And extraction requires workers to be "heads," not humans.

THE PATTERN IS EVERYWHERE

This isn't just Salesforce.

64,000 tech workers laid off in 2025.⁵ Klarna eliminated 700 customer service jobs. Meta, Microsoft, Google — all doing the same dance. Cut workers. Buy back stock. Call it "AI transformation."

But look at what they're doing:

• Revenue growth: collapsing to single digits⁶

• Innovation: replaced by financial engineering

• Workers: dehumanized and eliminated

• Executives: protected and enriched

This is what an economy without growth looks like.

THE 1980 TURNING POINT

Something fundamental broke in 1982. That's when the SEC made stock buybacks legal.

Before: Companies retained earnings, reinvested in growth, shared prosperity with workers.

After: Companies return earnings to shareholders through buybacks and layoffs. Growth becomes extraction.

Since 1980, an estimated half of corporate profits have come not from innovation or expansion, but from workforce reduction and financial engineering.

WHEN HALF OF CORPORATE PROFITS COME FROM LAYOFFS AND BUYBACKS INSTEAD OF INNOVATION AND GROWTH, YOU'RE NOT WITNESSING TRANSFORMATION.

YOU'RE WITNESSING TERMINAL DECLINE DRESSED UP AS THE FUTURE.

WHAT EXTRACTION ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE

Benioff's playbook reveals the system:

1. Can't grow revenue organically
2. Cut costs (eliminate 5,000 "heads")
3. Spend $10+ billion on buybacks at peak prices⁷
4. Stock jumps temporarily
5. Executives cash out ($809M per quarter in stock comp⁸)
6. Stock crashes to $240
7. Workers and shareholders lose. Executives win.

This isn't capitalism. This isn't even business.

This is organized wealth transfer from the people who create value to the people who extract it.

THE AI COVER STORY

Here's where it gets brilliant and terrifying:

AI is the perfect excuse for extraction.

The old narrative: "We can't grow, so we're cutting costs" → Looks like failure → Invites scrutiny

The new narrative: "We're transforming with AI, this is inevitable" → Sounds like innovation → Frames decline as progress

But watch what Benioff actually does:

If he believed AI would create growth, he'd hire engineers.⁹ He's not. He'd invest billions in R&D. He's not. He'd build for the future. He's not.

Instead: He cuts. He extracts. He shrinks.

His Agentforce product? Lagging adoption.¹⁰ His productivity claims? The Salesforce community calls them "lies."¹¹ His revenue? Missing targets.¹²

AI isn't creating his growth. AI is the story he tells while extracting value from a system he's stopped believing in.

WHY THE CRUELTY ISN'T EXCESS

You can't extract from "people."

You can only extract from "heads."

The dehumanizing language isn't cruel by accident. It's psychologically necessary infrastructure.

If workers are human beings:

• You feel moral obligation

• You question whether cuts are necessary

• You're accountable for destroying livelihoods

If workers are "heads":

• They're line items on a spreadsheet

• Cutting them is optimization

• It's just math

The cruelty enables the extraction. It always has. Every dying system dehumanizes on its way down.

WHAT BELIEF IN THE FUTURE LOOKS LIKE

When you believe in tomorrow, you act like it.

You invest. You hire. You build. You sacrifice short-term profits for long-term position.

When you don't believe?

You extract. You eliminate. You shrink. You take profits now because you think there's nothing ahead.

Benioff's behavior reveals what his rhetoric denies:

He's stopped believing in tomorrow.

That's why he spends $10 billion on buybacks instead of innovation. That's why he fires engineers instead of hiring them. That's why he calls workers "heads" instead of people.

You don't dehumanize and extract from a system you think has a future.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTION

Are we seeing the end of corporate America as we knew it?

Look at the evidence:

• Can't grow ✓

• Can't innovate ✓

• Resorts to extraction ✓

• Dehumanizes workers ✓

• Enriches executives during decline ✓

• Uses AI as excuse ✓

• Faces no consequences ✓

These aren't signs of transformation.

These are signs of terminal decline.

When Marc Benioff destroys 35% of shareholder value, eliminates 5,000 jobs, calls workers "heads," spends billions on failed buybacks, makes false productivity claims, and gets richer doing it…

He's not innovating.

He's extracting the last value from a dying system.

And the question that should terrify us:

If the people running our largest corporations have stopped believing in a future worth building…

What does that tell us about the system they're running?

Footnotes

¹ Marc Benioff, Logan Bartlett Show podcast, September 2025

² Salesforce stock: $365.66 (Dec 2024) → $240 (Nov 2025)

³ Two 30-second Super Bowl ads, February 2025 at $8M each

⁴ Fortune, September 2025

⁵ Tech sector layoffs, 2025 year-to-date

⁶ Salesforce revenue growth: double-digit to single-digit, 2024–2025

⁷ Salesforce buybacks: $10B+ at $300–365/share, 2024–2025

⁸ Salesforce quarterly executive stock-based compensation

⁹ "We're not hiring any engineers in 2025" — Benioff, earnings call

¹⁰ Agentforce adoption lagging, weak 2025 guidance — analyst reports

¹¹ Salesforce community response to 30–50% productivity claims

¹² Q4 FY25: $9.99B actual vs $10.04B expected