Salesforce has outperformed the market over the past 20 years by 7.83% on an annualized basis producing an average annual return of 16.98%. Currently, Salesforce has a market capitalization of $125.88 billion.

An investment of $1000 in CRM stock 20 years ago would be worth $22,553.47 today based on a price of $153.70 for CRM at the time of writing.

Salesforce’s Performance Over Last 20 Years

The key insight to take from this article is to note how much of a difference compounded returns can make in your cash growth over a period of time.

Artificial intelligence firms OpenAI and Anthropic have hired approximately 100 employees from Salesforce this year, targeting personnel with deep relationships in Fortune 500 companies. The moves, concentrated in sales, marketing, and go-to-market roles, highlight the aggressive talent acquisition strategies within the AI sector. Anthropic has hired 45 Salesforce employees over the last six months, while OpenAI has added 40, according to LinkedIn profiles and reports from The Information.

The hiring spree at OpenAI aligns with its broader expansion goals. The company plans to double its workforce from 4,500 to 8,000 by the end of 2026. Recent strategic hires include Clint Gibler as a member of the technical staff, working with Michael Aiello, head of product for cyber. OpenAI also appointed former Ironclad CEO Jason Boehmig to lead its legal industry product team and brought on former Salesforce AgentExchange CEO Brian Landsman as vice president of global partnerships. Additionally, Denise Dresser, who led Salesforce's Slack business, departed in December to become OpenAI's Chief Revenue Officer.

Strategic Partnerships and Spending

Despite the talent drain, Salesforce is deepening its commercial ties with Anthropic. The company plans to spend $300 million on Anthropic tokens in 2026. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff publicly endorsed the partnership, citing the utility of Anthropic's coding agents in reducing production costs.

"These coding agents are awesome. Anthropic is awesome," Benioff said on a podcast. "I am going to probably use $300 million of Anthropic this year at Salesforce. Coding. Everything’s going to be cheaper to make."

Key Personnel Movements

The talent exchange between the firms is not unidirectional. Former OpenAI employees Clive Chan and Andrej Karpathy have left to join rival Anthropic in recent months. The following table summarizes the key hires and strategic moves mentioned in the reports: