Salesforce wants to know why employees hate its NFT plans

Salesforce
(Image credit: Future)

It's fair to say that Salesforce's plan to get into Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) has not gone down too well with its workers. 

As soon as the news was made public, employees voiced their extreme scepticism – both publicly and privately. 

The plans involved, among other things, creating a new NFT Cloud platform to help create and host NFTs for people, using Salesforce's extensive knowledge in cloud computing to get a food in the door of an ever-expanding industry. The product would compete with OpenSea, which has fast-become the dominate marketplace for NFTs. 

Listening sessions

Executives were clearly taken aback by the backlash, and according to a report from Bloomberg, which coincides with Salesforce's Q4 earnings, Chief Revenue Officer Gavin Patterson said the company is holding listening sessions with employees to hear their concerns. 

“We take what our employees feel about things very seriously,” Patterson told Bloomberg. “It is something we’ve been looking at and we are currently undertaking a series of listening sessions. We’ll take that into account as we continue to develop the proposition from here.” 

It's not all bad 

While Salesforce might have put its foot in its mouth over NFTs, its fourth quarter earnings were strong, as the company successfully integrates chat app Slack into its product portfolio. 

Revenue for the quarter rose 26% year-over-year to $7.33 billion, as its Subscription and Support business brought in $6.8 billion. Its "platform and other" business, which includes Slack, grew 53% year-over-year to $1.35 billion in revenue. 

"With our customers' success driving our financial success, we're generating disciplined, profitable growth at scale quarter after quarter," said co-CEO Bret Taylor. "Our Customer 360 platform has never been more strategic or relevant in driving the growth and resilience of our customers around the world." 

Salesforce stock rose 3% after hours following the news. 

Max Slater-Robins has been writing about technology for nearly a decade at various outlets, covering the rise of the technology giants, trends in enterprise and SaaS companies, and much more besides. Originally from Suffolk, he currently lives in London and likes a good night out and walks in the countryside.