The company that mocked Oracle is now worth less than most leading AI startups. Who's laughing now?
A few years ago, Salesforce was the cloud darling that mocked Oracle at every turn. Marc Benioff—once Larry Ellison's protégé at Oracle—built his entire brand on the "No Software" revolution, positioning Salesforce as the future while casting traditional enterprise tech as relics of a dying era.
But on February 3rd, 2026, Salesforce got a brutal reality check. When Anthropic announced new legal automation tools for its Cowork assistant, the software sector cratered. Salesforce has now lost roughly 40% of its value over the past 12 months. Its market cap sits around $187 billion—down from over $320 billion just two years ago.
The irony is suffocating.
The Infrastructure Bet Salesforce Never Made
While Salesforce was perfecting its "No Software" marketing, the TradTech giants it mocked were building something crucial: infrastructure. Oracle just announced plans to raise $45-50 billion in 2026 alone to expand its cloud capacity—a bet that's paying off with contracted demand from OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia, and xAI.
Salesforce chose to remain a pure SaaS play, never building the foundational infrastructure layer that now powers the AI revolution. They acquired Slack, Tableau, and MuleSoft—all good businesses—but none of them gave Salesforce a seat at the AI infrastructure table.
The Agentforce Problem
Salesforce hasn't ignored AI entirely. Their Agentforce product is supposed to bring agentic AI to enterprise CRM. But analysts are skeptical. Bank of America notes "peripheral concerns that Salesforce may see margin degradation as agentic AI generates a higher revenue mix." The product faces adoption challenges including poor data quality, lack of AI understanding among customers, and limited executive buy-in.
More damning: when a company like Anthropic can launch tools that instantly threaten entire software verticals—Thomson Reuters, LegalZoom, and others dropped 12% in a single day—Salesforce's thin AI moat looks increasingly vulnerable.
The Acquisition Math
Here's where it gets interesting. Salesforce can't buy its way to AI relevance anymore. Anthropic is reportedly raising at $350 billion. OpenAI is seeking valuations around $830 billion for a potential IPO. Even xAI is valued at roughly $230 billion. Salesforce's entire market cap wouldn't cover a minority stake in these giants.
So who buys Salesforce?
Oracle: The ultimate revenge story. Larry Ellison acquiring his former protégé's company would be the most dramatic M&A narrative in tech history. Oracle has the infrastructure Salesforce lacks, and Salesforce has the CRM market share Oracle has long coveted. At roughly $187 billion, Salesforce is now within Oracle's reach—especially with Oracle raising $50 billion this year. The regulatory path might be challenging, but the strategic fit is undeniable.
Microsoft: Already deep in enterprise with Dynamics 365 and armed with the OpenAI partnership. But acquiring Salesforce might create antitrust headaches and cultural conflicts. Microsoft also doesn't need Salesforce the way Oracle might.
SAP: Back in 2015, SAP's CEO flatly said "no one" would acquire Salesforce. The company has since built a strong position in enterprise applications. But SAP has historically been disciplined about mega-acquisitions, and integrating Salesforce's culture would be daunting.
An AI Company? Here's the contrarian take: could Anthropic, OpenAI, or another AI leader swallow Salesforce for enterprise distribution? Anthropic now leads enterprise LLM market share, but lacks the direct customer relationships Salesforce has cultivated over two decades. At $350 billion, Anthropic could theoretically absorb a $187 billion Salesforce—though doing so before an IPO seems unlikely. Post-IPO, with access to public market capital, the calculus changes. Acquiring Salesforce would instantly give an AI company enterprise distribution at scale.
The Bottom Line
Salesforce built an empire on being "No Software" when software was the enemy. Now AI is eating software, and Salesforce finds itself without the infrastructure, the models, or the acquisition currency to fight back.
Marc Benioff spent years mocking Larry Ellison. But Ellison built data centers while Benioff built brand. In the AI era, compute is king—and Salesforce is a kingdom without a crown.
The only question now: who writes the check?
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