Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who just bought Time Magazine for $190 million, says he lives with a 'beginner's mind' - here's what that means
- Time Magazine was acquired by Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff for $190 million.
- The billionaire spoke to the New York Times about how his "beginner's mind" prompted him to make the purchase.
- It's not the first time Benioff has cited the concept of a "beginner's mind."
Time Magazine has a new owner: Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff.
The billionaire - whose net worth stands around $6.6 billion, according to Forbes - acquired the magazine for $190 million.
According to Benioff himself, the purchase came about thanks to his particular mindset.
"I live with a beginner's mind," Benioff told the New York Times in an interview via text.
Business Insider's Shana Lebowitz previously reported that the "beginner's mind" concept flows from Zen Buddhism. Someone with a "beginner's mind" constantly sees the world with fresh eyes.
In his text conversation with the New York Times, Benioff reportedly cited wisdom from 20th-century Zen master Shunryu Suzuki: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."
Back in 2016, Benioff described his thought process to The Wall Street Journal: "I kind of try to let go of all the things that have ever happened so far in our industry, which is a lot of stuff, and just go, OK, what's going to happen right now?"
It's a mindset that Benioff - a former Apple intern - reportedly picked up from Steve Jobs. In an appearance at a 2013 TechCrunch conference, he praised his former boss as a "spiritual man" who was "mindful and conscious of everything he did."
Jobs himself was a major advocate for cultivating a "beginner's mind," according to the Wall Street Journal.
Nowadays, Benioff is far from a novice in the world of tech - but he apparently still relies on his "beginner's mind" to make big decisions.
"My power was that I didn't really want to do anything but I was open to all possibilities," Benioff told the New York Times.