AI Darling Criticized for Product Delays, Founder Tom Siebels Micromanaging
Summary
The 70-year-old founder has become a regular on the business press circuit and posited that C3s new generative artificial intelligence product will “change the nature of the human-computer interface” and its release could be an “iPhone moment.” Investors, with a newly insatiable appetite for anything AI, have eaten it up. In the first quarter, the share price tripled for the company whose ticker symbol is literally “AI.” But C3s products are different than the emerging technologies such as large language models that power OpenAIs popular ChatGPT chatbot. Marc Benioff was inspired to create Salesforce Inc. while swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, Mark Zuckerberg developed social apps to rate classmates attractiveness at Harvard University, and Tom Siebel was mauled by an elephant. A $500,000-a-year contract with the San Mateo County Sheriffs Office in California inked last year was meant to help solve cases by integrating data from cameras, jails, drivers license photos and fugitive lists. “C3 is absolutely a bet on Tom,” said Stanfords Siegel. Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services rates C3.ai as a maximum governance risk, as Siebel individually has a controlling share in the company, and board directors arent up for election each year.