What the Hell Is Salesforce, Anyway?

Slack is about to have a new owner — but no one actually knows what the $200 billion company does

When Salesforce formally announced its intention to purchase Slack for $27.7 billion yesterday, there was a notable elephant in the room: While Slack has become widely known as a workplace messaging tool, Salesforce is known as a company that, well, lots of people find generally puzzling. Radiotopia co-founder and 99% Invisible host Roman Mars seemed to speak for many when he tweeted in response to the Slack news: “I can finally understand at least one thing Salesforce does.”

Tech writer Justin Pot tweeted almost the same thing. Many others chimed in with similar head-scratching jokey explanations, unflattering comments about the company’s 1,000-foot San Francisco office tower, and at least one assertion that Salesforce confusion reveals “the vaporization of production under late capital.”