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After a whirlwind 2014, Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff took home the Crunchie award for CEO of the Year.

Benioff led Salesforce to an incredible year of growth, putting up Q3 revenue numbers 29 percent higher than the previous year. Earlier in 2014 Salesforce also picked up the lease for the upcoming Salesforce Tower, a 714,000 square foot skyscraper that will be the tallest building in San Francisco upon completion.

Benioff accepted the award on stage and used the opportunity to reiterate his commitment to personal giving and spreading the 1-1-1 model to companies all over the world — committing 1 percent of time, 1 percent of product and 1 percent of equity. Companies such as Google, Yelp and Dropbox have also adopted the 1-1-1 model of corporate philanthropy. 

In 2014, some of Salesforce's philanthropic efforts include a $5 million donation and 5,000 employee hours to San Francisco Unified School District, a $1 million gift to Code.org, and a #DFGives campaign at Dreamforce that raised 3 million meals for those in need.

Since its founding, Salesforce has donated $73M in grants, 743,000 hours of employee time and 23,000 nonprofits run on Salesforce for free or with steeply discounted costs.

“We have a great opportunity to give back, we have an awesome industry, we’re doing a great job, but we can also make this whole world a lot better,” Benioff said.

In its 8th annual year of the Crunchies, TechCrunch awarded several industry leaders for awards such as best mobile application, best new startup, and CEO of the year.

Benioff edged out runner-up Marissa Mayer (Yahoo) and additional nominees Tim Cook (Apple), Drew Houston (Dropbox), Travis Kalanick (Uber).

It seemed fitting that the award was presented in the city where it all began — at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

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