Billionaire Marc Sales Salesforce agrees to buy Time Magazine

Edward Felsenthal, the editor of Time, led the search for a 95-year-old news magazine buyer. Since he took office a year ago, Mr. Felsenthal, a seasoned Wall Street Journal editor who helped launch The Daily Beast in 2008, has been overseeing an aggressive expansion in the video, events in direct and web initiatives. This surge is expected to continue under its new owners, who plan to keep Mr. Felsenthal at the helm. "I think that combination is what drew them to us," said Benioff's Felsenthal.

Time will continue to be based in New York, said Felsenthal. And, despite speculation that the print edition may cease to exist, he said Time will continue to focus on the print magazine, which now has more than two million paid subscribers.

"The printed product is the foundation on which we build everything else," he said.

As owner, Mr. Benioff is in stark contrast to the humble Meredith Corp., based in the Midwest, who debuted in 1902 with Successful Farming magazine.

A passionate and eccentric billionaire, even by the standards of Silicon Valley, Mr. Benioff was attracted to computers from an early age. He was an intern at Apple as a college student and became one of Oracle's leading vendors, the company's software company. After getting exhausted at Oracle, he went to India, decided to leave the company and co-founded Salesforce in 1999. Today, Salesforce, pioneered the business model of the company. Software as a service, worth about $ 120 billion. The San Francisco company occupies the new Salesforce Tower, the tallest office building west of the Mississippi.

Mr Benioff said his decision to buy Time was motivated by the desire to preserve the title. He said that he did not expect the magazine to reflect his own social or political opinions, that he does not hesitate to share. In 2015, for example, he threatened to cut down Salesforce's business in Indiana to protest a law that critics said discriminated against gay and transgender communities.

He has since taken a stand on the pay gap between men and women and has recently expressed on the problematic aspects of social media. Mr. Benioff has an affinity for Buddhism, participating in meditation retreats and setting up meditation rooms in the Salesforce Tower.

"We do not plan to be operational or participate in an editorial," he wrote in a text message. "We are only the guardians of a historic and iconic brand."