Slack emerges from $38bn merger with new upgrades

Cal Henderson helped steer one of the largest acquisitions in tech history, and the executive weighs in on Elon Musk’s surprise Twitter buy.

Slack co-founder Cal Henderson: ‘Your relationship with your employer is much more virtual now than physical, and we want to be that digital headquarters.’ Picture: Aaron Francis

Communications software outfit Slack has unveiled the first product integrations since its $38bn takeover by tech giant Salesforce, and Slack co-founder Cal Henderson is predicting Elon Musk’s Twitter buy – which will be one of the largest takeovers in tech history – will have a much bumpier ride than the merger he’s just gone through.

Slack has used TrailblazerDX, Salesforce’s developer conference, to show off new tools for the 11 million-plus Salesforce developers globally. The tools will allow developers to build Slack apps on the Salesforce platform for the first time.

The tech giant is aiming to be a “digital headquarters” and the primary way for employees to interact with employers and each other. Mr Henderson compared Slack’s rise to that of how banks were once just physical branches but were now primarily used as apps on smartphones.

“If you think about the relationship you have with your employer and with your colleagues, it’s now all about the digital interaction and the digital tools that you use, and how people use them, the culture and rituals associated with that,” he said.

“The workplace has been virtualised. I know that sounds super sinister, but I mean your relationship with your employer is much more virtual now than physical, and we want to be that digital headquarters.”

Salesforce’s Slack buy last year was one of the biggest tech acquisitions, and Mr Henderson said selling to Salesforce was a difficult decision for his executive team who had kept their company independent for 13 years.

“Salesforce is kind of the master of their vertical line of business, enterprise software, and there’s a huge amount we can learn. They’ve been around forever. And hopefully Salesforce can learn from us too,” he said.

“Most of the negotiations happened virtually, and I only met Bret (Taylor, Salesforce co-CEO) right before the acquisition was announced.”

The Twitter takeover will eclipse the Slack deal if it goes ahead, and Mr Henderson said it would send shockwaves across the industry. Salesforce nearly bought Twitter itself in 2016 in what was rumoured to be a $US20bn deal.

“It’s a weird one because it’s a semi-hostile privatisation. Among tech it has such an important place in the narrative, and it just seems like it’s going to be chaos now.

“I have a lot of friends who work at Twitter who are very unhappy with the news, so we’ll see what happens.”