The $6 Billion Salesman

Tom Siebel does not talk a lot about himself. He’s a man of action,with an MBA from the University of Illinois and an MA in computer science,who embraces the three fundamentals of business success: money, technology and selling.

He knows how to manage money. Siebel said that his father, a corporate attorney, was his strongest role model. What lessons does he remember most distinctly? Tom, the sixth of seven children, wrote in The New York Times, “One thing he taught me was to stay out of debt. He wouldn’t even borrow money for a car.” Tom started his business in the “crummiest” space in East Palo Alto in 1993, paying only 11 cents per square foot. Today, only 37 other Americans can claim a higher net worth than Tom Siebel’s $6.4 billion.

Since technology seems to expand faster than the universe, Siebel is quick and aggressive about forming business alliances and partnerships. As of October 2000, Siebel Systems listed 19 content partners, 27 platform partners, 173 software partners and 418 consulting partners.

CEOs who compete with Siebel quickly assert that Tom is one of the toughest competitors you’ve ever met. In school he played hockey and learned wrestling. He used to hang glide and skydive and still likes to ski. He recently took up steer roping on his Montana ranch.

Tom Siebel loves to win big. After reaching $790 million in sales in 1999, he continued his worldwide sales expansion through strategic acquisitions of OnTarget ($250 million), OnLink Technologies ($760 million) and Janna Systems ($972 million). Fortune magazine ranked Siebel Systems thrid among the “100 Fastest Growing Companies”; Business Week named Siebel one of the “Top 25 Executives of the Year.” Intelligent Enterprise named Siebel Systems the most influential company – ahead of archrival Oracle.

Tom Siebel knows the value of exceeding customer expectations. During summers in high school and college, Siebel did odd jobs from cutting wood to painting houses. He says, “In doing those jobs, I learned that you had to set expectations, in terms of quality and timeliness, at a high level – then exceed that level.”

Siebel salespeople are trained to meet and exceed their founder’s expectations. A sales trainer who spent a week with the top Siebel sales team has said, “They’re great salespeople, they earn big bucks, but they don’t seem to have a lot of fun.” What could be more fun than the kind of success Siebel Systems has enjoyed?

Tom Siebel has an indomitable, optimistic attitude. He believes that optimism is self-fulfilling – a concept he picked up from his parents, who had a very positive view of the world. Fortune magazine labeled him a “control freak,” but he’s also known for letting go. In February 2000, he donated $32 million to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, saying how much he had benefited from the school. The money will go for a state-of-the-art technology building with testing laboratories and classrooms.

By all standards, Thomas M. Siebel is a superachiever. With the shakeout in the dot-com market, the slowdown in the world economy and the belt-tightening in many Fortune 500 companies, more eyes will study his moves in the challenging times ahead.