Salesforce's Marc Benioff is buying Time magazine, boosting his influence

Marc Benioff, the billionaire co-founder of software maker Salesforce.com Inc., is making a play to project his influence far beyond Silicon Valley with the purchase of Time magazine. The 53-year-old entrepreneur and his wife, Lynne, agreed to pay $190 million in cash to Meredith Corp. for the venerable but struggling print publication, stoking comparisons to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and his $250 million acquisition of the Washington Post in 2013. Benioff, who has long sought to burnish his image as a civic leader and is well-known in his company’s hometown of San Francisco, may gain a higher level of national visibility in his new role of media baron.  The Benioffs said they won’t be involved in day-to-day operations or journalistic decisions at the magazine and plan to keep its current leadership team in charge.