I Reverse-Engineered A Programmer Turned Billionaire’s Playbook Into a Framework
Steal This Framework
When I decided to build something in AI Space, I had three options:
Build something deep and technical.
Build something cool and fun.
Build something that solves real B2B pain.
I craved the first path.
Infra sounded sexy. I get to explore model hubs, vector databases and agent frameworks.
But every developer I admired was building pain-solving B2B projects, not infra.
I thought: Am I seeing something they aren’t? Or am I just being arrogant?
That’s when I found Marc Benioff’s story.
He is a developer-turned-founder who completely ignored infrastructure and still built a $250 B Empire.
I reverse-engineered his strategy into something I call the Utility First Framework.
Confused Marc at Oracle
Marc was a programmer, although his role at Oracle was not writing code on a day-to-day basis.
But he had sold software during his early years and even worked as a programmer for some time.
In 1996, Marc was doing a job at Oracle for about 10 Years.
He wanted to do something different. But he didn’t know what was the right path.
When we are stuck with a job in a company, we have three options:
Leave the company and start doing something of your own.
Take a new role at this company and take it to another level.
Take a similar kind of role in another company.
Just like any other programmer. He was confused.
That’s when he decided to take some time off.
During his time off, he visited India and learning the importance of community service. Indian gurus taught him the importance of giving back to society through building businesses.
Visiting India had a significant effect on Marc.
He then decided to start a business.
What could he have done?
He was working as the vice-president of Oracle.
He was making a lot of money at Oracle. He also knew Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
If he wanted, he could have done anything deeply technical.
Since he was a senior executive at Oracle, he had a good network of technical people. Oracle was one of the biggest infrastructure-focused companies.
He had deep knowledge about Oracle’s core business, which was databases.
He could’ve built a lightweight web-native database.
But doing that would have meant he would have directly competed with Oracle, Microsoft and IBM.
Instead, he focused on something simple.
Utility-first framework
Around 100 years ago, every company had to generate its own electricity.
To produce goods, they have to use big machines like steam engines.
They were noisy and hard to manage.
Then one day, someone said, “Wait! What if we build one big electric power station and let everyone use the electricity?” This changed everything.
Now, companies don’t have to produce their power anymore, they just pay to use what they need.
When Marc was thinking of building a business. He thought about how businesses today sell software on CD-ROMS.
Companies have to buy the software, which was delivered through CD-ROMS.
They have to install it themselves on their computers, and they have to deal with the bugs themselves.
Marc asked a question to himself. What if companies could use the internet to access the software?
It was similar to how 100s of years ago someone said, “Wait! What if we build one big electric power station?”
He wanted to set up the first SaaS company in the world.
If he had tried to build a better database, a programming language or invent something new.
He would have needed massive capital, and he would have faced direct competition from IBM and Oracle.
Instead, he focused on the application layer, which helped him to launch fast.
It got adopted quickly, and he was able to create a movement with the first SaaS company.
The software Salesforce built made it easier for salespeople to manage leads, from anywhere, without installing anything.
The utility first framework: Every technology follows a pattern.
At first, it’s an in-house effort. Then it becomes standardised. Then it becomes a utility, accessible on demand. This is where new companies scale and emerge.
The technical people’s problem
At first, with AI, I wanted to build infra projects.
Now, when I think about my mindset. I can tell you I was chasing other developers’ respect, not money.
Before even writing one line of code, I was thinking about the comments all the developers were going to make.
“It’s just a ChatGPT wrapper.”
I was just avoiding that discomfort I will feel after seeing those comments.
But after studying Marc’s journey, I can now confirm that to win in AI, you don’t have to compete with OpenAI, Anthropic or Google.
The developers who make AI useful for businesses are going to win.
If you want admiration, build infrastructure. If you want growth, build utility.
Utility framework applied to Tech
What used to be built and maintained in-house becomes a utility, then it gets delivered over a network, and then it’s used on demand.
For example, take any technology that ever existed.
Electricity
Once it was produced in-house using steam engines. Factories had to install and maintain their power generator.
That’s when companies like Edison Electric Light Company (founded by Thomas Edison in 1878) and Westinghouse Electric (founded in 1886) came in.
They centralised electricity production and delivered it as a utility.
Cloud Computing
Before cloud computing, companies had to buy their servers, put them into their data centre, manage cooling, storage, networking and various things.
After products like AWS, Azure or GCP, companies just rent computing power as they need.
SaaS
Before, companies had to buy their software via CD-ROM, install it into their machines and update it manually. Every company previously required an IT team to manage the software.
With SaaS(Salesforce, Notion, Slack, Figma), you just need to log in and use the app via browser.
APIs
Before, if companies wanted features like sending SMS, translating texts, and accepting payments.
They have to build it from scratch. Just to accept payments, companies have to integrate with banks and do a lot of compliance.
With API services like Stripe, Twilio and Clerk, companies don’t have to build the core capability. They have to consume it just like power from a socket.
AI
Before, companies needed to train their models, gather data and run on expensive GPUS. To do this, deep expertise in Machine learning, devops and data engineering is required.
With APIs like Openai, Claude, and Hugging Face, you just need a prompt and get an answer easily.
Earlier, if I had to make a thumbnail for my YouTube channel, I would have to go to Figma or canva and design a thumbnail. Now things have changed.
Quantum computing
Today, if you want to use computation at scale, you need access to physical quantum machines or simulators. It is very experimental, noisy and very expensive.
If this field of quantum computation grows, companies will start exposing quantum as a cloud service.
You just have to write code, and it runs on a real quantum processor remotely.
Biotechnology
A few days ago, I heard a talk from Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia.
He told digital biology will be the next big revolution. For the first time, biology has the opportunity to be engineering, not science.
Even this can be explained with the utility first framework.
Just like early electricity required every factory to produce its own electricity.
Biotech required every company to build its own labs and do experiments. Very high cost and very slow process.
Now utility layer has started to emerge.
Many companies are doing digital biology as a service. Some companies are doing antibody discovery via AI. And some are into cell programming as a service.