Comedian John Mulaney ruthlessly mocked San Francisco tech bros during a stand-up stint last week at Dreamforce 2024, a flagship event hosted by cloud-based software company Salesforce.
At the major tech conference, attending administrators, developers, and global business leaders experience an "unparalleled opportunity" to explore the latest in customer relationship management CRM, AI, and cloud technologies.
However, nothing could have prepared attendees for Mulaney's brutal roasting of them at the event considered one of the largest and most influential in the world.
According to The San Francisco Standard, the two-time Primetime Emmy winner addressed the crowd with:
“Let me get this straight. You’re hosting a ‘future of AI’ event in a city that has failed humanity so miserably?”
He continued ribbing Salesforce and the groaning audience inside the auditorium at SF's Moscone Center.
“You look like a group who looked at the self-checkout counters at CVS and thought, ‘This is the future.' "
Mulaney continued:
"If AI is truly smarter than us and tells us that [humans] should die, then I think we should die."
“So many of you feel imminently replaceable.”
“Can AI sit there in a fleece vest? Can AI not go to events and spend all day at a bar?” he added.
Mulaney made sure to incorporate plenty of crowd work during his 45-minute set. At one point, the 42-year-old singled out a woman in the audience who clarified she works at a data visualization company called Tableau.
According to the local news outlet, Mulaney asked her:
“You’re an account executive at Top Low?”
"You know in your goddamn bones that a bunch of you are working on products that are just OK, but you have to vamp and make up terms to make it sound more awesome than it is.”
He asked another attendee:
“You’re a VP of customer success? Congratulations on your position that did not exist five years ago!”
Mulaney, who welcomed a second child with his wife, actor Olivia Munn, incorporated anecdotes about fatherhood, his aging parents, and his experience in a drug rehabilitation center, which was the subject of his Netflix special, Baby J, last year.
But the Dreamforce techies weren't off the hook for long. Mulaney used tech jargon and buzzwords to continue throwing some shade.
“What’s important here is that we’re looking for solutions,” he said sarcastically, adding:
“And in looking for solutions, what we’re really after is insights, which then lead to success. Now, start prepping the humans for robots."
“Some of the vaguest language ever devised has been used here in the last three days."
“The fact that there are 45,000 ‘trailblazers’ here couldn’t devalue the title any more.”
Indy100 mentioned Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the world of cryptocurrency in observing that the tech industry was full of "overconfident men trying to make bank while exhibiting some of the most unhinged immature behavior known to man."
Based on that perception, social media users gained major satisfaction from Mulaney's relentless bursting of techie egos.
@arvalis/X
@SalieiriSighs/X
Mulaney closed out his epic set with gratitude.
He thanked Dreamforce attendees “for the world you’re creating for my son … where he will never talk to an actual human again. Instead, a little cartoon Einstein will pop up and give him a sort of good answer and probably refer him to another chatbot.”
He shared an anecdote about his and Munn's first child, a son, born on November 24, 2021, and how he enjoys playing ball with him in the yard.
“We’re just two guys hitting Wiffle balls badly and yelling ‘Good job’ at each other,” said Mulaney.
He then brought it back to the theme of the event, remarking:
“It’s sort of the same energy here at Dreamforce.”
@PreetBharara/X
@RepBrendanBoyle/X
@twesq/Bluesky
@christopherharris/Bluesky
@evangelinewarren/X
@FrankC164/X