The story begins with Marc Benioff, the chief executive of the cloud computing company Salesforce, watching the MTV Video Music Awards last summer.

To be specific, he was watching Will.i.am, the rapper, entrepreneur and founding member of the Black Eyed Peas, cavorting around wearing what appeared to be a cross between a gas mask and an alien space helmet. So he called Will.i.am, whose full name is William Adams and who has been a regular at Salesforce’s Dreamforce tech conference since 2010, and asked what in the world he had on his face.

Will.i.am said it was an idea he had been noodling. So Mr. Benioff told Will.i.am that he really ought to talk to Darius Adamczyk, the chief executive of Honeywell, the multinational conglomerate that happened to be responsible for making millions of N95 face masks over the last year. Mr. Benioff made the introduction, and on April 8 the results of that conversation are coming to market.

Lord don't let this journey be all in vain