(upbeat music) (air whooshing) >> Hi everybody. John Walls here continuing our Cube Conversations here focusing on NETSCOUT today and the drawing problem of ransomware. Obviously very much in the news these days for the couple of high profile cases. It is certainly an increasing challenge, but by no means a new phenomenon at all. With us to talk about this is Roland Dobbins who is the principal engineer of NETSCOUT's A-CERT team. And Ronald and good to see you today, sir. Thanks for joining us. >> Good to see you as well. And Richard Hummel who's Threat Intelligence research lead for the A-CERT Team. And Richard, thank you for being with us as well here on the Cube. >> Absolutely John, thanks for having us. >> Yeah, let's just jump right in here. Ransomware, obviously we're all well aware of a couple of high profile cases, as I alluded to. Let's talk about first, the magnitude and scale of the problem, as it currently exists. And Roland, I'm going to let you just set the table for us here. Let's talk about ransomware, where it was maybe four or five years ago, and then the challenge has become today? >> Actually, John, if you don't mind I'd really like to hand that one to my colleague, Richard because >> By all means, so Richard- he's really has an in-depth background there if that's okay. >> Richard, jump in on that. >> Absolutely. Yeah. And so (clears throat) I'll handle all the ransomware stuff, namely because I've been doing this for going on seven years now of looking specifically at ransomware. I started this right around the time I joined Eyesight Partners, you know leading premier provider of threat intelligence who was acquired by FireEye and now Mandiat, and now even a conglomerate that just acquired Mandia. So there's been a series of acquisitions here but the reality is this threat intelligence has been pervasive across all of these. And you can see that over time that value hasn't diminished. And you can see that by all of these acquisitions. that are like that's a really good example to show how valuable this is because everybody wants it. And the reality is back then I started tracking ransomware specifically looking at a lot of the CryptoLocker variance, things like CryptoWall, and TorrentLocker, and TeslaCrypt. And there's any number I could go on and on and on about all these different variations, and how ransomware came to be, and what you know, adversaries were using it for. But the reality is ransomware has been around for a long, long time and probably three or four years ago. There was this lull in time where people are like, hey we've got these initiatives like no ransomware.org. We've got the, you know, local law enforcement backing in a bunch of different countries. There's this big huge international effort to basically get rid of ransomware. And it's going to% be a thing of the past. And we very clearly see that is not the case. And now with ransomware, you have an evolution over time. It used to be you would have different flavors of ransomware where sometimes it would encrypt your files first and then it would reach back to the command control. Sometimes it would reach back first to get keys and then it would encrypt. Sometimes the encryptions were breakable, sometimes the keys were stored locally, but a lot of them more recent variants of ransomware are very well done. They're very sophisticated. They will encrypt your files and the keys themselves are held by the adversary. And so there's no way to just decrypt it. You can't create a decryptor like a lot of these security companies do you would actually have to get that key from the adversary or you would have to restore your systems from a backup. And so the history of ransomware is very long and varied. And you know one of the core topics we want to discuss today is ransomware isn't by itself anymore. It used to be like ransomware was the name that incited fear but these guys have evolved over time. And now ransomware operators are doing kind of this triple extortion. Where they will encrypt your files, they've already gained access to that system. So then they will exfiltrate sensitive data and they will have that as kind of a hostage and say, look you're going to pay us for this ransomware to decrypt your files, to get those back. But I'll guess what? We also have your sensitive data that we're going to post online and sell and on underground forms unless you pay us additional money. But now we even have a third stage here. And this is kind of where Roland's going to come in and talk about this is we have DDoS extortion. That is surging In fact, we did a survey of enterprise internet service providers. And when we asked them what was their biggest concerns in 2020 and going into 2021 about threats, and obviously ransomware was number one but DDoS extortion was number two. And so you have this one, two bang the adversaries are using to be able to extort payment from victims. And this has been going on for a number of years with this kind of double extortion. And now this triple extortion, in fact going all the way back to the CryptoLocker days you would have banking malware, like Gameover Zeus where they would get on your system, they would do wire transfers from your bank accounts. There was steal files. And then as a last hurrah they would deploy ransomware and encrypt all your files. And so not only did they steal all your money from the bank. Now, they're going to say, you got to pay us to actually do decrypt your files. So this idea of kind of a double tap has been going on for a long time. And more recently around September of last year we started to see this DDoS aspect part of these operations. And so, yeah, that's kind of the history of what we're dealing with here. >> And so, and DDoS distributed denial service, Ronald let you pick up the ball at this point then. Now this evolution you will the triple threat, you know first you were talking about in encryption, in public exposure. And now this DDoS stage, this pillar of the malfeasance, if you will what kind of headaches is this causing in terms of from an engineering perspective from your side of the fence when you're looking at what your clients are dealing with when all of a sudden they have this entirely new plethora of challenges that are confronting them. >> Sure. So DDoS goes back a long ways. So it actually goes back to the late 80s and the early ARPANET. And then we started to see non-monetary DDoS extortion in the early 1990s. And we started to see monetary DDoS extortion that kicked off around 1997. So with any, criminals are very, very adaptive. And so when new technologies come online and new ways that they can potentially exploit it for their gain, they will do so in many cases using old modalities just simply transliterated into the new technology space. And that's what we see with (indistinct) extortion. DDOS attacks are attacks against availability. So the idea is to disrupt the access, (indistinct) access to applications, services, servers, data content, infrastructure, those different types of things. And DDoS attacks can be motivated by pretty much any motivation you can think of. But there is a hard core of DDoS extortionists that we've seen over the years. And this Richard indicated what we started to see is a convergence between these sets of criminal specialties. And so a few years ago, we actually were disassembling a piece of ransomware and it turned out that it had some very basic DDoS attack capabilities coded into it. It was obviously a prototype, it hadn't been finished, but this showed that these criminals in the ransomware space were thinking about getting into DDoS. And now they've developed this methodology where like Richard said, they, number one, they encrypt the files. Number two, they'll threaten to leak information. And then they will DDoS the public facing infrastructure of the organizations to try and put additional pressure on them to pay. And especially now during the pandemic with this wholesale shift to remote work. The attackers for the first time have the ability not only to disrupt the online operations which is bad enough, but they can actually interfere with the ordinary work day activities of the first-line workforce of organizations. And so this really makes it even more potent. And the ransomware itself is interesting as well because it uses exploits, social engineering, along with technological exploits to exploit the confidentiality and the integrity of data, and to restrict that stuff which actually turns into an attack against availability. So it's kind of really a different form of DDoS attack and coupled out with a real DDoS attack, and it can be very, very challenging. But one thing John that we've seen is that organizations if they have prepared to deal with a DDoS attack in form an architectural perspective, from an operational perspective. If they have done the things they need to do, to be able to maintain availability, even in the face of attack. There are about 80% of where they need to be to be to able to withstand a ransomware attack. Conversely, if organizations have been doing a good job and ensuring that their systems are secured and if they do get hit somehow with ransomware that they have the ability to maintain operations and communications and recover, they're about 80% of where they need to be to be able to successfully withstand DDoS attacks. And so it turns out that even though these threats are major threats and they are something that organizations need to be aware of, the good news is that a lot of the planning, and resources, and organizational changes that need to be made to face these threats are in fact very similar. >> Yeah, but (indistinct) mean the challenge is, it's hard work, right? It, there's an enormous amount of preparations got to go into this, and pre-planning, pre-thought, and that's what NETSCOUT is all about obviously is trying to get people onto that journey and getting into this examination of their services, and their networks, and... The fact that this can happen on multiple layers, right? It could be application, be protocols, transport, network, whatever, you know just multiple ways that these DDoS attacks can occur. What kind of I'd say well, challenges again does that present in the fact that it is, there are many doors, right? That these attacks can happen from or where these attacks can come from. So how do you then talk to your client base about approaching this kind of examination and these prophylactic measures that you're suggesting that have to be done in order to minimize the damage? >> It's really about business continuity. Now business continuity planning, we used to be called "disaster recovery planning", right? Is something that organizations are very familiar with. It often has executive sponsorship and a lot of planning has gone into it. The thing is DDoS attacks, which were attacks against availability are in fact a manmade disaster, right? And they interrupt the continuity of business. Same thing with the ransomware, and so from an architectural standpoint, from the standpoint of rolling out new products and services, resiliency and to attack, and the ability to maintain availability and continue with operations in the face of attack is really really key for any organization today which has any kind of significant online presence. And that's really just about all of them. And so from a planning standpoint, it's imperative from an architectural standpoint whether we're talking about things like network infrastructure, or DNS, or software applications. It's important from an operational standpoint. So one of the things that we see for example is that many organizations don't really have a good communications plan. They don't have a good internal communications plan nor do they have a good external communications plan for communicating during an event. And they don't even have really a plan for dealing with an event that is disruptive to business continuity and operations. And so that is really key. Technology is important, but the most important aspect of this is the human factor, understanding the business, understanding the types of risks to the business's ability to execute on its mission and then doing the things from a technological perspective, from an operational perspective, and from a communications perspective to maintain operations, and communications throughout an event and to be able to emerge on the other side of that agenda successfully. >> So Richard you're in threat intelligence, right? Risk assessments. And as you said, you've been around this block for quite some time now. In terms of, I guess getting people's attention that has been accomplished now with obviously some, with some of these high profile cases. But what about that kind of work that you're doing in terms of trying to communicate these very threats to your client base or to prospective clients in terms of identifying their real vulnerabilities within their networks and then having them seriously address these. I mean, what's the difference maybe in the mindset now, as opposed to where maybe that conversation was being had a few years ago? >> I think the biggest difference here is a matter of when and not if. It used to be, you could say, "Oh I'm never going to get hit by ransomware or I'm never going to get DDoS attacked." But that is no longer the case. Roland made a really good point that just about every single business in the world now relies on internet connectivity in order to operate their business. If they don't have that then they're not going to be able to connect with their consumers, their shoppers, if they're a retail, right? If you're a bank, then you have to communicate with your individuals having accounts. And I mean, I have not gone to a physical bank in probably six years. And so that just underscores how important it is to have this internet connectivity. Now, with that comes risk. Not only do you risk the DDoS attacks because you're publicly exposed in an adversary where you can actually find your internet space by doing some forensics, such as network scanning, being able to walk that back like a passive DNS but their historical records use things like showdown to figure out what kind of devices you're running. So there's any number of ways that you can do that. But at the same time you're also exposing yourself to these ransomware operators and really any kind of crime ware operator out there, because they're going to exploit you over the internet. We actually did a case study probably two years ago. Looking at brute forcing on networks and looking at exploitation attempts to figure out like what is the Delta? If you have an online internet presence are you going to get attacked? And the answer was very shocking to us. Yes, you're going to get attacked. And also it's going to be in less than five minutes, from the time a brand new IOT device goes online to the time it starts getting brute force attacked. And within 24 hours you're going to get exploitation attempts from known vulnerabilities or devices that haven't been patched and things like that. And so the reality is not if you're going to get attacked, it's when? And so understanding that is the nature of the threat landscape right now and having this kind of security awareness. Actually another good point that Roland just brought up was that human element. The human element is kind of the linchpin for any security organization. And as part of my master's I had wrote a dissertation about, and I named it as such my professor didn't really care for this, but I said, "The humans are the weakest link." Because in the security posture, that is essentially true. If you don't have the expertise on a team you're not going to be able to get things configured properly. If you don't have the expertise you're not going to be able to respond properly. If you have individuals that aren't concerned about security, now you're going to have a bunch of gaps. Not only that, social engineering is still the number one method that adversaries use to get into organizations and that manipulates the human element. And so having the security awareness in what we do here, on this cube interview, the threat reports, we publish, the blogs that we do, all the threads summaries, all of that goes hand-in-hand with educating the general public and having security awareness pushed out as much as possible to every single person we can. And that's really the key, this preparation, this awareness of what adversaries are doing in order to defend against them. >> So Roland in your mind and you've already walked us through a little bit of this about certain steps and measures. Do you think that could be taken safeguards basically, that everybody should have in the place? What is the optimal scenario from an engineering perspective in terms of trying to prevent these kinds of intrusions, these kinds of attacks in terms of what are those basic pieces, these fundamental pieces as you see it now, understanding as Richard just told us that it's matter of not if, but when? >> Right. So availability, redundancy these have to be core architectural principles whether we're talking about network infrastructure, whether we're talking about important ancillary supporting services like DNS in terms of personnel, in terms of remote access. All of these different elements and many many more have to be designed from the out. All the services in the applications whether they're used internally, whether they are part of service delivery that an organization is doing across the internet, publicly there has to be redundancy and resiliency. There has to be a defense plan in order to defend these assets in these organizations against attack. Whether it's DDoS attack or whether it's a containment plan to deal with a ransomware that potentially gets let loose inside the enterprise network, there has to be a plan to contain it, and deal with it, and restore from backup. These plans have to be continuously updated because IT is not static. There are always noose and nance and changes this organizations provision new services offer new products, move into new markets and new new sub-specializations. And so the plans have to be consistently updated and they have to be rehearsed. You can't have a plan that just exists as pixels on a phosphorous somewhere. The plan has to be executed because you're going to find that there's some scenario, some service, or application, or operational process that needs to be updated or that needs to be included in the plan. And this has to be done regularly. Another key point is that you have to have people who are very skilled and who have both depth and breadth of understanding. And either you bring those people into your organization or you reach out and get that expertise from organizations who do in fact have that kind of expertise on tap and available. >> Well, is, you both certainly exhibit the depth and the breadth to fight this issue(chuckles) I certainly appreciate the time, the insights, and the warning is quite clear. Be prepared, do the hard work upfront. It could save you a lot of headache on the backside. And it is a matter of when and not if, these days. Richard Roland, thanks for being with us here on the Cube >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. >> All right, talking about the triple threat of extortion, cyber extortion these days, and DDoS, the distributed denial of service in the growing problem. It is, but there is a way that you can combat it. And you just learned about that (indistinct) NETSCOUT here on the Cube. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) (air whooshing) >> Hi everybody. John Walls here continuing our Cube Conversations here focusing on NETSCOUT today and the drawing problem of ransomware. Obviously very much in the news these days for the couple of high profile cases. It is certainly an increasing challenge, but by no means a new phenomenon at all. With us to talk about this is Roland Dobbins who is the principal engineer of NETSCOUT's A-CERT team. And Ronald and good to see you today, sir. Thanks for joining us. >> Good to see you as well. And Richard Hummel who's Threat Intelligence research lead for the A-CERT Team. And Richard, thank you for being with us as well here on the Cube. >> Absolutely John, thanks for having us. >> Yeah, let's just jump right in here. Ransomware, obviously we're all well aware of a couple of high profile cases, as I alluded to. Let's talk about first, the magnitude and scale of the problem, as it currently exists. And Roland, I'm going to let you just set the table for us here. Let's talk about ransomware, where it was maybe four or five years ago, and then the challenge has become today? >> Actually, John, if you don't mind I'd really like to hand that one to my colleague, Richard because >> By all means, so Richard- he's really has an in-depth background there if that's okay. >> Richard, jump in on that. >> Absolutely. Yeah. And so (clears throat) I'll handle all the ransomware stuff, namely because I've been doing this for going on seven years now of looking specifically at ransomware. I started this right around the time I joined Eyesight Partners, you know leading premier provider of threat intelligence who was acquired by FireEye and now Mandiat, and now even a conglomerate that just acquired Mandia. So there's been a series of acquisitions here but the reality is this threat intelligence has been pervasive across all of these. And you can see that over time that value hasn't diminished. And you can see that by all of these acquisitions. that are like that's a really good example to show how valuable this is because everybody wants it. And the reality is back then I started tracking ransomware specifically looking at a lot of the CryptoLocker variance, things like CryptoWall, and TorrentLocker, and TeslaCrypt. And there's any number I could go on and on and on about all these different variations, and how ransomware came to be, and what you know, adversaries were using it for. But the reality is ransomware has been around for a long, long time and probably three or four years ago. There was this lull in time where people are like, hey we've got these initiatives like no ransomware.org. We've got the, you know, local law enforcement backing in a bunch of different countries. There's this big huge international effort to basically get rid of ransomware. And it's going to% be a thing of the past. And we very clearly see that is not the case. And now with ransomware, you have an evolution over time. It used to be you would have different flavors of ransomware where sometimes it would encrypt your files first and then it would reach back to the command control. Sometimes it would reach back first to get keys and then it would encrypt. Sometimes the encryptions were breakable, sometimes the keys were stored locally, but a lot of them more recent variants of ransomware are very well done. They're very sophisticated. They will encrypt your files and the keys themselves are held by the adversary. And so there's no way to just decrypt it. You can't create a decryptor like a lot of these security companies do you would actually have to get that key from the adversary or you would have to restore your systems from a backup. And so the history of ransomware is very long and varied. And you know one of the core topics we want to discuss today is ransomware isn't by itself anymore. It used to be like ransomware was the name that incited fear but these guys have evolved over time. And now ransomware operators are doing kind of this triple extortion. Where they will encrypt your files, they've already gained access to that system. So then they will exfiltrate sensitive data and they will have that as kind of a hostage and say, look you're going to pay us for this ransomware to decrypt your files, to get those back. But I'll guess what? We also have your sensitive data that we're going to post online and sell and on underground forms unless you pay us additional money. But now we even have a third stage here. And this is kind of where Roland's going to come in and talk about this is we have DDoS extortion. That is surging In fact, we did a survey of enterprise internet service providers. And when we asked them what was their biggest concerns in 2020 and going into 2021 about threats, and obviously ransomware was number one but DDoS extortion was number two. And so you have this one, two bang the adversaries are using to be able to extort payment from victims. And this has been going on for a number of years with this kind of double extortion. And now this triple extortion, in fact going all the way back to the CryptoLocker days you would have banking malware, like Gameover Zeus where they would get on your system, they would do wire transfers from your bank accounts. There was steal files. And then as a last hurrah they would deploy ransomware and encrypt all your files. And so not only did they steal all your money from the bank. Now, they're going to say, you got to pay us to actually do decrypt your files. So this idea of kind of a double tap has been going on for a long time. And more recently around September of last year we started to see this DDoS aspect part of these operations. And so, yeah, that's kind of the history of what we're dealing with here. >> And so, and DDoS distributed denial service, Ronald let you pick up the ball at this point then. Now this evolution you will the triple threat, you know first you were talking about in encryption, in public exposure. And now this DDoS stage, this pillar of the malfeasance, if you will what kind of headaches is this causing in terms of from an engineering perspective from your side of the fence when you're looking at what your clients are dealing with when all of a sudden they have this entirely new plethora of challenges that are confronting them. >> Sure. So DDoS goes back a long ways. So it actually goes back to the late 80s and the early ARPANET. And then we started to see non-monetary DDoS extortion in the early 1990s. And we started to see monetary DDoS extortion that kicked off around 1997. So with any, criminals are very, very adaptive. And so when new technologies come online and new ways that they can potentially exploit it for their gain, they will do so in many cases using old modalities just simply transliterated into the new technology space. And that's what we see with (indistinct) extortion. DDOS attacks are attacks against availability. So the idea is to disrupt the access, (indistinct) access to applications, services, servers, data content, infrastructure, those different types of things. And DDoS attacks can be motivated by pretty much any motivation you can think of. But there is a hard core of DDoS extortionists that we've seen over the years. And this Richard indicated what we started to see is a convergence between these sets of criminal specialties. And so a few years ago, we actually were disassembling a piece of ransomware and it turned out that it had some very basic DDoS attack capabilities coded into it. It was obviously a prototype, it hadn't been finished, but this showed that these criminals in the ransomware space were thinking about getting into DDoS. And now they've developed this methodology where like Richard said, they, number one, they encrypt the files. Number two, they'll threatened to leak information. And then they will DDoS the public facing infrastructure of the organizations to try and put additional pressure on them to pay. And especially now during the pandemic with this wholesale shift to remote work. The attackers for the first time have the ability not only to disrupt the online operations which is bad enough, but they can actually interfere with the ordinary work day activities of the first-line workforce of organizations. And so this really makes it even more potent. And the ransomware itself is interesting as well because it uses exploits (indistinct), social engineering, along with technological exploits to exploit the confidentiality and the integrity of data, and to restrict that stuff which actually turns into an attack against availability. So it's kind of really a different form of DDoS attack and coupled out with a real DDoS attack, and it can be very, very challenging. But one thing John that we've seen is that organizations if they have prepared to deal with a DDoS attack in form an architectural perspective, from an operational perspective. If they have done the things they need to do, to be able to maintain availability, even in the face of attack. There are about 80% of where they need to be to be to able to withstand a ransomware attack. Conversely, if organizations have been doing a good job and ensuring that their systems are secured and if they do get hit somehow with ransomware that they have the ability to maintain operations and communications and recover, they're about 80% of where they need to be to be able to successfully withstand DDoS attacks. And so it turns out that even though these threats are major threats and they are something that organizations need to be aware of, the good news is that a lot of the planning, and resources, and organizational changes that need to be made to face these threats are in fact very similar. >> Yeah, but (indistinct) mean the challenge is, it's hard work, right? It, there's an enormous amount of preparations got to go into this, and pre-planning, pre-thought, and that's what NETSCOUT is all about obviously is trying to get people onto that journey and getting into this examination of their services, and their networks, and... The fact that this can happen on multiple layers, right? It could be application, be protocols, transport, network, whatever, you know just multiple ways that these DDoS attacks can occur. What kind of I'd say well, challenges again does that present in the fact that it is, there are many doors, right? That these attacks can happen from or where these attacks can come from. So how do you then talk to your client base about approaching this kind of examination and these prophylactic measures that you're suggesting that have to be done in order to minimize the damage? >> It's really about business continuity. Now business continuity planning, we used to be called "disaster recovery planning", right? Is something that organizations are very familiar with. It often has executive sponsorship and a lot of planning has gone into it. The thing is DDoS attacks, which were attacks against availability are in fact a manmade disaster, right? And they interrupt the continuity of business. Same thing with the ransomware, and so from an architectural standpoint, from the standpoint of rolling out new products and services, resiliency and to attack, and the ability to maintain availability and continue with operations in the face of attack is really really key for any organization today which has any kind of significant online presence. And that's really just about all of them. And so from a planning standpoint, it's imperative from an architectural standpoint whether we're talking about things like network infrastructure, or DNS, or software applications. It's important from an operational standpoint. So one of the things that we see for example is that many organizations don't really have a good communications plan. They don't have a good internal communications plan nor do they have a good external communications plan for communicating during an event. And they don't even have really a plan for dealing with an event that is disruptive to business continuity and operations. And so that is really key. Technology is important, but the most important aspect of this is the human factor, understanding the business, understanding the types of risks to the business's ability to execute on its mission and then doing the things from a technological perspective, from an operational perspective, and from a communications perspective to maintain operations, and communications throughout an event and to be able to emerge on the other side of that agenda successfully. >> So Richard you're in threat intelligence, right? Risk assessments. And as you said, you've been around this block for quite some time now. In terms of, I guess getting people's attention that has been accomplished now with obviously some, with some of these high profile cases. But what about that kind of work that you're doing in terms of trying to communicate these very threats to your client base or to prospective clients in terms of identifying their real vulnerabilities within their networks and then having them seriously address these. I mean, what's the difference maybe in the mindset now, as opposed to where maybe that conversation was being had a few years ago? >> I think the biggest difference here is a matter of when and not if. It used to be, you could say, "Oh I'm never going to get hit by ransomware or I'm never going to get DDoS attacked." But that is no longer the case. Roland made a really good point that just about every single business in the world now relies on internet connectivity in order to operate their business. If they don't have that then they're not going to be able to connect with their consumers, their shoppers, if they're a retail, right? If you're a bank, then you have to communicate with your individuals having accounts. And I mean, I have not gone to a physical bank in probably six years. And so that just underscores how important it is to have this internet connectivity. Now, with that comes risk. Not only do you risk the DDoS attacks because you're publicly exposed in an adversary where you can actually find your internet space by doing some forensics, such as network scanning, being able to walk that back like a passive DNS but their historical records use things like showdown to figure out what kind of devices you're running. So there's any number of ways that you can do that. But at the same time you're also exposing yourself to these ransomware operators and really any kind of crime ware operator out there, because they're going to exploit you over the internet. We actually did a case study probably two years ago. Looking at brute forcing on networks and looking at exploitation attempts to figure out like what is the Delta? If you have an online internet presence are you going to get attacked? And the answer was very shocking to us. Yes, you're going to get attacked. And also it's going to be in less than five minutes, from the time a brand new IOT device goes online to the time it starts getting brute force attacked. And within 24 hours you're going to get exploitation attempts from known vulnerabilities or devices that haven't been patched and things like that. And so the reality is not if you're going to get attacked, it's when? And so understanding that is the nature of the threat landscape right now and having this kind of security awareness. Actually another good point that Roland just brought up was that human element. The human element is kind of the linchpin for any security organization. And as part of my master's I had wrote a dissertation about, and I named it as such my professor didn't really care for this, but I said, "The humans are the weakest link." Because in the security posture, that is essentially true. If you don't have the expertise on a team you're not going to be able to get things configured properly. If you don't have the expertise you're not going to be able to respond properly. If you have individuals that aren't concerned about security, now you're going to have a bunch of gaps. Not only that, social engineering is still the number one method that adversaries use to get into organizations and that manipulates the human element. And so having the security awareness in what we do here, on this cube interview, the threat reports, we publish, the blogs that we do, all the threads summaries, all of that goes hand-in-hand with educating the general public and having security awareness pushed out as much as possible to every single person we can. And that's really the key, this preparation, this awareness of what adversaries are doing in order to defend against them. >> So Roland in your mind and you've already walked us through a little bit of this about certain steps and measures. Do you think that could be taken safeguards basically, that everybody should have in the place? What is the optimal scenario from an engineering perspective in terms of trying to prevent these kinds of intrusions, these kinds of attacks in terms of what are those basic pieces, these fundamental pieces as you see it now, understanding as Richard just told us that it's matter of not if, but when? >> Right. So availability, redundancy these have to be core architectural principles whether we're talking about network infrastructure, whether we're talking about important ancillary supporting services like DNS in terms of personnel, in terms of remote access. All of these different elements and many many more have to be designed from the out. All the services in the applications whether they're used internally, whether they are part of service delivery that an organization is doing across the internet, publicly there has to be redundancy and resiliency. There has to be a defense plan in order to defend these assets in these organizations against attack. Whether it's DDoS attack or whether it's a containment plan to deal with a ransomware that potentially gets let loose inside the enterprise network, there has to be a plan to contain it, and deal with it, and restore from backup. These plans have to be continuously updated because IT is not static. There are always noose and nance and changes this organizations provision new services offer new products, move into new markets and new new sub-specializations. And so the plans have to be consistently updated and they have to be rehearsed. You can't have a plan that just exists as pixels on a phosphorous somewhere. The plan has to be executed because you're going to find that there's some scenario, some service, or application, or operational process that needs to be updated or that needs to be included in the plan. And this has to be done regularly. Another key point is that you have to have people who are very skilled and who have both depth and breadth of understanding. And either you bring those people into your organization or you reach out and get that expertise from organizations who do in fact have that kind of expertise on tap and available. >> Well, is, you both certainly exhibit the depth and the breadth to fight this issue(chuckles) I certainly appreciate the time, the insights, and the warning is quite clear. Be prepared, do the hard work upfront. It could save you a lot of headache on the backside. And it is a matter of when and not if, these days. Richard Roland, thanks for being with us here on the Cube >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. >> All right, talking about the triple threat of extortion, cyber extortion these days, and DDoS, the distributed denial of service in the growing problem. It is, but there is a way that you can combat it. And you just learned about that (indistinct) NETSCOUT here on the Cube. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> In 1946, the acerbic manager of the Dodgers, Leo the Lip Durocher famously said of baseball, great Mel Ott who was player manager of the Giants at the time. You know what happens to nice guys. They finished in last place. The phrase nice guys finish last was born. It became popular outside of baseball. Well joining me today is someone who was a consummate gentlemen and a nice guy who proves that idiom absolutely isn't true at all. He's also written a new book "Play nice and Win" Michael Dell chairman and CEO of Dell technologies, welcome back to the CUBE. >> Thank you very much, Dave, always great to be with you. Wonderful to be on the CUBE and thanks for your great coverage of Dell technologies world. >> Yeah. We're very excited to be covering the virtual version this year, next year we're back face to face I'm Sure. And we're going to talk about your book but I want to start by asking you to comment on the past 12 months, how are you going to remember 2020? >> I'm going to remember it by the resiliency of the world and our team, the adaptability the acceleration of digital transformation which is pretty amazing around the world. The vital role that technology played in addressing some of the biggest challenges, whether it was the creation of vaccines or, you know, decoding the virus itself or just addressing all the challenges that the world had. You know, I think it's a game changer in terms of disease identification and how we prevent these kinds of things going forward. You know, there's still a long way to go in terms of how do we get 7.5 billion people vaccinated and safe. I also think it exposed, you know some of the fault lines in our society. And that's a great learning for all of us in terms of access to healthcare and education and, you know, the digital resources that power the world. And so, yeah, those are some of the things that really stand out for me. >> Well, I mean, I think leaders like yourself and position of influence, absolutely passionate about some of those changes that we see coming in society. So hopefully we'll have time to talk about that but I wanted to get into the business. I think a lot of people, myself included felt that 2020 was going to be a down year for big tech companies like yours and that relied heavily on selling products that data centers and central offices but the remote work trend and the laptop, boom offset, some of those on-prem softness and headwinds combined with VMware the financial performance of Dell technologies was actually quite amazing. Why were you able to do so well last year? >> Well, first of all, you're right. We did, we had record pretty much everything record revenues, record operating income, record cashflow and be also paid down a record amount of debt. And so I think the strength and resiliency of our supply chain, as well as the broad diversified nature of what we provide our customers continue to serve us very well as they moved to this sort of do anything from anywhere in the world. And it continues the first part of this year, business is very strong >> You know, a few weeks ago, of course you officially announced the spinoff of Dell technologies. Wasn't a huge surprise but the 81% equity ownership of VMware are you worried about untethering VMware from Dell or maybe you can share more on what this means for the future of, your two companies and your customers. >> Right? So, I think this will drive additional growth opportunities for both Dell Tech and VMware, while it unlocks a lot of value for our stakeholders. What we've done is to formalize the commercial relationship into a series of agreements and those are unique and differentiated and they provide lots of flexibility and we've driven a tremendous amount of innovation together and that's going to continue and it will, one of the things we said back in 2015 you'll remember is our commitment to keep the VMware ecosystem open and independent and working across the whole industry. We've done that. You'll continue to see us innovate together with Edge solutions, certainly all the great work we've done with VxRail SD LAN, you know Tanzu creates this platform to modernize applications and VMware Cloud and Dell technologies are the easy path to a multi-cloud architecture. And, that continues to work super well and is not going to be slowed down at all. So... and of course, I'll continue to be a chairman of both companies and we're not selling VMware we're distributing our ownership to our shareholders. >> Well, of course, Dell is the largest sort channel if you will, for VMware. So that's ... you guys got a tight relationship but I want to ask you about digital transformation and everybody talked about it pre COVID but nobody really knew exactly what it was but COVID sort of brought that into focus very quickly. If you weren't a digital business, you were out of business. So going forward, how do you see that whole digital transformation playing out? >> You know I think the plot of any company is to figure out how it can use its data and turn that into insights and outcomes and better results and ultimately competitive advantage faster. And as you said, you know, if it's not able to do that, it's probably going to go out of business. And that agenda just got massively accelerated because it was kind of digital was sort of the only thing that worked during this, this past period. So every organization has figured out that technology is not the IT department, it's actually the fulcrum of progress in the entire company. And so we're seeing sort of across the board a dramatic acceleration in the investment in digital technologies, you know, Edge is growing very fast. I think 5G just accelerates this and, you know you're seeing it in all the demand trends. It's quite positive and, you know, I think you'll see even a more rapid separation from those companies that are able to take advantage of this and quickly adjust their businesses their organizations, and those that are >> You better hop on board or get left behind, you know, the Edge. You mentioned the Edge it's a little bit like digital transformation, you know kind of pre COVID and even post COVID. It means a lot of things to a lot of different people but the telecoms transformation and 5G they have there certainly real. How do you see the Edge? >> You know, the Edges is ... think of it as actually the real world, right? It's, not a data center sitting in the center of the universe somewhere. And look today, you know only 10% of data is processed outside of the data center, but, you know, it's estimated by 2025 you got 75% of enterprise data will be processed outside of a traditional data center or a Cloud. And so as everything becomes intelligent connected 5G accelerates that it's going to be a huge acceleration of this whole process of digital transformation. And you know, again, think about this. I mean, the cost of making something intelligent used to be really expensive. Now it's asymptotically approaching zero. And of course all those things are connected. They're talking to each other and exactly what does this mean for every industry. Nobody's really quite sure and not everything is going to work, but, you know we're seeing it in manufacturing, in retail, in healthcare and the growth on the Edge is really accelerating in a meaningful way. And it's not so much about, you know people talking people with machines, we know how to do that. Now it's about the thing right And, you know you've got like 200 billion arm processors, you know out there in the last couple of years, all those things talking to the other things, generating data it happens in the real world. That's what the Edge is. >> Yeah as you know, we're a big fans of the arm model. And I think it just presents huge opportunities for companies like Dell. I want to ask you about Cloud. And I have to say, I think, you know companies like Dell have been maybe a little bit defensive over the last several years when it comes to Cloud but I think you starting to see the Cloud as a gift with all that CAPEX that's being built out by these hyperscalers. You know, thank you. It seems to me, you can build on top of that. How are you thinking about the Cloud as an opportunity for you and your customers especially as the definition of Cloud evolves? >> Well, first, you know, what we see is and the Edge is kind of the third place or the third premise, right? You got Clouds in the public form, you've got the Colo which is really growing fast and, you know the private hybrid Clouds, and now you've got the Edge. And so you've got infrastructure all over the place with Edge being the fastest growing. You know, one of the big things we see is that customers want a consistent way to operate and execute across that whole platform. And, you know, one of the other things that we've been focused on at Dell technologies is how can we move our business to more of a service and subscription on demand and provide customers that flexibility to to pay as they consume. And so, to some extent this is an evolution of, you know, products to services to managed services, to everything as a service. And so, you know, looking at our balance sheet you'll see over $40 billion in remaining performance obligations as we moved the business to that kind of model and it's been growing double digits for several quarters in a row. And so, you know, we're embracing Cloud and on-demand, and as a service, and obviously here at Dell technologies world we're talking a lot about Apex and our continuing initiatives to move our whole business in that direction. >> Yeah. Apex is a real accelerator for that model. I want to switch topics a little bit. I got a long list of things I want to talk about ESG, sustainability, inclusion, you know, is another topic that, that I'm interested in. I want it. And I said before, people like yourself in a position of influence to influence public policy and obviously the employees and your ecosystem why is it not just the right thing to do? Why is... why are those things good business, Michael? >> Well, it's good business because people want to be part of something that is important and purposeful. You know, it's not just make a profit and earn a living right? You know, people want to be inspired and feel that they're part of something special. And look, I think if you look at the positive changes that have occurred in the world certainly you could turn on the news and see the horrible things that happened in the last 24 hours or something like that. But if you step back and think about the amazing progress that's happened in the last several decades, you know a lot of it's been driven by technology and by businesses that have stepped up and made a difference and made commitments. And, you know, we're one of those companies that has made a series of commitments you know, 10 years ago, we set out with our 2020 goals. We accomplished significant majority of those retired those. Now we set out our progress made real 2030 goals all around the ESD themes. And it's not only the right thing to do but it is good for business. It inspires our team members, our customers and I think initiatives like progress made real at Dell and thousands of other companies. Ultimately, those are the things that are going to drive progress forward. I believe, you know, more so than government edicts or regulation, those can play a role. But I think, companies voluntarily driving things like the circular economy and how we include everyone in our business and provide opportunities for everyone to succeed no matter where they come from. I think those are the things that are really going to drive the world forward. >> Well, I want to ask you about public policy because as you say, it's not just the government, but of course sometimes the government can get in the way. You're seeing a lot of vitriol around Val break up big tech but the same time, you're seeing the US government and the EU very willing to help out with the semiconductor competitiveness in the like I know you were tapped with the new administration President Biden, tapping, you know, the best minds in tech and you were asked to part sort of participate give feedback. What can you tell us about, you know your advice to the US government? >> Well, you know, lots of great discussion with the new administration and it's a delight to see that they're focused on semiconductors and sort of the industries of the future. This is a big deal. I mean, you know, we've got some big global competitors out there other nations that are with a deterministic strategy very focused on the industries of the future. But US, you know if you think about the atomic age and, you know the Apollo missions that created the whole semiconductor industry ARPANET and ultimately the Internet and that kind of stopped right there, you know, there wasn't as much government investment in some of those big R and D initiatives that really drove an enormous creation of industries and success for the United States and its citizens. And so I think focusing on semiconductors and how you build the infrastructure of the future really important for the United States to continue to be a leader in that you know, we were, you know, producing a one point about 37% of the world's semiconductors. It's now down to 12% and dropping and really important that more investments are made in that area. It's a combination of capital, talent, you know education knowledge, and also, you know, the policies that promote the development of these kinds of businesses. >> Yah well, Pat's got a very big challenge ahead of them. And so that's why but we've said Intel's too strategic to fail in our view but I wanted to plug your book a little bit. My former boss, you and I have talked about this. He was also a gentleman who proved Leo Durocher wrong. He was very nice guy, but also a winner, Play Nice But Win, why did you decide to write another book? >> Well, you know, Dave, a lot has happened in the last 20 years and especially the last nine or so years since we went private and, you know merged with EMC and VMware and went public again. And, you know, I'd say we... first of all, you know when I wrote the first book in 1998 I wasn't comfortable disclosing a lot. And, and I wasn't vulnerable enough and didn't feel, you know, able to do that. Now I do, you know, I'm older, you know hopefully a little wiser. And so I think everybody's going to like hearing some of the fun stories about not only my childhood but you know, the dorm room and beyond, and leading up to, you know the pivotal changes that have occurred the last decade my alligator wrestling with Carl Icahn and other, you know there's lots of fun stories in there. I got arrested one time. It was only for speeding tickets, don't worry but you know, lots of fun. I'm really looking forward to the book coming out and being able to talk about it. >> I can't wait. You know, I've said many times anybody who could beat the great icon is interesting to me. I wanted to ask you, I mentioned my old boss, Pat McGovern. I used to say to them all the time, "Pat how come you don't buy more companies?" And he'd say," Dave, you know the vast majority of acquisitions and mergers they failed to meet their objectives." Did you ever imagine, I mean... I did the EMC acquisition. Did... how could it not have exceeded your expectations? I wonder if you could give us your final thoughts on that. >> You know, and I talk about this a lot in the book. I mean, these are kind of the ultimate considered decisions. And in the case of the EMC combination it was something that we had thought about going back to 2008, 2009. And then, you know, started thinking about it in 2014 worked on it for a full year before it got announced in 2015 and finally closed in 2016. But yeah, I mean, you know, we thought it would be great. It turned out to be even better than We thought the revenue synergies were far greater. The teams were quite energized. Customers liked what we were providing and you know it's ... and, of course the markets were supportive Right? You know, we were paying close attention to interest rates and how we could structure the merger in a attractive way. And, you know, thank goodness, lots of hard work lots of determination, you know, it's worked out quite well. >> Yeah, great commitment from the Dell team as well. Congratulations on that. Go ahead, please. >> And any adventure continues right? It's...( both chuckles) >> I can't wait to see the next chapter and I can't wait to get the book, but congratulations on that, all your tremendous success you're you are a winner and a gentleman and a friend of the CUBE, Michael Dell. Thanks so much. >> Thank you so much Dave. >> And thank you for watching. And this is the CUBE continuous coverage of Dell tech world 2021, the virtual edition. Keep it right there, right back. (upbeat music)

(upbeat techno music) >> From Mountain View California, it's the Cube covering the 15th Annual Grow Awards. Brought to you by ACG SV. >> Hi, Lisa Martin with the Cube on the ground at the Computer History Museum for the 15th annual ACG SV Awards. And in Mountain View California excited to welcome to the Cube for the first time, John Hennessy, the chairman of Alphabet and the co-founder of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program at Stanford. JOHN, it's truly a pleasure to have you on the Cube today. >> Well delighted to be here, Lisa. >> So I was doing some research on you. And I see Marc Andreessen has called you the godfather of Silicon Valley. >> Marc very generous (loughs) >> so I thought I was pretty cool I'm going to sit down with the godfather tonight. (loughs) >> I have not done that yet. So you are keynoting the 15th Annual ACG SV Awards tonight. Talk to us a little bit about the takeaways that the audience is going to hear from you tonight. >> Well, they're going to hear some things about leadership the importance of leadership, obviously the importance of innovation. We're in the middle of Silicon Valley innovation is a big thing. And the role that technology plays in our lives and how we should be thinking about that, and how do we ensure the technology is something that serves the public good. >> Definitely. So there's about I think over 230 attendees expected tonight over 100 sea levels, the ACG SV Is has been it's it's much more than a networking organization. there's a lot of opportunities for collaboration for community. Tell me a little bit about your experience with that from a collaboration standpoint? >> Well, I think collaboration is a critical ingredient. I mean, for so many years, you look at the collaboration is gone. Just take between between the universities, my own Stanford and Silicon Valley and how that collaboration has developed over time and lead the founding of great companies, but also collaboration within the valley. This is the place to be a technology person in the whole world it's the best place partly because of this collaboration, and this innovative spirit that really is a core part of what we are as a place. >> I agree. The innovative spirit is one of the things that I enjoy, about not only being in technology, but also living in Silicon Valley. You can't go to a Starbucks without hearing a conversation or many conversations about new startups or cloud technology. So the innovative spirit is pervasive here. And it's also one that I find in an in an environment like ASG SV. You just hear a lot of inspiring stories and I was doing some research on them in the last 18 months. Five CEO positions have been seated and materialized through ACG SV. Number of venture deals initiated several board positions. So a lot of opportunity in this group here tonight. >> Right, well I think that's important because so much of the leadership has got to come by recruiting new young people. And with the increase in concerned about diversity and our leadership core and our boards, I think building that network out and trying to stretch it a little bit from the from perhaps the old boys network of an earlier time in the Valley is absolutely crucial. >> Couldn't agree more. So let's now talk a little bit about the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program at Stanford. Tell us a little bit about it. When was it founded? >> So we are we are in our very first year, actually, this year, our first year of scholars, we founded it in 2016. The motivation was, I think, an increasing gap we perceived in terms of the need for great leadership and what was available. And it was in government. It was in the nonprofit world, it was in the for profit world. So I being a lifelong educator said, What can we do about this? Let's try to recruit and develop a core of younger people who show that they're committed to the greater good and who are excellent, who are innovative, who are creative, and prepare them for leadership roles in the future. >> So you're looking for are these undergraduate students? >> They are graduate students, so they've completed their undergraduate, it's a little hard to tell when somebody's coming out of high school, what their civic commitment is, what their ability to lead is. But coming out of coming out of undergraduate experience, and often a few years of work experience, we can tell a lot more about whether somebody has the potential to be a future leader. >> So you said, found it just in 2016. And one of the things I saw that was very interesting is projecting in the next 50 years, there's going to be 5000 Knight-Hennessy scholars at various stages of their careers and government organizations, NGOs, as you mentioned, so looking out 50 years you have a strong vision there, but really expect this organization to be able to make a lasting impact. >> That's what our goal is lasting impact over decades, because people who go into leadership positions often take a decade or two to rise to that position. But that's what our investment is our investment is in the in the future. And when I went to Phil Knight who's my co-founder and donor, might lead donor to the program, he was enthusiastic. His view was that we had a we had a major gap in leadership. And we needed to begin training, we need to do multiple things. We need to do things like we're doing tonight. But we also need to think about that next younger generation is up and coming. >> Some terms of inspiring the next generation of innovative diversity thinkers. Talk to me about some of the things that this program is aimed at, in addition to just, you know, some of the knowledge about leadership, but really helping them understand this diverse nature in which we now all find ourselves living. >> So one of the things we do is we try to bring in leaders from all different walks of life to meet and have a conversation with our scholars. This morning, we had the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in town, Michelle Bachelet, and she sat down and talked about how she thought about her role as addressing human rights, how to move things forward in very complex situations we face around the world with collapse of many governments and many human rights violations. And how do you how do you make that forward progress with a difficult problem? So that kind of exposure to leaders who are grappling with really difficult problems is a critical part of our program. >> And they're really seeing and experiencing real world situations? >> Absolutely. They're seeing them up close as they're really occurring. They see the challenges we had, we had Governor Brown and just before he went out of office here in California, to talk about criminal justice reform a major issue in California and around the country. And how do we make progress on that on that particular challenge? >> So you mentioned a couple of other leaders who the students I've had the opportunity to learn from and engage with, but you yourself are quite the established leader. You went to Stanford as a professor in 1977. You are a President Emeritus you were president of Stanford from 2000 to 2016. So these students also get the opportunity to learn from all that you have experienced as it as a professor of Computer Science, as well as in one of your current roles as chairman of Alphabet. Talk to us a little bit about just the massive changes that you have seen, not just in Silicon Valley, but in technology and innovation over the last 40 plus years. >> Well, it is simply amazing. When I arrived at Stanford, there was no internet. The ARPANET was in its young days, email was something that a bunch of engineers and scientists use to communicate, nobody else did. I still remember going and seeing the first demonstration of what would become Yahoo. Well, while David Filo and Jerry Yang had it set up in their office. And the thing that immediately convinced me Lisa was they showed me that their favorite Pizza Parlor would now allow orders to go online. And when I saw that I said, the World Wide Web is not just about a bunch of scientists and engineers exchanging information. It's going to change our lives and it did. And we've seen wave after wave that with Google and Facebook, social media rise. And now the rise of AI I mean this this is a transformative technology as big as anything I think we've ever seen. In terms of its potential impact. >> It is AI is so transformative. I was I was in Hawaii recently on vacation and Barracuda Networks was actually advertising about AI in Hawaii and I thought that's interesting that the people that are coming to to Hawaii on vacation, presumably, people have you know, many generations who now have AI as a common household word may not understand the massive implications and opportunities that it provides. But it is becoming pervasive at every event we're at at the Cube and there's a lot of opportunity there. It's it's a very exciting subject. Last question for you. You mentioned that this that the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program is really aimed towards graduate students. What is your advice to those BB stem kids in high school right now who are watching this saying, oh, John, what, what? How do you advise me to be able to eventually get into a program like this? >> Well, I think it begins by really finding your passion, finding something you're really dedicated to pushing yourself challenging yourself, showing that you can do great things with it. And then thinking about the bigger role you want to have with technology. In the after all, technology is not an end in itself. It's a tool to make human lives better and that's the sort of person we're looking for in the knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, >> Best advice you've ever gotten. >> Best advice ever gotten is remember that leadership is about service to the people in the institution you lead. >> It's fantastic not about about yourself but really about service to those. >> About service to others >> JOHN, it's been a pleasure having you on the Cube tonight we wish you the best of luck in your keynote at the 15th annual ACG SV Awards and we thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Lisa. I've enjoyed it. Lisa Martin, you're watching the Cube on the ground. Thanks for watching. (upbeat tech music)

(techno music) >> Announcer: Live, from New York, it's theCUBE. Covering Blockchain Week. Now, here's John Furrier. (techno music) >> Hello and welcome back. this is the exclusive coverage from theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, the co-host. We're here in New York City for special on the ground coverage. We go out where all the action is. It's happening here in New York City for Blockchain Week, New York, #BlockchainWeekNY Of course, Consensus 2018 and a variety of other events, happening all over the place. We got D-Central having a big boat event here, tons of events from Hollywood. We got New York money, we got Hollywood money, we got nerd money, it's money everywhere, and of course great deals are happening, and I'm here with two friends who have done a deal. Al Burgio is a CEO of DigitalBits co-founder, and Nithin who's the partner at Arcadia Crypto Ventures. You guys we've, you know, we're like family now, and you're hiding secrets from me. You did a deal. Al, what's going on here? Some news. >> Yeah, well first John, thanks for having us. We always love coming on the show, and really enjoy spending time with you and so forth. We, you know previous conversations that we've had, we were not out there fundraising. But really had the opportunity to meet a lot of great people Nithin and his firm being definitely one of them. And as a result of that, really building this, say, following, these relationships within the venture community, more specifically the crypto venture community. When we were ready to actually go out and do, let's say a first round, for us it happened very quickly, and it was a result of being able to leverage those relationships that we had. For me, it was kind of remarkable to see that support come and happen so quickly. Normally venture, it's just a process. Many many months. >> John: Long road. >> Then a month to close. >> John: Kiss all the frogs. >> Yeah, here it's like, you know, people can do due diligence on the fly, You have an opportunity with events like this. >> John: They're smart. >> They're smart, and and there's an opportunity to really foster these relationships in this really tight-knit community. And, you know, Nithin and his firm being obviously one of those. And so when we were ready to go out and do our first round, it happened quickly, and I'd like to think that in a lot of ways, it happened amongst friends. >> Well, you're being humble. We've been covering you, you've been on theCUBE earlier, when you just started the idea, so it's fun to watch you have this idea come to fruition, but you're in a, you're hitting a TAM a Total Available Market that's pretty large. And that's one of the secrets, to have a TAM. Aggressive bold move, we'll how it turns out for you, but you know, you got to have the moonshot, you're going after the loyalty market, which is completely run by the syndicate, what do you want to call it, the mafia of loyalty. >> Yeah, well, I would say that in some cases, those that are supporting us see that as really just one use case. Because we built this general-purpose blockchain, one of the use cases and one of the first use cases that were out there to support, happens to be the loyalty space. >> John: Big. And it's massive, highly fragmented but massive market, and we can solve a lot of liquidity issues with our technology. But then it goes beyond that. So it's a big market at the start, and then that can scale even greater from there. and I think that's part of what, I mean obviously, I'm not going to speak for Nithin. >> Nithin, let me weigh in here, pass the mic over. Nithin talk about the deal, why these guys? I know you met 'em, you like Al, and the feedback I've heard from other folks is he's a classic entrepreneur and that obviously, the entrepreneur gets the deal, but obviously you don't just give money 'cause you like someone. What about this deal is it that you guys like? You guys been there early, you got some great people on your team, what about this deal is it that you like? >> Sure, for us, Al met pretty much most of, almost all the criteria that we had, okay. That we had when we go, the thesis before we go fund someone. We don't get so many deals like that. Usually we get you know, they made 50% of the criteria, we might still put money because you can't get the 100%. So one thing, Al as a founder, he's experienced, he has done it multiple times before, he sold companies. Tech guy, which is very key for us. A tech project is very key. Okay, second thing, he's built the whole thing. It's not like he's raising the money to go and build it. He built it, now he's raising money to go for go to market strategies, which makes sense. He's shown it, and we tested it out. So like, we were completely blown away. He has a team behind 'im. He's built a team on every side, on the marketing side, on PR, events. And the idea, this is a general blockchain, but he's addressing a very specific issue. It is a real problem. Loyalty points, or rewards points, or gift points. Or whatever you call them. It is segmented, it's fragmented, and this is a chance. And there might be many people who are trying to solve this problem, but I think Al has the greatest possibility, or probability, of becoming the winner. >> You and I have talked on theCUBE before, both of you guys are CUBE alumni, I know you both, so I'll ask you, 'cause I'll just remind everyone, we've talked about token economics. One of the things that's coming up here at the Consensus 2018 event in New York, onstage certainly, and some fireworks in one of the sessions, is like if you're not decentralized, why the hell are you doing a decentralized model? So one of the criterias is, the fit for the business model, has to fit the notion of a decentralized world, with the ability of tokens becoming an integral part. What about this deal makes that happen? Obviously, fragmentation, is that still decentralized? So, how are you sorting through the nuances of saying, okay, is it decentralized the market for him, and this deal? Or does it fit? >> See no, decentralize is one thing okay, in here, more than decentralized, I would say there was the platform, so that all the companies can come in, use this common platform, release it, and as a user you're getting a chance to atomically swap it if you don't like something. Most of the reward points or loyalty points go waste. Maybe the companies want it to go waste, I don't know if that is. >> It's a natural burn at equilibrium going on anyway right? Perfect fit! >> So that is the only, that was the only doubt that we had. Would companies want this, because do they want their customers' loyalty points going waste rather than swapping it for something else? That was the only question that we had. Well, that's a question that will get answered in the market. But otherwise we hadn't seen something like this before. >> What's your take of the show so far? We saw each other in the hallway as we were getting set up for theCUBE, for two days of coverage, in New York, for Blockchain Week, New York, what's your take? Obviously pretty packed. >> Oh my god, it's so packed, and it's great, the show is going on. It is bringing a lot of money in, it's bringing all the investors in a new money, old money, traditional money, nerd money as you said. >> It smells like money! >> Everybody's coming in. See the beauty about those things coming in is, you're going to get a lot of people from other fields that are going to come into this field to solve problems. 'Cause earlier, if there is no money coming in, you're going to have very smart people, or very intelligent people stick with physics or whichever was their field. Now, they're going to look into the space because they're getting paid. See that brings more people who are intelligent, and who can solve problems. That is very key for me. >> Al, I want to ask you as an entrepreneur, one things you usually have to struggle with, as any entrepreneur, is navigating the 3-D chess you got to play, whether it's competitive strategy, market movement, certainly the market's moving and shifting very quickly, but you've got growth, big tailwind for you. What's your takeaway? Because now you have new things coming on. Every every day it seems like a new shoe is dropping. SEC's firing a warning on utility tokens, security tokens are still coming, are now coming online, but that looks very promising, and then ecosystems become super important. You guys just announced news this morning around the ecosystem. >> Yeah, tomorrow we have some. We had some news today, but we have more tomorrow. >> John: Well talk about the news. >> Yeah, so we have a multi-tiered go to market strategy. Obviously in the loyalty space, again I want to emphasize, it's just one use case, but it's a massive one. You have brands, the enterprise. And many of those those enterprises or brands may operate their loyalty program internally, in terms of like back offices systems, in some cases they're outsourcing the app to a SAS provider, some application provider, that's kind of hidden in the background. But let's just say like Hilton. I use Hilton, it's the location for the event, but Hilton, you have this user experience using this app, but maybe that technology, the SAS application that's powering that, is actually not Hilton technology. And so let's just say, there's 30 million people in the Hilton program and there may be 30 million of them on the Marriott, coexisting on some SAS application. And so that's another important category for us. SAS providers and so forth, supporting that industry. And then last but not least, today, whether enterprise or SAS company, many cases not touching their own hardware, right? They're using the cloud. >> So they're outsourcing the backend. >> Yeah, and so you have managed cloud providers. >> So what does it mean for the market? I don't understand, I'm not following you. >> Well, I guess what I'm saying is that there needs to be a common standard, across enterprise application provider, in global cloud community, cloud is the new hardware. >> True. So horizontally scaling loyalties as we were (mumbles). >> Exactly, so we have, we're basically securing partnerships on all three levels, to make sure that, if you want to use new technology, you want to ensure that it's widely supported, across a variety of partners you may want to work with if you're an enterprise. Whether, a software company, cloud company, and so forth. You want to be able to ensure that it can back up the truck. So we've basically signed partnerships at all of these tiers. You're going to see news in the morning. It's late here on a Monday evening. So tomorrow 9:00 a.m, major cloud company, one of the major cloud companies, and there's more to follow, making an announcement that they've joined our ecosystem partner program, and supporting this open source technology in a number of different ways. Which we're really excited about. >> You see ecosystem as a strategic move for you. >> Absolutely, this is, for us, this is, it's all about helping the consumer, but it's not about one consumer at a time for us. It's very much an enterprise play. It's one enterprise at a time. And with each enterprise we basically add to the ecosystem millions if not tens of millions of consumers instantly. >> Nithin I want to ask you a question, because what he just brought up is interesting to me as well. As a new thing, it's not new, but it's new to the crypto world, new to the analog world, that's not in the tech field. Tech business, we all know about global system integrators, we know about ecosystems, we know the value of developer programs, and community, all those things, check, check, check. But now those things are coming to new markets. People have never seen an ecosystem play before. So it's kind of, not new, it's new for some people, it's a competitive advantage opportunity. >> True, it is. See the whole thing is so new, that you can't even define it at this point. It's very hard to define. It's like, see, as an example I would say, none of us thought that when the iPhone came, there would be a 60 billion dollar taxi sharing economy that comes out of it, right? Same thing. Blockchain comes, we just don't know. And it's very hard to predict. >> New brands are going to emerge, I mean if you look at every major inflection point, I point to a couple that I think are relevant, TCP/IP was created, internetworking. >> Yep. >> That essentially went after proprietary networks, like IBM, Digital, Stacks, but it didn't replace, it wasn't a new functionality, it was interoperability. >> Yes. >> The web, HTTP, created a whole new functionality. >> Yep. >> Out of that emerged new brands. >> Yeah. >> So I think this wave's coming is a, new brands are going to emerge. >> Here, what's the brand, I don't know what's going to emerge. There it was interoperability. >> John: Well, new players. >> It's here, it's more, the collaboration. The collaboration is so huge, it's the scale is so huge, in the sense you can collaborate across the world. You're cutting those borders, there are no borders that can hold you. Even though interoperability happened in internet, There were the Googles, and the Facebook, that still had those borders. >> Well, don't put it, Cisco came out of that, 3Com, and those generations, but the hyper-scalers came out of the web. >> Yep. >> So I'm saying, well I'm saying, I want to get your reaction to, is I think that is such a small scale relative to blockchain and crypto because it's global, it's every industry, it's not just tech it's just like everything. So there's got to be new brands. Startups going to come out of the woodwork, that's my point. >> It's not yet time for the brands to come in. See that's the whole thing. So let's put it this way, the internet was there from 1978, if you really look at it, ARPANET or DARPA, those things were there. Email was there, but it was by 1997, or by the time we all came to know Google it was 2001. There is that gap between the brand forming, because it has to permeate first, more people have to use it, like what is the user-- >> Everything was was a bubble, but everything happened. I got food delivered to my house today, right? It happened, people were saying that's a crazy idea. >> It's now it's going on, right. So it's the timing and they know the time for it to permeate so here, how many people are using Bitcoin, and to do what? Most of them are just speculating right? There's very few real use case of remittance or speculative trading, that's what's happening. See that's what I said. The other use cases, it has to permeate. And that comes with more user adoption. And the user adoption initially is going to come from the speculation. >> I think it's a good sign, honestly I think it's a tell sign, because I remember when the web was new, I was in coming out right and growing in the industry. People were poo poo, oh that's just for kids. The big company's said, we wouldn't, who the hell is going to use the World Wide Web? Enter the search engines. >> I remember that like it was yesterday. I forget that I'm not a kid anymore, and I had the opportunity to be an entrepreneur during that era. One of the things I want to add is that, we had, I think what Nithin is really pointing out, it started with the infrastructure, you had network engineers and ISPs, you know, and email. But what was the enterprise application here? What was that consumer application, and that followed right? So it started infrastructure, then it evolved. Once we saw these applications, enterprises started to go crazy. Whether it was the Ubers of the world surfacing, or enterprises reinventing themselves, that's kind of the next wave. >> Well, this is why I think you're a good opportunity. 'Cause I remember licking stamps and sending out envelopes to get people to come to a seminar, held at a hotel. That's how you did it in the old world. The web replaced that with direct response. >> But there's some, there's something else-- >> The mainframe ran faster than the web. You're replacing an old loyalty, that's like licking the stamps. It's not about comparing what you're doing to something else. >> There's also something that helps, that we're not acknowledging, that really helped take internet from 1.0 to 2.0, it's Linux. You know I remember websites were insanely expensive. It was Windows servers, it was Sun Solaris, all of this crazy, expensive, server systems, that you needed to have, so the barrier of entry was extremely high. Then Linux came along, and you still needed to have your own data center space, and so still high, but the licensing fees kind of went away. >> And now with containers and Kubernetes-- >> Exactly. >> I made a bet I was going to get Kubernetes in a crypto show. >> Anybody from a bedroom could start a company, right? You could do it with your pajamas still on. >> John: Well orchestration's easier. >> Absolutely. So this has started, this really, revolution. Now you have blockchain and you start to introduce enterprise-grade blockchain technologies, it's the next wave, you know, it's not VoIP, it's value over IP. >> Okay, I'm going to ask both you guys a final question, to end this segment here at the block event. I know you guys want to get back, and I'm taking you anyway from the schmoozing and networking and the fun out there, deejay. Predictions, next year this time, what are we going to be? What's the we're going to look like? What's going to evolve? I mean we had a conversation with Richard, who partnered with you guys at Arcadia Crypto Partners, saying the trading things interesting, the liquidity has changed. What's your take? I want you guys both to take a minute to make a prediction. Next year, what's different, who's out, who's in, what's happening, is it growing? >> So I, you know, I would say this, surprisingly, CTOs, I love CTOs, but many CTOs, I would say that well above 50% of CTOs, still can't spell blockchain. Really, and what I mean by that, really understand the transformational power what this is, in terms of how this is really web 3.0. This is going to change so many industries, create so much value for consumers, help businesses and so forth, and we're going to cross that 50% mark. >> Next year. >> With CTOs-- >> 50% of what? Be clear on-- >> Basically, we're going, in terms of the net, that blockchain's going to capture, and really enterprises and not just enterprises, service providers and so forth-- >> 50% of the mind share or 50% of the projects? >> Yeah no, I'm talking it's, people aren't going to be saying, oh, blockchain, isn't that Bitcoin? They're going to really understand, and they're going to understand that impact. And over the course of the next 12 months, we're going to see that. And it starts, obviously in many cases, with the CIO, CTO of many companies. There are definitely a lot of CIOs and CTOs on the forefront of innovation that get it, but what I'm saying is that more than 50% don't. >> So you're saying-- They're very busy in doing what they're doing today, and it hasn't hit them yet. >> To recap, you're saying by next year, 50% of CTOs or CTO equivalents, will have a clear understanding of what blockchain is-- >> Absolutely. >> And what it can do. >> Absolutely. >> Nithin, your prediction, next year, this time, what's different, what's new, what's the prediction? >> So, one of the key things that I think is going to happen is there's going to be a lot more training, and knowledge that's going to spread out, so that a lot more people understand, what blockchain is and what bitcoin is. Even now, as Al said, he was telling about CTOs, if the CTOs are, that's the state, that they can't spell blockchain, imagine where the real common man is. You've got people like Jamie Dimon coming on TV and saying he doesn't like Bitcoin, but he likes blockchain. I'm like, what the heck is he saying? That he likes a database? >> He was selling it short 100% (chuckles) >> Yeah, he likes a database. And then you have Warren Buffett coming over there-- >> Rat poison. >> And then this is rat poison. And like my question is, does any of his funds buy gold? Do they buy gold? He was telling that this is only worth as much as the next buy buying at a higher price. >> What's Warren Buffett's best tech investment? >> I don't know, I think he bought Apple, he started buying Apple now, right? When it's reached a thousand bucks? Or it reached a trillion dollars or close to that, or 750 billion? >> The Apple buy was 2006. If you were there, then you were good. >> Yeah, but-- >> So, your prediction? >> Market wise I don't know, what's going to happen? I'm expecting this, the crypto, the utility token, or the crypto market, to be at least a six trillion dollar business. But it'll happen next year? Definitely not. But I've been proven wrong, like I was expecting it to happen by 2025, but then it went to 750 billion by December. Well, it's not too far. >> You did get the prediction right, in the Bahamas at POLYCON18, about the drop around the tax consequences of the-- >> Right. >> People slinging trades around, not knowing the tax consequences. >> Right, right. We don't know because, who knows? Because what is going on over there, is IRS is still saying it's a property. That's what the last (slurs) is. SEC is saying it is all equity, and the CFTC was saying it's commodity. So what tax do I pay? >> Okay, lightning round question, 'cause I want to, one more popped in my head. The global landscape, from an investor standpoint, the US, we know what's going on in the US, accredited, SEC is throwing, firing across, bullets across the bow of the boats, kind of holding people in line. What percentage of US big investors will be overseas by next year? >> Percentage of-- >> Having, meaning having deals being done, proxy deals being down outside the US, what percentage? >> It's still going to be low though. That is going to be low, because that, I don't think the US investor, means the large scale of those investors-- >> You don't think the big funds will co-locate outside the US? >> There will be some, but not enough. >> Put a number, a percentage. >> Percentage-wise I think it's still going to be less than 10%. >> Al, your prediction? >> In terms of investment? >> Investment, investors saying hey, I got money here, I want to put it out there. >> Outside of the United States? >> Share money, not move their whole fund, but do deals from a vehicle. >> Do deals outside. I think I agree with Nithin. >> Throwing darts at the board here. >> No, I'm going to clarify. There's definitely massive investment happening overseas. In some respects probably bigger than the United States. So that's not going away. If anything that's going to grow. But your question is, in terms of US entities, making abroad investments, overseas investments, versus just domestic? I think that trend doesn't necessarily change. You have the venture community, there are certain bigger venture funds that can have global operations 'cause at the end of the day, they need to have global operations, to be able to do that, and most venture funds aren't that massive, they don't have that infrastructure. So they're going to focus on their own backyard. So I don't necessarily think blockchain changes the venture mindset. It's just easier for them logistically to do due diligence on their own backyard and invest in those. >> Guys, always a pleasure. Great to see you. You guys are like friends with entourage here, great to get the update here at Blockchain Week. We get to Silicon Valley week, we'll connect up again. I'm John Furrier, here in New York, theCUBE's continuing coverage of crypto, decentralized applications, and blockchain of course, we're all over it. You'll see us all over, all of the web, all the shows. Thanks for watching. (techno music)

(regal music) >> Hi, I'm Peter Burris And welcome to another Cube conversation from our beautiful studios here in Palo Alto, California. Got another great guest today, Jagane Sundar is the CTO of WANdisco Jagane, welcome back to the Cube. >> Good morning, Peter. >> So, Jagane, I want to talk about something that I want to talk about. And I want you to help explicate for our clients what this actually means. So there's two topics that I want to discuss. We've done extensive research in both of them, and one is this notion that we call plastic infrastructure. And the other one, related, is something we call networks of data. Let's start with networks of data because I think that that's perhaps foundational for plastic infrastructure. If we look back at the history of computing, we've seen increasing decentralization of data. Yet today many people talk about data gravity and how the Cloud is going to bring all data into the Cloud. Our belief, however, is that there's a relationship between where data is located and the actions that have to be taken. And data locality has a technical reality to it. We think we're going to see more distribution of data, but in a way that nonetheless allows us to federate. To bring that data into structures that nonetheless can ensure that the data is valuable wherever it needs to be. When you think of the notion of networks of data, what does that make you think about? >> That's a very interesting concept, Peter. When you consider the Cloud, and you talk about S3 for example and buckets of objects, people automatically assume that it's a global storage system for objects. But if you scratch a little deeper under the surface you'll find that each bucket is located in one region. If you want it available in other regions you've got to set up something called cross-region replication, which replicates in an eventual consistent fashion. It may or may not get there in time. So even in the Cloud storage systems, there is a notion of locality of data. It's something that you have to pay attention to. Now you hit the nail on the head when you said networks of data. What does that mean? Where does the data go? How it is used. Our own platform, the Fusion platform for replication of data is a strongly consistent platform which helps you conform to legal requirements and locality of data and many such things. It was built with such a thing in mind. Of course, we didn't quite call it that way, but I like your way of describing it. >> So as we think then about where this is, the idea is, 40 years ago, ARPANET allowed us to create networks of devices in a relatively open application-oriented way. And the web allowed us to create networks of pages of content. But again, that content was highly stylized. More recently social media's allowed us great networks of identities. All very important stuff. Now as we start talking about digital business and the fact that we want to be able to rearrange our data assets very quickly in response to new business opportunities whether it's customer experience or operational-oriented, this notion of networks of data allows us to think about the approach to doing that, so that we can have the data being in service to existing business opportunities, new business opportunities, and even available for future activities. So we're talking about creating networks out of these data sources, but as you said, to do that properly, we need to worry about consistency, we need to worry about cost. The platform for doing this, Fusion is a good one, it's going to require over time, however we think, some additional types of capabilities. The ability to understand patterns of data usage, the ability to stage data in advance and predictably, et cetera. Where do you think this goes as we start conceiving of networks of data as a fundamental value proposition for technology and business? >> Sure, one of the first things that occurs to me when you talk about a network of data, if you consider that as parallel to a network of computers, you don't have a notion of things like read-only computers whereas read-write computers. That's just silly. You want all computers to be roughly equal in the world. If you have a network of servers, and a network of computers, any of them can read. Any of them can write, and any of them can store. Now our Fusion platform brings about that capability to your definition of a network of data. What we call live data is the ability for you to store replicas of the data in different data centers around the world with the ability to write to any of those locations. If one of the locations happens to go down, it's a non-event. You can continue writing and reading from the other locations. That truly makes the first step towards building this network of data that you're talking about feasible. >> But I want to build on that notion a little bit because we are seeing increased specialization for example, AI, or GPUs. >> Sure. >> AI-specific processors, so even though we are still looking forward to general purpose nonetheless we see some degree of specialization. But let me also take that notion of live data and say I expect that we're going to see something similar. So for example, the same data set can be applied to multiple different classes of applications where each application may take advantage of underlying hardware advantages. But you don't have a restriction on how you deploy it built into the data. Have I got that right? >> Absolutely. Our Fusion platform includes the capability to replicate across Cloud vendors. You can replicate your storage between Amazon S3 and Azure Blob store. Now this is interesting because suddenly, you may discover that Redshift is great for certain applications while Azure SQLDW is better for others. We give you the freedom to invent new applications based on what location is best suited for that purpose. You've taken this concept of network of data, you've applied a consistent replication platform, now you have the ability to build applications in different worlds, in completely different worlds. And that's very interesting to us because if we look at data as the primary asset of any company, consider a company like Netflix, their data and the way they manage their data is the most important thing to that company. We bring the capability to distribute that data across different Cloud vendors, different storage systems, and run different applications. Perhaps you have a GPU heavy Cloud that maybe a GPU vendor offers. Replicate your data into that Cloud, and run your AI applications against that particular replica. We give you truly the freedom to invent new applications for your purpose. >> But very importantly, you are also providing, and I think this is essential, a certainty that there's consistency no matter how you do it. And I think that's the basis of the whole, the Paxos algorithms you guys are using. >> Exactly. The fundamental fact is this. Data scientists hate to deal with outdated data. Because all the work they're doing may be for no use if the data that they're applying it to is outdated, invalid, or partially consistent. We give you guarantees that the data is constantly updated, live data, it's completely consistent. If you ask the same question of two replicas of your data, you will get exactly the same answer. There is no other product in the industry today that can offer that guarantee. And that's important for our customers. >> Now building on the foundation, we're going to have to add some additional things to it. So pattern recognition, ML inside the tool. Is that on the drawing board? And I don't want you to go too far in the future, but is that kind of the future that you see too? >> We are a platform company with an excellent plug-in API. And one of the uses of our plug-in API, I'll give you a simple example, we have banking customers and they need to prevent credit card numbers from flying over the wire under certain circumstances. Our plug-in API enables them to do that. Applying an ML intelligence program into the plug-in API, again, a very simple development effort to do that. We are facilitating such capabilities. We expect third-party developers. We already have a host of third-party developers and companies building to our plug-in API. We expect that to be the vehicle for this. We won't claim expertise in ML, but there are plenty of companies that will do that on our platform. >> All right, so that leads to the second set of questions that I wanted to ask you about. We've defined what we call plastic infrastructure as a future for the industry. And to make sense of that, what we've done is we've said let's take a look at three phases of infrastructure, not based on the nature of the hardware, but based on the fundamental capabilities of the infrastructure. Static infrastructure is when we took an application, we wired it to a particular class of infrastructure. New load hits it, often you broke the infrastructure. Elastic infrastructure is the ability to be able to take a set of workloads and have it vary up and down, so that you can consume more and release the infrastructure so it has a kind of a rubber orientation. You hit it with a new load, it will deform for as long as you need it to, then it snaps back into shape. So you've predictability about what your costs are. We think that increasingly digital business is going to have to think about plastic infrastructure. The ability to very rapidly have the infrastructure deform in response to new loads, but persist that new shape, that new structure in response to how the load has impacted the business if in fact that is a source of value for the business. >> Sure. >> What do you think about that notion of plastic infrastructure? >> I love the way you describe it. In our own internal terminology we have this notion of live data and freedom to invent. What you've described is exactly that. The plastic infrastructure matches exactly with our notion of freedom to invent. Once you've solved the problem of making your data consistently available in different Clouds, different regions, different data centers, the next step of course is the freedom to invent new applications. You're going to throw experimental things at it. You're going to find that there are specific business intelligence that you can draw from this by virtue of a new application. Use it to make some critical decisions, improve profitability perhaps. That results in what you describe as plastic infrastructure. I really love that description by the way. Because we've gone from, the Cloud brought us plastic infrastructure, we've replicated, we've built a system that enables innovation and invention of new ideas. That's plastic infrastructure. I really like the idea that you're proposing. >> So as you think about this concept of plastic infrastructure, obviously there's a lot of changes that're going to take place in the industry. But Fusion in particular, by providing consistency, by increasing the availability, more importantly even the delivery of data where it's required facilitates at that data level, that notion of plasticity. >> Absolutely. The notion that you can throw brand new applications at it in a Cloud vendor of your choice, the fact that we can replicate across different Clouds is important for plastic infrastructure. Perhaps there are certain applications that work better in one Cloud versus the other. You definitely want to try it out that. And if that results in some real valuable applications, continue running it. So your definition that elastic becomes plastic infrastructure matches perfectly with that. We love this notion that we take the CIO's problems of mundane data management away and introduce the capability to invent and innovate in their space. >> So let me give you a very, or let me ask you a very practical, simple question. Historically, the back-up and restore people, and the application development people didn't spend a lot of time with each other, and that has created some tension. Are we now because of our ability to do this live data, are we able to bring those two worlds more closely together so that developers can now think about building increasingly complex, increasingly rich applications? And at the same time ensure that the data that they're building and testing with is in fact very close to the live data that they're actually going to use. >> Absolutely. We do bridge that gap. We enabled application developers to think of more complex, more sophisticated applications without actually worrying about the availability or the consistency of data. And the IT administrators and the CIO run operations that need to deliver that, have the confidence that they can in fact deliver it with the levels of consistency and availability that they need. >> So I'm going to give you the last word in this. I talked about a fair amount now, about this notion of networks of data, and infrastructure plasticity, where do you think this kind of matures over the course of the next four or five years? And what's your peer CTOs of large businesses that are thinking about these challenges of data management be focusing on? >> So the first thing that you have to acknowledge is that people need to stop thinking about machines and servers, and consider this as infrastructure that they acquire from different Cloud vendors. Different Cloud vendors because in fact there is going to be a few, a handful of good Cloud vendors that'll give you different capabilities. Once you get to that conclusion, you need your data available in all of these different Cloud vendors perhaps on your on-prem location as well, with strong consistency. Our platform enables you to do that. Once you get to that point, you have the freedom to build new applications, build business-critical systems that can depend on the consistency and availability of data. That is your definition of plasticity and networks of data. I truly like that. >> Yeah, and so we, great, great summary. We would say that we would agree with you, that increasing with the CIO, or the CDO, whoever it's going to be, has to focus on how do I increase returns on my business's data, and to do that they need to start thinking differently about their data, about their data assets, both now and in the future. Very, very important stuff. Jagane, thank you very much for being on the Cube. >> Thank you, Peter. >> And once again, I'm Peter Burris, and this has been a Cube conversation with Jagane Sundar, CTO of WANdisco. Thanks again. (regal music)

(Latin music) >> Narrator: Live, from San Juan, Puerto Rico, it's theCUBE! Covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to by Blockchain Industries. (Latin music) >> Welcome back to our exclusive Puerto Rico coverage, here, this is theCUBE for Blockchain Unbound, the future of blockchain cryptocurrency, the decentralized web, the future of society, the world, of work, et cetera, play, it's all happening right here, I'm reporting it, the global internet's coming together, my next guest is Fred Krueger, a founder and CEO of a new innovative approach called WorkCoin, the future of work, he's tackling. Fred, great to see you! >> Thank you very much, John. >> So we saw each other in Palo Alto at the D10e at the Four Seasons, caught up, we're Facebook friends, we're LinkedIn friends, just a quick shout out to you, I saw you livestreaming Brock Pierce's keynote today, which I thought was phenomenal. >> Yeah, it was a great keynote. >> Great work. >> And it's Pi Day. >> It's Pi Day? >> And I'm a mathematician, so, it's my day! (Fred laughs) >> It's geek day. >> It's geek day. >> All those nerds are celebrating. So, Fred, before we get into WorkCoin, I just want to get your thoughts on the Brock Pierce keynote, I took a video of it, with my shaky camera, but I thought the content was great. You have it up on Facebook on your feed, I just shared it, what was your takeaway of his message? I thought it was unedited, obviously, no New York Times spin here, no-- >> Well first of all, it's very authentic, I've known Brock 10 years, and, I think those of us who have known Brock a long time know that he's changed. He became very rich, and he's giving away, and he really means the best. It's completely from the heart, and, it's 100% real. >> Being in the media business, kind of by accident, and I'm not a media journalist by training, we're all about the data, we open our datas, everyone knows we share the free content. I saw the New York Times article about him, and I just saw it twisted, okay? The social justice warriors out there just aren't getting the kind of social justice that he's actually trying to do. So, you've known him for 10 years, I see as clear as day, when it's unfiltered, you say, here's a guy, who's eccentric, smart, rich now, paying it forward? >> Yep. >> I don't see anything wrong with that. >> Look, I think that the-- >> What is everyone missing? >> There's a little jealously, let's be honest, people resent a little bit, and I think part of it's the cryptocurrency world's fault. When your symbol of success is the Lamborghini, it's sort of like, this is the most garish, success-driven, money-oriented crowd, and it reminds me a little bit of the domain name kind of people. But Brock's ironically not at all that, so, he's got a-- >> If you look at the ad tech world, and the domain name world, 'cause they're all kind of tied together, I won't say underbelly, but fast and loose would be kind of the way I would describe it. >> Initially, yes, ad tech, right? So if you look at ad tech back in say, I don't know, 2003, 2004, it was like gunslingers, right? You wanted to by some impressions, you'd go to a guy, the guy'd be like, "I got some choice impressions, bro." >> I'll say a watch too while I'm at it. >> Yeah, exactly. (John laughs) That was the ad tech world, right? And that world was basically replaced by Google and Facebook, who now control 80% of the inventory, and it's pretty much, you go to a screen, it's all service and that's it. I don't know if that's going to be the case in cryptocurrencies, but right now, initially, you sort of have this, they're a Wild West phenomenon. >> Any time you got alpha geeks, and major infrastructure application developer shift happening, which is happening, you kind of look at these key inflection points, you need to kind of have a strong community self-policing policy, if you look at the original DNS days, 'cause you remember, I was there too, Jon Postel, rest in peace, godspeed, we all know what he did, Vint Cerf with TCP/IP, the core dudes, and gals, back then, they were tight! So any kind of new entrants that came in had to prove their worth. I won't say they were the most welcoming, 'cause they were nervous of people to infect the early formation, mostly they're guys, they're nerds. >> Right, so I think if you look back at domain names, back in the day, a lot of people don't know this, but Jon Postel actually kept the list of domain names in a text file, right? You had basically wanted a domain name, you called Jon up, and you said, "I'd like my name added to the DNS," and he could be like, "Okay, let me add it "to the text file." Again, these things all start in a very sort of anarchic way, and now-- >> But they get commercial. >> It gets commercial, and it gets-- >> SAIC, Network Solutions, in various time, we all know the history, ICANN, controlled by the Department of Commerce up until a certain point in time-- >> Uh, 'til about four years ago, really. >> So, this is moving so fast. You're a student of the industry, you're also doing a startup called WorkCoin, what is the formula for success, what is your strategy, what are you guys doing at WorkCoin, take a minute to explain what you guys are doing, your team, your approach-- >> So let's start with the problem, right? If you look at freelancing, right now, everybody knows that a lot of people freelance, and I don't think people understand how many people freelance. There are 57 million people in America who freelance. It's close to 50%, of us, don't actually have jobs, other than freelancing. And so, this is a slow moving train, but it's basically moving in the direction of more freelancers, and we're going to cross the 50% mark-- >> And that's only going to get bigger, because of virtual work, the global workforce, no boundaries-- >> Right, and so it's global phenomena, right? Freelancing is just going up, and up, and up. Now, you would think in this world, there would be something like Google where you could sit there, and go type patent attorney, and you could get 20 patent attorneys that would be competing for your business, and each one would have their price, and, you could just click, and hire a patent attorney, right? Is that the case? >> No. >> No, okay. >> I need a patent attorney. >> So, what if you have to hire a telegram manager for your telegram channel? Can you find those just by googling telegram manager, no. So basically-- >> The user expectation is different than the infrastructure can deliver it, that's what you're basically saying. >> No, what I'm saying is it should be that way, it is not that way, and the reason it's not that way is that basically, there's no economics to do that with credit cards, so, if you're building a marketplace where it's kind of these people are find each other, you need the economics to make sense. And when you're being charged 3.5% each way, plus you have to worry about chargebacks, buyer fraud, and everything else, you can't built a marketplace that's open and transparent. It's just not possible. And I realized six months ago, that with crypto, you actually could. Not that it's going to be necessarily easy, but, technically, it is possible. There's zero marginal cost, once I'm taking in crypto, I'm paying out crypto, in a sort of open marketplace where I can actually see the person, so I could hire John Furrier, not John F., right? >> But why don't you go to LinkedIn, this is what someone might say. >> Well, if you go to LinkedIn, first of all, the person there might not be in the market, probably is not in the market for a specific service, right? You can go there, then you need to message them. And you just say, "Hey, your profile looks great, "I noticed you're a patent attorney, "you want to file this patent for me?" And then you have to negotiate, it's not a transactional mechanism, right? >> It's a lot of steps. >> It's not transactional, right? So it's not click, buy, fund, engage, it just doesn't work that way. It's just such a big elephant in the room problem, that everybody has these problems, nobody can find these good freelancers. What do you end up doing? You end up going to Facebook, and you go, "Hey, does anybody know any good patent attorneys?" That's what you do. >> That's a bounty. >> Well, it's kind of, yeah. >> It's kind of a social bounty. "Hey hive, hey friends, does anyone know anything?" >> It's social proof, right? Which is another thing that's very important, because, if John, if you were-- >> Hold on, take a minute to explain what social proof is for the folks. >> Social proof is just the simple concept that it's a recommendation coming from somebody that you know, and trust. So, for example, I may not be interested in your video services, John, but I know you, and I am in the business of a graphic designer, and you're like, "Fred, I know this amazing graphic designer, "and she's relatively cheap." Okay, well that's probably good enough for me to at least start looking at her work, and going the next step. On the other hand, if I'm just looking at 100 graphic designers, I do not know. >> It's customized contextual data, around a specific transaction from a trusted source. So you socially, are connected to, or related. >> It, sort of, think about this, it doesn't even have to be a source that you know, it could be just a source that you know of, right? So, to use the Brock example again, Brock's probably not going to be selling his services on my platform, but what if he recommends somebody, people like giving the gift of recommendation. So Brock knows a lot of people, may not be doing as well as him, right? And he's like, "Well, this guy could be a fantastic guy "to hire as social media manager," for example. Helping out a guy that needs a little bit of work. >> And endorsement's a major thing. >> It is giving something, right? You're giving your own brand, by saying, "I stand behind this person." >> Alright, so tell me about where you are with WorkCoin, honestly, people might not know your background, if you check him out on LinkedIn, Fred Krueger, mathematician, Stanford PhD, well-educated, from a centralized organization, like Stanford, has a good reputation, you're a math guy, is there math involved? Obviously, Blockchain's math related, you got crypto, how are you guys building this out, share a little bit of, if you can, show a little leg on the tech-- >> The tech is sort of simple. So basically the way it is, is right now it's built in Google Cloud, but we have an interface where you can fund the thing, and so it's built, first of all, that's the first thing. We built it on web and mobile. And you can basically buy WorkCoins from the platform itself, using Ethereum, and also, we've integrated with Sensei, a different token. So, we can integrate with different tokens, so you're using these tokens to fund the coin, to fund your account, right? And then, once you have the tokens in your account, you can then buy services with them, right? And then the service provider, the minute they finish delivery of the service, to your expectation, they get the coin in their account, and then they can transfer that coin back into Ethereum, or Bitcoin, or whatever, to cash out. >> Okay, so wait, now that product's built, has the coins been issued? Are you guys doing an ICO? Are you raising money? >> So we're in the middle of an ICO-- >> Private? >> Private, only for now. So we've raised just under $4,000,000-- >> Great, congratulations. >> I have no idea if that's good or not-- >> Well, it's better than a zero (laughs). >> It's better than zero, right? It is better than zero, right? >> So there's interest obviously. >> Yeah, so look, we've got a lot of interest in our product, and I think part of the interest is it's very simple. A lot of people can go, "I think this thing makes sense." Now, does that mean we're going to be completely successful in taking over the world, I don't know. >> Well, I mean, you got some tailwinds at your back. One, the infrastructure in e-commerce, and the things that you're going after, are 20-year-old stacks. Number two, the business model, and expectation of the users, is shifting radically, and expectations are different, and there's no actual product that does it (laughs), so. >> So a lot of these ICOs, I think they're going to have technical problems actually building into the specification. 'Cause it's difficult, when you're dealing with the Blockchain, first of all, you're building on some movable platform, right? I met some people just today who are building on Hash-Craft, now, that's great, but Hash-Craft is like one day old, you know? So you're building on something that is one day old, and they've just announced their coin five minutes ago, you know. Again, that's great, but normally as a developer myself, I'm used to building on things that are years old, I mean, even something that's three years old is new. >> This momentum going on, that someone might want to tout Hash-Craft for is, 'cause it's got momentum-- >> It's got total momentum. >> They're betting on an ecosystem. But that brings up the other thing I want to get your thoughts on, because we've observed this at Polycon, we've been watching the industry landscape now, onto our 10th year, there's almost an ecosystem stake in the ground. The good news is, ecosystem's developing. You got entrepreneurs, you got projects, you got funding coming in, but as it's going to be a fight for the ecosystem, because you can't have zillion ecosystems, eventually they have to be-- >> Well, you know-- >> Or can you? >> Here's the problem, that everybody's focused on the plumbing right now, right, the infrastructure? But, what they should be focusing it on is the app. And I've a question for you, and I've asked this question to my advisors and investors, which are DNA Fund, and I say-- >> Let's see if I get it right, it's a test here on the spot, I love this, go. >> Okay, so here's the question, how many, in your wallet right now, on your mobile phone, show me how many Blockchain apps you have right now. >> Uh, zero, on my phone? >> Okay, zero. >> Well I have a burner phone for my other one, so (laughs). >> But on any phone, on any phone that you possess, how many Blockchain apps do you have on your phone? >> Wallet or apps? >> An app that you-- >> Zero. >> An app, other than a wallet, zero, right? Every single person I've asked in this conference has the same number, zero. Now, think about this, if you'd-- >> Actually, I have one. >> Uh, which one? >> It's called Cube Coin. >> Okay, there you go, Cube Coin. But, here's the problem, if you went to a normal-- >> Can I get WorkCoin right now? >> Yeah, well not right now, but I have it on my wallet. So for example, it's in test flight, but my point is I have a fully functional thing I can go buy services, use the coin, everything, in an app. I think this is one of the things-- >> So, hypothetically, if I had an application that was fully functional, with Blockchain, with cryptocurrency, with ERC 2 smart contracts, I would be ahead of the game? >> You would be ahead of the game. I mean, I think-- >> Great news, guys! >> And I think you absolutely are thinking the right thinking, because, everybody's just looking at the plumbing, and, look, I love EOS, but, it's sort of a new operating system, same as Hash-Craft, but you need apps to run on your thing-- >> First of all, I love chatting with you, you're super smart, folks out there, Fred is someone you should check out, you got great advisor potential. You're right on this, I want to test something out with you, I've been thinking about this for a while. If you think about the OSI model, OSI stack, for the younger kids, that was a key movement that generated the key standards in the stack for inner networking, and physical devices. So, it was started from the bottom up. The top of the stack actually never standardized, it became the presentation session layer, they differentiated, then eventually became front end. If you look at what's happening now, the top of the stack is really the ones that's standardizing, or standardizing with business logic, the bottom of the stack has many different versions of say, Blockchain, so the question is is that, it might be the world that will never have a TCP/IP moment, it might be that the business app logic will dictate to some sort of abstraction layer, down to programmable plumbing. You see this with cloud with DevOps. So the question is, do see it that way? I'm thinking out loud here, but when I'm seeing the trend here, it's just that, people who make the business logic decisions first, and nail those, that they're far more successful swapping out and hedging on the plumbing. >> Look, I think you mentioned the word alpha geek, and I think you've just defined yourself as an alpha geek. Let's just go in Denzel Washington's set in the movie Philadelphia, talk to me like I'm a five year old, okay? What is the problem you're solving? >> The app, you said it, it's the app! >> My point is like, everybody is walking around with apps, if the thing doesn't fit on an app, it's not solving any problem, that's the bottom line. I don't care whether you're-- >> You're validating the concept that all that matters is the app, the plumbing will sort itself out. >> I think so. >> Is that a dependency, or is it an interdependency? >> What do you need in a plumbing? Here's how I think you should think. Do I need 4,000 transactions per second? I would say, rarely, most people are not sitting there going, "I need to do 4,000 transactions per second." >> If you need that, you've already crossed the finish line, you probably want a proprietary solution. >> Just to put things in perspective, Bitcoin does 300,000 transactions per day. >> Well, why does Ripple work? Ripple works because they nailed the business model. >> I'll tell you what I think of Ripple-- >> What's your take? >> Why ripple works, I think all, and I'm not the first person to say this, but I think that, the thing that works right now, the core application of all this stuff, is money, right? That's the core thing. Now, if you're talking about documents on the Blockchain, is that going to be useful, perhaps. In a realist's say in the Blockchain, perhaps. Poetry on the Blockchain, maybe. Love on the Blockchain? Why ban it, you know? >> Hey, there's crypto-kiddies on the Blockchain, love is coming next. >> Love is coming next. But, the core killer app, the killer app, is money. It's paying people. That is the killer app of the Blockchain right now, okay? So, every single one of the things that's really successful is about paying people. So what is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is super great, for taking money, and moving it out of China, and into the United States. Or out of Nigeria, and into Switzerland, right? You want to take $100,000 out of Nigeria, and move it to Switzerland? Bitcoin is your answer. Now, you want to move money from bank A to bank B, Ripple is your answer, right? (John laughs) If you want to move money from Medellin, Colombia, that you use in narcos, Moneiro is probably your crypto of choice, you know? (John laughs) Business truly anonymous. And I think it's really about payment, right? And so, I look at WorkCoin as, what is the killer thing you're doing here, you're paying people. You're paying people for work, so, it's designed for that. That's so simple. >> The killer app is money, Miko Matsumura would say, open source money, that's his narrative, love that vision. Okay, if money's the killer app, the rest is all kind of window dressing around trying to race to-- >> I think it's the killer, it's the initial killer app. I think we need to get to the point where we all, not all of us, but where enough of us start transacting, with money, with digital money, and then after digital money, there will be other killer apps, right? It's sort of like, if you look at the internet, and again, I'm repeating somebody else's argument-- >> It's Fred Krueger's hierarchy of needs, money-- >> Money starts, right? >> Money is the baseline. >> The initial thing, what was the first thing of internet? I was on the internet before it was the internet. It was called the ARPANET, at Stanford, right? I don't know if you remember those days-- >> I do remember, yeah, I was in college. >> But the ARPANET, it was email, right? We had the first versions of email. And that was back in 1986. >> Email was the killer app for 15, 20 years. >> It was the killer app, right? And I think-- >> For 15 or 20 years. >> Absolutely, well before websites, you know? So I think, we got to solve money first. And I bless everybody who has got some other model, and maybe they're right, maybe notarization of documents on the internet is a-- >> There's going to be use cases for Blockchain, some obvious low-hanging fruit, but, that's not revolutionary, that's not game-changing, what is game-changing is the promise of a new decentralized infrastructure. >> Here's the great thing that's absolutely killer about what this whole world is, and this is why I'm very bullish, it's, if you look at the internet of transmitting value, from one node to another node, credit cards just do not do a very good job of that, right? So, you can't put a credit card inside a machine, very well, at all, right? It doesn't work! And very simple reason, why? Because you get those Amex fraud alerts. (John laughs) Now the machine, if he's paying another machine, the second machine doesn't know how to interpret the first machine's Amex fraud alerts. So, the machine has to pay in, the machine's something that's immutable. I'm paying you a little bit of token. The classic example is the self-driving car that pays the gas pump, 'cause it's a gas self-driving car, it pays it to fill up, and the gas pump may have to pay its landlord in rent, and all of this is done with tokens, right? With credit cards, that does not work. So it has to be tokens. >> Well, what credit cards did for other transactions a little bit simplifies your things, there's a whole 'nother wave coming, that just makes it easier and reduces the steps. >> It reduces the friction, and that's why I think, actually, the killer app's going to be marketplaces, because, if you look at a marketplace, whether it's a marketplace like ours, for freelancers, or your marketplace for virtual goods, and like wax, or whatever it is, right? I think marketplaces, where there's no friction, where once you've paid, it's in. There's no like, I want my money back. That is a killer app, it's an absolute killer app. I think we're going to see real massive consumer adoption with that, and that's ultimately, I think, that's what we need, because if it's all just business models, and people touting their 4,000 transactions a second, that's not going to fly. >> Well Fred, you have a great social graph, that's socially proved, you got a great credentials, in mathematics, PhD from Stanford, you reinvent nine, how many exits? >> Nine exits. >> Nine exits. You're reinventing freelancing on the Blockchain, you're an alpha geek, but you can also explain things to a five year old, great to have you on-- >> Thank you very much John. >> Talk about the WorkCoin, final word, get the plugin for WorkCoin, can people use it now, when is it going to be available-- >> Look, you can go check out our platform, as Miko said, Miko's an advisor, and Miko said, "Fred, think of it as a museum, "you can come visit the museum, "you're not going to see a zillion, "but you can do searches there, you can find people." The museum is not fully operational, right? You can come and check it out, you can take a look at the trains at the museum, the trains will finally operate once we're finished with our ICO, we can really turn the thing on, and everything will work, and what I'd like you to do, actually, you can follow our ICO, if you're not American, you can invest in our ICO-- >> WorkCoin dot-- >> Net. >> Workcoin.net >> Workcoin.net, and, really, at the end, if you have some skill that you can sell on the internet, you're a knowledge worker, you can do anything. List your skill for sale, right? And then, that's the first thing. If you're a student at home, maybe you can do research reports. I used to be a starving student at Stanford. I was mainly spending my time in the statistics department, if somebody said, "Fred, instead of grading "undergrad papers, we'll pay you money "to do statistical work for a company," I would be like, "That would be amazing!" Of course, nobody said that. >> And anyways, you could also have the ability to collaborate with some quickly, and do a smart contract, you could do some commerce, and get paid. >> And get paid for it! >> Hey, hey! >> How 'about that, so I just see-- >> Move from the TA's grading papers payroll, which is like peanuts-- >> And maybe make a little bit more doing something that's more relevant to my PhD. All I know is there's so many times where I've said, my math skills are getting rusty, and I was like, I'd really wish I could talk to somebody who knew something about this distribution, or, could help me-- >> And instantly, magically have them-- And I can't even find them! Like, I have no idea, I have no idea how I would go and find people at Stanford Institute, I would have no idea. So if I could type Stanford, statistics, and find 20 people there, or USC Statistics, imagine that, right? That could change the world-- >> That lowers the barriers, friction barriers, to-- >> Everybody could be hiring graduate students. >> Well it's not just hiring, collaborating too. >> Collaborating, yeah. >> Everything. >> And any question that you have, you know? >> Doctor doing cancer research, might want to find someone in China, or abroad, or in-- >> It's a worldwide thing, right? We have to get this platform so it's open, and so everybody kind of goes there, and it's like your identity on there, there's no real boundary to how we can get. Once we get started, I'm sure this'll snowball. >> Fred, I really appreciate you taking the time-- >> Thanks a lot for your time. >> And I love your mission, and, we support you, whatever you need, WorkCoin, we got to find people out there to collaborate with, otherwise you're going to get pushed fake news and fake data, best way to find it is through someone's profile on WorkCoin-- >> Thanks. >> Was looking forward to seeing the product, I'm John Furrier, here in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound, Restart Week, a lot of great things happening, Brock Pierce on the keynote this morning really talking about his new venture fund, Restart, which is going to be committed 100% to Puerto Rico, this is where the action will be, we will be following this exclusive story, continuing, we'll be back with more, thanks for watching. (soothing electronic music)

Live from Berlin Germany, it's the queue Covering NetApp insight 2017 brought to you by Neda Welcome back to the cubes live coverage of net app insight here in Berlin Germany I'm your host Rebecca Knight along with my co-host Peter Burris. We are joined by Mark Bregman. He is the CTO of net app Thanks so much for coming on the cube Thanks for taking the time so you have been recently looking into your crystal ball to predict the future and you have some some fun sometimes counterintuitive Predictions about what we're going to be seeing in the next Year and decade to come right so so your first pitch in you said data will become Self-aware right what do you mean by that? Well the title is kind of provocative really the idea is that? Data is going to carry with it much more of its metadata Metadata becomes almost more important than the data in many cases and we can anticipate Sort of architectures in which the data drives the processing whereas today? We always have data is sort of a pile of data over here And then we have a process that we execute against the data that's our been our tradition in the computing world for a long long time as data becomes more self-aware the data as it passes through Will determine what processes get executed on it? So let me give you a simple analogy from a different field from the past in The communications world we used to have circuit switched systems There was some central authority that understood the whole network If you and I wanted to communicate it would figure out the circuit set up the circuit And then we would communicate and that's sort of similar to traditional Processing of data the process knows everything it wants to do it knows where to find the data. It does that it puts It somewhere else But in the communications world we move to packets which data, so now the packet the data Carries with it the information about what should happen to it And I no longer have to know everything about the network nobody has to know everything about the network I pass it to the nearest neighbor who says well I don't know where it's ultimately going, but I know it's going generally in that direction and eventually it gets there now Why is that better? It's very robust it's much more scalable and Particularly in a world where the rules might be changing. I don't have to necessarily redo the program I can change the the markup if you will the tagging of the data You can think of different examples imagine the data That's sitting in a autonomous vehicle and there's an accident now There are many people who want access to that data the insurance company the authorities the manufacturer the data has contained within it the Knowledge of who can do what would that data? So I don't have to now have a separate program that can determine Can I use that data or not the data says sorry you're not allowed to see this. This is private data You can't see this part of it Maybe the identify our data for the obviously the insurance company needs to know who the car owner is But maybe they don't need to know something else like where I came from The authorities might need both well he came from a bar So you can imagine that as an example if you the implications, yes marker are important for example if I Wanted to develop an application. That would be enhanced by having access to data I had to do programming to get to that data because some other application control that data and that data was defined contextually by that application right and so everything was handled by the application by moving the metadata into the data now I can bring that data to my Application more easily less overhead and that's crucial because the value of data accretes It grows as you can combine it in new and interesting ways so by putting the metadata end of the data I can envision a world where it becomes much faster much more Fasil to combine data and new and Exactly it. Also is easier to move the Processing through the data to the data because the processing is no longer a monolithic program It's some large set of micro services and the data organizes which ones to execute So I think we'll see I mean this is not a near-term prediction This is not one for next year because it requires rethinking How we think about data and processing, but I think we'll see it with the emergence of micro services compositional programming Metadata together with the data will see more functional programs little programs well That's your quick rush before we go on to the next one. It's almost like in the early night or the late 1970s It was networks of devices ARPANET the became the Internet and then the web was networks of pages And then we moved into networks of application services Do you foresee a day where it's going to be literally networks of data? Yes, and in fact That's a great example because if you think about what happened in the evolution of the web through what we called web 2.0 That the pages were static data They came alive in the web 2.0, and there was a much less of a distinction between the data and the program In the web layer right so that's what we're saying we see that emerging even further Next prediction was about virtual machines becoming rideshare machines well this is somewhat complementary to the first one they all kind of fit together and Here the idea is you know if we go back in the earlier days of IT it wasn't that long ago that if you needed? Something you ordered the server, and you installed it you owned it and then we got to the model of the public cloud, which is like a rental and by the same analogy if in the past if I wanted a vehicle I had to buy it and Then the rental car agencies came up, and I said well, you know when I go to Berlin I'm not gonna buy a car for three days I'll rent a car, but I can choose which car I want do I want the BMW, or do I want you know of Volkswagen That's very similar to the way the cloud works today. I pick what instances I want and They they meet my needs And if I make the right choice great and by the way I pay for it while I have it not for the work It's getting done so if I forget to return that instance. I'm still getting charged But the rideshare is kind of like uber and we're starting to see that with things like serverless computing In the model that I say I want to get this work done The infrastructure decides what shows up in the same way that when I call uber I don't get to pick what car shows up they send me the one that's most convenient for them and me and I get charged for the work going from point A to point B. Not for the amount of time There's some differentiation if there is so cool Ah, they come to that and and so that's more like a rideshare But as you point out even in the rideshare world. I have some choices. I can't choose if I want a large SUV I might get a BMW SUV or I might get a Mercedes SUV I can't choose that I can't choose it the silver or black But I get a higher class and what we're seeing with the cloud Or these kind of instances virtual solutions is they are also becoming more specialized I might it might be that for a particular workload I want some instance that has have GPUs in them or some neural chip or something else In much the same way that The rental model would say go choose the exact one you want The rideshare model would say I need to get this work done and the infrastructure might decide this is best serviced by five instances with GPU or Because of availability and cost maybe it's 25 instances of standard processors because you don't care about how long it takes so It's this compromise and it's really very analogous to the rideshare model now coming back to the earlier discussion as The units of work gets smaller and smaller and smaller and become really micro services Now I can imagine the data driving that decision hailing the cab hailing the rideshare and driving What needs to be done? So that's why I see them in somewhat complementary and so what's the upshot though? For the employee and for the company I think there are two things one is you got to make the right decision? You know if I were to use uber to commute to Sunnyvale every day It'd break the bank, and it would be kind of stupid so for that particular task I own my vehicle But if I'm gonna go to Tahoe for the weekend, and I meet an SUV I'm not gonna buy one neither am I going to take an uber I'm in a rent one because that's the right vehicle on the other hand when I'm going from you know where I live to the marina within San Francisco, that's a 15 minute drive I On demand I take an uber and I don't really care now if I have 10 friends I might pick a big one or a small one But again that the distinction is there so I think for companies They need to understand the implications and a lot of times as with many people they make the wrong initial choice And then they have then they learn from it so You know there are people who take uber everywhere And I talked and I said I had a friend who was commuting to HP every day by uber from the city from San Francisco That just didn't make sense he kind of knew that but The next one is data will grow faster than the ability to transport it, but that's ok it doesn't sound ok it Doesn't sound ok and for a long time. We've worried about that. We've done compression, and we've done all kinds of things We've built bigger pipes And we've but we were fundamentally transporting data between data centers or more recently between the data center and the cloud big chunks of data What this really talks about is with the emergence of quality IOT in a broad sense? Telematics IOT digital health many different cases there's going to be more and more and more data both generated and ultimately stored at the edge and That will not be able to be shipped all of that will not be able to be shipped back to the core And it's okay not to do that because there's also Processing at the edge so in an autonomous vehicle where you may be generating 20 megabytes per hour or more You're not gonna ship that all back You're gonna store it you're gonna do some local processing you're gonna send the summary of it the appropriate summary back But you're also gonna keep it there for a while because maybe there's an accident and now I do need all that data I didn't ship it back from every vehicle But that one I care about and now I'm gonna bring it back or I'm gonna do some different processing than I originally Thought I would do so again the ability to Manage this is going to be important, but it's managed in a different way. It means we need to figure out ways to do overall Data lifecycle management all the way from the edge where historically that was a silo we didn't care about it Probably all the way through the archive or through the cloud where we're doing machine learning rules generation and so on but it also suggests that we're going to need to do a better job of Discriminating or demarcating different characteristic yen classes of data, and so that data at the edge Real-world data that has real-world implications right now is different from data that summarizes business events which is different from data that Summarized as things models that might be integrated something somewhere else And we have to do a better job of really understanding the relationships between data It's use its asset characteristics etcetera, would you agree with that absolutely and maybe you see the method in my madness now? Which is that data will have? Associated with it the metadata that describes that so that I don't misuse it you know think about The video data off of a vehicle I might want to have a sample of that every I don't know 30 seconds, but now if there's really a problem and it may be not an accident Maybe it's a performance problem. You skidded I'd like to go back and see why was there a Physical issue with the vehicle that I need to think about as an engineering problem was it Your driving ability was it a cat jumped in front of the car so But I need to be able to as you pointed out in a systematic way distinguish what data I'm looking at and where it belongs and where it came from The final prediction it concerns the evolution from Big Data to huge data so that is Really driven by the Increasing need we have to do machine learning AI Very large amounts of data being analyzed in near real time to meet new needs for business And there's again a little like many of these things There's a little bit of a feedback loop so that drives us to new architectures for example being able to do in memory analytics But in-memory analytics with all that important data. I want to have persistence technologies are coming along like Storage class memories that are allowing us to build persistent storage persistent memory We'll have to re our Kotak the applications, but at the same time that persistent memory data I don't want to lose it so it has to be thought of also as a part of the storage system Historically we've had systems the compute system, and there's a pipe and there's a storage system And they're separate they're kind of coming together, and so you're seeing the storage Impinge on the system the compute system our announcement of Plexus store acquisition is how we're getting there But at the same time you see what might have been thought of is the memory of the computer System really be an extended part of the storage system with all the things related to copy management backup and and And so on so that's really what that's talking about and you know it's being driven by another factor I think which is a higher level factor. We started in the first 50 years of the IT industry was all about automating processes That ran the business they didn't change the business. They made it more efficient accounting systems etc since probably 2000 there's been a little bit of a shift Because of the web and mobile to say oh I can use this to change the relationship with my customer Customer in density I can use mobile and and I can change the banking business Maybe you don't ever come to the bank for cash anymore even to an ATM because they've changed that The wave that's starting now which is driving This is the realization in many organizations, and I truly believe eventually in all organizations that They can have new data-driven businesses That are transforming their fundamental view of their business so an example I would use is imagine a shoe maker a shoe manufacturer well for 50 years. They made better shoes They had better distribution, and they could do better inventory management and get better cost and all of that with IT in the last Seven or ten years, they've started to be able to build a relationship with their client. Maybe they put some Sensors in the shoe, and they're doing you know Fitbit like stuff mostly for them That was about a better client relationship, so they could sell better shoes cuz I wrench eiated now The next step is what happens if they wake up and say wait a minute We could take all this data and sell it to the insurance companies or healthcare companies or the city planners Because we now know where everyone's walking all the time That's a completely different business But that requires new kind of lytx that we can't almost not imagine in the current storage model so it drives these new architectures And there is one more prediction, okay? Which is that and it comes back again? It kind of closed the whole cycle as we see these Intelligence coming to the data and new processing forms and so on we also need a way to change data management to give us really Understanding of data through its whole lifecycle one of the one example would be how can I ensure? That I understand the chain of custody of data the example of an automobile there's an accent well How do I know that data was an alter or? how can I know whose touch this data along the way because I might have an audit trail and So we see the emergence of a new Distributed and mutable management framework if when I say those two words together you probably think Blockchain which is the right thing to think but it's not the blockchain. We know today there may be something It's something like that But it will be a distributed and immutable ledger that will give us new ways to access and understand our data Once you open up the once you open up Trying to get the metaphor once you decide to put the metadata next to the data Then you're going to decide to put a lot more control information in that metadata Exactly, so this is just an extension said it kind of closes the loop exactly Mark well, thanks so much for coming on the show and for talking about the future with us It was really fun to have you on the show we should come back in a year and see if maybe you're right exactly exactly Thank you. I'm Rebecca night. We will have more from NetApp insight. Just after this

(hopeful futuristic music) >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are really excited to have this cube conversation here in the Palo Alto studio with a real close friend of theCUBE, and repeat alumni, Leslie Berlin. I want to get her official title; she's the historian for the Silicon Valley archive at Stanford. Last time we talked to Leslie, she had just come out with a book about Robert Noyce, and the man behind the microchip. If you haven't seen that, go check it out. But now she's got a new book, it's called "Troublemakers," which is a really appropriate title. And it's really about kind of the next phase of Silicon Valley growth, and it's hitting bookstores. I'm sure you can buy it wherever you can buy any other book, and we're excited to have you on Leslie, great to see you again. >> So good to see you Jeff. >> Absolutely, so the last book you wrote was really just about Noyce, and obviously, Intel, very specific in, you know, the silicon in Silicon Valley obviously. >> Right yeah. >> This is a much, kind of broader history with again just great characters. I mean, it's a tech history book, but it's really a character novel; I love it. >> Well thanks, yeah; I mean, I really wanted to find people. They had to meet a few criteria. They had to be interesting, they had to be important, they had to be, in my book, a little unknown; and most important, they had to be super-duper interesting. >> Jeff Frick: Yeah. >> And what I love about this generation is I look at Noyce's generation of innovators, who sort of working in the... Are getting their start in the 60s. And they really kind of set the tone for the valley in a lot of ways, but the valley at that point was still just all about chips. And then you have this new generation show up in the 70s, and they come up with the personal computer, they come up with video games. They sort of launch the venture capital industry in the way we know it now. Biotech, the internet gets started via the ARPANET, and they kind of set the tone for where we are today around the world in this modern, sort of tech infused, life that we live. >> Right, right, and it's interesting to me, because there's so many things that kind of define what Silicon Valley is. And of course, people are trying to replicate it all over the place, all over the world. But really, a lot of those kind of attributes were started by this class of entrepreneurs. Like just venture capital, the whole concept of having kind of a high risk, high return, small carve out from an institution, to put in a tech venture with basically a PowerPoint and some faith was a brand new concept back in the day. >> Leslie Berlin: Yeah, and no PowerPoint even. >> Well that's right, no PowerPoint, which is probably a good thing. >> You're right, because we're talking about the 1970s. I mean, what's so, really was very surprising to me about this book, and really important for understanding early venture capital, is that now a lot of venture capitalists are professional investors. But these venture capitalists pretty much to a man, and they were all men at that point, they were all operating guys, all of them. They worked at Fairchild, they worked at Intel, they worked at HP; and that was really part of the value that they brought to these propositions was they had money, yes, but they also had done this before. >> Jeff Frick: Right. >> And that was really, really important. >> Right, another concept that kind of comes out, and I think we've seen it time and time again is kind of this partnership of kind of the crazy super enthusiastic visionary that maybe is hard to work with and drives everybody nuts, and then always kind of has the other person, again, generally a guy in this time still a lot, who's kind of the doer. And it was really the Bushnell-Alcorn story around Atari that really brought that home where you had this guy way out front of the curve but you have to have the person behind who's actually building the vision in real material. >> Yeah, I mean I think something that's really important to understand, and this is something that I was really trying to bring out in the book, is that we usually only have room in our stories for one person in the spotlight when innovation is a team sport. And so, the kind of relationship that you're talking about with Nolan Bushnell, who started Atari, and Al Alcorn who was the first engineer there, it's a great example of that. And Nolan is exactly this very out there person, big curly hair, talkative, outgoing guy. After Atari he starts Chuck E. Cheese, which kind of tells you everything you need to know about someone who's dreaming up Chuck E. Cheese, super creative, super out there, super fun oriented. And you have working with him, Al Alcorn, who's a very straight laced for the time, by which I mean, he tried LSD but only once. (cumulative laughing) Engineer, and I think that what's important to understand is how much they needed each other, because the stories are so often only about the exuberant out front guy. To understand that those are just dreams, they are not reality without these other people. And how important, I mean, Al Alcorn told me look, "I couldn't have done this without Nolan, "kind of constantly pushing me." >> Right, right. >> And then in the Apple example, you actually see a third really important person, which to me was possibly the most exciting part of everything I discovered, which was the importance of the guy named Mike Markkula. Because in Jobs you had the visionary, and in Woz you had the engineer, but the two of them together, they had an idea, they had a great product, the Apple II, but they didn't have a company. And when Mike Markkula shows up at the garage, you know, Steve Jobs is 21 years old. >> Jeff Frick: Right. >> He has had 17 months of business experience in his life, and it's all his attack for Atari, actually. And so how that company became a business is due to Mike Markkula, this very quiet guy, very, very ambitious guy. He talked them up from a thousand stock options at Intel to 20,000 stock options at Intel when he got there, just before the IPO, which is how he could then turn around and help finance >> Jeff Frick: Right. >> The birth of Apple. And he pulled into Apple all of the chip people that he had worked with, and that is really what turned Apple into a company. So you had the visionary, you had the tech guy, you also needed a business person. >> But it's funny though because in that story of his visit to the garage he's specifically taken by the engineering elegance of the board >> Leslie Berlin: Right. >> That Woz put together, which I thought was really neat. So yeah, he's a successful business man. Yes he was bringing a lot of kind of business acumen value to the opportunity, but what struck him, and he specifically talks about what chips he used, how he planned for the power supply. Just very elegant engineering stuff that touched him, and he could recognize that they were so far ahead of the curve. And I think that's such another interesting point is that things that we so take for granted like mice, and UI, and UX. I mean the Atari example, for them to even think of actually building it that would operate with a television was just, I mean you might as well go to Venus, forget Mars, I mean that was such a crazy idea. >> Yeah, I mean I think Al ran to Walgreens or something like that and just sort of picked out the closest t.v. to figure out how he could build what turned out to be Pong, the first super successful video game. And I mean, if you look also at another story I tell is about Xerox Park; and specifically about a guy named Bob Taylor, who, I know I keep saying, "Oh this might be my favorite part." But Bob Taylor is another incredible story. This is the guy who convinced DARPA to start, it was then called ARPA, to start the ARPANET, which became the internet in a lot of ways. And then he goes on and he starts the computer sciences lab at Xerox Park. And that is the lab that Steve Jobs comes to in 1979, and for the first time sees a GUI, sees a mouse, sees Windows. And this is... The history behind that, and these people all working together, these very sophisticated Ph.D. engineers were all working together under the guidance of Bob Taylor, a Texan with a drawl and a Master's Degree in Psychology. So what it takes to lead, I think, is a really interesting question that gets raised in this book. >> So another great personality, Sandra Kurtzig. >> Yeah. >> I had to look to see if she's still alive. She's still alive. >> Leslie Berlin: Yeah. >> I'd love to get her in some time, we'll have to arrange for that next time, but her story is pretty fascinating, because she's a woman, and we still have big women issues in the tech industry, and this is years ago, but she was aggressive, she was a fantastic sales person, and she could code. And what was really interesting is she started her own software company. The whole concept of software kind of separated from hardware was completely alien. She couldn't even convince the HP guys to let her have access to a machine to write basically an NRP system that would add a ton of value to these big, expensive machines that they were selling. >> Yeah, you know what's interesting, she was able to get access to the machine. And HP, this is not a well known part of HP's history, is how important it was in helping launch little bitty companies in the valley. It was a wonderful sort of... Benefited all these small companies. But she had to go and read to them the definition of what an OEM was to make an argument that I am adding value to your machines by putting software on it. And software was such an unknown concept. A, people who heard she was selling software thought she was selling lingerie. And B, Larry Ellison tells a hilarious story of going to talk to venture capitalists about... When he's trying to start Oracle, he had co-founders, which I'm not sure everybody knows. And he and his co-founders were going to try to start Oracle, and these venture capitalists would, he said, not only throw him out of the office for such a crazy idea, but their secretaries would double check that he hadn't stolen the copy of Business Week off the table because what kind of nut job are we talking to here? >> Software. >> Yeah, where as now, I mean when you think about it, this is software valley. >> Right, right, it's software, even, world. There's so many great stories, again, "Troublemakers" just go out and get it wherever you buy a book. The whole recombinant DNA story and the birth of Genentech, A, is interesting, but I think the more kind of unique twist was the guy at Stanford, who really took it upon himself to take the commercialization of academic, generated, basic research to a whole 'nother level that had never been done. I guess it was like a sleepy little something in Manhattan they would send some paper to, but this guy took it to a whole 'nother level. >> Oh yeah, I mean before Niels showed up, Niels Reimers, he I believe that Stanford had made something like $3,000 off of the IP from its professors and students in the previous decades, and Niels said "There had to be a better way to do this." And he's the person who decided, we ought to be able to patent recombinant DNA. And one of the stories that's very, very interesting is what a cultural shift that required, whereas engineers had always thought in terms of, "How can this be practical?" For biologists this was seen as really an unpleasant thing to be doing, don't think about that we're about basic research. So in addition to having to convince all sorts of government agencies and the University of California system, which co-patented this, to make it possible, just almost on a paperwork level... >> Right. >> He had to convince the scientists themselves. And it was not a foregone conclusion, and a lot of people think that what kept the two named co-inventors of recombinant DNA, Stan Cohen and Herb Boyer, from winning the Nobel Prize is that they were seen as having benefited from the work of others, but having claimed all the credit, which is not, A, isn't fair, and B, both of those men had worried about that from the very beginning and kept saying, "We need to make sure that this includes everyone." >> Right. >> But that's not just the origins of the biotech industry in the valley, the entire landscape of how universities get their ideas to the public was transformed, and that whole story, there are these ideas that used to be in university labs, used to be locked up in the DOD, like you know, the ARPANET. And this is the time when those ideas start making their way out in a significant way. >> But it's this elegant dance, because it's basic research, and they want it to benefit all, but then you commercialize it, right? And then it's benefiting the few. But if you don't commercialize it and it doesn't get out, you really don't benefit very many. So they really had to walk this fine line to kind of serve both masters. >> Absolutely, and I mean it was even more complicated than that, because researchers didn't have to pay for it, it was... The thing that's amazing to me is that we look back at these people and say, "Oh these are trailblazers." And when I talked to them, because something that was really exciting about this book was that I got to talk to every one of the primary characters, you talk to them, and they say, "I was just putting one foot in front of the other." It's only when you sort of look behind them years later that you see, "Oh my God, they forged a completely new trail." But here it was just, "No I need to get to here, "and now I need to get to here." And that's what helped them get through. That's why I start the book with the quote from Raiders of the Lost Ark where Sallah asks Indy, you know basically, how are you going to stop, "Stop that car." And he says, "How are you going to do it Indy?" And Indy says, "I don't know "I'm making it up as I go along." And that really could almost be a theme in a lot of cases here that they knew where they needed to get to, and they just had to make it up to get there. >> Yeah, and there's a whole 'nother tranche on the Genentech story; they couldn't get all of the financing, so they actually used outsourcing, you know, so that whole kind of approach to business, which was really new and innovative. But we're running out of time, and I wanted to follow up on the last comment that you made. As a historian, you know, you are so fortunate or smart to pick your field that you can talk to the individual. So, I think you said, you've been doing interviews for five or six years for this book, it's 100 pages of notes in the back, don't miss the notes. >> But also don't think the book's too long. >> No, it's a good book, it's an easy read. But as you reflect on these individuals and these personalities, so there's obviously the stories you spent a lot of time writing about, but I'm wondering if there's some things that you see over and over again that just impress you. Is there a pattern, or is it just, as you said, just people working hard, putting one step in front of the other, and taking those risks that in hindsight are so big? >> I would say, I would point to a few things. I'd point to audacity; there really is a certain kind of adventurousness, at an almost unimaginable level, and persistence. I would also point to a third feature at that time that I think was really important, which was for a purpose that was creative. You know, I mean there was the notion, I think the metaphor of pioneering is much more what they were doing then what we would necessarily... Today we would call it disruption, and I think there's a difference there. And their vision was creative, I think of them as rebels with a cause. >> Right, right; is disruption the right... Is disruption, is that the right way that we should be thinking about it today or are just kind of backfilling the disruption after the fact that it happens do you think? >> I don't know, I mean I've given this a lot of thought, because I actually think, well, you know, the valley at this point, two-thirds of the people who are working in the tech industry in the valley were born outside of this country right now, actually 76 percent of the women. >> Jeff Frick: 76 percent? Wow. >> 76 percent of the women, I think it's age 25 to 44 working in tech were born outside of the United States. Okay, so the pioneering metaphor, that's just not the right metaphor anymore. The disruptive metaphor has a lot of the same concepts, but it has, it sounds to me more like blowing things up, and doesn't really thing so far as to, "Okay, what comes next?" >> Jeff Frick: Right, right. >> And I think we have to be sure that we continue to do that. >> Right, well because clearly, I mean, the Facebooks are the classic example where, you know, when he built that thing at Harvard, it was not to build a new platform that was going to have the power to disrupt global elections. You're trying to get dates, right? I mean, it was pretty simple. >> Right. >> Simple concept and yet, as you said, by putting one foot in front of the other as things roll out, he gets smart people, they see opportunities and take advantage of it, it becomes a much different thing, as has Google, as has Amazon. >> That's the way it goes, that's exactly... I mean, and you look back at the chip industry. These guys just didn't want to work for a boss they didn't like, and they wanted to build a transistor. And 20 years later a huge portion of the U.S. economy rests on the decisions they're making and the choices. And so I think this has been a continuous story in Silicon Valley. People start with a cool, small idea and it just grows so fast among them and around them with other people contributing, some people they wish didn't contribute, okay then what comes next? >> Jeff Frick: Right, right. >> That's what we figure out now. >> All right, audacity, creativity and persistence. Did I get it? >> And a goal. >> And a goal, and a goal. Pong, I mean was a great goal. (cumulative laughing) All right, so Leslie, thanks for taking a few minutes. Congratulations on the book; go out, get the book, you will not be disappointed. And of course, the Bob Noyce book is awesome as well, so... >> Thanks. >> Thanks for taking a few minutes and congratulations. >> Thank you so much Jeff. >> All right this is Leslie Berlin, I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching theCUBE. See you next time, thanks for watching. (electronic music)