(upbeat intro music) >> Hello everyone. Welcome to theCUBE's coverage of International Women's Day. I'm your host, John Furrier, here in Palo Alto, California. Got a special remote guest coming in. Teresa Carlson, President and Chief Commercial Officer at Flexport, theCUBE alumni, one of the first, let me go back to 2013, Teresa, former AWS. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. >> Oh my gosh, almost 10 years. That is unbelievable. It's hard to believe so many years of theCUBE. I love it. >> It's been such a great honor to interview you and follow your career. You've had quite the impressive run, executive level woman in tech. You've done such an amazing job, not only in your career, but also helping other women. So I want to give you props to that before we get started. Thank you. >> Thank you, John. I, it's my, it's been my honor and privilege. >> Let's talk about Flexport. Tell us about your new role there and what it's all about. >> Well, I love it. I'm back working with another Amazonian, Dave Clark, who is our CEO of Flexport, and we are about 3,000 people strong globally in over 90 countries. We actually even have, we're represented in over 160 cities and with local governments and places around the world, which I think is super exciting. We have over 100 network partners and growing, and we are about empowering the global supply chain and trade and doing it in a very disruptive way with the use of platform technology that allows our customers to really have visibility and insight to what's going on. And it's a lot of fun. I'm learning new things, but there's a lot of technology in this as well, so I feel right at home. >> You quite have a knack from mastering growth, technology, and building out companies. So congratulations, and scaling them up too with the systems and processes. So I want to get into that. Let's get into your personal background. Then I want to get into the work you've done and are doing for empowering women in tech. What was your journey about, how did it all start? Like, I know you had a, you know, bumped into it, you went Microsoft, AWS. Take us through your career, how you got into tech, how it all happened. >> Well, I do like to give a shout out, John, to my roots and heritage, which was a speech and language pathologist. So I did start out in healthcare right out of, you know, university. I had an undergraduate and a master's degree. And I do tell everyone now, looking back at my career, I think it was super helpful for me because I learned a lot about human communication, and it has done me very well over the years to really try to understand what environments I'm in and what kind of individuals around the world culturally. So I'm really blessed that I had that opportunity to work in healthcare, and by the way, a shout out to all of our healthcare workers that has helped us get through almost three years of COVID and flu and neurovirus and everything else. So started out there and then kind of almost accidentally got into technology. My first small company I worked for was a company called Keyfile Corporation, which did workflow and document management out of Nashua, New Hampshire. And they were a Microsoft goal partner. And that is actually how I got into big tech world. We ran on exchange, for everybody who knows that term exchange, and we were a large small partner, but large in the world of exchange. And those were the days when you would, the late nineties, you would go and be in the same room with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. And I really fell in love with Microsoft back then. I thought to myself, wow, if I could work for a big tech company, I got to hear Bill on stage about saving, he would talk about saving the world. And guess what my next step was? I actually got a job at Microsoft, took a pay cut and a job downgrade. I tell this story all the time. Took like three downgrades in my role. I had been a SVP and went to a manager, and it's one of the best moves I ever made. And I shared that because I really didn't know the world of big tech, and I had to start from the ground up and relearn it. I did that, I just really loved that job. I was at Microsoft from 2000 to 2010, where I eventually ran all of the U.S. federal government business, which was a multi-billion dollar business. And then I had the great privilege of meeting an amazing man, Andy Jassy, who I thought was just unbelievable in his insights and knowledge and openness to understanding new markets. And we talked about government and how government needed the same great technology as every startup. And that led to me going to work for Andy in 2010 and starting up our worldwide public sector business. And I pinch myself some days because we went from two people, no offices, to the time I left we had over 10,000 people, billions in revenue, and 172 countries and had done really amazing work. I think changing the way public sector and government globally really thought about their use of technology and Cloud computing in general. And that kind of has been my career. You know, I was there till 2020, 21 and then did a small stint at Splunk, a small stint back at Microsoft doing a couple projects for Microsoft with CEO, Satya Nadella, who is also an another amazing CEO and leader. And then Dave called me, and I'm at Flexport, so I couldn't be more honored, John. I've just had such an amazing career working with amazing individuals. >> Yeah, I got to say the Amazon One well-documented, certainly by theCUBE and our coverage. We watched you rise and scale that thing. And like I said at a time, this will when we look back as a historic run because of the build out. I mean as a zero to massive billions at a historic time where government was transforming, I would say Microsoft had a good run there with Fed, but it was already established stuff. Federal business was like, you know, blocking and tackling. The Amazon was pure build out. So I have to ask you, what was your big learnings? Because one, you're a Seattle big tech company kind of entrepreneurial in the sense of you got, here's some working capital seed finance and go build that thing, and you're in DC and you're a woman. What did you learn? >> I learned that you really have to have a lot of grit. You, my mom and dad, these are kind of more southern roots words, but stick with itness, you know. you can't give up and no's not in your vocabulary. I found no is just another way to get to yes. That you have to figure out what are all the questions people are going to ask you. I learned to be very patient, and I think one of the things John, for us was our secret sauce was we said to ourselves, if we're going to do something super transformative and truly disruptive, like Cloud computing, which the government really had not utilized, we had to be patient. We had to answer all their questions, and we could not judge in any way what they were thinking because if we couldn't answer all those questions and prove out the capabilities of Cloud computing, we were not going to accomplish our goals. And I do give so much credit to all my colleagues there from everybody like Steve Schmidt who was there, who's still there, who's the CISO, and Charlie Bell and Peter DeSantis and the entire team there that just really helped build that business out. Without them, you know, we would've just, it was a team effort. And I think that's the thing I loved about it was it was not just sales, it was product, it was development, it was data center operations, it was legal, finance. Everybody really worked as a team and we were on board that we had to make a lot of changes in the government relations team. We had to go into Capitol Hill. We had to talk to them about the changes that were required and really get them to understand why Cloud computing could be such a transformative game changer for the way government operates globally. >> Well, I think the whole world and the tech world can appreciate your work and thank you later because you broke down those walls asking those questions. So great stuff. Now I got to say, you're in kind of a similar role at Flexport. Again, transformative supply chain, not new. Computing wasn't new when before Cloud came. Supply chain, not a new concept, is undergoing radical change and transformation. Online, software supply chain, hardware supply chain, supply chain in general, shipping. This is a big part of our economy and how life is working. Similar kind of thing going on, build out, growth, scale. >> It is, it's very much like that, John, I would say, it's, it's kind of a, the model with freight forwarding and supply chain is fairly, it's not as, there's a lot of technology utilized in this global supply chain world, but it's not integrated. You don't have a common operating picture of what you're doing in your global supply chain. You don't have easy access to the information and visibility. And that's really, you know, I was at a conference last week in LA, and it was, the themes were so similar about transparency, access to data and information, being able to act quickly, drive change, know what was happening. I was like, wow, this sounds familiar. Data, AI, machine learning, visibility, common operating picture. So it is very much the same kind of themes that you heard even with government. I do believe it's an industry that is going through transformation and Flexport has been a group that's come in and said, look, we have this amazing idea, number one to give access to everyone. We want every small business to every large business to every government around the world to be able to trade their goods, think about supply chain logistics in a very different way with information they need and want at their fingertips. So that's kind of thing one, but to apply that technology in a way that's very usable across all systems from an integration perspective. So it's kind of exciting. I used to tell this story years ago, John, and I don't think Michael Dell would mind that I tell this story. One of our first customers when I was at Keyfile Corporation was we did workflow and document management, and Dell was one of our customers. And I remember going out to visit them, and they had runners and they would run around, you know, they would run around the floor and do their orders, right, to get all those computers out the door. And when I think of global trade, in my mind I still see runners, you know, running around and I think that's moved to a very digital, right, world that all this stuff, you don't need people doing this. You have machines doing this now, and you have access to the information, and you know, we still have issues resulting from COVID where we have either an under-abundance or an over-abundance of our supply chain. We still have clogs in our shipping, in the shipping yards around the world. So we, and the ports, so we need to also, we still have some clearing to do. And that's the reason technology is important and will continue to be very important in this world of global trade. >> Yeah, great, great impact for change. I got to ask you about Flexport's inclusion, diversity, and equity programs. What do you got going on there? That's been a big conversation in the industry around keeping a focus on not making one way more than the other, but clearly every company, if they don't have a strong program, will be at a disadvantage. That's well reported by McKinsey and other top consultants, diverse workforces, inclusive, equitable, all perform better. What's Flexport's strategy and how are you guys supporting that in the workplace? >> Well, let me just start by saying really at the core of who I am, since the day I've started understanding that as an individual and a female leader, that I could have an impact. That the words I used, the actions I took, the information that I pulled together and had knowledge of could be meaningful. And I think each and every one of us is responsible to do what we can to make our workplace and the world a more diverse and inclusive place to live and work. And I've always enjoyed kind of the thought that, that I could help empower women around the world in the tech industry. Now I'm hoping to do my little part, John, in that in the supply chain and global trade business. And I would tell you at Flexport we have some amazing women. I'm so excited to get to know all. I've not been there that long yet, but I'm getting to know we have some, we have a very diverse leadership team between men and women at Dave's level. I have some unbelievable women on my team directly that I'm getting to know more, and I'm so impressed with what they're doing. And this is a very, you know, while this industry is different than the world I live in day to day, it's also has a lot of common themes to it. So, you know, for us, we're trying to approach every day by saying, let's make sure both our interviewing cycles, the jobs we feel, how we recruit people, how we put people out there on the platforms, that we have diversity and inclusion and all of that every day. And I can tell you from the top, from Dave and all of our leaders, we just had an offsite and we had a big conversation about this is something. It's a drum beat that we have to think about and live by every day and really check ourselves on a regular basis. But I do think there's so much more room for women in the world to do great things. And one of the, one of the areas, as you know very well, we lost a lot of women during COVID, who just left the workforce again. So we kind of went back unfortunately. So we have to now move forward and make sure that we are giving women the opportunity to have great jobs, have the flexibility they need as they build a family, and have a workplace environment that is trusted for them to come into every day. >> There's now clear visibility, at least in today's world, not withstanding some of the setbacks from COVID, that a young girl can look out in a company and see a path from entry level to the boardroom. That's a big change. A lot than even going back 10, 15, 20 years ago. What's your advice to the folks out there that are paying it forward? You see a lot of executive leaderships have a seat at the table. The board still underrepresented by most numbers, but at least you have now kind of this solidarity at the top, but a lot of people doing a lot more now than I've seen at the next levels down. So now you have this leveled approach. Is that something that you're seeing more of? And credit compare and contrast that to 20 years ago when you were, you know, rising through the ranks? What's different? >> Well, one of the main things, and I honestly do not think about it too much, but there were really no women. There were none. When I showed up in the meetings, I literally, it was me or not me at the table, but at the seat behind the table. The women just weren't in the room, and there were so many more barriers that we had to push through, and that has changed a lot. I mean globally that has changed a lot in the U.S. You know, if you look at just our U.S. House of Representatives and our U.S. Senate, we now have the increasing number of women. Even at leadership levels, you're seeing that change. You have a lot more women on boards than we ever thought we would ever represent. While we are not there, more female CEOs that I get an opportunity to see and talk to. Women starting companies, they do not see the barriers. And I will share, John, globally in the U.S. one of the things that I still see that we have that many other countries don't have, which I'm very proud of, women in the U.S. have a spirit about them that they just don't see the barriers in the same way. They believe that they can accomplish anything. I have two sons, I don't have daughters. I have nieces, and I'm hoping someday to have granddaughters. But I know that a lot of my friends who have granddaughters today talk about the boldness, the fortitude, that they believe that there's nothing they can't accomplish. And I think that's what what we have to instill in every little girl out there, that they can accomplish anything they want to. The world is theirs, and we need to not just do that in the U.S., but around the world. And it was always the thing that struck me when I did all my travels at AWS and now with Flexport, I'm traveling again quite a bit, is just the differences you see in the cultures around the world. And I remember even in the Middle East, how I started seeing it change. You've heard me talk a lot on this program about the fact in both Saudi and Bahrain, over 60% of the tech workers were females and most of them held the the hardest jobs, the security, the architecture, the engineering. But many of them did not hold leadership roles. And that is what we've got to change too. To your point, the middle, we want it to get bigger, but the top, we need to get bigger. We need to make sure women globally have opportunities to hold the most precious leadership roles and demonstrate their capabilities at the very top. But that's changed. And I would say the biggest difference is when we show up, we're actually evaluated properly for those kind of roles. We have a ways to go. But again, that part is really changing. >> Can you share, Teresa, first of all, that's great work you've done and I wan to give you props of that as well and all the work you do. I know you champion a lot of, you know, causes in in this area. One question that comes up a lot, I would love to get your opinion 'cause I think you can contribute heavily here is mentoring and sponsorship is huge, comes up all the time. What advice would you share to folks out there who were, I won't say apprehensive, but maybe nervous about how to do the networking and sponsorship and mentoring? It's not just mentoring, it's sponsorship too. What's your best practice? What advice would you give for the best way to handle that? >> Well yeah, and for the women out there, I would say on the mentorship side, I still see mentorship. Like, I don't think you can ever stop having mentorship. And I like to look at my mentors in different parts of my life because if you want to be a well-rounded person, you may have parts of your life every day that you think I'm doing a great job here and I definitely would like to do better there. Whether it's your spiritual life, your physical life, your work life, you know, your leisure life. But I mean there's, and there's parts of my leadership world that I still seek advice from as I try to do new things even in this world. And I tried some new things in between roles. I went out and asked the people that I respected the most. So I just would say for sure have different mentorships and don't be afraid to have that diversity. But if you have mentorships, the second important thing is show up with a real agenda and questions. Don't waste people's time. I'm very sensitive today. If you're, if you want a mentor, you show up and you use your time super effectively and be prepared for that. Sponsorship is a very different thing. And I don't believe we actually do that still in companies. We worked, thank goodness for my great HR team. When I was at AWS, we worked on a few sponsorship programs where for diversity in general, where we would nominate individuals in the company that we felt that weren't, that had a lot of opportunity for growth, but they just weren't getting a seat at the table. And we brought 'em to the table. And we actually kind of had a Chatham House rules where when they came into the meetings, they had a sponsor, not a mentor. They had a sponsor that was with them the full 18 months of this program. We would bring 'em into executive meetings. They would read docs, they could ask questions. We wanted them to be able to open up and ask crazy questions without, you know, feeling wow, I just couldn't answer this question in a normal environment or setting. And then we tried to make sure once they got through the program that we found jobs and support and other special projects that they could go do. But they still had that sponsor and that group of individuals that they'd gone through the program with, John, that they could keep going back to. And I remember sitting there and they asked me what I wanted to get out of the program, and I said two things. I want you to leave this program and say to yourself, I would've never had that experience if I hadn't gone through this program. I learned so much in 18 months. It would probably taken me five years to learn. And that it helped them in their career. The second thing I told them is I wanted them to go out and recruit individuals that look like them. I said, we need diversity, and unless you all feel that we are in an inclusive environment sponsoring all types of individuals to be part of this company, we're not going to get the job done. And they said, okay. And you know, but it was really one, it was very much about them. That we took a group of individuals that had high potential and a very diverse with diverse backgrounds, held 'em up, taught 'em things that gave them access. And two, selfishly I said, I want more of you in my business. Please help me. And I think those kind of things are helpful, and you have to be thoughtful about these kind of programs. And to me that's more sponsorship. I still have people reach out to me from years ago, you know, Microsoft saying, you were so good with me, can you give me a reference now? Can you talk to me about what I should be doing? And I try to, I'm not pray 100%, some things pray fall through the cracks, but I always try to make the time to talk to those individuals because for me, I am where I am today because I got some of the best advice from people like Don Byrne and Linda Zecker and Andy Jassy, who were very honest and upfront with me about my career. >> Awesome. Well, you got a passion for empowering women in tech, paying it forward, but you're quite accomplished and that's why we're so glad to have you on the program here. President and Chief Commercial Officer at Flexport. Obviously storied career and your other jobs, specifically Amazon I think, is historic in my mind. This next chapter looks like it's looking good right now. Final question for you, for the few minutes you have left. Tell us what you're up to at Flexport. What's your goals as President, Chief Commercial Officer? What are you trying to accomplish? Share a little bit, what's on your mind with your current job? >> Well, you kind of said it earlier. I think if I look at my own superpowers, I love customers, I love partners. I get my energy, John, from those interactions. So one is to come in and really help us build even a better world class enterprise global sales and marketing team. Really listen to our customers, think about how we interact with them, build the best executive programs we can, think about new ways that we can offer services to them and create new services. One of my favorite things about my career is I think if you're a business leader, it's your job to come back around and tell your product group and your services org what you're hearing from customers. That's how you can be so much more impactful, that you listen, you learn, and you deliver. So that's one big job. The second job for me, which I am so excited about, is that I have an amazing group called flexport.org under me. And flexport.org is doing amazing things around the world to help those in need. We just announced this new funding program for Tech for Refugees, which brings assistance to millions of people in Ukraine, Pakistan, the horn of Africa, and those who are affected by earthquakes. We just took supplies into Turkey and Syria, and Flexport, recently in fact, just did sent three air shipments to Turkey and Syria for these. And I think we did over a hundred trekking shipments to get earthquake relief. And as you can imagine, it was not easy to get into Syria. But you know, we're very active in the Ukraine, and we are, our goal for flexport.org, John, is to continue to work with our commercial customers and team up with them when they're trying to get supplies in to do that in a very cost effective, easy way, as quickly as we can. So that not-for-profit side of me that I'm so, I'm so happy. And you know, Ryan Peterson, who was our founder, this was his brainchild, and he's really taken this to the next level. So I'm honored to be able to pick that up and look for new ways to have impact around the world. And you know, I've always found that I think if you do things right with a company, you can have a beautiful combination of commercial-ity and giving. And I think Flexport does it in such an amazing and unique way. >> Well, the impact that they have with their system and their technology with logistics and shipping and supply chain is a channel for societal change. And I think that's a huge gift that you have that under your purview. So looking forward to finding out more about flexport.org. I can only imagine all the exciting things around sustainability, and we just had Mobile World Congress for Big Cube Broadcast, 5Gs right around the corner. I'm sure that's going to have a huge impact to your business. >> Well, for sure. And just on gas emissions, that's another thing that we are tracking gas, greenhouse gas emissions. And in fact we've already reduced more than 300,000 tons and supported over 600 organizations doing that. So that's a thing we're also trying to make sure that we're being climate aware and ensuring that we are doing the best job we can at that as well. And that was another thing I was honored to be able to do when we were at AWS, is to really cut out greenhouse gas emissions and really go global with our climate initiatives. >> Well Teresa, it's great to have you on. Security, data, 5G, sustainability, business transformation, AI all coming together to change the game. You're in another hot seat, hot roll, big wave. >> Well, John, it's an honor, and just thank you again for doing this and having women on and really representing us in a big way as we celebrate International Women's Day. >> I really appreciate it, it's super important. And these videos have impact, so we're going to do a lot more. And I appreciate your leadership to the industry and thank you so much for taking the time to contribute to our effort. Thank you, Teresa. >> Thank you. Thanks everybody. >> Teresa Carlson, the President and Chief Commercial Officer of Flexport. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. This is International Women's Day broadcast. Thanks for watching. (upbeat outro music)

>>the Cube presents H P E discovered 2022. Brought to you by H P E. >>Hi, buddy Dave Balon and Jon Ferrier Wrapping up the cubes. Coverage of day two, hp Discover 2022. We're live from Las Vegas. Vishal Lall is here. He's the senior vice president and general manager for HP ES Green Lake Cloud Services Solutions. Michelle, good to see you again. >>Likewise. David, good to see you. It was about a year ago that we met here. Or maybe nine months >>ago. That's right. Uh, September of last year. A new role >>for you. Is that right? I was starting that new role when I last met you. Yeah, but it's been nine months. Three quarters? What have you learned so far? I mean, it's been quite a right, right? I mean, when I was starting off, I had, you know, about three priorities we've executed on on all of them. So, I mean, if you remember back then they we talked about, you know, improving a cloud experience. We talked about data and analytics being a focus area and then building on the marketplace. I think you heard a lot of that over the last couple of days here. Right? So we've enhanced our cloud experience. We added a private cloud, which was the big announcement yesterday or day before yesterday that Antonio made so that's been I mean, we've been testing that with customers. Great feedback so far. Right? And we're super excited about that. And, uh, you know, uh, down there, the test drive section people are testing that. So we're getting really, really good feedback. Really good acceptance from customers on the data and Analytics side. We you know, we launched the S three connector. We also had the analytics platform. And then we launched data fabric as a service a couple of days ago, right, which is kind of like back into that hybrid world. And then on the marketplace side, we've added a tonne of partners going deep with them about 80 plus partners now different SVS. So again, I think, uh, great. I think we've accomplished a lot over the last three quarters or so lot more to be done. Though >>the marketplace is really interesting to us because it's a hallmark of cloud. You've got to have a market price. Talk about how that's evolving and what your vision is for market. Yes, >>you're exactly right. I mean, having a broad marketplace provides a full for the platform, right? It's a chicken and egg. You need both. You need a good platform on which a good marketplace can set, but the vice versa as well. And what we're doing two things there, Right? One Is we expanding coverage of the marketplace. So we're adding more SVS into the marketplace. But at the same time, we're adding more capabilities into the marketplace. So, for example, we just demoed earlier today quickly deploy capabilities, right? So we have an I S p in the marketplace, they're tested. They are, uh, the work with the solution. But now you can you can collect to deploy directly on our infrastructure over time, the lad, commerce capabilities, licencing capabilities, etcetera. But again, we are super excited about that capability because I think it's important from a customer perspective. >>I want to ask you about that, because that's again the marketplace will be the ultimate arbiter of value creation, ecosystem and marketplace. Go hand in hand. What's your vision for what a successful ecosystem looks like? What's your expectation now that Green Lake is up and running. I stay up and running, but like we've been following the announcement, it just gets better. It's up to the right. So we're anticipating an ecosystem surge. Yeah. What are you expecting? And what's your vision for? How the ecosystem is going to develop out? Yeah. I >>mean, I've been meeting with a lot of our partners over the last couple of days, and you're right, right? I mean, I think of them in three or four buckets right there. I s V s and the I S P is coming to two forms right there. Bigger solutions, right? I think of being Nutanix, right, Home wall, big, bigger solutions. And then they are smaller software packages. I think Mom would think about open source, right? So again, one of them is targeted to developers, the other to the I t. Tops. But that's kind of one bucket, right? I s P s, uh, the second is around the channel partners who take this to market and they're asking us, Hey, this is fantastic. Help us understand how we can help you take this to market. And I think the other bucket system indicators right. I met with a few today and they're all excited about. They're like, Hey, we have some tooling. We have the manage services capabilities. How can we take your cloud? Because they build great practise around extent around. Sorry. Aws around? Uh, sure. So they're like, how can we build a similar practise around Green Lake? So again, those are the big buckets. I would say. Yeah, >>that's a great answer. Great commentary. I want to just follow up on that real quick. You don't mind? So a couple things we're seeing observing I want to get your reaction to is with a i machine learning. And the promise of that vertical specialisation is creating unique opportunities on with these platforms. And the other one is the rise of the managed service provider because expertise are hard to come by. You want kubernetes? Good luck finding talent. So managed services seem to be exploding. How does that fit into the buckets? Or is it all three buckets or you guys enable that? How do you see that coming? And then the vertical piece? >>A really good question. What we're doing is through our software, we're trying to abstract a lot of the complexity of take communities, right? So we are actually off. We have actually automated a whole bunch of communities functionality in our software, and then we provide managed services around it with very little. I would say human labour associated with it is is software manage? But at the same time we are. What we are trying to do is make sure that we enable that same functionality to our partners. So a lot of it is software automation, but then they can wrap their services around it, and that way we can scale the business right. So again, our first principle is automated as much as we can to software right abstract complexity and then as needed, uh, at the Manus Services. >>So you get some functionality for HP to have it and then encourage the ecosystem to fill it in or replicated >>or replicated, right? I mean, I don't think it's either or it should be both right. We can provide many services or we should have our our partners provide manage services. That's how we scale the business. We are the end of the day. We are product and product company, right, and it can manifest itself and services. That discussion was consumed, but it's still I p based. So >>let's quantify, you know, some of that momentum. I think the last time you call your over $800 million now in a are are you gotta You're growing at triple digits. Uh, you got a big backlog. Forget the exact number. Uh, give us a I >>mean, the momentum is fantastic Day. Right. So we have about $7 billion in total contract value, Right? Significant. We have 1600 customers now. Unique customers are running Green Lake. We have, um, your triple dip growth year over year. So the last quarter, we had 100% growth year over year. So again, fantastic momentum. I mean, the other couple, like one other metric I would like to talk about is the, um the stickiness factor associated tension in our retention, right? As renewal's is running in, like, high nineties, right? So if you think about it, that's a reflection of the value proposition of, like, >>that's that's kind of on a unit basis, if you will. That's the number >>on the revenue basis on >>revenue basis. Okay? >>And the 1600 customers. He's talking about the size and actually big numbers. Must be large companies that are. They're >>both right. So I'll give you some examples, right? So I mean, there are large companies. They come from different industries. Different geography is we're seeing, like, the momentum across every single geo, every single industry. I mean, just to take some examples. BMW, for example. Uh, I mean, they're running the entire electrical electric car fleet data collection on data fabric on Green Lake, right? Texas Children's Health on the on the healthcare side. Right On the public sector side, I was with with Carl Hunt yesterday. He's the CEO of County of Essex, New Jersey. So they are running the entire operations on Green Lake. So just if you look at it, Barclays the financial sector, right? I mean, they're running 100,000 workloads of three legs. So if you just look at the scale large companies, small companies, public sector in India, we have Steel Authority of India, which is the largest steel producer there. So, you know, we're seeing it across multiple industries. Multiple geography is great. Great uptake. >>Yeah. We were talking yesterday on our wrap up kind of dissecting through the news. I want to ask you the question that we were riffing on and see if we can get some clarity on it. If I'm a customer, CI or C so or buyer HP have been working with you or your team for for years. What's the value proposition? Finish this sentence. I work with HPV because blank because green like, brings new value proposition. What is that? Fill in that blank for >>me. So I mean, as we, uh, talked with us speaking with customers, customers are looking at alternatives at all times, right? Sometimes there's other providers on premises, sometimes as public cloud. And, uh, as we look at it, uh, I mean, we have value propositions across both. Right. So from a public cloud perspective, some of the challenges that our customers cr around latency around, uh, post predictability, right? That variability cost is really kind of like a challenge. It's around compliance, right? Uh, things of that nature is not open systems, right? I mean, sometimes, you know, they feel locked into a cloud provider, especially when they're using proprietary services. So those are some of the things that we have solved for them as compared to kind of like, you know, the other on premises vendors. I would say the marketplace that we spoke about earlier is huge differentiator. We have this huge marketplace. Now that's developing. Uh, we have high levels of automation that we have built, right, which is, uh, you know, which tells you about the TCO that we can drive for the customers. What? The other thing that is really cool that be introduced in the public in the private cloud is fungible itty across infrastructure. Right? So basically on the same infrastructure you can run. Um, virtual machines, containers, bare metals, any application he wants, you can decommission and commission the infrastructure on the fly. So what it does, is it no matter where it is? Uh, on premises, right? Yeah, earlier. I mean, if you think about it, the infrastructure was dedicated for a certain application. Now we're basically we have basically made it compose herbal, right? And that way, what? Really? Uh, that doesnt increases utilisation so you can get increased utilisation. High automation. What drives lower tco. So you've got a >>horizontal basically platform now that handle a variety of work and >>and these were close. Can sit anywhere to your point, right? I mean, we could have a four node workload out in a manufacturing setting multiple racks in a data centre, and it's all run by the same cloud prints, same software train. So it's really extensive. >>And you can call on the resources that you need for that particular workload. >>Exactly what you need them exactly. Right. >>Excellent. Give you the last word kind of takeaways from Discover. And where when we talk, when we sit down and talk next year, it's about where do you want to be? >>I mean, you know, I think, as you probably saw from discovered, this is, like, very different. Antonio did a live demo of our product, right? Uh, visual school, right? I mean, we haven't done that in a while, so I mean, you started. It >>didn't die like Bill Gates and demos. No, >>no, no, no. I think, uh, so I think you'll see more of that from us. I mean, I'm focused on three things, right? I'm focused on the cloud experience we spoke about. So what we are doing now is making sure that we increase the time for that, uh, make it very, you know, um, attractive to different industries to certifications like HIPAA, etcetera. So that's kind of one focus. So I just drive harder at that adoption of that of the private out, right across different industries and different customer segments. The second is more on the data and analytics I spoke about. You will have more and more analytic capabilities that you'll see, um, building upon data fabric as a service. And this is a marketplace. So that's like it's very specific is the three focus areas were driving hard. All right, we'll be watching >>number two. Instrumentation is really keen >>in the marketplace to I mean, you mentioned Mongo. Some other data platforms that we're going to see here. That's going to be, I think. Critical for Monetisation on the on on Green Lake. Absolutely. Uh, Michelle, thanks so much for coming back in the Cube. >>Thank you. Thanks for coming. All >>right, keep it right. There will be John, and I'll be back up to wrap up the day with a couple of heavies from I d. C. You're watching the cube. Mhm. Mm mm. Mhm.

>> From "theCUBE" studios in Palo Alto, in Boston, bringing you data driven insights from "theCUBE" and ETR. This is "Breaking Analysis" with Dave Vellante. >> There are very few political issues that get bipartisan support these days, nevermind consensus spanning geopolitical boundaries. But whether we're talking across the aisle or over the pond, there seems to be common agreement that the power of big tech firms should be regulated. But the government's track record when it comes to antitrust aimed at big tech is actually really mixed, mixed at best. History has shown that market forces rather than public policy have been much more effective at curbing monopoly power in the technology industry. Hello, and welcome to this week's "Wikibon CUBE" insights powered by ETR. In this "Breaking Analysis" we welcome in frequent "CUBE" contributor Dave Moschella, author and senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Dave, welcome, good to see you again. >> Hey, thanks Dave, good to be here. >> So you just recently published an article, we're going to bring it up here and I'll read the title, "Theory Aside, Antitrust Advocates Should Keep Their "Big Tech" Ambitions Narrow". And in this post you argue that big sweeping changes like breaking apart companies to moderate monopoly power in the tech industry have been ineffective compared to market forces, but you're not saying government shouldn't be involved rather you're suggesting that more targeted measures combined with market forces are the right answer. Can you maybe explain a little bit more the premise behind your research and some of your conclusions? >> Sure, and first let's go back to that title, when I said, theory aside, that is referring to a huge debate that's going on in global antitrust circles these days about whether antitrust should follow the traditional path of being invoked when there's real harm, demonstrable harm to consumers or a new theory that says that any sort of vast monopoly power inevitably will be bad for competition and consumers at some point, so your best to intervene now to avoid harms later. And that school, which was a very minor part of the antitrust world for many, many years is now quite ascendant and the debate goes on doesn't matter which side of that you're on the questions sort of there well, all right, well, if you're going to do something to take on big tech and clearly many politicians, regulators are sort of issuing to do something, what would you actually do? And what are the odds that that'll do more good than harm? And that was really the origins of the piece and trying to take a historical view of that. >> Yeah, I learned a new word, thank you. Neo-brandzian had to look it up, but basically you're saying that traditionally it was proving consumer harm versus being proactive about the possibility or likelihood of consumer harm. >> Correct, and that's a really big shift that a lot of traditional antitrust people strongly object to, but is now sort of the trendy and more send and view. >> Got it, okay, let's look a little deeper into the history of tech monopolies and government action and see what we can learn from that. We put together this slide that we can reference. It shows the three historical targets in the tech business and now the new ones. In 1969, the DOJ went after IBM, Big Blue and it's 13 years later, dropped its suit. And then in 1984 the government broke Ma Bell apart and in the late 1990s, went after Microsoft, I think it was 1998 in the Wintel monopoly. And recently in an interview with tech journalist, Kara Swisher, the FTC chair Lena Khan claimed that the government played a major role in moderating the power of tech giants historically. And I think she even specifically referenced Microsoft or maybe Kara did and basically said the industry and consumers from the dominance of companies like Microsoft. So Dave, let's briefly talk about and Kara by the way, didn't really challenge that, she kind of let it slide. But let's talk about each of these and test this concept a bit. Were the government actions in these instances necessary? What were the outcomes and the consequences? Maybe you could start with IBM and AT&T. >> Yeah, it's a big topic and there's a lot there and a lot of history, but I might just sort of introduce by saying for whatever reasons antitrust has been part of the entire information technology industry history from mainframe to the current period and that slide sort of gives you that. And the reasons for that are I think once that we sort of know the economies of scale, network effects, lock in safe choices, lot of things that explain it, but the good bit about that is we actually have so much history of this and we can at least see what's happened in the past and when you look at IBM and AT&T they both were massive antitrust cases. The one against IBM was dropped and it was dropped in as you say, in 1980. Well, what was going on in at that time, IBM was sort of considered invincible and unbeatable, but it was 1981 that the personal computer came around and within just a couple of years the world could see that the computing paradigm had change from main frames and minis to PCs lines client server and what have you. So IBM in just a couple of years went from being unbeatable, you can't compete with them, we have to break up with them to being incredibly vulnerable and in trouble and never fully recovered and is sort of a shell of what it once was. And so the market took care of that and no action was really necessary just by everybody thinking there was. The case of AT&T, they did act and they broke up the company and I would say, first question is, was that necessary? Well, lots of countries didn't do that and the reality is 1980 breaking it up into long distance and regional may have made some sense, but by the 1990 it was pretty clear that the telecom world was going to change dramatically from long distance and fixed wires services to internet services, data services, wireless services and all of these things that we're going to restructure the industry anyways. But AT& T one to me is very interesting because of the unintended consequences. And I would say that the main unintended consequence of that was America's competitiveness in telecommunications took a huge hit. And today, to this day telecommunications is dominated by European, Chinese and other firms. And the big American sort of players of the time AT&T which Western Electric became Lucent, Lucent is now owned by Nokia and is really out of it completely and most notably and compellingly Bell Labs, the Bell Labs once the world's most prominent research institution now also a shell of itself and as it was part of Lucent is also now owned by the Finnish company Nokia. So that restructuring greatly damaged America's core strength in telecommunications hardware and research and one can argue we've never recovered right through this 5IG today. So it's a very good example of the market taking care of, the big problem, but meddling leading to some unintended consequences that have hurt the American competitiveness and as we'll talk about, probably later, you can see some of that going on again today and in the past with Microsoft and Intel. >> Right, yeah, Bell Labs was an American gem, kind of like Xerox PARC and basically gone now. You mentioned Intel and Microsoft, Microsoft and Intel. As many people know, some young people don't, IBM unwillingly handed its monopoly to Intel and Microsoft by outsourcing the micro processor and operating system, respectively. Those two companies ended up with IBM ironically, agreeing to take OS2 which was its proprietary operating system and giving Intel, Microsoft Windows not realizing that its ability to dominate a new disruptive market like PCs and operating systems had been vaporized to your earlier point by the new Wintel ecosystem. Now Dave, the government wanted to break Microsoft apart and split its OS business from its application software, in the case of Intel, Intel only had one business. You pointed out microprocessors so it couldn't bust it up, but take us through the history here and the consequences of each. >> Well, the Microsoft one is sort of a classic because the antitrust case which was raging in the sort of mid nineties and 1998 when it finally ended, those were the very, once again, everybody said, Bill Gates was unstoppable, no one could compete with Microsoft they'd buy them, destroy them, predatory pricing, whatever they were accusing of the attacks on Netscape all these sort of things. But those the very years where it was becoming clear first that Microsoft basically missed the early big years of the internet and then again, later missed all the early years of the mobile phone business going back to BlackBerrys and pilots and all those sorts of things. So here we are the government making the case that this company is unstoppable and you can't compete with them the very moment they're entirely on the defensive. And therefore wasn't surprising that that suit eventually was dropped with some minor concessions about Microsoft making it a little bit easier for third parties to work with them and treating people a little bit more, even handling perfectly good things that they did. But again, the more market took care of the problem far more than the antitrust activities did. The Intel one is also interesting cause it's sort of like the AT& T one. On the one hand antitrust actions made Intel much more likely and in fact, required to work with AMD enough to keep that company in business and having AMD lowered prices for consumers certainly probably sped up innovation in the personal computer business and appeared to have a lot of benefits for those early years. But when you look at it from a longer point of view and particularly when look at it again from a global point of view you see that, wow, they not so clear because that very presence of AMD meant that there's a lot more pressure on Intel in terms of its pricing, its profitability, its flexibility and its volumes. All the things that have made it harder for them to A, compete with chips made in Taiwan, let alone build them in the United States and therefore that long term effect of essentially requiring Intel to allow AMD to exist has undermined Intel's position globally and arguably has undermined America's position in the long run. And certainly Intel today is far more vulnerable to an ARM and Invidia to other specialized chips to China, to Taiwan all of these things are going on out there, they're less capable of resisting that than they would've been otherwise. So, you thought we had some real benefits with AMD and lower prices for consumers, but the long term unintended consequences are arguably pretty bad. >> Yeah, that's why we recently wrote in Intel two "Strategic To Fail", we'll see, Okay. now we come to 2022 and there are five companies with anti-trust targets on their backs. Although Microsoft seems to be the least susceptible to US government ironically intervention at this this point, but maybe not and we show "The Cincos Comas Club" in a homage to Russ Hanneman of the show "Silicon Valley" Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all with trillion dollar plus valuations. But meta briefly crossed that threshold like Mr. Hanneman lost a comma and is now well under that market cap probably around five or 600 million, sorry, billion. But under serious fire nonetheless Dave, people often don't realize the immense monopoly power that IBM had which relatively speaking when measured its percent of industry revenue or profit dwarf that of any company in tech ever, but the industry is much smaller then, no internet, no cloud. Does it call for a different approach this time around? How should we think about these five companies their market power, the implications of government action and maybe what you suggested more narrow action versus broad sweeping changes. >> Yeah, and there's a lot there. I mean, if you go back to the old days IBM had what, 70% of the computer business globally and AT&T had 90% or so of the American telecom market. So market shares that today's players can only dream of. Intel and Microsoft had 90% of the personal computer market. And then you look at today the big five and as wealthy and as incredibly successful as they've been, you sort of have almost the argument that's wrong on the face of it. How can five companies all of which compete with each other to at least some degree, how can they all be monopolies? And the reality is they're not monopolies, they're all oligopolies that are very powerful firms, but none of them have an outright monopoly on anything. There are competitors in all the spaces that they're in and increasing and probably increasingly so. And so, yeah, I think people conflate the extraordinary success of the companies with this belief that therefore they are monopolist and I think they're far less so than those in the past. >> Great, all right, I want to do a quick drill down to cloud computing, it's a key component of digital business infrastructure in his book, "Seeing Digital", Dave Moschella coined a term the matrix or the key which is really referred to the key technology platforms on which people are going to build digital businesses. Dave, we joke you should have called it the metaverse you were way ahead of your time. But I want to look at this ETR chart, we show spending momentum or net score on the vertical access market share or pervasiveness in the dataset on the horizontal axis. We show this view a lot, we put a dotted line at the 40% mark which indicates highly elevated spending. And you can sort of see Microsoft in the upper right, it's so far up to the right it's hidden behind the January 22 and AWS is right there. Those two dominate the cloud far ahead of the pack including Google Cloud. Microsoft and to a lesser extent AWS they dominate in a lot of other businesses, productivity, collaboration, database, security, video conferencing. MarTech with LinkedIn PC software et cetera, et cetera, Googles or alphabets of business of course is ads and we don't have similar spending data on Apple and Facebook, but we know these companies dominate their respective business. But just to give you a sense of the magnitude of these companies, here's some financial data that's worth looking at briefly. The table ranks companies by market cap in trillions that's the second column and everyone in the club, but meta and each has revenue well over a hundred billion dollars, Amazon approaching half a trillion dollars in revenue. The operating income and cash positions are just mind boggling and the cash equivalents are comparable or well above the revenues of highly successful tech companies like Cisco, Dell, HPE, Oracle, and Salesforce. They're extremely profitable from an operating income standpoint with the clear exception of Amazon and we'll come back to that in a moment and we show the revenue multiples in the last column, Apple, Microsoft, and Google, just insane. Dave, there are other equally important metrics, CapX is one which kind of sets the stage for future scale and there are other measures. >> Yeah, including our research and development where those companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars over the years. And I think it's easy to look at those numbers and just say, this doesn't seem right, how can any companies have so much and spend so much? But if you think of what they're actually doing, those companies are building out the digital infrastructure of essentially the entire world. And I remember once meeting some folks at Google, and they said, beyond AI, beyond Search, beyond Android, beyond all the specific things we do, the biggest thing we're actually doing is building a physical infrastructure that can deliver search results on any topic in microseconds and the physical capacity they built costs those sorts of money. And when people start saying, well, we should have lots and lots of smaller companies well, that sounds good, yeah, it's all right, but where are those companies going to get the money to build out what needs to be built out? And every country in the world is trying to build out its digital infrastructure and some are going to do it much better than others. >> I want to just come back to that chart on Amazon for a bit, notice their comparatively tiny operating profit as a percentage of revenue, Amazon is like Bezos giant lifestyle business, it's really never been that profitable like most retail. However, there's one other financial data point around Amazon's business that we want to share and this chart here shows Amazon's operating profit in the blue bars and AWS's in the orange. And the gray line is the percentage of Amazon's overall operating profit that comes from AWS. That's the right most access, so last quarter we were well over a hundred percent underscoring the power of AWS and the horrendous margins in retail. But AWS is essentially funding Amazon's entrance into new markets, whether it's grocery or movies, Bezos moves into space. Dave, a while back you collaborated with us and we asked our audience, what could disrupt Amazon? And we came up with your detailed help, a number of scenarios as shown here. And we asked the audience to rate the likelihood of each scenario in terms of its likelihood of disrupting Amazon with a 10 being highly likely on average the score was six with complacency, arrogance, blindness, you know, self-inflicted wounds really taking the top spot with 6.5. So Dave is breaking up Amazon the right formula in your view, why or why not? >> Yeah, there's a couple of things there. The first is sort of the irony that when people in the sort of regulatory world talk about the power of Amazon, they almost always talk about their power in consumer markets, whether it's books or retail or impact on malls or main street shops or whatever and as you say that they make very little money doing that. The interest people almost never look at the big cloud battle between Amazon, Microsoft and lesser extent Google, Alibaba others, even though that's where they're by far highest market share and pricing power and all those things are. So the regulatory focus is sort of weird, but you know, the consumer stuff obviously gets more appeal to the general public. But that survey you referred to me was interesting because one of the challenges I sort of sent myself I was like okay, well, if I'm going to say that IBM case, AT&T case, Microsoft's case in all those situations the market was the one that actually minimized the power of those firms and therefore the antitrust stuff wasn't really necessary. Well, how true is that going to be again, just cause it's been true in the past doesn't mean it's true now. So what are the possible scenarios over the 2020s that might make it all happen again? And so each of those were sort of questions that we put out to others, but the ones that to me by far are the most likely I mean, they have the traditional one of company cultures sort of getting fat and happy and all, that's always the case, but the more specific ones, first of all by far I think is China. You know, Amazon retail is a low margin business. It would be vulnerable if it didn't have the cloud profits behind it, but imagine a year from now two years from now trade tensions with China get worse and Christmas comes along and China just says, well, you know, American consumers if you want that new exercise bike or that new shoes or clothing, well, anything that we make well, actually that's not available on Amazon right now, but you can get that from Alibaba. And maybe in America that's a little more farfetched, but in many countries all over the world it's not farfetched at all. And so the retail divisions vulnerability to China just seems pretty obvious. Another possible disruption, Amazon has spent billions and billions with their warehouses and their robots and their automated inventory systems and all the efficiencies that they've done there, but you could argue that maybe someday that's not really necessary that you have Search which finds where a good is made and a logistical system that picks that up and delivers it to customers and why do you need all those warehouses anyways? So those are probably the two top one, but there are others. I mean, a lot of retailers as they get stronger online, maybe they start pulling back some of the premium products from Amazon and Amazon takes their cut of whatever 30% or so people might want to keep more of that in house. You see some of that going on today. So the idea that the Amazon is in vulnerable disruption is probably is wrong and as part of the work that I'm doing, as part of stuff that I do with Dave and SiliconANGLE is how's that true for the others too? What are the scenarios for Google or Apple or Microsoft and the scenarios are all there. And so, will these companies be disrupted as they have in the past? Well, you can't say for sure, but the scenarios are certainly plausible and I certainly wouldn't bet against it and that's what history tells us. And it could easily happen once again and therefore, the antitrust should at least be cautionary and humble and realize that maybe they don't need to act as much as they think. >> Yeah, now, one of the things that you mentioned in your piece was felt like narrow remedies, were more logical. So you're not arguing for totally Les Affaire you're pushing for remedies that are more targeted in scope. And while the EU just yesterday announced new rules to limit the power of tech companies and we showed the article, some comments here the regulators they took the social media to announce a victory and they had a press conference. I know you watched that it was sort of a back slapping fest. The comments however, that we've sort of listed here are mixed, some people applauded, but we saw many comments that were, hey, this is a horrible idea, this was rushed together. And these are going to result as you say in unintended consequences, but this is serious stuff they're talking about applying would appear to be to your point or your prescription more narrowly defined restrictions although a lot of them to any company with a market cap of more than 75 billion Euro or turnover of more than 77.5 billion Euro which is a lot of companies and imposing huge penalties for violations up to 20% of annual revenue for repeat offenders, wow. So again, you've taken a brief look at these developments, you watched the press conference, what do you make of this? This is an application of more narrow restrictions, but in your quick assessment did they get it right? >> Yeah, let's break that down a little bit, start a little bit of history again and then get to Europe because although big sweeping breakups of the type that were proposed for IBM, Microsoft and all weren't necessary that doesn't mean that the government didn't do some useful things because they did. In the case of IBM government forces in Europe and America basically required IBM to make it easier for companies to make peripherals type drives, disc drives, printers that worked with IBM mainframes. They made them un-bundle their software pricing that made it easier for database companies and others to sell their of products. With AT&T it was the government that required AT&T to actually allow other phones to connect to the network, something they argued at the time would destroy security or whatever that it was the government that required them to allow MCI the long distance carrier to connect to the AT network for local deliveries. And with that Microsoft and Intel the government required them to at least treat their suppliers more even handly in terms of pricing and policies and support and such things. So the lessons out there is the big stuff wasn't really necessary, but the little stuff actually helped a lot and I think you can see the scenarios and argue in the piece that there's little stuff that can be done today in all the cases for the big five, there are things that you might want to consider the companies aren't saints they take advantage of their power, they use it in ways that sometimes can be reigned in and make for better off overall. And so that's how it brings us to the European piece of it. And to me, the European piece is much more the bad scenario of doing too much than the wiser course of trying to be narrow and specific. What they've basically done is they have a whole long list of narrow things that they're all trying to do at once. So they want Amazon not to be able to share data about its selling partners and they want Apple to open up their app store and they don't want people Google to be able to share data across its different services, Android, Search, Mail or whatever. And they don't want Facebook to be able to, they want to force Facebook to open up to other messaging services. And they want to do all these things for all the big companies all of which are American, and they want to do all that starting next year. And to me that looks like a scenario of a lot of difficult problems done quickly all of which might have some value if done really, really well, but all of which have all kinds of risks for the unintended consequence we've talked before and therefore they seem to me being too much too soon and the sort of problems we've seen in the past and frankly to really say that, I mean, the Europeans would never have done this to the companies if they're European firms, they're doing this because they're all American firms and the sort of frustration of Americans dominance of the European tech industry has always been there going back to IBM, Microsoft, Intel, and all of them. But it's particularly strong now because the tech business is so big. And so I think the politics of this at a time where we're supposedly all this great unity of America and NATO and Europe in regards to Ukraine, having the Europeans essentially go after the most important American industry brings in the geopolitics in I think an unavoidable way. And I would think the story is going to get pretty tense over the next year or so and as you say, the Europeans think that they're taking massive actions, they think they're doing the right thing. They think this is the natural follow on to the GDPR stuff and even a bigger version of that and they think they have more to come and they see themselves as the people taming big tech not just within Europe, but for the world and absent any other rules that they may pull that off. I mean, GDPR has indeed spread despite all of its flaws. So the European thing which it doesn't necessarily get huge attention here in America is certainly getting attention around the world and I would think it would get more, even more going forward. >> And the caution there is US public policy makers, maybe they can provide, they will provide a tailwind maybe it's a blind spot for them and it could be a template like you say, just like GDPR. Okay, Dave, we got to leave it there. Thanks for coming on the program today, always appreciate your insight and your views, thank you. >> Hey, thanks a lot, Dave. >> All right, don't forget these episodes are all available as podcast, wherever you listen. All you got to do is search, "Breaking Analysis Podcast". Check out ETR website, etr.ai. We publish every week on wikibon.com and siliconangle.com. And you can email me david.vellante@siliconangle.com or DM me @davevellante. Comment on my LinkedIn post. This is Dave Vellante for Dave Michelle for "theCUBE Insights" powered by ETR. Have a great week, stay safe, be well and we'll see you next time. (slow tempo music)

>> Hi, and this is theCUBE on Cloud. I'm Stu Miniman and really excited to welcome to a special Fireside Chat. CUBE Alumni has been on the program so many times. We always love talking to founders. We like talking to deep thinkers and that's why he was one of the early ones that I reached out to when we were working on this event. When we first started conversations, we were looking at how hyperscalers really were taking adoption of the brand new technologies, things like flash, things like software defined networking, and how that would invade the enterprise. That of course has had a huge impact, help create a category called hyperconverged infrastructure and I'm talking about Dheeraj Pandey. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Nutanix, taking HCI from hyperconverged infrastructure to hybrid cloud infrastructure. So Dheeraj, welcome to the Fireside Chat. Thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you, Stu, and thank you for the last 10 years that we've grown together, both theCUBE and Nutanix and myself as a leader in the last 10 years. So bringing HCI from hyperconverged to hybrid cloud just reminds me of how the more things change, the more they remain the same. So looking forward to a great discussion here. >> So talk about that early discussion, what the hyperscalers were doing, how can the enterprise take advantage of that? Over time, enterprise has matured and looked a little bit more like the hyperscalers. Hybrid cloud of course is on everyone's lip, as well as we've seen the hyperscalers themselves look more and more like the enterprise. So hybrid and multicloud is where we are today. We think it'll be in the future. But give us a little bit as to how you've seen that progression today and where are we going down the road here? >> Yeah, I think I talked about this during my .NEXT keynote. And the whole idea of, in every recession, we make things smaller. In '91 we said we're going to go away from mainframes into Unix servers. And we made the unit of compute smaller. Then in the year 2000 when there was the next bubble burst and the recession afterwards, we moved from Unix servers to Wintel: Windows and Intel, x86 and eventually Linux as well. Again we made things smaller going from million dollar servers to $5,000 servers, shorter lived servers. And that's what we did in 2008/2009. I said, look, we don't even need to buy servers. We can do things with virtual machines which are servers that are an incarnation in the digital world. There is nothing in the physical world that actually went lives. But we made it even smaller. And now with cloud in the last three, four years and what will happen in this coming decade, they're going to make it even smaller, not just in space which is size with functions and containers and virtual machines, but also in time. So space and time, we're talking about hourly billing and monthly billing and a one-year term as opposed to really going and committing to five or seven years of hardware and CapEx. So I think as you make things smaller, I mean, and this is true for as consumers, we have short attention spans, things are going fast. The cycle of creative destruction of virtual machines is shrinking as well. So I think in many cases, we know we've gone and created this autonomy, massive sprawl. Like we created a massive sprawl of Intel servers back in '95 and 2005. Then we have to use virtualization to go and consolidate all of it, created beautiful data centers of Intel servers with VMware software. And then we created a massive sprawl of data centers, of consolidated data centers with one click private cloud in the last five years and hopefully in the next five too. But I think we're also now creating a proliferation of clouds. There is a sprawl, massive sprawl of cost centers and such. So we need yet another layer of software for governance to reign in on that chaos, hence the need for a new HCI, hybrid cloud infrastructure. >> Yeah, it's fascinating to kind of watch that progression over time. There was a phenomenal Atlantic article. I think it was from like the 1940s or 1950s where somebody took what was happening post-World War II and projected things out. We're talking really pre the internet, but just the miniaturization and the acceleration, kind of the Moore's law discussion. If you take things out, where it would go. When I talked to Amazon, they said the one thing that we know for sure, I'm talking to Amazon.com is that people will want it faster and cheaper in the future. I don't know which robot or drone or things that they have. But absolutely there are those certain characteristics. So from a leadership standpoint, Dheeraj, talk about these changes? We had the wave of virtualization, the wave of containerization, you talked about functions in serverless. Those are tools. But at the end of the day, it's about the outcomes and how do we take advantage of things? So how as a leader do you make sure that you know where to take the company as these technology waves and changes impact what you're doing? >> Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, we celebrate things in IT a lot, but we don't talk about what does it take? What's the underlying fabric to really use these things successfully and better than others and not just use buzzwords, because new buzzwords will come in the next three years. For example AI and ML has been a great buzzword for the last three, four years. But there's very few companies, probably less than even half a percent who know how to leverage machine learning, even understand the difference between machine learning and AI. And a lot of it comes down to a few principles. There's a culture principles, not the least of which is how you celebrate failure, because now you're doing shorter, smaller things. You've got a more agile, you'll have more velocity. Gone are the days of waterfall where you're doing yearly planning and pre-year releases and such. So as we get into this new world, not everything will be perfect, and you've got to really learn to pick yourself up and recover quickly, heal quickly and such. So that is the fundamental tenet of Silicon Valley. And we got to really go and use this more outside the Valley as well in every company out there. Whether it's East Coast company, the Midwest company that are outside the U.S. I think this idea that you will be vulnerable, more vulnerable as you go and learn to do things faster and shorter. I think product management is a term that we don't fully understand, and this is about the why before the how and the what. We quickly jump to the what: containers and functions and databases, servers, and AI, and ML, they're the what. But how do you really start with the why? You know my fascination for one of my distant mentors, Simon Sinek and how he thinks about most companies just focusing on the what, while very few actually start with why, then the how, then the what itself. And product management has to play a key role in this, which also subsumes design, thinking about simplification and elegance and reducing friction. I think again, very few companies, probably no more than 1% of the companies really understand what it means to start with design and APIs, user experience APIs for developers before you even get to writing any single line of code. So I think to me, that's leadership. When you can stay away from instant gratification of the end result, but start with the why, then the how, then the what. >> Yeah, as we know in the technology space, oftentimes the technology is the easy part. It's helping to drive that change. I think back to the early days when we were talking, it was, hyperconverge, it was a threat to storage. We're going to put you out of a job. And we'd always go and say, "Look, no, no, no. We're not putting you out of a job. We're going to free you up to do the things that you want to do. That security project that's been sitting on the shelf for six months, you can go do that. Helping build new parts of the business. Those things that you can do." It's that shifting a mindset can be so difficult. And Dheeraj, I mean, you look at 2020, everyone has had to shift their mindset for everything. I was spending half my time on the road. I don't miss the hotels. I do miss seeing lots and lots of people in person. So what's your advice for people, how they can stay malleable, be open to some change? What are you seeing out there? What advice do you give there? >> Yeah, I think, as you said, inertia is at the core of most things in our lives, including what we saw in healthcare for the last 20, 30 years. I mean, there was so much regulation. The doctor's community had to move forward, nurses had to move forward. I mean, not just providers, but insurance companies. And finally, all of a sudden, we're talking about telehealth because of the pandemic. We are talking about online learning. I mean the things that higher ed refused to do. I mean if you think about the last 20 years of what had happened with the cost of higher ed, I mean it's 200% growth when the cost of television has gone down by probably 100, 200% with more features. Healthcare, higher ed, education in general, all of a sudden is coming for this deep shock because of the pandemic. And I think it's these kind of black swan moments that really changed the world. And I know it's a cliche to say this. But I feel like we are going to be in a new normal, and we have been forced to this new change of digital. I mean, you and I are sitting and talking over the internet. It's a little awkward right now because there's a little bit of a delay in the way I'm looking at things. But I know it's going to directionally be right. I mean, we will go in a way where it just become seamless over time. So change is the only constant. And I believe that I think what we've seen in the pandemic is just the beginning of what digital will mean going forward. And I think the more people embrace it, the faster we do it. Speed is going to be the name of the game when it comes to survival and thriving in this new age. >> Dheeraj, it's interesting. We do hope, I'm a technologist. I know you're an optimist when it comes to things. So we always look at those silver linings. Like I hope healthcare and education will be able to move forward fast. Higher education costs, inequity out there for access to medicine. It would be wonderful if we could help solve some of that, despite this global pandemic. One of the other results, Dheeraj, we talked about some very shifts in the marketplace, the large tech players really have emerged in winter so far in 2020. I can't help, but watch the stock market. And Apple is bigger than ever, Amazon, Google, all ended up in front of Congress to talk about if they've gotten too big. You've partnered with Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. They are potentially a threat but also a partner. From your standpoint, have they gotten too much power? Do we have an inequity in the tech world that they are creating the universes that they will just kind of block off and limit innovation? What's your take on big tech? >> Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's always been big something. I mean, if you go back to the '90s, Amazon, not Amazon, IBM was big, and Microsoft was big, and AT&T was big. I mean, there's always been big companies because the consumer effect that they've had as well, I mean. And I think what we're seeing right now is no different. I mean, at the end of the day, the great thing about this country is that there's always disruption happening. And sometimes small is way better and way more competitive than big. Now at the same time, I do look up to the way some of them have organized themselves. Like the way Amazon has organized itself is really unique and creative with general managers and very independent, highly autonomous groups. So some of these organizations will definitely survive and thrive in scale. And yet for others, I think decision-making and staying competitive and staying scrappy will come a lot harder. So to me when I look at these big names and what Congress is talking about and such, I feel like there's no different than 20, 30, 40 years ago. I mean, we talked about Rockefeller and the oil giants back from 100 years ago. And so in many ways, I mean, the more things change, the more they remain the same. All we have to do is we have to walk over to where the customer is. And that's what we've done with the partnerships. Like in Amazon and Azure, we're saying look, we can even use your commits and credits. I mean, that is a very elegant way to go to where the customer is, rather than force them to where we are. And the public cloud is facing this too. They've come to realize in the last two years that they cannot force all of enterprise computing to come to hyperscalers data centers. They'll have to take in these bite-size smaller clouds to where the customer is, where the customer's machines are, where the customers people are, where the customers data is. That's where we also take to disperse the cloud itself. So I think there's going to be a yin yang where we'll try to walk with the customer to where we want them to be, whether it's hyperscaler data center or the notion of hybrid cloud infrastructure. But many a time, we've got to walk over to where they are. I mean, and outside the U.S, I mean, the cloud is such a nuanced word. I mean, we're talking about sovereignty, we're talking about data gravity, we're talking about economics of owning versus renting. This trifecta, the laws of the land, the laws of physics, and the laws of economics will dictate many of these things as well. So I think the big folks are also humble and vulnerable to realize that there's nothing more powerful than market forces. And I think the rest will take care of itself. >> Yeah, my quick commentary on that, Dheeraj, I think most of us look back at AT&T and felt the government got it wrong. The way they broke it up and ended up consolidating back together, it didn't necessarily help consumers. Microsoft on the other hand might've had a little bit too much power and was leveraging that against competition and really squashing innovation. So in general, it's good to see that the politics are looking at that and chore felt. The last time I watched things, they were a little bit more educated than some previous times there, where it was almost embarrassing to watch our representatives fumbling around with technology. So it's always good to question authority, question what they have. And one of the things you've brought up many times is you're open to listening and you're bringing in new ideas. I remember one conversation I had with you is there's that direction that you hold on to, but you will assess and do new data. You've made adjustments in the product portfolio and direction based on your customers, based on the ecosystem. And you've mentioned some of the, bring thoughts that you've brought into the company and you share. So you mentioned black swan that seem to head you brought to one of the European .NEXT shows. It was great to be able to see that author and read through advisors like Condoleezza Rice who you've had at the conferences a couple of times. Where are you getting some of your latest inspiration from, any new authors or podcasts that you'd be recommending to the audience? >> Yeah, I look at adjacencies, obviously Simon has been great. He was .NEXT, talked about the Infinite Game. And we'll talk about the Infinite Game with Nutanix too with respect to also my decision. But Brene Brown was been very close to Nutanix. I was just looking at her latest podcast, and she was sitting with the author of Stretch, Scott Sonnenschein, and it's a fascinating read and a great listen, by the way, I think for worth an hour, talking about scrappiness, and talking about resourcefulness. What does it mean to really be resourceful? And we need that even more so as we go through this recession, as we are sheltered in place. I think it's an adjacency to everything that Brene does. And I was just blown away by just listening to it. I'd a love for others to even have a listen and learn to understand what we can do within our families, with our budgets, with our companies, with our startups. I mean, with CUBE, I mean, what does it mean to be scrappy? And celebrate scrappiness and resourcefulness, more so than AI always need more. I think I just found it fascinating in the last week itself listening through it. >> John Farinacci talk many times that founder, startup, that being able to pull themselves up, be able to drive forward, overcome obstacles. So Dheeraj, do you tee it up? It sounds like is the next step for you. There's a transition under discussion. Bain has made an investment. There's a search for new CEO. Are you saying there's a book club in your future to be able to get things ready? Why don't you explain a little bit, 11 years took the company public, over 6,500 employees public company. So tell us a little bit about that decision-making process and what you expect to see in the future? >> Yeah, it's probably one of the hardest things as an entrepreneur is to let go, because it's a creation that you followed from scratch, from nothing. And it was a process for me to rethink about what's next for the company and then what's next for me? And me and the company were so tightly coupled that I was like, wow, at some point, this has to be a little bit more like the way Bill Gates did it with Microsoft, and there's going to be buton zone and you will then start to realize that your identity is different from the company's identity. And maybe the company is built for bigger, better things. And maybe you're built for bigger, better things. And how do you really start to first do this decoupling of the identity? And it's really hard. I mean, I'm sure that parents go through this. I mean, our children are still very young. Our eldest is nine going on 10 and our twin girls are six. I know at some point in the next 10 years, eight to 10 years, we'll have to figure out what it means to let go. And I'm already doing this with my son. I tell him you're born free. I mean, the word born free which drives my wife crazy sometimes. I say this to them, it's about independence. And I think the company is also born free to really think about a life outside of me, as well outside of founder. And that was a very important process for me as I was talking to the board for the last six, seven, eight months. And when the Bain deal came in, I thought it was a great time. We ended the fiscal really well, all things considered. We had a good quarter. The transition has been a journey of a lifetime, the business model transition I speak of. Really three years, I mean, I have aged probably 10 years in these last three years. But I think I would not replaced it for anything. Just the experience of learning what it means to change as a public company when you have short-term goals and long-term goals, we need the conviction, knowing what's right, because otherwise we would not have survived this cloud movement, all this idea of actually becoming a subscription company, changing the core of the business in the on-prem world itself. It's a king to change the wings of a plane at 40,000 feet where none of the passengers blink. It's been phenomenal ride last 11 years, but it's also been nonstop monomaniacal. I mean, I use the word marathon for this, and I figured it's a good time to say figure out a way to let go of this, and think of what's bigger better for Nutanix. And going from zero to a billion six in annual billings, and looking at billion six to 3 billion to four to five, I think it'd be great &to look at this from afar. And at the same time, I think there's vulnerability. I mean, I've made the company vulnerable. I've made myself vulnerable. We don't know who the next leader will be. And I think the next three to six months is one of the most important baton zones that I have ever experienced to be a part of. So looking forward to make sure that baton doesn't fall, redefine what good to great looks like, both for the company and for myself. And at the same time, go read more. I mean, I've been passionate about developers in the last 10 years, 11 years. I was a developer myself. This company, Nutanix, was really built by developers for IT. And I'm learning more about the developer as a consumer. How do you think about their experience? Not just the things that we throw at them from open source point of view and from cloud and technologies and AI and ML point of view, but really their lives, having them think about revenue and business and really blurring the lines between architects and product managers and developers. I think it's just an unfathomable problem we've created in IT that I would love to go and read and write more about. >> Yeah, so many important things you said there. I absolutely think that there are certain things everybody of course will think of you for a long time with Nutanix, but there is that separation between the role in the company and the person itself, and really appreciated how much you've always shared along those lines. So last question I have and you hit it up a little bit when you talked about developers. Take off your Nutanix hat for a second here, now what do we need to do to make sure that the next decade is successful in this space, cloud as a general guideline? Yes, we know we have skill gap. We know we need more people, we need more diversity. But there's so much that we need and there's so much opportunity, but what do you see and any advice areas that you think are critical for success in the future? >> Yeah, I mean, you hit up on something that I have had a passion for, probably more late in this world, more so than conspicuous, and and you hit upon it right now, diversity and inclusion. It's an unresolved problem in the developer community: the black developer, the woman developer. The idea of, I mean, we've two girls, they're twins. I'd love for them to embrace computer science and even probably do a PhD. I mean, I was a dropout. I'd love for them to do better than I did. Get, embrace things that are adjacent to biology and computer science. Go solve really hard problems. And we've not done those things. I mean, we've not looked at the community of developers and said, you know, they are the maker. And they work with managers and the maker manager world is two different worlds. How do you make this less friction? And how do you make this more delightful? And how do you think of developers as business, as if they are the folks who run the business? I think there's a lot that's missing there. And again, we throw a lot of jargons at them, and we talk a lot about automation and tools and such. But those are just things. I think the last 10, 11 years of me really just thinking about product and product portfolio and design and the fact that we have so many developers at Nutanix. I think it has been a mind-boggling experience, thinking about the why and the how and the what of the day in the life of, the month in the life of, and thinking about simple things like OKRs. I mean, we are throwing these jargons of OKRs at them: productivity, offshoring, remote work, over the zoom design sessions. It's just full of conflict and friction. So I think there is an amazing opportunity for Nutanix. There's an amazing opportunity for the industry to elevate this where the the woman developer can speak up in this world that's full of so many men. The black developer can speak up. And all of us can really think of this as something that's more structured, more productive, more revenue-driven, more customer in rather than developer out. That's really been some of the things that have been in my head, things that are still unresolved at Nutanix that I'm pretty sure at many of the places out there. That's what thinking and reading and writing about. >> Well, Dheeraj, first of all, thank you so much again for participating here. It's been great having you in theCUBE community, almost since the inception of us doing it back in 2010. Wish you the best of luck in the current transition. And absolutely look forward to talking more in the future. >> Thank you. And again, a big fan of the tremor rate of John, Dave, and you. Always learn so much from you, folks. Looking forward to be a constant student. Thank you. >> Thank you for joining us at theCUBE on Cloud. Lots more coverage here. Be sure to look throughout the site, engage in the chats, and give us your feedback. We're here to help you with the virtual events. I'm Stu Miniman as always. Thanks for watching.

>> Hi, and this is theCUBE on Cloud. I'm Stu Miniman and really excited to welcome to a special Fireside Chat. CUBE Alumni has been on the program so many times. We always love talking to founders. We like talking to deep thinkers and that's why he was one of the early ones that I reached out to when we were working on this event. When we first started conversations, we were looking at how hyperscalers really were taking adoption of the brand new technologies, things like flash, things like software defined networking, and how that would invade the enterprise. That of course has had a huge impact, help create a category called hyperconverged infrastructure and I'm talking about Dheeraj Pandey. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Nutanix, taking HCI from hyperconverged infrastructure to hybrid cloud infrastructure. So Dheeraj, welcome to the Fireside Chat. Thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you, Stu, and thank you for the last 10 years that we've grown together, both theCUBE and Nutanix and myself as a leader in the last 10 years. So bringing HCI from hyperconverged to hybrid cloud just reminds me of how the more things change, the more they remain the same. So looking forward to a great discussion here. >> So talk about that early discussion, what the hyperscalers were doing, how can the enterprise take advantage of that? Over time, enterprise has matured and looked a little bit more like the hyperscalers. Hybrid cloud of course is on everyone's lip, as well as we've seen the hyperscalers themselves look more and more like the enterprise. So hybrid and multicloud is where we are today. We think it'll be in the future. But give us a little bit as to how you've seen that progression today and where are we going down the road here? >> Yeah, I think I talked about this during my .NEXT keynote. And the whole idea of, in every recession, we make things smaller. In '91 we said we're going to go away from mainframes into Unix servers. And we made the unit of compute smaller. Then in the year 2000 when there was the next bubble burst and the recession afterwards, we moved from Unix servers to Wintel: Windows and Intel, x86 and eventually Linux as well. Again we made things smaller going from million dollar servers to $5,000 servers, shorter lived servers. And that's what we did in 2008/2009. I said, look, we don't even need to buy servers. We can do things with virtual machines which are servers that are an incarnation in the digital world. There is nothing in the physical world that actually went lives. But we made it even smaller. And now with cloud in the last three, four years and what will happen in this coming decade, they're going to make it even smaller, not just in space which is size with functions and containers and virtual machines, but also in time. So space and time, we're talking about hourly billing and monthly billing and a one-year term as opposed to really going and committing to five or seven years of hardware and CapEx. So I think as you make things smaller, I mean, and this is true for as consumers, we have short retention spans, things are going fast. The cycle of creative destruction of virtual machines is shrinking as well. So I think in many cases, we know we've gone and created this autonomy, massive sprawl. Like we created a massive sprawl of Intel servers back in '95 and 2005. Then we have to use virtualization to go and consolidate all of it, created beautiful data centers of Intel servers with VMware software. And then we created a massive sprawl of data centers, of consolidated data centers with one click private cloud in the last five years and hopefully in the next five too. But I think we're also now creating a proliferation of clouds. There is a sprawl, massive sprawl of cost centers and such. So we need yet another layer of software for governance to reign in on that chaos, hence the need for a new HCI, hybrid cloud infrastructure. >> Yeah, it's fascinating to kind of watch that progression over time. There was a phenomenal Atlantic article. I think it was from like the 1940s or 1950s where somebody took what was happening post-World War II and projected things out. We're talking really pre the internet, but just the miniaturization and the acceleration, kind of the Moore's law discussion. If you take things out, where it would go. When I talked to Amazon, they said the one thing that we know for sure, I'm talking to Amazon.com is that people will want it faster and cheaper in the future. I don't know which robot or drone or things that they have. But absolutely there are those certain characteristics. So from a leadership standpoint, Dheeraj, talk about these changes? We had the wave of virtualization, the wave of containerization, you talked about functions in serverless. Those are tools. But at the end of the day, it's about the outcomes and how do we take advantage of things? So how as a leader do you make sure that you know where to take the company as these technology waves and changes impact what you're doing? >> Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, we celebrate things in IT a lot, but we don't talk about what does it take? What's the underlying fabric to really use these things successfully and better than others and not just use buzzwords, because new buzzwords will come in the next three years. For example AI and ML has been a great buzzword for the last three, four years. But there's very few companies, probably less than even half a percent who know how to leverage machine learning, even understand the difference between machine learning and AI. And a lot of it comes down to a few principles. There's a culture principles, not the least of which is how you celebrate failure, because now you're doing shorter, smaller things. You've got a more agile, you'll have more velocity. Gone are the days of waterfall where you're doing yearly planning and pre-year releases and such. So as we get into this new world, not everything will be perfect, and you've got to really learn to pick yourself up and recover quickly, heal quickly and such. So that is the fundamental tenet of Silicon Valley. And we got to really go and use this more outside the Valley as well in every company out there. Whether it's East Coast company, the Midwest company that are outside the U.S. I think this idea that you will be vulnerable, more vulnerable as you go and learn to do things faster and shorter. I think product management is a term that we don't fully understand, and this is about the why before the how and the what. We quickly jump to the what: containers and functions and databases, servers, and AI, and ML, they're the what. But how do you really start with the why? You know my fascination for one of my distant mentors, Simon Sinek and how he thinks about most companies just focusing on the what, while very few actually start with why, then the how, then the what itself. And product management has to play a key role in this, which also subsumes design, thinking about simplification and elegance and reducing friction. I think again, very few companies, probably no more than 1% of the companies really understand what it means to start with design and APIs, user experience APIs for developers before you even get to writing any single line of code. So I think to me, that's leadership. When you can stay away from instant gratification of the end result, but start with the why, then the how, then the what. >> Yeah, as we know in the technology space, oftentimes the technology is the easy part. It's helping to drive that change. I think back to the early days when we were talking, it was, hyperconverge, it was a threat to storage. We're going to put you out of a job. And we'd always go and say, "Look, no, no, no. We're not putting you out of a job. We're going to free you up to do the things that you want to do. That security project that's been sitting on the shelf for six months, you can go do that. Helping build new parts of the business. Those things that you can do." It's that shifting a mindset can be so difficult. And Dheeraj, I mean, you look at 2020, everyone has had to shift their mindset for everything. I was spending half my time on the road. I don't miss the hotels. I do miss seeing lots and lots of people in person. So what's your advice for people, how they can stay malleable, be open to some change? What are you seeing out there? What advice do you give there? >> Yeah, I think, as you said, inertia is at the core of most things in our lives, including what we saw in healthcare for the last 20, 30 years. I mean, there was so much regulation. The doctor's community had to move forward, nurses had to move forward. I mean, not just providers, but insurance companies. And finally, all of a sudden, we're talking about telehealth because of the pandemic. We are talking about online learning. I mean the things that higher ed refused to do. I mean if you think about the last 20 years of what had happened with the cost of higher ed, I mean it's 200% growth when the cost of television has gone down by probably 100, 200% with more features. Healthcare, higher ed, education in general, all of a sudden is coming for this deep shock because of the pandemic. And I think it's these kind of black swan moments that really changed the world. And I know it's a cliche to say this. But I feel like we are going to be in a new normal, and we have been forced to this new change of digital. I mean, you and I are sitting and talking over the internet. It's a little awkward right now because there's a little bit of a delay in the way I'm looking at things. But I know it's going to directionally be right. I mean, we will go in a way where it just become seamless over time. So change is the only constant. And I believe that I think what we've seen in the pandemic is just the beginning of what digital will mean going forward. And I think the more people embrace it, the faster we do it. Speed is going to be the name of the game when it comes to survival and thriving in this new age. >> Dheeraj, it's interesting. We do hope, I'm a technologist. I know you're an optimist when it comes to things. So we always look at those silver linings. Like I hope healthcare and education will be able to move forward fast. Higher education costs, inequity out there for access to medicine. It would be wonderful if we could help solve some of that, despite this global pandemic. One of the other results, Dheeraj, we talked about some very shifts in the marketplace, the large tech players really have emerged in winter so far in 2020. I can't help, but watch the stock market. And Apple is bigger than ever, Amazon, Google, all ended up in front of Congress to talk about if they've gotten too big. You've partnered with Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. They are potentially a threat but also a partner. From your standpoint, have they gotten too much power? Do we have an inequity in the tech world that they are creating the universes that they will just kind of block off and limit innovation? What's your take on big tech? >> Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's always been big something. I mean, if you go back to the '90s, Amazon, not Amazon, IBM was big, and Microsoft was big, and AT&T was big. I mean, there's always been big companies because the consumer effect that they've had as well, I mean. And I think what we're seeing right now is no different. I mean, at the end of the day, the great thing about this country is that there's always disruption happening. And sometimes small is way better and way more competitive than big. Now at the same time, I do look up to the way some of them have organized themselves. Like the way Amazon has organized itself is really unique and creative with general managers and very independent, highly autonomous groups. So some of these organizations will definitely survive and thrive in scale. And yet for others, I think decision-making and staying competitive and staying scrappy will come a lot harder. So to me when I look at these big names and what Congress is talking about and such, I feel like there's no different than 20, 30, 40 years ago. I mean, we talked about Rockefeller and the oil giants back from 100 years ago. And so in many ways, I mean, the more things change, the more they remain the same. All we have to do is we have to walk over to where the customer is. And that's what we've done with the partnerships. Like in Amazon and Azure, we're saying look, we can even use your commits and credits. I mean, that is a very elegant way to go to where the customer is, rather than force them to where we are. And the public cloud is facing this too. They've come to realize in the last two years that they cannot force all of enterprise computing to come to hyperscalers data centers. They'll have to take in these bite-size smaller clouds to where the customer is, where the customer's machines are, where the customers people are, where the customers data is. That's where we also take to disperse the cloud itself. So I think there's going to be a yin yang where we'll try to walk with the customer to where we want them to be, whether it's hyperscaler data center or the notion of hybrid cloud infrastructure. But many a time, we've got to walk over to where they are. I mean, and outside the U.S, I mean, the cloud is such a nuanced word. I mean, we're talking about sovereignty, we're talking about data gravity, we're talking about economics of owning versus renting. This trifecta, the laws of the land, the laws of physics, and the laws of economics will dictate many of these things as well. So I think the big folks are also humble and vulnerable to realize that there's nothing more powerful than market forces. And I think the rest will take care of itself. >> Yeah, my quick commentary on that, Dheeraj, I think most of us look back at AT&T and felt the government got it wrong. The way they broke it up and ended up consolidating back together, it didn't necessarily help consumers. Microsoft on the other hand might've had a little bit too much power and was leveraging that against competition and really squashing innovation. So in general, it's good to see that the politics are looking at that and chore felt. The last time I watched things, they were a little bit more educated than some previous times there, where it was almost embarrassing to watch our representatives fumbling around with technology. So it's always good to question authority, question what they have. And one of the things you've brought up many times is you're open to listening and you're bringing in new ideas. I remember one conversation I had with you is there's that direction that you hold on to, but you will assess and do new data. You've made adjustments in the product portfolio and direction based on your customers, based on the ecosystem. And you've mentioned some of the, bring thoughts that you've brought into the company and you share. So you mentioned black swan that seem to head you brought to one of the European .NEXT shows. It was great to be able to see that author and read through advisors like Condoleezza Rice who you've had at the conferences a couple of times. Where are you getting some of your latest inspiration from, any new authors or podcasts that you'd be recommending to the audience? >> Yeah, I look at adjacencies, obviously Simon has been great. He was .NEXT, talked about the Infinite Game. And we'll talk about the Infinite Game with Nutanix too with respect to also my decision. But Brene Brown was been very close to Nutanix. I was just looking at her latest podcast, and she was sitting with the author of Stretch, Scott Sonnenschein, and it's a fascinating read and a great listen, by the way, I think for worth an hour, talking about scrappiness, and talking about resourcefulness. What does it mean to really be resourceful? And we need that even more so as we go through this recession, as we are sheltered in place. I think it's an adjacency to everything that Brene does. And I was just blown away by just listening to it. I'd a love for others to even have a listen and learn to understand what we can do within our families, with our budgets, with our companies, with our startups. I mean, with CUBE, I mean, what does it mean to be scrappy? And celebrate scrappiness and resourcefulness, more so than AI always need more. I think I just found it fascinating in the last week itself listening through it. >> John Farinacci talk many times that founder, startup, that being able to pull themselves up, be able to drive forward, overcome obstacles. So Dheeraj, do you tee it up? It sounds like is the next step for you. There's a transition under discussion. Bain has made an investment. There's a search for new CEO. Are you saying there's a book club in your future to be able to get things ready? Why don't you explain a little bit, 11 years took the company public, over 6,500 employees public company. So tell us a little bit about that decision-making process and what you expect to see in the future? >> Yeah, it's probably one of the hardest things as an entrepreneur is to let go, because it's a creation that you followed from scratch, from nothing. And it was a process for me to rethink about what's next for the company and then what's next for me? And me and the company were so tightly coupled that I was like, wow, at some point, this has to be a little bit more like the way Bill Gates did it with Microsoft, and there's going to be buton zone and you will then start to realize that your identity is different from the company's identity. And maybe the company is built for bigger, better things. And maybe you're built for bigger, better things. And how do you really start to first do this decoupling of the identity? And it's really hard. I mean, I'm sure that parents go through this. I mean, our children are still very young. Our eldest is nine going on 10 and our twin girls are six. I know at some point in the next 10 years, eight to 10 years, we'll have to figure out what it means to let go. And I'm already doing this with my son. I tell him you're born free. I mean, the word born free which drives my wife crazy sometimes. I say this to them, it's about independence. And I think the company is also born free to really think about a life outside of me, as well outside of founder. And that was a very important process for me as I was talking to the board for the last six, seven, eight months. And when the Bain deal came in, I thought it was a great time. We ended the fiscal really well, all things considered. We had a good quarter. The transition has been a journey of a lifetime, the business model transition I speak of. Really three years, I mean, I have aged probably 10 years in these last three years. But I think I would not replaced it for anything. Just the experience of learning what it means to change as a public company when you have short-term goals and long-term goals, we need the conviction, knowing what's right, because otherwise we would not have survived this cloud movement, all this idea of actually becoming a subscription company, changing the core of the business in the on-prem world itself. It's a king to change the wings of a plane at 40,000 feet where none of the passengers blink. It's been phenomenal ride last 11 years, but it's also been nonstop monomaniacal. I mean, I use the word marathon for this, and I figured it's a good time to say figure out a way to let go of this, and think of what's bigger better for Nutanix. And going from zero to a billion six in annual billings, and looking at billion six to 3 billion to four to five, I think it'd be great &to look at this from afar. And at the same time, I think there's vulnerability. I mean, I've made the company vulnerable. I've made myself vulnerable. We don't know who the next leader will be. And I think the next three to six months is one of the most important baton zones that I have ever experienced to be a part of. So looking forward to make sure that baton doesn't fall, redefine what good to great looks like, both for the company and for myself. And at the same time, go read more. I mean, I've been passionate about developers in the last 10 years, 11 years. I was a developer myself. This company, Nutanix, was really built by developers for IT. And I'm learning more about the developer as a consumer. How do you think about their experience? Not just the things that we throw at them from open source point of view and from cloud and technologies and AI and ML point of view, but really their lives, having them think about revenue and business and really blurring the lines between architects and product managers and developers. I think it's just an unfathomable problem we've created in IT that I would love to go and read and write more about. >> Yeah, so many important things you said there. I absolutely think that there are certain things everybody of course will think of you for a long time with Nutanix, but there is that separation between the role in the company and the person itself, and really appreciated how much you've always shared along those lines. So last question I have and you hit it up a little bit when you talked about developers. Take off your Nutanix hat for a second here, now what do we need to do to make sure that the next decade is successful in this space, cloud as a general guideline? Yes, we know we have skill gap. We know we need more people, we need more diversity. But there's so much that we need and there's so much opportunity, but what do you see and any advice areas that you think are critical for success in the future? >> Yeah, I mean, you hit up on something that I have had a passion for, probably more late in this world, more so than conspicuous, and and you hit upon it right now, diversity and inclusion. It's an unresolved problem in the developer community: the black developer, the woman developer. The idea of, I mean, we've two girls, they're twins. I'd love for them to embrace computer science and even probably do a PhD. I mean, I was a dropout. I'd love for them to do better than I did. Get, embrace things that are adjacent to biology and computer science. Go solve really hard problems. And we've not done those things. I mean, we've not looked at the community of developers and said, you know, they are the maker. And they work with managers and the maker manager world is two different worlds. How do you make this less friction? And how do you make this more delightful? And how do you think of developers as business, as if they are the folks who run the business? I think there's a lot that's missing there. And again, we throw a lot of jargons at them, and we talk a lot about automation and tools and such. But those are just things. I think the last 10, 11 years of me really just thinking about product and product portfolio and design and the fact that we have so many developers at Nutanix. I think it has been a mind-boggling experience, thinking about the why and the how and the what of the day in the life of, the month in the life of, and thinking about simple things like OKRs. I mean, we are throwing these jargons of OKRs at them: productivity, offshoring, remote work, over the zoom design sessions. It's just full of conflict and friction. So I think there is an amazing opportunity for Nutanix. There's an amazing opportunity for the industry to elevate this where the the woman developer can speak up in this world that's full of so many men. The black developer can speak up. And all of us can really think of this as something that's more structured, more productive, more revenue-driven, more customer in rather than developer out. That's really been some of the things that have been in my head, things that are still unresolved at Nutanix that I'm pretty sure at many of the places out there. That's what thinking and reading and writing about. >> Well, Dheeraj, first of all, thank you so much again for participating here. It's been great having you in theCUBE community, almost since the inception of us doing it back in 2010. Wish you the best of luck in the current transition. And absolutely look forward to talking more in the future. >> Thank you. And again, a big fan of the tremor rate of John, Dave, and you. Always learn so much from you, folks. Looking forward to be a constant student. Thank you. >> Thank you for joining us at theCUBE on Cloud. Lots more coverage here. Be sure to look throughout the site, engage in the chats, and give us your feedback. We're here to help you with the virtual events. I'm Stu Miniman as always. Thanks for watching.

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 sponsored by Intel, AWS and our community partners. >>Hello and welcome back to the cubes Virtual coverage of AWS reinvent 2020. Um, John for your host with a cube virtual were not there in person, but we're gonna do it our job with the best remote we possibly can. Where? Wall to wall coverage on the AWS reinvent site as well as on demand on the Cube. Three new 3 65 platform. We got some great power panel analysts here to dig in and discuss Partner Day for a W S what it means for the customer. What it means for the enterprise, the buyer, the people trying to figure out who to buy from and possibly new partners. How can they re engineer and reinvent their company to partner better with Amazon, take advantage of the benefits, but ultimately get more sales? We got Tim Crawford, star Beat Joel and Day Volonte, Friends of the Cube. We all know him on Twitter, You guys, the posse, the Cube policy. Thanks for coming on. I'm sure it's good guys entertaining and we're >>hanging out drinking beer. Oh, my God. That'd be awesome. You guys. >>Great to have you on. I wanted to bring you on because it's unique. Cross section of perspectives. And this isn't This is from the end user perspective. And, Tim, you've been talking about the c x o s for years. You expert in this? Sorry. You're taking more from a cloud perspective. You've seen the under the hood. What's happening? Let's all put it together. If your partner Okay, first question to the group. I'm a partner. Do I win with Amazon, or do I lose with Amazon? First question. >>Yeah, I'll jump in. I'll say, you know, regardless you win, you win with Amazon. I think there's a lot of opportunity for partners with Amazon. Um, you have to pick your battles, though. You have to find the right places where you can carve out a space that isn't too congested but also isn't really kind of fettered with a number of incumbents. And so if you're looking at the enterprise space, I think that there is a ton of potential because, let's face it, >>Amazon >>doesn't have all of the services packaged in a way that the enterprise can consume. And I think that leaves a lot of fertile ground for s eyes and I SVS to jump in and be able to connect those dots so I'd say it's win, win >>start be if you're like a so cohesively onstage. Jackson's coming out talking about China, the chips and data. If you're like a vendor and I s V you're a startup or your company trying to reinvent How do you see Amazon as a partner? >>Yeah, I see Amazon as a big market for me. You know, it increased my sort of tam, if you will. Uh, the one big sort off trend is that the lines between technology providers and service providers are blurred. Actually, it's flipping. I believe it will flip at some time. We will put consume technology from service providers, and they are becoming technology providers. Actually, they're not just being pipe and power kind of cloud. They are purely software, very high sort of highly constructed machinery, if you will. Behind the scenes with software. >>That's >>what Amazon is, uh, big machine. If you are, and you can leverage that and then you can help your customers achieve their business called as a partner. I think's the women and the roll off. Actually, Assize is changing, I believe a size. Well, I thought they were getting slow, sidetracked by the service providers. But now they have to actually change their old the way they they used to get these, you know, shrink wrap software, and then install and configure and all that stuff. Now it's in a cloud >>on >>they have to focus a little more on services, and and some of the s eyes are building tools for multi cloud consumption and all that. So things are changing under under this whole big shift to go out. >>I mean, I think if you're in S I and you're lifting and shifting, you make a few bucks and helping people do that deal with the tech. But I think we're the rial. Money is the business transformation, and you find the technology is there, it's it's another tool in the bag. But if you can change your operating model, that's gonna drive telephone numbers to the bottom line. That's a boardroom discussion, and that's where the real dollars are for s eyes. That's like that's why guys like Accent you're leading leading into the cloud Big time >>e think I think you're absolutely right, David. I think that's that's one aspect that we have to kind of call out is you can be one of those partners that is focused on the transaction and you'll be successful doing that. But you're absolutely right. If you focus on the long game. I think that is just like I said, completely fertile ground. And there are a lot of opportunities because historically Amazon was ah was a Lego parts, uh, type of cloud provider, right? They provided you with the basic building blocks, which is great for Web scale and startups not so good for enterprise. And so now Amazon is starting to put together in package part, so it's more consumable by enterprises. But you still need that help. And as Sarpy just mentioned, you also have to consider that Amazon is not the only aspect that you're gonna be using. You're gonna be using other providers to. And so I think this again is where partners they pick a primary, and then they also bring in the others where appropriate. >>All right, I want to get into this whole riff. I have a cherry chin on day one. Hey, came on the special fireside chat with me and we talked about, um, cloud errors before cloud Amazon. And now I'll call postcode because we're seeing this kind of whole new, you know, in the cloud kind of generation. And so he said, OK, this pre cloud you had Amazon generation, whereas lift and shift. Ah, lot of hybrid And you have everything is in the cloud like a snowflake kind of thing. And he kind of call it the reptiles versus the amphibians you're on. See your inland, your hybrid, and then you're you're in the water. I mean, so So he kind of went on, Took that another level, meaning that. Okay, this is always gonna be hybrid. But there's a unique differentiation for being all in the cloud. You're seeing different patterns. Amazon certainly has an advantage. See, Dev Ops guru, that's just mining the data of their entire platform and saying Okay, Yeah, do this. There's advantages for being in the cloud that aren't available. Hybrid. So amphibian on land and sea hybrid. And then in the cloud. How do you guys see that if you're a partner. You wanna be on the new generation. What's the opportunity to capture value? He has hybrid certainly coexist. But in the new era, >>remember Scott McNealy used to talk about car makers and car dealers. And of course, Sun's gone. But he used to say, We want to be a carmaker. Car dealers. They got big houses and big boats, but we're gonna be a carmaker. Oh, I think it's some similarities here. I mean, there's a lot of money to be made as a as a car dealer. But you see, companies like Dell, H P E. You know, they want to be carmakers. Obviously Google Microsoft. But there are gonna be a lot of successful really big carmakers in this game. >>Yeah, I believe I believe I always call it Amazon Is the makers cloud right, So they are very developer friendly. They were very developer friendly for startups. Uh, a stem said earlier, but now they are very developer, friendly and operations friendly. Now, actually, in a way for enterprises, I believe, and that the that well, the jerry tend to sort of Are you all all in cloud are sitting just in the dry land. Right now, I think every sort off organization is in a different sort off mature, at different maturity level. But I think we're going all going towards a technology consumption as a service. Mostly, I think it will be off Prem. It can be on Prem in future because off age and all that. And on that note, I think EJ will be dominated by Tier one cloud providers like crazy people who think edge will be nominally but telcos and all that. I think they're just, uh, if >>I made Thio, if I may interject for a second for the folks watching, that might not be old enough to know who Scott McNealy is. He's the founder of Sun Microsystems, which was bought by Oracle years ago. Yeah, basically, because many computer, there's a lot of young kids out there that even though Scott McNealy's But remember, >>do your homework, Scott, you have to know who Scott Scott McNealy >>also said, because Bill Gates was dominant. Microsoft owns the tires and the gas to, and they want to own the road. So remember Microsoft was dominating at that time. So, Tim Gas data is that I mean, Amazon might have everything there. >>I was gonna go back to the to the comment. You know, McNeely came out with some really, really good analogies over his tenure. Um, it's son and you know, son had some great successes. But unfortunately, Cloud is not as simplistic as buying a car and having the dealership and the ecosystem of gas and tires. And the rest you have to think about the toll journey. And that journey is incredibly complicated, especially for the enterprise that's coming from legacy footprints, monolithic application stacks and trying to understand how to make that transition. It's almost it's almost, in a way mawr analogous to your used to riding a bike, and now you're gonna operate a semi. And so how do you start to put all of the pieces into place to be able to make that transition? And it's not trivial. You have to figure out how your culture changes, how your processes changes. There are a lot of connected parts. It's not a simple as the ecosystem of tires and gas. We have to think about how that data stream fits in with other data streams where analytics are gonna be done. What about tying back to that system of record that is going to stay on the legacy platform. Oh, and by the way, some of that has to still stay on Prem. It can't move to the cloud yet. So we have this really complicated, diverse environment that we have to manage, and it's only getting more complicated. And I think that's where the opportunity comes in for the size and s visas. Step into that. Understand that journey, understand the transitions. I don't believe that enterprises, at least in the near term, let alone short term, will be all in cloud. I think that that's more of a fantasy than reality. There is a hybrid state that that is going to be transitory for some period of time, and that's where the big opportunity is. >>I think you're right on time. I think just to double down on that point, just to bring that to another level is Dave. Remember back in the days when PCs where the boom many computers with most clients there was just getting started? There was a whole hype cycle on hard drives, right? Hard drives were the thing. Now, if you look out today, there's more. Observe, ability, startups and I could count, right? So to Tim's point, this monolithic breakdown and component izing decomposing, monolithic APs or environments with micro services is complex. So, to me, the thing that I see is that that I could relate to is when I was breaking in in the eighties, you had the mainframes. Is being the youngun I'm like, Okay, mainframes, old monolithic client server is a different paradigm thing. You had, uh, PCs and Internet working. I think all that change is happening so fast right now. It's not like over 10 years to Tim's points, like mainframes to iPhones. It's happening in like three years. Imagine crunching all that complexity and change down to a short window. I think Amazon has kind of brought that. I'm just riffing on that, But >>yeah, you're absolutely right, John. But I think there's another piece and we can use a very specific example to show this. But another piece that we have to look at is we're trying to simplify that environment, and so a good place to simplify that is when we look at server lis and specifically around databases, you know, historically, I had to pick the database architecture that the applications would ride on. Then I have to have the infrastructure underneath and manage that appropriately so that I have both the performance a swell, a security as well as architecture. Er and I have to scale that as needed. Today, you can get databases of service and not have to worry about the underpinnings. You just worry about the applications and how those data streams connect to other data streams. And so that's the direction that I think things were going is, and we see this across the enterprise we're looking for. Those packaged package might be a generalized term, but we're looking for um, or packaged scenario and opportunity for enterprises rather than just the most basic building blocks. We have to start putting together the preformed applications and then use those as larger chunks. And >>this is the opportunity for a size I was talking before about business transformation. If you take, take Tim's database example, you don't need somebody anymore. Toe, you know, set up your database to tune it. I mean, that's becoming autonomous. But if you think about the way data pipelines work in the way organizations are structured where everything because it goes into this monolithic data lake or and and And it's like generic content coming in generic data where the business owner has to get in line and beg a data scientist or quality engineered or thio ingest a new data source. And it's just like the old data warehouse days where I think there's tremendous opportunities for s eyes to go in a completely re architect. The data model. Sergeant, This is something you and I were talking about on Twitter. It's That's why I like what snowflakes doing. It's kind of a AWS is trying to do with lasted glue views, but there's a whole business transformation opportunity for s eyes, which I just think is huge. Number l >>e all talk. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, >>I think we >>all talk, but we know we all agree on one thing that the future is hybrid for at least for next. You know, 10 years, if not more. Uh, hybrid is hard. The data proximity is, uh, very important. That means Leighton see between different workloads, right? That's super important. And I talk about this all the time and almost in every conversation I have about about. It's just scenario, is that there three types of applications every every enterprise systems or fractured systems, systems of engagement and the systems of innovation and my theory of cloud consumption tells me that sooner or later, systems off record. We'll move into SAS SAS world. That's that's how I see it. There's no other way around, I believe, and the systems off engagement or systems off differentiation something and call it. They will leverage a lot off platforms, the service and in that context context, I have said it many times the to be a best of the breed platform. As a service, you have to be best off the breed, um, infrastructure as a service provider. And that's Amazon. And that is that's also a zero to a certain extent, and then and and Google is trying to do that, too. So the feature sort off gap between number one cloud and two and three is pretty huge. I believe I think Amazon is doing great data democratization through several less. I just love serving less for that Several things over. Unless there is >>a winning formula is no doubt about several times I totally agree. But I think one of the things that I miss it has done is they've taken server lists. They brought their putting all the I as and the chips, and they're moving all the value up to the service layer, which gives them the advantage over others. Because everyone else is trying to compete down here. They're gonna be purpose built. If you look what Apple is doing with the chips and what the Amazon is doing, they're gonna kind of have this chip to chip scenario and then the middle. Where in between is the container ization, the micro services and Lambda? So if you're a developer, you approach is it's programmable at that point that could that could be a lock spec. I think for Amazon, >>it absolutely could be John. But I think there's another aspect here that we have to touch on, especially as we think about partners and where the opportunities come in. And that is that We often talk about non cloud to cloud right, how to get from on Prem to cloud. But the piece that you also have thio bring into the conversation is Theo edge to cloud continuum and So I think if you start to look at some of the announcements this week from AWS, you start looking at some of the new instance types uh, that are very ai focused. You look at the two new form factors for outposts, which allows you to bring cloud to a smaller footprint within an on premise premises, situation, uh, different local zones. And then Thea other piece that I think is really interesting is is their announcements around PCs and eks anywhere being able to take cloud in kubernetes, you know, across the board. And so the challenge here is, as I mentioned earlier, complexity is paramount. It's concern for enterprises just moving to cloud. You start layering in the edge to cloud continuum, and it just it gets exponentially more complicated. And so Amazon is not going to be the one to help you go through that. Not because they can't, but frankly, just the scale of help that is going to be needed amongst enterprises is just not there. And so this is really where I think the opportunity lies for the s eyes and I SVS and partners. You >>heard how Jassy defined hybrid John in the article that you wrote when you did your one on one with him, Tim and the in the analyst call, you answered my question and then I want to bring in Antonio near his comment. But Jassy basically said, Look, we see the cloud bring We're gonna bring a W s to the edge and we see data centers. This is another edge node and San Antonio Neary after HP is pretty good quarter uh came out and said, Well, we heard the public cloud provider talking about hybrid welcome, you know? >>Yeah, they were going and then getting here jumped on that big time. But we'll be looking hybrid. Tim nailed The complexity is the is the evil is friction is a friction area. If the complexity could be mastered by the edge provider closest to the customer, that's gonna be valuable, um, for partners. And then we can do that. Amazon's gonna have to continue to remove the friction and putting that together, which is why I'm nervous about their channel partners. Because if I'm a partner, I asked myself, How do I make money with Amazon? Right? At the end of the day, it's money making right. So how can I be successful? Um, not gonna sell more in the marketplace. Will the customer consumer through there? Is it friction or is a complex So this notion of complexity and friction becomes a double edged sword Tim on both sides. So we have five minutes left. Let's talk about the bottom side Complexity, >>friction. So you're absolutely right, John. And you know, the other thing that that I would say is for the partner, you have to look beyond what Amazon is selling today. Look at where the customers are going. And you know, David, I think you and I were both in an analyst session with Andy Jassy several years ago where one of the analysts asked the question. So you know, what's your perspective on Hybrid Cloud? In his response, candidly was, while we have this particular service and really, what he was talking to is a service that helps you on board to Amazon's public cloud. There was there was not an acknowledgment of hybrid cloud at the time, But look at how things have changed just in a short few years, and I understand where Jassy is coming from, but this is just exemplifies the fact that if you're a partner, you have to look beyond what Amazon is saying and think toe how the customer is evolving, how the enterprise is evolving and get yourself ahead of them. That will position you best for both today. And as you're building for the future. >>That's a great point, Dave. Complexity on buying. I'm a customer. You can throw me a marketplace all you want, but if I'm not gonna be tied into my procurement, how I'm consuming technology. Tim's point. Amazon isn't the only game in town. I got other suppliers. >>Yeah, well, certainly for some technology suppliers, they're basically could bring their on prem estate if it's big enough into the cloud. Uh, you know what is big enough? That's the big question here. You know, our guys like your red hats big enough. Okay, we know that Nutanix pure. They're sort of the next layer down. Can they do? They have enough of a customer base that they could bring into the cloud, create that abstraction layer, and then you got the born in the cloud guy Snowflake, Colombia or two good examples. Eso They've got the technology partners and then they're the size and consultants. And again, I see that is the really big opportunity is 10 points out? Amazon is acknowledging that hybrid Israel in in a newly defined way, they're going out to the edge, find you wanna call data center the edge. How are they going to support those installations? How are they gonna make sure that they're running properly? That they're connected to the business process? Those air That's s I whitespace. Huge. >>Guys, we have to wrap it up right now. But I just end on, you know, we'll get everyone go A little lightning around quick soundbite on the phrase with him, which stands for what's in it from me. So if I'm a partner, I'm a customer. I look at Amazon, I think. What's in it for me? Yeah. What a za customer like what do I get out of this? >>Yeah, having done, like more than 100 data center audits, and I'm seeing what mess up messes out there and having done quite a few migrations to cloud migrations of the messy messages piece, right? And it doesn't matter if you're migrating 10% or 20 or 30 it doesn't matter that how much you're migrating? It's a messy piece, and you cannot do with our partners that work. Actually, you need that. Know how you need to infuse that that education into into your organization, how to consume cloud, how toe make sense of it, how you change your processes and how you train your people. So it touches all the products, people and processes. So on three years, you gotta have partners on your side to make it >>so Hey, I'll go quick. And, Tim, you give you the last word. Complexity is cash. Chaos is cash. Follow the complexity. You'll make cash. >>Yeah, you said it, David. I think anyway, that you can help an enterprise simplify. And if you're the enterprise, if you're the customer, look for those partners. They're gonna help you simplify the journey over time. That's where the opportunity really lies. >>Okay, guys, Expert power panel here on Cuba live program, part of AWS reinvent virtual coverage, bringing you all the analysis from the experts. Digital transformations here. What's in it for me is a partner and customer. Help me make some money, master complexity and serve my customer. Mister Cube. Thanks for watching >>que Yeah, from around the globe. It's the cute

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 sponsored by Intel, AWS and our community partners. >>Everyone welcome to the cubes Live coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 virtual were virtual this year We are the Cube Virtual I'm your host John for a joint day Volonte for keynote analysis Andy Jassy just delivered his live keynote. This is our live keynote analysis. Dave. Great to see you, Andy Jassy again. You know their eight year covering reinvent their ninth year. We're virtual. We're not in person. We're doing it. >>Great to see you, John. Even though we're 3000 miles apart, we both have the covert here. Do going Happy birthday, my friend. >>Thank you. Congratulations. Five years ago I was 50 and they had the cake on stage and on the floor. There's no floor, this year's virtual and I think one of the things that came out of Andy Jessie's keynote, obviously, you know, I met with him earlier. Telegraph some of these these moves was one thing that surprised me. He came right out of the gate. He acknowledged that social change, the cultural shift. Um, that was interesting but he went in and did his normal end to end. Slew of announcements, big themes around pivoting. And he brought kind of this business school kind of leadership vibe to the table early talking about what people are experiencing companies like ourselves and others around the change and cultural change around companies and leadership. It takes for the cloud. And this was a big theme of reinvent, literally like, Hey, don't hold on to the old And I kept thinking to myself, David, you and I both are Historians of the tech industry remind me of when I was young, breaking into the business, the mainframe guys and gals, they were hugging onto those mainframes as long as they could, and I looked at it like That's not gonna be around much longer. And they kept No, it's gonna be around. This is this is the state of the art, and then the extinction. Instantly this feels like cloud moment, where it's like it's the wake up call. Hey, everyone doing it the old way. You're done. This is it. But you know, this is a big theme. >>Yes. So, I mean, how do you curate 2.5 3 hours of Andy Jassy. So I tried to break it down at the three things in addition to what you just mentioned about him acknowledging the social unrest and and the inequalities, particularly with black people. Uh, but so I had market leadership. And there's some nuance there that if we have time, I'd love to talk about, uh, the feature innovation. I mean, that was the bulk of his presentation, and I was very pleased. I wrote a piece this weekend. As you know, talk about Cloud 2030 and my main focus was the last 10 years about I t transformation the next 10 years. They're gonna be about organizational and business and industry transformation. I saw a lot of that in jazz ces keynote. So you know, where do you wanna go? We've only got a few minutes here, John, >>but let's break. Let's break down the high level theme before we get into the announcement. The thematic part was, it's about reinventing 2020. The digital transformation is being forced upon us. Either you're in the cloud or you're not in the cloud. Either way, you got to get to the cloud for to survive in this post covert error. Um, you heard a lot about redefining compute new chips, custom chips. They announced the deal with Intel, but then he's like we're better and faster on our custom side. That was kind of a key thing, this high idea of computing, I think that comes into play with edge and hybrid. The other thing that was notable was Jessie's almost announcement of redefining hybrid. There's no product announcement, but he was essentially announcing. Hybrid is changed, and he was leaning forward with his definition of redefining what hybrid cloud is. And I think that to me was the biggest, um, signal. And then finally, what got my attention was the absolute overt call out of Microsoft and Oracle, and, you know, suddenly, behind the scenes on the database shift we've been saying for multiple times. Multiple databases in the cloud he laid that out, said there will be no one thing to rule anything. No databases. And he called out Microsoft would look at Microsoft. Some people like cloud wars. Bob Evans, our good friend, claims that Microsoft been number one in the cloud for like like year, and it's just not true right. That's just not number one. He used his revenue a za benchmark. And if you look at Microsoft's revenue, bulk of it is from propped up from Windows Server and Sequel Server. They have Get up in there that's new. And then a bunch of professional services and some eyes and passed. If you look at true cloud revenue, there's not much there, Dave. They're definitely not number one. I think Jassy kind of throws a dagger in there with saying, Hey, if you're paying for licenses mawr on Amazon versus Azure that's old school shenanigans or sales tactics. And he called that out. That, to me, was pretty aggressive. And then So I finally just cove in management stuff. Democratizing machine learning. >>Let me pick up on a couple things. There actually were a number of hybrid announcements. Um, E C s anywhere E k s anywhere. So kubernetes anywhere containers anywhere smaller outposts, new local zones, announced 12 new cities, including Boston, and then Jesse rattle them off and made a sort of a joke to himself that you made that I remembered all 12 because the guy uses no notes. He's just amazing. He's up there for three hours, no notes and then new wavelength zones for for the five g edge. So actually a lot of hybrid announcements, basically, to your point redefining hybrid. Basically, bringing the cloud to the edge of which he kind of redefined the data center is just sort of another edge location. >>Well, I mean, my point was Is that my point is that he Actually, Reid said it needs to be redefined. Any kind of paused there and then went into the announcements. And, you know, I think you know, it's funny how you called out Microsoft. I was just saying which I think was really pivotal. We're gonna dig into that Babel Babel Fish Open source thing, which could be complete competitive strategy, move against Microsoft. But in a way, Dave Jassy is pulling and Amazon's pulling the same move Microsoft did decades ago. Remember, embrace and extend right Bill Gates's philosophy. This is kind of what they're doing. They have embraced hybrid. They have embraced the data center. They're extending it out. You're seeing outpost, You see, five g, You're seeing these I o t edge points. They're putting Amazon everywhere. That was my take away. They call it Amazon anywhere. I think it's everywhere. They want cloud operations everywhere. That's the theme that I see kind of bubbling out there saying, Hey, we're just gonna keep keep doing this. >>Well, what I like about it is and I've said this for a long time now that the edge is gonna be one by developers. And so they essentially taking AWS and the data center is an AP, and they're bringing that data center is an A P I virtually everywhere. As you're saying, I wanna go back to something you said about leadership and Microsoft and the numbers because I've done a lot of homework on this Aziz, you know, And so Jassy made the point. He makes this point a lot that it's not about the the actual growth rate. Yeah, the other guys, they're growing faster. But there were growing from a much larger base and I want to share with you a nuance because he said he talked about how AWS grew incrementally 10 billion and only took him 12 months. I have quarterly forecast and I've published these on Wiki Bond, a silicon angle. And if you look at the quarterly numbers and now this is an estimate, John. But for Q four, I've got Amazon growing at 25%. That's a year on year as you're growing to 46% and Google growing at 50% 58%. So Google and and Azure much, much higher growth rates that than than Amazon. But what happens when you look at the absolute numbers? From Q three to Q four, Amazon goes from 11.6 billion to 12.4 billion. Microsoft actually stays flat at around 6.76 point eight billion. Google actually drops sequentially. Now I'm talking about sequentially, even though they have 58% growth. So the point of the Jazz is making is right on. He is the only company growing at half the growth rate year on year, but it's sequential. Revenues are the only of the Big Three that are growing, so that's the law of large numbers. You grow more slowly, but you throw off more revenue. Who would you rather be? >>I think I mean, it's clearly that Microsoft's not number one. Amazon's number one cloud certainly infrastructure as a service and pass major themes in the now so we won't go through. We're digging into the analyst Sessions would come at two o'clock in three o'clock later, but they're innovating on those two. They want they one that I would call this member. Jasio says, Oh, we're in the early innings Inning one is I as and pass. Amazon wins it all. They ran the table, No doubt. Now inning to in the game is global. I t. That was a really big part of the announcement. People might have missed that. If you if you're blown away by all the technical and complexity of GP three volumes for EBS and Aurora Surveillance V two or sage maker Feature store and Data Wrangler Elastic. All that all that complex stuff the one take away is they're going to continue to innovate. And I, as in past and the new mountain that they're gonna Klima's global I t spin. That's on premises. Cloud is eating the world and a W s is hungry for on premises and the edge. You're going to see massive surge for those territories. That's where the big spend is gonna be. And that's why you're seeing a big focus on containers and kubernetes and this kind of connective tissue between the data machine layer, modern app layer and full custom. I as on the on the bottom stack. So they're kind of just marching along to the cadence of, uh, Andy Jassy view here, Dave, that, you know, they're gonna listen to customers and keep sucking it in Obama's well and pushing it out to the edge. And and we've set it on the Cube many years. The data center is just a big edge. And that's what Jassy is basically saying here in the keynote. >>Well, and when when Andy Jassy gets pushed on Well, yes, you listen to customers. What about your partners? You know, he'll give examples of partners that are doing very well. And of course we have many. But as we've often said in the Cube, John, if you're a partner in the ecosystem, you gotta move fast. There were three interesting feature announcements that I thought were very closely related to other things that we've seen before. The high performance elastic block storage. I forget the exact name of it, but SAN in a cloud the first ever SAN in the cloud it reminds me of something that pure storage did last year and accelerate so very, very kind of similar. And then the aws glue elastic views. It was sort of like snowflake's data cloud. Now, of course, AWS has many, many more databases that they're connecting, You know, it, uh, stuff like as one. But the way AWS does it is they're copying and moving data and doing change data management. So what snowflake has is what I would consider a true global mesh. And then the third one was quicksight que That reminded me of what thought spots doing with search and analytics and AI. So again, if you're an ecosystem partner, you gotta move fast and you've got to keep innovating. Amazon's gonna do what it has to for customers. >>I think Amazon's gonna have their playbooks when it's all said and done, you know, Do they eat the competition up? I think what they do is they have to have the match on the Amazon side. They're gonna have ah, game and play and let the partners innovate. They clearly need that ecosystem message. That's a key thing. Um, love the message from them. I think it's a positive story, but as you know it's Amazons. This is their Kool Aid injection moment, David. Educational or a k A. Their view of the world. My question for you is what's your take on what wasn't said If you were, you know, as were in the virtual audience, what should have been talk about? What's the reality? What's different? What didn't they hit home? What could they have done? What, your critical analysis? >>Well, I mean, I'm not sure it should have been said, but certainly what wasn't said is the recognition that multi cloud is an opportunity. And I think Amazon's philosophy or belief at the current time is that people aren't spreading workloads, same workload across multiple clouds and splitting them up. What they're doing is they're hedging bets. Maybe they're going 70 30 90 10, 60 40. But so multi cloud, from Amazon standpoint is clearly not the opportunity that everybody who doesn't have a cloud or also Google, whose no distant third in cloud says is a huge opportunity. So it doesn't appear that it's there yet, so that was I wouldn't call it a miss, but it's something that, to me, was a take away that Amazon does not currently see that there's something that customers are clamoring for. >>There's so many threads in here Were unpacked mean Andy does leave a lot of, you know, signature stories that lines in there. Tons of storylines. You know, I thought one thing that that mass Amazon's gonna talk about this is not something that promotes product, but trend allies. I think one thing that I would have loved to Seymour conversation around is what I call the snowflake factor. It snowflake built their business on Amazon. I think you're gonna see a tsunami of kind of new cloud service providers. Come on the scene building on top of AWS in a major way of like, that kind of value means snowflake went public, uh, to the level of no one's ever seen ever in the history of N Y s e. They're on Amazon. So I call that the the next tier cloud scale value. That was one thing I'd like to see. I didn't hear much about the global i t number penetration love to hear more about that and the thing that I would like to have heard more. But Jassy kind of touched a little bit on it was that, he said at one point, and when he talked about the verticals that this horizontal disruption now you and I both know we've been seeing on the queue for years. It's horizontally scalable, vertically specialized with the data, and that's kind of what Amazon's been doing for the past couple of years. And it's on full display here, horizontal integration value with the data and then use machine learning with the modern applications, you get the best of both worlds. He actually called that out on this keynote. So to me, that is a message to all entrepreneurs, all innovators out there that if you wanna change the position in the industry of your company, do those things. There's an opportunity right now to integrate with the cloud to disrupt horizontally, but then on the vertical. So that will be very interesting to see how that plays out. >>And eventually you mentioned Snowflake and I was talking about multi cloud snowflake talks about multi cloud a lot, but I don't even think what they're doing is multi cloud. I think what they're doing is building a data cloud across clouds and their abstracting that infrastructure and so to me, That's not multi Cloud is in. Hey, I run on Google or I run on the AWS or I run on Azure ITT's. I'm abstracting that making that complexity disappeared, I'm creating an entirely new cloud at scale. Quite different. >>Okay, we gotta break it there. Come back into our program. It's our live portion of Cube Live and e. K s Everywhere day. That's multi cloud. If they won't say, that's what I'll say it for them, but the way we go, more live coverage from here at reinvent virtual. We are virtual Cuban John for Dave a lot. They'll be right back.

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of biz ops Manifesto unveiled. Brought to you by Biz Ops Coalition. Hey, Welcome back, everybody. Jeffrey here with the Cube. We're coming to you from our Palo Alto studios. And welcome back to this event. Is the biz Opps Manifesto unveiling? So the biz Opps manifesto and the biz Opps coalition have been around for a little while, But today's the big day. That's kind of the big public unveiling are excited to have some of the foundational people that put their put their name on the dotted line, if you will, to support this initiative to talk about why that initiative is so important. And so the next guest, we're excited to have his doctor, Mick Kirsten. He is the founder and CEO of Task Top. Make great to see you coming in from Vancouver, Canada, I think. Right. >>Yes. Great to be here, Jeff. Thank you. Absolutely. >>I hope your air is a little better out there. I know you had some of the worst air of all of us a couple a couple of weeks back, so hopefully things air, uh, getting a little better. And we get those fires under control? >>Yeah, Things have cleared up now, so yeah, it's good. It's good to be close to the U. S. And it's gonna have the Arabic clean as well. >>Absolutely. So let's let's jump into it. So you you've just been an innovation guy forever Starting way back in the day and Xerox Park. I was so excited to do an event at Xerox Park for the first time last year. I mean that that to me represents along with Bell Labs and and some other, you know, kind of foundational innovation and technology centers. That's got to be one of the greatest one. So I just wonder if you could share some perspective of getting your start there at Xerox Parc. You know, some of the lessons you learn and what you've been ableto kind of carry forward from those days. >>Yeah, I was fortunate. Joined Xerox Park in the computer science lab there at a very early point in my career, and to be working on open source programming languages. So back then, and the computer science lab where some of the inventions around programming around software development names such as Object of programming and ah, lot of what we had around really modern programming levels construct. Those were the teams that had the fortune of working with and really our goal waas. And of course, there's a Z. You know, this, uh, there's just this DNA of innovation and excitement and innovation in the water. And really, it was the model that was all about changing the way that we work was looking at for how we could make it 10 times easier to write. Code like this is back in 99 we were looking at new ways of expressing especially business concerns, especially ways of enabling people who are who want to innovate for their business, to express those concerns in code and make that 10 times easier than what that would take. So we created a new open source programming language, and we saw some benefits, but not quite quite what we expected. I then went and actually joined Charles Stephanie that former chief actor Microsoft, who is responsible for I actually got a Microsoft word as a out of Xerox Parc and into Microsoft and into the hands of Bill Gates and the company I was behind the whole office suite and his vision and the one I was trying to execute with working for him was to, you know, make Power point like a programming language, make everything completely visual. And I realized none of this was really working, that there was something else fundamentally wrong that programming languages or new ways of building software like Let's try to do with Charles around intentional programming. That was not enough. >>That was not enough. So you know, the agile movement got started about 20 years ago, and we've seen the rise of Dev ops and really this kind of embracing of of, of sprints And, you know, getting away from M. R. D s and P. R. D s and these massive definitions of what we're gonna build and long billed cycles to this iterative process. And that's been going on for a little while. So what was still wrong? What was still missing? Why the Biz Ops Coalition? Why the biz ops manifesto? >>Yeah, so I basically think we nailed some of the things that the programming language levels of teams can have. Effective languages deployed softened the club easily now right and at the kind of process and collaboration and planning level agile two decades decades ago was formed. We were adopting all the all the teams I was involved with on. It's really become a solved problem. So agile tools, agile teams actually of planning are now very mature and the whole challenges when organizations try to scale that. And so what I realized is that the way that Agile was scaling across teams and really scaling from the Technology Party organization to the business was just completely flawed. The agile teams had one set of doing things. One set of metrics, one set of tools and the way that the business was working was planning was investing in technology was just completely disconnected and using a a whole different set of measures. It's pretty interesting because I think it's >>pretty clear from the software development teams in terms of what they're trying to deliver, because they've got a feature set right and they've got bugs and it's easy. It's easy to see what they deliver, but it sounds like what you're really honing in on is is disconnect on the business side in terms of, you know, is it the right investment you know. Are we getting the right business? R o I on this investment? Was that the right feature? Should we be building another feature or shall we building a completely different products? That so it sounds like it's really a core piece of this is to get the right measurement tools, the right measurement data sets so that you can make the right decisions in terms of what you're investing, you know, limited resource is you can't Nobody has unlimited resources and ultimately have to decide what to do, which means you're also deciding what not to dio. It sounds like that's a really big piece of this of this whole effort. >>Yeah, Jeff, that's exactly it. Which is the way that the adult measures their own way of working is very different from the way that you measure business outcomes. The business outcomes are in terms of how happy your customers are. Are you innovating fast enough to keep up with the pace of, ah, rapidly changing economy, rapidly changing market and those are those are all around the customer. And so what? I learned on this long journey of supporting many organizations transformations and having them trying to apply those principles vigilant develops that those are not enough. Those measures technical practices, those measures, technical excellence of bringing code to the market. They don't actually measure business outcomes. And so I realized that really was much more around having these entwined flow metrics that are customer centric and business centric and market centric where we needed to go. So I want to shift gears >>a little bit and talk about your book because you're also a best selling author project a product, and and you you brought up this concept in your book called The Flow Framework. And it's really interesting to me because I know, you know, flow on one hand is kind of a workflow in the process flow, and you know that's how things get done and and embrace the flow. On the other hand, you know, everyone now in a little higher level, existential way is trying to get into the flow right into the workflow and, you know not be interrupted and get into a state where you're kind of your highest productivity, you know, kind of your highest comfort. Which floor you talking about in your book, or is it a little bit of both. >>That's a great question, is it's not what I gotta ask very often, cause me, it's It's absolutely both. So the thing that we want to get that we've learned how toe and, uh, master individual flow, that there's this beautiful book by me Holly teachings mentality. There's a beautiful Ted talk about him as well, about how we can take control of our own flow. So my question with the book with project surprise, How can we bring that to entire teams and really entire organizations? How come we have everyone contributing to a customer outcome? And this is really what if you go to the bazaar manifesto? It says, I focus on Out comes on using data to drive, whether we're delivering those outcomes rather than a focus on proxy metrics such as How quickly did we implement this feature? And now it's really how much value did the customs of the future and how quickly did we learn? And how quickly did you use that data to drive to that next outcome? Really, that with companies like Netflix on, like Amazon, have mastered, how do we get that every large organization, every idea, organization and make everyone be a softer innovator. So it's to bring that on the concept of flow to these entering value streams. And the fascinating thing is, we've actually seen the data. We've been able to study a lot of value streams. We see when flow increases, when organizations deliver value to a customer faster developers actually become more happy. So things like that implying that promotes course rise. And we've got empirical data for this. So that beautiful thing to me is that we've actually been able thio, combine these two things and and see the results in the data that you increased flow to the customer, your development or more happy. I >>love it. I love it, right, because we're all more. We're all happier when we're in the flow and we're all more productive winner in the flow. So I that is a great melding of two concepts. But let's jump into the into the manifesto itself a little bit. And you know, I love that you know, that took this approach really of having kind of four key values, and he gets 12 key principles and I just want to read a couple these values because when you read them, it sounds pretty brain dead, right? Of course. Right. Of course, you should focus on business outcomes. Of course, you should have trust and collaboration. Of course, you should have data based decision making processes and not just intuition or, you know, whoever is the loudest person in the room on toe, learn and respond and pivot. But >>what's the >>value of actually just putting them on a piece of paper? Because again, this is not this. These are all good positive things, right? When when somebody reads these to you or tells you these or sticks it on the wall? Of course. But unfortunately, of course, isn't always enough. >>No, I think what's happened is some of these core principles originally from the agile manifested two decades ago. The whole Dev ops movement of the last decade off flow feedback and continue learning has been key. But a lot of organizations, especially the ones undergoing transformations, have actually gone a very different way, right? The way that they measure value in technology innovation is through costs For many organizations, the way that they actually are looking at at their moving to cloud is actually is a reduction in costs, whereas the right way of looking at moving the cloud is how much more quickly can we get to the value to the customer? How quickly can we learn from that? And how could quickly can we drive the next business outcome? So, really, the key thing is to move away from those old ways of doing things that funding projects and call centers to actually funding and investing in outcomes and measuring outcomes through these flow metrics, which in the end are your fast feedback for how quickly you're innovating for your customer. So these things do seem, you know, very obvious when you look at them. But the key thing is what you need to stop doing. To focus on these, you need to actually have accurate real time data off how much value your phone to the customer every week, every month, every quarter. And if you don't have that, your decisions are not given on data. If you don't know what your bottle like, it's. And this is something that in the decades of manufacturing car manufacturers, other manufacturers master. They always know where the bottom back in their production processes you ask, uh, random. See, I all want a global 500 company where the bottleneck is, and you won't get it there. Answer. Because there's not that level of understanding. So have to actually follow these principles. You need to know exactly where you follow like is because that's what's making your developers miserable and frustrated on having them context, which on thrash So it. The approach here is important, and we have to stop doing these other things right. >>There's so much. They're a pack. I love it, you know, especially the cloud conversation, because so many people look at it wrong as a cost saving device as opposed to an innovation driver, and they get stuck, they get stuck in the literal. And, you know, I think the same thing always about Moore's law, right? You know, there's a lot of interesting riel tech around Moore's law and the increasing power of microprocessors. But the real power, I think in Moore's laws, is the attitudinal change in terms of working in a world where you know that you've got all this power and what will you build and design? E think it's funny to your your comment on the flow in the bottleneck, right? Because because we know manufacturing assumes you fix one bottleneck. You move to your next one, right, You always move to your next point of failure. So if you're not fixing those things, you know you're not. You're not increasing that speed down the line unless you can identify where that bottleneck is, or no matter how Maney improvements you make to the rest of the process, it's still going to get hung up on that one spot. >>That's exactly, and you also make it sound so simple. But again, if you don't have the data driven visibility of where the bottleneck is. And but these bottlenecks are just as you said, if it's just lack, um, all right, so we need to understand is the bottleneck, because our security use air taking too long and stopping us from getting like the customer. If it's that automate that process and then you move on to the next bottleneck, which might actually be that deploy yourself through the clouds is taking too long. But if you don't take that approach of going flow first rather than again the sort of way cost production first you have taken approach of customer centric city, and you only focus on optimizing cost. Your costs will increase and your flow will slow down. And this is just one, these fascinating things. Whereas if you focus on getting back to the customer and reducing your cycles on getting value your flow time from six months to two weeks or 21 week or two event as we see with tech giants, you actually could both lower your costs and get much more value. Of course, get that learning going. So I think I've I've seen all these cloud deployments and modernizations happen that delivered almost no value because there was such a big ball next up front in the process. And actually the hosting and the AP testing was not even possible with all of those inefficiencies. So that's why going flow first rather than costs. First, there are projects versus Sochi. >>I love that and and and and it begs, repeating to that right within a subscription economy. You know you're on the hook to deliver value every single month because they're paying you every single month. So if you're not on top of how you delivering value, you're going to get sideways because it's not like, you know, they pay a big down payment and a small maintenance fee every month. But once you're in a subscription relationship, you know you have to constantly be delivering value and upgrading that value because you're constantly taking money from the customers. It's it's such a different kind of relationship, that kind of the classic, you know, Big Bang with the maintenance agreement on the back end really important. >>Yeah, and I think in terms of industry ship, that's it. That's what catalyzed this industry shift is in this SAS that subscription economy. If you're not delivering more and more value to your customers, someone else's and they're winning the business, not you. So one way we know is that divide their customers with great user experiences. Well, that really is based on how many features you delivered or how much. How about how many quality improvements or scaler performance improvements you delivered? So the problem is, and this is what the business manifesto was was the forefront of touch on is, if you can't measure how much value delivered to a customer, what are you measuring? You just back again measuring costs, and that's not a measure of value. So we have to shift quickly away from measuring costs to measuring value to survive in in the subscription economy. Mick, >>we could go for days and days and days. I want to shift gears a little bit into data and and a data driven, um, decision making a data driven organization. Because right day has been talked about for a long time. The huge big data mean with with Hadoop over over several years and data warehouses and data lakes and data, oceans and data swamps and you go on and on, it's not that easy to do right. And at the same time, the proliferation of data is growing exponentially were just around the corner from from I, O. T and five G. So now the accumulation of data at machine scale again this is gonna overwhelm, and one of the really interesting principles that I wanted to call out and get your take right is today's organizations generate mawr data than humans can process. So informed decisions must be augmented by machine learning and artificial intelligence. I wonder if you can again, you've got some great historical perspective reflect on how hard it is to get the right data to get the data in the right context and then to deliver to the decision makers and then trust the decision makers to actually make the data and move that down. You know, it's kind of this democratization process into more and more people and more and more frontline jobs, making more and more of these little decisions every day. >>Yeah, and Jeff, I think the front part of what you said are where the promises of big data have completely fallen on their face into these swamps. As you mentioned, because if you don't have the data and the right format, you can connect, collected that the right way, you're not. Model it that way the right way. You can't use human or machine learning on it effectively. And there have been the number of data, warehouses and a typical enterprise organization, and the sheer investment is tremendous. But the amount of intelligence being extracted from those is a very big problem. So the key thing that I've known this is that if you can model your value streams so you actually understand how you're innovating, how you're measuring the delivery value and how long that takes. What is your time to value through these metrics? Like for the time you can actually use both. You know the intelligence that you've got around the table and push that balance as it the assay, far as you can to the organization. But you can actually start using that those models to understand, find patterns and detect bottlenecks that might be surprising, Right? Well, you can detect interesting bottle next one you shift to work from home. We detected all sorts of interesting bottlenecks in our own organization that we're not intuitive to me that had to do with more senior people being overloaded and creating bottlenecks where they didn't exist. Whereas we thought we were actually organization. That was very good at working from home because of our open source route. So the data is highly complex. Software Valley streams are extremely complicated, and the only way to really get the proper analysts and data is to model it properly and then to leverage these machine learning and AI techniques that we have. But that front, part of what you said, is where organizations are just extremely immature in what I've seen, where they've got data from all the tools, but not modeled in the right way. >>Well, all right, so before I let you go, you know? So you get a business leader he buys in. He reads the manifesto. He signs on the dotted line. He says, Mick, how do I get started? I want to be more aligned with With the development teams, you know, I'm in a very competitive space. We need to be putting out new software features and engage with our customers. I want to be more data driven. How do I get started? Well, you know, what's the biggest inhibitor for most people to get started and get some early winds, which we know is always the key to success in any kind of a new initiative, >>right? So I think you can reach out to us through the website. Uh, on the is a manifesto, but the key thing is just it's exactly what you said, Jeff. It's to get started and get the key wins. So take a probably value stream. That's mission critical. It could be your new mobile Web experiences, or or part of your cloud modernization platform where your analysts pipeline. But take that and actually apply these principles to it and measure the entire inflow of value. Make sure you have a volumetric that everyone is on the same page on, right. The people on the development teams that people in leadership all the way up to the CEO and one of the where I encourage you to start is actually that enter and flow time, right? That is the number one metric. That is how you measure whether you're getting the benefit of your cloud modernization. That is the one metric that even Cockcroft when people I respect tremendously put in his cloud for CEOs Metric 11 way to measure innovation. So basically, take these principles, deployed them on one product value stream measure into and flow time on. Then you'll actually you well on your path to transforming and to applying the concepts of agile and develops all the way to the business to the way in your operating model. >>Well, Mick, really great tips, really fun to catch up. I look forward to a time when we can actually sit across the table and and get into this, because I just I just love the perspective. And, you know, you're very fortunate to have that foundational, that foundational base coming from Xerox parc. And it's, you know, it's a very magical place with a magical history. So the to incorporate that and to continue to spread that wealth, you know, good for you through the book and through your company. So thanks for sharing your insight with us today. >>Thanks so much for having me, Jeff. Absolutely. >>Alright. And go to the biz ops manifesto dot org's Read it. Check it out. If you want to sign it, sign it. They'd love to have you do it. Stay with us for continuing coverage of the unveiling of the business manifesto on the Cube. I'm Jeffrey. Thanks for watching. See you next time.

>>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage, a BizOps manifesto unveiled brought to you by biz ops coalition. >>Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with the cube. Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of the biz ops manifesto. Unveil. Something has been in the works for a little while. Today's the formal unveiling, and we're excited to have three of the core founding members of the manifesto authors of the manifesto. If you will, uh, joining us again, we've had them all on individually. Now we're going to have a great power panel. First up. We're gonna have Mitt Kirsten returning he's the founder and CEO of Tasktop mic. Good to see you again. Where are you dialing in from? >>Great to see you again, Jeff I'm dialing from Vancouver, >>We're Canada, Vancouver, Canada. One of my favorite cities in the whole wide world. Also we've got Tom Davenport come in from across the country. He's a distinguished professor and author from Babson college, Tom. Great to see you. And I think you said you're at a fun, exotic place on the East coast >>Realm of Memphis shoes. That's on Cape Cod. >>Great to see you again and also joining surge Lucio. He is the VP and general manager enterprise software division at Broadcom surge. Great to see you again, where are you coming in from? >>Uh, from Boston right next to Cape Cod. >>Terrific. So welcome back, everybody again. Congratulations on this day. I know it's been a lot of work to get here for this unveil, but let's just jump into it. The biz ops manifesto, what was the initial reason to do this? And how did you decide to do it in a kind of a coalition, a way bringing together a group of people versus just making it an internal company, uh, initiative that, you know, you can do better stuff within your own company, surge, why don't we start with you? >>Yeah, so, so I think we were at a really critical juncture, right? Many, um, large enterprises are basically struggling with their digital transformation. Um, in fact, um, many recognized that, uh, the, the business side, it collaboration has been, uh, one of the major impediments, uh, to drive that kind of transformation. That, and if we look at the industry today, many people are, whether we're talking about vendors or, um, you know, system integrators, consulting firms are talking about the same kind of concepts, but using very different language. And so we believe that bringing all these different players together, um, as part of the coalition and formalizing, uh, basically the core principles and values in a BizOps manifesto, we can really start to F could have a much bigger movement where we can all talk about kind of the same concepts and we can really start to provide, could have a much better support for large organizations to, to transform. Uh, so whether it is technology or services or, um, or training, I think that that's really the value of bringing all of these players together, right. >>And mic to you. Why did you get involved in this, in this effort? >>So I've been closely involved the agile movement since it started two decades with that manifesto. And I think we got a lot of improvement at the team level, and I think that was just no. Did we really need to improve at the business level? Every company is trying to become a software innovator, trying to make sure that they can pivot quickly and the changing market economy and what everyone's dealing with in terms of needing to deliver value to customers sooner. However, agile practices have really focused on these metrics, these measures and understanding processes that help teams be productive. Those things now need to be elevated to the business as a whole. And that just hasn't happened. Uh, organizations are actually failing because they're measuring activities and how they're becoming more agile, how teams are functioning, not how much quickly they're delivering value to the customer. So we need to now move past that. And that's exactly what the manifesto provides. Right, >>Right, right. And Tom, to you, you've been covering tech for a very long time. You've been looking at really hard challenges and a lot of work around analytics and data and data evolution. So there's a definitely a data angle here. I wonder if you could kind of share your perspective of what you got excited to, uh, to sign onto this manifesto. >>Sure. Well, I have, you know, for the past 15 or 20 years, I've been focusing on data and analytics and AI, but before that I was a process management guy and a knowledge management guy. And in general, I think, you know, we've just kind of optimize that to narrow a level, whether you're talking about agile or dev ops or ML ops, any of these kinds of ops oriented movements, we're making individual project, um, performance and productivity better, but we're not changing the business, uh, effectively enough. And that's the thing that appealed to me about the biz ops idea, that we're finally creating a closer connection between what we do with technology and how it changes the business and provides value to it. >>Great. Uh, surge back to you, right? I mean, people have been talking about digital transformation for a long time and it's been, you know, kind of trucking along and then covert hit and it was instant Lightswitch. Everyone's working from home. You've got a lot more reliance on your digital tools, digital communication, uh, both within your customer base and your partner base, but also then your employees when you're, if you could share how that really pushed this all along. Right? Because now suddenly the acceleration of digital transformation is higher. Even more importantly, you got much more critical decisions to make into what you do next. So kind of your portfolio management of projects has been elevated significantly when maybe revenues are down, uh, and you really have to, uh, to prioritize and get it right. >>Yeah. Maybe I'll just start by quoting Satina Nello basically recently said that they're speeding the two years of digital preservation just last two months in any many ways. That's true. Um, but yet when we look at large enterprises, they're still struggling with a kind of a changes in culture. They really need to drive to be able to disrupt themselves. And not surprisingly, you know, when we look at certain parts of the industry, you know, we see some things which are very disturbing, right? So about 40% of the personal loans today are being, uh, origin data it's by fintechs, uh, of a like of Sophie or, uh, or a lending club, right? Not to a traditional brick and mortar for BEC. And so the, well, there is kind of a much more of an appetite and it's a, it's more of a survival type of driver these days. >>Uh, the reality is that's in order for these large enterprises to truly transform and engage on this digital transformation, they need to start to really align the business nightie, you know, in many ways and make cover. Does agile really emerge from the core desire to truly improve software predictability between which we've really missed is all the way we start to aligning the software predictability to business predictability, and to be able to have continual sleep continuous improvement and measurement of business outcomes. So by aligning that of these, uh, discuss inward metrics, that's, it is typically being using to business outcomes. We think we can start to really ELP, uh, different stakeholders within the organization to collaborate. So I think there is more than ever. There's an imperative to acts now. Um, and, and resolves, I think is kind of the right approach to drive that kind of transformation. Right. >>I want to follow up on the culture comment, uh, with you, Tom, because you've talked before about kind of process flow and process flow throughout a whore and an organization. And, you know, we talk about people process and tech all the time. And I think the tech is the easy part compared to actually changing the people the way they think. And then the actual processes that they put in place. It's a much more difficult issue than just the tech issue to get this digital transformation in your organization. >>Yeah. You know, I've always found that the soft stuff about, you know, the culture of a behavior, the values is the hard stuff to change and more and more, we, we realized that to be successful with any kind of digital transformation you have to change people's behaviors and attitudes. Um, we haven't made as much progress in that area as we might have. I mean, I've done some surveys suggesting that most organizations still don't have data driven cultures. And in many cases there is a lower percentage of companies that say they have that then, um, did a few years ago. So we're kind of moving in the wrong direction, which means I think that we have to start explicitly addressing that, um, cultural, behavioral dimension and not just assuming that it will happen if we, if we build system, if we build it, they won't necessarily come. Right. >>Right. So I want to go to you Nick. Cause you know, we're talking about workflows and flow, um, and, and you've written about flow both in terms of, um, you know, moving things along a process and trying to find bottlenecks, identify bottlenecks, which is now even more important again, when these decisions are much more critical. Cause you have a lot less, uh, wiggle room in tough times, but you also talked about flow from the culture side and the people side. So I wonder if you can just share your thoughts on, you know, using flow as a way to think about things, to get the answers better. >>Yeah, absolutely. And I'll refer back to what Tom has said. If you're optimized, you need to optimize your system. You need to optimize how you innovate and how you deliver value to the business and the customer. Now, what we've noticed in the data, since that we've learned from customers, value streams, enterprise organizations, value streams, is that when it's taking six months at the end to deliver that value with the flow is that slow. You've got a bunch of unhappy developers, unhappy customers when you're innovating half so high performing organizations, we can measure third and 10 float time and dates. All of a sudden that feedback loop, the satisfaction your developer's measurably goes up. So not only do you have people context, switching glass, you're delivering so much more value to customers at a lower cost because you've optimized for flow rather than optimizing for these other approximate tricks that we use, which is how efficient is my agile team. How quickly can we deploy software? Those are important, but they do not provide the value of agility of fast learning of adaptability to the business. And that's exactly what the biz ops manifesto pushes your organization to do. You need to put in place this new operating model that's based on flow on the delivery of business value and on bringing value to market much more quickly than you were before. Right. >>I love that. And I'm going back to you, Tom, on that to follow up. Cause I think, I don't think people think enough about how they prioritize what they're optimizing for. Cause you know, if you're optimizing for a versus B, you know, you can have a very different product that you kick out and let you know. My favorite example is with Clayton Christianson and innovator's dilemma talking about the three inch hard drive. If you optimize it for power, you know, is one thing, if you optimize it for vibration is another thing and sure enough, you know, they missed it on the poem because it was the, it was the game console, which, which drove that whole business. So when you, when you're talking to customers and we think we hear it with cloud all the time, people optimizing for cost efficiency, instead of thinking about it as an innovation tool, how do you help them kind of rethink and really, you know, force them to, to look at the, at the prioritization and make sure they're prioritizing on the right thing is make just said, what are you optimizing for? >>Oh yeah. Um, you have one of the most important aspects of any decision or, um, attempt to resolve a problem in an organization is the framing process. And, um, you know, it's, it's a difficult aspect of the decision to frame it correctly in the first place. Um, there, it's not a technology issue. In many cases, it's largely a human issue, but if you frame that decision or that problem incorrectly to narrowly say, or you frame it as an either or situation where you could actually have some of both, um, it, it's very difficult for the, um, process to work out correctly. So in many cases that I think we need to think more at the beginning about how we bring this issue or this decision in the best way possible before we charge off and build a system to support it. You know, um, it's worth that extra time to think, think carefully about how the decision has been structured, right >>Surgery. I want to go back to you and talk about the human factors because as we just discussed, you can put it in great technology, but if the culture doesn't adopt it and people don't feel good about it, you know, it's not going to be successful and that's going to reflect poorly on the technology, even if it had nothing to do with it. And you know, when you look at the, the, the core values, uh, of the Bezos manifesto, you know, a big one is trust and collaboration, you know, learn, respond and pivot. I wonder if you can share your thoughts on, on trying to get that cultural shift, uh, so that you can have success with the people or excuse me, with the technology in the process and helping customers, you know, take this more trustworthy and kind of proactive, uh, position. >>So I think, I think at the ground level, it truly starts with the realization that we're all different. We come from different backgrounds. Um, oftentimes we tend to blame the data. It's not uncommon my experiments that we spend the first 30 minutes of any kind of one hour conversation to debate the validity of the data. Um, and so, um, one of the first kind of, uh, probably manifestations that we've had or revelations as we start to engage with our customers is spike, just exposing, uh, high-fidelity data sets to different stakeholders from their different lens. We start to enable these different stakeholders to not debate the data. That's really collaborate to find a solution. So in many ways, when, when, when we think about kind of the types of changes we're trying to, to truly affect around data driven decision making, it's all about bringing the data in context, in the context that is relevant and understandable for, for different stakeholders, whether we're talking about an operator or develop for a business analyst. >>So that's, that's the first thing. The second layer I think, is really to provide context to what people are doing in their specific cycle. And so I think one of the best examples I have is if you start to be able to align business KPI, whether you are counting, you know, sales per hour, or the engagements of your users on your mobile applications, whatever it is, you can start to connect that PKI to the business KPI, to the KPIs that developers might be looking at, whether it is the number of defects or a velocity or whatever, you know, metrics that they are used to to actually track you start to, to be able to actually contextualize in what we are the effecting, basically a metric that is really relevant in which we see is that DC is a much more systematic way to approach the transformation than say, you know, some organizations kind of creating, uh, some of these new products or services or initiatives, um, to, to drive engagements, right? >>So if you look at zoom, for instance, zoom giving away a it service to, uh, to education, he's all about, I mean, there's obviously a marketing aspect in therapists. It's fundamentally about trying to drive also the engagement of their own teams. And because now they're doing something for good and the organizations are trying to do that, but you only can do this kind of things in a limited way. And so you really want to start to rethink how you connect to, everybody's kind of a business objective fruit data, and now you start to get people to stare at the same data from their own lens and collaborate on all the data. Right, >>Right. That's a good, uh, Tom, I want to go back to you. You've been studying it for a long time, writing lots of books and getting into it. Um, why now, you know, what w why now are we finally aligning business objectives with, with it objectives? You know, why didn't this happen before? And, you know, what are the factors that are making now the time for this, this, this move with the, uh, with the biz ops? >>Well, and much of the past, it was sort of a back office related activity. And, you know, it was important for, um, uh, producing your paychecks and, uh, um, capturing the customer orders, but the business wasn't built around it now, every organization needs to be a software business, a data business, a digital business, the auntie has been raised considerably. And if you aren't making that connection between your business objectives and the technology that supports it, you run a pretty big risk of, you know, going out of business or losing out to competitors. Totally. So, um, and, uh, even if you're in a, an industry that hasn't historically been terribly, um, technology oriented customer expectations flow from, uh, you know, the digital native, um, companies that they work with to basically every industry. So you're compared against the best in the world. So we don't really have the luxury anymore of screwing up our it projects or building things that don't really work for the business. Um, it's mission critical that we do that well. Um, almost every time, I just want to follow up by that, Tom, >>In terms of the, you've talked extensively about kind of these evolutions of data and analytics from artismal stage to the big data stage, the data economy stage, the AI driven stage and what I find diff interesting that all those stages, you always put a start date. You never put an end date. Um, so you know, is the, is the big data I'm just going to use that generically a moment in time finally here, where we're, you know, off mahogany row with the data scientists, but actually can start to see the promise of delivering the right insight to the right person at the right time to make that decision. >>Well, I think it is true that in general, these previous stages never seemed to go away. The, um, the artisinal stuff is still being done, but we would like for less than less of it to be artisinal, we can't really afford for everything to be artisinal anymore. It's too labor and time consuming to do things that way. So we shift more and more of it to be done through automation and B to be done with a higher level of productivity. And, um, you know, at some point maybe we reached the stage where we don't do anything artisanally anymore. I'm not sure we're there yet, but, you know, we are, we are making progress. Right, >>Right. And Mick, back to you in terms of looking at agile, cause you're, you're such a, a student of agile when, when you look at the opportunity with ops, um, and taking the lessons from agile, you know, what's been the inhibitor to stop this in the past. And what are you so excited about? You know, taking this approach will enable. >>Yeah. I think both Sergeant Tom hit on this is that in agile what's happened is that we've been measuring tiny subsets of the value stream, right? We need to elevate the data's there. Developers are working on these tools that delivering features that the foundations for, for great culture are there. I spent two decades as a developer. And when I was really happy is when I was able to deliver value to customers, the quicker I was able to do that the fewer impediments are in my way, that quicker was deployed and running in the cloud, the happier I was, and that's exactly what's happening. If we can just get the right data, uh, elevated to the business, not just to the agile teams, but really these values of ours are to make sure that you've got these data driven decisions with meaningful data that's oriented around delivering value to customers. Not only these legacies that Tom touched on, which has cost center metrics from an ITK, from where, for it being a cost center and something that provided email and then back office systems. So we need to rapidly shift to those new, meaningful metrics that are customized business centric and make sure that every development the organization is focused on those as well as the business itself, that we're measuring value and that we're helping that value flow without interruptions. >>I love that mic. Cause if you don't measure it, you can't improve on it and you gotta, but you gotta be measuring the right thing. So gentlemen, uh, thank you again for, for your time. Congratulations on the, uh, on the unveil of the biz ops manifesto and together this coalition >>Of, of, uh, industry experts to get behind this. And, you know, there's probably never been a more important time than now to make sure that your prioritization is in the right spot and you're not wasting resources where you're not going to get the ROI. So, uh, congratulations again. And thank you for sharing your thoughts with us here on the cube. Alright, so we had surge, Tom and Mick I'm. Jeff, you're watching the cube, it's a biz ops manifesto and unveil. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of BizOps manifesto, unveiled brought to you by biz ops coalition and welcome back Friday, Jeff Frick here with the cube we're in our Palo Alto studios. And we'd like to welcome you back to our continuing coverage of biz ops manifesto, unveil exciting day to really, uh, kind of bring this out into public. There's been a little bit of conversation, but today's really the official unveiling and we're excited to have our next guest to share a little bit more information on it. He's Patrick tickle. He's a chief product officer for planned view. Patrick. Great to see you. Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for the invite. So why the biz ops manifesto, why the biz optical edition now when you guys have been at it, it's relatively mature marketplace businesses. Good. What was missing? Why, why this, uh, why this coalition? >>Yeah, so, you know, again, why is, why is biz ops important and why is this something I'm, you know, I'm so excited about, but I think companies as well, right. Well, you know, in some ways or another, this is a topic that I've been talking to, you know, the market and our customers about for a long time. And it's, you know, I really applaud, you know, this whole movement, right. And, um, in resonates with me, because I think one of the fundamental flaws, frankly, of the way we've talked about technology and business literally for decades, uh, has been this idea of, uh, alignment. Those who know me, I occasionally get off on this little rant about the word alignment, right. But to me, the word alignment is, is actually indicative of the, of the, of the flaw in a lot of our organizations and biz ops is really, I think now trying to catalyze and expose that flaw. >>Right. Because, you know, I always say that, you know, you know, alignment implies silos, right. Instantaneously, as soon as you say there's alignment, there's, there's obviously somebody who's got a direction and other people that have to line up and that, that kind of siloed, uh, nature of organizations. And then frankly, the passive nature of it. Right. I think so many technology organizations are like, look, the business has the strategy you guys need to align. Right. And, and, you know, as a product leader, right. That's where I've been my whole career. Right. I can tell you that I never sit around. I almost never use the word alignment. Right. I mean, whether I never sit down and say, you know, the product management team has to get aligned with Deb, right. Or the dev team has to get aligned with the delivery and ops teams. I mean, what I say is, you know, are we on strategy, right? >>Like we've, we have a strategy as a, as a full end to end value stream. Right. And that there's no silos. And I mean, look, every on any given day we got to get better. Right. But the context, the context we operate is not about alignment. Right. It's about being on strategy. And I think I've talked to customers a lot about that, but when I first read the manifesto, I was like, Oh yeah, this is exactly. This is breaking down. Maybe trying to eliminate the word alignment, you know, from a lot of our organizations, because we literally start thinking about one strategy and how we go from strategy to delivery and have it be our strategy, not someone else's that we're all aligning to it. And it's a great way to catalyze that conversation. That I've, it's been in my mind for years, to be honest. Right. >>So, so much to unpack there. One of the things obviously, uh, stealing a lot from, from dev ops and the dev ops manifesto from 20 years ago. And as I look through some of the principles and I looked through some of the values, which are, you know, really nicely laid out here, you know, satisfy customers, do continuous delivery, uh, measure, output against real results. Um, the ones that, that jumps out though is really about, you know, change, change, right? Requirements should change frequently. They do change frequently, but I'm curious to get your take from a, from a software development point, it's easy to kind of understand, right. We're making this widget and our competitors, beta widget plus X, and now we need to change our plans and make sure that the plus X gets added to the plan. Maybe it wasn't in the plan, but you talked a lot about product strategy. So in this kind of continuous delivery world, how does that meld with, I'm actually trying to set a strategy, which implies the direction for a little bit further out on the horizon and to stay on that while at the same time, you're kind of doing this real time continual adjustments. Cause you're not working off a giant PRD or MRD anymore. >>Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. You know, one of the terms, you know, that we use internally a lot and even with my customers, our customers is we talked about this idea of rewiring, right. And I think, you know, it's kind of a, now an analogy for transformation. And I think a lot of us have to rewire the way we think about things. Right. And I think at Planview where we have a lot of customers who live in that, you know, who operationalize that traditional PPM world. Right. And are shifting to agile and transforming that rewire is super important. And, and to your point, right, it's, you've just, you've got to embrace this idea of, you know, just iterative getting better every day and iterating, iterating, iterating as to building annual plans or, you know, I get customers occasionally who asked me for two or three year roadmap. >>Right. And I literally looked at them and I go, there's no, there's no scenario where I can build a two or three year roadmap. Right. You, you, you think you want that, but that's not, that's not the way we run. Right. And I will tell you the biggest thing that for us, you know, that I think is matched the planning, uh, you know, patents is a word I like to use a lot. So the thing that we've like, uh, that we've done from a planning perspective, I think is matched impedance to continuous delivery is instituting the whole program, implement, you know, the program, increment planning, capabilities and methodologies, um, in the scaled agile world. Right. And over the last 18 months to two years, we really have now, you know, instrumented our company across three value streams. You know, we do quarterly PI program increment 10 week planning, you know, and that becomes, that becomes the Terra firma of how we plant. >>Right. And it's, what are we doing for the next 10 weeks? And we iterate within those 10 weeks, but we also know that 10 weeks from now, we're going to, we're going to adjust iterate again. Right. And that shifting of that planning model, you know, to being as cross-functional is that as that big room planning kind of model is, um, and also, uh, you know, on that shorter increment, when you get those two things in place, all sudden the impedance really starts to match up, uh, with continuous delivery and it changes, it changes the way you plan and it changes the way you work. Right? >>Yeah. Their thing. Right. So obviously a lot of these things are kind of process driven, both within the values, as well as the principles, but there's a whole lot, really about culture. And I just want to highlight a couple of the values, right? We already talked about business outcomes, um, trust and collaboration, uh, data driven decisions, and then learn, respond and pivot. Right. A lot of those are cultural as much as they are process. So again, is it the, is it the need to really kind of just put them down on paper and you know, I can't help, but think of, you know, the hammering up the, uh, the thing in the Lutheran church with their, with their manifesto, is it just good to get it down on paper? Because when you read these things, you're like, well, of course we should trust people. And of course we need an environment of collaboration and of course we want data driven decisions, but as we all know saying it and living, it are two very, very different things. >>Yeah. Good question. I mean, I think there's a lot of ways you bring that to life you're right. And just hanging up, you know, I think we've all been through the hanging up posters around your office, which these days, right. Unless you're going to hang a poster and everybody's home office. Right. You can't even, you can't even fake it that you think that might work. Right. So, um, you know, you really, I think we've attacked that in a variety of ways. Right. And you definitely have to, you know, you've got to make the shift to a team centric culture, right. Empowered teams, you know, that's a big deal. Right. You know, a lot of, a lot of the people that, you know, we lived in a world of quote unquote, where we were lived in a deep resource management world for a long, long time. >>And right. A lot of our customers still do that, but you know, kind of moving to that team centric world is, uh, is really important and core the trust. Um, I think training is super important, right. We've, you know, we've internally, right. We've trained hundreds employees over the last a year and a half on the fundamentals really of safe. Right. Not necessarily, you know, we've had, we've had teams delivering in scrum and the continuous delivery for, you know, for years, but the scaling aspect of it, uh, is where we've done a lot of training and investment. Um, and then, you know, I think, uh, leadership has to be bought in. Right. You know? And so when we pie plan, you know, myself and Cameron and the other members of our leadership, you know, we're NPI planning, you know, for, for four days. Right. I mean, it's, it's, you've got to walk the walk, you know, from top to bottom and you've got to train on the context. Right. And then you, and then, and, and then once you get through a few cycles where you've done a pivot, right. Or you brought a new team in, and it just works, it becomes kind of this virtuous circle where he'll go, man, this really works so much better than what we used to do. Right. >>Right. The other really key principle to this whole thing is, is aligning, you know, the business leaders and the business prioritization, um, so that you can get to good outcomes with the development and the delivery. Right. And we, we know again, and kind of classic dev ops to get the dev and the production people together. So they can, you know, quickly ship code that works. Um, but adding the business person on there really puts, puts a little extra responsibility that they, they understand the value of a particular feature or particular priority. Uh, they, they can make the, the, the trade offs and that they kind of understand the effort involved too. So, you know, bringing them into this continuous again, kind of this continuous development process, um, to make sure that things are better aligned and really better prioritize. Cause ultimately, you know, we don't live in an infinite resources situation and people got to make trade offs. They got to make decisions as to what goes and what doesn't go in for everything that goes. Right. I always say you pick one thing. Okay. That's 99 other things that couldn't go. So it's really important to have, you know, this, you said alignment of the business priorities as well as, you know, the execution within, within the development. >>Yeah. I think that, you know, uh, you know, I think it was probably close to two years ago. Forester started talking about the age of the customer, right. That, that was like their big theme at the time. Right. And I think to me what that, the age of the customer actually translates to and Mick, Mick and I are both big fans of this whole idea of the project and product shift, mixed book, you know, it was a great piece on a, you're talking about, you know, as part of the manifesto is one of the authors as well, but this shift from project to product, right? Like the age of the customer, in my opinion, the, the embodiment of that is the shift to a product mentality. Right. And, and the product mentality in my opinion, is what brings the business and technology teams together, right? >>Once you, once you're focused on a customer experience is delivered through a product or a service. That's when I that's, when I started to go with the alignment problem goes away, right. Because if you look at software companies, right, I mean, we run product management models yeah. With software development teams, customer success teams, right. That, you know, the software component of these products that people are building is obviously becoming bigger and bigger, you know, in an, in many ways, right. More and more organizations are trying to model themselves over as operationally like software companies. Right. Um, they obviously have lots of other components in their business than just software, but I think that whole model of customer experience equaling product, and then the software component of product, the product is the essence of what changes that alignment equation and brings business and teams together because all of a sudden, everyone knows what the customer's experiencing. Right. And, and that, that, that makes a lot of things very clear, very quickly. >>Right. I'm just curious how far along this was as a process before, before COBIT hit, right. Because serendipitous, whatever. Right. But the sudden, you know, light switch moment, everybody had to go work from home and in March 15th compared to now we're in October and this is going to be going on for a while. And it is a new normal and whatever that whatever's going to look like a year from now, or two years from now is TBD, you know, had you guys already started on this journey cause again, to sit down and actually declare this coalition and declare this manifesto is a lot different than just trying to do better within your own organization. >>Yeah. So we had started, uh, you know, w we definitely had started independently, you know, some, some, you know, I think people in the community know that, uh, we, we came together with a company called lean kit a handful of years ago, and I give John Terry actually one of the founders LeanKit immense credit for, you know, kind of spearheading our cultural change and not, and not because of, we were just gonna be, you know, bringing agile solutions to our customers, but because, you know, he believed that it was going to be a fundamentally better way for us to work. Right. And we kind of, you know, we started with John and built, you know, out of concentric circles of momentum and, and we've gotten to the place where now it's just part of who we are, but, but I do think that, you know, COVID has, you know, um, I think pre COVID a lot of companies, you know, would, would adopt, you know, the would adopt digital slash agile transformation. >>Um, traditional industries may have done it as a reaction to disruption. Right. You know, and in many cases, the disruption to these traditional industries was, I would say a product oriented company, right. That probably had a larger software component, and that disruption caused a competitive issue, uh, or a customer issue that caused companies and tried to respond by transforming. I think COVID, you know, all of a sudden flatten that out, right. We literally all got disrupted. Right. And so all of a sudden, every one of us is dealing with some degree of market uncertainty, customer uncertainty, uh, and also, you know, none of us were insulated from the need to be able to pivot faster, deliver incrementally, you know, and operate in a different, completely more agile way, uh, you know, post COVID. Right. Yeah. That's great. >>So again, a very, very, very timely, you know, a little bit of serendipity, a little bit of planning. And, you know, as, as with all important things, there's always a little bit of lock in, uh, and a lot of hard work involved. So a really interesting thank you for, for your leadership, Patrick. And, you know, it really makes a statement. I think when you have a bunch of leaderships across an industry coming together and putting their name on a piece of paper, uh, that's aligned around us some principles and some values, which again, if you read them who wouldn't want to get behind these, but if it takes, you know, something a little bit more formal, uh, to kind of move the ball down the field, and then I totally get it and a really great work. Thanks for, uh, thanks for doing it. >>Oh, absolutely. No. Like I said, the first time I read it, I was like, yep. Like you said, this is all, it's all makes complete sense, but just documenting it and saying it and talking about it moves the needle. I'll tell you as a company, you gotta, we're pushing really hard on, uh, you know, on our own internal strategy on diversity and inclusion. Right. And, and like, once we wrote the words down about what, you know, what we aspire to be from a diversity and inclusion perspective, it's the same thing. Everybody reads the words that goes, why wouldn't we do this? Right. But until you write it down and kind of have again, a manifesto or a Terra firma of what you're trying to accomplish, you know, then you can rally behind it. Right. As opposed to it being something that's, everybody's got their own version of the flavor. Right. And I think it's a very analogous, you know, kind of, uh, initiative. Right. And, uh, and it's happening, both of those things right. Are happening across the industry these days. Right. >>And measure it too. Right. And measure it, measure, measure, measure, get a baseline. Even if you don't like to measure, even if you don't like what the, even if you can argue against the math, behind the measurement, measure it. And at least you can measure it again and you can, and you've got some type of a comp and that is really the only way to, to move it forward. We're Patrick really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for, uh, for taking a few minutes out of your day. >>It's great to be here. It's an awesome movement and we're glad to be a part of it. >>All right. Thanks. And if you want to check out the biz ops, Manifesta go to biz ops, manifesto.org, read it. You might want to sign it. It's there for you. And thanks for tuning in on this segment will continuing coverage of the biz op manifesto unveil you're on the cube. I'm Jeff, thanks for watching >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of biz ops manifesto unveiled brought to you by biz ops coalition. >>Hey, welcome back, everybody Jeffrey here with the cube. We're coming to you from our Palo Alto studios. And welcome back to this event is the biz ops manifesto unveiling. So the biz ops manifesto and the biz ops coalition had been around for a little while, but today's the big day. That's kind of the big public unveiling, or we're excited to have some of the foundational people that, you know, have put their, put their name on the dotted, if you will, to support this initiative and talk about why that initiative is so important. And so the next guest we're excited to have is dr. Mick Kirsten. He is the founder and CEO of Tasktop mic. Great to see you coming in from Vancouver, Canada, I think, right? Yes. Great to be here, Jeff. Thank you. Absolutely. I hope your air is a little better out there. I know you had some of the worst air of all of us, a couple, a couple of weeks back. So hopefully things are, uh, are getting a little better and we get those fires under control. Yeah. >>Things have cleared up now. So yeah, it's good. It's good to be close to the U S and it's going to have the Arabic cleaner as well. >>Absolutely. So let's, let's jump into it. So you you've been an innovation guy forever starting way back in the day and Xerox park. I was so excited to do an event at Xerox park for the first time last year. I mean, that, that to me represents along with bell labs and, and some other, you know, kind of foundational innovation and technology centers, that's gotta be one of the greatest ones. So I just wonder if you could share some perspective of getting your start there at Xerox park, you know, some of the lessons you learned and what you've been able to kind of carry forward from those days. >>Yeah. I was fortunate to join Xerox park in the computer science lab there at a fairly early point in my career, and to be working on open source programming languages. So back then in the computer science lab, where some of the inventions around programming around software development games, such as object programming, and a lot of what we had around really modern programming levels constructs, those were the teams I had the fortunate of working with, and really our goal was. And of course, there's, as, as you noticed, there's just this DNA of innovation and excitement and innovation in the water. And really it was the model that was all about changing the way that we work was looking at for how we can make it 10 times easier to white coat. But this is back in 99. And we were looking at new ways of expressing, especially business concerns, especially ways of enabling people who are wanting to innovate for their business to express those concerns in code and make that 10 times easier than what that would take. >>So we create a new open source programming language, and we saw some benefits, but not quite quite what we expected. I then went and actually joined Charles Stephanie, that former to fucking from Microsoft who was responsible for, he actually got Microsoft word as a sparking into Microsoft and into the hands of bill Gates and that company that was behind the whole office suite and his vision. And then when I was trying to execute with, working for him was to make PowerPoint like a programming language to make everything completely visual. And I realized none of this was really working, that there was something else, fundamentally wrong programming languages, or new ways of building software. Like let's try and do with Charles around intentional programming. That was not enough. >>That was not enough. So, you know, the agile movement got started about 20 years ago, and we've seen the rise of dev ops and really this kind of embracing of, of, of sprints and, you know, getting away from MRDs and PRDs and these massive definitions of what we're going to build and long build cycles to this iterative process. And this has been going on for a little while. So what was still wrong? What was still missing? Why the biz ops coalition, why the biz ops manifesto? >>Yeah, so I basically think we nailed some of the things that the program language levels of teams can have effective languages deployed to soften to the cloud easily now, right? And at the kind of process and collaboration and planning level agile two decades, decades ago was formed. We were adopting and all the, all the teams I was involved with and it's really become a self problem. So agile tools, agile teams, agile ways of planning, uh, are now very mature. And the whole challenge is when organizations try to scale that. And so what I realized is that the way that agile was scaling across teams and really scaling from the technology part of the organization to the business was just completely flawed. The agile teams had one set of doing things, one set of metrics, one set of tools. And the way that the business was working was planning was investing in technology was just completely disconnected and using a whole different set of measures. Pretty >>Interesting. Cause I think it's pretty clear from the software development teams in terms of what they're trying to deliver. Cause they've got a feature set, right. And they've got bugs and it's easy to, it's easy to see what they deliver, but it sounds like what you're really honing in on is this disconnect on the business side, in terms of, you know, is it the right investment? You know, are we getting the right business ROI on this investment? Was that the right feature? Should we be building another feature or should we building a completely different product set? So it sounds like it's really a core piece of this is to get the right measurement tools, the right measurement data sets so that you can make the right decisions in terms of what you're investing, you know, limited resources. You can't, nobody has unlimited resources. And ultimately you have to decide what to do, which means you're also deciding what not to do. And it sounds like that's a really big piece of this, of this whole effort. >>Yeah. Jeff, that's exactly it, which is the way that the agile team measures their own way of working is very different from the way that you measure business outcomes. The business outcomes are in terms of how happy your customers are, but are you innovating fast enough to keep up with the pace of a rapidly changing economy, roughly changing market. And those are, those are all around the customer. And so what I learned on this long journey of supporting many organizations transformations and having them try to apply those principles of agile and dev ops, that those are not enough, those measures technical practices, uh, those measured sort of technical excellence of bringing code to the market. They don't actually measure business outcomes. And so I realized that it really was much more around having these entwined flow metrics that are customer centric and business centric and market centric where we need it to go. Right. >>So I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about your book because you're also a bestselling author from project to product and, and, and you, you brought up this concept in your book called the flow framework. And it's really interesting to me cause I know, you know, flow on one hand is kind of a workflow and a process flow and, and you know, that's how things get done and, and, and embrace the flow. On the other hand, you know, everyone now in, in a little higher level existential way is trying to get into the flow right into the workflow and, you know, not be interrupted and get into a state where you're kind of at your highest productivity, you know, kind of your highest comfort, which flow are you talking about in your book? Or is it a little bit of both? >>That's a great question. It's not one I get asked very often cause to me it's absolutely both. So that the thing that we want to get, that we've learned how to master individual flow, that there's this beautiful book by me, how you teaches me how he does a beautiful Ted talk by him as well about how we can take control of our own flow. So my question with the book with question replies, how can we bring that to entire teams and really entire organizations? How can we have everyone contributing to a customer outcome? And this is really what if you go to the biz ops manifesto, it says, I focus on outcomes on using data to drive whether we're delivering those outcomes rather than a focus on proxy metrics, such as, how quickly did we implement this feature? No, it's really how much value did the customer go to the future? >>And how quickly did you learn and how quickly did you use that data to drive to that next outcome? Really that with companies like Netflix and Amazon have mastered, how do we get that to every large organization, every it organization and make everyone be a software innovator. So it's to bring that, that concept of flow to these end to end value streams. And the fascinating thing is we've actually seen the data. We've been able to study a lot of value streams. We see when flow increases, when organizations deliver value to a customer faster, developers actually become more happy. So things like that and point out promoter scores, rise, and we've got empirical data for this. So that the beautiful thing to me is that we've actually been able to combine these two things and see the results and the data that you increase flow to the customer. Your developers are more, >>I love it. I love it, right, because we're all more, we're all happier when we're in the flow and we're all more productive when we're in the flow. So I, that is a great melding of, of two concepts, but let's jump into the, into the manifesto itself a little bit. And you know, I love that you took this approach really of having kind of four key values and then he gets 12 key principles. And I just want to read a couple of these values because when you read them, it sounds pretty brain dead. Right? Of course. Right. Of course you should focus on business outcomes. Of course you should have trust and collaboration. Of course you should have database decision making processes and not just intuition or, you know, whoever's the loudest person in the room, uh, and to learn and respond and pivot. But what's the value of actually just putting them on a piece of paper, because again, this is not this, these are all good, positive things, right? When somebody reads these to you or tells you these are sticks it on the wall, of course. But unfortunately of course isn't always enough. >>No. And I think what's happened is some of these core principles originally from the agile manifesto in two decades ago, uh, the whole dev ops movement of the last decade of flow feedback and continue learning has been key. But a lot of organizations, especially the ones undergoing digital transformations have actually gone a very different way, right? The way that they measure value, uh, in technology and innovation is through costs for many organizations. The way that they actually are looking at that they're moving to cloud is actually as a reduction in cost. Whereas the right way of looking at moving to cloud is how much more quickly can we get to the value to the customer? How quickly can we learn from that? And how quickly can we drive the next business outcome? So really the key thing is, is to move away from those old ways of doing things of funding projects and cost centers, to actually funding and investing in outcomes and measuring outcomes through these flow metrics, which in the end are your fast feedback and how quickly you're innovating for your customer. >>So these things do seem very obvious when you look at them. But the key thing is what you need to stop doing to focus on these. You need to actually have accurate realtime data of how much value you fund to the customer every week, every month, every quarter. And if you don't have that, your decisions are not driven on data. If you don't know what your bottleneck is. And this is something that in decades of manufacturing, a car manufacturers, other manufacturers, master, they always know where the bottom back in their production processes. You ask a random CIO when a global 500 company where their bottleneck is, and you won't get a clear answer because there's not that level of understanding. So have to actually follow these principles. You need to know exactly where you fall. And I guess because that's, what's making your developers miserable and frustrated, then having them context, which I'm trash. So the approach here is important and we have to stop doing these other things, >>Right? There's so much there to unpack. I love it. You know, especially the cloud conversation because so many people look at it wrong as, as, as a cost saving a device, as opposed to an innovation driver and they get stuck, they get stuck in the literal. And I, you know, I think at the same thing, always about Moore's law, right? You know, there's a lot of interesting real tech around Moore's law and the increasing power of microprocessors, but the real power, I think in Moore's laws is the attitudinal change in terms of working in a world where you know that you've got all this power and what you build and design. I think it's funny to your, your comment on the flow and the bottleneck, right? Cause, cause we know manufacturing, as soon as you fix one bottleneck, you move to your next one, right? You always move to your next point of failure. So if you're not fixing those things, you know, you're not, you're not increasing that speed down the line, unless you can identify where that bottleneck is or no matter how many improvements you make to the rest of the process, it's still going to get hung up on that one spot. >>That's exactly it. And you also make it sound so simple, but again, if you don't have the data driven visibility of where the bottom line is, and these bottlenecks are adjusted to say, it's just whack-a-mole right. So we need to understand is the bottleneck because our security reviews are taking too long and stopping us from getting value for the customer. If it's that automate that process. And then you move on to the next bottleneck, which might actually be that deploying yourself into the cloud was taking too long. But if you don't take that approach of going flow first, rather than again, that sort of cost reduction. First, you have to think of that approach of customer centricity and you only focused on optimizing costs. Your costs will increase and your flow will slow down. And this is just one of these fascinating things. Whereas if you focus on getting back to the customer and reducing your cycles on getting value, your flow time from six months to two weeks or two, one week or two event, as we see with, with tech giants, you actually can both lower your costs and get much more value that for us to get that learning loop going. >>So I think I've seen all of these cloud deployments and one of the things that's happened that delivered almost no value because there was such big bottlenecks upfront in the process and actually the hosting and the AP testing was not even possible with all of those inefficiencies. So that's why going float for us rather than costs where we started our project versus silky. >>I love that. And, and, and, and it, it begs repeating to that right within the subscription economy, you know, you're on the hook to deliver value every single month because they're paying you every single month. So if you're not on top of how you're delivering value, you're going to get sideways because it's not like, you know, they pay a big down payment and a small maintenance fee every month, but once you're in a subscription relationship, you know, you have to constantly be delivering value and upgrading that value because you're constantly taking money from the customer. So it's such a different kind of relationship than kind of the classic, you know, big bang with a maintenance agreement on the back end really important. Yeah. >>And I think in terms of industry shifts that that's it that's, what's catalyzed. This interesting shift is in this SAS and subscription economy. If you're not delivering more and more value to your customers, someone else's and they're winning the business, not you. So one way we know is to delight our customers with great user experiences. Well, that really is based on how many features you delivered or how much, how big, how many quality improvements or scalar performance improvements you delivered. So the problem is, and this is what the business manifesto, as well as the full frame of touch on is if you can't measure how much value you delivered to a customer, what are you measuring? You just backed again, measuring costs and that's not a measure of value. So we have to shift quickly away from measuring cost to measuring value, to survive in the subscription economy. >>We could go for days and days and days. I want to shift gears a little bit into data and, and, and a data driven, um, decision making a data driven organization cause right day has been talked about for a long time, the huge big data meme with, with Hadoop over, over several years and, and data warehouses and data lakes and data oceans and data swamps, and can go on and on and on. It's not that easy to do, right? And at the same time, the proliferation of data is growing exponentially. We're just around the corner from, from IOT and 5g. So now the accumulation of data at machine scale, again, this is going to overwhelm and one of the really interesting principles, uh, that I wanted to call out and get your take right, is today's organizations generate more data than humans can process. So informed decisions must be augmented by machine learning and artificial intelligence. I wonder if you can, again, you've got some great historical perspective, um, reflect on how hard it is to get the right data, to get the data in the right context, and then to deliver it to the decision makers and then trust the decision makers to actually make the data and move that down. You know, it's kind of this democratization process into more and more people and more and more frontline jobs making more and more of these little decisions every day. >>Yeah. I definitely think the front parts of what you said are where the promises of big data have completely fallen on their face into the swamps as, as you mentioned, because if you don't have the data in the right format, you've cannot connect collected at the right way. You want that way, the right way you can't use human or machine learning effectively. And there've been the number of data warehouses in a typical enterprise organization. And the sheer investment is tremendous, but the amount of intelligence being extracted from those is, is, is a very big problem. So the key thing that I've noticed is that if you can model your value streams, so yes, you understand how you're innovating, how you're measuring the delivery of value and how long that takes. What is your time to value these metrics like full time? You can actually use both the intelligence that you've got around the table and push that down as well, as far as getting to the organization, but you can actually start using that those models to understand and find patterns and detect bottlenecks that might be surprising, right? >>Well, you can detect interesting bottlenecks when you shift to work from home. We detected all sorts of interesting bottlenecks in our own organization that were not intuitive to me that had to do with, you know, more senior people being overloaded and creating bottlenecks where they didn't exist. Whereas we thought we were actually an organization that was very good at working from home because of our open source roots. So that data is highly complex. Software value streams are extremely complicated. And the only way to really get the proper analyst and data is to model it properly and then to leverage these machine learning and AI techniques that we have. But that front part of what you said is where organizations are just extremely immature in what I've seen, where they've got data from all their tools, but not modeled in the right way. Right, right. >>Right. Well, all right. So before I let you go, you know, let's say you get a business leader, he buys in, he reads the manifesto, he signs on the dotted line and he says, Mick, how do I get started? I want to be more aligned with, with the development teams. You know, I'm in a very competitive space. We need to be putting out new software features and engaging with our customers. I want to be more data-driven how do I get started? Well, you know, what's the biggest inhibitor for most people to get started and get some early wins, which we know is always the key to success in any kind of a new initiative. >>Right? So I think you can reach out to us through the website, uh, there's the manifesto, but the key thing is just to get you set up it's to get started and to get the key wins. So take a probably value stream that's mission critical. It could be your new mobile and web experiences or, or part of your cloud modernization platform or your analytics pipeline, but take that and actually apply these principles to it and measure the end to end flow of value. Make sure you have a value metric that everyone is on the same page on the people, on the development teams, the people in leadership all the way up to the CEO. And one of the, what I encourage you to start is actually that content flow time, right? That is the number one metric. That is how you measure it, whether you're getting the benefit of your cloud modernization, that is the one metric that Adrian Cockcroft. When the people I respect tremendously put into his cloud for CEOs, the metric, the one, the one way to measure innovation. So basically take these principles, deploy them on one product value stream, measure, sentiment, flow time, and then you'll actually be well on your path to transforming and to applying the concepts of agile and dev ops all the way to, to the business, to the way >>You're offering model. >>Well, Mick really great tips, really fun to catch up. I look forward to a time when we can actually sit across the table and, and get into this. Cause I just, I just love the perspective and, you know, you're very fortunate to have that foundational, that foundational base coming from Xerox park and they get, you know, it's, it's a very magical place with a magical history. So to, to incorporate that into, continue to spread that well, uh, you know, good for you through the book and through your company. So thanks for sharing your insight with us today. >>Thanks so much for having me, Jeff. >>All right. And go to the biz ops manifesto.org, read it, check it out. If you want to sign it, sign it. They'd love to have you do it. Stay with us for continuing coverage of the unveiling of the business manifesto on the cube. I'm Jeff. Rick. Thanks for watching. See you next time >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of biz ops manifesto unveiled brought to you by biz ops coalition. >>Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with the cube come due from our Palo Alto studios today for a big, big reveal. We're excited to be here. It's the biz ops manifesto unveiling a thing's been in the works for awhile and we're excited to have our next guest. One of the, really the powers behind this whole effort. And he's joining us from Boston it's surge, Lucio, the vice president, and general manager enterprise software division at Broadcom surge. Great to see you. >>Hi, good to see you, Jeff. Glad to be here. >>So you've been in this business for a very long time. You've seen a lot of changes in technology. What is the biz ops manifesto? What is this coalition all about? Why do we need this today and in 2020? >>Yeah. So, so I've been in this business for close to 25 years, right? So about 20 years ago, the agile manifesto was created. And the goal of the agile manifesto was really to address the uncertainty around software development and the inability to predict the efforts to build software. And, uh, if you, if you roll that kind of 20 years later, and if you look at the current state of the industry, uh, the product, the project management Institute, estimates that we're wasting about a million dollars, every 20 seconds in digital transformation initiatives that do not deliver on business results. In fact, we were recently served a third of the, uh, a number of executives in partnership with Harvard business review and 77% of those executives think that one of the key challenges that they have is really at the collaboration between business and it, and that that's been kind of a case for, uh, almost 20 years now. >>Um, so the, the, the key challenge we're faced with is really that we need a new approach and many of the players in the industry, including ourselves, I've been using different terms, right? Some are being, are talking about value stream management. Some are talking about software delivery management. If you look at the site, reliability engineering movement, in many ways, it embodies a lot of these kind of concepts and principles. So we believed that it became really imperative for us to crystallize around, could have one concept. And so in many ways, the, uh, the BizOps concept and the business manifesto are bringing together a number of ideas, which have been emerging in the last five years or so, and, and defining the key values and principles to finally help these organizations truly transform and become digital businesses. And so the hope is that by joining our forces and defining public key principles and values, we can help the industry, uh, not just, uh, by, you know, providing them with support, but also, uh, tools and consulting that is required for them to truly achieve the kind of transformation that everybody's seeking. >>Right, right. So COVID now we're six months into it, approximately seven months into it. Um, a lot of pain, a lot of bad stuff still happening. We've got a ways to go, but one of the things that on the positive side, right, and you've seen all the memes and social media is, is a driver of digital transformation and a driver of change. Cause we had this light switch moment in the middle of March and there was no more planning. There was no more conversation. You've suddenly got remote workforces, everybody's working from home and you got to go, right. So the reliance on these tools increases dramatically, but I'm curious, you know, kind of short of, of the beginnings of this effort in short of kind of COVID, which, you know, came along unexpectedly. I mean, what were those inhibitors because we've been making software for a very long time, right? The software development community has, has adopted kind of rapid change and, and iterative, uh, delivery and, and sprints, what was holding back the connection with the business side to make sure that those investments were properly aligned with outcomes. >>Well, so, so you have to understand that it is, is kind of a its own silos. And traditionally it has been treated as a cost center within large organizations and not as a value center. And so as a result could have a traditional dynamic between it and the business is basically one of a kind of supplier up to kind of a business. Um, and you know, if you, if you go back to, uh, I think you'll unmask a few years ago, um, basically at this concept of the machines to build the machines and you went as far as saying that, uh, the machines or the production line is actually the product. So, um, meaning that the core of the innovation is really about, uh, building, could it be engine to deliver on the value? And so in many ways, you know, we have missed on this shift from, um, kind of it becoming this kind of value center within the enterprises. >>And, and he talks about culture. Now, culture is a, is a sum total of beavers. And the reality is that if you look at it, especially in the last decade, uh, we've agile with dev ops with, um, I bring infrastructures, uh, it's, it's way more volatile today than it was 10 years ago. And so the, when you start to look at the velocity of the data, the volume of data, the variety of data to analyze this system, um, it's, it's very challenging for it to actually even understand and optimize its own processes, let alone, um, to actually include business as sort of an integral part of kind of a delivery chain. And so it's both kind of a combination of, of culture, um, which is required as well as tools, right? To be able to start to bring together all these data together, and then given the volume variety of philosophy of the data, uh, we have to apply some core technologies, which have only really, truly emerged in the last five to 10 years around machine learning and analytics. And so it's really kind of a combination of those freaks, which are coming together today to really help organizations kind of get to the next level. Right, >>Right. So let's talk about the manifesto. Let's talk about, uh, the coalition, uh, the BizOps coalition. I just liked that you put down these really simple, you know, kind of straightforward core values. You guys have four core values that you're highlighting, you know, business outcomes, over individual projects and outputs, trust, and collaboration, oversight, load teams, and organizations, data driven decisions, what you just talked about, uh, you know, over opinions and judgment and learned, respond and pivot. I mean, surgery sounds like pretty basic stuff, right? I mean, aren't, isn't everyone working to these values already. And I think he touched on it on culture, right? Trust and collaboration, data driven decisions. I mean, these are fundamental ways that people must run their business today, or the person that's across the street, that's doing it. It's going to knock them out right off their blog. >>Yeah. So that's very true. But, uh, so I'll, I'll mention in our survey, we did, uh, I think about six months ago and it was in partnership with, uh, with, uh, an industry analyst and we serve at a, again, a number of it executives to understand how many we're tracking business outcomes I'm going to do with the software executives. It executives we're tracking business outcomes. And the, there were less than 15% of these executives were actually tracking the outcomes of a software delivery. And you see that every day. Right? So in my own teams, for instance, we've been adopting a lot of these core principles in the last year or so, and we've uncovered that 16% of our resources were basically aligned around initiatives, which are not strategic for us. Um, I take, you know, another example, for instance, one of our customers in the, uh, in the airline industry and Harvard, for instance, that a number of, uh, um, that they had software issues that led to people searching for flights and not returning any kind of availability. >>And yet, um, you know, the, it teams, whether it's operations, software environments were completely oblivious to that because they were completely blindsided to it. And so the connectivity between kind of the inwards metrics that RT is using, whether it's database time, cycle time, or whatever metric we use in it are typically completely divorced from the business metrics. And so at its core, it's really about starting to align the business metrics with what the, the software delivery chain, right? This, uh, the system, which is really a core differentiator for these organizations. It's about connecting those two things and, and starting to, um, infuse some of the agile culture and principles. Um, that's emerged from the software side into the business side. Um, of course the lean movement and other movements have started to change some of these dynamic on the, on the business side. And so I think this, this is the moment where we are starting to see kind of the imperative to transform. Now, you know, Covina obviously has been a key driver for that. The, um, the technology is right to start to be able to weave data together and really kind of, uh, also the cultural shifts, uh, Prue agile through dev ops through, uh, the SRE movement, uh frulein um, business transformation, all these things are coming together and that are really creating kind of the conditions for the BizOps manifesto to exist. >>So, uh, Clayton Christianson, great, uh, Harvard professor innovator's dilemma might still my all time favorite business books, you know, talks about how difficult it is for incumbents to react to, to disruptive change, right? Because they're always working on incremental change because that's what their customers are asking for. And there's a good ROI when you talk about, you know, companies not measuring the right thing. I mean, clearly it has some portion of their budget that has to go to keeping the lights on, right. That that's always the case, but hopefully that's an, an ever decreasing percentage of their total activity. So, you know, what should people be measuring? I mean, what are kind of the new metrics, um, in, in biz ops that drive people to be looking at the right things, measuring the right things and subsequently making the right decisions, investment decisions on whether they should do, you know, move project a along or project B. >>So there, there are only two things, right? So, so I think what you're talking about is portfolio management, investment management, right. And, um, which, which is a key challenge, right? Um, in my own experience, right? Uh, driving strategy or a large scale kind of software organization for years, um, it's very difficult to even get kind of a base data as to who is doing what, uh, um, I mean, some of our largest customers we're engaged with right now are simply trying to get a very simple answer, which is how many people do I have and that specific initiative at any point in time, and just tracking that information is extremely difficult. So, and again, back to a product project management Institute, um, there, they have estimated that on average, it organizations have anywhere between 10 to 20% of their resources focused on initiatives, which are not strategically aligned. >>So, so that's one dimensional portfolio management. I think the key aspect though, that we are, we're really keen on is really around kind of the alignment of a business metrics to the it metrics. Um, so I'll use kind of two simple examples, right? And my background is around quality and I've always believed that the fitness for purpose is really kind of a key, um, uh, philosophy if you will. And so if you start to think about quality as fitness for purpose, you start to look at it from a customer point of view, right. And fitness for purpose for a core banking application or mobile application are different, right? So the definition of a business value that you're trying to achieve is different. Um, and so the, and yeah, if you look at our, it, operations are operating there, we're using kind of a same type of, uh, kind of inward metrics, uh, like a database off time or a cycle time, or what is my point of velocity, right? >>And so the challenge really is this inward facing metrics that it is using, which are divorced from ultimately the outcome. And so, you know, if I'm, if I'm trying to build a poor banking application, my core metric is likely going to be uptight, right? If I'm trying to build a mobile application or maybe your social, a mobile app, it's probably going to be engagement. And so what you want is for everybody across it, to look at these metric and what are the metrics within the software delivery chain, which ultimately contribute to that business metric. And some cases cycle time may be completely irrelevant, right? Again, my core banking app, maybe I don't care about cycle time. And so it's really about aligning those metrics and be able to start to, um, Charles you mentioned, uh, around the, the, um, uh, around the disruption that we see is, or the investors is the dilemma now is really around the fact that many it organizations are essentially applying the same approaches of, for innovation, like for basically scrap work, then they would apply to kind of over more traditional projects. And so, you know, there's been a lot of talk about two-speed it, and yes, it exists, but in reality are really organizations, um, truly differentiating, um, all of the operate, their, their projects and products based on the outcomes that they're trying to achieve. And this is really where BizOps is trying to affect. >>I love that, you know, again, it doesn't seem like brain surgery, but focus on the outcomes, right. And it's horses for courses, as you said, this project, you know, what you're measuring and how you define success, isn't necessarily the same as, as on this other project. So let's talk about some of the principles we talked about the values, but, you know, I think it's interesting that, that, that the BizOps coalition, you know, just basically took the time to write these things down and they don't seem all that super insightful, but I guess you just got to get them down and have them on paper and have them in front of your face. But I want to talk about, you know, one of the key ones, which you just talked about, which is changing requirements, right. And working in a dynamic situation, which is really what's driven, you know, this, the software to change in software development, because, you know, if you're in a game app and your competitor comes out with a new blue sword, you got to come out with a new blue sword. >>So whether you had that on your Kanban wall or not. So it's, it's really this embracing of the speed of change and, and, and, and making that, you know, the rule, not the exception. I think that's a phenomenal one. And the other one you talked about is data, right? And that today's organizations generate more data than humans can process. So informed decisions must be generated by machine learning and AI, and, you know, in the, the big data thing with Hadoop, you know, started years ago, but we are seeing more and more that people are finally figuring it out, that it's not just big data, and it's not even generic machine learning or artificial intelligence, but it's applying those particular data sets and that particular types of algorithms to a specific problem, to your point, to try to actually reach an objective, whether that's, you know, increasing the, your average ticket or, you know, increasing your checkout rate with, with, with shopping carts that don't get left behind in these types of things. So it's a really different way to think about the world in the good old days, probably when you got started, when we had big, giant, you know, MRDs and PRDs and sat down and coded for two years and came out with a product release and hopefully not too many patches subsequently to that. >>It's interesting. Right. Um, again, back to one of these surveys that we did with, uh, with about 600, the ITA executives, and, uh, and, and we, we purposely designed those questions to be pretty open. Um, and, and one of them was really wrong requirements and, uh, and it was really a wrong, uh, kind of what do you, what is the best approach? What is your preferred approach towards requirements? And if I were to remember correctly, over 80% of the it executives set that the best approach they'll prefer to approach these core requirements to be completely defined before software development starts, let me pause there we're 20 years after the agile manifesto, right? And for 80% of these idea executives to basically claim that the best approach is for requirements to be fully baked before salt, before software development starts, basically shows that we still have a very major issue. >>And again, our hypothesis in working with many organizations is that the key challenge is really the boundary between business and it, which is still very much contract based. If you look at the business side, they basically are expecting for it deliver on time on budget, right. But what is the incentive for it to actually delivering on the business outcomes, right? How often is it measured on the business outcomes and not on an SLA or on a budget type criteria? And so that's really the fundamental shift that we need to, we really need to drive up as an industry. Um, and you know, we, we talk about kind of this, this imperative for organizations to operate that's one, and back to the, the, um, you know, various Doris dilemna the key difference between these larger organization is, is really kind of, uh, if you look at the amount of capital investment that they can put into pretty much anything, why are they losing compared to, um, you know, startups? What, why is it that, uh, more than 40% of, uh, personal loans today or issued not by your traditional brick and mortar banks, but by, um, startups? Well, the reason, yes, it's the traditional culture of doing incremental changes and not disrupting ourselves, which Christiansen covered the length, but it's also the inability to really fundamentally change kind of a dynamic picture. We can business it and, and, and partner right. To, to deliver on a specific business outcome. >>All right. I love that. That's a great, that's a great summary. And in fact, getting ready for this interview, I saw you mentioning another thing where, you know, the, the problem with the agile development is that you're actually now getting more silos. Cause you have all these autonomous people working, you know, kind of independently. So it's even a harder challenge for, for the business leaders to, to, as you said, to know, what's actually going on, but, but certainly I w I want to close, um, and talk about the coalition. Um, so clearly these are all great concepts. These are concepts you want to apply to your business every day. Why the coalition, why, you know, take these concepts out to a broader audience, including either your, your competition and the broader industry to say, Hey, we, as a group need to put a stamp of approval on these concepts, these values, these principles. >>So first I think we, we want, um, everybody to realize that we are all talking about the same things, the same concepts. I think we were all from our own different vantage point, realizing that things after change, and again, back to, you know, whether it's value stream management or site reliability engineering, or biz ops, we're all kind of using slightly different languages. Um, and so I think one of the important aspects of BizOps is for us, all of us, whether we're talking about, you know, consulting agile transformation experts, uh, whether we're talking about vendors, right, provides kind of tools and technologies or these large enterprises to transform for all of us to basically have kind of a reference that lets us speak around kind of, um, in a much more consistent way. The second aspect is for, to me is for, um, DS concepts to start to be embraced, not just by us or trying, or, you know, vendors, um, system integrators, consulting firms, educators, thought leaders, but also for some of our old customers to start to become evangelists of their own in the industry. >>So we, our, our objective with the coalition needs to be pretty, pretty broad. Um, and our hope is by, by starting to basically educate, um, our, our joint customers or partners, that we can start to really foster these behaviors and start to really change some of dynamics. So we're very pleased at if you look at, uh, some of the companies which have joined the, the, the, the manifesto. Um, so we have vendors such as desktop or advance, or, um, uh, PagerDuty for instance, or even planned view, uh, one of my direct competitors, um, but also thought leaders like Tom Davenport or, uh, or cap Gemini or, um, um, smaller firms like, uh, business agility, institutes, or agility elf. Um, and so our goal really is to start to bring together, uh, fall years, people would have been LP, large organizations, do digital transformation vendors. We're providing the technologies that many of these organizations use to deliver on this digital preservation and for all of us to start to provide the kind of, uh, education support and tools that the industry needs. Yeah, >>That's great surge. And, uh, you know, congratulations to you and the team. I know this has been going on for a while, putting all this together, getting people to sign onto the manifesto, putting the coalition together, and finally today getting to unveil it to the world in, in a little bit more of a public, uh, opportunity. So again, you know, really good values, really simple principles, something that, that, uh, shouldn't have to be written down, but it's nice cause it is, and now you can print it out and stick it on your wall. So thank you for, uh, for sharing this story and again, congrats to you and the team. >>Thank you. Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate it. >>Oh, my pleasure. Alrighty, surge. If you want to learn more about the BizOps manifest to go to biz ops manifesto.org, read it and you can sign it and you can stay here for more coverage. I'm the cube of the biz ops manifesto unveiled. Thanks for watching. See you next >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of this ops manifesto unveiled brought to you by bill. >>Hey, welcome back, everybody Jeffrey here with the cube. Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of the biz ops manifesto unveiling. It's been in the works for awhile, but today's the day that it actually kind of come out to the, to the public. And we're excited to have a real industry luminary here to talk about what's going on, why this is important and share his perspective. And we're happy to have from Cape Cod, I believe is Tom Davenport. He is a distinguished author and professor at Babson college. We could go on, he's got a lot of great titles and, and really illuminary in the area of big data and analytics Thomas. Great to see you. >>Thanks Jeff. Happy to be here with you. >>Great. So let's just jump into it, you know, and getting ready for this. I came across your LinkedIn posts. I think you did earlier this summer in June and right off the bat, the first sentence just grabbed my attention. I'm always interested in new attempts to address longterm issues, uh, in how technology works within businesses, biz ops. What did you see in biz ops, uh, that, that kind of addresses one of these really big longterm problems? >>Well, yeah, but the longterm problem is that we've had a poor connection between business people and it people between business objectives and the, it solutions that address them. This has been going on, I think since the beginning of information technology and sadly it hasn't gone away. And so biz ops is a new attempt to deal with that issue with, you know, a new framework, eventually a broad set of solutions that increase the likelihood that we'll actually solve a business problem with an it capability. >>Right. You know, it's interesting to compare it with like dev ops, which I think a lot of people are probably familiar with, which was, you know, built around, uh, agile software development and a theory that we want to embrace change that that changes. Okay. Uh, and we want to be able to iterate quickly and incorporate that. And that's been happening in the software world for, for 20 plus years. What's taken so long to get that to the business side, because as the pace of change has changed on the software side, you know, that's a strategic issue in terms of execution on the business side that they need now to change priorities. And, you know, there's no PRDs and MRDs and big, giant strategic plans that sit on the shelf for five years. That's just not the way business works anymore. It took a long time to get here. >>Yeah, it did. And you know, there have been previous attempts to make a better connection between business and it, there was the so called alignment framework that a couple of friends of mine from Boston university developed, I think more than 20 years ago, but you know, now we have better technology for creating that linkage. And the, you know, the idea of kind of ops oriented frameworks is pretty pervasive now. So I think it's time for another serious attempt at it. Right. >>And do you think doing it this way, right. With the, with the biz ops coalition, you know, getting a collection of, of, of kind of likeminded individuals and companies together, and actually even having a manifesto, which we're making this declarative statement of, of principles and values, you think that's what it takes to kind of drive this kind of beyond the experiment and actually, you know, get it done and really start to see some results in, in, uh, in production in the field. >>I think certainly, um, no one vendor organization can pull this off single handedly. It does require a number of organizations collaborating and working together. So I think our coalition is a good idea and a manifesto is just a good way to kind of lay out what you see as the key principles of the idea. And that makes it much easier for everybody to understand and act on. >>I think it's just, it's really interesting having, you know, having them written down on paper and having it just be so clearly articulated both in terms of the, of the values as well as, as the, uh, the principles and the values, you know, business outcomes matter trust and collaboration, data driven decisions, which is the number three or four, and then learn, respond and pivot. It doesn't seem like those should have to be spelled out so clearly, but, but obviously it helps to have them there. You can stick them on the wall and kind of remember what your priorities are, but you're the data guy. You're the analytics guy, uh, and a big piece of this is data and analytics and moving to data-driven decisions. And principle number seven says, you know, today's organizations generate more data than humans can process and informed decisions can be augmented by machine learning and artificial intelligence right up your alley. You know, you've talked a number of times on kind of the mini stages of analytics. Um, and how has that's evolved over, over time, you know, as you think of analytics and machine learning, driving decisions beyond supporting decisions, but actually starting to make decisions in machine time. What's that, what's that thing for you? What does that make you, you know, start to think, wow, this is, this is going to be pretty significant. >>Yeah. Well, you know, this has been a longterm interest of mine. Um, the last generation of AI, I was very interested in expert systems. And then, um, I think, uh, more than 10 years ago, I wrote an article about automated decision-making using what was available then, which was rule-based approaches. Um, but you know, this addresses an issue that we've always had with analytics and AI. Um, you know, we, we tended to refer to those things as providing decision support. The problem is that if the decision maker didn't want their support, didn't want to use them in order to make a decision, they didn't provide any value. And so the nice thing about automating decisions, um, with now contemporary AI tools is that we can ensure that data and analytics get brought into the decision without any possible disconnection. Now, I think humans still have something to add here, and we often will need to examine how that decision is being made and maybe even have the ability to override it. But in general, I think at least for, you know, repetitive tactical decisions, um, involving a lot of data, we want most of those, I think to be at least recommended if not totally made by an algorithm or an AI based system, and that I believe would add to the quality and the precision and the accuracy of decisions and in most organizations, >>No, I think, I think you just answered my next question before I, before Hey, asked it, you know, we had dr. Robert Gates on a former secretary of defense on a few years back, and we were talking about machines and machines making decisions. And he said at that time, you know, the only weapon systems, uh, that actually had an automated trigger on it were on the North Korea and South Korea border. Um, everything else, as you said, had to go through a sub person before the final decision was made. And my question is, you know, what are kind of the attributes of the decision that enable us to more easily automated? And then how do you see that kind of morphing over time, both as the data to support that as well as our comfort level, um, enables us to turn more and more actual decisions over to the machine? >>Well, yeah, it's suggested we need, um, data and, um, the data that we have to kind of train our models has to be high quality and current. And we, we need to know the outcomes of that data. You know, um, most machine learning models, at least in business are supervised. And that means we need to have labeled outcomes in the, in the training data. But I, you know, um, the pandemic that we're living through is a good illustration of the fact that, that the data also have to be reflective of current reality. And, you know, one of the things that we're finding out quite frequently these days is that, um, the data that we have do not reflect, you know, what it's like to do business in a pandemic. Um, I wrote a little piece about this recently with Jeff cam at wake forest university, we called it data science quarantined, and we interviewed with somebody who said, you know, it's amazing what eight weeks of zeros will do to your demand forecast. We just don't really know what happens in a pandemic. Um, our models maybe have to be put on the shelf for a little while and until we can develop some new ones or we can get some other guidelines into making decisions. So I think that's one of the key things with automated decision making. We have to make sure that the data from the past and that's all we have of course, is a good guide to, you know, what's happening in the present and the future as far as we understand it. Yeah. >>I used to joke when we started this calendar year 2020, it was finally the year that we know everything with the benefit of hindsight, but it turned out 20, 20 a year. We found out we actually know nothing and everything thought we knew, but I wanna, I wanna follow up on that because you know, it did suddenly change everything, right? We got this light switch moment. Everybody's working from home now we're many, many months into it, and it's going to continue for a while. I saw your interview with Bernard Marr and you had a really interesting comment that now we have to deal with this change. We don't have a lot of data and you talked about hold fold or double down. And, and I can't think of a more, you know, kind of appropriate metaphor for driving the value of the BizOps when now your whole portfolio strategy, um, these to really be questioned and, and, you know, you have to be really, uh, well, uh, executing on what you are, holding, what you're folding and what you're doubling down with this completely new environment. >>Well, yeah, and I hope I did this in the interview. I would like to say that I came up with that term, but it actually came from a friend of mine. Who's a senior executive at Genpact. And, um, I, um, used it mostly to talk about AI and AI applications, but I think you could, you could use it much more broadly to talk about your entire sort of portfolio of digital projects. You need to think about, well, um, given some constraints on resources and a difficult economy for a while, which of our projects do we want to keep going on pretty much the way we were and which ones are not that necessary anymore? You see a lot of that in AI, because we had so many pilots, somebody told me, you know, we've got more pilots around here than O'Hare airport and AI. Um, and then, but the ones that involve double down they're even more important to you. They are, you know, a lot of organizations have found this out in the pandemic, on digital projects. It's more and more important for customers to be able to interact with you, um, digitally. And so you certainly wouldn't want to, um, cancel those projects or put them on hold. So you double down on them and get them done faster and better. >>Right, right. Uh, another, another thing that came up in my research that you quoted, um, was, was from Jeff Bezos, talking about the great bulk of what we do is quietly, but meaningfully improving core operations. You know, I think that is so core to this concept of not AI and machine learning and kind of the general sense, which, which gets way too much buzz, but really applied right. Applied to a specific problem. And that's where you start to see the value. And, you know, the, the BizOps, uh, manifesto is, is, is calling it out in this particular process. But I'd love to get your perspective as you know, you speak generally about this topic all the time, but how people should really be thinking about where are the applications where I can apply this technology to get direct business value. >>Yeah, well, you know, even talking about automated decisions, um, uh, the kind of once in a lifetime decisions, uh, the ones that, um, ag Lafley, the former CEO of Procter and gamble used to call the big swing decisions. You only get a few of those. He said in your tenure as CEO, those are probably not going to be the ones that you're automating in part because, um, you don't have much data about them. You're only making them a few times and in part, because, um, they really require that big picture thinking and the ability to kind of anticipate the future, that the best human decision makers, um, have. Um, but, um, in general, I think where they are, the projects that are working well are, you know, when I call the low hanging fruit ones, the, some people even report to it referred to it as boring AI. >>So, you know, sucking data out of a contract in order to compare it to a bill of lading for what arrived at your supply chain companies can save or make a lot of money with that kind of comparison. It's not the most exciting thing, but AI, as you suggested is really good at those narrow kinds of tasks. It's not so good at the, at the really big moonshots, like curing cancer or, you know, figuring out well what's the best stock or bond under all circumstances or even autonomous vehicles. Um, we, we made some great progress in that area, but everybody seems to agree that they're not going to be perfect for quite a while. And we really don't want to be driving around on them very much unless they're, you know, good and all kinds of weather and with all kinds of pedestrian traffic and you know, that sort of thing, right? That's funny you bring up contract management. >>I had a buddy years ago, they had a startup around contract management and was like, and this was way before we had the compute power today and cloud proliferation. I said, you know, how, how can you possibly build software around contract management? It's language, it's legal, ease. It's very specific. And he's like, Jeff, we just need to know where's the contract. And when does it expire? And who's the signatory. And he built a business on those, you know, very simple little facts that weren't being covered because their contracts contractor in people's drawers and files and homes, and Lord only knows. So it's really interesting, as you said, these kind of low hanging fruit opportunities where you can extract a lot of business value without trying to, you know, boil the ocean. >>Yeah. I mean, if you're Amazon, um, uh, Jeff Bezos thinks it's important to have some kind of billion dollar projects. And he even says it's important to have a billion dollar failure or two every year. But I think most organizations probably are better off being a little less aggressive and, you know, sticking to, um, what AI has been doing for a long time, which is, you know, making smarter decisions based on, based on data. >>Right? So Tom, I want to shift gears one more time before, before we let you go on on kind of a new topic for you, not really new, but you know, not, not a, the vast majority of, of your publications and that's the new way to work, you know, as, as the pandemic hit in mid March, right. And we had this light switch moment, everybody had to work from home and it was, you know, kind of crisis and get everybody set up. Well, you know, now we're five months, six months, seven months. A number of companies have said that people are not going to be going back to work for a while. And so we're going to continue on this for a while. And then even when it's not what it is now, it's not going to be what it was before. So, you know, I wonder, and I know you, you, uh, you teased, you're working on a new book, you know, some of your thoughts on, you know, kind of this new way to work and, and the human factors in this new, this new kind of reality that we're kind of evolving into, I guess. >>Yeah. I missed was an interest of mine. I think, um, back in the nineties, I wrote an article called, um, a coauthored, an article called two cheers for the virtual office. And, you know, it was just starting to emerge. Then some people were very excited about it. Some people were skeptical and, uh, we said two cheers rather than three cheers because clearly there's some shortcomings. And, you know, I keep seeing these pop up. It's great that we can work from our homes. It's great that we can accomplish most of what we need to do with a digital interface, but, um, you know, things like innovation and creativity and certainly, um, uh, a good, um, happy social life kind of requires some face to face contact every now and then. And so I, you know, I think we'll go back to an environment where there is some of that. >>Um, we'll have, um, times when people convene in one place so they can get to know each other face to face and learn from each other that way. And most of the time, I think it's a huge waste of people's time to commute into the office every day and to jump on airplanes, to, to, um, give every little, um, uh, sales call or give every little presentation. Uh, we just have to really narrow down what are the circumstances where face to face contact really matters. And when can we get by with, with digital, you know, I think one of the things in my current work I'm finding is that even when you have AI based decision making, you really need a good platform in which that all takes place. So in addition to these virtual platforms, we need to develop platforms that kind of structure the workflow for us and tell us what we should be doing next, then make automated decisions when necessary. And I think that ultimately is a big part of biz ops as well. It's not just the intelligence of an AI system, but it's the flow of work that kind of keeps things moving smoothly throughout your organization. >>Yeah. I think such, such a huge opportunity as you just said, cause I forget the stats on how often we're interrupted with notifications between email texts, Slack, a sauna, Salesforce, the list goes on and on. So, you know, to put an AI layer between the person and all these systems that are begging for attention, and you've written a book on the attention economy, which is a whole nother topic, we'll say for another day, you know, it really begs, it really begs for some assistance because you know, you just can't get him picked, you know, every two minutes and really get quality work done. It's just not, it's just not realistic. And you know what? I don't think that's a feature that we're looking for. I agree. Totally. Alright, Tom. Well, thank you so much for your time. Really enjoyed the conversation. I gotta dig into the library. It's very long. So I might start at the attention economy. I haven't read that one in to me. I think that's the fascinating thing in which we're living. So thank you for your time and, uh, great to see you. >>My pleasure, Jeff. Great to be here. >>All right. Take care. Alright. He's Tom I'm Jeff. You are watching the continuing coverage of the biz ops manifesto and Vale. Thanks for watching the cube. We'll see you next time.

>>Well, welcome everybody to our last session of the day. I want to introduce you to Sean O'Meara. Orfield Cto. Hey, Sean. >>Hey, Nick. Good afternoon. It's been a crazy day. It has. It's been a busy run up to today in a busy day with a lot of great things going on. You know, we've heard from Adrian on his strategy this morning. The great way the Marantz is moving forward. We announced our new product line. You know, we spoke about the new doctor Enterprise Container Cloud line, New future for Mirant. Us. We had a great lineup of customers share their story. We introduced lanes following on the lanes launch a couple of weeks ago. Andi, we're introducing new great projects like our mosque project. New way to deliver open stack going into the future on then in parallel sel. This We ran a great tutorial tracker teachers you all about how to use these new products, and hopefully you'll go and everyone had opportunity to go and look through guys. Yeah. What's next? What is next? Yeah, lots going on. A lot of new things that we're thinking about for the future. Obviously, a lot of work to do on what we have right now. A lot of great things coming. But, you know, we've had this opportunity to talk about all these cool things that are coming down the road. And everybody these days seems to be talking about topics like edge computing or hybrid cloud. Or, you know, hyper scale data centers, even things like disaster recovery is a service. Andi, you know, we talk a lot about things like hyper converged, but frankly, it's boring. It's one thing a little. Good morning. Uh, you know, you and I have been talking about these topics for a while now, and I think it's about time when we spoke about some of the cool things that we're thinking about for the future, not necessarily looking out for the road map, but ideas for the future. Things that may could have an impact on the way we do business going to. So today we're gonna talk a little bit about things like pervasive computing. A nick, what is pervasive computing. >>Well, basically pervasive computing is when everything that you interact with, for the most part, is computerized. So in some ways, we're already there in that You know your phone is a computer. Your refrigerator may have a computer in it. Um, your smart watch your car has a computer in it. And the the most obvious sign of that is this whole Internet of things where, you know your vacuum is, uh is connected to your phone and all of that. And so pervasive computing is this, uh is this sense of you don't even really think about it. You just kind of assume that everything is computerized. >>So how is that different from ubiquitous computing? >>Oh, God. You hit, You hit my hot button. Okay, so if you look, there are a lot of places that will say that pervasive computing and ubiquitous computing are the same thing, but not the same thing. Don't use them interchangeably. They're not the same thing. You big. What is computing is where you can do your computing virtually anywhere. So, for example, you know, I've got, uh I've got a document. I started it on my laptop. I can then go and finish it sitting on the beach on my phone. Or, you know, I can go and do it in a coffee shop or a library. or wherever. So the idea of ubiquitous computing is similar in that, yes, there's computing everywhere, but it's more about your data being universally accessible. So essentially it is cloud computing. That is what this whole ubiquitous computing thing is about. >>Okay on that then differs from pervasive computing in the fact that pervasive is the devices that we have all around us versus the access to those devices. >>Exactly. It's it's really it's more about the data. So ubiquitous computing is more about My data is stored in some central place, and I could hit it from anywhere. There is a device, whereas pervasive computing is there is a device almost everywhere. Okay, so yeah, >>So why Why do we as Moran takes care about the vice of computing? >>Well, pervasive computing brings up a whole lot of new issues, and it's coming up really fast. I mean, you last night I was watching, you know, commercial where you know, somebody a woman's coming out and starting her car with her phone. Um, which sounds really cool. Um, but you know what they say Anything that you can access, you know, with your computer is hackable. So, you know, there are security issues that need to be considered when it comes to all of this, but that's that's the downside. But there's just this huge upside on pervasive computing that it's so exciting when you think about this. I mean, think about a world where remember I said your refrigerator might be attached to the network. Well, what if you could rent out space on your refrigerator to somebody someplace else in a secure way? Of course. You know what? If you could define your personal network as all of these devices that you own and it doesn't matter where your workloads run or, you know, you could define all of this stuff in such a way that the connectivity between objects is really huge. Um, so you know, I mean, you look at things like, you know, I f t t you know, it's like get a notification when the International space station passes over your house. Okay? I don't know why I would need that. Um, but it's the kind of thing that people >>would have a nine year old. You can run him outside and show Z. Oh, >>there you go. There you go. So I mean, that kind of level of connectivity between objects is really really it gives us this new level off. Uh, this new level of functionality that we would never even considered even 10 years ago. Um, it also extends the life of objects that we already have. So, you know, maybe you've got that, uh, that computerized vacuum cleaner, and you don't like the way that it you don't like the pattern that uses in your house. So you re program it or, uh Or I watched. I watched a guy decide that he didn't want to buy multiple vacuums for his house. So he programmed his programa will act Hume to fly between floors. It was actually pretty funny. Um, I it's some people just have too much time. >>It's driving the whole world of programmable at all levels. Really? Like the projects coming out of the car industry of creating a programmable car would fit into that category. Then, I >>suppose absolutely, absolutely needs developer tool kits. Um, that make it possible for anybody to re program these devices that you never would have thought of reprogramming before. So it's important. So do >>we want to talk about the questions. We would love people to give us some feedback on at this stage. >>I would love to talk about these questions. So what we did is we put together, uh, we put together a place for you to answer questions. If you're not watching this live. If you're watching this live, please go ahead. Drop your ideas in the chat. We would love to discuss them, you know. Do you want to see more of this? Or does it? Conversely, Does it scare you, Sean? You What? >>What do you >>think about these questions? >>Well, I mean, for me, the idea of the connected world at one level, the engineering me loves the idea. Another level. It comes to these questions of privacy. Vegas questions off. How do I control this going into the future? What prevents somebody from taking over my flying vacuum cleaner? I'm using it, you know? So it's an interesting question. I think there's a lot of cool, cool ideas. Yeah, and a lot of work to be done. I really want to hear other people's ideas as well and see how we can take this into the future. >>Definitely, definitely. I mean, look I mean, we're joking about it, but, you know, when somebody hacks into your grandmother's insulin pump, maybe not so funny. >>Yeah, a very real risk. >>A very real risk. A very real risk. But yeah, I mean, we'd love Thio. We'd love to hear how you'd like to see this used. So that's that's my That's kind of what I've been thinking about thes days. Um, but, you know, Sean, uh, now, you I know you are really concerned about this whole issue of developers and how they feel about infrastructure. So I would love to hear what you've got to say on that. >>Yeah, I'd like to sex, but a bit about that. You know, we we've done a lot of work over the last few years looking at how developing our history has been very focused on operations, but without big drive towards supporting developers providing better infrastructure for developers. One of the interesting things that keeps coming up to the four on Do you know, the way the world is changing is that big question is, do developers actually give a damn about infrastructure in any way, shape or form? Um, you know, ultimately more and more development languages and tools abstract that underlying infrastructure. What communities does is basically abstract. The infrastructure away, Um, mawr and more options. They're coming to market, which you can quite literally creating application without out of a writing a line of code. Um, so this morning, way Dio, we're doing it all the time, sometimes without even realizing it on. I think the definition of what a developer is is also changing to a certain extent. So you know the big question, which I have on which I'd like to understand Maureen, from talking to low developers is due. Developers care about infra What is it that you expect from infrastructure? What do they want going into the future? How are they going to interact with that infrastructure? I My personal opinion is that they don't really care about infrastructure, that they're going to find more ways to completely abstract away from that. And they just want to focus on delivering applications faster and getting value to market. But I might be wrong, and I'd really like to hear people's impact ideas and thoughts on that >>on. And that's exactly and that's why we're asking this question. Developers out there. Do you care? Or do you just want the whole thing completely abstracted away from you >>on? If you do care why, If you don't, what would you like to see? Another. It's a couple of questions to ask, but really like to hear those opinions on bond. You know, Do you just want the operations guys to live with it? You never want to hear about it again, just fine. It's actually good to say that we'll work it out. >>Yes, and that there's nothing. There's nothing wrong with pushing that up stack >>pretty much what we're trying to do here. >>Well, it is what we're trying to do. But at the same time, we want to do what's good for developers. And if you developers or like No, don't don't do that. Well, we want to know because, you know, we don't wanna work away here and some ivory tower and wind up with something that's not good for >>you after school. So cool. So, yeah, there are some other interesting things we're talking about. >>I know, I know. This is This is one of my favorites. This is one of my favorites. >>Zoo this? Yes. While >>we're on the subject of not getting involved with the infrastructure. Go ahead, Sean. Tell us about it. >>Thing is a pet topic of mine and something that that we've spoken about a lot. And thanks something that we we have spent many nights talking about. The idea is AI ops using artificial intelligence to drive operations within our infrastructure. And so a lot of people ask me, You know why? Um, essentially, What the hell is a I out on? I have answered this question many times, and it does often seem that we all take this AI ops thing for granted or look at it in a different way. To me, it is essentially, it's it's automation on steroids. That's what it boils down Thio. It's using intelligence systems that to replace the human cerebellum. I mean, let's just be blunt about this. We're trying to replace humans. Onda reason for that is we humans less meat sacks are airplane. We make mistakes all the time and compared to computers were incredibly slow. Um, you know, that's really the simplest point with the scale of modern infrastructure that we're dealing with the sheer volume. I mean, we've gone from, you know, thousands to tens of thousands of the EMS to now hundreds and thousands of containers spread across multiple time zones. Multiple places. We need to come up with better ways of managing this on the old fashioned stick through mechanism of automation. It's just too limited for that. Right >>when we say we want to replace meat sacks, we mean in a good way. >>We mean in a good way. I know it's a bit of a harsh way of putting it. Um, ultimately, humans have ability for creativity that machines just don't have. But machines can do other things, and they could do analysis of data a lot faster than we can. Quite often, we have to present that data to humans to have invalidate that information. But, you know, one of the options for us is to use artificial intelligence, quantified data, um, correlated, you know, look for root cause and then provide that information to us in such a way that we can make valid decisions based on that information a lot faster than we could otherwise, >>right? So what are the what are the implications? What are the practical implications of doing this so >>practically we can analyze massive amounts of data a lot faster than a single human. Could we even just a normal type system that's searching? We We have the tools to learn by looking at data and have machines do it a lot faster than we can. We can take action faster based on that data, because we get the data foster. We can take action and much more complex action that involves maybe many different layers of tasking much, much faster. Um, on we could start to do maintenance operations and maintenance tasks without having to wait for human beings to wake up or get to an office. But more importantly, we could start making tasks happen very complex tasks in a very specific orders, with much less potential for error. And those are the kinds of areas we're looking at. >>That's that's true. So how do you kind of see this moving forward? I mean, obviously, we're not gonna go from nothing to Skynet, and hopefully we never get to Skynet. Well, >>depends if you are in control of Skynet or not. Ultimately, Dionysus little computer. Um, practically speaking, we have a few things Thio hoops to jump through our suppose before we can look at where else is going to be really effective on the first one is a trust issue. We have to learn to trust it. And to do that, we have to put in a position where it can learn and start providing us that data analysis on that inference and then having humans validated. That's practically the very first step. No, it's a trust issue. You know, we've seen been watching sci fi for the last 30 years. Class on. Do you know the computers take over? Well, ultimately, is that real or not? Um, if we look at how we gonna get there? Probably midterm. Adaptive maintenance, maybe infrastructure orchestration. Smart allocation of resource is across cloud services. Well, >>we can talk for a minute About what that would would actually look like. So, I mean, we could talk about, you know, abs, midterms. I mean, in a practical sense, how would that actually work? >>Yeah, Okay. It's a great question. So, practically speaking, the first thing we're gonna do is we're going to start to collect all this data. We're gonna find all this data. I mean, the modern computer systems that we have infrastructure systems. We are producing many hundreds of gigabytes, sometimes terabytes of logging data every day. The majority of it gives far 13. I mean, we throw the majority of their logging information away or if it's not thrown away, it's stored some way for security purposes and never analyzed. So let's start by taking their data and actually analyzing it. To do that, we have laid and correlated, >>so we >>gotta put it all together. We've got a match it and we've got to start building patents. We're going to start looking for the patterns. This is where I is particularly good at starting to help us. Bold patterns start to look for those patterns. Initially, humans will have to do some training. Um, once we have that patent, once we've got that working, we can now start having the AI systems start to do some affairs. E, here's the recalls. So we the system can tell us based on the data based on the patterns we've been learning. We know from the past debt. If those three network links get full bad example, we're gonna have a failure in Region X, right. So start telling us while those network links of filling up tell us before they fall rather than after their full always they're falling up as we see trending information now seems like a simple I could do trending information with just normal monitoring systems. But if I can start to correlate that with greater users in, you know, Beijing Office versus Users in California office filling up those links and different times of the day, I can now start to make much more clever decisions, which is a human on its own, to try and correlate that information, which is be insane once you've done that way to go to the next stage, which is not to have the system act do actions for us. Based on that information right now, we're starting to get close to the scan it. Speaking of this doesn't have to be a big, complex pile of change. Smart ai solution. I have data on that AI solution is talking to my existing automation solutions to action. That change. That's how I see this moving forward, >>right? So essentially you, instead of saying, you know, deploy this too. Uh, this workload to AWS, you would say deploy this. Yeah, And then the system would look and go. Okay, It's this kind of workload. At this time of day at this size, it's gonna interact with this and this and this. And so it's gonna be best off in this region of this cloud provider on then. Uh, you know, two days from now, when the prices drop, we're gonna put it over there, >>even taking a different different. Spoken exactly that it could be. The Beijing office is coming online. Let's move the majority of the workload to a cloud that's closer to them. Reducing the network bandwidth. Yeah, and inference. Andi Also reducing the impact on international lines as Beijing winds down for the day, I can just move the majority of the workload into California on board Europe. In between, it's very simple examples, but have humans do that would be very complex and very time consuming >>exactly. And end. Just having humans notice those patterns would be difficult. But once you have the system noticing those patterns, then the humans could start to think, How can I take advantage of this, you know, So as you are talking about much longer term in the actual applicant patients themselves. So you know, everything can be optimized that way so >>everybody may optimized way can optimize down to the way we even potentially write applications in the future. Humans were still deciding the base logic. Humans were still deciding the creative components of that. Right as we as we build things, we can start to optimize them, breaking down into smaller and smaller units that are much more specific. But the complexity goes up. When we do that right. I want to use AI and AI solutions to start to manage that complexity across multiple spaces. Multiple time zones, etcetera. >>Exactly. Exactly. So. So that's the question, you know. What do you guys think? You know, we really want to know >>on Dhere again. You know, we mentioned this around the beginning, but do you think you could trust in a iob sedition? What would it take for you to trust in our absolution? And where do you practically see it being used in the short term? >>Yeah, that's that's the big question is where do you see it being used? Where would you like it to be used, you know? Is there something that you don't think would be possible, but you would like to see it, you know. But the main thing is, on a practical matter, what would you like to see? >>Let me ask. The question is like a different way. Do you have a problem that we could solve within a isolation today? E, They're really well >>right. A re a world problem. And And assuming that, you know, we are not gonna, you know, take over the world. >>Yeah. Important. My evil plan is to take over the world with >>man. I'm so sorry. First >>had to let that draw. >>I did. I did. I'm so sorry. Okay, Alright. So that's so That's a I ops. And we like I said, if you're watching this live, throw in the chat. We want to hear your ideas. If your, um if you're doing this, if you're watching this on the replay, go to the survey because we way, we really want to hear your ideas and your opinions. All right, So moving right along. All right. What the heck are you know, kernels? >>Uh, lovely questions. So, you know, the whole world is talking about containers today way we're talking about containers today. But containers like VMS or just one way to handle compute Andi. They're more and more ideas that are out there today, and people have been trying different ways off, shrinking the size of the compute environment. COMPUTER Paxil Another cool way of looking at this and saying That's been around for a little while. But it's getting your attraction to learn to sing called unique kernels, and what they are is they're basically highly optimized. Execute a bles that include the operating system, Um, there on OS settle libraries, um, and some very simplified application code all mixed into a very, very tiny package. Easiest way to describe them. They're super simplified. And I were talking about in the eye ops discussion this idea off taking everything into smaller and smaller individual functions but creating a certain level of complexity. Well, if we look at uni kernels, those are those smaller and smaller bundles and functions. They interact directly with the hardware or through a hyper visor. Um, so actually, no overhead. I mean the overhead If you just look at what a modern you clinics operating system is made up of these days, there are so many different parts and components. Even just the colonel has got anything from, you know, 5 to 7 different parts to it. Plus, of course, drivers and a boot loader. Then we look at the system libraries that set on top of that, you know? And then they're demons and utilities and shells and scream components and, you know, additional colonel stacks that go on top of that for hyper visors. What we're trying to say is, what, This text of space, I'm >>getting tired. Just listening, >>Thio. I'm tired talking about it. You know that the unique colonel, really, it just takes over their complexity. It puts the application the OS on the basic libraries necessary. That application in tow, one really tiny package. Um, yeah. Give you an idea what we're talking about here. We're talking about memory footprints or time package footprints in the kilobytes. You know, a small container is considered 100 make plus, we're talking kilobytes. We're talking memory utilization in the kilobyte two megabytes space because there's no no fact, no fluff, no unnecessary components. And then only the CPU that it needs. >>So Bill Gates was right 6. 40 k is all anybody will ever need >>Potentially. Yeah, right. E, there was there was an IBM CEO who said even less at some point. So we'll see >>how that go. What goes around comes around. >>But one of the really interesting things about this small size, which is really critical, is how fast they can boot. Yeah, we're talking boot times measured in 30 seconds. Wow, We're talking the ability to spin up specific functions only when you need them. Now, if we look at the knock on effect of that, we're looking at power saving. Who knew? Run the app when I need it because there's no Leighton. See to start it up. The app is tiny so I can pack a lot mawr into a lot less space game power seconds. But when I start looking at where you were talking about earlier, which the basic compute idea in the world all of a sudden that tiny little arm chips it in my raspberry pi that's running my fridge, My raspberry pi equivalent that's running my fridge no longer has a fact operating system around it. I can run tens thousands, potentially off these very tiny specific devices when I need them. Wow, I'm kind of excited about it. I'm excited by the idea. You >>can hear that >>I'm a hardware geek from from many, many moons ago on DSO. I kind of like the idea of being able to better utilize along this very low powered hardware that we have lying around and really take it into the future. Well, that's good. Yeah. So I'm not going to kill, not going to kill containers. But it is a parallel technology that I'm very interested in >>that that is true. Now what does it I mean in terms of, like, attack surface. That means it's got a much smaller attack surface, though, right? >>Yeah. Great. Great point. I mean, there's no there's no fluff. There's no extra components in the system. Therefore, the attack surface is very, very small. Um, you know, and because they're so small and can be distributed much, much faster and much more easily updating and upgrading them as much easier way can we can upgrade a 60 k b file across a GPRS connection on which I certainly can't do with 600 make, uh, four gig VM 600 made container. You know, just unrealistic. Um, e >>I was just going to say so. So now these. You know, kernels, they're they're so small. And they have on Lee what they absolutely need. Now, how do you access the hardware? >>So the hardware is accessed via hyper visor. So you have to have some kind of hyper visor running on top of the hard way. But because Because we need very little from their type adviser, we don't actually need to interact with that very much. It could be a very cut down operating system. Very, very simplified operating system. We're also not trying to run another layer on top of that. We're not We're not ending up with multiple potential VMS or something underneath it were completely removed. That layer, um, the the drivers, the necessary drivers are built into that particular colonel device. >>Oh, okay. That makes sense. >>Tiny footprint easily distributed, um, and once again, very specialized, >>right? Right. Well, that makes sense. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, I guess so. These these individual stacks, you know, comparing virtual machines to containers to unit colonels, there just a completely different architecture. But I can see how that would How That would work where you have the hi perverse. A little hyper buys are on top of rented teeth. OK, so moving right along certain. Where do we see these being used? >>Um, it's early days, although there are some very good practical applications out there. There's a big, big ecosystem of people trying different ways for this I o ts off the obvious immediate place. I i o t s a quick, easy place for something very specialized. Um, what's interesting to me? And you mentioned this earlier. You know, we're talking about medical devices. We're talking about potentially disposable medical devices. Now, if I can keep those devices to run on really low power very, very cheap, um, CPUs and all of a sudden I've got a device that is available to a lot more people. I don't need a massive, powerful CPU. I just need saying that runs a very specific function really fast, A very small scale. I could do well disposable devices. I can build medical devices that are so small we can potentially swallow them and other areas which are really interesting. And I spoke a little bit about it, but it's energy efficiency. Where We need to be very, very energy efficient. No. And that can also impact on massively scalable systems where I want to deal with tens of thousands of potential transactions from users going into a system. I can spin them up only when I need them. I don't need to keep them running all the time again. It comes back to that low latency on then. Anyway, that an incredibly fast food time is valuable. Um, a car, you know, Think about it. If if my if my electric car is constantly draining that battery when it's parked in the garage and I'm traveling or if it takes 20 minutes from my car to boot up its clinics. Colonel, when I wanted, I'm going to get very irritated. Well, >>that and if you have a specific function, you know, like, identify that thing, Yeah, it would be good if you haven't smashed into it before. Identified it as a baby carriage e dark today. Yes. >>So, Nick, you know, these is all really interesting topics. Um, yeah. We spoke about air ops. We spoke about the impact is gonna have on humans. Um, all of these changes to the world that we're living in from computer systems, the impact it's having on our lives biggest. An interesting question about the ethics of all of this >>ethics of all of this. Yes, because let's be let's be realistic. There are actual riel concerns when it comes to privacy, when it comes to how corporations operate, when it comes to how governments operate. Um, there are areas of the world's where, how all of this has has moved, it's absolutely I'll be honest, absolutely terrifying the economic disparity. Um, but when you really come right down to it, um, it's all about the human control over the technology because all of these ethical issues are are in our hands. Okay, we could joke about Sky Net. We can joke about things like that, but this is one place that technology can't help us. We have to do this. We have to be aware of what's going on. We have to be aware. Are they using facial recognition? Uh, you know, when you go to X y Z, are they using recidivism algorithms in sentencing? And how is that? How is that going? Is it? Are those algorithms fair? Certain groups get longer sentences because historical data, uh, is skewed. Be educated. Know how this works? Don't be afraid of any of this. None of this is, uh, none of this is rocket science. Really? Come right down to it. I mean, it's it's not simple, but you can learn this. You can do it. >>Ask good questions. Be interested to be part of the part of the discussion. Not just a passive bystander. >>Exactly. Don't just complain about what you think is going on. Learn about what is actually going on and be active, where you see something that needs to be fixed. So that's what that's what we can do about it. We need to be aware that there's an issue or potential issues, and we need to step in and fix it. So that z myself box, I'll step down zone >>important topic. And it's one that we all can have influence on on bits one. Those who are us who are actually involved in building these systems for the future. We can help make sure that the rules are there. That's right. Systems are built correctly on that. We have open dialogues and discussions around these points and topics and on going away, was she? I think we're coming to the end of the time on hopefully we've kept everybody interested in some of the things that we think are cool for the future. And we're putting our efforts into E O. But I think we need to wrap this up now. So, Nick, great chatting to you is always >>always, always a pleasure, Sean. >>It's been an amazing week. Um, been amazing. Couple of weeks, everybody leading up to this event on bond. No, thank you, everybody for listening to us. Please go and download and try. Dr. Enterprise, Uh, the container card is available. Will post the links here to better understand what we've been doing. Go and have a look through the tutorial track. You'll hear my voice. I'm sure you'll hear next voice and make other people's voices through those tutorials. Hopefully, we keep you all interested and then going download and try lens, Please. Finally, we want your feedback. We're interested to hear what you think would be the great ideas. Good, Bad. Otherwise let us know what you think about products. We are striving to make them better all the time. >>Absolutely. And we want your involvement. Was it all right? Thank you all. Bye bye. Yeah,

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of Dockercon Live 2020, brought to you by Docker and it's ecosystem partners. >> Everyone welcome back to Dockercon 2020, #Docker20. This is theCUBE and Docker's coverage of Dockercon 20. I'm John Furrier in the Palo Alto studios with our quarantine crew, we got a great interview segment here and big news around developer workflow code to cloud. We've got Amanda Silver, Corporate Vice President, product for developer tools at Microsoft and Scott Johnson, the CEO of Docker. Scott had a great Keynote talking about this relationship news has hit about the extension of the Microsoft partnership. So congratulations, Amanda, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thanks for having me. >> Amanda, tell us about what your role is at Microsoft. You guys are well known in the developer community. You had to develop a ecosystem even when I was in college going way back. Very modern now, the cloud is the key, code to cloud, that's the theme. Tell us about your role at Microsoft. >> Yeah, so I basically run the product, Product Design and User Research team that works on our developer tools at Microsoft. And so that includes the Visual Studio product as well as Visual Studio code that's become pretty popular in the last few years but it also includes things like the dotNET runtime and the TypeScript programming language, as well as all of our Azure tooling. >> What's your thoughts on the relationship with Docker? Obviously the news extension of an existing relationship, Microsoft's got a lot of tools, you got a lot of things you guys are doing, bringing the cloud to every business. Tell us about your thoughts on this relationship with Docker? >> Yeah well, we're very excited about the partnership for sure. Our goal is really to make sure that Azure is a fantastic place where all developers can kind of bring their code and they feel welcome. They feel natural. We really see a unique opportunity to make the experience really great for the Docker community by creating more integrated and seamless experience across Docker desktop, Windows and Visual Studio and we really appreciate how Docker has kind of, supported our Windows ecosystem to run in Docker as well. >> Scott, this relationship and an extension with Microsoft is really, I think, impressive and also notable because Microsoft's got so many tools out there and they have so successful with Azure. You guys have been so successful with your developer community but this also is a reflective of the new Docker. Can you share your thoughts on how this partnership with Microsoft, extending the way it is, with the growth of the cloud is a reflection of the new Docker? >> Yeah, absolutely John, it's a great question. One of the things that we've really been focused on since November is fully embracing the ecosystem and all the partnerships and all the possibilities of that ecosystem and part of that is just reality that we're a smaller company now and we can't do it all, nor should we do it all. Part of it's the reality that developers love choice and no one's going to change their minds on choice, and third is just acknowledging that there's so much creativity and so much energy outside the four walls of Docker that we'd be silly not to take advantage of that and welcome it and embrace it and provide that as a phenomenal experience for our developers. So this is a great example of that. The Snyk partnership we announced last week is a great example of that and you're going to see many more partnerships like this going forward that are reflective of exactly this point. >> You've been a visionary on the product side, interviewed before. Also deploying is more important than ever, that whole workflow simplifying, it's not getting complex, people want choice, building code, managing code, deploying code. This has been a big focus of yours. Can you just share your thoughts on where Microsoft comes in? Because they got stuff too, you've got stuff, it all works together. What's your thoughts? >> Right, so it needs to work together because developers want to focus on their app. They don't want to focus on duct taping and stringing together different siloed pools. So you can see in the demo and you'll see in demonstrations later throughout the conference, just the seamless experience that a developer gets in the Docker command line inner operating with Visual Studio Code, with the Docker command line and then deploying to Azure and what's wonderful about the partnership is that both parties put real engineering effort and design effort into making it a great experience. So a lot of the complexities around configuration, around default settings, around security, user management, all of that is abstracted out and taken away from the developers so they can focus on applications and getting those applications deployed to the cloud as quickly as possible. Getting their apps from code to cloud is the watchword or the call to action for this partnership and we think we've really hit it out of the park with the integration that you saw. >> Great validation in the critical part of the workflow you guys been part of. Amanda, we're living in a time we're doing these remote interviews. The COVID crisis has shown the productivity gains of working at home and working, sheltering in place but it also has highlighted the focus of developers, mainly who have also worked at home. They're been kind of used to this, you see the rigs. I saw at Microsoft build some amazing rigs from the studio, so these guys streaming their code demos. This is a Cambrian explosion of new kinds of productivity. You got the world's getting more complex at scale. This is what cloud does. What's your thoughts on this? 'Cause the tooling, there's more tools than ever, right? >> Yeah. >> I still got to deploy code. It's got to be more agile, it's got to be faster, it's got to be at scale. This is what you guys believe in. What's your thinking on all these tooling and abstraction layers? And the end of the day, developers still got to do their job. >> Yeah, well, absolutely. And now even more than ever, I think we've certainly seen over the past few months, a more rapid acceleration of digital transformation that has really happened in the past few years. Paper processes are now becoming digital processes all of a sudden. Everybody needs to work and learn from home and so there's just this rapid acceleration to kind of move everything to support our new remote first lifestyle. But even more so, we now have remote development teams actually working from home as well in a variety of different kinds of environments, whether they're using their own personal machine to connect to their infrastructure or they're using a work issued machine. It's more important than ever that developers are productive but they are productive as a team. Software is a team sport, we all need to be able to work together and to be able to collaborate. And one of the most important aspects of agility for developers is consistency. And what Docker really enables with containerization, is to make the infrastructure consistent and repeatable so that as developers are moving through the lifecycle from their local desktop and developing on their local desktop, to a test environment and to staging and to production, it's really, it's infrastructure for developers as well as operations. And so, that infrastructure, that's completely customizable for what the developers operating system of choice is, what their app stack is, all of those dependencies kind of running together. And so that's what really enables developers to be really agile and have a really fast iteration cycle but also to have that consistency across all of their development team. And we now need to think about things like, how are we actually going to bring on interns for the summer and make sure that they can actually set up their developer boxes in a consistent way that we can actually support them and things like Docker really help with that. >> As your container instances and Visual Studio cloud that you guys have has had great success. There's a mix and match formula here and the other day, developers want to ship the code. What's the message that you guys are sending here with this because I think productivity is one, simplification is the other but as developers, we're on the front lines and they're shipping in real time. This is a big part of the value proposition that you guys bringing to the table. >> Yeah, the core message is that any developer and their code is welcome (laughs) and that we really want to support them, empower them and increase their velocity and the impact that they can have. And so, having things like the fact that the Docker CLI is natively integrated into the Azure experience is a really important aspect of making sure that developers are feeling welcome and feeling comfortable. And now that the Docker CLI tools that are part of Docker desktop have access to native commands that work well with Azure container instances, Azure container instances, if anybody is unfamiliar with that, is the simplest and fastest way to kind of set up containers in Azure and so we believe that developers have really been looking for a really simple way to kind of get containers on Azure and now we have that really consistent experience across our servers, services and our tools. Visual Studio code and Visual Studio extensions make full use of Docker desktop and the Docker CLI so that they can get that combination of the productivity and the power that they're looking for. And in fact, we've integrated these as a design point since very early on in our partnership when we've been partnering with Docker for quite a while. >> Amanda, I want to ask you about the tool chain. We've heard about workflows, making it simpler. Bottom line from a developer standpoint, what's the bottom line for me? What does this mean to me, everyday developer out there? >> I really think it means, your productivity on your terms. And so, Microsoft has been a developer company since the very beginning with Bill Gates and GW Basic. And it's actually similar for Docker. They really have a developer first point of view, which certainly speaks to my heart and so one of the things that we're really trying to do with Docker is to make sure that we can create a workflow that's super productive at every stage of the developer experience, no matter which stack they're actually targeting, whether there's targeting Node or Python, or dotNET and C Sharp or Java, we really want to make sure that we have a super simple experience that you can actually initiate all of these commands, create Docker container images and use the Docker compose files. And then, just kind of do that consistently, as you're deploying it all the way up into your infrastructure in Azure. And the other thing that we really want to make sure is that that even post deployment, you can actually inspect and diagnose these containers and images without having to leave the tool. So we also think about the process of writing the code but also the process of kind of managing the code and remediating issues that might come up in production. And so we really want you to be able to look at containers up in the Azure, that are deployed into Azure and make sure that they're running and healthy and that if something's wrong, that you can actually open up a shell and be in an interactive mode and be able to look at the logs from those containers and even inspect one to see environment variables or other details. >> Yeah, that's awesome. Writing code, managing code and then you got to deploy, right? So what I've been loving about the past generation of Agile is deployment's been faster to play off all the time. Scott, this brings up that the ease of use but you'll want to actually leverage automation. This is the trend that you want to get into. You want to make it easy to write code, manage code but during the deployment phase, that's a big innovation. That's the last point, making that better and stronger. What's your thoughts on simplifying that? >> Well, as a big part of this partnership, John, that Docker and Microsoft embarked on, as you saw from the demo in the keynote, all within the Docker command line, the developer's able to do it in two simple commands, deploy an app, define and compose from their desktop to Azure. And there's a whole slew of automation and pre-configured smart defaults or sane defaults that have gone on behind the scenes and it a lot of hardcore engineering work on part of Docker-Microsoft together to simplify that and make that easy. And that goes exactly to your point, which is, the simpler you can make it, make an abstract way to kind of underline plumbing and infrastructure, the faster Devs can get their application from code to cloud. >> Scott, you've been a product CEO, you've been a product person now you're the CEO but you have a product back when you've been involved with a relationship with Microsoft for a long time. What's the state of the market right now? I see Microsoft has evolved because just the performance, corporate performance, the shift to the cloud has been phenomenal. Now developers getting more empowered, there's more demand for the pressure to put developers to do more and more creativity. So you've seen this evolve, this relationship, what does it mean? >> Yeah, it's honestly a wonderful question, John and I want to thank Amanda and the entire Microsoft team for being long standing partners with us on this journey. So it might not be known to everyone on today's day's event but Microsoft came to the very first Dockercon event way back in June 2014 and I had the privilege of greeting them and welcoming them and then they were full on, ready to see what all the excitement about Docker was about and really embraced it. And you mentioned kind of openness in Microsoft's growth over time in that dimension and we think Docker, together with Microsoft have really shown what an open developer community can do. That started back in 2014 and then we embarked on an open source collaboration around the Docker command line of the Docker engine, bringing that Docker engine from Linux and now moving it to Windows applications. And so all the sudden the promise of write once and use the same primitives, the same formats, the same command lines, as you can with Linux onto Windows applications, we brought that promise to the market. And it's been an ongoing journey together with Microsoft on open standards base, developer facing friendliness, ease of use, fast time to deploy and this partnership that we announced yesterday and we highlighted at the keynote is just another example of that ongoing relationship, laser-like focused on developer productivity and helping teams build great apps. >> Why do you like Azure in the cloud for Docker? Can you share why? >> Well, as Amanda has been sharing, it's super focused on, what are the needs of developers to help them continue to stay focused on their apps and not have their cognitive load burdened by other aspects of getting their apps to the cloud and Azure does a phenomenal job of simplifying and providing sane defaults out of the box. And as we've been talking about, it's also very open to partner integrations like the one we've announced yesterday and highlighted that make it just easy for development teams to choose their tools and build their apps and deploy them onto Azure as quickly as possible. So it's a phenomenal platform for developers and we're very excited and proud to partner with Microsoft on it. >> Amanda on your side, I see Docker's got millions of developers. you guys got millions of developers even more. How do you see the developers in Microsoft's side engaging with Docker desktop and Docker hub? Where does it all fit? I mentioned earlier how I see Docker context really improving the way that individuals and teams work with their environments in making sure that they're consistent but I think this really comes together as we work with Docker desktop and Docker Hub. When developers sign in to Docker Hub from Docker desktop, everything kind of lights up and so they can see all of the images in their repositories and they can also see the cloud environments that they're running them in. And so, once you sign into the Hub, you can see all the contexts that map to the logical environments they have access to, like Dev, NQA and maybe staging. And another use case that's really important is that we can access the same integration environment. So, I can have microservices that I've been working on but I can also see microservices that my teammates and their logs from the services that they've been working on, which I think is really great and certainly helps with team productivity. The other thing too, is that this also really helps with hybrid cloud deployments, where, you might have some on-premises hosted containers and you might have some that's hosted in a public cloud. And so you can see all of those things through your Docker Hub. >> Well, I got to say, I love the code to cloud tagline, I think that's very relevant and catchy. And I think, I guess to me what I'm seeing and I'd love to get your thoughts, Amanda on this is you oversee a key part of Microsoft's business that's important for developers, just the vibe and people are amped up right now. I know people are tensed, anxiety with the COVID-19 crisis but I think people are generally agreeing that this is going to be a massive inflection point for just more headroom needed for developers to accelerate their value on the front lines. What's your personal take on this? You've seen these waves before but now in this time, what are you most excited about? What are you optimistic about? What's your view on the opportunities? Can you share your thoughts, because people are going to get back to work. They're working now remotely but if we go back to hybrid world, they're going to be jamming on projects. >> Yeah, for sure but people are jamming on projects right now and I think that in a lot of ways, developers are first responders in that they are... Developers are always trying to support somebody else. We're trying to support somebody else's workflow and so we have examples of people who are creating new remote systems to be able to schedule meetings in hospitals for the doctors who are actually the first responders taking care of patients but at the end of the day, it's the developer who's actually creating that solution. And so we're being called to duty right now and so we need to make sure that we're actually there to support the needs of our users and that we're basically cranking on code as fast as we can. And to be able to do that, we have to make sure that every developer is empowered and they can move quickly but also that they can collaborate really quickly. And so I think that Docker Hub, Docker kind of helps you ensure that you have that consistency but you also have that connection to the infrastructure that's hosted by your your organization. >> I think you nailed, that's amazing insight. I think that's... The current situation in the community matters because there's a lot of frontline work being done to your point but then we got to rebuild, the modernization is happening as well coming out of this so there's going to be that. And there's a lot of camaraderie going on and massive community involvement I'm seeing more of. The empathy but also now there's going to be the building, the creation, the new creation. So, Scott, this is going to call for more simplicity and to abstract away the complexities. This is the core issue. >> Well, that's exactly right. And it is time to build and we're going to build our way out of this and it is the community that's responding. And so in some sense, Microsoft and Docker are there to support that moory energy and give them the tools to go and identify and have an impact as quickly as possible. I referenced in the keynote, completely bottoms up organic adoption of Docker desktop and Docker Hub in racing to provide solutions against the COVID-19 virus. It's a war against this pandemic that is heavily dependent on applications and data. And there's over 200 projects, community projects on Docker Hub today, where you've got tools and containers and data analysis all in service to the COVID-19 battle that's being fought. And then as you said, John, as we get through the other side, there's entire industries that are completely rethinking their approach that were largely offline before but now see the imperative and the importance of going online. And that tectonic shift, nearly overnight of offline to online behavior and commerce and social and going down the list, that requires new application development. And I'm very pleased about this partnership is that together, we're giving developers the tools to really take advantage of that opportunity and go and build our way out of it. >> Well, Scott, congratulations on a great extended partnership with Microsoft and the Docker brand. I'm a big fan from day one. I know you guys have pivoted on a new trajectory, which is phenomenal, very community oriented, very open source, very open. So congratulations on that. Amanda, thanks for spending the time to come on. I'll give you the final word. Take a minute to talk about what's new at Microsoft for the folks that know Microsoft, know they have a developer mindset from day one. Cloud is exploding, code to cloud. What's the update? What's the new narrative? What should people know about Microsoft with developer community? Can you share some data for the folks that aren't in the community or might want to join or the folks in the community who want to get an update? >> Yeah, it's a great kind of question. Right now, I think we are all really focused on making sure that we can empower developers throughout the world and that includes both those who are building solutions for their organizations today but also, I think we're going to end up with a ton of new developers over this next period, who are really entering the workforce and learning to create digital solutions. Overall, there's a massive developer shortage across the world. There's so much opportunity for developers to kind of address a lot of the needs that we're seeing out of organizations, again, across the world. And so I think it's just a really exciting time to be a developer and my only hope is that basically we're building tools that actually enable them to solve the problem. >> Awesome insight, and thank you so much for your time. Code to cloud developers are cranking away, they're the first responders, going to take care of business and then continue to build out the modern applications. And when you have a crisis like this, people cut right through the noise and get right to the tools that matter. So thanks for sharing the Microsoft-Docker partnership and the things that you guys are working on together. Thanks for your time. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, this is theCUBE's coverage. We are at Dockercon 2020 Digital. This is theCUBE Virtual. I'm John Furrier, bringing all the action, more coverage. Stay with us for more Dockercon Virtual after this short break. (gentle music)

>>From around the globe. It's the view with digital coverage of Docker con live 2020 brought to you by Docker and its ecosystem partners. >>LeBron. Welcome back to DockerCon 2020 hashtag Docker 20 this is the cube and Dockers coverage of Docker con 20 I'm Sean for you and the Palo Alto studios with our quarantine crew. We've got a great interview segment here in big news around developer workflow code to cloud. We've got Amanda silver corporate vice president, product for developer tools at Microsoft and Scott Johnson, the CEO of Docker. Scott had a great keynote talking about this relationship news has hit about the extension of the Microsoft partnership. So congratulations Amanda. Welcome to the cube. >>Thanks for having me. >>Amanda, tell us a bit about what your role is at Microsoft. You guys are well known in the developer community to develop an ecosystem when even when I was in college going way back, very modern. Now cloud is, is the key code to cloud. That's the theme. Tell us about your role at Microsoft. >>Yeah. So I basically run the product, uh, product design and user research team that works on our developer tools that Microsoft and so that includes the visual studio product as well as visual studio code. Um, that's become pretty popular in the last few years, but it also includes things like the.net runtime and the TypeScript programming language as well as all of our Azure tooling. >>What's your thoughts on the relationship with Docker? I'll show you the news extension of an existing relationship. Microsoft's got a lot of tools. You've got a lot of things you guys are doing, bringing the cloud to every business. Tell us about your thoughts on this relationship with Donker. >>Yeah, well we're very excited about the partnership for sure. Um, you know, our goal is really to make sure that Azure is a fantastic place where all developers can kind of bring their code and they feel welcome. They feel natural. Uh, we really see a unique opportunity to make the experience really great for Docker, for the Docker community by creating more integrated and seamless experience across Docker, desktop windows and visual studio. And we really appreciate how, how Docker is kind of, you know, supported our windows ecosystem to run in Docker as well. >>Scott, this relationship and an extension with Microsoft is really, uh, I think impressive and also notable because Microsoft's got so many, so many tools out there and they have so successful with Azure. You guys have been so successful with your developer community, but this also is reflective of the new Docker. Uh, could you share your thoughts on how this partnership with Microsoft extending the way it is with the growth of the cloud is a reflection of the new Docker? >>Yeah, absolutely. John's great question. One of the things that we've really been focused on since November is fully embracing the ecosystem and all the partnerships and all the possibilities of that ecosystem. And part of that is just reality. That we're a smaller company now and we can't do it all, nor should we do it all. Part of us. The reality that developers love voice and no one's gonna change their minds on choice. And third is just acknowledging that there's so much creativity and so much energy. The four walls of Docker that we'd be building, not the big advantage of that and welcome it and embrace it and provide that as a phenomenal experience part of Alfred's. So this is a great example of that. The sneak partnership we announced last week is a grant to have that and you're going to see many more of uh, partnerships like this going forward that are reflective of exactly this point. >>You've been a visionary on the product side of the interviewed before. Also deploying is more important than ever. That whole workflow, simplifying, it's not getting complex. People want choice, building code, managing code, deploying code. This has been a big focus of yours. Can you just share your thoughts on where Microsoft comes in because they got stuff too. You've got stuff, it all works together. What's your thoughts? >>Right? So it needs to work together, right? Because developers want to focus on their app. They don't want to focus on duct taping and springing together different siloed pools, right? So you can see in the demo and you'll see in, uh, demonstrations later throughout the conference. Just the seamless experience that a developer gets in the document man line inter-operating with visual studio code with the Docker command line and then deploying to Azure and what's what's wonderful about the partnership is that both parties put real engineering effort and design effort into making it a great experience. So a lot of the complexities around the figuration around default settings around uh, security, user management, all of that is abstracted out and taken away from the developer so they can focus on applications and getting those applications deployed to the proudest quickly as possible. Getting their app from code to cloud is the wok word or the or the call to action for this partnership. And we think we really hit it out of the park with the integration that you saw, >>Great validation and a critical part of the workflow. You guys have been part of Amanda, we're living in a time we're doing these remote interviews. The coven crisis has shown the productivity gains of working at home and working in sheltering in place, but also as highlighted, the focus of developers mainly who have also worked at home. They've kind of used to this. Do you see the rigs? I saw her at Microsoft build some amazing rigs from the studio. So these guys streaming their code demos. This is, um, a Cambrin explosion of new kinds of productivity. And yet the world's getting more complex at scale. This is what cloud does. What's your thoughts on this? Cause the tooling is more tools than ever, right? So I still gotta deploy code. It's gotta be more agile. It's gotta be faster. It's gotta be at scale. This is what you guys believe in. What's your thinking on all these tooling and abstraction layers and the end of the day, don't you still got to do their job? >>Yeah, well, absolutely. And now, even more than ever. I mean, I think we've, we've certainly seen over the past few months, uh, uh, a more rapid acceleration of digital transformation. And it's really happened in the past few years. Uh, you know, paper processes are now becoming digit digital processes. All of a sudden, you know, everybody needs to work and learn from home. And so there's just this rapid acceleration to kind of move everything to support our new remote lifestyle. Um, but even more so, you know, we now have remote development teams actually working from home as well in a variety of different kinds of, uh, environments. Whether they're using their own personal machine to connect to their infrastructure or they're using a work issued machine. You know, it's more important than ever that developers are productive, but they are productive as a team. Right? Software is a team sport. >>We all need to be able to work together and to be able to collaborate. And one of the most important aspects of agility for developers is consistency. And, uh, what Docker really enables is, uh, with, with containerization is to make the infrastructure consistent and repeatable so that as developers are moving through the life cycle from their local, local dev desktop and developing on their local desktop to a test environment and to staging and to production, it's really, it's infrastructure of or, or developers as well as operations. And so it's that, that infrastructure that's completely customizable for what the developer's operating system of choices, what their app stack is, all of those dependencies kind of running together. And so that's what really enables developers to be really agile and have a really, really fast iteration cycle but also to have that consistency across all of their development team. And you know, we, we now need to think about things like how are we actually going to bring on interns for the summer, uh, and make sure that they can actually set up their developer boxes in a consistent way that we can actually support them. And things like Docker really helped with that >>As your container instances and a visual studio cloud that you guys have has had great success. Um, there's a mix and match formula here. At the end of the day, developers want to ship the code. What's the message that you guys are sending here with this? Because I think productivity is one, simplification is the other, but as developers on the front lines and they're shipping in real time, this is a big part of the value proposition that you guys are bringing to the table. >>Yeah, I mean the, the core message is that any developer and their code is welcome, uh, and that we really want to support them and power them and increase their velocity and the impact that they can have. Um, and so, you know, having things like the fact that the Docker CLI is natively integrated into the Azure experience, uh, is a really important aspect of making sure that developers are feeling welcome and feeling comfortable. Um, and now that the Docker CLI tools are, that are part of Docker desktop, have access to native commands that work well with Azure container instances. Uh, Azure container instances, if anybody's on familiar with that, uh, is the simplest and fastest way to kind of set up containers and Azure. And, and so we believe that developers have really been looking for a really simple way to kind of get containers on Azure. And now we that really consistent experience across our service services and our tools and visual studio code and visual studio extensions make full use of Docker desktop and the Docker CLI so that they can get that combination of the productivity and the power that they're looking for. And in fact, we've, we've integrated these as a design point since very early on in our partnership when we've been partnering with, with Docker for quite a while. >>Amanda, I want to ask you about the, the, the, the tool chain. We've heard about workflows, making it simpler, bottom line, from a developer standpoint, what's the bottom line for me? What does this mean to me? Uh, every day developer out there? >>Um, I, I mean, I really think it means you know, your productivity on your terms. Um, and so, you know, Microsoft has been a developer company since the very, very beginning with, you know, bill Gates and, and, uh, GW basic. Um, and it's actually similar for Docker, right? They really have a developer first point of view, uh, which certainly speaks to my heart. And so one of the things that we're really trying to do with, with Docker is to make sure that we can create a workflow that's super productive at every stage of the developer experience, no matter which stack they're actually targeting, whether there's targeting node or Python or.net and C-sharp or Java. Uh, we really want to make sure that we have a super simple experience that you can actually initiate all of these commands, create, you know, Docker container images and use the compose Docker compose files. >>Um, and then, you know, just kind of do that consistently as you're deploying it all the way up into your infrastructure in Azure. And the other thing that we really want to make sure is that that even post deployment, you can actually inspect and diagnose these containers and images without having to leave the tool. Um, so we, we also think about the process of writing the code, but also the process of kind of managing the code and remediating issues that might come up in production. And so, you know, we really want you to be able to look at containers up in the Azure. Uh, up that are deployed into Azure and make sure that they're running and healthy and that if there, if something's wrong, that you can actually open up a shell and be in an interactive mode and be able to look at the logs from those containers and even inspect when to see environment variables or other details. >>Yeah, that's awesome. You know, writing code, managing code, and then you've got to deploy, right? So what I've been loving about the, the past generation of agile is deployment's been fast to deploy all the time. Scott, this brings up that the ease of use, but you want to actually leverage automation. This is the trend that you want to get in. You want, you don't want, you want to make it easy to write code, manage code. But during the deployment phase, that's a big innovation. That's the last point. Making that better and stronger. What's your thoughts on simplifying that? >>So that was a big part of this partnership, John, that the Docker in Microsoft embarked on and as you saw from the demo and the keynote, um, all within the man line, the developers able to do in two simple commands, deploy an app, uh, defining compose from the desktop to Azure and there's a whole slew of automation and pre-configured smart defaults or sane defaults that have gone on behind the scenes and that took a lot of hardcore engineering work on part of Docker and Microsoft together to simplify that and make that easy and that, that goes exactly to your point. We just like the simpler you can make it more, you can abstract a way to kind of underlying plumbing and infrastructure. The faster devs can get there. Their application from code to cloud. >>Scott, you've been a product CEO, you've been a product person, a CEO, but you have a product background. You've been involved with the relationship with Microsoft for a long time. What's the state of the market right now? I mean, obviously Microsoft has evolved. Look at just the performance corporate performance. The shift to the cloud has been phenomenal. Now developers getting more empowered, there's more demand for the pressure to put on developers to do more and more, more creativity. So you've seen this evolve, this relationship, what does it mean? >>Yeah, it's honestly a wonderful question, John. And I want to thank Amanda and the entire Microsoft team for being long standing partners with us on this journey. So it's might not be known to everyone on today's, uh, day's event. But Microsoft came to the very first Docker con event, uh, way back in June, 2014 and I had the privilege of, of reading them and welcoming them and they're, they were full on ready to see what all the excitement about Docker was about and really embrace it. And you mentioned kind of openness and Microsoft's growth over that, uh, over time in that dimension. And we think kind of Docker together with Microsoft have really shown what an open developer community can do. And that started back in 2014 and then we embarked on an open source collaboration around the Docker command line of the Docker engine, bringing that Docker engine from Linux and now moving it to windows applications. And so all of a sudden the promise of right ones and use the same primitives, the same formats, the same fan lines, uh, as you can with Linux onto windows applications. We brought that promise to the market and it's been an ongoing journey together with Microsoft of open standards based, developer facing friendliness, ease of use, fast time to deploy. And this, this partnership that we announced yesterday and we highlighted at the keynote is just another example of that ongoing relationship laser like focused on developer productivity and helping teams build great apps. >>Why do you like Azure in the cloud for Docker? Can you share why? >>Well, it's as Amanda has been sharing, it's super focused on what are the needs of developers to help them continue to stay focused on their apps and not have their cognitive load burdened by other aspects of getting their apps to the cloud. And Azure, phenomenal job of simplifying and providing sane defaults out of the box. And as we've been talking about, it's also very open to partner like the one we've announced >>Yesterday and highlighted, you know, but >>Uh, make it just easy for development teams to choose their tools and build their apps and deploy them onto Azure. It's possible. So, uh, it's, it's a phenomenal plan, one for developers and we're very excited and proud of partner with Microsoft on it. >>Amanda, on your side, I see DACA has got millions of developers. You guys got millions of developers even more. How do you see the developers in Microsoft side engaging with Docker desktop and Docker hub? Where does it all fit? >>I think it's a great question. I mean, I mentioned earlier how the Docker context can help individuals and teams kind of work in their environments work. Let me try that over. I mentioned earlier how I, how I see Docker context really improving the way that individuals and teams work with their environments and making sure that they're consistent. But I think this really comes together as we work with Docker desktop and Docker hub. Uh, when developers sign into Docker hub from Docker desktop, everything kind of lights up. And so they can see all of the images in their repositories and they can also see the cloud environments they're running them in. And so, you know, once you sign into the hub, you can see all the contexts that map to the logical environments that they have access to like dev and QA and maybe staging. And another use case that's really important is that, you know, we can access the same integration environment. >>So, so I could have, you know, microservices that I've been working on, but I can also see microservices that my, my teammates and their logs, uh, from the services that they've been working on, which I think is really, really great and certainly helps with, with team productivity. The other thing too is that this also really helps with hybrid cloud deployments, right? Where, you know, you might have some on premises, uh, hosted containers and you might have some that's hosted in a public cloud. And so you can see all of those things, uh, through your Docker hub. >>Well, I got to say I love the code to cloud tagline. I think that's very relevant and, and catchy. Um, and I think, I guess to me what I'm seeing, and I'd love to get your thoughts, Amanda, on this, as you oversee a key part of Microsoft's business that's important for developers, just the vibe and people are amped up right now. I know people are tense and anxiety with the covert 19 crisis, but I think people are generally agreeing that this is going to be a massive inflection point for just more headroom needed for developers to accelerate their value on the front lines. What's your personal take on this and you've seen these ways before, but now in this time, what are you most excited about? What are you optimist about? What's your view on the opportunities? Can you share your thoughts? Because people are going to get back to work or they're working now remotely, but when we go back to hybrid world, they're going to be jamming on projects. >>Yeah, for sure. But I mean, people are jamming on projects right now. And I think that, you know, in a lot of ways, uh, developers are our first responders in, you know, in that they are, developers are always trying to support somebody else, right? We're trying to somebody else's workflow and you know, so we have examples of people who are, uh, creating new remote systems to be able to, uh, schedule meetings in hospitals or the doctors who are actually the first, first responders taking care of patients. But at the end of the day, it's the developer who's actually creating that solution, right? And so we're being called the duty right now. Um, and so we need to make sure that we're actually there to support the needs of our users and that we're, we're basically cranking on code as fast as we can. Uh, and to be able to do that, we have to make sure that every developer is empowered and they can move quickly, but also that they can collaborate freely. And so, uh, I think that, you know, Docker hub Docker kind of helps you ensure that you have that consistency, but you also have that connection to the infrastructure that's hosted by your, your organization. >>I think you nailed that amazing insight. And I think that's, you know, the current situation in the community matters because there's a lot of um, frontline work being done to your point. But then we've got to rebuild. The modernization is happening as well coming out of this. So there's going to be that and there's a lot of comradery going on and massive community involvement. I'm seeing more of, you know, the empathy, but also now there's going to be the building, the creation, the new creation. So Scott, this is going to call for more simplicity and to abstract away the complexities. This is the core issue. >>Well that's exactly right and it is time to build, right? Um, and we're going to build our way out of this. Um, and it is the community that's responding. And so in some sense, Microsoft and Docker are there to support that, that community energy and give them the tools to go. And identify and have an impact as quickly as possible. We have referenced in the keynote, um, completely bottoms up organic adoption of Docker desktop and Docker hub in racing to provide solutions against the COBIT 19 virus. Right? It's a, it's a war against this pandemic that is heavily dependent on applications and data and there's over 200 projects, community projects on Docker hub today where you've got uh, cools and containers and data analysis all in service to the photo at 19 battle that's being fought. And then as you said, John, as we, as we get through this, the other side, there's entire industries that are completely rethinking their approach that were largely offline before that. Now see the imperative and the importance of going online and that tectonic shift nearly overnight of offline to online behavior and commerce and social and go on down the list that requires new application development. And I'm very pleased about this partnership is that together we're giving developers the tools to really take advantage of that opportunity and go and build our way out of it. >>Well, Scott, congratulations on a great extended partnership with Microsoft and the Docker brand. You know, I'm a big fan of from day one. I know you guys have pivoted on a new trajectory which is very community oriented, very open source, very open. So congratulations on that Amanda. Thanks for spending the time to come on. I'll give you the final word. Take a minute to talk about what's new at Microsoft. For the folks that know Microsoft, know they have a developer mindset from day one cloud is exploding code to cloud. What's the update? What's the new narrative? What should people know about Microsoft with developer community? Can you share from some, some, some uh, data for the folks that aren't in the community or might want to join with folks in the community who want to get an update? >>Yeah, it's a, it's a great, great kind of question. I mean, you know, right now I think we are all really focused on making sure that we can empower developers throughout the world and that includes both those who are building solutions for their organizations today. But also I think we're going to end up with a ton of new developers over this next period who are really entering the workforce and uh, and learning to create, you know, digital solutions overall. There's a massive developer shortage across the world. Um, there's so much opportunity for developers to kind of, you know, address a lot of the needs that we're seeing out of organizations again across the world. Um, and so I think it's just a really exciting time to be a developer. Uh, and you know, my, my uh, my only hope is that basically we're, we're building tools that actually enable them to solve problems. >>Awesome insight and thank you so much for your time code to cloud developers are cranking away that the first responders are going to take care of business and then continue to build out the modern applications. And when you have a crisis like this, people cut right through the noise and get right to the tools that matter. So thanks for sharing the Microsoft Docker partnership and the things that you guys are working on together. Thanks for your time. Okay. This is the cubes coverage. We are Docker con 2020 digital is the cube virtual. I'm Sean for bringing all the action. More coverage. Stay with us for more Docker con virtual. After this short break.

>> From theCube studios in Paloalto and Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a Cube conversation. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman, and welcome to this special Cube conversation. I'm coming to you from our Boston area studio, and theCube is really mostly about people, about network, and so we're going to have a focus in, we're going to talk about some technology, we're also going to talk a little bit about careers. I want to welcome to the program, I've got two first-time guests on the program. First, Mark Zbikowski. Probably butchered that badly, Mark, sorry, technical advisor, and Blue Gaston. Uh, Gaston. Boy, I'm doing horrible with names here. Software engineer, you're both with Polyverse. But, you know, my last name's Miniman, it has been butchered a million times. But Mark, and Blue, thank you so much for joining us. >> You're welcome. Our pleasure. >> Yes. >> All right. So one of you I've read a lot about online and the other one is Mark, go to the Wikipedia page, stuff like that. So we'll get to that too. So, Blue, maybe start with you, give us a little bit about your background. >> Yeah, so I work at Polyverse now, a cybersecurity startup. But actually I got my undergraduate degree in Philosophy, and from there, kind of just like, what am I going to do with a philosophy degree? And it just weirdly was like a natural transition. I was like, oh, computer science. And kind of the logical, like the technical version of philosophy. So got my master's in philosophy and now, or not philosophy, in computer science, and now have been working at Polyverse. I started as an intern and they hired me on, I think after a month, they were like, no, we want you full-time. So that was cool and I've loved it. So I'm starting off my story, that's kind of where my kick-off point is. >> Awesome. So, and Mark, first of all, you have to give us the connection between yourself and Blue, and a little bit surprising that she waited so long to go into the computer business. >> Uh, okay, I'm her stepfather. It's not surprising that she, you know, wanted to go into computer science. She's got lots of aptitude for it. She was just on a career path and an education path that was primarily logic, analysis, which is basically what we do in computer science. >> All right. So Mark, if you could just give our audience a little bit of a thumbnail sketch as to your background in the tech industry, and it's a storied one. >> Uh, okay. I was, I think, employee number 55 at Microsoft, when I started back in 1981. The first task that they gave me was to work on something that ended up becoming MS-DOS. I worked on MS-DOS for a long time, about five and a half years, worked on a number of other operating systems at Microsoft, ending up with being one of the initial development managers and architects for Windows. I was responsible for all file storage. And I was there for about 26 years. >> Yeah, you know, interesting, you know, when you look on the Wikipedia page, you were the third employee that reached the 25-year milestone. Some guy, Bill Gates, and Steve Balmer, were the first two to reach that milestone. So, you know, quite impressive. I think back, back when I learned computers, it was programming, and you know, today it's coding, and things are quite different there. But, Mark, you were also, you're noted as one of the early hackers there, so what does that mean to you, how have you seen that's been changing? Polyverse is in the cybersecurity realm, so would love your kind of viewpoint on just hacking in general. >> Oh, the early days, well my hacking started pretty much when I was in eighth or ninth grade back in Detroit. We had access to an academic operating system called MTS by way of Wayne State University. I grew up in, just in the suburbs of Detroit. And we had access to it, and for me Excuse me. Hacking at the time was all about trying to understand and learn stuff that was arcane and hidden and mysterious. Figuring out how, for example, password encryption algorithms worked, figuring out how operating systems worked, because at the time, there were very few organized textbooks about how to construct operating systems. Even though operating systems had been around for 20 years. So my early, earliest stuff was in basically, finding holes in security at MTS, and that's how I started, in what they would say "hacking", but it was very innocent, it was very, let's see what we can do! As opposed to, let's extract information, let's go and ransom people's data for bitcoin, which is, you know, I think, a wrong direction to go. >> Yeah. I'm curious your thoughts as the decades have progressed, you know, hacking today, what's your take on, you know, there's the white hats and the black hats, and everything in between. >> Uh, it's kind of an arms race. (laughs) Everything that the white hats will throw up, the black hats will eventually attack to some degree. Social engineering is sort of the ultimate way that people have been getting around, you know, software protections. I think it's unfortunate that there is such a financial reward to the black hat side of things, as counter to one's ethics. I think there's a lot of slippery slopes involved, in terms of, you know, boy, these companies shouldn't be making money, so I deserve my bit. I think that it's much better that, you know, people should come at this from an intellectual, you know, exploration standpoint, rather than an exploitative. But that's the nature of the world. >> Yeah, well, Blue, maybe we can help connect the dots towards what you both do at Polyverse. You mentioned you started as an intern, and I loved the article that talked about this. Well, you know, you're going to be an intern. Can you fix the internet for us? And you did some things to help, you know, help stop some of that malicious hacking. >> Yeah, I, that was crazy. I was very intimidated when I heard that, you're going to be fixing the internet. What I've been working at the company, which is different from our flagship product, but kind of in the same vein, is to stop malicious php javascript code execution. So that's what they came in, that's how they prefaced that problem to me. It was, you're going to go fix the internet. Um, and it was crazy. It was really cool and surprisingly, a lot of philosophy that goes into the way we look at our problem-solving at Polyverse, and how we tackle problems, but of course, I have my Jedi master Mark over here, and I was constantly, "What do you think about this? Isn't this crazy? "Like, look at how Polyverse is attacking this." And I think finally I broke him down, and I was like, come join. Come jump in, and you be the foresight, and you tell us what we're going to do in a year or two. And I convinced him, and now, he's, he's with us too. >> Excellent. So, Mark, tell us a little bit about, you know, more about Polyverse, your role there. In the industry there's a lot of talk about, you know, lots of money obviously gets spent on cybersecurity, but it's still a major challenge in the industry. So what's your role there and how's Polyverse helping to attack that? >> Well, my title is Technology Advisor, and I'm one of a small collection of people who have pretty wide-ranging expertise across operating systems, networks, compilers, languages, development tools, all of that. And our goal is, you know, my role, as well the other Jedi masters, is to take a look at what Polyverse is doing at present, try to figure out where we need to go, try to figure out what the next set of challenges are, use our broad experience and knowledge of the computing milieu, and try to figure out what are the tough issues we need to face? We make some progress on those tough issues, and then turn everything over for the mainline Polyverse development staff to bring it to reality. We're not like researchers, we're much more into the product planning side of things, but product planning in, I hate to use this word, but in a visionary sense. (Blue laughs) >> Yeah, no, it's-- >> We look for the vision. We're not visionaries. We look for the vision. >> You're a visionary, Mark. Admit it. >> Excellent. Well, I do love the, you know, Jedi analogy there. When you look at, I'm curious to your thoughts, both of you, you know, some of the real challenges and opportunities facing the cybersecurity industry. It's a large financial industry company, they'll spend a billion dollars and, you know, does that make them secure? Well, at least they've done what they can and they're pushing enough pieces. But, you know, fundamentally, we understand that this is such a huge issue. >> I think-- >> Blue? >> Well, (laughs) I can try to answer. I think Polyverse recognizes that as well. So we're trying to create new solutions, that instead of just being compliant and checking the boxes, we're actually trying to create systems and products that will stop attacks from actually working. Rather than being reactive and being responsive, we're trying to build these systems out where the attacks just don't work as they're currently designed. And I think we, you know, and to do so in an easy-to-deploy, time-saving kind of way is definitely our goal. Rather than the status quo and, you know, we're fighting inertia, we're trying to, to change that narrative in a really meaningful way. >> Thanks, Blue. Mark, do you have some comments you can add to that? >> Once we started taking individual computers and hooking them up to the internet, where they can communicate fairly freely with each other, and by intent communicate fairly freely with each other, by design, by intent, all of a sudden that opened us to just a wide range of malicious behavior, from being DoS'd, to leaking passwords, et cetera. There are, there's layers and layers that one can do to mitigate these problems. From IT operational manuals to buzz-testing your API, to best practices, it's a, there's a long list. And every bit, every piece of it is important. You need to secure your passwords before you can do anything else. You need to make sure that there's a firewall in your system be fore you go and start, before you even start thinking about doing things like, like what's goin on with what we're doing at Polyverse. It's a, like I said, there's a wide range of tools that people need, that people use, that people spend money on today. Polyverse has got a very unique perspective on how to go and extend this. We, it's a, it's very pragmatic, you know, the realization is that these attackers are going to keep attacking, and they're going to exploit certain features that, despite everyone's best intentions, aren't covered, and we have found a rather unique and novel way to prevent people from doing it. Is it going to solve everything? No. There's still, there's all these other early layers that need to be taken care of first, before the more sophisticated tools that, for example, that Polyverse has or that other companies have. >> Great. Well, Blue, you talked a little bit about it, but, you know, love your, what you've found, you know, working together as a family dynamic here. You know, specifically. >> Um, (laughs) I think it's really cool. What's the best, I'll say this, is when, I always like asking Mark his opinion, because why wouldn't I? The brain that guy has, and just the experience, he can add so much. Every once in a while, I'll go, and I'll say, you know, oh, this is what I'm working on, and here's what I'm kind of thinking, and he'll say, oh, yeah, well what about this? And I'll actually get to explain something to him. And I got to tell you, that feels really good. Is when I get to say, oh, well, actually it looks like this, and this was my plan, and he's like, oh yeah, definitely. And I get that validation, which is really cool. And I can, you know, drive to his house and bug him whenever I want to. I know where he lives, so if I'm really stuck, or just want to bounce ideas off of him, it's really cool. It's really cool, and I, you know, strong-armed, not strong-armed, I enticed him to come and join Polyverse just by the cool things that we're doing, and I think that's cool too. To now be able to work on something together. >> Yeah, and Mark, sounds like you're learning some things from Blue. Give us your side of that relationship. >> Well, it's a great relationship. Blue, um, Blue never hesitates to challenge. (Blue laughs) >> Blue: Okay. And that, I'm saying that in a very positive sense. Um, you know, she'll come up, every so often I'll get a text from her that says, "Help!" >> Oh my god! (laughing) >> Yes. Sorry. At least I'm not showing it. (laughs) But it's great. And we get together and we talk about stuff, and she says, you know, here's the problem I'm facing, and I'll ask her about it and she gets to go and teach me about what her problem is. I'm a big fan of teaching. I think one of the frustrations that Blue has is I almost never give her the answer when she asks a question. (laughs) >> Not even when I was in school, >> Yeah, not even when you were in school. I was always asking the questions and leading her to the answer rather than just giving it to her. >> Or saying, well why don't we sit down and I'll teach you how to implement knowledge. Just like, oh my god. What are you doing? >> Yeah. So, yeah, I'm a big fan of teaching and learning by way of teaching. One of the things I do is I'm an affiliate with the University of Washington, and I teach every year one quarter of their Operating Systems class. And I love teaching, I love seeing the light go on. But every year, when I'm teaching a class that I know pretty well, I learn something new. By a question the student asks, or by reading a paper that I'm asking the students to read, I learn something new just about every year. And so having Blue teach me is a way that I get to learn, but I think in the process Blue also gets to learn as well. You know, in the process of teaching me. >> Yeah, well, that's such a great point. All right, want to give you both the final word on what's exciting you, what draws you to working in the cybersecurity industry. >> Um, I'll start. (laughs) So when I started at Polyverse, I actually got to, as an intern, own my own product. And in, I think, less than a month now, we're actually officially releasing that product, polyscripting. Officially, like Marketing is coming up with materials for it, and that was right out of school is when I started on this project, so it's kind of like a big deal for me. You know, I've owned the project, I'd say like 90% of it, over the last year or two, and now I get to see it come into fruition. So that's really exciting to me. Um, you know, that's exciting. So I'm excited about that, I'm excited about what Polyverse is doing in general. So, yeah. >> And Mark? >> Yeah. It's great working in a startup, it's great working with a bunch of very, very bright, energetic people. For me, contributing to that environment is extremely valuable. Helping Polyverse out, they're, you know, cybersecurity is problem. Trying to come up with good, effective solutions that are really pragmatic in terms of, you know, we're not going to solve every problem, but here's a great little space that we're going to solve all the problems in. That's, there's a huge appeal to that for me. >> Well, Mark and Blue, thank you so much for joining. Appreciate you sharing some of the personal as well as the professional journeys that you've both been on. Thanks so much. >> Yeah, thank you >> Yeah, you're welcome. >> All right. Thank you for watching theCube. I'm Stu Miniman. Thanks for watching. (soothing music)

>> Announcer: From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto and Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE conversation. >> Hi everybody, this is Dave Vellante with theCUBE, and welcome to this special CUBE conversation. I've been running a CEO series for the last several weeks, talking to leaders about how they're dealing with the COVID-19 crisis and really, trying to understand how they've been navigating through and communicating to their employees, and their customers. I'm really excited to have Melissa Di Donato here, she's the CEO of SUSE. Melissa, great to see you again. >> Great to see you, thank you for having me. >> You're very welcome, and you and I met last September and one of the reasons I've been looking forward to this interview, I'm a fanboy. I threw the kitchen sink at you last year, and you batted everything out of the park. We were talking about digital transformation, digital business, and you were really one of my favorite guests of the year. So, >> Thank you. >> Talk about kitchen sink. This COVID-19 thing came out of nowhere, when did you see it coming? And what was your first move as a leader? >> Well, so for us, we had a really unique position, Dave, because we have a number of people staying in China, so we've got more than 250 employees sitting in China, so for us COVID-19 is not new, we've been dealing with this for quite a long time, since December when first started becoming ill in China, realizing that there was an issue. As of the seventh of January we had to move very quickly when China went onto lockdown, we had to find a way to get our employees to be able to work from home very quickly, and taking a couple of hundred of employees that are sitting in China and being able to empower them and enable them to work from home very quickly, nearly overnight, was no short task, so we took all of that learning back in January, and then we were able to respond as the countries fell ill, and the government requirements went in place around the world since then. So for us, this is nothing new, we were really fortunate that we had the mechanisms in place to handle the pandemic first in China, now as it came across Europe, and then of course into the US. >> Yeah so, you had the canary in the coalmine, so to speak, Well before >> Kind of, something like that >> Yeah, well before you had to start making decisions about SUSECon in Dublin, which was scheduled to be in March, so that was your other big decision point, wasn't it? >> Yeah, it was really difficult for us, because obviously, we had customers, we had partners, all wanted to come to Dublin, in fact, we were scheduled to be there together as well, and we had to give them enough time to be able to make alternate arrangements, but at the same time, we had to wait to see what the government was going to do in Ireland, because obviously that has a very big impact on the structure, the cost, et cetera. But we made a early decision, as early as we could, and that was the beginning part of March, to make the decision to unfortunately move it to a digital event, which was not an easy solution. The first time in our history, bringing a big, annual conference that's physical and in person, to a virtual event that's in digital, it wasn't an easy over-the-night kind of process and decision to make, so it was a hard one, but we're really confident, and May 20th is the announcment and the start of our SUSECon digital event, so not too long away from where we are now. >> Melissa, how have you altered, enhanced, your communications to your employees, your team, and ultimately your customers and partners? Have you increased the cadence? How have you altered? >> Yeah, so much so. I do a video with my team that I announce and push out every Monday, so every Monday I give them a business update, I tell them what's happening in the industry, what's happening with SUSE, what's happening with our customers. That happens every week, once a week. That's for every employee, and its a video call, something like this, almost. Then what we do is weekly updates on the great things that are happening around SUSE. You know, we've got a lot of amazing employees here in the open source community, but also employees as well. We've had employees in Italy who created virtual classrooms for their employees, we had an employee in the US who dedicated 30% of his bonus to give back to his local school, he's bought lunches for all the people at his hospital locally, we've had our entire Nuremberg, Germany office give all of their lunch vouchers to the homeless in Germany, so we also like to publicize all the good work that all of our employees are doing, to give back to their local communities and globally, so the cadence has definitely been increased. We just ran a survey this last week that closed yesterday. We got very, very favorable results. And that was definitely geared towards communication, no more so than now, do the employees and the customers need to be aware of what's going on. You probably feel the same thing, and through me and probably loads of other interviews, know that we're not a magician, we're not a scientist here that could predict necessarily the future. I think the scientists themselves don't even know what's going to happen, but we're doing our best to take outlook, and take a lot of concerted approach to educate our employees and our customers with what they can expect. Now for us, I'm in the very fortunate position that before COVID-19, 38% of our employees work remotely, so working from home for us is quite easy, it's quite natural for our community and our open source community as well as a whole. So for us to make that transition, we were uninterrupted in way of dealing with our customers. I've been communicating with them as well, through emails and phone calls and other means, pretty much at least once a month, if not every other week or so, to communicate what we're doing for them, but again, you said it, being proactive and being communicative right now, it's never been more important. >> So you, it sounds like, are maintaining productivity. A lot of organizations are actually seeing a productivity hit, and they're having trouble getting work-from-home infrastructure up and spun a bit. People joke on Twitter that's the new tissue paper, you can't, I don't know what it's like in London, but you can't get toilet paper (laughs) on the shelves here, so work from home infrastructure, laptops, VDI, et cetera, But it sounds like you really haven't taken a productivity hit, it's sort of a natural progression for you. >> Yeah, you know when we met last September, we talked about the importance of open source, and we've been a business for nearly 30 years, and we've always run our business in open source community, and that is a community that's obviously geographically dispersed all over the world, so people have been working from home, working in their community, being transparent and collaborative, regardless of where they sit, so from an innovation perspective, we've had no impact to our business, so being able to work from anywhere, across any boundary, has been been uninterrupted, so that's been great. 99% of our workforce are now working remotely from home, versus up from 38% pre-COVID, it doesn't change the fact that things like hardware and software and the means that they need to actually operate from home is difficult, so we've made the concerted effort, for example, to make sure our employees in Germany have the capability to bring home their desk chairs, to bring home their monitors, to bring home their machines to set them up with the ability to be able to work from home. Building on the experience from China, we learned we needed to provision early, so what we did in the beginning part of February was to begin to procure software and hardware that enabled us to have a bench of technology that we could utilize, in case we had this pandemic run wild to support our employees to work from home, so I'm very happy to say we were well prepared. In our survey, we asked the question how prepared are you to be able to work from home? And it was extremely high, best practice in way of benchmarking for any employee survey, to be able to provide them the productivity tools necessary to be able to work from home, so we're very, very proud of that. >> I want to ask you about the recovery, nobody knows, we've never seen this >> No >> Forced shut down of the economy before. Saw Bill Gates this morning on TV, saying he thinks it's really through June that we're going to have to live with this, I know the president of the United States is saying we'd like to happen before that, but assuming there is a comeback, lets say June, start to bring back the economy in waves, how do you see open source in a downturn, some prolonged downturn, months, maybe as much as a year or even more, how do you see open source playing there? >> Yeah, that's a good question, I'm glad you asked it. I think that as the pandemic continues, and any crisis for that matter, open source adoption is going to accelerate, there's no doubt. There's a huge pressure we're all going to face, even those successful businesses like us here at SUSE, we're going to have to go under some crunch and consideration around cost. Open source adoption will accelerate digital transformation efforts, and will definitely speed up organizations to respond to the crisis, because they're able to utilize all the technology innovation, and standardization of Linux and other open source technologies, from anywhere. Whether it's on-premise, the cloud, utilizing Edge, they're going to look for innovations in constant uptick whilst gaining cost-saving at the same time. There's no better place to achieve that, besides being in an open source community, so we're very fortunate, I never would've predicted a pandemic, if I had I'd be a multi-millionaire, would've played the lotto by now, nonetheless, I think there's no place I'd rather be for sure, and I wouldn't want to run any other company besides an open source business right now, because we're seeing an uptick rather than having a decline. >> You know, I want to ask you about culture, because you've been in SUSE as the CEO less than a year, inside of a year, and you really have always focused on culture, you know, CEOs obviously got to worry about growth, you got to worry about profitability, productivity and the like, but I want to actually pull up something that I found on LinkedIn, it was from one of your newer employees, new to SUSE, he said "my first month here, amazing colleagues, high amount of trust, lots of collaboration, willing to help each other succeed, giving back to the less fortunate in the community, high amount of respect for diversity, amazing values, leadership is open, honest, trend-setting, industry defining, really smart, and genuinely superior." Wow, I mean >> (Melissa laughs) >> He said, "in short, best organization I've ever contributed my efforts to and been a part of." Your leadership, whether it's diversity, openness, transparency, you really have set from day one a cultural foundation, which I think is playing out well for you right now, but I wonder if you could talk about the culture that you're trying to drive with SUSE. >> Yeah I mean, wow I did read that post, and that's life -changing I think for leaders like myself, when you have employees that feel the sense of urgency around the criticality that they play, and the role they play in the company, you can't ask for more than that, really genuinely, and I think that when I came, I took it personal to make sure that we led the company leading with people first. We're probably one of the very few companies in the world that have one trademark, and our trademark is our SUSE Chameleon. We don't have any other trademarks or patents on any of our technology, because it is open. So the only thing I have is the people. The link to the world, and this business being successful, is our people, and there inevitably lies the importance that's pertaining to their culture. And I think that because we're community-based and open source, it's really important that we continually collaborate, that we're constantly giving back and giving insight and giving support in the community, and that needs to transcend the community and be living every single day in our company. You mentioned something in that post, which is the philanthropic side of who I am, I believe very whole-heartedly in the responsibility we carry as CEOs, executives, as companies, to give back to our community. When I started nearly year ago, I instituted the Month of Giving, which happens to be May, in conjunction with one day off every year for every single employee to give back to their local communities, or a charity of their choice. Now that's proven very well, particularly now. Folks are taking time off, they're donating their time to local hospitals, they're creating that sense of community giving and care that again, bleeds itself into the fabric of what this culture is. On top of that, recently you may have read the press, I'm sure you have, about us giving any medical device supplier, or any medical device, and not just manufacturer, but institution for research of COVID-19, we're giving them free software and support to run and develop technologies associated with solving this pandemic. And that is truly a gift, I feel incredibly privileged to be able to give back because you again well know we supply all the operating systems to many of our really important medical devices, like CAT scan machines and mammogram machines, in fact, probably most of the machines being used in the US today to combat many diseases are running on a SUSE operating system. We want to offer that back, again, to the community. The employees went wild over the fact that we were being able to give back on a big scale, to solve a problem like this, so I think when it comes down to who we are and what our culture is Dave, people are the most important thing to me. I did an interview recently, and they said you know, going from a CEO that's very focused on sales and like you said earlier, very focused on outcome and deliverables and forecasts and budgets and EBITDA, is that still the case? And I have to say confidently, no that's not the thing that keeps me up at night now. What keeps me up at night now, and how I wake up every morning is wondering about the health of my employees. We had a couple of employees, one that was quite ill in Italy, we were phoning him and calling and emailing him from his hospital bed, and that's what's really keeping me going, what's inspiring me to lead this incredible company, is the people and the culture that they've built that I'm honoring and taking forward, as part of the open source value system. >> Well I think those metrics, those business performance metrics, what I've learned is they're actually a symptom of a great culture, and so I'm really excited and amazed at what you're building there, and thank you. You know, in this day and age you hear, at least prior to COVID, you heard a lot of attacks on technology companies and big tech, on billionaires, and it's really refreshing to see technology companies stepping up, you mentioned the example of medical device, there are many, many examples, and so thank you for that, really appreciate it. >> Thank you too. >> Dave: All right Melissa, great having you, I hope we can talk again leading up to SUSECon virtual slash digital, thanks so much >> (Melissa laughs) >> For coming on theCUBE, great to see you again. >> It's been great to >> Stay safe. >> Thank you very much for having me again as well and inviting me back, I look forward to seeing you next month. >> All right ditto, and thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE, and we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS re:Invent 2019. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services and Intel, along with its ecosystem partners. >> Hey welcome back everyone as theCUBE live covers Las Vegas day three, we're wrapping up the show for AWS re:Invent. I'm John Furrier, extracting the signal from the noise. I want to thank Intel for sponsoring this amazing set, two sets here. We had double barrel, cube action all week. Thanks to Intel, we wouldn't be able to do it and bring the great content to viewers today. Thank them for supporting our mission. We're going to wrap up the show with Stu Miniman, Corey Quinn, two experts who are scouring the floor. Doing interviews, talking to everybody, and myself. Cory, good to see you. >> It is great to see me, John, thank you. >> You're awesome, got quite a following these days on your work, your business is growing, congratulations. >> Corey: Thank you >> But, I saw you running around at the Wynn, you're definitely working hard. So, what have you learning, what are you seeing, what's the- what's your analysis of the show holistically? >> I think that Amazon, specifically AWS's product strategy, remains what it has been, and that is simply "yes." There is remarkably little that seems that it is beyond something that AWS would take an interest in. If you'd asked me to predict what they would have released at midnight madness, I would have had several guesses, none of which would have been "Well it's a piano keyboard thing that also does Machine Learning." And my follow up would be, well of course it is "Does it also make fries?" And at this point, well sure, it makes it makes a certain twisted sort of sense. Maybe it's too many days of re:Invent in a row, maybe it's just at this point a certain level of cynicism that I can no longer escape. But, at this point, very little surprises me. But it seemed to be a very AWS event through and through. >> The volume and velocity of announcements was at the same level as last year. No real change there. >> Yes, I am saddened to report that the re:Invent house band is still there and has not yet been put to sleep to spare them and ourselves further misery but, we'll see. >> You didn't like the band? >> I think the band is slightly hokey. I would change the lyrics of some of the things that their singing to at least be humorous. If you're going to go corny, go all in. >> The guy did nail the Queen notes. >> Oh, they're terrific performers it has nothing to do with that. But it is 8 O'clock in the morning. So, one has questions. >> I think the keynote could have been a sleeper, without the band, don't you think? >> I do maintain that I want an Alexa skill That is just Andy Jassy reading rock lyrics. I would pay serious money for that. >> Well you did put some thought in. Stu, your thoughts on the show, wrap it up man, what's going on? >> Look I mean, the show as Dave Vallente says "Amazon always delivers with the shock and awe." You know, broadest and deepest, so many pieces here. I took a selfie with many people and the biggest celebrity of the show, AWS Outpost. The rack, it's over in the corner there, and people asking me about all the gear inside. I said "You should stop asking about that because you will never touch it, only AWS will." So put a curtain around it, it's managed as a service. And that's what I think people are still trying to understand. We've been talking about cloud for what, fifteen years now? But Amazon's positioning on cloud is still different than everyone else's. When I think back to some of the waves, there's that buzz word. And there's one or two that really architecturally are different and deliver, and Amazon laid out their strategy even more, and, through the geeky pieces, and transformation was the theme. Hey Corey, talking transformation I met you at this show a few years ago, and your special skill back then was wearing a three piece suit. >> Indeed. The problem is is when you start talking about cloud billing and cloud accounting and that sort of thing, in a three piece suit, you look like you're a CPA that got lost somewhere. So, my brand and personal sartorial preferences have continued to evolve. When you're talking about Outpost though, you're right. It's the clear star of the show, and I love that product so much. Not because of what they say about it, but because of the subtext that comes along with that product. Namely that "Look, you're going to run things on-prem, and the problem of course is that you suck at managing hardware. Now, this is going to take a lot of that away. You're still going to suck at providing connectivity and power, and AWS does not have anything to announce around those at this time, but we're slowly, delicately, prying your grubby little hands off of the hands on hardware server hugger mentality and dragging you, lovingly, kickingly, and screamingly, into the best technology, lets say 2012 has to offer at least." It's modern-ish. >> So, are cloud buyers naive, if they are just going to be buying these solutions from other clouds or prepackaged solutions. Is that really cloud or do they care? I mean, what's the difference between cloud native and cloud naive? What's your perspective? Besides the letter T. >> Of course. I think that there's a definite spectrum on how cloudy something can be. If you want to just take everything running in your existing data center, virtualize it, and then just put that into an AWS region, okay great. There are ways to do that and most of them have a VMware price tag tied to them, but okay, is that cloud? Ish. Is it the best approach? Maybe. I think it's hard to bucket all customers into one. Everyone's in a different place on their journey. And I guess architecture shaming, it's "Oh, what are you going to do with that piece of crap?" Like about eight billion dollars of revenue a year, why do you ask?" There are valid reasons to do a lot of different things and be at different points on your journey. I like seeing Twitter for pets evolve and do the latest and greatest thing. I don't like seeing for example, my bank doing the exact same thing. >> Yeah, I mean, Stu, it's beauty of the cloud is in the eye of the beholder. I mean what he's saying is and what Jassy's saying is "Look it, you can't just take, you know everyone and put them into a bucket, it's what you do with it." >> Yeah. It really comes back to what you want to do. >> I mean, John, I go back to, you know, things Werner said on the Keynote stage, everything fails all the time. The difference between the old architecture, which was "I'm going to do everything I can and I'm going to throw money and hardware at things to make it enterprise." Well, the new enterprise needs to look like what the Hyperscalers have been doing, which is, you build for software. Which means that everything fails all the time. That, our friendly chaos monkey will come in here and it doesn't matter what piece goes down, the application needs to stay up running. It's about the application, you know, application developers at the center of what's going on here, and you know, that modernization. I really liked Andy Jassy's answer, to what I asked him about, is if we go through this cloud Adoption, we talk about simplification and people want to buy over solutions but the successful company of the future will be builders. >> I got to ask you guys this question. I talked to a friend, and yes I have friends. So, he's in IT for a big company. I said "Hey, what do you think, AWS or Azure?" And I won't give away the names but he says look "We don't know what we're doing, like we're old school IT. We're running eight billion dollar business and we have network security. We're classic IT, we know we've got to get there, the boss is saying get to the cloud and, frankly, if we move to Amazon, half my team would either get fired or they wouldn't get it to work. So, we're just going to go with Microsoft because they've been selling us gear and stuff for decades." So, there we go, that's Azure. That has nothing to do with capability, that's a real-life scenario that we're hearing. Stu? Corey? >> It's incredibly important because once upon a time, I was a grumpy Unix admin because there's no other kind of Unix admin. And I was very anti-cloud for a long time. The reason was, I could come up with a whole list of flimsy justifications why the cloud was crap but the honest answer was I had built my sense of identity around the thing that I knew how to do and the cloud felt like it was taking it away from what I was. It wasn't true. There is a growth path, it's not as long as people often think it is but you can't fight the tide forever. And that world is slowly but surely eroding out from under you. Do you go Azure? Do you go AWS? That's going to depend on you, where you are, what your constraints are, what your business concerns are but I also think it's a miss-step to view the migration process solely as one of technology, it's people. >> Hold on, I need to chime in here, John, because I think >> You can slack in here too because people use that instead of chime. >> It is Goldilocks syndrome here. There is one cloud out there that you need to be a PHD and the smartest people out here to do it. There's one cloud out there that we're going to meet you where you are and you don't need to make any changes. What Amazon's trying to do is that balance between, we want to make it uncomfortable enough to make the change so that you can be successful in the future. Whether or not they've struck the right balance, I think, is up for debate and, this is a journey, >> Well, Hyperscale there are varies out there but I think, that's where I see the >> We'll there's two things, psychology of, just the change, right? Your Unix admin example and my friend, which is true, it's legit. Now, the question is what's the indifference of getting the path? But, if you look at the Hyperscalers Dave Vellante pauses that all the time They would spend engineering time to save money, so they'd engineer a solution, save time. Enterprise would spend money to save time. That's the general purpose computing market that used to be. >> Corey: Yeah >> It's not like that anymore. It's not general purpose. >> The entire theme of this show seems to be aimed much more at Big E enterprise than the leading edge type of story. There was a lot more Goldman-Sachs than Netflix, for example. And that's a good thing, and that's okay. >> I think it's a great thing. >> There's still room to grow, I mean, they did not announce an AWS 400. There's no mainframe story in the cloud as such yet. >> That's actually a mini computer, technically, okay >> Oh, I'm sure. >> But proprietary mini computer. >> You don't want to know what the billing model looks like. >> If you know what AS400 is, you're old like us. >> They call them I series now but, yeah, that's right, a U series. Done. >> All right guys, wrapping it up, this is the big point. Final word, Corey, Amazon, long game, still in play, no real impact from competition yet but they're in the rear view mirror. They're seeing stuff. Did Amazon successfully move the distance between them and the competition at this event? At least from a narrative and/or announcement stand point? >> Well, I will say that no other cloud has a Machine Learning piano. So, I think that that definitely is a differentiating factor and it adds another item to a checkbox list somewhere, that someone cares about. But as far as the core competency, I think, Outpost absolutely opens up a world of opportunity for folks who otherwise would not take that step. I think that they're demonstrating a rapid execution story around what it takes to get Big E enterprise workloads migrated and giving an on-ramp that doesn't require everyone being re-tooled, re-skilled and, oh, everything you're doing is great. But it's awful, throw it away and start over. >> And Stu, there's trillions of Dollars of spend coming in to the sector. Certainly, there's clear visibility the operating model's there, there's IT spend trillions are gonna be on the table up for grabs. >> You know what's interesting? Was watching a Netflix documentary about Bill Gates on the way in, talking about what Microsoft went through after the anti-trust piece. It is looming right in front of us, for AWS. The market power they have, it's still a relatively small piece of the overall IT market, absolutely Amazon has the potential to take a big chunk out of that, you know, trillions of dollars there. It is always day one here, they are always impressive as to the feedback loops, the way they are listening and they're growing, so, that was, we said, a year ago, it was the Oval office, the Executive Office, was the biggest threat to Amazon, it still is the biggest threat I see. >> I think the big story here from this re:Invent is Amazon recognizes two things, big enterprises need to transform their way to be successful to take advantage of the capabilities not take a transitional, incremental improvement and, two, they got competition. And they see it. And the pressure's definitely on, they won't admit it, but Microsoft, through their sales machinery, is taking down spend, and if that trend continues and will Microsoft have that ability to keep that going and not have dis-economies of scale for taking short-cuts. Can Amazon keep the pressure on? Because that, to me, is the big story and then it's clear, the narrative is keep pushing hard and try to extend the lead out past everybody. >> The answer is customers win. >> John, Amazon still doesn't use the word multi-cloud, they're architectural design is not to solve multi-cloud as it is to extend AWS and, it's interesting, we will see which design architecture wins out in the future. But, you know. >> Yeah. It's a three horse race, are the going to be number one? I think they recognize multi-cloud, they won't admit it but, why would you? If you were building a PC, why would you promote the Mac? And again, if they're commercial, who's the Mac guy and who's the PC guy, Corey? I mean, who's cooler? Microsoft or Amazon? >> These days? That's starts to become a bit of an open question. There's been fantastic transformational stories, as they say, it's not your grandfather's Microsoft. But, then again, Amazon has made some interesting choices as we go too. >> Stu, the Mac guy was cooler than the PC guy in those famous commercials, >> Absolutely he was. >> Who's cooler? Amazon or Apple? >> Corey, when you look at some of the cultural pieces, absolutely Microsoft has gone through some transformations. But Amazon was, for talking about AWS, they are cloud native. They are cloud. >> So they're cooler as far as Stu stands. Okay, depends how you look at it. This is a wrap up, guys, thanks for coming in, Corey, good to see you. >> Thank you for having me. >> I know you're working hard. >> Corey Quinn, one of the hardest working guys in the business, along with Stu Miniman, Dave Vellante, I'm John Furrier for John Walls, Jeff Frick, Leonard and the whole team, thanks for watching. I want to say, thanks to our sponsors who support our mission, which is to bring theCUBE to events and do as much high quality content as possible, with creators, decision makers, with executives, develop, whoever's got the action, the signal from the noise, we get that support by our sponsors, so without them, we wouldn't be here and of course Intel have the naming rights studio sponsorship as the headline, thank Intel and AWS for supporting, there's two stages here at AWS, so thank them and thanks to the entire team for watching. That's a wrap for AWS re:Invent 2019. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: From Santa Clara in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE, covering the Churchills 2019. Brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. >> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in Santa Clara, California at the ninth annual Churchills. It's an awards banquet put on by the Churchill Club and this year's theme is all about leadership and we're excited to have with us today the MC, he's Rich Karlgaard, the co-founder of the Churchill Club and also a publisher at Forbes. Rich, thanks for stopping by. >> Oh, it's an honor to be here, Jeff. >> So, busy night tonight. The theme is leadership, but we've been suffering a little bit of a black eye on leadership lately in the tech scene in Silicon Valley. >> Well, I really think we have. I travel the world a lot and around the United States and I have to say that large parts of the world and the United States are falling out of love with Silicon Valley. And I think that's directly attributable to some of the companies and some of the leaders who are maybe moving so fast that they're forgetting to do the right things for customers, for employees, and for their community at large. >> Yeah, I'm wondering, get your take, a lot of these guys and gals become successful for a whole bunch of reasons, right? and they happen to be at the top of a company. I'll just pick on Zuckerberg 'cause he's easy to pick on. But you know, he had an application, it was about getting people together, and suddenly these platforms get so big and so ubiquitous, you know, is he the right guy? He never signed up to be the leader of the platform world, and yet he's kind of put in that position. We see that kind of with YouTube, because again, the platform is so big and I think it almost feels like it grows beyond the tentacles of the control. >> Well, it remains to be seen if Mark Zuckerberg is the right guy. I think of somebody from more my era, Bill Gates. And Bill Gates was a fabulous leader of Microsoft, but they ran too fast, they ran too hard, they got in trouble with the U.S. Department of Justice, and Bill Gates ended up resigning from Microsoft. And he served as a great board member of Microsoft ever since, was instrumental, along with John Thompson, the board chairman who will be honored tonight, in bringing in the person I think is the best CEO in the world today, Satya Nadella of Microsoft. Sometimes you have to hand the baton. >> Right, right. But are there some lessons that people should be thinking about when they're maybe thrust into this position that they weren't necessarily ready for? I mean, one thing about Gates is he gave up his CEO job pretty early to Ballmer, arguably whether that was super successful or not. But some of them kind of get out of the way and some of them don't. And they don't necessarily have the skills to take on some of these huge kind of geopolitical, socioeconomic issues. >> Well I think that's right. Another example, Larry Ellison led the brilliant early days of Oracle but when he got in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he had to really make way for a strong number two, Ray Lane, and that turned out to be the perfect complement, you see. You had Ellison's vision and drive but you had Lane's ability to run really good operations. Steve Jobs never got into trouble but having a really solid number two like Tim Cook was very valuable. So some of these brilliant entrepreneurs need solid number two's, so I think they have lieutenants but I don't think they have really solid number two's. >> So what are you excited about tonight? We got some really great people, you already mentioned John W. Thompson, we've had him on a ton of times, great leader. Who are some of the people you're excited to see tonight? >> Well, we have three great companies, we have Slack, Zoom, and my personal favorite, Peloton. I'm kind of lusting for a Peloton bike in my garage. I hope it arrives under the Christmas tree this year. >> (laughs) All right, Rich. Well, thanks for taking a few minutes and good luck tonight on the MC duties. >> Yeah, well, thank you Jeff. >> All right, he's Rich, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE, we're at the Churchills, the ninth annual awards banquet here with the Churchill Club. Thanks for watching, we'll see you next time. (upbeat electronic music)