(upbeat sparkling music) >> Hello everyone and welcome back to our wall-to-wall coverage of AWS re:Invent. We are live from the show floor here in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. My name is Savannah Peterson, here with my cohost John Furrier on theCUBE. John, end of day three. You're smiling. >> Yeah. >> You're still radiating energy. Is it, is it the community that's keeping your, your level up? >> It's just all the action. We've got a great special guest joining us for the first time on theCUBE. It's going to be great and Serverless wave is hitting. More and more Serverless embedded into the like, things like analytics, are going to make things tightly integrated. You can see a lot more kind of tightly coupled but yet still cohesive elements together being kind of end-to-end, and again, the, the zero-ELT vision is soon to be here. That and security, major news here at Amazon. Of course, this next segment is going to be awesome, about the modernization journey. We're going to hear a lot about that. >> Yeah, we are, and our next guest is also an extraordinarily adventurous one. Please welcome Joe from Arc XP. Thank you so much for being here. >> Thanks for having me. >> Savannah: How this show going for you? >> It's been great and you know, it's the end of the day but there's so much great energy at the show this year. >> Savannah: There really is. >> It's great walking the halls, seeing the great engineers, the thought leaders, including this session. So, it's been really a stimulating time. >> What do you do at Arc, what do you, what's your role? >> So, I'm Vice President of Technology and Product Development. I recently joined Arc to lead all the product development teams. We're an experience platform, so, in that platform we have content tools, we have delivery tools, we have subscription tools. It's a really exciting time in all those spaces. >> John: And your customer base is? >> Our customers today started with publishers. So, Arc XP was built for the Washington Post's internal needs many years ago and word got out about how great it was, built on top of the AWS tech stack and other publishers came and started licensing the software. We've moved from there to B2C commerce as well as enterprise scenarios. >> I think that's really interesting and I want to touch on your background a little bit here. You just mentioned the Washington Post. You have a background in broadcast. What was it, since you, since you are fresh, what was it that attracted you to Arc? What made you say yes? >> Yeah, so I spent a little under 10 years building the Associated Press Broadcast Newsroom Tools, some of them that you have used for many years, and you know, one of the things that was really exciting about joining ARC, was they were cloud native and they were cloud native from the start and so that really gave them a leg up with how quickly they could innovate, and now we see developers here at re:Invent be able to do custom Lambdas and new extensibility points in a way that, really, no one else can do in the CMS space >> Which, which is very exciting. Let's talk a little bit about your team and the development cycle. We've touched a lot on the economic uncertainty right now. How are things internally? What's the culture pulse? >> Yeah, so the return to work has been a thing for us, just like- >> Savannah: Are you back in office? >> All of them. We actually have a globally distributed team, and so, if you happen to be lucky enough to be in Washington, DC or Chicago or some of our other centers, there's an opportunity to be in the office, but most of our engineers work remotely. One of the exciting things we did earlier this year was ARC week. We brought everyone to DC to see each other face-to-face, and that same energy you see at re:Invent, was there in person with our engineers. >> I believe that. So, I'm a marketer by trade. I love that you're all about the digital experience. Are you creating digital- I mean everyone needs some sort of digital experience. >> Joe: Yes. >> Every company is a technology company now. Do you work across verticals? You see more niche or industry specific? >> Yeah, so we began with a very large vertical of media and broadcast. >> Savannah: There's a couple companies in that category. >> There's a couple big ones out there. >> Savannah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> And actually their challenges are really high volume production of great digital storytelling, and so, solving their problems has enabled us to have a platform that works for anyone that needs to tell a story digitally, whether it's a commerce site, corporate HR department. >> Savannah: Which is everyone, right? >> Virtually everyone needs to get their story out today. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And so we have gone to a bunch of other verticals and we've seen the benefits of having that strong, cloud-based platform offer the scale that all storytellers need. >> What are some of the challenges today that aren't, that weren't there a decade ago or even five years ago? We see a lot of media companies looking at the business model innovations, changing landscapes omnichannel distribution, different formats. What's some of the challenges that's going on in content? >> So, you know, content challenges include both production of content and delivery of that content through a great experience. So different parts of ARC focus on those problems and you got to monetize it as well, but what I'd say is unique to Arc and the challenge we talk to our customers about a lot is multi-format production. So, it's not just about one channel. >> Savannah: Right. It's about telling a story and having it go across multi-channels, multi-sites, and having the infrastructure both technically and in the workflow tools, is super critical for our customers and it is a challenge that we receive well. >> A lot of AI is coming into the conversation here. Data, AI, publishing, video, user generated content. It's all data. >> Absolutely, yep. >> It's all data. >> Joe: It's an immense amount of data. >> How do you look at the data plane or the data layer, the data aspect of the platform and what are some of the customers leaning into or are kicking the tires around? What are some of the trends, and what are some of the core issues you see? >> Yeah, so I've spent a lot of time in data ML and analytics looking at giant data sets, and you know, when you look at CMS systems and experience platforms, the first class that it's in, is really the, the documents themselves. What is the story you're saying? But where the rich data is that we can analyze is user behaviors, global distribution of content, how we optimize our CDN and really give a personal experience to the reader, but beyond that, we see a lot of advantages in our digital asset management platform, which is for video, audio, photos, all kinds of media formats, and applying AIML to do detection, suggest photos that might be appropriate based on what a journalist or a marketer is writing in their story. So, there's a lot of opportunities around that sort of data. >> What are some of the business model changes that you're seeing? 'Cause remember we're in digital, Page view advertising has gone down, subscription firewalls on blogs. You got things like Substack emerging. Journalists are kind of like changing. I've seen companies go out of business, some of the media companies or change, some of the small ones go out of business, the bigger ones are evolving. What are some of the business model enablements that you guys see coming, that a platform could deliver, so that a company can value their content, and their talent? >> For sure. I mean this is a perennial question in the media space, right? It's been going on for two decades. >> I was going to say we're- >> Right. >> So it's like- >> Joe: Right, and so we've seen that play out- >> John: Little softball for you. >> Really for almost every format. It's a softball, but- >> It's day three. >> How are we addressing that? You know what, first and foremost, you got to do great storytelling, so, we have tools for that, but then presenting that story, and a great experience no matter what device you're on, that's going to be critical no matter how you're monetizing it, and so, you know, we have customers that go very ad heavy. We also have a subscription platform that can do that built into our infrastructure. >> 50 million plus registered users, correct? >> Yeah, it's unbelievable to scale. Really, Arc is a growth story, and so we went from serving the Washington Post needs, to over 2000 sites today, across 25 countries. >> Very- >> How do we get to that? How do we get that audience if we want to? Can we join that network? Is it a network of people? >> I love that question. >> Of people that are using Arc XP? >> Yeah. >> Actually, we recently launched a new effort around our community, so I think they actually had a meeting yesterday, and so that's one way to get involved, but as you said, everyone needs to have a site and tell great stories. >> Yeah. >> So, we see a wide appeal for our platform, and what's unique about ARC, is it's truly a SaaS model. This is delivered via SaaS, where we take care of all of the services, over a hundred Amazon services, behind the scenes- >> Wow. >> Built into Arc. We manage all of that for our customers, including the CDN. So, it's not as though as our customers have to be making sure the site is up, we've got teams to take care of that 24/7 >> Great value proposition and a lot of need for this, people doing their own media systems themselves. What's the secret sauce to your success? If you had to kind of look at the technology? I see serverless is a big part of it on the EDB stack. What's the, what's the secret sauce? >> I think the secret sauce comes from the roots that Arc has in the Washington Post >> You understand it. >> And some of the most challenging content production workflows anywhere in the world, and I've spent a lot of time, in many newsrooms. So, I think that knowledge, the urgency of what it takes to get a story out, the zero tolerance for the site going down. That DNA really enables our engineers to do great solutions. >> Talk about understanding your user. I mean that that's, and drinking the Kool-Aid, but in a totally amazing way. One of the other things that stuck out to me in doing my research is not only are you a service used, now, by 50 million subscribers, but beyond that, you pride yourself on being a turnkey solution. Folks can get Arc up and running quite quickly. Correct? >> For sure. So, one of the things we built into Arc XP is something called Themes, which has a bunch of pre-built blocks, that our customers don't have to end up with a custom codebase when they've developed a new experience platform. That's not a good solution, of every site be a custom codebase. We're a product with extensibility hooks. >> Savannah: Right. >> That really enables someone to get started very quickly, and that also includes bringing in content from other platforms into Arc, itself. So that journey of migrating a site is really smooth with our toolset. >> What's the history of the company? Is it, did it come from the Washington Post or was that it's original customer? What's the DNA of the firm? >> Yeah, so it was originally built by the Washington Post for the Washington Post. So, designed by digital storytellers, for storytelling. >> Savannah: And one of the largest media outlets out there. >> So, that's that "DNA", the "special sauce". >> Yeah, yeah. >> So that's where that connection is. >> That really is where it comes through. >> John: Awesome. Congratulations on- >> Now today, you know, those roots are still apparent, but we've been very responsive to other needs in the markets around commerce. There's a whole other set of DNA we've brought in, experts in understanding different systems for inventory management, so we can do a great experience on top of some of those legacy platforms. >> My final question, before we go to the challenge- >> Savannah: To the challenge. >> Is, what's next? What's on the roadmap as you look at the technology and the teams that you're managing? What's some of the next milestone or priorities for your business? >> So, it is really about growth and that's the story of Arc XP, which has driven our technology decisions. So, our choice to go serverless was driven by growth and need to make sure we had exceptional experience but most importantly that our engineers could be focused on product development and responding to what the market needed. So, that's why I'd say next year is about, it's enabling our engineers to keep up with the scaling business but still provide great value on the roadmap. >> And it's not like there's ever going to be a shortage of content or stories that need to be told. So I suspect there's a lot of resilience in what you're doing. >> And we hope to be inspired with new ways of telling stories. >> Yeah. >> So if you're in the Washington Post or other media outlets. >> John: Or theCUBE. >> Joe: Or theCUBE. >> Savannah: I know, I was just- >> There's just great formats out there. >> Best dev meeting, let's chat after, for sure. >> Exactly, that's what I've been thinking the whole time. I'm sure the wheels are turning over on this side- >> So great to have you on. >> In a lot of different ways. So, we have a new tradition here at re:Invent, where we are providing you with an opportunity for quite a sizzle reel, Instagram video, 30 second, thought leadership soundbite. What is your hot take, key theme or most important thing that you are thinking about since we're here at this year's show? >> I would say it's the energy that's building in the industry, getting back together, the collaboration, and how that's resulting in us using new technologies. You know, the conversation's no longer about shifting to the cloud. We all have huge infrastructure, the conversation's about observability, how do we know what's going in? How do we make sure we're getting the most value for our customers with those, that technology set. So, I think the energy around that is super exciting. I've always loved building products. So, next year think it's going to be a great year with that, putting together these new technologies. >> I think you nailed it. The energy really is the story and the collaboration. Joe, thank you so much for being here and sharing your story. Arc is lucky to have you and we'll close with one personal anecdote. Favorite place to sail? >> Favorite place to sail. So, I lived in the Caribbean for many years, as we were talking about earlier >> None of us are jealous up here at all. >> And so my favorite place to sail would be in the British Virgin Islands, which was closed during Covid but is now back open, so, if any you've had a chance to go to the BVI, make some time, hop on Catamaran, there's some great spots. >> Well, I think you just gave us a catalyst for our next vacation, maybe a team off-site. >> Bucket list item, of course. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Yeah, Let's bring everyone together. >> Here we go. I love it. Well Joe, thanks so much again for being on the show. We hope to have you back on theCUBE again sometime soon, and thank all of you for tuning in to this scintillating coverage that we have here, live from the AWS re:Invent show floor in Las Vegas, Nevada with John Furrier. I'm Savannah Peterson. This is theCUBE, the leader in high tech coverage. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: Live from Washington, DC it's theCUBE. Covering .conf2017. Brought to you by Splunk. >> Welcome back here on theCUBE we continue our coverage of .conf2017 here at the Splunk event with about seven thousand plus Splunkers. Along with Dave Vellante, John Walls. I like that Splunkers. >> You a Splunker? >> Not sure I'd be qualified. >> I'm learning how. >> I'm not qualified. >> to be come one. >> I don't think. >> I think we're kind of in the cheap seats of Splukism right now. Certainly there's a definitely vibe and I think that there's this whole feeling of positivity amongst our community right, that is to get a sense of that here. >> Dave: Hot company, data centers booming. >> It's all happenin', so we are in the Walter Washington Convention Center day two of the convention. We're joined now by of Stephen Hunt who is the CIO of an organization called Team Rubicon. Stephen thanks for joining us here on theCUBE. Good to have you Sir. >> Thank you for having me. >> And CTO too correct? >> And CTO. >> So first off let's talk about Team Rubicon. Veterans based organization, you team up with disaster emergency responders, first responders, to come in a crisis management times of disasters I'm sure extremely busy right now. Gave birth to this organization back in 2010 after the Haiti earthquakes. So tell us a little bit more about your mission and what you're doing now I assume you're up to your ears and all kinds of work, unfortunately. >> Yeah so our, just speaking to our mission, our purpose is to leverage the skills a military vets and first responders in disaster. The capacity and skills that vets bring after active duty in the in the services, is remarkable resource that we've learned to tap to help people in need around the world. This is one of our or this is our busiest time right now. You know we're responding in the greater Houston area in Florida, the Florida Keys, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Turks and Caicos. And it's just it's incredible what we're able to do and in aiding people from the point of search and rescue to recovery and resilience, there's a broad spectrum of activities that are our people engage in to make that all happen and across a diversity of locations. It's been truly remarkable and challenging in ways that we never imagined right now. >> And I should add that you're a veteran yourself. Paratrooper, 82nd Airborne, a reservist, but also have an engineering background MIT Lincoln Laboratories for 20 some plus years. So you've got this interesting combination of experiences that have brought you into a company that is also a beneficiary of the Splunk for Good Program part of the Splunk pledge Program. So are you bring a pretty interesting portfolio to the job here Stephen. >> It's a bit unusual I do understand how a lot of the world works, not because I'm the smartest person in the room, I have a bit of a head start there's a lot of experience there and so bringing my engineering skills to the field, as well as to the business office and how we operate. And working with companies like Splunk, you know I can see, pretty quickly, what's hard, what's easy. I understand that Splunk needs our requirements in order to deliver product that's meaningful to us and our mission. So tying that all together it is a bit unusual for an NGO to have someone like me around. I got involved simply to help people. When they told me at some point are that we're going to build a business to help people, I said I don't come here to build a business. And it took me a little while to get oriented around the fact that as we expand the brand as we bring it around the globe, it takes a strong business model and a strong technical model in how we project humanitarian aid in austere settings. >> In order to scale right. >> So Tell us more about the organization how large is the organization, you know, where do you get the resources, how is it funded. >> So we're almost a 100% privately funded. So corporations, foundations, individual donors from across the country and across the world. We have about sixty thousand members and these are volunteers in and globally, so how in the world do you do that? Well, it turns out we grew up at about the same time the cloud industry grew up, we've been around seven years. And I would like to say that I'm some kind of genius and I said well we should follow the cloud, it was a judgment call and it was what we could manage. Today we have about thirty five to forty cloud software products that drive everything from donor management, volunteer management, how we deal with our beneficiaries, as well as our employees. And and it's not just about product in mission it's about protection and seeing through what's happening at the company at scale. We have about anywhere from eight hundred to 15 hundred people sign up to join, to become a part of Team Rubicon every week. >> Dave: Every week? >> And we couldn't do that without scale, without cloud technology it's been truly remarkable. >> And the volunteers or or all veterans, is that right? >> About 80, 75 to 80% military vets, first responders and others. >> Okay, so they just they make time to take time off from work, or whatever it is and go volunteer. They'll get permission from whom ever. Their employers, their wives and husbands. >> The payment that we provide is a renewed sense of purpose. When you know you take off the uniform there is a certain part of your identity that goes on the hanger and people don't see in you that's missing and we get that back. Through service and being around like minded individuals it's just amazing when we bring all of our people together and they align to work to this common mission. >> So in the in the take a recent examples in Florida and Houston are they predominantly people that are proximate to those areas? Are you are you having to fly people in, how does that all work? We literally have people coming in from all over the world. Generally, with the way we run operations to keep them cost effective as we look first within 450 miles of an affected area, and and bring in people in close proximity. If there is need greater than that, then we expand the scope of the distance if you will. Logistically, where we bring folks in. we're all the way now to bring in people from Australia, Norway, Canada, as well as the UK and working alongside each other seamlessly and that's really due to our standards and training. You can imagine when we scale it's not just the technology but it's how you use it, in the field, and in the business environment in the office. >> Are they responsible for figuring out where they sleep, where they eat, I mean how does that all work. >> Yeah, we set that up, in the early days we kind of took care of it ourselves, you know we reach into our own pockets and the small groups run around the planet and help people. It was kind of a club, now it's a whole different story. When we're bringing in 500 people a day, we need to know how they're fed, is this safety, security and protection, not just physically, but also emotionally. You want to make sure that we're really looking after people before, during and after they deploy and help people. So we put them up, and typically it's not the Ritz, you know might be a cot in a warehouse somewhere. But I've stayed at hotels with Team Rubicon members and maybe sometimes eight in the room. My old job Wasn't like that, all these guys are fighting to see who's going to sleep on the floor. I mean it's it's a really interesting you know. >> You have very different dynamic I'm sure. So you talk about these global operations expanding what four or five countries you mentioned with thoughts of one larger. I know communications are huge part of that you have a partnership now with a a prominent satellite firm you know in Inmarsat and how is that coming to benefit your operations and does Splunk come in the play with that global communications opportunity? >> Inmarsat and Splunk have been truly remarkable impacting and working toward greater impact in how we deliver aid around the globe. And make a couple of very clear points and deliver a metric here. We're running maybe 15 simultaneous operations distributed across all those areas I just discussed earlier. And historically, in all the time that I've been with Team Rubicon we've always had outages when it comes to communicating with our staff in these austere settings. You know we have to life safety is everything. That's the most important thing on my list, is the welfare of the people I'm looking after, and our employees, volunteers and our beneficiaries. When we can't communicate if something goes wrong it's a problem Inmarsat has set us up with communications gear in such a way that even though running all these operations at our most challenging time, I haven't had one complaint. About not being able to communicate. And what's Splunk is doing, is integrating with the Inmarsat backend to provide us the status of all of that equipment and and so from a perspective where are they all located, what is the status of the you know the data usage to make sure that somebody doesn't get arbitrarily shut off, you know that strategic view of what's happening across the globe. And this was something that we've negotiated or Inmarsat asked us to do, and Splunk is stepping up to take care of that for us so that we can ensure life safety and coordination happen seamlessly. Just one more point about this, if you could communicate with everyone everyday you're planning team isn't sitting idle wondering what it needs to do next. So this tertiary effect, is really driven our planning team to perform in a way that guides material and resources that I didn't really think about, But it's quite remarkable. >> So, you please, I thought you finished, I apologize. >> No, it's OK. >> I'm excited. >> It's fantastic. >> So the tech let's get into the tech side of this. You got SaaS apps, you got logistics, you got comms, you got analytics stuff, you got planning, you got collaboration and probably a hundred other things that I haven't mentioned. Maybe talk about you put your CTO hat on. >> Oh no, absolutely, so one of the things I say to our people, you know the technology is important but people are more important. And and so how we work with technology, its adoption as a CIO is critical. I need to say that when we're provided quality top tier software technologies to support education and training, as I mentioned, volunteer management, information management and security. And they were adopted naturally and they take off like a fire on a dry day, it means Splunk and other companies produced a great product. And we've seen this time and again with our ecosystem. So it's a general statement about the cloud technologies. Many companies have just done an exceptional job at building products that our people can work with. So I don't really complain too much about adoption across the board or struggle with it, I should say. So Google, Microsoft, Splunk, Cornerstone OnDemand, Salamander, Everbridge, Palantir. >> Be careful it's like naming the kids you're going to leave somebody out. So many of these great benefactors. >> Yeah, they're used to it but we work with all and our new COO came in, I apologize, I was CIO/CTO of Team Rubicon USA for about three years and I just moved over to Team Rubicon global to help orchestrate our global footprint. And we've set up licensing and a model for where instances of software are located to meet the legal regulatory framework for doing business internationally. And but the the COO of USA, and I'm so proud of what USA is doing right now, it's just blowing up. I mean what they're accomplishing as the largest Team Rubicon entity. But he looked at me, he said, Steve we got to get rid of some of these software products, and I said well, tell me what you don't want to do and I'll delete it, happy to. And instead the numbers gone up by 10 you know since that conversation. So there's some great challenges with and great opportunities, but as you know when your capacity increases, working with data and information your risk also goes up. So we work hard it impacting the behaviors of all of our people, it doesn't happen in a month or two months it takes years. So that everyone is security minded and making good decisions about how we work with information and data, you know whether it's a collective view provided by a product like Splunk which gives us this global view of information. You know if we have people working in a in a dangerous area and all of a sudden we know where all of our people are we just don't post that up on the open internet right. That's a bad idea just to give you a simple example. Down to the PII of our members and employees. And we're becoming very good at that. And for an NGO that's unusual and we're going to be driving an independent security audit fairly soon, to push it even further with the Board of Directors and executives, and so the business team can make decisions about how what we do technically based on you know liability in business model, right for how we work, but for me, the highest priority's protection of everyone. >> Well, it is a wonderful organization and we sincerely Dave and I both thank you for your service, present and future tense, for your service absolutely. Team Rubicon they will accept contributions, both time and treasure so visit the website Team Rubicon and see what you might be able to do to lend help to the cause, great cause that it is. Thank you Stephen. Back with more from .conf2017 here in DC, right after this.

>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas, it's The Cube! Covering Veritas Vision, 2017. Brought to you by Veritas. >> Welcome back to Las Vegas, everybody. This is the Cube, the leader in live tech coverage and we're here covering, wall-to-wall coverage of Veritas Vision 2017, hashtag: VtasVision. I'm Dave Vellante, with Stu Miniman. Lynn Lucas is here. She's the CMO of Veritas; welcome to The Cube. >> I am so excited to be on The Cube for the first time. Thank you for joining us. >> Well, thank you for having us. We're really excited to have you. We were talking off camera and this morning, in our open, about Richard Branson, the keynote. Very inspiring, so interesting, and then you got an opportunity to interview him and it was really substantive. So what was that like, what was it like meeting him, what was he like backstage? Share it with our audience. >> Absolutely. So, first, I, it really was an honor. The man has, when you do the research on him, the number of businesses he's created and disrupted is really amazing when you go back and look at it. The record industry, phone industry, airline industry. I mean, it goes on and on and he's still doing it. What I was most struck with, though, is that he's really humble and approachable. So we spent about 20 minutes with him in the backstage, and he was just a very genuine person. Very concerned, as you and your listeners may have heard, in the keynote, about the impact of the hurricanes. Really committed to philanthropy now, and what I loved is that he really understood what Veritas is doing with data, and he was able to really quickly connect that with how it might help on important issues that he's concerned about, namely climate change, making communities part of businesses, and so forth. It was fantastic. >> Well, I thought he did a really good job, and you guys did a really good job, because he's like, wow, Richard Branson, big name. But why is he at Veritas Vision? And he came, he talked about his agenda, he talked about the hurricane, he connected it to data, to climate change, and he very, like I said off camera, in a non-self-promoting way, let us know very quietly that yeah, of course the fee that I'm getting here I'm donating to the cause, and you should donate too. Right, and it was just really, congratulations on such a good get. >> Well, we were thrilled to have him and really honored to have him, and I truly felt that he understands the importance technology is playing. He actually told us that they were without cell phone and any kind of internet connection right after the hurricane for about, I think what he said was about seven days, and he said it was a very weird, disconnected feeling, because it's become so prevalent in our lives, and then when they all left and got on his plane to go back to London to mobilize aid for the British Virgin Islands, he said that he looked back in the plane, and he said every single person is on their phone like this. And it's such an interesting and powerful tool though, for generating interest in, unfortunately, the very horrible events that have happened, and so the social media, the connectivity that we all experience and getting that word out, I think he really connected with what we do as technologists here, and he had a really fascinating conversation with us about his interest in flying cars, so he's seeing potential for flying cars in the next few years and as a way to perhaps help us reduce carbon emissions and he's excited about technology. So I think he had a lot of fun. >> And we should mention, I think, Bill Coleman and Veritas is matching contributions and then you have extended that through his non-profit? >> Correct, so Bill Coleman also is a great philanthropist like Richard is, and ever since he's arrived here at Veritas he's been very lean-forward with making sure that Veritas is giving back. It was part of the culture, but I really feel that Bill has augmented that, and so for these recent set of disasters, hurricane Harvey, hurricane Irma, Veritas has set up a funding, and then we are doing double matching, and what we did after the unfortunate hurricane Irma came through is Virgin Unite is donating to the BBI's. We've added that to the list of charities and double matching that, as well. >> So people can go to Virgin Unite and donate, or they can donate through your website as well? >> They should go to Virgin Unite and donate, they should go to the, there's also the American Red Cross in the Houston area and the Miami area that are doing donations. Donate, you know, direct through them. >> So please, take a moment, if you can. Donate often, you know, every little bit helps for sure. Okay, so let's get into it. Quite a show, second year of Veritas. It's the rebirth of Veritas, and Veritas, in our view, how do you feel, give us the sort of rundown on the show. >> Oh, I, ah, fantastic. The feedback from the customers, which is what I'm really most concerned about here has been, this year, last year was a great coming out, but this Veritas is much more innovative than we ever thought you could be. We heard the predictions around 360 Data Management last year, but wow, you've delivered. You've got a new set of exciting announcements around what we're doing to move to the cloud. Clearly, the partnership with Microsoft is a huge part of that. New innovations in SDS. And so we've seen a great rise in attendance this year, in terms of our customers, and we've had a fabulous new set of sponsors, which I'm just thrilled to have here. Microsoft, Google, Oracle, IBM, which I think shows the strength of what we're doing to help customers as they move to the cloud, and they really are transforming their datacenter environment. >> So, talk a little bit about digital, as a marketing pro. Every customer we talked to is going through, if you talk to the C-level, they're going through digital transformations; it's real. As a CMO, you're living in a digital transformation. What does it mean from a marketing perspective? How are you addressing, you know, these trends and taking advantage of them? >> It's crucial. I spend most of my time with my staff thinking about: how do we advance our own digital expertise and take advantage of the data that we too have. Really, CMOs are in command of so much data around customers, or should be in command of so much data around customers, in a good way, to provide more content that is directed at what their problems are. I think we've all experienced the uncomfortable feeling where maybe you Google something and suddenly you're getting ad after ad after ad from a company, and it might have been an accidental Google search, right? So we can use it for good in that way, understanding our customers. We're on a real digitization journey. It's a big word, but what it means for me in marketing at Veritas is really advancing and investing in our marketing infrastructure. One of the new things that we've just done is a complete underpinning reboot of Veritas.com, which the audience can see has gone live right here, for Vision. Making the site more personalized and more relevant to those that are visiting it. >> Yeah, Lynn, one of the things we've been digging into a little bit is you have a lot of existing customers with, you know, a very strong legacy. There's all these new trends, and you threw out lots of, you know, really interesting data. You know, the IOT with 269 times greater data than the datacenter, ah, how do you balance, kind of, helping customers, you know, get more out of what they have but bringing them along, showing them the vision, you know, helping them along that path to the future? Because, you know, change is difficult. >> It is, but you know, I have to say, and I think Mike Palmer said this as well, at one point, actually, when I've visited customers, I've been in, this year, I've been to Australia, I've been to France, been to Germany, London, Singapore, all over in the US, and talking to a lot of our existing customers, and what they're telling us is really that: we want your help in moving forward. So, we really embrace our existing customers. We're not in the business of trying to go around them. But they're our best advocates, and I think as a marketer, it's really key to understand that, is your existing customers are your best advocates. So we're helping them understand what we're doing for them today and also helping them learn how they can be advocates and heroes maybe to other parts of the business with some of these new technologies. >> Yeah, that's a great point. I'd love for you to expand on, you know, in IT it was always: up, the admin for my product is kind of where I'm selling, and how do I get up to the C-suite? Conversations we've been having this week, there's a lot of the, you know, cloud strategy, the GDPR, you know, digitization. It's, you know, the person who might have boughten that backup is pulling in other members of the team. Talk to us a little bit about, you know, the dynamics inside the company, where Veritas is having those conversations. >> Yeah, I think actually you brought up GDPR, and that's a perfect example. So GDPR is a regulation that is going to impact any company that is holding data about a European Union citizen, and it's an area that Veritas can really solve problems in, but we didn't know a lot of the legal and compliance buyers, which often are the ones making the purchase decisions in this case. We have been so thrilled to see that our existing advocates in the backup space have been bringing us into conversations and in Europe, what we've done so successfully now is actually bring the two groups together in roundtables and have our current customers bring us into conversations with legal and compliance. And it's creating, for them, stronger connections within the business, and that makes them more relevant to their bosses and those other lines of business, and there's a lot of proactive or positive feedback around that, that I think is what marketers and sales should be thinking about. It's not about how to go around, it's about how do I bring you with me. >> So, as you go around the world, I wonder if, again, another marketing, marketing to me, is very challenging; you've got a hard job. Marketers, I don't have the marketing DNA. But you want to maintain your relevance. You're a 30-plus year old company. Take something like GDPR. How do you think about the content that you serve up your audience? You can scare 'em to death, you know? That's what a lot of people are doing. You can educate them, but it's kind of deep and wonky. How are you thinking about that transfer of knowledge, you know, for the benefit of customers and obviously, ultimately, for the benefit of Veritas? >> So the way I think about that is B to H. Business to Human. So at the end of the day, you know, we talk about B to B marketing or B to C marketing. It's B to H, now, and what I mean by that is: at the end of the day, we're all human, individuals, we have a lot coming at us, as you've pointed out, with information and data, so what we've done is definitely not a scare tactic. Yes, GDPR is coming. But I think that in marketing, my philosophy is: let's work on how we can help you in the positive. I don't believe in the fear, uncertainty and doubt. And what we've done is approach it as we would hope to be approached, which is: let's give you some practical information simply, in amounts that you can absorb. And let's face it, I think Josie was the one that said this, our attention span is about that of a goldfish. I can't remember if it was plus or minus one second. And so, what we've actually gotten great feedback on is that we've broken the GDPR regulation down into very simple parts, and we've said: hey, here are the five parts. Here's how we're relevant and can help you. And we've done that in pieces that are as simple as a one-page infographic. We can obviously go a lot more complex, but at the beginning, when you're researching a topic, you're not looking for the 40-page white paper anymore. You're looking for what we call "snackable" pieces of content that get you interested. >> Yeah, that was good. I remember that infographic from the session yesterday. It was sort of, you know, discover and then four other steps and then, you know, made it sound simple. Even though we know it's more complicated, but at least it allows a customer to frame it. Okay, I think I can now get my arms around these. I understand there's a lot of depth beneath each of them, but it helps me at least begin to clock it. Another topic we want to talk about is women in tech. We had a great conversation with Alicia Johnson from Accenture about WAVE, which is Women and Veritas Empowered. Right? Talk about, again, the relevance of those programs generally and I want to ask you some follow-up questions. >> Sure, so I'm a big believer in those types of programs. We want to sponsor those here and bring together our own Veritas female engineering community, but also our customers that are here. I think that while we would all like it to be a world where we were at a neutral, bias-free, we're not quite there yet. And I think programs that bring people together, whether it's gender or any other dimension, are important to get people to connect in a community, share with each other, learn from each other, and so, I do hope one day for my daughter, who's 11, perhaps that this is a non-topic, but until it isn't, I think the power of sharing is important, and so I'm really pleased to have WAVE. It's our second year having WAVE. It was a bigger program with Accenture sponsoring it. And we look forward to continuing to do that. Veritas also will have a big presence at the Anita Borg Institute, which is coming up next month, as well. >> Yeah, and The Cube will be there, of course. It'll be our, what, fourth year there, Stu? So it's a big show for us and we're obviously big supporters of the topic; we tend to talk about it a lot. And I think, you know, Lynn, your point is right. Hopefully by the time our daughters are grown up, we won't be talking about it, but I think it's important to talk about now. >> Lynn: It is. >> And one of the things that Accenture laid out is that, by 2025, their objective is to have 50 percent, you know, women on staff, and I think it was 25 percent women in leadership positions. I was impressed and struck, and I wonder if you can comment as a C-level executive, struck by the emphasis on P&L management, which, you know, tends to be a man's world. But, thoughts on that and you, as a C-level executive, you know, women in that position? >> Yeah, and again, it's one of these things where I'll have to say it's a little both uncomfortable, but obviously I feel that it is still important to talk about because I wish we were at a place where we didn't have to. I'm really proud of Veritas, because we have myself and Michelle Vanderhar on Bill's staff. So Bill has been a promoter of having diversity on his own direct staff, and I think that top down approach is super important in Silicon Valley and any business that there's real support for that. And Michelle Vanderhar is our chief council, which has, in many cases, not been a position where you would have seen a lady leading that. So we work on that at Veritas, and I personally believe it and I think Mr. Branson said that, as well, in his keynote as well this morning. When we have diversity, we have a breadth of ideas that makes it just a better place to work, and frankly, I think, leads to better innovation in whatever field that you're in. >> Lynn, last question I wanted to ask you, the tagline of the conference is: the truth in information. So much gets talked about, you know, what's real news? You know, what's fake? What do you want people, as the takeaway for Veritas and the show? The truth in information is our rallying cry, and you're right, I think it couldn't be more timely. We're not here to take a particular political stance, but what we find is in the business world, the companies are struggling with: where do I find what's really relevant? Let me give you a story. I was in France earlier this year, sitting with a CIO of one of the very largest oil and gas companies in France. Happens to be a lady who was formerly the chief data officer and she'd moved from that position into the CIO position. And when we talk about the truth in information, the example that she gave us which was so striking is that they've been doing the scans of the Earth, and actually the streets of Paris, for 50, 60 years, to understand the infrastructure, what they may have, and so forth, and at this point, with all of that data, they literally are having a hard time understanding what, out of all of these pieces of information, these topographical scans that they have, is relevant anymore. And this is the same story that I've heard in pharmaceutical companies that are doing drug tests. This is the same story that you would hear in, frankly, media companies that are doing filming, and are trying and all of this is digitized. So, when we talk about that with our customers, it really resonates, is that with so much coming at us, it's hard, in business as well as it is in our consumer lives, to really know: what do I have that's relevant? And I think the opportunity Veritas has is to help customers with a single data management platform, start to get a handle on that and be able to be much more efficient and productive. >> Alright, Lynn Lucas, we have to leave it there. Thanks so much for coming on The Cube. We really appreciate it. >> Thank you! I really enjoyed my first time. I can't wait to be back on again, and hope to have you guys here next year, Vision 2018. >> We'd love to be here. Alright, bringing you the truth, from Veritas Vision, this is The Cube. We'll be right back. (uptempo musical theme)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Veritas Vision 2017. Brought to you by Veritas. (peppy digital music) >> Veritas Vision 2017 everybody. We're here at The Aria Hotel. This is day two of theCUBE's coverage of Vtas, #VtasVision, and this is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante, and I'm here with Stuart Miniman who is my cohost for the week. Stu, we heard Richard Branson this morning. The world-renowned entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson came up from the British Virgin Islands where he lives. He lives in the Caribbean. And evidently he was holed out during the hurricane in his wine cellar, but he was able to make it up here for the keynote. We saw on Twitter, so, great keynote, we'll talk about that a little bit. We saw on Twitter that he actually stopped by the Hitachi event, Hitachi NEXT for women in tech, a little mini event that they had over there. So, pretty cool guy. Some of the takeaways: he talked a lot about- well, first of all, welcome to day two. >> Thanks, Dave. Yeah, and people are pretty excited that sometimes they bring in those marquee guests, someone that's going to get everybody to say, "Okay, wait, it's day two. "I want to get up early, get in the groove." Some really interesting topics, I mean talking about, thinking about the community at large, one of the things I loved he talked about. I've got all of these, I've got hotels, I've got different things. We draw a circle around it. Think about the community, think about the schools that are there, think about if there's people that don't have homes. All these things to, giving back to the community, he says we can all do our piece there, and talking about sustainable business. >> As far as, I mean we do a lot of these, as you know, and as far as the keynote speakers go, I thought he was one of the better ones. Certainly one of the bigger names. Some of the ones that we've seen in the past that I think are comparable, Bill Clinton at Dell World 2012 was pretty happening. >> There's a reason that Bill Clinton is known as the orator that he is. >> Yeah, so he was quite good. And then Robert Gates, both at ServiceNow and Nutanics, Condi Rice at Nutanics, both very impressive. Malcolm Gladwell, who's been on theCUBE and Nate Silver, who's also been on theCUBE, again, very impressive. Thomas Friedman we've seen at the IBM shows. The author, the guy who wrote the Jobs book was very very strong, come on, help me. >> Oh, yeah, Walter Isaacson. >> Walter Isaacson was at Tableau, so you've seen some- >> Yeah, I've seen Elon Musk also at the Dell show. >> Oh, I didn't see Elon, okay. >> Yeah, I think that was the year you didn't come. >> So I say Branson, from the ones I've seen, I don't know how he compared to Musk, was probably the best I think I've ever seen. Very inspirational, talking about the disaster. They had really well-thought-out and well-produced videos that he sort of laid in. The first one was sort of a commercial for Richard Branson and who he was and how he's, his passion for changing the world, which is so genuine. And then a lot of stuff on the disaster in the British Virgin Islands, the total devastation. And then he sort of went into his passion for entrepreneurs, and what he sees as an entrepreneur is he sort of defined it as somebody who wants to make the world a better place, innovations, disruptive innovations to make the world a better place. And then had a sort of interesting Q&A session with Lynn Lucas. >> Yeah, and one of the lines he said, people, you don't go out with the idea that, "I'm going to be a businessman." It's, "I want to go out, I want to build something, "I want to create something." I love one of the early anecdotes that he said when he was in school, and he had, what was it, a newsletter or something he was writing against the Vietnam War, and the school said, "Well, you can either stay in school, "or you can keep doing your thing." He said, "Well, that choice is easy, buh-bye." And when he was leaving, they said, "Well, you're either going to be, end up in jail or be a millionaire, we're not sure." And he said, "Well, what do ya know, I ended up doing both." (both laughing) >> So he is quite a character, and just very understated, but he's got this aura that allows him to be understated and still appear as this sort of mega-personality. He talked about, actually some of the interesting things he said about rebuilding after Irma, obviously you got to build stronger homes, and he really sort of pounded the reducing the reliance on fossil fuels, and can't be the same old, same old, basically calling for a Marshall Plan for the Caribbean. One of the things that struck me, and it's a tech audience, generally a more liberal audience, he got some fond applause for that, but he said, "You guys are about data, you don't just ignore data." And one of the data points that he threw out was that the Atlantic Ocean at some points during Irma was 86 degrees, which is quite astounding. So, he's basically saying, "Time to make a commitment "to not retreat from the Paris Agreement." And then he also talked about, from an entrepreneurial standpoint and building a company that taking note of the little things, he said, makes a big difference. And talking about open cultures, letting people work from home, letting people take unpaid sabbaticals, he did say unpaid. And then he touted his new book, Finding My Virginity, which is the sequel to Losing My Virginity. So it was all very good. Some of the things to be successful: you need to learn to learn, you need to listen, sort of an age-old bromide, but somehow it seemed to have more impact coming from Branson. And then, actually then Lucas asked one of the questions that I put forth, was what's his relationship with Musk and Bezos? And he said he actually is very quite friendly with Elon, and of course they are sort of birds of a feather, all three of them, with the rocket ships. And he said, "We don't talk much about that, "we just sort of-" specifically in reference to Bezos. But overall, I thought it was very strong. >> Yeah Dave, what was the line I think he said? "You want to be friends with your competitors "but fight hard against them all day, "go drinking with them at night." >> Right, fight like crazy during the day, right. So, that was sort of the setup, and again, I thought Lynn Lucas did a very good job. He's, I guess in one respect he's an easy interview 'cause he's such a- we interview these dynamic figures, they just sort of talk and they're good. But she kept the conversation going and asked some good questions and wasn't intimidated, which you can be sometimes by those big personalities. So I thought that was all good. And then we turned into- which I was also surprised and appreciative that they put Branson on first. A lot of companies would've held him to the end. >> Stu: Right. >> Said, "Alright, let's get everybody in the room "and we'll force them to listen to our product stuff, "and then we can get the highlight, the headliner." Veritas chose to do it differently. Now, maybe it was a scheduling thing, I don't know. But that was kind of cool. Go right to where the action is. You're not coming here to watch 60 Minutes, you want to see the headline show right away, and that's what they did, so from a content standpoint I was appreciative of that. >> Yeah, absolutely. And then, of course, they brought on David Noy, who we're going to have on in a little while, and went through, really, the updates. So really it's the expansion, Dave, of their software-defined storage, the family of products called InfoScale. Yesterday we talked a bit about the Veritas HyperScale, so that is, they've got the HyperScale for OpenStack, they've got the HyperScale for containers, and then filling out the product line is the Veritas Access, which is really their scale-out NAS solution, including, they did one of the classic unveils of Veritas Software Company. It was a little odd for me to be like, "Here's an appliance "for Veritas Bezel." >> Here's a box! >> Partnership with Seagate. So they said very clearly, "Look, if you really want it simple, "and you want it to come just from us, "and that's what you'd like, great. "Here's an appliance, trusted supplier, "we've put the whole thing together, "but that's not going to be our primary business, "that's not the main way we want to do things. "We want to offer the software, "and you can choose your hardware piece." Once again, knocking on some of those integrated hardware suppliers with the 70 point margin. And then the last one, one of the bigger announcements of the show, is the Veritas Cloud Storage, which they're calling is object storage with brains. And one thing we want to dig into: those brains, what is that functionality, 'cause object storage from day one always had a little bit more intelligence than the traditional storage. Metadata is usually built in, so where is the artificial intelligence, machine learning, what is that knowledge that's kind of built into it, because I find, Dave, on the consumer side, I'm amazed these days as how much extra metadata and knowledge gets built into things. So, on my phone, I'll start searching for things, and it'll just have things appear. I know you're not fond of the automated assistants, but I've got a couple of them in my house, so I can ask them questions, and they are getting smarter and smarter over time, and they already know everything we're doing anyway. >> You know, I like the automated assistants. We have, well, my kid has an Echo, but what concerns me, Stu, is when I am speaking to those automated assistants about, "Hey, maybe we should take a trip "to this place or that place," and then all of a sudden the next day on my laptop I start to see ads for trips to that place. I start to think about, wow, this is strange. I worry about the privacy of those systems. They're going to, they already know more about me than I know about me. But I want to come back to those three announcements we're going to have David Noy on: HyperScale, Access, and Cloud Object. So some of the things we want to ask that we don't really know is the HyperScale: is it Block, is it File, it's OpenStack specific, but it's general. >> Right, but the two flavors: one's for OpenStack, and of course OpenStack has a number of projects, so I would think you could be able to do Block and File but would definitely love that clarification. And then they have a different one for containers. >> Okay, so I kind of don't understand that, right? 'Cause is it OpenStack containers, or is it Linux containers, or is it- >> Well, containers are always going to be on Linux, and containers can fit with OpenStack, but we've got their Chief Product Officer, and we've got David Noy. >> Dave: So we'll attack some of that. >> So we'll dig into all of those. >> And then, the Access piece, you know, after the apocalypse, there are going to be three things left in this world: cockroaches, mainframes, and Dot Hill RAID arrays. When Seagate was up on stage, Seagate bought this company called Dot Hill, which has been around longer than I have, and so, like you said, that was kind of strange seeing an appliance unveil from the software company. But hey, they need boxes to run on this stuff. It was interesting, too, the engineer Abhijit came out, and they talked about software-defined, and we've been doing software-defined, is what he said, way before the term ever came out. It's true, Veritas was, if not the first, one of the first software-defined storage companies. >> Stu: Oh yeah. >> And the problem back then was there were always scaling issues, there were performance issues, and now, with the advancements in microprocessor, in DRAM, and flash technologies, software-defined has plenty of horsepower underneath it. >> Oh yeah, well, Dave, 15 years ago, the FUD from every storage company was, "You can't trust storage functionality "just on some generic server." Reminds me back, I go back 20 years, it was like, "Oh, you wouldn't run some "mission-critical thing on Windows." It's always, "That's not ready for prime time, "it's not enterprise-grade." And now, of course, everybody's on the software-defined bandwagon. >> Well, and of course when you talk to the hardware companies, and you call them hardware companies, specifically HPE and Dell EMC as examples, and Lenovo, etc. Lenovo not so much, the Chinese sort of embraced hardware. >> And even Hitachi's trying to rebrand themselves; they're very much a hardware company, but they've got software assets. >> So when you worked at EMC, and you know when you sat down and talked to the guys like Brian Gallagher, he would stress, "Oh, all my guys, all my engineers "are software engineers. We're not a hardware company." So there's a nuance there, it's sort of more the delivery and the culture and the ethos, which I think defines the software culture, and of course the gross margins. And then of course the Cloud Object piece; we want to understand what's different from, you know, object storage embeds metadata in the data and obviously is a lower cost sort of option. Think of S3 as the sort of poster child for cloud object storage. So Veritas is an arms dealer that's putting their hat in the ring kind of late, right? There's a lot of object going on out there, but it's not really taking off, other than with the cloud guys. So you got a few object guys around there. Cleversafe got bought out by IBM, Scality's still around doing some stuff with HPE. So really, it hasn't even taken off yet, so maybe the timing's not so bad. >> Absolutely, and love to hear some of the use cases, what their customers are doing. Yeah, Dave, if we have but one critique, saw a lot of partners up on stage but not as many customers. Usually expect a few more customers to be out there. Part of it is they're launching some new products, not talking about very much the products they've had in there. I know in the breakouts there are a lot of customers here, but would have liked to see a few more early customers front and center. >> Well, I think that's the key issue for this company, Stu, is that, we talked about this at the close yesterday, is how do they transition that legacy install base to the new platform. Bill Coleman said, "It's ours to lose." And I think that's right, and so the answer for a company like that in the playbook is clear: go private so you don't have to get exposed to the 90 day shock lock, invest, build out a modern platform. He talked about microservices and modern development platform. And create products that people want, and migrate people over. You're in a position to do that. But you're right, when you talk to the customers here, they're NetBackup customers, that's really what they're doing, and they're here to sort of learn, learn about best practice and see where they're going. NetBackup, I think, 8.1 was announced this week, so people are glomming onto that, but the vast majority of the revenue of this company is from their existing legacy enterprise business. That's a transition that has to take place. Luckily it doesn't have to take place in the public eye from a financial standpoint. So they can have some patient capital and work through it. Alright Stu, lineup today: a lot of product stuff. We got Jason Buffington coming on for getting the analyst perspective. So we'll be here all day. Last word? >> Yeah, and end of the day with Foreigner, it feels like the first time we're here. Veritas feels hot-blooded. We'll keep rolling. >> Alright, luckily we're not seeing double vision. Alright, keep it right there everybody. We'll be back right after this short break. This is theCUBE, we're live from Vertias Vision 2017 in Las Vegas. We'll be right back. (peppy digital music)

>> Announcer: From Palo Alto, California, it's CUBEConversations with John Furrier. >> Welcome back to our special CUBEConversation here in Palo Alto. I'm John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media, and the co-host of theCUBE. We're with Grant Fondo who is an attorney, with Goodwin. Specializes in block chain, Initial Coin Offerings, also known as ICOs. Part two segment we just went over the high-level landscape, but I really want to walk through the playbook of ICO process. Call this the Initial Coin Offering, or ICO-101. Take me through the process, okay? Hypothetically, let's just say we want to do something, we want to have an ICO called "Crowd Coins". Something that we're looking at doing. But let's just walk through that. What's the advice, what's the playbook? Take me through the process. >> Sure. So the first question is, where are you located, and who are you targeting? So what I mean by that is, where is the founding team? Are they in the US? The threshold issue is whether they are in the US or abroad. If they're in the US, and they want to stay in the US, and most don't want to move, so they want to stay in the US, then we talk about, "Okay, you're going to be subject to US regu-- potentially subject to US regulation." And so, the next step on that is, who is your target audience for the token sales? Are you looking to do accredited investors? Are you looking for US people, are you looking for foreign, and who are those target people? So the threshold issue is, as I mentioned before, are you looking for accredited or unaccredited? Most people would rather, they believe in the democratization. >> Accredited over a million dollars of net worth? So it's like a... >> It's essentially a sophisticated-- yes, it's essentially a sophisticated investor. >> And what's the trade-off between the two of those? >> So the trade-off is, if you really want to get a large market, you do the unaccredited route. And that means anybody can participate. Accredited, if it's credited, it's a much more limited, typically from 50 to 100 people, high net worth individuals, there's a paperwork process, it's exemption under their security's rules. Most of the token sales we're seeing are unaccredited, although we're seeing a trend now, too, that people are doing a hybrid of accredited US investors, and unaccredited foreign investors. It's an interesting hybrid that we're seeing. But, so that's the initial threshold. We have many companies that say, "Well, what if we move our operations offshore? What if we open up a company in Switzerland or something like that?" And I think what they don't realize is that if they are trying to seek US money, or they are located in the US, or the money that they raise comes back to the US in some way, that they're going to be subject to US regulations. So simply sticking something offshore doesn't cut it from a regulatory perspective. So that's the first question we ask, is to trying to figure out, "Okay, where are we setting up this entity?" And typically you set up different entities to raise the token sale. >> So what if a company, say, us as an example, already exists, we're a Delaware corporation? Do I have to stand a new company up, or subsidiary? What's the playbook? So there's a clean sheet of paper is a new company, so that's where you start, I get that. But what about a pre-existing companies? >> So if you're a Delaware corporate pre-existing company, sometimes we'll set up a new, like a subsidiary. Sometimes just for typical corporate reasons it's good to set up separate entities. The other issue, threshold issue, is tax issues. We typically advise people to get sophisticated tax advice from CPAs, things like that, Deloitte's one of the players in the space, for example. And that decision then becomes, do you set that entity up in a more tax-friendly venue than the United States? The British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands are two of the examples of where these people set these entities up for tax purposes. >> The tax thing seems like it would take time. Does that slow things down, or is it...? It's super important, obviously. >> So, it does. It has a couple components. It slows it down because there's another player involved, you also have the potential transfer of assets and you have to figure out what are the assets that you're going to trade, move from the Delaware corporation, for example, to the Cayman Island corporation? You also have obligations of, you have to go live in the Cayman Islands for a while, which is not a bad thing. >> My wife wants me out of the house, time to go to the Cayman. >> So it's funny, I had a client who said, "Alright, let's set up in the hotel right next to the airport," and I'm like, "If you're in the Cayman Islands, go to the beach. Don't stay at the airport." >> Start scuba-diving. A lot of people would do that. Okay, so, great, so, jurisdiction and corporate structure is the first consideration. >> Yes. >> What's next? >> The next step is related to that, is what type of sale are you doing? Are you doing a token sale or a security sale? And what we mean, and that's a big threshold issue. What we mean by that is, and most of the sales are token sales. But is the token that you're using going to give someone equity in the company? Are they going to get a percentage of the profits from the company? Are they going to be able to control some of the decisions of the company? If so, that looks more like a stock. And so, therefore, it's deemed a security token. That is subject to SEC regulation, and there's a different route. Many people don't go that route, but some do. So, for example, people in real estate transactions where they want to give, use tokens, but they really want to give investors who get a percentage of the real estate profits. They'll go the accredited US investor route. For the other pivot is towards the utility token. Which is the utility token, like an arcade token, it's basically a token that works in the platform, and people use it so that they can transact on your platform, they can play games, they can get content, they can encourage people to find bugs in your software. >> John: So, transactional-type value. >> Transactional, exactly. >> So, smart network, smart contracts assume some sort of marketplace with coins and the currency, right? >> Grant: Exactly. >> Okay, so the next step. The tokens and security and utility, I get that. Okay, make that decision, now what? >> So the next step is, you need to do a white paper. And you need to hire a law firm to help you with the white paper and all the legal, all these different steps. So then we'll take a look at the white paper, and we'll advise them on what their token looks like, if they're trying to do the utility route we'll walk through the different language and things of that nature. We also try to clear it up, make it just a little bit more readable. And then, once they do the white paper, we then, also, help them with the pre-sale documents. Oftentimes they'll do two sales. So it's called a "pre-sale", which is where you give an opportunity for significant purchase, people that you believe will be significant purchases of tokens, and they'll come in and they'll buy a large amount of tokens, let's say $100,000 dollars in tokens, but at a significant discount from the price that will be for a regular token sale. So maybe a 20% discount. >> So once I have my token, security or utility, okay, now I got to go figure out how I'm going to sell this. >> Grant: Yes. >> And that's what we're getting at here. >> Yes. And so, typically you make a decision and do a pre-sale, and you raise a certain amount of money, and then you do the sale, the token sale, about a month later, typically. >> What about allocation of tokens? That comes up a lot. So I'm also thinking, "Okay, is there a structure for X percentage for the development, X percentage to sell, to offer to the community or network, how many stay in the company." we see people keep an allocation for the company, or, between 15 or some higher. So how do you put the pie chart together, or distribution of token? >> One of the things you have to figure out, is this a token that you're going to sell all your tokens right off the gate, except for some of the ones you keep, or do you envision later releasing tokens over time? So some of our token sales, every year, excuse me, token companies, will release tokens over the time to continue to provide tokens to the users. So you have to make that threshold decision. What you typically see, is you see a percentage kept by the company, you see, and it's usually, usually you see 15 to 20%, although I've seen companies up to 90%, and then you'll see a bunch of the tokens issued to the market, and they will tell people through their white paper what they intend to use that money for. Most of the times it's for R&D and development of the platform, and continued maintenance of the platform, but also legal and administrative expenses for that company. One of the big issues that companies face, is where are they in the development of that platform? Ideally, by the time they do the token sale, the platform exists and the tokens can be used immediately. That helps, we talked earlier about, being a security versus a token. That helps in that analysis. If you're building a platform, and you've already got it up and running, that looks more like utility token. If it's going to be a year or two before that platform's available for use, the SEC may say that looks more like a security. >> And a lot of people get flagged in ICOs where it's like, "We're going to see something in late 2018." And so they hope to raise money through the tokens to do development. And it can be like a Kickstarter kind of model there. But it's not legit. I mean, from a product standpoint. I shouldn't say, "not legit". It can be scrutinized. >> I think now, the SEC gave some guidance a couple weeks ago, and I think that in Coin Center, which is a very think tank in this area, they issued a spreadsheet, essentially, that talks about when are you more a token versus security. And I think that's an issue. I think, especially going forward, companies, if they can, are better off having a platform up and running by the time they issue the tokens. >> Okay, so next question is, okay, great, now I'm rockin' and rollin', now I got to do some blocking and tackling. I need a white paper, I got to have a website, what are the minimum viable elements that need to be in market for an ICO? Obviously a website. What are the elements there? >> One is the white paper, which we talked about. You also, as part of that white paper, you want to make sure you are conscious that this is a white paper that has to live and breathe potentially years, and so you want to be honest and forthcoming, and also give yourself some flexibility. But the other thing is, not every company is a super-sophisticated smart contract company. And so they'll often hire vendors to do that. >> John: Do the white paper. >> No, not to do the white paper, sorry, to do the actual smart contracts to set up the token sales. Those companies will also assist with the white paper, just like we do, but their primary platform, or purpose, is to help launch the smart contracts. You'll also have marketing companies that will assist with marketing the token sales, so that more of the community knows about your business, and that there's a platform out there and that hopefully that's a platform that you want to use tokens on, and so that's another component. And then, also, the tax advice that I mentioned before. >> Alright, so in that white paper, is also the consideration for who the service providers will be in the process. >> Sometimes. Not always, though. Sometimes it will identify who's going to get, if the service provider, for example, is going to get tokens, but oftentimes you don't see that in there. >> Alright, so white paper, probably an FAQ of some sort, but, again, thinking about this being an evergreen, living document that'll be on the web. It could bite you in the butt, or help you, so be careful, right? So that's what you're saying. Good advice. Okay. Tax considerations. Okay, now I have my tax hat on. Bring in Deloitte, bring in tax guys. What are they talking about? How does that impact the process? >> So, you mentioned the delay before. I think any time that you bring more players in it obviously delays things. But they're important players. All these are important players. And part of what you want to do, is you want to bring them in early, versus waiting, because the tax implications are significant. It takes time to set up foreign entities, it takes time to go live in the Cayman Islands, not the worst time, but it takes time. >> John: What duration in the Cayman Islands would someone have to live? >> I'm not an expert on that, but you're going to spend a couple weeks there, for sure, if not longer, and you're going to have to stay there through the token sale. >> Does the boat get paid as part of the token sale? >> I'll leave it up to you on how you decide to spend that money. >> Okay, so back on the jurisdictional thing, this is important. People, can they do it in the US? >> Yes. >> Yeah, they can. Okay. But how does that impact the process? Is it a tax issue, or is it just, comfort? What's the consideration between a Cayman Islands, foreign makes sense if you have people there, but Caymans would be the alternative to the US companies, right? >> So if you do it in the US, you can still have your operations here, and essentially you can have some people here, but the primary wallet, essentially, entity receiving the money would be in the Cayman Islands. If you decide, and that's really mostly for tax issues. If you decide to forego that, so some companies decide the tax issues are not significant enough that I want to deal with it, setting up a Cayman operation, there's a delay, there's expense, and we'll deal with the US tax issues. And so that's just a business decision. >> And because the tokens are viewed as income? >> Revenue. >> Revenue. >> Grant: It would be viewed as a revenue for the company. >> Okay, so does that mean, if a corporation wants to buy tokens, that's an expense? >> So, it's funny, we haven't had that question asked, and I'm not a tax expert, but yes, I think it would be an expense. >> We'll have to get a referral, get a tax guy in here to answer these questions. The post-ICO issues. Did we get to the ICO? So the next step is, okay, I got my tax considerations, it's time for the ICO. What happens next? Do I ring a bell? Is it a digital bell? What happens? >> It's kind of fun. Most companies, what they do is they put a countdown to when the ICO is about to start, and they usually give a window. And it's typically a two-component thing. One is, if we raise X, so let's just pick a number, $30 million dollars. It's a $30 million dollar X amount of tokens we sold, the token sale will stop at that point. And/or a time limit, so two weeks. We'll have a two week token sale. And so, you'll have the timeline, and they'll actually register for you on their website how much they've raised, how many tokens have been sold, as well as where they are in that timeline. And then the timeline ends either through one of those two mechanisms, and then the token sale is closed. >> And then I'm sure there's a protection issue around protecting the tokens. Can you add some color there? Because there's been rumors that someone raised $34 million dollars and lost it all. They've basically been robbed, digitally, by hackers. Who do you call, then? Better Coin Bureau? >> So we've dealt with that issue, and we can give advice when that happens, but it's a tough issue. Tracking, the FBI, obviously you notify the FBI... >> John: It's a fatal flaw. >> It's a real problem. Typically there are people abroad. So you have to assume it's gone. So one of the immediate things we talk about is security. And some of it is very basic security. And that is, if you are receiving all these Ethereum or Bitcoin or however you're raising it, set up a bunch of different wallets. If you're going to lose money, it's better to lose one out of 10 wallets, or one out of 20 wallets, versus one wallet with all your money there. So some of that is just prudent, in a sense, but I also think you really need to make sure. That's part of why you bring some experts in, if you don't have that inside expertise it's going to make it extraordinarily insecure. >> How do vet the service providers if I'm going to work with the company if I'm an entrepreneur or an entity to deal with the front-end of the first collection? The wallets make sense. You sprinkle it around, it's like digging a hole, or putting mattresses all over your house, so I get that. Who do I deal with on the inbound? Is there a central authority that takes the cash in before it goes to wallets, or it goes right into different wallets? >> That's where we talked about a smart contract vendor will assist you in setting things up so that it goes directly into a wallet. Part of it is just word of mouth. People get referrals, they look for who's done other ICOs. Part of it's reputational. Some of it, too, is when you talk to people, you can figure out, do they really know what they're talking about? Hopefully you have some IT security people on your team, or that at least you can rely on who can really vet, vet these providers and to say, okay, this is a really strong product, and we feel comfortable with that. And you're betting a lot on it, so it's a really important decision. >> John: So you invest in a security resource. >> I think you have to. >> Okay, now ICO is completed, everyone's high-fiving, the clock is ticking, and there's a post, maybe a trickle, or a one-shot opportunity, assuming that trickles is part of the process. What's the post ICO consideration? >> One of the issues is the money, right? So what do you do with it? So this is a pre and post token sale issue. And that is, do you provide employees, or founders, with tokens? And I think the consensus now is that the more you provide tokens for employees and founders it more looks like securities. So there's a tendency for people like advisors who come onto the company, to provide them tokens. I think there's a risk that if you do that, it looks more like securities. So you have to treat that money and that token, especially the tokens, because the company keeps some tokens, too, right? You have to continue to remember that that's a utility token, not a security token. As far as the money goes and what you want to use it for, you have to keep consistent with your mission. So it's just like crowdfunding. If you ask people to donate money to an idea, you can't change that idea. And if you do change that idea, you need to let them know about it. So you have to be very transparent. So there's no such thing as "free money", and I believe that one of the risks with the post-token sales is, some of these companies are not going to make it. And so you want to be very cognizant of that you're doing the right thing, you're making the right decisions. Pretend, in a sense, that it's truly your money, and every dollar that you spend is your own dollar. You want to use it wisely, and you never want to be embarrassed or ashamed or concerned about how you spent that money. >> As long as it's not buying a boat or having a, like on Silicon Valley, renting out Treasure Island and having a big party. Use it wisely, and to the mission of the firm. Okay, so the question I have for you, this comes up a lot is, okay, I get the utility token. That creates value for the currency, you're not selling the appreciation as an investment, it's a transactional component of a smart network with smart contracts, and values the creation and distribution of that value. I get that. If a company wants to do that, they can still have an equity plan, I assume, because you have to assume that that utility is contributing to the value of the overall enterprise itself, the company. That's where the employees would get the stock options in a normal stock option plan. >> Yeah, it's just like any other company. When you raise money, you still have equity. So I think they are generally Delaware corporations that stick with the standard structure. You can give options in the company. There's no concerns with that. >> So you have a coin vehicle going on, and a standard equity program. >> Grant: Yes. Absolutely. >> Okay, so, post-ICO, what else? Cross your fingers and hope you can use the development cash? >> I think, too, and this goes throughout the process from the beginning through the post, which is, be careful how you talk about the token sales. Don't talk about, "We're going to try to increase the value of the tokens." Remember, the token is a utility token. It's an arcade token. It's not a security. >> It's like playing a video game. Pinball Wizard. You pump it in to thing, play your game, and people get value out of that. >> So that's fine. But what you don't want to say, is you don't want to encourage people to continue to trade and buy the token for the purpose of they hope it's going to go up in value and not use the platform. >> Even though everyone's doing that. >> There's some truth to that. There's a little bit of, that's the elephant in the room, a little bit. But there's different ways to do that. As you build your community, as you talk about it and you're excited about your company, and people are. It's a great, it's a fantastic tool, and what's really been fun about it is you're seeing these companies that hadn't thought about the block chain and utility tokens and say, "Wow, this is such a great mechanism to build this huge community, and have all these people participate through these tokens. Setting aside the fund-raising aspect of it, but just this, it's a great mechanism to do this. The democratization of my platform. And I can reach internationally. So focus on that. Don't focus on the value of the token. There's another issue, which is putting them up on exchanges, particularly pre-token sale, I think you need to think twice about trying to connect with an exchange and sticking your tokens up on an exchange. >> John: Why? >> Because it sounds like security again. It sounds like you're trying to develop this market for more people to buy this token to go up in value. Now, it's okay to provide a platform, just like the arcade owner, it's okay if that arcade owner thinks that other people can sell his token for him, or her token for him, that's fine, but you got to be really careful about how you do it. >> So Brave browser, which is obviously utility, has BAT tokens. They're listed, I believe. >> So you can list, yeah and I think, you can list, I think it's just a risk. And I think what you don't want to do, is you don't want to say, "We're listing our tokens and trying to encourage people to buy the tokens." >> So it's optics. It's how you position it. >> It's important. The optics are important. >> So talking about expectations. Can we talk about this in our first segment, but I just wanted to just end this, ICO-101. Went through the process, overall expectations? Any thoughts on that? What people should expect? Duration? Fees? Costs? Is it order or manual, what solar system are they in? Million dollars is it going to cost, is it going to be $20K, how do you engage on fees, and then process timeframe? >> The process depends in part of the company. How far along are they on the white paper, how far along are they on the platform? But setting aside that issue, and more from the legal technical advisor, generally takes two to three months. We're seeing some that are longer. It takes time to put the white paper together, and we proof it and give advice, and then I'll also have some of the other advisers give advice on it. It does take time to set up the tax structure, so if you're doing the Cayman Islands, that's probably a two to three month process for sure. Depends on how much IP you transfer as well, so that can slow things down. >> John: Licensing and agreements. It's like standard legal stuff. There's no fast-track. There's no shortcuts. >> There's no shortcuts. You're bringing in an initial consultant so it takes time to negotiate. So I think safe, you're going to assume at least three months, if not, definitely more. >> Well, the number one question I think here, today, for you, is, who's going to pay for this hour? Who are we going to bill for this? >> Grant: You'll get my bill. >> I appreciate the candid conversation. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, again. This is an expensive hour here on the CUBE. The community is a freebie. Grant, thanks for sharing. You do some great work. I think I'm going to look back on this time in history and say, "Man, glory days, or hell-of-a time." It's going to crash and burn or go big, in my opinion. Great stuff. Grant Fondo. Attorney at Goodwin. Great firm, check him out. Doing great work. 25+ ICOs in the pipeline. Done a bunch of work. New area. Exploring the future of block chain, a lot of disruption, anything that has to do with supply chain, anything that has to do with technology, decentralize concepts in a distributed manner is really the rage. We see this as a game changer. It's SiliconANGLE. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching.