>>we'll go back to the cubes. Coverage of the age of US Executive Summit at Davis. Reinvent made possible by Accenture My name is Dave Volunteer. We're gonna talk about the arm nation advantage, embraced the future of productivity, improve speed quality and customer experience through artificial intelligence. And we herewith Bhaskar goes, Who's the chief strategy Officer X censure in Rajendra RP Prasad is the senior managing director in Global Automation. The Accenture guys walk into the Cube. Get to seal. >>Thank you. >>Hey, congratulations on the new book. I know it's like giving birth, but it's a mini version. If the well, the automation advantage embraced a future of productivity, improve speed, quality and customer experience to artificial intelligence. What inspired you to write this book? Can you tell us a little bit more about it and how businesses are going to be able to take advantage of the information that's in there? Maybe you could start, >>so I think you know, if we say that what inspired as primarily the two things really style, you know, over inspired have to start this project in first of all is the technology change step change in the technology. Second is the mile maturity of the buyer maturity of the market when it's a little more, you know, when I talk about the technology change, automation is nothing new in the industry. In the starting from the Industrial Revolution, always, industry adopted the automation. But last few years would happen. That there is a significant change in the technology in terms of not of new technologies are coming together like cloud data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and they are gearing match you, and that created a huge opportunity in the industry. So that is number one second if fighting the maturity of the buyer. So buyers are always buying automation, adopting the automation. So when I talked to this different by a different industrial wire, suddenly we realise they're not asking about workings automation, how that will help. But primarily they're talking about how they can scaling. They have all have done the pilot, the prototype, how they can take the full advantage in their enterprise through scheme and talking to few client few of our clients, and he realised that it's best to write this boat and film all our clients to take advantage of this new technologies to skill up their business. If I give a little more than inside that one, exactly we are trying to do in this boat primarily, we dealt with three things. One is the individual automation which deals with the human efficiency. Second is the industrial automation who visited a group efficiency. And third is the intelligent automation. We deal city business, official efficiency while business value. So we believe that this is what will really change their business and help our client help the automation. It users to really make clear an impact in their business. >>Yeah, And so you talked about that? The maturity of the customer. And and I like the way you should describe that spectrum ending with intelligent automation. So the point is you not just paving the cow path, if you will, automating processes that maybe were invented decades ago. You're really trying to rethink the best approach. And that's where you going to get the most business value, our peace In thinking about the maturity, I think the a pre pandemic people were maybe a little reluctant s Bhaskar was saying maybe needed some education. But But how? If things change me, obviously the penned Emmick has had a huge impact. It's accelerated things, but but what's changed in the business environment? In terms of the need to implement automation? R. P >>thank you Well, that is an excellent question. As even through the pandemic, most of the enterprises accelerated what I call as the digital transformation, technology transformation and the war all time that it takes to do. The transformation is compressed in our most land prices. Now do compress transformation. The core of it is innovation and innovation, led technology and technology based solutions. To drive this transformation automation. Artificial intelligence becomes hot of what we do while we are implementing this accelerators. Innovation enablers within the enterprises, most of the enterprises prior to the pandemic we're looking automation and I as a solution for cost efficiency. Saving cost in DePina deriving capacity efficiency does if they do the transformation when we press the fast forward but draw the transformation journey liberating automation. What happens is most of the enterprises which the focus from cost efficiency to speed to market application availability and system resiliency at the core. When I speaking to most of the sea woes Corrine Wall in the tech transformation they have now embrace automation and air as a Conan able to bribe this journeys towards, you know, growth, innovation, lead application, availability and transformation and sustainability of the applications through the are A book addresses all of these aspects, including the most important element of which is compute storeys and the enablement that it can accomplish through cloud transformation, cloud computing services and how I I and Michelle learning take log technologies can in a benefit from transformation to the block. In addition, we also heard person talk about automation in the cloud zero automation taking journey towards the cloud on automation Once you're in the clouds, water the philosophy and principles he should be following to drive the motivation. We also provide holy holistic approach to dry automation by focusing process technology that includes talent and change management and also addressing automation culture for the organisations in the way they work as they go forward. >>You mentioned a couple things computing, storage and when we look at our surveys, guys is it is interesting to see em, especially since the pandemic, four items have popped up where all the spending momentum is cloud province reasons scale and in resource and, you know, be able the report to remotely containers because a lot of people have work loads on Prem that they just can automatically move in the company, want to do development in the cloud and maybe connect to some of those on from work clothes. R P A. Which is underscores automation in, of course, and R. P. You mentioned a computing storage and, of course, the other pieces. Data's We have always data, but so my question is, how has the cloud and eight of us specifically influenced changes in automation? In a >>brilliant question and brilliant point, I say no winner. I talked to my clients. One of the things that I always says, Yeah, I I is nothing but y for the data that is the of the data. So that date of place underlying a very critical part of applying intelligence, artificial intelligence and I in the organization's right as the organisation move along their automation journey. Like you said, promoting process automation to contain a realisation to establishing data, building the data cubes and managing the massive data leveraging cloud and how Yebda please can help in a significant way to help the data stratification Dana Enablement data analysis and not data clustering classification All aspects of the what we need to do within the between the data space that helps for the Lord scale automation effort, the cloud and and ablest place a significant role to help accelerate and enable the data part. Once you do that, building mission learning models on the top of it liberating containers clusters develops techniques to drive, you know the principles on the top of it is very makes it easier to drive that on foster enablement advancement through cloud technologists. Alternatively, using automation itself to come enable the cloud transformation data transformation data migration aspects to manage the complexity, speed and scale is very important. The book stresses the very importance of fuelling the motion of the entire organisation to agility, embracing new development methods like automation in the cloud develops Davis a cop's and the importance of oral cloud adoptions that bills the foundational elements of, you know, making sure you're automation and air capabilities are established in a way that it is scalable and sustainable within the organisations as they move forward, >>Right? Thank you for that r p vast crime want to come back to this notion of maturity and and just quite automation. So Andy Jossy made the phrase undifferentiated, heavy lifting popular. But that was largely last decade. Apply to it. And now we're talking about deeper business integration. And so you know, automation certainly is solves the problem of Okay, I can take Monday and cast like provisioning storage in compute and automate that great. But what is some of the business problems, that deeper business integration that we're solving through things? And I want to use the phrase they used earlier intelligent automation? What is that? Can you give an example? >>Let's a very good question as we said, that the automation is a journey, you know, if we talk to any blind, so everybody wants to use data and artificial intelligence to transform their business, so that is very simple. But the point is that you cannot reach their anti unless you follow the steps. So in our book, we have explained that the process that means you know, we defined in a five steps. We said that everybody has to follow the foundation, which is primarily tools driven optimise, which is process drivel. An official see improvement, which is primarily are driven. Then comes predictive capability, the organisation, which is data driven, and then intelligence, which is primarily artificial intelligence driven. Now, when I talked about the use of artificial intelligence and this new intelligent in the business, what the what I mean is basically improved decision making in every level in the organisation and give the example. We have given multiple example in this, both in a very simple example, if I take suppose, a financial secretary organisation, they're selling wealth management product to the client, so they have a number of management product, and they have number of their number of clients a different profile. But now what is happening? This artificial intelligence is helping their agents to target the night product for the night customers. So then, at the success rate is very high. So that is a change that is a change in the way they do business. Now some of the platform companies like Amazon on Netflix. He will see that this this killed is a very native skill for them. They used the artificial intelligence try to use everywhere, but there a lot of other companies who are trying to adopt this killed today. Their fundamental problem is they do not have the right data. They do not have the capability. They do not have all the processes so that they can inject the decision making artificial intelligence capability in every decision making to empower their workforce. And that is what we have written in this book. To provide the guidance to this in this book. How they can use the better business decision improved the create, the more business value using artificial intelligence and intelligent automation. >>Interesting. Bhaskar are gonna stay with you, you know, in their book in the middle of last decade, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andy McAfee wrote the second Machine Age, and they made a point in the book that machines have always replaced humans in instead of various tasks. But for the first time ever, we're seeing machines replacing human in cognitive task that scares a lot of people so hardy you inspire employees to embrace the change that automation can bring. What what are you seeing is the best ways to do that? >>This is a very good question. The intelligent automation implementation is not, Iet Project is primarily change management. It's primarily change in the culture, the people in the organisation into embrace this change and how they will get empowered with the machine. It is not about the replacing people by machine, which has happened historically into the earlier stages of automation, which I explained. But in this intelligent automation, it is basically empowering people to do the better. Dwelled the example. That is the thing we have written in the book about about a newspaper, 100 years old newspaper in Italy. And you know, this industry has gone through multiple automation and changes black and white printing, printing to digital. Everything happened. And now what is happening? They're using artificial intelligence, so they're writers are using those technologies to write faster. So when they are writing immediately, they're getting supported with the later they're supporting with the related article they are supporting with this script, even they're supported to the heading of this article. So the question is that it is not replacing the news, you know, the content writer, but is basically empowering them so that they can produce the better quality of product they can, better writing in a faster time. So is very different approach and that is why is, um, needs a change management and it's a cultural change. >>Garden R P What's it for me? Why should we read the automation advantage? Maybe you can talk about some of the key takeaways and, you know, maybe the best places to start on an automation journey. >>Very will cut the fastest MP, Newer automation journey and Claude Adoption Journey is to start simple and start right if you know what's have free one of the process, Guru says, If you don't know where you are on a map, a map won't help you, so to start right, a company needs to know where they are on a map today, identify the right focus areas, create a clear roadmap and then move forward with the structured approach for successful our option. The other important element is if you automate an inefficient process, we are going to make your inefficiency run more efficiently. So it is very important to baseline, and then I established the baseline and know very or on the journey map. This is one of the key teams we discuss in the Automation Advantis book, with principles and tips and real world examples on how to approach each of these stages. We also stress the importance of building the right architecture is for intelligent automation, cloud enablement, security at the core of automation and the platform centric approach. Leading enterprises can fade out adopters and Iraq, whether they are in the early stages of the automation, journey or surrender advanced stage the formation journey. They can look at the automation advantage book and build and take the best practises and and what is provided as a practical tips within the book to drive there. Automation journey. This also includes importance of having right partners in the cloud space, like a loveliest who can accelerate automation, journey and making sure accompanies cloud migration. Strategy includes automation, automation, lead, yea and data as part of their journey. Management. >>That's great. Good advice there. Bring us home. Maybe you can wrap it up with the final final world. >>So, lefty, keep it very simple. This book will help you to create difference in your business with the power of automation and artificial intelligence. >>That's a simple message and will governor what industry you're in? There is a disruptions scenario for your industry and that disruption scenarios going to involve automation, so you better get ahead of editor game. They're The book is available, of course, at amazon dot com. You can get more information. X censure dot com slash automation advantage. Gosh, thanks so much for coming in the Cube. Really appreciate your time. >>Thank you. Thank >>you. >>Eh? Thank you for watching this episode of the eight of US Executive Summit of reinvent made possible by Accenture. Keep it right there for more discussions that educating spy inspire You're watching the queue.

(upbeat music) >> Commentator: From our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California, this is a Cube conversation. >> Welcome to this special Cube conversation here in Palo Alto, California. I'm John Furrier, host of the Cube. We're here with Fletcher Previn, who's the CIO of IBM, part of a series we're calling a new brand of tech leaders, where we profile leaders in technology and business, where there's innovation and a changing of the guard of approaches and results. Fletcher, thanks for joining me today. >> Thanks for having me. >> So we were talking before you came on camera, you have an interesting background. You kind of went to an arts school, got into entertainment as an intern, Conan O'Brien... >> David Letterman. >> David Letterman. You were fast track to be a comedian and get into the business of entertainment, (laughter) and you ended up as the CIO. How does that happen? Tell us the story. >> The comedy's better in tech. (laughter) >> These days, certainly, watching the Senate hearings, it's phenomenal. >> Well, yeah. As you said, I thought I very well might go into entertainment, that's kind of more of the family business. And I spent a lot of time on movie sets and worked as a production assistant on a couple movies, and then was an intern at the David Letterman Show and Conon during college. But I did always have this strong other thread of really loving technology and being drawn into it. First family computer was a Commodore 64, but my first real computer for me was the original Mac 128K. And I knew something was awry when I was working at the Letterman Show, I was kind of more interested in the phone system than who the guest that night was. And so, when I graduated, I just accepted it. Why keep fighting this? I'm going to go out to the West coast and start my career in tech. >> That's interesting, you know you always gravitate towards what your affinity is, and I think a lot of people look at today's work environment as an environment where there's so many shifts and new kind of waves. To me, we've always said on theCube, you know, this wave that we're living on, tech wave, is kind of a combination of main frame, mini computers, localary networks and PCs all kind of rolled up in one. Because there's so many different touchpoints that's changing things. You know, you don't need to be a coder to be successful in cyber security, you can be a policy person. Lot of societal changes with self-driving cars, which side of the street do they drive on? All these new things are happening. And so it's really putting the pressure on digital, and the notion of data, IT has become a central part of it. You're the CIO at IBM, how do you look at that world? Because now, being a technologist, we'll get to the idea of it in a minute, but as a technologist, as someone who's the Chief Information Officer, when you look at the world today, you look at the wave we're on, what does that wave of technology mean to you? >> Yeah, well I think as you said, there is no part of our modern life that is not touched, and hopefully augmented in some way, by technology. And so, you know, that's the answer to the question why am I at IBM. Because the kinds of businesses that IBM is involved in, the kinds of enabling technology that it provides, really underlies a lot of the critical infrastructure and systems for our modern way of life. And so, being able to be at a company that has a narrative position in what our collective future looks like is what drives me. >> Yeah, a lot of the application developers, you guys have a huge portfolio of applications. You got cloud computer, you got on-premise, you got IOT, a lot of things, AI changing. You're changing the nature of application development, but also the role of data. At IBM as the CIO, what is your strategy in looking at all these changes? And how do you implement it with IBM? What is specifically your strategy? >> Well, certainly our strategy is there will be no part of the IT portfolio that is not augmented with IBM technology, and in particular AI. And an AI strategy is a data strategy, for us to be able to really collect, organize, harness the power of that data and then leverage it in innovative ways to be a more effective and efficient business. More broadly though, in terms of what is my strategy to deliver IT services to a huge company of IT professionals, it's to lead with design. And there's a lot underneath that, but one of the first changes that I made when I became CIO of IBM was adding, as a direct report to myself, a person responsible for design and user experience. And IBM's got a huge focus on design thinking and leading with the user experience, but for us to be successful, we got to create an environment where successful, excuse me, where talented people want to work. And that requires us to have empathy, and engineer from the user in instead of IT out. >> And making service is a big part, because we've got consumption, people consuming IT. >> Yeah, exactly. The barrier to entry for people to make decisions about what they use or don't use is very different. I think people coming to the business 10 years ago, very different set of expectations, even 5 or 3 years ago. And so, it's got to be carrot, it can't be stick. People just won't do something because you tell them to do it, they have to perceive that this is making their work life better in some way. >> Culture's a huge thing, I want to get your thoughts on engineering for excellence, this is something that you believe in. What's your view on that? What does that mean? What does engineering for excellence mean for you as CIO? >> Yeah, well we spend a lot of time thinking of IT as the driver of culture change. And when people say we're a culture that values engineering excellence, what does that really mean? And it means that we recognize and reward people who are really passionate about what they do for a living, deep subject matter experts in their field. You know, I sometimes get asked, what are you looking for when you're hiring people? And I'm looking to hire people who are kind, passionate about what they do for a living, and believe in our purpose as a company. And if we surround ourselves with those kind of people, we will be successful in whatever kind of problem we happen to be trying to solve at that moment. >> What are some of the guiding principles in an organization that's engineered for excellence? What are some of the guiding principles that you hire and push forth through your organization? >> Yeah, well as I said, we are trying to attract and retain, and ultimately reward the people who are deeply passionate about what they do and believe in our collective purpose. And so I think the era of the generalist is probably a bygone era. I'm looking to attract people that are doing in their spare time and in their hobbies and at home the same thing that we're paying them to do at work, because they love it and they feel fulfilled by it. >> And the roles are changing too. Talk about the skill gap, this is a big talk track we hear at every event we go to and exec we talk to. The new brand of tech leaders have to address the skill gap because there's more job openings in jobs that don't have a degree requirement. Meaning, the job doesn't have a certificate or a diploma because it's new. Whether it's cyber security, or data science, new kinds of roles and the skill gaps there. Talk about that, that challenge, that opportunity. >> Yeah, well these new and emerging fields, AI, blockchain, cloud, or otherwise, you're right. A lot of those are new, and there are not well established four-year degrees around those kinds of professions. And so, IBM is very heavily involved in what we call the P Tech, or the Pathway to Technology Program, where people can have a successful career in technology without having a traditional four-year college degree. But more broadly, yeah, there is a gap. A gap between the demand and the supply for people in these fields, and so the best protection all of us have against obsolescence is continuous upscaling and education. And that happens organically if you're passionate about what you do, because you're eating, breathing and sleeping the area that you work in. >> Yeah, and sometimes learning on the job too is key, and getting content on the internet, people can self-learn and apply that. Talk about how your organization's structured for learning. How do you retain the best talent? What are some of the strategies you deploy to keep people motivated, keep them informed, and keep them engaged with a good assignment? >> Yeah, well that is a challenge in any large organization, and IBM is 350,000 plus people in 170 countries. And so the era of us being able to get everybody together in a town hall meeting is long gone. And so, how we communicate and get everybody on the same page around mission alignment, what is our strategy, and what skills do you need, and how do you stay informed and educated. That's an ongoing challenge. I think, ultimately, we try to attract people with our purpose as a company. It's an employer of purpose, the kinds of work IBM's involved in attracts people that are mission driven. And then, there is a tremendous focus on providing distance based self-paced learning, online learning, in person learning, badgen programs, the P Tech Program that I mentioned. And to make sure that a person who is motivated and wants to grow their skills, that they have all the vehicles to do that. But I think the other thing I spend a lot of time focused on is, does everybody in this organization have a good understanding of what our purpose as a company is, and how what they do contributes to that purpose, and can they map back really clearly I'm not just a widget in a machine doing something and I have no idea what the impact of it is. I see that what I'm doing contributes to our collective success. >> People want to work for a mission driven company, that's a new data point we've been seeing. >> Fletcher: Yes. >> Talk about the outcome of focus. You know, you hear digital transformation being kicked around, I think it's happening now more than ever, obviously been hyped up. But now you're starting to see companies really digging in. You guys are going through a digital transformation over many years. You supply technology for companies that are transforming digitally. The notion of business outcomes becomes a big part of that. How have you evolved your organization, from an outcome standpoint, that's new and different from the old ways? Can you give an example and talk about that? Old way of doing things and the new way of doing things. How do you talk about technology for business outcomes in a new way? >> Well, ultimately it's a business problem that you're solving. And so there has to be a business driver behind any project that we engage in. And having good discipline around... organizations tend to die of indigestion, not starvation, and getting really disciplined about what we say no to, in some cases is more important than what we agree to do. And it's much harder to stop work than it is to start work in a large organization. And so we've really leveraged Agile as a new way of working to say, "We have a well-defined methodology for "one funnel of work, that gets prioritized "in partnership with the business in a transparent way." where we say, "You submit this many units of demand, "we have this much unit of supply, let's go through "the story definitions, backlog grooming, "future presentations, retrospectives, the mechanics "of working in an Agile way, to be really disciplined "about everyone's on the same page about what "we are going to do and what we're not going to do." >> Yeah, that's a great point. We hear this all the time. Certainly, it's looking valid here, where I'm located. The notion of Agile, fail fast, the lean startup. You know, I never bought into the fail fast thing. No one wants to fail, but in the spirit of learning Agile, failure is a part of the process. So getting to yes is what people want to get to, but you can't say yes to everything. IT has failed in that area. You can't say yes to everything. So you got to say no. >> Yep. >> You got to also get to what you don't want to do. So knowing what is not the right way to go is where Agile kicks in. So Agile, you want to get to a fail point and know what not to do, at the same time you got to say no to all the requests that you possibly could do. >> Yes. >> Is kind of the formula. Talk about that dynamic. Because this is where Agile translates or DevOps translates into business. It's the same kind of concept applied to organizations, process, and people. >> Yeah, so I think in terms of how do we have good discipline around what we do and don't do. It's very important that people understand what their role in the company is and what their lane is and what their mission is. And if we say no to something, it's not an indictment that that piece of work is not valuable. It just may not be something that is aligned to our mission or something that we're supposed to do. And I think those things can get blurry if you don't have really well defined Agile frameworks and ways of working and everybody on the same page. And so all kinds of things can sound like a good idea potentially, but if it's ultimately not really what we're supposed to be doing, that's what creates friction, right? >> I'd love to get your thoughts just as a person in tech who's got a lot of responsibility in IBM. But you talk about IBM, from an IBM capacity or as a person, but we have a lot of conversations here in the Cube, from Netflix to IBM, to practitioners in the field around the role of data. [Fletcher] Mhmm. Everyone wants to be data driven, so there's no debate there. Data driven is a good approach to take on things. >> Fletcher: Yes. >> But how you look at data depends on what you're lookin' at. You can correlate data and you've got causation. So a lot of conversation's been around don't get too caught up in the data for data's sake. Because if you look at just correlation, you might not know what's causing something. So most data scientists love correlation because it's numbers, they're there, you can look at all those correlations, but not understand the cause of something. Can you talk about how you view this? Because this has become an important part of decision making with data. >> Yeah, for sure. And AI very closely related to having a good data and data governance and taxonomy strategy. To really be able to harness the insights from all that data, you got to have a good data governance strategy behind it. But behind every piece of data is a business process. And so ultimately, being able to really map back and understand which business processes are generating this data is sort of the methodology for trying to put your arms around all the massive amounts of data that are being collected. And I think our old strategy was, we'll have a data lake and we'll just dump everything into it. The advent of AI sort of requires a different data strategy and says we need to have a good governance process around this and have a data platform, not a data lake. That we can then build automation against, run AI against it, and be a business that makes better, more informed decisions based on that data, and then help our customers do the same thing. >> And this has certainly come up a lot in AI around bias and contextual relevance, I think it's a big part of what's behind the data. >> Yeah, right. And you need to have explainability and transparency into the recommendations that AI is making. You know, if it's a black box, that's an issue. If AI came back and told you, "I think you should make "your product more expensive." Your first question would be why? And if you can't answer that... And so, AI's autonomous driving is a good example of that. Where you put a human being in the seat and he or she drives the car, and the system compares the inputs that they would make versus what the human is doing, and can explain why they had variances. But if it's just a complete mystery, that's not going to work. >> Yeah, the contextual why is a great question. I want to get your thoughts on security. [Fletcher] Mhmm. But you had made a comment earlier around the general purpose, IT person is kind of a thing of the past. Meaning that specialism and or variety and diversity of skills are always going to be out there. >> Fletcher: Yeah. >> With security, no one company has the same security makeup. Because their posture and or their organization structures are different because their organization mission is different. No one company is the same. >> Right. >> It's kind of like we as individuals, our DNA, everyone's different. So that means that security's not always the same in every company. As the CIO of IBM, you guys are a large multi-national, you're obviously huge. >> Other companies might have different approaches. How do you see security playing out? Because in some cases, CIOs manage security, in some cases the CSO is bolted out separately. >> Fletcher: Right. >> Either way, we know security's a board issue, as is IT. What's your view on security and the role of security within an organization. >> Security's a huge focus for us, it consumes a large amount of my time. And as much as we worry about our data, we really worry about customer data. And the kinds of threats that we're seeing are evolving rapidly, and as an industry statement I would say the advantage continues to go to bad guys, not good guys. Red is easier than blue. And so this really becomes an exercise in do we understand our networks and the systems that underlie those networks better than the people who are trying to break into it? And in particular, some of the more Apex predator, advanced nation state activities. In terms of the organizational construct of CSO, and where it fits in the company, we've had different models. Where we're at today is that the CSO is a peer of mine, and we work very closely together. And the CSO really, for the most part, defines risk and understands what is the attack surface and threat profile of any particular area. And then anything operational falls to the IT department. And so, in our environment, you know IBM's 350,000 plus employees, the IT department that I lead is about 12,000 people. And so, we have to work very closely together on very different threat profiles of general back office workers, people building commercial software, researchers building quantum computers, people doing outsourced IT. All of them have very different security profiles, and we have to be able to meet those requirements for each of those segments. >> We could do a whole hour just on security, one of my favorite topics. But you guys do have large surface area. >> Fletcher: Yes. >> You got a large employee base, diverse virtual workforce and offices. >> Mhmm. >> You got applications. I mean this is a really complicated security framework you guys have. Well, not framework, but just in terms of challenge, opportunity. >> It's a large surface area, hopefully the framework is not complicated, but it does require vigilance and focus. And so as an example, I am a customer of IBM's Xforce and managed security services. IBM's a market leader in the security services business and they're my kind of perimeter defense on some of these things. But no, you're right. It's something that we can't take our focus off of. >> You know, I had a conversation recently with General Keith Alexander, formally the original commander of cyber command, now he's CEO of a startup, doing a private version of NSA. Signaling is huge in security. >> Fletcher: Yep. >> And I know one of your hobbies is to study kind of the general national security thing as a techie. >> Fletcher: Mhmm. >> The enterprises, they're private organizations. You know, the government's job is to protect IBM. But you guys have to protect yourselves. So you have a new world now where there's a private, public partnerships going on where signaling is super important. Where's the data coming, so real time, and sometimes systems can slow that down for the sake of protecting. But at the same time, you need real time. Not just for security, but in business. Retail, to users. So real time's become a big part of it. What's your thoughts on the notion of real time and security? >> It's huge. Our capacity to detect, respond, and remediate a threat in real time, or as near real time as we can, is the name of the game. You're exactly right, the partnership between governments and public sector and private sector, I think is evolving in a positive way. Where we're beginning to see, as an industry statement, more of these kind of advanced nation state type tactics even being used outside of governments. And so that requires a different kind of response. And then we've got to kind of move forward from an environment where things that are publicly available get enriched and analyzed in some way and then become classified and we can't have access to it. And so the kind of information sharing between companies and governments is really helpful in being able to detect threat on the internet in a real time way. And by the way, if you think we got threats now, when you get to AI and then eventually quantum, threat in the future is not going to be about getting you to click on a link in your email that you think is a legitimate email and install some piece of malware. It's going to be about injecting the minimum amount of data required to teach a system something incorrect or different. So you think of image classification in autonomous driving, with a very small piece of data you can teach it that a stop sign is a yield sign. And that's a fairly benign kind of use case, a simple one, but now imagine financial systems, healthcare systems. So that is leading to quantum resistance cryptography, which is how long do you need to retain data and then what is your encryption strategy around it. >> You know it's interesting. The cost of malware injection can be applied to anything with this. So, I got to ask you, 'cause you guys are leading a lot in quantum, Baba Giano and I have had many conversations. You guys got a great group over there, you got power, amazing stuff happening in quantum. Quantum does change security. What specifically should people know about when they hear quantum. Good for security? Potentially harmful for security? It's an opportunity in both ways. You have a quantum computer, you can crack things much faster. The notion of passwords pretty much goes away. So I need multi-factorial authentication. I mean the whole world's changing with quantum. What's your view? >> Well, like all technology, it can be leveraged for good or less good, and it's a reflection of what the human beings who are using that technology intend to do with it. At IBM, we are working on both sides of that issue. We are developing quantum computers, and then on the other side of it developing encryption methodologies that are quantum resistant or quantum proof. So things like lattice cryptography, where you can mathematically prove you can hide keys in N number of layers such that even a quantum computer can't decrypt it. And so then, how long do you really need to keep that data? If it's two or three years, maybe quantum resistant cryptography is less of an issue for you. If you are the social security administration and you got to keep data for the next 50 years, you got to start investing now in what does the quantum future look like and what are the implications to me from a data and encryption perspective? >> Quantam's super exciting. Fletcher, thanks for coming on and sharing your insight, final question for you. As a person in the tech industry, you've had a chance to see the waves, you got a big one coming up from quantum cloud to AI. What are you most excited about? What should people be paying attention to? In terms of the macro trends. Not necessarily just IBM, just your personal view. To be a new brand of tech leader, what are some of the things that people should pay attention to? And what are you excited about? >> Well, what I'm excited about is what all of this technology is going to bring to bear on our lives. I mean, autonomous driving is going to be life changing for people. The insights that AI will drive. And think about how much time all of us spend doing menial, non-value added tasks at work and in our personal lives. And those things we won't have to worry about as much, with RPA and AI and all kinds of technologies. And I think that will free us to be more creative and be more fulfilled, and I feel very optimistic about the future. In terms of the second part of your question, what advice would I have for tech leaders, I think it's do what you're passionate about. I spend a lot of time focused on trying to create an environment where I think talented people want to work, and that means understanding our purpose, communicating that purpose well. And as I say, kind, passionate about what you do, and believe in the company's purpose. >> Yeah, that's interesting. You mentioned tech for good is always an underbelly in every new trend. And if you look at what happened with, say Facebook, I mean we were talking in 2012 around how data could be weaponized. That was years before so called election or other things meddling. >> Fletcher: Yeah. >> I think there's a community obligation, from sharing data for security risks to seeing the good as a vision, but also identifying bad actors that are going to weaponize the good first. Right? You always have those kind of early adopters. Might not be the best characters. So there's kind of a community has to come together and be faster to identify those. >> Yeah, I do think all of us as leaders have an obligation to understand that risk, and then make decisions around, we as the designers of these systems have to make sure that we're engineering them with fairness and without bias. And then, are the people that we're consuming technology from, are the people creating that technology, are their business models compatible with people who are consuming that technology? And making decisions around who is an ethical, trustworthy partner that I want to be in business with to develop the future. >> Fletcher, thanks for coming on. CIO of IBM here inside theCube, as part of this special program, new brand of tech leaders. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

live from Austin Texas it's the cube covering cube con and cloud native con 2017 brought to you by Red Hat the Lenox foundation and the cubes ecosystem partners hey welcome back everyone we are live here in Austin Texas for this the cube exclusive coverage of the cloud native con and cube con kubernetes con north america 2017 I'm John Fourier wrapping up the show of two days of live coverage it was dude Minutemen and Justin Warren analysts with the cube guys you guys are out in the hallways Justin you read all the sessions still we've been doing interviews great shows second year full year was a standalone show it was kind of you know a small show last year but really amazing size seven forty five hundred people or so a lot of logos diamond sponsors platinum sponsors gold sponsors silver sponsors startup sponsors media partners it's a freaking commercial party yet tons of developers tons of action so it's not so much a vendor show a lot of vendor interest in what is the a-list developers in this new way to program new way to build services from lyft donating massive to envoy code Google bringing in massive code a lot of contributions a lot of energy a lot of tech action let's wrap it up do yeah so John first of all you I I we had covered the show last year you had gone done it I seen the buzz around kubernetes so I had a certain expectation and actually it's a the show exceeded my expectation you know Dan conan told us we're gonna have over 4,000 people so that it wasn't the size of it but just the quality of the people and the interactions here you know we've been in other shows you know over the years with the cube where you've had you know those builders and you know smart people but wow you know you walk around here people that have done some of these things many time and as we were talking with a number of them it's you know there's some of this infrastructure and really trying to you know solve some of these things and make infrastructure boring that now we've been beating on for years as well as you know it's really helping the applications and I like it this really kind of bridges you know those environments because infrastructure has always known the reason we have infrastructure is to help the applications and for too long infrastructure has been this boat anchor and you know smart people who've been through you know lots of battles before and it feels a little different it feels like we were making some progress you know just and I were talking ahead of the show I remember when we wrapped up Amazon last week it's like serverless holds a lot of promise well server list does not eclipse all of the cloud native and kubernetes stuff here we're actually seeing some of the intersection I know I want to hear Justin's take on some of it but you know a lot of good things you know just in 20 or 50 sessions here they're all online by the way on their YouTube channel for the CN CF you had a chance to kind of walk with always go to some sessions what did you find most exciting what was the notable point the comment sessions here have been spectacular I agree with you the quality of the attendees from from from customers from people who are building the things from vendors it's it's really really high quality stuff the sessions are really technical it depends on which part of the ecosystem you want to dive into so there's not as much in entry level and high level stuff so people who were involved in this ecosystem know what they're doing so it'll be interesting to see how that changes over the next couple of years I expect that there's going to be a bit more intro level thing although boring is the new exciting so maybe there will be no need to do a lot of the intro stuff because it'll be abstracted away so there's a lot of projects that are about basically about making everything easy that is the goal that's what I'm hearing around the conference today and there's lots of there we saw in the keynote yesterday the idea of meta particle which is basically layering extra layers of abstraction on top of kubernetes we saw it again in the keynote with Chen today where they're trying to put different services on top of kubernetes so essentially kubernetes goes away and just becomes invisible it's like plumbing Clayton Coleman mentioned that from Red Hat making containers boring I agree boring is the new black that means boring is working that's foundational to me I think I'm excited by the fact that we're it's not a lot of land grabbing so to speak on it by the vendors it's very foundational tech and people are focused on don't screw it up let's we got a good thing going on it was goober Nettie's that's kind of the vibe I'm sensing and then the excitement of opportunity yeah there seems to be a lot of that anything jump out at you Justin on in terms of tech hallway conversations notable emerging projects that's your eye as catching up with you just before the show we we were talking about what are you looking forward to and for me two of the big things was service and storage like state management and I agree with you those are the two things that still aren't really solve I just came from the server that's working group just before coming on here and there are still a whole bunch of foundational questions about what service actually is is it function to the service is it more than that does s3 count as as something which is service because you don't actually care about which server you're hitting maybe that's service so there's still a lot of work to be done there about defining what that looks like and creating some standards around things standards is apparently a dirty word which I thought it was a bit strange that this whole idea of what standards a great isn't it it's great it's a standard which are which allows you to build other things on top of that I think we're going to see more and more of that that's what we've seen with kubernetes that's one of the the great benefits of having this standardized thing run by CN CF is everyone else can take that off the table as a as a competitive thing so we're not trying to outdo each other and be more kubernetes than anyone else instead people are building things on top of that so we're seeing storage providers like diamante we're seeing networking providers who are doing things with sto and we've works so that ecosystem is being deliberately created by taking some of that competitive pressure off the table okay that's a great point I want to bring that stool and get your thoughts because we interviewed Ben seek single men from lights light stats and he's super smart guy great conversation where things I asked him about his innovation around communities and he says look it you got a is building communities and having them run things is not as good as being forced to come together around standards you mentioned Ethernet a lot of the OSI model was formulated because if you didn't standardize there was no outcome for anybody yeah so there's that kind of going on with kubernetes where just has come together let's it should be a good word and it was done deliberately I was again talking with Jen that like community is is a kind of a buzzword of the cook of the conference there are specific things that have been done to build a community here it's not just about technology it's about the people and we've got things like the diversity scholarships that we saw on on the first day we're 103 people were were sponsored to come here and be on this conference yeah you know I come into something like that a little bit skeptical when you want to poke at things you know coming off of the Amazon show it's there are many people that are scared of Amazon this show everybody's actually really happy and they're like great it's no longer Hadrian made it made a comment to us he's like it's not the everybody about Amazon Club they're here and everybody's actually happy they're here now you know some of the things they're doing will still kind of play out over time but community it's real John did the amount of smart men and women that we talk to I agree with you blew my mind I mean and who we just had on you know you mentioned you know some of the other guests we've had on just super high quality you know just density you brought up a good point this is something that we hadn't talked about this could bring it up Amazon yes last week we're talking about the Amazon how they're winning everything else everyone's reacting to Amazon and this show is reacting to Amazon in a positive way because the culture here they're from the same tech religion if you want to call it a religion they're cloud native they buy the Amazon value proposition yeah so it's not like this is an anti-feminist on crowd if anything they're all going hey Thank You Amazon keep validating micro services I mean why would you it is very much a yes and it's like cloud great what else can we do let's do more of that let's let's layer things on top of this cloud thing and let's in fact go multiplayer let's put with cloud all the things yeah and the competition strategy is gonna be interesting by the families and what's what's great is that they're enabling stuff so to me we're gonna see where the value will be created obviously the software engineering piece it's going to be a big definition I think so the word software engineering now means something you look at all the tech here it's software engineering then the application developers our application developers they're not engineering plumping right so I mean so you're gonna start to see you know that kind of roll so this new ecosystem might emerge you guys reaction to that I mean John look kubernetes commoditized it's no longer you know there's not the orchestration Wars we talked about this coming in it was one of the things that surprised me is this Kelsey said on his keynote this one actually wasn't any really big surprises this community has a lot of transparency so if you're plugged in if you're talking to the people we understand the roadmap there's a lot of projects and nobody can keep up with all the changes but some of the base pieces we understand where that is the the service mesh piece you know huge participation people go into the sessions everybody's interest learning to it and there's so many pieces where people who contribute customers are getting value and it's still very very early days I I love the line they said it's like hey 4100 people here that's probably everyone running kubernetes right now with around the world so you know John I how BIG's this gonna get you know what do we say and I'd love to get just let's take us he was more in the hallways but just to kind of smell on the vibe here and kind of feeling it and read the tea leaves and if things if they smell brisk if the CNC F doesn't screw it up which I don't think they will cuz Dan's very confident they got a great team I do agree with Justin this is a community that was designed by the people first that have the right principles and and know what they want and then will allow detect the form so I think we might see an easier decision around standards if that all happens things like standards and whatnot to make it grow I think this could be a little mini reinvent going on here so I feel a lot like reinvents do our first time there where you know we got all the best guests because such a small community now it's so popular we got it they're all booked up and we're trying to grab guests I think this could be as big as reinvent in not as now but eventually this could be an industry event because if this all works out you're going to see two major audiences those software engineering plumbers and then on the application side that's going to be the business logic like they've been talking about and then that's going to create value ecosystem a third new constituency if that happens it's a services world and it's a you know twenty thousand person show yeah I can definitely see this growing into a big big show we don't have many industry independent shows anymore most of them are a particular vendors ecosystem this one is yeah that's like kubernetes came from Google but it's the CNC F is an independent body they're being very careful about which projects that they add in I was speaking with a lot of the members and of the of the founding board and they are being very careful to not make the same mistakes that's happened with OpenStack they've learned a lot of the lessons from OpenStack and and other communities as well so they're making some deliberate decisions based on experience and knowledge that they've gained from other places so that this will be sustainable and that it can grow into something really really big and I'll just add to your point there Dan Cohen said on the opening keynote they specifically designed it to be a technical event yes not a business event yes Stu that takes a question cube con with a-c-c ube could be the business of kubernetes get out there confuse your prediction for 2018 we're bringing our best coverage guys thanks for commentary last word thoughts this show sum it up wrap it up cube all the things yeah I mean just impressive John after you know this is our last big event of the year you know just so you know humbled to be able to be you know in this community meet some amazing people and you know share it with our audience you know that this community is something that comes out of this we do community with the K I guess for kubernetes yeah I think high quality okay purposeful high integrity and smart and I think that is formula that will play well love the diversity love all the action guys great great wrap-up Justin's do is the cube here wrapping up coop con cloud native con North America 2017 in Austin Texas thanks for watching of course visit Silk'n angle calm and youtube.com which I still contain go the cube net and we keep on comm and special shout out to Red Hat for all the great support appreciate it and continued success to Red Hat the cubes signing off from Austin Texas thanks for watching