(upbeat music) >> From New York City, it's theCUBE. Covering "Welcome To The New Edge." Brought to you by Pensando Systems. >> Hey, welcome back here ready. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are high atop Goldman Sachs in downtown Manhattan, I think it's 43 floors, for a really special event. It's the Pensando launch. It's really called welcome to the new edge and we talked about technology. We had some of the founders on but, these type of opportunities are really special to talk to some really senior leaders and we're excited to have John Chambers back on, who as you know, historic CEO of Cisco for many, many years. Has left that, is doing his own ventures he's writing books, he's investing and he's, happens to be chairman of the board of Pensando. So John, thanks for taking a few minutes with us. >> Well, more than a few minutes, I think what we talked about today is a major industry change and so to focus on that and focus about the implications will be a lot of fun. >> So let's jump into it. So, one of the things you led with earlier today was kind of these 10 year cycles and they're not exactly 10 years, but you outlined a series of them from mainframe, mini client server everybody knows kind of the sequence. What do you think it is about the 10 year kind of cycle besides the fact that it's easy and convenient for us to remember, that, kind of paces these big disruptions? >> Well, I think it has to do with once a company takes off they tend to, dominate that segment of the industry for so long that even if a creative idea came up they were just overpowering. And then toward the end of a 10 year cycle they quit reinventing themselves. And we talked earlier about the innovator's dilemma and the implications for it. Or an architecture that was designed that suddenly can't go to the next level. So I think it's probably a combination of three or four different factors, including the original incumbent who broke the glass, disrupted others, not disrupting themselves. >> Right, but you also talked about a story where you had to shift focus based on some customer feedback and you ran Cisco for a lot longer than 10 years. So how do you as a leader kind of keep your ears open to something that's a disruptive change that's not your regular best customer and your regular best salesman asking for a little bit faster, a little bit cheaper, a little bit of more the same versus the significant disruptive transformational shift? >> Well this goes back to one of my most basic views in life is I think we learn more from our setbacks or setbacks we were part of, or even the missteps or mistakes than you ever do your successes. Everybody loves to talk about successes and I'm no different there. But when you watched a great state like West Virginia that was the chemical center of the world and the coal mining center of the world, the 125,000 coal mines, six miners very well paid, 6,000 of the top engineers in the world, it was the Silicon Valley of the chemical industry and those just disappear. And because our state did not reinvent itself, because the education system didn't change, because we didn't distract attract a new set of businesses in we just kept doing the right thing too long, we got left behind. Then I went to Boston, it was the Silicon Valley of the world. And Route 128 around Boston was symbolic with the Silicon Valley and I-101 and 280 around it. And we had the top university at that time. Much like Stanford today, but MIT generating new companies. We had great companies, DEC, Wang, Data General. Probably a million jobs in the area and because we got stuck in a segment of the market, quit listening to our customers and missed the transitions, not only did we lose probably 1.2 million jobs on it, 100,000 out of DEC, 32,000 out of Wang, etc, we did not catch the next generation of technology changes. So I understand the implications if you don't disrupt yourself. But I also learned, that if you're not regularly reinventing yourself, you get left behind as a leader. And one of my toughest competitors came up to me and said, "John, I love the way you're reinventing Cisco "and how you've done that multiple times." And then I turned and I said "That's why a CEO has got to be in the job "for more than four or five years" and he said, "Now we disagree again." Which we usually did and he said, "Most people can't reinvent themselves." And he said "I'm an example." "I'm a pretty good CEO" he's actually a very good CEO, but he said, "After I've been there three or four years "I've made the changes, that I know "I've got to go somewhere else." And he could see I didn't buy-in and then he said, "How many of your top 100 people "you've been happy with once they've been "in the job for more than five years?" I hesitated and I said "Only one." And he's right, you've got to move people around, you've got to get people comfortable with disruption on it and, the hardest one to disrupt are the companies or the leaders who've been most successful and yet, that's when you got to think about disruption. >> Right, so to pivot on that a little bit in terms of kind of the government's role in jobs, specifically. >> Yes. >> We're in this really strange period of time. We have record low unemployment, right, tiny, tiny unemployment, and yet, we see automation coming in aggressively with autonomous vehicles and this and that and just to pick truck drivers as a category, everyone can clearly see that autonomous vehicles are going to knock them out in the not too distant future. That said, there's more demand for truck drivers today than there's every been and they can't fill the positions So, with this weird thing where we're going to have a bunch of new jobs that are created by technology, we're going to have a bunch of old jobs that get displaced by technology, but those people aren't necessarily the same people that can leave the one and go to the other. So as you look at that challenge, and I know you work with a lot of government leaders, how should they be thinking about taking on this challenge? >> Well, I think you've got to take it on very squarely and let's use the U.S. as an example and then I'll parallel what France is doing and what India is doing that is actually much more creative that what we are, from countries you wouldn't have anticipated. In the U.S. we know that 50% of the Fortune 500 will probably not exist in 10 years, 12 at the most. We know that the large companies will not incrementally hire people over this next decade and they've often been one of the best sources of hiring because of AI and automation will change that. So, it's not just a question of being schooled in one area and move to another, those jobs will disappear within the companies. If we don't have new jobs in startups and if we don't have the startups running at about three to four times the current volumes, we've got a real problem looking out five to 10 years. And the startups where everyone thinks we're doing a good job, the app user, third to a half of what they were two decades ago. And so if you need 25 million jobs over this next decade and your startups are at a level more like they were in the 90s, that's going to be a challenge. And so I think we've got to think from the government perspective of how we become a startup nation again, how we think about long-term job creation, how we think about job creation not taking money out of one pocket and give it to another. People want a real job, they want to have a meaningful job. We got to change our K through 12 education system which is broken, we've got to change our university system to generate the jobs for where people are going and then we've got to retrain people. That is very doable, if you got at it with a total plan and approach it from a scale perspective. That was lacking. And one of the disappointing things in the debate last night, and while I'm a republican I really want who's going to really lead us well both at the presidential level, but also within the senate, the house. Is, there was a complete lack of any vision on what the country should look like 10 years from now, and how we're going to create 25 million jobs and how we're going to create 10 million more that are going to be displaced and how we're going to re-educate people for it. It was a lot of finger pointing and transactional, but no overall plan. Modi did the reverse in India, and actually Macron, in all places, in France. Where they looked at GDP growth, job creation, startups, education changes, etc, and they executed to an overall approach. So, I'm looking for our government really to change the approach and to really say how are we going to generate jobs and how are we going to deal with the issues that are coming at us. It's a combination of all the the above. >> Yep. Let's shift gears a little bit about the education system and you're very involved and you talked about MIT. Obviously, I think Stanford and Cal are such big drivers of innovation in the Bay area because smart people go there and they don't leave. And then there's a lot of good buzz now happening in Atlanta as an investment really piggy-backing on Georgia Tech, which also creates a lot of great engineers. As you look at education, I don't want to go through K through 12, but more higher education, how do you see that evolving in today's world? It's super expensive, there's tremendous debt for the kids coming out, it doesn't necessarily train them for the new jobs. >> Where the jobs are. >> How do you see, kind of the role of higher education and that evolving into kind of this new world in which we're headed? >> Well, the good news and bad news about when I look at successful startups around the world, they're always centered around a innovative university and it isn't just about the raw horse power of the kids, It starts with the CEO of the university, the president of the university, their curriculum, their entrepreneurial approach, do they knock down the barriers across the various groups from engineering to business to law, etc? And are they thinking out of box? And if you watch, there is a huge missing piece between, Georgia Tech more of an exception, but still not running at the level they need to. And the Northeast around Boston and New York and Silicon Valley, The rest of the country's being left behind. So I'm looking for universities to completely redo their curriculum. I'm looking for it really breaking down the silos within the groups and focus on the outcomes. And much like Steve Case has done a very good job on focusing, about the Rust Belt and how do you do startups? I'm going to learn from what I saw in France at Polytechnique and the ITs in India, and what occurred in Stanford and MIT used to occur is, you've got to get the universities to be the core and that's where they kids want to stay close to, and we've got to generate a whole different curriculum, if you will, in the universities, including, continuous learning for their graduates, to be able to come back virtually and say how do I learn about re-skilling myself? >> Yeah. >> The current model is just not >> the right model >> It's broken. >> For the, for going forward. >> K through 12 is >> hopelessly broken >> Yeah. >> and the universities, while were still better than anywhere else in the world, we're still teaching, and some of the teachers and some of the books are what I could have used in college. >> Right, right >> So, we got to rethink the whole curriculum >> darn papers on the inside >> disrupt, disrupt >> So, shifting gears a little bit, you, played with lots of companies in your CEO role you guys did a ton of M&A, you're very famous for the successful M&A that you did over a number of years, but in an investor role, J2 now, you're looking at a more early stage. And you said you made a number of investments which is exciting. So, as you evaluate opportunities A. In teams that come to pitch to you >> Yeah. >> B. What are the key things you look for? >> In the sequence you've raised them, first in my prior world, I was really happy to do 180 acquisitions, in my current world, I'm reversed, I want them to go IPO. Because you add 76% of your headcount after an IPO, or after you've become a unicorn. When companies are bought, including what I bought in my prior role, their headcount growth is pretty well done. We'd add engineers after that, but would blow them through our sales channel, services, finance, etc. So, I want to see many more of these companies go public, and this goes back to national agenda about getting IPO's, not back to where they were during the 90's when it was almost two to three times, what you've seen over the last decade. But probably double, even that number the 90's, to generate the jobs we want. So, I'm very interested now about companies going public in direction. To the second part of your question, on what do I look for in startups and why, if I can bridge it, to am I so faired up about Pensando? If I look for my startups and, it's like I do acquisitions, I develop a playbook, I run that playbook faster and faster, it's how I do digitization of countries, etc. And so for a area I'm going to invest in and bet on, first thing I look at, is their market, technology transition, and business model transition occurring at the same time. That was Amazon of 15 years ago as an example. The second thing I look at, is the CEO and ideally, the whole founding team but it's usually just the CEO. The third thing I look for, is what are the customers really say about them? There's only one Steve Jobs, and it took him seven years. So, I go to the customers and say "What do you really think of this company?" Fourth thing I look for, is how close to an inflection point are they. The fifth thing I look for, is what they have in their ecosystem. Are they partnering? Things of that type. So, if I were to look at Pensando, Which is really the topic about can they bring to the market the new edge in a way that will be a market leading force for a whole decade? Through a ecosystem of partners that will change business dramatically and perhaps become the next major tech icon. It's how well you do that. Their vision in terms of market transitions, and business transitions 100% right. We've talked about it, 5G, IOT, internet of things, going from 15 billion devices to 500 billion devices in probably seven years. And, with the movement to the edge the business models will also change. And this is where, democratization, the cloud, and people able to share that power, where every technology company becomes a business becomes a, every business company becomes a technology company. >> Right. >> The other thing I look at is, the team. This is a team of six people, myself being a part of it, that thinks like one. That is so unusual, If you're lucky, you get a CEO and maybe a founder, a co-founder. This team, you've got six people who've worked together for over 20 years who think alike. The customers, you heard the discussions today. >> Right. >> And we've not talked to a single cloud player, a single enterprise company, a single insurance provider, or major technology company who doesn't say "This is very unique, let's talk about "how we work together on it." The inflection point, it's now you saw that today. >> Nobody told them it's young mans game obviously, they got the twenty-something mixed up >> No, actually were redefining (laughs) twenty-something, (laughs) but it does say, age is more perspective on how you think. >> Right, right. >> And Shimone Peres, who, passed away unfortunately, two years ago, was a very good friend. He basically said "You've got all your life "to think like a teenager, "and to really think and dream out of box." And he did it remarkably well. So, I think leaders, whether their twenty-something, or twenty-some years of experience working you've got to think that way. >> Right. So I'm curious, your take on how this has evolved, because, there was data and there was compute. And networking brought those two thing together, and you were at the heart of that. >> Mm-hmm. Now, it's getting so much more complex with edge, to get your take on edge. But, also more importantly exponential growth. You've talked about going from, how ever many millions the devices that were connected, to the billions of devices that are connected now. How do you stay? How do you help yourself think along exponential curves? Because that is not easy, and it's not human. But you have to, if you're going to try to get ahead of that next wave. >> Completely agree. And this is not just for me, how do I do it? I'm sharing it more that other people can learn and think about it perhaps the same way. The first thing is, it's always good to think of the positive, You can change the world here, the positive things, But I've also seen the negatives we talked about earlier. If you don't think that way, if you don't think that way as a leader of your company, leader of your country, or the leader of a venture group you're going to get left behind. The implications for it are really bad. The second is, you've got to say how do you catch and get a replicable playbook? The neat thing about what were talking about, whether it's by country in France, or India or the U.S., we've got replicable playbooks we know what to run. The third element is, you've got to have the courage to get outside your comfort zone. And I love change when it happens to you, I don't like it when it happens to me And I know that, So, I've got to get people around me who push me outside my comfort zone on that. And then, you've got to be able to dream and think like that teenager we talked about before. But that's what we were just with a group of customers, who were at this event. And they were asking "How do we get "this innovation into our company?" "How do we get the ability to innovate, through not just strategic partnerships with other large companies or partnerships with startups?" But "How do we build that internally?" It's comes down to the leader has to create that image and that approach. Modi's done it for 1.3 billion people in India. A vision, of the future on GDP growth. A digital country, startups, etc. If they can do it for 1.3 billion, tell me why the U.S. can not do it? (laughs) And why even small states here, can't do it. >> Yeah. Shifting gears a little bit, >> All right. >> A lot of black eyes in Silicon Valley right now, a lot of negativity going on, a lot of problems with privacy and trading data for currency and, it's been a rough road. You're way into tech for good and as you said, you can use technology for good you can use technology for bad. What are some things you're doing on the tech for good side? Because I don't think it gets the spotlight that it probably should, because it doesn't sell papers. >> Well, actually the press has been pretty good we just need to do it more on scale. Going back to Cisco days, we never had any major issues with governments. Even though there was a Snowden issue, there were a lot of implications about the power of the internet. Because we work with governments and citizens to say "What are the legitimate needs so that everybody benefits from this?" And where the things that we might have considered doing that, governments felt strongly about or the citizens wouldn't prosper from we just didn't do it. And we work with democrats and republicans alike and 90% of our nation believed tech was for good. But we worked hard on that. And today, I think you got to have more companies doing this and then, what, were doing uniquely in JC2, is were literally partnering with France on tech is for good and I'm Macron's, global tech ambassador and we focus about job creation and inclusion. Not just in Paris, or around Station F but throughout all the various regions in the country. Same thing within India, across 26 different states with Modi on how do you drive it through? And then if we can do it in France or India why can't we do it in each state in the U.S.? Partnering with West Virginia, with a very creative, president of the university there West Virginia University. With the democrats and republicans in their national senate, but also within the governor and speaker of the house and the president and senate within West Virginia, and really saying were going to change it together. And getting a model that you can then cookie cut across the U.S. if you change the curriculum, to your earlier comments. If you begin to focus on outcomes, not being an expert in one area, which is liable not to have a job >> Right. >> Ten years later. So, I'm a dreamer within that, but I think you owe an obligation to giving back, and I think they're all within our grasps >> Right >> And I think you can do, the both together. I think at JC2 we can create a billion dollar company with less than 10 people. I think you can change the world and also make a very good profit. And I think technology companies have to get back to that, you got to create more jobs than you destroy. And you can't be destroying jobs, then telling other people how to live their lives and what their politics should be. >> Yeah. >> That just doesn't work in terms of the environment. >> Well John, again, thanks for your time. Give you the last word on >> Sure >> Account of what happened here today, I mean you're here, and Tony O'Neary was here or at the headquarters of Goldman. A flagship launch customer, for the people that weren't here today why should they be paying attention? >> Well, if we've got this market transition right, the technology and business model, the next transition will be everything goes to the edge. And as every company or every government, or every person has to be both good in their "Area of expertise." or their vertical their in, they've got to also be good in technology. What happened today was a leveling of the playing field as it relates to cloud. In terms of everyone should have choice, democratization there, but also in architecture that allows people to really change their business models, as everything moves to the edge where 75% of all transactions, all data will be had and it might even be higher than that. Secondly, you saw a historic first never has anybody ever emerged from stealth after only two and a half years of existing as a company, with this type of powerhouse behind them. And you saw the players where you have a customer, Goldman Sachs, in one of the most leading edge areas, of industry change which is obviously finance leading as the customer who's driven our direction from the very beginning. And a company like NetApp, that understood the implication on storage, from two and a half years ago and drove our direction from the very beginning. A company like HP Enterprise's, who understood this could go across their whole company in terms of the implications, and the unique opportunity to really change and focus on, how do they evolve their company to provide their customer experience in a very unique way? How do you really begin to think about Equinix in terms of how they changed entirely from a source matter prospective, what they have to do in terms of the direction and capabilities? And then Lightspeed, one of the most creative intra capital that really understands this transition saying "I want to be a part of this." Including being on the board and changing the world one more time. So, what happened today? If we're right, I think this was the beginning of a major inflection point as everything moves to the edge. And how ecosystem players, with Pensando at the heart of that ecosystem, can take on the giants but also really use this technology to give everybody choice, and how they really make a difference in the future. As well as, perhaps give back to society. >> Love it. Thank you John >> My pleasure, that was fun. >> Appreciate it. You're John, I'm Jeff you're watching theCUBE. Thanks for watching, we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Live from Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Summit Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Hello everyone, welcome back to live coverage here for theCUBE in Bahrain. We're in the Middle East first time ever. Making the trip out here as part of our exclusive coverage of Amazon Web Services. Public Sector Summit, for the first time we are seeing a region being deployed here in the Middle East in Bahrain and surrounding friendly countries. This is a watershed moment for AWS as they put a region, they announced it, it'll be operational in early 2019, in record time, a lot of build-up going on. It's going to have a major impact for entrepreneurship, society, and overall data. Data is the new oil, this is what's happening. This is theCUBE coverage, I'm John Furrier, your host. Our next guest is Mohammad Altura, who is the chief information technology sector in communications realtor authority at Kuwait. He's the CTO. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for coming on, I really appreciate it. So, tell us about the vision, because you guys have a 20/35 vision around digital transformation. In the United States, we always talk about data is the new oil. This is an oil-driven country that has created a lot of value and also enabled people through that resource. Now digital is the new resource, with connected society. This is the digital transformation. What's your vision? >> Well, thank you very much for hosting me. And thank you for AWS for making this great summit. Really helping people to accomplish their vision and develop economies as well. Well for Kuwait, we are very much excited about putting the technology in the center of our economy. As you know, now technology is being efficient everywhere. As individuals, we cannot live without smartphones. As corporations, we cannot live without a proper IT. And the same thing with economy. You have to deploy IT in your economy. And healthcare and education, ecommerce, public safety, government, so you make it dynamic and efficient. And it's less cost to sustain and open a huge potential of growth using that. And of course in Kuwait, we are thinking of, seriously everyday, to put the technology in the center of economy. And also create entrepreneur segment to sustain this type of economy as well. And that growth will definitely help us, not only in developing those sectors, but also the man power of those sectors that's going to manage this growth. >> So you're the chief in Kuwait for the CITRA, which stands for the Communications and Information Technology Regulatory Authority. So essentially, that's all the action. That's all the infrastructure, that's all the communications. This is the foundation for what the future society is going to be built on. >> Basically, for CITRA, they are a regulator for telecom and IT, and our main bottom line is to deploy those two technologies by regulations in our country, to get down to three things basically. To make people life easier, to develop and protect our economy, and to support innovation. And to do that, there are so many diversified initiatives that we have to take place. Such as entrepreneur programs, such as healthcare everywhere. Making healthcare goes to people as well. Such as education, generation change, and also the entrepreneur segment growth policies. They all come together, and they create the three bottom lines that we're talking about, which is make people life easy, develop and protect economy and support innovation. >> This is the reality now. It's not aspirational, it's actually reality. Also being from, first time in the area for us and theCUBE, we observe on the ground here, the ground troop. Which is a vibrant, robust culture. And some people might not have that. So, take a minute to explain the culture. Because with digital, it's not a radical transformation. It's an extension of the culture. How would you describe what's going on in Kuwait culturally, and what are you enabling and what's the early signals of what is a thing to come? >> There is a very much focus on ICT in terms of culture, because in our culture, worldwide, we have the highest number of smartphone subscribers, and LTE network subscribers. So we do have a digital society, you know, by DNA right now. In the old days, we use to train people and make awareness. Now, we don't have to do that. It's part of our DNA. You see small kids playing around smartphones and doing so many technological things that we never expected. And that actually is extending also to the mid-age, and the senior people. We see that they want to make sure they bridge the gap between the young generation and the old generation. So definitely the culture is there. The infrastructure is there. Our LTE networks today cover the entire geography of Kuwait, including the offshore islands. So, no matter where you go to Kuwait, you'll find the high speed access of the internet. Now we started to do trails on 5G as well. We love trendy technologies. Our entrepreneur program's going to focus on trendy things. Cloud computing, blockchain, artificial intelligence, an internet of things. These are the main drivers for our economy, versus traditional IT. Of course, we still have legacy in country. And we are looking at how we're going to transport that to the trendy technology, that's definitely going to be more efficient, more scalable, and much less cost, and opening a trend of economic development in the country as well. >> This is a reality. And I think you made a point about the LG and 5G. Perfectly preparation. You also made a comment about, you know, training people. I remember the days, like here's the terminal, here's the manual, read the manual, learn some IT server. Mobile has changed all that. So that's the reality changing. The question is, what's next? As entrepreneurs start to have access, and citizens have mobile, you have to really start thinking strategically and tactically around how to provide value to citizens. People in your country. Whether it's, you know, just getting services and communicating to other citizens or with a government. And then entrepreneurs who are creating and building things. >> You touched a very important point. Technology is supposed to make life people easier, because we have some government services that people have to go physically, or have to go online, where they always have to follow up themselves. Now we want to make technology to push things to people. To make it easier for them to interact with government, with healthcare, with commerce. That's very important. To make an easy environment for people, to implement their vision. And also, make it easier for the foreign investments, to come and work in Kuwait market as well. So, definitely technology will play a huge role of making people include and engage with the government. >> What exciting things from our world and the United States, that live in California, Silicon Valley, is you look at the globalization of entrepreneurship, check. The mobile penetration, check. And the innovation is not so much the technology anymore, it's business models. It's how money's being deployed and used. Cost to capital. So I got to ask you, because now software is eating the world, okay? And you have software money, and data is the new oil, data is money. This is a very interesting time. So if software is money, how do you view that? Because now that you have the infrastructure, cryptocurrency, blockchain, these are new opportunities to digitize your supply chain, create a new fintech environment. What's you vision on this? Because this is happening really fast. >> This actually is very important, to make your market efficient. And what I mean by that is you can get things going much easier than the old ways. And definitely we wanted to make sure that everybody is included. I mean, there is no one left behind. Awareness definitely can be done much easier than before. In order for you to innovate, before you had to have a set up of labs, investment. Now, you just go into the cloud, and find your innovative environment, whether you are healthcare, education, biomed, you know, all types of fields. Oil and gas is very important in Kuwait, as it is number one industry still. And it's all going to depend on definitely technology. >> Every sector is being disrupted. >> Yes. >> (laughs) Okay, so talk about your relationship with AWS. Also, you have I think some news. You guys have had release with Amazon. A memorandum of understanding, or MOU, as they call it. Describe the relationship with Amazon that you guys have. I know it's a very productive one. What is it all about? How do you see it unfolding? >> MOU was signed on last September 4th, in Washington, D.C., between CITRA CEO and Teresa, the VP worldwide for public sector in AWS. And it's focusing on mainly three parts. Economic development, entrepreneur development in Kuwait, so that we can develop the ICT economy, and of course, the protection of all this, which is the cyber security. Now, with these three main areas that we're working on, definitely healthcare education are priority, and creating the right policies, as the regulators, to make sure that we all going to match the vision of 2035. As well as the... (coughs) Sorry. The new trends of technology, which is IoT, which is, you know, the robotics, the artificial intelligence. All of these going to really contribute great for the economy and the relationship between us and AWS, and we're very excited, actually, to kick off this. We are now, since we just did it three weeks ago, we are developing an execution plan, Between us and AWS, so that we can progress this MOU as quickly as possible. And we have many stakeholders as well. So we already brought some stakeholders here as a kick off with healthcare education. And definitely on the coming days, we will engage more people from Kuwait. >> Education, certainly great. healthcare, you need that. Citizen interfacing with the government, all good. Obviously Kuwait, oil and gas you mentioned, big, important. IoT and cyber security are now go hand in hand. Super important, this is very important. This is something that you guys see very big part of, instrumenting a lot of the pre-existing operations of the government, and also the facilities. This is a part of your plan? IoT? >> Yup. >> And security. Talk about the role of cyber security in IoT, because IoT is a surface area. You have to protect it. It's hard. >> As we already started the trial of 5G, of course 5G definitely gives you advantage on speed, but 5G without IoT, I don't think it makes a huge difference. So, you know, imagine if you have your healthcare system built on IoT. So you can track the patients, track everybody, real time. Anything goes wrong, you'll see all the components come together, to make the fix for the patients, as much quicker than before. For example, if we talk about some processes in the government that takes some time. With blockchain technology and IoT, it's definitely, you're going to solidify the relationship between all parties. And it becomes real type relationship. And we're very excited because that would actually make, the economy becomes more vibrant. And when it becomes like this, then more money's going to be generated in the GDP. >> Wireless is critical for IoT, you're saying. Especially 5G. 'Cause now you've got a blanket of RF, radio frequency, powering the devices. Great, love it. Question for you, role of data. Data is now the new way to interact, because cloud makes data. You got analytics, you got people who are immobile and moving around, healthcare's tapping in. Real time information is super important. You got the 5G high speed wireless overlay. How do you view the role of data? >> We're working with AWS on a policy called data classification policy and GDPR, which is Data General Regulatory Policy regulation. And that will help us, actually, to make sure the data, whatever class it is, it's in the right place. So, because you know, some people think that if you put your data in public cloud, then you have some issue with privacy. Which is not actually, because now you can classify. If you have a public data, then you have a classification, it's everybody's, can access it. If you have a private data, the cloud can give you a secure place to store it, and make sure no body gets into anybody's privacy. >> Making it addressable is really important. >> Yes. >> And making it real time, low latency. Okay final question for you. I really appreciate your time. I know you got a hard stop. We're here with the chief of the CITRA in Kuwait. A super big time opportunity for you guys with digital and AWS. But I want you to share to the folks watching, that are watching live and on demand. What should they know about what's going on in Kuwait? The culture, the technology, the digital transformation, that they might not know about. Share your perspective of what's happening in Kuwait. >> I would say, I mean, now the clouds awareness is being very much obvious among Kuwait people. And you see a lot of cloud adaption is happening as we speak. I mean, our organization started about four years ago, and we adopted the cloud from day one. Also, you think about the things that we need to do more awareness in Kuwait, I think, is the IoT and AI, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Because these are new trends and people still not fully aware of what good things they can do to our economy. >> Mohammad Altura, thank you for spending the time on your very busy schedule here at this amazing event. Oversold, really crowded. We're looking forward to being in the region with theCUBE. We're looking forward to following up with you on the cool AI, blockchain, and IoT. We love that here, we love talking about it. Thanks for sharing you insights here. >> Thank you very much, thank you. >> I'm John Furrier here at theCUBE. You can reach me on Twitter, @Furrier. Also, online I'm everywhere. Just search my name and if you want to reach out, send me some messages, happy to talk about it. CUBE coverage here, in Bahrain, for theCUBE's new ground we're covering in the Middle East. All the innovations happening here, right around AWS's new regions, here in the Middle East. Stay with us, after this short break. (upbeat music)

>> Voiceover: Live from Washington D.C., it's theCube, covering AWS Public Sector Summit 2017, brought to you by Amazon Web Services and its partner Ecosystem. >> Good morning, welcome back here on theCube, the Silicon Valley or Siliconangle TV flagship broadcast, here as we continue our coverage live from the Nation's capital, Washington D.C., the AWS Public Sector Summit 2017. I'm John Walls, we're glad to have you hear on theCube along with John Furrier, good morning. >> Morning. >> Good night? >> Great night. I had two great meetings, learned some information, got some exclusive material for a story that has to do with government stuff. >> So you were kind of working then weren't you? >> I'm always working. We're in D.C. I want to put my ear to the ground and bring all these stories back to my show, Silicon Valley Friday Show, which has been on hiatus during the month of May and June for all theCube events. >> Slacker. >> I got some great metadata as they say. (laughter) >> Good about data. >> I went home and watched the Nat's game. That was my big night. Jeff McAllister is with us now, he is the GM of the Americas for Druva and Jeff, glad to have you on theCube, we appreciate the time. >> Oh gee, thank you for the opportunity and it's a pleasure to meet you. >> Alright so you guys are all data, all the time on the Cloud right? >> That's right. >> All about data protection and security, availability. Tell us a little big more just about Druva and then we'll get into maybe your relationship with AWS but first off about you, about Druva. >> I've been fortunate to be with Druva since we really embarked on our enterprise strategy. I've been part of the team that made the investment a couple of years ago to start to pursue FedRAMP and some of the specifications for the Federal Government. And as you know, we are Cloud native. We are for the Cloud and built on the Cloud. We've been a partner with AWS for over eight years now. So we've had a very strong working relationship with them and the opportunity to come and speak here today and with you gentlemen, has really been tremendously exciting and frankly they're absolutely wonderful partners to go to market with. >> Yeah, talk about a minute about how integral that obviously is to your business to have not just a relationship, but to have the relationship that you do with AWS. >> Well, AWS obviously provides a world-class platform on which to build a service like ours. For our customers, it means tremendous levels of security, tremendous data durability, a reliability and availability of that data, but also the idea that many of our customers are very mobile. They have great geographic dispersion among their employees. Their employees are engaging in other parts of the world. So availability of that Cloud and that Cloud infrastructure, in local areas is tremendously important. And for our Federal customers, the certification for ITAR and other things that are specific to that market, having a platform like GovCloud, built specifically to their specifications, to service them, creates great leverage for us and our customers. >> John F.: I mean, eight year relationship, and that's going back. >> Yes it is. >> And they're only 10 years old and they spent their 10th birthday going on their 11th year, just AWS. So, obviously they saw some federal action right away, or public sector action right away. Nature of the Cloud, very friendly to developers back then. But still it was building blocks foundational back then. >> That's right, exactly. >> What's changed? How would you chronicalize that change other than the massive growth we've seen in the market place which we've chronicalized as well but I mean, from your perspective in the public sector, this is on a nice trajectory. >> I've been in the business now for over 30 years. Started out at Data General through Sun Microsystems and I've seen much of the industry change. The one thing that has been very impressive with the public sector, is that the interval in product innovation would come to the public sector a year or two years behind what we saw in the commercial marketplace. That time and space is absolutely shrinking down to nothing. They are pursuing the same business continuity, data transformation issues the Cloud-first strategies that our commercial customers are. And frankly, the government worker today has become more mobile. And the requirements to protect that data and secure it, are at an all-time high. And the AWS platform in combination with what we do, really provides a level of security that is hard to do on your own. >> So yesterday, we talked about a term I coined, or phrase I coined, around the seminal moments in GovCloud's history and really in the Amazon public sector. Is called "the shot heard around the Cloud", and that was the CIA deal where AWS came in and beat IBM, which had a lock-in spec and they're old-school IBM, they know how to sell. The sponsorships, they had everything locked and loaded. Who knows what they were doing, wining and dining. You know how the Federal Government is? >> Jeff: That's right. >> Things were very much picked out, everything's buttoned up and then boom, Shadow IT is happening, Amazon wins. Since then, we've seen a lot of change in how people are securing, how people are deploying. >> Jeff: Right. >> No better example than data protection because there's no wall, there's no firewall. You're in the middle of it. Talk about that dynamic about how the no walls, no perimeter in the Cloud has changed the role of data and data protection. >> Sure. So, gone are the days where we can dictate the device, how somebody wants to work, what solutions they're going to use. Cloud applications like Office 365, Box, Slack, other, have really created an environment where the IT folks, want to stimulate innovation, stimulate the work in places where people want to get done. But then provide the same level of protection and governance that they would on a non-platform solution. So, watching that evolution take place, its really driven us to really have to be mindful that we're in the performance business and with that performance we have to be respectful of the requirements from a security and protection standpoint that our customers call for. FIP certification became fundamental for us being able to service the government. That led us into the pursuit now of FedRAMP, which we're now FedRAMP ready. But all of those things provide the infrastructure to allow them to embrace these new strategies and this digital transformation, be it in my Cloud-first strategy or my mobility strategy, and be able to extend that same level of security that I would need, and provide that flexibility for my users to get their jobs done. >> Yeah and honestly, Cloud native, as you know, we love Cloud native, we've covered it. >> We do too. >> Covered it from day one. (laughs) Cloud-first is kind of like a moniker that people use. >> Sure. >> Kind of an ethos. It's more of a manifesto, it's more agile. But really Amazon has never hidden the ball in the fact what they believe the future will be and that is API economy. And from day one it's all about APIs and they believe that you should have APIs everywhere. The Cloud has no perimeter so that changes the security game. But the one thing that's emerged out of all this, is a new SaaS business model for businesses and government, and federal, and education. So everything's as a service. >> Jeff: Correct. >> That is a huge deal and this is maybe nuanced a bit, but how does public sector turn into a service model with the Cloud? 'Cause that's something that everyone's kind of going at. You have Cloud natives great, we're going to be Cloud natives, check. But really what they're getting to is, everything's as a service. >> Right. It's created a lot of flexibility in the buying process. First of all, you're bringing that elasticity of demand, right? So they are able to embrace the idea that, I only pay for the services I actually consume. So, should I have a movement in employees, should I change in structure, should my usage suddenly spike, I have the ability to adjust on the fly. That's a big part of it. But the other piece of it is that we can deliver our service at a fixed price cost for a certain period of time within that government fiscal year. So not only does it become easy to manage technologically, but from a budget stand point, it makes it a very predictable cost. I'm no longer having an explosion of data that I have to manage and go off books to try and find data to provide those IOPS and storage on sight. I can simply continue to go at the same budget level that I've already set aside. >> One dynamic that has come up while you brought this up, 'cause I think it's relevant to what we were just talking about is, lock-in. Right? I mean the word lock-in has always been vendor lock-in but really that's on one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is user lock-in. So last night, one of my secret meetings I had last night was with a senior government official and we were talking about how, they're all pissed 'cause they got Microsoft Surfaces instead of Macs. They wanted Macs. So they were just handed a bunch of Microsoft Surfaces. No offense Microsoft, I love the Surface personally, but I've got a Mac here. The point is, they didn't want it. >> Jeff: Right. >> It was forced down their throat. >> Let's just shut that for a moment here. (laughs) >> This is the old way. We made a decision, we're going with this product. So this is really the flexibility point is, very interesting, 'cause now with the Cloud, you can actually do these really agile deployments. >> Jeff: Exactly. >> And give people more choice. >> That's right. The time to value on these products, we have a very large defense contractor inside the Beltway. We were able to deploy to 23,000 users worldwide in under six weeks. But we understand that we're in the performance business and the idea that our customers could leave us at any point in time when the term is up, keeps us very conscious of the specifications that they require. And frankly, it requires us to be innovative on their behalf. Certainly taking their feedback, but really starting to anticipate their requirements, so that we continue to earn that business year over year. And frankly, if you want to talk about lock-in, SaaS provides tremendous flexibility to switch when a contractor isn't performing to spec, versus a perpetual license where I'm locked in for the duration. >> And that's a fear obviously that they're going to use their dollars wisely. I want to get you to weigh in on Druva's digital transformation in back of the customer. Obviously you guys are doing well, you're in the sweet spot, data protection is a hot area. It's one of the hottest area no one really kind of looks at, but it's really hot with the Cloud. What impact are you having with customers and how are you rolling out your value proposition to the public sector? What are the key highlights? I mean, how do they work with you? Is it FedRAMP? Is it GovCloud? Just take us through your value proposition with respect to the- >> Our value proposition, I think is fairly unique. So first, we run on the most wildly accepted Cloud platform by the public sector, AWS GovCloud. Without question the market leader there. We bring all of our experience from the commercial marketplace into that same experience on GovCloud. With the added certifications of FIPS, certification 140-2 moderate. Our FedRAMP in process. We're also HIPPA certified so that we have the ability to address HHS and FDA as some of our customers. 'Cause they also process a lot of personal information that is unique to that particular agency. But at the end of the day, the piece that really is most interesting to our public sector customers is, one, this is a very easy service to bring to the Cloud at lower cost and frankly higher value. The plethora of features and the security, the ease of management that we bring, relieving them of having to manage hundreds of terrabytes of data and apps on behalf of this service, is tremendously beneficial. The predictability of the cost year over year, makes it very very easy to manage. But I think the biggest thing that people have come to embrace is that the innovation that takes place in the Cloud comes to market so much faster in the Cloud. Just think of the QA cycles and how they've been reduced 'cause we're QAing for one platform. Being able to consistently, quarter in, quarter out, deliver that additional feature set and additional value, at no additional cost to our customers, is really what they've really gelled around. >> How do you guys handle the certification processes that are going? I'm sure there'll be more. I mean, they're coming. With all the free-flowing data, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of regulations and policies and governance issues. But you've got to move fast. How do you guys move fast to certify? Is there a secret sauce? Is there a secret playbook? How do you guys stay on top of it? 'Cause automations, machine learning, what's the secret sauce? >> You know, I think it's interesting, part of the uniqueness that is Druva I think is, our ability to anticipate market demand. I think we have a very experienced team of individuals. Look at the choice to go to AWS eight years ago. It was unthinkable at that time, but its turned out to be a visionary sort of choice. We identified that FedRAMP and FIPs certification, three or four years ago, was an absolute mandate to play in this marketplace. So we went there way ahead of our success in the market but we saw a very unique opportunity to go there. So I think it's just a tremendously creative group of people. It's a very dynamic marketplace. And it's one that requires a little bravery and a little bit of thinking in advance of the marketplace. I don't know that we have any magic sauce, but so far it's worked pretty well. I think it's worked out alright. >> I always ask just to see. >> Although that's a good question. >> To that point though, eight years ago when you went, it was a leap right? >> It was. >> Big leap. And now here you are 2017, things are rolling along. I imagine your sale or your pitch has taken on a different tone because you have so much proof in the pudding now, right? >> Oh, it does. A long time ago it was strictly backup. We've now moved into governance, e-discovery, the idea of user behavior analysis so I can find anomalies that may occur so that I can avoid Cryptolocker or other sorts of viruses or things that may be able to affect the operation of my customers. All of those things have come into play that weren't there four years ago. So it's really been an advancement of the added services beyond what we just did in backup, that have really kind of driven the business and differentiated us from the market. But it's still kind of fundamentally that idea that I'm going to protect your data, make it available to you and separate now from your device and really help you manage your data wherever you're doing your work. >> I know we're running tight on time, I do want to get one more question in from your perspective because again, present and creation is really a benefit to Druva, congratulations on that. You get to ride the wave and now the wave is bigger and more sets coming in. That's to use the surfing analogy. But talk about the perspective from your personal standpoint, just the changes going on in this marketplace right now. Teresa Carlson, when we were commenting on our opening, how tenacious she's been. She's knocked on a lot of doors. Eight years ago, what the hell's cloud? No one even knew what it was right? And then the shot heard around the Cloud with the CIA deal and just more and more and more in them, this is just a great business opportunity for Amazon Web Services, not just the enterprise, which they're doing well in now. >> Right. >> They own the startup market. This could be, it could have a 90% market share of public sector. >> That's right, that's right. >> John F.: Talk about the change. What's going on? Is it the perfect storm? Is it like right now, what's the progress. >> Well you know, it seems like its a perfect storm but for somebody who's been banging at it for the last four or five years, it seems to be a little bit more evolutionary. But it's interesting, when I started at Druva, if I looked across our opportunities across the Americas. It was fairly evenly split between the idea that I'm going to do this on premise or I'm going to do it in the Cloud. Today, if I look across all o6f North America and all the commercial entities and public sector entities that we're dealing with, we're probably engaged in well over 500 opportunities at any one time, literally less than two, quarter over quarter, is now on premise. People have come to embrace the idea that this is a place where I can conduct business safely and securely. And frankly, for us, you look at that digital transformation or business transformation, we become two really compelling services to start and experiment with moving to the Cloud. So very often, we are the tip of that spear. Lets backup our endpoint devices to the Cloud, let's get out of that business, 'cause we can do it much more effectively with Druva than we can for ourselves at less cost. >> It's almost the reverse of what on prem was. I've had many opportunities where I've bumped into IT practitioners, friends and what not in the industry. "Oh, I forgot to do the backup plan. I got the procurement going on." It's kind of an afterthought, it's been kind of an afterthought. I am oversimplifying but generally, it's not the primary. When you go outside the walls of a company, into the Cloud where there's no perimeter, it's the first conversation. >> That's right. >> So I hear what you're saying and I totally agree. This is unique, it's a complete flip around. >> Well it's amazing. So often, we're backing up server data to the cloud. So now it used to be just backing up to the Cloud. Now it's, I have the application running in the Cloud and I want to back it up and secure it into another Cloud. It's completely morphing into all sorts of interesting places. But the part that's really interesting is that we will bring to our customers disaster recovery, for example. Well that's a service, we turn it on and if you never experience the disaster, you don't pay for it. It just creates a whole new mindset of how we're going to think and how we're going to approach the infrastructure that we're now building. >> No license fee. It's just if you need it, you get whacked on it and you deserve to get whacked on it because you need the service. >> Well, they know what the cost will be. We've set it up for a nominal fee but if you're fortunate enough that you never experience the problem, why should you pay for it. So literally cutting that price in half, removing the requirement of 2XL Servers and 430 tip. >> John F.: It's a new operating model. >> That's right. And the flexibility that it creates to change to your computing requirements is just phenomenal. >> Well, phenomenal, I think would be a way to describe your ascent as well. >> Oh thank you. >> So congratulations on that front. Glad you could be with us Jeff, at the show. Continued success and we hope to see you down the road on theCube. >> John, John, it was a real pleasure. >> John W.: First time right? >> It was, it was, thank you. >> John W.: You're a tour alum now or a Cube alum. (laughs) >> John F.: Cube alumni. >> Good to have you with us. >> Jeff: Thank you, thank you so much. >> Jeff McAllister with Druva. Back with more here from AWS Public Sector Summit 2017 on theCube. You're watching live in Washington D.C..