>> Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering Magento Imagine 2019, brought to you by Adobe. >> Welcome back to theCUBE Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick and we are here live at Magento Imagine 2019, our second time being back here with theCUBE and we're very excited to welcome Brittany Hodak to theCUBE, entrepreneur, customer engagement speaker, writer, co-founder of the Superfan Company. Brittany it's so exciting to have you on theCUBE. >> Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. >> So, you have an incredibly impressive background and I'm like where do we start? >> Thank you. >> So, here we are talking about customer experiences and how Magento and Adobe empower a lot of customer experiences. But you've written a ton of articles, over 350, you've been published in the Huff Post, Wall Street Journal, talk to us about your experiences with customer engagement, some of the things that you as a co-founder of the Superfan have discovered working with a variety of brands from Walmart to Katy Perry? >> Well, thank you so much for saying that. I always say that the biggest problem brands and entertainers have is often one that's not even on their radar at all. I talked to a lot of small and medium sized business owners and they say, You know, my big problem is people don't know who I am. I've got an awareness problem. I'm struggling to let people know who I am. And I really think my business would change if more people knew. And I said, You know, that's not the problem. You can always fix awareness. You can always spend money to get your message out there. Your big problem is apathy. Your problem is there are people who know and don't care. And you've got to figure out how to make people care. You've got to figure out how to connect your story with their story in a way that's meaningful, and in a way that's going to mean something in their lives because that's how you really start the fan engagement process. That's how you lay the groundwork for creating a culture of super fandom amongst your customers, that's really going to help you grow not just the business but a brand. >> Is it about having a more relevant messages or is it just finding those people that have a propensity to be a fan to the services that you provide? >> Well, it's understanding your uniqueness in a way that really makes your value proposition different from anybody else is. Once you understand your uniqueness and you're able to turn it into service of others, that's when you really you position yourself to be able to make the kind of difference that makes somebody want to be a super fan. And I always say, we've had the fortune of working with tons of celebrities, some of the biggest recording artists and superstars on the planet, and a lot of times people say to me, Oh, you know, it's easy when you're talking about being a super fan of Taylor Swift or being a super fan of Katy Perry, but, you know, I'm a plumber or I'm an electrician, how can I have super fans? And I say, By providing people the kindness service that changes their lives. I have an exterminator who I am a super fan of. His name is Scott and the reason I am a super fan of him is because he makes sure there are no brown recluse spiders in my house and I am absolutely terrified about recluse spiders. They are super evil creatures if you're not familiar with them, I encourage you not to google it. They're like nastiest little bug in the world. But you know to me that's super important because he's not just killing bugs, he's helping me feel safe in my home. So that's absolutely a vital service and finding the right guy to do that and the right guy to put my mind at ease and let me know there aren't going to be brown recluse spiders in my house is invaluable and because of that, like there's no way I would ever switch exterminators because Scott's my guy. And I know you know, I can text him 50 different pictures of critters and say, Is this okay, Is this okay? And he's going to get back to me and let me know. So, it's all about points of connection and finding ways to make your audience feel really valued, and connecting your story with their story. >> So, if you look at an exterminator versus a Taylor Swift or Katy Perry or Walmart, are there similarities and what they need to do to deliver this service that's impacting lives? Or are there fundamental differences? >> There are some fundamental differences, but there's more overlap than you would think. And I always say, if you think about it like a Venn diagram, you've got your brand or your business, your service, your product, whatever it is that you're providing, and you've got your customers over here. Where the magic happens is that point of intersection, where your story overlaps with their story, that intersection, that's where super fandom happens. And I like to talk about something I call the four A's of super fandom. So, you can, I see a lot of people make the mistake of trying to talk to everybody the same way. So, whether somebody is encountering your brand for the very first time or has been your customer for a long time, using the same messaging for those people and that doesn't work. So, I talk a lot about the four A's. So, the first day is awareness. That's when somebody is first uncovering your brand, first interacting with your brand. The second a is action, that's when somebody is actually interacting with your brand for the first time. The third a is affinity. Those are the people who are fans of your brand. They've sort of bought into your why, these are the satisfied customers, I would say. And a lot of businesses stop there. They say, These are the people who are satisfied. These are the people who liked what I'm doing, they're buying from me. And that's a mistake that a lot of especially small and medium sized businesses make they sort of feel like, I've got these customers, I don't have to do anything else. They're not over delivering or over serving them which is a huge missed opportunity because if you do, you're able to convert people from that third A to the fourth a which is advocacy. And advocacy is where you want to get the majority of the people because those are your superfans so to speak, those are the ones who are out there sharing your story and your why with other people, helping refer new customers and new clients to you. So, I always say if you can get past the affinity, the people who are happy with you but not really talking about it and really make them feel valued. That's how you create advocates and advocacy is really the super secret sauce when you're talking about super fandom. >> So where should people get started to try to build super fandom within their client base? Is that really with the good customers that they already have, they try to get them to be advocates or I think most people spend so much time focusing on the fat end of the funnel as opposed to on the narrow end of the funnel and converting that transaction into a fan which is what it sounds like you're suggesting? >> Yeah, well, it's important to to focus on all parts of the funnel man, like I said that that awareness, that that fat of the top, you certainly need to be dealing with those people to get them further down. But the skinny part of the funnel is really where you want to make sure that people are continuing to drip out to the other side to make those referrals for you. So, absolutely focusing on everybody. One thing that I am always shocked I when I do consulting and work with small businesses and medium sized businesses, when I asked how much referral business they get, a lot of people don't know that number off the top of your head. So, if you're not tracking the amount of referrals, you absolutely need to know that as a metric, and the number one thing that you can do to increase the amount of referral business that you're getting is by asking your customers for referrals. It's so funny the amount of people who say, I hardly get any referral business at all. And I say, Well, when's the last time you asked? When's the last time that you went to one of your clients or your customers and said, I so appreciate your business. And I wonder if you know anybody in your network who could benefit from our product or service. And they say, oh I've never done that. But yeah, they wonder why they don't have any referrals so-- >> It seems like such an easy step but to your point, you're saying they're focusing on awareness, getting my brand, my service, my name out there, getting people to take action? >> Yes. >> And building that affinity and then I'm good, but that simply asking to make it a referral whether it's a yelp or something as simple as that seems like a pretty easy step. Strategically, how do you advise customers to get from that, take that if you look at it like a funnel like Jeff saying, take that group of affinity customers and convert some percentage to advocates, what's your strategy for helping a consumer brand or even a service provider, like an exterminator for actually making those conversions and then and then having that be a really kind of engine to drive referrals, to drive more leads to the top of that funnel? >> That's a great question. So, I like to talk about something I call the high five which is knowing the five most important people that have the potential to drive your business forward for the next quarter, the next year and the next five years. So, this is an actual list of five people. And any business owner hopefully can sit down and say, Here are the people that I need to really super serve in order to move my business forward. So knowing who those five people are, it could be an advisor, it could be an investor, it could be somebody you've never even met, maybe a thought leader whose thought that you really enjoy, that you think this person could really help me and open me up to a lot of people in their network if they knew who I was. Make a list of those five people, and then figure out how often you need to be doing something staying top of mind for those people. So for me, I like to make sure it's at least once every two weeks. So, sometimes it's as simple as sending an article and saying, Hey, I came across this article, I thought you would really love it, wanted to send it your way. Now and reality, did I just come across that article? No, I spent maybe an hour looking for the right article to forward that person. It's taking the time out to show them that they matter to you, so whether that's sending them a nice gift in the mail for no reason or a handwritten thank you note after they made an introduction for you. It's checking in on things, I always say, you should know what is important to the people who are important to you. You should know the teams that they follow, you should know their spouse, their children, the things that are happening in their lives so you can check in with them. And we live in an age where it's so easy to get information about anyone because all of us are putting content out there on the internet all the time about ourselves. So take the time to figure out what matters to those people who matter to you, and then stay top of mind, letting them know that they matter to you. So, like I said, for me, it's once every two weeks and I look at my list of five about every six months in terms of adding a couple of new people on maybe cycling some people off. But I've been doing this for four years. So, I have a list of 20 people. And I those are like my alums, some of the alumni of my high five, and I'm still extremely close with all of them. I still make sure that I'm trying to add value to them because having one person who's going to advocate for you could open the door for millions of dollars of revenue for you. So, it's just identifying who those people are, because to your point, it's impossible to sort of make everyone the most important person, it's impossible to take everyone at that third step and take them to the fourth step. So, rather than holistically thinking about it. I like to really drill in and say let's start with five. And if you've got 50 employees and you assign five people to each of those 50 employees to say make sure this vendor or make sure this customer, or make sure this partner feels very appreciated by you on a regular basis. You're going to, you really start to see the ROI very, very quickly in your business. >> So some of the trends, if we look at this we're all consumers of any kind of product service, we have this expectation, this growing expectation that we're going to be able to get whatever we want whenever we want it, have it delivered in an hour or a day, or so, we want to be able to have this experience on mobile, maybe started there, maybe finish it in the store, what are some of the trends that you're seeing that you recommend that the company with any product or service needs to get on board with, for example, this morning they were talking about progressive web apps and being able to deliver an experience where the person doesn't have to leave the app, or they can transact something like through Instagram. What are some of those top tools that you recommend to your broad client base. You got to get on board with like mobile, for example, right away. >> Yes, I was going to say the PWAs are absolutely critical, because I think we've all as consumers been in the situation of trying to load something on our phone, and it's five seconds goes by six seconds, I'm like forget about it. >> We're done. >> Yeah, I'm done, I'm over it. So PWAs is super important because it's all about putting your customer first and making things simple for them. The other thing is making sure that whatever system process you're using, everything needs to be connected. You can't be managing stuff across eight different platforms and expect for things not to fall through the cracks which is I'm learning so much here at Imagine and listening to all the best practices of people who are using Magento to manage every part of their business because something is seemingly minor as sending a confirmation email twice instead of once or having eight hours go by before the customer gets that, those types of things, say to a customer on a subliminal level, I'm not important, I don't matter, they're not putting me first. >> So just fan comes from fanatic. And there's great things about fans, and some times there's less great things about fans and we've seen a little bit of that here in terms of this really passionate community around Magento. And it was independent. And then it went to eBay and then it went back out of eBay. And now it's back in Adobe. And it's funny seeing the people that have been here for the whole journey. Part of that responsibility, if you're going to invite someone to be a fan is you have to let them participate, you have to let them contribute. And often which we're seeing, I guess, in Game of Thrones, I'm not a big fan, but if you get outside of kind of the realm of where the fans want things to go, it can also cause some conflict. So, how to people manage encouraging fans, really supporting fans, but at the same time not letting them completely knock their business off or hold the business back probably from places where the entrepreneur needs to still go? >> That's a great question. There was a really fascinating study that Viacom did a couple of years ago about fans. And especially in the under 35 sets, so millennials, gen Z. And the vast majority of people felt like fans have some ownership of the thing that they're a fan of. And that's a really interesting study in psychology to think about these people who feel the ownership. But you know, it's true. You mentioned Game of Thrones, that's a great example of seeing these fan bases who come up with names for themselves, and who are tweeting in real time about things that are happening. Magento a great example because open source has been such an important part of the culture and the history of the platform. These people feel in a very real sense this ownership. And you're right, I think sometimes that scares small business owners, medium sized business owners. They say, Well, we don't want to relinquish control. We don't want to put ourselves in a situation where we're upsetting people. And I would say, You're right, fan comes from the word fanatic. And that fanaticism, that passion is something you absolutely want. Because I would argue that a greater threat than that is what I was talking about earlier, which is apathy. You don't want people to be like, I don't care. And passion is of course, the opposite of apathy. And that's what you're looking for. So I would say, are you going to put yourself in a position where sometimes there could be a disagreement, you could upset somebody? Absolutely, but you those are the people, it's like if you're in a relationship with somebody and you have a fight that passion that's there is because there's care on both sides. You're both super engaged, you're both very passionate about your position. So, having a system in place to defuse that by saying, I hear you I understand where you're coming from, let's figure this out together, is part of the customer service staff that you've just got to prepare for. >> Can you using, sorry Brittany, using all this data that's available that Magento, Adobe et cetera can deliver and enable organizations to understand that and maybe even kind of marry those behaviors with apathy on one hand passion on the other and how do we get to that happy medium? >> Exactly, how do we get to the happy medium, what are the data points that matter? How are we, the idea of super fan means something different to every organization. So, part of it is uncovering what it is that really matters to you. I always say a super fan is somebody who over indexes and their affinity for a product, service, brand, entertainer, therefore increasing the chance that they're going to advocate on its behalf. So, thinking about, there could be people who are spending a lot of money with your brand who just aren't really that passionate about it. They're not going to tell people and that's fine. But those aren't the people who would be a quote unquote superfan, even though they may be spending a lot of money with you. So, it's figuring out what the markers are that are important to your brand or service. I work with a lot of brands on this because it really is different for everyone. But figuring out who those people are and then talking to them because this is something that, there's so much psychology around the why. Like why people behave the way we do that the consumer behavior, the internal and philosophical drives that are making us make the decisions that we make and the best way to uncover that is to talk to your customers because a lot of times you'll learn so much about your brand, you'll find so many things. I always love talking to recording artists about this, they put out a new song or a new album and in the fans find all these hidden messages >> Taylor is known for that. >> Always some-- >> Taylor is one of the best in the world. And a lot of times artists will say, Oh, yeah, like, I didn't do that on purpose but I'm totally going to take credit for it because these fans found it. And oh, yeah, of course, I meant to do that. So, you'll find that some of these customers understand your brand oftentimes better than you do which is a really fun thing. >> It's also just the ecosystem. You my favorite one always reference is Harley Davidson, guess how many brands get tattooed on people's arms, and just the whole ecosystem of other products that were built up around the motorcycle, and to support kind of that community they weren't getting any nickels necessarily if somebody sold a saddle bag or a leather jacket, or whatever but it was such and it still is, I think such a vibrant community again, and as evidence by you put a tattoo on your arm that it's something to strive for, not easy to get. >> Why we always say build a brand not a business because the brand are those things that people are connecting to. We were talking about NASA before we started filming. I'm a huge space geek and Lisa loves space having worked for NASA in the past and that's one of those things, I don't know this to be true but I got to believe NASA way outpaces like every other combined government agency in licensing. I mean, people walk around wearing NASA logos on everything >> I saw at least three of them this morning. >> Yeah, I mean, I bought in the last month, probably three different NASA licensed products. So I mean that's the passion that if you can connect to somebody on an emotional level and make your story part of their story. They want to represent it, they want to get that Harley tattooed on their arm. >> That emotional connection but also that personalization that's key? >> Yes. >> What's difference in from your perspective on a superfan versus an influencer? Are they one in the same? >> It's a great question. So, they a lot of times are one in the same and that same Viacom study that I mentioned earlier. Something like two thirds of people said that they consider themselves to be pop culture influencers which sounds like a lot. But if you think about it, pretty much everyone is an influencer and that's because for Nielsen, the most trusted recommendation is or the most trusted form advertising is a recommendation from a friend or a family member, 92% of people trust a recommendation from a friend or family member, which far outpaces every other form of advertising. So in a lot of ways, these micro influencers are the next wave of advertising. These advocates or these super fans are, I think in many ways an untapped well of resources for the fans who drill in and you mentioned Taylor Swift before. How many people listen to Taylor Swift for the first time because a friend suggested they listen to Taylor Swift. I would argue that lots and lots of people and Taylor said something to me years ago that like a former manager, or someone said to her, and that was, if you want to sell half a million albums, you're going to have to meet half a million people. That was said to her when she was like, 15, 16 years old and she thought, okay, yeah, I'm going to go meet half a million people. I'm going to be befriend them, I'm going to listen to their stories, I'm going to let them know what they say matters to me. And here we are, she sold, I don't know, 50, 60 million albums, however many she sold worldwide. And but that's really where it starts, that one to one connection. >> Seems to just kind of all go back to referral. And isn't that sort of the basic human connection? It's like, are we trying to over-complicate this with all these different tools that simply, even with hiring and tech or whatever industry, referrals are so much more important because you've got some sort of connection to a brand or a person or a product or service. >> You've got that connection, you've got somebody who's already very well qualified. And I like to talk about something that I call the wave method which the wave is a ritual hello, goodbye. How many times a day do you wave at people, countless. And virtually you say hello to tons of people everyday. People who are coming to one of your social pages, people who are engaging with your website. So I say, I encourage people to think about that hello and goodbye, that interaction. Think of a wave as an acronym and ask yourself, are you making everybody who's going to come into contact with you today feel welcomed? Is there something on your virtual site or in your real storefront. If you're a brick and mortar business that's going to make people feel welcomed? How are you making them feel like they belong? The A is appreciated, how are you letting those people know that they are appreciated by your business? I think I know I have often felt like I'm a number or I don't matter. Utility companies are notorious for this for making you feel like they don't really care if they have your business or not. Or they know perhaps that they're going to because there's not like a different water company you can you can use it your home. And that sucks, like we've all been made to feel like we weren't appreciated by somebody that we were doing a financial transaction with. So ask yourself, how can you make your potential and current customers feel appreciated? The V stands for validated, and one of the best quotes that I've ever come across is from Oprah. On her last episode, she was imparting some of the lessons that she had learned over the years of hosting her shows and she said she'd interviewed something like 30,000 people over the years, and they all wanted the same thing. And that was validation. They all want it to feel like they were important and their feelings mattered. I see you, I hear you what you're saying is important to me. So, validate your customers. One big mistake that I see people make all the time in customer service is when somebody has a complaint, having your rebuttal be like, Oh, I've never heard that before. Or it's 10,000 people haven't have had great experiences. That's absolutely the worst thing that you can ever say to somebody because you're bringing in other experiences that don't matter to them. It's a one to one conversation. It's a one to one relationship. So bringing in, that's like having a fight with your significant other and saying like, Well none of the women I dated before you ever had a problem with this, like how well is that going to go over? Like you don't want to bring in other experiences. So that V and wave validated >> And the E? >> and then the E is excited, making people feel excited because that passion, having people feel like you know you're excited that they're a customer of yours and you can bring something that's going to make their lives better is the most important key. >> Brittany, thank you so much. I could keep talking to ya. I wish we didn't end but we do, for sharing your experiences, your expertise, your recommendations on becoming any kind of brand with any product or service, generating the super fans. We appreciate your time. >> Thank you so much. It was so great speaking with you guys today. >> Ditto. >> Thanks. >> For Jeff Frick, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching this on theCUBE live from Magento Imagine 2019 from Vegas, thanks for watching.

>> Announcer: Live, from Orlando, Florida it's the Cube, covering Grace Hopper's Celebration of Women in Computing, brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. >> Welcome back to the Cube's coverage of the Grace Hopper Conference, here at the Orange County Convention Center. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. We're joined by Maureen Fan. She is the CEO and co-founder of Baobab Studio, which is the industry's leading VR animation studio, so, welcome Maureen. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> It's excited to talk to you, because you just won an Emmy. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> You just won an Emmy for "Invasion", so, tell us a little bit about invasion. >> It was our first piece ever and it was just an experiment to see if we could even create VR and it's a story about these adorable little bunnies and you are actually a bunny too, you look down, you have a furry, little bunny body and these aliens that come to try to take over the Earth, with their advanced technology and you and your bunny friend end up saving the entire Earth and it's starring Ethan Hawk and it just came out last year. And we're really excited, because it became the number one top downloaded VR experience across all the headsets and it's getting turned into a Hollywood Feature Film. >> Very cool, very cool >> Thank you. >> And you have another film coming out too and this is "Rainbow Crow" >> Yes. >> Tell our viewers a little bit about "Rainbow". >> So, "Rainbow Crow" is based off of a Native American legend about how the crow used to have beautiful rainbow feathers and a beautiful singing voice and it's John Legend, in our piece and how he decides to sacrifice himself, by flying into the sun to bring warmth and fire back to the Earth and in the process, loses all his beautiful feathers, becomes black and burnt and his voice becomes like the crow's voice, but it's about how beauty is within and there's also, huge themes about diversity and how if you learn to accept yourself and your differences, that's when you can accept others and that's why we specifically cast minorities and women, so, we have John Legend, Constance Wu, from "Fresh off the Boat" as a skunk character, Diego Luna, from "Rogue One", for the moth character, as well as Randy Edmunds, as a Native American elder, narrator, and we have a whole bunch of other stars to announce, soon-- >> Well we cannot wait to hear. That's already an amazing line-up. >> Thank you. >> So, when you're thinking about "Rainbow Crow" and particularly, because it's VR, which is relatively new, still experimental, I mean, the messages of diversity, does it lend itself to VR, better than, say, a standard animation film? >> Absolutely, because if you think about stories that you just watch passively, the reason why we need stories and humanity, in general is to experience characters and stories beyond those we can experience in our real lives and we think, "Oh, how would I feel if I was in the "position of that character or what would I do?" but in VR, because you are actually playing a character in a role, you actually have to decide at that point, "what would I do?" so, it's not just a experience that I just see, it's one where I'm actively experiencing it, so, I create a memory and remember afterwards and there's all these research studies at Stanford by Jeremy Bailenson, who is head of the Stanford VR lab, that shows if you are made a homeless person, inside a VR experience and you have to go through a day in the life of a homeless person or you would look in the mirror and see that you are a black woman, that you, when you get out of the headset, you act completely differently. You have so much more empathy for these people than you would normally and so, it gets you to care about these characters, in a way that you don't normally and in VR, because you're doing it in a real-time game engine, these characters can act and react to what you do, so you can turn that empathy into action and actually act upon your caring, which we call compassion, so, it really changes you in a way, that normal, traditional story-telling doesn't, so, I think that having voices and characters that are different, in front of the screen, and also, behind the screen are really important to create role models and different perspectives for all the people out in the world. >> And these are movies that are targeted at kids, children, but do you see a future in which, where there is more targeted at adults, for VR? >> Absolutely. The funny thing is, in the beginning, the VR distributors didn't think that people would want our VR animation, because they're like, "Oh, it's just going to be these hardcore boys "that just love to play games. "Are they going to want this animation?" and VR is targeted towards adults, that's why they were surprised and we were surprised when "Invasion" became the number one downloaded VR experience. It shows that the audience for our content is from little kids to grandmas and everyone in between and that's probably why it became the top downloaded experience, is because it's universally appealing and has themes that are appealing to just, every single generation, so, absolutely, but for VR to become mainstream, there needs to be more universally appealing content. Right now, the content tends to be for games, like parkour games, as well as documentaries, which are two amazing pieces of content for this medium, but for it to become mainstream, we need more universally appealing content and I'm excited about, right now, it's a new industry. This is when minorities and women in particular, can enter the space and help shape the voices and the direction of the industry. >> That is exactly where I wanted to go next. So, let's talk a little bit about Baobab Studio. It's not that old and VR is not that old and so, why are there more opportunities, would you say, for women, and minorities? >> Well, if you look at traditional animation in the traditional entertainment fields that's a very mature industry and to break into that industry, you have to either have lots and lots of money or unfair distribution advantage, but VR, there's technological disruption, which means nobody has an advantage at all, means it's a level playing field and everybody can come in and start something, so, this is a perfect opportunity, when there's low barriers to entry of coming in, for women and minorities, anyone who wants their voice heard, to start companies or to make experiences and we can set the groundwork, because there's no one telling us what we can and can't do, because no one actually knows what we can and can't do yet. >> Right, right, but yet you are still of a female, asian figurehead of a studio, that will hopefully, someday be a major studio. You're working on it, but do you find that people take you as seriously in Hollywood? I mean, what are you coming up against? >> Well, it's really interesting, because I heard for even fundraising is one of the hardest parts of starting a company and there was a Stanford Research Study that showed that if you took a deck, a pitch deck for a company and you had a male voice-over versus a female voice-over the male voice-over was, I don't remember what, it was like 50% more likely to get funded than the woman with the same exact pitch deck, so I knew from that and they also show that if you are married and wear a ring you're taken more seriously, or if you're less attractive, also, you're taken more seriously and my hypothesis and some of the hypotheses out there, is it takes away the whole entire female attraction thing, like what does it mean to be an attractive female, so, I had to go into the meetings, knowing this. I even considered wearing a ring. I considered wearing a paper bag over my head. >> A bag over you head. Exactly, exactly. >> But at the same time I felt that I need to be myself and the best thing to, there's a correlation between the perceived leadership and confidence, that I needed to just go in there and be confident in myself so, I knew that, that could work against me, but I just needed to be myself, but I had to make sure that I was really confident and really believed in what I said and honestly, besides being confident and aggressive, I also, felt comfortable, because a lot of the people I talked to, I knew from my network and I had many of my male friends and female friends who knew these VC's, do the initial introduction, so I felt more comfortable going in, for them already knowing that I had somebody else saying that I was awesome. >> Yeah, and you've had many mentors and sponsors along the way too. >> Absolutely, I would say it's one of the most important things, for my career from the very beginning. When I graduated from business school, I actually emailed my mentors and said, "Here are the things I care about for finding a job." I didn't have to go find any jobs. They actually found all these jobs. for me, set up informational interviews, for me and I just went in and did it, all the informational interviews, got the offers and just choose one of them that I wanted to be in but, even for starting my company, my co-founder, Eric Darnell was a write and director of all four "Madagascar" films and I got introduced to him, through my mentor, Glen Entis who is the co-founder of PDI Dreamworks Animation and he was my mentor through Zynga and then, Gen Entis introduced me to Alvy Ray Smith, who is the co-founder of Pixar, who also became our advisor, Alvy Ray Smith, then introduced us to Glen Keane, who is the animator for "Little Mermaid", "Alaadin". >> The power of networks. >> It was all through the network and through my mentors that I found, a lot of the opportunities that I have and they also helped my through my personal life and how to navigate being entrepreneur and I rely on them so much. >> So, beyond finding the right mentor and sponsor what else would you give, your parting words to the young Maureen fans out there? >> I think there's a tendency for society to pressure you to conform, to money, fame, beauty and you don't need to listen to that and you don't need to be bucketed. I designed my own major at Stanford and with an eBay, I took four different roles. I just kept on creating my own roles and refusing to be bucketed as a creative or a suit and you can be who you are and create a category onto yourself and so, don't feel pressured to listen to what society is telling you. The other thing, is if you are faced with pushed back for being promoted and you feel like it's maybe because you're a woman, we have a tendency as women to start blaming ourselves and thinking there's something wrong with us, versus research shows men are most likely to blame the system, don't let it affect you and bring you down, because you need to actually be confident and believe in yourself in order to rise above. >> Great. Great advice. Maureen, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Thanks so much. >> Thank you. >> And best of luck to you. >> Thank you, so much. >> Hope you win another Emmy. >> Thank you. >> Come back and talk to us again. >> Thank you. I'm Rebecca Knight, we'll have more from Grace Hopper, just after this. (techno music)

>> live from San Francisco, celebrating 10 years of high tech coverage. It's the Cube covering Veum World 2019. Brought to you by IBM Wear and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to the cubes Live coverage Of'em World 2019 in San Francisco, California We're here at Mosconi North Lobby. Two sets. Jumper of my Coast. David wanted Dave 10 years. Our 10th season of the cue coming up on our 10 year anniversary May of 2020. But this corner are 10 years of the Cube. Our next guest is Sanjay Putting Chief Operating Officer Of'em where who took the time out of his busy schedule to help us do a commemorative look back. Thanks for coming to our studio. Hello, John. That was great. Fans of yours was really regulations on the 10 year mark with the, um well, we really appreciate your partnership. We really appreciate one. Things we love doing is covering as we call that thing. David, I coined the term tech athletes, you know, kind of the whole joke of ESPN effect that we've been called and they're really tech athlete is just someone who's a strong in tech always fighting for that extra inch. Always putting in the hard work discipline, smart, competitive. You get all that above. Plus, you interviewed athletes today on state real athletes. Real athletes, Tech show. So I guess they would qualify as Tech athlete Steve Young. That's pretty funny. It was a >> great time. We've been trying to, you know, Veum World is now the first time was 2004. So it's 1/16 season here, and traditionally many of these tech conference is a really boring because it's just PowerPoint dead by power point lots of Tec Tec Tec Tec breakout sessions. And we're like, You know, last year we thought, Why don't we mix it up and have something that's inspirational education We had Malala was a huge hit. People are crying at the end of the session. Well, let's try something different this year, and we thought the combination of Steve Young and Lyndsey one would be great. Uh, you know, Listen, just like you guys prepped for these interviews, I did a lot of prep. I mean, I'm not I'm a skier, but I'm nowhere close to an avid skier that watch in the Olympics huge fan of Steve Young so that part was easy, but preparing for Lindsay was tough. There were many dynamics of that interview that I had to really think through. You want to get both of them to converse, you know, he's She's 34 he's 55. You want to get them to really feel like it's a good and I think it kind of played out well. >> You were watching videos. A great prep. Congratulations >> trying t o show. It's the culture of bringing the humanization aspect of your team about tech for good. Also, you believe in culture, too, and I don't get your thoughts on that. You recently promoted one of your person that she has a chief communications Johnstone Johnstone about stars you promote from within. This >> is the >> culture you believe it. Talk about the ethos. Jones is a rock star. We love her. She's just >> hardworking, credible, well respected. Inside VM where and when we had a opening in that area a few months ago, I remember going to the her team meeting and announcing, and the team erupted in cheers. I mean that to me tells me that somebody was well liked from within, respected within and pure level and you know the organization's support for a promotion of that kind of battlefield promotion. It's great big fan of hers, and this is obviously her first show at Vienna. Well, along with Robin, Matt, look. So we kind of both of them as the chief marketing officer, Robin and Jones >> and Robinson story. Low Crawl made her interim first, but they then she became Steve Made it Permanent way. >> Want them to both do well. They have different disciplines. Susan, uh, national does our alliances, you know, if you include my chief of staff for the six of my direct reports are women, and I'm a big believer in more women. And take why? Because I want my Sophia, who's 13 year old do not feel like the tech industry is something that is not welcome to women in tech. So, you know, we really want to see more of them. And I hope that the folks who are reporting to me in senior positions senior vice president is an example can be a role model to other women who are aspiring, say, one day I wanna be like a Jones Stone or Robin. Madam Local Susan Nash, >> John and I both have daughters, so we're passionate about this. Tech is everywhere, so virtually whatever industry they go into. But I've asked this question Sanjay of women before on the Cube. I've never asked him in. And because you have a track record of hiring women, how do you succeed in hiring women? Sometimes way have challenges because way go into our little network. Convenient. What? What's your approach? Gotta >> blow off that network and basically say First off, if that network is only male or sometimes unfortunately white male or just Indian male, which is sometimes the nature of tech I mean, if you're looking for a new position, tell the recruiters to find you something that's different. Find me, Ah woman. Find me on underrepresented minority like an African American Latino and those people exist. You just have a goal. Either build a network yourself. So you've got those people on your radar. We'll go look, and that's more work on us, says leaders. But we should be doing that work. We should be cultivating those people because the more you promote capable. First off, you have to be capable. This is not, you know, some kind of affirmative action away. We want capable people. Someone shouldn't get the job just because they're a woman just because the minority, that's not the way we work. We want capable people to do it. But if we have to go a little further to find them, we'll go do it. That's okay. They exist. So part of my desires to cultivate relationships with women and underrepresented minorities in the world that can actually in the world of tech and maintain those relationships because you never know you're not gonna hire them immediately. But at some point in time, you might need to have them on your radar. >> Sanjay, I wanna ask you a big picture question. I didn't get a chance to ask path this morning. I was at the bar last night just having a little dinner, and I was checking out Twitter. And he said that the time has never been. It's never been a greater time arm or important time to be a technologist. Now I saw that I went interesting. What does that mean? Economic impact, social impact? And I know we often say that, and I don't say this to disparage the comment. It's just to provide historical context and get a get it open discussion about what is actually achievable with tech in this era and what we actually believe. So I started to do some research and I started right down. First of all, I presume you believe that right on your >> trusty napkin at the >> bar. So there has never been a more important time to be a technologist. You know, it's your company at your league. You know, Pat, I presume you agree with it. Yeah, absolutely. I slipped it back to the 1900. Electricity, autos, airplanes, telephones. So you we, as an industry are up against some pretty major innovations. With that historical context, Do you feel as though we can have a similar greater economic and social impact? >> Let's start with economic first and social. Next time. Maybe we should do the opposite, but economic? Absolutely. All those inventions that you >> have are all being reinvented. The technology the airplanes all been joined by software telephones are all driving through, you know, five g, which is all software in the future. So tech is really reinventing every industry, including the mundane non tech industries like agriculture. If you look at what's happening. Agriculture, I ot devices are monitoring the amount of water that should go to particular plant in Brazil, or the way in which you're able to use big data to kind of figure out what's the right way to think about health care, which is becoming very much tech oriented financial service. Every industry is becoming a tech industry. People are putting tech executives on their boards because they need an advice on what is the digital transformations impact on them cybersecurity. Everyone started by this. Part of the reason we made these big moves and security, including the acquisition of carbon black, is because that's a fundamental topic. Now social, we have to really use this as a platform for good. So just the same way that you know a matchstick could help. You know, Warm house and could also tear down the house. Is fire good or bad? That's been the perennial debate since people first discovered fire technology. Is this the same way it can be used? Reboot. It could be bad in our job is leaders is to channel the good and use examples aware tech is making a bit force for good. And then listen. Some parts of it may not be tech, but just our influence in society. One thing that pains me about San Francisco's homelessness and all of the executives that a partner to help rid this wonderful city of homeless men. They have nothing to attack. It might be a lot of our philanthropy that helps solve that and those of us who have much. I mean, I grew up in a poor, uh, bringing from Bangla, India, but now I have much more than I have. Then I grew up my obligations to give back, and that may have nothing to do with Tech would have to do all with my philanthropy. Those are just principles by which I think when you live with your a happier man, happier woman, you build a happier >> society and I want to get your thoughts on common. And I asked a random set of college students, thanks to my son that the network is you said your daughter to look at the key to Pat's King Pat's commentary in The Cube here this morning that was talking about tech for good. And here's some of the comments, but I liked the part about tech for good and humanity. Tech with no purpose is meaningless tech back by purposes. More impactful is what path said then the final comments and Pat's point quality engineering backing quality purpose was great. So again, this is like this is Gen Z, not Millennials. But again, this is the purpose where it's not just window dressing on on industry. It's, you know, neutral fire. I like that argument. Fire. That's a good way Facebook weaponizing Facebook could be good or bad, right? Same thing. But the younger generation. You're new demographics that are coming into cloud. Native. Yeah, what do you think? >> No. And I think that's absolutely right. We have to build a purpose driven company that's purposes much more than just being the world's best softer infrastructure company or being the most profit. We have to obviously deliver results to our shareholders. But I think if you look at the Milton Friedman quote, you know, paper that was written that said, the sole purpose of a company is just making profits, and every business school student is made to read that I >> think even he >> would probably agree that listen today While that's important, the modern company has to also have a appropriate good that they are focused on, you know, with social good or not. And I don't think it's a trade off being able to have a purpose driven culture that makes an impact on society and being profitable. >> And a pointed out yesterday on our intro analysis, the old term was You guys go Oh, yeah, Michael Dell and PAD shareholder value. They point out that stakeholder value, because now the stakeholder Employees and society. So congratulations could keep keep keep it going on the millennial generation. >> Just like your son and our kids want a purpose driven company. They want to know that the company that working for is having an impact. Um, not just making an impression. You do that. It shows like, but having an impact. >> And fire is the most popular icon on instagram. Is that right? Yeah, I know that fire is good. Like your fire. Your hot I don't know. I guess. Whatever. Um fire. Come comment. There was good Sanjay now on business front. Okay, again, A lot of inflection points happen over 10 years. We look back at some of this era, the Abel's relationship would you know about. But they've also brought up a nuance which we talked about on the intro air Watch. You were part of that acquisition again. Pig part of it. So what Nasiriyah did for the networking STD see movement that shaped VM. Whereas it is today your acquisition that you were involved and also shaping the end user computing was also kind of come together with the cloud Natives. >> How is >> this coming to market? I mean, you could get with >> my comparison with carbon black there watch was out of the building. Carbon black is not considered. >> Let's talk about it openly. And we talked about it some of the earnings because we got that question. Listen, I was very fortunate. Bless to work on the revitalization of end user computing that was Turbo charged to the acquisition of a watch. At that time was the biggest acquisition we did on both Nice era and air watch put us into court new markets, networking and enterprise mobility of what we call not additional work space. And they've been so successful thanks to know not just me. It was a team of village that made those successful. There's a lot of parallels what we're doing. Carbon, black and security. As we looked at the security industry, we feel it's broken. I alluded to this, but if I could replay just 30 seconds of what I said on some very important for your viewers to know this if I went to my doctor, my mom's a doctor and I asked her how Doe I get well, and she proposed 5000 tablets to me. Okay, it would take me at 30 seconds of pop to eat a tablet a couple of weeks to eat 5000 tablets. That's not how you stay healthy. And the analogy is 5000 metres and security all saying that they're important fact. They use similar words to the health care industry viruses. I mean, you know, you and what do you do instead, to stay healthy, you have a good diet. You eat your vegetables or fruit. Your proteins drink water. So part of a diet is making security intrinsic to the platform. So the more that we could make security intrinsic to the platform, we avoid the bloatware of agents, the number of different consuls, all of this pleasure of tools that led to this morass. And what happens at the end of that is you about these point vendors, Okay, Who get gobbled up by hardware companies that's happening spattered my hardware companies and sold to private equity companies. What happens? The talent they all leave, we look at the landscape is that's ripe for disruption, much the same way we saw things with their watch. And, you know, we had only companies focusing VD I and we revitalize and innovative that space. So what we're gonna do in securities make it intrinsic and take a modern cloud security company carbon black, and make that part of our endpoint Security and Security Analytics strategy? Yes, they're one of two companies that focus in the space. And when we did air watch, they were number three. Good was number one. Mobile line was number two and that which was number three and the embers hands. We got number one. The perception in this space is common. Lacks number two and crowdstrike number one. That's okay, you know, that might be placed with multiple vendors, but that's the state of it today, and we're not going point against Crowdstrike. Our competition's not just an endpoint security point to a were reshaping the entire security industry, and we believe with the integration that we have planned, like that product is really good. I would say just a cz good upper hand in some areas ahead of common black, not even counting the things we're gonna integrate with it. It's just that they didn't have the gold market muscle. I mean, the sales and marketing of that company was not as further ahead that >> we >> change Of'em where we've got an incredible distribution will bundle that also with the Dell distribution, and that can change. And it doesn't take long for that to take a lot of customers here. One copy black. So that's the way in which we were old. >> A lot of growth there. >> Yeah, plenty of >> opportunity to follow up on that because you've obviously looked at a lot of companies and crowdstrike. I mean, huge valuation compared to what you guys paid for carbon black. I mean, >> I'm a buyer. I mean, if I'm a buyer, I liked what we paid. >> Well, I had some color to it. Just when you line up the Was it really go to market. I mean some functions. Maybe not that there >> was a >> few product gaps, but it's not very nominal. But when you add what we announced in a road map app, defensive alderman management, the integration of works based one this category is gonna be reshaped very quickly. Nobody, I mean, the place. We're probably gonna compete more semantic and McAfee because most of those companies that kind of decaying assets, you know, they've gotten acquired by the companies and they're not innovating. So I'd say the bulk of the market will be eating up the leftover fossils of those sort of companies as as companies decided they want to invest in legacy. Technology is a more modern, but I think the differentiation from Crowdstrike very clear is we integrate these, these technology and the V's fear. Let me give an example. With that defense, we can make that that workload security agent list. Nobody can do that. Nobody, And that's apt defense with carbon black huge innovation. I described on stage workspace one plus carbon black is like peanut butter and jelly management. Security should go together. Nobody could do that as good as us. Okay, what we do inside NSX. So those four areas that I outlined in our plans with carbon black pending the close of the transaction into V sphere Agent Lis with workspace one unified with NSX integrated and into secure state, You know, in the cloud security area we take that and then send it through the V m. Where the devil and other ecosystem channels like you No idea. Security operative CDW You know, I think Dimension data, all the security savvy partners here. I think the distribution and the innovation of any of'em were takes over long term across strike may have a very legitimate place, but our strategy is very different. We're not going point tool against 0.0.2 wish reshaping the security industry. Yeah, What platform? >> You're not done building that platform. My obvious question is the other other assets inside of Arcee and secureworks that you'd like to get your hands on. >> I mean, listen, at this point in time, we are good. I mean, it's the same thing like asking me when we acquired air watching. Nice Here. Are you gonna do more networking and mobility? Yeah, but we're right now. We got enough to Digest in due course you. For five years later, we did acquire Arkin for network Analytics. We acquired fellow Cloud for SD when we're cloud recently, Avi. So the approach we take a hammer to innovations first. You know, if you're gonna have an anchor acquisition, make sure it's got critical mass. I mean, buying a small start up with only 35 people 10 people doesn't really work for us. So we got 1100 people would come back, we're gonna build on it. But let's build, build, build, build, partner and then acquire. So we will partner a lot with a lot of players. That compliment competition will build a lot around this. >> And years from now, we need >> add another tuck in acquisition. But we feel we get a lot in this acquisition from both endpoint security and Security Analytics. Okay, it's too early to say how much more we will need and when we will need that. But, you know, our goal would be Let's go plot away. I have a billion dollar business and then take it from there. >> One more security question, if I may say so. I'm not trying to pit you against your friends and AWS. But there are some cleared areas where your counter poise >> Stevens just runs on eight of us comin back. >> That part about a cloud that helps your class ass business. I like the acquisition. But Steven Schmidt, it reinforced the cloud security conference, said, You know, this narrative in the industry that security is broken is not the right one. Now, by the way, agree with this. Security's a do over pat kill singer. And we talked about that for five years ago. Um, but then in eight of you says the shared security model, when you talk to the practitioners like, yeah, they they cover, that's three and compute. But we have the the real work to d'oh! So help me square that circle. >> Yeah, I think if aws bills Security Service is that our intrinsic to their platform and they open up a prize, we should leverage it. But I don't think aws is gonna build workload security for azure compute or for Gogol compute. That's against the embers or into the sphere. Like after finishing third accordion. And they're like, That's not a goal. You go do it via more So from my perspective. Come back to hydrogen. 80. If there's a workload security problem that's going to require security at the kernel of the hyper visor E C to azure compute containers. Google Compute. >> Who's gonna do >> that? Jammer? Hopefully, hopefully better than because we understand the so workloads. Okay, now go to the client site. There's Windows endpoints. There's Mac. There's Lennox. Who should do it? We've been doing that for a while on the client side and added with workspace one. So I think if you believe there is a Switzerland case for security, just like there was a Switzerland case for management endpoint management I described in Point management in Point Security going together like peanut butter and jelly, Whatever your favorite analogy is, if we do that well, we will prove to the market just like we did with their watch An endpoint management. There is a new way of doing endpoint security. Dan has been done ever before. Okay, none >> of these >> guys let me give an example. I've worked at Semantic 15 years ago. I know a lot about the space. None of these guys built a really strategic partnership with the laptop vendors. Okay, Del was not partnering strategically on their laptops with semantic micro. Why? Because if this wasn't a priority, then they were, you know, and a key part of what we're doing here is gonna be able to do end point management. And in point security and partner Adult, they announced unified workspace integrated into the silicon of Dell laptops. Okay, we can add endpoint security that capability next. Why not? I mean, if you could do management security. So, you know, we think that workspace one, we'll get standing toe work space security with the combination of workspace one and security moving and carbon black. >> Sanjay, we talked about this on our little preview and delivery. Done us. We don't need to go into it. The Amazon relationship cleared the way for the strategy in stock price since October 2016 up. But >> one of the >> things I remember from that announcement that I heard from the field sales folks that that were salespeople for VM wear as well as customers, was finally clarity around. What the hell? We're doing the cloud. So I bring up the go to market In the business side, the business results are still strong. Doing great. You guys doing a great job? >> How do you >> keep your field troops motivated? I know Michael Dell says these are all in a strategy line. So when we do these acquisitions, you >> had a lot >> of new stuff coming in. I mean, what's how do you keep him trained? Motivated constantly simplifying whenever >> you get complex because you add into your portfolio, you go back and simplify, simplify, simplify, make it Sesame Street simple. So we go back to that any cloud, any app, any device diagram, if you would, which had security on the side. And we say Now, let's tell you looking this diagram how the new moves that we've made, whether it's pivotal and what we're announcing with tanz ou in the container layer that's in that any Apple air carbon black on the security there. But the core strategy of the emer stays the same. So the any cloud strategy now with the relevance now what, what eight of us, Who's our first and preferred partner? But if you watched on stage, Freddie Mac was incredible. Story. Off moving 600 absent of the N word cloud made of us Fred and Tim Snyder talked about that very eloquently. The deputy CTO. They're ratty Murthy. CTO off Gap basically goes out and says, Listen, I got 800 APS. I'm gonna invest a lot on premise, and when I go to the cloud, I'm actually going to Azure. >> Thanks for joining you. Keep winning. Keep motivated through winning >> and you articulate a strategy that constantly tells people Listen. It's their choice of how they run in the data center in the cloud. It's their choice, and we basically on top of all of those in the any cloud AP world. That's how we play on the same with the device and the >> security. A lot of great things having Sanjay. Thanks >> for you know what a cricket fan I am. Congratulations. India won by 318 goals. Is that >> what they call girls run against the West Indies? I think you >> should stay on and be a 40 niner fan for when you get Tom baseball get Tom Brady's a keynote will know will be in good Wasn't Steve Young and today love so inspirational and we just love them? Thank you for coming on the Cube. 10 years. Congratulations. Any cute moments you can point out >> all of them. I mean, I think when I first came to, I was Who's the d? I said ASAP, like these guys, John and Dave, and I was like, Man, they're authentic people. What I like about you is your authentic real good questions. When I came first year, you groomed me a lot of their watch like, Hey, this could be a big hat. No cattle. What you gonna do? And you made me accountable. You grilled me on eight of us. You're grilling me right now on cloud native and modern, absent security, which is good. You keep us accountable. Hopefully, every you're that we come to you, we want to show as a team that we're making progress and then were credible back with you. That's the way we roll. >> Sanjay. Thanks for coming. Appreciate. Okay, we're live here. Stay with us for more of this short break from San Francisco v emerald 2019

>> Announcer: From Milpitas, California at the edge of Silicon Valley it's theCUBE. Covering autonomous vehicles. Brought to you by Western Digital. >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in Milpitas, California at Western Digital offices for the Autotech Council Autonomous Vehicle Meetup. About 300 people, a lot of conversations about the not thousands but millions of problems that have to be solved before we get autonomous vehicles on the road. But there's so many angles to this whole story besides just kind of what you think of as just an Uber, a self driving taxi, or even a self driving car for your personal use and it's really a cool start up here that's actually celebrating their 100th round trip transaction. We're excited to have Daniel Laury. He's a CEO and Chief Product Officer of Udelv. Great to see ya. >> Nice to meet you Jeff. >> So you just came off your keynote presentation and you were showing a great highlight movie of your product, so tell the folks what are you guys all about. >> We're the first public road enabled autonomous driving delivery company. And this is, our aim is to cut the cost of last minute deliveries in half. And to make deliveries easier, more convenient for consumers, more ubiquitous, faster, and cheaper of course. >> So it's pretty interesting. So the use case that you're doing now is you're in San Mateo and you're delivering groceries from Draeger's to the neighborhood. >> Yes, we actually now have four customers. >> Jeff: Oh, you have four, okay. >> Yes, in the matter of a month. We gained three more after Draeger's. Draeger's was our first customer. We've been working with them for the last six months to find the, you know, the best cargo space, the way to organize the compartments and everything. And it's been a fantastic partnership. And so they were our first customer and we're doing deliveries for them almost on a daily basis. And then we added three customers. As people were seeing this orange vehicle in the streets, they started calling us and they say "Hey, can I do it?" So, now we have a florist out of Burlingame and a couple of restaurants as well. >> And how many of these vehicles do you have on the road? >> So for now we have one of them. We are getting our second one next week. There is a third one that is going to be ready in about four weeks from today and then we have a production ramp up from there. >> So what are some of the unique challenges in creating this vehicle and delivering the service that people probably never thought of. >> Right, and it's, in our case, first of all we're not a science project, we're a real business case. Probably one of the first ones in the autonomous driving world. And for us to solve this business case, it's not just about autonomous driving, it's also to have a best customer experience. And so we're not just doing autonomous driving. We're doing a bunch of things. We're building a cargo space, that's mechanical engineering that is adapted which is basically a system of compartments or luggage on wheels if you want. The second thing is we are building apps on the merchant side and the customer side. Third thing is on the autonomy side of things we are doing something that very few other companies are doing which is mastering the first and last hundred feet. Slow motion, high precision. One to two centimeter accuracies. To be able to maneuver in parking lots, be able to back up in driveways and things like that nobody else is doing really that kind of thing. And the last thing is which we're doing and we're probably one of the world's most advanced companies doing this is teleoperations. We have to be able to take control of the vehicle. First of all, monitor the fleet. And second take control of the vehicle in case of a special situation. And we're doing this with an ultra-low latency less than 200 milliseconds between the image we receive from the truck and what the command we're giving back which allows us to actually drive the vehicle in the streets as if it was a video game but it's the reality. >> Right, no we did a piece with Fan Amato. I don't know if you know Fan but we were doing kind of a general purpose. A version of that same capability. It's really, really amazing. >> Frankly I think that autonomous driving is going to need that capability for at least the next decade. >> So the last hundred feet is interesting. You know, I went to a Ford Smart Cities event a little while ago and they talked about kind of curb management because when you have all these kind of fleet vehicles getting people in and out, making deliveries in and out. Kind of the curb in that interchange of the curb is really a tricky thing. It take a lot of nuance, you know. Know when to double park. Can you double park, should you double park. Can you, as you said, get into a driveway. So when you, what your ideal scenario when you do do a grocery drop off, you try to get into the driveway? Get off the double parking situation? >> Yes, absolutely. This is a critical part of what we're doing. And parking lots are actually lawless places. You see cops everywhere but you don't see them in parking lots so you have people backing up from a spot, children pushing carts, pets, you name it. So those are very, very complex situations. Mastering those situations is super important for us because of course our vehicle is going to park in those parking lots to pick up the goods and potentially to deliver. So we developed an AI stack, Artificial Intelligence Stack that starts with a scene estimator. We estimate the scene to see where, what spots are available or if it's a driveway if you have cars parked on the curb and then be able to actually maneuver in that spot. >> Right, but you're writing off a lot. So, you're doing the apps, you're doing all the infrastructure with your partners, you're doing the complexity of the vehicle. And then you've got, you've got to worry about perishable goods, you're taking milk as well as warm stuff. So a lot to chew. How big is your team? Where are you in your development as a company? >> Yes, we're about 30 people right now. And we are going to grow this team quite significantly by probably double the size of the team this year. It's a very ambitious project. It's a very ambitious company and yes, as Elon Musk puts it, success is one of the possibilities. One of the possible outcomes. But not necessarily the likeliest. but we're doing that race, we're in that race. >> So, just before we wrap I want to talk a little bit about the human factors. Cuz a lot of conversation earlier in some of the keynotes about trust and no trust. On one hand people don't trust these things. They said that, you know, they show the survey. I don't trust them. On the other hand we see people in autonomous vehicles as if they were a level five, right? They're sleeping and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. When you engage with customers what are some of their reactions on kind of the trust or not trust? How do they respond to this truck driving up and they walk out and pull their groceries out? >> That's a great question. In our case we're in a very different situation than all the ride sharing and passenger vehicles because we don't, by definition we don't carry passengers. So they only interact with the truck in the sense that they have to retrieve their goods. That's the only thing they do. And so they look at this a lot more favorably than, because it doesn't, they don't have that sense of danger from the vehicle. It's actually more like a wow, this is so interesting. And now I'm getting my deliveries. I know it's going to be exactly 16 minutes. And I get my push notification four minutes before. It gets there and then it's a simple, very, very simple way of doing things. It also will be very, very convenient for returning goods. You will be able to summon the vehicle to your doorstep. You'll put into a locker. It goes for you to UPS. It takes a minute to do it. So people love the service. Their reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. And it's a far less dangerous thing to do than having passengers. >> Right, yeah the first time I saw the video of it I thought was Amazon Lock or which is such a convenient way to interact and so importantly as we move to smart cities because what you don't want is the proverbial sticker on your door that you missed a delivery, like aw rats. So this is such an important part of the enablement of smart cities so really, really cool story. Alright Daniel. So last words, getting excited. Going to get out of individual company relationships and start to have more of a generic service that people can tap into? >> Yes, I, we're tremendously excited about the future of this company. Within two or three weeks from having launched a product on January 30th, we've had, we've received phone calls from every large retailer you name it, in the world wanting to do business with us. So it's a very, very exciting start. >> Alright Daniel, we'll keep an eye. >> Thank you so much, Jeff. >> Thanks for stopping by. Alright, he's Dan, I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE. We're at the Autotech Council Autonomous Vehicle Event in Milpitas, California. Thanks for watching. Catch you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Hello, everyone. Welcome to the special CUBE conversation. I'm John Furrier, the co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media, co-host of theCUBE. We're here at Sundance Film Festival, the Intel Tech Lounge for a one on one conversation with Kane Lee, who's the head of content at Baobab Studios in California. Thanks for joining me here at the Intel Tech Lounge. >> Really excited to be here. >> You know we just had a panel on the new creative here, and Intel is showing some great technology. Things like volumetric, all kinds of really hardcore tech. Really powering some of the VR, AR, mixed reality, all the trends that are happening around user experience. But, a new creative artist is out there. A new storyteller. It could be a 12 year old to a 50 year old. You're in the middle of it. You're an award winning producer. So you're building the stories, you're building the content. What's the biggest thing happening here at Sundance? >> I think it's really interesting, because content has always been my passion. Good storytelling. And growing up, it was always books and films, and all these traditional mediums that inspired me to sort of dream, and right here in Sundance, we're in the middle of a great sea change going on, because technology and art are coming together in such a fast pace, to really usher in the new generation of storytelling, and we're all very fortunate to be in the middle of that. This is a very unique period in our history as humans, and our culture, to challenge what storytelling really means, because VR, for us at Baobab, is the next great medium. And Sundance recognizes that. Technology companies like Intel recognize that. So we're all coming together at the film festival, and working together to define what that will mean. >> Kane, you're an Emmy award winning producer. Baobab's doing some cutting edge work. Take a minute to talk about what Baobab is doing, and why is it so relevant? We know it's cool. We've interviewed the CEO and Founder before. Share with the audience, what is Baobab doing? Why is it so relevant? >> So, we formed a couple years ago, and at the time, VR was, and it still is, in its very nascent stage. One thing that we recognized, was an opportunity to try to create content that would appeal for people from the ages of five to 105. There was a lot of documentaries, there was a lot of experiential art house type of material. And there was a lot of gaming type of content for VR. For us, we're big lovers of animation and how that unites families, kids, grandparents, teenagers, and we saw an opportunity to try to create content that could appeal to all of these different types of people through animation. So that's sort of our mission, is to inspire your childlike sense of wonder, using two mediums that are so meant for each other, which are animation and VR. >> I'd like to talk about some of the work you got going on a little bit later, but I want to talk about that 12 year old in his room, or the 16 year old that's got a full rig, tricked out with the keyboard, they're laying down music, they're building music, they're gaming, they might be creating art. They are a living, breathing creative. And, they're self learning. They're jumping on Youtube. They're jumping into VR meetups and groups. They're self learning. >> Kane: Absolutely. >> How do you connect to them? What do they do? What's the playbook? How do these people go to the next level? What's the industry doing around this? >> I think, one example I'll give is, I was at Annecy Film Festival, and that's one of the biggest animation focused film festivals in the world, and I was showcasing our very first piece, it was called Invasion, starring Ethan Hawke, where you're actually in the body of a bunny rabbit, and you meet another bunny rabbit. You create a bond. And together you thwart an alien invasion on Earth. What was so interesting to me, was I had never seen that sort of, that demo, that teenage demo, where young boys and girls would actually bring their parents back to the experience, and say this is what I want to study in college. This is what I want to do in art school. So, I think that they, growing up with all this new technology, really sort of get the idea of being in realtime, and having storytelling in realtime. And seeing that level of interest from that age group was very sort of affirming to us that we're on the right track, in terms of the next generation of storytelling. >> Well you guys are definitely on the right track, I can say that. But I think what your point confirms, and connects the dots for people that might not be in the industry is that the old tech world was, the geeks did it, software was an art and you had to be in that CS club. The democratization is a big trend here, and what you're talking about is, people are humanizing, they can see real emotional, practical examples. So the young guns, the young kids, they don't have baggage. They look at it with a clean slate and going, I want that. I can see myself using this. I can self actualize with this. So really kind of tips the scales, and proves the point. >> Absolutely. We world premiered Asteroids, our second VR experience, starring Elizabeth Banks, and one of the biggest millennial stars, Ingrid Nilson, last year at Sundance. Even had the first red carpet VR premiere in Sundance history. And watching the younger generation, it was our first piece where we actually used the controllers that had just come out in that past year. And watching them go in with no preconceived notions on what using controllers could be, to be a character in the experience, it was just fascinating, because they picked it up faster than anyone, and learned the language of being a character, and having hand controllers as a robot, so you could play fetch with an alien dog, or you could mirror their actions, or they might mirror yours, and creating these bonds and these experiences. So, that sort of fresh perspective is really exciting. >> Talk about the role of these experiences, and how they connect people, because one of the big trends also online today, in today's, I would say, yeah the peg the evolution is, you're really getting into the immersive experience, I believe that. But, content creates bonds between people, and good experiences creates glue between relationships, and forges new ones, maybe enhances existing ones. This is a big part of the media. >> Absolutely. For us, emotional connection is the key to getting people to put on headsets, and to come back to our experiences. And that emotional connection for us, is what we've witnessed, in terms of people forming bonds with our characters. So, everyone knows that VR can bring you to brand new worlds, and exciting places, and immerse you in places that you can never go. But, the one thing that I think we learned in our experience with VR, is that if you can create a bond between the user and other characters in the experience that they believe is real, and we use psychology, technology, and storytelling to do that, then they want to come back again and again. So, one of the trickiest parts of VR is trying to get people to have repeat views. And the feedback we've gotten from a lot of the technology platforms is people come back time and time again, and it seems to be because they actually believe these characters are real, and that they're friends. >> So talk about your journey, because you're at the front end of this wave, and you're participating, you're creating art, you're creating work product. You're building technology with the Baobab Studios. What would you do if you were 16? If you were a sophomore in high school, knowing what you know, and you could go back in time, or you could be today what you know at 16, what would you do? >> When I was 16, I had no idea what I was going to do. When I graduated from college, I had no idea what I was going to do. But what I will say is, VR is really unique because it's so interdisciplinary. So, it actually invites people from all different fabrics of society, and different types of education. The most, I would encourage 16 year olds to just be who they are, and to play. And if I talked to my 16 year old self, I would have just encouraged myself to follow my interest and pursuits more, because many years later, actually VR has brought me back to a lot of my roots, and different things that I studied growing up, and was fascinated by. >> So it ignited your passion. >> Absolutely. >> Or things that you were really into, that you might have forgotten. Is that- >> Yeah, I studied something called symbolic systems at Stanford University, and I had no idea what I was doing. It combined computer science, psychology, linguistics, and philosophy. And the first thing I did after college was pursue potentially a career as a lawyer. But now it all makes sense. VR makes, brings everything together. >> What could have been, you know? >> Absolutely. >> Well, a lot of neural network, symbolic systems, this is the underpinnings of this complex fabric that is powering this content market. So I'd love to get your thoughts. Is there a success formula that you're seeing emerging, I know there's no silver bullet yet. A lot of experimentation. A lot of new things happening. But as this technology, and the scaffolding around it is being built, while also original content is being built, it's still evolving. What's the success formula, and what's the pitfall? What to stay away from? >> I think it's about, it's really about good storytelling. And I think it's a time to be courageous and brave, and put forward stories that wouldn't have otherwise been told in the more traditional mediums. Our latest project in production that I'm so personally excited about, is called Legend of Crow. It stars John Legend as a beautiful bird with the most beautiful feathers, and the most gorgeous voice, who during dark and cold times, must go on a heroes journey to bring light back to the world. Something I feel like in this day and age, a lot of people can relate to. But, on top of this story being based upon a beautiful Native American legend that hasn't really been exposed to the world, we've taken the opportunity to take the themes of diversity and self sacrifice, and self acceptance, to create an all star cast of minorities and women, and that's something I feel the younger generations can really relate to, because having worked a lot in Hollywood as a producer in traditional TV and film, things take a while, and there's a certain way of casting and doing things that follow an older model, and I think younger audiences are excited to have a character like Moth in our experience who speaks both Spanish and English, because that's the way the world is today. >> So I got to ask you a quick, you brought up diversity and inclusion kind of in your comment. I got to bring this up, because you guys do hit a nice demographic that I think is super relevant and important, the younger generation. So I talk to a lot of young people all the time. I say things like, you don't need to be a computer scientist to get into this game. You can be super smart. You don't need to learn how to code hardcore coding to get into this. And they respond to that. And that's one kind of, I would say, narrative that conventional wisdom might not be right. And the other one is the diversity. So my son, 16 year old, says, "Dad, your generation is so politically correct. All this nonsense." So, the younger generation is not living what we're living in, in these dark times, I would say, certainly with diversity, but how does VR really equalize? And will the storm pass? Diversity, inclusion, all that great stuff that are core issues, certainly are being worked on. But, do we see hope here? >> Absolutely. I think disruption in the form of a new technology and a new medium is, while scary to some people, is actually the most exciting and fertile time to equalize. Our CEO, Maureen Fan, who is a college classmate of mine, always wanted to work in animation. And she finally saw the right opportunity when VR came, and we put on headsets for the first time, and saw how there could be a new wave of exciting animators, through this disruptive technology. Because everyone else in more traditional animation is so focused on the old model, and the old ways of doing things, of getting things off the ground, of financing, of creating certain kinds of content that have been proven over time, in the old sort of studio model. >> What were some of those things that were instrumental in this breakout, to forge this new ground? >> I think a lot of it is the technology finally being ready. Our CTO, Larry Cutler, actually studied virtual reality at Stanford a decade before Maureen and I were there, and he had always been waiting for the right time to go into VR. >> Does he preach down, hey kids, I used to walk in the snow with bare feet to you guys, or has he, what's his role, how's he doing? >> He's amazing. He was the head of global character tech for all of Dreamworks animation, and like I said, I think one thing that distinguishes us from some of the other people in VR is that we're so focused on characters, so focused on them making eye contact with you, or with their facial features reacting in realtime, and being very believable, and forging that bond between you and that character. So, for us, that character technology, and having the top people in that space work with us, is the long term thing that is going to differentiate us from the crowd. >> I'd like to get your reaction to my comment about the computer science, and that's mainly, mostly a Silicon Valley thing, living in Palo Alto, so, but people are struggling when they go to college. What should I major in? And there's a narrative right now, oh you got to learn how to code, you got to be a computer science major. You don't. You don't have to be a CS major. Some of the most creative and technical brilliance can also come from other disciplines. What's your reaction to that, and what's your advice? >> I think people should just follow their effort. Because, if you follow what naturally comes to you, what you're good at, and that also has meaning and interest to you, and something that you can get feedback along the way, which is the great thing about being in a growing space, you are going to just spend your, you're going to spend a lot of late nights doing that stuff, and you can always bring it into your career path when that happens. And I think, we're in a very DIY time in VR. No one knows anything. We're constantly making mistakes, but then learning from them. And that's the most exciting process of being where we are. So, to people who are of college age, I would just tell them follow your effort. If you're interested in VR, it's an exciting time to just do it yourself. Learn from your mistakes. And then, and try to create something new. >> What does the new creative mean to you. When you hear that, new creative, what does that mean to you? >> You know, it's interesting being at these talks and panels, and at all these festivals, because I feel like a lot of people are looking for that new innovator who comes out of nowhere, and sort of just redefines the industry. And that could very well happen. But I actually think what's really exciting about right now is, it's more about having, understanding the bridge between all the different mediums and disciplines. I think new things are created when you combine areas that have not been traditionally aligned. So for example, Orson Welles arguably created one of the first great cinematic masterpieces in Citizen Kane, but he was able to do so by bringing values from theater, and from radio, and areas where he sort of learned the art of storytelling. And he was able to combine them in new and interesting ways that people hadn't seen before. So, for me it's less about looking for that silver bullet of a creative person who comes out of nowhere, but these younger generations who understand these different mediums, combining them and creating connections with them in an exciting way. >> Brooks Brown from Starbury Studios said on the panel, the next breakout star is going to be the kid in the basement that no one's ever heard of. >> Very possibly, but that kid in the basement, he needs to be passionate about a lot of different disciplines. So, what we've tried to emulate in doing so, is bringing the best people in gaming, bringing the best people from traditional film, bringing people who had interests in a lot of different areas, different art forms, and letting them kind of play together and learn from each other. Argue with each other, you know? And then come up with something that no one's seen before. >> We're going to have to come up with a camera, so that could be like an experiment. Like it's just a reality show in and of itself. All that talent, multi discipline together. >> Absolutely. >> John: It's like dynamite ready to explode. >> It's the challenge, it's the blessing, it's the curse and the blessing of our medium right now, because there's so much more to discover, but if people come in and have an open mind, and are willing ... If the people from Hollywood are willing to learn from the people who do gaming in Silicon Valley, who are open to learning from the people in New York who grew up on live theater, I feel those, finding that intersection, finding those beautiful intersections are where we're going to thrive. >> Well you guys highlight that multi disciplinary thing, but also highlights why diversity is so important. Diversity brings the most perspectives to the table, the most data, most contribution. It might be a little bit longer to work through the arguments, right? You got to be patient. >> Absolutely you have to be patient. We're really lucky to be working with John Legend on our VR piece. He had actually been looking for several years to find, wanting to play in this space, but not wanting to do it with the wrong partner at the wrong time. So, it's, there's an art to timing in everything that we do right now, and when we presented to him the story we're doing with the Legend of Crow, it felt like the perfect sort of match. >> Legend of Crow coming out. Head of Content, Kane Lee here, Baobab Studios. Thanks for spending the time here on the Cube Conversation. What's the timing of the release of the program? >> Probably late spring, but we're going to be announcing some news around that soon, and we have some more exciting updates about it that I can't wait to share. >> Alright, we are here at the Intel Tech Lounge as the Cube's Conversation at Sundance Film Festival, part of our coverage of Sundance 2018. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching.

>> Narrator: From San Francisco, it's The Cube. Covering Samsung Developer Conference 2017, brought to you by Samsung. (upbeat music) >> Okay, welcome back, everyone. Live here, in San Francisco, for day two. We're winding down day two of two days of wall to wall coverage, The Cube's exclusive coverage of Samsung Developer Conference. I'm John Furrier the founder, co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media (mumbles) the Cube our next guest Larry Cutler, co-founder and CTO of Baobab Studios. >> You got it right. >> And you're co-founder and CEO Maureen Fan was at our Grace Hopper event. >> Larry: Yes. >> Well thanks for joining us. >> Thank you for having me. >> So you guys are doing great. Love the story-telling, gaming, tech culture coming together here at Samsung. >> Yep. >> And seeing the future. The future, if you connect the dots, is augmented reality voice-activated, headphones that can be hacked and programmed and customized. You guys are doing some interesting things, you've got some good awards. Take a minute to talk about your studios. What are you guys doing, what's the aha moment for you guys. What should people know? >> So we at Baobab Studios, we're reinventing animated storytelling using VR. And so what we've, our aha moment was feeling that you could completely immerse yourself in the world in VR. And when we started thinking about well what is so special about an animated film, it's really about transporting you to faraway worlds, and making those worlds so real that you could like reach out and touch them. And then if you think about VR, that's kind of the same thing, where VR's promise is being able to transport you to incredible places and to make you really feel like you're in those worlds and you're part of those worlds. >> And to relax and chill a little bit too. >> Well relax and chill as well. >> Or entertainment or to be thrilled. >> So in our case we wanted to take all the experience that we have telling stories at places like Pixar and Dreamworks and apply that into this new medium. And so we found that VR is an incredibly powerful medium, and it really is one that's unlike film and unlike games. So, you're talking about bringing together the expertise of people from films, and people from games. That's critical to what we're doing, and yet at the same time, the experience is something that's totally different. >> Yeah we were commenting with some of our guys in our office how Twitch was experimenting with using the comments to drive the game behavior. You start to see new kinds of game systems develop around the storytelling as more of a behavioral dynamic, not the boring game I figured out, or the multi-player game with my same friends, or whatever that's going on, you're seeing a whole new level of creativity going on, one. Two, the other question is how much does it cost to make these things, 'cause Dreamworks and these guys are spending a lot of dough to do animation. >> Larry: Yes. >> I mean it's not cheap, so how do you guys crack the code on keeping it low, not low-budget, but low-cost and also intelligent is that the secret sauce? >> Yes well that's certainly super important for us. You know we're a start-up company, so obviously we need to be able to have a pipeline that if we run efficiently and you know for us, I think what we've done is we've brought together some of the best people, you know. So we've hired our friends, we've hired people who are really experts in the field, and we're really creating a next-generation VR platform so that we can actually create these animated experiences, be able to experiment in this space. You know, sort of try out different techniques and storytelling methodologies and at the same time do it in a way that we can, you know, sort of experiment as much as possible. >> John: Talk about some of the awards you guys had, I mean, you guys done some things. Share some of the accolades you've gotten. >> Yes, so, I mean what's amazing is that we started with our first piece of content Invasion!, and we premiered it last year in April at Tribecca Film Festival, and it's really gone on to, first of all, from a consumer standpoint, it's one of the most popular downloaded pieces of content on all the VR platforms, and at the same time it's been shown at a number of different film festivals, and it recently won an Emmy, so we're very excited about that, and, you know, what we realize is that audiences just fell in love with this bunny character Chloe. So Invasion! is this story about two aliens that try to take over Earth, and they're thwarted not by humans with powerful weapons, but by cute little woodland creatures. In the first episode in Invasion! they're thwarted by this cute little bunny Chloe, and what happens is that at the very beginning of the piece, Chloe like hops up to you, and if you look down you're a little bunny in the scene, you've got bunny legs, you can hop around. And audiences, you know, the viewer just reacted in ways that you would never do in a film, like people are waving at Chloe, a lot of people reach out and try to pet Chloe, a lot of people mimic what Chloe's doing, and in short people are just treating Chloe as if she's real. And it made us realize that there's something really powerful here that is really worth kind of leaning in and digging deeper into. >> And what was the next step after that, so you went what you went, some development, was it the game, was it the character development? How do you double-down on them, I'm just kind of curious on thinking about how the, on the thinking behind it. >> It was really interesting because we, in Invasion! we were kind of the first to make you a character in the story, but at the time there really weren't hand controllers, or any of the devices so that you could actually really have sort of a more like increased role in the story. And so at the same time, people really felt that they were front and center, and they felt this sense of protecting Chloe from the aliens 'cause you're placed right in the center of the story. And so with Asteroids! when we started, we just wanted to dive deeper into that idea of you playing an active role in the story. And so in Asteroids! we focused on the two alien characters Mac and Cheez and their relationship, and you're a helper robot on the ship, so you have. >> So how do I get involved and get these stories, do I have to have a VR kit? So I don't have, I haven't bought anything yet VR-wise, so for me, how do I engage with you guys, what do I do? Do I buy Oculus Rift, or certain headsets? >> So our stuff is meant to be available for everyone. We really want to have as many people be able to see our content as possible. And so first of all, if you have a VR headset of any type, our, Invasion! is available on all those platforms, so that's the high-end headsets like the Rift and Vive, the PlayStation VR for Sony, as well as if you have a mobile phone like a Samsung phone, you can plug it into your VR. At the same time, we also have a Baobab Cardboard app, so you don't even need to have VR to see our product. So you just get an IOS or Android app, a Baobab app. >> So I'm in the market to buy a headset, I'm not price sensitive, what should I buy? What would you recommend? (Larry chuckling) >> Well there really are so many options, so you know obviously at the high >> John: What would you get? >> Well at the highest end, you know, getting a Rift or Vive really gives you the full VR experience because it's really tracking your position and orientation so you can actually walk around a space, the characters can react to you in believable ways, and it's all happening in real time. And on the other hand, the Sony PlayStation VR's are really affordable if you've got a Sony Playstation, you just buy the PSVR headset, you plug it right in and you're ready to go. I'm really excited looking forward to a world where you're not tethered to your computer, and so it's really exciting to see these stand-alone headsets that are going to come out that basically there's no tethering to a computer and yet you have that same inside-out tracking so that >> And this is the Samsung vision, right? The Samsung vision is to use their displays. >> Yes, exactly. See right now what you have, which is, which is already really exciting, is you take your Samsung phone, you plug it into a Gear VR, and the one thing that's missing is that you're not able to track both the position and orientation of where you are, and so the next generation headsets are going to have that. And the experiences will be much higher feeling. >> Alright cool, so then I, I'll actually download all of this stuff. So as the CTO of the venture, your job is to kind of look over the landscape. You have to have the 20 mile stare of the future, not screw it up, but you've got to win the present. >> Larry: Yes, we're all about being able to deliver in the present and look forward to the future. >> And that's the key, and you have that unique skill as an entrepreneur. What are you guys doing now technically and with the product, what are some of the key things that people should know about, because I mean I look at the CG and the animation world, and you see the Moore's law kind of coming that way, right, so you go wow, as someone with a live video, I would love to have a bunny and the cube set right here, right? So we see a future where I want to immerse myself with characters, not just stickers. >> We of course see that as well, so you know, obviously. >> John: Is expensive I mean it must be, 'cause in the old days what, you had the artists, monster storage, tons of compute, what's it like now? >> Well we're a really small start-up company, so we are not a, you know, 300 person organization that is producing a full animated film. We're a small team of artists and engineers working together in the same way that we had that same excitement in the early days. I started my career at Pixar in some of their earlier films, and it was that same >> John: Power work stations, you had that high-end gear. >> Yeah so it was that same excitement in those early days, like we just had to figure out like how are we going to actually create this shot, how are we going to like, you know, build this character, how are we going to like finish this on time. And we have that same exact excitement in the office. >> When were you at Pixar, were you there for the Toy Story kind of thing? >> Yeah, so I worked on the Toy Story films, and A Bug's Life and Monster's Inc., and then I went over to Dreamworks and headed up all of their character technologies on their various films. >> Okay so you guys do anything different than those guys, or are you guys more focused more simple? >> Yeah, I mean what's interesting is that this is really a new medium and it's a new skill set, because what's happened is that you are part of the world, and for us the thing that's most exciting is that by you being a character, first of all, the other characters are not just able to have, you know, sort of high-quality animation, but they're able to react to you, and so there's there A. a number of technical innovations that you need to overcome so that we can have that same high-quality character performance that I would expect from a Pixar or Dreamworks film happening, running in real time at 90 frames a second on my headset, and at the same time also be able to have those characters react to you and respond to what you're doing. And you know, so we've scratched the surface on that. So one of the things that's really interesting is how two people will actually have all these subconscious communication cues, you know, whether it's eye contact or whether it's two lovers sitting across the table and mirroring each other's behavior, that's the type of thing that we can add into our animation. And at the same time, we have stories where depending on what you do, whether you choose to participate or not, that actually affects the outcome, and affects the way that characters respond to you. And so having much smarter character performances is certainly one area that I think is really exciting. >> And that's going to be interesting for you guys because you have some structured ways to do that, and then some unstructured ways to do it with community data, machine learning, and then you can use bots in a way to help you get data, but you almost could have character developments be dynamic. >> You definitely could, and you know for us I think the thing that is always the biggest point that we come back to is story. And so on one hand we want to tell one story that's really told well, not ten different stories, and on another hand, because you're part of that story, depending on what you do, that's actually going to affect how the characters respond to you, and that could be in a really nuanced way, and so, you know, building up AI systems, and building up the smarts so that you can actually have that type of response, and yet still feel like these characters are alive and breathing. >> Well the Chloe example on Invasion! is great example, you'd love to have that automated, so when you see those magical moments, the story could evolve, you can kind of give it that programmable policy-based taping. (John laughing) >> Yeah exactly so you know, so this is the type of thing. >> We're geeking out here on the set, Larry, great to have you on, super informative content, and I love the world you're in, I think the world's changing, I think you're going to see some interesting dynamics coming, you certainly have the historical view, Pixar and Dreamworks, old school, if you call that old school. >> That's right. >> Now the new school's coming in, certainly AR looks good too. >> Yeah, we're really excited about AR as well. When we think about stories, you know, VR is about transporting you to a different world and having a story take place there. AR is about the characters being alive in your world, both are really exciting. >> Have you seen the Magic Leap demo? >> Larry: Yes, yeah. >> What's it like, can you tell us? >> I'm not allowed to tell. >> John: Is it good? >> Yes, yeah. >> So it's worth half of another half a billion, oh I can't wait. >> That I can't say, you know. I can't comment on their business, but. >> It's a freaking award chest. >> I think there's a lot of exciting things you know, AR. >> They must have a killer demo, I want to find out, I want to see this demo. Magic Leap, I want to to see your demo. All seriousness, great to have you on, and certainly come down to our Cube studios. I want to follow your story, I think you guys are on the cutting edge of a new user experience that's going to bring computer animation, computer graphics, into a new persona as a storytelling, so congratulations. Larry Cutler, how do you say the. >> Baobab. >> Baobab, B-A-O-B-A-B Studios in Redwood City, California. It's the Cube live coverage from Samsung Developer Conference, I'm John Furrier, more after this short break. (peppy music)