>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering NetApp Insight 2018, brought to you by NetApp. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage today of NetApp Insight 2018, I am Lisa Martin. Stu Miniman is my co-host for the day, and we're welcoming to theCUBE, for the first time, a couple of guests, one from NetApp, my former colleague, Emily Miller, acting VP of brand content and influencer marketing. And one of this morning's keynote, Gerd Leonhard, futurist, the CEO of The Futures Agency. I loved, Gerd, I loved your keynote this morning, it was very very interesting and informative. >> Thank you. >> And I liked how you said, you don't predict the future, you observe the future. So Emily, thinking about NetApp, its history, NetApp today, and in the future, talk to us a little bit about how this brand has transformed. >> Sure >> Not just digitally, for IT, but transforming, taking the feedback, and the really, kind of direction from your customers. >> Sure, so if I think about, you know, NetApp's been around for 25 years and we've played a great role in the, you know, kind of the storage history. But over the last few years as our customers' needs have changed, you know, really having to have data as your design point, how everything is evolving, changing, hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, we had to listen to that and knowing that our customers are going to places like AI and, you know, deep learning, we have to move there. And so, a couple years ago, we looked at who are we as a company and who are we going to be for the next 25 years? And our purpose now is around how we empower our customers to change the world with data because that is what they are doing. So using a lot of these technologies, and the things that Gerd talked about this morning, it is happening, and so, we've got some great customers we're working with, where we're able to kind of see that brand promise come to life with things they're doing, and we're just excited to be able to continue to work with those companies that are pushing the edge because that helps us be better and be more proactive about the future. >> When you talk with customers, #datadriven is all over, right? We've been hearing that for a while. What is being data driven mean to a customer, because as Gerd talked about in his keynote this morning, there's always that conversation, Stu, we hear it all the time on theCUBE, on ethics. >> Right. >> When you talk about enabling customers to be data driven and developing a data strategy, how do they internalize that and actually work with NetApp to execute? >> Right, so we really see it as putting data at the heart of your business, it is that lifeblood, it has to be centered around that. And then, thinking about data fabric, it's really the strategy and the approach, so how do you envision how data from all over, all parts of your organization are able to be leveraged? You get the access and the insights, and you can utilize it. You don't want it to be stagnant, you've got to be able to use it to make better decisions, to have that information, those insights at your fingertips to do the things that have to be done in real time, all the time. >> So Gerd, we want to bring you into discussion here, there's certain fears, for people in technology, "Oh my gosh, my job's going to be "replaced, that can be automated." You know, I've gone to shows, talk about, oh hey, in humans, you're good at getting things to 95, 96%. You know, I can get perfectly accurate if I let the robots just automate things. You write about humans versus technology, what's your take? You know, singularity's coming, you were saying, so are we all out of a job? >> Well, this is of course, what I call a reductionism, right? It's the idea that you would have a machine who would do just what I do, exactly what I do, for very little money, and then you would have thousands of other machines that do thousands of other things, then. And the fact is that, I think McKinsey's study says only 5% of all jobs that can be automated, can be fully automated. So, even a pilot can be automated, but I wouldn't fly an airplane without a pilot, so we still have a pilot. And data scientists can be automated by an AI, yes, but there'll be many things that I need the data scientist for as a person. So, if you take human skills, what I call the andro-rhythms, you know, the human things. So, passion, ingenuity, design, creativity, negotiation. I think computers may learn that in 100 years, but to really be compassionate, it will have to be alive. And I wouldn't want them to be alive. So, I'm saying that yes, true, I think if you only do routine, like bookkeeping, like low level financial advice, like driving a bus. You have to retrain and relearn, yes. But otherwise, I wouldn't be that negative, I think there's also so many new things happening. I mean, 10 years ago, we didn't have social media managers, right, and now we got what, 30 million? So, I'm not that dark on the future there. >> I'm glad, you actually, you gave a great quote from Albert Einstein talking about that, really, imagination is infinite as opposed to, knowledge is kind of contained. NetApp talks a lot about being data driven, you gave the Jeff Bezos example of, you know, I need to listen to it. But there's heart, and there's kind of history, there's another great line from Jeff Bezos, is, "There is no compression algorithm for experience." So, how do we as humans balance that humanity and the data and the numbers? >> Well, the reality is, we don't live in a binary world. When we look at technology, it's always about yes, no, yes, no, zero, one. That's what machines do, we don't do that. (laughs) Humans are called multinary, which is essentially, to us, a lot more things matter than yes or no. Like, it depends, maybe, it may change, and so on. And so if we just look at that and say it's going to be data or humans, we have to pick one of the two, that will be a rather strange suggestion. I think we need to say that it's sometimes data, sometimes human, but we have to keep the humans in the loop, that's my key phrase. >> And I would say, I feel like that's really our opportunity as humans, is to decide where is the value, where is the layer of value that we add on. You know, again, kind of thinking back to NetApp's history, we're moving from storage to data, we are evolving. We have to add value at a higher level for our customers, and what was something that maybe we did as humans, and for advising, that's automated now, like think of the demo we saw this morning, and now what is that additional layer of value that you add on top? >> Yeah absolutely, as you're both saying, it's not a binary thing, Andy McPheener from Jolmston, from MIT, say, tracing with the machines, that humans plus machines will do way better than either humans or robots alone. >> You know, I think if you are arguing that we would be in a perfect world if the machines could run it perfectly, then I would argue that world would be a machine, right? So, it would be perfect, but it wouldn't be human, so what are we getting, right? It's a bad deal, so I think we need to find a good balance between the two, and also carve out things that are not about data. You know, like dating and love, relationships, you know, that can be about data, like matching, right? But in the end, the relationship isn't about data. (laughs) >> Well, you even said this morning, it's, knowledge is not the same thing as understanding. >> Right. >> And that's kind of where we are at these crossroads. Emily, let's kind of wrap up with you, you got some interesting customer examples, of how NetApp is helping customers become and live that data driven life, and embrace these emerging technologies, like AI. >> Right, so we have a customer we're working with in Serbia, and they are basically kind of digitizing a human to be able to interact from an AI standpoint, in terms of having an interactive conversation. And I've seen some of this before, with interviewing your grandparents, and you can store them, and you can interact, and I think what's really exciting, is that gives you the opportunity to do something you never could do before. I think to your points this morning, it's, how do we make sure we don't lose the richness from those more kind of offline experiences, so that they are complimentary? If we, as we expand and do things that we couldn't think about, that we didn't, we couldn't envision or imagine, and I think that's about being a data visionary. Like the people at the companies like 3Lateral, like we've seen today, on Wuji NextCODE on stage, the data visionaries are those who are saying, how can data transform my, not just my company, but my industry, my category, and how do I really think about it completely differently? >> It's an exciting time. Emily, Gerd, thank you so much, I wish we had more time to chat with you guys, but we appreciate you stopping by theCUBE and sharing your insights. >> Great, thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Insight, pun intended. I'm Lisa Martin with Stu Miniman, we are with theCUBE, live all day at NetApp Insight 2018, stick around, Stu and I will be right back with our next guest.

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering NetApp Insight 2018. Brought to you by NetApp. >> Welcome to theCUBE, we are live at NetApp Insight 2018, I'm Lisa Martin and I'm joined by Stu Miniman. Stu and I are going to be here all day. And this is the third annual Insight, with customers and partners and NetAppians and analysts and press. Stu this is the second time theCUBE has been here. We just came from the keynote and the interesting thing that Stu, that you and I both noticed, was at least the first 75 minutes of the keynote that we got to see today, none of the product news was announced. It was really about strategy, #datadriven, how NetApp wants to enable their customers from DreamWorks to oil and gas companies, health care, etc. To use data, develop a data strategy, to move their businesses into the digital age. >> Yeah, Lisa, first of all, great to be working with you again. >> Always. >> And I'm excited, it's second year that we've been at this show, third of the NetApp Insights that we've done. Cause we've done both the U.S. and the European shows. My first time actually coming to a NetApp event. I remember, gosh I'm showing my age, I remember when NetApp started, network storage was becoming a thing. NetApp really rose its ascendancy with file systems and NAS, and FAS was the one operating system to rule them all, really grew into a very sizable business. Company's about $6 billion worth of revenue and I think somewhere about 10,000 employees. Today, NetApp is really the largest independent storage company after Dell took EMC off as an independent now, so it's interesting to watch. George Kurian got on stage and talked about digital transformation. And one of the things I'm really interested in looking at is how is NetApp doing in that transformation? Because, most people when I was talking to some customers at some of the meals and walking the floor and things like that it's, NetApp is my filer company. I buy boxes, sometimes I mine some software and there's some things there, but I'm the guy that runs NetApp Gear, if you will. And that transformation, what is the NetApp of 2019 and beyond? Are they a storage company? Are they a hybrid, multi-cloud software led something something company in the future? Are they a services company? There's a nice ecosystem here, so that's what I'm excited to dig into. George Kurian he in the keynote this morning, laid out the four things that companies need to do for digital transformation. It's something we'll dig into, but yeah, I had to go search NetApp on the news release and be like, oh Cloud Insights, and ONTAP in the Cloud, and HCI and Partnership News and things like that, so there definitely is some news, they just didn't talk about it in the keynote. >> Yeah, it was an interesting keynote for me, and as theCUBE we go to a lot of keynotes, many times a year, and this was an interesting start to it. It's clear from the NetApp messaging on NetApp.com, NetApp Insight, things that are being put out on media that they're really putting cloud at the heart of their strategy. The discussions and the keynote this morning included futurist Gerd Leonhard, who's going to be on the program with us in just a few minutes. Interesting take on data, humanity, the only thing that NetApp talked about was about 75 minutes minutes into they keynote this morning was when Anthony Lye got on, he's going to be on the show later today, talking about the data fabric. And I think some of the messages that NetApp was wanting to get out is that data fabric is transforming from a vision into an architecture kind of foundationally to enable organizations to employ those four principals of digital transformation that George Kurian talked about. Digital transformation requires IT transformation, speed is the new scale, some interesting thoughts and concepts there, more conceptual. I liked the DreamWorks customer, I think she's a great speaker. Kind of talked also about how DreamWorks, everybody knows DreamWorks, "Shrek", "How to Train your Dragon", are becoming more morphing from a customer to an engineering partner. So that was and interesting kind of, I wouldn't even say undertone, but part of the story today. >> You know, Lisa, absolutely. When you look at traditionally, not only NetApp, but all the storage companies, where they sold to. It was the storage budget, and oh how do I manage with the explosion of data, and that growth and what's the performance, the speeds and feeds, the price per terabyte, all that kind of stuff? I thought we could actually take George Kurian's four characteristics and say, how's NetApp doing? First is digital transformation requires IT transformation. >> (Lisa) Right. >> I heard yesterday in some of the sessions they actually had some of NetApp's IT people talk about how they're leveraging and using new technologies. We talked about speed is the new scale, well how fast is NetApp? We have a number of acquisitions. There was the big SolidFire acquisition which is now fully part of the portfolio. They had a Kubernetes company that they bought recently. They've had management companies that they bought. How fast is NetApp keeping up with the pace of what they're doing? Hybrid multi-cloud, I think NetApp first of all was really what you would call software-defined before that was a thing, and they were very early in jumping on this wave of we need to play in the cloud environment. Most of the storage companies really lined up and was like, oh wait, Amazon's the competition, you can't do that, but NetApp was partnering with Amazon for many years, now I'd like to see more proof points as to what customers are doing, how are they doing it differently. But absolutely we're going to have Microsoft Azure on the program with Anthony Lye, this afternoon. I know we're going to be talking about Amazon, we're going to be talking about Kubernetes and Istio, where does NetApp fit into that environment? I've been going to theCUBE Con shows for a couple years, and storage is actually lagging in that space. When you talk about having persistent data, that's not something we're there with. We spent more than a decade trying to fix storage and networking in the virtualized environments, and NetApp played a strong role in helping on the storage piece there. So it would be great to see how they are going to play into the Kubernetes and issue discussion. And the last piece is they said moving from data center to data fabric. >> Right. >> Which is the closest tie to the products as you said. >> (Lisa) Yes, exactly. >> To what they're doing. >> Well, Stu we have a jam-packed schedule today, all day. We're going to be able to unpack a lot of things from NetApp, execs, to their branding folks, to customers, so Stu and I will be right back with our next guest. Again, theCUBE Live from NetApp Insight 2018. We'll be right back. (music)