>> Announcer: From Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, it's theCube! Covering VTUG Winter Warmer 2018, presented by Silicon Angle. >> Hi I'm Stu Miniman and this is the VTUG Winter Warmer 2018. Happy to welcome to the program a regular here at the VTUG, but no longer a local, so Chris Colotti who's currently the Field CTO at Tintri, great to see you Chris. >> You too Stu, it's been a while. >> And love the attire. >> I know, I think every time I come and do a presentation, I have a Patriots jersey on of some kind. >> Absolutely, I mean there's a few things we know you for, so you love your virtualization, you love your Patriots, and there's usually some workout thing, so are we going to get some fitness tips (mumbles)? >> Not today, actually you don't want to know what I did the other day with a buddy of mine, so you'll see me hobbling around because it was not a good leg day (laughs). >> Okay, so we'll be getting, I always like to hear, I just had a user on of what they weren't like in the industry, so you'll give us the what not to do to make sure that you can keep your fitness goals. >> Yeah, don't hook up with a buddy who has a lot of sandbags in his truck that likes to work out with them. >> So Chris, for those of our audience that haven't been to the event, and give us just a little bit about your background, what you're doing these days. >> Yeah, so I mean VTUG's, man this has been around forever, I think. >> 12 years now. >> 12 years the Harneys have been doing this, and I've been, I think I've been a part of it for a better part of the last decade or so. One being a Patriot's fan, two being a virtualization person, and where I kind of grew my career from sort of being a Sys Admin to where I am now, I just think this is one of the better events because it's all technology, right? I mean we run into people that it's not just virtualization, you got AWS now, you got people of all walks of life that comes to this and honestly, I think you can't beat the venue, right? I mean especially, how many times have we been here where they cover the windows? If the windows are covered, it's a good year. That's what we say. >> As a matter fact, this is the fifth year we've had theCube, and every year the Patriots are still in the playoffs, working towards the Super Bowl, and they're one step away again. >> I think the worst year for me, was I actually had the center stage keynote one year, and they told me while I was presenting they were actually on the field practicing, and it was all I could to not just stop talking and say I'll be right back (laughs). >> As you said, better part of a decade you've been here, you were working for VMWare, when this was a VMUG, but you've been involved, tell us just what you're doing these days for work. >> Yeah, so I left VMWare and moved over to Tintri, which is I'll flash the word partner, I came over there, actually I came over as a cloud evangelist kind of person, and that shifted a little bit, and while that was around how to use our APIs and things like that for automation and private cloud, now there's actually three Field CTOs, I'm one of 'em, and I spend most of my time really talking to customers, doing events, doing roadmap presentations, where were going, what we're doing, I still spend my fair share on the road doing the shows and stuff, VMworld. >> You just threw in a bunch of things there, talk cloud, API, storage, what are you hearing from customers these days? What are they getting right? What are they struggling with, and what are they looking for? >> Yeah it's funny, so for a long time I was a cloud guy, right? I mean I did VCloud Air, I launched VCloud Air DR, and I think what I heard coming over to Tintri is good, folks are still struggling with that whole, "What do I put in the cloud? "What don't I put in the cloud? "Do I bring everything back?" We've got a lot of customers that have brought stuff back on premises, I think a lot of customers are just still struggling with that concept, I mean one of the first presentations I did, probably I think, here it was back in 2010, right around that timeframe, when VCloud Air, or VCloud Director was launched, Chris had me, Harney had me come down and do VCloud Director, and it was deer in the headlights, you know? It was so bleeding edge for VMWare at that point to have this cloud product and this automation stuff, and then fast forward to today, you know eight years later, I still think people are struggling with that. They're just not sure how to deal with it, right? And operationally, I think people come and really figure out it's not about cloud so much as automation, we've got to simplify the way we do things, we got to automate more. We've got to take day to day operations and do something different with 'em. >> Yeah, I mean a line we've used often is cloud is not a destination, it's an operations model. >> Yeah, for sure. Unfortunately I think there's a lot of people that still think it's a destination, the old To the Cloud ads, remember those? >> Microsoft, absolutely, there's lots of jokes on that. Yeah, you gave an interesting keynote this morning, I actually had one of the users that came on our program earlier, and she was like, "I really enjoyed that." So Luigi Danakos, a friend of ours and you, tell me a little more about IT in careers, because we know the only thing that is consistent is that things are going to change, so give our audience a little bit of taste of what you talked about. >> So yeah, it was actually interesting, so we came up with the idea because I've come to these and done technical presentations all the time, but inevitably I always get somebody, or a couple people come up to you and say, "How did you get where you are? "How did you evolve?" And people who know my story, what's interesting about mine is I went to school for architectural engineering, I actually have a degree in architectural engineering, drawing blueprints and designing houses, and they always look at me and say, "How did you "get to here? "You were a System Admin, and I'm a Sys Admin, "and how do I grow my career?" So Luigi and figured why don't we sort of take a little bit of that history 'cause now we're kind of, I hate to say we're the old guys on the porch these days, but back in the day, we were younger, we were faster, as you go forward, how do you stay relevant? And that's what we wanted to kind of talk about, so we talk a concept from an author by the name of John C Maxwell and we kind of took one of his books and we kind of cobbled it down to five different aspects and we just talked about what to think about, how to move, not just always knowing the technology, where do you want to go? What do you want to do? And how to get there, not just to sit and say, "Well it's never going to happen for me." You have to make something out of it yourself, and I think the response was pretty good, it was different, it was the first one in the morning, but it wasn't getting hit at 9:00 a.m. with technicals, it was really just us telling our stories around how we got to where we were going, and one of the big parts about Luigi was having just been let go from HP and now he's done some interviews and I thought it was really great 'cause he came right out and said, "Y'know what? "I'm going to just do my own thing. "I've just decided there's never a good time "to start your own company, so why not do it now?" And that was after he went through four or five interviews, so hopefully it resonated with some people. For me, it's always gotten harder to learn. I think as we get older, I made the joke in the session, I lost my phone first thing this morning. Literally, couldn't remember where I put it, dropped it, I called my best friend, Chris Boyd, who's one of the other CTOs and I said have you seen it? Because I'm going to send the, I was going to have him run around the west side with the buzzer going off, the Find my iPhone to go find this, I can't remember what I did yesterday, so learning gets harder. >> Yeah, well learning's harder, the bar's not that high to kind of get into new stuff. When I walk around the show, two things struck me. Number one is the vendors, every single one of them are hiring SEs, and they can't find enough good quality people, and it's more about the people, then it is, you can train them up. And secondly, some of these new spaces, talk about like the cloud space, if you get your Associate's on like AWS? Like people will call you immediately, and there's so much opportunity out there, we both had lots of friends. There's changes in consolidations in the industry, and therefore there's people that hey, it's time for a change, so-- >> Well I never thought I would work for a storage company. Well I worked for VMWare which was acquired EMC years ago, but we still never, as VMWare employees, we didn't work for a storage company. >> VMWare's a software company. >> We were a software company, and I still actually look at Tintri as a software company, yes we sell an appliance, but the crux of what Tintri does really is the software of the OS itself and that's what makes it different. So yeah, and I mean I've had to learn more about storage then I knew before, and I was telling a guy at the show, one of the things that Luigi and I talk to people, always said just learn something new every day, just as small and as silly as it was, and we've told different stories, and a guy asked me, "So what's the last thing "you learned, technology-wise, outside of storage?" I said I actually learned containers because of my home media server environment. I had to go out and learn Docker because I wanted to run some stuff and I didn't want to stand it up, I just wanted to figure out how containers work, so now Tim Gabett and I, we're on the phone back and forth, alright how'd you get that container run? And what'd you do for the storage, and how'd you deal with this? But that to me is what keeps your brain a little bit sharp, I mean I don't do puzzles and things like that, but those stupid side projects we all do because we're technologists I think help. >> Yeah, and you never know when those side projects and passions could turn into an opportunity from careers standpoint? >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Alright Chris, you've been coming to this event quite a long time, as we said, give us the what's changed and what's stayed the same from your standpoint? >> Aw man, that's a tough one because I think a lot of stuff has essentially stayed the same in the realm of networking and storage, I think there's always a new player, but I look back at the last, I'll probably get myself in trouble here, but what was the last big innovative thing in the IT space when I was a System Admin, and I go back to those easy things, like I remember when I did my first VMotion, and it was like how does that work? And I used to have conversations, and I do that today with engineers, and I say what are we innovating? What are we doing to change the game? And to me, and again this is all my personal opinion, I suppose I'll preface it with that because for most people that know me know I have a pretty strong opinion on stuff, but I think that's the tough part is how do we move forward? How do we evolve to the next, really big, innovative thing that just blows people's minds? And I think AWS definitely did that a little bit when it really started to go mainstream and people realized it was a real thing, it wasn't a book store anymore, they had this other stuff, and we go through these cycles, right? But I think in the standard IT space, I'm still trying to figure out outside of those, what's the next really cool thing that we're going to see from the different vendors? And who's innovating and who's just sort of maintaining? >> Yeah, absolutely, well I can tell you that people here are excited, there's a lot to learn about keynotes this morning, I mean everything from what's happening in the automation space, developers, not a ton of developers at a show like this, but definitely lots of opportunity there, you talked the AWS presentation, he's like, "I'm live-coding and showing you Lambda stuff." Most of the people here aren't quite ready for some serverless world-- >> That was like me doing VCloud Director presentations (laughs). >> And things like that, I remember three years ago, it was like the AWS 101, everybody was like, "Oh my gosh, "this cloud thing sounds really amazing." So it takes some time, we've heard about it. I remember back when I heard about VMotion when it was in development, and still one of those things where you look back at your career and like wow, that was an amazing, it was that magic technology. >> It was almost those conversation, where were you when you did your first VMotion, right (laughs)? >> As a matter of fact, Duncan actually did a blog post about that, "Where you heard about it?" And I pulled in (mumbles) into the thread because I was lucky enough to go to a conference and moderate a session where he explained down to Kernel Zero how it worked, and it was interesting-- >> How he actually did what he did. >> You know what they say, "Any technology that is significantly difficult "to explain might as well be magic." So you're right, interesting stuff to see where innovation's going in the industry, I think most people I know are pretty excited, there's so much going on there, there's no shortage of new things to learn, we just need to reach out and take those opportunities, and I love your advice to keep learning something every day. >> As small as it is, I told these guys this morning that one of my biggest learning experiences was when we moved, I had to learn how to drive a motor home, a house, and deal with stuff that I've never done, right? But it's all learning. I challenged them today to just whether you're going to the sessions or you're just walking around where the vendors are, just understand what those people do and take that away and internalize it and see how you can use it. >> Well Chris, I'm glad to see you're still a true blue Patriots fan there-- >> The tattoo is still real (laughs). >> You haven't picked up the Southern drawl just yet. >> No it's funny, my wife said I pick it up a little bit when I'm around our neighbors, and then when I come back up here, I can really turn on the Boston accent if I tried but (laughs). >> Well, you all come back for lots more coverage here from VTUG Winter Warmer 2018. I'm Stu Miniman, this is theCube. (exciting electronic music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, Nevada, it's theCUBE, covering Knowledge15. Brought to you by ServiceNow. (electronic music) >> We're on, welcome to theCUBE special presentation, here live at the ServiceNow Know15, it's theCUBE. It's our flagship program, we go out to the events and as you can see from the noise, I'm John Furrier with SiliconANGLE co-host Dave Vellante of WikiBon.org And our special guest, John Cleese, distinguished Professor at Cornell, we just learned, no-one knows that. But apparently that's true. Writer, comedian, thought-leader, I got told that. >> And a Doctor. I'm a Doctor, Doctor of Laws. >> Doctor. >> And, what else am I? I was offered a Peerage but I turned it down because I had to be in England during the winter and go and vote in the House of Lords, so I said no to that. And I also turned down a CBE, but I would love to have an OBE. But not an Order of the British Empire, I'd like to have an Out of Body Experience. (laughs) >> But you're not a thought leader anymore, you're a futurist, that's the new trend. The futurist is the buzzword. >> No, I'm not. I'm very much living in the past. I don't like the future. And I don't think much of the present. (laughs) >> Well you're here speaking at the CIO Decisions. What do you think of all the CIOs and all the geeks here at ServiceNow? What's your? >> Well I like geeks because they all like Monty Python. (laughs) You know? I'm about, three-quarters of the speeches I do are to software people, and I usually tease them. You know, I ask em how many Star Trek episodes they can name, whether they've got a tee-shirt with Moore's Equation on it, and all this kind of, whether they wear a black backpack to formal occasions. So I got a whole lot of geek jokes. But they all like Python, cos they're extremely smart, and as you know, people who like Python are astonishingly smart. (laughs) >> So how to you tell smart people from people who aren't smart? How about people who are not smart? >> Well as you've said, you like Monty Python. >> I love Monty Python. (imitates extreme gibberish) >> You think, he doesn't like it. Doesn't get the jokes. >> So you've talked to a lot of software people. In Vegas? Do you like Vegas? Enjoy Vegas? >> Vegas? >> Las Vegas. (laughs) You see a show while you're out here? >> I can't get over this place. (laughs) Why people spend a lot of money to come here, so that they can lose what money they still have left. I really don't get it. Do they come here, because they think that the casino owners are so rich because they won a lot of money gambling at other people's casinos? (laughs) The only good thing about it is the food. >> Did you bring your wife with you? >> Which one? (laughs) No I didn't. She wasn't feeling well, said she's going to join me in New York, cos I'm going onto New York. And this weekend we are at the Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro's, and we are having a Monty Python retrospective, for really smart people. >> What's been the weirdest thing that has happened to you, in the tech community here in ServiceNow. Any highlights? >> Not this visit, but the last visit when I arrived at the hotel, I can't think which one it was, Venetian I think, and the guy at the counter recognized me and said, are you listening? >> John F: Yes, I'm Tweeting away. >> No you're not. I tweet. >> I'm Tweeting away. >> He's kind of rude that way. >> What are you on your fucking keyboard for? I'm telling you a joke. (laughs) >> Tweeting away. >> Welcome to the future. >> Do you have a Twitter handle? >> Now, shall I start it again? (laughs) I was coming here to Las Vegas, right, I was staying at the Venetian hotel. Got any phone calls you need to answer or anything? >> Hold on, let me check. (laughs) >> I arrived there at reception and the guy said to me, "Mr Cleese, I really like your shows Monty Python, Fawlty Towers and all of that. Could I have your autograph?" So I said, sure, I write him an autograph. Then he says, could I have your credit card for extra expenses, and I gave it to him, and he said, "I'm sorry to ask you this, but do you have any identification?" (laughs) It's true. >> So are you Tweeting, and live-streaming? >> John C: Am I what? >> Tweeting, using your Twitter account? >> Am I, Am I? Can we get a handkerchief. >> Do you have a Facebook page? >> Facebook? I've heard of Facebook. That's for people who aren't important enough to get in the gossip columns and newspapers, right? (laughs) >> So we have some Facebook questions from the crowd. Do you mind if we ask you some of those? Somebody wants to know, what the air speed velocity is of an unladen swallow? >> Oh, I used to know this. I used to know this, in 1971 I could have answered that. Pass. (laughs) >> Dave: You're lucky. >> Are you back with us again? >> I'm back, I'm just going through the questions. So the question on my Facebook page is, what about this Cornell study about the double curse of incompetence? >> The double what? >> John F: Curse of incompetence. >> The double what you say? >> Dave: Curse. Double curse. >> Of incompetence. I don't know. >> Good question. >> Oh, now I know what you're talking about. There's a great guy there, a Professor called David Dunning, and he's one of the most amusing and entertaining guys I've ever met. And he's spent his career studying how good people are at knowing how good they are at things. What he calls Self Assessment. And what he's discovered, which I absolutely love, is that in order to know how good you are at something, it requires almost exactly the abilities that it does to be good at that thing in the first place. So if you're absolutely no good at something, you lack exactly the abilities that you need to know that you're no fucking good at it. And that explains the planet, better than anything else that I've ever come across. Is that there's a whole lot of people out there, who have no idea what they're doing, but they have absolutely no idea that they have no idea what they're doing. And those are the ones with the confidence and stupidity, who finish up in power. That's why the planet doesn't work. (laughs) >> So, honestly they don't know about Monty Python. >> They're not smart enough. >> What do you mean they don't know about Monty Python? This is a very smart man, David Dunning. (laughs) He's very smart, he's also shown, oh it doesn't matter. >> What did you talk about, the CIOs, when you out talking to the CIOs- >> John C: C-I-Os? >> John F: The Chief Information Officers. >> Geeks, well, what was interesting was that they were quite receptive to what I was saying, which is so counter-cultural. You see, I think we're living in the nadir of our civilization. I think as you wake up in the morning, that sound you can hear is our civilization cracking. And it's because of technology, because nobody talks to anyone anymore. They all go in restaurants and then they do this. I mean, we all know this, I'm not making a clever observation, but it's insanity, you know? When my daughter was 16, she would get together with all her friends but instead of talking to each other they'd be emailing or texting everyone who wasn't there yet. Do you see what I mean? They never actually- >> Texting selfies. What do they do when they get together? Just continue to talk to each other on their phones? >> It's completely vacuous, vacuous civilization. With the celebrity culture at the heart of its rottenness. >> Hollywood. >> So what effect do you think that has on the human brain, creativity, thinks like that? >> Well people are on technological devices all the time. They think now that the kids have less good social skills. And the point about human beings is we've always been good at technology, you know? In the 13th century when we were in the Holy Land, slaughtering Muslims, we were still able to build beautiful cathedrals. You see what I mean? So we can build things, and put men on the Moon. The only thing is we can't get on well together. So, which is more important? The answer is getting on well together, so we're now giving kids all the things that stop them from acquiring social skills. It's beyond mad, but people are after money, and so they will always do things, and always come up with excuses why what they're doing is actually good for the world, when it's all about that. >> What about the Hollywood situation. You mentioned in your speech about, when you were creative, when you were younger, and the process you went through, what's the state in your mind, of the Hollywood culture. I mean, they do a movie about Korea, and then Sony gets hacked. >> It's all a bit crazy, but I wrote two film scripts about ten years ago cos I thought to myself, can I make a living writing film scripts. And I did an adaptation of a children's book by Roald Dahl, called 'The Twits.', and I wrote something for Jeffrey Katzenberg about cavemen as an animation- who are you talking to? >> John F: He's saying we only have one minute. >> That's Greg Stewart. >> Oh okay. I can't be bothered to go on talking for one minute. (laughs) Though I have so many fascinating things to say, that I'm afraid (speaking off mic) >> Thanks, thanks for that. >> Thanks Greg, you're fired. (laughs) Greg's fired. >> The guy's going to lose their job if you walk off the set. >> John C: Good. >> Good, >> you're fired. (mic thumps on the desk) (laughs) >> Thank you very much. (laughs) You don't see that everyday. >> Okay, that's an out. That's a wrap. Say goodbye. (upbeat music)