(upbeat music) >> Welcome to this special Cube Conversation. We're here in Palo Alto, California with a special guest. Dialing in remotely Paul Martino, the founder of Bullpen Capital and also the producer of an upcoming film called The Inside Game. It's a story about a true story about an NBA betting scandal. It's really, it's got everything you want to know. It's got sports, it's got gambling, it's got fixing of games. Paul Martino, known for being a serial entrepreneur and then an investor, investing in some great growth companies, and now running his own firm called Bullpen Capital, which bets on high-growth companies and takes them to the next level. Paul, great to see you. Thanks for spending the time. Good to see you again. >> John, always good to see you. Thanks for having me on the show. >> So, you're a unique individual. You're a computer science whiz, investor, entrepreneur, now film producer. This story kind of crosses over your interests. Obviously in Philly, you're kind of like me, kind of a blue collar kind of guy. You know hot starters when you see it. You also were an investor in a lot of the sports, gambling, betting, kind of online games, we've talked about in the past. But now you're crossing over into filming movies. Which is, seems like very cool and obviously we're living in a date of digital media where code is software, code is content, obviously we believe that. What's this movie all about? All the buzz is out there, Inside Game. You get it on sports radio all the time. Give us the scoop. Why Inside Game? What's it about? Give us the 411. >> Yeah, so John, I mean, this is a story that picked me. My producing partner in this is a guy named Michael Pierce who made a bunch of great movies, including The Cooler, one of the best gambling movies, with William H Macy. And he says sometimes the movie picks you and sometimes you pick the movie. And I wasn't sitting around one day going wow I want to be a movie producer, it was just much more that my cousin is the principal in the story. My cousin was the go-between between the gambler and the referee. The three of them were friends ever since they were kids. And when they all got out of jail Tommy called me, Tommy Martino. He said hey Paulie, you're about the only legitimate business guy I know. Could you help me with my life rights? And that's how this started almost six years ago. >> And what progressed next? You sat down, had a couple cocktails, beers, said okay here's how we're going to structure it. Was it more brainstorming and then it kind of went from there? Take us through that progression. >> It was a pure intellectual property exercise, and this is where being a startup guy was helpful. I was like, Tommy, I'll buy your life rights. Maybe we'll get a script written, we'll put it on the shelf, so that if anybody ever wants to make this story they have to go through us. Almost like a blocking patent or a copyright. And he's like okay cool. And so I said I have no delusions of ever making this movie. I actually don't know that, I don't know anybody to make a movie. This is not my skill set. But if anybody ever wants to make the movie, they're going to have to come deal with us. And then the lucky break happens, like anything in a startup. I have this random meeting with a guy named Michael Pierce, who was at a firm called WPS Challenger out of London. And we're down in Hillstone in Santa Monica, and I say to him, I say I've got this script written about this NBA betting scandal, would you do me a favor? He literally laughs in my face. He goes a venture guy from Silicon Valley is going to hand me a script. What a bad, anyway, I was like look dude, I'm a good guy to have owe you a favor so just read this dang thing. About 8 hours later my phone rings, he says who the hell is Andy Callahan? This is the best script I've ever read in my entire life. Let's go make a movie. Andy Callahan was a friend of a friend from high school who wrote the script. He actually once beat Kobe Bryant when he was a center at Haverford when Kobe Bryant played at Lower Merion here in the Philly suburbs. So, it's kind of this local Philly story. I'm a local Philly blue collar guy, we put the pieces together, and I'll be danged and now six years later the film is in the can and you're probably going to see it during the NBA finals this year in June. >> All right, so there's some news out there it's on the cover on ESPN Magazine, the site is now launched. I've been hearing buzz all morning on this in the sports radio world. A lot of buzz, a lot of organic virality around it. Reminds of the Crazy, Rich Asians, which kind of started organically, similar kind of community behind it. This has really got some legs to it. Give us some taste of what's some of the latest organic growth here around the buzz. >> Yeah so, think about this. This happened in, primarily '06 and '07. They were sentenced in 2010 and were in jail in 2011. It is 2019 and the front page story on ESPN is What Tim, Tommy, and Jimmy Battista Did. Those were the three guys, the gambler, the ref, and the go-between. And this is a front page story on ESPN all these years later. So we know this story has tremendous legs. We know this movie has a tremendous built-in audience. And so now it's just our job to leverage all those marketing channels, places we pioneered, like Zynga and FanDuel to get people who care about the story into the theaters. And we're hoping we can really show people how to do a modern way to market a film using those channels we've pioneered at places like FanDuel and Zynga. >> You and I have had many conversations privately and here on the Cube in the past around startups disruption, and it's the same pattern right? No one thinks it's a great idea, you get the rights to it, and you kind of got to find that inflection point, that magical moment which comes through networking and just hard work and hustle. And then you've got everything comes together. And then it comes together. And then it grows. As the world changes, you're seeing digital completely change the game on Hollywood. For instance, Netflix, you've got Prime, you've got Hulu. This is, essentially, a democratization, I'm not saying, well first of all you've made some money so you had some dough to put into it, but here's a script from a friend. You guys put it together. This is now the new startup model going to Hollywood. Talk about that dynamic, what's your vision there? Because this, I think, is an important signal in how digital content, whether it's guys in the Cube doing stuff or Cube Studios, which we'll, we have a vision for. This is something that's real. Talk about the dynamic. How do you see the entrepeneurial vision around how movies are made, how content's made, and then, ultimately, how they're merchandised in the future. >> Right, there's a whole, there's a whole bunch of buckets. There's the intellectual property bucket of the story, the script, etc. Then there's the bucket of getting the movie made. You know, that's the on the set and that's the director and that's post-production, and then there's the marketing. And what was really interesting is even though I'd never made a movie, two of those three buckets I knew a tremendous amount about from my experience as a startup investor. The marketing and the IP side I understood almost completely, even though I'd never made a film. And so all of the disruptive technologies that we learn for doing disruptive things like marketing a new thing called Daily Fantasy Sports, we were able to bring to bear to this film. Now, I had fun on the set and meeting all the actors, etc. But I had no delusion that I knew about the making of the movie part. So I plead ignorance there, but of the three buckets that you need to go make something in the media space 66% of what I knew as a startup guy overlapped and I think this is what the future of the media is. Because guys like me and you, John, we actually know a lot about this because we're startup people as opposed to we have to learn about it in terms of how to market and how to get an audience. I mean, my last company Aggregate Knowledge designs custom audiences for ad targeting. So we know how to find gamblers to go see this movie. That's literally the company I started. And so that's a thing that I'm very, very comfortable with and it's exciting to then work with the producer who did the creative and the director and I say hey guys, I've got this marketing thing under control, I know how to do it, oh by the way, the old Head of Marketing from FanDuel, he's a consultant to the project. Right, so, we got that. >> You got that, and the movie's being made. That's also again, back to entrepreneurship, risk. You got to take risks, right? This is all about risk management at the end of the day and you know, navigating as the lead entrepreneur, getting it done, there's heavy lifting and costs involved in making the movie, >> Right >> How did you, that's like production, right? You got to build a product. That is ultimately the product when it has to get to market. How did that go, what's your thoughts on your first time running a movie like this, from a production standpoint, learnings, observations? >> I learned a tremendous amount. I must admit, I was along for the ride on that piece of the puddle, puzzle. The product development piece of this was all new to me. But then again, I mean think about it, John, I started four companies, a social network, an ad targeting company, a game company, and a security company. I didn't know anything about those four companies when I started them either in terms of what the product needed to do. So learning a new product called make a movie was kind of par for the course, even though I didn't really know anything about it. You know, if you're going to be a startup person you got to have no fear. That's the real attribute you need to have in these kinds of situations. >> So I got to >> And so, witnessed that first-hand and, you know what, now, if I ever make a movie again I kind of know how to make that product. >> Yeah, well looking forward. You've got great instincts as an entrepreneur. I love hanging out with you. I got to ask you a question. I talk to a lot of young people, my son and his friends and I see people coming out of business school, all this stuff. You know, every college has an entrepreneurial program. Music, film, you know, whatever, they all have kind of bolted on entrepreneurship. You're essentially breaking down that kind of dogma of that you have to have a discipline. Anyone can do this, right? So talk about the folks that are out there, trying to be entrepreneurial, whether you're a musician. This is direct to consumer. If you have skills as an entrepreneur it translates. Talk about what it takes to be an entrepreneur, if you're a musician or someone who has, say, content rights or has content story. What do they do? What's your advice? >> We have lived through, perhaps the most awesome period of the last five to 10 years, where it got cheap to do a startup. You know, when we're doing our first startups 20 years ago, it cost 5 million bucks to go get a license from Oracle and go hire a DBA and do all that stuff. You know what, for 5 grand you can get your website up, you can build, you can use your iPhone, you can film your movie. That's all happened in the last five to 10 years. And what it's done is exactly the word you used. It's democratized who can become an entrepreneur. Now people who never thought entrepreneurship was for them, are able to do it. One of our great examples of this is Ipsy, our cosmetics company. You know, Michelle Phan was a cocktail waitress working in Florida, but she had this YouTube following around watching her videos of her putting her makeup on. And you know when we met her, we're like you know what? You're the next generation of what entrepreneurs look like. Because no, she didn't go to Stanford. She didn't have a PhD in computer science, but she knew what this next generation of content marketing was going to look like. She knew what it was to be a celebrity influencer. You know, that company Ipsy makes hundreds of millions of dollars every year now, and I don't think most people on Sand Hill would've necessarily given Michelle the chance because she didn't look like what the traditional entrepreneur looked like. So it's so cool we live in a time where you don't need to look like what you think an entrepreneur needs to look like or went to the school you had to think you'd go to to become an entrepreneur. It's open to everybody now. >> And the key to success, you know, again, we've talked about those privately all the time when we meet, but I want to get your comment on the record here. But I mean, there's some basic blocking and tackling that's independent of where you went to school that's being creative, networking, networking, networking, you know, and being, good hustle. And being, obviously good judgment and being smart. Do your thoughts on the keys to success for as those folks saying hey you know I didn't have to go to these big, fancy schools. I want to go out there. I want to test my idea. I want to go push the envelope. I want to go for it. What's the tried and true formula from your perspective? >> So when you're in the early stage of hustling and you want to figure out if you're good at being an entrepreneur, I tell entrepreneurs this all the time. Every meeting is a job interview. Now, you might not think it's a job interview, but you want to think about every meeting, this might be the next person I start my company with. This might be the person I end up hiring to go run something at my company. This might be the person I end up getting money for, from to start my company. And so show up, have some skills, have some passion, have a vision, and impress the person on the other side of the table. Every once in a while I get invited to a college and they're like well Paul, life's easy for you, you started a company with Mark Pinkus and you're friend with Reid Hoffman and this... Well how the hell do you think I met those people? I did the same thing I'm telling you to do. When I was nobody coming out of school, I went and did stuff for these guys. I helped them with a business plan. I wrote the code of Tribe, and then now all of the sudden we've got a whole network of people you can go to. Well, that didn't happen by accident. You had to show up and have some skills, talent, and passion and then impress the person on the other side of the table. >> Yeah >> And guess what? If you do that enough times in a row, you're going to end up having your own network. And then you're going to have kids come in and say, wow, how can I impress you? >> Be authentic, be genuine, hustle, do networking, do the job interview, great stuff. All right, back to final point I want to get your thoughts on because I think this is your success and getting this movie out of the gate. Everyone, first, everyone should go see Inside Game. Insidegamemovie.com is the URL. The site just went up. This should be a great movie. I'm looking forward to it, and knowing the work that went in, I followed your journey on this. It should be great. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Uh, digital media, um, your thoughts because we're seeing a direct to consumer model. You've got the big companies, YouTube, Amazon, others. There's kind of a, a huge distribution of those guys. The classic Web 2.0 search kind of paradigm and portal. But now you've got a whole 'nother set of distribution or network effects. Your thoughts, because you were involved in, again, social networking before it became the monster that it is now. How is digital media changing? What's your vision of how that's happening and how does someone jump on that wave and be successful? >> Yeah, we're in the midst of disruption. I mean, I'm in the discussions and final negotiations right now on how we're going to end up ultimately doing the film distribution. And I am very disappointed with the quality of the thinking of the people on the other side of the table. Because they come from very traditional backgrounds. And I'm talking to them about, I want to do a site takeover across Zynga. I want to do a digital download on FanDuel of a 20 minute clip of the film. And they're like what's FanDuel? Who's Zynga? And I'm sitting there, I'm like guys, this is the new media. Oh, by the way, there's a sports app called Wave and Wave is where the local influencers in the markets who want to write the stories are, and we want to do a deal with those guys. And oh, by the way, the CEO of that company is a buddy of mine I met years ago, right? One of those kids I gave advice to, and now I'm going to ask him for a favor from, right, that's how it works. But, it's amazing when you have these conversations with traditional old line media companies. They don't understand any of the words coming out of your mouth. They're like Paul, here's how much I'll give you for your film. Thank you, we'll go market it. I'm like, really? Seriously? I got the former CMO of FanDuel going to help out on this. You don't want to talk to him? >> Yeah >> And so this is where the industry is really ripe for disruption. Because the people from the startup world have already disrupted the apple cart and now we've just got to demonstrate that this model is going to continue to work for the future and be ready when the next new kind of digital transmedia thing comes along and embrace that, as opposed to be scared to death of it or not even know how to talk the language of the people on it. >> Well, you're doing some amazing venturing in your, kind of, unique venture capital model on Bullpen Capital. Certainly isn't your classic venture capital thing, so I'm sure people are going to be talking to you about oh, Paul, are all VCs going to be doing movies? I'm sure that's a narrative that's out there. But you're not just a normal venture capital. You certainly invest. So, venture capitals have reputation issues right now. People talk about, well, you know, they're group think. You know, they only invest in who they see themselves. You mentioned that comment there. The world's changing in venture. Your thoughts on that, how you guys started your firm, and your evolution of venture capital. And is this a sign that you'll see venture capitalists go into movies? >> Well, I don't know about that part. There have been a couple venture people who have done movies. But the part I will talk about is the you got to know somebody, it's an inside game, ha ha, we'll play double entendre on Inside Game here. You know, 20% of the deal we've done at Bullpen, we've done over 100. 20% of them were cold emails on something like LinkedIn or business plans at bullpen.com. 20%, now there's this old trope in venture if you don't get a warm intro I won't even talk to you. Well 20% of our deals came in and we had no idea who the person on the other side was. That's how we run the firm. And so if you're out there going I'm one of those entrepreneurs in the Midwest and no one, I don't know anyone. I'm not in a network, send me a plan. I'm someone who's going to look at it. It doesn't mean I'm going to be an investor, but you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to give you a shot. And I don't care where you're from or what school you went to or what social clique you're in or what your political persuasion is. Matter of fact, I literally don't care. I'm going to give you a shot. Come into my office and that, I think, is what was missing in a lot of firms, where it's a we only do security and we only look at companies that spun out of Berkeley and Stanford. And yeah, there can be an old boys network in that. But you know what, we like to talk to everybody. And the more blue collar the CEO is, the more we love them at Bullpen. >> That's awesome. Talk about the movie real quick on terms of how Hollywood's handling it. Um, expectations, in terms of reaction, was it positive, is it positive, what's the vibe going on in Hollywood, is this going to be a grassroots kind of thing around the FanDuels and your channels? What's your plan for that and what's the reaction of Hollywood? >> So it's going to be a lot of all of the above. But PR is going to be a huge component, I mean, part of the reason we're on today is there's a huge front page story on ESPN about Tim Donaghy and the NBA betting scandal of 2007. And so the earned media is going to be a huge component of this. And I think this is where the Hollywood people do understand the language we're speaking. We're like, look, we have a huge built-in audience that we know how to market to. We have a story. Actually, in the early days, you asked about risk? Back when I was thinking about if I would do this project I would do the following little market research. I'd walk into a sports bar, it didn't matter what town I was in. I could be in Dallas, I could be in Houston, I could be in Boston. I would literally walk up to the bar and say, hey, uh, six of you at the bar, ever hear of Tim Donaghy? It'd be amazing. About seven out of 10 people would go yeah he was the referee, crooked referee in the NBA. I'm like, this is amazing. Seven out of 10 people I meet in a bar know about the story I want to go tell. That sounds like a good chance to make a movie, as opposed to a movie that has no built-in audience. And so, a built-in audience with PR channels that we know work, I think we can really show Hollywood how to do this in a different way if this all works. >> And this comes back to my point around built-in audiences. You know, YouTube has got a million subscribers. That's kind of an old metric. That means they, like an RSS feed kind of model. That's a million people that are, could be, amplifying their network connections. It is a massive built-in audience. The iteration, the DevOps kind of mindset, we talk about cloud computing, can be applied to movies. It's agile movie making. That's what you're talking about. >> Yeah, and by the way, so we have a social network of all the actors and people in the film. So when it's ready, let's go activate our network of all the actors that are in the film. Each of them have a couple million followers. So let's go be smart. Let's, two weeks before the movie, let's send some screenshots. A week before the movie let's show some exclusive videos. Two days before the film, go see it, it's now out in the theaters. You know what, that's pretty, that's 101. We've got actors. We've got producers. Like, let's go use the influencer network we built that actually got the movie made. Let's go on Sports Talk, talk about the movie. Let's go on places like this and talk about how a venture guy made a movie. This is the confluence of all of the pieces all coming together at once. And I just don't think enough people in the film business or in the media business think big enough about going after these audiences. It's oh, we're going to take ads out on TV and I'm going to see my trailer and we're going to do this and that's how we do it. There's so many better ways to get your audience now. >> And this is going to change, just while I've got you here, it's just awesome, awesome conversation. Bringing it back to kind of the CMO in big companies, whether it's consumer or B to B or whatever, movies, the old model of here's our channels. There's certainly this earned media kind of formula and it's not your classic we've got a website, we're going to do all this instrumentation, it's a whole 'nother mechanism. So talk about, in your opinion, the importance of earned media, vis a vis the old other buckets. Owned media, paid media, well-defined Web 1.0, Web 2.0 tactics, earned media is not just how good is our PR? It's actually infrastructure channels, it's networks, a new kind of way to do things. How relevant and how important will this be going forward? Because there's no more website. It's a, you're basically building a media company for this movie. >> That is exactly right. We're building an ad hoc media business. I think this is what the next generation of digital agencies are going to look like. And there are some agencies that we've talked to that really understand all of what you've just said. They are few and far between, unfortunately. >> Yeah, well, Paul, this was theCube. We love talking to people, making it happen. Again, our model's the same as yours. We're open to anyone who's got signal, and you certainly are doing a great job and great to know you and follow your entrepreneur journey, your investment journey, and now your film making journey. Paul Martino, General Pen on Bullpen Capital, with the hot film Inside Game. I'm definitely going to see it. It should be really strong and it's going to be one of those movies like Crazy, Rich Asians, where not looking, not really well produced, I mean not predicted to be great and then goes game buster so I think this is going to be one of those examples. Paul, thanks for coming on. >> Love it, thank you! >> This Cube Conversation, I'm John Furrier here in Palo Alto, California, bringing ya all the action. Venture capitalist turned film maker Paul Martino with the movie Inside Game. I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (triumphant music)

(techno music) >> Announcer: It's the Cube, covering Sapphire Now 2017, brought to you by SAP Cloud Platform, and HANA Enterprise Cloud. >> Hey, welcome back to our exclusive SAP coverage here in our studio in Palo Alto, our 4,500 square foot studio. I'm John Furrier. Our three days, we're on third day, of Sapphire Now 2017 coverage. I'm on the phone with RJ Bibby, who's the SAP Global Alliance Manager for SAP. Handles the relationship. RJ, great to have you on the phone and thanks for calling in from Orlando, really appreciate it. >> RJ: You bet, John. Love the Cube. Love SiliconANGLE. We're great partners. It's been a great week and looking forward to talking to you about it. >> Tell us what's going on on the ground. First, give us the updates on day three. So, pretty much everyone's coming-- And always a great activities at night as well. So, SAP, a lot of business done during the day. They work hard. They play hard. But, day three, what's it like? What's settling in as the storylines for Sapphire 2017? >> RJ: Yeah, absolutely. So, you're starting to feel-- You've gone through about-- We're in our third tour. For the partner's community, we're in day four, cause we had the partner day. Last night was the big partner night. We actually NetApped with our partners with Cisco and KPIT did a private event at Universal Studios at the Jimmy Fallon Theme Park that was highly successful. What was great about today, was in the morning, we kicked off will Bill McDermott on stage with Kobe Bryant and Derek Jeter. And it was all about leadership and mentorship and experience in being in the business, whatever industry that you're in for so long and how you just stay creative, hungry, and passionate. And it was packed. One of the comments was they couldn't believe, on the day after the big party night of all the partners that you still have a lot of energy on the floor. Ultimately, it's still about data, which is great for our business that we can get into at NetApp. There's a lot of buzzword bingo going on here, John, all week, whether it's machine to machine, blocked chain, Cloud-- And at the end of it, it's still our customers who we've talked to a lot this week, and wow. What are we going to do with out data? How do we analyze it? And how do we improve that user experience based on all this data that we have? And I think that's one of the things that I see on the floor that's almost overwhelming with the amount of people, 30,000, all the partners. Just a lot of information. And lastly, I'll say, the good news with that is everybody is hungry for content. Whether it's a mini-theater, whether it's at one of the booths, interactions one-on-one, it's people are hungry for what is happening in the industry. And I think that's exciting for all of us. >> Well, we do our part and try and get as much coverage as possible, even if we are going to do it from Palo Alto. Question for you on NetApp. I mean, you guys have been-- The scuttlebutt in Silicon Valley is that NetApp is doing very well with the Hyperscale (mumbles). I know for a fact. I've interviewed the former CEO and others within NetApp. They were really on early with AWS. And obviously, AWS a big part of the announcement at Sapphire. So, you guys are kind of like getting these relationships with these key players. It's changed a little bit of the business model, or culture within NetApp. What's different about NetApp right now? With resect to some of the big players that you've had relationships with. It's not this new relationship with SAP. You guys have a deep relationship. What's changing as the CloudWave hits, as the DataWave hits? Those are the biggest waves hitting the world right now. How are you guys playing in that world? And share some insight there. >> RJ: Absolutely. Great question. 'Cause the world is going through digital transformation and so is NetApp. So, we are actually celebrating our 25th year as a company right now and we've been a traditional, global technology and data management company. And, the digital shift to Hybrid Cloud is where we're moving. So, specifically with partners like AWS, Microsoft and Azure, the Hyperscalers like CenturyLink, it's how we can help our customers really collect, transport, analyze, protect data, in whatever environment they want to hold their data. Whether it's On-Premises, if your in a Cloud, you can choose whatever Hyperscaler you want. You still have to deal with the data. And then, how do we manage it? How do we consume it? Where is dead data that needs to be taken out? So, data's the currency and with our data fabric methodology and tools from software, hardware, we're really able to help manage that complete life cycle, whether it's SAP, or any other type of environment we hold. So, the exciting thing for us, and the stock prices is showing that at an all time high, is what Bill McDermott said on Monday, in the keynote, or excuse me, Tuesday, "Data is the currency. "Our new mission statement is we're trying "to empower our customers to change the world with data." So, back to the buzzWord bingo comment I made earlier, we're still dealing with fact that we have all these great technologies: all these censors, machine-to-machine, On-Print to Cloud. At the heart of everything is the data and what you do with it. And I think that one of the things that NetApp does and the best in the world of, is we continually evolve digital transformations with the tools on how we deal with data. So, that's high level. >> How about the data dynamic? >> Data is the fundamental story, in my opinion. Cloud has been around, the Clouderati. We were part of that from the beginning. Now, Cloud is mainstream. Amazon stock prices looking like a hockey stick now, it's going straight up. But, that took years of development, right? I mean, you saw the Cloud formation coming, really, in the mid-2000s and then, really at 2008, -09, -10 was the foundational years and then the rest is history. Data's now going through the same thing. As people get over themselves and say, "Okay, big data's not a dupe. It's everything." IOT is certainly highlighting a lot of that. SAP has recognized that legacy systems have to move to a MultiCloud and certainly multi-vendor world in a whole new way. But, at the end of the day, you still got to store this stuff. So, that's your business. How are you keeping up with the moving train of data as is architecturally shifts in the marketplace? >> RJ: Great question. I think that we have some of the best minds in Silicon Valley. Again, been there 25 years. I think with the deep relationships we have with companies like SAP. On the front end, I think the one thing that we bring as a value to SAP is the consumption model, life exists. Through owning the data and the user experience, we're able to enable and accelerate the license consumption to the edge. Right from application in to the system. From an architectural standpoint, it still comes down to the thing that we are creating and blabs and launching around, like the data fabric, the tool system, really software. The software that can help from an analytical perspective affect the user experience. Everybody wants it live. And the other part is the data protection and the DR aspect of it. And I think that's another core competency that we're continuing to develop as a service for the customer. So, I hop I've answered your question. >> Yup. >> RJ: But if-- >> (mumbles) a bottom line then, why NetApps? Say I'm a customer. Okay, I get the SAP. Why should I go with you guys over new the Delium see powerhouse over there, or the White-Box Storage? >> RJ: At the end of the day, we are best at capitalizing the value of data in the Hybrid Cloud. Nobody can help collect, analyze, test, and do life-cycle management live like NetApp can. And that's the reason that we are going more upstream, selling like we say at EPC, always selling to the CXO. I think we're changing the landscape from a true storage company on the infrastructure side to a full end-to-end Hybrid Cloud data management portfolio company. And it's been proven by the acquisition of Salazar from bringing Slash in to the portfolio, our cloning, and snapshot capabilities. So, anywhere in the stack at any time during the day when you're looking live at your operations or your data that you can take live snapshots. Just so if there's a glitch from a data protection side, or there's some type of spike from a request on the ticketing side or demand side of your system. So, I think that's some of the things that we're differentiating. And that's the reason that the AWSs and the Azures and the SAPs are so excited about co-innovating together to again, improving the customer experience with their data. >> RJ, final question. What's the net-net? What's the bumper sticker for you this year at Sapphire 2017? What's the walk-away revelation? >> RJ: Well, I think from the SAP side, it's the revelation on the push of Leonardo. I think that SAP-- I'd like to see them continue to hone out the 'what' and the 'if' from partners with Leonardo from blotching in machine-to-machine and IOT. For us, it is the beautiful fact that now at the center of everything that SAP and the ecosystem is trying to do is around the data side of it and it's the actual currency. And the fact that we have kind of the leading-edge tools to enhance the customer experience with our platform for customers' and partners' data is really, really exciting for us. And we're excited. We're all psyched to be partnered with the Cube. And everything we do is in the Cloud. So, I'm here to help. >> Alright. >> RJ, thanks so much for takin' the time callin' in from Orlando. RJ Bibby, SAP Global Alliance Executive with NetApp. He runs the the relationship with NetApp. And again, it's been a long-term relationship. I remember takin' photos on my phone, way back in the day, years ago. So, not a new relationship and continued momentum. Congratulations and thanks for sharing the insight from Orlando. 'Preciate it. >> RJ: You bet. Thanks for the partnership. Have a great day. >> 'Kay, more coverage from the Cube in Palo Alto on SAP, Sapphire 2017 after this short break. Stay with us. (techno music)

>> Voiceover: Live from the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering VMworld 2016, brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem sponsors. Now here's your host, John Furrier. >> Welcome back everyone. We're here live at VMworld 2016 here in Las Vegas. This is the seventh year of coverage for SiliconANGLE Media's theCUBE, it's our flagship program, we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier. My co-host John Troyer with TechReckoning. Our next guest is CUBE alumn, one of our favorite guests, Sanjay Poonen who runs the end user computing, he's the General Manager, End User Computing Division of VMware, and also Head of Global Marketing now. Congratulations. New job role to oversee all of marketing, to bring that unified view across the company. Good to see you again, welcome back. >> Thank you John, and the John and John Show. I'm happy, I always love being on your show. >> Yeah, we have another John Walls on the other set over there, so it's three Johns hosting here in theCUBE. >> My middle name is John, let me tell you that, so I fit in the community. >> So Sanjay I want to get right into it. So you're giving us a preview here, folks, for tomorrow, the Keynote, you're the main act kicking off the Keynote tomorrow. A lot of big announcements, a couple super secret announcements that you can't share but you've got some new stuff going on in terms of new announcements, in terms of enhancements and new technologies. So can you share a little bit about tomorrow's announcements and what we'd expect at the Keynote. >> Yeah, thank you. So for everybody watching, make sure you dial in at nine o'clock tomorrow. I mean, the reality is, a key part of this client server to mobile cloud transformation is preparing people for a public cloud, digitally transforming the datacenters and preparing for public cloud, that's what you heard today. And the second piece of that, it's almost like two halves of the egg shell, the bottom part being the datacenter, the top part is preparing end users for an increasingly mobile world. And there we have this concept of a digital workspace, Workspace ONE that we introduced, and we're going to announced some new innovations there which really allow you to bring three things together. >> New products or new enhancements? >> In today's day and age when you're going cloud first, we're moving so fast so we don't do things in one big whole. I mean, for example, with AirWatch, we're doing probably like one incremental big feature every five, ten days. So we are doing things a lot more in the pace of cloud type company. So we don't really bundle everything to one big release. But nonetheless, we really focus our efforts around three gears, we're going to hear about tomorrow, one is the entire basis of how people work is driven now by identity management, and access to apps and identity. So you're going to see that tomorrow. And identity management becomes the important piece of the puzzle that's a control point for people's access to apps. Secondly you're going to hear about unified endpoint management and the worlds of desktop and mobile coming together. A good example of that is Windows 10. I'm going to talk about that more tomorrow. And third is a very important area of management and security, and how we think about endpoint management and endpoint security 'coz security is becoming one of the key missing linchpins that we think we can actually bring together in this digital workspace. So Workspace ONE with key focuses on areas like management and security. >> So you've been kind of, we've been interviewing you now three years. Congratulations, now at VMware, came from SAP as an executive there, now three years in. We've been watching your career, the end user computing evolve. The big bold movement down the field was the AirWatch acquisition. We've then seen a variety of different integration points in there. Give us an update on where it's come from and where, now we see where it's going, you just laid that out, but what are some of the specifics on how it's evolving because now with the cloud decision for the company, to say, okay, public cloud is in our equation with that Pat's announcement today, you've been kind of waiting for that engine, you've been kind of like, hurry up and wait for that to happen. So that's now, it's happening. Take us through how AirWatch in this piece evolved. >> Yeah, when we acquired AirWatch, part of it was our fundamental recognition that without a mobile strategy, you could end user computing. That's the name of our group is end user computing. You could end it 'coz we really needed something. So we looked at the space and we wanted something that was cloud first. They were, I would say, a close number, two or three, Mobile Line, I think was technical lead or maybe Good was, but they had a cloud architecture. We liked that about them. And was about a hundred million-dollar business. We disclosed at the end of last year that business was over 370 million in all in bookings. So you could see how rapidly we've taken them, they're almost 4X in two years. And the overall end user computing business was about a half billion when I joined. We announced at the end of last year, was a 1.2 billion all in bookings run rate company. When I joined it was about 30,000 customers. We're now about 65,000 customers. So reality is, we're now one of the top major businesses within the company. There's a lot of momentum. And that's been, I think, one of the better software acquisitions anybody's done the last two or three years. >> And strategically speaking, the digital transformation framework is essentially around this digital workspace area. >> It came out of that mobile space. And the part that we are now starting to see with clearer lenses in the course of the last six to 12 months is that identity management becomes an important piece to add to VDI mobile management. So we've added a third pillar of focus. And we feel like CIOs shouldn't have to buy VDI from one set of vendors, mobile device management, mobile management from a second, and then identity management from a third. These are coalescing into a digital workspace. So a big focus there. And allows us to also expand into new areas, for example, Iot, we can talk about it this time, and areas like endpoint security. >> It seems like, talking about identity management, that to you is right out of your security story. It seems like identity then has to become the fundamental pillar of security of end users in today's enterprise. How does your security story play into-- >> Yeah that's a very good point John. And I would say you're absolutely right. When we are increasingly selling our end user computing solutions, we're finding a key influencing buyer is the CISO. 40% of people have come to our mobile connect conferences are important to the CISO. Identity is a security topic too. So if you pull up for a second, the VMware security story now is very simple. It's in three parts. Number one, we can protect the datacenter. NSX now, one of the key propositions is micro-segmentation. That's a security seller. Number two, we can protect the endpoint with solutions like AirWatch and TrustPoint, we can get to TrustPoint this time. And number three, we can protect the middle, the user. So protect the datacenter, protect the endpoint, and protect the middle, the user. And all of those make us a very strong story appealing to the CISO. And then we take a bevy of partners with us that have even stronger brands and security. For example, one of our lead partners is Palo Alto. We're working very closely with them in NSX. We're working very closely with them in AirWatch. We're working very closely with them in identity. Another example of partners, F5. So we picked the group of partners that have very strong brands and security. And we found things that we do well. We partner with them in things that they do well. It's a really good story to both the CIO and the CISO. >> So much of the cloud story, as well as the end user story, is also about timing. We've been waiting on public cloud. Pundits talk about the death of private cloud but they don't say what year really. And so a lot of the end user story kind of we had to wait on, VDI, we had to wait on the devices. How do you as a leader of this company look at timing and when the market is ready for something? >> Well, I mean John, I think you have to really look at trends. And I had a fundamental premise coming in that the two Cs, and I'll talk about this more on tomorrow's Keynote, that we really needed to attack with venom was cost and complexity in the VDI market. And part of the reason as I talked to customers that many VDI projects failed, were cost and complexity. So we took a chainsaw to cost and complexity. And it turns out with a lot of what we've invented in the software-defined datacenter, software-defined storage that we were among the first to drive, hyper converged infrastructure, NSX for micro-segmentation, the fundamental premise of this sphere and all that you can do in areas like 3D graphics, we could engineer a solution that was 30 to 40% cheaper than the competition from VDI and app promoting. Complexity. We decided that VDI and app promoting needed to be one platform as opposed to sort of a competition that had like a, two separate products for VDI and app promoting. So these all were things that lowered the total cost of ownership and made that easy. Similarly with mobile, the two S's we attack there was simplicity and security. And we've had some core, I would say, these are the type of things, as a leader, you have to keep telling your teams, is your north pole. We're attacking cost and complexity. Another example of cost and complexity is moving stuff to the cloud. Three years ago we were the first to announce desktop as a service. What was one of the messages this morning, IBM, now embracing that desktop as a service in their cloud, working with us both in IBM cloud and IBM GTS. It's come a long way in three years. >> So I got to ask you about the aspect of unification. We're hearing that tomorrow you're announcing a huge shift in how customers buy and that it ultimately will change the equation on their cost side which is eliminating these point solutions out there. This unification endpoint, I don't know what you're calling it, can you share, give a little bit of leg, as Dave Vellante would say, on this morning tomorrow on this announcement, this consolidation or unification. How should we think about this? >> I mean, I think, and hopefully it's not a surprise 'coz we've been building up this momentum as opposed to one big mega announcement. Workspace ONE is really the coming together of three core areas. VDI and everything related to the way in which we manage desktops and apps, mobile management, and identity management. And in each of those spaces, if you don't look at us, there are point vendors doing each of those. And our differentiation is one, it's unified, second, it's a cloud first solution, many cases the folks have not yet moved to the cloud, and then we extend the capabilities of things like Workspace ONE, optimized for our datacenter where it needs to, into new areas like, for example, security. So we think as you lay this out and then build a partnership ecosystem, with not just security vendors but apps vendors, we're going to have a very large apps vendor on stage with me tomorrow, for the first time on stage, so I'm not going to tell you who it is, but come tomorrow you'll hear that. >> Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce? >> You've got some obvious candidates but it's one of those folks. >> It is one of those folks? >> How many big ones left, right? Some of them have been buying everybody. >> We've got some scoop this year on theCUBE. >> But that's an example of where VMware is taking the lead at embracing an apps ecosystem. >> So I got to ask you, you're a student of history and text, so back in the old days, back in the 90s, when dial-up in internet, Office Connections, Radioservers was a buzzword, you'd have to dial up into a facility, and you have to be authenticated. Pretty straightforward back in the day. But now the authentication, if you will, is coming from endpoints that are, like, anything. Uber could be inside the enterprise and app. So this notion of endpoints is interesting. It's also complicated. So there's not only a security surface area, there's also a cost area to deploy these solutions. Is that the kind of what Workspace ONE does? I mean am I getting it right? Am I thinking it right as an access method? >> I think you've got one piece of it right and I think you're exactly right. In the world of mobile, my fingerprint now becomes, police know that that's unique usually-- >> So does Apple. >> Right. And my retina scan becomes it. So you've got very sophisticated phones, it doesn't have to be complicated ones, that can give you either the fingerprint or the retina scan. You'd have to physically cut my thumb off and pluck my eye. I dare you to do both of those to replicate me. So you can move away from a very-- >> That's two-factor authentication right there. >> Yes, multi-factor, right? So you can move away from tokens becoming your only avenue of multi-factor authentication. You can do things smoothly. But it doesn't end there. Endpoints security has to be re-thought to really work at speed and at scale, so that's why we partnered with this hot security company, you're going to see them also on display tomorrow, Tanium. And with them we built a product called TrustPoint. And we use it internally at VMware. In fact one of the things you're going to see in the demos I do tomorrow, there's going to be lots of demos in 25 minutes, of day of the life of how VMware uses technology both in Workspace ONE and endpoint security. Tanium's one of the hottest products that we internally use and we combine some of our IP with theirs, and created a product called TrustPoint in a Google-like interface. I can search to find all endpoints in the enterprise, what potential apps are running on them, what potential malware's on them, quarantine it and maybe even take action on them with some of the technologies we have from AirWatch. So we've combined the best of Tanium and VMware's technology and this is going to be a real hot solution for areas like Windows 10. >> And what's the uptake you're taking on traction given where you're business is going? You've got some good performance now. What's your expectation on uptake on some of these, this Workspace ONE and the end space? >> If you look at our success so far, I told them, when I joined the company, the business was about a half a billion. We announced the end of last year, it's on a 1.2 billion run rate. So we've effectively more than doubled the business, doubled the customer count. And I think that on our path from 1.2 to two billion over multiple number of years, these solutions are going to become very critical to our growth. Horizon in the desktop portfolio, AirWatch in the mobile portfolio, identity management, and TrustPoint. And when I talk to our sales guys, I say, "Listen, there's enough there to feed "a lot of potential customers," and when I look at our customer count, 65,000 customers, we're still about 9, 10% penetrated inside the overall VMware base. If we can double, triple our customer base, there's no reason why this couldn't be a multi-billion dollar business. >> Alright, so for CXOs whether that's CIOs, chief data officers, chief revenue officers, any CXO, chief security officers, CISOs, all that stuff, for they're watching out there and tomorrow's Keynote, how would you summarize if you have to boil out your point of view and your theme for tomorrow, and some of the key takeaways? >> Four words, consumer-simple, enterprise-secure. There's an element of simplicity that gives you all the productivity that you need with Workspace ONE and your end user world. And then there's a message of security that the IT wants. The users benefit from simplicity, IT benefits from security. Users benefit from choice, IT benefits from control. And you'll hear that very, hopefully, fairly clearly tomorrow. >> Sanjay, final question, your team, VMware, you've amassed quite a team, the performance have been great, when you go back to the ranch inside Palo Alto headquarters and throughout the world, what's your marching orders to the team? What's the guiding principle that you put forth with respect to keeping the pace of innovation to match up the cadence of what's expected, not only by potentially your customers, but also your potential partners and competitors? >> First off, I'm a big believer in serve and leadership. So you have to lead by values that replicate, there's no success without successors, so I'm a hound for talent, I'm always looking for ways by which, just like the warriors, we create the best end user computing team bar none, and I think we've been very fortunate to create that team in every area. There's more talent that we should be hiring. I hear about them and we go recruit them. But once we've got a good team, we keep them focused on the mission. I mean obviously we have a revenue growth goal, and at the core of it, beyond just selling things, we want to make the customers successful. So we keep customer as our north pole. Customer satisfaction for VMware has been the highest of any IT vendor. When you look at many of these, Temkin research does a survey of customer satisfaction, we're among the top five, almost consistently the last few years. And then we make sure that in the products that we build, customer first, serve and leadership at the top, customer-focused, and we are building products, I mean we're an engineering-centric company so we want to build the best products that have a leap factor over the competition. >> So the warriors have a style of play-outs. You have Steph Curry who's just, lights up. But they're not afraid to shoot the three. They're good on transition, great speed. What is your differentiation as an organization? What's that x factor? What's the one thing you can point to? >> I mean, I think, listen, we were probably a little bit lethargic in end user computing. John was joking about this before we just had the show. We want to build great factors and we're a little bit edgy. I mean I've been called everything on Twitter from the Nostradamus of EUC to all kinds of, but we're aggressive, but I will tell you that if people watch me in Twitter, it's never, in the words of The Godfather, it's never personal. It's strictly business. So we have fun. We're a little edgy out there. We're in your face, we want to compete, we want to win every deal but it's never personal. I mean it's just like Steph Curry. You're going to compete hard on the court, but after the game, you go and have a drink with Kobe Bryant or Lebron James or whoever-have-you. >> Well final question, I didn't get this 'coz it's such a good product conversation and organization with your group, now you're heading up marketing, as the VMware, a very community-driven, very data-driven company, thoughts on marketing, you have it on social media, do you see social as being a part of marketing? Do you look at that? Do you look at certain ideas that you see that you put forth? >> First off I think Robin Matlock, our CMO has been doing an amazing job, so I told her this as I took over marketing and communications. Oliver Roll, our Chief Communications Officer is also doing great. Listen, I'm just going to throw more wood in the fire. Things are going good. Let's just get them from good to great. This show is one of the most cultistic shows on the planet because of the way in which she and her team have built this thing. It just gets better and better. But there's a few things I think you're going to see us do more. Customer-based marketing, having customers become our spokespeople. I dream of a day where every ad that we have is the biggest companies in the world or the smallest companies using our technology to either make their business more efficient or save lives. And then increasingly over time, we're going to be also doing vertical-based marketing in certain industries. And social media is a great way of getting that work across. >> We'll you've been on theCUBE as an SAP executive, now three years at VMware, certainly this is seven years you've been with CUBE and you guys do it right, so Robin and team and now you. Thanks for your support, appreciate everything. >> Thank you John and John. >> Sanjay Poonen, the General Manager, End Use Computing, and Global Head of Marketing for VMware here inside theCUBE. I'm John Furrier with John Troyer. You're watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)