>> Welcome to this Special Cube conversation. We're here in Mountain View, California. Pure storages headquarters on cash for street were here in the arcade of the main building, one of six buildings here in downtown where Pure has their contingent of offices. On joint cab itself was a C i o a pure formerly many, many years of it and running T operations and right of other work clothes. Great to see you. Thanks for From the time >> Great. Thanks for having me. So we're in the >> arcade here. All the old school stand up video games, but our generation, when we have to play videogames standing up but kind of speaks to the culture of pure What's your role of pure What do you do and how long you've been here? >> Okay, so I've been here appear for just about five months and and it's been great. I came on board is the CEO and, as you know, all companies air facing their challenges, going forward, way have ours for scaling is this Business continues to grow so super excited to be here and spent a lot of fun so far. >> So about your career before pure, where were you and how long you worked there. >> I you know, I spent a better part of my current ATT and T Amazing Company and was there for over twenty one years. Had a variety of rules, primarily always in the technology sides. So everything from the from application side two operations infrastructure, Teo, Project Management, Teo Technology, Innovation And then the last few years was was spent working on a lot of our network strategy. So what are we doing as a, um, as a business to kind of transform a teen tea service provider network? And how does that a line from a cloud and a technology for what we have been doing some cases on on the side >> and you've been on both side of the table. You you were a customer of pure. Now you work. If you were running well, I t Here's a CEO. Try and try and keep this transformation going. What's your take on the industry right now? Because it's interesting times as you know it is transforming. You got security front center roles were changing. Got skills, gaps. You get the cloud with scale, a lot of change, >> you know, and it's interesting. That happens that both big companies and smaller companies, so the transition had eighty having those same challenges. They look different here, appear because we are a little over nine year old company, and as you start to look at, we have the real benefit of being a little bit younger on the tech front and being so close to, you know, obviously, being in Silicon Valley, you're so close to all the VCs and the startups. You get to have a little bit of different flavor, but, you know, it's a huge transition. I think that all of us in the industry are really faced with the challenges of not just trying to transform your teams and the work and what they're doing, but then also enable technology that's going to bridges from what we have to do with today, and where do we think we're going to go? So I don't think that is any different on any of the companies. I think we're all in that same boat of saying, How do you make sure I have technology that's gonna live longer than you know, a year, three years? And then how do we have a workforce that can continue to grow and develop because, you know, we want to be able to have our talent stay with us and make those journeys with us >> and one things we to a lot of Cuban Aries over the past ten years. Certainly in it changes been constant theme. But what's interesting is his economic changed and look of skill gas. But economics have changed, and then the time to value the big long projects used to take months and months years right now, shorten those solo cycles have been accelerated down two months and days. Sometimes Frank, can you come and reactive economics and then time to value. >> You know, I think economics are. They're always in the forefront of every company, especially publicly traded companies that, you know you want to make sure we're turning the right value to our shareholders, and that's an important aspect. But I think the more the more important part of it is just trying to make sure that you can make decisions that can outlive kind of a shorter economic window they maybe had would have done in the past. So I think that's where all of us in in the space of CIA rolls or trying to really evaluate. How do you do that? How do you make sure that you could make those transitions and not have next year on Leigh Foundation, But be part of it to help you make some of that shift >> and the evidence on workload. I've heard the word workload was a tag cloud. I'd probably say workload would be the biggest font because, you know, workloads would you mean applications that have been around for a while? But more and more applications are coming. The migrating workload. So the cloud on premise So a lot of emphasis on workloads these days >> is that putting >> pressure on it is putting pressure on the operations. How do you see that? That whole workload thing evolving? >> Yeah, you know, I definitely do. So, you know, one of the one of big initiatives I ran eighteen t was migrating a thousand of our strategic applications onto ah nonprime private cloud. And it was all about not just the economics, but also the efficiency and the enablement for the business to move faster, you know, at a lower cost point. So that always tends to be your kind of bottom line part, but I think is I've come into pure and has You're trying to figure out how do you evolve our workloads of very different. We are very in our applications, like very different. So companies have different profiles of whether it's an application or workload. I think the other is It's a hyper focused around the user experience with, you know, so not just the end customer, but also the employees experience and what happens So, you know, when you talk about workloads, it's not just applications that heir business functions. They're also about. How do you make sure that our employees are having that great experience because you want to have that so that they can help to, you know, grow us as well and be productive in their roles? >> I wantto askyou one of the talk tracks I have on my notes here about pure specifically. But more generically, workloads are dominating conversation, but also technology selection and personnel selection are also tied to workloads, and some have said to me pick the right cloud for the right work. We'LL pick the right tool for the job. You hear that a lot. >> You did. What's your >> thoughts on that? Because this seems a kind of model of wars. Little bit, because the old school was Here's my suppliers. You pick them, they're all stand in the hall, come in with this general purpose. But now, with customization mohr agility, it seems to be that workloads and selection of tech and people are tied together. So >> yeah, no, I think you're right. I think that, um you know, part of our challenge is figuring out and this is me, her. A lot of us don't get yourself locked in And to that old notion of, you know, what you would have seen, you know, back in the day is you Did you pick a vendor and you kind of right that through whatever the challenge he had, I think the vendor community has also recognized that's not really the model they want to be in either. They really want to be a partner. So now what's about figuring out what I consider enablement? So can I use you to work on or to be optimized for a certain type of function? But can I put my work load somewhere else on DH? Do it So that's when one of things I've been surprised, that's probably more rapid shift is it's not just about Can I do it all myself or on Prem or with these set of vendors? It's to say I want to be able to actually move across. So can I have the flexibility and being realistic? But she can't have you? No total flexibility, everything. But you can't start to be prescriptive about certain areas and saying these type of applications are these functions or these workloads. I could get the largest amount of flexibility, but the's I'm actually okay saying most optimized should go here, whether it's on Prem off Prem hybrid. I think that's what we'LL start to see. A lot of >> we see that the cloud conversation. We're going to talk with him, your folks, about this. But no one cloud could be great for a workload for another cloud for another workload. And that's multi cloud because you have a couple clouds, right? And that's the train that we're seeing. You dude >> absolutely saw it at a T. Same thing here, a pure we do some on Prem and we do some hybrid. We also do some hosted where we have our SAS provider host are the applications well and that actually then starts to get you into some other challenges that we have a night that you start to say. So what happens with my data, and what does that look like? Where is it going? How is it secure all those things that are so important as a business to make sure your customer in your employee's data is, you know, corn centric to >> final question for going to the talk trash. I've gotta ask you, being a veteran in the business. What is it, crazier now, then it wass ten, fifteen years ago in terms of work operations. Is it faster? What's your take on it if you look back the old way into the new ways that you know more of the same but just different kind of product and technologies, which you're >> probably in the unique role because I think it's super fun, I think that Theobald litt e to be able to transform your business and have the flexibility. I'm certainly being here in in this roll and, you know, nine half year old company. There's lots of opportunity to be completely flexible, and I think that part is really fun. I think that the challenge for some larger you know, companies who've been around hundred plus year old companies as those companies you know, have a challenge with saying I've got such a large embedded base and trying to be, you know, interoperable around, what what exists and where they want to go. I think a lot of us that were, you know, in these companies that are, like, pure we have, Ah, you know, kind of. I think it is a gift to be able to say Hey, this is really something we should be able to do How do we go do it and have the support to actually do it? So it's Ah, I think it probably depends on the part of the industry that you're in. There's definitely some challenges, and I think privacy is definitely, you know, kind of a backdrop. But I think is you think about that. There's workable solutions for as all cos they're trying to go through. I think it's just a matter of making it. You know, that commitment to say you know you can can be flexible and you can make the progress you're looking for. >> It seems to be more of a builder culture as well as your operational calls. That's right. You can build and operate, build, operate kind of a new kind of flywheel. >> Yeah, I think that's the That's the exciting part for it is, I think we've we have transitioned or we're in that mode that time period where, instead of just being a pure enablement for the business, it's really turning into How do you become a strategic partner? How how do you have that seat at the table where you're helping to say, How do we help your business? It's not just about paying out these applications. Here's our availability hears. I mean those air, what I consider table stakes. You gotta be able to do those things. Now it's about how can we help you? Actually, you know, improve what? Your trying Teo, you know, in the business side of it. So that's the That's the part I think is unique and different is that focus on helping Teo and you're not just enabled, but be that strategic partner to help. He had changed business. >> That's awesome. Couple talk trash. I want to get your thoughts on one is accelerating Conference, which is pure We've been following. The company was founded. Scott Deaton. First interview, I think, was the way he found company Washington success. Now they have a big customer conference. We have the sixteenth in September sixteen September that week. Check it out your first conference, you guys, we're introducing some new things. What's the buzz? What are you planning on for the conference >> yet? So you know, it's interesting cause such as someone who's coming out of, you know, the industry side of it. The thing that's hard is as the CIA or was trying figure out what's going to be the biggest bank for my my time, cause I can't can't go to everything. So I'm super excited. Babel Teo to attend the event. I think the uniqueness is it's focused on the customers so existing customers, but also prospects customers who are considering pure thie. Other unique thing that's happening this year is there is a very specific track around the executive side so that having the sea level conversations, you know, with some of our key leaders in our business and innovative thinkers and so It's kind of running the spectrum of be able to say, If you're coming on and you should all come if you're coming, you're going to be able to have the conversations that you're expecting out of sea level. That might look a little different than maybe someone who's trying to do innovation and in your team and what they're looking for. So whether it's you know, demos or workshops and thinks that you get your hands, you know, hands dirty on, I think that that's the you know, the excitement of all of it is it's it's kind of a multifaceted and it's, ah, it's a great opportunity connects with your peers and with other companies, be able to say, What are you doing? How do we learn from you? We do a lot of those kinds of things, I think in general, but I think when you can get focused and have a peer group that's in, ah, you know smaller type of venue where and it's not thousands at a you know, major major conference that's existing somewhere in the in the U. S. Or u know worldwide, then you can actually have those meaningful conversations with your peers to say, Here's the things I'm working on. How ve you done it? What are you doing so well, I think we're gonna enable all those type of conversations to take place. So I'm excited to be a lot of fuss. >> The objective of the sea level trackers. It's just CEOs, is it? See? So says that CX ohs. What's the focus? What's the objective? >> It is all of that. One of its so interesting is my CEO is actually going to be quizzing me and talking to me about what is they actually expected of a CEO? Because I think that as a zany sea level position, your you know, we have expectations of you know what we need to deliver. But there's also how you contribute to the business. So it's kind of all all facets of it. It's everything from, you know, understanding what the expectations are to Some also thought leadership around where technology's going trends, those type of conversations and being would have some round table conversations. Maybe industry peers, eso all those kind of aspect. So but all all those areas they're covered >> should be great event. Looking forward to it. >> Yeah, a lot of fine >> Cuban be there. Of course we'LL check us out We'Ll be broadcasting live. Okay, Second talk track Women Tech You're a woman Takes years and years in the business in a big focus over the past years, Accused men have a lot of interviews with the great women in tech. >> Where do you >> see this state of the sticks? The needles doesn't seem to be moving on the percentages, but there seems to be great mo mentum in real pros. Lot of mentoring, a lot of networking. You seeing women, VC firms evolving very rapidly seeing cohorts together. What's your take on women in Tech, where we are, What challenges was opportunities? >> Yeah, you know, So we actually, in the Silicon Valley we actually have. There's several forms that go on for women CEOs and events that were to be able to have some of those conversations. And what do we do? And I think it starts with all of us, you know, individually and a in our organization, so organically is to figure out, you know, how do you make sure everyone feels that they belong, whether it's, you know, women or it's any other diverse group of employees. We have to figure out how to make people feel connected and part of the team, and I think it starts with that. And that's for kind of every discipline. And you know that you can think of in a business in text. Specifically, I think the challenge for women is you tend to not want to be identified. As, you know, a woman in Tech. It's like I want to be evaluated for my compensate what I bring to the table, my thought leadership, my perspective on and I don't think that's you mean to women. I think that's just unique to people that we all want to be valued for what we contribute. I definitely think that is a, um, a general kind of population and technology. I have seen where it used to be that I was the only female for many, many years and meetings, whether it was that fender briefings or it was in different company forms. Uh, I've had some unique opportunity. Eighteen t was hugely focused on women in tech women and engineering all those disciplines coming to pure, super exciting that we're we also so small of a company relatively sized eighteen t We have, you know, women heir Geez, employee resource groups. We have women in engineering. We have limited night. So we have kind of the ability to get that mentoring in that coaching the support within the company. And I think that's really valuable. But to your point, I think we have to still do Mohr of connecting outside of our company, figuring out whether that's through, you know, the different universities to make sure that we're getting the pipeline coming in and then retaining. I think that's the other challenges. The number's probably won't change much because we still see a significant amount of women leaving the workforce at a certain point. Er there were staging their career, and we need to figure out, you know what? What's that draw? Why is that happening? So >> what's the technology impact? Because as technology becomes consumer, I just seeing Data Analytics to arm or big a range of topics and confidence is not just computer science or probably or whatever Lim Maura broader perspective that helping at all do you see that evolving, that getting any lift, increasing the population and competency levels, >> you know it's a great question. I think we've had a pretty strong I'LL say, run at women. Being in computer science, we haven't seen enough women going into leadership positions. I think this just kind of industry, you know, generic kind of comment. I think it definitely helps. The more that you have a broader range of skills and capabilities. I think it's what is more fascinating is we need more women in those roles because as you think about the problems that all of our businesses air trying to solve their, it's not one dimension. So if we only have attack our problems with one dimension, one skill set, we just start going to be prepared to be, Oh, it's gonna take us longer And are all of us want to be able to quickly solve the issues that are >> of a personal question put you on the spot? What's the big learnings for you? Looking back now that you've seen that you can share as a woman attack and you put your twenty three year old hat on, what would you do differently? If anything, if you're living in today's world, >> you know eso it's interesting at has asked this question before actually came to pure as I talked to a number of companies in the Valley and it was like, What would you tell your younger self? And I said one of them is not to be afraid, and I think that's so so many of us. Whether you know, male or female. Sometimes you get into a routine and you don't necessarily break out of it or change. And so you tend to maybe take a safer path or a safer direction. And I think if I was to think back you No one is. Don't be afraid and the other, I think, is I probably would have. I was probably naive Tio not realize that I was sometimes the only female, and so I just kind of worked as I didn't think that was a different shade IRT it mattered. And when I think about it now, I probably should have done more to do some of the networking that we're doing today. That might have helped. You know, we talk a lot about the difference between mentoring and sponsoring, and it really gets into that. There needs to be enough, you know, sponsors both male and and female who can help to, you know, not just developed but have the conversations, you know, Make sure that people are included. Those kind of having a voice at the table. And I was very fortunate. I worked under some amazing leaders, both male and female, who who made sure that I had a voice. But I you know, I'm not a timid flower anyway, So I wouldn't have you know, I'm not going to sit there and to sit back and not do it and not to speak up. But I think that's something that not everyone is this comfortable was speaking up and being okay. That maybe I'm not right or so I think that I would tell my younger son Don't be afraid. And the second is to doom or Teo help get other others who maybe don't feel as if they belonged much. Teo, be able to have that. That same voice >> possible. Congratulations. You're awesome. And I'm excited for the event with you, >> you have to be a lot of fun. >> Okay, Next talk track. You were a customer of pure before you joined the company. Yes, you're t you were You know you have the keys to the kingdom. All the vendors pitching you You have big infrastructure, run tons and tons of work loads on DH. This is what, six, seven years ago here was in the growth phase. Now they're public company and much larger experience. But back then you took a risk on a technology. Tell us about that story because you made a big bet. Did it? Work actually worked out. You're here. I'm sure that he still has pure detail. The story? >> Yes. So first it starts with, You know, I had amazing team at a great team of folks who didn't want to accept the status quo, what was happening in the stores storage industry. And so as a CZ, we were hearing, you know, like you said, the pitches about what's due. What's different? Um, they were willing to stand up and say, Hey, you know what I think we need to look at this company, and, you know, it is hard when you are, you know, kind of that time I would say Pierre was somewhat of a unicorn in the sense that you try to have a somebody who's that small, non private, probably health company toe work with a big behemoth like tea. There's a lot of different things, whether it's contractual, you know, the legal, that decency is all that's having put aside the, you know, all of the technology. It's all of that That's really hard for companies to navigate. Pure had an amazing technology, and what happened is they came in and they said, Hey, this is what we can do. We can transform your business is not just about the economics will prove you that part, but we can actually help you to deliver faster for your application teams. We can help you with all these areas and and we could do it all within like two weeks. So the key was being able to stand up and say I'm going to do this and then prove it in this very small window because when you're in a large enterprise, you often you don't have unlimited resource is very constrained of. It's not a different that it started, but you're very limited. Resource is welcome to try to run big scale and so they were able to prove out everything they said, and then plus more. It was things like we started seeing efficiencies in the data center. We started to see that things like that where we thought we're going to have to expand and buy, you know, additional ports. We were able to not have to do it. So there was a lot of these, like side benefits that we weren't expecting. We all those Plus we asked for. So we did. We took a bet on Pure. They were a great, innovative team to work with. And, you know, he's had it, you know, their legacy is ah, very much innovation. And so it kind of was that match to say we need to re and companies who can help us to continue to innovate. >> We little skeptical at first, but we can do in two weeks. >> Yes. So it's almost like a bet. You go. All right, let's get you to do it. We'Ll see how it works in two weeks. So and that's s o they came in. It was all proved out. So we way actually, you know, move forward And you know, today a t and T is you know, hundreds of race, which is, you know, a very large footprint for any company to have with size. And it spans, you know, production application, Tier one applications to things that are specific use cases. So it kind of spans a large. >> Not a lot of war stories around. Critical failures, either. You said you had some successes with them before you came on camera. Yeah. Share that story is the storage. Is one those things where he was going to have something that might go down? The question is, how severe is the problem? What was some of the experiences you have? >> Yeah. You know, I can say that. You know, I left a team t last last summer. So up through that point, we had not had any several announces. So when you think of a large company, it's not unusual to have incidents outages. I mean, that that tends to happen just with the size of your footprint. Um, t was very successful, working with pure on, having essentially having a product that had big stability. And we didn't see those outages and not just on running it, but actually doing the non disruptive upgrades. So the ability to actually take the technology, do the next generation and not have any outages. That's pretty unusual for for any company tau experience. And so I looked at us from a scale highly unusual, but that's that was success. >> Great success. Okay, finally, you're here pure now, your CEO not as big as a T and T was still public company and they have a lot of employees. They're maturing as a company. You're running pure at your house. You can't unless you're doing a bake off internal assessment. How using pure. Now, how's it going? What's the share? Some of the architectural details without giving away any secrets. What's it like? And what you guys doing this innovative. >> So, you know, we are. We are much smaller organization, obviously. Then you know where I live just left. But it's really important for us to have that same innovation and capabilities we actually use pure we. But we use both flash array. We use flash blades of both of our you know, I'll say premiere products. We also use pure one, which is kind of the the telemetry visibility allows you to do what if analysis looked to see how you're doing for capacity perspective. So we actually use, um are you know, three of our primary products to actually run our daily our data warehouse, and then we are doing some of it just to be able to do some of our security. So we actually run a splunk in tableaux and using those type of tools, those capabilities, we run them on our environments and were able to do a lot of things that the feedback that we're getting is like, Oh, my gosh, we can't believe that you guys were able to do this. We have a very, very lean ight organization. So to do some of the things we're doing from a security analytics and, you know, threat, detections and all that, those are things that aren't very common for a lot of companies are we're all trying to be better on it and were able to use our own technology to kind of help substantiate what we're trying to solve for that's so super exciting. >> That's awesome. Final point on the CEO perspective. Great to have you and get the CEO perspective again. Bullets a customer and then working up your CEO is out there right now are challenged with transformation. Digital transmissions like buzz word that's been kicked around for years. But now you starting to see the robber hitting the road. Really? Development pressure, modernisation, run app, development. See, I see the pipe lining to multi cloud hybrid cloud. All this is now pretty much got some visibility into architectural decisions. What do you think is the bigger It's callous facing CEOs today in terms of, you know, thinking about the holistic, you know, five ten year horizon as they start to make investments and think about either aging out or contain arising preexisting workloads to cloud native APS and on premise giving me all your thoughts. >> Yeah. You know, I think that the kind of boils down to a couple aspects. One of them is, you know, module ization of your applications. That's why containers ations become such a big deal. Being able to do things like, you know, have your data separate from your application and not have everything so integrated at that level where you then are getting somewhat confined. You have issues with in I have to have this application running in this location. I also need to have the data has to be, you know, coexisting with it and so you run with all these constraints. So I think that for depending on the age of your organisation, that the first challenge is trying to figure out how do I start, Tio, you almost break apart my application of iron, my infrastructure. So I have more ability to have more modularity between what needs to happen and where it needs to happen. So I think to me, that's the That's one of the biggest aspects were, you know, super fortunate, because because we're a big sash shot. Most of our applications were dependent on our venders for the US Ask providers to have kind of worked through some of those issues, but that's that's one aspect. I think the second is the ability to navigate between, you know, on permanent prints. So the hybrids solution is really I don't see that going away. I think that all of us are struggling with the whole notion of whether it's the economics. It's the ability to like you, said move workload to the right location for the right optimization, the right tooley, et cetera. And so I think it's that flexibility. You can't get any of that if you don't have the first part done. And then when you start talking about your like your digital strategy, none of that works when you start wanting to get into, like, a A and m o until you have some of those things done and you put that data strategy in place. So you then have that ability have the threat across your whole, you know, ecosystem. And I think that's what our challenge, >> an automation, is key. But you gotta automate manual test. You have people to do it. Then you got a strange way to make that. So the skill gap stills always gonna be there. Right? Kathy, Thanks for Spend the time sharing your insight here on the cube conversation. Really appreciated. Absolutely. Thank you for >> having me >> here. Cube culture here. Pure storages headquarters in Mountain View, California. John Korea. Thanks for watching