(tubular bells chiming) >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage, AWS re:Invent 2021. I'm John Furrier your host of theCUBE. We're here, get all the action wall-to-wall coverage. The keynotes with the new CEO, Adam Leschi just happened. A lot of action wall-to-wall coverage for days, and we'd love cloud computing because it impacts business. We love all that, but when it impact sports, we love it even more because it can relate to it. You can see the two great guests here from the NHL Formula 1. We got David Lehanski the EVP of business development and innovation at the NHL, Rob Smedley, director of data systems at Formula 1. Gentlemen, thanks for joining me today in theCUBE. >> Thanks for having us. >> So obviously formula one we know is very data driven. Pun intended, NHL has a lot of action going on as well with innovation streaming, et cetera. Let's get into it. You're both Amazon customers, right? We'll start with you. Formula 1, big partnership with AWS. What's that about? how you guys look at this cloud as you guys go to the next level? Cause you're under a lot of pressure with the data, from the cars and standards and all that good stuff. What's up. >> What's going on? >> Well, I mean, you know, it started probably four or five years ago with the acquisition of Liberty media and formula 1, and there was a real drive towards data. There was a real drive towards, you know, unearthing all of the data that we've got, you know, formula 1, arguably probably generates the most data, this most sports data of any sport on the planet. You know, we have car telemetry data, timing data, metadata, image data, you know, we own all the video data, and the audio data of driver radio, tire data, weather data, you put all that together. You got to, you know, a real massive data. And it was just about trying to unearth that and, and engage the fans more. And that's where the partnership with AWS come from. >> And the competitiveness in formula one I know is really high. You got a lot of smart people on these teams looking for an edge. And I know it's like, it's a whole new world with data as things get exposed. So I got to ask you, what is your job? Are you there to like to corral the data that kind of set standards? What's your role? >> Well, my role is essentially, to use the data at central league level, if you want, for all the franchises, that's all 20 drivers, within the 10 teams to try to, you know, use that data in whatever way possible, whether it's the new car or whether it's the F1 insights powered by AWS to try to engage the fans more. You know, we've understood that data, is really important to tell the story of Formula 1. And it's really important to reach different demographics as well. The younger demographics, the young, the gen Zedders is, you know, those types of guys, it's really important to get to them, because you can condense and at one hour 45 race down to five minutes, right. Which is what they want. So this has been a really important step for us. And a really important part of that journey has been the enablement. >> And I can see the whole e-sports thing I could see after a race. Okay. Now the fans race amongst themselves, as the technology simulation gets better, only headroom there. So to speak. >> Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's what we're, you know, that's probably the next generation of what we want to do with the data is we want to make it much more interactive. We're already giving, you know, through the insights and through, you know, the way that, we're trying to tell stories with the different data assets we're already trying to do that, in a much more proactive way of telling the story. The next level of that. is completely immersive, is interactive. And that's what we call the 21st drivers. So there's 20, formula 1 drivers. Right. But, we want to build systems using the data and gamification where you can embed yourself and immerse yourself in that, in the races, the 21st driver and race against the other guys on a Sunday afternoon. >> Awesome. Dave, let's get to the NHL National Hockey League. You guys are doing a lot of good stuff. You're the EVP of innovation and what's going on over there. How do you see the cloud helping you guys innovate. what's on your agenda and what's your role? >> Wow. I don't know if we have enough time, but at the highest level, you know, we're trying to expand and enhance the way we produce and present our game to the world. You know, our sport, we have some similarities, but there's a lot of differences based on the uniqueness of the sport. Statistics, hadn't really been a big part of the National Hockey League in the way people consume the game. I always say, you know, goaltenders have two statistics that have been used to evaluate them. And they were the same ones that were used to evaluate them back in 1917. So almost again a hundred years where it hasn't really evolved that much, but we think there's so much there that can really enrich and transform the game. So we're trying to partner with AWS and the best technology companies in the world to figure out how we can start to capture that data and turn it into meaningful content and experiences that allow fans to go a little bit deeper and a little bit broader. >> Yeah, I can see the data being used for also seeing what the NFL is doing a lot with the safety. Hits are getting harder and faster in the NHL. I mean, the collisions, the equipment, everyone is going faster. That's a big safety issue too. Isn't it? >> There is a safety component too. And it, look, that is one of the unique things about our sports. Both of us are speed involved. The speed though, for us, it's not just on the ice, it's also the pace of play, right? So when you have a stoppage, it's typically 10 or 15 seconds long. So there's not a lot of time to integrate data, to tell stories, to build and graphics and visualizations. So the first phase for us was to build the tracking system that could capture the positional, the positions of the puck and the players throughout the course of every game. And that's generating a massive amount of new data. Now we're trying to add video to that data so we could start to use it to create entirely new experiences. >> What are you guys thinking about from a fan experience as you look at the analytics. Are they interested in more like the, where the puck is, how fast people are going, what are some of the analytics sharing? >> So it depends, Right? So from a fan standpoint, you know, avid fans really want to, they want to go deep and they want understand controlled zone entries and like, you know, things that are really inherent to, you know, the core factors for determining outcome. Casual fans, they like just on knowing speed, right? How fast is the puck moving? How fast are the players moving. Before we had the system, we weren't able to produce it. Before we had AWS, you won't be able to produce that in real time and overlay it onto a game. So we could go even deeper when it comes to players and coaches and media partners, but the ability to build a solution that works in real time to give them the data and the video that they can use to tell those stories is born from AWS. >> And that brings up a great point. I'd love to ask both of you, if you can answer this question about the fan expectations. One of the big trends coming out of this re-invent this year as cloud is creating more capabilities, but the users and the consumers have new expectations. They want it on mobile, they want the highlights, they want everything. They want the data, there are data junkies. They want everything, cause they're immersing, into the experience with multiple touchpoints. TV, app. Whatever. >> I think that's right. And I think that it's up to, you know, as David's just saying that the two sports here with a lot of similarities and you can see that we're both on the same journey and that's because it's been driven in the end by the consumers, it's been driven by our customers. And, I think that now we're on, you know, what I would call the data flywheel, where there's a lot of inertia and it's just getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And this was, if we go back say three, four years when we started the partnership with AWS and we started to get really deep into the data and understand, you know, what the objectives of this whole exercise were, we always knew that there'd be a point where it started to build a lot of momentum and have a lot of inertia and that's, what's happening now. There's a real thirst for it, right? And it's not just, you know, even the naysayers, you know, even the people that kind of looked at it and went, well, why are you filling my screen with data exactly the same as what Dave says, you know, since you know, the goaltender since 1917, you've used the same two stats to evaluate that particular player. In formula 1 it's been exactly the same. So we started to introduce stuff which had been the same state as core for 70 years. And they say, well, what's all this about. Now, those people can't live without that. Right? It's become, a key part of the broadcast. >> And it creates new products, like things like Netflix, who would've thought a series would be on Formula 1, a soap opera for formula 1 in behind the scenes, driving to survive has been quite an acceleration for fan base. I mean, techies in Silicon valley and all around the world have told us like, hey, you know what? That exposes the nerdiness of Formula 1. Kind of cool. So who would have thought, I mean, there's going to be shows on this whole other level. >> I think, another point to add it is about increasing your distribution points and getting your content out to as many people as possible through as many platforms as possible. But I think in addition to that, it's really about, Rob started to touch on this personalization and customization. What can you do within those platforms to give fans the ability to sort of create their own experience? Right? So data highlights, huge, huge, huge level of importance. >> I think community is going to be a big part of this too. As you start to see the data creates more interactions and more progression, if you will. Community, I'm a Bruins fan in California. There's not a lot of Bruins fans, mostly sharks fans, but I got to get online. Where am I? Where's my tribe. I want to hang, that's not just on Twitter. >> Yeah >> So there's a whole another level coming. How do you guys see community developing in your sports? >> I think the community is the biggest factor in all of this. Right? And it's kind of bringing together. It's a global sports community, first and foremost, but then you've got these pockets. So you've got NHL, NFL, you've got formula 1 and they're all gaining popularity, but it's all through really everybody being on this same journey. Everybody's on this same journey of involving tech in the sport of revolutionizing their particular sport. And it's building this global community. I mean, In formula 1, we've got a billion fans worldwide, but that's growing, it's growing every single year, but it's only growing because we're starting now to get to that younger demographic, formerly one could never get to the demographic, you know, formula 1 fans looked like us, but now it's starting to really improve our system. >> The virtualization of this hybrid world we're living in opens up the doors for more access. >> Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's the key point here. And again, they've touched on it. It's the personalization. It's using data and platforms and packages to personalize somebody's engagement with their particular sport. >> I got a couple of questions from the fan base, I knew you guys were coming on. I want to get to you , first, Rob, how has F1 been using Amazon and the cloud to develop the new 2022 race car? >> Well, I mean, it, I would say it's no exaggeration to say Amazon technology enabled, was the key enabler in as being able to design that 2022 car, you know, we designed it in a virtual environment called computational fluid dynamics. You know, the simulations, when we were first running design iterations, were taking something like 40 hours with when we started running it on the EC2, you know, spinning up 7,000 calls, something like that. We got that down to seven hours, manageable. We designed the whole new car. >> Awesome. On the NHL, the question here for you, is that okay, how is the young generation coming into the game? What's changed with the innovation that's impacting, how the games played and how the young guns are coming up? Is there any in technology enabling that? >> Sure. You know, so we're looking at the type of content that younger fans are gravitating to, obviously highlights and dance games, but we talked about it before the ability to see what they want to see with regard to that. So, you know, where we're trying to get to is where you could watch a game and ultimately decide whether or not you want to turn on a right rail of real-time statistics for your favorite player, for your favorite team, for a specific event, whether or not you want to turn on the ability to network with your friends across social platforms, whether or not you want to turn on the betting functionality, whether or not you want to turn on the game functionality. Right? So this is how the younger generation really wants to consume the data, like sort of, they want to see what they want to see, when and how they want to see it. So we're working on that. And then there's everything that goes beyond that. The world of NFTs and VR and AR and alternate forms of content distribution, none of that would be capable or available if not for the ability to capture process and distribute data and video in an aggregate in real time. >> You know, I really think we're onto something so new here. And if you guys are really kind of illustrating the whole point of how being in person, the old model of physical, I don't have to go into arena to watch hockey or go watch formula 1, and hopefully it's on TV. Maybe it's got coverage here and there, but now with hybrid, you can integrate the experiences from the physical in-person where the asset is. >> Absolutely. >> And to virtual and just open up completely new hybrid use cases. I mean, this is brand new. There's no standards. >> Not, exactly. And that's something that we're really starting to look at, which is the event of the future. You know? So how would you bring, how do you mismatch? How would you bring that whole data experience and that whole broadcast experience to the actual event, the live event, and how would you bring the live event to somebody's front room? It's the hybrid model, right? And this is definitely next generation of how we're using the data. We're working with AWS. We're calling it event of the future. It's really, really exciting. I mean, you can imagine going there, to a formula 1 race, you're sat in the stands. You're no longer, you know, watching a car pass every few seconds and wondering what's going on. You've now got AR, VR that you can kind of put up and lay-up across what's going on the track. >> Well, a lot of people would love to get you guys' reaction to this comment online. Cause this is big, I see a lot of naysayers out there because they're so locked into the business model of the physical location. There's a lot of investment in events like this, wants me to buy tickets and show up. So they call it a one-way door here in the industry, they don't want to go through that one way door, but I'm saying that door has already been passed. It's like you're in this hybrid world is here. If you don't get out in front of it, you're going to be toast. So the question is, how do you guys think about this when you talk about the business model of experience? Cause you have to get in there and it's not super great right now on virtual. It could be better. It has to get better. So it's a balance. How do you guys talk about that in your respective fields to educate the potential? I won't say naysayers, but yeah. >> Yeah no, no, no. So we believe it wholeheartedly. You know, when you think about the inner arena experience, there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be in place to be able to deliver those types of experiences to fans, while they're in the building, we wholeheartedly believe that the people who are paying the most to see our games should get the best possible experience. So there should be no replay, they don't get, there should be no game that they can't access, no application that they couldn't have on their phone, but you need to have, you know, fairly advanced wireless in the arena infrastructures in place. You need to have a lot of cloud infrastructure and services there. So, you know, that's why we're leveraging Kinesis and SageMaker and AWS elemental services to get all of it condensed, operating in the cloud and distributed. So if you're a fan at a game, they're 18,000 other people, like you trying to access a mobile phone to place a bet on a real-time event that just happened, you can actually do it, but a lot needs to go into that. >> Yeah, that's really good insight because what you're pointing out is is that the physical location is the first party asset. That's the key. You build on that, invest in that and then feed it out into the next world and then figure that out. Do you agree with that. >> Absolutely. 100 percent correct. Well, 100 percent agree with everything that David just said. And we've got probably, you know, an even bigger challenge because we've got these 20 sites where we lift and shift 20, 23 races, you know, all round the world where we lift and shift every couple of weeks, and they're not arenas either. They're, you know, these are huge sites. These are you know, five, six kilometer by five, six kilometer square sites. So trying to do everything that David just said in that space, we can open it. >> Yeah, we just turn the lights off, it's over, he's got to pack it all up. >> The private 5G is going to totally help. You can run drones and have full blanket coverage over the location. That's good. That's good stuff. Final question for you guys on data, because I think this is something that we've been kind of talking about on theCUBE over the past year, we see open source software has become a huge success. Do you guys see opening up the data to your fan base and seeing e-sports races in formula 1, is just going crazy. Everyone loves it. It's not there yet but the equipment having your own car in your living room, but it's close, pretty close, it's there. Opening up the data, how do you see that potential? Because there are people who want to maybe code on top of it. How do you guys view that? >> Well, I think it, has to, I mean, Dave, again, touched on this earlier when he talked about, you know, the difference between the casual and the avid. The avid, you'll never, ever satisfy the average thirst for data, right. They want to do what I did and sit on a pit wall and manage a grand Prix team. And that's great, you know, it shouldn't just be for a privilege, you know, 10, 20 people in the world to do that. We should be able to give everybody that experience because we have the technology and the ability and the know how to be able to do that. And that's where, you know, again, partnership with AWS, where we're talking about something called the virtual pit wall. So, you know, the pit stands where it's kind of like the mission control. We want to be able to bring that to the average. And it's just getting deeper and deeper layers where you can set up your bespoke environment. You can set it up just as if you were a race engineer or a team strategist, one of those guys, and you can just get deeper and deeper. And then you start to lay over that. You start to build your own models. We bring in simulation into that whole area. And, you know, it's exactly the same as what you have in the teams. You just go deeper and deeper and deeper. >> What's it like to be on the pit wall there, managing teams. what's it. (men laughing) >> Hmm scary sometimes >> Nerve wrecking. >> Nerve-wracking, I mean, I talked about, you know, the gen Zedders who want the, you know, a two hour race to pass in five minutes, it passes in five minutes. Cause there's so much going on. You know, it's kind of like being the coach or the, you know, the football manager, you know, you're under a lot of pressure. You've got to make the right decisions. You've got to, you know, you've got to make decisions in split seconds. Everybody's an expert 10 seconds after the decision has been made. It's that type of thing, but it's great fun, you know. >> I can see virtual Formula 1 being a hot total hit because with all the data and now autonomous vehicles, you can almost have a collective kind of team approach, like swapping out AI in the cars in real time from the virtual pit. >> Yeah. And again, you know, I'm just going to name check deep racer because you know, AWS deep racer, you know, we formula 1, and AWS deep racer. We did an activation about a year back in the first lockdown, in the first COVID lockdown. So we took a couple of formula 1 drivers, Daniel Ricardo being one of them. And then we built out this deep racer platform and we're trying to look at how we can bring that more, you know, more together. So you've got this virtual, sorry, this AI car, this autonomous car, and you've got formula 1. And how do we merge those two worlds together? And again, that's just trying to immerse people more in the experience. >> Alright, final question. What's the coolest thing you got going on in each of your respective innovation fields with AWS? What would you highlight your favorite innovation or coolest thing you're doing? >> Well, I can't tell you about the coolest, right. That's for sure. Look, I just think what we're doing with AWS with regard to AIML around data and statistics analytics, based on what I said earlier, the evolution of statistics and analytics and hockey really hasn't taken hold, we're there now. The ability to really take a game that's has so much volatility, and we're the only professional teams sport that has personnel changes occurring in life play. So you never really know who's on the ice and the ability now to deliver real-time graphics and visualizations in the broadcast based on movements that had just played within milliseconds. And, we're starting to do that today with shot and save analytics with AWS. So where that can go in the future is really, what's probably the most exciting because it'll totally transform the way fans consumer our game. >> The NHS has always been on the cutting edge on the tech. Been following you guys for years, congratulations. Rob, the coolest thing you're working on, from Amazon, that's cool, and in formula 1 that's in your plate right now. >> Do you know what, I mean, there's so much going on at the minute. It's really difficult to choose any one thing. I think the whole partnership it's everything that we wanted it to be that, you know, the whole way that we're moving data forward and where we're revolutionizing this sport in a lot of ways, you know, sport has sat still for a long time. And to go through that digital transformation, you know, with Amazon and you know, in all the various areas that we're working on, I just think it's all, you know, it's all really, really cool. I mean, it's just moving forward at such a pace. Now. >> If you don't mind me asking why I got you here on the whole data thing, I'm just thinking about if I was on a team, I'd be like, okay, there's a whole new wild west. It's this arbitrage of data, we'll get over on the other team. Do you have to watch out, do you guys talk about like watching teams actually, I mean, it's actually innovative that they can get an edge, but an unfair advantage if they actually had used the data, is there like discussion around, like who can use the data, which teams? >> Of course. I mean, you know, when you get down to the franchises, each team can only use its individual data. You know, that's where we have key insight up at the league level because we've got, you know, a subset of all of the teams data. So we can kind of see everything that's going on. >> And watch out for the hackers coming in and get that data. >> Oh, well, alright, we've got pretty good security. >> Guys, thanks for coming on. I love the sports angle on this. It's really awesome. I think this is a great example of how cloud and digital lifestyle is coming together. The tech integration with the fan experience and the business models are super compelling, and I think that's illustration to just every other business. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate it. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. >> Okay so theCUBE's coverage here at AWS re:Invent. I'm John furrier, your host in theCUBE. You're watching the leader in event tech covers theCUBE. Thanks for watching. (soul music)

>>Hello, welcome back to the cubes coverage of Monaco, crypto summit presented by digital bits. It's a conference where a lot of the people using digital bits and the industry coming together around the future of crypto in the applicates got a great guest garage, rod cot, founder, and CEO of an innovative company. Love this co I love this company, Luke mogul, Rob, thanks for coming on the queue. Appreciate it. Oh, >>Thank you for having >>Us. Yeah. So I checked out what you guys are doing. You've got the sports metaverse angle going on with super valuable, cuz sports is super entertaining. Uh, people are engaged. There's huge fan base, huge online now, digital convergence going on with the physical, you know, you see all kinds of sports betting going on now everything's going digital. There's a whole nother consumer experience going on with sports and the game is still the same on the, on the field or so to, or the court. That's correct. Yeah. Now it's going to digital take a minute to explain what you guys are working on. >>Yeah, so yes, we are building out a sports ERs where we are bringing athletes, whether they're NBA stars, NFL stars, w N B a many of those athletes into meows giving them the ownership of the entire, um, meows commerce along with gameplay. So that's something from our perspective, this, uh, this is something that we're focused on. We're building out stadiums. Athletes can own stadiums. Athlete can create their own training centers, media hubs. Um, and imagine Lisa, Leslie for example, is building out a woman leadership sports academy, right? We have Michael Cooper building out defensive academy. So those are all the brands. We have 174 NBA w N B stars. And, um, and we are building out this, >>The brand is the brand, is the platform that's correct. That's the trend we're seeing. And it's, it's also an extension of their reach in community. So there's, they can convert their star power and athlete with owner's approval. If they probably write it on to the contracts, he, they can imagine all the complications, but they bring that online and extend that energy and brand equity yep. To fans and social network. Yeah. >>And many of these athletes are tremendous successful in their web two careers, right? Yeah. Um, some are current athletes, some are former athletes, but they have built such a brand persona where people are following them on Instagram. For example, Carlos Boozer. He has like almost 6 million followers between Twitter and Instagram and those kind of brands are looking or how do I give back to the community? How do I engage with my community and web three? And especially with our platform, we are giving that power back to the players. >>So you guys got some big names booers on there. You mentioned Carlos Boozer. You mentioned that Lisa, Leslie others among others, Michael Cooper throw back to the old Lakers, uh, magic. Johnson's kind actually here in crypto. We just saw him in the lobbies and in dinner and the other night, um, at Nobu, um, you got a lot of NBA support. Take a take, take, even explain how you're working this angle. Uh, you got some great traction, uh, momentum. Um, you got great pedigree, riot games in your career. Uh, you kind of get the world, the tech world, the media world, as it comes together. What's the secret sauce here? Is it the NBA relationship combination of the team explained >>It's really focusing on what, uh, we are building on me was focusing on players first, right? So players are literally, we call our platform as, uh, owned by the players, made for the players. Uh, and engagement is really all done through the players, right? So that's our key sauce. And when we worked out with NBA, we, we are part of the NBA BPA acceleration program for 2022 that is funded by a six Z, uh, and, and many others. Um, and our partnership with league is very critical. So it's not only partnered with player association partnered with leagues, whether it's NBA, w N B a NFL. So those are the venues. And this becomes almost a program, especially for athletes to really generate this lifetime engagement and royalty model because some of this famous athletes really want to give back to the communities. So like for example, I use Lisa Leslie a lot, but Lisa, Leslie really wants to empower women leadership, leadership, and really help, um, women in sports, for example. Right? So those are the angles that, um, that really people are excited about. >>Well, for the people watching that might not understand some of the ins and outs of sports and, and rod, your background in your team, it's interesting. The sports teams have been on the big day to train for many, many years. You look at all the stadiums. Now they've got mobile devices, they got wifi under the chairs. They use data and technology to manage the team. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> manage the stadium and venue and operations suppliers, whatnot. And then also the fans. So you, they, they got about a decade or so experience already in the digital world. This is not new to the, to the sports world. Yeah. So you guys come to the table kind of at a good time. >>Yeah. Especially the defi of the sports, right? So there's a defi of the finance, but this is the really, uh, a, a decentralization of the sports is something that there's a lot of traction. And there are many companies that are really focusing on that. Our focus obviously is players first, right? How do we give power to the players? Uh, and those are really driving the entire engagement. And also the brands >>How's the NBA feel about this because, you know, you got the NBA and you get the team, you got the owners. I mean, the democratization of the players, which I love by the way that angle kind of brings their power. Now's the new kind of balance of power. How is the NBA handling this? What's some of the conversations you've had with the, the organization. >>Yeah. So obviously there are a lot of things that, uh, people have to be careful about, right? They have existing contracts, existing, digital media rights. Um, so that's something that, uh, we have to be very tactful when we are working with NBA and NPA, uh, on what we can say, we cannot say. So that is obviously they have a lot of existing multimillion or billion dollar contracts that they cannot void with the web because the evolution of web three, >>You know, I love, uh, riffing on the notion of contract compliance when there's major structural change happening. Remember back in baseball, back in the days before the internet, the franchise rights was geographic territory. Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, if you're the New York Yankees, you're doing great. If you're Milwaukee, you're not doing too good, but then comes the internet. That's good. That's no geography. There's no boundaries. That's good. So you're gonna have stadiums have virtual Bo. So again, how do they keep up with the contracts? Yeah. I mean, this is gonna be a fundamental issue. >>That's >>Good. Good. And I think if they don't move, the players are gonna fill that void. >>That's correct. Yeah. And especially with this, this an IL deal, right. That happened for the players, uh, especially college athletes. So we are in process of onboarding 1.5 million college athletes. Uh, and those athletes are looking for not only paying for the tuition for the colleges, but also for engagement and generating this early on, uh, >>More okay. Rod, we're gonna make a prediction here in the cube, 20, 20 we're in Monaco, all the NBA, NHL, the teams they're gonna be run by player Dows. Yeah. What do you think? A very good prediction. Yeah. Very good prediction. Yeah. I mean you, I mean, that's a joke, I'm joking aside. I mean, it's kind of connecting the dots, but you know, whether that happens or not, what this means is if this continues to go down this road, that's correct. Get the players collectively could come together. Yeah. And flip the script. >>Yeah. And that's the entire decentralization, right. So it's like the web three has really disrupted this industry as you know. Um, and, and I know your community knows that too. >>Of course, course we do. We love it. >>Something from sports perspective, we are very excited. >>Well, I love it. Love talking. Let's get to the, to the weeds here on the product, under the hood, tell about the roadmap, obviously NFTs are involved. That's kind of sexy right now. I get the digital asset model on there. Uh, but there's a lot more under the coverage. You gotta have a platform, you gotta have the big data and then ultimately align into connecting other systems together. How do you view the tech roadmap and the product roadmap? What's your vision? >>Yeah. So the, the one thing that you had to be T full, uh, as a company, whether it's LUT, mogul or any other startup, is you have to be really part of the ecosystem. So the reason why we are here at Monaco is that we obviously are looking at partnership with digital bits, um, and those kind of partnership, whether it's fourth centric, centric are very critical for the ecosystem in the community to grow. Um, and that's one thing you cannot build a, another, uh, isolated metaverse right? So that's one thing. Many companies have done it, but obviously not. >>It's a wall garden doesn't work. >>Exactly. So you have to be more open platform. So one things that we did early on in our platform, we have open APIs and SDKs where not only you as an athlete can bring in your, uh, other eCommerce or web, uh, NFTs or anything you want, but you can also bring in other real estate properties. So when we are building out this metaverse, you start with real estate, then you build out obviously stadiums and arenas and academies training academies, but then athletes can bring their, uh, web commerce, right. Where it's NFT wearables shoe line. So >>Not an ecosystem on top of Luke Mo. So you're like, I'm almost like you think about a platform as a service and a cloud computing paradigm. Yeah. Look different, not decentralized, but similarly enabling others, do the heavy lifting on their behalf. Yeah. Is that right? >>So that's correct. Yes. So we are calling ourself as the sports platform as a service, right. So we want to add the word sports because we, uh, in, in many contexts, right. When you're building metaverse, you can get distracted with them, especially we are in Los Angeles. Right. >>Can I get a luxury box for the cube and some of the metaverse islands and the stadiums you're doing? >>We, we are working >>On it. We're >>Definitely working on, especially the, uh, Los Angeles, uh, stadium. Yeah. >>Well, we're looking for some hosts, anyone out there looking for some hosts, uh, for the metaverse bring your avatar. You can host the cube, bro. Thanks for coming on the cube. Really appreciate. What's the, what's next for you guys, obviously, continuing to build momentum. You got your playful, how many people on the team what's going on, give a plug for the company. What are you looking for share with the audience, some of the, some of your goals. Yeah. >>So, uh, the main thing we're looking for is really, um, from a brand perspective, if you are looking at buying properties, this would be an amazing time to buy virtual sports stadium. Um, so we are, obviously we have 175 stadiums in roadmap right now. We started with Los Angeles. Then we are in San Francisco, New York, Qatar, Dubai. So all those sports stadiums, whether they're basketball, football, soccer are all the properties. And, uh, from a community perspective, if you want to get an early access, we are all about giving back to the community. Uh, so you can buy it at a much better presale price right now. Uh, so that's one, the second thing is that if you have any innovative ideas or a player that you want to integrate into, we have an very open platform from a community engagement perspective. If you have something unique from a land sale perspective yeah. Or the NFD perspective plug, contact us at, at Raj lumo.com. >>And I'm assuming virtual team, you in LA area where where's your home. >>So, yeah, so I live in Malibu, um, and our office is in Santa Monica. We have an office in India. Uh, we have few developers also in Europe. So, uh, and then we are team of 34 people right now >>Looking to hire some folks >>We are looking for, what >>Are you, what are you looking for? >>So, uh, we are looking for a passionate sports, uh, fanatics. >>It's a lot, not hard to find. Yeah. >><laugh> who knows how to also code. Right? So from blockchain perspective, we are, uh, chain agnostic. Uh, but obviously right now we are building on polygon, but we are chain agnostic. So if you have any blockchain development experience, uh, that's something we, we are looking for. Yeah. >>RA, thanks for coming out. Luke Mo check him out. I'm John furry with the cube here in Monaco for the mono crypto summit presented by digital bits. We got all the action, a lot of great guests going on, stay with us for more coverage. Um, John furrier, thanks for watching.

>>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020, sponsored by Intel and AWS. >>Welcome back to the cubes coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 I'm Lisa Martin. Joining me next is one of our cube alumni. Breton McMillan is back the director of us, federal for AWS. Right. It's great to see you glad that you're safe and well. >>Great. It's great to be back. Uh, I think last year when we did the cube, we were on the convention floor. It feels very different this year here at reinvent, it's gone virtual and yet it's still true to how reinvent always been. It's a learning conference and we're releasing a lot of new products and services for our customers. >>Yes. A lot of content, as you say, the one thing I think I would say about this reinvent, one of the things that's different, it's so quiet around us. Normally we're talking loudly over tens of thousands of people on the showroom floor, but great. That AWS is still able to connect in such an actually an even bigger way with its customers. So during Theresa Carlson's keynote, want to get your opinion on this or some info. She talked about the AWS open data sponsorship program, and that you guys are going to be hosting the national institutes of health, NIH sequence, read archive data, the biologist, and may former gets really excited about that. Talk to us about that because especially during the global health crisis that we're in, that sounds really promising >>Very much is I am so happy that we're working with NIH on this and multiple other initiatives. So the secret greed archive or SRA, essentially what it is, it's a very large data set of sequenced genomic data. And it's a wide variety of judge you gnomic data, and it's got a knowledge human genetic thing, but all life forms or all branches of life, um, is in a SRA to include viruses. And that's really important here during the pandemic. Um, it's one of the largest and oldest, um, gen sequence genomic data sets are out there and yet it's very modern. It has been designed for next generation sequencing. So it's growing, it's modern and it's well used. It's one of the more important ones that it's out there. One of the reasons this is so important is that we know to find cures for what a human ailments and disease and death, but by studying the gem genomic code, we can come up with the answers of these or the scientists can come up with answer for that. And that's what Amazon is doing is we're putting in the hands of the scientists, the tools so that they can help cure heart disease and diabetes and cancer and, um, depression and yes, even, um, uh, viruses that can cause pandemics. >>So making this data, sorry, I'm just going to making this data available to those scientists. Worldwide is incredibly important. Talk to us about that. >>Yeah, it is. And so, um, within NIH, we're working with, um, the, um, NCBI when you're dealing with NIH, there's a lot of acronyms, uh, and uh, at NIH, it's the national center for, um, file type technology information. And so we're working with them to make this available as an open data set. Why, why this is important is it's all about increasing the speed for scientific discovery. I personally think that in the fullness of time, the scientists will come up with cures for just about all of the human ailments that are out there. And it's our job at AWS to put into the hands of the scientists, the tools they need to make things happen quickly or in our lifetime. And I'm really excited to be working with NIH on that. When we start talking about it, there's multiple things. The scientists needs. One is access to these data sets and SRA. >>It's a very large data set. It's 45 petabytes and it's growing. I personally believe that it's going to double every year, year and a half. So it's a very large data set and it's hard to move that data around. It's so much easier if you just go into the cloud, compute against it and do your research there in the cloud. And so it's super important. 45 petabytes, give you an idea if it were all human data, that's equivalent to have a seven and a half million people or put another way 90% of everybody living in New York city. So that's how big this is. But then also what AWS is doing is we're bringing compute. So in the cloud, you can scale up your compute, scale it down, and then kind of the third they're. The third leg of the tool of the stool is giving the scientists easy access to the specialized tool sets they need. >>And we're doing that in a few different ways. One that the people would design these toolsets design a lot of them on AWS, but then we also make them available through something called AWS marketplace. So they can just go into marketplace, get a catalog, go in there and say, I want to launch this resolve work and launches the infrastructure underneath. And it speeds the ability for those scientists to come up with the cures that they need. So SRA is stored in Amazon S3, which is a very popular object store, not just in the scientific community, but virtually every industry uses S3. And by making this available on these public data sets, we're giving the scientists the ability to speed up their research. >>One of the things that Springs jumps out to me too, is it's in addition to enabling them to speed up research, it's also facilitating collaboration globally because now you've got the cloud to drive all of this, which allows researchers and completely different parts of the world to be working together almost in real time. So I can imagine the incredible power that this is going to, to provide to that community. So I have to ask you though, you talked about this being all life forms, including viruses COVID-19, what are some of the things that you think we can see? I expect this to facilitate. Yeah. >>So earlier in the year we took the, um, uh, genetic code or NIH took the genetic code and they, um, put it in an SRA like format and that's now available on AWS and, and here's, what's great about it is that you can now make it so anybody in the world can go to this open data set and start doing their research. One of our goals here is build back to a democratization of research. So it used to be that, um, get, for example, the very first, um, vaccine that came out was a small part. It's a vaccine that was done by our rural country doctor using essentially test tubes in a microscope. It's gotten hard to do that because data sets are so large, you need so much computer by using the power of the cloud. We've really democratized it and now anybody can do it. So for example, um, with the SRE data set that was done by NIH, um, organizations like the university of British Columbia, their, um, cloud innovation center is, um, doing research. And so what they've done is they've scanned, they, um, SRA database think about it. They scanned out 11 million entries for, uh, coronavirus sequencing. And that's really hard to do in a typical on-premise data center. Who's relatively easy to do on AWS. So by making this available, we can have a larger number of scientists working on the problems that we need to have solved. >>Well, and as the, as we all know in the U S operation warp speed, that warp speed alone term really signifies how quickly we all need this to be progressing forward. But this is not the first partnership that AWS has had with the NIH. Talk to me about what you guys, what some of the other things are that you're doing together. >>We've been working with NIH for a very long time. Um, back in 2012, we worked with NIH on, um, which was called the a thousand genome data set. This is another really important, um, data set and it's a large number of, uh, against sequence human genomes. And we moved that into, again, an open dataset on AWS and what's happened in the last eight years is many scientists have been able to compute about on it. And the other, the wonderful power of the cloud is over time. We continue to bring out tools to make it easier for people to work. So what they're not they're computing using our, um, our instance types. We call it elastic cloud computing. whether they're doing that, or they were doing some high performance computing using, um, uh, EMR elastic MapReduce, they can do that. And then we've brought up new things that really take it to the next layer, like level like, uh, Amazon SageMaker. >>And this is a, um, uh, makes it really easy for, um, the scientists to launch machine learning algorithms on AWS. So we've done the thousand genome, uh, dataset. Um, there's a number of other areas within NIH that we've been working on. So for example, um, over at national cancer Institute, we've been providing some expert guidance on best practices to how, how you can architect and work on these COVID related workloads. Um, NIH does things with, um, collaboration with many different universities, um, over 2,500, um, academic institutions. And, um, and they do that through grants. And so we've been working with doc office of director and they run their grant management applications in the RFA on AWS, and that allows it to scale up and to work very efficiently. Um, and then we entered in with, um, uh, NIH into this program called strides strides as a program for knowing NIH, but also all these other institutions that work within NIH to use the power of the cloud use commercial cloud for scientific discovery. And when we started that back in July of 2018, long before COVID happened, it was so great that we had that up and running because now we're able to help them out through the strides program. >>Right. Can you imagine if, uh, let's not even go there? I was going to say, um, but so, okay. So the SRA data is available through the AWS open data sponsorship program. You talked about strides. What are some of the other ways that AWS system? >>Yeah, no. So strides, uh, is, uh, you know, wide ranging through multiple different institutes. So, um, for example, over at, uh, the national heart lung and blood Institute, uh, do di NHL BI. I said, there's a lot of acronyms and I gel BI. Um, they've been working on, um, harmonizing, uh, genomic data. And so working with the university of Michigan, they've been analyzing through a program that they call top of med. Um, we've also been working with a NIH on, um, establishing best practices, making sure everything's secure. So we've been providing, um, AWS professional services that are showing them how to do this. So one portion of strides is getting the right data set and the right compute in the right tools, in the hands of the scientists. The other areas that we've been working on is making sure the scientists know how to use it. And so we've been developing these cloud learning pathways, and we started this quite a while back, and it's been so helpful here during the code. So, um, scientists can now go on and they can do self-paced online courses, which we've been really helping here during the, during the pandemic. And they can learn how to maximize their use of cloud technologies through these pathways that we've developed for them. >>Well, not education is imperative. I mean, there, you think about all of the knowledge that they have with within their scientific discipline and being able to leverage technology in a way that's easy is absolutely imperative to the timing. So, so, um, let's talk about other data sets that are available. So you've got the SRA is available. Uh, what are their data sets are available through this program? >>What about along a wide range of data sets that we're, um, uh, doing open data sets and in general, um, these data sets are, um, improving the human condition or improving the, um, the world in which we live in. And so, um, I've talked about a few things. There's a few more, uh, things. So for example, um, there's the cancer genomic Atlas that we've been working with, um, national cancer Institute, as well as the national human genomic research Institute. And, um, that's a very important data set that being computed against, um, uh, throughout the world, uh, commonly within the scientific community, that data set is called TCGA. Um, then we also have some, uh, uh, datasets are focused on certain groups. So for example, kids first is a data set. That's looking at a lot of the, um, challenges, uh, in diseases that kids get every kind of thing from very rare pediatric cancer as to heart defects, et cetera. >>And so we're working with them, but it's not just in the, um, uh, medical side. We have open data sets, um, with, uh, for example, uh, NOAA national ocean open national oceanic and atmospheric administration, um, to understand what's happening better with climate change and to slow the rate of climate change within the department of interior, they have a Landsat database that is looking at pictures of their birth cell, like pictures of the earth, so we can better understand the MCO world we live in. Uh, similarly, uh, NASA has, um, a lot of data that we put out there and, um, over in the department of energy, uh, there's data sets there, um, that we're researching against, or that the scientists are researching against to make sure that we have better clean, renewable energy sources, but it's not just government agencies that we work with when we find a dataset that's important. >>We also work with, um, nonprofit organizations, nonprofit organizations are also in, they're not flush with cash and they're trying to make every dollar work. And so we've worked with them, um, organizations like the child mind Institute or the Allen Institute for brain science. And these are largely like neuro imaging, um, data. And we made that available, um, via, um, our open data set, um, program. So there's a wide range of things that we're doing. And what's great about it is when we do it, you democratize science and you allowed many, many more science scientists to work on these problems. They're so critical for us. >>The availability is, is incredible, but also the, the breadth and depth of what you just spoke. It's not just government, for example, you've got about 30 seconds left. I'm going to ask you to summarize some of the announcements that you think are really, really critical for federal customers to be paying attention to from reinvent 2020. >>Yeah. So, um, one of the things that these federal government customers have been coming to us on is they've had to have new ways to communicate with their customer, with the public. And so we have a product that we've had for a while called on AWS connect, and it's been used very extensively throughout government customers. And it's used in industry too. We've had a number of, um, of announcements this weekend. Jasmine made multiple announcements on enhancement, say AWS connect or additional services, everything from helping to verify that that's the right person from AWS connect ID to making sure that that customer's gets a good customer experience to connect wisdom or making sure that the managers of these call centers can manage the call centers better. And so I'm really excited that we're putting in the hands of both government and industry, a cloud based solution to make their connections to the public better. >>It's all about connections these days, but I wish we had more time, cause I know we can unpack so much more with you, but thank you for joining me on the queue today, sharing some of the insights, some of the impacts and availability that AWS is enabling the scientific and other federal communities. It's incredibly important. And we appreciate your time. Thank you, Lisa, for Brett McMillan. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the cubes coverage of AWS reinvent 2020.

>>Live from Seattle, Washington. It's the cube covering Smartsheet engage 2019 brought to you by Smartsheet. >>Welcome back everyone. You are watching the cube and we are here in Seattle, Washington at Smartsheet engage 2019 I'm your host, Rebecca Knight along with my cohost Jeff Frick. We're joined by Mark Klein. He is the principal at populace. Thank you so much for coming on the show. My pleasure. Thank you. So you have a very cool job. Tell our viewers a little bit about populace and about what you do. Sure. So populace is actually an architect firm. Our main focuses architecture. We one of the largest sports architecture firms in the world. So we build stadiums and arenas and convention centers and airports and places that people gather is our bread and butter is over 500 worldwide employees that work on that. But we have an event office out of Denver, Colorado where we take our architectural principles and apply them to major gatherings of people in the sporting world and other areas. >>And these are sporting include the includes include the final four >> in the Olympics and all of your NFL major events that are not a regular season game. All of your inner NHL events that happen in stadiums outdoors, all star games, things like that. Any major event, it's a nonstandard event. They really call on us to help make sure that that goes off without a hitch. Yup. >> All right, so talk a little bit about what it was like before you believe what it was like before you use Smartsheet and entered the, the headaches and the problems and that and now what life is like now. Sure, >> so a little more than 10 years ago when I joined the firm, we had a good stable of events and events. We're still kind of just operating off spreadsheets and back in napkins and drawings and things like that as security and to nine 11 was actually a major factor in kind of the growth of our industry where events now had to be planned a little more with more scrutiny. >>We needed a way to better pull our information together and get everybody to to, to, to collaborate on one set of drawings, one schedule who's doing what and when. And Smartsheet has become that prime resource for all of our event planning >> and for in for an event, there's so many outside contractors that you guys have to orchestrate with, whether it be the teams and the associations and the security and the venue and the concessions. The list goes on transportation, on and on and on. So to be able to bring outsiders into your project, >> and that's a new set every year with every event. So you think of the final four, we're going to a new city every year. So EV, I have literally eight months to work with a team to plan a major event that's going to be seen by hundreds of millions of people. And then I've got to pick up and do it again in another city and then another. >>And we're doing that across dozens of events across our team every year. So we may have a vendor that touches the system once. We may have someone who sees us once every third year. So within our environment we have extremely high turnover of people. We have very short period to get them up to speed and working with us. So Smartsheet has been really, really a big part of Hey I need you to better get in here, get your information and work with the tool, get us the information and guess what, you're going to get some feedback on this one too. So it benefits them. >>Right. It's just interesting to me that the level of granularity and detail, you know, we get, we go to a lot of events, obviously there's so much minutia that you have to keep track of from printing on the napkins, you know, to signage, etc. But at the same time, especially in the sporting world, you know, there can be huge changes, you know, especially at the same plow who wins a game, changes the venue. Right? So how do you, how do you use a tool to manage the boat? The tremendous detail when you have the opportunity to plan versus the change of plan a we got to got to shift, >>he hears well so, so we use a lot of the tools that Smartsheet is has built into it for automation. So for example, at the final four, we don't know our teams until Sunday night and that that that Monday we have decor going up, team specific decor. So locker room assignments. As soon as the game is final we send out notifications in Smartsheet to the decor printers that you're printing this graphic, this size, these a locker room assignments, these are the bus assignments. So all of that is, is queued up and ready to go. Um, so a lot of those last minute things that you may think of, we've thought through them and are ready to trigger as many as we can. You're never 100%, but if we can get that 80% 90% triggered and out the door as soon as the decision is made or the team has decided that lets us deal with those others that are a little less planned. >>So, but those are ones where, you know, those are sort of the known unknowns. What about when you have the unknown unknowns, when things like bad weather can affect an event or, I mean, how do you, how do you use Smartsheet into change on a dime when that happened? >>So, um, we, we plan and we plan and we plan. So for example, bad weather is something we have multiple plans for. But where Smartsheet comes into play as I have real time scheduling information sitting on my screen in a control room at an event. So if we have a weather event, we have two or three options that we can pick from. But I'm now looking at the realtime Smartsheet schedule going, all right, if we select option one, be aware we're going to affect these items. If we go with option two, these are the items. So it's the information that has been gathered through that planning phase and everybody's put their information in. So I know what our action is going to cause and the ripple effects of those. >>And Lindsay, the smart, the choose your own adventures when you were a kid reading those, choose your own adventure, want to open >>a door and guess what's there. I want to open a door of a decision and know that this is the follow on effect and I can look at the schedule and the vendors involved of who I'm about to impact with my decision. Right. And do you have the car, you have the comms and all that stuff dialed in there as well? Correct. Yeah. So we're on radio and we're, you know, these, these events, we run control centers. So there's eight or nine of us sitting in a control room. I, I send Mark meter a picture every year of my Smartsheet screen with some field of play behind it, beautiful ball or basketball field and go smart. We're ready to go, keep it up, keep it running for the next few hours. So, um, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a fairly intense time. Um, when, when we opened doors or we turn on the cameras if those events, because let's face it, there's 70,000 people sitting there and there's usually three triple digit, a hundred millions of people watching on television. >>So it has to go right. That's a lot of pressure. Yes. How do you deal with it? How does your team deal with it? I mean you're used to it of course, but is there, uh, it's the confidence in the plan. I think that has really shaped how we get to that point and don't and don't overreact or get too caught up in the moment. So, um, what we do within the planning of, of our events and with our staff and is we put everybody's tasks in in Smartsheet of course. So my tunnel captain only has to focus on the 40 things that he or she is responsible for. So he may be standing at a team tunnel and we've extracted from the schedule are Austin, here are your 40 items. Don't worry about every, all the chaos going around you. Cause I've got 40 other people out working those items. >>So we filter schedules by either location or staff member so that they can put their blinders on and stay focused on their tasks. And that's really how people can focus and stay. Stay in the moment. What's coming next? What do I need to worry about? Cause there's 4,000 line items in that schedule. I can't have him trying to figure out what are his right at that moment. Mark, I would shift gears a little bit cause you guys came from an architectural bet, the company's architectural background and buildings, venues and stadiums. We just had the new chase. Then you just got finished in San Francisco. Beautiful new facility as the way you guys think about, it's kind of people centric. It's Vinnie's for people in its events for people. What are some of the kind of the guiding principles that make for a good event? A good venue from the people experience point of views. >>There's really multiple sets of customers that I look at at every venue. Obviously we always started the field of play. You gotta get that right? It's gotta be a hundred yards long. It's gotta be. And I thought they broke that rule the other day. We won't go there. Um, so feel to play out. So you've got your competitors, your spectators, and then your operators. All three of those. We focus on all of them equally because if one piece of that triad doesn't work, then the overall experience doesn't work. So obviously the field of play honestly is the easiest part to deal with. But it's an important part. So you look at how a team is going to arrive at a venue bus, whatever the case may be, so that they get to their locker room, get to their services that out to their field and back and forth to media obligations. >>So you don't want to put a media work room halfway across the stadium because then they're making a long Trek. It's a little things like that in the, in the team component, spectators, obviously theirs could be 50 to, if it's a baseball park, 50,000 up to 70,000 in a stadium. We want to ensure that they're going to fully enjoy their two to four hours in that building. Um, so we work on scheduling with our vendor. The one of the biggest things we found in the, in that area is we have really engaged with our contractors, the concessions folks, because they were kind of operating on their own. So engaging concessions to say, don't be moving product when there are people in the building, no one, the timeouts are, we'll call you from control based on the schedule so that we're synchronizing building operations so that they're, the customers are running out of water. >>Well we didn't run out of water, we couldn't get it to you. So things like that are really important to our planning. And then the group that really gets overlooked at, I spend a lot of time on is the people that helped build and get the building ready. Because if my vendors are having a rough time getting their things in the building or building the platform I've asked for or setting up the stage, they're just not going to be in a good frame of mind when the lights turn on. And I want everybody to be, yeah, let's go. We've had a great experience in the five days leading up to this event, whatever it may be. I'm ready now to put on a show. So we use Smartsheet IX so much with our vendors to help guide them through the build process, scheduling, deliveries, getting their credentials where they're going to park and where do I take my breaks? >>Everything is there at their fingertips. So even the mom and pop vendors that I deal with, and there are quite a few of them from city to city, feel like they're as important as my Avi company. So they're excited. They do their load in there like, Hey, this is a great experience and now they're here to help support the event. And then when I call and go, guess what? We have a problem. I need your help. They're going to share, Mark, what can we do? Right? Cause they're there, they're enthusiastic and they didn't feel like I beat 'em up right during that load in great, great insight. People centric. But you're talking about it's treating people like people, not just that they are some cog in the wheel that they are to to execute this task. Right, right. Yeah. No happy staff deliver happy events. >>So what's next in terms of, in terms of a broader adoption in terms of more improvements that you're seeing on the pipeline? Um, so I'm really excited about the collaboration component that was announced today at the keynote. Um, we are an architect firm, so the base of all of our plant, all of our events is a set of drawings, drawings that show what we need, where it is, when it's gonna happen. So all of our non drawing material has lived in Smartsheet for 10 years. I'm now gonna be able to bring those drawings in and get the collaborative information to feedback. So we take a drawing, we'll send it to CBS and say, please Mark up how you think we've drawn your broadcast compound. That has all been email. Now with this collaboration tool, it's going to live in Smartsheets. So I cannot tell you how excited I am about the collaboration component. >>It's gonna. It's gonna really streamline how we do our business. I, I'm kinda lost for words to get in there and try it. My staff is gonna probably go Mark. You can't go to any more conferences, but, uh, I think it's really going to be a great addition to our work process. Um, the other one that has been a personal part of mine, a personal goal that I've seen is the adoption by our staff are the to day work process. Um, I listened in the office, we have a big open work plan space and I listened for my staff going, I've got to put this plan together, attract this and I go, I literally will stand up and walk over. Have you thought about using Smartsheet? And half of the time they haven't. And um, I will say, let me help you through it. Let me get you started and see if it works for you. >>Um, so that organic growth with Smartsheet, um, is, is the big step that we're doing on a day to day basis, um, to get staff introduced to a new way to work and be more collaborative of how they, they manage your information. So, um, just that that kind of growth is, is, is ongoing. Um, but after I've been to the conference, I can say I've got a little more knowledge about it. Let me, uh, let me, uh, help you out a little bit and get you to use it. Right, right, right, right. And you're even finding ways to use it in your personal life, you said? Sure. I use it for home tasks. We plan, we plan our kid's birthday celebrations in it. So my wife and I will share a sheet about who's visiting for graduation. My daughter's high school graduation is coming up. We actually post a forum on Smartsheet coming where they staying at the tag that I put up on the wall over there as people think I work for Smartsheet with how much we use it. So yes, it bleeds into the personal life, but why not exactly a word. I don't fix it. Thank you so much for coming on. The show is a lot of fun talking pleasure. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you. I'm Rebecca Knight for Jeff Frick. Stay tuned. Have more of engaged 2019 here in Seattle. You're watching the cube.

>> live from San Francisco, celebrating 10 years of high tech coverage. It's the Cube covering Veum World 2019. Brought to you by VM Wear and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back, everyone. Live Cube Live coverage here in San Francisco, California in the Mosconi North lobby for V Emerald 2019 tapes our 10th year covering with some great guest, three days of wall to wall coverage that an amazing signorina Rob Salmon is the president CEO of Cohee City. Dave Solo, presidency of the Special Olympics Northern California. Thanks for coming on. Thanks to spend the time. Thanks for doing. Set the table. Why we hear what we're talking about. What's the purpose here? I know I wouldn't want to set it up more >> absolutely. I've been involved with Special Olympics for several years now. When former company Netapp Matt Thompson over Adobe called me and said, We got this high tech challenge. Dr. We've never sold it out. We want it. We want to get more companies involved when you help out, and the answer was absolutely and that led to David asking me to be on the board. So I've been involved with David, the team for an awful long time. KOHI City When I joined the company, some of the folks there knew of my involvement is that we'd like to start participating as well, which has led to what we're doing here. Of'em World >> David Talk about Special Olympics Quick mission for sure about the folks that might not given update for sure. >> John Yes, so Special Olympics enriches the lives of children, adults with intellectual disabilities. And so, in our footprint in Northern California, with serve over 23,000 athletes ages eight above and it's it's it's interesting. There's a lot of misconceptions people will say to me That's a great event that you do every four years And they referring the World Games, especially its world games, where athletes from all over the world get a common compete. But locally, through the state programs, hundreds of competitions happen a each and every year. And in Northern California we have, or 400 competitions per year in 14 different sports provides a wonderful ray of opportunities for athletes to demonstrate what what they can do when given the opportunity >> to do so. Talk about the community of aspect of it because I think What's interesting is what's on TV and what's in the mainstream press. It's more reach people that can be known for that. But it's deeper than as you point out. But >> talk about the >> community aspect. Got volunteers, people, individuals involved. Yeah, but the makeup of the network? No, it's an incredible network. >> I think we've really brought in an expanded our reach over the last 10 years. It used to be well known primarily for sports programming. So now we have inclusive education and health programs. We're able to bring together people with and without intellectual disabilities through those mediums. So if I'd resource is to schools an education and they run special Olympics programming during the school day. So educators wanna have us because we're improving school clamp campuses, reducing bowling, enhancing social emotional learning. And so the work that we're doing is so so critical with that community, then the area health. We have inclusive health. So now we got health and medical crypt, uh, professionals that are now providing health screenings for athletes. So some of the younger volunteers that we get that they're wanting to make a career in the medical field they're exposed to our population, right? And so they learn more about their specific health needs. So it's really about changing people's attitudes. And so this community of supporters volunteers, health professionals, education, Really. Our goal is to change people's attitudes fundamentally worldwide about people with intellectual disabilities and really kind of produce inclusive mindsets. We call it really promote understanding. >> If I may. I I really think what David and his team does and folks of sports Special Olympics around the world, they're dying. Changing attitudes are changing lives, lives of the athletes, lives of the people that work with the athletes, lives of the families. If you go to these events and there's something special, there are a lot of fun. And when you get involved and you see it, it definitely touches your heart and you realize we could be doing so much more. We could be doing so much more. >> I'm struck by you. Clearly, there's a passion thread here, and your background is really interesting to me because you're an accomplished student athlete, played football on and then you started a career in nonprofit right away, and now Rob, he was somebody would have hired right. It was like the perfect student athlete. You know, magna cum laude. I want this guy on my team. My hard driving says that How did you get into this? And described the background of that >> know for sure, sewn with nonprofit work. I kind of kind of started out. I was working for Boys and Girls Clubs of America, raising money to go to grad school, to be a history professor of all things. And so I got involved with the Boys and Girls Club with special Olympics. When the opportunity came, what was what was unique about it? It's really about how sports changes people's lives. Growing up, my father left me when I was 10 years old, and so was my coaches. They were the ones that really wasn't for them. I don't know that I would be here today, so they really took an active role in my life. So I've been very passion. I believe sports is a catalyst for social change, changed my life and provide an opportunity for me to be successful. And so that's what I want to help get back to our after. And it's also so. It's interesting is it's also proves that takes a village, you know, in these experiences changes lives. I think this is the big story, and it points to that. The sports is one element of other things. Health care. So you start getting connected in this is where the magic happens. This is the key. Yeah, some of the stories that wherever just phenomenal. I think society focuses on what our athletes can't do and dwells on the disability. We don't do that. So what? We're passionate about showcasing what they can do and having our volunteer, you know, certified train coaches work with our athletes to really help them get to the next level so they could be successful not only on the field, but off the field. So I mean, I got to get involved. Talk about the virtual. You're in Northern California. That's your territory, your area. But people, how they get involved, they wanna be share some no points of touch. Yeah, for sure. So a couple key points to touch would be number one. We have over 20,000 volunteers in our footprints, so we have a tremendous need for volunteers both globally and here locally, with Special Olympics, Northern California number two is from a donor standpoint. So everything that we do for athletes is completely free. And we're able to do that because the support of our community partners, our corporate partners like, Oh, he city, you know, individual supporters foundations were able to do that because of themselves. You know, either someone could go to the global website Special Olympics dot order come to W w dot s, O N C dot or for Northern California. We're always looking for volunteers, donor's community supporters, and we're also looking for board members, particularly from the tech sector. Senior executives in the tech sector. Justin, you stay channel lies for the people involved that also includes the people who volunteered. I'm sure people that want to make a difference whether you're thinking of senior approach, rather urine or your employees who want to give back so tell about the lives changing impact there because this is a corporate angle here that's not doesn't it's not for profit thing. It's a four good thing. >> Oh, this is for a good thing, and the thing I did to that is, and we touched briefly on Boys and Girls Clubs of America. These are all great organizations. I know Patton is key note. This morning, touched on giving back. This is an opportunity. Well, we're all blessed. We should give back. But the whole notion of getting more involved in touching lives I'll start with my two boys. They went to summer games and U C Davis three or four years ago. Now both of her good runners and they had some other kids on the high school team go with them. They were incredibly impressed. They had a lot of fun. A little banter with the athletes. Newsome, Bath, please. Out there there, Let's talk your heart. The gun goes off for the start, and they're already you get the arms up, curing away, and there's others incredibly talented athletes as well. It's so it just opened your eyes of what is possible. You're the one thing I touch on Is self esteem matters for every one of us, whether you have a disability or not, whether you're young or my age, it matters for someone to tell you that you are good. You are really worthy. Your hard work is paying off. You see these athletes when they finish the race or accomplished something that couldn't be more proud going to these events it will want. You will want to get involved. That's what typically happens. >> It sounds like you do coverages gonna be making its way to these events. Actually, wait, are fully got this part in the NHL MLB, NFL Masters golf tournaments. We have to get a pro circuit going on here way. Wonderful. Yeah. Hey, this is a really great cause. Any final thoughts again, back for people who want to get involved in the North California group. What? What can you offer people? No, I think we offer people a tangible way, especially when we think of the tech sector. And we think of the, you know, the employees and the millennials and hands on way for people to come out to our regional competitions and actually engage with our athletes and volunteer and be hands on and actually see where your money goes. You know, see, see that it's something tangible and you're helping provide that venue for athletes to be successful. One of things I didn't mention that we're really proud of. So we have a way of athletes are college students. We have athletes that are full time employees. Married couples, >> Um, >> and then we have a published poet. But last couple months we have an athlete that passed the bar exam who is now going to be a practicing attorney on. So that's really shows that you know, one of the things that you guys are hitting on here, Rob, I know you guys do a lot with your company. You guys even donating one of your tech sessions for a survey that John Troyer's team did around. Check burnout. People get it and even my kids to go to the high school In a lot of high schools like this now, where people get stressed out of the weirdest things, >> This is the kind >> of thing that getting involved in these community events like this really could help everybody. She allowed a little bit, Really. Take a load off, work with people, see the connection, see the impact. It's a burnout tactic option. It's also a way to relieve some stress. Feel >> good about it. >> The employees of Cohee City, when they came to me and said they want to get more evolved, they didn't do it because of me, they did it because they're excited about working with Special Olympics and they're beaming. Means some of the athletes 11 9 with a bunch of athletes going the baseball game tonight, Hamilton tomorrow night, their families as well. We couldn't be more excited, But I agree with you. You look at all the stresses in our lives, and I think this notion of what you do, who you do with how you give back is really, really important. I think that gives back piece, I think more of us allowing employees to do that, helping our children and school understand truly important the value. Um, is this absolutely >> You guys are making a great point because we've both been involved in youth sports all our lives, and it's kind of become twisted where you've got kids needs and parents needs and the parents trying to meet him in the middle, and that's not the way it should be. Your initiatives, I mean, it underscores what it's really all about. Self esteem, having fun, supporting your teammates and the broader community. >> But they stay well and compete and win two that they're in there. See some of those players. I mean, they're >> hard. I've seen some hard core competition, no doubt. But how well do they start? So >> eight years always started eight. And we have an athlete that's 81 that participates in watching. >> So okay, so appropriate. But the reason I miss it because, you know, having studied this allowed it. It's like 12 years old is the crossover point where people start to get crazy. And if you start before then, in other words Oh, this kid is nine. But he's not that good. Who could tell what a nine year old Michael Jordan got cut from his freshman basketball team? So it just goes to show you. So I think that that again, the values that you guys air promoting our worthy thanks >> me feel better about what we're doing. A cohesive it really does. Thank you for doing this. Being able to put two things I'm really passionate about together. Ah, this is pretty special for me. And I think my it around our founder and the rest of the company. And in David and team, they just do a fantastic job. I just wanna make sure we keep building on it. >> Congratulations. Great to get the word out. Congratulations. All your hard work. Awesome Cube coverage live in San Francisco. We back with more after this short break.

>> from Boston, Massachusetts. It's the queue covering active eo 2019. Data driven you by activity. >> Welcome back to Boston, Everybody. Money >> belong here with my co host, a student of John >> Kerry's. Also here today You watching the Cuban leader and on the ground tech coverage. This is day one of active fio 19 data driven content Conference hashtag data driven 19 red cara minuses. Here is the senior vice president of fantasy Sports A draftkings Greg. Thanks for coming on. What a cool title. >> Yeah, it's It's, you know, I was joking with my wife. Anytime you could be working fantasy sports, it's a great place to be. Everybody's a little bit jealous. >> So the formula is easy, right? Offer big giant prizes and everybody comes And that's all there is suing. Anybody can come >> in. I just have the dream job right now. >> So hugely competitive market. You guys, you become the >> leader. We were in the radio. Check out your websites. I mean, take us through the draft kings and your ascendancy. How you got here? >> So, you know, company started in 2012 initially around sort of the major big American sports on DH. Then really a CZ. We started scale that we saw there was a huge consumer interest in the product players that would come on. We're very, very, very sticky. Um, and we've just been kind of, you know, pushing, pushing on growing that using these. So the initial founders are three former analyst. So come on. It's always been sort of a very analytically driven company. So they looked at what we were dealing with, and it was we had L TVs that were way higher than our cracks. So let's keep marketing and growing and growing and growing and finding out ways to offer a better product. So, over 2015 we did a major marketing blitz, blew up the company Absolutely huge. Um, and since then we've been just constantly innovating, adding new sports, adding new features on DH, adding ways toe on the product. And then even more recently, just about a year ago, we expanded also into online sports betting over New Jersey has that's become a legal product across the U. S. So it's been a great time to be at the company a lot of fun. >> What what was your first sport was like Amazon started in books and then, you know, scaled out what was your first sport. So it's actually the first sport was >> baseball because of the time that they actually launched. So is the middle of April. Sporting calendar is a little bit thin. Right then, so is it was baseball to start, and then once football season started, that's really when things take on >> 2015 is when you started the marketing blitz and I remember just here in the ads and it was just intense, like a while. This company's going for it. So you sort of took >> all the chips I went >> all in and it worked. Yeah, I mean, it's part of the, you know, the lifeblood of the company. It's We're a company that ends up being taking risks, but we take calculated risks. So at any given point, you sort of say, like, Hey, what is the what is the range of outcomes over here? We're not playing for second place. We want to be a market leader, so you have to take risks in order, be a market leader. So let's take calculated risks. Let's make sure we're not being insane, but you know we did the math. We figured out what? This is A This is a worthwhile shot. We pushed him for it. Andi really took off from their love to bet on >> sure things. Yeah, well, Greg, we know the people that play the fantasy for it feel that data is what differentiates whether they're going to live in, you know, winner lose. Talk to us a little bit about the data journey inside your business And how that helped differentiate draftkings in the market. Yes. So we think Death draftkings >> is one of the most analytically based companies in the, you know, definitely in the market, but also into sort of like General Cos right now we use our analytics platform to inform pretty much everything we dio on. Go to your point. You're joking. You know, it seems like fantasy sports is easy throughout some giant prizes there, and everything will take care of itself. You know, running a fantasy sports car company. If you throw out a contest that's too big, you lose a ton of money. There's a lot of asymmetric risk in the business where if we're right, we make a little bit more. But if we're wrong. We lose a ton very, very, very fast. So our ability to be very, very sound analytically is what allows us to sort of pushed the envelope and grow, grow, grow but not, you know, lose our heads along the way. You know, some of the fun of that is really, you know, when we first ran, I think one of the most game changing contest we ran was actually back in October of 2014. It was the very first millionaire maker contest I could still remember. It was Week five of the 2020 14 NFL season where we said, Hey, this it's crazy. We need crazy things that happen in order for it to work. But if we're on a $20 contest to enter with $1,000,000 top prize and 2,000,000 of total prizes, it could go viral, go absolutely crazy. And if it loses, here's how it'll losing. Here's how much will hurt us. It's a worthwhile risk. Let's go for it. So that sort of energy of, you know, doing discipline analysis and constantly sort of them. Taking the risk on the back of it is what allowed us to build >> up the brand value that you would have got out of that was sort of worth that risk in part anyway. And you wouldn't have to hurt presumably. >> Exactly. We knew our downside. As long as you know your downside, you're normally in a pretty good spot to take those risks. >> So where do you >> see this All going mean? So the company has grown. You're at this kind of critical mass now, Like we said, highly competitive, you know, knock down. You know, if you take your eye off the ball. So how do you guys keep this going? >> So we have a huge challenge ahead of us over the next couple of years, as sports betting becomes legal across the US, we need to make sure that we are one of the top competitors in that market. Sports betting in the US, we expect to be an absolutely enormous market. It will probably be significantly larger than the fantasy sports market in terms of absolute revenue and even, you know, on order of magnitude more competitive. So we need to be executing each step along the way a CZ markets open up. We need to be able to get into getting two market very, very fast. And that means our tech team needs to be working feverishly to make sure that we can hit the requirements that each legislator and each regulator puts on market entry in their state. We didn't mean making sure we're constantly figuring out what are the product elements that are absolutely critical for our for our users. Is it Maura around the live betting experiences that around the different markets that you offer? It's around pricing. And how do we find these things, these different lovers and told them to make sure that we're putting out a great product for users. And if we do that and throw a great product after users were pretty sure we can make you want >> to be one stop shopping presumably, right? I mean, all sports, right? But But then you've got these niche sports betting. I mean eggs, invest. Example. I could think of this horse racing. You know where it is alive. It's gonna video. It's got commentators on the ground that you know the business really well. Is >> that Is that the strategy to go sort of horizontal and so be a one stop shop or you >> gonna sort of pick your spots? What is the day to tell you? >> You know, I think we're constantly talking about it. One of the things that allowed our fantasy sports business to grow so fast was going a little bit more horizontal. So we offered Gulf in Mass at a time period when the primary competitors and the space vandal did not. On DH, we built that product into one of our largest sports. It's, you know, right up there with MLB in terms of the actual size that that comes in a Z have gone also horizontal, we pulled in other places, like NASCAR. Mm, a great sports that people are interested in. It gets more users into our platform. And honestly, if uses are interested in a product, we don't want them to have to go elsewhere. We want to be able to have the offerings that any sort of, you know, critical mass type environment is going toe is gonna have >> Well, it's that experience, right? Well, I like to shop in Amazon. You do, too, because I >> trusted. And it's the same user experience. So, Greg, one of things >> I'm hearing from you is something that everybody tries for, but it's really challenging that speed. How do you react that fast and move the company into new markets and new offerings and keep innovating? You know, culturally technology wise, you know, How does Draftkings do that? You know, I think a za company, you know, from really every single person that we recruit in higher We've been actually execution Aly disciplined throughout the company's history. It's It's something that our founders did a great job of instilling in the culture right at the gates. I mean, we've tried to foster all the way along the way, which is all the best strategies of the world. They're going to fail if you can't execute well and every single person down the company knows that. And we try to, you know, enable each person to be as autonomous as possible in their ability to execute their their portion of the business that allows us to move really, really, really fast. You know, we disseminate that responsibility quickly, and each leader and sort of each person knows what they have to do to execute. There's a high degree of accountability behind that, you know, I'd like to say there's some. There's some magic recipe that's, um, secret sauce, but it's a lot of just great people doing great work everyday. Well, Greg, you know it's any your competitors that they look at, You know, Boston's been been doing pretty well in Draftkings era, you know, for the last few years. ES o Boston's been a great market for us. We've expanded Conover here on DH. The sports teams have been fantastic, although the Bruins it was a little bit sad about Game seven over there, but it happens. >> So his m o be the flagship news that no, I wouldn't say >> that MLB was first, primarily just of the time of the year when we launched. NFL is always going to go, are not always going to be, but for the for the foreseeable future is the dominant US sport on will remain the dominant US for >> no reason. I mean, kids there watch MLB anymore. Maybe the maybe the playoffs and the games. It was a game. I think I'm some Father's day was like almost five hours long, you know, gets called. You can come in and out. But you know what some of the trends. You see soccer. Is that growing NFL? Obviously huge. Do you see so niche sports like lax coming on. >> So, uh, you know, starting point NFL has been huge. We actually launched a new product Ah, little over a year ago called Showdown, which allowed you start to do fantasy for a single game as opposed to the combination of games that's taken off fantastically because that's tapping into more of the I'm going to sit down and watch this game, and I would love to have a fantasy team on that on this game. That's really expanded the audience like that. That >> was genius because, look, if you're >> out of the running, it doesn't matter because I'm weak. On top of that N b A and NHL on fire. The embassy put out a great product is an actual sport league. You know, the Finals were great. You hate to see the injuries, but it was a great final. Siri's very competitive. The NHL Finals has been very, very competitive. Golf is growing phenomenally as a sport, way farm or interesting golf than I ever anticipated when I first started with the company and it's one of the most exciting things. When the Masters comes each year, every screen has turned to it and we see a huge player. Player number is kind of coming into that one. Beyond that, you know NASCAR. What's been interesting? NASCAR's been having a tough couple years, but the Truck series for us? We launched it this year and the trucks have been great. I don't know if you've watched NASCAR Trucks. They're wildly entertaining. Uh, you know, Emma, you got the big fighter. So every sport sort of has its moments. It's a matter of like picking those moments and figuring out how to make >> the most of them. Do you see boxing at all making a comeback? >> So we have thought about how to get boxing into a into a fantasy. We don't have it at the moment. We're putting a lot of thought into it, so we are actually seeing through. We've seen, you know, we've been in the M M A space and we've seen the growth out from there where that sports doing great and you look at places like Bela Tor. The Professional Fighters league is other leagues, and then boxing is the next step. There's a lot of interest there. I don't think they have the right products yet to be able to kind of engage with that extra way. So that's one of things we're working on. Also, you need a marquee fighter. You always need a marquee fighter. Kind of helped bring in the interest over on that side. So, um, be interesting to see with Taki on sort of the downside of his career. At this point on DH, Mayweather hasn't been fighting much. Will be interesting to see. Who's that next meeting with Adam. But >> I grew up in an era >> of Marquis fighters. What? They would fight, you know, they literally fight 6 70 times a year, you know, and you had used huge names on DSO, and then mm comes along and he's really hurt, >> but it feels like it's tryingto so to resuscitate. Yeah. I mean, I think these things could >> be a little bit cyclical. Like you get one Marquis fighter out there like so my wife, this Filipino. So I'm a huge backing out fan now way watch every fight. Even when we were living in remote locations that forces watching at weird hours. He's a type of athlete that could bring popularity of the sport. So if there was a major U. S. Fighter that gains that degree of sort of, you know that that degree of fame people will be into it, I think >> Do do do your analytics sort of have a probe into the activity at the at the fan level at the sports level, not just the fantasy level or the betting level? Is that a sort of ah ah predictor for you? Yet we >> see a lot of correlations between how many people play our sport are fantasy game, and how many people actually follow the underlying sport. Way can also see trends in terms of If I'm from Boston, I probably pick more patriots in my fantasy lineups than, uh, normal on DH. You can actually see that as people play different sports that you know, the number one Q. Be drafted in in Boston is almost always gonna be Tom Brady. And once you leave that you start seeing Aaron Rodgers pop up. Let's really, really fast. So you see these little micro trends where it's like you are still a sports fan of your local team in your local environment, but it manifest itself in the fantasy. >> So what you think that is? Do you think it's fan affinity >> or do you think it's just the sort of lack of knowledge out inside? You're sort of a circle of trust. >> I think it's probably a combination. I mean, I could say is, you know, following the Celtics in the mid to thousands, I knew the depth of the Celtics pension, how they would use their rotation better than anybody else, Probably better than anybody else in the coaches would probably disagree. But it's like I knew that James Posey was a huge value play on Saturday nights. I knew. I kind of with I feel the Eddie House nights. Uh, so, you know, on your local team, you probably know those players at the not the top top echelon All Stars, but the guy's right beneath. You know them a little bit better and probably more comfortable using >> what's your favorite sport. >> So my favorite sport, from a fantasy perspective, is I play all the basket. I play all football, played basketball just during play offs, and I played baseball. But baseball I'm strictly a fantasy player. I don't really follow the sport to play. I'm just playing fantasy. Okay, >> That's great. So, what do you think? The conference. Here. >> You have you Have you had any timeto interact? I know you were swamped after coming off the stage. >> You know, it looks like a great turnout over here. There's a lot of enthusiasm amongst them from people. I was a little bit late to the late to show up this morning, so I got a bit Swanson eager to go and be able to catch up a bit more. >> Okay, Well, Greg, thanks so much for coming on. The Cuba's great to have your every pleasure meeting you. >> All right, people. Right there. Still, when I >> was back with our next guest, John for it is also in the house. You wanted The Cube from active field data driven 19. Right back

>> Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE Covering Informatica World 2019 Brought to you by Informatica. >> Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of Informatica World 2019 here in Las Vegas. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, John Furrier. We are joined by Ariel Kelman. He is the VP, Worldwide Marketing at AWS. Thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. >> Thanks so much for having me on today. >> So let's start out just at ten thousand feet and talk a little bit about what you're seeing as the major cloud and AI trends and what your customers are telling you. >> Yeah, so I mean, clearly, machine learning and AI is really the forefront of a lot of discussions in enterprise IT and there's massive interest but it's still really early. And one of the things that we're seeing companies really focused on now is just getting all their data ready to do the machine learning training. And as opposed to also, in addition I mean, training up all their people to be able to use these new skills. But we're seeing tons of interest, it's still very early, but you know one of the reasons here at Informatica World is that getting all the data imported and ready is, you know, it's almost doubled or tripled in importance as it was when people were just trying to do analytics. Now they're doing machine learning as well. You know, we're seeing huge interest in that. >> I want to get into some of the cloud trends with your business, but first, what's the relationship with Informatica, and you know we see them certainly at re:Invent. Why are you here? Was there an announcement? What's the big story? >> I mean, we've been working together for a long time and it's very complementary products and number varies. I think the relationship really started deepening when we released Redshift in 2013, and having so many customers that wanted to get data into the cloud to do data we're housing, we're already using Informatica in, to help get the data loaded and cleansed and so really they're one of the great partners that's fueling moving data into the cloud and helping our customers be more successful with Redshift. >> Yeah, one of the things I really admire about you guys is that you're very customer centric. We've been following Amazon as you know since their, actually second reinvent, Cube's been there every time, and just watching the growth, you know, Cloud certainly has been a power source for innovation, SAS companies that are born in the cloud have exponentially scaled faster than most enterprises because they use data. And so data's been a heart of all the successful SAS businesses, that's why start ups gravitated to the Cloud right away. But now that you guys got enterprise adoption, you guys have been customer centric and as you listen to customers, what are you guys hearing from that? Because the data on premises, you've got more compliance, you've got more regulation, you've got-- news today-- more privacy and now you've got regions, countries with different laws. So the complexity around even just regulatory, nevermind tech complexity, how are you guys helping customers when they say, you know what, I want to get to the cloud, love Amazon, love the cloud, but I've got my, I've got to clean up my on param house. >> Yeah, I would say like a lot, if you look at a lot of the professional services work that we do, a lot of it is around getting the company prepared and organized with all their data before they move to the cloud: segmenting it, understanding the different security regulatory requirements, coming up with a plan of what they need, what data they're going to maybe abstract up, before they load it, and there's a lot of work there. And, you know, we've been focused on trying to help customers.. >> And is there a part in you're helping migrate to the cloud, is that.. >> Yeah, there's technology pieces, companies like Informatica helping to extract and transform and load the data and on data governance policies. But then also, for a lot of our systems integrator partners, Cognizant, Accenture, Deloitte-- they're very involved in these projects. There's a lot of work that goes on; a lot of people don't talk about just before you can even start doing the machine learning, and a lot of that's getting your data ready. >> So how, what are some of the best practices that have emerged in working with companies that, as you said, there's a lot of pre-work that needs to be done and they need to be very thoughtful about about sort of getting their data sorted. >> Well I think the number one thing that I see and I recommend is to actually first take a step back from the data and to focus on what are the business requirements of, what questions are you trying to answer, let's say with machine learning, or with data science advanced analytics, and then back out the data from that. What we see a lot of, you know companies sometimes will have it be a data science driven project. Okay, here's all the data that we have, let's put it in one place, when you may not be spending time proportionate to the value of the data. And so that's one of the key things that we see, and to come up-- just come up with a strong plan around what answers you're, what business questions you're trying to answer. >> On the growth of Amazon, you guys certainly have had great record numbers, growth, even in the double digit kind of growth you're seeing on top of your baseline has been phenomenal. Clearly number one on the cloud. Enterprise has been a big focus. I noticed that on the NHL, your logo's on the ice during the playoffs; you've got the Statcast. You guys are creating a lot of aware-- I see a lot of billboards everywhere, a lot of TV ads. Is that part of the strategy is to get you guys more brand awareness? What's the.. >> We're trying, you know, it's part of our overall brand awareness strategy. What we're trying to do is to help, we're trying to communicate to the world how our customers are being successful using our technology, specifically machine learning and AI. It's one of these things where so many companies want to do it but they say, well, what am I supposed to use it for? And so, you know, one of, if you dumb down what marketing is at AWS, it's inspiring people about what they can run in the cloud with AWS, what use cases they should consider us for, and then we spend a lot of energy giving them the technical education and enablement so they can be successful using our products. At the end of the day, we make money when our customers are successful using our products. >> One of the hot products was SageMaker, we see in that group, AI's gone mainstream. That's a great tail wind for you guys because it kind of encapsulates or kind of doesn't have to get all nerdy about cloud, you know, infrastructure and SAS. AI kind of speaks to many people. It's one of the hottest curriculums and topics in the world. >> Yeah, and with SageMaker, we're trying to address a problem that we see in most of our customers where the everyday developer is not, does not have expertise in machine learning. They want to learn it, so we think that anything we can do to make it easier for every developer to ramp up on machine learning the better. So that's why we came up with SageMaker as a platform to really make all three stages of machine learning easier: getting your data prepared for training, training in optimized models, and then running inference to make the predictions and incorporate that into people's applications. >> One of the themes that's really emerging in this conversation is the need to make sure developers are ready and that your people are skilled up and know what they need to know. How are, how is AWS thinking about the skills gap, and what are you doing to remedy it? >> Yeah, a couple things. I mean, we're really, like a lot of things we do, we'll say what are all the ways we can attack the problem and let's try and help. So, we have free training that we've been creating online. We've been partnering with large online training firms like Udacity and Coursera. We have an ML solutions lab that help companies prototype, we have a pretty significant professional services team, and then we're working with all of out systems integrators partners to build up their machine learning practices. It's a new area for a lot of them and we've been pushing them to add more people so they can help their customers. >> Talk about the conferences, you have re:Invent, the CORE conference, we've been theCUBE there. We've just also covered London, Amazon's Web Services summit, and 22,000 registered, 14,000 showed up. Got huge global reach now. How do you keep up with this? I mean it's a... >> Well we're trying to help our customers keep up with all the technology. I mean, really, we have about, maybe 25 or so of these summits around the world-- usually around two days, several thousand people, free conferences. And what we're trying to do is >> They're free? >> The summits are free and it's like, we introduce so much new technology, new services, deeper functionality within our exiting services, and our customers are very hungry to learn the latest best practices and how they can use these, and so we're trying to be in all the major areas to come in and provide deep educational content to help our customers be more successful. >> And re:Invent's coming around the corner. Any themes there early on, numbers wise? Last year you had, again, record numbers. I mean at some point, is Vegas too small >> Yeah, we had over 50,000 people. We're going to have even more, and we've been expanding to more and more locations around Las Vegas and you know we're going to keep growing. There's a lot of demand. I mean, we want to be able to provide the re:Invent experience for as many people as want to attend. >> What's the biggest skill set, you know the folks graduating this month, my daughter's graduating from Cal Berkeley, and a lot of others are graduating >> Congratulations >> high school. Everyone wants to either jump into some sort of data related field, doesn't have to be computer science, those numbers are up. What's your view of skill sets that are needed right now that weren't in curriculum, or what pieces of curriculum should people be learning to be successful if machine learning continues to grow from helping videos surface to collecting customer data. Machine learning's going to be feeding the AI applications and SAS businesses. >> Yeah, I mean look, you just forget about machine learning, you go to a higher level. There's not enough good developers. I mean, we're in a world now where any enterprise that is going to be successful is going to have their own software developers. They're going to be writing their own software. That's not how the world was 15 years ago. But if you're a large corporation and you're outsourcing your technology, you're going to get disrupted by someone else who does believe in custom software and developers. So the demand for really good software engineers, I mean we deal with all the time, we're hiring. It is always going to outstrip supply. And so, for young people, I would encourage them to start coding and to not be over reliant on the university curriculums, which don't always keep pace with, you know, with the latest trends. >> And you guys got a ton of material online too, you can always go to your site. Okay, on the next question around, as someone figures out, okay, enterprise versus pure SAS, you guys have proven with the Cloud that start ups can grow very fast and then the list goes on: AirBnB, Pinterest, Zoom Communications, disrupting existing big, mature markets by having access to the data. So how do you talk about customers when you say, hey, you know, I want to be like a SAS company, like a consumer company, leverage data, but I've got a lot of stuff on premise. So how do I not make that data constrained? How do you guys feel about that conversation because that seems to be the top conversation here, is you know, it's not to say be consumer, it's consumer-like. Leveraging data, cause if data's not into AI, there's no, AI doesn't work, right? So >> Right >> It can't be constrained by anything. >> Well, you know, you talk to all these companies and at first they don't even know what they don't know in terms of what is that data? And where is it? And what are the pieces that are important? And so, you know, we encourage people to do a good amount of strategy work before they even start to move bits up to the cloud. And of course, then we have a lot of ways we can help them, from our Snowball machines that they can plug in, all the way to our Snowmobile, which is the semi truck that you can drive up to your data center and offload very large amounts of data and drive it over to our data centers. >> One of the things that is trending-- we had Ali from Data Bricks talk about, he absolutely believes a lot of the same philosophies you guys do-- data in the cloud. And one of his arguments was is that there's a lot of data sets in these marketplaces now where you can really leverage other people's data, and we see that on cybersecurity where people are starting to share data, and Cloud is a better model for that than trying to ship drives around, and there's a time for Snowball, I get that, and Snowmobile, the big trucks for large ingestion into the cloud, but the enterprise, this is a new phenomenon. No one really shared a lot in the old days. This is a new dynamic. Talk about that, is it-- >> I mean, sharing, selling, monetizing data. If there's something that is important, there will be a market for it. And I think we're seeing that just the hunger, everything from enterprises to startups, that want more data, whether it's for machine learning to train their models, or it's just to run analytics and compare against their data sets. So I think the commercial opportunity is pretty large. >> I think you're right on that. I think that's a great insight. I mean, no one ever thought about data as a service from our data set standpoint, 'cause data sets feed machine learning. All right, so let's do, give the plug on what's going on with AWS. What's new, what's on your plate, what's notable. I mean I love the NHL, I couldn't resist that plug for you being a hockey fan. But what's new in your world? >> Um, you know, we're, we're in early planning stages on our re:Invent conference, our engineers are hard at work on a lot of new technology that we're going to have ready between now and our re:Invent show. You know, also we're, my team's been doing a lot of work with the sports organizations. We've had some interesting machine learning work with major league baseball. They rolled out this year a new machine learning model to do stolen base predictions. So, you can see on some of the broadcasts, as a runner goes past first base, we'll have a ticker that will show what the probability is that they'll be successful stealing second base if they choose to run. Trying to make a little more entertaining all those scenes we've seen in the past of the pitcher throwing the ball back to first, trying to use AI machine leaning to give a little bit more insight into what's going on. >> And that's the Statcast. Part of that's the Statcast >> That's Statcast, yeah >> And you got anything new coming around that besides that new.. >> Yeah, I think that yeah, major league baseball is hard at work on some new models that I think will be announced fairly soon. >> All right, to wrap up Informatica real quick, an announcement here, news coming I hear. How are you guys working with Informatica in the field? Is there any, can you share more about relationship >> Yeah I mean I think we're going to have an announcement a little bit later today, I mean it's around the subject we've been talking about: making it easier for customers to, you know, be successful moving their data to the Cloud so that they can start to benefit from the agility, the speed and the cost savings of data analytics and machine learning in the Cloud. >> And so when you're working with customers, I mean, because this is the thing about Amazon. It is a famously innovative, cutting edge company, and when you talk about the hunger that you describe, that these customers, isn't it just that they want to be around Amazon and kind of rub shoulders with this really creative, thinking four steps ahead kind of company. I mean how do you let your innovation rub off on these customers? >> I mean there's a couple ways We do, one of the things we've done recently is these innovation workshops. We have this thing we talk about a lot this working backwards process where we force the engineers to write a press release before we'll green light the product because we feel like if you can't clearly articulate the customer benefit, then we probably shouldn't start investing, right? And so we, that's one of the processes that we use to help us innovate better, more effectively and so we've been walk-- we walk customers through this. We have them come, you know there's an international company that I was, part of one of the efforts we did in Palo Alto last year where we had a bunch of their leadership team out for two days of workshops where we worked a bunch of ideas through, through our process. And so we do some of that but the other area is we try and capture area where we think that we've innovated in some interesting way into a service that then customers can use. Like Amazon Connect I think is a good example of it. This is our contact center call routing technology and you know, one of the things Amazon's consumer business is known for is having great customer support, customer service, and they spent a lot of time and energy making sure that calls get routed intelligently to the right people, that you don't sit on hold forever, and so we figure we're probably not the only company that could benefit from that. Kind of like with AWS, when we figure out how to run infrastructure securely and high performance and availability, and so we turn that into a service and it's become a very successful service for us. A lot of companies have similar contact center problems. >> As a customer, I can attest to being on hold a lot. Ariel, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. It's been great talking to you. >> I appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thanks for coming out, appreciate it. >> I'm Rebecca Knight, for John Furrier. You are watching theCUBE. Stay tuned. (upbeat music)