(upbeat music) >> Announcer: From our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California, this is a CUBE Conversation. >> Hello everyone, welcome to this CUBE Conversation here in Palo Alto, California at theCUBE studios. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We're here for a special conversation with Michael Letschin who's the Director of Technical Advocacy at Cohesity, and John Troyer, Chief Reckoner at TechReckoning, also does a CUBE host, co-host's with us some events, certainly VMworld. Guys welcome to this conversation. >> Thank you. >> The title is Work-Life Balance: Is It Really That Simple? A topic that Cohesity, you guys are donating your session at VMworld on, to kind of give back and share data around, really an important issue, around work which is burnout, you know mental stability. There's always been a stigma, but that stigma now people are recognizing that, hey, you know what? if you need to take some time off, why not? >> Exactly. People are just getting just completely overworked at this point in IT. So we really talked about it about it and we thought it was a good thing to do something different than standard for tech companies nowadays sometimes. >> John, you and I have talked off-camera with The CUBE sets around the old IT adage, 'Do more with less!' Almost like banging people hard to do, and squeeze more profits out of it. You guys, VMware, certainly. When you were there, you had virtualization changed the game on the server landscape. But the old IT, they work hard. There's a lot of technical people working hard, and they're asked to do so many different things. And now as careers start to change, more pressure. >> Right, right. We're in a 24/7 world. The cloud is there. IT only really only gets noticed sometimes when things go wrong, and that's kind of a resume generating event. So people in our society, I think, there's a lot of pressure. >> So, tell about the session. I know it's a teaser, I wouldn't want to reveal too many cards here on the video, but what's going to be talked about in the session? What's the topic? What's some of the data? >> Well, we did a survey, we didn't even really promote it very much, out for IT professionals. We got 360 responses from IT professionals all over the world: North America, Europe, and beyond, from, ya know, people doing cabling in data centers, all the way to CEO's of companies, talking about IT burnout. And about what they're feeling, what they're experiencing, what symptoms they're having. And burnout is really not just being tired. Right, we think, ugh, I didn't get enough sleep, I'm burnt out. It is really a psychological disconnection from your work, from your purpose, from your coworkers. It's a feeling, I don't want to do this. It's really an F-U moment. Excuse me. [Laughing] >> You can, we're digital, you can say that. We have no FTC to worry about. Yeah, but this is important. I mean, people do want to do the good job, and we hear all this stuff, oh, 'admission driven companies,' but at the end of the day, if the work environment is not going to be conducive to people feeling good about themselves or being, ya know, kind of together, that's just huge. >> Exactly, and I think there's something to be said about getting that time. Not just enjoying what you're doing every day, but to keep doing that, sometimes you have to get away from that. And, I think that's a lot of what we found when we did the survey was people weren't always seeing that they could get away from it. They really felt pretty pressured to stay in. And sometimes it wasn't just from their management, either. We saw a lot of people that came back with comments even that some of the issues they had were, the community actually kind of pushed them into, they need to do more, they need to be out in the community. So, they were doing their day job, and now I've still got to do more, still got to go out and do more blogging, and I've got to do more training, I've got to do more certifications. Is it really helping your career? Is it helping your life? Is it helping your family? >> Work-Life balance has always been a topic, and you mentioned the community. Also, you add open source to that, too. There's more pressure there. That's like its own company. So you have the work-life balance, what are some of the pressure points you guys see? 'Cause I know living in Silicon valley, for me personally, the past 20 years, I know people personally, as well as stories from friends. This huge burnout, as entrepreneurs, CEO's, start up founders, they burn out a lot, there's failure involved, and you see depression and mental illness become a big topic, people are talking about it. And it's out in the open now, it's not hidden, it's not one those things. What's the IT equivalent, what's going on in the world that you guys have uncovered in the survey? >> Well, certainly some pretty similar, a lot of it is hours worked, right? You're on call a lot, you're traveling a lot. Pressures get worse as you get higher in the organization. We in the survey, we just saw, there's a lot of science to say you shouldn't be working more than 40 hours a week, 50 hours a week, once you get over that you're actual overall work productivity plummets. And we saw a lot both in Europe and the U.S., people work not only more than 40 hours a week, but outside of business hours as well. And they are even connected on vacation. >> And, interestingly, a lot of them weren't because they had to. Like, it wasn't, they were oncall or a shift job. So, you kind of expect, you're going to work weird hours. If you're an early on help desk person, you're on call, you have that two weekends a month, or whatever, you kind of expect that it's kind of the norm. But a lot of these people are management, director level, VP level, that are still working all these extra hours and are working 40, 50, 60 hours a week, and feel like that's what they have to do. >> And often they don't feel like they're in control. So, even the executives, so it's a normal, right, if you're, again, if you're an individual contributor, a lot of stuff is out of your control, if you're a middle manager. But even the folks who are senior said 'I don't feel like I can control my work.' And that seems to be a big part of psychological fulfillment that you need to have the strength to keep, you know, to keep working hard every day. >> And the digital tools make us more connected, it's only compounds that I think. Because, you could be at the sideline of your kids soccer event or sport, you're still checking your email, still the distractions of the screen are there. >> Well, I think that was something, one of the things that came out of it was the number of people that do not disconnect, and are on 24/7, with their personal and their work, especially in North America, was incredibly high on it. You get into Europe, it was a pretty significant difference. Pretty much across the board, I think it was like 85% stay connected on their personal and everything 24/7. >> Instagram, Facebook... >> People aren't giving up their Instagram or their Facebook when they're on vacation. But, they definitely for work side, I mean we saw 70-80% of people that were still somewhat connected for, even when, especially in North America, whether it was just their email, or they check their email once a day. And that's if they even took the vacations, cause that was something that I thought was pretty shocking on how little people took vacation. I mean, I just saw another study that just came out the other day, that there was somewhere like, 270 billion dollars worth of vacation hours wasted last year in the U.S. >> Yeah >> You mean not used up? >> Not used. I think it was 270 billion, I think was the number I saw. Which is an absurd number of days off that people aren't using. >> It's a fascinating topic, and I think it's one of these cutting-edge societal challenges of the tech industry, needs to kind of put on the table. Because, you think about all the stuff we talk about in these conferences like DevOps. You automate away the heavy lifting, the undifferentiated heavy lifting. In life, you see that same kind of potential, I mean, if you can, if we can be more creative, you're seeing projects being more project based, less hourly work. So, is the working changing, does IT shift, what do you guys see there, what's the survey, is there any anecdotal data, or data around, how the types of jobs are changing? Is there more flex time, is there more project basis, more team oriented? Is there any shifts in, kind of, what you're seeing there? >> Well, in the survey we asked about are people talking about it at work? And are there programs? Are people acknowledging that this is happening? And for the most part people aren't really talking about it. I think there is more automation as we grow our data centers up and our cloud, but I don't see people, it just means people are doing more, which is where we started they're doing more with less. >> Well I do know that one of the things that we often see, from my previous shop as well as for here, with Cohesity it's the simplicity of what we can do, does tend to make those projects and those jobs easier, so it frees up some of that time that we weren't getting otherwise. I think, kind of going back, you mentioned a comment about the start up founders, and how quickly they burn out in Silicon Valley. I think it's not just the CEO, the people look at it and they see a startup founder and they think it's the CEO and the three people, but in all reality, if you're a startup that's 50 people and below, you're probably doing just as much time and you have that commit, like, it feels personal to you. I mean, it did to me. And I know for sure when I started at Nexenta, when it was pretty small when we there and as we grew, but also man, I felt some ownership in it. Which meant I did more, and I did more. I definitely got to a point where I was burnt out, I was very much burnt out and it became very obvious. I ended up on a, I hate to say it's a bender, but I was definitely on a bender for a nice long week for a vacation. >> Well, startups are kind of addicting but also so is the dopamine effect with digital and also work. Is there anything that you guys gleaned out of the surveys that were potential solutions to the problem on burnout? Were there any kind of unsolicited [Laughs], like, you know, this needs to change, was there any kind of obvious mandate that came out of the survey? >> So, I think there was some definites on management needs to be more prescriptive. That, that chaos is a big issue. If people don't know what they are there for and what they're doing it's a big issue on it. There was a lot of things about mindfulness, surprised we got quite a few comments on you just have to find that time to step away. There is going to be a little giveaway that I'm not going to give away at the session yet. But so if they are at the session, we have a little giveaway to help people with the mindfulness. >> What time is the session? What day? Where do they find the location? >> So it's on Wednesday at VMworld at 12:30. The location, I actually don't know the room yet because I don't think VMware has told us the room yet. >> Well, VMware World is moving back to Moscone from Vegas after the reconstruction is done out in San Francisco, so that's new. So check the location for the session Wednesday at 12:30. Any other burn out characteristics that we missed that you could share that's important? >> Well, I think the prescriptive thing, the management being more prescriptive is important. Taking, actually taking vacation. Unlimited vacation in some ways can backfire against you, because people don't take it, they don't have their two weeks. You know, the other thing is, I think, just, management has to build in enough profit to let people take some time off. >> It's an HR planning challenge too. >> Yes >> Did work at home come out at all on the survey? People working at home did that come into play? >> So I think it came more into play around the travel side of things than it did the work from home. We did see some interesting things on the travel, it seemed like if you did not travel at all those people tend to get burnt out at a higher rate. The people that travel all the time, really were pretty low on the ones that felt like they were getting burnt out. >> They were numb, they didn't know they were burnt out. >> I mean it could be because they didn't have the life part of the work-life balance, because they were always on a plane, I know that feeling, but I try to find the time. >> Yeah, people who work hard always have a spouse 'hey get off the computer,' or you know, there's paying attention to the things that are right in front of you like family for instance comes up a lot, that I see. >> Connecting to your purpose, whether that's your family purpose or your work purpose was a big part of it. Being able to kind of split your attention that way or get your attention back. >> Well, thanks for doing the survey, and that's a great service to the industry that Cohesity is doing, to use the session up rather than plugging the company's products and gear, to give back. >> Really I think it's super important for companies to have that social responsibility on it. And I think it's, it was a pleasure for me and our team to be able to talk to management and to be able to say, 'this makes sense,' and them agree. Which I don't think there's a lot of companies out there will, so I'm super excited to be able to have it. >> When you start getting the therapy going let me know I'll be the first customer. I need all the help I can get, everyone knows that here. Burnout's tough, it's an important issue to be talked about, and there shouldn't be a stigma associated with it. People can perform best if they are rested. That's well proven. So, congratulations on a great survey. While I've got you guys here I want to get your thoughts on VMworld 2019, it's theCUBE's 10th year covering it. John, you were working at VMWare, running the community, social media, podcasting, blogging, tweeting. >> Laughs: Some of those, yeah. >> When we there for the first year, you were there from the beginning, you've been with us the whole time, I want to personally thank you for being part of our journey, it's been great. A lot's changed in ten years and if you look back at the industry, two acquisitions today by VMWare, Paul Maritz took over the helm that year in 2010 from Diane Greene, laid out essentially Cloud, although it kind of didn't happen the way they thought it would happen, but, guys what's your take on ten years looking back at VMworld? What's the big moments of good, bad, and the ugly? >> To me, VMworld has been a great connecting point for the community. I don't think there has been another community and another network that has grown nearly like VM, where has done and what has happened with it. And VMworld's been a big part of that, I mean it was, whether it was VMworld in one part of the year and Partner Exchange in the other half, but it was that chance to actually see all those people that you talk to so often. I think it's been a world of difference for me. I think I've missed the first one, I think, is all I, maybe the first two. >> Yeah. >> If I remember right? So I've been at pretty much all of them along the way, but it's been unbelievable what VMworld has done for technology on making other companies realize how much bringing the network, your community together, really matters. >> The community piece, John, I want to give thoughts, was to me my observation in the past ten years has been, resiliency comes up, all the different changes in the landscape that we've seen, from the early days of theCUBE, now, to now, much different world. But you look at some of the things, the v0dgeball, the vBrownBags, the vundergrounds, all these things that were organic. VMworlds community when they find something that's good they double down on it, it hangs around, it doesn't really go away, you've got all these cool things happening. >> Well that's the secret of bringing people together both as a community of practice around their professional activity and raising the bar in their profession, their domain, and all that other good stuff happens. I think there's definitely some Vschool and PhD case studies to be written about the value of relationships and trust and ecosystem within VMware. Sure, Microsoft exists, there's other conversations going on in technology. But I think VMWare's is particularly interesting. I wanted to say though, from ten years, I mean ten years ago there was a lot of talk about private cloud, and true cloud, and all that sort of stuff, and you guys handle that at Wikibon, and SiliconANGLE, and theCUBE. But, the funny thing is now there's still a conversation going on around how dumb multicloud is and hybrid cloud is for this certain set of people. On the flip side there's trillions of dollars, much of whom is showing up, will be showing up in San Francisco next week. Trillions of dollars of business, you know, this year, solving real world problems today and not being such a pure architecturally or, I don't know, it just seems like, it's just, I'm just mystified that there's still all this multicloud is bad conversation. >> Well I think you brought up a point. The survey we were just talking about really kind of highlights what is becoming a thousand flower blooming kind of enablement happening. The societal challenges that are out there are being solved by software. And if you look at the focus this year of applications, microservices, it's really an application conversation. And it's so much that the infrastructure has to enable that, so finally, maybe this next ten years will be not about the under pinnings. >> So you're saying the next ten won't be the year of VDI? >> Laughing: I think that already kind of happened didn't it? >> It's a huge success, it's called the internet, right, smartphones. Good stuff guys. Thanks for coming on, appreciate it, good survey. >> Thanks for having us. >> Thank you. >> John, thanks for coming on. A special CUBE conversation here previewing VMworld 2019 and the survey that they are talking about on Wednesday at 12:30 looking at burn out, check it out, by Cohesity, and John Troyer, TechReckoning, great survey. It's theCUBE, CUBE Conversation, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. [upbeat music]

>> Announcer: Live from New York City, it's theCUBE. Covering Lenovo Transform 2017. Brought to you by Lenovo. >> Welcome to The Cube's coverage of the Lenovo Transform event. I am your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host Stu Miniman. He is the senior analyst at Wikibon. Thanks so much, Stu, it's great to always be working with you here. >> It's great to be with you here, Rebecca, in New York City. What a time it is in New York City. >> Rebecca: How lucky we are to be alive right now. >> (chuckles) All right, enough Hamilton humor. Yeah, Y.Y., the CEO of Lenovo, got up on stage, talked about how there's no better transformation story than New York City, from a humble trading company, city, over 200 years ago to the center of innovation and just global commerce that it is today. >> So I want to ask you about Y.Y.'s keynote address. He was talking about how this was really an inflection point for Lenovo. He said this is the time where we celebrate what we've done, our past, and think about the impact we've had on society, and on business. And then also really look at the future, and what we aspire to, where Lenovo wants to go. I mean, where do you see Lenovo in terms of all your coverage of this company? >> Yeah, so we know that we're at an interesting time in really what's happening in IT today. One of my favorite lines that Y.Y. had is he said, you look back a hundred years, he said heck, look back 18 months, and you probably couldn't predict where we would be today 18 months ago. And that's true, the pace of change is just off the charts. On the one hand, they're talking about how ThinkPad is now 25 years old, and the server, the x86 line is also-- >> Also 25 years old. >> 25 years ago. >> Rebecca: We are grown up. >> But, you know, I've been in a lot of events this year where you talk whether it's 10, 25, or 100 years, and they say we know we're entering a new era where everything's going to change. Lenovo feels they are a good mashup of their tradition, but they're different and they're new, and one of the people in the keynote this morning said that they're a startup. Now, I wouldn't call them a startup with 43 billion in revenue, and 52,000 employees globally? >> A big startup. >> Um, no. You know, culturally, I think, Rebecca, you'd agree with me, a company of that size, I don't care if you started yesterday, because you all got moved in, you're not a startup. There's certain structure and certain things involved that make up startups and that innovation, you can't move a 52,000-person company on a dime, and say ope, hey, we're just going to go pivot into this. But, they are looking to take advantage of really the whole wave of AI, how do they harness the intelligence, is what they talked about. And what they said is they don't have some of the legacy. So what that means is that while they have a server business that has been around for many years, they've only had it for two years. They don't have the storage, they don't have some of the baggage that we've been watching the industry is, storage is trying to transfer. >> They're unencumbered. Particularly Kirk Skaugen, who we're going to have on the program later today, made the point about the lack of legacy and how that makes it easier not only to innovate, but also to sell. >> Yeah, absolutely. We've been watching that transformation about how software is eating the world, and Lenovo very much wants to focus on those software solutions. What one of the two brand names that they put out today are the ThinkAgile brand. And ThinkAgile is really focused on those software-defined solutions, highlighted by, they've got the OEM of Nutanix solutions and they're also partnering with Microsoft, where we're going to have Azure Stack coming out later this year. And Lenovo of course being one of the top server manufacturers, close partnership with Microsoft is going to drive that forward for really delivering on the promise of hybrid cloud solutions. >> So, yeah, I want to hear what you think about these product announcements. This is the largest product launch in the data portfolio in Lenovo history. Is it a game changer? >> So, ThinkSystems is the other big brand that they have, and it's server, storage and network. So, they have Intel up on stage, and a matter of fact both Kirk and Kim Stevenson both came from Intel, so we know Intel's place in the market. We understand how important they are, and with the Skylake chipset coming out later this year, it's important. Anytime Intel comes out with the next generation, it's important. The caution I have is this is, I think, the fourth or fifth show this year that theCUBE's done where Intel's up on stage talking about their next generation chipset. I was at the Google Cloud event in February, you were at the Dell EMC show in Los Vegas, we had the team at the HPE Discover, and all of them, arm-in-arm with Intel, talking about how this next generation is going to be transformative, and of course leveraging the data, being ready for all of those edge solutions, devices, and really be able to take that infrastructure and tie it to lots of different devices. But it's really that wave that Intel is, that rising tide that rises all boats, because revenue for servers actually in the first quarter this year were down a little bit because really big companies, especially the hyper-scales, are waiting for this next generation chipset. >> So in talking about how Intel is this great partner to all of these companies, what do you think sets Lenovo apart? Where does it compete, what's it's, what's unique about it? >> Yeah, so Kirk in the keynote this morning laid out a couple of places that they want to really tie their brand to. Their goal is to be the most trusted provider in the data center today, and trust is really important. Security, absolutely, it's at the board level, it's one of the top things that everyone discusses there. And when they talk about trust, it starts with up time. So, if you start with we're all using some of the same base pieces, there shouldn't be much difference between them at that point, but Lenovo has some data points to show that they had the least amount of unplanned downtime of any of their competitors. Going out at saying compare them to Dell, and HPE, and they were far and away in the lead. >> And that is huge, particularly as you were saying, the pace of business change and innovation is so fast. >> And the second piece, customer support. So we hear lots of lip service to things like customer support. Lenovo, from a cultural standpoint, they push it through the entire product line. And really, you also hear some of the leverage between the PC, laptop, and even tablet market, and even the device all the way through the servers. So talked about how when they bring in the sheet metals and the screws. You turn one way, and you go to the consumer side, you turn the other way in the factory, and it goes to the enterprise and the server division. And we know that there's leverage that can be made out of that; the economies of scale are good. And we've seen a lot of splitting of consumer and enterprise, HP cut those in two, there were rumors for years that Dell was going to sell off their PC division. Lenovo feels that they have the strength to do both of them. And as we start seeing edge solutions and mobile and all these other devices planned, Lenovo can build an end-to-end story that few companies still can. >> I want to keep, talk more about this end-to-end, because this is another thing that many executives played up in the keynote. I mean, how important is that in terms of how it competes? >> So, there are some pieces that are easy, and you say okay, from a brand standpoint, if I have the new Moto Z and I have a laptop that I like, you build that brand trust, you have a similar user interface. We've seen what Apple and Google can do pushing out across all those devices. But the second one is really if we start talking about data. If I want to have insight in con activity, Y.Y. said in his keynote, this fourth revolution is really going to be focused on the user and therefore you want to be where the data is, where the users are, where the devices are. And Lenovo has a lot of pieces that touch to those end devices. >> We're going to have a number of executives on the program too, also a customer too. One of the things that Y.Y. was talking about is harnessing AI to not only understand where your customers are today but also understand, anticipate their needs, where they want to go tomorrow. Is this something that you view as a strength of Lenovo? >> So, we're still pretty early in the AI. I feel like many of the times here, you heard Big Data and AI both being thrown out there. We know that there's so much data being created, especially with the peripheral proliferation of all of the end devices that are there. So how do we gather that data, turn that into insight, and we're starting to see where that goes. Lenovo still, primarily, is an infrastructure player, so it's devices, it's boxes, you want to hear more about the software that helps drive that, and a lot of that is through partnerships. So I walked around the area here around me. There are many partners here that are helping to be able to transfer that data and create more insight out of them. So, you know, we'll see. It's a lot of that is positioning where they want to be and where they know the new goal lines are, but I want to see some of the proof, I want to talk to customers that are using this and getting advantage from it. >> So much of Lenovo's strategy has really been about partnering and forging these alliances to augment its offerings. And Kirk had said he was going to foreshadow a bit of possible mergers and acquisitions, possible partnerships. What do you see in store for Lenovo in terms of how it moves forward in this hyper-converged world? >> Yeah, so in the software-defined storage space, Lenovo has a lot of partnerships. So whether it's Nexenta, the resale the solution, Nutanix is an OEM solution. Last year they had announced a deeper integration with a storage partner that was bought by one of their biggest competitors. So HPE has been acquisitive as of late. They've bought both SimpliVity and Nimble, both of which were good Lenovo partners. So, the question is, yeah, it's not surprising to hear Kirk say that they are going to be acquisitive. It's great to see him up on stage. I'm sure a question I'm going to have for him is what do you look for? I don't expect him to come out and say yes, this is the company I buy and I'm going to spend 10 billion dollars to go buy a company. But where are they going to fit and where are they going to partner in there? Just behind me here you've got VMware, Red Hat, Nutanix, Micron, all storage-based solutions that Lenovo can work with. Lenovo wants to be one of those platforms for infrastructure and partner with companies that help round out that stack. And therefore buying software solutions that help augment that software-defined infrastructure that Lenovo does would make a lot of sense. >> So you talked about some of your burning questions you have for Kirk, but what else do you want our viewers to come away with after a day of coverage about the Lenovo Transform event? >> Yeah, so one of the other things that Lenovo was highlighting is what they're doing in the HPC or supercomputer market. Because there's a supercomputing show going on in Europe right now, and Lenovo says that they now have 92 of the top 500 are running Lenovo, they're the fastest growth, but what I'd like to hear from him and I want to hear more of, is it's not just oh, we've got the speeds and feeds and this is great, but we're helping scientists do breakthroughs, we're helping the medical industry help out, find new cures for diseases. We usually hear about CERN and what they're doing with advancing science, so those are the kinds of things that connect the technology to the greater good. Y.Y. talked about it, Kirk talked about it, the greater good, because infrastructure at the end of the day, is only there for the applications that the business runs. And of course those applications are there to drive value to the business and hopefully for the greater world. >> Well, and that is true, and that is something that we've heard at a number of technology conferences is using technology, and these transformative new products to make huge advancements in society, and to solve big problems. I mean, how serious is the technology industry, I mean, is this just sort of a side note that you hear at conferences, do you think this really is a raison d'etre of tech right now? >> Yeah, so Rebecca, you and I were at the Red Hat Summit, and it felt ingrained in their culture. There were some companies, you hear, you talk about it, and like, oh great, you give employees time to go work on charitable events or what are you giving to schools, and helping to make things possible? So I'd love to hear from Lenovo, really, as John Furrier would say, the meat on the bone for some of these solutions. I think it is more than lip service, but how deeply ingrained is it? We'd love to hear. The technology industry in general seems to be understanding that their mission should be broader than just selling licenses or selling boxes. As a, I'm a sci-fi fan, and most science fiction is about how we can take technology and make a better future. I have friends of mine that say, if you're a technologist that means you're optimistic about what technology can do for you for the future. An area that you and I like to talk about is what will automation do to the future of jobs? So that needs to be part of the equation, 'cause it's not just oh hey, we've got this cool new data center, and I could just lock it and nobody needs to go into it. Well, what are those people doing, and what does that improve for the business, and improve the world? >> Right, and how will people work side-by-side with these technologies, how will their jobs be improved by the technology taking over some of the perhaps more monotonous tasks, things like that? >> Stu: Absolutely. >> Great. Thanks so much, Stu. I'm Rebecca Knight, we'll be back with more from Lenovo Transform just after this. (upbeat electronic music)