(high intensity music) >> Everyone, welcome back to theCube coverage of AWS, Amazon Web Services, Public Sector Summit live in D.C. We're in-person, I'm John Furrier, the host of theCube. I'm here with Max Peterson, the Head of Public Sector, Vice President. Max, great to see you in in-person event. >> Great to be here. We're in-person and we're also live streaming. So, we're here, however customers, however partners want to participate. >> I got to say, I'm very impressed with the turnout. The attendance is strong. People excited to be here. We're not wearing our masks cause we're on stage right now, but great turnout. But it's a hybrid event. >> It is. >> You've got engagement here physically, but also digitally as well with theCube and other live streams everywhere. You're putting it everywhere. >> It's been a great event so far. We did a pre-day yesterday. We had great participation, great results. It was about imagining education. And then today, from the executive track to the main tent, to all of the learning, live streaming 'em, doing things in person. Some things just don't translate. So, they'll won't be available, but many things will be available for viewing later as well. So all of the breakout sessions. >> The asynchronous consumption, obviously, the new normal, but I got to say, I was just on a break. I was just walking around. I heard someone, two people talking, just cause I over walk pass them, over hear 'em, "Yeah, we're going to hire this person." That's the kind of hallway conversations that you get. You got the programs, you got people together. It's hard to do that when you're on a virtual events. >> Max: It's hard. The customers that we had up on stage today, the same sort of spontaneity and the same sort of energy that you get from being in-person, it's hard to replicate. Lisa from State of Utah, did a great job and she got an opportunity to thank the team back home who drove so much of the innovation and she did it spontaneously and live. You know, it's a great motivator for everybody. And then Lauren from Air force was phenomenal. And Suchi, our "Imagine Me and You" artist was just dynamite. >> I want to unpack some of that, but I want to just say, it's been a really change of a year for you guys at Public Sector. Obviously, the pandemic has changed the landscape of Public Sector. It's made it almost like Public-Private Sector. It's like, it seems like it's all coming together. Incredible business performance on your end. A lot of change, a lot of great stuff. >> We had customers we talked today with SBA, with VA, with NASA, about how they just embraced the challenge and embraced digital and then drove amazing things out onto AWS. From the VA, we heard that they took tele-health consultations. Get this from 25,000 a month to 45,000 a day using AWS and the Cloud. We heard SBA talk about how they were able to turn around the unemployment benefits programs, you know, for the unemployed, as a result of the traumatic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in a matter of weeks. And then, scaled their systems up just to unbelievable heights as President Biden announced the news. >> You had a lot of announcement. I want to get to a couple of them. One of them was the health equity thing. What is that about? Take us through that announcement. >> So the pandemic, it was hard. It was traumatic in a lot of different ways. It also turned into this little innovation laboratory, but one of the things that it laid bare more than anything else where the inequities associated with some of these systems that had to spring into action. And in particular, in the space of health, healthcare equity. We saw simply communities that didn't have access and weren't included in the same sorts of responses that the rest of the community may have been included in. And so we launched this global initiative today to power health equity solutions. It's a $40 million program. Lasts for three years. And it's open to customers or it's open to partners. Anybody who can contribute to three different areas of health equity. It's people who are leveraging data to build more equal, more sustainable health systems. Is people that are using analytics to do greater study of socioeconomic and social situational conditions that contribute to health inequities. And then finally, it's about building systems that deliver more equitable care to those who are underserved around the world. >> So, just to get this right, 40 million. Is that going to go towards the program for three years and are you going to dolo that out or as funding, or is that just a fund the organization? >> It's actually very similar to the development diagnostic initiative that we ran when COVID hit. We've launched the program. We're welcoming applications from anybody who is participating in those three developmental areas. They'll get Cloud credits. They'll get technical consulting. They may need professional services. They'll get all manner of assistance. And all you have to do is put in an application between now and November 15th for the first year. >> That's for the health equity? >> For the health equity. >> Got it. Okay, cool. So, what's the other news? You guys had some baseline data, got a lot of rave reviews from ACORE. I interviewed Constance and Thompson on the Cube earlier. That's impressive. You guys really making a lot of change. >> Well, you're hundred percent right. Sustainability is a key issue from all of our customers around the world. It's a key issue for us, frankly, as inhabitants of planet earth, right? >> John: Yeah. >> But what's really interesting is we've now got governments around the world who are starting to evaluate whether they're not their vendors have the same values and sustainability. And so that the AWS or the Amazon Climate Pledge is a game changer in terms of going carbon zero by 2040, 10 years ahead of most sort of other programs of record. And then with ACORE, we announced the ability to actually start effecting sustainability in particular parts around the world. This one's aim at that. >> But the key there is that, from what I understand is that, you guys are saying a baseline on the data. So, that's an Amazonian kind of cultural thing, right? Like you got to measure, you can't know what you're doing. >> The world is full of good intentions, but if you want to drive change at scale, you've got to figure out a way to measure the change. And then you've got to set aggressive goals for yourself. >> That's really smart. Congratulations! That's a good move. Real quick on the announcement at re:Invent, you've talked about last re:Invent, you're going to train 29 million people. Where are you on that goal? >> Well, John, we've been making tremendous progress and I'm going to use theCube here to make a small teaser. You know, stay tuned for our re:Invent conference that comes up shortly because we're actually going to be sharing some more information about it. But we've done digital trainings, self-training, online skills workshops. We just took a program called re/Start, which serves an unemployed or underemployed individuals. We launched that around the world and we're really excited. Today, we announced we're bringing it to Latin America too. So we're expanding into Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and Argentina. And the amazing thing about that re/Start program, it's a 12 week intensive program. Doesn't require skills in advance. And after 12 weeks, 90% of the people graduating from that course go right onto a job interview. And that's the real goal, not just skills, but getting people in jobs. >> Yeah. The thing about the Cloud. I keep on banging the drum. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, but the level up, you don't need to have a pedigree from some big fancy school. The Cloud, you can be like top tier talent from anywhere. >> And you heard it from some of our speakers today who said they literally helped their teams bootstrap up from old skills like COBOL, you know, to new skills, like Cloud. And I will tell you, you know, right now, Cloud skills are still in a critical shortage. Our customers tell us all the time they can use every single person we can get to 'em. >> I'm going to tell my son, who's a sophomore in CS. I'm like, "Hey, work on COBOL Migration to AWS. You'll be a zillionaire." (John and Max laughs) No one knows what the passwords of the COBOL. I love that 80s jazzy jokes from two re:Invents ago. (John laughs) I got to ask you about the National-Local Governments, how they're monetizing Cloud of the past 18 months. What have you seeing at that level? >> Yeah. National and Local Governments, of course, were tremendously impacted first by the pandemic itself and the health concerns around it, but then all of the secondary effects, you know, unemployment. And immediately, you needed to put into action unemployment benefits systems. We work with the U.S. Small Business Administration, 15 other States across the U.S. You know, to have those systems in place in like weeks to be able to serve the unemployed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then you saw things progress, to the point where we had States across the country, standing up call centers on Amazon Connect. Instantly, they could have a high scalable volume call center that was situated for their instantly remote workforce, as opposed to their old call center technology. So, across the U.S. we saw those. And in fact, around the world, as governments mobilized to be able to respond to citizens. But the final thing that I think is really incredible, is though is the way that the AWS teams and partners sprung into action to work with National Governments around the world. Over 26 National Governments run their vaccine management scheduling systems on AWS. The largest to date, being in India, where in a single day, the vaccine management system scheduled and conducted 22.5 million vaccinations. Which is more than the population of New York State in one week and one day. >> Wow. That's good. That's great progress. I got to say, I mean, that kind of impact is interesting. And we had Shannon Kellogg on earlier, talking about the Virginia impact with the Amazon $220 million being spread over a few Counties just in one year. The partnership between business... and governments with the Cloud, so much more agility. This really strikes at the core of the future of government. >> Max: I think so. People have talked about private-public partnerships for a long time. I'm really proud of some of the work that Amazon and the whole team is doing around the world in those types of public private partnerships. Whether they're in skilling and workforce with partnerships, like eight different States across the U.S. to deliver skills, training through community college based systems. Whether it's with healthcare systems. Like NHS or GEL over in the UK, to really start applying cloud-scale analytics and research to solve the problems that eventually you're going to get us to personalized healthcare. >> That's a great stuff. Cloud benefits are always good. I always say the old joke is, "You hang around the barbershop long enough, you'll get a haircut." And if you get in the Cloud, you can take advantage of the wave. If you don't get on the wave, your driftwood. >> And States found that out, in fact. You'd have customers who were well on their journey. They were really able to turn on a dime. They pivoted quickly. They delivered new mission systems with customers. Those who hadn't quite progressed to the same state, they found out their legacy. IT systems were just brittle and incapable of pivoting so quickly to the new needs. And what we found, John, was that almost overnight, a business, government, which was largely in-person and pretty high touch had to pivot to the point where their only interaction was now a digital system. And those who- >> John: Middle of the day, they could have race car on the track, like quickly. >> Well, we've got it. We do have race cars on the track, right? Every year we've got the artificial intelligence powered Amazon DeepRacer and Red River on the track. >> I can see it. Always a good showing. Final question. I know you got to go on and I appreciate you coming on- >> It's been great. >> with all your busy schedule. Looking ahead. What tech trends should we be watching as Public Sector continues to be powered by this massive structural change? >> Well, I think there's going to be huge opportunity in healthcare. In fact, this afternoon at four o'clock Eastern, we're talking with Dr. Shafiq Rab from Wellforce. He and folks at Veterans Affairs to tell you telehealth and telemedicine are two, the areas where there's still the greatest potential. The number of people who now are serviced, and the ability to service a population far more broadly dispersed, I think has dramatic potential in terms of simply making the planet more healthy. >> Like you said, the pandemics have exposed the right path and the wrong path. And agility, speed, new ways of doing things, telemedicine. Another example, I interviewed a great company that's doing a full stack around healthcare with all kinds of home, agents, virtual agents, really interesting stuff. >> It is. I think it's going to change the world. >> John: Max Peterson, Head of Public Sector. Thank you for coming on theCube, as always. >> John, it's my pleasure. Love the cube. We've always had a good time. >> Yeah. Great stuff. >> Peter: We'll keep on making this difference. >> Hey, there's too many stories. We need another Cube here. So many stories here, impacting the world. Here at the Amazon Web Services Public Sector Summit. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching. (soft music)

>>Yeah. Hey, welcome back. Friday, Jeffrey here with the Cube, come to you from our Palo Alto studios today, talking about event that we're gonna have in November. It's pretty exciting. And to talk about it and give us a little bit of a preview, we're joined in the segment by Jeffrey Hammond. He's the vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. Jeffrey, great to see you. >>It's good to be here, Jeff. Thanks for having me. >>Absolutely so lot of social media memes about. You know, what's driving your digital transformation is the CEO, the CEO or CO of it, and I think we all know what the answer is. But what's what's happened is, as we've, you know, accelerated digital transformation, and we had the lights light switch moment, everybody working from home. We're now six months, eight months into this, and this is gonna be going on for a while. So specifically in the context of Dev Ops, where such a foundation of that is us getting together every morning in a room and having a quick stand up and talking about what our challenges isn't going out to develop. We have been able to do that for six months, and we're probably not gonna be able to do it for a little while longer. So how is Dev? Ops in 2021? The Age of Covert and even Post Cove? It's gonna be different from what we had say 2019. >>Yeah, Jeff. A couple years ago I wrote a piece called Designing Developer Spaces, and it was all about creating physical spaces for agile teams. Toe work in because as creative teams, they needed to have an environment that supported them. And the idea of remote working was kind of like unaudited e. You know, there was a list up on git hub of companies. It's a or did remote developers. And it was maybe 100 companies long at that point. And, you know, now you know, in in 2020 every company is a remote development company. And so all those investments in physical spaces to support cross functional co located teams aren't something that we're able to take advantage of today, and as a result, it's forcing companies Thio become even more disciplined with respect to the things that they do to help development teams work together. It's enforcing them to to, you know, focus on what I would call spiritual co location, because physical co location is no longer an option. And you can't do that without having and even higher attention toe automation on Dev ops practices that enable it, but also an increased focus on enabling digital collaboration, moving from things like the physical con bond wall that you put index cards on onto tools that help you replicate that sort of capability. But do it in a digital world when you have 100% remote developers, right, >>right, so so just begs a lot of questions. You know? What should people be measuring? How should they be measuring? I mean, we have all kinds of measurement tools, and obviously the devolves process is continuous thing that's happening every day, pushing out new releases every day. How dio the managers kind of rethink about how they're measuring outcomes. I don't wanna say success because it's really outcomes and not activity. >>Yeah, it's a really timely question, Jeff. You know, I've been getting a lot of questions from from large enterprise development shops about Well, how doe I make sure that my employees are still productive now that I can't see them. Should I be measuring individual productivity? You know my answers. You know, I don't think so. You really want to be able Thio? You really want to be able Thio measure the team level, But you may want to allow individuals to begin toe look at their own productivity metrics and benchmarks themselves because they can't see the person next to them in the other desk or have that conversation and know that they're doing a good job. So the way that managers works changes significantly. Andi. That's one of the things that we'll talk about in November, >>right? And I'm just curious. How much stuff can we pull from? Generic leadership is well, because it's the same situation. I love your I love your concept of spiritual alignment that's also got to come not only from the Dev Ops team, but from all the senior leadership now who don't necessarily have the opportunity to reinforce those messages in the hallway or whatever the kind of the normal communication channels that they used before. But this this is well beyond Dev ops, but really, you know, leadership in general, I would say, >>Yeah, it comes down to data collaboration and shared vision. You know, those principles are not unique to software development, but they're extremely important for any type of creative work. And and that's what software development is. So we can learn a lot from from from from the businesses, the whole. But then we need to apply it specifically in the process and context of developing software. And that's where Dev Ops creates the link to enable that happened. >>Yeah, really? An interesting kind of fork in the road, if you will. Dev Ops has been around for 20 some odd years. Fundamental change in the way software respect and built and delivered. But as you said, I mean, even by definition, um, cross functional co located teams simply aren't enabled today and probably won't be for a little while longer. So I think this is probably, ah, lot of information that people are really excited to hear. >>Yeah, especially because we're now out of the sprint phase. We're moving into a marathon. We're gonna have to deal with this for probably at least the next 8 to 12 months. So we've got to start thinking differently for the long term and and and how we keep our employees productive. But we also keep them happy and make sure that they aren't burning out so that they're developing great software. That really matters. >>Yeah, that's great. Well, thanks for the little tease we look forward to getting. Ah, a lot more meat in this topic and diving in in November. So, Jeffrey, Thanks for stopping by and again. His Dev Ops Virtual Form, November 18th, 11 a.m. Eastern 80 and Pacific. Jeffrey, we'll see you there. >>Can't wait. It'll be a lot of, um >>Alright. He's Jeffrey. I'm Jeff. You're watching the Cube, So get ready. Mark your calendars for November. It's the Dev Ops Virtual Forum. Um, November 18 11 a.m. Eastern eight, Pacific Sea There. Thanks for watching.

>>Hey, welcome back Friday, Jeffrey here with the Cube coming to you from our Palo Alto studios today, talking about event that we're gonna have in November. It's pretty exciting. And to talk about it and give us a little bit of a preview, we're joined in the segment by Jeffrey Hammond. He's the vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. Jeffrey, great to see you. >>It's good to be here, Jeff. Thanks for having me. >>Absolutely so lot of social media memes about. You know, what's driving your digital transformation is the CEO, the CEO or CO of it, and I think we all know what the answer is. But what's what's happened is, as we've, you know, accelerated digital transformation, and we had the lights light switch moment, everybody working from home. We're now six months, eight months into this, and this is gonna be going on for a while. So specifically in the context of Dev Ops, where such a foundation of that is us getting together every morning in a room and having a quick stand up and talking about what our challenges isn't going out to develop. We have been able to do that for six months, and we're probably not gonna be able to do it for a little while longer. So how is Dev? Ops in 2021? The Age of Covert and even Post Cove is gonna be different from what we had say, 2019. >>Yeah, Jeff. A couple years ago I wrote a piece called Designing Developer Spaces. And it was all about creating physical spaces for agile teams. Toe work in because as creative teams, they needed to have an environment that supported them. And the idea of remote working was kind of like unaudited e. You know, there was a list up on git hub of of companies that supported remote developers. And it was maybe 100 companies long at that point. And, you know, now you know, in 2020 every company is a remote development company. And so all those investments in physical spaces, too, for cross functional co located teams aren't something that we're able to take advantage of today, and as a result, it's forcing companies Thio become even more disciplined with respect to the things that they do to help development teams work together. It's enforcing them to to, you know, focus on what I would call spiritual co location because physical co location is no longer an option. And you can't do that without having and even higher attention toe automation on Dev ops practices that enable it, but also an increased focus on enabling digital collaboration. Moving from things like the physical con bond wall that you put index cards on onto tools that help you replicate that sort of capability. But do it in a digital world when you have 100% remote developers, right? >>Right, so so just begs a lot of questions. You know? What should people be measuring? How should they be measuring? I mean, we have all kinds of measurement tools, and obviously the devolves process is continuous thing that's happening every day, pushing out new releases every day. How dio the managers kind of rethink about how they're measuring outcomes. I don't wanna say success because it's really outcomes and not activity. >>Yeah, it's a really timely question, Jeff. You know, I've been getting a lot of questions from from large enterprise development shops about Well, how doe I make sure that my employees are still productive now that I can't see them. Should I be measuring individual productivity? You know my answers. You know, I don't think so. You really want to be able Thio? You really want to be able Thio measure the team level, But you may want to allow individuals to begin toe look at their own productivity metrics and benchmarks themselves because they can't see the person next to them in the other desk or have that conversation and know that they're doing a good job. So the way that managers works changes significantly. Andi. That's one of the things that we'll talk about in November, >>right? And I'm just curious. How much stuff can we pull from? Generic leadership is well, because it's the same situation. I love your I love your concept of spiritual alignment that's also got to come not only from the Dev Ops team, but from all the senior leadership now who don't necessarily have the opportunity to reinforce those messages in the hallway or whatever the kind of the normal communication channels that they used before. But this this is well beyond Dev ops, but really, you know, leadership in general, I would say >>Yeah, it comes down to data collaboration and shared vision. You know, those principles were not unique to software development, but they're extremely important for any type of creative work. And and that's what software development is. So we can learn a lot from from from from the businesses, the whole. But then we need to apply it specifically in the process and context of developing software. And that's where Dev Ops creates the link to enable that happen. >>Yeah, really? An interesting kind of fork in the road, if you will. Dev Ops has been around for 20 some odd years. Fundamental change in the way software respect and built and delivered. But as you said, I mean, even by definition, um, cross functional co located teams simply aren't enabled today and probably won't be for a little while longer. So I think this is probably, ah, lot of information that people are really excited to hear. >>Yeah, especially because we're now out of the sprint phase. We're moving into a marathon. We're gonna have to deal with this for probably at least the next 8 to 12 months. So we've got to start thinking differently for the long term and and and how we keep our employees productive, but we also keep them happy and make sure that they aren't burning out so that they're developing great software. That really matters. >>Yeah, that's great. Well, thanks for the little tease we look forward to getting. Ah, a lot more meat in this topic and diving in in November. So, Jeffrey, Thanks for stopping by and again. His Dev Ops Virtual Form, November 18th, 11 a.m. Eastern 80 and Pacific. Jeffrey, we'll see you there. >>Can't wait. It'll be a lot of, um >>Alright. He's Jeffrey. I'm Jeff. You're watching the Cube, so get ready. Mark your calendars for November. It's the Dev Ops Virtual Forum. Um, November 18. 11 a.m. Eastern eight, Pacific Sea There. Thanks for watching. Yeah.

>>Bye from San Francisco. It's the cube covering RSA conference, 2020 San Francisco brought to you by Silicon angle media. >>Hey, welcome back. Everyone's keeps coverage here in San Francisco at the Moscone center for RSA conference 2020 I'm John, your host, as cybersecurity goes to the next generation as the new cloud scale, cyber threats are out there, the real impact a company's business and society will be determined by the industry. This technology and the people that a cube alumni here, caramel Jaffer, SVP, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development for iron net. Welcome back. Thanks to Shawn. Good to be here. Thanks for having so iron net FC general Keith Alexander and you got to know new CEO of there. Phil Welsh scaler and duo knows how to scale up a company. He's right. Iron is doing really well. The iron dome, the vision of collaboration and signaling. Congratulations on your success. What's a quick update? >> Well look, I mean, you know, we have now built the capability to share information across multiple companies, multiple industries with the government in real time at machine speed. >>Really bringing people together, not just creating collected security or clip to defense, but also collaborating real time to defend one another. So you're able to divide and conquer Goliath, the enemy the same way they come after you and beat them at their own game. >> So this is the classic case of offense defense. Most corporations are playing defense, whack-a-mole, redundant, not a lot of efficiencies, a lot of burnout. Exactly. Not a lot of collaboration, but everyone's talking about the who the attackers are and collaborating like a team. Right? And you guys talk about this mission. Exactly. This is really the new way to do it. It has, the only way it works, >> it is. And you know, you see kids doing it out there when they're playing Fortnite, right? They're collaborating in real time across networks, uh, to, you know, to play a game, right? You can imagine that same construct when it comes to cyber defense, right? >>There's no reason why one big company, a second big company in a small company can't work together to identify all the threats, see that common threat landscape, and then take action on it. Trusting one another to take down the pieces they have folk to focus on and ultimately winning the battle. There's no other way a single company is gonna be able defend itself against a huge decency that has virtually unlimited resources and virtually unlimited human capital. And you've got to come together, defend across multiple industries, uh, collectively and collaboratively. >> Do you mean, we talked about this last time and I want to revisit this and I think it's super important. I think it's the most important story that's not really being talked about in the industry. And that is that we were talking last time about the government protects businesses. If someone dropped troops on the ground in your neighborhood, the government would protect you digitally. >>That's not happening. So there's really no protection for businesses. Do they build their own militia? Do they build their own army? Who was going to, who's going to be their heat shield? So this is a big conversation and a big, it brings a question. The role of the government. We're going to need a digital air force. We're going to need a digital army, Navy, Navy seals. We need to have that force, and this has to be a policy issue, but in the short term, businesses and individuals are sitting out there being attacked by sophisticated mission-based teams of hackers and nation States, right? Either camouflaging or hiding, but attacking still. This is a huge issue. What's going on? Are people talking about this in D C well, >> John, look not enough. People are talking about it, right? And forget DC. We need to be talking about here, out here in the Silicon Valley with all these companies here at the RSA floor and bring up the things you're bringing up because this is a real problem we're facing as a nation. >>The Russians aren't coming after one company, one state. They're coming after our entire election infrastructure. They're coming after us as a nation. The Chinese maybe come after one company at a time, but their goal is to take our electoral properties, a nation, repurpose it back home. And when the economic game, right, the Iranians, the North Koreans, they're not focused on individual actors, but they are coming after individual actors. We can't defend against those things. One man, one woman, one company on an Island, one, one agency, one state. We've got to come together collectively, right? Work state with other States, right? If we can defend against the Russians, California might be really good at it. Rhode Island, small States can be real hard, defends against the Russians, but if California, Rhode Island come together, here's the threats. I see. Here's what it's. You see share information, that's great. Then we collaborate on the defense and work together. >>You take these threats, I'll take those threats and now we're working as a team, like you said earlier, like those kids do when they're playing fortnight and now we're changing the game. Now we're really fighting the real fight. >> You know, when I hear general Keith Alexander talking about his vision with iron net and what you guys are doing, I'm inspired because it's simply put, we have a mission to protect our nation, our people, and a good businesses, and he puts it into kind of military, military terms, but in reality, it's a simple concept. Yeah, we're being attacked, defend and attack back. Just basic stuff. But to make it work as the sharing. So I got to ask you, I'm first of all, I love the, I love what he has, his vision. I love what you guys are doing. How real are we? What's the progression? >>Where are we on the progress bar of that vision? Well, you know, a lot's changed to the last year and a half alone, right? The threats gotten a lot, a lot more real to everybody, right? Used to be the industry would say to us, yeah, we want to share with the government, but we want something back for, right. We want them to show us some signal to today. Industry is like, look, the Chinese are crushing us out there, right? We can beat them at a, at some level, but we really need the governor to go do its job too. So we'll give you the information we have on, on an anonymized basis. You do your thing. We're going to keep defending ourselves and if you can give us something back, that's great. So we've now stood up in real time of DHS. We're sharing with them huge amounts of data about what we're seeing across six of the top 10 energy companies, some of the biggest banks, some of the biggest healthcare companies in the country. >>Right? In real time with DHS and more to come on that more to come with other government agencies and more to come with some our partners across the globe, right? Partners like those in Japan, Singapore, Eastern Europe, right? Our allies in the middle East, they're all the four lenses threat. We can bring their better capability. They can help us see what's coming at us in the future because as those enemies out there testing the weapons in those local areas. I want to get your thoughts on the capital markets because obviously financing is critical and you're seeing successful venture capital formulas like forge point really specialized funds on cyber but not classic industry formation sectors. Like it's not just security industry are taking a much more broader view because there's a policy implication is that organizational behavior, this technology up and down the stack. So it's a much broad investment thesis. >>What's your view of that? Because as you do, you see that as a formula and if so, what is this new aperture or this new lens of investing to be successful in funding? Companies will look, it's really important what companies like forge point are doing. Venture capital funds, right? Don Dixon, Alberta Pez will land. They're really innovating here. They've created a largest cybersecurity focused fund. They just closed the recently in the world, right? And so they really focus on this industry. Partners like, Kleiner Perkins, Ted Schlein, Andrea are doing really great work in this area. Also really important capital formation, right? And let's not forget other funds. Ron Gula, right? The founder of tenable started his own fund out there in DC, in the DMV area. There's a lot of innovation happening this country and the funding on it's critical. Now look, the reality is the easy money's not going to be here forever, right? >>It's the question is what comes when that inevitable step back. We don't. Nobody likes to talk about it. I said the guy who who bets on the other side of the craps game in Vegas, right? You don't wanna be that guy, but let's be real. I mean that day will eventually come. And the question is how do you bring some of these things together, right? Bring these various pieces together to really create long term strategies, right? And that's I think what's really innovative about what Don and Alberto are doing is they're building portfolio companies across a range of areas to create sort of an end to end capability, right? Andrea is doing things like that. Ted's doing stuff like that. It's a, that's really innovation. The VC market, right? And we're seeing increased collaboration VC to PE. It's looking a lot more similar, right? And now we're seeing innovative vehicles like stacks that are taking some of these public sort of the reverse manner, right? >>There's a lot of interests. I've had to be there with Hank Thomas, the guys chief cyber wrenches. So a lot of really cool stuff going on in the financing world. Opportunities for young, smart entrepreneurs to really move out in this field and to do it now. And money's still silver. All that hasn't come as innovation on the capital market side, which is awesome. Let's talk about the ecosystem in every single market sector that I've been over, my 30 year career has been about a successful entrepreneurship check, capital two formation of partnerships. Okay. You're on the iron net, front lines here. As part of that ecosystem, how do you see the ecosystem formula developing? Is it the same kind of model? Is it a little bit different? What's your vision of the ecosystem? Look, I mean partnerships channel, it's critical to every cyber security company. You can't scale on your own. >>You've got to do it through others, right? I was at a CrowdStrike event the other day. 91% of the revenue comes from the channel. That's an amazing number. You think about that, right? It's you look at who we're trying to talk about partnering with. We're talking about some of the big cloud players. Amazon, Microsoft, right? Google, right on the, on the vendor side. Pardon me? Splunk crashes, so these big players, right? We want to build with them, right? We want to work with them because there's a story to tell here, right? When we were together, the AECOS through self is defendant stronger. There's no, there's no anonymity here, right? It's all we bring a specialty, you bring specialty, you work together, you run out and go get the go get the business and make companies safer. At the end of the day, it's all about protecting the ecosystem. What about the big cloud player? >>Cause he goes two big mega trends. Obviously cloud computing and scale, right? Multi-cloud on the horizon, hybrids, kind of the bridge between single public cloud and multi-cloud and then AI you've got the biggies are generally will be multiple generations of innovation and value creation. What's your vision on the impact of the big waves that are coming? Well, look, I mean cloud computing is a rate change the world right? Today you can deploy capability and have a supercomputer in your fingertips in in minutes, right? You can also secure that in minutes because you can update it in real time. As the machine is functioning, you have a problem, take it down, throw up a new virtual machine. These are amazing innovations that are creating more and more capability out there in industry. It's game changing. We're happy, we're glad to be part of that and we ought to be helping defend that new amazing ecosystem. >>Partnering with companies like Microsoft. They didn't AWS did, you know, you know, I'm really impressed with your technical acumen. You've got a good grasp of the industry, but also, uh, you have really strong on the societal impact policy formulation side of government and business. So I want to get your thoughts for the young kids out there that are going to school, trying to make sense of the chaos that's going on in the world, whether it's DC political theater or the tech theater, big tech and in general, all of the things with coronavirus, all this stuff going on. It's a, it's a pretty crazy time, but a lot of work has to start getting done that are new problems. Yeah. What is your advice as someone who's been through the multiple waves to the young kids who have to figure out what half fatigue, what problems are out there, what things can people get their arms around to work on, to specialize in? >>What's your, what's your thoughts and expertise on that? Well, John, thanks for the question. What I really like about that question is is we're talking about what the future looks like and here's what I think the future looks like. It's all about taking risks. Tell a lot of these young kids out there today, they're worried about how the world looks right? Will America still be strong? Can we, can we get through this hard time we're going through in DC with the world challenges and what I can say is this country has never been stronger. We may have our own troubles internally, but we are risk takers and we always win. No matter how hard it gets them out of how bad it gets, right? Risk taking a study that's building the American blood. It's our founders came here taking a risk, leaving Eagle to come here and we've succeeded the last 200 years. >>There is no question in my mind that trend will continue. So the young people out there, I don't know what the future has to hold. I don't know if the new tape I was going to be, but you're going to invent it. And if you don't take the risks, we're not succeed as a nation. And that's what I think is key. You know, most people worry that if they take too many risks, they might not succeed. Right? But the reality is most people you see around at this convention, they all took risks to be here. And even when they had trouble, they got up, they dust themselves off and they won. And I believe that everybody in this country, that's what's amazing about the station is we have this opportunity to, to try, if we fail to get up again and succeed. So fail fast, fail often, and crush it. >>You know, some of the best innovations have come from times where you had the cold war, you had, um, you had times where, you know, the hippie revolution spawn the computer. So you, so you have the culture of America, which is not about regulation and stunting growth. You had risk-taking, you had entrepreneurship, but yet enough freedom for business to operate, to solve new challenges, accurate. And to me the biggest imperative in my mind is this next generation has to solve a lot of those new questions. What side of the street is the self driving cars go on? I see bike lanes in San Francisco, more congestion, more more cry. All this stuff's going on. AI could be a great enabler for that. Cyber security, a direct threat to our country and global geopolitical landscape. These are big problems. State and local governments, they're not really tech savvy. They don't really have a lot ID. >>So what do they do? How do they serve their, their constituents? You know, look John, these are really important and hard questions, but we know what has made technology so successful in America? What's made it large, successful is the governor state out of the way, right? Industry and innovators have had a chance to work together and do stuff and change the world, right? You look at California, you know, one of the reasons California is so successful and Silicon Valley is so dynamic. You can move between jobs and we don't enforce non-compete agreements, right? Because you can switch jobs and you can go to that next higher value target, right? That shows the value of, you know, innovation, creating innovation. Now there's a real tendency to say, when we're faced with challenges, well, the government has to step in and solve that problem, right? The Silicon Valley and what California's done, what technology's done is a story about the government stayed out and let innovators innovate, and that's a real opportunity for this nation. >>We've got to keep on down that path, even when it seemed like the easier answer is, come on in DC, come on in Sacramento, fix this problem for us. We have demonstrated as a country that Americans and individual are good at solve these problems. We should allow them to do that and innovate. Yeah. One of my passions is to kind of use technology and media to end communities to get to the truth faster. A lot of, um, access to smart minds out there, but young minds, young minds, uh, old minds, young minds though. It's all there. You gotta get the data out and that's going to be a big thing. That's the, one of the things that's changing is the dark arts of smear campaigns. The story of Bloomberg today, Oracle reveals funding for dark money, group biting, big tech internet accountability projects. Um, and so the classic astroturfing get the Jedi contract, Google WASU with Java. >>So articles in the middle of all this, but using them as an illustrative point. The lawyers seem to be running the kingdom right now. I know you're an attorney, so I'm recovering, recovering. I don't want to be offensive, but entrepreneurship cannot be stifled by regulation. Sarbanes Oxley slowed down a lot of the IPO shifts to the latest stage capital. So regulation, nest and every good thing. But also there's some of these little tactics out in the shadows are going to be revealed. What's the new way to get this straightened out in your mind? We'll look, in my view, the best solution for problematic speech or pragmatic people is more speech, right? Let's shine a light on it, right? If there are people doing shady stuff, let's talk about it's an outfit. Let's have it out in the open. Let's fight it out. At the end of the day, what America's really about is smart ideas. >>Winning. It's a, let's get the ideas out there. You know, we spent a lot of time, right now we're under attack by the Russians when it comes to our elections, right? We spent a lot of time harping at one another, one party versus another party. The president versus that person. This person who tells committee for zap person who tells committee. It's crazy when the real threat is from the outside. We need to get past all that noise, right? And really get to the next thing which is we're fighting a foreign entity on this front. We need to face that enemy down and stop killing each other with this nonsense and turn the lights on. I'm a big believer of if something can be exposed, you can talk about it. Why is it happening exactly right. This consequences with that reputation, et cetera. You got it. >>Thanks for coming on the queue. Really appreciate your insight. Um, I want to just ask you one final question cause you look at, look at the industry right now. What is the most important story that people are talking about and what is the most important story that people should be talking about? Yeah. Well look, I think the one story that's out there a lot, right, is what's going on in our politics, what's going on in our elections. Um, you know, Chris Krebs at DHS has been out here this week talking a lot about the threat that our elections face and the importance about States working with one another and States working with the federal government to defend the nation when it comes to these elections in November. Right? We need to get ahead of that. Right? The reality is it's been four years since 2016 we need to do more. That's a key issue going forward. What are the Iranians North Koreans think about next? They haven't hit us recently. We know what's coming. We got to get ahead of that. I'm going to come again at a nation, depending on staff threat to your meal. Great to have you on the QSO is great insight. Thanks for coming on sharing your perspective. I'm John furrier here at RSA in San Francisco for the cube coverage. Thanks for watching.

>>Live from Atlanta, Georgia. It's the cube covering Ansible Fest 2019. Brought to you by red hat. >>Welcome back. Everyone's cubes live covers here in Atlanta for Ansible Fest. Here's the cube covers. Have red hats event around automation for all. John Ford's do many men. Our next guest is Joe Fitzgerald, Cuba Lum, vice president, general manager of the management business unit at red hat. Great timing for Ansible. Great to have you back on the cube. Good to see you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. And it's great to have you here at Ansible Fest. Super essential for camera timing about Ansible. Let's do an, I did our intro, uh, analysis and platformization of automation. Big, big move, big news. But there's a bigger trend at play here around automation. Why is the timing now for automation discussions with Ansible? So good. The demand for automation is so broad in enterprises, right? They're trying to do everything from, you know, dev ops, tool chains to IOT devices. >>I'm trying to deploy things faster, uh, you know, fix security vulnerabilities faster. It's all about speed, agility, efficiency. It all comes back to automation. And the news here is the general availability, although available in November as announced on keynote of the Ansible automation platform. So this is something that's been going on for a while and I suppose just been grown weighing now it's a platform. What's in the platform? Why is it important? Why should customers care? So, uh, you know, we've been on this journey with Ansible which started off as this incredibly simple, elegant architecture and a way to automate things. And what's happened over the past couple of years is it's exploded in terms of the number of people who are using it, the number of people who are generating automation integration. Um, and so in working with a lot of customers, right, what we saw the need for was really to help them collaborate and scale their automation efforts. >>Um, scale, you know, who could, you know, build, reuse, share, uh, score content and track it. Really important. So we put a lot of those efforts into the platform to take it to the next level. Really. You know, we've been talking about Ansible, gum stew, going back when you know, 2014 OpenStack, I think I remember we are first talking about the cube. It had a cult following when it emerged. You guys acquired it at what, the next year, 2015 roughly. Um, but Annabelle had this cult following of people who just loved to get into the configuration side of things, make them go better. You guys acquired it, done well with it, kept it going, get the community flywheel, keep rolling a lot of progress since then. So what are you most proud of? What's the most notable things? Oh, the growth of the Ansible journey. What's, what's the big story there? >>So, uh, it's almost four years since red hat acquired Ansible. And I remember when I proposed acquiring Ansible and swell was this small, you know, Eastern U S company with sort of a community cult following, but very small in terms of, you know, commercials and, and reach and stuff like that. Mostly focused on the configuration space. Like a lot of the other automation tools over the past four years. Probably the best thing we did that redhead is really good at is we let the community do what the community does best, right? The innovation, the number of contributors, the amount of Ansible integration modules, playbooks has exploded, right. Uh, if you were in the keynote this morning, um, it was number six on the, you know, repository list out of 100 million, you know, almost, you know, just a massive amount of projects and here it is at number six. >>So we didn't perturb the community, we actually helped it grow and we've been able to help the technology evolve from a config automation product and technology into this very broad spectrum. Now enterprise automation platform that crosses domains like, you know, networks and security and storage and cloud and windows. Just a phenomenal, uh, you know, growth in it. Yup. Show help. Explain how platform sets up Ansible for it future. They talked in the keynote a little bit about starting with some of the, uh, kinda core partners in the collections that they're offering. But in the future for a platform to really be a platform, it needs to be something that users themselves can build on top of. So, you know, help us understand where it is today. You know, when it first announced here for November, um, and where it shows shall be going in the future. >>So we didn't use the platform word lightly. Um, I think that, you know, platform has a set of connotations and, and it's sort of a set of requirements. What we saw was that different teams and groups inside organizations, we're bringing Ansible in and using the technology and having very good success in their particular area. Then what we saw was these teams were trying to share automation and collaborate across organizations. Then even in the community, there's tens of thousands of rolls and playbooks out there that the community has built. There might be 300 that do the same thing, which is the best one, which, which one are people using? Uh, you know, how successful is it? How long does it take? Um, what we found was that they needed a bunch of tools to be able to collaborate, track, uh, analytics about stuff so that they could share and collaborate at a higher scale. >>Yeah. I, that's one of the great value propositions when we talk about SAS is if it's done well, not only can I share internally, but I can learn from others that have used the platform and make it easier to take advantage of that. So is that part of that vision that you see with the platform? Yeah, so I mean, there's a couple different ways of sharing. If you're running a SAS service, then you know, a central person is coordinating the sharing and things like that. What we tried to do with the, with the Ansible platform is basically enabled the way that people can share content without having to go through a central, you know, agent, if you will. So we provide services and things to help them manage their, their content, you know, with uh, you know, uh, galaxy and collections and things like that. >>Um, it's all about organizing and being able to share content in a way, uh, to make them more efficient. Should I talk about the trends around, um, you've done it. First of all, you done a great job with Ann's book. Congratulations. Um, the big fan of that company and you guys did a good job of it. As it goes full, where you're thinking about cloud complexities as people start looking at the cloud equation, hybrid and cloud 2.0 and the enterprise complexity still is coming as more of it. How do you guys see that? How are you viewing that, um, that marketplace because it's not just one vertical, it's all categories. So how are you guys taking animal to the next level? How you guys look at that, managing those complexities that are around the corner? Yeah. So if you think about it, you know, everybody's moving towards a multi, multi hybrid cloud, you know, sort of configuration, right? >>Um, each one of these platforms and clouds has their own set of tools which work really well perhaps in their particular cloud or their silo or their environment. If you're an organization and you're running multi-cloud, you're responsible for automating things that might span these clouds. You don't want to have different silos of automation tools and teams that only work in one cloud or one environment. So the fact that Ansible can automate across these, both on premise and in the public clouds, multiple public clouds, across domains, network storage, compute, create accounts, uh, you know, do all sorts of things that you're gonna need to do. So it's one automation technology that will span the complexity of those environments. So it really, it's, I don't see how people are going to do it otherwise without fielding lots of people and lots of tools. You know, we were talking with Stephanie and Sue and I talked on our intro insights segment around the word scale has been kicked around, certainly is changing a lot of the landscape on how companies are modernizing the open source equation, but it's also changing the people equation. >>I want you to explain your vision on this because I think this is a key point that we're seeing in our community where people have told us that automation provides great efficiency, et cetera. Good security, but job satisfaction is a real big part of it. You know, people, it's a people challenge. This is about people, your view on scale and people. So organizations are under tremendous pressure right now to do more, right? Whether it's deploying new application faster to close security vulnerabilities faster, uh, to move things around to, to, to right size, you know, resources and applications and things like that. And you know, Ansible allows them to do that in a way where they can be much more efficient and be much more responsive to the business, right? Otherwise, you know, you see some of the customer testimonials here where the amount of time goes down from six hours to five minutes, the teams can be far more productive. >>Um, it, it really gives job satisfaction because they can do things that were almost impossible to automate before by using Ansible to automate network storage and compute in the same playbook. Before, those were three different tools or three teams and people of solving some of the same problems in different areas. And this is where playbooks can be a problem and an opportunity because we have too many playbooks, you have to know which playbook to be available. I mean you can almost have a playbook of playbooks and this is kind of a opportunity to use the sharing collaboration piece. What's your rich to thought on that as that playbook complexity comes in as more playbooks enter the organizations, you know, there's a lot of deployment of the same kind of stack or the same kind of configuration and things like that. So you know, it's really extending community beyond, you know, you know, working on code into working on content, right around automation. >>So if somebody wants to deploy engine X, I think there's over 300 different, you know, playbooks to deploy engine X, right? We don't want to have 5,000 playbooks to deploy engine X. Why can't there be a couple that people take and say, wow, this is perfect. I can tweak it from my organization, integrate my particular systems, and I can hit the ground running instead of trying to either start from a blank page or to go sift through hundreds of almost close, uh, you know, playbooks that do sort of the same thing a lot of times. David's big time. Enormous. Alright. >>So Joe, congratulations on the four years of just continued growth, you know, great momentum in the community wanting to touch on, you know, the, the, the big move, uh, you know, in the last year is, you know, IBM spending, you know, quite a few dollars to, to acquire red hat. What will this mean for kind of the reach and activity around Ansible in the community, the IBM acquisition. >>So IBM had been involved in Ansible in a number of their, you know, products, right? In terms of integration into Ansible. So they have teams and folks within IBM that obviously got Ansible all before the acquisition. Um, I think that it's, it's highly complimentary. IBM has very strong capabilities around management and monitoring, security and things like that. All of those things inevitably turn to automation. Right. Um, so I think it really, um, it only gives us access to IBM and, and they're sort of, you know, their their channel and their accounts in their, and their reach, but also their teams that have these, these sets of technologies, um, that are natural compliment, you know, whether it's Watson driving Ansible or security or network monitoring, driving Ansible automation. It's a really powerful combination. >>Yeah. I also just want to get your kind of macro level view on automation. I sat on a panel talking to CIS admins about careers and it was the number one thing that they felt they needed to embrace. We see like the RPA community probably in adjacency to what you see heavily pushing automation, uh, you know, help explain how important automation is and that it's not, you know, just a silver bullet also. >>Yeah. So, you know, a lot of times people are, you know, the, the sort of the easy, um, you know, description is automation's gonna eliminate jobs or things like that. I think it's more like sort of the power tool analogy. You know, you know, if you had a, you know, a hammer and a screwdriver before, now you've got a power screwdriver and a pneumatic hammer and uh, you know, all sorts of additional things. They're force multipliers for these people to do broader, bigger things faster, right? Um, and that's what every organization is driving them to do. How agile can you be our competition deployed something, how fast can we deploy it and how many, you know, new releases a week. Can we deploy, um, when security hits, you know, how fast can we close the vulnerabilities that hours, days, weeks, or can we do it in minutes? >>The old expression, if you, if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But if you're an agile, you can adjust to figure out the opportunity. It's kind of awesome kind of quote there. This speaks to the changes. I want to get your thoughts. Last question for you is, as someone who's been in the industry for awhile, we've first interviewed and I think 2014 at OpenStack when we first started chatting around the industry. So much has changed now more than ever. The modern enterprise is looking at cloud impact, operating as an operating model, cloud one, Datto, Amazon compute, storage standups software, and they're piece of cake startups. We're doing it now as enterprises really want to crack the code on cloud software automation. Observability these new categories are emerging, kind of speaks to this cloud 2.0, how would you describe that to folks if, if asked, what's the modern era enterprise cloud architecture look like? >>What is cloud 2.0, how would you take a stab at that definition? So I would say after all these years, cloud is really entering its infancy and what does that mean? We're just starting now to appreciate what can be built in cloud and we're going to get a big boost soon with five G, which is gonna, you know, increase the amount of data, the amount of, uh, you know, edge devices, uh, IOT and things like that. Um, the cloud is becoming, you know, the first choice for people when they build their architectures and their business. Um, it's gonna fundamentally change everything. So I think, you know, some people, what's the quote? You know, some people overestimate, you know, what the technology can do in the short term and underestimate what it can do in the longterm. We're now getting to that point where people are starting to build some really powerful cloud based applications. See this as a big wave then big time wave. Yeah. I mean, we had a quote still on the cube last week. Data is the new software, so software, abstractions, automation. This is the new way. I mean, it's a whole new architecture. So exciting. Thanks for coming on the cube. Appreciate juncture having thanks. We're here at the Asheville Fest, the Cuban Chalfont stupid men. Break it down. The analysis, getting into the automation for all conversation. Big category developing. We're covering it here. Live back more after this short break.

>>live from Atlanta, Georgia. It's the Q covering answerable Best 2019. Brought to you by Red Hat >>Welcome back. Everyone's cubes Live coverage here in Atlanta for answerable fest. Here's cube covers of red hats. Event around automation for all I'm John for a stupid man. Our next guest is Joe Fitzgerald cable. Um, vice President General manager of the management business Unit at Red Hat. Great timing for answerable. Great to have you back on the Cube. Good to see you. Thanks, Mom. Thanks for >>having me. It's great to have you here. A danceable fast, super >>tight before camera timing about answerable to do And I did our intro analysis and platform ization of automation. Big, big move, Big news. But there's a bigger trend at play here around automation. Why is the timing now for automation discussions danceable. So good. >>The demand for automation is so broad in enterprises right there trying to do everything from, you know, Dev ops tool chains to io ti devices trying deploy things faster, you know, fix security vulnerabilities faster. It's all about speed, agility, efficiency. It all comes back to automation >>and the news here is the general availability of the available November as announced on Keynote of the Answer Automation Platform. So this is something that's been going on for a while, and it's just been grown. Now it's a platform. What's in the platform? Why is it important? Why should customers care? >>So you know, we've been on this journey with answerable, which started off. Is this incredibly simple, elegant architecture and a way to automate things and what's happened over the past couple of years? It's exploded in terms of the number of people who are using it, the number people who are generating automation, integration. And so in working with a lot of customers, right. What we saw the need for was really to help them collaborate and scale there. Automation efforts scale. You know who could build re you share, score content and track it really important. So we put a lot of those efforts into the platform to take it to the next level. Really? You >>know, we've been talking about answerable comes stew going back when 2014 open stack. I think I remember were first talk about the Cube. It had a cult following. When it emerged, you guys acquired it what the next year? 2015? Roughly. Um, but Ansel had this cult following of people who just love to get into the configuration side of things. Make them go better. You guys acquired it, Done well with that. Kept it going that the community fly. We'll keep rolling a lot of progress and say So. What do you most proud of? What's the most notable things of the growth of the answerable journey? What's what's the big story there? >>So it's almost four years since Red had acquired danceable. And I remember when I proposed acquiring answerable insult was this small? You know, Eastern U S company with sort of, ah, community cult following, but very small in terms of commercials and reach and stuff like that mostly focused on the configuration space. Like a lot of the other automation tools over the past four years. Probably the best thing we did that redhead is really good at is we let the community do with community does best, right? The innovation, the number of contributors, the amount of answerable integration modules, playbooks has exploded, right? If you were in the keynote this morning, it was number six on the you know, repositories list out of 100 million almost, you know, just a massive amount of projects. And here it is at number six. So we didn't perturb the community. We actually helped it grow. And we've been able to help the technology evolved from a config automation product in technology into this very broad spectrum. Now, enterprise automation platform that crosses domains like networks and security and storage and cloud and windows just a phenomenal growth in it. >>So help explain how platforms sets up answerable for its future. They talked in the keynote a little bit about starting with some of the kind of core partners and the collections that they're offering. But in the future, for a platform to really be a platform, it needs to be something that users themselves can build on top of so, you know, help us understand where it is today when it first announced here for November, and where it shows shall be going in the future. >>So we didn't use the platform word lightly. I think that, you know, platform has a set of connotations, and it's sort of a set of requirements. What we saw was that different teams and groups inside organizations were bringing Ansel in and using the technology and having very good success in their particular area. Then what we saw was thes. Teams were trying to share automation and collaborate across organizations. Then, even in the community, there's tens of thousands of roles and play books out there that the community has built. There might be 300 that do the same thing, which is the best one, which, which one of people using How successful is that? How long does it take? What we found was that they needed a bunch of tools to be able to collaborate, track analytics about stuff so that they could share and collaborate at a higher scale. >>Yeah, that's one of the great value proposition when we talk about SAS is if it's done well, not only can I share internally, but I can learn from others that have used the platform and make it easier to take advantage of that. So it is that part of that vision that you see with the platform? >>Yes, so I mean, there's a couple of ways of sharing. If you're running a sass service, then you know a central person is coordinating the sharing and things like that. What we try to do with Sensible Platform is basically enable a way that people can share content without having to go through a central you know, agent, if you will. So we provide service is and things to help them manage there. They're content, you know, with galaxy and collections and things like that. It's all about organizing and being able to share content in a way to make them more efficient. >>You're talking about the trends around. You've done it for a while, you know, great job. And congratulations, big fan of that company. And you guys did a good job with it as it goes full where you're thinking about cloud complexities as people start looking at the cloud equation hybrid and cloud 2.0, on the enterprise, complexity still is coming. There's more of it. How do you guys see that? How you viewing that that marketplace? Because it's not just one vertical. It's all categories. So how are you guys taking animals? The next level how you guys look at that? Managing those complexities that are around the corner? >>Yes. So if you think about it. You know, everybody's moving towards a multi hybrid cloud, you know, sort of configuration, right? Each one of these platforms and clouds has their own set of tools, which worked really well, perhaps in their particular cloud or their silo, where their environment. If you're an organization and you're running multi cloud, you're responsible for automating things that might span these clouds. You don't want to have different silos of automation tools and teams that only work in one cloud or one environment. So the fact that answerable can automate across thes both on premise and in the public clouds multiple public clouds across domains, network storage, compute, create accounts, you know, do all sorts of things that you're gonna need to do. So it's one automation technology that will span the complexity of those environments. So it really it's I don't see how people gonna do it otherwise, without fielding lots of people and lots of tools. >>You know, we're talking with Stephanie, and soon I talked on our intro insights segment around. The word scale has been kicked around certainly is changing a lot of the landscape on how couples heir modernizing the open source equation, but it's also changing the people equation. I want you to explain your vision on this because I think this is a key point that we're seeing in our community, where people have told us that automation provides great efficiency, etcetera, good security. But job satisfaction is a real big part of it. You know people. It's a people challenge. This is about people, your view on scale and people. So >>organizations are under tremendous pressure right now to doom or right whether it's deployed new application faster, too close security vulnerabilities faster to move things around. T right side's resource is and applications and things like that. And, you know, answerable allows them to do that in a way where they could be much more efficient and be much more responsive to the business. Right? Otherwise, you know, you see some of the customer testimonials here where the amount of time goes down from six hours to five minutes, the teams could be far more productive, productive. It really gives job satisfaction because they can do things that were almost impossible to automate before by using insult, automate network storage and compute in the same playbook. Before, those were three different tools or three teams, >>and people are solving some of the same problems in different areas. And this is where playbooks can be a problem and an opportunity. Because we have too many playbooks. You know which playbook be available? You could almost have a playbook of playbooks. This is kind of ah, opportunity that used the sharing collaboration piece What you're Richard thought on this as that playbook complexity comes in as little playbooks enter the >>organizations. You know, there's a lot of deployment of the same kind of stack or the same kind of configuration and things like that. So, you know, it's really extending community beyond, you know, you know, working on code into working on content, right around automation. So if somebody wants to employ Engine X, I think there's over 300 different playbooks to deploy Engine X right. We don't wanna have 5000 playbooks to deploy Engine X. Why can't there be a couple that people take and say, Wow, this is perfect. I can tweak it for my organization, integrate my particular systems, and I can hit the ground running instead of trying to either start from a blank page. Let's go sift through hundreds of almost close playbooks. That sort of the same thing A >>lot of times, David. Big time. Enormous. >>So, Joe, you know, congratulations on the four years of just continued growth, you know, great momentum in the community wanting to touch on. You know, the big move, you know, in the last year is, you know, IBM spending, you know, quite a few dollars to acquire red hat. What will this mean for kind of the reach and activity around answerable in the community, the IBM acquisition. >>So IBM had been involved in answerable in a number of their products, right in terms of integration into danceable. So they have teams and folks within IBM that obviously got and some old before the acquisition. I think that it's it's highly complimentary. IBM has very strong capabilities, room management and monitoring security and things like that. All those things inevitably turned to automation, right? So I think it really it only gives us access to IBM in their sort of their channel and their accounts in their reach, but also their teams that have these sets of technologies that are natural complement, you know, whether it's Watson driving Ansel or security or network monitoring, driving danceable automation. It's a really powerful combination. >>Yeah, I just want to get your kind of macro level view on automation. I sat on a panel talking to sys. Admin is about careers, and it was the number one thing that they felt they needed to embrace. We see, like the r p a community, probably an adjacency toe. What you see, heavily pushing automation, you know, help explain. You know what? How important automation is in that it's it's not, you know, just a silver bullet also. >>Yeah. So, you know, a lot of times people are, you know, the sort of the easy description is automation is gonna eliminate jobs or things like that. I think it's more like sort of the power tool analogy. You know, you know, if you had a you know, a hammer and a screwdriver before now you've got a power screwdriver and automatic camera, and you know all sorts of additional things. Their force multipliers for these people to do broader, bigger things faster, right? Um and that's what every organization is driving them to do. How agile can be our competition deployed. Something How fast can we deploy it? How many new releases a week Can we deploy when security hits? You know how fast we closed the vulnerabilities of hours, days, weeks or we do it in minutes. >>The old expression. If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But if you're an agile hammer, you can adjust the figure out. The opportunity is kind of awesome. Kind of quote there. This speaks to the changes. I want to get your thoughts. Last question for you is that someone's been in the industry a while. We first interviewed nothing 2014 and open staff when we first started chatting around the industry. So much has changed. Now more than ever, the modern enterprise is looking at cloud impact, operating as an operating model cloud one Dato Amazon Compute storage stand up software and there piece of cake start ups were doing it. Now it's enterprises really want to crack the code on cloud software automation, observe abilities, new categories emerging kind of speaks to this cloud. 2.0, how would you describe that to folks, if if asked, what's the modern error enterprise Cloud architecture look like? What is cloud two point. Oh, how would you take a stab at that definition? So >>I would say after all these years, Cloud is really entering its infancy. And what does that mean? We're just starting now to appreciate what can be built on cloud. And we're gonna get a big boost soon with five g, which is gonna increase the amount of data, the amount of edge devices I ot and things like that the cloud is becoming, you know, the first choice for people. When they build their architecture in the business, it's gonna fundamentally change everything. So I think you know some people. What what's the quote? You know, some people overestimate You know what a technology can do in the short term and underestimate what it can do in the long term. We're now getting to that point where people are going to build some really powerful, cloud based applicator. >>You see, this is a big wave that big time twice. Yeah. I mean, we had a quote stew on the Cube last week. Date is the new software software abstractions. Automation. This is the new way means the whole new architecture so exciting. Thanks for coming on the key Appreciate Just for having. We're here at the animal fests Acute I'm Jumper Stewed Minutemen breaking down The analysis. Getting into the automation for all conversation. Big category developing. We're covering here. Live with more after this short break.

[Music] Andre one of the things that have come up is your relation with Russia as we talked about so I have to ask you a direct question do you to work with sanctioned Russian entities or Russian companies shown we and c5 we do not work with any company that's sanctioned from any country including Russia and the same applies to me we take sanctions very very seriously the one thing you don't mess with is US sanctions which has application worldwide and so you always have to stay absolutely on the right side of the law when it comes to sanctions so nothing nothing that's something that's connection nets are trying to make they're also the other connection is a guy named Victor Vail Selberg Viktor Vekselberg Vekselberg to go with the Russian names as people know what is your relationship with Viktor Vekselberg so victim Viktor Vekselberg is a is a very well known Russian businessman he's perhaps one of the best known Russian businessman in the West because he also lived in the US for a period of time it's a very well-known personality in in in Europe he's a donor for example to the Clinton Foundation and he has aggregated the largest collection of Faberge eggs in the world as part of national Russian treasure so he's a very well known business personality and of course during the course of my career which has focused heavily on also doing investigations on Russian related issues I have come across Viktor Vekselberg and I've had the opportunity to meet with him and so I know him as a as a business leader but c5 has no relationship with Viktor Vekselberg and we've never accepted any investment from him we've never asked him for an investment and our firm a venture capital firm has no ties to Viktor Vekselberg so you've worked had a relationship at some point in your career but no I wouldn't on a daily basis you don't have a deep relationship can you explain how deep that relationship is what were the interactions you had with him so clarify that point so so I know Viktor Vekselberg and I've met him on more than one occasion in different settings and as I shared with you I served on the board of a South African mining company which is black owned for a period of a year and which Renova had a minority investment alongside an Australian company called South 32 and that's the extent of the contact and exposure I've had to so casual business run-ins and interactions not like again that's correct deep joint ventures are very kind of okay let's get back to c5 for a minute cause I want to ask you it but just do just a circle just one last issue and Viktor Vekselberg Viktor Vekselberg is the chairman of scope over the Russian technology innovation park that we discussed and he became the chairman under the presidency of President Dmitry Medvedev during the time when Hillary Clinton was doing a reset on Russian relations and during that time so vekselberg have built up very effective relationships with all of the or many of the leading big US technology companies and today you can find the roster of those partners the list of those partners on the scope of our website and those nuclear drove that yes Victor drove that Victor drove that during during in the Clinton Secretary of this started the scope of our project started during the the Medvedev presidency and in the period 2010-2011 you'll find many photographs of mr. vekselberg signing partnership agreements with very well known technology companies for Skolkovo and most of those companies still in one way or another remain involved in the Skolkovo project this has been the feature the article so there are I think and I've read all the other places where they wanted to make this decision Valley of Russia correct there's a lot of Russian programmers who work for American companies I know a few of them that do so there's technology they get great programmers in Russia but certainly they have technology so oracles they're ibm's they're cisco say we talked about earlier there is US presence there are you do you have a presence there and does Amazon Web service have a presence on do you see five it and that's knowing I was alright it's well it's a warning in the wrong oh sorry about that what's the Skog Obama's called spoke over so Andres Kokomo's this has been well report it's the Silicon Valley of Russia and so a lot of American companies they're IBM Oracle Cisco you mentioned earlier I can imagine it makes sense they a lot of recruiting little labs going on we see people hire Russian engineers all the time you know c5 have a presence there and does AWS have a presence there and do you work together in a TBS in that area explain that relationship certainly c5 Amazon individually or you can't speak for Amazon but let's see if I've have there and do you work with Amazon in any way there c-5m there's no work in Russia and neither does any of our portfolio companies c5 has no relationship with the Skolkovo Technology Park and as I said the parties for this spoke of a Technology Park is a matter of record is only website anyone can take a look at it and our name is not amongst those partners and I think this was this is an issue which I which I fault the BBC report on because if the BBC report was fair and accurate they would have disclosed the fact that there's a long list of partners with a scope of our project very well known companies many of them competitors in the Jedi process but that was not the case the BBC programme in a very misleading and deceptive way created the impression that for some reason somehow c5 was involved in Skolkovo without disclosing the fact that many other companies are involved they and of course we are not involved and your only relationship with Declan Berg Viktor Vekselberg was through the c5 raiser bid three c5 no no Viktor Vekselberg was never involved in c5 raiser Petco we had Vladimir Kuznetsov as a man not as a minority investor day and when we diligence him one of our key findings was that he was acting in independent capacity and he was investing his own money as a you national aniseh Swiss resident so you if you've had no business dealings with Viktor Vekselberg other than casual working c-5 has had no business dealings with with Viktor Vekselberg in a in a personal capacity earlier before the onset of sanctions I served on the board of a black-owned South African mining company and which Renault bombs the Vekselberg company as a minority investment alongside an Australian company called South 32 and my motivation for doing so was to support African entrepreneurship because this was one of the first black owned mining companies in the country was established with a British investment in which I was involved in and I was very supportive of the work that this company does to develop manganese mining in the Kalahari Desert and your role there was advisory formal what was the role there it was an advisory role so no ownership no ownership no equity no engagement you call them to help out on a project I was asked to support the company at the crucial time when they had a dispute on royalties when they were looking at the future of the Kalahari basin and the future of the manganese reserve say and also to help the company through a transition of the black leadership the black executive leadership of the cut year is that roughly 2017 so recently okay let on the ownership of c5 can you explain who owns c5 I mean you're described as the owner if it's a venture capital firm you probably of investors so your managing director you probably have some carry of some sort and then talk about the relationship between c5 razor bidco the Russian special purpose vehicle that was created is that owning what does it fit is it a subordinate role so see my capital so Jones to start with c5 razor boot code was was never a Russian special purpose vehicle this was a British special purpose vehicle which we established for our own investment into a European enterprise software company vladimir kuznetsov later invested as an angel investor into the same company and we required him to do it through our structure because it was transparent and subject to FCA regulation there's no ties back to c5 he's been not an owner in any way of c5 no not on c5 so C fibers owned by five families who helped to establish the business and grow the business and partner in the business these are blue chip very well known European and American families it's a small transatlantic community or family investors who believe that it's important to use private capital for the greater good right history dealing with Russians can you talk about your career you mentioned your career in South Africa earlier talk about your career deal in Russia when did you start working with Russian people I was the international stage Russian Russia's that time in 90s and 2000 and now certainly has changed a lot let's talk about your history and deal with the Russians so percent of the Soviet Union I think there was a significant window for Western investment into Russia and Western investment during this time also grew very significantly during my career as an investigator I often dealt with Russian organized crime cases and in fact I established my consulting business with a former head of the Central European division of the CIA who was an expert on Russia and probably one of the world's leading experts on Russia so to get his name William Lofgren so during the course of of building this business we helped many Western investors with problems and issues related to their investments in Russia so you were working for the West I was waiting for the West so you are the good side and but when you were absolutely and when and when you do work of this kind of course you get to know a lot of people in Russia and you make Russian contacts and like in any other country as as Alexander Solzhenitsyn the great Russian dissident wrote the line that separates good and evil doesn't run between countries it runs through the hearts of people and so in this context there are there are people in Russia who crossed my path and across my professional career who were good people who were working in a constructive way for Russia's freedom and for Russia's independence and that I continue to hold in high regard and you find there's no technical security risk the United States of America with your relationship with c5 and Russia well my my investigative work that related to Russia cases are all in the past this was all done in the past as you said I was acting in the interest of Western corporations and Western governments in their relations with Russia that's documented and you'd be prepared to be transparent about that absolutely that's all those many of those cases are well documented to corporations for which my consulting firm acted are very well known very well known businesses and it's pretty much all on the on the Podesta gaiting corruption we were we were we were helping Western corporations invest into Russia in a way that that that meant that they did not get in meshed in corruption that meant they didn't get blackmailed by Russia organized crime groups which meant that their investments were sustainable and compliant with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other bribery regulation at war for everyone who I know that lives in Europe that's my age said when the EU was established there's a flight of Eastern Europeans and Russians into Western Europe and they don't have the same business practices so I'd imagine you'd run into some pretty seedy scenarios in this course of business well in drug-dealing under I mean a lot of underground stuff was going on they're different they're different government they're different economy I mean it wasn't like a structure so you probably were exposed to a lot many many post-conflict countries suffer from predatory predatory organized crime groups and I think what changed and of course of my invested investigative career was that many of these groups became digital and a lot of organized crime that was purely based in the physical world went into the into the digital world which was one of the other major reasons which led me to focus on cyber security and to invest in cyber security well gets that in a minute well that's great I may only imagine some of the things you're investigated it's easy to connect people with things when yeah things are orbiting around them so appreciate the candid response there I wanna move on to the other area I see in the stories national security risk conflict of interest in some of the stories you seeing this well is there conflict of interest this is an IT playbook I've seen over the years federal deals well you're gonna create some Fahd fear uncertainty and doubt there's always kind of accusations you know there's accusations around well are they self dealing and you know these companies or I've seen this before so I gotta ask you they're involved with you bought a company called s DB advisors it was one of the transactions that they're in I see connecting to in my research with the DoD Sally Donnelly who is Sally Donnelly why did you buy her business so I didn't buy Sonny Donnelly's business again so Sally Tony let's start with Sally darling so Sally Donny was introduced to me by Apple Mike Mullen as a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Sally served as his special advisor when he was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Apple Mullen was one of the first operating parties which we had in c5 and he continues to serve Admiral Mullen the four start yes sir okay and he continues to serve as one of operating partners to this day salad only and that will Mike worked very closely with the Duke of Westminster on one of his charitable projects which we supported and which is close to my heart which is established a new veteran rehabilitation center for Britain upgrading our facility which dates back to the Second World War which is called Headley court to a brand-new state-of-the-art facility which was a half a billion dollar public-private partnership which Duke led and in this context that Ron Mullen and Sally helped the Duke and it's team to meet some of the best experts in the US on veteran rehabilitation on veteran care and on providing for veterans at the end of the service and this was a this was a great service which it did to the to this new center which is called the defense and national rehabilitation center which opened up last summer in Britain and is a terrific asset not only for Britain but also for allies and and so the acquisition she went on to work with secretary Manus in the Department of Defense yes in February Feb 9 you through the transaction yes in February 2017 Sally decided to do public service and support of safety matters when he joined the current administration when she left her firm she sold it free and clear to a group of local Washington entrepreneurs and she had to do that very quickly because the appointment of secretary mattis wasn't expected he wasn't involved in any political campaigns he was called back to come and serve his country in the nation's interest very unexpectedly and Sally and a colleague of us Tony de Martino because of their loyalty to him and the law did to the mission followed him into public service and my understanding is it's an EAJA to sell a business in a matter of a day or two to be able to be free and clear of title and to have no compliance issues while she was in government her consulting business didn't do any work for the government it was really focused on advising corporations on working with the government and on defense and national security issues I didn't buy Sonny's business one of c-5 portfolio companies a year later acquired SPD advisors from the owner supported with a view to establishing and expanding one of our cyber advising businesses into the US market and this is part of a broader bind bolt project which is called Haven ITC secure and this was just one of several acquisitions that this platform made so just for the record c5 didn't buy her company she repeat relieved herself of any kind of conflict of interest going into the public service your portfolio company acquired the company in short order because they knew the synergies because it would be were close to it so I know it's arm's length but as a venture capitalist you have no real influence other than having an investment or board seat on these companies right so they act independent in your structure absolutely make sure I get that's exactly right John but but not much more importantly only had no influence over the Jedi contract she acted as secretary mitosis chief of staff for a period of a year and have functions as described by the Government Accounting Office was really of a ministerial nature so she was much more focused on the Secretary's diary than she was focused on any contracting issues as you know government contracting is very complex it's very technical sally has as many wonderful talents and attributes but she's never claimed to be a cloud computing expert and of equal importance was when sally joined the government in february 17 jeddah wasn't even on the radar it wasn't even conceived as a possibility why did yet I cannot just for just for the record the Jedi contract my understanding is that and I'm not an expert on one government contracting but my understanding is that the RFP the request for proposals for the July contract came out in quarter three of this year for the first time earlier this year there was a publication of an intention to put out an RFP I think that happened in at the end of quarter one five yep classic yeah and then the RFP came out and called a three bits had to go in in November and I understand a decision will be made sometime next year what's your relationship well where's she now what she still was so sunny left finished the public service and and I think February March of this year and she's since gone on to do a fellowship with a think-tank she's also reestablished her own business in her own right and although we remain to be good friends I'm in no way involved in a business or a business deal I have a lot of friends in DC I'm not a really policy wonk of any kind we have a lot of friends who are it's it's common when it administrations turnover people you know or either appointed or parked a work force they leave and they go could they go to consultancy until the next yeah until the next and frustration comes along yeah and that's pretty common that's pretty cool this is what goes on yeah and I think this whole issue of potential conflicts of interest that salad only or Tony the Martino might have had has been addressed by the Government Accounting Office in its ruling which is on the public record where the GAO very clearly state that neither of these two individuals were anywhere near the team that was writing the terms for the general contract and that their functions were really as described by the GAO as ministerial so XI salient Antonia was such a long way away from this contact there's just no way that they could have influenced it in in in any respect and their relation to c5 is advisory do they and do they both are they have relations with you now what's the current relationship since since Sally and Tony went to do public service we've had no contact with them we have no reason of course to have contact with them in any way they were doing public service they were serving the country and serving the nation and since they've come out of public service we've we've not reestablished any commercial relationship so we talked earlier about the relation with AWS there's only if have a field support two incubators its accelerator does c5 have any portfolio companies that are actually bidding or working on the Jedi contract none what Santa John not zero zero so outside of c5 having relation with Amazon and no portfolios working with a Jedi contract there's no link to c5 other than a portfolio company buying Sally Donnelly who's kind of connected to general mattis up here yeah Selleck has six degrees of separation yes I think this is a constant theme in this conspiracy theory Jonas is six degrees of separation it's it's taking relationships that that that developed in a small community in Washington and trying to draw nefarious and sinister conclusions from them instead of focusing on competing on performance competing on innovation and competing on price and perhaps that's not taking place because the companies that are trying to do this do not have the capability to do so Andre I really appreciate you coming on and answering these tough questions I want to talk about what's going on with c5 now but I got to say you know I want to ask you one more time because I think this is critical you've worked for big-time company Kroll with terminus international market very crazy time time transformation wise you've worked with the CIA in Quantico the FBI nuclei in Quantico on a collaboration you were to know you've done work for the good guys you have see if I've got multiple years operating why why are you being put as a bad guy here I mean you're gonna you know being you being put out there with if you search your name on Google it says you're a spy all these evil all these things are connecting and we're kind of digging through them they kind of don't Joan I've had the privilege of a tremendous career I've had the privilege of working with with great leaders and having had great mentors if you do anything of significance if you do anything that's helping to make a difference or to make a change you should first expect scrutiny but also expect criticism when that scrutiny and criticism are fact-based that's helpful and that's good for society and for the health of society when on the other hand it is fake news or it is the construct of elaborate conspiracy theories that's not good for the health of society it's not good for the national interest is not good for for doing good business you've been very after you're doing business for the for the credibility people questioning your credibility what do you want to tell people that are watching this about your credibility that's in question again with this stuff you've done and you're continuing to do what's the one share something to the folks that might mean something to them you can sway them or you want to say something directly what would you say the measure of a person it is his or her conduct in c-five we are continuing to build our business we continue to invest in great companies we continue to put cravat private capital to work to help drive innovation including in the US market we will continue to surround ourselves with good people and we will continue to set the highest standards for the way in which we invest and build our businesses it's common I guess I would say that I'm getting out as deep as you are in the in term over the years with looking at these patterns but the pattern that I see is very simple when bad guys get found out they leave the jurisdiction they flee they go do something else and they reinvent themselves and scam someone else you've been doing this for many many years got a great back record c5 now is still doing business continuing not skipping a beat the story comes out hopefully kind of derail this or something else will think we're gonna dig into it so than angle for sure but you still have investments you're deploying globally talk about what c5 is doing today tomorrow next few months the next year you have deals going down you're still doing business you have business out there our business has not slowed down for a moment we have the support of tremendous investors we have the support of tremendous partners in our portfolio companies we have the support of a great group of operating partners and most important of all we have a highly dedicated highly focused group of investment teams of very experienced and skilled professionals who are making profitable investments and so we are continuing to build our business we have a very full deal pipeline we will be completing more investment transactions next week and we are continue to scalar assets under management next year we will have half a billion dollars of assets under management and we continue to focus on our mission which is to use private capital to help innovate and drive a change for good after again thank you we have the story in the BBC kicked all this off the 12th no one's else picked it up I think other journals have you mentioned earlier you think this there's actually people putting this out you you call out let's got John wheeler we're going to look into him do you think there's an organized campaign right now organized to go after you go after Amazon are you just collateral damage you mentioned that earlier is there a funded effort here well Bloomberg has reported on the fact that that one of the competitors for this bit of trying to bring together a group of companies behind a concerted effort specifically to block Amazon Web Services and so we hear these reports we see this press speculation if that was the case of course that would not be good for a fair and open and competitive bidding process which is I think is the Department of Defense's intention and what is in the interests of the country at a time when national security innovation will determine not only the fate of future Wars but also the fate of a sons and daughters who are war fighters and to be fair to process having something undermine it like a paid-for dossier which I have multiple sources confirming that's happened it's kind of infiltrating the journalists and so that's kind of where I'm looking at right now is that okay the BBC story just didn't feel right to me credible outlet you work for them you did investigations for them back in the day have you talked to them yes no we are we are we are in correspondence with the BBC I think in particular we want them to address the fact that they've conflated facts in this story playing this parlor game of six degrees of separation we want them to address the important principle of the independence of the in editorial integrity at the fact that they did not disclose that they expert on this program actually has significant conflicts of interests of his own and finally we want them to disclose the fact that it's not c5 and Amazon Web Services who have had a relationship with the scope of our technology park the scope of our technology park actually has a very broad set of Western partners still highly engaged there and even in recent weeks of hosted major cloud contracts and conferences there and and all of this should have been part of the story in on the record well we're certainly going to dig into it I appreciate your answer the tough questions we're gonna certainly look into this dossier if this is true this is bad and if there's people behind it acting behind it then certainly we're gonna report on that and I know these were tough questions thanks for taking the time Andre to to answer them with us Joan thanks for doing a deep dive on us okay this is the Q exclusive conversation here in Palo Alto authority narc who's the founder of c-5 capital venture capital firm in the center of a controversy around this BBC story which we're going to dig into more this has been exclusive conversation I'm John Tory thanks for watching [Music] you

>> Announcer: Life from Palo Alto. It's theCUBE, covering Women Transforming Technology 2017. Brought to you by VMware. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of the Women Transforming Technology Conference held at VMware here in beautiful Palo Alto, California. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. I'm joined by Lily Chang. She is the VP R&D/Office of CTO VMware. Thanks so much for joining us, Lily. >> Thank you for having me. >> You're also a board member. You started out on the advisory board, but now you're a board member on Women Who Code. >> Lily: Yes, recently. >> What is the organization? I mean, it's such a powerful and important organization. Can you tell us a little bit more about it? >> Women Who Code has a mission, which is very similar like today's conference you were seeing. It's to propel the technical women and R&D women across the globe. Basically no boundary of region, cities, or countries. So they're spanning about 50 plus countries and many cities, and we being a founding partner ... We, VMware, have been a founding partner since middle of 2015. They have gone through a rapid growth. I think we bet on the right horse ... (both laugh) Using the business term, and interestingly, they have gone through, in the past 18 months, a tremendous growth of the membership, and because it resonates with a lot of the technical women across the countries over the world, in China, in India, in eastern Europe, based in United States and Europe as well. Basically, right now their membership is about 87,000. They started with 10,000 members back about 18 months ago. >> So it's propelling the women who are already in the industry, but also bringing in new people, new young women into the industry, too. >> It's more than that. We focus on very much mid-range ... >> Okay. >> And early-stage career as well, but the professional bell curve, that golden bell curve, where in the middle of your career, or you're in the career for about two, three years, you're thinking about expanding your career horizon to be a different technical area. You just need that technical skills, and you need a way to be in a non-intimidating environment in a very gender-friendly environment and a very supporting and sponsoring setting where you're learning from each other and sharing all the knowledge, like different programming language, big data, algorithms, mobile technology, how that's involved. And that's really the key value proposition from Women Who Code, and that's what we subscribe to as well. >> Well, Lily, you talked about that sweet spot of a woman's career ... >> Lily: Right. >> And that also happens to be when a lot of women get stuck, or they leave ... >> Lily: Exactly. >> Or they have children, or they pull back and work part-time ... What will it take ... What are you doing with Women Who Code to get them over that, and as you said, help them gain those next skills to help them move up? >> So we basically establish a strategic partnership with Women Who Code, and we offer together with them a monthly meetup or sometimes bi-weekly meetup. We actually opened to several countries in the world. That's where we believe R&D, innovation, are also key. For example, we opened to China. We basically expanded to India and elevated it. In fact, Women Who Code has a annual technology conference for tech women in that particular region, like US is coming in April. We, VMware, are working with Women Who Code later this week to actually launch the first international Connect conference in India. And basically we got huge support and passion and commitment, and we also find it's a very good thing for women to basically learn about leadership and basically be able not to share just their technology with one another, about what they're good at. It's also a way for them to do networking, to learn how to communicate more effectively, and how to basically build the team, sustain the team. So we work out a global leadership initiative through this collaboration with Women Who Code. So we're driving China, we're driving India, we're driving Sofia. We collaborated on the Silicon Valley as well. >> And are the issues the same across the board? >> Yes, we have found the issue is very similar globally. It's where a woman needs encouragement, and a woman needs a very specific setting about how they learn from one another. These technical meetups and these chat over the woman technology community basically are helping that, and then we're also, in a non-profit way, sponsoring Women Who Code through their job board, and that's a non-profit way of helping, opening opportunities and possibility for technical women that basically want to expand their career or finding different avenue in their progression as well. So, basically, for ... You early on talked about, this is age where you're choosing between, do I want to have kids? Do I want to focus more on that? >> These are real things, yes! >> There's a sense of guilt, right. >> Right, right. >> Like, am I going to be so selfish, not to be a working mother? And what we found is that these technical meetings or conferences is not only just a way for women in the appropriate setting to learn about new technology without a very unnecessary peer competition, and they also can basically start sharing what they know, and they can learn together and grow together, and so for example, we offer all this with no charge. If you're a mom, I still remember, with young kids, basically, you will probably want that one or two hours to just spend ... (Rebecca laughs) >> In a bath. >> Yeah, not that you don't love your kids, right? >> Yes. >> But it's just you need that one or two hours. Your brain needs that kind of a chemistry balance as well. >> Yes, yes. >> And you're more rejuvenated, and then when you go back to work, you don't feel like, God, I am missing so many months of work, right? >> Right. >> Reality is you're spending a lot of time rejuvenating your knowledge, and you're keeping pace with the industry growth. We find a lot of other companies that are basically sharing the same vision as we are. >> And that is exactly what this conference is doing. >> Lily: Yes. >> There is a mix of technical breakout sessions, the hard skills, mixed in with the professional tips ... >> Lily: Exactly. >> Of how to give a better presentation and things like that. >> Exactly. So in some of the meetups, for example, if you're a woman that has an upcoming conference and usually there's the stage fright, right, and I kid you not ... >> Rebecca: But men face it too! >> Yeah, exactly. >> It's not ... But then how can we create a more nurturing environment to help the woman to curate her contents without fear and without intimidation. So that's basically the ... Sometimes the meetup is devoted to do things like that, or to just do a programming hackathon, but you're basically collaborating across the genders and the age group ... And your career span as well. Basically, it created a lot of this more collaborative and nurturing environment. >> One of the stereotypes about women in the workplace is that they are very competitive and don't help each other, and there's a real queen bee syndrome, a bitchiness that takes place. >> Lily: Yes, I'm aware of that. >> Yeah, well, what's your experience? Because it's ... There are some women, sure, but what's your experience? >> My experience is it's a matter of perspective and how you actually set up the environment. If you set up the environment where women can actually collaborate, I believe that is actually one of the gender's strength. A lot of the women leaders are into details, and some of the women are into strategic thinking and orientation. We found that if you can blend that together, especially in the global sense, that helps not only learning technology and advancing technology ... Like, one of the most popular thread of technical discussion is the algorithms. When you're talking about innovation, and when you talk about creativity, when you talk about the science, and that's where things has no boundary. >> Yes. >> And it's only yourself that's imposing that kind of thing. So we believe the sponsorship of this, or like the conference today, is breaking down a lot of those barriers. >> That's the theme of the day! >> Bringing the more kind side of the gender onto the table. >> And a camaraderie, too, around solving problems. >> Yeah, exactly. >> So let's actually talk about what you're doing at VMware. You're leading a joint venture in China. Can you tell us more about it? >> Yeah, China is full of myth. >> Rebecca: It's full of ...? >> It's a very mythical country, and so there's a lot of talk about how Chinese does business. I was born and raised in one part of the greater China, and so I was very fortunate to be brought up by a very loving father and a mother. My mom, in those days... In those days, women have to really fight for anything, even education. There wasn't really good career for any technical women that graduated from the best university in the island. So the job I was kind of really encouraged to look for was like a secretary job or an airline stewardess job. My mom is not one of those types. She believed I need to come overseas and study and propel myself. She believes in lifelong learning. She's a career woman, and she coached my dad, who owns his own business, and he cultivated me a lot about this business best practice. How do you do business in China, and how do you work through the generation gaps and communicate more effectively? So I'm very blessed that I'm bilingual, and logically, I can debate and think basically in both language and both cultural mode, and so that helps a lot, in terms of doing a successful job in China. And the joint venture is really VMware's way to do it the right way in China, and we're not trying to brag about, we're a multinational company. We're trying to basically say, this is a good economy and a good part of the world that we want to be able to have our technology to make a difference. So we collaborated with a local China company called Qù Guàng and formed a private joint venture that's focusing on basically cloud management system, and we're bringing a lot of the virtualization and combining the technology and innovation from both cultures together. So that's really the mission of this company. >> And would you say that the Chinese customers are similar to the western customers in terms of what their needs are and where they want their businesses to go? >> At the very high level, absolutely. Relatively speaking, how do you get to that end target, that's where culture difference and social difference and how you orient your habits of doing business is where that difference comes in. But we focus on ... We were very fortunate to have this company that works with us. We have the same mission, same vision, and the same strategy. So we're basically co-founding this and marrying the best technology from both sides of the region together to basically offer to advance the data centers for all of China. For example, China has a very major initiative to revamp a lot of their data center across all provinces. That includes your very rich town like the Beijing and very, very far away regions, and we're very proud that the software can make anything happen. We believe this is a magical combination to basically help the economy and the society. >> And do you think ... Because this is so important, this joint venture, and as you said, we're coming in and doing this the right way in China ... >> Lily: Yes. >> Will this be the blueprint from now on for how VMware sets up its joint ventures? >> Well, this will be the first joint venture we do in greater China, and so far, it's been pretty successful. We are basically writing the blueprint as we go. So one of the key things I love about VMware is just we love creativity and we choose and bet on the right innovation, and we propel and drive and push for that, and we inspire all the country and the regions and the people and the teams around us to do it. So I think this is showing that spirit, meaning that, regardless what the policymaker may say, we believe business and technology, when you marry them in the right way, it's going to make a difference, and will make a revolutionary difference. So we're writing the blueprint as to how to do that. >> How would you describe the differences in the technology cultures of China and the US? Kara Swisher, in her keynote, took Silicon Valley to task a little bit and made fun the buzzy words about how people brag and failing and disruptor and other kind of buzzy things. Innovation, pivot. How would you describe the way the Chinese business culture thinks about creativity and innovation? >> So there is some similarity with western culture, or what you see in Silicon Valley, like what she was talking about. Young generation. They don't understand there is any limit. In fact, that is across genders. I notice a lot of the technology women actually are leading companies and starting companies, and basically, for example, in November, we did a pitch competition with Women Who Code in Beijing, and we focused only on women C-level in the China startup, and we're basically collaborating with local venture company and the VC company to basically choose the most innovative woman leaders in the startup industry, because the country is so entrepreneur, and to some extent, China is growing, and they're basically learning how to basically be really big, and scalability it a big thing. And this is where our technology can come in and our culture, working with them. To basically together make it a better place also comes in as well. So that portion, entrepreneurship is the same. The desire and aspiration, that undying commitment to basically propel the society, those are all the same. I do see a lot of young people, but I also see a lot of the generation, like in my age, basically are coming in with very much a mentoring and a sponsoring attitude to basically help cultivate a younger generation, and very forgiving on that, and so that is something I see, and it does remind me a lot about the focus on the family and the focus on this team working together. >> And is that having an impact on your western colleagues, seeing ... >> Yes, I think it's a little bit of a culture difference, a lot less about yourself. A lot more about, how do I make this work? There's a little bit of a pride in some of these young startup, or even in the age group like me, saying, I am going to help this country to be stronger. I'm going to help the people to be stronger. So they take pride in that as well. And that reminds me a little bit about ... I heard about made in USA, so China talk about made in China, but in essence, it's all the same. You want to take pride with your family. >> A national pride, yes. >> Yeah, you want to take pride with your family, with your national pride, but it doesn't mean you don't want to do business internationally. You still value your international collaboration. Then the key is, how do you go across that culture boundary and focus on the right business problem and the right social phenomenon to solve the problem and the challenges, and just propel the society and the people altogether. >> But that is a good point, that the pride that you feel in your country, someone else from another country feels that same degree of pride for their country, and that's the ... >> Exactly. And sometimes I feel doing this job is not just a technologist job or an R&D job. It's almost like blending the DNA between the two countries and the two cultures together, and how to figure out working together. I know it sounds like a cliche. But when you go ... >> Rebecca: Or a great campaign slogan. >> Yeah, but it's really something that's actually a big challenge, especially with some of the political environment nowadays. But what I notice is when we work together as a group of engineers, we don't talk about those kinds of things. We talk about technology, and we talk about products. We talk about innovation. We talk about customer problems. We talk about how to make the place better. And that's basically what we focus on. Day in, day out. >> Well, Lily Chang, thank you so much for talking to us today. It's been great. >> Thank you very much for having me. >> I'm Rebecca Knight, and we'll be right back with theCUBE's coverage of Women Transforming Technology. (upbeat techno music)