>> Narrator: Live from San Diego, California it's theCUBE covering Cisco Live, US, 2019. Brought to you by Cisco and its eco system partners. >> Welcome back to San Diego everybody. This is theCUBE the leader in live tech coverage, My name is Dave Vellante, Stu Miniman is here, Lisa Martin as well but we've got a very special guest now Ken O'Reilly my good friend is here. He's the director of customer experience for Cisco Stealthwatch. Kenny great to see you thanks for coming on. >> Well, thanks for having me, Dave. Good seeing you as well. >> Yes so customer experience, people think about customer experience and security it's not always great right? It's a challenging environment they're constantly sort of chasing their tails it's like the arms race with the bad guy so what is customer experience all about in the context of security? >> So our number one goal for our security customers is to accelerate their value realization so our challenge is to make sure that they get the value out of the product that they're buying because every minute of every day the bad guys are trying to get their assets and their IP and when they buy a technology the quicker you can get it up and running and protect the better it is for our customer. >> So how do you measure like value? It's like reducing the amount of data that you're exposed to losing? Is it increasing the cost of the bad guys getting in? 'cause if I'm a bad guy and it costs me more to get in I would maybe go somewhere else, how do you measure that? >> Right so, you're right, so our whole product strategy is to increase the cost for the bad guy to get the IP or the assets and so for us we have to understand what the value proposition is for our product so that the customers can realize that value, so whether it's tryna help them with the use cases or operationalize the product or in our case what we try to do we have both network users and security users we try to get both groups to adopt the technology and then expand it from there, operation centers to the guys that are doing the thread hunting to the investigations et cetera. So that's how we sort of gauge the value is the number of people that are using the technology and the number of use cases that are actually implemented. >> So we've been talking about security all week Stealthwatch obviously you know one of the flagship products Cisco security business grew 21% last quarter so that's kind of an interesting stat services is 25% of the companies revenue so you're the intersection of two pretty important places for Cisco so specifically when you come into a customer engagement who are you engaging with is it a multidisciplinary are you primarily dealing with the SecOps group or do you touch other parts of the organization? >> Yeah, so typically when a company's looking, it's usually they're looking for network visibility so we're dealing with the network architecture teams and they typically bring in the security architects 'cause today they're working hand in hand, and then from there that's where we say preach the gospel of Stealthwatch we always say you can never have enough Stealthwatch okay? Because you can never have enough visibility 'cause once you turn the lights on and they can see what's going on in their network it's very illuminating for them and then they realize the challenges that they have and what they have to do to protect their assets. >> Yeah I joked at Google Cloud Next it's like the cockroaches all scrambling you know for the corners when you turn the lights on and Stealthwatch at its core is you don't need a lot of fancy AI even though you can apply fancy AI but you start with the basics right? What do ya got, where are the gaps okay, so now once it's exposed what do you do with that information is the customer experience group come in and help implement it faster? That's part of the value so time to value to that? >> So time to value with our experts of course we understand the space we understand our product we understand the challenge and of course our network and security customers are overwhelmed you know the stat that they throw out there is that our large customers have anywhere from 50-100 security products so how do you stand out? So as a vendor our number one goal is to build that relationship with the customer to become the trusted security advisor so we know better than anybody how to get that value how to get it quickly and you know the number one problem that they have Dave is how to operationalize all these tools 'cause Stealthwatch sits in the middle we're a big integration platform we take data, telemetry, NetFlow from a lot of different products and we bring that data together to figure out, to help that customer figure out how to make sense of it update their policies create better policies and really tighten up their security posture. >> Okay so they might like to reduce the number of tools but they really can't right? 'cause their using 'em and so what you do is you bring in a layer to help manage that. >> Absolutely. >> But you're also solving a problem just in terms of exposing gaps and then do you also have tooling to fill those gaps? Or is that partners tools is that Stealthwatch? >> So we have our own what we call integration platform where we have a platform that helps integrate other, not only other Cisco security technologies into our platform but other security technologies as well outside of Cisco so you know it's a platform that we've built it's part of our customer experience sort of tool set but it's a tool set unlike anybody else ever has so that along with what we do with the DevNet group we've built our own set of API's to integrate in with the product API's so we can pump data out to data lakes we can pump data out to SIMS like Splunk and some of the others so you know that's where we are we're a solutions group that's what we do we work on the solutions, long term value you know we work on the lifecycle sort of value chain with customers. We're there with 'em the whole time you know our goal; retention, we want them to renew which means they're investing in us again and of course as Cloud, as their infrastructure is moving the the Cloud and our technologies are moving to the Cloud we have to be there to help them get through all those technology challenges. >> So the pricing model is a subscription model is that right? >> Yeah. >> Or can be or? >> Yes, well we call it term all right? But it's essentially subscription we have switched over the last 18 months from a perm to a term based model. >> Which I mean Chuck Robbins in the conference calls in the earnings calls talks about the importance of you know increasingly having a rateable model and recognizing subscription, so when you say a term so I got to what, sign up for a year, two years, three years or something like that? >> We like three yep. >> So who doesn't right? Okay so you sign up for three years but the price book says monthly I'm sure right so you (laughs) make it look smaller, but it makes sense though because you're not going to start stop, start stop with your security, you really want to get success out of it so you got to have some kind of commitment, let's talk a little bit more about the analytics side of it and how you're applying machine intelligence I mean there's always been some form of analytics largely for reporting and things of that nature but now it's getting more automated so take us on that analytics journey Stealthwatch has been around for what five years? >> 15 yeah over 15 years. >> 15? >> Ken: Yes, yes, yes. >> Oh wow maybe I just found out about it five years ago. >> (laughs) right yeah, not but I mean-- >> Dave: Take us back five years. >> Five years? So the big thing for us in the data that we collect is context. Right so you've talked to TK about the more context you can add to that data the better you are at analyzing that data so for us that's one of the things that we do we add a lot of context to that data through ICE so identity information, what kind of assets they are and that's where we get to through our tools add more context so that our analytical engines so like the cognitive thread analytics, the encrypted thread analytics that we have, that they're able to analyze that data a lot better and that's what we've been doing now for the past three plus years since we were acquired by Cisco is to find a way to add more context to the data so that helps our analytics become much more effective. >> And you can interact with through API's say for instance Splunk you mentioned that so you got that data that you can operate on do you see a point where the machines are actually going to plug the holes? I mean are we on the cusp of that? In other words you see a gap >> Right. >> Dave: Today a human has to take action correct? >> Yes, right, right, right. >> Do you see a point maybe it's two, three, five 10 years but are we going to get to that point? >> I think so down the line I mean because we've seen as we've been able to get better visibility and better context about that data we can make better decisions through the machine all right? So it doesn't take an army of people to read the matrix right, we're getting better at you know synthesizing that matrix down you take our network segmentation capabilities that we've built as part of the Stealthwatch customer experience team we can get to well over 90% identification of the assets on the network which is a lot better than anybody else in the industry all right? So we're getting there and through sort of the final stages of reading that metrics, reading the matrix we're getting to the point where we understand a lot more what's on peoples networks what those assets are. >> So as a security practitioner how do you think we're doing as an industry? I mean I used to go back every year and say okay how much was spent on security? are we more secure, less secure? And it felt like you know as data grew it felt like we were getting more and more and more exposed you've seen the stats where when a company gets infiltrated it takes on average you know 250 days for them to realize they've been infiltrated is that changing, are we getting better as an industry? >> I think in Cisco we are because of the products that we have in that integrated architecture so when we first joined three years ago that was the drum beat and now today we integrate with ICE we're going to integrate with next generation firewall through the integration of the sort of analytics that we've got in the Cloud that's happening right? And we're trying to integrate with other products but you know you go down on the floor and you see the number of point products that is a nightmare for our customers so for us through the customer experience in our organization we're there to take that complexity out and bring all of those technologies together and when you get to that point then you're really making progress with a customer, a customer that's got 50-100 products in the mix that's a recipe for disaster and if it's still like that five years from now customers are still going to be challenged. >> So a big part of your customer experience mission is simplification, speed time, time to value. >> Yes. >> Raise the cost to the bad guys and then do it all over again. >> Yeah, yeah it's just rinse and repeat and that's a life cycle journey and that's what we take our customers through right. >> Now I noticed you have on your phone you got the Bruins logo. >> That's right, right here proud. >> So big game tomorrow any predictions? >> 4-3 in overtime Bruins. >> Oh my God I don't think my heart could take that. >> Could you not take that Dave? It's going to be an overtime game. >> Well it's you know it's rare to have a game seven in any, at the very final one, a lot of game sevens but not to win it all I think the last time at Boston was 1984. >> Ken: Is that right? >> Yeah it's been a long time, so you know I'm excited. >> I know you are (laughs) that's right. >> Warriors fans too we got that thing going out I mean I don't know for all you hoop fans out there so, >> Hopefully there's a game seven for that as well. >> Yeah let's go right, why not? >> Why not, game seven all round. >> All right so Chara is going to play with his broken jaw or whatever's going on. >> Matt Grzelcyk I hope is back. >> Dave: Yeah that would be key. >> That would be key yeah so, >> Dave: sure up the defense >> That's right. (crosstalk) >> Ken: He's a plus minus leader Chara. >> Oh yeah. >> That's right all time. >> Even though we give him a lot of grief. (laughter) he may look slow but he's all time plus minus leader. >> All right Kenny hey thanks so much-- >> All right Dave thanks for having me on all right go Bruins. >> All right keep it right there everybody go Bruins we will be right back Dave Vellante, Stu Miniman and Lisa Martin we're live from Cisco Live in San Diego you're watching theCUBE. (electronic jingle)

>> Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE covering Microsoft Ignite. Brought to you by Cohesity and theCUBE's ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back, everyone, to theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my cohost, Stu Miniman. We're joined by Patrick O'Reilly of O'Reilly Venture Partners based in San Francisco. Thanks so much for coming on theCUBE, Patrick. >> Thanks for having me. >> So, you are a serial entrepreneur now working as a VC, what are you doing here? Tell us why you came to Ignite. >> Yeah, well selfishly on the VC side we have a few of our portfolio companies here that have booths, and I wanted to kind of hear what people are asking, you know, why they're interested in the companies and how we're framing, you know, those companies to the end users. I think these type of events are really good to unlock hidden potential, or things that people can tell you that you wouldn't actually have thought about, yeah. >> Yeah, so Patrick, you know, I've known you for a number of years. Usually see you at the opensource shows. Microsoft, you know, publicly very embracing opensource. You know, they love Linux, partnering with Red Hat, even you know, partnering is a lot of things that Microsoft does. They were working with VMware. What's your viewpoint as to how you see Microsoft and the opensource world, and how about this ecosystem? Is this a vibrant ecosystem that, you know, VCs are investing in, or is it just that there's companies of yours that, you know, this is part of the story. >> No, and I think historically we've had the, you know, build versus buy, you know, kind of way of looking at it, but when I typically think of Microsoft, it's more people building glue, you know, code to kind of connect things together, and you tend to have blinders on and not think about what opensource components you can use. You know, you look for like what company has a solution you can buy, or license or OEM, and I think that's changing, you know, over time. You know, Microsoft does an amazing job with developers of giving them very easy to understand languages and amazing tooling, and along with that the documentation and the training, so I kind of felt like you came into development one of two ways. You either were like on the Microsoft track and using the cookie cutter approach, you know, to doing things and getting certified on something, or you were opensource, you learned the scripting language and you just looked at what you can cobble together in the opensource world, and there wasn't a lot of crosspollination, but now I see that those walls kind of dissolving. People are willing to mix and match. >> Yeah, it's interesting, you know, some places I've seen Microsoft, a lot in the Kubernetes show, so you know, first got to know you you were at Kismetic, you know, really the first company around Kubernetes that we knew. You know, I know you're doing a lot of different things but we love your viewpoint on, you know, anything on Microsoft in that space, as well as just what you've seen, you know, as a watcher of the Kubernetes space these days. >> Yeah, I mean I've been... You know, if I step back from Kubernetes, you know, back to like the Apache Mesos and the Mesosphere days, you know, if you rewind all the way back there you kind of had to do a lot of education of like, "What do you mean 'containerization?' "I have VMs, why do I need containers?" And now that we've gotten past that and people actually understand the value of containers, like having an orchestration system in place that works and works with everything, you know, is obviously more important than ever, and it's... I really credit the CNCF and the Linux Foundation for what they've done to kind of bring standards around Kubernetes and shepherd the project, and I think that, you know, the fairly recent announcement from Google that they're fully trusting, you know, CNCF to be the shepherd of that is huge, and it gives a framework for people, like Gabe at Microsoft, to work with, you know, some of the staff at Google, and like, in a collaborative way and move it forward for everyone, and I think, you know, historically containers made a ton of sense on Linux, but now that we have Windows server, you know, supporting containers and theCUBE working, you know, on Windows, I think in the 111... Or sorry, 113 release we'll have full Windows server, you know, support in Kubernetes, like that'll be huge. And just a quick aside, like the reason I even kind of honed in on containers and thought it was interesting is the average server utilization is still so low, but we're not really trained as technologists to care about that, and you know, we're really good at building data centers and tucking them off in places where no one sees, but when the average server's taking like... It's like running a hairdryer on high, you know, for electricity and then they run so hot you have to cool it. Like, we're really not helping the environment, so I think if we can move towards containerization, move towards efficient utilization of our hardware, you know, it'll be better for everyone, not just this ecosystem, so... >> So, talk to, tell our viewers a little bit about your portfolios and your portfolio companies that are here, and how they fit into the ecosystem. >> Yeah, so the one I'm most excited about, or shouldn't probably say it that way, I'll reframe that-- >> Can't have favorites, they're all your babies. (laughs) >> Yeah, they're all my babies. (laughs) >> But Ziften Technologies is great. I think their integration with the Windows, the vendor ATP, you know, advanced threat protection, you know, tool is great. They focus on the Mac and the Linux components and give you that same kind of pane of glass on the Microsoft side to see those endpoints, and like their utilization of AI, like they have an upcoming release where they're using AI to do things, and traditionally in that space it's been like the AB vendors, you know, doing everything and you had kind of, "Here's our signatures, "we're going to scan against those signatures," and it's a creative use of AI now to, like, look for just anomaly detections. These are the things we haven't seen before. Not sure what it is but it looks abnormal, and those are the kind of like spin-outs of companies that I'm looking for, too. Like I want to see people doing more meaningful things, you know, with AI. I think if we look at Azure and what they're offering now, like I don't need to have a bunch of data scientists at my startup. I can implement computer vision just using what off-the-shelf components, you know, from Microsoft and you know, Azure. I can do video indexing, you know, using their services. Like, if I rewind just back three years I would've had to have a team of like four data scientists. They'd be reading whitepapers, they'd be implementing code that like sort of half works, and they would probably take half a year to train some models to get, like, moderate results, and now in a matter of minutes, you know, I can use this off-the-shelf stuff. >> Yeah, it's fascinating, I think back to, you know, we were pretty early at theCUBE at watching the whole big data trend, and back then it was like, "Okay, we're going to "take that two-year project and you know, "drive it down to six months," and now we talk in the AI space is, you know, how can we drive that down even more. In big data there was concern, everything seemed to be custom. In AI we're starting to get to more templatized solutions, rolling out for a lot of industries, and it feels like it's taking off a lot faster than that space is, and I know there's a lot of investment going on in the space, and a lot there, so... Anything in particular, you know, what excites you, what makes a good, you know, AI investment versus, you know, there's just so much happening out there. >> Well, you know, I... I struggle with the name AI a little bit. >> Yeah, no, no, I understand, yeah. >> I'm working on a talk, and you know, I kind of like don't, I don't enjoy the artificial aspect of it because it's really just intelligence, and you know, right now it's a buzzword people are throwing into everything when really they mean, "We use an algorithm." (laughs) You know, it's not truly AI, but when we get to cognition we get, you know, to, you know, someday if we have quantum supremacy we'll have, you know, systems that actually can maybe have a consciousness, you know, and decide things. That's where I'm interested, I'm looking... Like on the devops side I'm looking for people using AI to get away with repetitive tasks. Like I would love to see, you know, someone have a system where it's like, "Hey, we've noticed, you know, 90 times "this week this guy's done this exact "same thing, you know, 99% the same way." Like, let's automate that away. You know, we've been really good in the space to kind of treat infrastructure like code, you know, and be able to tear things up. Like I mean, I've been incredibly excited to see, like just in my career, how we went from, "Okay, you're going to do something meaningful on the web. "You need to build a data center. "You need to, you know, get a bunch of servers, racks," and then you pay all this equipment and oh, by the way, 18 months from now it's going to be obsolete and you're going to have to spend money again, to where now I can just, you know, get some credits to start up in the cloud, you know, try things out and do like really meaningful things. So, just looking for anyone on AI that's going to do something that moves the needle. >> Yeah, now that, yeah, just on the terminology piece, I've lived through the cloud wars and the argument over what was and what isn't, so it's just, you know, the shorthand for this wave that we have there, where AI or ML, or you know, IBM has some interesting terms that they want to call it. We understand that there's intelligence that I can do with software, a lot of machine-to-machine things that are going on, and it's not a lot of, you know, shouldn't be a lot of heavy lifting by people to go in there. Oh, wait, I can train something, I can learn what's happening, so... >> Well, I wanted to ask when... I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs ears are pricking up when they hear that you want to make these meaningful investments. What is it that you look for in a company, is it... In terms of the leadership team, in terms of any track record, what sort of makes your eyes light up? >> So, I try to go to as many conferences as I can, because I feel that's where, you know, the hallway track and I can meet people. I can see, you know, their talks, see what they're passionate about, so what I'm really looking for is investing more in the people than in the idea, because startups can always pivot, and you look at some of the greatest companies out there, they were pivots from, you know, a slightly different model and they realized that, "Oh, we should go chase down this other thing." So, to me, I'm looking for people that are doing something exciting where they are already, looking to make the leap. You know, for example, like you know, the Spinnaker team or people that do something, you know, like... You know, like if etcd wanted to move off and be a separate company, like things like that where they've done something, they've proven it, and now they want to go start a company around it, and I think right off the bat, like if you've built some interesting technology that people are starting to use you have a decent revenue stream just from support, you know, of that and helping those end users, and I think, you know, with O'Reilly we do something a little different than other people. Like I focus mostly on seed investment, very early stage. Our typical check size is around $500k, and I actually allow people to take us off the cap table and just pay us back. Like you know, I've done nine startups in my career, and it's... Fundraising is one of those things where you only get good at it once you don't need it anymore, (chuckles) and I felt the pain of being on that side of the desk and I want to be in the position where, you know, we can write the checks and not try to, like, have a lot of governance, not try to take a board seat, not give you down pressure, you know, on what you're doing but really be additive. I think moving forward I would love to be in the position where we can help incubate, you know, a lot of companies because we've found that, you know, you all kind of go through, every company goes through the same process like, "Now, we need a real CFO because "we need financial projections." Like, being able to, like, provide those services for portfolio companies where they don't have to go spend their resources chasing that down. >> I'm curious how much some of the big players, or just the gravity of what's happening in the space that you're looking at, so obviously we're here at the Microsoft show, but Google, Amazon, a lot of activity going on and we can call it AI or what you will, VMware even, Oracle, SalesForce, how much of the big players defining and you have to build around them, versus you know, we look at Kubernetes is supposed to make things independent, to be able to be opensource and be able to build solutions, you know, regardless of what platform they're on. >> Yeah, I mean, I think we're living in a world where people have a lot of choice, you know, and we look at even, like we take the example of cloud providers. Like, as long as I don't get vendor lock in and use, you know, their specific features, like I can move around to different cloud providers, I can now say I want to negotiate a better price here and migrate over, and I think just with any of the technologies, like trying to work in ways where companies can work together and be additive, I think that's where we actually move, you know, move down the field. I don't know what analogy's appropriate to use, but you know, I feel like there's a lot of really interesting stuff that we should be doing, and making... Every company doing a slightly different version of the same thing I don't think, you know, makes sense. Like, you know, even silly things like as we mature. Like, you know, back in the day everyone used to have broadcast television. We built all these antennas, we got all this range, you know, and then we moved to digital and we didn't need those antennas, we didn't need that range, so they started decommissioning them, but then companies came along and they're like, "Well, wait, now we have this "unlicensed spectrum we can use." So, now they're using it for internet. You know, you can get 20 megabit connectivity out to a rural farm where now they can put some cheap IoT sensors, and like, do really meaningful things with low cost technologies, like those are the things I'm interesting in. You know, so kids that want to cobble together, you know, IoT sensors and come up with a way to use, you know, what they have in rural areas, and like, and have technology actually help people in a meaningful way, and I think those are a lot of very viable startups, you know, in that space. I do think we live in a world where every company's going to end up graduating into one of the camps, be it, you know, SalesForce, Google, you know, Microsoft, but in that innovation spike, like when they're first starting improving out the companies I think they have a ton of choice, you know. >> You described a very beneficent approach to how you think about VC. Do you think, how would you describe the VC landscape right now? You said you want to be able to just incubate great ideas and help these young companies when they are not good at fundraising and they don't have the smooth, slick deck that will really impress the bigger VC firms. I mean, how, what's wrong with the VC landscape today and what else are you doing to make it better? >> Well, I think the incentives are a little off. You know, I can speak for myself, like when I was... You know, when I was looking to raise VC money and my previous companies, like you know, you get these great offers from people, but then you talk to other entrepreneurs and you're like, you know, I'm not going to call anyone out by name, but you're like, "Well, how is this VC's firm served you," and you start hearing of ways that it was additive, but also kind of put undue pressure on them, or they say things like, "Well, we really didn't "need to raise that round then. "We could've done bridge financing "or we could've figured out how to get a MVP product "out there and brought in some revenue." So, I just think it's the ultrahigh returns that VCs are looking for, and the promises that those VCs are making to their LPs, (chuckles) you know, in their funds to outperform everyone else, and you know, everyone talks to everyone, right? So, if anything's meaningful out there looking for investment kind of the back channel is very vibrant and it's dog-eat-dog, and some of it, I kind of reckon it to, you know, your alma mater, like where you went to school. Like, you know, if you're an MIT person, like MIT's the best place in the world. You know, if you're, you know, some other school, they're the best place in the world, and the VCs tend to kind of, like, fall in those camps, and what I'm looking to do-- >> And those are real biases that impact women and underrepresented minorities, to their detriment. >> Yeah, and you know, and that's the thing I've struggled with, too, when you look at the... Like, let's take Andreessen, you know, for example and you look at the portfolio companies, like you know, you kind of become locked into that ecosystem. Like if you want to go, you know, if I'm on Mesosphere and I want to go partner with someone that's not under that, or they have a company in that portfolio that does similar things, you're going to be pressured into working with the portfolio company over going off and maybe choosing the better, you know, choice for the industry, so I'd like to see, you know, those things change. >> Right, and so, Patrick, we talked a little bit about Ziften, security endpoint, you know, really hot space. I want to give the opportunity, other companies you have here that we should check out. >> Yeah, so we work closely with the team at Turbonomic. I think, you know, what they've done over time, you know, is amazing. I love products where you can just bolt it in and within a short period of time you're getting value. Like, you know, stepping back and just saying one thing about Ziften, like I think it's amazing, because I come from a software development, you know, background, and one thing as a software developer I've always found fascinating is like when you come in wearing the developer hat they give you the keys to the kingdom. They're like, "Oh, here's root access to the servers, "here's where all of our data is, "here's how you do a snapshot of production "to, you know, test it, you know, in staging," and I've always thought that it was a tremendous amount of risk, and you know, on average a company can be hacked for up to 100 days before they even realize that they've had a breach, and like, any kind of company, you know, be it Ziften or anyone in that space, that can showcase that to you. Like, you know, raise up things that you weren't aware of, you know, is really interesting, and then, you know, to the, like, Nico and Turbonomics and the things that they're doing there. Like, to actually get the most out of what you already have, like that's huge to me, because one of the, you know, one of the things I see in cloud computing that we didn't necessarily have, you know, directly owned physical infrastructure is it's almost too easy to spin things up. You know, you've got the guy clicking through the UIs like, "Oh, this instance looks great. "Oh, and it says it's only be $140 this month," and then they end up spinning up 1,000 of those, you know? (laughs) You get that first sticker shock of, like, here's that $250,000 bill that month, (chuckles) you know, for cloud, and companies like Turbonomics can, like, avoid you, you know, making those mistakes. >> Great, Patrick, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. It was really fun talking. >> Yeah. >> We could talk to you for hours. >> Thanks for having me, I appreciate it. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for Stu Miniman. We will have more from theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite coming up in just a little bit. (techy music)

>> Announcer: From the computer history museum, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's The Cube. Covering food IT, Fork to Farm. Brought to you by Western Digital. >> Hey, welcome back to The Cube. From the food IT event, From Fork to Farm, yep, you heard that right, Fork to Farm. I'm Lisa Martin. Really excited to be joined by my next guests who are influencing the food chain with Big Data, Cloud, IoT and Blockchain in some very, very interesting ways. We have Rob O'Reilly, senior member and technical staff of Analog Devices. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> And we have Raja Ramachandran, the founder and CEO of Ripe.io. Welcome. >> Thank you Lisa. >> So I made that joke about the Fork to Farm because we think so often how trendy it is, farm to table, farm to mouth. And this has been a really interesting event for us to talk with so many different people and companies across the food chain that we often, I think, take for granted. So Rob, wanted to kind of start with you. Analog Devices has been around for 50 years. You serve a lot of markets. So how is, and maybe kind of tell me sort of the genesis, and I know you were involved in this, of Analog Devices evolving to start using Cloud, Big Data, IoT in the food and agriculture space. What was the opportunity that you saw light bulb moment? >> Yup. It's an interesting story. We started with a piece of technology, a sensor that we can connect. I was looking of an app to apply, 'cause it was a full sensor to the Cloud strategy I was working on. And through some conference attendees that I had met and from a fellow who's now our partner, we kind of put together a strategy of "Well we've got the sensor to the Cloud, "where would we apply this?" And we decided though a little bit of banter, tomatoes. And most of it was because, in New England specifically, there's a lot of, there's 7,000 farms in Massachusetts. >> Lisa: Wow. >> Not all of them produce tomatoes, but a lot of them do. So it was like having a test bed right in our backyard. And from that point it's grown to what it is now. >> And I hear that you don't like tomatoes. >> I really don't like tomatoes. >> Lisa: What about heirloom tomatoes? >> I don't like any tomatoes. >> Lisa: Mozzarella, little basil, no? >> No, no. (laughs) I don't mind pasta sauce so much, but that's just because it's all salt. >> Lisa: That's true. >> And sugar. But no, and I've managed to get through this entire project without anybody forcing me to eat a tomato, so. >> That's good, they're respectful. >> I'm proud of that. >> So I was joking earlier, we cover a lot of events across enterprise innovation, and we were at a Hadoop Dataworks events a couple weeks ago and one of the guests was talking about Big Data and how it's influencing shipping, and how shipping companies are leveraging Big Data to determine how often they should clean the ships to remove barnacles 'cause it slows them down. So the funny thing that popped into my mind from that show is, barnacles and Big Data? Never thought that. Today, the wow factor for me, the internet of tomatoes. What is the internet of tomatoes? >> The problem statement when we started was "Why do tomatoes taste like cardboard?" >> Lisa: He really doesn't like tomatoes! (laughs) >> And, you know, in order to go dig into that was let's collect data. So there's a variety of methods that we use to collect the data. We had to create all of this on our own, so we created our own apps for the phones, our own matchups for the web, our own gateways. We built our hardware, we 3-D printed all the housings, and two of us just went off and started to deploy so we could collect data. The second half of it was, "well, what is in the tomato? "and why does it taste the way it does?" So we started doing some chemistry analysis. So a bunch of refractometers and other instruments so we can see what the sugar levels were, what the acid levels were. We infused ourselves into the Boston Tomato Contest, which they have annually. So we showed up, we looked like the Rolling Stones. We showed up with cases of, trap cases of equipment. It took us about 11 and a half hours to test 113, I think it was, tomatoes, and then we compared those to the chefs' scorecards. And in the chef's scorecard, there wasn't just a taste profile, there was the looks and everything else. Well I found a few markers between what the chef's profile said was a good tasting tomato and what the chemistry said. So a year later we showed up with our optical solution and we managed to test 450 tomatoes. >> Wow. >> About 100 of those go to the slicing table, so we had information on 100 of them and we did the same thing. So it got to the point to where we at least had that reconciliation of "what's the farmer doing "and how does it taste?" And by bringing Raja and his group in, we're bringing a lot more of other Big Data, if you will. Other weather data, aerial drone data, you know, anything we could find in a telematic range that would affect the processing or whatever of the tomato. So that in a nutshell is the internet of tomatoes. >> And is this something that, you know, being able to aggregate Big Data from a variety of sources, something that you're planning to then take to, I heard you earlier in the talk, talking about kind of at the relationship building stage. Is this a dialogue that you're having yet with farms? You mentioned 7,000 farms in Massachusets. What's that kind of conversation like? >> Well that's a very interesting dynamic and I think, you know, that data point for the industry is you better go talk to the farmer. It's really been interesting, the hesitation from a farmer to talk to a semiconductor company was odd. But I wasn't John Deer, I wasn't Monsanto, so they were a little more open. And they understand, a lot of these farmers that I'm dealing with now are generational, you know they're fifth, sixth generation. They really haven't made significant change on their farm in 100 years. >> Probably nor do they have a lot of data that's automated, right? There's probably a lot of things that are in Excel. >> And a lot of it is, I mean beyond their first level of contact, say with a seed or a pesticide manufacturer, They have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world. Unlike, you know, a lot of the big, large farms that we see. But at the smaller region, they're regional. And we've still have Hatfield-McCoy type things going on in New England, where families don't talk to each other, they don't share information. So through one of our work groups, we actually invited two of them, and I felt like match maker. We were trying to just get these two to talk. And they did, and they both realized that they were spending way too much money on fertilizer, and they were both over watering. So, it's still Hatfield and McCoys but at least I think they wink at each other every once in a while. >> Right, I love that you bought that up. That was something that was talked about a number of times today is the lack of collaboration maybe that's still in the sort of competitive stage. So Raja, talk to us about Ripe.io. First of all, I think the name is fantastic, but Blockchain and food. What's the synergy? And what opportunity did you see coming from the financial services industry? >> So, you know one of the key points about what we felt brings all this together is creating a web of trust. And so in financial markets, insurance markets, healthcare markets, you know big institutional regulated markets, there's a lot of regulations that really bind together that notion of trust, because you have a way in which you could effectively call out foul. Now, so there's a center of gravity in each of those industries, whether it's a central bank, you know or a state regulator insurance, so the government in healthcare. Here, there's not. It's disparate. It's completely fragmented, yet somehow magically we all get food everyday, ane we're not dead you know. So from that perspective we just marvel at the fact that you're there. So, bringing Blockchain was a way to basically talk to the farmer, talk to the distributor, talk to the buyer, the producer, and all these different constituents, including certifiers, USDA, whomever it might be. And then also even health to health companies, right, so that you can relate it. So the idea is to basically take all of these desperate sets of data, because they don't necessarily collaborate in full, capture it in the way that we're working with ADI so that you can create a real story about where that food came from, how is it curated, how did it get transported, what's in it, you know, do I get it on time, is it ripe, is it tasty and so on, right? And so we looked at Blockchain as a technology, an enabling technology that quickly captures the data, allows each to preserve its own security about it, and then combine it so that you can achieve real outcomes. So you can automate things like, were you sustainable? Were you of quality? Did you meet these taste factors? Was it certified? That's what excited us. We though, this is a perfect place because you've got to feed 9,000,000,000 people and no one trusts their food, you know? >> Lisa: Right. >> So we felt this would be an excellent opportunity to deploy Blockchain. >> And it's interesting that you know, the transparency is one of the things that we hear from the consumers, you know. We want all these things. We want hormone free, cage free, et cetera. We want organic, we want to make sure it is organic, but we also want that transparency. I'm curious since you are talking to the farmers, the distributors and the consumers, what were some of the different requirements coming from each, and how do you blend that to really have that visibility or that traceability from seed to consumption? >> And it's a good point right, because there's all these competing factors where farmers want certain information done, they don't want the price to go to zero because it's so commoditized. The distributor, not entirely sure if they want anybody to know what they do is if they deliver it, they've done their job. The aggregator, a grocery store, a restaurant or whomever, are really feeling the pinch of demographic changes. Not only in America, but globally, you know about this notion that "I need to know more about my food". Millennials are doing it, look at Amazon and Whole Foods. >> Lisa: Yup. >> That is a tipping point of like where this is all going to go. So for us, what Blockchain does allows for each of those drivers to remain clean. And so in essence, what you can do is you take something called smart contracts, not a great word but basically these are codes in which you've got a checklist or if-then statements that you can say, "What does the farmer want?" "What is the distributor doing to get something there?" And of course the buyer. And so in that sense, we've talked a lot about a scorecard or this notion that you can basically highlight and show all of these different values, so that if the consumer is looking for, you know, I definitely want this in my lettuce, in my beets, in whatever it is, and I need to make this type of salad, how acidic should my tomatoes be? Well that's hard to count, like combine all that information. Since we're capturing that data set and validating it to make sure that they're true, then you actually enable that trust for that consumer. So the consumer may want a lot of information, the issue is will they pay for it? There's some evidence that they will. The second part is, you know, does the grocer have the ability to manage wide varietals in their shelf space, and so on. All the techniques that a grocer would go through, yet they want a clean supply chain. >> Lisa: Right. >> So you know, so like what're we're saying is that this is definitely not easy. And so we're taking it where the influencer of the entire chain is able to help drive it, in the meanwhile we're trying to help create a farmer community that creates a level of trust. Bind those together, we believe Blockchain and a lot of the technology that ADI is deploying helps achieve that. >> And it sounds like from a technology perspective, you're leveraging Blockchain, Big Data, aggregating that to help farmers, even consumers, grocers, retailers, become more data-driven businesses. >> Oh absolutely. I mean in one instance we've got, you know a customer that they're learning how Blockchain can be used to open up their markets and improve their existing customer service. So what they have are like data sets, you know Rob would definitely understand this, but basically you have data set on like what's best for apples, pears, avocados to ripen, you know. Now, they know it in their heads, right? But the issue is, they don't know when there's conditions that change. The grocery store says I want Braeburn apples to be 20% more crisper, well they actually have the answer but they don't know how to tie all that together. >> Lisa: Right. >> So this data-driven capability exposes automation, so that you can fulfill on that. Create new markets, 'cause if your growers don't have it you can go find it from elsewhere. And for the consumer, you're going to deliver that component on time. And so in that sense, you know these things are revealed as ways to, not only like lower cost you know, because in the end Blockchain has this sort of notion that it lowers costs. Like any technology, if you insert it, it typically adds costs. And I'm not saying that our Blockchain does, but the greater value is branding, preserving it, you know. A better economic consequence about it, a better customer satisfaction because I now have knowledge in transparency. >> Lisa: Right. >> So you can't value these things right, because I'm a millennial like all of a sudden I got all my information, well how did you value it? I just paid $60 at Whole Foods, or is it something else? >> Lisa: Right. >> So we think that there's whole new economic revitalization about the entire farming system and the food nag system, because if you show the transparency, you've got something. >> That's so interesting. Last question, and we're almost out of time, Rob you mentioned a lot of small farms in Massachusets. Where are those small farms in terms of readiness to look at technologies and the influence of Big Data? Is it still fairly early in those discussions, or is your market more the larger farms that ... >> I said it earlier, we're at the beginning of the beginning. I was actually shocked, excuse me, when I went out and started talking to them. I was under some assumption that a lot of this was already going on. And it turns out it's not, certainly at that level. So we were like new to these guys, and the fact that we had a technology that would help them was unique to them. The issue was, well how do you communicate with them? How would you sell that? What's the distribution channel? So through a lot of the workshops that we do with the farmers we ask the question, "If their is new technology and you want to go get it, "what do you do?" They google it. I said, "Okay, that's probably not the answer "I was looking for." (laughs) But no, the supporting infrastructure, the rest of the ecosystem they need to take advantage just isn't there yet. So a lot of that I think is slow for the adoption, but it's also kind of helped us because we're working on technologies. You know, timing is everything. So the fact that we've had time to catch up to what we thought was really needed, and then learned more from the farmer, well no, no this is really what they want. So we've been able to iterate. You know, we're a very small team. We've been able to fail miserably many, many times. But the good news is, when we're successful that's all people see. And the farmers are starting to see that, that hey, we're getting actionable data. You're telling me things that I kind of knew, 'cause they fly by the seat of their pants a lot. >> They want it validated, verified. >> Oh yeah, they're very frugal. >> Trustworthy, as you said Raja. >> There's a big push back to spend any money on anything at a farm. That's just the way it is, it's not anything unique. So when you show up now with some technology that could help them, they just want to make sure that you're spot on, you can predict what it is, and when they hand me the money they can start planning on the return on their investment. >> Well gentlemen, we want to thank you so much for sharing your insights, Blockchain of food, what ADI is doing in their 50th year. Sounds like the beginning is very exciting and we wish you the best of luck. I'm not going to hold my breath that you're going to like tomatoes but, you know. (laughs) We wish you the best of luck and enjoy the rest of today. We want to thank you for watching The Cube at the Food IT event, From Fork to Farm. I'm Lisa Martin, thanks for watching. (upbeat pop music)