(upbeat music) >> Welcome back to Las Vegas everybody. You're watching theCUBE coverage of AWS reinvent 2021. I tell you this place is packed. It's quite amazing here, over 20,000 people, I'd say it's closer to 25, maybe 27,000, and it's whole overflow, lots going on in the evenings. It's quite remarkable and we're really happy to be part of this. Jay Turner is here, he's the Vice President of Development and Operations, at PCCW Global. He's joined by Garrett Lowell, Vice President of Ecosystem Partnerships for the Americas at PCCW Global. Guys, welcome to theCUBE. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Jay, maybe you could take us through, for those people who aren't familiar with your company, what do you guys do, what are you all about? >> PCCW Global is the international operating wing of Hong Kong telecom. If it's outside of Hong Kong, it's our network. We've got about 695,000 kilometers of diverse cable, we've got about 43, 44 terabit of capacity came into business in 2005, if my brain is serving me correctly right now. We have a very diverse and vast portfolio ranging all the way from satellite teleports, all the way to IP transit. We're a Tier 1 service provider from that perspective as well. We do one of everything when it comes to networking and that's really, what was the basis of Console Connect, was inventing a platform to really enable our users to capitalize on our network and our assets. >> Okay. 2005, obviously you predated Cloud, you laid a bunch of fibers struck it in the ocean, I mean, global networks. There was a big trend to do that you had to think, you had to go bigger, go home in that business, (laughing) all right. Console Connect is your platform, is that right? >> Jay: Yes. >> So explain- >> Yeah, sorry, Console Connect is a software defined interconnection platform. We built a user self-service portal. Users can allocate ports, they get the LOAs issued to them directly from the platform. And then once they've got an active port or they've come in via one of our partnerships, they can then provision connectivity across our platform. That may be extending to their data centers or extending to their branch office, or it could be building a circuit into the Cloud via direct connect, could be building a circuit into an internet exchange. All of those circuits are going to be across that 685,000 kilometers of diverse fiber rather than going across the public internet. >> When you started, it took some time obviously to build out that infrastructure and then the Cloud came into play, but it was still early days, but it sounds like you're taking the AWS Cloud model and applying that to your business, eliminate all that undifferentiated heavy lifting, if you will, like the visioning in management. >> Yeah, we've heard many people, and that's kind of the impetus of this was, I want to be directly connected to my end point. And how do I do that? AWS, yes, they had direct connect, but figuring out how to do that as an enterprise was challenging. So we said, hey, we'll automate that for you. Just tell us what region you want to connect to. And we'll do all the heavy lifting and we'll just hand you back a villain tag. You're good to go. So it's a classic case, okay. AWS has direct connect. People will go, oh, that's directly competitive, but it's now you're adding value on top of that. Right? >> Yeah. >> Describe where you fit, Garrett, inside of the AWS ecosystem. You look around this hall and it's just a huge growing ecosystem, where you fit inside of that ecosystem and then your ecosystem. What's that like? >> Where we fit into the AWS ecosystem, as Jay alluded to, we're adding value to our partners and customers where they can come in, not only are they able to access the AWS platform as well as other Cloud platforms, but they're also able to access each other. We have a marketplace in our platform, which allows our customers and partners to put a description of their services on the marketplace and advertise their capabilities out to the rest of the ecosystem of PCCW Global and Console Connect. >> And you're doing that inside of AWS, is that right or at least in part? >> No, that's not inside of AWS. >> So your platform is your platform. >> Yes. >> Your relationship with AWS is to superpower direct connect. Is that right or? >> So we're directly connected to AWS throughout the globe. And this allows our customers and partners to be able to utilize not only the PCCW global network, but also to expand that capability to the AWS platform in Cloud. >> So wherever there's a Cloud, you plug into it, okay? >> Garrett: That's correct. >> Jay: Yeah. And then another advantage, the customer, obviously doesn't have to be directly co-located with AWS. They don't have to be in the same geographical region. If for some reason you need to be connected to U.S. west, but you're in Frankfurt, fine, we'll back all the traffic for you. >> Dave: Does that happen a lot? >> It actually does. >> How come? What's the use case there. >> Global diversity is certainly one of them just being able to have multiple footprints. But the other thing that we're seeing more of late is these Cloud-based companies are beginning to be attracted to where their customers are located. So they'll start seeing these packets of views and they'll go, well, we're going to go into that region as well, stand up a VPC there. We want our customers then being able to directly connect to that asset that's closest to them. And then still be able to back call that traffic if necessary or take it wherever. >> What's the big macro trends in your business? Broadly you see cost per bit coming down, you see data consumption and usage going through the roof. How does that affect you? What are some of the big trends that you see? >> I think one of the biggest ones and one that we targeted with Console Connect, we were hearing a lot of customers going, the world's changing so dynamically. We don't know how to do a one-year forecast of bandwidth, much less a three-year, which is what a lot of contracts are asking us for. So we said, hey, how about one day? Can you do one day? (Dave laughs) Because that's what our granularity is. We allow for anything from one day up to three years right now, and then even within that term, we're dynamic. If something happens, if suddenly some product goes through the roof and you've suddenly got a spike in traffic, if a ship drags its anchor through a sub sea cable, and suddenly you're having to pivot, you just come into the platform, you click a couple of buttons, 20 seconds later, we've modified your bandwidth for you or we've provisioned a new circuit for you, we've got your backup going, whatever. Really at the end of the day, it's the customer paying for their network, so the customer should be the one making those decisions. >> How's that affect pricing? I presume or so, I can have one day to a three-year term, for example if I commit to three years, I get a better deal. Is that right, or? >> You do, but at the end of the day, it's actually pretty much a moderate, a better deal. We don't want to force the hand of the customer. If you signed a 12 month contract with us, we're going to give you a 3% discount. >> So it's not really, that's not a motivation to do it. It's just (indistinct) reduce the transaction complexity. And that's why you will sign up for a longer term not to get the big discount. >> Correct. And then, like I said, even within a longer contract, we're still going to allow you to flex and flow and modify if you need to, because it's your network. >> What kind of constraints do you put on that? Do I have to commit to a flow? And then everything above that is, I can flex up. Is that how it works? >> Yeah. >> Okay. And then, the more I commit to, the better the deal is, or not necessarily? >> No, it's pretty much flat rate. >> Okay, I'm going to commit and I'm going to say, all right, I know I'm going to use X, or sign up for that and anything over it, you're pretty flexible, I might get a few points if I sign up for more, somebody might want to optimize that if they're big enough. >> And another really neat advantage, the other complaint we heard from customers, they go, I need three different direct connect, I need to be connected to three different parties, but I don't want to run three different cross-connects and I don't want to have three different ports. That's just an expense and I don't want. And we, fine, take your one gig port run one gig of services on it. If that's 20 different services, we're fine. We allow you to multiplex your port and provision as- >> So awesome. I love that model. I know some software companies who I would recommend to take a look at that pricing model. So Garrett, how do you segment the ecosystem? How do you look at that? Maybe you could draw and paint a picture of the idea of partners and what they look like. I know there's not just one category, but, >> Sure. Our ideal partners are internet exchangers, Cloud partners and SAS providers, because a big piece of our business is migration to the Cloud, and the flexibility of our platform allows and encourages our SAS providers and SI partners to perform migration to the Cloud much easier in a flexible format for their customers. >> What can you tell us, any kind of metrics you can give us around your business to give a sense of the scope, the scale? >> Well, of our business, (Dave laughs) one of the driving factors here, Gardner says that about 2023, I think, 40% of the enterprise workloads will be deployed in the Cloud, which is all fine and dandy, except in my head, you're just trading one set of complexities for another. Instead of having everything in a glass house and being able to understand that, now you're going, it's in the Cloud, now I need to manage my connectivity there. wait a minute, are my security policies still the same? Do they apply if I'm going across the public internet? What exposure have I just bought into myself to try to run this? The platform really aims at normalizing that as much as possible. If you're directly connected to AWS, at the end of the day, that's a really long ethernet cable. So your a glass house just got a lot bigger, but you're still able to maintain and use the exact same policies and procedures that you've been using. That's really one of our guiding principles, is to reduce that complexity and make it very simple for the user. >> I understand that, cause in the early days of Cloud, a lot of enterprises, the CIOs, they were concerned about security, then I think they realized, ah, AWS has pretty good security. CIA is using it. But still people would say to me, it's not that it's best security, it's just different. You know, we move slow, Dave. How do you accommodate, there's that diversity, I mean, AWS is obviously matured, but are you suggesting that you can take my security edicts in my glass house and bring those into your networks and ultimately into the Cloud? Is that how it works? >> That's the goal. It's not going to be a panacea more than likely, but the more edicts that we can allow you to bring across and not have to go back and revamp and, the better for you as a customer and the better really for us, because it normalizes things, it makes it much easier for us to accommodate more and more users. >> And is it such now in the eco, is all the diversity in the ecosystem, is it such that there's enough common patterns you guys can accommodate most of those use cases? >> Yeah, absolutely. One of the key components is the fact that the platform runs on our MPLS network, which is inherently secure. It's not on the public internet anywhere. We do have internet on demand capability. So in the event that a customer wants access to the internet, no problem. We can accommodate this. And we also have 5G capability built into the platform to allow flexibility of location and flexibility of, I would say, standing up new customer locations. And then the other component of the security is the fact that the customers can bring their own security and apply anywhere. We're not blocking, we don't have any port filters or anything of this nature. >> If would think 5G actually, I could see people arguing both sides, but my sense is 5G is going to be a huge driver for your business cause it's going to just create so much more demand for your services, I think. I can see somebody arguing the counter about it. What's your point of view on that? >> No, I think that's a fair assessment. I think it's going to drive business for everyone here on the show floor and it's pushing those workloads more toward the edge, which is not an area that people were typically concerned with. The edge was just the door that they walked through. That's becoming much different now. We're also going to start seeing, and we're already seeing it, huge trends of moving that data at the edge rather than bringing it all the way back to a central warehouse and help ending it. The ability to have a dynamic platform where you can see exactly what your network's doing and in the push of a button, modify that, or provision new connectivity in response to how your business is performing. >> Yeah, ultimately it's all about the applications that are going to be driving demand for more data. That's just a tailwind for you guys. >> Yeah. You look at, some of the car companies are coming on, Tesla, you're drive around with like eight CPUs and I think communicating back over the air. >> Dave: Yeah, right. >> You start scaling that and you start getting into some some real bottlenecks. >> Amazing business you guys having obviously capital intensive, but once you get in there, you got a big moat. That is a matter of getting on a flywheel and innovating. Guys, congratulations on all the progress and so much for coming on theCUBE. >> Thanks for the time. >> Thank you very much. >> Great to meet you guys. Good luck. All right, thank you for watching. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE, the leader in High-Tech Coverage. We'll be right back. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Welcome back to Las Vegas everybody. You are watching theCube's coverage of AWS reinvent 2021. I'll tell you this place is packed. It's quite amazing here over 20,000 people, I'd say it's closer to 25, maybe 27,000. And there's a little overflow, lots going on in the evenings. It's quite remarkable. And we're really happy to be part of this. Jay Turner is here, he's the vice president of development and ops at PCCW Global. He's joined by Garrett Lowell, vice-president of ecosystem partnerships for the Americas at PCCW Global. Guys, welcome to theCube. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you so much. >> So, Jay, maybe you could take us through for those people who aren't familiar with your company, what do you guys do? What do you all about? >> Yes, so PCCW Global is the international operating wing of Hong Kong Telecom. So if it's outside of Hong Kong, it's our network. We've got about 695,000 kilometers of diverse cable. We've got about 43, 44 terabit of capacity. Came into business in 2005 if my brain is serving me correctly right now. So we have a very diverse and vast portfolio ranging all the way from satellite teleports, all the way to IP transit. We're a tier one service provider from that perspective as well. So we do one of everything when it comes to networking and that's really what was the basis of Console Connect, was inventing a platform to really enable our users to capitalize on that our network and our assets. >> Okay, so 2005, obviously you predated cloud, you laid a bunch of fibers, it's getting in the ocean, I mean, global networks, I mean, there was a big trend to do that and you had to think, you had to go bigger or go home and that business. >> Jay: Yes you had to do. >> So and Console Connect is your platform, is that right? So explain. >> Yeah, sorry. Yeah, Console Connect is our software defined interconnection platform. So we built a user self-service portal. Users can allocate ports, they get the LOAs issue to them directly from the platform. And then once they've got an active port or they've come in via one of our partnerships, they can then provision connectivity across our platform. And that may be extending to their data centers or extending or their branch office, or it could be building a circuit into the cloud via direct connect, could be building a circuit into an internet exchange. And all of those circuits are going to be across that 685,000 kilometers of diverse fiber rather than going across the public internet. >> So, when you started, it took some time obviously to build out that infrastructure and then the cloud came into play, but it was still early days, but it sounds like you're taking the cloud model, AWS Cloud model and applying that to your business, eliminate all that undifferentiated, heavy lifting, if you will, the visioning and management. >> Yeah, we've heard many people and that's kind of the impetus of this was, I want to be directly connected to my end point. And how do I do that? And AWS, yes, they had direct connect, but figuring out how to do that as an enterprise was challenging. So we said, hey, we'll automate that for you. Just tell us what region you want to connect to. And we'll do all the heavy lifting, and we'll just hand you back a villain tag. You're good to go. >> So it's a classic case of, okay, AWS has direct connect, people they go, "Ah, that's directly competitive, but it's not, you're adding value on top of that." Right. So describe where you fit Garrett inside of the AWS ecosystem. You look around this hall and it's just a huge growing ecosystem, where you fit inside of that ecosystem and then your ecosystem, what's that like? >> Okay, so where we fit into the AWS ecosystem, as Jay alluded to, we're adding value to our partners and customers where they can come in, not only are they able to access the AWS platform as well as other cloud platforms, but they're also able to access each other. So we have a marketplace in our platform, which allows our customers and partners to put a description of their services on the marketplace and advertise their capabilities out to the rest of the ecosystem of PCCW Global and Console Connect. >> Okay, so and you're doing that inside of AWS? I that right? Or at least in part? >> No, that's not inside of AWS. >> Okay, so your platform is your platform. >> Yes. >> And then, so your relationship with AWS is to sort of superpower direct connect, is that right or? >> So we're directly connected to AWS throughout the globe. And this allows our customers and partners to be able to utilize not only the PCCW Global network, but also to expand that capability to the AWS platform in clouds. >> Wherever there's a cloud you plug into it? Okay. >> That's correct. >> And then another advantage there is the customer, obviously doesn't have to be directly co-located with AWS. They don't have to be in the same geographic region. If for some reason you need to be connected to US West, but you're in Frankfurt, fine, we'll back all the traffic for you. >> Does that happen a lot? >> It actually does. >> How come? Why, what's the use case there? >> Global diversity is certainly one of them, just being able to have multiple footprints. But the other thing that we're seeing more of late is these cloud-based companies are beginning to kind of be attracted to where their customers are located. So they'll start seeing these pockets of use and they'll go, well, okay, we're going to go into that region as well, stand up a VPC there. And so then we want to our customers then being able to directly connect to that asset, that's closest to them. And then still be able to back call that traffic if necessary or take it wherever. >> What are the big, sort of macro trends in your business? I mean, broadly you see cost per bit coming down, you see data consumption and usage going through the roof. How does that affect you? What are some of the big trends that you see? >> I think one of the biggest ones and one that we targeted with Console Connect, we were hearing a lot of customers going, the world's changing so dynamically. We don't know how to do a one-year forecast of bandwidth, much less a three-year, which is what a lot of contracts are asking us for. So we said, hey, how about one day? Can you do one day? (Dave laughing) Because that's what our granularity is. So we allow for anything from one day up to three years right now, and then even within that term, we're dynamic. So if something happens, suddenly some product goes through the roof and you've suddenly got a spike in traffic. If a ship drags its anchor through a sub sea cable, and suddenly you're having to pivot, you just come into the platform, you click a couple of buttons, 20 seconds later, we've modified your bandwidth for you, or we've provisioned a new circuit for you. We've got your backup going whatever. Really at the end of the day, it's the customer paying for their network, so the customer should be the one making those decisions. >> How's that affect pricing? I presume, so I can have one date or a three-year term. Presume if I commit to three years, I get a better deal, is that right or? >> You do, but I mean, at the end of the day, it's actually pretty much a moderate, a better deal. We don't want to force the hand of the customer. So yeah, if you signed a 12 month contract with us, we're going to give you a 3% discount. >> Yeah, so it's not really, that's not a motivation to do it. Is just you want to reduce the transaction complexity. And that's why you would sign up for a longer term not to get the big discount. >> Correct. And then, like I said, even within a longer contract, we're still going to allow you to flex and flow and modify if you need to because it's your network. >> What kind of constraints do you put on that? Do I have to commit to a floor and then everything above that is I can flex up? Is that how it works? Okay. And then the more I commit to the better the deal is, or not necessarily? >> No, it's pretty much flat, right. >> So, okay. So I'm going to come in and I'm going to say, all right, I know I'm going to use X, I'll sign up for that and anything over it. You're pretty flexible, I might get a few points if I sign up for more, somebody might want to optimize that if they're big enough. >> And another really neat advantage, and the other complaint we heard from customers, they go, I need three different direct connect, or I need to be connected to three different parties, but I don't want to run three different cross-connects and I don't want to have three different ports. That's just an expense I don't want. And we say, fine, take your one gig port, run one gig of services on it, if that's 20 different services, we're fine. So we allow you to multiplex your port and provision- >> It's awesome. I love that model. I know some software companies who I would recommend take a look at that pricing model. So, Garrett, how do you segment the ecosystem? How do you look at that way? Maybe you could draw paint a picture sort of the, the ideal partners and what they look like. I know there's not just one category, but. >> Sure, so our ideal partners are internet exchanges, cloud partners, and SAS providers, because a big piece of our business is migration to the cloud. And the flexibility of our platform allows and encourages our SAS providers and SI partners to perform migration to the cloud much easier and flexible in a flexible format for their customers. >> Yeah, so what can you tell us, any kind of metrics you can give us around your business to give a sense of the the scope, the scale. >> Well, of our business, kind of one of the driving factors here, Gardner says that about 2023, I think 40% of the enterprise workloads will be deployed in the cloud, which is all fine and dandy, except in my head, you're just trading one set of complexities for another. So now, instead of having everything in a glass house and being able to kind of understand that now you're going, well, okay, so it's in the cloud now I need to manage my connectivity there. And, oh, well, wait a minute, are my security policies still the same? Do they apply if I'm going across the public internet? What exposure have I just, bought into myself to try to run this? So the platform really aims at normalizing that as much as possible. If you're directly connected to AWS, at the end of the day, that's a really long ethernet cable. So you're a glass house just got a lot bigger, but you're still able to maintain and use the exact same policies and procedures that you've been using. So that's really one of our guiding principles is to reduce that complexity and make it very simple for the user. >> Well, I don't understand, 'cause in the early days of cloud, a lot of enterprises, CIO they were concerned about security. And I think they realized that AWS has pretty good security, well, CIA is using it. But still people would say to me, it's not that it's bad security, it's just different. We move slow, Dave. So how do you accommodate, now I don't know, does that diversity, I mean, AWS has obviously matured, but are you suggesting that you can take my security edicts in my glass house and bring those into your networks and ultimately into the cloud? Is that kind of how it works? >> That's the goal. It's not going to be a panacea more than likely, but the more edicts that we can allow you to bring across and not have to go back and revamp and the better for you as a customer and the better really for us, because it normalizes things, it makes it much easier for us to accommodate more and more users. >> It is such now in the eco, it was all the diversity in the ecosystem. Is it such that there's enough common patterns that you you guys can kind of accommodate most of those use cases? >> Yeah, absolutely. I think the, one of the key components is the fact that the platform runs on our MPLS network, which is inherently secure. It's not on the public internet anywhere. Now we do have internet on demand capability. So in the event that a customer wants access to the internet, no problem, we can accommodate this. And we also have 5G capability built into the platform to allow flexibility of location and flexibility of... I would say, standing up new customer locations. And then the other component of the security is the fact that the customers can bring their own security and apply anywhere. So we're not blocking, we don't have any port filters or anything of this nature. >> Well, I would think 5G actually, I mean, I could see people arguing both sides, but my sense is 5G is going to be a huge driver for your business, 'cause it's going to just create so much more demand for your services I think, I could see somebody arguing the counter, but what's your point of view on that? >> No. I think that's a fair assessment. I think it's going to drive business for everyone here on the show floor. And it's pushing those workloads more toward the edge, which is not an area that people were typically concerned with. The edge was just the door that they walked through. That's becoming much different now. And we're also going to start seeing, and we're already seeing it, huge trends of moving that data at the edge, rather than bringing it all the way back to a central warehouse in Hare pending it. So, again, the ability to have a dynamic platform where you can see exactly what your network's doing and in the push of a button, modify that, or provision new connectivity in response to how your business is performing. >> Yeah, and ultimately it's all about the applications that are going to be driving demand for more data. And that's just a tailwind for you guys. >> Yeah, yeah and then you look at some of the car companies are coming on, you know, Tesla, you're driving around with like eight CPU's in that thing, communicating back over the air. >> Dave: Yeah right. >> You start scaling that, and you start getting into some real bottleneck. >> Amazing business you guys having, obviously capital intensive, but once you get in there, you've got a big moat, and then it's a matter of getting on a flywheel and innovating. Guys, congratulations on all the progress and thanks so much for coming on theCube. >> Yeah. No, thanks for the time. >> Thank you very much. >> Yeah, great to meet you guys. Good luck. All right. Thank you for watching. This is Dave Vellante for theCube, the leader in high-tech coverage, right back. (upbeat music)

>> Live, from Toronto, Canada, it's theCUBE! Covering Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit 2018, brought to you by theCUBE. >> So, welcome to the Global Cloud and Blockchain Summit. I'm about to hand you over to John Furrier, who is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of SiliconANGLE Media and Executive Editor at theCUBE, he's about to do a Fireside Chat with Al and Mathew, I'll let him introduce you to them as well. He's also involved in a major blockchain project himself, so he's going to get into that with those guys as well. So, and tomorrow we start at nine, in the meantime, enjoy the evening, enjoy the food, enjoy the chat, and I'll let you go. >> Okay. Hello? Thank you Ruth, appreciate it, thanks everyone for being part of this panel, Fireside Chat, want to make it loose, but high impact for you guys, I know, having some cocktails, having a good time. If there's any questions during, then at the end we'll pass the mic around, but. We want to have a conversation, kind of like we always do down in the lobby bar, just talking about crypto and cloud, and we ended up talking about cloud computing and crypto a lot because those are two areas that are kind of converging, and the purpose of this event. So we really wanted to share some thoughts around those two massively growing markets, one is already growing, it's continuing to be great: the cloud, and blockchain certainly is changing everything. These two important topics, we want to flesh them out, Al Burgio is the Serial Entrepreneur/Founder of DigitalBits, he's founded companies both in cloud and blockchain, so he brings a great perspective. And Matt Roszak, leading crypto investor, entrepreneur and advocate, well known in the crypto space for goin' way back, I think you gave a couple bitcoins to some very famous people early on, we'll get into that a little bit later. So guys, thanks for being part of the panel and Fireside. First question is: we know how big the money is, I mean the money is crypto is is flowin' around the world, and cloud computing we've seen specifically, and certainly in coverage now with Amazon's success, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft and others. Trillions of dollars being disrupted in the traditional kind of the enterprise, data center area, and blockchain is doing that too, so we want to get into that. But first, before we get into it, I want you guys to take a minute to explain for the folks, just to set the context, the kinds of projects you're working on. Now Al, you have DigitalBits, Matt you're investing and you're finding a lot of interesting token dynamics. So just take a minute. Al, start. >> (mic off) So-- Everybody hear me okay? Alright, perfect. Well thanks for that lovely intro. Yes, my name is Al Burgio, I'm, I've founded a few companies, as John mentioned. Before the cloud there was internet, (light laugh) and so it started for me in the late '90s in the e-commerce era. But more recently I pioneered what's known as Interconnection 2.0, and I did that with the company called Console, for those that may know PCCW, recently it was acquired by PCCW. And with that we disrupted the way networks at the core of the internet were connected together More recently I've founded the DigitalBits project, and now DigitalBits blockchain network, and with that, you can kind of think of that as the trading and transaction layer for the points economy and other digital assets, and you can do a lot of really interesting thing with that, it's really about bringing blockchain to the masses. >> Matt, what're you workin' on? >> So, Matthew Roszak, Co-Founder and Chairman of Bloq. Bloq is a enterprise software company, we do two things, the premise is the tokenization of things, so we think the money identity, new layers of the internet are going to be tokenized. And so, we go to market in two ways, one is through Bloq Enterprise, and these are all the software layers you need to to connect to tokenized networks, so think a wallet, a node, a router, etc. And then Bloq Labs we build, and partner with, some of the leading tokenize networks and applications, so we build a connective tissue and then we actually build these new networks. I started this space as an investor over five/six years ago, investing in some of the best entrepreneurs and technologists in the space build a great network. But I love building companies, and so my Co-Founder and I, Jeff Garzik, built Bloq two and a half years ago. And then lastly, also serve of Chairman of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, so, so if you believe in these new tokenized money layers, identity layers, etc, regulation comes into play. Certainly today from an institutional adoption level, and so if you care about this space, you need to spend time to kind of help that dialogue improve; this technology moves way faster than folks in DC and elsewhere, so. >> And the project that we're workin' on at SiliconANGLE, is we've tokenized our media platform, and we're opening it up to a token model, and have kind of changed the game. So all three of us have projects, want to put those in context, we build everything on Amazon Web Services, so, the view of the cloud, we also cover it. The cloud computing market is booming, we see that Amazon Web Services numbers empower the earnings for Amazon's company, obviously Apple's trillion dollar evaluation those are clear case studies; but blockchain could potentially disrupt it all, and Al, I want to get your thoughts, because even today in the news at Microsoft Azure, which is their big cloud provider, announced blockchain as a service. And folks that are in either the data center business or in cloud know the shift that's happening in the IT world, but no ones really connected the dots on where blockchain intersects, and also, is it an opportunity for the cloud guys, what's the landscape look like, so. What's your thoughts on that, how are they connected, what does it mean, how does a cloud company maintain their relevance and competitiveness with blockchain? >> Well, just pointing on the fact that, you know, today we had that new Microsoft, the Azure cloud, their support and evangelism for blockchain. You know, a company, I think it's very important that this isn't an ICO, two kids in a garage saying their doing something blockchain this is a massive, multi-billion dollar company; and making a decision like that is not trivial, it's many, many departments, a lot of resources, before such a thing's announced. So, that's, not only is it validation, but it's a leading indicator as to this trend, that this is clearly something that's important. And a lot of people, if you're not paying attention, you need to be paying attention, including if you're in the cloud industry, 'cause many companies obviously do compete with, with Microsoft and AWS, so. It may be still early, but it's not that early, in light of the news that we saw today. With that, I would say that, a lot of the parallels I like to kind of, if I was an infrastructure provider I'd look at this from the standpoint of the emergence of Linux when it first came on the scene. What was important for companies like Red Hat to be successful, they had competition at the time, and you had shortages of Linux, let's say engineers, and what have you. And so, a company like Red Hat built a business around that, and they did that by how they kind of surfaced and validated themselves to the enterprise of that era, was partnering with hardware companies, so, it was Intel, IBM, and then Dell, HP, and they all followed, and then all of a sudden, which version of Linux do you want to use? It's Red Hat, you're paying for that support, you're paying Red Hat. And, you know, then they had their hockey stick moment. Today, you know, it's not about hardware companies per se, it's about the cloud, right? So cloud is the new hardware per se, and many enterprises obviously are looking at cloud computing companies and cloud computing providers, infrastructure providers, as the company that they need to support them with the infrastructure that they use, or sorry the technologies that they use, right? Because they're not necessarily supporting these things and making sure that they're always on within the basement of that enterprise, they're depending, or outsourcing, to depending on these managed IT providers. This was very important that whatever technologies they're using in the lab, that ultimately their infrastructure partners are able to support the implementation, the integration, the ongoing support of these technologies. So if you think of blockchain like an operating system or a database technology, or whatever you want to call it, it's important that you're able to really identify these key trends, and be able to support your customer and what they're going to need, and ultimately for them, they can't have a clog in their digital supply chain, right? So, it's clearly emerging. Microsoft is validating that today, you know, clearly they have the data, that they're seeing for their existing enterprise customers, and they don't want to lose them. >> Yeah, but remember when cloud came out; you and I have talked about this many times Al that it wasn't easy to use, I remember when Amazon Web Services came out, it was just basically, it was hard to command line, basically you had to use it, so, it became easier now, it's so easy and consumable. Blockchain, similar growing pains, but, we don't want to judge it too early with the opportunity that it has, it's going to get easier, what're your thoughts? And it has to scale by the way, Amazon, at a large scale. >> Yeah, I mean-- >> So blockchain has to scale and be easier, your thoughts? >> Another kind of way to think of it is, to not necessarily think of cloud computing, but the evolution the internet went, you know, in Internet 1.0, you know, we went through this dial-up modem era, things were very raw back then; great visions we had of the future, like, it's going to be amazing for video one day! But, not during dial-up modem era, and eventually, you know, it eventually happened. And user interfaces improved, and tool sets improved and so forth. You know, fast forward to today, we have all of that innovation to leverage, so things will move a lot faster with blockchain, it did start very raw, but it's, it's moving much faster than anything we've seen definitely in the '90s and in the last decade, so. It's just, you know, it's a matter of moments, not years. >> And I think Al brings up a great point on leverage, because Amazon leverages infrastructure to a point where it's larger than Google, Azure, and IBM's public cloud combined, and so yeah, massive leverage there. And so, when these big cloud providers provide this blockchain as a service, it is instrumented and built on top of their existing infrastructure, not necessarily on blockchain infrastructure. So, it's an interesting dynamic where they're putting it on top of existing infrastructure that's there, but what's being build right now is the decentralized Amazon Web Services. So you have every layer of Amazon being re-imagined, like, and incentivized so you have distributed compute and access and storage and database. And so, what will be interesting to see is that, given this massive opportunity, will Amazon and some of these other incumbent cloud providers become the provisioning networks of the future? Of all this new decentralized resources that get, again, if you want storage, you have to start having smarts to say: if I'm going to go to Sia or Filecoin or Genaro or Storj, compute, etc; you have to start being a provisioning layer on top of that to kind of, you know, make that blockchain essentially work. So, it'll be interesting to see the transition 'cause today the lightweight versions to say yeah, I have a blockchain as a service strategy, and that's like, well done, and check the box. Now, the question is how far in this new world will they go down? And, as it gets more decentralized, as universities and governments, corporations, plug their access utility into these networks, and to see how that changes. That is much bigger than the Amazon of today. >> I think that's an interesting point, I want to just drill down on that if you don't mind, 'cause I think that's a fundamental observation that every layer's going to be decentralized. The questions I think I'm asking and I'm seeing is: How does it all work together? And then what's the priorities? And the old model was easy; got to get the infrastructure, got to get servers, (laughs lightly) and you know, work your way up to the top of the stack. What cloud brings also is that: a software developer can whip up an application, maybe a dApp on a test network and go viral, and the next thing you know they have a great opportunity, and then they got to build down. So the question is: What are you seeing in terms of priorities on stacks, portions of the stack that are being decentralized and tokenized, do you see patterns, trends, as an investor, is there a hotter (laughs) area than others, how do you look at that? >> Well, I think it's, it's in motion right now it's, like I said, every layer of AWS is getting thought through in how to create these digital cooperatives, I have excess storage, I'm going to contribute it to this network, and I'm going to get paid in tokens when a user uses that storage network, and pays for it in those native tokens and so that, coupled with all the other layers, is happening. From a user perspective, we may not want to be going to pick a database provider, a storage, a compute, etc, we're likely going to say: I want a provisioning layer, and provision this and execute this, much like if we, you know, there'll be new provisioning layers for moving money, I don't care if routes through Lightning or Litecoin or Doge or whatever, as long as the value gets across the pond or the app gets provisioned appropriately based on you know, time, security, and cost, and whatever other tendance are important, that's all I care about, but; given the depth and the market for all that, I think it'll be interesting to see how these are developed with the provisioning layers, and I would think Amazon or Azure, the future of that is, is more provisioning than actually going and doing all that at the end of the day. >> That's great. I want to get your thoughts guys on innovation. My good friend Andy Kessler wrote an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal around, an article around the government, the US government getting involved. You know, there's Twitter, Facebook, the big platforms, in terms of how they're handling their media, but it brings up a good point that with more regulation, there's less innovation. You mentioned some things outside the United States, it's a global cloud, cloud's operating globally with regions, it's a global fabric. Startups are really hot in this area so; how do you view the ecosystems of startups, in terms of being innovative, things happening that you think that're good, and things that aren't good, obviously I'm not a big of the government getting involved, and managing startups, the ecosystems but, blockchain has a lot of alpha entrepreneurs jumping in, you've looked at all the top ventures, the legit ventures, they're all alpha entrepreneurs, multi-time serial entrepreneurs, they see the opportunity and they go for it. Is the startup environment good, is there enough innovation opportunities, what're you thoughts on the opportunity to be innovative? >> Yeah, Al and I were just talking about this before the panel here, and were talking about our travels in Asia, and when we go there it is 10, 100 X of energy and get-it factor, and capital, and the markets are just wildly more vibrant than you know, going to some typical markets here in San Fran and New York in North America, and, so it's interesting to see that when you heat map the world, what's really happening. And you know, people are always saying: oh well this, this FinTech, or InsurTech, or whatever tech, is going to make a dent in Silicon Valley or Wall Street. This technology, this new frontier, is definitely going to do that. I think some of that will get put into more focus based on regulation, and there's two things that will happen; there's obviously a lot of whippersnapper countries that are promoting a safe place to innovate with crypto, I think Malta, Gibraltar, Barbados, etc, and there were-- >> Even Bermuda's getting in on the mix now. >> Yeah! I mean so there's no shortage of that, and so, and obviously this ecosystem outpaces the pace of regulation and then we'll see like the US doing something, or you know, other fast followers to try and catch up, and say hey, we're going to do the cryptocurrency act of 2022, miners get free power, tax-free, you know crypto trading, you know just try and play catch up. 'Cause it's kind of hard in the last year or 18 months we've seen this ecosystem go from this groundswell to this now institutional discussion; and how do you back end the the banking, the custody, all these form factors that are still relatively absent. And so, you know, we're right in the middle of it. >> It's a whole new way, you got to follow the money, right? Al, you and I talked about this; capital markets, you know entrepreneurs need to raise money and that's a good thing, you need to get capital to do stuff. >> Yeah, this is a new phenomenon that the world has never experienced before, it's awesomeness when it comes to capital formation; you know, without capital formation there is no innovation. And so the fact that more capital can be raised, it's the ultimate crowd sourcing in such an efficient period of time, capital being able, the ability to track capital from various different corners of the world, and deploy that capital to try to fuel innovation. Of course, you know, not all startups or what have you succeed, but that was true yesterday, right? You know, 90% of startups fail, but they all will give it some meaningful amounts of checks, people were employed and innovation was tried; and every once in a while something emerges that's amazing. If you can do that faster, right, when you have the opportunity to produce more and more innovation. And, of course with something so new as cryptocurrency, things like ICOs and what have you, people may kind of refer to it as the wild wild West, it's not, it's an evolution. And you have-- >> It's still the wild west though, you got to admit. (laughs) >> Well, it is but, we're getting better at it, right? As a world, this isn't the Silicon Valley community getting better at venture capital or some other part of the United States or Canada getting better at venture capital; this is the world as a whole getting better at capital formation. >> Yeah, that's a great point. >> In the new way of capital formation. >> And I wanted to just get an observation on that. I moved to Silicon Valley 20 years ago, and I love it there, for venture capital and new startups, it's the best place in the world. And I've seen people try to replicate Silicon Valley, we're the Silicon Valley of Canada, we're the Silicon Valley of the East or Europe, and it's always been hard to replicate, because it was a venture model, and you needed venture capitalists and you need money, you need a community, the culture, the failure, the starting over, and just, you know, gettin' back on the horse kind of thing. Crypto is the first time that I've seen the replica of that Silicon Valley dynamic, in a new way, because the money's flowing, (laughs) and there's community involved in crypto, crypto has a big community aspect to it. Do you guys see that as well? I mean I'm seeing, outside the United States, a lot of activity. Is that something that you're seeing? >> So, the first time we saw, well, last time we saw everybody trying to replicate Silicon Valley was first internet, you know, there was Silicon Swamp, there was Silicon Alley, there was silicon this-- >> Prairie. >> Every city was >> Silicon Beach. >> A silicon version of something, and then the capital evaporated, right? We had a mass correction happen. What wasn't being disrupted was value exchange, right, and so this is being created now, it is now possible for this to happen, and it's happening, we're seeing amazing things, Matt said, you know, in Asia. It's a truly awesome force, if anybody has an opportunity to go, they should go, it's unbelievable to experience it, and it really opens your eyes. >> And you've lived through a lot of investments during those .com days and through history now, you've seen a lot of different things. Your observations with the current state of the capital formation, startup landscapes, the global ecosystem around crypto and how it's different from say venture or classic rolling up companies and those kinds of things? >> Yeah, you hear a lot of this, you know, we're in a bubble, it's speculative, etc. And I think that when you look back at history of infrastructure, whether it's railroads, telephony, internet, and now crypto and blockchain, it's interesting, like, if you said: it would take this amount of money to innovate and come out the other end of internet with this kind of infrastructure, these kinds of applications, with these kinds of lessons learned, nobody would sign up for that number, right? It needs this fear, and greed, and all the other effervescence of markets to kind of come out the other end and have innovation. I think we're going through a very similar dynamic here with crypto and blockchain where you know, everything's getting tokenized, everything's getting decentralized. We're talking about fundamental things like money, you know, it's not like we're talking about pet food and women's shoes and airline tickets, we are talking about money, identity, things that will enable like other curves to really come into focus like in and out of things and the kind of compounding of intersections when some of these things get right is pretty extraordinary. And so, but I like what Al said in terms of capital formation and that friction to get from, you know, idea to capital to building, is getting compressed Yes, there will be edge cases of people taking advantage of that, but at the other end of this flow will be some amazing innovation. >> What do you guys think about the, if you had to answer the question with one answer, of what is the high order bit of why blockchain's so important? For me, I see it, from my standpoint, I'll just start, I see it making inefficient things more efficient for any use case, and that's being re-imagined, which is everything from IOT or whatever. Efficiency is a big thing, at least I see that. What do you guys see as a high order bit in terms of you know, the one thing that you'd say blockchain really impacts the world in terms of you know, impact, financial, etc? >> Well, I think with decentralization and all these things that we're seeing it's kind of evened the playing field. It's allowing for participation where parts of the world were unable to participate. And it's doing a whole lot of things in that area. And that's truly awesome, to really grow the economy, grow the global market, and the number of participants in that market in all areas. That's the ultimate trend at what's happening here. >> And your information? >> Absolutely, and I think there's two things, there's this blockchain dialogue, and then there's this crypto decentralization, tokenization dialogue, and on the blockchain side you have lots of companies engaging in blockchain and trying to figure out how it applies to their business, and you hear everything from McKinsey and Goldman saying financial services will save 100 billion dollars in operating expenses by applying blockchain technology, and that's great. That is probably low in terms of what they'll save, it's, to me, is just not the point of the technology, I think that when you kind of distill that down to say hey, for a group of folks to use this technology as a shared services thing to lower opex a trading settlement and decrease that, that's great, that is a step stone to creating these tokenized economies, these digital cooperatives. Meaning you contribute something and then you get something back, and it's measured in the value that this token is, like a barometric kind of value of how healthy that ecosystem is. And so, regulated public enterprises, and EC consortiums around insurance and financial services and banking, that is all fantastic, and that gets them in the pool, gets them exercising on what blockchain is, what it isn't, how they apply it, but it's, at the end of the day for them it's cost reduction The minute there's growth or IP, or disruption on the table, they're all going back to their boardrooms to say: hey let's do this, this, or that, but, if there's a way, my favorite class in college was industrial organization, and it sounds weird but, it was, it kind of told ya like how to dissect an industry, you know, what makes them competitive, who the market leaders are, and then, if you overlay like blockchain networks with tokens, with incentives, interesting things could happen, right? And so that future is going to be real interesting to see how market leaders think about how to tokenize their network, how to be, how to say: no I don't want to own this whole industrial network, I have to engage with some other participants and make sure everybody is incentivized to climb on board. So that I think is going to be more of the interesting part than just blockchain-ifying a workflow. >> Well let's just quickly drill down on that, token economics, what you're getting to. So let's assume blockchain just happens, as evolution of technology, let's just assume for a second that it's going to happen in a big way, it's private, public, hybrid chains, with all that good stuff happening, but the token economics is where the business value starts to be extracted, so the question for you is: How do you describe that to someone to look for, what are the key elements of token economics? When does it matter, when is it in play, and how should they be thinking about it? >> Yeah, I mean token economic design and getting a flywheel going to create a network and network effects is really important. You could have great technology, but Al could be a better marketer, and he gets tokens adopted better, and his network will do better because, you know, he was better able to get people to adopt and market a particular, you know, layer application. And so, it's really important to think about how you get that flywheel going, and how you get that kindling going on a particularly new ecosystem, and get users adoption and growth. That is really hard to do these days because some people don't even know what Bitcoin is, let alone to say I'm going to tokenize this layer, and every time you contribute, every time you take an action, you're going to get rewarded for it, and you're share the value of this network. >> Can you give me a good example of what's happening today that you can point to and say: that's a great example of token economics? >> Well, you see, I mean the most basic one is shared file storage, right? You know, it's like the Filecoin, Sia, Genaro model where, you know, you contribute you know, the unused storage in your laptop or your university data center or a corporate data center, and you say I'm going to contribute this, and when it's used I get these tokens and, you know at the end of the day or week or year you see what these tokens are worth, and was that worth your contribution? And so as these markets develop, and as utility develops, we'll see what that holds. >> Al, you got an example you could share? DigitalBits is a good use case obviously. >> Actually, I'm not going to use DigitalBits (John laughs) just to be neutral. This is one that Matt will know very well, definitely better than I, but one that I've-- the simpler something is, the easier it is for people to understand, and its like oh that makes sense, you know. You know, Binance is one that's very simple, you know it's a payment token, if you pay with some other currency, you pay, you know, Pricex, if you pay in the next few years with their token, you'll get the service at a discount. And in addition to that, they're using a percentage of profits, I think it's every quarter, to buy back up to, ultimately up to, 50% of tokens that are in circulation. So, you know, it's driving value, and driving return, in essence, if I can use that word. So for a user it's simple to understand, for someone that likes to speculate it's easy for someone to understand in terms of how the whole model works, so it's not some insanely complicated mathematical equation, that we can yes we can trust the math. And so in some cases, some adoption is going to just be, you know, attract participants based on simplicity. In other cases the math is important, and people will care about that, so, you know not all things are necessarily equal, and not necessarily one method is right, but there are some simple examples out there that that have proven to be successful. >> That's awesome, one last question, before we open it up if anyone has any questions. If anyone has any questions, if they want to come up, grab the microphone, and ask the three of us if you've got anything on your mind. And while you're thinking about that I'll get the final question for these guys is: A lot of people ask me hey, I want to be on the right side of history, what side of the street should I be on when the reality comes down that decentralization, blockchain, token economics, decentralized applications, becomes the norm, and that re-imagining actually happens? I don't want to be on the wrong side of history. What should I be doing, how should I be thinking differently, who should I be following, what should I be paying attention to? How do you answer that question? >> I think, at the basic level, you know, turn off your phone, lock your door, and study this technology for a day, it's the best advice I could give. Two: buy some crypto. Once you kind of have crypto on your phone, in your wallet, something changes in your brain, I think you just feel like you-- >> You check the prices every day. (all laugh) >> You lose a lot of sleep. And then after that, you know, I think you start engaging in this space in a very different way. So I think starting small, starting basic, is an important tenet. And then, what's amazing about this space is that it attracts the best and brightest out of industry, and law, and government, and technology, and you name it, and I'm always fascinated the people that show up and they're like yeah, I'm in a 20 year, you know, veteran in this space and I want to get into blockchain, it just attracts some of the best and brightest. And, I think we're going to see a lot of experience coming into the space, you know, this has been a, what I'd say a bottoms up groundswell of crypto and blockchain and the evolution of the space. And I think we're starting to see more some more mature folks come in the space to to add some history and perspective and helpin' the build out of this, and to build a lot of these networks. I think that the kind of intersection of both is going to be very healthy for the space. >> Al, your thoughts? >> Definitely agree with Matt. Definitely to lock yourself up and just try to absorb information, everyone has access to the internet, there's plenty of information. If you don't like to read go watch a few YouTube videos, just people explaining the stuff, it's really fascinating, the various different use cases and so forth. You definitely have to buy some, and, you know, whether it's five dollars worth, just go through the whole experience of being able to trade something of value that a few years ago didn't exist, and be able to trade it for something else of value is a pretty phenomenal experience. Then trying to go buy something with it, it's even more of a fascinating experience, I just bought something that used, again, something that didn't exist a few years ago. But, what I would add to that as well, you really have to get out there; if you keep surrounding yourself with people saying aw, this is, eh, whatever, >> It's never going to work. >> It's crazy, it's for criminals, and all that fun stuff. You're going to be last place. So coming to conferences, obviously future's conference you're going to meet a lot of interesting, great people, and that consistent experience, you'll learn something every time. You know, at the end of the day, I remember, I'm sure all three of us remember, with the birth of the internet there was many people that said you know the internet thing, it's crap, it's for kids, you know. And we had first movers, we had willing followers, and then the unwilling followed, you don't want to end up being-- >> The unwilling followers. >> Yeah, the unwilling. >> Alright. Does anyone have any questions they'd like to ask? Come on up. Yeah. We're recording, so we want to get it on film. >> So I have two questions. The first one is for you, Al: Two years ago I interviewed with IIX before it was Console, and I want to know why you didn't hire me? (Sparse laughs) No I'm kidding! That was a joke. Actually, I thought each of you brought up some good points, minus you Al. (chuckles) I'm just kidding. But what I really wanted to ask you guys is: so you talk a lot about this, the tokenized economy and kind of the roadmap and the things to get there, you talk about sediment layer, right, Fiat to crypto, sediment layer, your identity protocols, your dApps, X, Y, Z, right? The whole web 3.0 stack, I want each of you, or I want at least input from both of you or all of you, what are the hurdles to getting to a full adoption of web 3.0 stack, and make a bold prediction on the timing before we have a full web 3.0 stack that we use every day. >> That is a awesome question actually, timelines. You could be, being in technology, being in venture, you could be right, and you could be off by three, five, seven, 10 years, and be so wrong, right? And then at your retirement dinner you could say: I was right, but Tommy wasn't right. So, this is really hard technology, in terms of building systems that are distributed, creating the economic models, the incentive models, it takes a lot to go right in the intersection of all this. But it's not a question like is this happening? No, this is happening, this is like, it's in motion. The timelines are going to be a little elusive, I'm way more pragmatic, I was one of the early guys in the early internet, and you know everything was going to be .com and awesome and fantastic. But the timelines were a little elusive then, right? You know, it's like when was, people are thinking of today's Amazon was going to be the 2005 Amazon, you know, it's like, that took about another decade to get there, right? And people could easily just buy stuff and a drone or a UPS guy would just deliver it, and so, similar things apply today. And you know at the same time we all have a super computer in our pocket, and so it's a lot different. At the same time we're dealing with trusted mediums right? The medium of money, the medium of identity, all these different things they're, they're things that you know if I say download Instagram, and let's share cat pictures or whatever, it's not a big deal, our trust is really low for that, let's do it. For money, it's a different mental state, it's a different dynamic, especially if you're an individual, a government, or an enterprise, you go through a whole different adoption curve on that, so, you know, it is at grand scale five to 10 years, right? In any meaningful way. And so we still have a lot of work to do. >> My answer to that question, it's a good one, your question was a good one, my answer's a little bit weird because it's multi-generational. The first generation pivot was when the internet was born was because of standards, right? The government had investment. The OSI model, open system interconnect, actually never happened, the seven layers didn't get standardized, only a few key ones did; that created a lot of great things. And then when the we came out, that was very interesting protocol development there, the TCP/IP stuff, I mean HTP stuff. I don't see the standardization happening, because cloud flipped the stack model upside down because Amazon and these guys let the software developers drive the value. It used to be infrastructure drove the value of what software could do, then software became so proliferated that that drove the value of the infrastructure, so the whole cloud computing equation is making the infrastructure programmable for the first time, not the other way around, so. The cloud phenomenon's all about software driving the value, and that's happening, so. It's interesting because with blockchain you can almost do levels of services in a cloud-like way with crypto, I mean with blockchain and token economics, and have a partial stack. So think that this whole web 3.0 might be something that no one's every seen before. So, that's kind of my answer, I don't really know if that's going to be right or not, but just looking at the future, connecting the dots, it's probably not going to look like what we've seen before, and if the cloud's an indicator it's probably going to be some weird looking stack where certain sections are working, and then evolution might fill in the other ones, so. I mean, that's my take, I mean, but standards will play a role, the communities will have to get involved around certain things, and I think that's a timeless concept. >> Timing. >> Oh, timing. I think it's going to be pretty quick, I think if you look at the years it took for internet, and then the web, everything's being compressed down, but I think it's going to be much shorter. If it was a 20 year cycle in the past, that gets shortened down to 15 with the internet, and this could be five years. So five to 10 years, that could be the impact in my mind. The question I always ask is: what year will banks no longer be involved in anything? Is that 20 years or 10 years? (laughs) Exactly, so, yeah, follow the money. >> So I would say that in terms of trying to keep your finger on the pulse with things and how you kind of things, see things evolve; things are definitely moving a lot faster, you know in the past you would probably say seven to 10, I'm not sure if I would say five, sorry five to 10, it definitely feels to me that it's five max til we could start to see some of these key things fall into place, so. >> So could you answer the first question? >> What was the first question? >> Why didn't you hire me? (audience cringes) >> We've met before? Sorry. (all laugh) >> I have a question, this is Dave Vellante, Co-Host of theCUBE. And I want to pick up on something John you just said, and Matt you were talking about Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, it's not about them saving hundreds of millions of dollars, it's really about them transforming business, so. And John, you just asked the question about banks, I want to actually get your answer to this: Will traditional banks, in your opinion, lose control of payment systems? Not withstanding your bias. (laughter) >> Yeah, I am definitely biased on this. But, I mean, I've been in front of the C-suite of banks, credit card companies, etc, and I said, you know, in about a decade, the center of what you do and how you make money is going to be zero. And, 'cause there'll be networks, and ways to transmit money that'll be by far cheaper, or will be subsidized by other networks, meaning, and those networks are Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, you know, Tencent, whatever networks that're out there, that're engaging in collaboration and commerce and everything else, they will give away payments as just a courtesy, like people give away messaging or email or something, as a courtesy to that network, and will harden that network, and it'll be built and based on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, so they don't necessarily have to worry about, you know, kind of subtle payments. But these new networks will start to encroach on banks, the banks are not worried about other banks today, the banks should be worried about these new networks that're being developed. >> How many people still have a home phone line? >> That was elegant, I like that. >> You know, I mean there's a generation of people that still like going to banks, they'll keep them in business for a while. But I think that comes to an end. >> I mean, when we covered a lot of the big data market when it started, the argument was mobile will kill the banks outlets, and now with ATMs there's more bank, more baking branches than ever before, so I think the services piece is interesting. >> And also, if you look at even the cloud basis, the software as a service, SaaS space, a decade, decade and a half ago, you would ask SAP, Oracle, what have you, what's your cloud strategy? And they'd be like cloud? That's just more efficient delivery model, not interested. 90 some billion dollars of M and A later, SAP, Oracle, etc, are cloud companies, right? And so, if banks kind of get into that same mode to say well, yeah, we need to play catch up and buy digital currency exchanges and multi-currency wallets, and this infrastructure and plumbing to be relevant in the next world, that would be interesting. But I think technology companies have as much an advantage to do that as as financial services companies, so it'll be interesting to see who kind of goes into that, goes into the crypto ecosystem to make that their own. >> It's interesting. We were talking before we came on and the OSS market, operational support systems is booming, and that's traditionally been these big operational outsource companies would manage big projects, but, if you look at in the first half of 2018, there's been a greater than 20 billion dollar commercial exits of companies through private equity merchants, IPOs, around OSS, and that's where we see operational things happening, CoreOS, Alfresco, MuleSoft, Pivotal went public, Magneto, GitHub, Treasure Data, Fastly, Elastic, DataStax, they're all in the pipeline. These are all companies that aren't cloud, they're like running stuff in cloud, so, this could be a tell sign that potentially the the blockchain operating market is going to be potentially a big one. >> Yeah, and then even look at BitMate, the world's largest miner in crypto. So, they did about a billion dollars in profit last year, did about a billion dollars in profit just in the first quarter going public, just raised a billion dollars last month, at a reportedly 50 to 70 billion dollar evaluation in Hong Kong in the next month, and the amount of money they'll raise will eclipse what Facebook raised. And so I think the institutional, the hardware, the cloud computing, the whole ecosystem starts to like resonate and think about this space a lot differently, and we need these milestones, we need these, whether they're room huddles or data points to kind of like think about how this is going to affect your business and what you do tomorrow morning. >> Any more questions from the crowd? Audience? Okay, great, well thanks for attending, appreciate you guys watching and listening, and guys thanks for the conversation; cloud and blockchain convergence. Collision course, or is it going to happen nicely, Al? >> Yeah, I think it's going to be a convergence, I don't see it necessarily as a collision course. >> And a lot of money to be made on this opportunity these days, and cloud convergence with blockchain. >> I concur with Al, I think there's going to be convergence, I think us most smarter players will engage and figure out their models in this new crypto and tokenized era. >> Thanks so much guys, appreciate it, give these guys a round of applause. (audience applause) Thank you very much. (bubbly music)