>>from around the globe. It's the Cube presenting Cuban cloud brought to you by Silicon angle. Hello. We wanna welcome back to the Cuban cloud where we're talking to CEOs, C. E. O s, chief technology officers and investors. On the future of Cloud with me is Dave Humphrey, who is the managing director and co head of Private Equity North America at Bain Capital. They've welcome to the Cube. First time, I think. >>First time. Yeah, David, thanks very much for having so >>let's get right into it. As an investor, how are you thinking about the evolution of cloud? When you look back at the last decade, you know it's not gonna be the same, uh, in this coming decade, you know, Thio ironic 2020 is has thrown us into, you know, the accelerated digital transformation and cloud. But how do you look at the evolution of cloud from an investment perspective? What's your thesis? >>That's a great question, David. You know, for us, we're focused on investing in technology and really across the economy. And I'd say the cloud is the overarching trends and dynamic in the technology markets. And really, for two reasons, one is a major shift. Of course, that's going on. But the second and frankly, even more interesting one to us is all the growth that the cloud is creating in the technology marketplace. You know the ship. It has been well covered. But five years ago in 2015, by our analysis, two thirds of all computing workloads were done on premises and Onley. Five years later, that's that's flipped. So two thirds of all computing workloads now done done in the cloud. And, of course, that shift. There's a lot of ramifications as an investor. But even more interesting dust is the growth in technology and the usage of technology that the cloud is creating. So over that same period of time, the total number of computing workloads run has increased by 2.6 times just a five year period time, which is really a a dramatic thing. And it makes sense when you think about all the new software applications that could be created, all the data that could be used by new users and new segments, and the real time inside that could be gleaned from that is that growth that really were focused on investing behind a Z. Investors in technology. You >>know, it's interesting you just took share those numbers and you hear a lot of numbers. I I actually think you you know, you your even being conservative. You know, Ginny Rometty used to talk about 80% of workloads or are still on Prem. Andy Jassy it reinvent said that 96% of spending is still on premises. So that was kind of an interesting stat. And I guess the other thing that I would, I would note is it's not just a share shift. It is. It's not just, you know, the cloud eating away it on Prem. We've clearly seen that, but there's also incremental opportunity as well. If you look at snowflake, for example, and adding value on top of, you know across multiple clouds and creating new markets, so there's there's that, you know, double that 12 punch of stealing share from on Prem but also incremental growth, which is probably accelerated as a result of this, you know, compressed digital transformation. So when you look at the Big Three cloud players, I mean roughly speaking, they probably account for $80 billion in total revenue which I guess is a small portion of the overall I t. Market. So it has a a long way to go. But But what's the best way to get good returns from an investment standpoint without getting clobbered by their tendency to sometimes coop some of the best ideas and put them on their primary services? >>Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, for us, uh, it really comes back to the same fundamental principles we look for in any investment, which is finding a business that solves a really important problem for its customers and does so in a way that's really advantaged vs competition can and do something that other competitors just can't do, whether those be the hyper scale is that you're describing or, you know, other specialized and focused competitors, and then finding a way that we can partner with those companies to help them to accelerate their growth. So surely the growth of the likes of AWS and Microsoft and Google, as you're describing, has been a profound competitive shift, along with the cloud shift that we've all talked about. And those companies, of course, can offer and do things that you past purveyors of computing couldn't. But fundamentally, they're selling and infrastructure layer, and there is room for all sorts of new competitors and new applications that can do something better than anybody else can. So any company that we're looking at, we're asking ourselves the question. Why are they the best ones to do what they're doing? How could they solve the most problem for their customers and do that in a way that's that's Brazilian and we see lots of those opportunities, >>and I wanna I wanna pick your brain about the Nutanix investment. But before we get there, I wonder if you could just talk about Bain Capital in their their history of investment in both cloud and infrastructure software and and how do those investments? How would they performed? And how do they inform your current thesis? >>Yeah, absolutely. So being Capital was started in in the mid eighties, 1984 actually has a spin out of being a company consulting, and the basic premise was that if we're good at advising and supporting businesses, we should partner with them and invest behind them, and if they do well, we'll do well. And, as I said, focusing on these businesses but do something really valuable for their customers in a riel advantaged way, with some discontinuous growth opportunity that's led us to grow a lot. You know, we started out actually in the venture business and grew into the private equity business. But now we invest across all life stages of companies and all over the world. So we're $105 billion in assets that we managed across 10 lines of business on were truly global. So I think we have about 470 investment professionals and 210 of those at this point are located outside the U. S. One of the really interesting things for us in investing in technology broadly and in infrastructure in the cloud more specifically is that we're able to do that all over the world. And we're able to do that across all the different life stages of companies. We have a thriving venture capital business that really we've been in since the origins of being capital has invested across countless cloud and security and infrastructure businesses taken successful companies public like like solar wind sold companies to strategic and grown businesses. You know, in really thriving ways we have a, um, growth mid market growth technology business that we launched last year. Called their Technology Opportunities Fund. They've made a really interesting cloud based investment in a company called the Cloud Gurus Cloud Guru Excuse me? That trains the next generation of I t professionals to be successful in the club on then, of course, in our private equity business, you know where I spend my time. We are highly focused on technology sector and the the impacts of the cloud in that sector. Broadly, we've invested in many infrastructure businesses, scale businesses like BMC software and Rockets software security businesses like blue coat systems and semantic. And of course, for those big businesses they've got both on premises solutions. They've got cloud solutions, and often we're focused on helping them continue to grow and innovate and take their solutions to the cloud. And then, uh, that's taking us to our most recent investment in Nutanix that we're very excited about it. We think it's truly a growth business in a large market that has an opportunity to capitalize on these trends we're talking about. >>I wonder if you could comment on some of the changes that have occurred. You guys have been in the private equity business for a long time. And if you look at what you know, kind of the early days of private equity, it was all you know, even, uh, suck as much cash out of the company is possible. You know, whatever's left over will figure out what to do with it. It it seems like you know, investors have realized Wow, we can actually, if we put a little investment in and do some engineering and some go to market, we can actually get better multiples. And so you've got the kind of rule of 30 35 40 where he made a plus. Growth is kind of the metric. How do you think about that? And look at that evolution. >>Yeah, you know, it's interesting because in many ways, being capital was started as the antithesis to what to what you're describing. So we started again, as as with a strategic lens and a focus on growth and a focus on if we got the long term and the lasting impact of our business is right, that the returns would would follow. And you're right that the market has evolved in that way. I mean, I think some of the some of the dynamics that we've seen has been certainly growth of the private equity business. It's It's become a much larger piece of the, you know, the capital markets than it was certainly 10 years ago in 20 years ago. Also, with that growth comes the globalization, that business all over the world and the specialization. So you certainly see technology focused firms and technology focused funds in a way that you didn't see, uh, 10 years ago, or certainly 20 years ago actually being capital. Interestingly enough, we had a technology focused fund in 1989 called called Being Information Partners. So we've been focused on the sector for a very long time. But you certainly see ah, lot more technology investors, uh, than than you did you know 10 or 20 years ago? >>How are you thinking about valuations? Thes days? I mean, that is good. It's good to be in tech. It's even better to be in the cloud. You know, Service officer, software Cloud. You know if if if you're looking at, you know some of the companies, especially the work from home pivot. But a lot of that appears to be. You know, many people believe it's going to be permanent. How are you feeling about the both public market and private market valuations in that dynamic? >>Yeah, well, you know, it's it's amazing, right? I don't think any of us in March, when the covert crisis was just emerging, would have anticipated that that come November, the markets, and certainly the technology markets would be even more robust and stronger than than they were say in January February. But I think it's a testament to the resilience of the technology on that just how intricate and intertwined technology has become with our daily lives and and how much companies depend on its use. And frankly, it's been the cove environments that an accelerant for many of the ways in which we depend on technology. So witnessed this interview, of course, through through the through the cloud, and you're seeing the way that we operate our business day to day the way cos they're accessing their data and information. It's only further accelerated the need for technology and the importance of that technology to how how businesses operate. So I think you're seeing that reflected in the market values out there. But, you know, frost work. We're focused on businesses that still have that catalytic opportunity ahead that can more than compensate for for the price of entry. >>So let's talk about this massive investment. You guys made a Nutanix 750 million, I guess, is a small piece of your 105 billion, but still a massive investment. How did that opportunity come to you? What was your thinking? You know, behind that that investment and what are you looking for in terms of the go forward plan and growth plan for 2021 really importantly, beyond. >>Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're thrilled to be partnered with and invested in Nutanix. We think is a terrific company. And, you know, our most recent technology investment and private equity business. It really came about through a proactive efforts that we had in in the spring. Um, you know, we've got a team focused on the technology sector, focused across infrastructure and applications, and, uh, internet and digital media businesses and financial technology. And, uh, you know, through those efforts, we were looking for businesses. Um, that we felt had faced some dislocation and their market values associated with the Koven environment that we're facing but that we thought were really attractive. Business is well positioned, had leading solutions and had substantial and discontinuous growth opportunities. And as we looked through that effort, we really felt that Nutanix stood out just as a core leader and in fact, really the innovator and the inventor of the market in which it competes with a substantial market share in position solving a really important problem for its customers with a big growth opportunity ahead. But, um, the stock price had had come down because the business has been undergoing ah transition, and we didn't think that that was fully understood by by the market. And so way saw an opportunity Thio partner with Nutanix to invest money into the business to help to fund its transition and its growth. Yeah, and Thio to be partners along for all the value the business will will continue to create. We think it's a terrific company, and we're excited to be to be invested >>Well, you and I have talked about this that transition, you know, from a traditional, you know, license model to one That's Anania recurring revenue model, which many companies have gone through. You know, Adobe certainly has done it. Tableau successfully did it. Splunk is kind of in the middle of that transition right now and maybe not well understood. You've got companies like like Data Dog that and snowflake again to doing consumption based pricing. So there's a lot of confusion in the marketplace, and I wonder if you could talk about that transition and why it It was attractive to you to actually, you know, place that bet now? >>Yeah, absolutely. And as you say, a number of companies at this point have been through various forms of this shift, from from selling their technology upfront to selling it over time on, we find that the model of selling the technology over time eyes one that could be powerful. It could be aligning for customers as well as for, uh, vendor of the software solutions. And in Nutanix in particular again, we saw all the ingredients that we think make this an opportunity for for the business again, market leading technology that customers love. That is solving really important problem. The technology, because Nutanix had been grown and bootstrapped under the leadership of, uh, you know of zeros when it was built and founded, had been selling its software together with an appliance, you know, often in a, um, upfront sale Andi has been undergoing under their own initiative transition from selling that software with an appliance to a software based model to one that s'more rattle over time. And, you know, we thought that there was the opportunity to continue that to continue that transition and by doing that, to be able to offer mawr growth and mawr innovation that we could bring to our customers Thio continue to fund the shift. So something that frankly was well underway before we invested. Um, you know, as a za business makes this transition from collecting upfront Thio, you know, thio more evenly. Over time, you know, we saw a potentially use for our capital to help to fund that growth. And we're just focused on being a good partner toe help the company keep investing in abating, as as it contains to do that. >>I was talking to somebody other day, David. I told him I was interviewing you, and I was mentioning the Nutanix investment. I said, I'm definitely gonna cover that as part of this. You know, Cuban Cloud program. And they said Hit Nutanix. That's not cloud. I'm like, Wait a minute, What's cloud? So we heard Andy Jassy reinvent talking a lot about hybrid Antonio Neary, right after HP made its earnings last earnings announcement he came on on, said that well, we heard the big Cloud player talk about hybrid, and so the definition is changing. But so how are you looking at the market? Uh, certainly. There's this hyper converged infrastructure, but there's also this software play. There's this cloud play. Help us squint through how you see that >>absolutely so Nutanix, as you alluded to, pioneered the market for hyper converged infrastructure for bringing computing storage networking together. Uh, you know, often in private cloud environments in a way that was really powerful for for customers. Make, of course, continue to be the leaders in that marketplace. But they've continued to innovate and invest in ways that can solve problems for customers and related problems across the hybrid cloud. So combining both the public cloud with, you know, with that private cloud and across multiple public clouds with things like clusters and lots of innovation that business is doing in partnership with the likes of, um, Amazon and Microsoft and others. And so, yeah, we think that New Chance has a powerful role to play in that hyper cloud world in a multi cloud world. And we're excited toe back on them. >>Well, I think to what maybe people don't understand is that not only is Nutanix, you know, compatible with AWS and compatible with azure and G C. P. But it's actually kind of create a nabs traction layer across those those clouds. Now there's two sides of that debate. Some some will say, Well, that that that has Leighton see issues or yes, it reduces complexity. But at the same time, it doesn't give you that fine grained access. That's kind of the A W s narrative customers, you know, want simplicity. And we're seeing, you know, the uptake across clouds. I have a multipart question for you, Dave. So obviously being very strong and strategy I'm curious is toe how how much you get involved in the operational details. I mean, obviously 750 million u got a state there, but what are the 2 to 2 or three major strategic considerations for not just even just Nutanix but cloud and software infrastructure companies. And and how much focus do you put on the operational and one of the priorities There? >>Absolutely. Well, you know, we pride ourselves in being good partners to our businesses and in helping them to grow, not just with our capital, which I think is, of course, important, but also, you know, with our sweat equity and our and our human capital in our partnership that we could do that in lots of ways is fundamentally about, um, you know, supporting our businesses, however, is needed to help them thio grow. We've been investing in the technology sector, as I described for over over 30 years. And so we've built up a set of capabilities around things like helping toe partner with the sales force of our company is helping them toe, you know, think about the you know, the ways in which they they allocate their, uh their research and development and their in their innovation raised in which they, you know, continue Thio do acquisitions toe. You know, further that pipeline, we support our businesses in lots of ways, but you know we're not engineers were not. Developers, of course, were looking for businesses that are fundamentally great. They've got great technology. They solve problems for customers in a way, you know, that we could never replicate. That's what's the amazing but a business like Nutanix and just over a 10 year period of time, it literally has customer satisfaction levels that we haven't seen from any other. Infrastructures offer company that we've had the, you know, the pleasure of diligence ing over the last several years. So what we're focused on is how can we take those great products and offerings that Nutanix has and continue to support them through the further growth and expansion in areas like, um, you know, the further salesforce investment Thio expand into these new areas like clusters that we were talking about and thinking about, you know, things that they could do toe further expand the strategic hold. Um, And so, you know, we have, ah, large team of being capital. A zai mentioned 260 investment professionals in a private equity business alone. About a third of those are just available to our companies to help support them. Uh, you know, with various initiatives and efforts after after we invest. And we'll certainly, of course, make all of those available to new taxes. Well, somebody >>was asking me the other day, You know, what's hyper converged infrastructure? How did that come about? I was explaining what, Back in the day you had. You buy some servers and some storage and you have a network and you sort of have different teams and you put applicant, You figure out all out and put the applications on top, you know, test it, make sure it all works. And then and then the guys at V. C and VM Ware and Cisco and the M. C. They got together and said, Okay, we're gonna bolt together a bunch of different components and, you know, pre tested. Here you go. Here's a Here's a skew. And then what Nutanix did was actually really transformational and saying, Okay, look, we do this through software on DSO. And now that was what, Late, late two thousands. Now we're sort of entering this new era, this next generation of cloud cross clouds. So I wonder how you think about, you know, based on what you were just talking about the whole notion of M and A versus organic. There's a lot of organic development that needs to be done. But perhaps you could you could buy in or in organically through emanate toe, actually get there faster. How do you think about that balance? >>Look, I I think that that was an articulate, by the way explanation of I think that the origins of hyper converged infrastructure. So I enjoyed that very much. But, you know, I think that with any of our businesses and with Nutanix, we're of course, looking at where we trying to get to in several years and one of the best ways to support the business to get there, you know? Of course, they'll, um you know, primarily that will be through or continued organic investment in the company and all the innovation in the product. Um, that they've been doing will the company contemplate acquisitions toe further achieve the development goals and the objectives for solving pain points for customers to get, you know, to the strategic places they're trying to get to, of course. But you know, it all is a part of the package of of What's it a good fit company and its growth object. >>I mean, with the size of your portfolio, I mean your full stack investor, I would say, Is there any part of the so called tech stack that you won't touch that you would actually, you know, not not walk, but run away from, >>uh well, you know, I wouldn't say that we're running away from, you know, anything but the questions that we're asking ourselves. Our is the technology that we're investing in durable, ISAT advantaged and does have a growing role in the world. And, you know, if if we think that those things are true are absolutely, um, thrilled toe invest behind those things. You know, if if there are things that we feel like you, that's that's not the case, um, you know, then then we would tend toe to shy away from those investments. We've certainly found opportunities and businesses that people perceived as one. But you know, we believe to be another >>Well, so let me ask you specifically about about Nutanix. I mean, clearly, they achieved escape velocity. One of the few companies actually from last decade. It was Nutanix pure, not a whole lot of others. That actually, you know, were ableto maintain independence as a as a public company. What do you see is their durability. Uh, they're they're they're in their moat. If you if you will. >>Yeah, absolutely. Well, clearly, we think that it's a very durable and very advantage business. You know, that's that's the investment. Look, we think that Nutanix has been able to offer the best hyper converged infrastructure product on the market bar None. Um, one that has got the best ease of use Eyes is the most nimble and flexible for for customers. And you just see that, you know, recently and customer feedback And also that plays across very heterogeneous architectures in a way that, you know, it's really, really powerful because of that. You know, we think that their best position to be able to leverage that technology as they have been, uh, to continue to play across both public and private hybrid cloud environments. And so we're excited toe to back them and and that journey it really starts from solving and acute customer pain point, you know, better than anybody else can. And, you know, we're looking to to back them toe continue to expand that vision. >>Yeah, well, I've talked to a lot of Nutanix customers over the years, and that is the fundamental value. Proposition is it's really simple, very high, you know, customer satisfaction. So that makes a lot of sense. Well, Dave, thanks very much for coming on the Cube and participating in the Cuban cloud. Really? Appreciate your perspectives. Wish you best of luck. And hopefully we could do this again in the future. Maybe face to face >>now, face to face, maybe something even know. Dave, I really appreciate it's been a pleasure and good luck with with the rest of your interviews. >>All right. Thank you. We keep it right. Everybody from or Cuban Cloud, this is Dave Volonte. We'll be right back.