>> From Sand Hill Road in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Presenting, the People First Network, insights from entrepreneurs and tech leaders. >> Hello everyone I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, we are here in Sand Hill Road up at Mayfield Venture Capital Firm for their 50th anniversary, their People First Network series, produced with theCUBE and Mayfield, I'm John Furrier, with Bill Schlough, the Chief Information Officer of the San Francisco Giants, CUBE alumni, great to see you thanks for joining me today for this People First Series we're doing with Mayfield's 50th anniversary, thanks for coming in. >> Good to be here, John. >> So, been a while since we chatted, it's been a year, A lot's happening in tech, you can't go a year, that's like seven dog years in tech, lot happening, you're managing, as the CIO for the Giants, a lot of things going on in baseball, what's the priorities for you these days, obviously, you guys, great social, great fan experience, what's new for you, what's the priority? >> Man, there's always something new. It's what I love about it, this'll be my 20th season with the Giants comin' up. And, it never gets old, there's always new challenges. On the field, in the seats, off the field, you name it. As we look toward next year, really excited about bringin' in a new video board, which we haven't publicly announced, maybe I just did publicly announce, we're breaking news on theCUBE today. So we're puttin' in a new video board, it'll be over three times the size of the one we have today. That's big news, we're doing a lot of exciting things in the ticketing world. The ticketing world is really transforming right before our eyes in terms of the way fans buy tickets. It's changed a lot. Once up on a time you could call a game a sellout, and we sold out 530 straight games at AT&T Park, but really there's no such thing as a sellout anymore I mean, at any point you can get a great ticket, so we have to adapt to that and change the product that we're delivering to fans, so making some changes on the ticketing front, the fan experience, the ballpark with the video board, and another thing that's changing a lot is the way fans consume our game when they're not at the ballpark. It's rare that you're going to see somebody sit on a couch for three plus hours and watch a game continuously anymore. Fans are consuming through mobile devices, streaming, catching clips here and there, all different methods, and it's fun to be a part of that, because, fans still love the game, but they're just consuming it in different ways. >> Yeah, I love having chats with you on theCUBE because one of the things that have always been the same from nine years doing theCUBE is, the buzzword of consumerization of IT has been out there, overused, but you're living it, you have a consumer product, the ultimate consumer product, in Major League Baseball, and the Giants, great franchise, in a great city, in a great stadium, with a rabid fanbase, and they know tech, so you have all the elements of tech, but the expectation of consumers, and the experiences are changing all the time, you got to deliver on the expectations and introduce new experiences that become expectations, and this is the flywheel of innovation, and it's really hard, but I really respect what you guys are doing over there, and that's why I'm always curious, but, always, the question comes back to, is, can I get faster wifi in the stadium? (laughs) It's always the number one question >> It's funny that you ask that because it is AT&T Park, you know, so, honestly, we got to check that box, and we've had to for years, all the way back to when we first rolled it out, way back in 2004 when we first rolled out wifi in the park, people weren't asking for it then, people were coming to the ballpark with a laptop and plugging a card into it, and there were about a hundred of them that were accessing it, but today, what's interesting is, who knows what next, but we're not talkin' about wifi as much, wifi is just kind of, expected, you got to have it, like water. You're talkin' about 5G networks, and new ways to connect. Honestly, this past season, our wifi usage in terms of the number of fans that use wifi, what we call the take rate, the percentage of fans, was actually down 30% from the previous year. Not because we had less fans in the stadium, because this is the take rate, a percentage of fans in the stadium, went down, because AT&T made some massive investments in their cellular infrastructure at the ballpark, and if you're just connecting, and you got great bandwidth, you don't feel the need to switch over to wifi, so who knows what the future will hold? That's a great point, and you see the LTE networks have so much more power, it used to be you needed wifi to upload your photos, so you'd go in, log in, and if they auto login that's cool, but people don't need to. >> Not with photos, what they need it now for is when we see it really maxing out is events, like our Eagles concert, or Journey concert, or a really big game, like opening day, or honestly, Warriors playoffs game, 49ers football games, that's when folks are streamin' to video. For streamin' to video, they're still goin' to that wifi. Yeah, that's the proven method, plus they don't want to jack up their charges on the AT&T site, but I won't go there, Let's talk about innovat-- Most say unlimited, I will go there, most say unlimited these days. >> Really, I got to find that plan, my daughter's killin' me with her watchin' Netflix on LTE, I tell her. Innovation is changing, I want to get your thoughts on this, 'cause I know you're on the front end of a lot of innovations, you do a lot of advising here at Mayfield. The VC's always trying to read the tea leaves, you're living it, what's the innovation formula look like now for you 'cause as you're sittin' in your staff meetings, as you look at the team of people around you, you guys want to foster, you do foster, innovation culture. What's the formula, what do you guys do when you have those meetings, when everyone's sitting around the table sayin', what do we do next? "How do we create a better experience? "How can we get better fans, and better product "in their hands as fast as possible?" What's your strategy? >> You know, it's funny, people talk about the secret sauce for innovation, what's the formula? I would say, for us, it's really a symbiotic relationship with a lot of things, first of all, where we are, geographically, we've got folks like Mayfield, down the street, and many others, that we can talk to, that are, when innovation is happening, when the startups are incubating, they're being funded by these guys, a lot of times they are here, and our phones are ringing off the hook with a lot of folks so my formula for innovation is answer the phone and take the meetings, but, to be honest, that creates its own problems, because there's so many great ideas out there, if you try to do all of them, you're going to fail at all of them. You got to pick a very small few to try to experiment with, give it a shot, we just don't have the bandwidth, we only have 250 full-time staff on the business side. For us, geographically, you have to really be laser-focused and say okay, there are so many great ideas out here, which are the three or four that we're going to focus on this year, and really give it a try, that's really going to drive, propel our business forward, enhance our product on the field, whatever it might be, but I'll tell you where it really truly starts. It's from the top with our CEO. And, I've had a few different bosses over the years, but with the Giants, our CEO is singularly focused on all of us doing things folks have never done before regardless of what business unit you're in. Whether you're in ticketing, finance, marketing, sales, what drives him, and drives all of us, is innovation. And his eyes glaze over when I talk to him about cost-cutting, and his eyes can glaze over really fast. But when I talk to him about doing something no one's ever done before, that's when he sits forward in his chair, he gets engaged, and I just have a great boss, Larry Baer, he's been with us for 25 years wit the Giants, and he is the driver for it, he creates the culture from the top, where all of us, we want to impress him, and to impress him, you got to do sometin' nobody's ever done before, and what's even more interesting is there are some challenges and some changes talking place across our industry, as I said before, ticketing and other areas, and I've sat in meetings with him where somebody might raise their hand and say, "But this is happening across the industry, "so it's just a macro trend," and he'll get upset, be like, "I don't care about macro trends. "We are here in the Bay Area, "we're the San Francisco Giants, "we're going to do it our way." >> And so when you do it your way, he promotes risk-taking, so that's a great culture. What are some of the things you have tried that were risky, and/or risque, or maybe an experiment, that went well, and maybe ones that didn't go well, can you share some color commentary around that? >> Sure, over 20 years we've had some of all of those. I would say, I've had some real scary moments, our culture is collaborative, but I wouldn't call it combative, but we all have strong opinions, a lot of us have been there a long time, and we have strong opinions and so we'll battle, internally, a lot, but then once the battle is over, we'll all align behind the victory. Thinking back, one of the most stressful times for me at the ballpark was related to wifi, when we decided to take our antennas and put 'em under people's seats. No one had ever done that before, and there were two major concerns with that. One is, honestly are people going to get cancer from these antennas under their seats, it's never been done before, what's going to happen, and whether it's going to happen or not, what's the perception of our fans going to be, because, these are, the bread and butter is, the golden goose here, all the fans, so, yeah it's great that they're going to be, have faster connection here at AT&T Park, but if they think they're going to get cancer, they're going to cancel their season ticket plans, we got to problem. Number two is, we're taking away a little storage space also, under the seats, so it was very controversial internally, we did all of our research, we proved that having a wifi antennae under your seat is the equivalent to having a cell phone in your pocket, most people do that, so we're pretty safe there, and from the storage space perspective, honestly, it actually elevates your stuff, if somebody spills a Coke behind ya, it'll fall all around your purse, which is sitting on top of that wifi antenna so we came up with a good solution, but that was an example of something that was really controversial >> So beer goes on the antennae not your bag. (laughs) >> Exactly, your bag stays dry, we found a way to spin that but, there have been so many, I can go way back in time, back to the days when it was the PalmPilot that ruled the day instead of the apple >> Well you guys also did a good job on social media, I got to give you guys props, because, you're one of the first early adopters on making the fan experience very interactive. That was, at that time, not viewed as standard. Yeah, built the @Cafe at our ballpark, which is still there really to try to bring social media to the fans. >> I think you're the first ballpark to have a kale garden, too, I think. >> That's a little off topic, but yes, driven by one of our players, who's a big kale fan, yeah, the garden out in center field. >> So sustainibility's certainly important, okay, I got to ask the question around your role in the industry, because one of the things that's happening more and more in Major League Baseball and certainly as it crosses over to tech her at Mayfield Venture Capital, there's a lot of collaboration going on, and it's a very people-centric culture where, it used to be people would meet at conferences, or you'd do conference calls, now people are in touch in real time, so these networks are forming. It takes a village to create innovative products, whether you're inside the Giants, or outside in the ecosystem, how have you personally navigated that, and can you share some experiences to the folks watching, how you became successful working in an environment where it's collaborative inside the walls of the San Francisco Giants, but also outside? >> %100, the topic is near and dear to my heart, and from when I started with the Giants, that's what I love about our industry We compete on the field, and only on the field. When you look at who the Giants competitors are, from a business perspective, honestly the Dodgers are not a competitor from a business perspective. The A's are barely a competitor from a business perspective. We got a lot of competitors and very few of them are in our actual industry, so we collaborate all day, and it's been amazing, I can count on one hand, across all of sports, folks who have not been collaborative. There's a very small group of teams, your favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, are not on that list, they are very collaborative, but their arch rival, well there's a few others out there that may be less collaborative, but most of them are highly collaborative, from top down, and so, what I did from when I first started the first trip I made, was to Cleveland. And this was many years ago, Cleveland Indians had a reputation of being very progressive so I called up my counterpart there, I said, "I'm new to the industry, can I come out, "can I learn from you?" And that's where it started, and ever since, every year, we travel to two cities, I take at least four of my staff, to two cities each year and we meet with all the sports teams in those cities. This year, we went to Milwaukee and we met with the Brewers, and we did the Packers as well. Every year, over the 20 years we've visited pretty much every professional sports city, and we just go through it again, and always, red carpet, open door, and you build those face-to-face relationships, that you can pick up the phone and make the call, in a few weeks we're all going to get together in Denver at our MLB IT Summit, my job at the IT Summit every year is I host the golf classic, so I bring all the golfers, the hackers, the duffers out, and we have a great time on the golf course and build those relationships and again, the only thing that we don't really talk about that much is the technology we use to enhance the product on the field. Everything else is fair game. >> So share the business side, but the competitive advantage, where the battle's really having Dodger and Giants obviously on the field, highly competitive-- >> But what's cool about that is then I can meet with the other sports teams to talk about that, so I'll leave the teams nameless, but we've had some awesome collaborative discussions with NBA teams especially to talk about what they're doing to assess talent, and there's no competition there. >> So there's kind of rules of the road, kind of like baseball, unwritten rules. >> Right. >> So talk about the coolest thing that you guys have done this year, share something that you personally feel proud of, or fans love, what were some of the cool things this year that pops out for you? >> Sure, the technology that we invested in this year that I thought was a game-changer, we saw, we experimented with last season, but this year, we've been experimenting with VR and AR a little bit. But, a technology that we thought was really cool is called 4DReplay, it's a company out of Korea. And we saw them, we did an experiment with them, and then we implemented them for the full season this year and we've seen them at some other venues as well, the Warriors tried them at the Playoffs, but we had 'em full year and what we did was they put in about 120 cameras, spaced approximately five feet apart, between the bases. 120 of 'em, and they focus on the pitcher and the batter, so when you have a play, you can 3D, or 4D, 4D rotate around that play and watch the ball as it's moving off the bat, and get it from that full perspective, it's awesome for the fan experience, it gives them a perspective they never have, I love watching the picture, because you can see that hand, in full 4D glory pronating as it comes through on every pitch, if you can watch that hand carefully you can predict what kind of pitch it is, it's something that a fan has never had access to before, we did that for the first time this year. >> I had a new experience, obviously you see Statcast on TV now, a lot of this overlayed stuff happening, kind of creates like an esports vibe to the table. Esports is just coming. >> And it's just the beginning >> Your thoughts on esports, competitor, natural evolution, baseball's going to be involved in it, obviously, thing in the emerging technology's looking interesting, and the younger generation wants the hot, young... Sure, we feel like our game has been around a long time, and it still is, the rules haven't changed that much, but fans still enjoy it, but they just consume it differently and our game can be incredibly exciting in moments, but, there's also some gaps in there when you can build relationships. Some of the younger generation may fill those gaps with watching somethin' else, or two other things on their devices, but that's okay, we embrace that at the ballpark, but in terms of the emergence of esports, and the changing demographic of our fanbase, what we're trying to do is just package our game differently. One thing I'm really excited about, and startin' to see, we're in the early days, I consider with virtual reality, we experiment with it, maybe two or three years ago we've been doing some stuff with it, but I'd say it feels like we're in the second or third inning with virtual reality, where we're really going, and I've seen Intel doin' some of this stuff, I was out working with Intel in Pyeongchang, at the Olympics this past year, working with their PR team, and where it's going I can already visualize what this is going to be like, this concept of volumetric video. Where, it's not about having that courtside seat, in basketball, or that seat right behind home plate, it's about being wherever you want to be, anywhere in the action. And to me it's not about doin' it live, because in baseball, you don't know where the ball's going to go, it's about doin' it, replay, right after, okay, that ball was shot to Brandon Crawford, he made the most amazing diving play, picked it up, gunned it to first, where do you want to watch that from? Everybody's different, some people might want to watch it from right behind first base, some people might want to watch it right Brandon Crawford, behind the batter, with volumetric video and the future of VR, you'll be able to do that, and this esports generation, this fan's instant gratification want, unique experiences, that's what's going to deliver it. >> This is such an immersive environment, we're looking at this kind of volumetric things from Intel, and you got VR and AR, immersion, is a new definition, and it's not, I won't say putting pressure, it's evolving the business model, who would've thought that DraftKings and these companies would be around and be successful, that's gambling, okay, you now you got that, your VR so the business model's changing, I've been hearing even token and cryptocurrency, maybe baseball cards will be tokenized. So these are kind of new, crazy ideas that might be new fan experience and a business model for you guys. Your thoughts on those kind of wacky trends. >> That's why I love working with companies like Mayfield 'cause they're seeing the future before we see it, and I love being where we are, so we can talk to them, and learn about these companies. Another example, along those lines is, how are fans going to get to the ballpark five years from now, and how do we adapt to that because we're doing a major development right adjacent to the ballpark, we've got 4,000 parking spaces. Are we going to need those five years from now? Well we're going to build out that whole parking lot, we're going to put a structure in there. But five, ten years from now, we're building that structure so it can be adaptable, because, is anyone going to need to park? Is parking going to be like typing, you know on a typewriter, 10, 15 years now because everybody is in either self-driving cars, or ride shares, and the cars just, poof, go away, and they come back when you need 'em. >> Like I said, everything that's been invented's been on Star Trek except for the transporter room, but maybe they could transport to the game. >> We could use that in San Francisco. >> Bill, got to ask you about your role with Mayfield, because one of the things I've always been impressed with you is that you always have a taste for innovation, you're not afraid to put the toe in the water or jump in the deep end where the technology is, these guys are lookin' for some trends, too. How do you advise some of these guys, how do you work with Mayfield, what's the relationship, how are they to work with, what's the intersection between Mayfield and you? >> Well the one thing that Mayfield does is they put together a conference, each Summer, that I love comin' down to, and I get to meet a lot of my counterparts and we talked about meeting with my counterparts in sports, but I love meetin' with my counterparts across all industries, and Mayfield makes that possible, they bring us all together with some really interesting speakers on a variety of topics not all directly tech related, so it's a great opportunity for me to just get outside of the daily routine, get outside the box, open my mind, and I just have to drop down the road to do it. So that's an example, another thing is, Mayfield, and other firms will come to me, and just say, "Hey, here's a technology we're evaluating, "they think it would be a great fit in sports, "what do you think?" And so, I can give them some valuable feedback, on company's they're evaluating, companies will come to us, and I might throw them their way, so it's really a two way street >> Great relationship, so you're a sounding board for some ideas, you get to peek into the future, I mean, we've interviewed entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs here, it's a seven, eight year build out, so it's almost like an eight year peek into the future. >> Yeah, and it's super valuable, especially given where we are geographically and our inclination toward being on the leading edge. >> I want to just end the segment by sayin', thanks for comin' in, and I want you to show the ring there, 'cause I always, can't stop starin' at the hardware, you got the ring there, the world champion. >> It's a few years old at the moment, we're going to have to get a new one sometime soon. >> We got to work on that, so is there any cutting edge technology to help you evaluate the best player, who you lookin' at next year, what's goin' on? What's the trades goin' on, share us-- >> Are we off the record now, 'cause I have a feeling you're asking this for personal reasons, for your squad, so. >> I'm a Red Sox fan of the AL, obviously, moved here 20 years ago, big fan of the Giants, I love comin' to the games, you guys do a great job, fan experience is great, you guys do great job and I'm looking forward to seeing a great season. >> Thanks, yeah, hope springs eternal this time of year, we always block off October and expect to be busy, but when we have it back, it just gives us an opportunity to get a head start on everybody. >> Well Bill, thanks for coming in, Bill Schlough, CIO for the San Francisco Giants, here on Sand Hill Road talkin' about the 50th anniversary of Mayfield, and this is the People First Network, getting ideas from entrepreneurs, industry executives, and leaders. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, thanks for watching. (electronic music)

>> Voiceover: Live from Chicago, Illinois it's The Cube, covering Veeamon 2018. Brought to you by Veeam. >> Welcome back to the Windy City everybody. You are watching The Cube, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante and I'm here with Stu Miniman. Veeamon 2018 #Veeamon The husband of Mrs Philbin is here. (chuckling) The Astros, Warriors, Eagles, and whoever wins the Stanley Cup this year fan, Bill Philbin, Senior Vice President and Global Chief Technology Officer for Hybrid IT, for Hewlett Packard Enterprises, good friend of The Cube. >> Hello everybody. >> Awesome seeing you again, thanks for coming on. >> Every time you introduce me, it's something new, so I can't wait to share that with Mrs Philbin. >> Well she, like Stu says, that's where you go, for the information. >> That's exactly right, that's exactly right. >> So, another great keynote here, you stole the show last year, you're vying for top spot, top gun this year, so how do you feel? >> It was good, I said I think, the funny thing about Veeamon Hewlett Packard is, we have so much in common. The agenda is the same. It was almost hard to actually to create a unique slide set that was different from what they said, versus what we said. I think after 32 years, Mrs Philbin and I, we're not quite finishing each other's sentences, but I know what she wants me to do, without her telling me at this point. So, Veeam and HP have that kind of relationship. >> Well Veeam has a tendency and a way of inserting itself, into an ecosystem and it's certainly embedded itself into the HPE ecosystem. >> And I think that's, that's a lot of credit to Peter Mackay you know, he's joined now, what is it, 23, 24 months ago, and he's sort of brought that partner-centric viewpoint, grew the team around us. And they're really a, who we sort of pull out for other partners, say hey look, this is what these guys are doing, this is what you need to do to be successful, in a sprawling enterprise like Hewllet Packard, so, he's done a really, really good job I think. >> So give us an update on that sprawling enterprise. We make Hybrid IT simple, is your mantra. How is that going, you know where does your group fit in? >> So our couple of quarters into the new tenure of Antonio Anieri being the CEO, the engineer turned CEO. >> Got to make you happy? >> Absolutely makes me, and the thousands and thousands of engineers happy. Great first quarter, and we'll see what happens, sort of in quarter number, in quarter number two. There's a lot of focus within the company, now that we have divested ourselves of things that were less important. Focus on enterprise infrastructure, customers, around a couple of key concepts. Certainly we're pushing synergy, sort of, the synergy platform. Second pushing and talk about one sphere or hybrid IT, hybrid cloud offering, three, you know, we've had a lot of success in storage. Certainly the Nimble acquisition, which is hard to believe, was almost consummated, (mumbles) it's almost a year ago right? Its a year ago, actually in May. I just got off a holiday with Mrs Philbin, last year on the holiday, I was closing the Nimble transaction in the middle of the Indian Ocean, talking WIFI on the boat, via Google Voice to San Jose. There is nowhere now. >> Always on. >> Always on, exactly right. Talk about hyper availability. And so, I think we're pushing on, pushing on that, and then we've got, we renamed our services offering to Point Next offering, focusing around transformation et cetera so, I think the business is really clicking on all cylinders, and I think, you know, focus is actually quite interesting. We often focus on what we don't have, versus only focusing on what remains. And just like any start up, you focus on the first market segment, second market segment. Hewlett Packard is focused on enterprise infrastructure as a profession, I think that's, I think that's bode well for us. >> Yep, Bill one of the things we were talking about on the intro is, Veeam getting much deeper with their partners. One of the things we highlighted is, there's a couple of partners added in the price book. >> And what does that mean, from a go to market standpoint, that it's a little bit more seamless, you know, not invented by HP, but part of the whole solution. >> Well I said to Peter Mackay on stage, 18 months ago we did this transaction, which at the time was considered pretty revolutionary, given the fact that we had other things in the portfolio at that point that did data protection. And it's what, first and foremost, it's what our customers wanted and asked for. They wanted a more seamless transaction between the two organizations so we went ahead and did that. Second, there's always been a strong engineering relationship between the two companies, but if it's still talking to two partners at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. You know, an integrated offering, on the same price list, on the same PO, supported by both companies together, is really what customers are looking for. And as I said in the keynote, you know, we closed the single biggest transaction that, in Veeam's history, which was a Hewlett Packard and Veeam win for every seven dollars, I think it was, of Hewlett Packard, that we closed, a dollar of that was Veeam. And that's, sort of, the power of the partnership, demonstrated by the two companies coming together. And it's hard to believe, again, it's 18 months, you know, that's a pretty impressive track record. >> You're obviously not sharing, you know, any names on that deal. But can you share with us, any other information that's public, why did you win? Maybe you can share, you know, the type of win that it was. Why HPE and Veeam? >> Yeah, the customer, obviously, is not prepared to have us, sort of, talk about their name, for now anyway. But, essentially, what the customer was looking for was, a complete sort of back up and recovery solution that covered, not only traditional virtualized environments, but also gave them outlet for the cloud. More and more customers, as I said in my keynote, it's more than keeping a copy everyday between your primary and your secondary. You need a third copy, because guess what happens? And I said this last year, if you remember. Boo boos happen quickly right? (laughing) Something changed and deleted here, actually fast replicates here, you need a third copy to be complete, they were looking for that. And third, they were looking for, sort of, they were already an HP customer, they were looking for solution offering that would amortize their existing real estate, that was the three reasons. >> And, but your third copy model is different than having to build a third data center. It's a much more space-efficient, modern approach. >> So together with Veeam and our, (mumbles) our displace back up target, roughly last year, we announced this capability called Cloudbank which allows you to keep a copy in any S3 compliant interface. So it can be in on prem, or on open stack, implementation or it can be on any of the web services providers and it's done in an efficient, data protected deetip capability so, it's an efficient way to keep a copy of, what we call hail Mary data. Right, you hope you never need it right? An efficient way to sort of do that. >> Okay, one of the big topics of discussion these days is ransomware, what are your thoughts on ransomware? >> Well it's funny, you know, I always thought ransomware was something that you wore when you were dropping off the money, right. (laughing) Apparently it means something more than that. >> Dave: Yeah, I think so. (voice drowned out by crosstalk) >> Last year at Discover, we had a customer who was a meat processor, a meat processor. Now you can imagine what kind of customers you're going to ask, a customer that does meat processing. But it actually infected their servers that actually helped them run their meat processing capability. Now that is not a business that you would expect someone will call you up and say, "Hi we have your data, give us $1000 and we'll give you your data back.". It's a meat processing company, or a gourmet food provider is a more typical way they would present it. But if they're, if that's happening to that sort of line of business, imagine what's happening to power plants, you know et cetera et cetera. So the ramsomware stuff is really real. So if you think about HP, we developed the most secure server with our Gen10 platform. We actually guarantee and actually look at changes being made in a firmer environment. We cover them for you automatically. We've got the Veeam sort of capability to recover, and I think we were talking about it in the preview. We used to measure availability in how many nines you had. Now, unavailability is the only thing that customers care about and if you go to a customer and say, "It's okay, you're only .0001 of the rest of our customers" that's not a good story right? It's not about when something happens, or if something happens, it's when something's going to happen and the power of Veeam and HP together, prevents, bad things from happening right? >> Bill, it's interesting, I know in my career, it's been a significant shift. It used to be, let's pardon it as much as possible, tool, redundancy, hardware focused. But cover eventually breaks. >> Bill: It does. >> Today, it's a soft world, it's distributed architecture, look at things like your synergy solution, it's much more modular and componentized. Maybe you can talk a little bit about some of those shifts, as to how we build availability architecturally, like the HPE and Veeam meet the new needs of what we need, as opposed to kind of the old way of doing things. >> It's actually interesting, so a lot of customers are looking at software-fine infrastructures as a way of amortizing their existing infrastructure. And it's actually cost savings. But I equate it to sort of, making a decision to buy Mrs Philbin a chest of drawers at a furniture store or, going to Home Depot, buying the wood, milling the wood and actually creating something myself. Now the good news about software fine infrastructure is, it's just like me making Mrs Philbin a chest of drawers, is at the end, it's mine. Right, I got it to my specifications. The bad news about software fine infrastructure is when there's a problem, Mrs Philbin isn't calling the furniture store, she's calling me right? And so, when you think about software fine infrastructure, is, you have to imagine two things. One is, are you prepared to write an application that is ready to resolve the kinds of data resiliency and data availability, capabilities that the hardware manufacturers have built into systems for 20 years. Now if you've got a unique system, that does one thing, it's probably easy. Imagine hosting 160 different applications, like that was mentioned on the stage today. And creating resiliency for that. So my conversation with customers about software define is, please go in wide open. Number two, please think about resiliency, not at the storage level, but also think about resiliency at the application level. You have got to provide for a time when something is not as available as you think it is. And make those steps consciously. >> Let me ask you, from a technologist's perspective. >> Bill: Yeah. >> If I understand you correctly, so if I'm Oracle, I can do things in the application, >> Bill: Sure. >> To accomplish that outcome, but you're not an application ISD, so you have to do things in your architecture, and assume that any application that's running can recover. >> Bill: Correct. >> Is that right? So can you help us understand that, how you approach that problem architecturally? >> Well I think you know, we haven't talked about big data, or Infosite, but if you think about it. The way to best protect a customer's infrastructure, is to actually monitor their infrastructure, compare their results to what others are receiving, recommend ways that they can actually tune up their infrastructure and eventually, act on their behalf, to make the changes to their infrastructure, so they're always protected. As I said in my keynote, it's getting to a point where you actually can't do all that stuff yourself. So the key, one of the key strategies around Hewlett Packard Enterprises, is to take the infrastructure capability which is basically machine learning, artificial intelligence, sort of capability, and deliver a system which helps customers be always on. That's the first thing that I think you can do. And you're going to be really good about making sure that I get out. >> I am, we got like two minutes, and I want to use every second I have of you, so. Okay, so I want to follow up on the Infosite, you've brought that out beyond just Nimble. >> Bill: That's right. >> I think you've brought it to Three Par and you're pushing it out throughout your entire portfolio right? >> So for customers who are going to see us at Discover, we've got some interesting things we'll talk about there. But effectively we've rolled it out across the portfolio, because, as I said in my keynote, it's not really easy to predict, why availability is an issue. Is it a host issue, is it a software issue, is it a networking issue, is it a storage issue. What Infosite eventually provides is a set of hooks that allow you to meter and measure and manage your entire infrastructure, and get it to a point where it's actually subscribing to the best practice of the organization or application provider. >> One of the things you hear a lot about is, how do you take back up and recovery, which is largely an insurance business, and create value out of it? GDPR is this sort of heinous you know, set of regulations, everybody's got to pay attention to it. Are we finally seeing the day, where the backup data protection, governance approach, can actually bring value to the rest of the organization? Or is it still just insurance, deal with it? >> So I think, I would say two things Dave, one is if you look at what Nimble's just announced with their secondary flasher right? Where we can keep a very cost effective copy of your data on an array, that looks like the array you copied it from. That can be used for dev ops, it can be used in the event of a failure et cetera. I think we're starting to see technologies available now where that, that happens. Second, the ability to make a copy of that in the cloud, and actually bring up your most critical applications in the cloud by using a Synergy, or a Onesphere capability, so you can actually keep a hot stand by, I think we're starting to see that. I think, you know backup is moving from a, cost of doing business, to something that's vital, vital in the enterprise but always remember that, the best time to think about a backup, is before you need it. The worst time to think about a backup, is when you need it. >> Yeah, and I think you'd agree that data protection as a topic, is moving up in the minds of CXO and boards of directors and the like. >> Yeah, and it's unfortunate that some of these bad actors that are out there, right, the CNN's and, this has caught more than just the IT community press, it's actually caught the business press. And I think it's drawing a lot more attention around the reason why people should think about availability. >> Right, you got to go, you got to catch a plane. But just give a little tease for HPE Discover. It's coming up in June, it's a great conference that you guys have every year, twice a year you do this US one, and one in Europe, give us a tease for June. >> I would say, this is going to be the most exciting HPE Discover on record. And this is Antonio's opportunity to sort of, talk to you about what's headed, what's headed forward for Hewlett Packard so, be there or be square. >> Okay. >> Dating myself. >> Okay we're square. Alright thank you Bill, for coming on The Cube and we'll be right back after this short break. We're at Veeamon 2018 in Chicago. Thanks for watching. (electronic music)

>> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're having a Cube conversation in our Palo Alto studio, the conference season hasn't got to full swing yet, so we can have a little bit more relaxed atmosphere here in the studio and we're really excited, as part of our continuing coverage for the Data Makes Possible sponsored by Western Digital, looking at cool applications, really the impact of data and analytics, ultimately it gets stored usually on a Western Digital hard drive some place, and this is a great segment. Who doesn't like talking about sports, and football, and advanced analytics? And we're really excited, I have John Pollard here, he is the VP of Business Development for Zebra Sports, John, great to see you. >> Jeff, thanks for having me. >> Absolutely, so before we jump into the fun stuff, just a little bit of background on Zebra Sports and Zebra Technologies. >> Okay well, first, Zebra Technologies is a publicly traded company, we started in the late 1960s, and really what we do is we track enterprise assets in industries typically like healthcare, retail, travel and logistics, and transportation. And what we've done is take that heritage and bring that over into the world of sports, starting four years ago with our relationship with the NFL as the official player tracking technology. >> It's such a great story of an old-line company, right? based in Illinois-- >> Yeah, Lincolnshire. >> Outside of Chicago, right? RFID tags, and inventory management, and all this kind of old-school stuff. But then to take that into this really dynamic world, A, of sports, but even more, advanced analytics, which is relatively new. And we've been at it for a few years, but what a great move by the company to go into this space. How did they choose to do that? >> Well it was an opportunity that just came to them through an RFP, the NFL had investigated different technologies to track players including optical and a GPS-based technologies, and now of course with Zebra, our location and technologies are based on RFID. And so we just took the heritage and our capabilities of really working at the edge of enterprises in those traditional industries from transactional moments, to inventory control moments, to analytics at the end, and took that model and ported it over to football, and it's turned out to be a very good relationship for us in a couple of ways. We've matured as a sports business over the four years, we've developed more opportunities to take our solutions, not just in-game but moving them into the practice facilities for NFL teams, but it's also opened up the aperture for other industries to now appreciate how we can track minute types of information, like players moving around on the football field, and translating it into usable information. >> So, for the people that aren't familiar, they can do a little homework. But basically you have a little tag, a little sensor, that goes onto the shoulder pads, right? >> There's two chips. >> Two chips, and from that you can tell where that player is all the time and how they move, how they fast they move, acceleration and all the type of stuff, right? >> Correct, we put two chips inside of the shoulder pads for down linemen, or people who play with their hands on the ground, we put a third chip between the shoulder blades. Those chips communicate with receiver boxes that have been installed across the perimeter or around the perimeter of a stadium, and they blink 12 times per second. And that does tell you who's on the field, where they are on the field, and in proximity to other players on the field. And once the play starts itself, we can see how fast they're going, we can calculate change of direction, acceleration and deceleration metrics, we can also see, as you know with football, interesting information like separation from a wide receiver in defensive back, which is critical when you're evaluating players' capabilities. >> So, this started about four years ago, right? >> Yes, we started our relationship with the league in-game, four years ago. >> Okay, so I'd just love to kind of hear your take on how the evolution of the introduction of this data was received by the league, received by the teams, something they'd never had before, right? Kind of a look and feel and you can look at film, but not to the degree and the tightness of tolerances that you guys are able to deliver. >> Well, like any new technology and information resource, it takes time to first of all determine what you want to do with that information, you have an idea when you start, and then it evolves over time. And so what we started with was tagging the players themselves and during the time, what we've really enjoyed in working with the NFL is that the league has to be very pragmatic and thoughtful when introducing new technologies and information. So they studied and researched the information to determine how much of this information do they share with the clubs, how much do they share with the fans and the media, and then what type of information sharing, what does that mean in terms of impact of the integrity of the game and fair competition. So, for the first two years it was more of a research and testing type of process, and starting in 2016 you started to see more of an acceleration of that data being shared with the clubs. Each club would receive their own data for in-game, and then we would start to see some of that trickle out through the NFL's Next Gen Stats brand banner on their NFL.com site. And so then we start to see more of that and then what I think we've really seen pick up pace certainly in 2017 is more utilization of this information from a media perspective. We're seeing it more integrated into the broadcasts themselves, so you have like kind of a live tracking set of information that keeps you contextually involved in the game. >> Right. And you were involved in advanced analytics before you joined Zebra, so you've been kind of in this advanced stats world for a while. So how did it change when you actually had a real-time sensor on people's bodies? >> Yeah it does feel a bit like Groundhog Day, right? I started more in the stats and advanced analytics when I worked for STATS LLC. In 2007, I developed a piece of software for the New Orleans Saints that they used to track observational statistics to game video. And it was a similar type of experience in starting in 2009 and introducing that to teams where it took about three or four years where teams started to feel like that new information resource was not a nice to have but a need to have, a premium ingredient that they could use for game planning, and then player evaluation, and also the technology could provide them some efficiencies. We're seeing that now with the tracking data. We just returned from the NFL Combine a couple weeks ago, and what I felt in all the conversations that we had with clubs was that there was a high level of appreciation and a lot of interest in how tracking data can help facilitate their traditional scouting and player evaluation processes, the technology itself how can it make the teams more efficient in evaluating players and developing game plans, so there's a lot of excitement. We've kind of hit that tipping point, if I may, where there's general acceptance and excitement about the data and then it's incumbent upon us as a partner with the league and with the teams for our practice clients to teach them how to use the analytics and statistics effectively. >> So I'm just curious, some of the specific data points that you've seen evolve over time and also the uses. I think you were talking about a little bit off camera that originally it was really more the training staff and it was really more kind of the health of the player. Then I would imagine it evolved to now you can actually see what's going on in terms of better analysis, but I would imagine it's going to evolve where coaches are getting that feedback in real-time on a per-play basis and are making in-game adjustments based on this real-time data. >> Well technically that's feasible today but then there's the rules of engagement with the league itself, and so the teams themselves, and the coaches, and the sideline aren't seeing this tracking data live, whether it be in the booth or on the sidelines. Now in a practice environment, that's what teams are using our system for. With inside of three seconds they're seeing real-time information show up about players during practice. Let's take an example, a player during practice who's coming back from injury. You might want to monitor their output during the week as they come back and they make sure that they're ready for the game on a week to week basis. Trainers are now able to see that information and take that over to a position coach or a head coach and make them aware of the performance of the player during practice. And I think sometimes people think with tracking data it's all about managing in the health of the player and making sure they don't overwork. Where really, the antithesis of that is you can actually also identify players who aren't necessarily reaching their maximum output that will help them build throughout the week from peak performance during a game. And so a lot of teams like to say okay, I have a wide receiver, I know their max miles per hour, is, let's use an example, 20.5 miles an hour. He hasn't hit his max yet during the entire week, so let's get him into some drills and some sessions, where he can start hitting that max so that we reduce the potential for injury on game day. >> Right, another area that probably a lot of people would never think is you also put sensors on the refs. So you know not only where the refs are, but are they in the right positions technically and kind of from a best practices to make the calls for the areas that they're trying to cover. >> Right. >> There's got to be, was their a union pushback on this type of stuff? I mean there's got to be some interesting kind of dynamics going on. >> Yeah as far as the referees, I know that referees are tagged and the NFL uses that information and correlates that with the play calls themselves. We're not involved in that process but I know they're utilizing the information. In addition to the referees I should add, we also have a tag in the ball itself. >> [Jeff] That's right. >> 2017 season was the first year that we had every single game had a tagged ball. Now that tagged information in the ball was not shared with the clubs yet, the league is still researching the information, like they did with the players' stuff. A couple years of research, then they decide to distribute that to the teams and the media. So we are tracking a lot of assets, we also have tags in the first down markers and the pylons and I'll just cut to the chase, there are people who will say okay, does that mean you can use these chips and this technology to identify first down marks or when a ball might break the plane for a potential touchdown? Technically you can do that, and that's something the league may be researching, but right now that's not part of our charter with them. >> Right, so I'm just curious about the conversations about the data and the use of the data. 'Cause as you said there's a lot of raw data, and there's kind of governance issues and rules of engagement, and then there's also what types of analytics get applied on top of that data, and then of course also it's about context, what's the context of the analytics? So I wonder if you could speak to the kind of the evolution of that process, what were people looking at when you first introduced this four years ago, and how has it moved over time in terms of adding new analytics on top of that data set? >> That's one of my favorite topics to talk about, when we first started with the league and engaging teams for the practice solution or providing them analytics, they in essence got a large raw data file of XY coordinates, you can imagine (laughs) it was a gigantic hard drive-- >> Even better, XY coordinates. >> And put it into a spreadsheet and go. There was some of that early on and really what we had to do through the power of software, is develop and application platform that would help teams manage and organize this data appropriately, develop the appropriate reports, or interesting reports and analysis. And over the last two or three years I think we've really found our stride at Zebra in providing solutions to go along with the capabilities of the technology itself. So at first it was strength and conditioning coaches, plowing through this information in great detail or analytics staffs, and what we've seen over the last 24 months is director of analytics now, personnel staff, coaches as well, a broadening group of people inside of a football organization start to use this data because the software itself allows them to do so. I'll give an example, instead of just tabular information, and charts and graphs, we now take the data and we can plot them into a play field schematic, which as you know as we talked off camera you're very familiar with football, that just automates the process of what teams do today manually, is develop play cards so they can do self-study and advanced scouting techniques. That's all automated today, and not only that, it's animated because we have the tracking information and we can merge that to game video. So we're just trying to make the tools with the software more functional so everybody in the organization can utilize it beyond strength and conditioning, which is important, but now we're broadening the aperture and appealing to everybody in the organization. >> Do you do, I can just see you can do play development too, if you plug in everybody's speeds and feeds, you have a certain duration of time, you can probably AB test all types of routes, and timing on drops and now you know how hard the guy throws the ball to come up with a pretty wide array of options, I would imagine within the time window. >> Exactly, a couple of examples I could give, when we meet with teams we have every player, let's say on a team and we know all the routes they ran during an entire season. So you can imagine on a visualization tool, you can imagine, it's like a spaghetti chart of different routes and then you start breaking down the scenarios of context like we talked about earlier, it's third down, it's in the red zone, it's receptions. And so that becomes a smaller set of lines that you see on the chart. I'll tell you Jeff, when we start meeting with teams at the Combine and we start showing them their X or a primary receiver, or their slot receiver tendencies visually, they start leaning forward a bit, oh my goodness, we spend way too much time on the same route when we're targeting for touch down passes. Or we're right-handed too much, we have to change that up. That's the most gratifying thing, is that you're taking a picture and you're really illuminating and those coaches who intrinsically know that, but once they see a visual cue, it validates something in their head that either they have to change or evolve something in their game plan or their practice regimen. >> Well, that's what I was going to ask, and you lead right into it is, what are some of the things that get the old-school person or the people that just don't get that, they don't get it, they don't have the time, they don't believe it, or maybe believe it but they don't have the time, they're afraid to understand. What are some of those kind of light bulb moments when they go okay, I get it, as you said, most of the time if they're smart, it's going to be kind of a validation of something they've already felt, but they've never actually had the data in front of them. >> Right, that's exactly right. So that, the first thing is just quantifying, providing a quantifiable empirical set of evidence to support what they intrinsically know as professional evaluators or coaches. So we always say that they data itself and the technology isn't meant to be a silver bullet. It's now a new premium ingredient that can help support the processes that existed in the past and hopefully provide some efficiency. And so that's the first thing, I think the visual, the example I showed about the wide receiver tendencies when they're thrown to in the red zone, that always gets people leaning forward a little bit. Also with running backs, third down in three plus yards, or third down in short situations, and my right-hander to left-hander when I'm on a certain hash. Again the visualization just allows them to really mark something in their head-- >> Just in the phase. >> Where it makes them really understand. Another example that's interesting is players who play on special teams who are also wide receivers, so as we know, linebackers and tight ends tend to be, and quarterbacks tend to be involved in special teams. Well is there an effect when they've covered kick offs and punts, a large amount of those in a game, did that affect them on side a ball play, for instance? Think about Julian Edelman two Superbowls ago, he played 93 snaps against the Atlanta Falcons. and when you look at the route-- >> [Jeff] He played 93 snaps? >> Yeah, between special, because it went into overtime, right? It was an offensive game-- >> And he's on all the-- >> He played a lot of snaps, he played 93 snaps. how does that affect his route integrity? Not only the types and quality of the route, but the depth and speed he gets to those points, those change over time. So this type of information can give the experts just a little bit more information to find that edge. And I have a great mentor of mine, I have to bring him up, Gill Brant, former VP of Personnel to Dallas Cowboys, with Tex Schramm and Tom Landry, he looks at this type of information and he says, what would a team pay for one more victory? >> So as we know, all coaches and professional organizations and college are looking for an edge, and if we can provide that with our technology through efficiencies and some type of support information resource then we're doing our job. >> I just wanted to, before I let you go, just the human factors on that. I mean, football coaches are notoriously crazy workers and, right, you can always watch more films. So now you're adding a whole new category of data and information. How's that being received on their side? Is it, are they going to have to put new staff and resources against this? I mean, there's only so many hours in a day and I can't help but think of the second tier or third tier coaches who are going to be on the hook for going through this. Or can you automate so much of it so it's not necessarily this additional burden that they have to take on? 'Cause I would imagine if the Cowboys are doing it, the Eagles got to do it, the Giants got to do it, and the Washington Redskins got to do it, right? >> Right, right, well each team as you might expect, their cultures are different. And I would say two or three years ago you started to see more teams hire literally by title, director of analytics, or director of football information, instead of sharing that responsibility between two or three people that already existed in the organization. So that staffing I think occurred a couple, two or three years ago or over the last two or three years. This becomes another element for those staffs to work with. But also along that process over the last two or three years is, really, I always try to say in talking to teams and I'll be on the road again here soon talking to clubs after pro days conclude, is forget about staffs and analytics and that idea. Do you want to be information driven, and do you want to be efficient? And that's something everybody can grasp onto, whether you're the strength and conditioning coach, personnel staff or scout, or a position coach, or a head coach, or a coordinator. So we try to be information driven, and then that seems to ease the process of people thinking I have to hire more people. What I really need to do is ask my people that are already in place to maybe be more curious about this information, and if we're going to invest in a resource that can help support them and make them more efficient, make sure we leverage it. And so that's our process that we work with, it varies by team, some teams have large, large expansive staffs. That doesn't necessarily mean, in my opinion the most effective staff is using information. Sometimes it's the organizations that run very lean with a few set of people, but very focused and moving in one direction. >> I love it, data for efficiency, right? In God we trust, everybody else bring data. One of my favorite lines that we hear over and over and over at these shows. >> In fact, I might borrow that next week. >> You could take that one, alright. >> Thank you, Jeff. >> Well John, thanks for taking a few minutes and stopping by and participating in this Western Digital program, because it is all about the data and it is about efficiency, so it's not necessarily trying to kill people with more tools, but help them be better. >> That's what we're trying to do, I appreciate the opportunity and love to talk to you more. >> Absolutely, well hopefully we'll see you again. He's John Pollard, I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching theCUBE from Palo Alto studios, thanks for watching, we'll see you next time. (Upbeat music)

>> Announcer: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico, it's The Cube covering Blockchain Unbound, brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (rhythmic salsa music) >> Hello, everyone, welcome back to our exclusive coverage here in Puerto Rico, Blockchain Unbound Global Conference where the leaders in the industry from entrepreneurs to investors and everything in between, from San Francisco to New York, Miami, South Africa, Russia, all over the world are here in Puerto Rico, The Cube's coverage. Our next guest is Naomi Brockwell who is hosting the event here on stage. She's emceeing it all. You go to her YouTube channels /naomibrockwell, check out her videos, hosts events all over the industry, Blockchain, celebrity, thought leader, futurist. What else are you? >> You're very, very kind. It's all not true, but I have been in the space for awhile and I love Blockchain text, so it's exciting to be here. >> I'm really impressed by your stamina and passion on stage. What a line up today, so give us the quick highlights What happened today, we were here filming. What happened inside the venue? We saw some great talks come through there. >> Yeah, we saw some great ones. A probably a highlight for me was seeing Alena. She was the former CEO of SatoshiLabs, which created Trezor, one of mt favorite hard wallets, by the way, and it was just great listening to her talk about security because that is something that is so important and people do not take seriously enough. I have people telling me, "Oh, Naomi, I started up this wallet, and I stood my public in the..." I was like, "So did you write down your private key and all that, it's in a safe place?" He's like "Yup, it's in my DropBox." I'm like, "No, what are you doing, this is not good!" Hearing her basically say anything that has touched the internet ever, any device that has been on the internet ever is not secure. Do not trust it, you need to use offline things. >> There's a lot of wallet grabbing going on digitally. >> Absolutely. >> That's come up. I saw some stuff on Telegram, people that we know, be like, "Hey, beware, a lot of hacking out there. "Got to watch your coins." >> And also, I mean there's just huge gains to be made, right, so it makes sense, especially we expect the price of Bitcoin to go up. You have hackers just targeting at specific wallets, and specific vulnerabilities, and they just keep going until they get through, so you've got to be vigilant and you got to take every precaution possible. Got to take it seriously. >> Is there a best practice that you observed? >> Absolutely. Don't store anything online. And another thing, people are telling me, "Yeah, you know, I have my private key written down." I'm like, "Great, you wrote it down twice?" They're like, "Yeah, I just printed that out twice." I'm like, "No, your printer stores an image "of everything you've ever printed out "and it's connected to wifi at all times. "That is going to be hacked. "Do not print out your private key, "your paper wallet, anything. "You've got to write this down." Paper and pen is the best practice you can use and-- >> Going old school analog, big time. >> Absolutely. And isn't that funny? You have this amazing new tech that's fantastic, cutting edge, and what are we doing to keep it safe? Pen and paper. >> Yeah, turn off all wifi, put on some vinyl records, eight-track recorder, going old school. Okay, I got to get-- >> But holding your own coins, holding your own money, having control of your own money, no one said that's the easiest practice. They just said it was the most secure and is going to give you the most power over your funds, and so if you want to do that, there's a price to pay and that is being vigilant about your security. >> One of the things about that I'm interested in talking to you about is being someone who's present at creation of a big movement like this. You've seen the evolution. What's the growing pains in the industry 'cause we're seeing a lot of people who are the pioneers, now that people, I won't call them tourists because they're still young and emerging, but you have a lot of get-rich-quick schemes. Those are obviously being filtered out pretty quickly by the community, but you're seeing new entrants come in. You have financing, got big numbers coming in, big money. How has it evolved, I mean, what's your observation? How is it maturing? What's some of the vibe? You've got some factions over here, you've got some factions over there. People are still getting along. What's the overall sentiment? >> I've been in this space for about five years, so in this industry, it's like being an absolute veteran, and what you've seen is it started out as this very libertarian space. People were interested in taking their money out of the control of government and having more autonomy over their finds, having more control over their funds. Blockchain was invented as a tool for giving people more freedom, and what you're seeing now is a bunch of people who entered the space who don't necessarily share that ethos, but what I love about Blockchain is that they're taking this technology that is inherently taking people towards a more decentralized free society, and they're applying it to all different industries. So my point of view, it doesn't bother me at all that the new entrants don't necessarily share this passion for freedom that the people who've been here since the beginning have, but the fact that they are taking this and making the world a more free place regardless is really exciting to me. >> And that's the real opportunity 'cause inherently the ethos is Blockchain, so it's not so much a political orientation or this or that. It's how you apply it. >> Exactly, and so Blockchain, being a decentralized ledger is great because when you decentralize any power structure, no matter what industry it is, I mean, you're really making people more free, you're giving them more responsibility, and I like seeing things become decentralized. >> Certainly we're a media company, we're kind of a new car, we don't believe in a central gatekeeper, so I got to ask you the question. As a YouTuber who has a big fan base and in the community, it's really disheartening for me to see John Oliver take down Brock Pierce, although it was a hilarious video up until the point where he maliciously went after Brock in a very vicious way. How does one person have that power. I mean, it shouldn't be that way, or the New York Times or a certain publication that, they're the gatekeeper still. That was an example I looked at and said, "That's where Blockchain can disrupt the media." I mean, it's great comedy, but it kind of went over the top. >> For me, I mean-- >> He got fired by the Eagles project. They wiped his name off everything. I mean, that's just, I just see that as a problem. You, what's your thoughts? >> When you say how do these people get there, John Oliver is a funny guy. I see how he got there, he's very talented, he has a great team, great writing, but that section, I thought it was pretty spot on for most of the Bitcoin segment. It got to that section, I was like, "Oh, this is kind of sloppy research." so that was disappointing. I saw that Brendan Bloomer had a nice response that he posted. He's the head of EOS. >> What did he say? >> He was just very funny and playful with John, so that was nice to see. He set him straight in terms of saying like, "What does this technology enable?" He was basically arguing Blockchain doesn't go far enough. It doesn't fulfill the needs that I see in society so I created this other thing which does XYZ. He was authoritative in stating that, "no, you just don't understand the tech." He basically clarified the Brock situation and said, "No, actually having him involved was really great." He's not involved for various reasons. Yeah, it was an interesting segment that the-- >> It was so funny after that one point. I'm like, "Oh, boy." >> I was enjoying it up til then. I was like, "Okay, this makes sense, you know. >> It's funny. >> And then it gets up to that and I'm like, "Okay, this just became an at home and I'm going to tag. This is a cheap throw, and people do that with Bitcoin. Since it's inception, you've seen people in media and mainstream media in particular target Bitcoin and they're just adopting the government narrative saying, "Oh, everyone in this industry is corrupt," or "Everyone in this industry is an ICO scammer," or "Everyone in this industry is a drug runner "and they're all selling drugs on the dark web." It's like, you know what, you can do some research and do a bit better than that, so to see John Oliver perpetuating those at-home and I'm going to attack was disappointing, but at the same time, we are seeing that narrative shift, and you're seeing more news outlets become more positive about Bitcoin. >> Also the data is the self-government and the community has the data. The truth is going to get out there. That's the purpose of Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Crypto. You've got consensus, you've got algorithms, you've got machine learning. Okay, cool. What are you up to? You've got an exciting couple things going on. You've got a lot going on, so take a quick minute to explain your big project. You've got some exciting, cool things, share it. >> Got some fun things going on at the moment. While I'm not emceeing 20 to 40 Blockchain conferences a year, which is exciting, but takes up a lot of my time, I am a television producer. I have my own show. It's Bitcoin, Blockchain-tech based. Then on top of that, I'm a film producer, television producer. We're working on a really exciting series right now. It's called The HardFork Series. It's this dystopian future, it's a sci-fi thriller. $18 million, or it's a large budget, and we have one of the guys from Ozark, on Netflix originally. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. It's a great show. Christopher James Baker is our lead and the community support we have garnered for this project is great because we have not only Hollywood types, our director is a Sundance alumni. We've also got people in the Crypto Space who have a huge amount of credibility. We've got Bruce Fenton, Jason King on our Board of Advisors. People who understand the space, so the community is excited about for the first time having a mainstream production that is being created with a large budget where people in the industry have control of the narrative. We haven't had control of the narrative yet. >> That's true. >> The government's still controlling it, mainstream media's still controlling it, and so to create a series that could potentially expose people to this technology for the first time and to have control of that narrative is exciting. >> Is it going to be inspirational, it going to be a comedy? >> It's going to be gritty, it's a sci-fi thriller. We call it a crypto-thriller noir. Is that not the best genre you've ever heard? It's pretty cool. It's this idea that in the future the government has their own Blockchain and there's Crypto Coins that they have. It's all centralized and they control the populous with this augmented reality where everything is gamified. Basically the idea is the government's trying to distract people from important issues, like gamifying everything. You have this group of renegades who comes in. They're like, "No, we're going to decentralize this." They come and work their magic. >> It's Mr. Robot meets Black Mirror. >> Oh, yeah, no, it's pretty great. >> Kind of thing goin' on? It basically is a tale about the power of decentralization and how it can disrupt all authoritarian role, which I think is just a great topic for right now. >> What's your background? Where are you, out of LA, New York? >> I'm based in New York. My background actually. >> How'd you get here? >> I was an opera singer. That's how I got here. I moved to New York as an opera singer and then pivoted into movie production, and from there went on to television production. I got into the Crypto Space because I'm really interested in Australian economics and love the philosophy that Bitcoin was created on. It's been an interesting journey. >> You got addicted. >> Yeah, now I kind of-- >> You went to the light. >> Yeah, I'm bringing everything together now with my Bitcoin, economics-based, Crypto-thriller noir, so it's pretty exciting. >> I'm super impressed. Congratulations on all your continued success. Great job emceeing the Blockchain Unbound. >> Thank you. >> Great energy, great mind, great to have you on The Cube. Thanks for sharing >> It's wonderful to be here. >> your story. Thanks for everything. It's The Cube, I'm John Furrier here. Breaking down, we've got all the action in Puerto Rico. Thought leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, people in the industry sharing their story. Sharing the data with you, that's our mission. Thanks for watching. Day two tomorrow, we'll see you then. (engaging tones)

(electronic theme music0 >> Announcer: Live from Nassau in the Bahamas. It's the Cube. Covering Polycom 18. Brought to you by Polycom. >> Welcome to Nassau, everybody. This is the Cube, the leader in live tech coverage. And we're here at Polycom 18 in beautiful Bahamas, Nassau. Brian Brackeen is here, the CEO of Kairos. Brain, thanks for coming on. >> Thanks for having me. >> We just met this morning. >> Yep. >> I heard you up on the panel. So Kairos, first of all, I love the name. >> Thank you, thank you. >> Where's the name come from? >> It's Greek. >> Yeah, I thought so. >> It means, the most opportune moment. >> Love it. Okay, so you seize the opportune moment to do facial recognition. Everybody knows facial recognition from Facebook, but talk about what you guys bring to the table. >> Yeah and like you said. You seen it from Facebook. The new iPhone has facial recognition. It's really all about identifying who someone is and verifying their identity. We use it for companies. Prior to doing this for ICS stuff, we were an existing business, six years old. Mostly fortune 500, fortune 1,000 companies. We have retailers understand who's in the retail store. Their age, gender, ethnicities, their emotions, their feelings. We also help people like a, even like school bus companies that identifies which kids are getting on the right bus. We help movie studios to understand how you feel about a film. So we've been in this industry some time. We think it's perfect for the block change >> So there's a security angle there as well. >> Absolutely. >> As the fun on Facebook. How's, what's the state of facial recognition technology? I'd love to hear from an expert. I've talked to some people who say, oh, it's nowhere near ready. And I'm like how can it not be ready? I go on Facebook, they tag me in an instance. (laughing) I go, no, don't tag me. Where are we in terms of the quality and ethicacy of facial recognition. >> Yeah, we can find one person in a billion in about one third of a second. And we're about 99.8, 99.9% sure they are who we think they are. So definitely, the future is really now. >> Now you guys, unlike many companies who either done an ICO or raisen security tokens or done utility tokens, you guys are an established company. And then decided, so let's, but before we get into that. Give us the history of the company. You seized the moment and, how you got started and how you got here. >> Sure. My personal background, I'm a, Philadelphia, originally. We were just talking abut being an Eagles fan. >> Hey, congratulations. >> Thank you, thank you so much. Long time coming. >> The Eagles, a deserved win. It hurts me from being from Boston, but. (laughing) >> But we still get along. >> Yeah >> So worked in large corporations for most of my career. >> Comcast, IBM in Phily, took a job at Apple, just after the iPhone launch on through the iPad launch. Steve Job was still there. It was a period of exponential growth. It changed my life. And then I got the shuttle bug, and quit my job there. Which my parents thought I was absolutely crazy. And started Kairos. First in San Francisco and then moved the company to Miami. We realized early on that facial recognition was a right direction that helping companies to do it was a big idea. Essentially the market is anywhere or anyone that works with people. So thought it was a good and growing market. And we got into it deeply in the last three to four years or so. >> So a bit of a change up. I want to ask you GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation is coming, it's here but the fines and penalties go into effect in May of this year. I learned recently that pictures qualify for personally identifiable information. >> Correct. >> Has that been a tailwind for you? Have people come to you and say, hey, we need help because we, we're on the video business or whatever it is and we need help in case somebody needs to identify somebody. Is that a use case. >> Yeah, we think a lot about GDPR, a lot about it. As your viewers may know, that's really a European Union regulation. However, it kind of extends to people who, anybody doing business there. >> Dave: Right. >> Which is everyone in the US. (laughing) So it becomes almost like defacto US law, even though it's not a US law. There's a lot of concern about, because of facial recognition, your picture really becomes your identity. So how do we manage that. We're actually one of the first anonymous facial recognition companies in the world. We sometimes just let you know that it's the same person, but not who that person is. Protecting your animity and your individuality. >> Okay, is that where block change comes in? >> Exactly. >> Okay, let's pivot to that discussion, block change. Talk about the technology that allows me to own my own data, protect my own data, anonymize, how's that work? >> Absolutely. Let's say me and you were in a kind of friendly wager, if it's really a go right, on the super bowl, (laughing) right. And I, you lost the game, so now you owe me 20 ether. So you don't just want to send it to a random address. You want to make sure that, you know, it's really me. Because 20 ether is a decent amount of money these days, right. And so now you're going to use facial recognition transaction today. Only this face can unlock this transaction. Can open this ether and deposit into their wallet. I don't think you don't even know who I am, but just this face. And so I'm standing on the other side. I can say that I will only accept ether from this face. >> Right >> Yeah, it changes everything. >> And then the obvious question people are going to ask you, server address really, but how secured is that? You know, how hackable is that? Can I take a picture of somebody and then, you know, recreate, you know, that image? How do you, you know, forth that? >> Yeah, yeah. A number of ways. Some things like you can take a picture of someone else and say hold it in front of the camera, that kind of thing. We have all kinds of anti fraud detection. So we can detect from the entrance of light, and because we can read emotions, is the person kind of really alive, are they feeling emotions or are they breathing. All kinds of technology we can use to verify someone's identity. >> Great. All right, let's get in the business of tokens. You choice to tokenize your business. Why does it make sense to tokenize your business? >> Yeah, and you know, you see this world, often times will write a white paper and say this is my idea. I appreciate that, but raising 10's and millions of dollars sometimes, and never coming through on that idea, right. In our case, we were an existing business. We've already raised about $80 million in capital, you know, like a Series A, Series B, very traditional way. And we didn't think we could just go off and build a new division in Gibralter or different kind of exotic. I would say that we're in US space and we have US investors in venture capital investors. So we said, let's do this the right way. Let's create a security token. Completely SEC compliant. So let's just do this like another round. To completely tokenize the existing investors and the new investors. So we're all on the same boat. And we've seen great success because of it. >> Okay and so the motivation for them was for investors was equity. Motivation for the existing, preferred investors was liquidity. >> Liquidity. >> Okay, so you basically took those existing, preferred. They protected their ownership and you transferred them over to tokens. >> Transferred them over to tokens, yeah. Essentially, you don't lose any equity, right. But you gain liquidity. You're still in the business. You're long on Kairos, you can stay long on Kairos. If you want to take a little off the table, you can take a little off the table. It really changes overseas finance. >> Dave: And you're doing it to your Chili token as well or no? >> We're doing it to Chili token as well. >> Dave: Okay. >> And with the Chili token, we gave it away for free. Because then we say to the SEC or anyone else, look, we're not trying to profit or get invested from the Chili tokens, that's why it completely free. We're doing a SEC compliant token. >> And talk about the use cases for that utility token. Howe are people utilizing it and what's the value? >> So going back to our friendly bet for the 25 ether, when I click my face for the first time, when I give a scan, that cost one Tyro token. >> Right >> Now after that, to verify it, it's free. But to create your face the first time, it's a Tyro token. >> Let's see, okay, and then you guys charge a monthly subscription for your service, correct? >> For the block change service, no. We just do it, just face san. >> Now right, okay. >> Yeah. >> But through your core business. >> For core business, monthly subscription, reoccurring revenue, absolutely. >> Excellent. I'll give you the last word. Kind of future, where's all this going? We're here at this investors conference. It's the first conference focused on security tokens? >> Yes, right. >> So, and you're a great example of that, of an existing company not a blank sheet of paper. >> Yeah. >> What's your outlook, you know, for the future of this industry, this eco system, this community? >> I'm literally like bubbling with excitement on the future. And it is, as you know, it's way tough for founders who are not base in San Francisco or Silicon Valley, to raise capital. This sort of democratizes that entire process. Now what you'll have is, somebody started in Miami or Portland or Boston, right. And first they would do a round of small investors, local VCs. Get their model together. Get their act right Get some customers. Things start to work for the company. And then there, instead of trying to go Silicon Valley, and beg them to invest, and maybe they won't just because the location. Now, you do ICO at that stage and make the folks in your community richer. They go off and do more things. Make better cities. It's really, really something great. >> Brian Brackeen, thanks very much >> Thank you. >> For coming on the Cube. Really appreciate having you. >> Yup. >> Alright, keep it right there, buddy. We'll be back with our next guest right after this short break. This is Dave Vellante. You're watching the Cube. (electronic theme music)

from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough Massachusetts it's the cube covering Vita winter warmer 2018 presented by silicon angle hi I'm Stu minimun and we're here at the Vita winter warmer 2018 have with me Chris Harney who's the founder yes and president Vita great to see you Chris great to you so 12th annual one of this event it's gone through a couple of name change it's actually the fifth year we've been doing it I'd been coming for a few years before that but for just for our audience that doesn't know explain kind of the why of the V Tugg you know and what's what's changed you know over the years so so V tug was originally a still founded on the principle that we can get smarter together you know if everyone learns a little piece and teaches everyone because back when it started there was no YouTube there was no Google he had to learn on your own and you know we started out learning how to virtualize machines we learned how the emotion worked well now you're talking serverless applications you're talking crowd or cloud native you talk it's tough going to the cloud is it staying on Prem how do you automate and it's changing I mean Moore's law has gone out the window you know change is happening win weeks rather than years yeah and Chris I always love this it's one of our first events of the year the last few years it's a user group it's good grounding for me to really understand you know the typical people NIT what do they care about what are they struggling you know in what's going on in their world so you know you're going to bring us some of the users that we have on here but from your standpoint you know what are you seeing you know what are you hearing yeah so I'm hearing that users are struggling you know that the old adage 80% of their job is maintaining systems and 20% as upgrades yet 20 of some of the budget is spent on upgrades and 80 so that the dumb numbers are skewed so that having trouble keeping up with technology yeah it you throw out some things you talked about you know server lists type applications you'd key notes this morning we had Microsoft Amazon yet some developer to tracks going on looking at you know orchestration and yet some stalwarts the in the industry you know talking about you know what what's happening from from an IT standpoint where is kind of there is no typical but you know when you look at the range of people that are here um you know are they still I'm doing my virtualization rollout are they you know where are they in the cloud journey have they heard about things like kubernetes and server list yet so this audience may have heard of kubernetes very few people are implementing it I still think you know we matured 10 years ago we haven't kind of made that next leap yet so people are still they've got VMware they've got they're looking at NSX and they're running on what's the next hardware platform hyperconvergence is still a big deal yeah uh and hyper-converged is a big deal I mean we've been watching you for many days as I said this is a good grounding for us because right it's like oh well why is that AWS reinvent I was at cube con and you talk about all this stuff where you know the future is going but you know what what's happening today is super important um I like you you talked about some of the dynamics about like how they spend budget you know we talk a lot today about you know it's got to be a switch from kappa to op X and consumption and you know that that's changing a lot people's roles so training education so super important what are they getting coming to an event like this and what are the resources are you seeing that's and that are important today so at this event I think there's a lot of validation you know we we get inundated with marketing go to the cloud go to cloud and all of these users are coming together hey what are you doing for cloud and they're realizing that everyone is pretty much in the same boat together you know so so that's one thing they get networking they share their problems and what the fixes are and then the vendors they bring their a-game they really do some great training sessions so you know we've got 20 different training sessions going on upstairs and the users will go up there and they'll be able to talk one-on-one with real engineers who are doing this stuff yeah so Chris you know both big Patriots fans we've got you know Tedy Bruschi behind us here the Patriots are actually on the practice field right now getting ready for yet another Super Bowl so yeah it's amazing hopefully bring in ring number six home I think we're good lucky were the cube every time we've done your event the Patriots have still been the hunt so you know we got to keep that going but you know you look at the Patriots you say they've done so well you know other than Belichick and Brady there's been a lot of change you know you're gonna have you know this Patriots alumni is coming and I'm hoping we'll talk to like Logan Mankins and be like you know the game it seen the people change you know the strategies change but you know how do you keep that winning formula and it's a lot of its same an IT I mean so much tech has changed you know in 12 years what's the same and we you know what what's different from your viewpoint so the same you know we all have end users you know we aren't applications delivered without without hesitation or without issues so that's that will always be the same what's changed is how do we deliver that you know we used to put a server in one application and then we had sans you know so we could put the sands in and have smaller servers to virtualization to automation you know people are still looking at clones and making that automation happen faster but I think security is starting to take a 4-4-2 that you know we're seeing what's the Intel some viruses and some weaknesses so I think a lot more people are spending more time remediating possible issues and less time building new stuff yeah great points they are I mean I'm in a first structure guy by background and right you talked we went from server to we went to a VM and even we talk about things like containers and then functions it's that delivery of how do I deliver my application right how do I build modernize applications you know term you know cloud native gets thrown out a lot you know developers you know are involved here and you know it still matters some of those underneath piece even something like serverless eventually somebody is responsible that for for that infrastructure it's just you know we looked at the wiki bond research looked at you know we see a big shift going to platforms whether that be a public cloud or even something like hyper-converged there's less that I need to be worried about building and playing with those geek knobs and more software is going to allow me to handle that as data grows as scale happens I can't have people you know in there having to worry about some of those pieces you know machine learning needs to help you know the the the software itself needs to do it in that that's a shift it's challenging for people to kind of embrace that change understand where they add value and where they need to go and it's events like this that I think help people you know make understand where they need to make those transition points and where they can keep adding value is spot on there and I think people just see a point they need to learn that the more things they can affect the more positive influence they can have on that company and the long longer they'll be there the long they'll want them there if you're just affecting one thing you don't add as much value if you're affecting a thousand things there's a lot more value to you all right well Chris once again it's pleasure having you on the program we really appreciated that we could come you know help share the user activity with our community so thanks so much and you know wishing the past good luck absolutely you up for addiction on the score I hate to do predictions when we're going to be there you know I'm confident the Patriots do well if history has shown us anything it's usually a close game absolutely you know so you know I've seen a couple of Eagles fans here but a lot of Patriots colors so thanks so much and we're gonna be back with lots more coverage here from the V tog winter warmer 2018 I'm stew min Amman and you're watching the cube

(upbeat electronic music) >> Welcome back, everyone, to this special Cube conversation. I'm John Furrier in the Cube's Palo Alto Studios. My next guest is Dr. Tom Bradicich, he's a friend of the Cube, works at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, heads up the IOT. He's general manager and vice president of servers, converged edge, IOT systems. But we're here to talk about, not so much HPE but really that work that Tom's done in a topic called First Mover, a book that he's writing. It hasn't come out yet, so we'll get an early preview of what it's like to create a category innovation and how to use process to your advantage, not make it your enemy. (chuckles) How to use creativity and how to motivate people and how to sell it through organizations, whether it's venture capitalists or managers. Tom, you've got great experience, thanks for spending time to come into the studio. >> Great to be here, thanks for having me and I'm happy to have this discussion. >> If you go back to the Cube videos, folks watching that know you, seen all the videos at HPE Discover or HP Discover, back in the day, you had a great career. You were an engineer, built the first notebook computer with IBM, you've done a lot of groundbreaking things and I like the topic of your book, First Mover, 'cause it speaks to your mindset. Entrepreneurial, innovative, breaking through walls, you probably got a lot of scar tissue. So, I want to talk about that. Because this is what the opportunity many entrepreneurs have as you know, in the Cube, we really believe that a renaissance in software development is coming. It's so obvious, open source is growing at a extraordinary pace, reuse of code. >> Right. >> You got IOT. >> You're involved in, you got crypto currency, block chain, all these new waves are coming all at once. >> Yes. >> I wish I was 22 again. >> Because this is a great opportunity to innovate. But this improving things, what are some of those things? Let's jump in, what do you see as the playbook? What have you learned and what can you share? >> Well, sure, I've been blessed, I've had a career where I've been able to do a lot of innovation but also, I like to separate the notion of innovation from differentiation. Now see, it's possible to be innovated and not different. Like it's possible for you and I to have the same new suit. It's new, it's innovative, but it's not different. And differentiation is really where one can have a first mover advantage because differentiation by definition is new, is innovation. But it's not always the other way around. So, I always tell my teams and I always focus on, how can we be two things, both different and better. It's possible also to be different and not as good. You can have the highest failure rate in the industry, you're different but that's not good. >> Right? >> Yeah. >> So, the concept here is how do you be different, not just new and innovative but how to be different and how do you be good. And I've actually faced three risks in mostly the big corporate culture that we've had to innovation. And the first risk is, of course, the obvious one, will customers buy it, that's called market risk. Is it something that's good enough to be purchased at a profit? The second risk is, can it be manufactured at quality and at a rate of consumption. The third risk is your own company, does the company have what it takes, actually, to take on the risk of a brand new product category, not just a new product. But a new category of products that, by definition, have never been done before. And when one can do that, when one can figure that out, and I've had some significant experience with this, you can catapult your careers, you can catapult your company and your customers to new levels because you enjoy the benefits of the first mover. That's the name of the book, The First Mover. >> Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it. But I want to ask, this is super important because a lot of people are really good at something and they run hard, they break through a wall but might have missed something. So, you kind of bring up this holistic picture. What are some of the things that folks should focus in on? Say I have a breakthrough idea, I have a prototype I've been running, it's in market, I think it's the best thing since sliced bread, I'm pushing it hard, people are just going to lap this up, this is going to be great, I know it's innovative but no one else knows it. >> Right, right, yeah. >> What do I do? >> What's the process, what do you recommend? >> Well, what I like to do is portion the benefits into two categories. There's supply side benefits that's to your company. Why is this good for your company to do this? And then there are demand side benefits. Meaning, why is it good for the customer? Most people tend to focus mostly on the demand side. Oh, it's solves this problem and the customers will love it and that's important and I would call that a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The other condition is why is this good for your company? And many times, when it's a brand new product category, those inside a company aren't quite in tune with why it's good for the customer. Because, again, it's a new thing, it's a new product category. Why is an automobile better than a horse and buggy, right? Why is a laptop computer better than a desktop computer? These are the ideas where it may be intuitive, it may be instructive to talk about that but when you can get a business model first and start with that, well, the reason is, we can enjoy this margin. The reason is, we can enjoy this particular first mover advantage, the halo effect, the reputation of being the leader. The reason is because we can penetrate a new market. The reason is we can now overcome a falling revenue in a shrinking tam. Now we can accelerate in another tam, perhaps, as well. So, by coming up with both the demand side and the supply side, you have a better case to go forward for support and funding inside a big corporation. >> There's always product market fit, I hear the buzzwords, I got to get the cashflow positive, break even. There's always a motivating force to get something done. How should someone organize the order of their operations to get something done, to the market, if it's an innovative, groundbreaking, differentiating? Because a lot of the big challenge is, some people call it landing span, I heard that buzzword too but you get a champion inside a company and that champion embraces it and most people think, oh man, I got a customer. But then that person has to sell it through and then it has to be operationalized, meaning, people got to get used to it. These are really challenges. >> They are, yes. >> What is your view of how an entrepreneur or a business executive or practitioner to get through that? >> Well, you have to get people on your side and it's really important. Somebody's got to believe in, either, you not even understanding what you're proposing but they'd say, well, you have a track record. For some reason, I believe what you're saying. And then, secondly, getting customers. So, I have personally never done anything major without a customer that I call an inspiration customer. That's a name I just made up. So, a customer, by definition, is an end user that will buy something from you, that's the definition of a customer. And an inspiration customer is one that will help you that is okay with seeing your dirty laundry, okay with mistakes you might make because they see the value in it and they also see the value in them being a first mover. And I like to tell my team, we want to be a first mover and a trendsetter, so our customers can also be trendsetters in their business as well. So therefore, by getting that customer support, and that's in the form of POCs or in trials or in just customer testimony, combine that now with a second dimension called the analyst community, which you're team resides in as well, also saying well, I think this is good as well, brings a lot credibility because there's a saying, a verse in the bible that a prophet is not without honor except in his own home town. Now, if you think about that, a lot of times, you're own company that you reside in has a lower point of view because it's very consumed with, indeed, what is next and doing the right thing, by the way. I have to make this quarter, right. We have to protect the brand. We have to keep the cashflow coming in. These are all important things, so how do you get someone to focus on that? Many times, it's not you anymore, it's outside. And I call that the second C. The first C is internal, the company. The second C is your customers and the community. That also could include, by the way, analysts, the media, other experts, consultants, those type of Cs around there. Now the third C is the competition. This is a little bit controversial. What happens when the idea is now exploited by the competition first; sometimes that is a motivator for a company to jump on it as well and make the market. But, again, if you follow the competition, you're not the first mover, you don't enjoy the benefits of first mover advantage. Higher margin, the halo effect of being the innovators and also, learning, that's an important one. When you're a first mover, you're out there learning so that you can respond to the second generation in a better way. >> I like the notion of differentiation and innovation as two different variables. >> Yes. >> Because it's super important. You can be different and not innovative. You can be innovative and not different. Again, it's all contextual but I want to get back to the pioneering of the first movers. So, statistically speaking, a lot of the best entrepreneurs are first movers and they're often "misunderstood", you hear that all the time. >> Yes. >> Or being a visionary is the difference being 10 years in the future versus an hour, can make the difference between success. (chuckles) We are crazy on one end and you're brilliant on the other because the time to value catches up with that profit, if you will. So the question is that, how does first movers continue to win 'cause I've seen situations where first movers come in, get a position and win and stay, keep the lead. Other times, first movers come in, set the market up, create all the attention and then have arrows on their back. >> And a second mover enjoys the benefit. >> Yeah, so the second mover comes in, bigger scale, so this competition, competitive strategy overlaid on this. Which even complicates it even further. >> Indeed, yes. >> So, your thoughts on that. >> Yes, indeed. Well, one way to look at this is the way to move forward is again, when you can get some momentum that's not you. That's the number one as a... >> John: Market growth, number of subscribers, doing the internet as a trend. >> Yes. >> Mobile users. >> Yes. >> And a third party consultant who's highly respected, a greaser, an analyst. I ran into an analyst recently in a coffee shop who agreed with some of this first mover work we're doing and converged edge systems, which is a new class of products as well. But it's really important that you can't be discouraged, let me point this out. What I tell my team, and I tell students, I lecture at universities and I've been edge professor, those younger in their career, is if you cast and vision and you have an idea and nobody gets it, don't be discouraged, that's a good sign. That's sounds a little funny. Why is it a good sign? Because if everybody gets it right away, it's likely not that novel, it's likely rather ordinary, it's likely been thought of before as well. So, by the very nature and definition that the average person might think it's discouraging. Oh, nobody understands me, nobody gets this idea, should be an encouragement, and a motivation. Now the risk here, is people not getting it is also a sign of a stupid idea. So, usually, when people don't get it, it's either, really not good. >> Or really good. >> Or really amazing that, eventually, they'll come around to it. I had a boss in one of my career opportunities told me to stop working on a product. I don't want to give too much detail, but he literally told me that. And I said, I didn't want to be insubordinate to a boss, we have them and I said, can I please just keep working on it, okay, don't let it interfere with the other stuff. Dah, dah, dah. Today that market is a nine billion dollar market as well. >> Of that product that you-- >> Of that very product that I was told by a very astute person, one of my colleagues, my bosses, that I don't see the future in this, let's not do this, you know, as well. But, being able to have a second thing. So, number one is don't be discouraged by people not getting it. By definition, that's supposed to happen. >> Yeah. >> When you have new-- >> Good point, you want to finish that? >> I just want to get-- >> Get one more thing. >> If I may add a second one. And as you're moving forward with this as well is seek out and find those who do agree with you and stick with them very, very closely. And I have, I can say a couple of names. There's one, we've created this new product class called Converge Edge Systems. Alan Andriole is senior vice president at HP. >> Cube alumni. >> And he's a Cube alumni. >> Super smart. And I'm pointing him out because he has publicly taken on this idea that this product category can really, really work and he's worked-- >> John: Cloud Nine? >> Oh, the converge edge system called Edgeline. >> Okay, got it. >> The Edgeline product brand. >> You know it as well. So therefore, when you find someone who had authority-- >> Eagles fly together, you want to get a good peer group. >> Absolutely. >> Here's a question for you. >> One of my experiences, and I want to just get your reaction and add on to it, your thoughts is, most entrepreneurs or pioneers are misunderstood, so I agree, don't be discouraged, but also, keep validating and be a data seeker, get the data. But a lot of the times, just getting something in the market or getting it going creates movement and inertia to get rolling and sometimes the original idea is actually the big idea turns into it as you get more data. An example is like Air B&B wasn't... What it is, it was basically air mattresses and selling cereal. >> Yes, yes. >> That was the original story, right. And then it turned into, but conceptually, it was the same thing, so you don't have to be 100% right on the semantics. >> It's well known that most startups don't end up being successful with the product they start with. That's well known fact but that's true also in large companies with a product idea as well. So, you have to have this interesting balance. It's very interesting as I've thought about this in study. You have to have deep philosophical and conviction of principles. And here's why: If you don't, you will be swayed by everybody's opinion and you'll never get anything done because oh, well, that's a good idea, maybe I should do this well, that's a good idea, maybe I should do this. Now, I'm not saying that's bad to listen to others but if you don't have a grounding of principles. Example, we established the seven principles of the IOT over two years ago, and we've held on to them and created the success we have based on those principles. Now that's not to say we didn't modify them a little bit but the point is, we were convicted with something and when somebody would come up with a counter to it, we had a way to defend our convictions, if you will, in internal debates and external debates as well. And then, secondly, you got to be also okay with being the sole inhabitant of that field of discourse. Being a visionary can be a very lonely job because of that, right. And, again, it's because you are and your team is, it's not always a lone person right, the team is actually creating something that literally nobody's ever seen before. Nobody understand before. >> What process do you wrap around this? Because Dave Alonzo and I always talk about this on the Cube and after the Cube is that the process has to be your friend, not your enemy. It has to work for you. >> I always say that, yeah. >> Also says that as well on Amazon. But also Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet's partner always says I'm not a big fan of master plans, meaning, because become a slave to the plan rather than the opportunity. >> Yep, yep. >> So these are process kind of things, right. So how does an innovator that's a first mover that wants to create a category, 'cause categories killers or category creators are huge opportunities financially. So they create a lot of value wealth and opportunity. What process is best? Is there a view, is it conditional on certain things? What's your thoughts on... >> Well, let me say, I'm going to give you a big company or a medium size company context, not a startup, I think they're distinctly different. I have limited experience with a startup but I've had significant experience with bigger, medium and large, now, companies as well. You can't try to change the system because now you have two variables. You got this new product that nobody's ever heard of and now you're trying to change the whole system. Now, again, this is just advice for bigger companies. So be careful how many things you want to change, how many things you want to stop. So you want to take this new thing and align it with existing processes and existing core competencies as much as you can, even though it's new, it has to have some alignment; I'll give you an example. When we built the converged edge systems, the Edgeline brand, we aligned it with compute. It's not only compute, but we aligned it with compute, why? Because HPE or HP, at the time, was and is and now, number one in compute when it comes to data center. Compute systems when it comes to high performance computing and mission critical, right. So therefore, that was easy to understand so you're okay, you're familiar with this, but now, let me tell you this new twist on it. And I would assume, and I don't know this for sure, but I would assume Steve Jobs and the Apple team that was thinking of this smartphone concept, the iPhone as well, they had to align it with some level of compute capabilities, right. And if you notice, as it emerged, it also included something that already exists called the iPod which was already aligned with their laptop computers and their desktops, right. Your music would be downloaded as an app to connectivity, but now you can take it with you and by the way, now I'll add a phone to it and so this incrementally built and by the way, you ain't seen nothing yet, I'm going to add a GPS system, I'm going to add a camera, your flashlight, your wallet, I'm going to add all that in. So, I think, by incrementally moving but not upsetting the system, like you said, in a large company really, really helps because you can't change everything too quickly. You got to be okay being alone-- >> Well, I want to interrupt you there for a second. Peter Buress and I talk all the time; I love his quote, Peter Buress, head Cube on research says, the iPhone was a computer that happened to make phone calls. Okay, and that's the smartphone, it's category creator and we know what happened, the rest is history. However, you mentioned talking to customers, having an inspiration customer, I love that concept. Because you need a muse as an innovator. You got to have someone you can trust that knows what you're trying to do that understands the mission. If Steve Jobs went into the marketplace and did market research, he would have probably had the customer feedback to build the best Blackberry. A better Blackberry or another device. Instead, he used is gut, was on his mission and then he understood the inspirational customer, whether it was real or not, he was going down a different road. It takes guts but also some discipline. >> I hear you and I agree with this 100%. When I had the great fortune of leading a team that created the first enterprise blade server or converge system, and today that is pushing about a 10 billion dollar market opportunity, and not one customer asked me for it. Now, that doesn't mean I didn't listen, okay. But I had to bring it to them. So here's the difference, we're not responding to trends, this is a key point, we're creating a trend. And what I tell my team is, you must create trends, not follow them. Many of competitors, are by the way making good money and doing good business, I'm not knocking that, but I'm saying they're not creating a trend, they're actually following one. They're in an exploding tam. >> Pretty lucrative trend. >> It can be. >> Very mature, big market. >> Dave Thomas with Wendy's followed a trend called hamburgers and he did pretty well. He didn't create the hamburger market but he followed one. Now, this is really rather interesting. So when you come in, and then you're saying I want to actually set a trend and create one, it really gives you this opportunity to redefine what is happening. So now, quick story, you may have heard this, maybe your viewers have heard this. A manager of a shoe company sends two guys to an island. He says, I want you to sell shoes on this island. They get to the island, the first guy calls back and says, boss, this is terrible, everybody is barefoot. There's no opportunity to sell shoes. This is terrible, I'm coming home. The second guy calls and says, boss, you're not going to believe this, there's not a shoe on this island and I have a tam that's 100% of the market to sell shoes. I believe, as you pointed out, Steve Jobs didn't go and say well, what apps do you own on your Blackberry. What he did is reversed it and this is what we're doing, we're reversing, we're saying, if you could watch a full length high definition movie in your hand, would you? Well, I can but I can't do it on this device. But if you could, right. So now, in the IOT, I hear this all the time from my competitors and even some colleagues out in the industry, well, we ask them what apps they run at the Edge. We ask them what they do at the Edge. That's good, that's necessary but not sufficient. You have to say, but if you had this product, wouldn't you, for example, run an entire database? Would you compile your machine learning models at the Edge, do it in the cloud now, wouldn't you do that, if you had it? Well, I never thought of that because I don't have that capability, just like, well, I never thought of being able to take pictures and watch full length high definition movies 'cause I never had it. But what if you did, would you do it? So you always got to be setting that trend, not responding to it only. >> That's awesome. >> Dr. Tom Bradicich, writing a book called First Mover really about being innovative. Give you the final word, thanks for coming in, appreciate you sharing the advice. What's going on with HPE and your IOT work? Take a minute to talk about what's happening at HPE. >> Well, thanks, pretty exciting, we've been able to move forward with some really great customer wins. I'm hoping to go public with them. We're in many ways, I know this is an abused term, but we're revolutionizing the industrial IOT in particular and manufacturing floors. We have the large auto-manufacturer that has chosen Edgeline as the standard to produce more and more vehicles per day. That's their goal, how many more vehicles can I get into my customer's hands per day. We have snack company making potato chips. Looking at what we're doing with sulfur, defining operations. We have even, we've talked about this before, space travel, engage with what the space edge is all about. In many ways, we're potato chips to space ships. >> Data centers on Mars. >> Data centers everywhere. >> And then, also, converging OT, just like the smartphone converged the camera and the GPS system, we're converging control systems, data acquisition systems. It's pretty exciting, I've been fortunate to have a company and our new CEO, Antonia Neery, has been very supportive, I was with him this morning and we talked about that new, first-of-a-kind product that we have at this auto-- >> So, is Antonio going to let us come in and do an exclusive interview since he's been a Cube alumni multiple times? >> Yes, I think he should. >> Tell him we said hello. >> I will, I will. >> Tom, great to see you. >> Thanks for having me. >> Tom Bradicich, great thought leader, really around category killers, category creators, being innovative and different, that's the key to success. Thanks for sharing. This is the Cube Conversation here in Palo Alto, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. 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