>> Hello and welcome to theCUBE's coverage of International Women's Day. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. Got a variety of interviews across the gamut from topics, women in tech, mentoring, pipelining, developers, open source, executives. Stanford's having International Women's Day celebration with the women in data science, which we're streaming that live as well. Variety of programs. In this segment, Meagen Eisenberg, friend of theCUBE, she's the CMO of Laceworks, is an amazing executive, got a great journey story as a CMO but she's also actively advising startups, companies and really pays it forward. I want to say Meagen, thank you for coming on the program and thanks for sharing. >> Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. >> Well, we're going to get into some of the journey celebrations that you've gone through and best practice what you've learned is pay that forward. But I got to say, one of the things that really impresses me about you as an executive is you get stuff done. You're a great CMO but also you're advised a lot of companies, you have a lot of irons in the fires and you're advising companies and sometimes they're really small startups to bigger companies, and you're paying it forward, which I love. That's kind of the spirit of this day. >> Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. When I think about my career, a lot of it was looking to mentors women out in the field. This morning I was at a breakfast by Eileen and we had the CEO of General Motors on, and she was talking about her journey nine years as a CEO. And you know, and she's paying it forward with us. But I think about, you know, when you're advising startups, you know, I've gathered knowledge and pattern recognition and to be able to share that is, you know, I enjoy it. >> Yeah. And the startups are also fun too, but it's not always easy and it can get kind of messy as you know. Some startups don't make it some succeed and it's always like the origination story is kind of rewritten and then that's that messy middle. And then it's like that arrows that don't look like a straight line but everyone thinks it's great and you know, it's not for the faint of heart. And Teresa Carlson, who I've interviewed many times, former Amazon, now she's the president of Flexport, she always says, sometimes startups on certain industries aren't for the faint of heart so you got to have a little bit of metal, right? You got to be tough. And some cases that you don't need that, but startups, it's not always easy. What have you learned? >> Yeah, I mean, certainly in the startup world, grit, creativity. You know, when I was at TripActions travel company, pandemic hits, nobody's traveling. You cut budget, you cut heads, but you focus on the core, right? You focus on what you need to survive. And creativity, I think, wins. And, you know, as a CMO when you're marketing, how do you get through that noise? Even the security space, Lacework, it's a fragmented market. You've got to be differentiated and position yourself and you know, be talking to the right target audience and customers. >> Talk about your journey over the years. What have you learned? What's some observations? Can you share any stories and best practices that someone watching could learn from? I know there's a lot of people coming into the tech space with the generative AI things going on in Cloud computing, scaling to the edge, there's a lot more aperture for technical jobs as well as just new roles and new roles that haven't, you really don't go to college for anymore. You got cybersecurity you're in. What are some of the things that you've done over your career if you can share and some best practices? >> Yeah, I think number one, continual learning. When I look through my career, I was constantly reading, networking. Part of the journey is who you're meeting along the way. As you become more senior, your ability to hire and bring in talent matters a lot. I'm always trying to meet with new people. Yeah, if I look at my Amazon feed of books I've bought, right, it kind of chronicle of my history of things I was learning about. Right now I'm reading a lot about cybersecurity, how the, you know, how how they tell me the world ends is the one I'm reading most recently. But you've got to come up to speed and then know the product, get in there and talk to customers. Certainly on the marketing front, anytime I can talk with the customer and find out how they're using us, why they love us, that, you know, helps me better position and differentiate our company. >> By the way, that book is amazing. I saw Nicole speak on Tuesday night with John Markoff and Palo Alto here. What a great story she told there. I recommend that book to everyone. It goes in and she did eight years of research into that book around zero day marketplaces to all the actors involved in security. And it was very interesting. >> Yeah, I mean, it definitely wakes you up, makes you think about what's going on in the world. Very relevant. >> It's like, yeah, it was happening all the time, wasn't it. All the hacking. But this brings me, this brings up an interesting point though, because you're in a cybersecurity area, which by the way, it's changing very fast. It's becoming a bigger industry. It's not just male dominated, although it is now, it's still male dominated, but it's becoming much more and then just tech. >> Yeah, I mean it's a constantly evolving threat landscape and we're learning, and I think more than ever you need to be able to use the data that companies have and, you know, learn from it. That's one of the ways we position ourselves. We're not just about writing rules that won't help you with those zero day attacks. You've got to be able to understand your particular environment and at any moment if it changes. And that's how we help you detect a threat. >> How is, how are things going with you? Is there any new things you guys got going on? Initiatives or programs for women in tech and increasing the range of diversity inclusion in the industry? Because again, this industry's getting much wider too. It's not just specialized, it's also growing. >> Yes, actually I'm excited. We're launching secured by women, securedbywomen.com and it's very much focused on women in the industry, which some studies are showing it's about 25% of security professionals are women. And we're going to be taking nominations and sponsoring women to go to upcoming security events. And so excited to launch that this month and really celebrate women in security and help them, you know, part of that continual learning that I talked about, making sure they're there learning, having the conversations at the conferences, being able to network. >> I have to ask you, what inspired you to pursue the career in tech? What was the motivation? >> You know, if I think way back, originally I wanted to be on the art side and my dad said, "You can do anything as long as it's in the sciences." And so in undergrad I did computer science and MIS. Graduated with MIS and computer science minor. And when I came out I was a IT engineer at Cisco and you know, that kind of started my journey and decided to go back and get my MBA. And during that process I fell in love with marketing and I thought, okay, I understand the buyer, I can come out and market technology to the IT world and developers. And then from there went to several tech companies. >> I mean my father was an engineer. He had the same kind of thing. You got to be an engineer, it's a steady, stable job. But that time, computer science, I mean we've seen the evolution of computer science now it's the most popular degree at Berkeley we've heard and around the world and the education formats are changing. You're seeing a lot of people's self-training on YouTube. The field has really changed. What are some of the challenges you see for folks trying to get into the industry and how would you advise today if you were talking to your young self, what would you, what would be the narrative? >> Yeah, I mean my drawback then was HTML pages were coming out and I thought it would be fun to design, you know, webpages. So you find something you're passionate about in the space today, whether it's gaming or it's cybersecurity. Go and be excited about it and apply and don't give up, right? Do whatever you can to read and learn. And you're right, there are a ton of online self-help. I always try to hire women and people who are continual learners and are teaching themselves something. And I try to find that in an interview to know that they, because when you come to a business, you're there to solve problems and challenges. And the folks that can do that and be innovative and learn, those are the ones I want on my team. >> It's interesting, you know, technology is now impacting society and we need everyone involved to participate and give requirements. And that kind of leads my next question for you is, like, in your opinion, or let me just step back, let me rephrase. What are some of the things that you see technology being used for, for society right now that will impact people's lives? Because this is not a gender thing. We need everybody involved 'cause society is now digital. Technology's pervasive. The AI trends now we're seeing is clearly unmasking to the mainstream that there's some cool stuff happening. >> Yeah, I mean, I think ChatGPT, think about that. All the different ways we're using it we're writing content and marketing with it. We're, you know, I just read an article yesterday, folks are using it to write children's stories and then selling those stories on Amazon, right? And the amount that they can produce with it. But if you think about it, there's unlimited uses with that technology and you've got all the major players getting involved on it. That one major launch and piece of technology is going to transform us in the next six months to a year. And it's the ability to process so much data and then turn that into just assets that we use and the creativity that's building on top of it. Even TripActions has incorporated ChatGPT into your ability to figure out where you want when you're traveling, what's happening in that city. So it's just, you're going to see that incorporated everywhere. >> I mean we've done an interview before TripAction, your other company you were at. Interesting point you don't have to type in a box to say, I'm traveling, I want a hotel. You can just say, I'm going to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, I want to have a good time. I want some tapas and a nice dinner out. >> Yes. Yeah. That easy. We're making it easy. >> It's efficiency. >> And actually I was going to say for women specifically, I think the reason why we can do so much today is all the technology and apps that we have. I think about DoorDash, I think about Waze you know, when I was younger you had to print out instructions. Now I get in the car real quick, I need to go to soccer practice, I enter it, I need to pick them up at someone's house. I enter it. It's everything's real time. And so it takes away all the things that I don't add value to and allows me to focus on what I want in business. And so there's a bunch of, you know, apps out there that have allowed me to be so much more efficient and productive that my mother didn't have for sure when I was growing up. >> That is an amazing, I think that actually illustrates, in my opinion, the best example of ChatGPT because the maps and GPS integration were two techs, technologies merged together that replace driving and looking at the map. You know, like how do you do that? Like now it's automatically. This is what's going to happen to creative, to writing, to ideation. I even heard Nicole from her book read said that they're using ChatGPT to write zero day exploits. So you seeing it... >> That's scary stuff. You're right. >> You're seeing it everywhere. Super exciting. Well, I got to ask you before you get into some of the Lacework things that you're involved with, cause I think you're doing great work over there is, what was the most exciting projects you've worked on in your career? You came in Cisco, very technical company, so got the technical chops, CSMIS which stands for Management of Information Science for all the young people out there, that was the state of the art back then. What are some of the exciting things you've done? >> Yeah, I mean, I think about, I think about MongoDB and learning to market to developers. Taking the company public in 2017. Launching Atlas database as a service. Now there's so much more of that, you know, the PLG motion, going to TripActions, you know, surviving a pandemic, still being able to come out of that and all the learnings that went with it. You know, they recently, I guess rebranded, so they're Navan now. And then now back in the security space, you know, 14 years ago I was at ArcSite and we were bought by HP. And so getting back into the security world is exciting and it's transformed a ton as you know, it's way more complicated than it was. And so just understanding the pain of our customers and how we protect them as is fun. And I like, you know, being there from a marketing standpoint. >> Well we really appreciate you coming on and sharing that. I got to ask you, for folks watching they might be interested in some advice that you might have for them and their career in tech. I know a lot of young people love the tech. It's becoming pervasive in our lives, as we mentioned. What advice would you give for folks watching that want to start a career in tech? >> Yeah, so work hard, right? Study, network, your first job, be the best at it because every job after that you get pulled into a network. And every time I move, I'm hiring people from the last job, two jobs before, three jobs before. And I'm looking for people that are working hard, care, you know, are continual learners and you know, add value. What can you do to solve problems at your work and add value? >> What's your secret networking hack or growth hack or tip that you can share? Because you're a great networker by the way. You're amazing and you do add a lot of value. I've seen you in action. >> Well, I try never to eat alone. I've got breakfast, I've got lunch, I've got coffee breaks and dinner. And so when I'm at work, I try and always sit and eat with a team member, new group. If I'm out on the road, I'm, you know, meeting people for lunch, going for dinner, just, you know, don't sit at your desk by yourself and don't sit in the hotel room. Get out and meet with people. >> What do you think about now that we're out of the pandemic or somewhat out of the pandemic so to speak, events are back. >> Yes. >> RSA is coming up. It's a big event. The bigger events are getting bigger and then the other events are kind of smaller being distributed. What's your vision of how events are evolving? >> Yeah, I mean, you've got to be in person. Those are the relationships. Right now more than ever people care about renewals and you are building that rapport. And if you're not meeting with your customers, your competitors are. So what I would say is get out there Lacework, we're going to be at RSA, we're going to be at re:Inforce, we're going to be at all of these events, building relationships, you know, coffee, lunch, and yeah, I think the future of events are here to stay and those that don't embrace in person are going to give up business. They're going to lose market share to us. >> And networking is obviously very key on events as well. >> Yes. >> A good opportunity as always get out to the events. What's the event networking trick or advice do you give folks that are going to get out to the networking world? >> Yeah, schedule ahead of time. Don't go to an event and expect people just to come by for great swag. You should be partnering with your sales team and scheduling ahead of time, getting on people's calendars. Don't go there without having 100 or 200 meetings already booked. >> Got it. All right. Let's talk about you, your career. You're currently at Lacework. It's a very hot company in a hot field, security, very male dominated, you're a leader there. What's it like? What's the strategies? How does a woman get in there and be successful? What are some tricks, observations, any data you can share? What's the best practice? What's the secret sauce from Meagen Eisenberg? >> Yes. Yeah, for Meagen Eisenberg. For Lacework, you know, we're focused on our customers. There's nothing better than getting, being close to them, solving their pain, showcasing them. So if you want to go into security, focus on their, the issues and their problems and make sure they're aware of what you're delivering. I mean, we're focused on cloud security and we go from build time to run time. And that's the draw for me here is we had a lot of, you know, happy, excited customers by what we were doing. And what we're doing is very different from legacy security providers. And it is tapping into the trend of really understanding how much data you have and what's happening in the data to detect the anomalies and the threats that are there. >> You know, one of the conversations that I was just having with a senior leader, she was amazing and I asked her what she thought of the current landscape, the job market, the how to get promoted through the careers, all those things. And the response was interesting. I want to get your reaction. She said interdisciplinary skills are critical. And now more than ever, the having that, having a set of skills, technical and social and emotional are super valuable. Do you agree? What's your reaction to that and what would, how would you reframe that? >> Yeah, I mean, I completely agree. You can't be a leader without balance. You've got to know your craft because you're developing and training your team, but you also need to know the, you know, how to build relationships. You're not going to be successful as a C-level exec if you're not partnering across the functions. As a CMO I need to partner with product, I need to partner with the head of sales, I need to partner with finance. So those relationships matter a ton. I also need to attract the right talent. I want to have solid people on the team. And what I will say in the security, cybersecurity space, there's a talent shortage and you cannot hire enough people to protect your company in that space. And that's kind of our part of it is we reduce the number of alerts that you're getting. So you don't need hundreds of people to detect an issue. You're using technology to show, you know, to highlight the issue and then your team can focus on those alerts that matter. >> Yeah, there's a lot of emerging markets where leveling up and you don't need pedigree. You can just level up skill-wise pretty quickly. Which brings me to the next question for you is how do you keep up with all the tech day-to-day and how should someone watching stay on top of it? Because I mean, you got to be on top of this stuff and you got to ride the wave. It's pretty turbulent, but it's still growing and changing. >> Yeah, it's true. I mean, there's a lot of reading. I'm watching the news. Anytime something comes out, you know, ChatGPT I'm playing with it. I've got a great network and sharing. I'm on, you know, LinkedIn reading articles all the time. I have a team, right? Every time I hire someone, they bring new information and knowledge in and I'm you know, Cal Poly had this learn by doing that was the philosophy at San Luis Obispo. So do it. Try it, don't be afraid of it. I think that's the advice. >> Well, I love some of the points you mentioned community and network. You mentioned networking. That brings up the community question, how could people get involved? What communities are out there? How should they approach communities? 'Cause communities are also networks, but also they're welcoming people in that form networks. So it's a network of networks. So what's your take on how to engage and work with communities? How do you find your tribe? If someone's getting into the business, they want support, they might want technology learnings, what's your approach? >> Yeah, so a few, a few different places. One, I'm part of the operator collective, which is a strong female investment group that's open and works a lot with operators and they're in on the newest technologies 'cause they're investing in it. Chief I think is a great organization as well. You've got a lot of, if you're in marketing, there's a ton of CMO networking events that you can go to. I would say any field, even for us at Lacework, we've got some strong CISO networks and we do dinners around you know, we have one coming up in the Bay area, in Boston, New York, and you can come and meet other CISOs and security leaders. So when I get an invite and you know we all do, I will go to it. I'll carve out the time and meet with others. So I think, you know, part of the community is get out there and, you know, join some of these different groups. >> Meagen, thank you so much for spending the time. Final question for you. How do you see the future of tech evolving and how do you see your role in it? >> Yeah, I mean, marketing's changing wildly. There's so many different channels. You think about all the social media channels that have changed over the last five years. So when I think about the future of tech, I'm looking at apps on my phone. I have three daughters, 13, 11, and 8. I'm telling you, they come to me with new apps and new technology all the time, and I'm paying attention what they're, you know, what they're participating in and what they want to be a part of. And certainly it's going to be a lot more around the data and AI. I think we're only at the beginning of that. So we will continue to, you know, learn from it and wield it and deal with the mass amount of data that's out there. >> Well, you saw TikTok just got banned by the European Commission today around their staff. Interesting times. >> It is. >> Meagen, thank you so much as always. You're a great tech athlete. Been following your career for a while, a long time. You're an amazing leader. Thank you for sharing your story here on theCUBE, celebration of International Women's Day. Every day is IWD and thanks for coming on. >> Thank you for having me. >> Okay. I'm John Furrier here in theCUBE Studios in Palo Alto. Thank you for watching, more to come stay with us. (bright music)

(upbeat music) >> Hello, beautiful cloud community, and welcome back to AWS reInvent. It is day four here in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. My voice can feel it, clearly. I'm Savannah Peterson with my co-host Paul Gillin. Paul, how you doing? >> Doing fine, Savannah. >> Are your feet about where my voice is? >> Well, getting little rest here as we have back to back segments. >> Yeah, yeah, we'll keep you off those. Very excited about this next segment. We get to have a chat with one of our very favorite analysts, Keith Townsend. Welcome back to theCUBE. >> Savannah Page. I'm going to use your south names, Savannah Page. Thank you for having me, Paul. Good to see you again. It's been been too long since CubeCon Valencia. >> Valencia. >> Valencia. >> Well at that beautiful lisp, love that. Keith, how's the show been for you so far? >> It has been great. I tweeted it a couple of days ago. Amazon reInvent is back. >> Savannah: Whoo! Love that. >> 50, 60 thousand people, you know? After 40 thousand, I stop countin'. It has been an amazing show. I don't know if it's just the assignment of returning, but easily the best reInvent of the four that I've attended. >> Savannah: Love that. >> Paul: I love that we have you here because, you know, we tend to get anchored to these desks, and we don't really get a sense of what's going on out there. You've been spending the last four days traversing the floor and talking to people. What are you hearing? Are there any mega themes that are emerging? >> Keith: So, a couple of mega themes is... We were in the Allen session with Adam, and Adam bought up the idea of hybrid cloud. At the 2019 show, that would be unheard of. There's only one cloud, and that's the AWS cloud, when you're at the Amazon show. Booths, folks, I was at the VMware booth and there's a hybrid cloud sign session. People are talking about multicloud. Yes, we're at the AWS show, but the reality that most customers' environments are complex. Adam mentioned that it's hybrid today and more than likely to be hybrid in the future in Amazon, and the ecosystem has adjusted to that reality. >> Paul: Now, is that because they want sell more outposts? >> You know, outpost is definitely a part of the story, but it's a tactile realization that outposts alone won't get it. So, you know, from Todd Consulting, to Capgemini, to PWC, to many of the integrations on the show floor... I even saw company that's doing HP-UX in the cloud or on-prem. The reality is these, well, we've deemed these legacy systems aren't going anywhere. AWS announced the mainframe service last year for converting mainframe code into cloud workloads, and it's just not taking on the, I think, the way that the Amazon would like, and that's a reality that is too complex for all of it to run in the cloud. >> Paul: So it sounds like the strategy is to envelop and consume then if you have mainframe conversion services and HP-UX in the cloud, I mean, you're talking about serious legacy stuff there. >> Keith: You're talking about serious legacy stuff. They haven't de-emphasized their relationship with VMware. You know, hybrid is not a place, it is a operating model. So VMware cloud on AWS allows you to do both models concurrently if you have those applications that need layer two. You have these workloads that just don't... SAP just doesn't... Sorry, AWS, SAP in the cloud and EC2 just doesn't make financial sense. It's a reality. It's accepting of that and meeting customers where they're at. >> And all the collaboration, I mean, you've mentioned so many companies in that answer, and I think it's very interesting to see how much we're all going to have to work together to make the cloud its own operating system. Cloud as an OS came up on our last conversation here and I think it's absolutely fascinating. >> Keith: Yeah, cloud is the OS I think is a thing. This idea that I'm going to use the cloud as my base layer of abstraction. I've talked to a really interesting startup... Well actually it's a open source project cross plane of where they're taking that cloud model and now I can put my VMware vsphere, my AWS, GCP, et cetera, behind that and use that operating model to manage my overall infrastructure. So, the maturity of the market has fascinated me over the past year, year and a half. >> It really feels like we're at a new inflection point. I totally agree. I want to talk about something completely different. >> Keith: Okay. >> Because I know that we both did this challenge. So one of the things that's really inspiring quite frankly about being here at AWS reInvent, and I know you all at home don't have an opportunity to walk the floor and get the experience and get as many steps as Paul gets in, but there's a real emphasis on giving back. This community cares about giving back and AWS is doing a variety of different activations to donate to a variety of different charities. And there's a DJ booth. I've been joking. It kind of feels like you're arriving at a rave when you get to reInvent. And right next to that, there is a hydrate and help station with these reusable water bottles. This is actually firm. It's not one of those plastic ones that's going to end up in the recycled bin or the landfill. And every single time that you fill up your water bottle, AWS will donate $3 to help women in Kenya get access to water. One of the things that I found really fascinating about the activation is women in sub-Saharan Africa spend 16 million hours carrying water a day, which is a wild concept to think about, and water is heavy. Keith, my man, I know that you did the activation. They had you carrying two 20 pound jugs of water. >> Keith: For about 15 feet. It's not the... >> (laughs) >> 20 pound jugs of water, 20 gallons, whatever the amount is. It was extremely heavy. I'm a fairly sizeable guy. Six four, six five. >> You're in good shape, yeah. >> Keith: Couple of a hundred pounds. >> Yeah. >> Keith: And I could not imagine spending that many hours simply getting fresh water. We take it for granted. Every time I run the water in the sink, my family gets on me because I get on them when they leave the sink water. It's like my dad's left the light on. If you leave the water on in my house, you are going to hear it from me because, you know, things like this tickle in my mind like, wow, people walk that far. >> Savannah: That's your whole day. >> Just water, and that's probably not even enough water for the day. >> Paul: Yeah. We think of that as being, like, an 18th century phenomenon, but it's very much today in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. >> I know, and we're so privileged. For me, it was just, we work in technology. Everyone here is pretty blessed, and to do that activation really got my head in the right space to think, wow I'm so lucky. The team here, the fabulous production team, can go refill my water bottle. I mean, so simple. They've also got a fitness activation going on. You can jump on a bike, a treadmill, and if you work out for five minutes, they donate $5 to Fred Hutch up in Seattle. And that was nice. I did a little cross-training in between segments yesterday and I just, I really love seeing that emphasis. None of this matters if we're not taking care of community. >> Yeah, I'm going to go out and google Fred Hutch, and just donate the five bucks. 'Cause I'm not, I'm not. >> (laughs) >> I'll run forever, but I'm not getting on a bike. >> This from a guy who did 100 5Ks in a row last year. >> Yeah. I did 100 5Ks in a row, and I'm not doing five minutes on a bike. That's it. That's crazy, right? >> I mean there is a treadmill And they have the little hands workout thing too if you want. >> About five minutes though. >> Savannah: I know. >> Like five minutes is way longer than what you think it is. >> I mean, it's true. I was up there in a dress in sequence. Hopefully, I didn't scar any anyone on the show floor yesterday. It's still toss up. >> I'm going to take us back to back. >> Take us back Paul. >> Back to what we were talking about. I want to know what you're hearing. So we've had a lot of people on this show, a lot of vendors on the show who have said AWS is our most important cloud partner, which would imply that AWS's lead is solidifying its lead and pulling away from the pack as the number one. Do you hear that as well? Or is that lip service? >> Keith: So I always think about AWS reInvent as the Amazon victory lap. This is where they come and just thumb their noses at all the other cloud providers and just show how far ahead they're are. Werner Vogels, CTO at Amazon's keynotes, so I hadn't watched it yet, but at that keynote, this is where they literally take the victory lap and say that we're going to expose what we did four or five years ago on stage, and what we did four or five years ago is ahead of every cloud provider with maybe the exception of GCP and they're maybe three years behind. So customers are overwhelmingly choosing Amazon for these reasons. Don't get me wrong, Corey Quinn, Gardner folks, really went at Adam yesterday about Amazon had three majors outages in December last year. AWS has way too many services that are disconnected, but from the pure capability, I talked to a born in the cloud data protection company who could repatriate their data protection and storage on-prem private data center, save money. Instead, they double down on Amazon. They're using, they modernize their application and they're reduced their cost by 60 to 70%. >> Massive. >> This is massive. AWS is keeping up with customers no matter where they're at on the spectrum. >> Savannah: I love that you use the term victory lap. We've had a lot of folks from AWS here up on the show this week, and a couple of them have said they live for this. I mean, and it's got to be pretty cool. You've got 70 thousand plus people obsessed with your product and so many different partners doing so many different things from the edge to hospital to the largest companies on earth to the Israeli Ministry of Defense we were just talking about earlier, so everybody needs the cloud. I feel like that's where we're at. >> Keith: Yeah, and the next step, I think the next level opportunity for AWS is to get to that analyst or that citizen developer, being able to enable the end user to use a lambda, use these data services to create new applications, and the meanwhile, there's folks on the show floor filling that gap that enable develop... the piece of owner, the piece of parlor owner, to create a web portal that compares his prices and solutions to other vendors in his area and adjust dynamically. You go into a restaurant now and there is no price menu. There's a QR code that Amazon is powering much of that dynamic relationship between the restaurateur, the customer, and even the menu and availability. It's just a wonderful time. >> I always ask for the print menu. I'm sorry. >> Yeah. You want the printed menu. >> Look down, my phone doesn't work. >> Gimme something I could shine my light on. >> I know you didn't have have a chance to look at Vogel's keynote yet, but I mean you mentioned citizen developer. One of the things they announced this morning was essentially a low code lambda interface. So you can plug, take your lamb dysfunctions and do drag and drop a connection between them. So they are going after that market. >> Keith: So I guess I'll take my victory lap because that was my prediction. That's where Amazon's next... >> Well done, Keith. >> Because Lambda is that thing when you look at what server list was and the name of the concept of being, not having to have to worry about servers in your application development, the logical next step, I won't take too much of a leap. That logical first step is, well, code less code. This is something that Kelsey Hightower has talked about a lot. Low code, no code, the ability to empower people without having these artificial barriers, learning how to code in a different language. This is the time where I can go to Valencia, it's pronounced, where I can go to Valencia and not speak Spanish and just have my phone. Why can't we do, at business value, for people who have amazing ideas and enable those amazing ideas before I have to stick a developer in between them and the system. >> Paul: Low-code market is growing 35% a year. It's not surprising, given the potential that's out there. >> And as a non-technical person, who works in technology, I've been waiting for this moment. So keep predicting this kind of thing, Keith. 'Cause hopefully it'll keep happening. Keith, I'm going to give you the challenge we've been giving all of our guests this week. >> Keith: Okay. >> And I know you're going to absolutely crush this. So we are looking for your 32nd Instagram real, sizzle hot take, biggest takeaway from this year's show. >> So 32nd Instagram, I'll even put it on TikTok. >> Savannah: Heck yeah. >> Hybrid cloud, hybrid infrastructure. This is way bigger than Amazon. Whether we're talking about Amazon, AWS, I mean AWS's solutions, Google Cloud, Azure, OCI, on-prem. Customers want it all. They want a way to manage it all, and they need the skill and tools to enable their not-so-growing work force to do it. That is, that's AWS reInvent 2019 to 2022. >> Absolutely nailed it. Keith Townsend, it is always such a joy to have you here on theCUBE. Thank you for joining us >> Savannah Page. Great to have you. Paul, you too. You're always a great co-host. >> (laughs) We co-hosted for three days. >> We've got a lot of love for each other here. And we have even more love for all of you tuning into our fabulous livestream from AWS reInvent Las Vegas, Nevada, with Paul Gillin. I'm Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in high tech coverage. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Okay, welcome back, everyone, it's CUBE's live coverage. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE here with Paul Gillen. Got a great guest coming up here, talking about cloud security, all things going on in the cloud. Paul, great day. How you doing? How you holding up? >> I'm about at the end of my, running on fumes, John. (John laughs) >> Let's bring it home. >> And we got another day coming up. >> Day three, let's bring it home, come on, let's go. Lot of energy. >> Lot of energy on the floor and certainly a lot of talk about security at this conference. Busy, busy market, lots of vendors. And one of the more notable ones, Cohesity, recently introduced a brand new suite, a brand new approach to security that combines data protection and security and backup. With us, to talk about that is Amith Nair, who is the Senior Vice president and General Manager of cloud at Cohesity. Welcome. >> Thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Paul and John. >> So tell us about DataHawk, your new product. >> Yeah, just to set a little bit of perspective on Cohesity, and how we think about DataHawk and security in general is, Cohesity is the leading solution for data security and management. And if you think about all the pillars that we provide in terms of solution around that data solutions, so we have data protection, data security, data access, data mobility and data insights. So the focus for us over the last many months was really to make our data security solutions really strong. So generally when customers think about security, they think about starting with security at the perimeter, on the edge. They think about firewalls, network layer, and so on and so forth. But in the end, what they're really trying to protect is the data that aligns to what they're really trying to save. Right? So DataHawk was formulated and built in order to help extend our existing solutions to provide additional security, layers of security, and also work with partners to enable doing that. Many months ago, we released this product called FortKnox, which is our cyber vaulting solution. One that customers really love and use today. >> It's an air gap solution, right? >> It's an air gap solution with forum capabilities, and so on. Extremely liked by customers, very well adopted, and we extended that to provide lots more data classification capabilities, and ransomware checks as well. So malware checks in the product itself in terms of what it is being backed up. And is there malware in the backed up data and so on? >> Maybe, we can talk about the evolution of ransomware, because ransomware is getting a lot more sophisticated. It used to start at the end point and then penetrate into the network. Increasingly, now, we're seeing it move into the backup, and actually corrupt backup files before moving into the production data. How is ransomware evolving? >> I mean, there's a ransomware attack that's happening right now as we speak, right? What is it? One in every 11 seconds or so on. And it's getting very, very sophisticated. And you're absolutely right, the target early on used to be the network, or the firewall and so on and so forth. Now, it is the backup. So you have to be very smart about how you protect your backup and if you do get attacked, which a lot of CSOs are starting to realize, it's not about just preventing. But it's also what do you do if it does happen? How can you be resilient in the case of an attack? How can you recover if something happens? And that's where we come in to play as well. >> What's some of the state of the art posture, security posture and cyber resilient techniques? Can you share your observations on what are some of the current state of the art positions? I mean, besides they buy everything, and they want everything, but we're looking at a cost reduction, slow down in the recession, customer's going to look at belt tightening. We heard that from Adam Celeste. Has that changed or enhanced the posture, and impact to the resiliency on the cyber side? >> Yeah, I think customers are getting really smart in terms of how they're adopting cloud. We saw a tremendous amount of growth from a cloud usage perspective, I think, over the last two years and through the pandemic. But now they're getting smart about, "How am I consuming that cloud?" Which is where the consumption's starting to slow down. But that does not mean they're not using cloud, right? And security from a cloud perspective is way different from the old world, which was very static. You're in a completely dynamic environment now. So everybody talks about zero trust security. You have to have that level of no trust, trust nothing, authenticate everything, in terms of how you approach what connects to your network, what services connect to your network and so on. And we follow the same approach, but we also believe that one solution cannot solve it. And which is why we had this announcement around our security advisory council, and security partnership and alliances, where we are providing data to additional solutions, or insights into other security solutions that will help the customer in the end. We talked about how some customers have anywhere between 50 to 70 vendors on their network for security. We want to reduce that noise and that clutter, especially when it comes to cost and expenses. Right? >> Awesome. I want to ask you a personal question if you don't mind. You're new, relatively new to Cohesity, SVP, Senior Vice President, General Manager of the cloud. Obviously, AWS, the biggest cloud, there's other clouds. What attracted you to Cohesity? What was the key thing that attracted you to this company to take a leadership role as this next wave comes in for cloud, and security and what Cohesity is doing? >> Yeah, there are a couple of reasons. Number one and most important was the maturity of the product and the quality of the product. Mohit Aron was our founder, you know, known as the grandfather or as the father of hyperconverge networking. >> He's a legend. >> He's a legend, right? >> (laughs) Just say it. >> And he's built a phenomenal set of technologies that really helps customers and that brings me to the second point, which is customers. We are a customer-obsessed company. And as I was talking to Mohit and Sanjay was our CEO, and Lynn was our CMO and others in the company, it was very evident to me that the core DNA of the company is really helping our customers be successful. Those two things put together. And the third thing, really, I am very culturally-obsessed when it comes to how organizations are run. We have a very strong culture in terms of how we treat employees, how we build the right set of products, and how we go to market. Right? Those three things put together, helped me really make a decision. Obviously, the leadership team within Cohesity was top notch as well. So every one of them that I spoke to had that same core belief system. That had helped a lot. >> Sanjay's a good friend of theCUBE, we've interviewed him many times with VMware. Paul, you know Sanjay's, he loves to get on cam. We hope to have him on tomorrow, if we can get him on the calendar. But you know, Sanjay told me one time, "I never missed a quarter." In his SAP, VMware, he's proud. We'll see, Paul, we're- >> Well, I'm going to hold him to that. >> We better not miss a quarter, I'm going to hold him to that. How's business? How's it, healthy? >> It's been great. We are seeing consistent demand for all of our products. As you can see, we continue to release new products into the market that customers are asking for. We are listening to what customers really want. Our roadmap is really based on two things, customer demand and market and where the market is growing. We have to stay on top of how the market is evolving based on the new challenges that customers are facing. Right? So markets, we are doing really good, company continues to grow and Sanjay has been fantastic in terms of driving that leadership. >> Yeah, he's a good driver. And again, he's Mr. Quarter for a reason, he's disciplined. >> (laughs) Very disciplined. >> Another reason, initiative, Cohesity's is the data security alliance. You put together a group of about a dozen security companies. Getting security companies to work with each other is always a challenge. How did you convince them to join with you? >> Well, one, we aligned on a mission. I mean, in the end, all the partners that we are talking about, they all care about what customers want. And we talked earlier about having that, you know, what is that single pane of glass when it comes to security? Is there one? Probably not. But if you can reduce the chatter, and the noise amongst all these companies, that helps. The other thing is they also understood our mission was really around the security, around data. We talked earlier about how security used to be very parameter or centric, but what you're really trying to save and secure is your data, which is your Queen Bee. And so a couple of months ago at our customer advisory council, I talked about moving and shifting the focus of security to be very data centric. And what we do in this partnership and alliance is a true integration. So there's a lot of engineering work that goes in, is us providing insights around the data to the security partners who can then leverage that to help customers be protected early on. Conversely, they can provide insights into an attack that's emanating possibly, to let us know that there's something happening, so we can lock up the data. So it's a bidirectional, symbiotic relationship between these partners and they all believe in that common cause of making sure the customers get protected. As we talked about earlier, lots of cyber attacks happening even as we speak, if we can collectively do something good in terms of making customers secure and successful, let's do it. >> So what will result from this alliance other than a press release? >> Customers will be successful, hopefully, not just protect customers from ransomware attacks, but also respond and recover if something does happen. We also announce our security council led by Kevin Mandia, and then we have some other big security advisors in that council as well. And that's been very helpful. So it's not just about the product itself, but it's also the collective experience of all these folks who can help and advise and coach CSOs, and other organizations on, what are the best practices? What are the things you're not really considering? What is the vision for you from an architecture standpoint? How is security threats starting to get more, and more mature? And how can you account for that? How can you reduce cost, to your point, right? How can you reduce cost when it comes to managing all these security solutions? >> No, there's no industry where working, it's more important for vendors to work together than in this one. >> Absolutely. I mean, especially for security, I don't think there's a one size fits all solution. So we have to work together. Right? >> What's your state of the union? You were at HashiCorp before you came here, you've been in the industry for a while, you've seen a few cycles of innovation. We're in a really weird time right now, because AWS wasn't really as powerful in 2008, when the last recession was hard too. They weren't really that big then. Now, they're a big part of the economic equation. So agility means fast speed. Can they help us get out of the pandemic? Customer's going to tighten their belts? Is there going to be a pullback? Is there tech spending? All these questions are looming. What are your customers seeing? What do you think is going to happen given the history? 'Cause I don't see the building stopping. I think you'll see more cloud, more savings. So is there fine-tuning solutions? What are customers thinking like now? >> I mean, if you think back to the last recession, the last major one, 2009, that's really about the time when you saw customers thinking about that whole digital transformation, because they started understanding that the way to connect with customers is through a digital engagement. Right? Now, as we've gone through a 10, 15 year period where there has been a lot of digital transformation, there's been a lot of investment in the cloud. Cloud is no longer seen with suspicion. Now, it's about getting smart on how to use it, how to build the right applications. Are there the right set of applications that need to stay in the cloud? And there might be others that need to stay on-prem. Right? I've talked to customers and CIOs who've mentioned to me in the past, that they would go a hundred percent in the cloud, and six months later they come back and they're like, "Nope, you're not going a hundred percent in the cloud. Maybe it's 10% or 15%." >> So they're moving. So what's your plan? You're the GM, you're in charge, you've got to take that next hill. Is it a tailwind, headwind? You've got to navigate the waters here, so to speak, mixed metaphors, but for the most part, you got a business opportunity. >> Absolutely. >> What's the outlook look like? What's your vision? What's the plan? >> Yeah. When it comes to cloud, there are certain things that are a common denominator. Right? One is how do you enable not just applications that are completely on cloud, but also that's on-prem? So for us, that hybrid movement is extremely important. But to create a single seamless UI and experience from an end-customer perspective. So for me, maintaining that and more at team, the R and D team at Cohesity have done a phenomenal job around that. For me, it's to maintain that, and then build additional workloads that make sense from a customer standpoint. There's a lot of investment customers are making. We also have to make sure that they're utilized correctly, and their stored, backed up data, recovered in a way that makes sense for them. And then if things do go south in terms of attacks or other issues, how can we help them get back up to speed, and make sure their business does not suffer? Right? So all of those combined, I think from a cloud perspective, it's the agility, the scalability, and the speed and swiftness that we can work with. >> Well, it sounds like he's ready for the Instagram Real Challenge, our new format on theCUBE. We're going to do a little segment where you can deliver a YouTube Short, Instagram Reel, TikTok or CUBE Gem. More of a thought leadership soundbite for 30 seconds around your view of why is cloud important right now. What's going on at this event that people should pay attention to? What's Cohesity doing? If you can put together a reel, a sizzle reel, or a thought leadership statement. What would that be? >> It would be that cloud is important for any business to be successful. And that's a given right now. I mean, digital transformation is an overused term, but the reality is it's here to stay. And it is the reason why everybody has a mobile phone. Half the people walking on the floor right now is looking at their phone and walking around. And that's your engagement method. So if you don't transform yourself to be able to connect with your end-user, your customer, you will not be successful. And Cohesity can help you by making sure that all of that data that you have, everything that you need in order to be successful to drive that engagement with your customers secure is backed up. No matter what, we will get you back up and running, and you will be successful. And we are in the success journey with you. >> Amith Nair, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Cohesity, the Cloud. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. For Paul Gillen, my co-host. I'm John Furrier here, live on the floor, wrapping up day two, few more segments, stay with us. We got a lot of action coming. We'll be right back with more after the short break. theCUBE, the leader in tech coverage. (bright music)

(calming music) >> Hello and welcome back to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. We're here at AWS re:Invent day three of our scintillating coverage here on theCUBE. I'm Savannah Peterson, joined by John Furrier. John Day three energy's high. How you feeling? >> I dunno, it's day two, day three, day four. It feels like day four, but again, we're back. >> Who's counting? >> Three pandemic levels in terms of 50,000 plus people? Hallways are packed. I got pictures. People don't believe it. It's actually happening. Then people are back. So, you know, and then the economy is a big question too and it's still, people are here, they're still building on the cloud and cost is a big thing. This next segment's going to be really important. I'm looking forward to this next segment. >> Yeah, me too. Without further ado let's welcome our guests for this segment. We have Brad from AMD and we have Rahul from you are, well you do a variety of different things. We'll start with CloudFix for this segment, but we could we could talk about your multiple hats all day long. Welcome to the show, gentlemen. How you doing? Brad how does it feel? We love seeing your logo above our stage here. >> Oh look, we love this. And talking about re:Invent last year, the energy this year compared to last year is so much bigger. We love it. We're excited to be here. >> Yeah, that's awesome. Rahul, how are you feeling? >> Excellent, I mean, I think this is my eighth or ninth re:Invent at this point and it's been fabulous. I think the, the crowd, the engagement, it's awesome. >> You wouldn't know there's a looming recession if you look at the activity but yet still the reality is here we had an analyst on yesterday, we were talking about spend more in the cloud, save more. So that you can still use the cloud and there's a lot of right sizing, I call you got to turn the lights off before you go to bed. Kind of be more efficient with your infrastructure as a theme. This re:Invent is a lot more about that now. Before it's about the glory days. Oh yeah, keep building, now with a little bit of pressure. This is the conversation. >> Exactly and I think most companies are looking to figure out how to innovate their way out of this uncertainty that's kind of on everyone's head. And the only way to do it is to be able to be more efficient with whatever your existing spend is, take those savings and then apply them to innovating on new stuff. And that's the way to go about it at this point. >> I think it's such a hot topic, for everyone that we're talking about. I mean, total cost optimization figuring out ways to be more efficient. I know that that's a big part of your mission at CloudFix. So just in case the audience isn't versed, give us the pitch. >> Okay, so a little bit of background on this. So the other hat I wear is CTO of ESW Capital. We have over 150 enterprise software companies within the portfolio. And one of my jobs is also to manage and run about 40 to 45,000 AWS accounts of our own. >> Casual number, just a few, just a couple pocket change, no big deal. >> And like everyone else here in the audience, yeah we had a problem with our costs, just going out of control and as we were looking at a lot of the tools to help us kind of get more efficient one of the biggest issues was that while people give you a lot of recommendations recommendations are way too far from realized savings. And we were running through the challenge of how do you take recommendation and turn them into real savings and multiple different hurdles. The short story being, we had to create CloudFix to actually realize those savings. So we took AWS recommendations around cost, filtered them down to the ones that are completely non-disruptive in nature, implemented those as simple automations that everyone could just run and realize those savings right away. We then took those savings and then started applying them to innovating and doing new interesting things with that money. >> Is there a best practice in your mind that you see merging in this time? People start more focused on it. Is there a method or a purpose kind of best practice of how to approach cost optimization? >> I think one of the things that most people don't realize is that cost optimization is not a one and done thing. It is literally nonstop. Which means that, on one hand AWS is constantly creating new services. There are over a hundred thousand API at this point of time How to use them right, how to use them efficiently You also have a problem of choice. Developers are constantly discovering new services discovering new ways to utilize them. And they are behaving in ways that you had not anticipated before. So you have to stay on top of things all the time. And really the only way to kind of stay on top is to have automation that helps you stay on top of all of these things. So yeah, finding efficiencies, standardizing your practices about how you leverage these AWS services and then automating the governance and hygiene around how you utilize them is really the key >> Brad tell me what this means for AMD and what working with CloudFix and Rahul does for your customers. >> Well, the idea of efficiency and cost optimization is near and dear to our heart. We have the leading. >> It's near and dear to everyone's heart, right now. (group laughs) >> But we are the leaders in x86 price performance and density and power efficiency. So this is something that's actually part of our core culture. We've been doing this a long time and what's interesting is most companies don't understand how much more efficiency they can get out of their applications aside from just the choices they make in cloud. but that's the one thing, the message we're giving to everybody is choice matters very much when it comes to your cloud solutions and just deciding what type of instance types you choose can have a massive impact on your bottom line. And so we are excited to partner with CloudFix, they've got a great model for this and they make it very easier for our customers to help identify those areas. And then AMD can come in as well and then help provide additional insight into those applications what else they can squeeze out of it. So it's a great relationship. >> If I hear you correctly, then there's more choice for the customers, faster selection, so no bad choices means bad performance if they have a workload or an app that needs to run, is that where you you kind of get into the, is that where it is or more? >> Well, I mean from the AMD side right now, one of the things they do very quickly is they identify where the low hanging fruit is. So it's the thing about x86 compatibility, you can shift instance types instantly in most cases without any change to your environment at all. And CloudFix has an automated tool to do that. And that's one thing you can immediately have an impact on your cost without having to do any work at all. And customers love that. >> What's the alternative if this doesn't exist they have to go manually figure it out or it gets them in the face or they see the numbers don't work or what's the, if you don't have the tool to automate what's the customer's experience >> The alternative is that you actually have people look at every single instance of usage of resources and try and figure out how to do this. At cloud scale, that just doesn't make sense. You just can't. >> It's too many different options. >> Correct The reality is that your resources your human resources are literally your most expensive part of your budget. You want to leverage all the amazing people you have to do the amazing work. This is not amazing work. This is mundane. >> So you free up all the people time. >> Correct, you free up wasting their time and resources on doing something that's mundane, simple and should be automated, because that's the only way you scale. >> I think of you is like a little helper in the background helping me save money while I'm not thinking about it. It's like a good financial planner making you money since we're talking about the economy >> Pretty much, the other analogy that I give to all the technologists is this is like garbage collection. Like for most languages when you are coding, you have these new languages that do garbage collection for you. You don't do memory management and stuff where developers back in the day used to do that. Why do that when you can have technology do that in an automated manner for you in an optimal way. So just kind of freeing up your developer's time from doing this stuff that's mundane and it's a standard best practice. One of the things that we leverage AMD for, is they've helped us define the process of seamlessly migrating folks over to AMD based instances without any major disruptions or trying to minimize every aspect of disruption. So all the best practices are kind of borrowed from them, borrowed from AWS in most other cases. And we basically put them in the automation so that you don't ever have to worry about that stuff. >> Well you're getting so much data you have the opportunity to really streamline, I mean I love this, because you can look across industry, across verticals and behavior of what other folks are doing. Learn from that and apply that in the background to all your different customers. >> So how big is the company? How big is the team? >> So we have people in about 130 different countries. So we've completely been remote and global and actually the cloud has been one of the big enablers of that. >> That's awesome, 130 countries. >> And that's the best part of it. I was just telling Brad a short while ago that's allowed us to hire the best talent from across the world and they spend their time building new amazing products and new solutions instead of doing all this other mundane stuff. So we are big believers in automation not only for our world. And once our customers started asking us about or telling us about the same problem that they were having that's when we actually took what we had internally for our own purpose. We packaged it up as CloudFix and launched it last year at re:Invent. >> If the customers aren't thinking about automation then they're going to probably have struggle. They're going to probably struggle. I mean with more data coming in you see the data story here more data's coming in, more automation. And this year Brad price performance, I've heard the word price performance more this year at re:Invent than any other year I've heard it before, but this year, price performance not performance, price performance. So you're starting to hear that dialogue of squeeze, understand the use cases use the right specialized processor instance starting to see that evolve. >> Yeah and and there's so much to it. I mean, AMD right out of the box is any instance is 10% less expensive than the equivalent in the market right now on AWS. They do a great job of maximizing those products. We've got our Zen four core general processor family just released in November and it's going to be a beast. Yeah, we're very excited about it and AWS announced support for it so we're excited to see what they deliver there too. But price performance is so critical and again it's going back to the complexity of these environments. Giving some of these enterprises some help, to help them understand where they can get additional value. It goes well beyond the retail price. There's a lot more money to be shaved off the top just by spending time thinking about those applications. >> Yeah, absolutely. I love that you talked about collaboration we've been talking about community. I want to acknowledge the AWS super fans here, standing behind the stage. Rahul, I know that you are an AWS super fan. Can you tell us about that community and the program? >> Yeah, so I have been involved with AWS and building products with AWS since 2007. So it's kind of 15 years back when literally there were just a handful of API for launching EC2 instances and S3. >> Not the a hundred thousand that you mentioned earlier, my goodness, the scale. >> So I think I feel very privileged and honored that I have been part of that journey and have had to learn or have had the opportunity to learn both from successes and failures. And it's just my way of contributing back to that community. So we are part of the FinOps foundation as well, contributing through that. I run a podcast called AWS Insiders and a livestream called AWS Made Easy. So we are trying to make sure that people out there are able to understand how to leverage AWS in the best possible way. And yeah, we are there to help and hold their hand through it. >> Talk about the community, take a minute to explain to the audience watching the community around this cost optimization area. It's evolving, you mentioned FinOps. There's a whole large community developing, of practitioners and technologists coming together to look at this. What does this all mean? Talk about this community. >> So cost management within organizations is has evolved so drastically that organizations haven't really coped with it. Historically, you've had finance teams basically buy a lot of infrastructure, which is CapEx and the engineering teams had kind of an upper bound on what they would spend and where they would spend. Suddenly with cloud, that's kind of enabled so much innovation all of a sudden, everyone's realized it, five years was spent figuring out whether people should be on the cloud or not. That's no longer a question, right. Everyone needs to be in the cloud and I think that's a no-brainer. The problem there is that suddenly your operating model has moved from CapEx to OpEx. And organizations haven't really figured out how to deal with it. Finance now no longer has the controls to control and manage and forecast costs. Engineering has never had to deal with it in the past and suddenly now they have to figure out how to do all this finance stuff. And procurement finds itself in a very awkward way position because they are no longer doing these negotiations like they were doing in the past where it was okay right up front before you engage, you do these negotiations. Now it's kind of an ongoing thing and it's constantly changing. Like every day is different. >> And you got marketplace >> And you got marketplace. So it's a very complex situation and I think what we are trying to do with the FinOps foundation is try and take a lot of the best practices across organizations that have been doing this at least for the last 10, 15 years. Take all the learnings and failures and turn them into hopefully opinionated approaches that people can take organizations can take to navigate through this faster rather than kind of falter and then decide that oh, this is not for us. >> Yeah. It's a great model, it's a great model. >> I know it's time John, go ahead. >> All right so, we got a little bumper sticker exercise we used to say what's the bumper sticker for the show? We used to say that, now we're modernizing, we're saying if you had to do an Instagram reel right now, short hot take of what's going on at re:Invent this year with AMD or CloudFix or just in general what would be the sizzle reel, that would be on Instagram or TikTok, go. >> Look, I think when you're at re:Invent right now and number one the energy is fantastic. 23 is going to be a building year. We've got a lot of difficult times ahead financially but it's the time, the ones that come out of 23 stronger and more efficient, and cost optimize are going to survive the long run. So now's the time to build. >> Well done, Rahul let's go for it. >> Yeah, so like Brad said, cost and efficiencies at the top of everyone's mind. Stuff that's the low hanging fruit, easy, use automation. Apply your sources to do most of the innovation. Take the easiest part to realizing savings and operate as efficiently as you possibly can. I think that's got to be key. >> I think they nailed it. They both nailed it. Wow, well it was really good. >> I put you on our talent list of >> And alright, so we repeat them. Are you part of our host team? I love this, I absolutely love this Rahul we wish you the best at CloudFix and your 17 other jobs. And I am genuinely impressed. Do you sleep actually? Last question. >> I do, I do. I have an amazing team that really helps me with all of this. So yeah, thanks to them and thank you for having us here. >> It's been fantastic. >> It's our pleasure. And Brad, I'm delighted we get you both now and again on our next segment. Thank you for being here with us. >> Thank you very much. >> And thank you all for tuning in to our live coverage here at AWS re:Invent, in fabulous Sin City with John Furrier, my name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in high tech coverage. (calm music)

>> Good afternoon, fellow cloud nerds and welcome back to AWS Reinvent 2022. We are live here from fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. My name is Savannah Peterson, joined by Lisa Martin. So excited to be here Lisa, it's my first reinvent. >> Is it really? >> Yeah. >> I think it's only like my fourth or fifth. >> Only your fourth or fifth. >> Only. >> You're such a pro here. >> There's some serious veterans here in attendance that have been to all 11. >> I love that. >> Yeah. Wow, go them. I know, maybe we'll be at that level sooner. >> One day we will. >> Are you enjoying the show so far? >> Absolutely, it is. I cannot believe how many people are here. We've had 70,000 and we're only seeing what's at the foundation Expo Hall, not at the other hotel. So, I can only imagine. >> I mean, there's a world outside of this. >> Yes, and there's sunlight. There's actual sunlight outside of this room. >> Nobel idea. Well, Lisa, I'm very excited to be sitting here next to you and to welcome our fabulous guests, from TEKsystems, we have Brandon and Srini. Thank you so much for being here. How is the show going for you gentlemen so far? >> It's great. Lot of new insights and the customers are going to love what AWS is releasing in this reinvent. >> There is such a community here, and I love that vibe. It's similar to what we had at Cloud Native con in Detroit. So much collaboration going on. I assume most folks know a lot about TEKsystems who are watching, but just in case they don't, Brandon, give us the pitch. >> You bet. So full stack IT solutions firm, been in business for over 40 years, 80,000 global employees, really specializing in digital transformation, enterprise modernization services. We have partners in One Strategy, which is an an acquisition we made, but a well known premier partner in the Amazon partner ecosystem, as well as One North Interactive, who is our boutique brand, creative and digital strategy firm. So together, we really feel like we can bring full end-to-end solutions for digital and modernization initiatives. >> So, I saw some notes where TEKsystems are saying organizations need experienced AWS partners that are not afraid doing the dirty work of digital transformation, who really can advise and execute. Brandon, talk to us about how TEKsystems and AWS are working together to help customers on that journey which is nebulous of digital transformation. >> So, our real hallmark is the ability to scale. We partner with AWS in a lot of different ways. In fact, we just signed our strategic collaboration agreement. So, we're in the one percenter group in the whole partner network. >> Savanna: That's a pretty casual flex there. >> Not bad. >> I love that, top 1%, that no wonder you're wearing that partner pin so proud today. (speaking indistinctly) >> But we're working all the way on the advisory and working with their pro serve organization and then transforming that into large scale mass migration services, a lot of data modernization that Srini is an absolute expert in. I'm sure he can add some context too, but it's been a great partnership for many years now. >> In the keynote, Adam spent almost 52 minutes on data, right? So, it emphasizes how organizations are ready to take data to cloud and actually make meaningful insights and help their own customers come out of it by making meaningful decisions. So, we are glad to be part of this entire ecosystem. >> I love that you quantified how many minutes. >> I know. >> Talked about it, that was impressive. There's a little bit of data driven thinking going on here. >> I think so. >> Yeah. >> Well, we can't be at an event like this without talking about data for copious amounts of time, 52 minutes, has just used this morning. >> Right, absolutely. >> But every company these days has to be a data company. There's no choice to be successful, to thrive, to survive. I mean, even to thrive and grow, if it's a grocery store or your local gas station or what? You name it, that company has to be a data company. But the challenge of the data volume, the explosion in data is huge for organizations to really try to figure out and sift through what they have, where is all of it? How do we make sense of it? How do we act on it and get insights? That's a big challenge. How is TEKsystems helping customers tackle that challenge? >> Yeah, that's a great question because that's the whole fun of handling data. You need to ensure its meaning is first understood. So, we are not just dumping data into a storage place, but rather assign a meaningful context. In today's announcement, again, the data zone was unveiled to give meaning to data. And I think those are key concrete steps that we take to our customers as well with some good blueprints, methodical ways of approaching data and ultimately gaining business insights. >> And maybe I'll add just something real quick to that. The theme we're seeing and hearing a lot about is data monetization. So, technology companies have figured it out and used techniques to personalize things and get you ads, probably that you don't want half the time. But now all industries are really looking to do that. Looking at ways to open new revenue channels, looking at ways to drive a better customer experience, a better employee experience. We've got a ton of examples of that, Big Oil and Gas leveraging like well and machine data, coming in to be more efficient when they're pumping and moving commodities around. We work a lot in the medium entertainment space and so obviously, getting targeted ads to consumers during the right periods of TV or movies or et cetera. Especially with the advert on Netflix and all your streaming videos. So, it's been really interesting but we really see the future in leveraging data as one of your biggest corporate assets. >> Brilliant. >> So, I'm just curious on the ad thing, just real quick and I'll let you go, Lisa. So, do you still fall victim to falling for the advertising even though you know it's been strategically put there for you to consume in that moment? >> Most of the time. >> I mean, I think we all do. We're all, (indistinct), you're behind the curtain so to speak. >> The Amazon Truck shows up every day at my house, which is great, right? >> Hello again >> Same. >> But I think the power of it is you are giving the customer what they're looking for. >> That's it. >> And you know... >> Exactly. We have that expectation, we want it. >> 100%. >> We know that. >> Agree. >> We don't need to buy it. But technology has made it so easy to transact. That's like when developers started going to the cloud years ago, it was just, it was a swipe. It was so simple. Brandon, talk about the changes in cloud and cloud migration that TEKsystems has seen, particularly in the last couple of years as every company was rushing to go digital because they had to. >> So several years ago, we kind of pushed away that cloud first mentality to the side and we use more of a cloud smart kind of fashion, right? Does everything need to go to the cloud? No. Do applications, data, need to go to the cloud in a way that's modern and takes advantages of what the cloud can provide and all the new services that are being released this week and ongoing. So, the other thing we're seeing is initiatives that have traditionally been in the CTO, CIO organization aren't necessarily all that successful because we're seeing a complete misalignment between business goals and IT achievements, outcomes, et cetera. You can automate things, you can move it to the cloud, but if you didn't solve a core business problem or challenge, what'd you really do? >> Yeah, just to add on that, it's all about putting data and people together. And then how we can actually ensure the workforce is equally brought up to speed on these new technologies. That has been something that we have seen tremendous improvement in the last 24 months where customers are ready to take up new challenges and the end users are ready to learn something new and not just stick onto that status quo mindset. >> Where do you guys factor in to bringing in AWS in the customer's cloud journeys? What is that partnership like? >> We always first look for where the customer is in their cloud journey path and make sure we advise them with the right next steps. And AWS having its services across the spectrum makes it even easier for us to look at what business problem they're solving and then align it according to the process and technology so that at the end of the day, we want end user adoption. We don't want to build a fancy new gadget that no one uses. >> Just because you built it doesn't mean they'll come. And I think that's the classic engineering marketing dilemma as well as balance to healthy tension. I would say between both. You mentioned Srini, you mentioned workforce just a second ago. What sort of trends are you seeing in workforce development? >> Generally speaking, there are a lot of services now that can quantify your code for errors and then make sure that the code that you're pushing into production is well tested. So what we are trying to make sure is a healthy mix of trying to solve a business problem and asking the right questions. Like today, even in the keynote, it was all about how QuickSight, for example, has additional features now that tells why something happened. And that's the kind of mindset we want our end users to adopt. Not just restricting themselves to a reactive analytics, but rather ask the question why, why did it happen? Why did my sales go down? And I think those technologies and mindset shift is happening across the workforce. >> From a workforce development standpoint, we're seeing there's not enough workforce and the core skills of data, DevOps, standard cloud type work. So, we're actually an ATP advanced training partner, one of the few within the AWS network. So, we've developed programs like our Rising Talent Program that are allowing us to bring the workforce up to the skills that are necessary in this new world. So, it's a more build versus buy strategy because we're on talents real, though it may start to wane a little bit as we change the macroeconomic outlook in 2023, but it's still there. And we still believe that building those workforce and investing in your people is the right thing to do. >> It is, and I think there's a strong alignment there with AWS and their focus on that as well. I wanted to ask you, Brandon. >> Brandon: Absolutely. >> One of the things, so our boss, John Furrier, the co CEO of theCUBE, talked with Adam Selipsky just a week or maybe 10 days ago. He always gets an exclusive interview with the CEO of AWS before reinvent, and one of the things that Adam shared with him is that customers, CEOs and CIOs are not coming to Adam, to this head of AWS to talk about technology, they want to talk about transformation. He's talking about... >> The topic this year. >> Moving away from amorphous topic of digital transformation to business transformation. Are you seeing the same thing in your customer? >> 100%, and if you're not starting at the business level, these initiatives are going to fail. We see it all the time. Again, it's about that misalignment and there's no good answer to that. But digital, I think is amorphous to some degree. We play a lot with the One North partnership that I mentioned earlier, really focusing on that strategy element because consumer dollars are shrinking via inflation, via what we're heading into, and we have to create the best experience possible. We have to create an omnichannel experience to get our products or services to market. And if we're not looking at those as our core goals and we're looking at them as IT or technology challenges, we're not looking in the right place. >> Well, and businesses aren't going to be successful if they're looking at it in those siloed organizations. Data has to be democratizing and we've spent same data democratization for so long, but really, we're seeing that it has to be moving out into the lines of business because another thing Adam shared with John Furrier is that he sees and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this, the title of data analysts going away because everybody in different functions and different lines of business within an organization are going to have to be data analysts to some degree, to use data whether it's marketing, ops, sales, finance, are you seeing the same? >> That is true. I mean, at this point, we are all in the connected world, right? Every data point is connected in some form or shape to another data point. >> Savanna: There are many data points, just sitting here, yeah. >> Absolutely, so I think if you are strategizing, data needs to be right in the center of it. And then your business problems need to be addressed with reliable data. >> No, I mean, advertising, supply chain, marketing, they're all interconnected now, and we're looking at ways to bring a lot of that siloed data into one place so we can make use to it. It goes back to that monetization element of our data. >> That's a lot about context and situational awareness. We want what we want, when we want it, even before we knew we needed it then. I think I said that right. But you know, it's always more faster, quicker and then scaling things up. You see a lot of different customers across verticals, you have an absolutely massive team. Give us a sneak peek into 2023. What does the future hold? >> 2023 is again, to today's keynote, I'm bringing it back because it was a keynote filled with vision and limitless possibilities. And that's what we see. Right now, our customers, they are no longer scared to go and take the plunge into the cloud. And as Brandon said, it's all about being smart about those decisions. So, we are very excited that together with the partnership that we recently acquired and the services and the depth, along with the horizontal domain expertise, we can actually help customers make meaningful message out of their data points. And that keeps us really excited for next year. >> Love that, Brandon, what about you? >> I think the obvious one is DevOps and a focus on optimization, financially, security, et cetera, just for the changing times. The other one is, I still think that digital is going to continue to be a big push in 2023, namely making sure that experience is at its best, whether that's employee and combating the war on talent, keeping your people or opening new revenue streams, enhancing existing revenue streams. You got to keep working on that. >> We got to keep the people happy with the machines and the systems that we are building as we all know. But it's very nice, it's been a lot of human-centric focus and a lot of customer obsession here at the show. We know it's a big thing for you all, for Amazon, for pretty much everyone who sat here. Hopefully it is in general. Hopefully there's nobody who doesn't care about their community, we're not talking to them, if that's the case, we have a new challenge on theCUBE for the show, this year as we kind of prepped you for and can call it a bumper sticker, you can call it a 30 second sizzle reel. But this is sort of your Instagram moment, your TikTok, your thought of leadership highlight. What's the most important story coming out of the show? Srini, you've been quoting the keynotes very well, so, I'm going to you first on this one. >> I think overall, it's all about owning the change. In our TEKsystems culture, it's all about striving for excellence through serving others and owning the change. And so it makes me very excited that when we get that kind of keynote resonating the same message that we invite culturally, that's a big win-win for all the companies. >> It's all about the shared vision. A lot of people with similar vision in this room right now, in this room, like it's a room, it's a massive expo center, just to be clear, I'm sure everyone can see in the background. Brandon >> I would say partnership, continuing to enhance our strategic partnership with AWS, continuing to be our customers' partners in transformation. And bringing those two things together here has been a predominance of my time this week. And we'll continue throughout the week, but we're in it together with our customers and with AWS and looking forward to the future. >> Yeah, that's a beautiful note to end on there. Brandon, Srini, thank you both so much for being here with us. Fantastic to learn from your insights and to continue to emphasize on this theme of collaboration. We look forward to the next conversation with you. Thank all of you for tuning in wherever you happen to be hanging out and watching this fabulous live stream or the replay. We are here at AWS Reinvent 2022 in wonderful sunny Las Vegas, Nevada with Lisa Martin. My name is Savannah Peterson, we are theCUBE, the leading source for high tech coverage.

>> 10, nine, eight, (clears throat) four, three. >> Good afternoon, fellow cloud nerds and welcome back to AWS Reinvent 2022. We are live here from fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. My name is Savannah Peterson, joined by Lisa Martin. So excited to be here Lisa, it's my first reinvent. >> Is it really? >> Yeah. >> I think it's only like my fourth or fifth. >> Only your fourth or fifth. >> Only. >> You're such a pro here. >> There's some serious veterans here in attendance that have been to all 11. >> I love that. >> Yeah. Wow, go them. I know, maybe we'll be at that level sooner. >> One day we will. >> Are you enjoying the show so far? >> Absolutely, it is. I cannot believe how many people are here. We've had 70,000 and we're only seeing what's at the foundation Expo Hall, not at the other hotel. So, I can only imagine. >> I mean, there's a world outside of this. >> Yes, and there's sunlight. There's actual sunlight outside of this room. >> Nobel idea. Well, Lisa, I'm very excited to be sitting here next to you and to welcome our fabulous guests, from TEKsystems, we have Brandon and Srini. Thank you so much for being here. How is the show going for you gentlemen so far? >> It's great. Lot of new insights and the customers are going to love what AWS is releasing in this reinvent. >> There is such a community here, and I love that vibe. It's similar to what we had at Cloud Native con in Detroit. So much collaboration going on. I assume most folks know a lot about TEKsystems who are watching, but just in case they don't, Brandon, give us the pitch. >> You bet. So full stack IT solutions firm, been in business for over 40 years, 80,000 global employees, really specializing in digital transformation, enterprise modernization services. We have partners in One Strategy, which is an an acquisition we made, but a well known premier partner in the Amazon partner ecosystem, as well as One North Interactive, who is our boutique brand, creative and digital strategy firm. So together, we really feel like we can bring full end-to-end solutions for digital and modernization initiatives. >> So, I saw some notes where TEKsystems are saying organizations need experienced AWS partners that are not afraid doing the dirty work of digital transformation, who really can advise and execute. Brandon, talk to us about how TEKsystems and AWS are working together to help customers on that journey which is nebulous of digital transformation. >> So, our real hallmark is the ability to scale. We partner with AWS in a lot of different ways. In fact, we just signed our strategic collaboration agreement. So, we're in the one percenter group in the whole partner network. >> Savanna: That's a pretty casual flex there. >> Not bad. >> I love that, top 1%, that no wonder you're wearing that partner pin so proud today. (speaking indistinctly) >> But we're working all the way on the advisory and working with their pro serve organization and then transforming that into large scale mass migration services, a lot of data modernization that Srini is an absolute expert in. I'm sure he can add some context too, but it's been a great partnership for many years now. >> In the keynote, Adam spent almost 52 minutes on data, right? So, it emphasizes how organizations are ready to take data to cloud and actually make meaningful insights and help their own customers come out of it by making meaningful decisions. So, we are glad to be part of this entire ecosystem. >> I love that you quantified how many minutes. >> I know. >> Talked about it, that was impressive. There's a little bit of data driven thinking going on here. >> I think so. >> Yeah. >> Well, we can't be at an event like this without talking about data for copious amounts of time, 52 minutes, has just used this morning. >> Right, absolutely. >> But every company these days has to be a data company. There's no choice to be successful, to thrive, to survive. I mean, even to thrive and grow, if it's a grocery store or your local gas station or what? You name it, that company has to be a data company. But the challenge of the data volume, the explosion in data is huge for organizations to really try to figure out and sift through what they have, where is all of it? How do we make sense of it? How do we act on it and get insights? That's a big challenge. How is TEKsystems helping customers tackle that challenge? >> Yeah, that's a great question because that's the whole fun of handling data. You need to ensure its meaning is first understood. So, we are not just dumping data into a storage place, but rather assign a meaningful context. In today's announcement, again, the data zone was unveiled to give meaning to data. And I think those are key concrete steps that we take to our customers as well with some good blueprints, methodical ways of approaching data and ultimately gaining business insights. >> And maybe I'll add just something real quick to that. The theme we're seeing and hearing a lot about is data monetization. So, technology companies have figured it out and used techniques to personalize things and get you ads, probably that you don't want half the time. But now all industries are really looking to do that. Looking at ways to open new revenue channels, looking at ways to drive a better customer experience, a better employee experience. We've got a ton of examples of that, Big Oil and Gas leveraging like well and machine data, coming in to be more efficient when they're pumping and moving commodities around. We work a lot in the medium entertainment space and so obviously, getting targeted ads to consumers during the right periods of TV or movies or et cetera. Especially with the advert on Netflix and all your streaming videos. So, it's been really interesting but we really see the future in leveraging data as one of your biggest corporate assets. >> Brilliant. >> So, I'm just curious on the ad thing, just real quick and I'll let you go, Lisa. So, do you still fall victim to falling for the advertising even though you know it's been strategically put there for you to consume in that moment? >> Most of the time. >> I mean, I think we all do. We're all, (indistinct), you're behind the curtain so to speak. >> The Amazon Truck shows up every day at my house, which is great, right? >> Hello again >> Same. >> But I think the power of it is you are giving the customer what they're looking for. >> That's it. >> And you know... >> Exactly. We have that expectation, we want it. >> 100%. >> We know that. >> Agree. >> We don't need to buy it. But technology has made it so easy to transact. That's like when developers started going to the cloud years ago, it was just, it was a swipe. It was so simple. Brandon, talk about the changes in cloud and cloud migration that TEKsystems has seen, particularly in the last couple of years as every company was rushing to go digital because they had to. >> So several years ago, we kind of pushed away that cloud first mentality to the side and we use more of a cloud smart kind of fashion, right? Does everything need to go to the cloud? No. Do applications, data, need to go to the cloud in a way that's modern and takes advantages of what the cloud can provide and all the new services that are being released this week and ongoing. So, the other thing we're seeing is initiatives that have traditionally been in the CTO, CIO organization aren't necessarily all that successful because we're seeing a complete misalignment between business goals and IT achievements, outcomes, et cetera. You can automate things, you can move it to the cloud, but if you didn't solve a core business problem or challenge, what'd you really do? >> Yeah, just to add on that, it's all about putting data and people together. And then how we can actually ensure the workforce is equally brought up to speed on these new technologies. That has been something that we have seen tremendous improvement in the last 24 months where customers are ready to take up new challenges and the end users are ready to learn something new and not just stick onto that status quo mindset. >> Where do you guys factor in to bringing in AWS in the customer's cloud journeys? What is that partnership like? >> We always first look for where the customer is in their cloud journey path and make sure we advise them with the right next steps. And AWS having its services across the spectrum makes it even easier for us to look at what business problem they're solving and then align it according to the process and technology so that at the end of the day, we want end user adoption. We don't want to build a fancy new gadget that no one uses. >> Just because you built it doesn't mean they'll come. And I think that's the classic engineering marketing dilemma as well as balance to healthy tension. I would say between both. You mentioned Srini, you mentioned workforce just a second ago. What sort of trends are you seeing in workforce development? >> Generally speaking, there are a lot of services now that can quantify your code for errors and then make sure that the code that you're pushing into production is well tested. So what we are trying to make sure is a healthy mix of trying to solve a business problem and asking the right questions. Like today, even in the keynote, it was all about how QuickSight, for example, has additional features now that tells why something happened. And that's the kind of mindset we want our end users to adopt. Not just restricting themselves to a reactive analytics, but rather ask the question why, why did it happen? Why did my sales go down? And I think those technologies and mindset shift is happening across the workforce. >> From a workforce development standpoint, we're seeing there's not enough workforce and the core skills of data, DevOps, standard cloud type work. So, we're actually an ATP advanced training partner, one of the few within the AWS network. So, we've developed programs like our Rising Talent Program that are allowing us to bring the workforce up to the skills that are necessary in this new world. So, it's a more build versus buy strategy because we're on talents real, though it may start to wane a little bit as we change the macroeconomic outlook in 2023, but it's still there. And we still believe that building those workforce and investing in your people is the right thing to do. >> It is, and I think there's a strong alignment there with AWS and their focus on that as well. I wanted to ask you, Brandon. >> Brandon: Absolutely. >> One of the things, so our boss, John Furrier, the co CEO of theCUBE, talked with Adam Selipsky just a week or maybe 10 days ago. He always gets an exclusive interview with the CEO of AWS before reinvent, and one of the things that Adam shared with him is that customers, CEOs and CIOs are not coming to Adam, to this head of AWS to talk about technology, they want to talk about transformation. He's talking about... >> The topic this year. >> Moving away from amorphous topic of digital transformation to business transformation. Are you seeing the same thing in your customer? >> 100%, and if you're not starting at the business level, these initiatives are going to fail. We see it all the time. Again, it's about that misalignment and there's no good answer to that. But digital, I think is amorphous to some degree. We play a lot with the One North partnership that I mentioned earlier, really focusing on that strategy element because consumer dollars are shrinking via inflation, via what we're heading into, and we have to create the best experience possible. We have to create an omnichannel experience to get our products or services to market. And if we're not looking at those as our core goals and we're looking at them as IT or technology challenges, we're not looking in the right place. >> Well, and businesses aren't going to be successful if they're looking at it in those siloed organizations. Data has to be democratizing and we've spent same data democratization for so long, but really, we're seeing that it has to be moving out into the lines of business because another thing Adam shared with John Furrier is that he sees and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this, the title of data analysts going away because everybody in different functions and different lines of business within an organization are going to have to be data analysts to some degree, to use data whether it's marketing, ops, sales, finance, are you seeing the same? >> That is true. I mean, at this point, we are all in the connected world, right? Every data point is connected in some form or shape to another data point. >> Savanna: There are many data points, just sitting here, yeah. >> Absolutely, so I think if you are strategizing, data needs to be right in the center of it. And then your business problems need to be addressed with reliable data. >> No, I mean, advertising, supply chain, marketing, they're all interconnected now, and we're looking at ways to bring a lot of that siloed data into one place so we can make use to it. It goes back to that monetization element of our data. >> That's a lot about context and situational awareness. We want what we want, when we want it, even before we knew we needed it then. I think I said that right. But you know, it's always more faster, quicker and then scaling things up. You see a lot of different customers across verticals, you have an absolutely massive team. Give us a sneak peek into 2023. What does the future hold? >> 2023 is again, to today's keynote, I'm bringing it back because it was a keynote filled with vision and limitless possibilities. And that's what we see. Right now, our customers, they are no longer scared to go and take the plunge into the cloud. And as Brandon said, it's all about being smart about those decisions. So, we are very excited that together with the partnership that we recently acquired and the services and the depth, along with the horizontal domain expertise, we can actually help customers make meaningful message out of their data points. And that keeps us really excited for next year. >> Love that, Brandon, what about you? >> I think the obvious one is DevOps and a focus on optimization, financially, security, et cetera, just for the changing times. The other one is, I still think that digital is going to continue to be a big push in 2023, namely making sure that experience is at its best, whether that's employee and combating the war on talent, keeping your people or opening new revenue streams, enhancing existing revenue streams. You got to keep working on that. >> We got to keep the people happy with the machines and the systems that we are building as we all know. But it's very nice, it's been a lot of human-centric focus and a lot of customer obsession here at the show. We know it's a big thing for you all, for Amazon, for pretty much everyone who sat here. Hopefully it is in general. Hopefully there's nobody who doesn't care about their community, we're not talking to them, if that's the case, we have a new challenge on theCUBE for the show, this year as we kind of prepped you for and can call it a bumper sticker, you can call it a 30 second sizzle reel. But this is sort of your Instagram moment, your TikTok, your thought of leadership highlight. What's the most important story coming out of the show? Srini, you've been quoting the keynotes very well, so, I'm going to you first on this one. >> I think overall, it's all about owning the change. In our TEKsystems culture, it's all about striving for excellence through serving others and owning the change. And so it makes me very excited that when we get that kind of keynote resonating the same message that we invite culturally, that's a big win-win for all the companies. >> It's all about the shared vision. A lot of people with similar vision in this room right now, in this room, like it's a room, it's a massive expo center, just to be clear, I'm sure everyone can see in the background. Brandon >> I would say partnership, continuing to enhance our strategic partnership with AWS, continuing to be our customers' partners in transformation. And bringing those two things together here has been a predominance of my time this week. And we'll continue throughout the week, but we're in it together with our customers and with AWS and looking forward to the future. >> Yeah, that's a beautiful note to end on there. Brandon, Srini, thank you both so much for being here with us. Fantastic to learn from your insights and to continue to emphasize on this theme of collaboration. We look forward to the next conversation with you. Thank all of you for tuning in wherever you happen to be hanging out and watching this fabulous live stream or the replay. We are here at AWS Reinvent 2022 in wonderful sunny Las Vegas, Nevada with Lisa Martin. My name is Savannah Peterson, we are theCUBE, the leading source for high tech coverage.

>>Good morning and welcome back to Detroit, Michigan. My name is Savannah Peterson and I'm here on set of the cube, my co-host John Farer. How you doing this morning, John? >>Doing great. Feeling fresh. Day two of three days of coverage, feeling >>Fresh. That is that for being in the heat of the conference. I love that attitude. It's gonna >>Be a great day today. We'll see you at the end of the day. Yeah, >>Well, we'll hold him to it. All right, everyone hold 'em accountable. Very excited to start the day off with an internet, a legend as well as a cube og. We are joined this morning by Matt Klein. Matt, welcome to the show. >>Thanks for having me. Good to see you. Yep. >>It's so, what's the vibe? Day two, Everyone's buzzing. What's got you excited at the show? You've been here before, but it's been three years you >>Mentioned. I, I was saying it's been three years since I've been to a conference, so it's been interesting for me to see what is, what is the same and what is different pre and post covid. But just really great to see everyone here again and nice to not be sitting in my home by myself. >>You know, Savannah said you're an OG and we were referring before we came on camera that you were your first came on the Cub in 2017, second Cuban event. But you were, I think, on the first wave of what I call the contributor momentum, where CNCF really got the traction. Yeah. You were at Lift, Envoy was contributed and that was really hyped up and I remember that vividly. It was day zero they called it back then. Yeah. And you got so much traction. People are totally into it. Yeah. Now we've got a lot of that going on now. Right. A lot of, lot of day Zero events. They call 'em co, co-located events. You got web assembly, a lot of other hype out there. What do you see out there that you like? How would you look at some of these other Sure. Communities that are developing, What's the landscape look like as you look out? Because Envoy set the table, what is now a standard >>Practice. Yeah. What's been so interesting for me just to come here to the conference is, you know, we open source Envoy in 2016. We donated in 2017. And as you mentioned at that time, Envoy was, you know, everyone wanted to talk about Envoy. And you know, much to my amazement, Envoy is now pervasive. I mean, it's used everywhere around the world. It's like, never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that it would be so widely used. And it's almost gotten to the point where it's become boring. You know, It's just assumed that Envoy is, is everywhere. And now we're hearing a lot about Eeb p f and Web assembly and GI ops and you know, AI and a bunch of other things. So it's, it's actually great. It's made me very happy that it's become so pervasive, but it's also fun. Yeah. We mention to, to look around all other stuff >>Like congratulate. It's just a huge accomplishment really. I think it's gonna be historic, historical moment for the industry too. But I like how it progressed. I mean, I don't mind hype cycles as long as it's some vetting. Sure. Of course. You know, use cases that are clearly defined, but you gotta get that momentum in the community, but then you start gotta get down to, to business. Yep. So, so to speak and get it deployed, get traction. Yep. What should projects look like? And, and give us the update on Envoy. Cause you guys have a, a great use case of how you got traction. Right. Take us through some of the early days of what made Envoy successful in your opinion. Great question. >>Yeah. You know, I, I think Envoy is fairly unique around this conference in the sense that Envoy was developed by Lyft, which is an end user company. And many of the projects in this ecosystem, you know, no judgment, for better or worse, they are vendor backed. And I think that's a different delivery mechanism when it's coming from an end user where you're solving a, a particular business case. So Envoy was really developed for Lyft in a, you know, very early scaling days and just, you know, trying to help Lyft solve its business problems. So I think when Envoy was developed, we were, you know, scaling, we were falling over and actually many other companies were having similar problems. So I think Envoy became very widely deployed because many companies were having similar issues. So Envoy just became pervasive among lift peer companies. And then we saw a lot of vendor uptake in the service mesh space in the API gateway space among large internet providers. So, I I I, I think it's just, it's an interesting case because I think when you're solving real problems on the ground, in some ways it's easier to actually get adoption than if you're trying to develop it from a commercial backing. >>And that's the class, I mean, almost, It's almost like open source product market fit. It is in its own way. Cause you have a problem. Absolutely. Other people have the same problem finding >>Too. I mean, it's, it's designed thinking from >>A different, When, when I talk to people about open source, I like to tell people that I do not think it's any different than starting a company. I actually think it's all the same problems finding pro product, market fit, hiring, like finding contributors and maintainers, like doing PR and marketing. Yeah. Getting team together, traction, getting, getting funding. I mean, you have to have money to do all these things. Yeah. So I think a lot of people think of open source as I, I don't know, you know, this fantastic collaborative effort and, and it is that, but there's a lot more to it. Yeah. And it is much more akin to starting a >>Company. Let's, let's just look at that for a second. Cause I think that's a good point. And I was having a conversation in the hallway two nights ago on this exact point. If the power dynamics of a startup in the open source, as you point out, is just different, it's community based. So there are things you just gotta be mindful of. It's not top down. >>Exactly. It's not like, >>Right. You know, go take that hill. It's really consensus based, but it is a startup. All those elements are in place. Absolutely. You need leadership, you gotta have debates, alignment, commit, You gotta commit to a vision. Yep. You gotta make adjustments. Build the trajectory. So based on that, I mean, do you see more end user traction? Cause I was, we were talking also about Intuit, they donated some of their tow code R goes out there. Yep. R go see the CDR goes a service. Where's the end user contributions to these days? Do you feel like it's good, still healthy? >>I, I mean, I, I'm, I'm biased. I would like to see more. I think backstage outta Spotify is absolutely fantastic. That's an area just in terms of developer portals and developer efficiency that I think has been very underserved. So seeing Backstage come outta Spotify where they've used it for years, and I think we've already seen they had a huge date, you know, day one event. And I, I think we're gonna see a lot more out of that >>Coming from, I'm an end user, pretend I'm an end user, so pretend I have some code. I want to, Oh man, I'm scared. I don't am I'm gonna lose my competitive edge. What's the, how do you talk to the enterprise out there that might be thinking about putting their project out there for whether it's the benefit of the community, developing talent, developing the product? >>Sure. Yeah. I would say that I, I would ask everyone to think through all of the pros and cons of doing that because it's not for free. I mean, doing open source is costly. It takes developer time, you know, it takes management time, it takes budgeting dollars. But the benefits if successful can be huge, right? I mean, it can be just in terms of, you know, getting people into your company, getting users, getting more features, all of that. So I would always encourage everyone to take a very pragmatic and realistic view of, of what is required to make that happen. >>What was that decision like at Lyft >>When you I I'm gonna be honest, it was very naive. I I think we've, of that we think we need to know. No, just didn't know. Yeah. I think a lot of us, myself included, had very minimal open source experience. And had we known, or had I known what would've happened, I, I still would've done it. But I, I'm gonna be honest, the last seven years have aged me what I feel like is like 70 or a hundred. It's been a >>But you say you look out in the landscape, you gotta take pride, look at what's happened. Oh, it's, I mean, it's like you said, it >>Matured fantastic. I would not trade it for anything, but it has, it has been a journey. What >>Was the biggest surprise? What was the most eye opening thing about the journey for you? >>I, I think actually just the recognition of all of the non-technical things that go into making these things a success. I think at a conference like this, people think a lot about technology. It is a technology conference, but open source is business. It really is. I mean, it, it takes money to keep it going. It takes people to keep >>It going. You gotta sell people on the concepts. >>It takes leadership to keep it going. It takes internal, it takes marketing. Yeah. So for me, what was most eyeopening is over the last five to seven years, I feel like I actually have not developed very many, if any technical skills. But my general leadership skills, you know, that would be applicable again, to running a business have applied so well to, to >>Growing off, Hey, you put it out there, you hear driving the ship. It's good to do that. They need that. It really needs it. And the results speak for itself and congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. What's the update on the project? Give us an update because you're seeing, seeing a lot of infrastructure people having the same problem. Sure. But it's also, the environments are a little bit different. Some people have different architectures. Absolutely different, more cloud, less cloud edges exploding. Yeah. Where does Envoy fit into the landscape they've seen and what's the updates? You've got some new things going on. Give the updates on what's going on with the project Sure. And then how it sits in the ecosystem vis-a-vis what people may use it for. >>Yeah. So I'm, from a core project perspective, honestly, things have matured. Things have stabilized a bit. So a lot of what we focus on now are less Big bang features, but more table stakes. We spend a lot of time on security. We spend a lot of time on software supply chain. A topic that you're probably hearing a lot about at this conference. We have a lot of software supply chain issues. We have shipped Quicken HTB three over the last year. That's generally available. That's a new internet protocol still work happening on web assembly where ha doing a lot of work on our build and release pipeline. Again, you would think that's boring. Yeah. But a lot of people want, you know, packages for their fedora or their ADU or their Docker images. And that takes a lot of effort. So a lot of what we're doing now is more table stakes, just realizing that the project is used around the world very widely. >>Yeah. The thing that I'm most interested in is, we announced in the last six months a project called Envoy Gateway, which is layered on top of Envoy. And the goal of Envoy Gateway is to make it easier for people to run Envoy within Kubernetes. So essentially as an, as an ingress controller. And Envoy is a project historically, it is a very sophisticated piece of software, very complicated piece of software. It's not for everyone. And we want to provide Envoy Gateway as a way of onboarding more users into the Envoy ecosystem and making Envoy the, the default API gateway or edge proxy within Kubernetes. But in terms of use cases, we see Envoy pervasively with service mesh, API gateway, other types of low balancing cases. I mean, honestly, it's, it's all over the place at >>This point. I'm curious because you mentioned it's expanded beyond your wildest dreams. Yeah. And how could you have even imagined what Envoy was gonna do? Is there a use case or an application that really surprised you? >>You know, I've been asked that before and I, it's hard for me to answer that. It's, it's more that, I mean, for example, Envoy is used by basically every major internet company in China. I mean, like, wow. Everyone in China uses Envoy, like TikTok, like Alibaba. I mean like everyone, all >>The large sale, >>Everyone. You know, and it's used, it's used in the, I'm just, it's not just even the us. So I, I think the thing that has surprised me more than individual use cases is just the, the worldwide adoption. You know, that something could be be everywhere. And that I think, you know, when I open my phone and I'm opening all of these apps on my phone, 80 or 90% of them are going through Envoy in some form. Yeah. You know, it's, it's just that pervasive, I blow your mind a little bit sometimes >>That does, that's why you say plumber on your Twitter handle as your title. Cause you're working on all these things that are like really important substrate issues, Right. For scale, stability, growth. >>And, you know, to, I, I guess the only thing that I would add is, my goal for Envoy has always been that it is that boring, transparent piece of technology. Kind of similar to Linux. Linux is everywhere. Right? But no one really knows that they're using Linux. It's, it's justs like Intel inside, we're not paying attention. It's just there, there's >>A core group working on, if they have pride, they understand the mission, the importance of it, and they make their job is to make it invisible. >>Right. Exactly. >>And that's really ease of use. What's some of the ease of use sways and, and simplicity that you're working on, if you can talk about that. Because to be boring, you gotta be simpler and easier. All boring complex is unique is not boring. Complex is stressful. No, >>I I think we approach it in a couple different ways. One of them is that because we view Envoy as a, as a base technology in the ecosystem, we're starting to see, you know, not only vendors, but other open source projects that are being built on top of Envoy. So things like API Gateway, sorry, Envoy Gateway or you know, projects like Istio or all the other projects that are out there. They use Envoy as a component, but in some sense Envoy is a, as a transparent piece of that system. Yeah. So I'm a big believer in the ecosystem that we need to continue to make cloud native easier for, for end users. I still think it's too complicated. And so I think we're there, we're, we're pushing up the stack a bit. >>Yeah. And that brings up a good point. When you start seeing people building on top of things, right? That's enabling. So as you look at the enablement of Envoy, what are some of the things you see out on the horizon if you got the 20 mile stare out as you check these boring boxes, make it more plumbing, Right? Stable. You'll have a disruptive enabling platform. Yeah. What do you see out there? >>I am, you know, I, again, I'm not a big buzzword person, but, so some people call it serverless functions as a service, whatever. I'm a big believer in platforms in the sense that I really believe in the next 10 to 15 years, developers, they want to provide code. You know, they want to call APIs, they want to use pub subsystems, they want to use cas and databases. And honestly, they don't care about container scheduling or networking or load balancing or any of >>These things. It's handled in the os >>They just want it to be part of the operating system. Yeah, exactly. So I, I really believe that whether it's an open source or in cloud provider, you know, package solutions, that we're going to be just moving increasingly towards systems likes Lambda and Fargate and Google Cloud Run and Azure functions and all those kinds of things. And I think that when you do that much of the functionality that has historically powered this conference like Kubernetes and Onvoy, these become critical but transparent components that people don't, they're not really aware of >>At that point. Yeah. And I think that's a great call out because one of the things we're seeing is the market forces of, of this evolution, what you just said is what has to happen Yep. For digital transformation to, to get to its conclusion. Yep. Which means that everything doesn't have to serve the business, it is the business. Right. You know it in the old days. Yep. Engineers, they serve the business. Like what does that even mean? Yep. Now, right. Developers are the business, so they need that coding environment. So for your statement to happen, that simplicity in visibility calling is invisible os has to happen. So it brings up the question in open source, the trend is things always work itself out on the wash, as we say. So when you start having these debates and the alignment has to come at some point, you can't get to those that stay without some sort of defacto or consensus. Yep. And even standards, I'm not a big be around hardcore standards, but we can all agree and have consensus Sure. That will align behind, say Kubernetes, It's Kubernetes a standard. It's not like an i e you know, but this next, what, what's your reaction to this? Because this alignment has to come after debate. So all the process contending for I am the this of that. >>Yeah. I'm a look, I mean, I totally see the value in like i e e standards and, and there's a place for that. At the same time, for me personally as a technologist, as an engineer, I prefer to let the, the market as it were sort out what are the defacto standards. So for example, at least with Envoy, Envoy has an API that we call Xds. Xds is now used beyond Envoy. It's used by gc, it's used by proprietary systems. And I'm a big believer that actually Envoy in its form is probably gonna go away before Xds goes away. So in some ways Xds has become a defacto standard. It's not an i e e standard. Yeah. We, we, we have been asked about whether we should do that. Yeah. But I just, I I think the >>It becomes a component. >>It becomes a component. Yeah. And then I think people gravitate towards these things that become de facto standards. And I guess I would rather let the people on the show floor decide what are the standards than have, you know, 10 people sitting in a room figure out >>The community define standards versus organizational institutional defined standards. >>And they both have places a >>Hundred percent. Yeah, sure. And, and there's social proof in both of them. Yep. >>Frankly, >>And we were saying on the cube that we believe that the developers will decide the standard. Sure. Because that's what you're basically saying. They're deciding what they do with their code. Right. And over time, as people realize the trade of, hey, if everyone's coding this right. And makes my life easier to get to that state of nirvana and enlightenment, as we would say. Yeah. Yeah. >>Starting strong this morning. John, I I love this. I'm curious, you mentioned Backstage by Spotify wonderful example. Do you think that this is a trend we're gonna see with more end users >>Creating open source projects? Like I, you know, I hope so. The flip side of that, and as we all know, we're entering an uncertain economic time and it can be hard to justify the effort that it takes to do it well. And what I typically counsel people when they are about to open source something is don't do it unless you're ready to commit the resources. Because opensourcing something and not supporting it. Yeah. I actually can be think, I think it'd be worse. >>It's an, it's insult that people, you're asking to commit to something. Exactly. Needs of time, need the money investment, you gotta go all in and push. >>So I, so I very much want to see it and, and I want to encourage that here, but it's hard for me to look into the crystal ball and know, you know, whether it's gonna happen more >>Or less at what point there were, are there too many projects? You know, I mean, but I'm not, I mean this in, in a, in a negative way. I mean it more in the way of, you know, you mentioned supply chain. We were riffing on the cube about at some point there's gonna be so much code open source continuing thundering away with, with the value that you're just gluing things. Right. I don't need the code, this code there. Okay. What's in the code? Okay. Maybe automation can help out on supply chain. Yeah. But ultimately composability is the new >>Right? It is. Yeah. And, and I think that's always going to be the case. Case. Good thing. It is good thing. And I, I think that's just, that's just the way of things for sure. >>So no code will be, >>I think, I think we're seeing a lot of no code situations that are working great for people. And, and, but this is actually really no different than my, than my serverless arguing from before. Just as a, as a, a slight digression. I'm building something new right now and you know, we're using cloud native technologies and all this stuff and it's still, >>What are you building? >>Even as a I'm, I'm gonna keep that, I'm gonna keep that secret. I know I'm, but >>We'll find out on Twitter. We're gonna find out now that we know it. Okay. Keep on mystery. You open that door. We're going down see in a couple weeks. >>Front >>Page is still an angle. >>But I, I was just gonna say that, you know, and I consider myself, you know, you're building something, I'm, I see myself an expert in the cloud native space. It's still difficult, It's difficult to, to pull together these technologies and I think that we will continue to make it easier for people. >>What's the biggest difficulties? Can you give us some examples? >>Well, just, I mean, we still live in a big mess of yammel, right? Is a, there's a, there's a lot of yaml out there. And I think just wrangling all of that in these systems, there's still a lot of cobbling together where I think that there can be unified platforms that make it easier for us to focus on our application logic. >>Yeah. I gotta ask you a question cuz I've talked to college kids all the time. My son's a junior in CS and he's, you know, he's coding away. What would you, how does a student or someone who's learning figure out where, who they are? Because there's now, you know, you're either into the infrastructure under the hood Yeah. Or you're, cuz that's coding there option now coding the way your infrastructure people are working on say the boring stuff so everyone else can have ease of use. And then what is just, I wanna just code, there's two types of personas. How does someone know who they are? >>My, when I give people career advice, my biggest piece of advice to them is in the first five to seven to 10 years of their career, I encourage people to do different things like every say one to two to three years. And that doesn't mean like quitting companies and changing companies, it could mean, you know, within a company that they join doing different teams, you know, working on front end versus back end. Because honestly I think people don't know. I think it's actually very, Yeah. Our industry is so broad. Yeah. That I think it's almost impossible to >>Know. You gotta get your hands dirty to jump >>In order to know what you like. And for me, in my career, you know, I've dabbled in different areas, but I've always come back to infrastructure, you know, that that's what I enjoy >>The most. Okay. You gotta, you gotta taste everything. See what you, what >>You like. Exactly. >>Right. Last question for you, Matt. It's been three years since you were here. Yep. What do you hope that we're able to say next year? That we can't say this year? Hmm. Beyond the secrets of your project, which hopefully we will definitely be discussing then. >>You know, I I, I don't have anything in particular. I would just say that I would like to see more movement towards projects that are synthesizing and making it easier to use a lot of the existing projects that we have today. So for example, I'm, I'm very bullish on backstage. Like I, I've, I've always said that we need better developer UIs that are not CLIs. Like I know it's a general perception among many people. Totally agree with you. Frankly, you're not a real systems engineer unless you type on the command line. I, I think better user interfaces are better for humans. Yep. So just for a project like Backstage to be more integrated with the rest of the projects, whether that be Envo or Kubernete or Argo or Flagger. I, I just, I think there's tremendous potential for further integration of some >>Of these projects. It just composability That makes total sense. Yep. Yep. You're, you're op you're operating and composing. >>Yep. And there's no reason that user experience can't be better. And then more people can create and build. So I think it's awesome. Matt, thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, this has been fantastic. Be sure and check out Matt on Twitter to find out what that next secret project is. John, thank you for joining me this morning. My name is Savannah Peterson and we'll be here all day live from the cube. We hope you'll be joining us throughout the evening until a happy hour today. Thanks for coming. Thanks for coming. Thanks for watching.

>>The Cube Presents UI Path Forward five. Brought to you by UI Path. >>Hi everybody. Welcome back to UI Path Forward at five. You're watching the Cubes coverage. Everybody here is automating everything. Mundane tasks, Enterprisewide Automation Platform Beats product. Dave Nicholson. Dave Ante, Garish Pie is here. He is the Global head of Intelligent Enterprise Automation at Cognizant Global. Si, good to see you. Thanks for coming to the queue. Thank you for having me. Tell us about your role. What are you focused on? So, >>So I lead the enterprise automation practice at Cognizant, and we are focused on three broad segments, right? So we help customers anchor to business outcomes in, in looking at the business outcomes, what we look to do is help them drive transformation at a process level, looking at it from a technology standpoint, and then helping them look at how they're trying to drive change across their entire enterprise and bringing that together, you know, and helping them harmonize both at a technology and at a process level in terms of, you know, the outcomes they're trying to achieve. So >>You guys are a partner, I see your booth over there, and you're also a customer, right? Yes, we are. So are you involved in the both sides? One side, what, what, what's your purpose? >>So we do, so we, we sort of work, So we have a full 360 degree relationship with the i p. So we work with them, you know, in a professional services capacity. They, they support us as a partnership in the marketplace where we go into a number of our customers jointly to drive turnkey transformational engagements from an automation standpoint and second from a, as a, as a, as a customer to UiPath, they've been supporting us, you know, drive a number of automation initiatives across our operations book over the course of the last two years. >>Okay. So tell us more about that. So you started your internal journey, we had you guys on last year. Yep. It were just getting started I think, I think I think you, your head count is what, 60,000 somewhere around? Yeah. 70,000. Yeah, $70,000 growing. I think at the time it was maybe less than 10% of the workforce was kind of automated and the goal was to automate everybody. How are you guys doing along >>The, I think it's starting to in industrialize quite significantly. So over the course of the last year since we last spoke to you, probably, you know, we've doubled the head count in terms of the number of people that are now, you know, officially what we call quote unquote citizen developers. And you know, how they are driving automation at a personal level, we've probably gone about 2.5 x in terms of the number of RS we've saved. So we've done about, I think 450,000 rs, you know, in terms of actual saves at a personal automation level. And look, it's, it's been a great, you know, last 12 months too, right? Because, you know, as we've sort of started to get the message percolated more and more, our teams have started to get energized. They are happy that they are, you know, getting a release in terms of what they're doing on a day to day basis, which is largely repetitive at times, very mundane. And now they have the ability to bring in technology to be able to embrace that and drive that, that you know, much more efficiently. >>Are you talking dozens of bots? Thousands of bots? What's the scope of? >>So I think we've, we've scaled to about 3,500 today in terms of the bots and, and it's, it's a journey that continues to evolve. For me, the number is probably something which I wouldn't anchor to because it's, look, it's end of the day what you end up releasing and what you end up freeing and what the teams are doing. And I think, you know, that's the way we are >>Leading. So you're saying like, we always talk about number of boss, but you're saying it's largely in a relevant metric? Well, and not if it's five versus a thousand. Okay. That's meaningful, right? But, but >>Yeah, I think look a number for me, I think it's not about the number, right? It's about the outcome and it's about what impact you're having in, in terms of, you know, what you're trying to get done at the end of the day, right? Because ultimately you're trying to better, you know, what you do on a day to day basis and you know, whether it's done through 10 or whether that's done through 10,000. >>Yeah. But you pay >>Form, >>Right? Exactly. So, so you better get some value out. Exactly. It's about the value. >>But is there, is there a, is there a curve in terms, you know, an s-curve in terms of scalability though? I mean we, we, we've heard organizations doing, from organizations doing an amazing amount of modernization and automation and they say they've got 15 bots running, you have 3,500. Is there a number where it becomes harder to manage or, or is there scalability involved? >>So look, for me, so let me answer it this way, right? I think, I think there are two aspects to it. I think the, the, the, the more you have, you know, the bigger the challenge in terms of how you run the controls, the governance and the residency in terms of, you know, how you manage the, you know, the, the setup of the bots itself. So I think, yeah, I mean we want to have it to a manageable number, but for us, in the way we've looked at the number of bots, one of the things that we've done is we also look at, you know, what's foundational versus what's nuanced in terms of the kind of use cases that you're trying to deliver. So, so any program of this nature, you need to have a setup, which is, you know, which allows you to sort of orchestrate it in the right manner so that as you sort of scale and you bring more people into that equation, you, it's, you're not just creating bots for the sake of it, but you're actually, you know, trying to look at what you can reuse, what you can orchestrate better. >>And then in the context of that, figuring out where you have the gaps and then hence, you know, sort of taking the delta approach of what else and what more you need to build it. >>So you guys have a big observation space. You work with a lot of customers and, and so what are you seeing as the trends when you look out there? How are you applying it to your own business and your customer's businesses? >>So look, for me, I think the last two years, if anything, the one thing I've taken away is that transformation is now extremely, extremely compressed, right? So, so it's almost, you know, what's true today is probably irrelevant tomorrow. So, which means you have to continually evolve in terms of what needs to be done, right? Second is experiences have become extremely, extremely crucial and critical and experiences of, in, in my mind, you know, two or three kinds, right? One the end customer second from an employee standpoint, and third, in terms of the partner ecosystem that you will have as an enterprise that you have to cater to, right? The other element that you know, which becomes true will always remain true is the whole outcome story in terms of, you know, how we have an anchor to why you're trying to do what you're trying to do. >>And that is, you know, core to what you need to get done. So in the way we've looked at it, as we've said, you know, as you sort of look at how transformation is now evolving and how compressed it's starting to become, the more you are able to orchestrate for what the enterprise is trying to get done in terms of modernization, in terms of digitization, in terms of end goals and end outcomes that they're trying to achieve. And the more you're able to sweat what sits within, you know, the enterprise bring that together as you think about automation is, you know, where the true value lies in terms of being able to create an agile enterprise. >>When you think about digital transformation, digital experiences, if it's, if it's a layer cake, where is automation in that, in that layer? Is it, is it sort of the bottom of the stack? Is it, is it the whole stack? >>So for me it's, I mean it's, it's evolved. If you take today's view, I think what's emerging is a very pervasive view of how you think about automation. It sits across, you know, the entire enterprise. It, it, it, it takes a people process, technology dimension, which is age old. It has to cover, you know, all forms of transformation. You know, whether you're looking at end, how do I say, impact in terms of how you're dealing with customers, whether you're looking at the infrastructure, whether you're looking at the data layer in between, it has to be embedded across the base, right? It, it, you have to take a pervasive approach. And for me, I think automation increasingly in the days ahead is gonna be an enterprise capability. You know, it has to be, you know, all pervasive in the way it needs to be set up. >>The key, the operative word there is pervasive. And that seems to be, you know, the era that we're entering, I don't know what you call it, call it the metaverse, I mean, you know, it's more than cloud and cloud is basically just the infrastructure, right? You're building on top of that, whether it's natural language processing or cryptography or virtual, I mean, there's so many different, you know, technology dimensions, right? But it, but the point about pervasive, okay, it's everywhere. It's sensing, it's anticipatory, it feels like there's this new, you know, construct, emerging of platform that is the basis for digital business, right? And I, and I feel like every 15 years our industry goes through some big transformation. How, how do you see it? You know, do you agree that you, it feels like, okay, something new is happening. It's, it's not gonna be the social media, you know, Facebook's not gonna continue to dominate the world as it does. You already seen some cracks in that armor. We saw Microsoft after the pc, and then of course it came back with cloud Amazon looks, you know, indestructible. But that, that's never the end story, right? In our, in our world, how do you see that? >>No, I think all of what you said, I, I would sort of tend to agree with, for me, look, I don't have a crystal ball to say, you know, what's gonna happen with Facebook or Amazon or >>Otherwise. Yeah. But that's what makes this fun. But >>I, Yeah, but, but I think for me, the, the core is I think you're dictated by, you know, us as end consumers, if you're a B2B or a b2b, b2c, you know, depending upon what business you're in, I think the end customer value dictates, you know, what evolves in terms of, you know, the, the manifestation of, you know, how you will two minutes sort of deliver services, the products that you'll get into. And in that context then, you know, whether you take a, a TikTok view to it or whether you take an Amazon view to it, or whether YouTube becomes relevant in the days ahead, I think it's gonna be dictated by, >>By customer, but it tends to be a technology that's the disruptor, it's the microprocessor or it's the social capability or, or maybe it's ai that, that is the catalyst for that. And then the customer adoption dictates, oh, you're right about that. But there, but the, the match is usually technology. Is that fair or not necessarily? Yeah, >>I still look, I mean you talked about metaverse earlier, right? I think we are, I think we are, it's probably hype more than it is reality right now, at least in my view. And it's, I think we are significantly out in terms of, you know, large scale adoption in terms of what needs to be done. You talk about blockchain, blockchains been around, you know, for at least a decade if not more in, in, right. The way it's being talked about, the adoption, you know, in terms of the, the, the applicability of the, you know, of what is that technology I think is understood, but the actual use cases in terms of how it can be taken into the market and how you can scale it across industries, I think is, you know, is still because >>The economics determine ultimately exactly the outcome. So, Okay, that makes sense. >>Yeah. Now you said you don't have a crystal ball. I, I have one, but when I look into it, it's sort of murky when I try to figure out the answer to the question, Is a platform necessary for this, for automation? I mean, this is really the direction, the question, the existential question in terms of the trajectory of UI path. It seems obvious that automation is critical. It's not as obvious where that automation is going to end up eventually because it's so critical. It feels like it's almost the same as, okay, there's an interface between my keystrokes and filling in a box with text. Well, of course there has to be, there has to be that interface, right? So why wouldn't everyone deliver that by default? So as you gaze into my crystal ball with me, tell me about the things that only a platform can do from your perspective. >>So, >>So, so, so think of it this way, right? I mean, any enterprise probably has hundreds of technologies that they've invested in some platform, some applications that you would've built and evolved over time, which are bespoke custom in nature. So for me, I think when you think about automation, I think it's the balance between the two. What a platform allows you to do is to be able to orchestrate, given the complexity and the, the spa that is any enterprise, you know, that's probably got the burden of, you know, what they've done over the course of the, the previous years. And then in that context then, you know, how do you sort of help get the, the best value out of that in terms of what you want to deliver as the end, end outcomes, if I can call it that, right? So for me, I don't think you can say it's, it's her platform versus the rest. >>I think it's gonna be, it's always gonna be a balance and to the question that you asked earlier. And in terms of saying where does an automation end up at? I think if it's gonna be a pervasive view, look, you know, if, if clients are trying to modernize and get onto the cloud, you can do automation at a cloud level too. Now, you know, do I say then, you know, is it, is it sort of inclusive or it's native to what the cloud providers offer? Or do I then go and say automation needs to be something which I will, you know, sort of overlay on top of what the cloud providers offer. So I think it depends upon what dimension that you come at it. So I don't think you can say it's one or the other. You have a platform, I think it helps you orchestrate quite significantly. But there are gonna be aspects within any enterprise, given the complexity that exists that you will have to balance out, you know, platform versus, you know, how you have to address it maybe in a more individual capacity. >>Garris, gotta go. Thank you so much. Appreciate your perspectives. Good conversation. All right, keep it right there. But trains will back it up. We'll be right back right after this short break. The cube live at UI path forward, five from Las Vegas.

(upbeat music) >> Hey, welcome back everyone to theCube's live coverage of the Monaco Crypto Summit here in Monaco. I'm John Furrier, host of theCube, and Lauren Bissell here, founder and CEO of Immutable Industries, focused on the advancement of technologies in art, entertainment, blockchain across multiple sectors. Great background in entertainment music, complying that into the convergence and to crypto. Welcome to theCube. I appreciate it. >> Thank you so much. Thank you guys for having me. It's been an incredible day so far. >> So we were just talking before we came on camera, your background and just the people you've worked with in the music industry. You've been there for a very long part of your career, from the beginning. Now you're on the wave of Web3, crypto, DeFi. There's a confluence of refactoring businesses. We're seeing that impact. And I think a lot of people, finance and entrepreneurial, the best brains are coming into the sector because it's an opportunity, clearly, to reset and refactor old antiquated business models and practices, in a new way to achieve the same things. Better, faster, cheaper >> Exactly. Better, faster, cheaper, is good sometimes, other times that's... We will see. But I think for me, coming in from the music industry was something that, I honestly never expected to be involved in blockchain and futuristic tech. It's always something that I admired, but I didn't really see, "Okay. Here's how I can be involved in that." I was obsessed with it. But as I was sort of progressing my career as a music producer, I saw so many issues with the industry. The way capital came in, the way that it was distributed. I mean, these things are still happening today. But I was just constantly looking around for better solutions and how to make this work in a better way. In 2017, when I started really diving into crypto, that was something where I saw a huge opportunity for the entire industry. The music industry is notorious for just sort of being behind the curve when it comes to new tech. And it's a shame. When you're in an industry that's full of art and innovation, you would think that it's something... It's an industry that would embrace this position. Maybe some people do this, and I applaud those people very much. But in general, the music industry is kind of behind. We live a little bit in the Wild West. Not in the futures way, but kind of in the old way. I'm just really excited to be able to bring these things into the industry. >> It's interesting. I'm not in the industry, in the music side, but I've been on the software industry, where you had the proprietary software, the rights, and people used to build software. And then when the company went under, the software was gone, lost forever. And in around the late eighties, nineties, open source movement happened, and it just changed everything. And I think, to me, I feel like this is a similar structural inflection point in change, where rights are changing. People are still holding onto like, "He can't use the copyright." And I even saw a stat that said, with AI now, you can actually copyright every single melody, every single note in music. So that means like, "Who the hell's going to develop anything?" So are even rights even matter? So rights, ownership, art, mixing. Funny story of my son, a year and a half ago, mixed an old song from a band that wasn't around, and it became a TikTok sensation. Hundreds of millions of listens, and then the Spotify and Apple account was making like 20,000 a week, and DistroKid cut him off. Because someone went back and claimed the copyrights. But it was a mix of a couple of different pieces of the song for a new melody. But because that wasn't his work, the middle man killed the account. >> Right. But if there had been maybe an easier solution for him to go get those rights. So I actually used to be a rights and royalties negotiation specialist. I was on the phone with labels, every second of every day. From a producer standpoint, you're trying to find something that works for the artist, something that works for the label, something that you can arrange in perpetuity, if possible. But it's just... Again, there's so many people that have to just get on the phone- >> Like a busy gen system of like- >> Yeah. >> Weirdness >> Right. >> What's the solution? >> I mean, right now one of the favorite... It's super simple. Smart contracts related to publishing and royalties. Now you still need, probably in the interim, someone to go out and... The old school job for someone in rights and royalties is sitting in a restaurant and listening to see if the music is being played, and then you write it all down on a piece of paper. I mean, that's quite old school, but that still happens in a lot of places. So we can kind of move into smart contracts for the payment systems, and eventually we can move into AI, to actually detect what music is being played where. Just to go, not really on a tangent, but it's like, "Okay. Well, are we taking a job away from someone who's supposed to sit in a restaurant and listen to the music?" Well, I think we're developing a lot of new jobs by needing to generate this software. This is more- >> I've heard that. We've heard that argument before, "Oh! Bank tellers are going to be put out of business by the ATM machine." Turns out there's more branches now. >> Right. >> Okay. There's a total waste there. I mean, people say that are like... I mean, but it does bring up the next gen, the creator, the young artist, the ability to collaborate with smart contracts, the removal of the middle person in all this, the intermediaries. That's really the key, right? >> I think it is the key. And like I said, before removal of the middle person, some people would look down on that. I think it's more efficient systems. When you have more efficient systems, you have more efficient societies, you can create bigger and better things. So is there a change process that has to happen there? Yeah, of course. But this is humanity, this is history, this is what happens. >> Okay. So you're a pro, you've been through- >> I just embrace that. >> You've been through the business, you got the scar tissue, you got the experience, you got the brains. Now you're here in the front of a new generation, a lot of pioneering going on, a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion. Some people... Blood's spilling on the ground. There's a lot of stuff going on, that is opportunity. What are you up to? How are you attacking this market, how do you look at it, what's on your mind? >> Yeah. I mean, so what's funny, I've actually been spending the last few years, sort of directly advising individuals and companies in the music industry. So everyone from artists to label executives, content distribution executives, licensing teams and publishers, and sort of explaining, "Here's how things work. Here's how we think they're going to go. And here's how, instead of running away from that and trying to block your artists from using that system, we can actually use this to enhance the financial pie of the music industry, instead of just trying to steal a piece of everyone else's pie." That's what I really want to do, is, the industry pie can get bigger. We don't need to steal your blueberries. It's just- >> They're picking up crumbs and fighting over crumbs >> Exactly. The industry changed, and I understand why it's scary. I really, really do. I've lived through this. But it's going to be- >> What do they say? What's your advice to them, and what's their reaction? Is it like, "Yeah, you said that you'd get lip service." Or like, "Yeah, we're trying my best. I'll stop drinking, I promise." I mean, I've heard... I tried last week. I mean, are they actually getting it done, or they don't know what to do? >> Yeah. Well, I think it starts with individuals. I actually spent a lot of time working with individuals on education and how they can take that information to their companies or implement that in their companies. It's on sort of a corporate level. It is slower. That's okay. That's expected. But educating sort of individuals, like I said, that's what I've been doing for the past few years, is what's really been helpful. Because if you just kind of do this overnight, I understand it's not going to happen overnight. But being able, like I said, to figure out, "Okay. We grow the financial pie for the whole industry." This accumulates, this helps the health of the industry. Like I said, I grew up in the industry. I care a lot about the industry. I actually want to see good things happen- >> Positive change. >> It's in my heart, in my soul, to make the music industry- >> So Lauren, I got to ask you. So as you see the industry changing, and it's going to be hard to get people to go through transformation. >> Yeah. >> They have to get there. Otherwise, they'll be extinct. And we kind of see that. Is there new brands emerging that have a clean sheet of paper? Because I'm a far young artist, I'm saying to myself, "Okay. If I can write my own ticket..." And by the way, brands become platforms is a big trend you're seeing with NFTs and- >> Yeah. >> And these great Web3 platforms. So I got more social power, I got collective intelligence, I got network effect, I got fans. All that's tappable now from a monetization standpoint. >> Yeah. >> Are there new agencies, new brands, emerging that's artists friendly like this? >> I mean, that's one of the reasons we're here, to begin with. I'm obviously just going to mention Digital Bits, because they're literally creating NFTs for brands. I'm here because I believe in what they're building. Their model is applicable to brands, it's applicable to artists and athletes. I actually truly believe in what they're building and how they're doing it. NFTs is a faster way to achieve what we thought we were going to achieve with sort of the tokenization of a person or an individual brand. NFTs, I think, is a better way to do that. Obviously NFTs are tokens as well, but it's a different type of thing than an ICO. >> It has more versatility and it's got the same kind of characteristics- >> Yeah. I think you can build more community with it, you can maintain the value of the token itself, the non-punchable token itself, a little bit better, and you can build community around it. >> What are some of the companies you're advising and people you're advising? Are they record labels, are they executive, like an executive coach on one end, business consultant on the other? >> Yeah. >> What's some of the range of... >> So I actually advise a couple of brands, I can't completely speak about in the music industry, but from the executive position, I do advise individual executives from the label and the content distribution side, on sort of how to implement futurist tech into their company a little bit better, and sort of what the real things that are going on, the new things that are going on. I actually just took on a role for a company called Cyber Yachts, which I'm really excited about. This one's just going to be fun. International music, entertainment, fun. >> Do you need some media up there? We'll have to do interviews on both- >> Yeah. You can come on the metaverse yacht and the physical yacht, if you want to. But- >> Monaco's a great place for that. >> We will be here. >> All right. >> Absolutely. >> So tell me about the future of some of these big agencies you mentioned? Because if you look at the market right now, if you zoom out, content is king, distribution is Kong. That's what they say. There's a lot more distribution now more than, it seems, content. That's maybe on some perspectives. But it seems like there's a lot more outlets looking for better content. >> Always. >> Do you agree that distribution's hungry for the content, or is there more content than distribution? >> I think it just depends on the type of content. If you look at the content that's being distributed over, say social media, for example, there's a plethora of content. >> Yeah. I guess I'm not- >> There's actually, now, this new hierarchy there, where you have to really scrap to get to the top. So in a weird way, you're seeing that sort of mimic. We see how societies work. So now that's become very hierarchical, and that's almost mimicking the way the traditional industry has been developed. So we go through these cycles. >> It must be hard for a record label to try to do the A and R job, when you have more artists emerging from TikTok, Instagram, the social networks, or- >> I would say their job's probably gotten easier. >> Do you think because of the filtering? >> Well, yeah. Now you can view so much talent in a tiny amount of time online. Now, do I know what they are like lives, do I know how they perform? No, I got to go figure that out. But before you had to go to clubs and sit in there, and run around a city. You can only be in so many places at one time. >> You got to chase content down, look it down. >> Yeah. >> All right, so what's the most exciting thing that you think is happening in the whole crypto world, that's people should pay attention to, that's going to impact some of the mainstream? What's the most important things, do you think? >> Well, something that's actually, somewhat unrelated to music, which is government adoption. Sorry, but hands down, that is the most exciting and important thing that's going on right now. >> Adopting it and embracing it is important. >> Adopting it, embracing it, new regulations coming out. >> Are you happy with the progress? >> Yeah. I mean, it takes time. But right now we're the biggest sort of country that sun is, El Salvador. >> And now Monaco's leaning in. >> Now Monaco is obviously leaning in, that's... It's exciting. It's really exciting. >> Well, to me, I think Digital Bits, so when you climbed in earlier, is that, there's a legitimate crossover between the physical asset, digital asset world, and now the kind of the tough parts, the in between the details and the gaps, the contracts, the royalties. >> Yeah. >> Compliance. What does that even mean? >> Right. >> How is that going to get sorted out? Do you think this is going to settle itself out on its own or self govern, a little bit of a iron hand in there, or... >> It'll be a mix. I mean, there's a lot of trial and error going on right now, as far as governments. Like I said, there's really only a few places in the world that are doing it. I applaud these places for their bravery because... Don't get me wrong. It's going to be a struggle. There's going to be failures and successes, and being willing to be one of the countries that does that, that shows some grit. I really respect it. >> And the upside is if they get it right, it's huge. Lauren, final question. What are you up to next, what's on your mind? What are you working on beyond this consultancy? What's around the corner for you? Where do you see the self dots connecting in the future? >> Well, I'm really... Right now I travel quite a bit. I spend a lot of different... A lot of time at different conferences. I spoke earlier a little bit about an education program that I'm developing with an alliance with Draper University in El Salvador. So I want to finish the programming for that. We're going to scale that out across multiple countries. And that's everything from education for governments and education for people that, maybe just recently heard of Bitcoin and they don't even know how to go about seeing what it is. >> 5G in emerging countries is pretty potential there. >> It is. Absolutely. >> Great stuff. Lauren, thanks for coming on theCube sharing. >> Thank you so much. >> I appreciate it. Lauren Bissell here on theCube, I'm John Furrier, live in Monaco, for the Monaco Crypto Summit, Digital Bits. We got a big gala event tonight with Prince Albert in attendance. A lot of action, a lot of big news happening here. All the players are gathered for the inaugural Monaco Crypto Summit. I'm John Furrier. We'll have more live coverage after this short break. (upbeat music)

(gentle music) >> Hey everyone. Welcome to theCUBE's coverage of the AWS Startup Showcase. Season two, episode three. This is about MarTech, emerging cloud scale customer experience. This is our ongoing series that you know and love hopefully that feature a great number of AWS ecosystem partners. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Got a great guest here from Branch. Michelle Lerner joins me, the senior director of business development. She's going to be talking about Branch but also about one of your favorite brands, Peet's, yep, the coffee place, and how they supercharged loyalty and app adoption with Branch. Michelle, it's great to have you on the program. >> Yeah. Great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. >> Tell us a little bit about Branch, what you guys do for the modern mobile marketer. >> Yeah, absolutely. So you can think about Branch as a mobile linking platform. So what that means is we offer a seamless deep linking experience and insightful campaign measurement across every single marketing channel and platform on mobile. We exist so that we can break down walled gardens to help our customers engage with their customers in the most optimal way across any device and from every marketing channel. Our products are specifically designed to help create an amazing user experience, but also provide full picture holistic downstream measurement across any paid, owned, and earned channels so that brands can actually see what's working. So what that really means is that we make it really easy to scale our links across every single marketing channel, which then route the users to the right place at any device through even past install so that they can get to the context that they expect for a seamless experience. We then provide that cross channel analytics back to the brand so that they could see what's working and they can make better business decisions. So kind of summing it up, our industry leading mobile linking actually powers those deep links, also supports that measurement so that brands can build a sophisticated experience that actually delight their users but also improve their metrics and conversion rates. >> Those two things that you said are key. We expected to be delighted with whatever experience we're having and we also want to make sure, and obviously, the brands want to make sure that they're doing that but also that from an attribution perspective, from a campaign conversion perspective, that they can really understand the right tactics and the right strategic elements that are driving those conversions. That's been a challenge for marketers for a long time. Speaking of challenges, we've all been living through significant challenges. There's no way to say it nicely. The last two years, every industry completely affected by the pandemic talk. We're going to talk about Peet's Coffee. And I want to understand some of the challenges that you saw in the quick service restaurant or QSR industry at large. Talk to me about those industry challenges and then we'll dig into the Peet's story. >> Yeah, absolutely. So obviously the pandemic changed so much in our lives whether it's going to work or commuting or taking our kids to school or even getting our morning coffee. So when you think about Peet's, specifically within the QSR industry, they knew that they needed to innovate in order to make sure that they could provide their customers with their daily cups of coffee in a really safe and effective way. So they thought really quickly on their feet, they engaged us at Branch to help launch their order ahead messaging across their online and offline channels. They really wanted to maintain their commitment to an excellent customer experience but in a way that obviously would be safe and effective. >> That was one of the things that I missed the very most in the very beginning of the pandemic was going to my local Peet's. I missed that experience. Talk me about, you mentioned the online and offline, I'm very familiar with the online as an app user, mobile app user, but what were some of the challenges that they were looking to Branch to resolve on the offline experiences? People were queuing outside or for those folks that were they trying to get folks to convert to using the mobile app that maybe weren't users already? What was that online and offline experience? What were some of the challenges they were looking to resolve? >> Yeah, absolutely. The modern marketer is really both, like you said, online and offline, there is a heavy focus within the app and Peet's kind of wanted to bridge those two by pushing users into the app to provide a better experience there. So what they ended up doing was they used our deep linking capabilities to seamlessly route their customers to their loyalty program and their rewards catalog and other menu offerings within the app so that they could actually get things done in real time, but also in real time was the ability to then measure across those different campaigns so that they had visibility, Peet's, into kind of the way that they could optimize that campaign performance but also still give that great experience to their users. And they actually saw higher loyalty adoption, order values, and attributed purchases when they were able to kind of see in real time where these users were converting. But another thing that we're actually seeing across the board and Peet's did a great job of this was leveraging Branch power QR codes where we are seeing like the rebirth of the QR code. They're back, they're here to stay. They actually used that across multiple channels. So they used it with their in-store signage. You might have even seen it on their to go cups, coffee cards that were handed out by baristas. They were all encouraging customers to go order ahead using the Peet's coffee app. But that was kind of just the beginning for them. The creation of unique links for those QR codes actually spread for them to create Branch links across everything from emails to ads on Instagram. So before long, most of Peet's retail marketing were actually Branch links just because of the ease of creation and reliability, but more so again, going back to that customer experience, it really provided that good experience for the customers to make sure that they were getting within the mobile app so that they can take action and order their coffee. Another way that Branch kind of bridges the different platforms is actually between mobile web and app. Peet used Branch Journeys and that's a product of ours. It's a way that they can convert their mobile web users into app users. So they used deferred deep links with the ultimate goal of then converting those users into high value app users. So the Peet's team actually tested different creative and interstitials across the mobile site which would then place those users into the key pages, like either the homepage or the store locator, or the menu pages within the app. So that also helped them kind of build up not just their mobile app order online but also their delivery business so they could hire new trials of seasonal beverages. They could pair them with a free delivery offering. So they knew that they were able to leverage that at scale across multiple initiatives. >> I love those kinds of stories where it's kind of like a land and expand where there was obviously a global massive problem. They saw that recognized our customers are still going to be is demanding. Maybe if not more than they were before with I want my coffee, I want it now, you mentioned real time. I think one of the things we learned during the pandemic is access to realtime data isn't a nice to have anymore. We expect it as consumers even in our business lives, but the ability to be able to measure, course correct, but then see, wow, this is driving average order value up, we're getting more folks using our mobile app, maybe using delivery. Let's expand the usage of Branch across what we're doing in marketing can really help transform our marketing organization and a business at the brand level. >> Absolutely. And it also helps predict that brand loyalty. Because like you said, we, as consumers expect that that brands are going to kind of follow us where we are in our life cycle as consumers and if you don't do that, then you're going to be left in the dust unfortunately. >> I think one of the memories that will always stick with me, Michelle, during the last couple years is that first cup of Peet's that I didn't have to make at home myself. Just finally getting the courage to go back in, use the app, go in there, but oh man, that was probably the best taste of coffee I probably will ever have. You mentioned some of the products, you mentioned Journeys, and that allows them to do AB testing, looking at different CTAs, being able to kind of course correct and adjust campaigns in real time. >> Yeah, absolutely. So Journeys, what it does is it's basically a banner or a full page interstitial that is populated on the mobile web. So if you go to let's say Peets.com, you could get served as a user, either different creative or depending on where you are, location wise, you could be in the store, maybe there's a promotion. So it's triggered by all these different targeting capabilities. And so what that does is it takes me as a user. I can click that and go into the app where, like we said before, we have higher order value, higher lifetime value of a customer. And all my credit card information is saved. It just makes it so much more seamless for me to convert as a user within the app. And obviously Peet's likes that as well because then their conversion rates are actually higher. There's also kind of fun ways to play around with it. So if I am already a loyal customer and I have the app, you probably would target different creative for me than you would for someone who doesn't have the app. So you could say, hey, download our app, get $5 off of your next mobile order. Things like that you could play around with and you can see really does help increase that loyalty. But actually they were able to take, they kind of are experimenting with the geotargeted journeys in different key markets with different Peet's. And actually it was helping ultimately get their reinstalls growing. So for customers who maybe had the app before but needed to reinstall it because now there's such a bigger focus, they saw it both on the acquisition and the re-engagement side as well. >> So Branch has been pretty transformative, not in my estimation to Peet's marketing, but to Peet's as a business I'm hearing absolutely customer loyalty, revenue obviously impacted, brand loyalty, brand reputation. These are things that really kind of boil up to the top of the organization. So we're not just talking about benefits to the marketing and the sales folks. This is the overall massive business outcomes that you guys are enabling organizations like Peet's to generate. >> Yeah, definitely. And that's kind of what we tell our customers when they come to Branch. We want them to think about what their overall business objectives are versus if you think just campaign by campaign, okay, that's fine. But ultimately what are we trying to achieve? How could we help the bottom line? And then how can we also kind of help integrate with other mobile marketing technology or the modern tech stack that they're using? How do we integrate into that and actually provide not just a seamless experience for their end user, but with their marketing orgs, their product orgs, whoever's kind of touching the business as well? >> Have you noticed along those lines in the last couple of years as things like customer delight, seamless experience, the ability to translate, if I start on my iPad and I go to my laptop and then I finish a transaction on my phone, have you noticed your customer conversations increasing up to the C-suite level? Is this much more of a broad organizational objective around we've got to make sure that we have a really strong digital user experience? >> Yeah, absolutely. Like we were talking about before, it really does help affect the bottom line when you're providing a great experience with Branch being a mobile linking platform, our links just work. We outperform everybody else in the space and it might sound like really simple, okay, a link is working getting me from point A to point B, but doing it the right way and being consistent actually will increase performance over time of all these campaigns. So it's just an addition to providing that experience, you're seeing those key business results every single time. >> Talk about attribution for a minute because I've been in marketing for a long time in the tech industry. And that's always one of the challenges is we want to know what lever did the customer pull that converted them from opportunity to a lead to whatnot? Talk about the ability for Branch from an attribution perspective to really tell those marketers and the organization exactly, tactically, down to the tactical level, this is what's working. This is what's not working. Even if it's a color combination for example. That science is critical. >> Yeah, absolutely. Because we are able to cover the entire marketing life cycle of that they're trying to reach their customers. We cover off on email. We have mobile web to app. We have organic, we have search. No matter what you can look at that purview under a Branch lens. So we are just providing not just the accurate attribution down to the post-install, what happens after that, but also a more holistic view of everything that's happening on mobile. So then you can stitch all that together and really look at which ones are actually performing so you could see exactly which campaigns attributed directly to what amount of spend or which campaigns helped us understand the true lifetime long term value of customers, let's say in this case who ordered delivery or pickup. So to the kind of customer persona, it really helped. And also they actually were able to see Peet's because of our attribution, they saw actually a four and a half time increase in attributed purchases at the peak of the pandemic. And even since then, they're still seeing a three times increase in monthly attributed purchases. So because they actually have the view across everything that they're doing, we're able to provide that insight. >> That insight is so critical these days, like we mentioned earlier talking about real time data. Well we expect the experiences to be real time. And I expect that when I go back on the app they're going to know what I ordered last time. Maybe I want that again. Maybe I want to be able to change that, but I want them to know enough about me in a non creepy way. Give me that seamless experience that I'm expecting because of course that drives me to come back over and over again and spend way too much money there which I'm guilty of, guilty as charged. >> Coffee is totally fine. >> Right? Thank you. Thank you so much for validating that. I appreciate that. But talk to me about, as we are kind of wrapping things up here, the brick and mortars, it was such a challenge globally, especially the mom and pops to be able to convert quickly and figure out how do we reach a digital audience? How do we get our customers to be loyal? What's some of the advice that you have for the brick and mortars or those quick service restaurants like Peet's who've been navigating this the last couple years now here we are in this interesting semi post pandemic I would like to believe world? >> Yeah, we're getting there slowly but surely, but yeah, it's really important for them to adapt as we kind of move into this semi post pandemic world, we're kind of in the middle of like a hybrid online, offline, are we in stores, are we ordering online? These brand and customer relationships are super complex. I think the mobile app is just one part of that. Customers really shouldn't have any problems getting from the content or item they're looking for, no matter if they're in the store, if they're in the app, if they're on the desktop, if they're checking their email, if they're perusing TikTok, the best customer relationships really are omnichannel in nature. So what I would say, the need for providing the stellar customer experience isn't going to go away. It's actually really key. Whether it's driving users from their mobile properties to the app, providing a great in-store experience, like the QR codes, customers are expecting a lot more than they did before the pandemic. So they're not really seeing these brand touch points as little silos. They're seeing one brand. So it really should feel like one brand you should speak to the customers as if it's one brand across every single device, channel, and platform, and really unify that experience for them. >> Absolutely. That's going to be I think for so many different brands, whether it's a brick and mortar QSR, that's going to be one of the defining competitive advantages. If they can give their end users a single brand experience across channels, and you mentioned TikTok, those channels are only going to grow. As are I think or expectations. I don't think anybody's going to go back to wanting less than they did two years ago, right? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> Well this has been great, Michelle, thank you so much for joining me, talking about Branch, what you guys are doing, mobile linking platform, mobile measurement platform, the deep links, what you were able to do with Peet's Coffee, a beloved brand since the 60s and so many others. We appreciate your insights, your time and the story that you shared. >> Thank you so much, Lisa. I hope you have a great rest of your day. >> You as well. For Michelle Lerner, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of the AWS Showcase. Keep it right here. More great content coming up from theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. (gentle music)

>> Hey everyone, welcome to theCUBE's coverage of the AWS startup showcase. This is season two, episode three of our ongoing series featuring AWS and its big ecosystem of partners. This particular season is focused on MarTech, emerging cloud scale customer experiences. I'm your host, Lisa Martin, and I'm pleased to be joined by James Fang, the VP of product marketing at mparticle. James, welcome to the program. Great to have you on. >> Thanks for having me. >> Tell us a little bit about mparticle, what is it that you guys do? >> Sure, so we're mparticle, we were founded in 2013, and essentially we are a customer data platform. What we do is we help brands collect and organize their data. And their data could be coming from web apps, mobile apps, existing data sources like data warehouses, data lakes, et cetera. And we help them help them organize it in a way where they're able to activate that data, whether it's to analyze it further, to gather insights or to target them with relevant messaging, relevant offers. >> What were some of the gaps in the market back then as you mentioned 2013, or even now, that mparticle is really resolving so that customers can really maximize the value of their customer's data. >> Yeah. So the idea of data has actually been around for a while, and you may have heard the buzzword 360 degree view of the customer. The problem is no one has really been actually been able to, to achieve it. And it's actually, some of the leading analysts have called it a myth. Like it's a forever ending kind of cycle. But where we've kind of gone is, first of all customer expectations have really just inflated over the years, right? And part of that was accelerated due to COVID, and the transformation we saw in the last two years, right. Everyone used to, you know, have maybe a digital footprint, as complimentary perhaps to their physical footprint. Nowadays brands are thinking digital first, for obvious reasons. And the data landscape has gotten a lot more complex, right? Brands have multiple experiences, on different screens, right? And, but from the consumer perspective, they want a complete end to end experience, no matter how you're engaging with the brand. And in order to, for a brand to deliver that experience they have to know, how the customers interacted before in each of those channels, and be able to respond in as real time as possible, to those experiences. >> So I can start an interaction on my iPad, maybe carry it through or continue it on my laptop, go to my phone. And you're right, as a, as a consumer, I want the experience across all of those different media to be seamless, to be the same, to be relevant. You talk about the customer 360, as a marketer I know that term well. It's something that so many companies use, interesting that you point out that it's really been, largely until companies like mparticle, a myth. It's one of those things though, that everybody wants to achieve. Whether we're talking about healthcare organization, a retailer, to be able to know everything about a customer so that they can deliver what's increasingly demanded that personalized, relevant experience. How does mparticle fill some of the gaps that have been there in customer 360? And do you say, Hey, we actually deliver a customer 360. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, so the reason it's been a myth is for the most part, data has been- exists either in silos, or it's kind of locked behind this black box that the central data engineering team or sometimes traditionally referred to as IT, has control over, right? So brands are collecting all sorts of data. They have really smart people working on and analyzing it. You know, being able to run data science models, predictive models on it, but the, the marketers and the people who want to draw insights on it are asking how do I get it in, in my hands? So I can use that data for relevant targeting messaging. And that's exactly what mparticle does. We democratize access to that data, by making it accessible in the very tools that the actual business users are are working in. And we do that in real time, you don't have to wait for days to get access to data. And the marketers can even self-service, they're able to for example, build audiences or build computed insights, such as, you know, average order value of a customer within the tool themselves. The other main, the other main thing that mparticle does, is we ensure the quality of that data. We know that activation is only as as good, when you can trust that data, right? When there's no mismatching, you know, first name last names, identities that are duplicated. And so we put a lot of effort, not only in the identity resolution component of our product but also being able to ensure that the consistency of that data when it's being collected meets the standard that you need. >> So give us a, a picture, kind of a topology of a, of a customer data platform. And what are some of the key components that it contains, then I kind of want to get into some of the use cases. >> Yeah. So at, at a core, a lot of customer data platforms look similar. They're responsible first of all for the collection of data, right? And again, that could be from web mobile sources, as well as existing data sources, as well as third party apps, right? For example, you may have e-commerce data in a Shopify, right. Or you may have, you know, a computer model from a, from a warehouse. And then the next thing is to kind of organize it somehow, right? And the most common way to do that is to unify it, using identity resolution into this idea of customer profiles, right. So I can look up everything that Lisa or James has done, their whole historical record. And then the third thing is to be able to kind of be able to draw some insights from that, whether to be able to build an audience membership on top of that, build a predictive model, such as the churn risk model or lifetime value of that customer. And finally is being able to activate that data, so you'll be able to push that data again, to those relevant downstream systems where the business users are actually using that data to, to do their targeting, or to do more interesting things with it. >> So for example, if I go to the next Warrior's game, which I predict they're going to win, and I have like a mobile app of the stadium or the team, how, and I and I'm a season ticket holder, how can a customer data platform give me that personalized experience and help to, yeah, I'd love to kind of get it in that perspective. >> Yeah. So first of all, again, in this modern day and age consumers are engaging with brands from multiple devices, and their attention span, frankly, isn't that long. So I may start off my day, you know, downloading the official warriors app, right. And I may be, you know browsing from my mobile phone, but I could get distracted. I've got to go join a meeting at work, drop off my kids or whatever, right? But later in the day I had in my mind, I may be interested in purchasing tickets or buying that warriors Jersey. So I may return to the website, or even the physical store, right. If, if I happen to be in the area and what the customer data platform is doing in the background, is associating and connecting all those online and offline touchpoints, to that user profile. And then now, I have a mar- so let's say I'm a marker for the golden state warriors. And I see that, you know, this particular user has looked at my website even added to their cart, you know, warriors Jersey. I'm now able to say, Hey, here's a $5 promotional coupon. Also, here's a special, limited edition. We just won, you know, the, the Western conference finals. And you can pre-book, you know, the, you know the warriors championships Jersey, cross your fingers, and target that particular user with that promotion. And it's much more likely because we have that contextual data that that user's going to convert, than just blasting them on a Facebook or something like that. >> Right. Which all of us these days are getting less and less patient with, Is those, those broad blasts through social media and things like that. That was, I love that example. That was a great example. You talked about timing. One of the things I think that we've learned that's in very short supply, in the last couple of years is people's patience and tolerance. We now want things in nanoseconds. So, the ability to glean insights from data and act on it in real time is no longer really a nice to have that's really table stakes for any type of organization. Talk to us about how mparticle facilitates that real time data, from an insights perspective and from an activation standpoint. >> Yeah. You bring up a good point. And this is actually one of the core differentiators of mparticle compared to the other CDPs is that, our architecture from the ground up is built for real time. And the way we do that is, we use essentially a real time streaming architecture backend. Essentially all the data points that we collect and send to those downstream destinations, that happens in milliseconds, right? So the moment that that user, again, like clicks a button or adds something to their shopping cart, or even abandons that shopping cart, that downstream tool, whether it's a marketer, whether it's a business analyst looking at that data for intelligence, they get that data within milliseconds. And our audience computations also happens within seconds. So again, if you're, if you have a targeted list for a targeted campaign, those updates happen in real time. >> You gave an- you ran with the Warrior's example that I threw at you, which I love, absolutely. Talk to me. You must have though, a favorite cu- real world customer example of mparticle's that you think really articulates the value to organizations, whether it's to marketers operators and has some nice, tangible business outcomes. Share with me if you will, a favorite customer story. >> Yeah, definitely one of mine and probably one of the- our most well known's is we were actually behind the scenes of the Whopper jr campaign. So a couple of years ago, Burger King ran this really creative ad where the, effectively their goal was to get their mobile app out, as well as to train, you know, all of us back before COVID days, how to order on our mobile devices and to do things like curbside checkout. None of us really knew how to do that, right. And there was a challenge of course that, no one wants to download another app, right? And most apps get downloaded and get deleted right out away. So they ran this really creative promotion where, if you drove towards a McDonald's, they would actually fire off a text message saying, Hey, how about a Whopper for 99 cents instead? And you would, you would, you would receive a text message personalized just for you. And you'd be able to redeem that at any burger king location. So we were kind of the core infrastructure plumbing the geofencing location data, to partner of ours called radar, which handles you geofencing, and then send it back to a marketing orchestration vendor to be able to fire that targeted message. >> Very cool. I, I, now I'm hungry. You, but there's a fine line there between knowing that, okay, Lisa's driving towards McDonald's let's, you know, target her with an ad for a whopper, in privacy. How do you guys help organizations in any industry balance that? Cause we're seeing more and more privacy regulations popping up all over the world, trying to give consumers the ability to protect either the right to forget about me or don't use my data. >> Yeah. Great question. So the first way I want to respond to that is, mparticle's really at the core of helping brands build their own first party data foundation. And what we mean by that is traditionally, the way that brands have approached marketing is reliant very heavily on second and third party data, right? And most that second-third party data is from the large walled gardens, such as like a Facebook or a TikTok or a Snapchat, right? They're they're literally just saying, Hey find someone that is going to, you know fit our target profile. And that data is from people, all their activity on those apps. But with the first party data strategy, because the brand owns that data, we- we can guarantee that or the brands can guarantee to their customers it's ethically sourced, meaning it's from their consent. And we also help brands have governance policies. So for example, if the user has said, Hey you're allowed to collect my data, because obviously you want to run your business better, but I don't want any my information sold, right? That's something that California recently passed, with CPRA. Then brands can use mparticle data privacy controls to say, Hey, you can pass this data on to their warehouses and analytics platforms, but don't pass it to a platform like Facebook, which potentially could resell that data. >> Got it, Okay. So you really help put sort of the, the reigns on and allow those customers to make those decisions, which I know the mass community appreciates. I do want to talk about data quality. You talked about that a little bit, you know, and and data is the lifeblood of an organization, if it can really extract value from it and act on it. But how do you help organizations maintain the quality of data so that what they can do, is actually deliver what the end user customer, whether it's a somebody buying something on a, on a eCommerce site or or, a patient at a hospital, get what they need. >> Yeah. So on the data quality front, first of all I want to highlight kind of our strengths and differentiation in identity resolution. So we, we run a completely deterministic algorithm, but it's actually fully customizable by the customer depending on their needs. So for a lot of other customer data providers, platform providers out there, they do offer identity resolution, but it's almost like a black box. You don't know what happens. And they could be doing a lot of fuzzy matching, right. Which is, you know, probabilistic or predictive. And the problem with that is, let's say, you know, Lisa your email changed over the years and CDP platform may match you with someone that's completely not you. And now all of a sudden you're getting ads that completely don't fit you, or worse yet that brand is violating privacy laws, because your personal data is is being used to target another user, which which obviously should not, should not happen, right? So because we're giving our customers complete control, it's not a black box, it's transparent. And they have the ability to customize it, such as they can specify what identifiers matter more to them, whether they want to match on email address first. They might've drawn on a more high confidence identifier like a, a hash credit card number or even a customer ID. They have that choice. The second part about ensuring data quality is we act actually built in schema management. So as those events are being collected you could say that, for example, when when it's a add to cart event, I require the item color. I require the size. Let's say it's a fashion apparel. I require the size of it and the type of apparel, right? And if, if data comes in with missing fields, or perhaps with fields that don't match the expectation, let's say you're expecting small, medium, large and you get a Q, you know Q is meaningless data, right? We can then enforce that and flag that as a data quality violation and brands can complete correct that mistake to make sure again, all the data that's flowing through is, is of value to them. >> That's the most important part is, is to make sure that the data has value to the organization, and of course value to whoever it is on the other side, the, the end user side. Where should customers start, in terms of working with you guys, do you recommend customers buy an all in one marketing suite? The best, you know, build a tech stack of best of breed? What are some of those things that you recommend for folks who are going, all right, We, maybe we have a CDP it's been under delivering. We can't really deliver that customer 360, mparticle, help us out. >> Yeah, absolutely. Well, the best part about mparticle is you can kind of deploy it in phases, right. So if you're coming from a world where you've deployed a, all in one marketing suite, like a sales force in Adobe, but you're looking to maybe modernize pieces of a platform mparticle can absolutely help with that initial step. So let again, let's say all you want to do is modernize your event collection. Well, we can absolutely, as a first step, for example, you can instrument us. You can collect all your data from your web and mobile apps in real time, and we can pipe to your existing, you know Adobe campaign manager, Salesforce, marketing cloud. And later down the line, let's say, you say I want to, you know, modernize my analytics platform. I'm tired of using Adobe analytics. You can swap that out, right again with an mparticle place, a marketer can or essentially any business user can flip the switch. And within the mparticle interface, simply disconnect their existing tool and connect a new tool with a couple of button clicks and bam, the data's now flowing into the new tool. So it mparticle really, because we kind of sit in the middle of all these tools and we have over 300 productized prebuilt integrations allows you to move away from kind of a locked in, you know a strategy where you're committed to a vendor a hundred percent to more of a best of breed, agile strategy. >> And where can customers that are interested, go what's your good and market strategy? How does that involve AWS? Where can folks go and actually get and test out this technology? >> Yeah. So first of all, we are we are AWS, a preferred partner. and we have a couple of productized integrations with AWS. The most obvious one is for example, being able to just export data to AWS, whether it's Redshift or an S3 or a kinesis stream, but we also have productized integrations with AWS, personalized. For example, you can take events, feed em to personalize and personalize will come up with the next best kind of content recommendation or the next best offer available for the customer. And mparticle can ingest that data back and you can use that for personalized targeting. In fact, Amazon personalize is what amazon.com themselves use to populate the recommended for use section on their page. So brands could essentially do the same. They could have a recommended for you carousel using Amazon technology but using mparticle to move the data back and forth to, to populate that. And then on top of that very, very soon we'll be also launching a marketplace kind of entry. So if you are a AWS customer and you have credits left over or you just want to transact through AWS, then you'll have that option available as well. >> Coming soon to the AWS marketplace. James, thank you so much for joining me talking about mparticle, how you guys are really revolutionizing the customer data platform and allowing organizations and many industries to really extract value from customer data and use it wisely. We appreciate your insights and your time. >> Thank you very much, Lisa >> For James Fang, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCube's coverage of the AWS startup showcase season three, season two episode three, leave it right here for more great coverage on theCube, the leader in live tech coverage.

(upbeat music) >> Okay, welcome back everyone. The cube coverage of AWS re:Mars, 2022. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We got Eric Foellmer, vice president of marketing at Boston Dynamics. Famous for Spot. We all know, we've seen the videos, zillion views. Mega views all over the internet. The dog robotics, it's famous. Rolls over, bounces up and down. I mean, how many TikTok videos are out there? Probably a ton. >> Oh, Spot is- Spot is world famous (John laughs) at this point, right? So it's the dance videos, and all the application videos that we have out there. Spot is become has become world famous. >> Eric, thanks for joining us on theCUBE here at re:Mars. This show really is back. There was still a pandemic hiatus there. But it's not a part of the re's. It's re Mars, reinforcement of security, and then reinvent the flagship show for AWS. But this show is different. It brings together a lot of disciplines. But it's converging in on what we see as the next general- Industrial space is a big poster child for that. Obviously in space, it's highly industrial, highly secure. Machine learning's powering all the devices. You guys have been in this, I mean a leader, in a robotics area. What's this show about? I mean, what's really happening here. What if you had to boil the essence of the top story of what's happening here? What would it be? >> So the way that I look at this show is it really is a convergence of innovation. Like this is really just the cutting edge of the innovation that's really happening throughout robotics, but throughout technology in general. And you know, part of this cultural shift will be to adopt these types of technologies in our everyday life. And I think if you ask any technology specialist here or any innovator here or entrepreneur. They'll tell you that they want their technologies to become ubiquitous in society, right? I mean, that's really what everyone is sort of driving towards from the perspective of- >> And we, and we got some company behind it. Look at this. >> Oh, there we go. >> All right. >> There's a (Eric laughs) There's one of our Spots. >> It's got one of those back there. All right so sorry to interrupt, got a little distracted by the beautiful thing there. >> So they're literally walking around and literally engulfing the show. So when I look at the show, that's what I see. >> Let's see the picture of- >> I see the future of technology. >> Get a camera on our photo bomb here going on. Get a photo bomb action. (Eric chuckles) It's just super exciting because it really, it humanizes, it makes you- Everyone loves dogs. And, you know, I mean, people have more empathy if you kicked Spot than, you know, a human. Because there's so much empathy for just the innovation. But let's get into the innovation because let's- The IOT tech scene has been slow. Cloud computing Amazon web services, the leader hyper scaler. They dominated the back office you know, data centers, all the servers, digital transformation. Now that's coming to the edge. Where robotics is now in play. Space, material handling, devices for helping people who are sick or in healthcare. >> Eric: Mhm. >> So a whole surge of revolutionary or transitionary technologies coming. What's your take on that? >> So I think, you know, data has become the driving force behind technology innovation. And so robotics are an enabler for the tech, for the data collection that is going to drive IOT and manufacturing 4.0 and other important edge related and, you know, futuristic technology innovations, right? So the driver of all of that is data. And so robots like Spot are collectors of data. And so instead of trying to retrofit a manufacturing plant, you know, with 30, 40, 50 year old equipment in some cases. With IOT sensors and, you know, fixed sensors throughout the network. We're bringing the sensors to the equipment in the form of an agile mobile robot that brings that technology forward and is able to assess. >> So explain that a little slower for me. So the one method would be retrofitting all the devices. Or the hardware currently installed. >> Eric: Sure. >> Versus almost like having a mobile unit next to it, kind of thing. Or- >> Right. So, I mean, if you're looking at antiquated equipment which is what most, you know, manufacturing plants are running off of. It's not really practical or feasible to update them with fixed sensors. So sensors that specifically take measurements from that machine. So, we enable Spot with a variety of sensors from audio sensors to listen for audio anomalies. Thermal detectors, to look for thermal hotspots in equipment. Or visual detectors, where it's reading analog gauges, that sort of thing. So by doing that, we are bringing the sensors to the machines. >> Yeah. >> And to be able to walk anywhere where a human can walk throughout a manufacturing plant. To inspect the equipment, take that reading. And then most importantly upload that to the cloud, to the users >> It's a service dog. >> you can apply some- >> It's a service dog. >> It really is. And it serves data for the understanding of how that equipment is operated. >> This is big agility for the customer. Get that data, agile. Talk about the cost impact of that, just alone. What the alternative would be versus say, deploying that scenario. Because I'd imagine the time and cost would be huge. >> Well, if you think, you know, about how much manufacturing facilities put into the predictive maintenance and being able to forecast when their equipment needs maintenance. But also when pieces of equipment are going to fail. Unexpected downtime is one of the biggest money drains of any manufacturing facility. So the ability to be able to forecast and get some insight into when that equipment is starting to perform less than optimally and start to degrade. The ability to forecast that in advance is massive. >> Well I think you just win on just in retrofit cost alone, nevermind the downside scenarios of manufacturing problems. All right, let's zoom out. You guys have been pioneers for a long time. What's changed in your mind now versus just a few years ago. I mean, look at even 5, 10 years ago. The evolution, cost and capability. What's changed the most? >> Yeah, I think the accessibility of robots has really changed. And we're just on the beginning stages of that evolution. We really are. We're at the precipice right now of robots becoming much more ubiquitous in people's lives. And that's really our foundation as a company. Is we really want to bring robots to mankind for the good of humanity, right? So if you think about, you know, taking humans out of harm's way. Or, you know, putting robots in situations where, you know, where it's assessing damage for a building, for example, right. You're taking people out of the, out of that harm's way and really standardizing what you're able to do with technology. So we see it as really being on the very entry point of having not only robotics, but technology in general to become much more prevalent in people's lives. >> Yeah. >> I mean, what, you know. 30 years ago, did you ever think that you would have the power of a supercomputer in your pocket to, you know. Which also happens to allow you to talk to people but it is so much more, right? So the power of a cell phone has changed our lives forever. >> A computer that happens to be a phone. You know, it's like, come on. >> Right. >> What's going on with that. >> That's almost secondary at this point. (John laughing) It really is. So, I mean, when you think about that transition from you know, I think we're at the cusp of that right now. We're at the beginning stages of it. And it's really, it's an exciting time to be part of this. An entire industry. >> Before I get your views on integration and scale. Because that's the next level. We're seeing a lot of action and growth. Talk about the use case. You've mentioned a few of them, take people out of harms way. What have you guys seen as use cases within Boston Dynamics customer base and or your partner network around use cases. That either you knew would happen, or ones that might have surprised you? >> Yeah. One of the biggest use cases for us right now is what we're demonstrating here at re:MARS. Which is the ability to walk through a manufacturing plant and collect data off various pieces of equipment. Whether that's pump or a gauge or seeing whether a valve is open or closed. These are all simple mundane tasks that people are, that manufacturers are having difficulty finding people to be able to perform. So the ability for a robot to go over and do that and standardize that process is really valuable. As companies are trying to collect that data in a consistent way. So that's one of the most prevalent use cases that we're seeing right now. And certainly also in cases where, you know, Spot is going into buildings that have been structurally damaged. Or, you know, assessing situations where we don't want people to be in harm's way. >> John: Yeah. >> You know- >> Bomb scares, or any kind of situation with police or, you know, threatening or danger situations. >> Sure. And fire departments as well. I mean, fire departments are becoming a huge, you know, a huge user of the robots themselves. Fire department in New York recently just adopted some of our robots as well. For that purpose, for search and rescue applications. >> Yeah. Go in, go see what's in there. See what's around the corner. It gives a very tactical edge capability for say the firefighter or law enforcement. I see that- I see the military applications must be really insane. >> Sure. From a search and rescue perspective. Absolutely. I mean, Spot helps you put eyes on situations that will allow a human to be operating at a safe distance. So it's really a great value for protecting human life and making sure that people stay out of harm's way. >> Well Eric, I really appreciate you coming on theCUBE and sharing your insight. One other question I'd like to ask if you don't mind is, you know. The one of the things I see next to your booth is the university piece. And then you see the Amazon, you know, material management. I don't know what to call it, but it's pretty impressive. And then I saw some of the demos on the keynotes. Looking at the scale of synthetic data. Just it's mind blowing what's going on in manufacturing. Amazon is pretty state of the art. I'm sure there are a customer of yours already. But they look complex these manufacturing sites. I mean, it looks like a maze. So how do you... I mean, I could see the consequences of something breaking, to be catastrophic. Because it's almost like, it's so integrated. Is this where you guys see success and how do these manufacturers deal with this? What's the... Is it like one big OS? >> Yeah, so the robots, because the robots are able to act independently. They can traverse difficult terrain and collect data on their own. And then, you know, what happens to that data afterwards is really up to the manufacturing. It can be delivered from the cloud and you can, it can be delivered via the edge. You know, edge devices and really that's where some of the exciting work is being done right now. Because that's where data can scale. And that's where robot deployments can scale as well, right? So you've got instead of a single robot. Now you have an operator deploying multiple robots. Monitoring, controlling, and assessing the data from multiple robots throughout a facility. And it really helps to scale that investment. >> All right, final question for you. This is personal question. Okay, I know- Saw your booth over there. And you have a lot of fan base. Spot's got a huge fan base. What are some of the crazy things that these nerd fans do? I mean, everyone get selfies with the Spot. They want to- I jump over the fence. I see, "Don't touch the dog." signs everywhere. The fan base is off the charts. What are the crazy things that people do to get either access to it. There's probably, been probably some theft, probably. Attempts, or selfies. Share some funny stories. >> I'll say this. My team is responsible for fielding a lot of the inbound inquiries that we get. Much of which comes from the entertainment industry. And as you've seen Spot has been featured in some really prominent, you know, entertainment pieces. You know, we were in that Super Bowl ad with Sam Adams. We were on Jimmy Kimmel, you know, during the Super Bowl time period. So the amount of entertainment... >> Value >> Pitches. Or the amount of entertainment value is immeasurable. But the number of pitches that we turn down is staggering. And when you can think about how most companies would probably pull out all the stops to take, you know. To be able to execute half the things that we're just, from a time perspective, from a resource perspective >> Okay, so Spots an A- not always able to do. >> So Spots an A-lister, I get that. Is there a B-lister now? I mean, that sounds like there's a market developing for Spot two. Is there a Spot two? The B player coming in? Understudy? >> So, I mean, Spot is always evolving. I think, you know, the physical- the physical statue that you see of Spot right now, Is where we're going to be in terms of the hardware, but we continue to move the robot forward. It becomes more and more advanced and more and more capable to do more and more things for people. So. >> All right. Well, we'll roll some B roll on this, on theCUBE. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. Really appreciate it. Boston Dynamics here in theCUBE, famous for Spot. And then here, the show packed here in re:MARS featuring, you know, robotics. It's a big feature hall. It's a set piece here in the show floor. And of course theCUBE's covering it. Thanks for watching. More coverage. I'm John Furrier, your host. After the short break. (upbeat music)

>>Okay, welcome back everyone. This is the cube coverage here at Remar. Amazon Remar stands for machine learning, automation, robotics, and space. And we're here for a robotics. Cool segments. We have Monia on the desk. We'll get Caitlin Caitlin clay bar head. Ofri welcome to the cube and follow Virginian, founder and CEO of Moxi. Thanks for coming on and thanks for bringing this special third guest. Thank you for helping >>Us. >>This is exciting. Okay. So first of all, we'll get into the company a second, but what do we, what is this? What what's going on? This is amazing. >>Go. This is Moxi. This is our first product out of embodied and it is a social, emotional learning AI friend for children, ages five to 10 currently. >>That's what he, he or she likes me. Yes. Staring at me right now. I'm a child. Thank he. Nice to see you. >>And it has all sorts of content and in multi back and forth interaction. Yeah. And it's, it's our first pass at doing socially. >>Okay. So this product is shipping. >>It is shipping. Yeah. Available. It is available. We've been out for over a year now shipping for over a year now. >>Okay. Oh man. It just makes me feel good. It must be a big seller across all use cases. So what's the number one thing you guys getting attention on right now from Moxi besides the cool factor, the tech what's going on? >>Well, I think we have received a lot of interest from many people because Mo Mox is captured the imagination of people in terms of what is possible in the future. And really the Genesis of it is that I've been doing robotics for 20 years and sort of a little bit disappointed with what we have accomplished in robotics, because there's so much where we can do we have dreamt about robots for centuries. But what we were dreaming about was not robotic vacuum cleaners, which guilty as charged. I was part, I was a CTO at iRobot and we wanna see robots that can actually can really care for us from childhood to retirement. And Moxi represents the AI technology we have developed. That's gonna make that next wave of robotics to flourish. >>You must be really excited because I think right now, one of the main, my main walkaway themes so far from this show is technology's not the blocker anymore. It's the people human side of it, where it used to be technology slow. And robotics has been that area where we've seen great innovation, but where's that needle moving moment coming. I think now with cloud and all the things happening seems to be the moment. >>I think we are seeing exponential growth in technology. That's gonna enable robots to become unreal. As an example, Moxi uses very advanced, conversational engine where you literally can talk to Moxi about anything you want. So it can be a real companion. It will understand, you understand your needs and emotions and start working on social, emotional development for children. This technology, which are as transformer models, deep neural networks that are trained on millions of conversation. We are seeing every year, 10 X improvement to this. So I predict in the next two to three years, you will be able to have a conversation with Moxi. That's like having a subject expert matter expert in every single subject. Yeah. >>Yeah. That's like getting a cube interview like instantly, Hey, Moxie, what's the information. So I could see the tie in and it's just my mind's blown, I guess in the sense of the use cases are wide. You get wide ranging use cases, elderly care, child development, loneliness, all kinds of social, emotional factors. >>Yeah. We've built a really incredible platform that we're hoping to expand out beyond kids. I mean, kids is kind of our, this is our first product, but Moxi the fact that we have what we call our social X platform and the tools where you can create content and Moxi can have conversations about any number of things it's >>So share. What's what technology is under the covers here with the human robotic interface kind of dynamic, you got software, you got hardware, you're gonna have code. You got the neural networks. It's kind of the confluence of a lot of different vectors coming together. What's the secret sauce. >>So that's what we call our social X platform. And really it you're right. Everything has to work in concert and at a price point that's affordable for people. So Moxie's able to actually track people in the real world and we are able to fuse people's speech. And you know, we do facial recognition for the specific child. So Moxie knows its mentor and personalize the interaction over time. >>Well, she's talking to me or he is a, she is a gender neutral robot, I guess, like whatever I want it to be, I guess >>We've left it intentionally gender neutral, but kids kind of yeah. Prescribe whatever gender they feel connected. >>Yes. Good, good. You enables the user. Yes. Really? The key what's what's been the biggest use case that you didn't think would be coming to the table with Moxi anything surprise you, you must get a lot of reactions. >>Yeah. So you covered some of the ones we are focused on. We are particularly focused on mental health from childhood to retirement and aging gracefully. After we launched Moxi we had a TikTok video that went crazy viral. We got 40 million views on this. And that led to a lot of interest from celebrities. Yeah. >>From some of the most luxury hotel chains that have reached out to us and they want to use the technology in Moxi to develop a personal Butler for every guest room, as an example, that's one example, right? So we have one of the largest violence intervention program in the us that caters to children that have unfortunately been through very traumatic experiences in their life and want to use Moxi as a way to provide therapy to these children. Yeah. Yeah. So the use cases are very broad. We even have people from different countries that were very interested in using Moxi for, for instance, teaching a Chinese child, how to speak English, immersively by interacting with Moxi, which is the best way to learn a different language. So I think the implications of this are paramount. Yeah. We will even see in contact centers, centers, customer support centers, and so on will use technology like this for having them empathetic AI that's actually taking care of your customer service complaints rather than a robotic way of >>Interacting with. I was just on, on earlier with an interview here with Deloitte and AWS on conversational AI and trust was a big conversation. Yes. Trust and, and ethics. So you got ethics, trust bias, all these things are of factors. You got human interaction from a physical and then software standpoint. What, what other hard problems are in here that you guys are solving? Come on. This is incredible because these are hard problems. >>Yes they are. And one of them is the famous cocktail party problem. And Palo being our fearless CEO really drove the team to get Moxi to this state where Moxie's able to interact with people, even in this environment, which is pretty incredible and like lock in and have a back and forth conversation. It's very exciting. >>So Moxi how do you feel you feeling good? What's the biggest challenge you've had here? Audio. Congratulations. That's really impressive. I'm so impressed. And again, it it's again, not to oversimplify it. There's a lot of hard problems going on here that are, that are being solved. >>Absolutely. There's >>Human interaction. You get a physical device. >>Exactly. It's a physical device. And like how we have designed Moxi down to the color of Moxie's eyes, the color of the shell, all of that has taken a lot of iteration to get to a point where we really have a robot that people feel like they can trust, feel like they can connect with. And, >>And even something to add to this is that we have many robots that cost tens of thousands of dollars, because it's very easy to keep adding more sensors and more compute power. And so on. You end up with robots that cost 10, 20, $30,000. One of the goals we set at the outset was we want to make Moxi as, as affordable as an iPhone. So, and Moxi is right. The price point of Moxi is same as owning an iPhone. You pay about a thousand dollars up front plus a monthly subscription fee. And that not >>The Ram cap upgrade the Ram on that too. >>We have very limited brand. >>We have please. Very, >>If you can convince it >>IPhone, I can always get the 2 56 or the one terabyte, >>Right? No, it, it really actually makes it much harder to develop technology that's affordable >>For yeah. Yeah, totally. >>And we wanted to do that because we wanted to have impact. >>So are you shipping now or are you on allocation? I can imagine that demand is off the >>Charts. Definitely. We sold out last year when we launched the product. Now we are resolving supply chain issues that everyone is suffering from due to COVID and this year we'll have better ability to meet demand. >>So this is people want it. There's a lot of demand. >>Right? >>You guys a smile having fun. Yes. Right. All right. So now talking about the product, take me through the product. What's the challenges here. Obviously the animation in the camera. I see the camera. I see some lights there at heart speaker. What would Moxi be doing if wasn't, if we weren't here, if we were at home. >>So as in interacting with a child at home, we've seen a lot of people actually put Moxy on the floor and kids will like lay down and interact with Moxy. And there are a lot of different activities right now it's doing a little jukebox dance, but there are more kind of therapy or mental health and, and social, emotional learning, driven content. Like children can read a book with Moxi and we use the screen, not just to show that great, cute facial expression and the eye contact, but we also can show icons and some additional information. And so in this way, we've created a very new type of interface for a machine, with a child, >>Not to get all product visionary and roadmap oriented here. But I can imagine interfacing out to a third party screens in the future where this is gonna stay compact and affordable. And if I'm interacting and I want to display a visual, is that something you guys are guys going beyond that you're still focused on the product here? So what's some of the vision you have >>There definitely. There will be versions of our social X platform, finding their way into what we may call the metaverse, where you could have hyper realistic models of humans driven by our AI to interact with you the way you and I are interacting, but embodiment where the name of the companies derive from is actually super important in the kind of things we are doing with mental health and social emotional development. Because the physical co-presence of an entity like this interacts with our brains in a different way than when we do on extreme. So there is gonna be both versions for some applications will be virtual. Other applications will be >>Physical. Well, that's a wait and see, see what happens, sell out the next batch inventory where the product yeah. >>And the embodiment. It does. It just, it hits a little different, you know, kids yeah. Will actually physically tuck Moxi in at night. There's there's something there >>That's, there's something there tangible, I think it's great. Home run. I mean, just having the response, the visual response, the facial makes an impact instantly. >>Absolutely. >>So you can extend that out, probably make it more immersive, whether it's metaverse or within your home. >>Yeah. And now with AR VR goggles, where you get this 3d immersive experience, it may get closer to the impact we can have with an embodied agency. So the lines are blurring obviously between the physical and the digital. >>Well, great to have you guys on. Thanks for bringing the, the, the Moxi on Moxi to come on. This event kind of symbolizes this revolution. We're seeing the robotics industrial shift space is a good example of one. This is another machine learning, the software business cloud, all great, you know, force multipliers to enable value creation. Where do you guys see this going Remar as this whole intersection, you got a lot of different disciplines coming together. We're seeing here in the cube and we're talking to folks that we think it's gonna be a needle moving moment for the, for the industrial era. What do you guys take on this? >>Absolutely. I mean, >>Robotics has always been right around the corner, but with the advances of technology in the last 10 years or so, this is now really possible and it's growing at exponential rates. So the future is exciting. Obviously we have to guide it. You talked about ethics. So being ethical about it, being mindful about how we want to deploy this technologies to actually have positive impact on us. For instance, we do not believe in replacing a human labor or the need for humans, but we believe in augmenting humans, right. And technology today can actually do that. Yeah. >>Know that whole argument's been debunked for decade, the whole bank teller. Oh, they're gonna put tellers outta business. No, there's more tellers now than ever before. So I think technology is gonna create much greater aperture of, of opportunities. And I think the question I'd love to get, get you guys to share is this is gonna wake up a lot of generational, young talent to come into the workforce, cuz the problems are there. It's not a technology. It's a human mind, creative problem. Now it's more of, you know, you're gonna see robotics probably being accelerated even more now than it is. It's still growing. Yeah. Young kids love robotics. >>I mean, it's incredible to see the breadth of applications of robotics at, at this event specifically and just, I don't know, getting into it. I mean, I haven't been in it as long as you pow, but five, 10 years ago, you wouldn't have seen, I mean, this just wouldn't be possible. >>The robotics clubs are more popular now in high, most high schools in the United States than some sports there's a and a B team and people get cut from the B team. There's so much demand. There's so much excitement cuz it's building. If you get your hands on and it's got software, it's got coding. Absolutely. It's got building. >>Absolutely. And you are, you are creating, there are figures like Steve jobs, Jeff Bezos, LAN Musk that are inspiring children to go into stem education and really build a career in that area, which is much more exciting than the, the opposite. >>Great. What do you guys think about re Mars this year? What's your walk away? What's the big story here besides Moxi cuz we recovered that right now. What's what's the, what's the trend. What's the high level. What's the most important story people should pay attention to? >>I think we're just gonna see robotics or machine learning and we're just gonna see it in almost every application and it's going to be, the word was ambient was being used during the keynote. And I think that's really true. Ambient intelligence, like having robots in your everyday life as well as just AI in your everyday life. And it's gonna feel seamless. >>It's pretty impressive. Paul, what's your take on the, the >>Big story? I would say one of the trends we are seeing at even here at AWS, Amazon re remarks is making machines more human. Yeah. Even Astro the product that was launched last September, I believe by Amazon is adding a lot of facial affect emotions and understanding of humans for decades. We have been bound to using keyboards and touch screens and yeah. Clicks here and there. And it's gonna change it's time for machines to learn, to understand us. Yeah. And that is gonna be a trend that we will see even in the self self-driving cars, which are not gonna have a steering wheel, but the machine will understand our mood and drive accordingly. >>Yeah. And you know, Apollo, you guys are doing Caitlin your work here. I think highlights what I'm seeing as it's a future theme. That's positive. It has a vibe of like, we need a good to come. You know, it's like, when's the good gonna happen? And I think, >>I think we're ready for that. >>The theme's here though. They're very positive forward thinking practical engineered, you know, and solving problems, right? Real problems. The climate change and the keynote. We talking about healthcare and, and having things be solved this way. This is the new, the new normal, it's a human problem now to solve >>It is. And I think we are all, all of us are a bit more aware of that after the pandemic, because pan the pandemic was hard on everyone in different ways and we are more mindful of the positive. Right? We are looking for something positive and hopefully yeah. Coming out of the pandemic, now we have a global crisis, but these, these technologies will transform life and the world in a positive way. Yeah. >>You guys doing a great job. Congratulations on the success of >>Moxi. Thank >>You. Great work. Thanks for sharing that. Thank you. I wanna let more platform maybe next time. We'll have a conversation. We'll talk about the platform in tric season, then detail. So, but thanks for coming on the queue. Appreciate the problem. >>Thank you. Our pleasure. Okay. >>It's the Cube's coverage here in Las Vegas for Amazon re Mars. I'm John furrier. Stay with us for more coverage after this short break.

(ethereal music) >> Good morning, everyone, and welcome to theCUBE's day-two coverage of Snowflake Summit '22. Lisa Martin here with Dave Vellante. We are live in Las Vegas at Caesar's Forum, looking forward to an action-packed day here on theCUBE. Our first guest joins us, Bill Stratton, the global industry lead, media, entertainment and advertising at Snowflake. Bill, great to have you on the program talking about industry specifics. >> Glad to be here, excited to have a conversation. >> Yeah, the media and entertainment industry has been keeping a lot of us alive the last couple of years, probably more of a dependence on it than we've seen stuck at home. Talk to us about the data culture in the media, entertainment and advertising landscape, how is data being used today? >> Sure. Well, let's start with what you just mentioned, these last couple of years, I think, coming out of the pandemic, a lot of trends and impact to the media industry. I think there were some things happening prior to COVID, right? Streaming services were starting to accelerate. And obviously, Netflix was an early mover. Disney launched their streaming service right before the pandemic, Disney+, with ESPN+ as well. I think then, as the pandemic occurred these last two years, the acceleration of consumers' habits, obviously, of not just unbundling their cable subscription, but then choosing, you know, what services they want to subscribe to, right? I mean, I think we all sort of grew up in this era of, okay, the bundle was the bundle, you had sports, you had news, you had entertainment, whether you watched the channel or not, you had the bundle. And what the pandemic has accelerated is what I call, and I think a lot of folks call, the golden age of content. And really, the golden age of content is about the consumer. They're in control now, they pick and choose what services they want, what they watch, when they watch it. And I think that has extremely, sort of accelerated this adoption on the consumer side, and then it's creating this data ecosystem, as a result of companies like Disney having a direct-to-consumer relationship for the first time. It used to be a Disney or an NBC was a wholesaler, and the cable or satellite company had the consumer data and relationship. Now, the companies that are producing the content have the data and the consumer relationships. It's a fascinating time. >> And they're still coming over the top on the Telco networks, right? >> Absolutely right. >> Telco's playing in this game? >> Yeah, Telco is, I think what the interesting dynamic with Telco is, how do you bundle access, high speed, everybody still needs high speed at their home, with content? And so I think it's a similar bundle, but it takes on a different characteristic, because the cable and Telcos are not taking the content risk. AT&T sold Warner Media recently, and I think they looked at it and said, we're going to stay with the infrastructure, let somebody else do the content. >> And I think I heard, did I hear this right the other day, that Roku is now getting into the content business? >> Roku is getting into it. And they were early mover, right? They said the TVs aren't, the operating system in the television is not changing fast enough for content. So their dongle that you would slide into a TV was a great way to get content on connected televisions, which is the fastest growing platform. >> I was going to say, what are the economics like in this business? Because the bundles were sort of a limiting factor, in terms of the TAM. >> Yeah. >> And now, we get great content, all right, to watch "Better Call Saul", I have to get AMC+ or whatever. >> You know, your comment, your question about the economics and the TAM is an interesting one, because I think we're still working through it. One of the things, I think, that's coming to the forefront is that you have to have a subscription revenue stream. Okay? Netflix had a subscription revenue stream for the last six, eight, 10 years, significantly, but I think you even see with Netflix that they have to go to a second revenue model, which is going to be an ad-supported model, right? We see it in the press these last couple days with Reid Hastings. So I think you're going to see, obviously subscription, obviously ad-supported, but the biggest thing, back to the consumer, is that the consumer's not going to sit through two minutes of advertising to watch a 22 minute show. >> Dave: No way. >> Right? So what's then going to happen is that the content companies want to know what's relevant to you, in terms of advertising. So if I have relevancy in my ad experience, then it doesn't quite feel, it's not intrusive, and it's relevant to my experience. >> And the other vector in the TAM, just one last follow-up, is you see Amazon, with Prime, going consumption. >> Bill: That's right. >> You get it with Prime, it's sort of there, and the movies aren't the best in the world, but you can buy pretty much any movie you want on a consumption basis. >> Yeah. Just to your last quick point, there is, we saw last week, the Boston Red Sox are bundling tickets, season tickets, with a subscription to their streaming service. >> NESN+, I think it is, yeah. So just like Prime, NESN+- >> And it's like 30 bucks a month. >> -just like Prime bundling with your delivery service, you're going to start to see all kinds of bundles happen. >> Dave: Interesting. >> Man, the sky is the limit, it's like it just keeps going and proliferating. >> Bill: It does. >> You talk about, on the ad side for a second, you mentioned the relevance, and we expect that as consumers, we're so demanding, (clears throat) excuse me, we don't have the patience, one of the things I think that was in short supply during COVID, and probably still is, is patience. >> That's right. >> I think with all of us, but we expect that brands know us enough to surf up the content that they think we watched, we watched "Breaking Bad", "Better Call Saul", don't show me other things that aren't relevant to the patterns I've been showing you, the content creators have to adapt quickly to the rising and changing demands of the consumer. >> That's right. Some people even think, as you go forward and consumers have this expectation, like you just mentioned, that brands not only need to understand their own view of the consumer, and this is going to come into the Snowflake points that we talk about in a minute, but the larger view that a brand has about a consumer, not just their own view, but how they consume content, where they consume it, what other brands they even like, that all builds that picture of making it relevant for the consumer and viewer. >> Where does privacy come into the mix? So we want it to be relevant and personalized in a non-creepy way. Talk to us about the data clean rooms that Snowflake launched, >> Bill: That's right. >> and how is that facilitating from a PII perspective, or is it? >> Yeah. Great question. So I think the other major development, in addition to the pandemic, driving people watching all these shows is the fact that privacy legislation is increasing. So we started with California with the CCPA, we had GDPR in Europe, and what we're starting to see is state by state roll out different privacy legislations. At some point, it may be true that we have a federal privacy legislation, and there are some bills that are working through the legislature right now. Hard to tell what's going to happen. But to your question, the importance of privacy, and respecting privacy, is exactly happening at the same time that media companies and publishers need to piece together all the viewing habits that you have. You've probably watched, already this morning, on your PC, on your phone, and in order to bring that experience together a media company has to be able to tie that together, right? Collaborate. So you have collaboration on one side, and then you have privacy on the other, and they're not necessarily, normally, go together, Right? They're opposing forces. So now though, with Snowflake, and our data clean room, we like to call it a data collaboration platform, okay? It's not really what a data warehouse function traditionally has been, right? So if I can take data collaboration, and our clean room, what it does is it brings privacy controls to the participants. So if I'm an advertiser, and I'm a publisher, and I want to collaborate to create an advertising campaign, they both can design how they want to do that privacy-based collaboration, Because it's interesting, one company might have a different perspective of privacy, on a risk profile, than another company. So it's very hard to say one size is going to fit all. So what we at Snowflake do, with our infrastructure, is let you design how you create your own clean room. >> Is that a differentiator for Snowflake, the clean rooms? >> It's absolutely a very big differentiator. Two reasons, or probably two, three reasons, really. One is, it's cross cloud. So all the advertisers aren't going to be in the same cloud, all the publishers aren't going to be in the same cloud. One big differentiator there. Second big differentiator is, we want to be able to bring applications to the data, so our clean room can enable you to create measurement against an ad campaign without moving your data. So bringing measurement to the data, versus sending data to applications then improves the privacy. And then the third one is, frankly, our pricing model. You only pay for Snowflake what you use. So in the advertising world, there's what's called an ad tech tax, there is no ad tech tax for Snowflake, because we're simply a pay-as-you-go service. So it's a very interesting dynamic. >> So what's that stack look like, in your world? So I've pulled up Frank's chart, I took a picture of his, he's called it the new, modern data stack, I think he called it, but it had infrastructure in the bottom, okay, that's AWS, Google, Azure, and then a lot of you, live data, that would be the media data cloud, the workload execution, the specific workload here is media and entertainment, and then application development, that's a new layer of value that you're bringing in, marketplace, which is the whole ecosystem, and then monetization comes from building on top. >> Bill: Yes. >> So I got AWS in there, and other clouds, you got a big chunk of that, where do your customers add value on top of that? >> Yeah. So the way you described it, I think, with Frank's point, is right on. You have the infrastructure. We know that a lot of advertisers, for example, aren't going to use Amazon, because the retailer competes with Amazon, So they want to might be in Google or Azure. And then sort of as you go up the stack, for the data layer that is Snowflake, especially what we call first-party data, is sitting in that Snowflake environment, right? But that Snowflake environment is a distributed environment, so a Disney, who was on stage with me yesterday, she talked about, Jaya talked about their first-party datas in Snowflake, their advertisers' datas in their own Snowflake account, in their own infrastructure. And then what's interesting is is that application layer is coming to the data, and so what we're really seeing is an acceleration of companies building that application natively on Snowflake to do measurement, to do targeting, to do activation. And so, that growth of that final application layer is what we're seeing as the acceleration in the stack. >> So the more data that's in that massive distributed data cloud, the more value your customers can get out of it. And I would imagine you're just looking to tick things off that where customers are going outside of the Snowflake data cloud, let's attack that so they don't have to. >> Yeah, I think these partners, (clears throat) excuse me, and customers, it's an interesting dynamic, because they're customers of ours. But now, because anybody who is already in Snowflake can be their customer, then they're becoming our partner. So it's an interesting dynamic, because we're bringing advertisers to a Disney or an NBCU, because they already have their data in Snowflake. So the network effect that's getting created because of this layer that's being built is accelerated. >> In 2013, right after the second reinvent, I wrote a piece called "How to Compete with the Amazon Gorilla." And it seemed to us pretty obvious at the time, you're not going to win an infrastructure again, you got to build on top of it, you got to build ecosystems within industries, and the data, the connection points, that network effect that you just talked about, it's actually quite thrilling to see you guys building that. >> Well, and I think you know this too, I mean, Amazon's a great partner of ours as well, right? So they're part of our media data cloud, as Amazon, right? So we're making it easier and easier for companies to be able to spin up a clean room in places like AWS, so that they get the privacy controls and the governance that's required as well. >> What do you advise to, say, the next generation of media and advertising companies who may be really early in the data journey? Obviously, there's competition right here in the rear view mirror, but we've seen services that launch and fail, what do you advise to those folks that maybe are early in the journey and how can Snowflake help them accelerate that to be able to launch services they can monetize, and get those consumers watching? >> I think the first thing for a lot of these brands is that they need to really own their data. And what I mean by that is, they need to understand the consumer relationship that they have, they need to take the privacy and the governance very seriously, and they need to start building that muscle. It's almost, it's a routine and a muscle that they just need to continue to kind of build up, because if you think about it, a media company spends two, three hours a day with their customer. You might watch two hours of a streaming show, but how much time do you spend with a single brand a day? Maybe 30 seconds, maybe 10 seconds, right? And so, their need to build the muscle, to be able to collect the data in a privacy-compliant way, build the intelligence off of that, and then leverage the intelligence. We talked about it a few days ago, and you look at a retailer, as a really good example, a retailer is using Snowflake and the retail data cloud to optimize their supply chain. Okay? But their supply chain extends beyond their own infrastructure to the advertising and marketing community, because if I can't predict demand, how do I then connect it to my supply chain? So our media data cloud is helping retailers and consumer product goods companies actually drive demand into their reconstructed supply chain. So they both work together. >> So you have a big focus, obviously, on the monetization piece, of course, that's a great place to start. Where do you see the media data cloud going? >> Yeah. I think we'll start to expand beyond advertising and beyond marketing. There's really important sub-segments of media. Gaming is one. You talk about the pandemic and teenagers playing games on their phones. So we'll have an emphasis around gaming. We'll have an emphasis in sports. Sports is going through a big change in an ecosystem. And there's a big opportunity to connect the dots in those ecosystems as well. And then I think, to what we were just talking about, I think connecting commerce and media is a very important area. And I think the two are still very loosely connected today. It used to be, could I buy the Jennifer Aniston sweater from "Friends", right? That was always the analogy. Now, media and social media, and TikTok and everything else, are combining media and commerce very closely. So I think we'll start to see more focus around that as well. So that adds to your monetization. >> Right, right. And you can NFT that. (Lisa laughs) >> Bill: That's right, there you go, you can mint an NFT on that. >> It's the tip of the iceberg. >> Absolutely. >> There's so much more potential to go. Bill, thank you so much for joining us bright and early this morning, talking about what snowflake is doing in media, entertainment and advertising. Exciting stuff, relevant to all of us, we appreciate your insights and your forward-looking statements. >> Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it. >> Our pleasure. >> Thank you. >> Good >> Bill: Bye now. >> For our guest and Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin, you're up early with us watching theCUBE's day-two coverage of Snowflake Summit '22. We'll be back in a moment with our next guest. (upbeat music)

>> We're back at the Big Apple, theCUBE's coverage of MongoDB World 2022. Sahir Azam is here, he's the Chief Product Officer of MongoDB, and Guillermo Rauch who's the CEO of Vercel. Hot off the keynotes from this morning guys, good job. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for joining us here. Thanks for having us. Guillermo when it comes to modern web development, you know the back-end, the cloud guys got to it kind of sewn up, >> you know- >> Guillermo: Forget about it. >> But all the action's in the front end, and that's where you are. Explain Vercel. >> Yeah so Vercel is the company that pioneers front-end development as serverless infrastructure. So we built Next.js which is the most popular React framework in the world. This is what front-end engineers choose to build innovative UI's, beautiful websites. Companies like Dior and GitHub and TikTok and Twitch, which we mentioned in the keynote, are powering their entire dot-coms or all of their new parts of their dot-coms with Next.js. And Vercel is the serverless platform where you can deploy frameworks like in Next.js and others like Svelte and Vue to create really fast experiences on the web. >> So I hear, so serverless, I hear that's the hot trend. You guys made some announcements today. I mean when you look at the, we have spending data with our friends at ETR right down the street. I mean it's just off the charts, whether it's Amazon, Google, Azure Functions, I mean it's just exploding. >> Sahir: Yeah, it's I think in many ways, it's a natural trend. You know, we talk a lot about, whether it be today's keynote or another industry talks you see around our industry that developers are constantly looking for ways to focus on innovation and the business logic that defines their application and as opposed to managing the plumbing, and management of infrastructure. And we've seen this happen over and over again across every layer of the stack. And so for us, you know MongoDB, we have a bit of, you know sort of a lens of a broad spectrum of the market. We certainly have you know, large enterprises that are modernizing existing kind of core systems, then we have developers all over the world who are building the next big best thing. And that's what led us to partner with Vercel is just the bleeding edge of developers building in a new way, in a much more efficient way. And we wanted to make sure we provide a data platform that fits naturally in the way they want to work. >> So explain to our audience the trade-offs of serverless, and I want to get into sort of how you've resolved that. And then I want to hear from Guillermo, what that means for developers. >> Sahir: Yeah in our case, we don't view it as an either or, there are certain workloads and definitely certain companies that will gravitate towards a more traditional database infrastructure where they're choosing the configuration of their cluster. They want full control over it. And that provides, you know, certain benefits around cost predictability or isolation or perceived benefits at least of those things. And customers will gravitate towards that. Now on the flip side, if you're building a new application or you want the ability to scale seamlessly and not have to worry about any of the plumbing, serverless is clearly the easier model. So over the long term, we certainly expect to see as a mix of things, more and more serverless workloads being built on our platform and just generally in the industry, which is why we leaned in so heavily on investing in Atlas serverless. But the flexibility to not be forced into a particular model, but to get the same database experience across your application and even switch between them is an important characteristic for us as we build going forward. >> And you stressed the cost efficiency, and not having to worry about, you know, starting cold. You've architected around that, and what does that mean for a developer? >> Guillermo: For a developer it means that you kind of get the best of both worlds, right? Like you get the best possible performance. Front-end developers are extremely sensitive to this. That's why us pioneering this concept, serverless front-end, has put us in a very privileged position because we have to deliver that really quick time to first buy, that really quick paint. So any of the old trade-offs of serverless are not accepted by the market. You have to be extremely fast. You have to be instant to deliver that front-end content. So what we talked about today for example, with the Vercel Edge network, we're removing all of the cost of that like first hit. That cold start doesn't really exist. And now we're seeing it all across the board, going into the back-end where Mongo has also gotten rid of it. >> Dave: How do you guys collaborate? What's the focus of integration specifically from, you know, an engineering resource standpoint? >> Yeah the main idea is, idea to global app in seconds, right? You have your idea. We give you the framework. We don't give you infrastructure primitives. We give you all the necessary tools to start your application. In practice this means you host it in a Git repo. You import it onto Vercel. You install the Mongo integration. Now your front-end and your data back-end are connected. And then your application just goes global in seconds. >> So, okay. So you've abstracted away the complexity of those primitives, is that correct? >> Guillermo: Absolutely. >> Do do developers ever say, "That's awesome but I'd like to get to them every now and then." Or do you not allow that? >> Definitely. We expose all the underlying APIs, and the key thing we hear is that, especially with the push for usage-based billing models, observability is of the essence. So at any time you have to be able to query, in real time, every data point that the platform is observing. We give you performance analytics in real time to see how your front-end is performing. We give you statistics about how often you're querying your back-end and so on, and your cache hit ratios. So what I talked about today in the keynote is, it's not just about throwing more compute at the problem, but the ability to use the edge to your advantage to memoize computation and reuse it across different visits. >> When we think of mission critical historically, you know, you think about going to the ATM, right? I mean a financial transaction. But Mongo is positioning for mission critical applications across a variety of industries. Do we need to rethink what mission critical means? >> I think it's all in the eye of the beholder so to speak. If you're a new business starting up, your software and your application is your entire business. So if you have a cold start latency or God forbid something actually goes down, you don't have a business. So it's just as mission critical to that founder of a new business and new technology as it is, you know, an established enterprise that's running sort of a more, you know, day-to-day application that we may all interact with. So we treat all of those scenarios with equal fervor and importance right? And many times, it's a lot of those new experiences that the become the day-to-day experiences for us globally, and are super important. And we power all of those, whether it be an established enterprise all the way to the next big startup. >> I often talk about COVID as the forced march to digital. >> Sahir: Mm-Hmm. >> Which was obviously a little bit rushed, but if you weren't in digital business, you were out of business. And so now you're seeing people step back and say, "All right, let's be more thoughtful about our digital transformation. We've got some time, we've obviously learned some things made some mistakes." It's all about the customer experience though. And that becomes mission critical right? What are you seeing Guillermo, in terms of the patterns in digital transformation now that we're sort of exiting the isolation economy? >> One thing that comes to mind is, we're seeing that it's not always predictable how fast you're going to grow in this digital economy. So we have customers in the ecommerce space, they do a drop and they're piggybacking on serverless to give them that ability to instantly scale. And they couldn't even prepare for some of these events. We see that a lot with the Web3 space and NFT drops, where they're building in such a way that they're not sensitive to this massive fluctuations in traffic. They're taking it for granted. We've put in so much work together behind the scenes to support it. But the digital native creator just, "Oh things are scaling from one second to the next like I'm hitting like 20,000 requests per second, no problem Vercel is handling it." But the amount of infrastructural work that's gone behind the scenes in support has been incredible. >> We see that in gaming all the time, you know it's really hard for a gaming company to necessarily predict where in the globe a game's going to be particularly hot. Games get super popular super fast if they're successful, it's really hard to predict. It's another vertical that's got a similar dynamic. >> So gaming, crypto, so you're saying that you're able to assist your customers in architecting so that the website doesn't crash. >> Guillermo: Absolutely. >> But at the same time, if the the business dynamic changes, they can dial down. >> Yeah. >> Right and in many ways, slow is the new down, right? And if somebody has a slow experience they're going to leave your site just as much as if it's- >> I'm out of here- >> You were down. So you know, it's really maintaining that really fast performance, that amazing customer experience. Because this is all measured, it's scientific. Like anytime there's friction in the process, you're going to lose customers. >> So obviously people are excited about your keynote, but what have they been saying? Any specific comments you can share, or questions that you got that were really interesting or? >> I'm already getting links to the apps that people are deploying. So the whole idea- >> Come on! >> All over the world. Yeah so it's already working I'm excited. >> So they were show they were showing off, "Look what I did" Really? >> Yeah on Twitter. >> That's amazing. >> I think from my standpoint, I got a question earlier, we were with a bunch of financial analysts and investors, and they said they've been talking to a lot of the customers in the halls. And just to see, you know, from the last time we were all in person, the number of our customers that are using multiple capabilities across this idea of a developer data platform, you know, certainly MongoDB's been a popular core database open source for a long time. But the new capabilities around search, analytics, mobile being adopted much more broadly to power these experiences is the most exciting thing from our side. >> So from 2019 to now, you're saying substantial uptick in adoption for these features? >> Yeah. And many of them are new. >> Time series as well, that's pretty new, so yeah. >> Yeah and you know, our philosophy of development at MongoDB is to get capabilities in the hands of customers early. Get that feedback to enrich and drive that product-market fit. And over the last three years especially, we've been transitioning from a single product kind of core, you know, non relational modern database to a data platform, a developer data platform that adds more and more capabilities to power these modern applications. And a lot of those were released during the pandemic. Certainly we talked about them in our virtual conferences and all the zoom meetings we had over the years. But to actually go talk to all these customers, this is the largest conference we've ever put on, and to get a sense of, wow all the amazing things they're doing with them, it's definitely a different feeling when we're all together. >> So that's interesting, when you have such a hot product, product-led growth which is what Mongo has been in, and you add these new features. They're coming from the developers who are saying, "Hey, we need this." >> Yip. >> Okay so you have a pretty high degree of confidence, but how do you know when you have product-market fit? I mean, is it adoption, usage, renewals? What's your metric? >> Yeah I think it's a mix of quantitative measures that you know, around conversion rates, the size of your funnel, the retention rate, NPS which obviously can be measured, but also just qualitative. You know when you're talking to a developer or a technology executive around what their needs are, and then you see how they actually apply it to solve a problem, it's that balance between the qualitative and the quantitative measurement of things. And you can just sort of, frankly you can feel it. You can see it in the numbers sure, but you can kind of feel that excitement, you can see that adoption and what it empowers people to do. And so to me, as a product leader, it's always a blend of those things. If you get too obsessed with purely the metrics, you can always over optimize something for the wrong reason. So you have to bring in that qualitative feedback to balance yourself out. >> Right. >> Guillermo, what's next? What do you not have that you want from Sahir and Mongo? >> So the natural next step for serverless computing is, is the Edge. So we have to auto-scale, we have to tolerate fares. We have to be avail. We have to be easy, but we have to be global. And right now we've been doing this by using a lot of techniques like caching and replication and things like this. But the future's about personalizing even more to each visitor depending on where they are. So if I'm in New York, I want to get the latest offers for New York on demand, just for me, and using AI to continue to personalize that experience. So giving the developer these tools in a way where it feels natural to build an application like this. It doesn't feel like, "Oh I'm going to do this year 10 if I make it, I'm going to do it since the very beginning." >> Dave: Okay interesting. So that says to me that I'm not going to make a round trip to the cloud necessarily for that experience. So I'm going to have some kind, Apple today, at the Worldwide Developer Conference announced the M2, right. I've been looking at the M1 Ultra, and I'm going wow look at that! And so- >> Sahir: You were talking about that new one backstage. >> I mean it's this amazing pace of Silicon development and they're focusing on the NPU and you look at what Tesla's doing. I mean it's just incredible. So you're going to have some new hardware architecture that emerges. Most of the AI that's done today is modeling in the cloud. You're going to have a real time inferencing at the Edge. So that's not going to do the round trip. There's going to be a data store there, I think it has to be. You're going to persist some of the data, maybe not all of it. So it's a whole new architecture- >> Sahir: Absolutely. >> That's developing. That sounds very disruptive. >> Sahir: Yeah. >> How do you think about that, and how does Mongo play there? Guillermo first. >> What I spent a lot of time thinking about is obviously the developer experience, giving the programmer a programming model that is natural, intuitive, and produces its great results. So if they have to think about data that's local because of regulatory reasons for example, how can we let the framework guide them to success? I'm just writing an application I deployed to the cloud and then everything else is figured out. >> Yeah or speed of light is another challenge. (Sahir and Guillermo laugh) >> How can we overcome the speed of light is our next task for sure. >> Well you're working on that aren't you? You've got the best engineers on that one. (Sahir and Guillermo laugh) >> We can solve a lot of problems, I'm not sure of that one. >> So Mongo plays in that scenario or? >> Yeah so I think, absolutely you know, we've been focused heavily on becoming the globally distributed cloud data layer. The back-end data layer that allows you to persist data to align with performance and move data where it needs to be globally or deal with data sovereignty, data nationalism that's starting to rise, but absolutely there is more data being pushed out to the Edge, to your point around processing or inference happening at the Edge. And there's going to be a globally distributed front-end layer as well, whether data and processing takes apart. And so we're focused on one, making sure the data connectivity and the layer is all connected into one unified architecture. We do that in combination with technologies that we have that do with mobility or edge distribution and synchronization of data with realm. And we do it with partnerships. We have edge partnerships with AWS and Verizon. We have partnerships with a lot of CVM players who are building out that Edge platform and making sure that MongoDB is either connected to it or just driving that synchronization back and forth. >> I call that unified experience super cloud, Robbie Belson from Verizon the cloud continuum, but that consistent experience for developers whether you're on Prim, whether you're in you know, Azure, Google, AWS, and ultimately the Edge. That's the big- >> That's where it's going. >> White space right now I'm hearing, Guillermo, right? >> I think it'll define the next generation of how software is built. And we're seeing this almost like a coalition course between some of the ideas that the Web3 developers are excited about, which is like decentralization almost to the extreme. But the Web2 also needs more decentralization, because we're seeing it with like, the data needs to be local to me, I need more privacy. I was looking at the latest encryption features in Mongo, like I think both Web2 need to incorporate more of the ideas of Web3 and vice versa to create the best possible consumer experience. Privacy matters more than ever before. Latency for conversion matters more than ever before. And regulations are changing. >> Sahir: Yeah. >> And you talked about Web3 earlier, talked about new protocols, a new distributed you know, decentralized system emerging, new hardware architectures. I really believe we really think that new economics are going to bleed back into the data center, and yeah every 15 years or so this industry gets disrupted. >> Sahir: Yeah. >> Guillermo: Absolutely. >> You know you ain't see nothing yet guys. >> We all talked about hardware becoming commoditized 10, 15 years ago- >> Yeah of course. >> We get the virtualization, and it's like nope not at all. It's actually a lot of invention happening. >> The lower the price the more the consumption. So guys thanks so much. Great conversation. >> Thank you. >> Really appreciate your time. >> Really appreciate it I enjoyed the conversation. >> All right and thanks for watching. Keep it right there. We'll be back with our next segment right after this short break. Dave Vellante for theCUBE's coverage of MongoDB World 2022. >> Man Offscreen: Clear. (clapping) >> All right wow. Don't get up. >> Sahir: Okay. >> Is that a Moonwatch? >> Sahir: It is a Speedmaster but it's that the-

>> Man Offscreen: Standby. Dave is coming you in 5, 4, 3, 2. >> We're back at the Big Apple, theCUBE's coverage of MongoDB World 2022. Sahir Azam is here, he's the Chief Product Officer of MongoDB, and Guillermo Rauch who's the CEO of Vercel. Hot off the keynotes from this morning guys, good job. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for joining us here. Thanks for having us. Guillermo when it comes to modern web development, you know the back-end, the cloud guys got to it kind of sewn up, >> you know- >> Guillermo: Forget about it. >> But all the action's in the front end, and that's where you are. Explain Vercel. >> Yeah so Vercel is the company that pioneers front-end development as serverless infrastructure. So we built Next.js which is the most popular React framework in the world. This is what front-end engineers choose to build innovative UI's, beautiful websites. Companies like Dior and GitHub and TikTok and Twitch, which we mentioned in the keynote, are powering their entire dot-coms or all of their new parts of their dot-coms with Next.js. And Vercel is the serverless platform where you can deploy frameworks like in Next.js and others like Svelte and Vue to create really fast experiences on the web. >> So I hear, so serverless, I hear that's the hot trend. You guys made some announcements today. I mean when you look at the, we have spending data with our friends at ETR right down the street. I mean it's just off the charts, whether it's Amazon, Google, Azure Functions, I mean it's just exploding. >> Sahir: Yeah, it's I think in many ways, it's a natural trend. You know, we talk a lot about, whether it be today's keynote or another industry talks you see around our industry that developers are constantly looking for ways to focus on innovation and the business logic that defines their application and as opposed to managing the plumbing, and management of infrastructure. And we've seen this happen over and over again across every layer of the stack. And so for us, you know MongoDB, we have a bit of, you know sort of a lens of a broad spectrum of the market. We certainly have you know, large enterprises that are modernizing existing kind of core systems, then we have developers all over the world who are building the next big best thing. And that's what led us to partner with Vercel is just the bleeding edge of developers building in a new way, in a much more efficient way. And we wanted to make sure we provide a data platform that fits naturally in the way they want to work. >> So explain to our audience the trade-offs of serverless, and I want to get into sort of how you've resolved that. And then I want to hear from Guillermo, what that means for developers. >> Sahir: Yeah in our case, we don't view it as an either or, there are certain workloads and definitely certain companies that will gravitate towards a more traditional database infrastructure where they're choosing the configuration of their cluster. They want full control over it. And that provides, you know, certain benefits around cost predictability or isolation or perceived benefits at least of those things. And customers will gravitate towards that. Now on the flip side, if you're building a new application or you want the ability to scale seamlessly and not have to worry about any of the plumbing, serverless is clearly the easier model. So over the long term, we certainly expect to see as a mix of things, more and more serverless workloads being built on our platform and just generally in the industry, which is why we leaned in so heavily on investing in Atlas serverless. But the flexibility to not be forced into a particular model, but to get the same database experience across your application and even switch between them is an important characteristic for us as we build going forward. >> And you stressed the cost efficiency, and not having to worry about, you know, starting cold. You've architected around that, and what does that mean for a developer? >> Guillermo: For a developer it means that you kind of get the best of both worlds, right? Like you get the best possible performance. Front-end developers are extremely sensitive to this. That's why us pioneering this concept, serverless front-end, has put us in a very privileged position because we have to deliver that really quick time to first buy, that really quick paint. So any of the old trade-offs of serverless are not accepted by the market. You have to be extremely fast. You have to be instant to deliver that front-end content. So what we talked about today for example, with the Vercel Edge network, we're removing all of the cost of that like first hit. That cold start doesn't really exist. And now we're seeing it all across the board, going into the back-end where Mongo has also gotten rid of it. >> Dave: How do you guys collaborate? What's the focus of integration specifically from, you know, an engineering resource standpoint? >> Yeah the main idea is, idea to global app in seconds, right? You have your idea. We give you the framework. We don't give you infrastructure primitives. We give you all the necessary tools to start your application. In practice this means you host it in a Git repo. You import it onto Vercel. You install the Mongo integration. Now your front-end and your data back-end are connected. And then your application just goes global in seconds. >> So, okay. So you've abstracted away the complexity of those primitives, is that correct? >> Guillermo: Absolutely. >> Do do developers ever say, "That's awesome but I'd like to get to them every now and then." Or do you not allow that? >> Definitely. We expose all the underlying APIs, and the key thing we hear is that, especially with the push for usage-based billing models, observability is of the essence. So at any time you have to be able to query, in real time, every data point that the platform is observing. We give you performance analytics in real time to see how your front-end is performing. We give you statistics about how often you're querying your back-end and so on, and your cache hit ratios. So what I talked about today in the keynote is, it's not just about throwing more compute at the problem, but the ability to use the edge to your advantage to memoize computation and reuse it across different visits. >> When we think of mission critical historically, you know, you think about going to the ATM, right? I mean a financial transaction. But Mongo is positioning for mission critical applications across a variety of industries. Do we need to rethink what mission critical means? >> I think it's all in the eye of the beholder so to speak. If you're a new business starting up, your software and your application is your entire business. So if you have a cold start latency or God forbid something actually goes down, you don't have a business. So it's just as mission critical to that founder of a new business and new technology as it is, you know, an established enterprise that's running sort of a more, you know, day-to-day application that we may all interact with. So we treat all of those scenarios with equal fervor and importance right? And many times, it's a lot of those new experiences that the become the day-to-day experiences for us globally, and are super important. And we power all of those, whether it be an established enterprise all the way to the next big startup. >> I often talk about COVID as the forced march to digital. >> Sahir: Mm-Hmm. >> Which was obviously a little bit rushed, but if you weren't in digital business, you were out of business. And so now you're seeing people step back and say, "All right, let's be more thoughtful about our digital transformation. We've got some time, we've obviously learned some things made some mistakes." It's all about the customer experience though. And that becomes mission critical right? What are you seeing Guillermo, in terms of the patterns in digital transformation now that we're sort of exiting the isolation economy? >> One thing that comes to mind is, we're seeing that it's not always predictable how fast you're going to grow in this digital economy. So we have customers in the ecommerce space, they do a drop and they're piggybacking on serverless to give them that ability to instantly scale. And they couldn't even prepare for some of these events. We see that a lot with the Web3 space and NFT drops, where they're building in such a way that they're not sensitive to this massive fluctuations in traffic. They're taking it for granted. We've put in so much work together behind the scenes to support it. But the digital native creator just, "Oh things are scaling from one second to the next like I'm hitting like 20,000 requests per second, no problem Vercel is handling it." But the amount of infrastructural work that's gone behind the scenes in support has been incredible. >> We see that in gaming all the time, you know it's really hard for a gaming company to necessarily predict where in the globe a game's going to be particularly hot. Games get super popular super fast if they're successful, it's really hard to predict. It's another vertical that's got a similar dynamic. >> So gaming, crypto, so you're saying that you're able to assist your customers in architecting so that the website doesn't crash. >> Guillermo: Absolutely. >> But at the same time, if the the business dynamic changes, they can dial down. >> Yeah. >> Right and in many ways, slow is the new down, right? And if somebody has a slow experience they're going to leave your site just as much as if it's- >> I'm out of here- >> You were down. So you know, it's really maintaining that really fast performance, that amazing customer experience. Because this is all measured, it's scientific. Like anytime there's friction in the process, you're going to lose customers. >> So obviously people are excited about your keynote, but what have they been saying? Any specific comments you can share, or questions that you got that were really interesting or? >> I'm already getting links to the apps that people are deploying. So the whole idea- >> Come on! >> All over the world. Yeah so it's already working I'm excited. >> So they were show they were showing off, "Look what I did" Really? >> Yeah on Twitter. >> That's amazing. >> I think from my standpoint, I got a question earlier, we were with a bunch of financial analysts and investors, and they said they've been talking to a lot of the customers in the halls. And just to see, you know, from the last time we were all in person, the number of our customers that are using multiple capabilities across this idea of a developer data platform, you know, certainly MongoDB's been a popular core database open source for a long time. But the new capabilities around search, analytics, mobile being adopted much more broadly to power these experiences is the most exciting thing from our side. >> So from 2019 to now, you're saying substantial uptick in adoption for these features? >> Yeah. And many of them are new. >> Time series as well, that's pretty new, so yeah. >> Yeah and you know, our philosophy of development at MongoDB is to get capabilities in the hands of customers early. Get that feedback to enrich and drive that product-market fit. And over the last three years especially, we've been transitioning from a single product kind of core, you know, non relational modern database to a data platform, a developer data platform that adds more and more capabilities to power these modern applications. And a lot of those were released during the pandemic. Certainly we talked about them in our virtual conferences and all the zoom meetings we had over the years. But to actually go talk to all these customers, this is the largest conference we've ever put on, and to get a sense of, wow all the amazing things they're doing with them, it's definitely a different feeling when we're all together. >> So that's interesting, when you have such a hot product, product-led growth which is what Mongo has been in, and you add these new features. They're coming from the developers who are saying, "Hey, we need this." >> Yip. >> Okay so you have a pretty high degree of confidence, but how do you know when you have product-market fit? I mean, is it adoption, usage, renewals? What's your metric? >> Yeah I think it's a mix of quantitative measures that you know, around conversion rates, the size of your funnel, the retention rate, NPS which obviously can be measured, but also just qualitative. You know when you're talking to a developer or a technology executive around what their needs are, and then you see how they actually apply it to solve a problem, it's that balance between the qualitative and the quantitative measurement of things. And you can just sort of, frankly you can feel it. You can see it in the numbers sure, but you can kind of feel that excitement, you can see that adoption and what it empowers people to do. And so to me, as a product leader, it's always a blend of those things. If you get too obsessed with purely the metrics, you can always over optimize something for the wrong reason. So you have to bring in that qualitative feedback to balance yourself out. >> Right. >> Guillermo, what's next? What do you not have that you want from Sahir and Mongo? >> So the natural next step for serverless computing is, is the Edge. So we have to auto-scale, we have to tolerate fares. We have to be avail. We have to be easy, but we have to be global. And right now we've been doing this by using a lot of techniques like caching and replication and things like this. But the future's about personalizing even more to each visitor depending on where they are. So if I'm in New York, I want to get the latest offers for New York on demand, just for me, and using AI to continue to personalize that experience. So giving the developer these tools in a way where it feels natural to build an application like this. It doesn't feel like, "Oh I'm going to do this year 10 if I make it, I'm going to do it since the very beginning." >> Dave: Okay interesting. So that says to me that I'm not going to make a round trip to the cloud necessarily for that experience. So I'm going to have some kind, Apple today, at the Worldwide Developer Conference announced the M2, right. I've been looking at the M1 Ultra, and I'm going wow look at that! And so- >> Sahir: You were talking about that new one backstage. >> I mean it's this amazing pace of Silicon development and they're focusing on the NPU and you look at what Tesla's doing. I mean it's just incredible. So you're going to have some new hardware architecture that emerges. Most of the AI that's done today is modeling in the cloud. You're going to have a real time inferencing at the Edge. So that's not going to do the round trip. There's going to be a data store there, I think it has to be. You're going to persist some of the data, maybe not all of it. So it's a whole new architecture- >> Sahir: Absolutely. >> That's developing. That sounds very disruptive. >> Sahir: Yeah. >> How do you think about that, and how does Mongo play there? Guillermo first. >> What I spent a lot of time thinking about is obviously the developer experience, giving the programmer a programming model that is natural, intuitive, and produces its great results. So if they have to think about data that's local because of regulatory reasons for example, how can we let the framework guide them to success? I'm just writing an application I deployed to the cloud and then everything else is figured out. >> Yeah or speed of light is another challenge. (Sahir and Guillermo laugh) >> How can we overcome the speed of light is our next task for sure. >> Well you're working on that aren't you? You've got the best engineers on that one. (Sahir and Guillermo laugh) >> We can solve a lot of problems, I'm not sure of that one. >> So Mongo plays in that scenario or? >> Yeah so I think, absolutely you know, we've been focused heavily on becoming the globally distributed cloud data layer. The back-end data layer that allows you to persist data to align with performance and move data where it needs to be globally or deal with data sovereignty, data nationalism that's starting to rise, but absolutely there is more data being pushed out to the Edge, to your point around processing or inference happening at the Edge. And there's going to be a globally distributed front-end layer as well, whether data and processing takes apart. And so we're focused on one, making sure the data connectivity and the layer is all connected into one unified architecture. We do that in combination with technologies that we have that do with mobility or edge distribution and synchronization of data with realm. And we do it with partnerships. We have edge partnerships with AWS and Verizon. We have partnerships with a lot of CVM players who are building out that Edge platform and making sure that MongoDB is either connected to it or just driving that synchronization back and forth. >> I call that unified experience super cloud, Robbie Belson from Verizon the cloud continuum, but that consistent experience for developers whether you're on Prim, whether you're in you know, Azure, Google, AWS, and ultimately the Edge. That's the big- >> That's where it's going. >> White space right now I'm hearing, Guillermo, right? >> I think it'll define the next generation of how software is built. And we're seeing this almost like a coalition course between some of the ideas that the Web3 developers are excited about, which is like decentralization almost to the extreme. But the Web2 also needs more decentralization, because we're seeing it with like, the data needs to be local to me, I need more privacy. I was looking at the latest encryption features in Mongo, like I think both Web2 need to incorporate more of the ideas of Web3 and vice versa to create the best possible consumer experience. Privacy matters more than ever before. Latency for conversion matters more than ever before. And regulations are changing. >> Sahir: Yeah. >> And you talked about Web3 earlier, talked about new protocols, a new distributed you know, decentralized system emerging, new hardware architectures. I really believe we really think that new economics are going to bleed back into the data center, and yeah every 15 years or so this industry gets disrupted. >> Sahir: Yeah. >> Guillermo: Absolutely. >> You know you ain't see nothing yet guys. >> We all talked about hardware becoming commoditized 10, 15 years ago- >> Yeah of course. >> We get the virtualization, and it's like nope not at all. It's actually a lot of invention happening. >> The lower the price the more the consumption. So guys thanks so much. Great conversation. >> Thank you. >> Really appreciate your time. >> Really appreciate it I enjoyed the conversation. >> All right and thanks for watching. Keep it right there. We'll be back with our next segment right after this short break. Dave Vellante for theCUBE's coverage of MongoDB World 2022. >> Man Offscreen: Clear. (clapping) >> All right wow. Don't get up. >> Sahir: Okay. >> Is that a Moonwatch? >> Sahir: It is a Speedmaster but it's that the-