(modern music) >> Welcome back, everyone to theCUBE's live coverage here in San Francisco for VMware Explore, formerly VMworld. theCUBE's been here 12 years today, we've been watching the evolution of the user conference. It's been quite a journey to see and, you know, virtualization just explode. We got two great guests here, we're going to break it all down. Ash McCarty, director of Multicloud Product Management Dell Technologies, no stranger to the VMworld, now VMware Explore, and Josh Prewitt, Chief Product Officer at Rackspace Technology. Great to see you guys, thanks for coming on. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah, thanks so much, thanks for having us. >> So, you know, the theme this year is multicloud, but it's really all about vSphere 8's out, you got VxRail, you got containers, you got the magic going on around cloud native, which it really points to the future state of where this is going, which is agile enterprises, infrastructure as code, high performance under the hood, I mean, all the things that you guys have been doing for many, many years and decades and business, but now with VMware putting it all together, it feels like, this year, it's like you got visibility into the value proposition, people have clear line of sight into where the performances are from the hardware software and now Cloud, it's kind of coming together, feels like it's coming together. Let's talk about that and the relationship between you guys, Rackspace and Dell and VMware. >> Perfect. That sounds great. Well, thanks so much for having us. You know, I'll sort of kick that off. We've got a huge lifelong partnership and relationship with Dell and VMware and the technologies that these guys create that we're able to put in front of our customers are really what allows us to go drive those business outcomes. So, yeah, happy to dive into it. >> Yeah, and I think to add to that, we understand that customers have a tremendously complex challenge ahead of them on managing their infrastructure. That's why with VxRail, we have intelligent infrastructure. We want it to simplify the outcomes for customers no matter if they're managing VMware or if they're managing the actual hardware infrastructure underneath it. >> Yeah, one of the things that we always talk about, you know, you read about it on the blogs and the news and the startup world, is "Oh, product-market fit," and, well, it kind of applies here, if you think about what's going on on the product side with the Edge emerging, hybrid cloud on pace with private cloud, and obviously, cloud native is great too if you have native applications in there, but now, putting it all together, you're hearing things like the telco cloud, I hear buzzwords like that, I hear supercloud, which we promoting, which you see in companies becoming cloud themselves, with the CapEx being handled by either public cloud or optimized on premise or hosted hardware. I mean, this is now, this is not all about everything's going to the cloud, this is now cloud operations on premise and in hosting hardware, so I'd love to get your perspective on that because you guys are huge hosting, you've got huge experience there, modernizing all the time. What does the modern era look like for the customer? >> Yeah, yeah, so, I mean, I think it's very clear to everybody that it's a multicloud world, right? I think the main question is, are you multicloud as a strategy, or are you multicloud as a situation? Because everybody's multicloud. That ship has sailed, right? >> Yeah, exactly. >> And so, when I look at the capabilities that we have with the partnership with Dell and the VxRail technologies, you know, life-cycle management that you have to go and perform across your fleet can be extremely difficult, and whenever you take something like the VxRail and you add, you know, you have the hardware and you have the software all fully integrated there, it makes it much easier to do life-cycle management, so for a company like Rackspace, where we have tens of thousands of nodes that we're managing for customers across 29 global data centers, and we're all over the place, the ability to have that strength with Dell's hardware, the VMware platform improve life-cycle management makes it so much easier for us to manage our fleet and be able to deliver those outcomes even faster for customers. >> So assuming that VxRail isn't a virtual railroad that delivers data to Rackspace data centers, if it's not that, what is it, Ash? Give us a little premier on what VxRail is. >> Well, VxRail is the first and only jointly engineered HCI system with VMware, so everything we do with VMware is better. >> So hyperconverged infrastructure. >> Hyperconverged infrastructure. >> What we used to call a server because all the bits are in the box, right? >> All the storage is computed in there. >> Everything's in there. Right. >> Simplifies management. And we built in with the VxRail HCI system software, which is really our secret sauce, we built in to actually add those automation capabilities with VMware, so it allows you to scale out very quickly, scale up very quickly. And one of our big capabilities is our life-cycle management, which is full stack, meaning it life-cycles the entire vSphere stack as well as the hardware infrastructure underneath as one continuously validated state, meaning that customers can focus more on their business outcomes and driving their business forward versus spending time managing their infrastructure. >> And when you talk about customers, it's also the value proposition that's flowing through Rackspace because Rackspace, when you install these systems, how long does it take to spin up to have a VM available for use when you install one of these systems? >> Oh, so you can have the system up and running very quickly. So we automate all the day one deployment, so you can have the system up and running in your labs, in your data centers in 45 minutes, and you can have VMs up in provision very shortly after that. >> So what do you do with that kind of agility? >> Oh my gosh, so we've actually taken that, and we've taken the VxRail platform and we've created what we call Rackspace Services for VMware Cloud, and this is our platform that is based on VxRail, it's based on vCloud Director from VMware, and by having the VxRail is already RackStacked, ready to go for our customers, we're able to sign a customer up today, and then, within a matter of minutes, give them access to a vCloud Director portal where they can go in and spin up a new VM anytime they want, but then, it also integrates into all of those cloud management platforms and tools, right? It integrates into your Terraform, so you've got, you know, your full CI/CD pipeline, and so you have that full end-to-end capability. If you want to go click around on a portal, you can using vCloud Director and using vSphere and all that great stuff. If you want to automate it, you can do that too. And we do it all in the backs of that VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure. >> Talk about the DPU dynamic. We're hearing a lot about DPUs. VxRail, you guys have some HCI-like vibe there with DPUs. How is that impacting performance, can you guys see? 'Cause we're hearing a lot of buzz around the VxRail and the VMware DPUs really making things much faster. >> I mean, it's the thing we talk about most with customers now is their challenges with scaling their infrastructure, and VxRail is going to be the first and only jointly engineered system that will have vSphere 8 with DPUs functionality and will have the full life-cycle management, and what this really empowers customers to do is, as they're growing their environments that they're scaling out their workloads in the data center, they need a way to scale to that next generation of networking and network security, and that's what DPUs allow you to do. They give you that offload and that high performance capability. >> Talk about the... I'd love to get your guys' perspective, while we're just riffing on this real quick sidebar for a second, if VxRail has these capabilities which you guys are promoting it does and some of the things go on in the modern era, the next gen apps are going to look a lot different. We're kind of calling it supercloud, if you will, for lack of a better description. Yeah, multicloud is a state, I agree. It's a situation and a state, but supercloud is really the functionality of what cloud does. So what do you guys see as, maybe it's tea leaves reading now or dots connecting, what are some of those next gen apps? I mean the Edge is there with, "Oh, the Edge is going to explode," and I can see the Edge having new kinds of apps that we've never seen before, whether it's on premise building lights and however they work or IoT changing. What do you guys see as the next gen app/apps coming out that's not looking the same as now, or how are apps today changing for next gen? 'Cause you get more performance at the Edge, you get more action, you get more co-locations in GEOS, so it's clear multicloud multi-presence is happening too, right? So what are you guys seeing? What's this... >> Yeah, I would say two areas that resonate most with customers is customers transitioning to their cloud native journey, so beginning it and using things like Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations, which we fully support and have a white paper out there list for customers, another area is really in the AIML space, so we've been partnering with both VMware and Nvidia to simplify how customers deploy new AIML infrastructure. I mean, it's challenging, complex, a lot of customers are wanting to dive in because it really enables them to better operate and operate on insights and analytics they get from running their business. >> Josh? >> And, you know, I think it really comes down to, whether you want to call it Edge or IoT or, you know, smart things, whatever, right? It all comes down to how we are expected, now, to capture all of the data to create a better user experience, and that's what we're seeing the modern applications being built around, right, is how do you leverage all of the data that's now at your fingertips, whether it's from wearables, machine vision, whatever it may be, and drive that improved user experience. And so that's the apps that we're seeing now, right? You know, of course, you still have all your business apps, all your ERP capabilities that need to exist and all of that great stuff, but at the same time, I also expect that, whenever, you know, now, whenever I'm walking into a store and their machine vision picks me up and they're pinging my phone and pushing me push notifications, I expect to have a better user experience. >> And do a database search on you too, by the way. >> Yeah, exactly, right? >> No search warrants out for 'em, you know, you're good. >> That's exactly it, so, you know, you kind of expect that better user experience and that's where I'm seeing a lot of the new app development. >> Yeah, it's fun, as these cases are intoxicating to think about all the weird coolness around it. The thing that I want to get your thoughts on is, we were just talking on the analyst session earlier in theCUBE, if DevOps is here and won, which we believe it has and infrastructure as code is happening, the cloud native discussion, shifting left CI/CD pipeline, that's DevOps in my mind, that's like cloud native developers, that's like traditional IT in my mind, so that's all part of the coding. DataOps and Security Ops seem to be the most robust areas of conversations where that's the new Ops, right? So, I mean, I made the term up, but new Ops, in terms of the focus, what are you making more efficient? What are you optimizing for? What's your guys reaction to that? Because all the conversations that we talk about is data, security, and then the rest seems to be cool, all good on the developer's side. Yeah, shift left events happening up there, Kubernetes containers, but all the action on the Ops side seems to be data and security. >> Yeah. >> What's your reaction to that? Is that right? >> So personally, I do think that it's right. I think that, you know with great power comes great responsibility, right? And so the clouds have brought that to us, all of your infrastructure as code has brought that to us. We have that great power now, right? But then you start to see, kind of, the pipeline attacks that are starting to become more and more popular. And so how you secure something that is as complex as, you know, a cloud native development pipeline is really hard, it's really challenging, so I do think that it warrants the attention. Then on the data side, I think that that matters because when I talked about those examples of a better user experience, I don't want my better user experience tomorrow, I don't want it 20 minutes from now. I want that real time capability, and so with that comes massive requirements from a compute and hardware perspective, massive requirements from a software perspective, and from, you know, what folks are now calling DataOps perspective >> Data addressability, having the data available to be delivered in real time. >> You know, there there's been a lot of talk, here at the conference, about the disaggregation of, you know, the brainularism, if we're going to make up words, you know, the horsepower that's involved, CPU, DPU, GPU. I'll make up another word. We're familiar with the thermometers used during COVID to measure temperature. Pretend that I've invented a device called a Care-o-meter and I'm pointing at various people's foreheads, who needs to care about DPUs and GPUs and CPUs? You know, John was referencing the idea of security at the Edge, data. Well, wow, we've got GPUs that can do things. Who needs to care about that? Obviously, we care about it. You care about it. You care about it. You're building this stuff, you're deploying this stuff, but at what level in the customer stack do they need to care about it? Are you going in, is RackSpace engaging customers and saying, "Look, here's the value proposition: we understand your mission to be this. We believe we can achieve your mission." How far down in the organization do you go before you get to someone where you have to have the DPU conversation? 'Cause we didn't even define DPU yet here, which is always offensive to me. >> I think I defined it actually. >> Did you define DPU? Good. Thank you John. >> Yeah, yeah. >> But so who should care? Who should really care about that? >> Oh, that's such a complex question, right? Because everybody, Rackspace included >> But a good one. But a good question. >> Oh, it's a great question. >> Thank you. >> Great question. (laughing) >> Everybody, Rackspace included, is talking about selling business outcomes, right? And ultimately, that is what matters. It is what matters, is selling those business outcomes to the customer. And so of course we're dealing with our business buyers who are just looking for, "Hey, improve my KPIs, make this run faster, better, stronger, all of that great stuff," but ultimately you get down to an IT staff, and to the IT staff, these things matter because the IT staff, they all have budgets that they have to hit. The realities start to hit them and they can't just go and spend whatever they want, you know, trying to hit the KPIs of the marketing department or the finance department, right? And so you have your business buyers that do care significantly about buying their outcomes, and so we're having, you know, the business outcomes conversations with them and then, oftentimes, they will come back to us and say, "Okay, but now we need you to talk to this person over in our IT organization. We need you to talk with our CIO, with our VP of infrastructure," whatever that may be, where we really get down to the nuts and bolts and we talk about how, you know, we can stretch the hardware coming from Dell, we can stretch the software coming from VMware, and we can deliver a higher caliber experience, a lower TCO, by taking advantage of some of the new technologies coming out. >> Yeah, so there's a reason why I ask that awesome question, and it's because I can imagine a scenario where, and this speaks to RackSpace's position in the market today and moving forward and what your history has been, people want to know, "Well, why should I work with Rackspace instead of some mega-hyper-monster-cloud?" If part of the answer is: well, it's because, for very specific application environments, like healthcare we talked about earlier, that might be a conversation where you're actually bringing in Dell to have a conversation about how you are specifically optimizing hardware and software to achieve things that otherwise can't be achieved with t-shirt sizes of servers in a hyperscale cloud. I mean, is that part of the Rackspace value proposition moving forward, that you can do things like that with partners like Dell that the other folks aren't going to focus on? >> Absolutely, it is, right? And a lot of the power of Rackspace is that, you know, we're the best-in-class pure play cloud solutions provider, and we can talk to you about your AWS, your Azure, your GCP, all of that great stuff, but we can also talk to you about private cloud solutions that are built on the backs of Dell Technologies, and in this multicloud world, you don't have that one size fits all for every single application. There are some things that run great in a hyperscale provider, and we can help you get there, but just exactly like you said, there are these verticals where you have applications that don't necessarily run all that well or they're not modernized, they haven't been refactored to be able to take advantage of cloud native services. And if all you're going to do is run that on bare metal in VMs, a hosted private cloud is, by far, the best way to do that, right? And Rackspace provides that hosted private cloud on the backs of Dell technology, on the backs of VMware technology, and we can go deliver those custom bespoke solutions to customers. >> So the infrastructure and the hardware still matters, Ash, yes? >> Absolutely, and I think he just highlighted, while what he does with his customers and what's important to his internal organization is being to deliver faster outcomes, better outcomes, give those customers, to meet those KPIs of those customers consuming their infrastructure at Rackspace, so I think, really, what the DPU and the underlying infrastructure enables is all that full stack integration to allow them to quickly scale to the demands of those customers and what they need in their infrastructure. >> Guys, while we got you here, what do you think about this year's VMware Explore, a lot of anticipation around how many people are going to show up and, you know, all kinds of things around the new name and Broadcom. Big attendance here, I mean, I was very surprised about the size of the attendance and the show floor, the ecosystem, this train is not stopping. I mean, this is VMware's third act, no matter what the contextual situation is. What's your observation of the show? Do you agree, or is there anything that you could want to share about for folks who didn't make it, what they missed? >> Yeah, I mean it really highlights, I mean, you've seen the breadth of the show, I know people that aren't here that aren't able to see it are really missing the excitement. So there's a lot of great announcements around multicloud, around all the announcements, around the vSphere 8 with the DPUs, the vSAN Express Storage architecture, ton of new exciting technologies that are really empowering how customers, you know, the future of how customers are going to consume their workloads in their data centers. >> Josh, they're not short on products and stuff. A lot of moving parts. vSphere 8, a bunch of new stuff. And the cloud native stuff's looking pretty good too, off the tee. >> You know, it does feel like a focus on the core, though, in a way. So I don't think there's been a lot of peripheral noise at the show. Sometimes it's, you know, "And we got this, and this, and this, and this." It's vSphere 8, vSAN 8, cloud software, you know, really hammering it home and refining it. >> But you don't think of it as a little bit of a circus act. I mean the general keynote was theatrical, I thought, I mean, I thought they did a good job on that. I think vSphere 8 was buried a little bit, I thought they could have... They checked the box at the beginning. >> That's true, that's true. >> I mean, they mentioned it, but we didn't see the demos. You know? Demos are usually great. But that's my only criticism. >> Well, that's why we supplemented it with the VxRail announcements, right? With our big announcements around vSphere 8 and with the DPUs as well as the vSAN Express Storage architecture being integrated into VxRail, so I think, you know, it's always that ongoing partnership and, you know, doing what's best for our customers, showing them the next generation and how they consume that technology. >> Yeah, you guys got good props on VxRail. We had a great chat about it yesterday. Rackspace, you guys doing good? Quick update on what's happening with you guys. Give a quick plug. What's going on at Rackspace? What's hot? What's going on? Give a quick plug for what the services are and the products you got going on there. >> Yeah, absolutely. So we are that end-to-end cloud provider, right? And so we've got really exciting offers in market, helping customers take advantage of all the hyperscale providers, and then giving them that private cloud experience. We've got everything from single-tenant running in our data centers on the backs of vSphere, vCloud Director, and VxRails, all the way through to, like, multi-tenant burstable capability that runs within our own data centers as well. It's a really exciting time for technology, a really exciting time for Rackspace. >> Congratulations, we've been following your journey for a long time. Dell, you guys do continue to do a great job and end-to-end phenomenal work. The telco thing's a huge opportunity, we didn't even go there. But Ash, thanks. Josh, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. >> Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks for having us. >> Thank you very much. >> Okay, thanks for watching theCUBE. We're live, day two of three days of wall-to-wall coverage. Two sets here in Moscone West on the ground level, in the lobby, checking out all the action. Stay with us for more coverage after this short break. (modern music)

(upbeat music) >> Good afternoon. theCUBE is live at VMware Explorer. Lisa Martin here in San Francisco with Dave Nicholson. This is our second day of coverage talking all things VMware and it's ecosystem. We're excited to welcome from DXC Technology, James Bion, Hybrid Cloud and Multi Cloud Offering manager to have a conversation next. Welcome to the program. >> Thank you very much. >> Welcome. >> Talk to us a little bit about before we get into the VMware partnership, what's new at DXC? What's going on? >> So DXC is really evolving and revitalizing into more of a cloud orientated company. So we're already driving change in our customers at the moment. We take them on that cloud journey, but we're taking them in the right way, in a structured mannered way. So we are really excited about it, we're kicking off our Cloud First type, Cloud Right sort of story and helping customers on that journey. >> Yesterday in the keynote, VMware was talking about customers are on this Cloud chaos phase, they want to get to Cloud Smart. You're saying they want to get to Cloud Right. Talk to us about what DXC Cloud Right is, what does it mean? What does it enable businesses to achieve? >> That's a very good question. So DXC has come up with this concept of Cloud Right, we looked at it from a services and outcome. So what do customers want to achieve? And how do we get it successfully? This is not a technology conversation, this is about putting the right workloads at the right place, at the right time, at the right cost to get the right value for your business. It's not about just doing it for the sake of doing it, okay. There's a lot of changes it's not technology only you've got to change how people operate. You've got to work through the organizational change. You need to ensure that you have the right security in place to maintain it. And it's about value, really about value proposition. So we don't just focus on cost, we focus on operations of it, we focus on security of it. We focus on ensuring the value proposition of it and putting not just for one Cloud, it's the right place. Big focus on Hybrid and Multi Cloud solutions in particular, we're very excited about what's happening with VMware Cloud on maybe AWS or et cetera because we see there a real dynamic change for our customers where they can transition across to the right Cloud services, at the right time, at the right place, but minimal disruption to the actual operation of their business. Very easy to move a workload into that place using the same skilled resources, the same tools, the same environment that you have had for many years, the same SLAs. Customers don't want a variance in their SLAs, they just want an outcome at a right price and the right time. >> Right, what are some of the things going on with the VMware partnership and anything you know, here we are at this the event called the theme is "The Center of the Multi Cloud Universe", which I keep saying sounds like a Marvel movie, I think there needs to be some superheroes here. But how is DXC working with VMware to help customers that are in Multi Cloud by default, not by design? >> That's a very good one. So DXC works jointly with VMware for more than a thousand clients out there. Wide diversity of different clients. We go to market together, we work collaboratively to put roadmaps in place for our clients, it's a unified team. On top of that, we have an extremely good VMware practice, joint working VMware team working directly with DXC dedicated resources and we deliver real value for clients. For example, we have a customer experience zone, we have a customer innovation zone so we can run proof of concepts on all the different VMware technologies for customers. If they want to try something different, try and push the boundaries a little bit with the VMware products, we can do that for them. But at the end of the day we deliver outcome based services. We are not there to deliver a piece of software, but a technology which show the customer the value of the service that they've been receiving within that. So we bring the VMware fantastic technologies in and then we bring the DXC managed services which we do so well and we look after our customers and do the right thing for our customers. >> So what does the go-to market strategy look like from a DXC perspective? We say that there are a finite number of strategic seats at the customer table. DXC has longstanding deep relationships with customers, so does VMware and probably over a shorter period of time, the Hyper scale Cloud Providers. How are you approaching these relationships with customers? Is it you bringing in your friends from the cloud? Is it the cloud bringing in their friend DXC? What does it look like? >> So we have relationships with all of them, but were agnostic. So we are the people who bring it all together into that unified platform and services that the customers expect. VMware will bring us certainly to the table and we'll bring VMware to the table. Equally, we work very collaboratively with all the cloud providers and we work in deals together. They bring us deals, we bring them deals. So it works extremely well from that perspective, but of course it's a multi-cloud world these days. We don't just deal with one cloud provider, we'll normally have all of the different services to find the right place for our customers. >> Now, one thing that that's been mentioned from DXC is this idea that Cloud First which has been sort of a mantra that scores you points if you're a CIO lately, maybe that's not the best way to wake up in the morning. Why not saying, Cloud First? >> So we have a lot of clients who who've tried that Cloud First journey and they've aggressively taken on migration of workloads. And now that they've settled in a few of those they're discovering maybe the ROI isn't quite what they expected it was going to be. That transformation takes a long time, a very long time. We've seen some of the numbers around averaging a hundred apps can take up to seven years to transition and transform, that's a long time. It makes you almost less agile by doing the transformation quite ironically. So DXC's Cloud Right program really helps you to ensure that you assess those workloads correctly, you target the ones that are going to give you the best business value, possibly the best return on investment using our Cloud and advisory practice to do that. And then obviously off the back of that we've got our migration teams and our run services and our application modernization factories and our application platforms for that. So DXC Cloud Right can certainly help our customers on that journey and get that sort of Hybrid Multi Cloud solution that suits their particular outcomes, not just one Cloud provider. >> So Cloud Right isn't just Cloud migration? >> No. >> People sometimes confuse digital transformation with Cloud migration. >> Correct. >> So to be clear Cloud Right and DXC has the ability to work with customers on not just, oh, here, this is how we box it up and ship it out, but what makes sense to box up and ship out. >> Correct, and it's all about that whole end to end life cycle. Remember, this is not just a technology conversation, this is an end to end business conversation. It's the outcomes are important, not the technology. That's why you have good partners like DXC who will help you on that technology journey. >> Let's talk about in the dynamics of the market the last couple of years, we saw so many customers in every industry race to the Cloud, race to digitally transform. You bring up a good point of people interchangeably talking about digital transformation, Cloud migration, but we saw the massive adoption of SaaS technologies. What are you seeing? Are you seeing customers in that sort of Cloud chaos as VMware calls it? That you're coming in with the Cloud Right approach saying, let's actually figure out, you may have done this because of the pandemic maybe it was accelerated, you needed to facilitate collaboration or whatnot, but actually this is the right approach. Are you seeing a lot of customers in that situation? >> We are certainly seeing some customers going into that chaos world. Some of them are still in the early stages of their journey and are taking a more cautious step towards in particular, the companies that would die on systems to be up available all the time. Others have gone too far, the other are in extreme are in the chaos world. And our Cloud Right program will certainly help them to pull their chaos back in, identify what workloads are potentially running in the wrong place, get the framework in place for ensuring that security and governance is in place. Ensuring that we don't have a cost spend blowout in particular, make sure that security is key to everything that we do and operations is key to everything we do. We have our own intelligent Platform X, it's called, our service management platform which is really the engine that sits behind our delivery mechanism. And that's got a whole lot of AI analytics engines in there to identify things and proactively identify workload placements, workload repairs, scripting, and hyper automation behind that too, to keep available here and there. And that's really some of our Cloud Right story, it's not just sorting out the mess, it's sorting out and then running it for you in the right way. >> So what does a typical, a customer engagement look like for a customer in that situation? >> So we would obviously engage our client right advisory team and they would come in and sit down with your application owners, sit down with the business units, identify what success needs to look like. They do all the discovery, they'll run it through our engines to identify what workloads are in the right place, should go to the right place. Just 'cause you can do something doesn't mean you should do something and that's an important thing. So we will come back with that and say, this is where I think your cloud roadmap journey should be. And obviously that takes an intuitive process, but we then can pick off the key topics early at the right time and that low hanging fruit that's really going to drive that value for the customer. >> And where are your customer conversations these days? I mean from a Cloud perspective, digital transformation, we're seeing everything escalate up the C-suite? Are you engaging the executives in this conversation so that they really want to facilitate, let's do things the right way that's the most efficient that allows us as a business to do what we're best at? >> So where we've seen programs fail is where we don't have executive leadership and brought in from day one. So if you don't have that executive and business driver and business leadership, then you're definitely not going to be successful. So to answer your question, yes, of course we are, but we also working directly with the IT departments as well. >> So you just brought up an insight executive alignment, critically important. Based on what you've experienced in the real world, contrast that with the sort of message to the world that we hear constantly about Cloud and IT, what would be the most shocking thing that you can share with us that people might not be aware of? It's like what shocks you the most about the disconnect between what everybody talks about and the reality on the ground? Don't name any names of anyone, but give us an example of the like, this is what's really going on. >> So, we certainly are seeing that big sort of move into Cloud quickly, okay. And then the big bill shock comes and just moving a workload across doesn't mean you're in Cloud, it's a transition and transformation to the SaaS and power services, it's where you get your true value out of cloud. So the concept that just 'cause it's in Cloud it's cheap is not always the case. Doing it right in Cloud is definitely going to have some cost value, but it's going to bring other additional values to their business. It's going to give them agility, it's going to give them resilience. So if you look at all three of those platforms cost, agility, and resilience and live across all three of those, then you're definitely going to get the best outcomes. And we've certainly seen some of those where they haven't taken all of those into consideration, quite often it's cost is what drives it, not the other two. And if you can't keep operations up working efficiently then you are in a lot of trouble. >> So Cloud wrong comes with sticker shock. >> It certainly does. >> What's on the horizon for DXC? >> We're certainly seeing a big drive towards apps modernization and certainly help our customers on that journey. DXC is definitely a Cloud company, may that be on Hybrid Cloud, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, DXC is certainly leading that edge and pushing it forward. >> Excellent, James, thank you so much for joining us on the program today talking about what Cloud Right is, the right approach, how you're helping customers really get to that right approach with the people, the processes, and the technology. We appreciate your time. >> Thank you very much. >> For our guest and Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live from VMware Explorer, 2022. Our next guest joins us momentarily so don't change the channel. (upbeat music)

(slow music) >> Welcome back to theCUBE's ongoing coverage of VMworld 2021, the second year in a row we've done this virtually. My name is Dave Vellante and long-time VMware technologist and new CTO Kit Colbert is here. Kit, welcome. Good to see you again. >> Thanks, Dave. Super excited to be here. >> So let's talk about your new role. You've been at VMware. You've touched all the bases so to speak (Kit chuckles) and, you know, love the career evolution. You're ready for this job. So tell us about that role. >> Well, I hope so. I don't know. It's definitely a big step up. Been here at VMware for 18 years now, which, if know Silicon Valley, you know that's a long time. It's probably like four or five normal Silicon Valley lifetime's in terms of stints at a company. But I love it. I love the company. I love the culture. I love the technology and I'm super passionate, super excited about it. And so, you know, previously I was CTO for one of our business groups and focused on a specific set of our products and services. But now, as the corporate CTO, I really am overseeing all of VMware R&D. In the sense of really trying to drive a whole bunch of core engineering transformations, right, where we've talked a lot about our shift toward becoming a SaaS company. So, you know, a cloud services company. And so there's a lot of changes we got to make internally. Technologies, platform services we need to build out, you know, the sort of culture aspects of it again. And so, you know, I'm kind of sitting at the center of that and, I'll be honest, it's big, there's a lot of stuff to go and do, but I am just super excited about it. Wake up every day, really excited to meet a whole bunch of new people across the organization and to learn all the cool things we're doing. Well, you know, I'll say it again, like the level of innovation happening inside VMware is just insane. And it's really cool now that I get kind of more of a front and center row to see everything that's happening. >> And when I was preparing for the interview with Raghu, you know, I've been following VMware for a long time, and I sort of noted that it's like the fourth, you know, wave of executive management and I sort of went back and said, okay, yes, we know it started with, you know, Workstation. Okay, fine. But then really quickly went into really changing the way in which we think about servers, and server utilization, and driving. I remember the first time I ever saw a demo, I said, "Wow, this is going to be completely game-changing." And then thought about the era of the software-defined data center, fine-tuning the cloud strategy, and then this explosion of innovation, whether it was this sort of NSX piece, the acquisitions you've made around security, again, more cloud expansion. And now you're laying out sort of this Switzerland from Multi-Cloud combined with, as you're pointing out, this as a service model. So when you think about the technical vision of the company transforming into a cloud and subscription model, what does that mean from a sort of architectural standpoint >> Yeah. >> Or a mindset perspective? >> Oh yeah. Both great questions and both sort of key focus areas for me, and by the way, it's something I've been thinking about for quite a while, right? Yeah, so you're right. Like we are on our third or fourth lap of the track depending on how you count. But I also think that this notion of getting into Multi-Cloud, of becoming a real cloud services company is going to be probably the biggest one for us. And the biggest transformation that we're going to have to make, you know, we did extend from core compute virtualization to network and storage with the software-defined data center. But now these things I think are a bit more fundamental. So, you know, how are we thinking about it? Well, we're thinking about it in a few different ways. I do think, as you mentioned, the mindset is definitely the most important thing. This notion that, you know, we no longer really have product teams purely, they should be thinking of themselves as service teams and the idea being that they are operating and accountable for the availability of their cloud service. And so this means we really needed to step up our game, and we have in terms of the types of tooling that we built, but really it's about getting these developers engaged with that, to know that, hey, like what matters most of all right now is that service availability, in addition to things like security, compliance, et cetera. But we have monitoring systems to tell you, hey, like there's a problem. And that you need to go jump on those things immediately. This is not like, you know, a normal bug that comes in, oh, I'll get to it tomorrow or whatever. It's like, no, no, you got to step up and really get there immediately. And so there is that big mindset shift and that's something we've been driving for the past few years, but we need to continue to push there. And as part of that, you know, what we've seen is that a lot of our individual teams have gone out and build like really great cloud services, but what we really want to build to enable us to accelerate that, is a platform, a true, you know, SaaS platform and leveraging all these great capabilities that we have to help all of our teams go faster. And so it gets to things like standardization and really raising the bar across the board to allow all these teams to focus on what makes their products or services unique and differentiated rather than, you know, just doing the basic blocking and tackling. So those are couple of things I'm really focused on. Both driving the mindset shift. You know, as I was taking on this role, I did a lot of reading on other CTOs and, you know, how do they view their roles within their companies? And one of the things I did hear there was that the CTO is kind of the, I don't know if the keeper is the right word, but the keeper of the engineering culture, right, that you want to really be a steward for that to help take it forward in the right sort of directions that aligned with the strategic direction of the business. And so that's a big aspect for what I'm thinking about. And the second one in the SaaS platform, one of the really interesting things about this reorg that we've done internally is, that traditionally CTO is kind of focused, you know, outbound, maybe a little bit inbound, but typically don't have large engineering organizations, but here, what we want to do, because the SaaS platform is so important to us. We did centralize it within the office of the CTO. And so now, you know, my customers, from an engineering standpoint, are all the internal business units. So a lot of really big changes inside VMware, but I think this is the sort of stuff we need to do to help us really accelerate toward the multi-cloud vision that we're painting. >> Well, VMware has always had a superstrong engineering culture, and I liked the way you phrase that, "The steward of the engineering culture," when you think about a product mindset, 'course correct me, if I'm off here, but when you're building a product and you're making that thing rock-solid, you know, Maritz used to talk about the hardened top. And so it seems to me that the services mindset expands the mind a little bit in terms of what other services can I integrate to make my service better, whether that's a machine, intelligence service, or a security service or, you know, the dozens of other services that you guys are now building, the combination of that innovation has like a step function and a lever on top of the sort of traditional product mindset. >> Yeah, I think you're absolutely right there's a ton of like really fundamental mental mindset shifts, right? That are a part of that. And the integration piece you mentioned, super critical, but I also think it's actually taking a step back and looking at the life cycle more holistically. When you're thinking about a product, you're thinking about, okay, I'ma get the bits together, I'm going to ship it out. But then it's really up to the customer to go deploy that, to operate it, to, you know, deal with problems and bugs that come up. And when you're delivering a cloud service, those are all problems that you, as the application creator, have to deal with. And so you've got to be on top of all those things. And, you know, if you design something in such a way that it becomes kind of hard to debug at runtime, well, that's going to directly impact your availability, that might have, you know, contractual obligations with an SLA impact to a customer. So there's some really big implications there that I think traditionally product teams didn't always fully think through, but now that they sort of have to with like a cloud service. The other point, I think that's really important there, is the notion of simplicity and ease of use. Experience is always important, right? Customer experience, user experience, but it gets even more magnified in a SaaS type of environment because the idea is that you shouldn't have to talk to anybody. You, as a user, should be able to go and call an API and start using this thing, right, and swipe a credit card and you're good to go. And so, you know, that sort of maniacal focus on how you just remove roadblocks, remove any unnecessary things between that customer and getting the value that they're looking for. So in general, the thing that I really love about SaaS and cloud services is that they really align incentives very well. What you want to do, as an application builder, as a solution builder, really aligns well with what customers are looking for. And you can get that feedback very, very rapidly, which allows for much quicker evolution of the underlying product and application. >> So one of the other things I learned from my interview with Raghu, and I couldn't go deep into it, I did a little bit with Sumit, but I wonder if I get your perspectives as well. I always talk about this abstraction layer across clouds, hybrid, multi-cloud, edge, abstracting, you know, the underlying complexity, and Raghu, it's nuance, but he said, "Okay, but the thing is, we're not trying to limit access to the primitives. We want to allow developers to go there to the extent." And my takeaway was okay, but the abstraction is you want to be that single management layer with access to the deep primitives and APIs of the respective clouds. But simplify, to your point, across those estates at the management layer, maybe you could add some color to that. >> Yeah, you know, it's a really interesting question. But let me tell you about how we think about it because you're right. In that, you know, the abstractions can sometimes find the underlying primitives and capabilities. And so Raghu getting at, hey, like we don't necessarily force you one way or the other. And here's the way to think about it, is that it's really about delivering optionality. And we do that through offering these abstractions at different layers. So to your point, Dave, like we have a management capabilities that can enable you to manage consistently across all types of clouds, public, private, edge, et cetera, irrespective of what that underlying infrastructure is. And so you'll look at things that are like our vRealize suite of products, or CloudHealth, or Tanzu, Tanzu Mission Control is really focused on that one as well. But then we also have our infrastructure layer. That's what we're doing with VMware Cloud. And this notion of delivering consistent infrastructure. Now, even though the core, sort of IIS layer, is more consistent, you still get great flexibility in terms of the higher-level services. If you want to use a database from one of the public clouds, or a messaging system, or streaming service, or, you know, AI, whatever it is, you still got that sort of optionality as well. And so the reason that we offer these different things is because customers are just in different places. As a matter of fact, a single customer may have all of those different use cases, right? They may have some apps where they're moving from on-prem into the cloud. They want to do that very quickly. So, boom, we can just do it really fast with VMware Cloud, consistent infrastructure. We can VMotion that thing up in the Cloud, great. But for other ones, maybe a modern app they're building, and maybe a team has chosen to use native AWS for that, but they want to leverage Kubernetes. So there you could put in a Tanzu Mission Control to give them that, you know, consistent management across sites, or leverage CloudHealth to understand costs and to really enable the application teams to manage costs on their own. So, you know, I always go back to that concept of optionality, like we offer sort of these different levels of abstraction, and it really depends on what the use case is because the reality is, especially for a complex enterprise, they're likely going to have all of those use cases. >> You know, I want to stay on optionality for a moment because you're essentially becoming a cloud company. I'm expanding the definition of cloud, which I think is appropriate 'cause the cloud is expanding. It's going on-prem, it's going out to the edge, there's hybrid connections, across clouds, et cetera. And when you look at the public cloud players, they all are deep into what I'll call data management. I'm not even sure what that term means anymore sometimes, but certainly they all own, own, databases, but they also offer databases from folks. I go back to something Maritz said with the software mainframe that we want to be able to run any workload, you know, anywhere and have high reliability, recovery, you know, lowest costs, et cetera. So you're going to run those workloads. Project Monterey is about supporting new workloads, but it doesn't seem like you have aspirations to own sort of the database layer, for example, what's your philosophy around that? >> Yeah. Not generally. I mean, we do have some solutions like Greenplum, for instance, that play in that space, more of a data warehouse solution, but generally speaking, you're absolutely right. You know, VMware success was built through tight partnerships. We have a very, very broad partner network. And of course, we see hyperscalers as great partners as well. And so, I think if we get back to like, what's the core of VMware, it really is providing those powerful abstractions in the right places, at the infrastructure level, at the management level, and so forth. But yeah, we're not trying to necessarily compete with everyone, reinvent the world. And by the way, if I just take a step back, when we talk to customers, what really drives them toward using multiple clouds is the fact that they want to get after these, what we call, best of breed cloud services, that many of the different public clouds offer databases and AI and ML systems. And for each app team, the exact one that perfectly meets their needs may be different, right? Maybe on one conference is another cloud. And so that is really the optionality that we want to optimize for when we talk to those customers. They want the easiest way of getting that app onto that cloud, so we can take advantage of that cloud service, but what they worry about is the lack of consistency there. And that goes across the board. You know, if something fails at 2:00 am, and you have to wake up and go fix it. Do you have like the right sort of tooling in place, if it's fails on one cloud versus another, do you have to like, you know, scramble to figure out which tools to go use, you know, which dashboard to look at? It's like, no, that you want kind of a consistent one. When you think about, from a security perspective, how do you drive a secure software supply chain? How do you prevent the types of attacks that we've seen in the past few years? Where people insert malicious code into your supply chain and now you're running with hack code out there. And if you have different teams doing different things across different clouds, well, that's going to just open up sort of a can of worm of different possibilities there for hackers to get in. So that's why this consistency is so important. And so, you know, I guess, if we refine the optionality a little bit, that point, it's about getting optionality around cloud services and then like those are the things that really differentiate. And so, you know, we're not trynna compete with that. We're saying, hey, like we want to bring customers to those and give them the best experience that they can, irrespective of whether that's in the public cloud, or on-prem, or even at the edge. >> And that's a huge technical challenge and amazing value for customers. I want to ask you, there's a lot of talk about ESG today. How does that fit into the CTO mindset? >> Yeah. >> Is it a bolt-on, is it a fundamental component? >> Yeah. Yeah, so ESG is talking about environment, sustainability, and governance. And so, you know, it's not an environment, excuse me, equity, (Kit chuckles) equity, sustainability, and governance. Getting my acronyms wrong, which as the technologist, really a faux pas, but any case, equity, sustainability, and governance. And the idea there is that if we look at the core values for VMware, this is something that's hugely important. And something that we've actually been focused on for quite a while. We now have a whole team focused on this, really being a force multiplier to help keep us honest across VMware, to help ensure equity, and in many different ways, that we have or continue to increase, for instance, the amount of female representation within our organization, or underrepresented minorities or communities, ensuring that, you know, pay is equal across the company. You know, these different sorts of things, but also around sustainability. They actually have a number of folks working very closely with our teams to drive sustainability into our products. You know, vSphere is great because it reduces the amount of physical servers you need. So by definition reduces the carbon footprint there. But now, you know, taking a step further. We have cloud partners that we're working with to ensure that they have net-zero carbon emissions, you know, using 100% renewables by 2030. And in fact, that's something that, we ourselves, have signed up for, you know, today we are carbon-neutral, but what we want to get to is to be net carbon zero by 2030, which is an absolutely huge lift. And that's, by the way, not just for VMware, our operations, our offices, but also for our supply chain as well. And so, you know, when you look across, you know, as well as efforts around diversity and inclusion, this is something that is very core to what we do as a company, but it's also a personal passion of mine. The ESG office actually lives within my organization. And it does that because what I view the office of the CTO as being is really a force multiplier, as I said before, like, yes, the team is located here, but their purview is across all of engineering. And in fact, all of VMware. So I think, you know, when we look at this, it's about getting the best talent we have, very diverse talent, increasing our ability to deliver innovative products, but also doing so in a way that's good for the planet, that is sustainable. And that is giving back to the community. >> You know, by the way, I don't think that was faux pas. (Kit laughs) 'Cause a lot of times, people use environmental, social, and governance, and your equity piece would fall into the S in that equation, the social responsibility, you know, components. So I think you've just done an interesting twist on the acronym. So no mistake there. (Dave chuckles) Just another way to look at it. >> Yup, yup, yup. >> So you're now deep into the CTO role. What should we look for in the, you know, coming months and years? How should we >> Hmm. >> Kind of evaluate progress? What are those sort of milestones that we should be looking at? >> Yeah, so about a month or so into the job now, and so still getting my arms wrapped around, but, you know, I'm looking at measuring success in a few different ways. First of all, as I said before, the ESG component and in diversity, equity inclusion in particular, in terms of our workforce, extraordinarily important to me and something we're going to be really pushing hard on, you know, as we all know, you know, women, underrepresented minorities, not very well represented, in general, in Silicon Valley. So something that we all need to step up on. And so we're going to be putting a lot of effort in there, and that will actually help drive, as I said before, all of these innovations, this fundamental shift in mindset, I mean, that requires diverse perspectives. It requires pushing us out of our comfort zone, but the net result of that, so that what you're going to see, is a much faster cadence of releases of innovation coming from VMware. So there's some just insanely exciting things (Kit laughs) that are happening in the labs right now that we're cooking up. But, you know, as we start making this shift, we're going to be delivering those faster and faster to our customers and our partners. >> You know, I'm interested to hear that it's a passion of yours. There was an article, I think it was last week, in "The Wall Street Journal," it was an insert section on "Women in the Workforce," and there was a stat in there, which I thought was pretty interesting. I'll run it by and you see what you think, you know, it was talking about COVID, and post COVID,and the stresses. And it's interesting to me because a lot of executives, and pfft, you know, I'm with them, said, "Hey, work from home. This a beautiful thing. It's good for business too, because, you know, everybody's more productive," but you have this perpetual workday now. It's like we never sleep. It bleeds in the weekends. And the stat from Qualtrics, which was published in the journal, I think it said, "30% of working women said that their mental health has declined since COVID." And that number was only 15% for working men, is still notable, but half. And so, you know, one has to question maybe that perpetual work week and, you know, maybe there's a benefit from business productivity, but then there's the other side of that as well. And a lot of women have left the workforce, a lot of previously working moms. And so there's an untapped labor pool there, and there's this huge labor shortage. And so these are important issues, but they're not easy ones to solve, are they? >> No, no, no. It's something we've been putting a lot of thought into at VMware. So we do have a flexible program that we're rolling out in terms of work. People can come into the office if they want to, of course, you know, where we have offices where it's safe to do so, where the government has allowed that, and people can have an actual desk there, or sometimes they can say, "Hey, I only want to come in once or twice a week." And then we say, "Okay, we'll have some floating desks that you can take." And others are saying, "I want to be fully remote." So we give people a pretty broad range in terms of how they want to address that. But I do think, to your point though, and this is something I've been really trying to do already is to create a more inclusive environment by doing a number of different things. And so it's being thoughtful around when you're sending emails. 'Cause like my sort of schedule is, I do tend to like fire off emails late at night after the kids are in bed, I get a little quiet time, some thinking time, but I make it very clear that I'm not expecting an immediate response. Don't worry about it. This is my work time. Doesn't have to be your work time. And so really setting those, I guess, boundaries, if you will, explicitly and kind of the expectations maybe is a better term, setting that explicitly, trying to schedule meetings, not at times where you're going to have to drop the kids off at school or pick them (indistinct) and to take over your life. And so we really try to emphasize boundaries and really setting those things appropriately. But honestly, it's something that we're still working on and I'm still learning. And so I'd love to get feedback from folks, but those are some of the early thinkings. But I would say that we at VMware are taking it very, very seriously and really supporting our employees in terms of navigating that work-life balance. >> Well Kit, congratulations on the new role and it's great to see you again. I hope next year we can be face-to-face, always a pleasure to have you on theCUBE. >> Thanks, Dave. Appreciated being here. >> All right, and thank you for watching theCUBE's continuous coverage of VMworld 2021, the virtual edition. Keep it right there for more right after this. (slow music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE, with digital coverage of Women Transforming Technology, (bright upbeat music) brought to you by VMware. >> Hi, this is Lisa Martin, covering the Fifth Annual, Women Transforming Technology, VMware's wonderful event. First year though, that WT2 is digital. So I'm coming to you remotely. Not from Palo Alto, but from my home in San Jose. I'm very please to welcome the VP of Diversity and Inclusion from VMware, Shanis Windland. Shanis, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, it's great to be here. >> WT2 is one of my favorite events. I have had the opportunity to go live and cover it for theCUBE the last couple of years, and it is truly one of those events where you walk in and it's sort of that beautiful quiet outdoors in the Palo Alto campus. >> Mm-hmm. >> But you feel this very large sense of community and it's so positive, but it's overwhelming in how genuine it is. >> Mm-hmm. >> I can't imagine how challenging it was to have to make the decision, not too long ago to have to convert that to digital. But I can also imagine that that community that VMware has built with WT2 was a big facilitator of getting women everywhere to go, "Absolutely. "No matter where I am, I want to be here." Tell me a little bit about that quick pivot and what some of the things were that pleasantly surprised you about the event the other day. >> Yeah, so I think we were watching obviously the news and we decided probably a little bit earlier than other conferences did make the move to virtual so that we could really spend the time to really plan it and make it special. So I'm so pleased with how the event turned out. As you know, it's usually a smaller event of 500, 550 women in-person. And this year, we were able to have over 5,000 attendees, which is fantastic. And I still felt this amazing energy from the conference. You know, the chat was going and people were super positive and cheering each other on, and giving each other advice, and talking about what the speakers were talking about and it was an incredible experience. I was so surprised and energized by my experience at the conference. So happy I was able to attend. >> 5,000 is remarkable. I'm sure that blew your expectations. >> Yeah. >> Totally. >> But it's also, you know, we're living in this very different time where everything is disrupted, and it's hard to engage. The number of your speakers that I have spoken to about this event have all talked about how interactive every session was with hundreds of women >> Mm-hmm. >> who logged in to each session. And that is... I think that speaks to the community and the reputation that WT2 has built over the last five years. But tell me a little bit about how this pivot happened. So the theme, We Rise, very poignant and so important in this very uncertain climate that we're in. Talk to me about the importance and the development of that theme which really helped create some energy from everybody being all over the world. >> Yeah, I mean, we talked about the theme a long time ago and developed it, you know, with a collection of companies, the consortium that we worked on in planning the conference. And it is so relevant to what's happening right now, the experience of, not only women, but people everywhere feeling isolated and the need for connection and the need to feel like you can still succeed and win at work. And it was just so amazing. And one of my favorite pieces was when Laura Dern was actually quoting the Maya Angelou poem about rising. It was so incredibly powerful and just really wrapped up the day in an amazing way with that theme. And I know, I personally walked away feeling energized and feeling like, "Yes, we can do this, "we can continue to rise regardless of the situation." >> So tell me, you are the VP of Diversity and Inclusion. What are some of the changes that you're... Or the evolution of that role, even in the last two months of this pandemic, knowing that every single person from Pat Gelsinger, all the way down, and everybody across the globe, is really emotionally challenged right now, as well as potentially, you know, impacted financially. >> Yeah, I think it's just been super important to talk about empathy and leadership and supporting our employees. And I think it's truly given leaders and managers and employees a totally different perspective on what that means right now, and at VMware where I've felt so much empathy from our leadership and so much empathy from our managers, and just in terms of understanding employee experience, this isn't normal working-with-from-home for anybody. This is working from home, not having help, dealing with homeschooling, still trying to succeed at work, and a variety of other things that people have. Sick family members, worried about the world and work. And I think it's just really, really important for leaders to continue to check in and connect with their employees. >> Empathy is so important, and I'm glad that you mentioned that, because when we talked to the C-suite or executives, I was talking to some of the other speakers earlier this morning who helped develop women to be in leadership positions. And instead of asking, you know, "What are some of the characteristics that you can identify "if this person is on the C-suite path?" I always want to understand what are the hard and soft skills. And I never liked the word, soft. I really should >> Mm-hmm. >> (mumbles) that up because empathy is one of those. But it's something now that I think is not only is important, it's also contagious. So if you see that from a leader, I think that the impact to productivity can be huge. >> Mm-hmm, no, that's so true. And I think that employees, regardless of their working environment still really want to succeed at work. They still want to feel like they can have a career and move forward, and they still want to support their companies in succeeding. And it's so important that they feel like regardless of their personal situation, they can do that and can contribute. >> So one of the things that I saw Laura Dern mention in her closing keynote was about, you know, you don't have to stay in your swim lane. And when I was looking at your background, I thought you're a CFO and a financial exec. Tell me about your pivot or evolution into diversity and inclusion. >> Yeah, it was a surprising turn for me as well. You know, I spent my entire career doing finance, but coming to VMware, it was really, for me, an opportunity to participate in building the company where I wanted to continue to work. And I really took my business background in building companies and building cultures and applying it to this role. I think diversity and inclusion succeeds when it's really felt by every single employee every single day. And in a global company like VMware, the only way that works is if each and every employee and manager embrace that. So they look around and they see people like them succeeding and they feel like they can have the best career possible at VMware. And when I approach this role, that's how I think about applying it to VMware. >> Tell me about the culture at VMware before this hit. And how has it evolved in just the last eight weeks, knowing, well, knowing there's a lot of uncertainty and probably assuming, "We're going to be working "from home for a while"? What is that overall spirit of the company? >> Yeah, so VMware was already having, you know, quite a number of distributed employees but still kind of an office-centric culture. And we were working on an initiative to move that faster, and our executives are calling it, Faster in to The Future, where we're really embracing this distributed working model moving forward. It's been this huge impetus to grab onto this as an opportunity to build the future of the company, to tap into new talent pools and to really embrace how and where our employees want to work and give them the choice on how and where they want to work. >> And one of the things too, I work from home a lot when I'm not traveling. So there's a balance. And I thought, "Well, I know how to work from home, "but this is a very different situation." A lot of folks I'm talking to are all acknowledging the same emotional concerns or waking up one day going, "I don't feel very motivated today." But also some of the things that I'm hearing resoundingly are everybody's in that same storm. And acknowledging that is really critical because that's also an authentic way of communicating. I'd like to know though, your thoughts about the fact that we're all, you know, using Zoom, and we have, thankfully the technologies. VMware has a lot of technology to enable remote workforce. The connection and thought, diversity of thought. What are some of your recommendations for maybe folks who aren't used to working from home? How can they express or feel the confidence to express their thoughts and their concerns or maybe ideas that they have that this pandemic is bringing up? >> Well, I'm thinking that, first of all, they have to feel like the company is actually supporting that. So you know, to your point about feeling burnt out or just not feeling like they're able to engage. VMware announced pandemic leaves for all of their employees to allow exactly that. If you need to take a break, take a break. No questions asked. And everyone's dealing with a lot of different things. So I think that's important. And then I think that managers and leaders and employees can just create the connection across the company. We've seen so many things at VMware, virtual coffees, parties. We did a sort of variety show as an all-hands and had 20,000 employees calling in to it. Just amazing ways for people to feel like they can still connect with the company and feel part of the community. But I think we also have to be empathetic to Zoom fatigue, which is great technology. But trying to be on video all the time and on can be difficult for people. And so really just staying in touch with people and being honest about where we are, I think is really important for everybody. >> So WT2 number five, first time virtual, but huge success, massive amounts of people, 5,000 or so. As you look forward, you know, we know VM world, huge event. theCUBE has been there for many years, is going to be digital this year. So we're also kind of anticipating, we're not going to have these in-person events for, who knows, maybe it's a year or more. Are you already looking out to WT2, the sixth annual knowing confidently, "We can do this virtually"? But what are your thoughts, kind of looking forward next year based on the community sense that you saw and felt the other day? >> Yeah, so I think there was so much special about the in-person event. You mentioned this at the beginning. This smaller group of women able to connect and really build that in-person community made the event so special, yet it was so incredibly successful, you know, as a virtual event. As an example, sitting and just watching Laura Dern and Kathryn Finney one-to-one essentially, was an amazing experience for me. It felt like I was there with them just having a conversation, which was so cool. And so I think we're really considering how we can continue to have that virtual community but offer that in-person experience. And you know, we haven't entirely figured that out, but it's definitely something top of mind for us. That participation, that broad community, continuing to build, that is going to be so important. >> The inclusion piece of, just struck me when you were talking about, you know, everybody. And I saw lots of comments on Twitter, everybody loved Kathryn Finney and Laura Dern. But one of the things that I find comforting in this time is doing this job from my home office in San Jose. But even watching the local newscasters or you know, the national newscasters at home, everyone is in the same storm. There is a sense of, I would say inclusion in that, that seeing, you know, a recent Oscar-winner, Laura Dern at her home just sort of, I don't want to say, levels the playing field, but it's a connection point that you probably wouldn't have had with her had things been like they were last year. >> Totally, you know? And just the opportunity to chat with her virtually and feel like, yeah, it's very, very connected because we're just right next to each other even though we really weren't. It is truly special and does make you feel and remember that everyone is in the same boat. >> So and one thing that I'm thinking about with your background being a finance expert, is that helpful to you in your role? Again, 'cause there's so much financial uncertainty right now, right? We hear all of that on the news, it's always so negative. Does that give you kind of a different basis by which to help evolve the Diversity and Inclusion program at VMware, understanding that employees have concerns about finances, they're in tough concerns about finances? Tell me a little bit about that experience that you have in this new role and how maybe in this current situation they're dovetailing together. >> Yeah, I think it's really around being metrics-driven and ensuring that we're using data to inform decisions about programs we build and how we talk to leaders and teams. But my finance background and really understanding data and numbers has helped me in this role tremendously. And I think you're right. You know, people are struggling with finances. Maybe their spouses have lost their job or their parents have lost their job. And again, it really just comes back to empathy and understanding what people are experiencing and ensuring that we open the door for them to be able to talk about it and bring that to work and be okay with it. >> And even the governor of California, Gavin Newsom has been talking for weeks about making data-driven decisions. And the tech-nerd in me just lights up right away. I'm like, "I know what that is." but it's important. But a lot of... There are folks that, if you're not in tech, don't understand that, right, because of the economic impacts and some of the toll. But having that, I guess, pragmatic side that I would say, in conjunction with that empathy, that's a pretty good winning combination. >> Yes, exactly. I am very pragmatic (laughs). >> Well, Shanis, it's been a pleasure having you on the program. Thank you so much. I'm so pleased to hear how successful the event was. I'm not at all surprised. But it's great to hear that the sense of community and the energy was there in spades in a digital environment. >> Yes, I'm so glad you were able to be there with us. Thank you so much. >> My pleasure. For Shanis, I'm Lisa Martin. And you've been watching theCUBE's coverage of the digital Women Transforming Technology event. We thank you for your time, we'll see you soon. (uplifting music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of Women Transforming Technology. Brought to you by VMware. >> Welcome to theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin covering the fifth annual Women Transforming Technology. The first year that this event has gone completely digital. We're very pleased to welcome back to theCUBE one of our favorite alumni, the Chief People Officer of VMware, Betsy Sutter. Betsy, welcome back! >> Oh, thank you, Lisa. It's great to see you and it's great to be back. Love this time of year. >> Likewise, me too. And you know, I've had the great opportunity and pleasure of covering WT2 for theCUBE the last few years so I know walking into that courtyard area in Palo Alto, VMware's headquarters, you feel the energy and the excitement, and it's really genuine. And so, knowing that you had to pivot a couple you know, eight weeks or so ago or more, to convert what is such an engaging in-person experience to digital, hard decision, the right decision, but huge in terms of the number of attendees. Tell us a little bit about that process of taking We Rise digital. >> Yeah, you know, it was a pretty quick decision. At VMWare, we were starting to virtualize some other events, and so in realtime, we said, "let's go ahead "and virtualize Women Transforming Technology 2020." And so, when we immediate, flipped to that mode, things started to really open up. The possibilities became pretty interesting. And so honestly, we did not imagine you know, the people attending would grow from roughly thousands to over 5,000. And that's what digitalizing the event, virtualizing the event did. And it was super fun to use technology to make it so much more inclusive and accessible for people around the world. I'm sure you've heard that we had over 5,000 people from over 500 companies represented from 30 different countries. So that was amazing in its own right. >> One of the things that I think was a great advantage knowing that this was the fifth one, but that you had the opportunity to build the community, and such a strong, tight-knight community over the last few years, I think was probably a great facilitator of the event being so much bigger digitally. But when I spoke with a number of your speakers, everybody said, and I saw the Twitter stream, that the engagement, it wasn't like they were watching a video. It was really interactive, and that is hard to achieve with digital. >> Yeah, you know, what I love about the technology was that there were chat rooms, and there were Q&A rooms. And so, there was a lot of back and forth in realtime, even while the speakers were talking. You could sort of multitask, and the speakers were really, really fun to interact with that way as well. And it's super fun to see people in their home environments. You know, it's a just a little bit more information about them, and they seem a little bit more relaxed too, so it was tremendous. Watching Laura Dern, who is an activist and an obviously a very famous actress, in her own home talking to us about the issues she's faced as a woman in her industry, and then moving to another woman named Kathryn Finney, who is the CEO of digitalundivided, in her home with all the activity, she had a four-year old sort of in the background, was super fun and really landed their conversations with us even more solidly. It was a great day. >> I heard that throughout Twitter that people really felt that there was a personal connection. Lot of people talking about, I'm sitting here zooming with Laura Dern, what are you doing today? And some of the things that she said about, you know, you don't have to stay in your own swimlane. That resonated with me and I think with your community very well. >> You know,the diversity, the eclecticness of the women that were able to join from around the world and from many different industries, but you know, technical women, women in tech, was, it just up-leveled everything and it fit into the theme of the conference which was "We Rise", because you know, you're trying to rise as an individual, but there we were rising as a collective for a full day, and the workshops were super fun. I mean I participated in a number of 'em, and I literally went through a workshop with I don't know how many women, but you know, I was drawing on paper then engaging on the screen, then chatting, using the Q&A feature. It was a really dynamic day. I'm wondering now if we'll ever go back, honestly. >> Right, well I was already thinking, "Wow, you can take WT to global and do original events." And there's so much opportunity right now. Tremendous amount of challenge but on the same time, there is a lot of opportunity. In fact, when I was speaking with Sharmain (mumbles) yesterday, it was amazing that she was talking about, you know, right now, like the percentage increase, in people actually reading email because they have more time to, the commute time is gone. And so her advice to be really vivid, in making yourself visual, in terms of how you communicate, and evaluate your role and how you can add new value during this challenging time and I thought that was such a powerful message because we do need to look at what opportunities are we going to be able to uncover? There will be certain things that will go away, to your point, maybe we do digital because we can engage, we can interact and we can reach a bigger audience and learn from more people. >> Yeah, I think that's spot on. I couldn't have said that better. And you could really feel it that day and then the response from both the attendees, but even the keynote speakers, both Laura and Kathryn reaching back to us and talking about the experience they had. It was a pretty uplifting day, I'm still flying pretty high from it. And it was Cinco de Mayo so there had to have been at least margaritas, skinny margaritas, maybe, you know, virgin margaritas. But something there to celebrate an accomplishment of doing something in a short period of undertaking that community and being able to push the energy through the screen is awesome. I'd love to understand, you've been the Chief People Officer at the VMware for a while, the COVID crisis is so challenging in every aspect of life. We often talk about disruption, you know, in technology, a technology disruptor, you know, video streaming was a technology disruptor and Uber was a disruptor to transportation and the taxi service, but now the disruption is an unseen, scary thing and so the emotional impact, people are talking and a number of your folks I spoke to as well said it's hard to be motivated but it's important to acknowledge that I don't feel so motivated today for managers to be able to have that check-in with our employees and our teams. Tell me a little bit about the culture of VMware and how maybe the "We Rise" theme is really kind of, pervasive across VMware right now. >> Yeah, you know, one of the things that I believe and that I've seen in the people business is that more and more people join communities, they join companies but they join communities and communities come together based on you know, their actions, their ideas, their behaviors and what I've seen in terms of VMware's response to COVID-19 has been pretty remarkable. I think at first, you know, we were in crisis mode, sort of going in triage mode about what we do to keep our people feeling safe and healthy. But now we're sort of in a mode of "okay, there's a lot of opportunity that this presents." Now, we are very very fortunate, very blessed to be in the industry that we're in, and a lot of what we do and build and provide for our customers and partners fits into this new business model of working distributedly, so there's been some highs and some lows as we've navigated. First and foremost, we've just put our employees first and their health and safety, making sure that they're comfortable is just been top of mind for us. We just did a small sentiment survey, six questions. Because about two weeks ago, I realized, "I wonder if we really know how people are feeling about this?" And one of the things that came through, I'll say this, out of 32,000 people within 24 hours, over 10,000 people responded to this six question survey, they wanted to tell us how they were doing. But over 70% said they felt, if not the same amount of connection but more connection with each other working in a distributed fashion. And I think COVID-19's brought that alive. That we're going to work in a new way, it's a new business model and so we're doing it at VMware and then we're really pleased that we can offer that to our customers and partners around the globe. >> You know, I'm glad that you talked about the employee experience because obviously, with any business, customers are critical to the life, blood of that business. But equally important, if not sometimes more impactful to the revenue of an organization is the employee experience and being productive day in and day out. And that, if the employee experience is, I think, I don't know, you can't have a good customer experience without a good employee experience. And to (mumbles) that focus is key. So it must have been really nice for the VMware employees to go, "they're wanting to know how I feel right now." That's huge for people to know, the executive team genuinely cares. >> Yeah, you know, Lisa, we have really amped up our communications. We have done more town halls, whether it's to our management community our leadership and executive community or to the whole company. Yesterday alone, I think I did six town halls and two ask-me-anythings just to make sure we know it's on top of people's minds, what's important to them and that's kind of the new normal. And it's so much easier, right? I'm not trying to get to places, I'm just kind of clicking on a button and I'm all of a sudden talking to the employees in India. And you know, when I talk to my colleagues in other industries, like, Beth Axelrod or Tracey Ballow, that are in the you know, the Marriott and the Air BnB industries, their challaneges are so different. And what they're facing in this short-term, in the medium term. VMware is in a position where we can really help these businesses and at the core of that is really, how well our employees are doing and so that's been our focus. >> One of the things that I also talked about yesterday with Jo Miller, the CEO of Be Leaderly, was the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. And I had never even understood that they were two different things until WT2. And so, I thought, you know, we all know about mentors, we talk about that all the time. But I, she was really, I think it's an important message for your audience and ours to understand the difference and she said, "people are often over-mentored and under-sponsored." And so I thought, well, "I want to understand VMware's culture of sponsorship." Tell me what's going on in that respect. >> Yeah, we're, well, I agree with everything that you said on the mentorship side and so what we've instituted on the mentorship side at VMware's reverse mentorship. So every executive at VMware has a reverse mentor, so that they can learn something that they might not be thinking about. And whether it's a reverse mentor who happens to be, if you're a man, who happens to be a woman, or if you want to engage with the under-represented minority, or if you just want to learn about the different aspect of the business, we're big on reverse mentoring. On the sponsorship side, we do do that. And that's a really important aspect to any company's culture if you're trying to cultivate talent. And sponsorship is really championship, right? And I know I champion a lot of people, a lot of the talent around the company and it's very different than maybe coaching, advicing, and interacting in that venue. It's more about, what's the right opportunity for this person? When I'm in the board room, or when I'm in the executive staff meeting, actually advocating for that person, and I'm fierce about that. Especially for women right now at VMware, and it's just important. And a lot of people are starting to adopt that mindset because there's a lot more power and influence in having sponsorship behind you than having mentorship. >> I completely agree. Are you saying that, you know, we often talk about the hard skills and then the soft skills. And I always think soft is the wrong word but I keep forgetting to look it up on the thesaurus to get a better word. Because right now, I think, more important than ever, looking at someone who might have all of the hard skills to be on this the track to the c-suite,  but the importance of authenticity and empathy, I think now are under a microscope. We talked a lot about that too with some of your guests, tell me little bit about those kinds of conversations, that came up during the interactive sessions with WT2. >> Yeah, well, you know, this is one of the blessings that's come out of COVID-19, and this pandemic is that people are starting to see, because everyone's impacted by this and not just in one way, but in multiple ways. So, there's really this once in a lifetime opportunity, at least as far as what I've seen in my lifetime, to seize this heightened level of compassion and empathy for all the people around you in terms of what we're doing. At WT2, I saw it a lot in terms of the quality of the conversations that were happening virtually and sometimes with the key notes and the guest speakers, with the audience, there was always a lead-in with compassion and empathy in terms of all of us. All of us, no matter where you are in the world, or no matter what you're doing, adjusting to what we're calling this new normal. And there's a new business normal but the new normal on the personal side I think is going to take a little bit longer, right? In terms of what people are managing. But in the business world, I think you know, people are starting to re-bound and rebuild, they're honing those skills, and they're going to be wiser and better because of it. But at the heart of it all is, as you said, a lot more compassion and empathy 'cause never before, have we all kind of gone through something quite so traumatic as COVID-19. >> Traumatic and surreal. And you know, we are all in this same storm and I think there's a level of comfort there, that I know I feel with knowing, okay, everyone is going to be feeling this rollercoaster at some point. Some days you're here, some days you're here. But we're all in this, whether you're, you know, in your role, or Pat Gelsinger or an individual contributor role, we're all in the same sea. Betsy, congratulations on a successful fifth WT2, first digital. I'm so glad the theCUBE and myself was able to participate digitally. It's always one of my favorite events every year and I look forward to seeing you again soon, which I soon will be digitally, but I look forward to it. >> Lisa, thank you so much and thanks for all of your sponsorship and mentorship with WT2 over the years too. Thank you. >> All right, you too. That was Betsy Sutter, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of Women Transforming Technology 2. Thanks for watching, see you next time. (soft music)

>> Hey, welcome back already, Jeffrey. Here with the Cube, we are high top San Francisco in the Salesforce Tower in the newest center offices. It's really beautiful and is part of that. They have their San Francisco innovation hubs, so it's five floors of maker's labs and three D printing and all kinds of test facilities and best practices Innovation theater and in this studio, which is really fun to be at. So we're talking about hybrid cloud in the development of cloud and multi cloud. And, you know, we're, you know, continuing on this path. Not only your customers on this path, but everyone's kind of on this path is the same kind of evolved and transformed. We're excited. Have a couple experts in the field. We got Larry Soccer. He's the global managing director of Intelligent Cloud Infrastructure Service's growth and strategy at a center. Very good to see you again. Great to be here. And the Jay Patel. He's the senior vice president and general manager, cloud provider, software business unit, being where enemies of the people are nice. Well, so, uh so first off, how you like the digs appear >> beautiful place and the fact we're part of the innovation team. Thank you for that. It's so let's just >> dive into it. So a lot of crazy stuff happening in the market place a lot of conversations about hybrid cloud, multi cloud, different cloud, public cloud movement of Back and forth from Cloud. Just wanted. Get your perspective a day. You guys have been in the Middle East for a while. Where are we in this kind of evolution? It still kind of feeling themselves out. Is it? We're kind of past the first inning, so now things are settling down. How do you kind of you. Evolution is a great >> question, and I think that was a really nice job of defining the two definitions. What's hybrid worse is multi and simply put hybrid. We look at hybrid as when you have consistent infrastructure. It's the same infrastructure, regardless of location. Multi is when you have disparate infrastructure. We're using them in a collective. So just from a level setting perspective, the taxonomy starting to get standardized industry starting to recognize hybrid is a reality. It's not a step in the long journey. It is an operating model that's gonna be exists for a long time, so it's no longer about location. It's a lot harder. You operate in a multi cloud and a hybrid cloud world and together, right extension BM would have a unique opportunity. Also, the technology provider Accenture, as a top leader in helping customers figure out where best to land their workload in this hybrid multicolored world, because workloads are driving decisions right and one of the year in this hybrid medical world for many years to come. But >> do I need another layer of abstraction? Cause I probably have some stuff that's in hybrid. I probably have some stuff in multi, right, because those were probably not much in >> the way we talked a lot about this, and Larry and I were >> chatting as well about this. And the reality is, the reason you choose a specific cloud is for those native different share capability. Abstraction should be just enough so you can make were close portable, really use the caper berry natively as possible right, and by fact, that we now with being where have a native VM we're running on every major hyper scaler, right? And on. Prem gives you that flexibility. You want off not having to abstract away the goodness off the cloud while having a common and consistent infrastructure. What tapping into the innovations that the public cloud brings. So it is a evolution of what we've been doing together from a private cloud perspective to extend that beyond the data center to really make it operating model. That's independent location, right? >> Solarium cures your perspective. When you work with customers, how do you help them frame this? I mean, I always feel so sorry for corporate CEOs. I mean, they got >> complexities on the doors are already going on >> like crazy that GDP are now, I think, right, The California regs. That'll probably go national. They have so many things to be worried about. They got to keep up on the latest technology. What's happening in containers away. I thought it was Dr Knight. Tell me it's kubernetes. I mean, it's really tough. So how >> do you help them? Kind of. It's got a shot with the foundation. >> I mean, you look at cloud, you look at infrastructure more broadly. I mean, it's there to serve the applications, and it's the applications that really drive business value. So I think the starting point has to be application lead. So we start off. We have are intelligent. Engineering guys are platform guys. You really come in and look And do you know an application modernisation strategy? So they'll do an assessment. You know, most of our clients, given their scale and complexity, usually have from 520,000 applications, very large estates, and they got to start to freak out. Okay, what's my current application's? You know, you're a lot of times I use the six R's methodology, and they say, OK, what is it that I I'm gonna retire. This I'm no longer needed no longer is business value, or I'm gonna, you know, replace this with sass. Well, you know, Yeah, if I move it to sales force, for example, or service now mattress. Ah, and then they're gonna start to look at their their workloads and say OK, you know, I don't need to re factor reform at this, you know, re hosted. You know, when one and things obviously be Emily has done a fantastic job is allowing you to re hosted using their softer to find a data center in the hyper scale er's environments >> that we called it just, you know, my great and then modernized. But >> the modern eyes can't be missed. I think that's where a lot of times you see clients kind of getting the trap Hammer's gonna migrate and then figure it out. You need to start tohave a modernisation strategy and then because that's ultimately going to dictate your multi and your hybrid cloud approaches, is how they're zaps evolve and, you know, they know the dispositions of those abs to figure out How do they get replaced? What data sets need to be adjacent to each other? So >> right, so a j you know, we were there when when Pat was with Andy and talking about, you know, Veum, Where on AWS. And then, you know, Sanjay has shown up, but everybody else's conferences a Google cloud talking about you know, Veum. Where? On Google Cloud. I'm sure there was a Microsoft show I probably missed. You guys were probably there to know it. It's kind of interesting, right from the outside looking in You guys are not a public cloud per se. And yet you've come up with this great strategy to give customers the options to adopt being We're in a public hot. And then now we're seeing where even the public cloud providers are saying here, stick this box in your data center and Frank, this little it's like a little piece of our cloud of floating around in your data center. So talk about the evolution of the strategy is kind of what you guys are thinking about because you know, you're cleared in a leadership position, making a lot of interesting acquisitions. How are you guys see this evolving? And how are you placing your bets? >> You know, that has been always consistent about this. Annie. Any strategy, whether it's any cloud, was any device, you know, any workload if you will, or application. And as we started to think about it, right, one of the big things be focused on was meeting the customer where he's out on its journey. Depending on the customer, let me simply be trying to figure out looking at the data center all the way to how the drive in digital transformation effort in a partner like Accenture, who has the breadth and depth and something, the vertical expertise and the insight. That's what customers looking for. Help me figure out in my journey. First tell me where, Matt, Where am I going and how I make that happen? And what we've done in a clever way, in many ways is we've created the market. We've demonstrated that VM where's the omen? Consistent infrastructure that you can bet on and leverage the benefits of the private or public cloud. And I You know, I often say hybrids a two way street. Now, which is you're bringing Maur more hybrid Cloud service is on Prem. And where is he? On Premise now the edge. I was talking to the centering folks and they were saying the mitral edge. So you're starting to see the workloads, And I think you said almost 40 plus percent off future workers that are gonna be in the central cloud. >> Yeah, actually, is an interesting stat out there. 20 years 2020 to 70% of data will be produced and processed outside the cloud. So I mean, the the edges about, you know, as we were on the tipping point of, you know, I ot finally taking off beyond, you know, smart meters. You know, we're gonna see a huge amount of data proliferate out there. So, I mean, the lines between public and private income literary output you look at, you know, Anthony, you know, as your staff for ages. So you know, And that's where you know, I think I am where strategy is coming to fruition >> sometime. It's great, >> you know, when you have a point of view and you stick with it >> against a conventional wisdom, suddenly end up together and then all of a sudden everyone's falling to hurt and you're like, This is great, but I >> hit on the point about the vertical ization. Every one of our client wth e different industries have very different has there and to the meeting that you know the customer, you know, where they're on their journey. I mean, if you talk to a pharmaceutical, you know, geekspeak compliance. Big private cloud started to dip their toes into public. You know, you go to minds and they're being very aggressive public. So >> every manufacturing with EJ boat back in >> the back, coming to it really varies by industry. >> And that's, you know, that's a very interesting here. Like if you look at all the ot environment. So the manufacturing we started see a lot of end of life of environment. So what's that? Next generation, you know, of control system's gonna run on >> interesting on the edge >> because and you've brought of networking a couple times where we've been talking it, you know, and as as, ah, potential gate right when I was still in the gates. But we're seeing Maura where we're at a cool event Churchill Club, when they had Xilinx micron and arm talking about, you know, shifting Maur that compute and store on these edge devices ti to accommodate, which you said, you know, how much of that stuff can you do at the adverse is putting in. But what I think is interesting is how are you going to manage that? There is a whole different level of management complexity when now you've got this different level of you're looting and security times many, many thousands of these devices all over the place. >> You might have heard >> recent announcements from being where around the carbon black acquisition right that combined with our work space one and the pulse I ot well, >> I'm now >> giving you a management framework with It's what people for things or devices and that consistency. Security on the client tied with the network security with NSX all the way to the data center, security were signed. A look at what we call intrinsic security. How do we bake and securing the platform and start solving these end to end and have a park. My rec center helped design these next generation application architectures are distributed by design. Where >> do you put a fence? You're you could put a fence around your data center, >> but your APP is using service now. Another SAS service is so hard to talk to an application boundary in the sea security model around that. It's a very interesting time. >> You hear a lot of you hear a >> lot about a partnership around softer to find data center on networking with Bello and NSX. But we're actually been spending a lot of time with the i o. T. Team and really looking at and a lot of our vision, the lines. I mean, you actually looked that they've been work similarly, agent technology with Leo where you know, ultimately the edge computing for io ti is gonna have to be containerized because you can need multiple middleware stacks supporting different vertical applications, right? We're actually you know what we're working with with one mind where we started off doing video analytics for predictive, you know, maintenance on tires for tractors, which are really expensive. The shovels, It's after we started pushing the data stream up it with a video stream up into azure. But the network became a bottleneck looking into fidelity. So we gotta process there. They're not looking autonomous vehicles which need eight megabits low laden C band with, you know, sitting at the the edge. Those two applications will need to co exist. And you know why we may have as your edge running, you know, in a container down, you know, doing the video analytics. If Caterpillar chooses, you know, Green Grass or Jasper that's going to co exist. So you see how the whole container ization that were started seeing the data center push out there on the other side of the pulse of the management of the edge is gonna be very difficult. I >> need a whole new frontier, absolutely >> moving forward. And with five g and telco. And they're trying to provide evaluated service is So what does that mean from an infrastructure perspective. Right? Right, Right. When do you stay on the five g radio network? Worse is jumping on the back line. And when do you move data? Where's his process? On the edge. Those all business decisions that need to be doing to some framework. >> You guys were going, >> we could go on. Go on, go. But I want to Don't fall upon your Segway from containers because containers were such an important part of this story and an enabler to the story. And, you know, you guys been aggressive. Move with hefty Oh, we've had Craig McCloskey, honor. He was still at Google and Dan great guys, but it's kind of funny, right? Cause three years ago, everyone's going to Dr Khan, right? I was like that were about shows that was hot show. Now doctors kind of faded and and kubernetes has really taken off. Why, for people that aren't familiar with kubernetes, they probably here to cocktail parties. If they live in the Bay Area, why's containers such an important enabler? And what's so special about Coburn? 80 specifically. >> Do you wanna go >> on the way? Don't talk about my products. I mean, if you >> look at the world is getting much more dynamics on the, you know, particularly you start to get more digitally to couple applications you started. You know, we've gone from a world where a virtual machine might have been up for months or years. Toe, You know, obviously you have containers that are much more dynamic, allowed to scale quickly, and then they need to be orchestrated. That's essential. Kubernetes does is just really starts to orchestrate that. And as we get more distributed workloads, you need to coordinate them. You need to be able to scale up as you need it for performance, etcetera. So kubernetes an incredible technology that allows you really to optimize, you know, the placement of that. So just like the virtual machine changed, how we compute containers now gives us a much more flexible portable. You know that, you know you can run on anything infrastructure, any location, you know, closer to the data, et cetera. To do that. And I >> think the bold movie >> made is, you know, we finally, after working with customers and partners like century, we have a very comprehensive strategy. We announced Project Enzo, a philosophy in world and Project tansy really focused on three aspects of containers. How do you build applications, which is pivotal in that mansion? People's driven around. How do we run these arm? A robust enterprise class run time. And what if you could take every V sphere SX out there and make it a container platform? Now we have half a million customers. 70 million be EMS, all of sudden that run time. We're continue enabling with the Project Pacific Soviets. Year seven becomes a commonplace for running containers, and I am so that debate of'em czar containers done gone well, one place or just spin up containers and resource is. And then the more important part is How do I manage this? You said, becoming more of a platform not just an orchestration technology, but a platform for how do I manage applications where I deploy them where it makes most sense, right? Have decoupled. My application needs from the resource is, and Coburn is becoming the platform that allows me to port of Lee. I'm the old job Web logic guy, right? >> So this is like distributed Rabb logic job on steroids, running across clouds. Pretty exciting for a middle where guy This is the next generation and the way you just said, >> And two, that's the enabling infrastructure that will allow it to roll into future things like devices. Because now you've got that connection >> with the fabric, and that's working. Becomes a key part of one of the key >> things, and this is gonna be the hard part is optimization. So how do we optimize across particularly performance, but even costs? >> You're rewiring secure, exact unavailability, >> Right? So still, I think my all time favorite business book is Clayton Christians. An innovator's dilemma. And in one of the most important lessons in that book is What are you optimizing four. And by rule, you can't optimize for everything equally you have to you have to rank order. But what I find really interesting in this conversation in where we're going in the complexity of the throughput, the complexity of the size of the data sets the complexity of what am I optimizing for now? Just begs for applied a I or this is not This is not a people problem to solve. This is this >> is gonna be all right. So you look at >> that, you know, kind of opportunity to now apply A I over the top of this thing opens up tremendous opportunity. >> Standardize infrastructural auditory allows you to >> get more metrics that allows you to build models to optimize infrastructure over time. >> And humans >> just can't get their head around me because you do have to optimize across multiple mentions. His performances cost, but then that performances gets compute. It's the network, I mean. In fact, the network's always gonna be the bottlenecks. You look at it even with five G, which is an order of magnitude, more bandwidth from throughput, the network will still lag. I mean, you go back to Moore's Law, right? It's Ah, even though it's extended to 24 months, price performance doubles. The amount of data potentially can kick in and you know exponentially grow on. Networks don't keep pays, so that optimization is constantly going to be tuned. And as we get even with increases in network, we have to keep balancing that right. >> But it's also the business >> optimization beyond the infrastructure optimization. For instance, if you're running a big power generation field of a bunch of turbines, right, you may wanna optimize for maintenance because things were running at some steady state. But maybe there's oil crisis or this or that. Suddenly the price, right? You're like, forget the maintenance. Right now we've got you know, we >> got a radio controlled you start about other >> than a dynamic industry. How do I really time change the behavior, right? Right. And more and more policy driven. Where the infrastructure smart enough to react based on the policy change you made. >> That's the world we >> want to get to. And we're far away from that, right? >> Yeah. I mean, I think so. Ultimately, I think the Cuban honeys controller gets an A I overlay and the operators of the future of tuning the Aye aye engines that optimizing, >> right? Right. And then we run into the whole thing, which we've talked about many times in this building with Dr Room, A child re from a center. Then you got the whole ethics overlay on top of the thing. That's a whole different conversation from their day. So before we wrap kind of just want to give you kind of last thoughts. Um, as you know, customers Aaron, all different stages of their journey. Hopefully, most of them are at least at least off the first square, I would imagine on the monopoly board What does you know, kind of just top level things that you would tell people that they really need just to keep always at the top is they're starting to make these considerations, starting to make these investments starting to move workloads around that they should always have kind of top >> of mind. For me, it's very simple. It's really about focused on the business outcome. Leverage the best resource for the right need and design. Architectures are flexible that give you a choice. You're not locked in and look for strategic partners with this technology partners or service's partners that alive you to guide because the complexities too high the number of choices that too high. You need someone with the breath in depth to give you that platform in which you can operate on. So we want to be the digital kind of the ubiquitous platform. From a software perspective, Neck Centuries wants to be that single partner who can help them guide on the journey. So I think that would be my ask. It's not thinking about who are your strategic partners. What is your architecture and the choices you're making that gave you that flexibility to evolve. Because this is a dynamic market. What should make decisions today? I mean, I'll be the one you need >> six months even. Yeah. And And it's And that that dynamic that dynamics is, um is accelerating if you look at it. I mean, we've all seen change in the industry of decades in the industry, but the rate of change now the pace, you know, things are moving so quickly. >> I mean, little >> respond competitive or business or in our industry regulations, right. You have to be prepared for >> Yeah. Well, gentlemen, thanks for taking a few minutes and ah, great conversation. Clearly, you're in a very good space because it's not getting any less complicated in >> Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Larry. Ajay, I'm Jeff. You're watching the Cube. >> We are top of San Francisco in the Salesforce Tower at the center Innovation hub. Thanks for watching. We'll see next time. Quick

>> From Palo Alto, California, it's theCUBE. Covering VMware, Women Transforming Technology 2019. Brought to you by VMware. >> Hi, Lisa Martin, on the ground with theCUBE, at Vmware in Palo Alto, California at the fourth annual Women Transforming Technology event, WT-squared. Love this event. So excited to welcome back to theCUBE Betsy Sutter, VMware's Chief People Officer. Betsy, this event is incredible, year after year. >> Yeah. >> How do you do it? >> I don't do it. A team of people do it. But I love it and I love it that you're here. You're as passionate about this as I am. Our fourth! And this one is bigger and better than ever. I love it. And, you know, it's really all about just connecting women so we can continue to innovate and shape the future. So, super fun! >> It is super fun. One of the things that I love is that as soon as you walk onto the campus in the morning, ahead of the event, even walking up to registration, you can feel positivity, sharing, collaboration, experiences being shared. This community movement-- you literally can feel it. And then we walked in, your opening keynote this morning. >> Yeah, wasn't she amazing? Joy Buolamwini >> Wow. Amazing. What she was sharing. Breakthrough data of all the biases that are being built into just facial recognition software alone. >> Yeah. >> Her passion for highlighting the bias and then identifying it and then mitigating it, that passion was not only coming from her, but the entire audience. In person, I can imagine the livestream, just got it. >> Yeah. You know, she is amazing. I mean, she's an innovator. I mean, she's a brainiac. She's funny, she's artsy. But she's an innovator. But what's interesting about her is she's an inclusive innovator. Right? It's all about inclusion and I love her approach to this. I just spent an hour with her in a Fireside Chat where a number of us got to have a conversation with her and she's about as interesting as anybody I've ever met in terms of where she's taking this research so that she can create, just a better world. >> And she's doing that. One of the things that was, the word inclusivity kind of popped up, and intersectionality, a number of times, where she was showing data, AI data, from Microsoft, IBM, Face++, and just showing the massive differences in those data sets alone, so the whole inclusivity theme was very paralleled, in my opinion, but she's actually getting these companies to start evaluating their data sets to change that so that Oprah Winfrey, for example, face recognition doesn't come up as a male. >> That's right. Yeah, she has done some interesting, interesting work, and she's not approaching it as if it's a race issue in particular, right. She's taking a completely different, very positive approach, to highlighting a real problem. I mean, we knew that inclusion is a challenge in technology, but inclusion in artificial intelligence is by far worse, and I love it that she's unpacking that. >> I also love that, as a marketer, I loved how she formed the Algorithmic Justice League. >> Right. >> I couldn't think of a better name, myself. But that she's seeing three tenets of that. One is highlight the bias. >> That's right. >> And I thought, that's awareness. There needs to be more awareness of that because my mind was blown seeing these models today, and then she brings in Amazon and shows them, look at your data sets. >> Right. >> And so there needs to be more awareness, consistent awareness, it's kind of classic marketing of, there are a lot of challenges, but AI is so pervasive, I can imagine a lot of baby boomers probably have iPhones with facial recognition and don't understand, wow, even that, unlocking my phone, is a problem. How deep does this go across emerging technologies that are being developed today? >> That's right. And then she just talks about, in such broad terms, I mean she has a global mind around the social impact that this is having, whether it's in artwork, whether it's in self-driving car technologies, whatever it is. I mean, it's huge. And she's able to kind of look out and think about it in that light. And given the work that we're doing at VMware around inclusion and diversity, it's kind of a fresh new angle to really unpacking the layers of complexity that face these issues. >> Yeah, you're right. That was a thing that also caught my attention was there were so many layers of bias. >> Yeah, yeah. >> We can think of, you know, the numbers of women, or lack thereof, in technology. One of the things that Joy said, kind of along the parallels of layers was, the under-represented majority, as she says, it's women and people of color. >> That's right. >> It's layer upon layer upon layer. >> It is. >> Wow. Just cracking the surface. >> She's just scratching things, but the way she's doing her approach, I think, just brings a whole new light to this. I'm very grateful that she was able to speak to all of us, right. It's really about bringing women together to have these kinds of conversations so we can start to think about how we want to innovate and shape the future. She also touches on just this aspect of communities, which I love. And, you know, I've long said that people join communities, not companies, per se, and one of the things that we've done at VMware is tried to think about how do you create an inclusive culture, if you will, that embraces all sorts of communities. And Joy just started talking about a whole new dimension to how we think about that, which was fun. >> So you have been at the helm of people at VMware for a long time. >> I have. >> Lots of transformation. >> Yeah. >> I'm curious to get your, if you look back at the last four years now of WT-squared, how have you learned from even just speakers like Joy and helped to transform not just WT-squared but VMware, its diversity and inclusion efforts in and of themself? >> Yeah, you know, one of the things that I love about VMware and I love about WT-squared is that it's really a consortium or a collective of companies coming together, so this is not a VMware branded event, or a VMware event just by itself. It's just a collective. And then we try and broaden that circle so we can have more and more conversation. And I think that's what I'm most pleased with, I mean, we work hard at making sure that this collective is involved from the get-go in terms of, what do we want to talk about, so we can have the real and relevant conversations about inclusion and diversity, especially as women in tech, which, in some regards, is getting better, but in many, it's just not, and so how do you double down on that in an authentic way and really get business results. >> Exactly. It's all about getting business results. >> It is. >> One of the things that surprises me, in some cases, is when you see, whether it's from McKenzie or whatnot, different studies that show how much more profitable businesses are with women at the executive levels, and it just, that seems like a no-brainer, yet there's so many, the lack of women in technology, but also the attrition rates. >> Yeah. >> Really staggering, if you look at it, compared to any other industries. >> That's right. And, you know, we have a longstanding relationship with Stanford. >> Yes. >> The Clayman Institute. VMware helped found the VMware Stanford Women's Leadership Innovation Lab, which I'm exceedingly proud of. But, yeah, research shows this over and over. But one of the things that I love about my work is bridging that into how corporations operate and how people just work at work, and so that keeps me intellectually engaged, I'll say that, for sure. But, yeah, that is the big challenge. >> I'm also, what I love, just observing the attendees at the event, is you see all age levels. >> Yeah, I love that, too. >> And you have the tracks, the Emerging Leaders track for those who are younger, earlier in their career, The Executive track, the Technical track, and you've got a track about of sharing best practices, which I also love, or just hearing stories of, "How did you face this obstacle, maybe it wasn't, that didn't cause you to turn, or to leave the industry?" I think those are so important to help share. "Oh my God, I'm going through the same thing," for example. But might just help the next, or not just the next generation, but even those of us who might be middle-career from not leaving and going, "Okay, maybe it's the situation, I need to get into a different department, a different company, but I love technology and I'm going to stay no matter what." >> Yeah. Keeping those conversations elevated is one aspect of this, but then to your point, the cross-pollination of all these different kinds of women and what they've experienced in tech, the panel today was amazing, right. We had Ray, we had Lisa, and we had Susan. All different perspectives, different generations, but talking about sort of their challenges as they've navigated this, and where they all want to see it go. So I do think there's a bit of a common vision for where we want this to go, which is wonderful, but bringing all these different perspectives is the differential. And that's what we do here. We try and replicate that. And what will happen all through the day as I go to those different tracks, I'll hear from these different women and the questions are always just a blast to hear, right, because I learn so much from what's top-of-mind, what's keeping people up at night as they venture into tech and continue into tech. >> Anything in particular that surprises you? >> You know, one young woman asked me about my concern around communication and interaction because of how technology's affected how people do that-- rarely face-to-face like you and I are right now. And there're so many other visual and sensory cues that go into having a conversation with another human being, so we had a great conversation about what's good about it from a technology standpoint, and what's bad about it, and I think that's actually what Joy was talking about in her talk today, as well. But I was pleased that a very young person asked me that question. I know people of my generation, we talk about it, but it was fun to hear, kind of inspiring to hear a younger person say, "Is this all good?" >> Well and you're right, it probably was a nice, pleasant, refreshing surprise because we think of younger generations as, kind of, you say, cloud-native or born of the cloud, born on the phone, who are so used to communicating through different social media platforms. To hear that generation saying, you know, or even bringing it to our attention, like, "Shouldn't we be actually talking in person or by using technology like video conferencing and zoom things for engaging?" Think of how many people wouldn't fall asleep in meetings if video conferencing was required? >> That's right. That's exactly right. And another woman, a little further along in her career, what was weighing on her was how she stayed being a responsible and ethical person when she doesn't really know all the ingredients of what she's helping to create. And that's just a mindset that I haven't heard before. I thought that was wonderful. >> That is. Because we often talk about responsibility and accountability with respect to data science or AI, for example. It's interesting to hear an individual contributor talking about, "Where do I fall in that accountability/responsibility spectrum?" Is not a common question. >> No, and you know, we think we're creating a world of more transparency but, really, when you're coding you're not really sure what might happen with that code. And I thought Susan Fowler did a lovely job talking about that today on the panel, as well. That there's a huge responsibility in terms of what you're doing. So connecting those dots, understanding all the ingredients, I think corporations like VMware, and VMware does this in large part today, it gets harder, it's more complex, but we're going to have to answer those questions about what kind of pie or cake are we really baking with this, right? >> Exactly. Exactly. Could you have, if you looked back to when you first joined VMware, envisioned all of the transformation and the strength in community and numbers that you're helping to achieve with women transforming technology? >> I really couldn't. I mean, the industry is amazing, you know, I was at the right place at the right time and got to ride this tech wave. It's been great. No, I couldn't have imagined it, and now things are moving at an unprecedented place, things are much more complex. I have to call my adult children to get input onto this, that, and the other. >> (laughs) >> But no, it is a dream come true. It's been an absolute honor and privilege for me to be a part of this. I love it. >> When you talk with VMware partners or customers, are they looking to-- Betsy, how have you been able to build this groundswell and maintain it? >> Yeah, you know, my focus is primarily on the culture and the environment of the company, and I'm a really good listener. So that's the key. >> It is key. You just listen and pay attention to what people are saying, what matters to them, what's bothering them, and you continue to hold on to, sort of, those, you know, those North Stars of what you're trying to build and I always knew that I wanted to build the sustainable cultures, something that would last the test of time. So we're at 21 years. I've done 19 of them, so it's been great. You know, but you want to make sure you keep that rebar in the ground as you continue to build up. This community is solid. They're doin' it. Yeah, it's great. >> And it must be receptive. We talked about companies or leaders or businesses being receptive to change. I think I talked about that with Caroline and Shannon, who were part of that panel, and said, you know, oftentimes, we're talking with leaders, again, business units, companies, who aren't receptive to that change. Cultural change is really difficult, but it's essential. I was talking with Michael Dell a few months ago at Boomi World and said, "How have you managed as Dell has grown so massively to change the culture in a way that, you know, enables that growth?" It's a really hard thing to do. But for companies to do digital transformation and IT transformation, the culture, the people have to be receptive. I think, to one of your strengths, they have to be willing to listen. >> Yeah. And you never really arrive, right. So you constantly are in beta mode in the world, and so if you never assume that you've arrived, then you can pause, or that you just constantly want to beta things, then you have an edge, and I think Michael Dell's clearly got vision around that, right. I know Pat Gelsinger does, too. And so I like just partnering with those great minds, those great business and strategic minds, and then just building on the people component or the cultural component. But I, too, I'm constantly trying to produce new products and pay attention to what the customer wants. >> When you see things in the news like some of the harassment issues, say, for example, that Uber has experienced, I imagine you're watching the news or reading it and you're thinking, if I could just say three things to those people. When you see things like that, what are the top three things you would recommend that, not in reaction, though, but how can that culture change to deliver the customer experience, ultimately, that they need to, but what are some of the things that you think, these are easy fixes? >> Yeah, I think in watching a lot of my companies in the industry and how they've responded, for me, my advice would be, you should elevate that conversation. That conversation's not going to go away. And so you need to elevate it, give it a lot of sunlight and oxygen, really understand it, don't try and move away from it, don't push it down. And that's something we do at VMware, we're constantly elevating the conversation. One of the things I love about this culture, it's made me a lot better at what I do, is I can always answer the question, "Why are we doing that?" And so that's, why are we doing that? And if I can't answer why, we have a problem. And a why just sort of symbolizes intellectual curiosity, right, so that's what we're trying to keep alive and that's what I tell my other colleagues in the industry is just keep that conversation going: there's no quick fix to this, people are complex, don't pretend you really know. So elevate it and let's get to really know each other a lot better. >> And there's so much good that can come from any sort of blight or negativity, there really is, but you're right. Especially in this day and age, with everything being on camera, you can't hide. >> And, you know, it's okay to admit that you made a mistake. >> I agree. >> It's really okay. And so there's something about that that we've got to get back. >> I think it's one of the most admirable things of any human trait or corporation is just admitting, ah, this was the wrong turn, >> Right. >> I said the wrong thing. >> You know what, we made a mistake. We've course-corrected. >> I'm human. >> Yes. >> Exactly. >> Exactly. >> So we talked about Joy opening things off today and Ashley Judd-- >> I know, I can't wait. >> I bet you can't wait. She is the closing keynote. What are the things that inspire you about Ashley's work? >> I just think that she's wicked-smart. And I think she's using her platform in a really powerful way. And for her to want to come here and speak to us just reflects her passion, and the juxtaposition of Joy with Ashley is fabulous, right. Really gives you a lot to think about, so I can't wait to see Ashley. >> And just even juxtaposing those two, like you said, you can just see massive diversity there, in thought, in background, and experience, in life experiences, but both coming from different perspectives and different angles that can be so inspirational >> Yeah. To all of us in the audience. >> Yeah, and positive. You know, they're taking this positive approach to this movement and, yeah, very different women, but both really, really smart, very passionate. Resilient, clearly. And persistent. They're going to keep movin' it forward. >> Persistence is the key. So, great event so far. It's not even over, but what are your dreams for next year's event? >> Oh, we just have to keep going. I'd love to see more companies join the consortium. We've learned a couple things about, we just are going to start the conversation earlier about what we want the event to be. We love hosting people on the campus, obviously, and luckily we have terrific weather today, but I would just like to see companies come together and have the conversation, and that was really the impetus for this, is that we wanted to make sure we got a lot of diverse perspectives that were dealing with these real issues, and let's talk about what women in technology at all levels, as you pointed out, what's top-of-mind for them? And what do they need to have the conversation about? Let's bring 'em together, let's let 'em connect and start to innovate and create the future. >> Well I'm already looking forward to next year, Betsy. >> Yeah, me too. >> It's been such a pleasure to talk to you again. >> Thank you, Lisa. >> Thank you so much for spending time with me on theCUBE today. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate your time. >> Super fun. >> Good. You're watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Women Transforming Technology, the fourth annual. Thanks for watching. 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>> from Palo Alto, California It's the Cube covering the EM Where women transforming technology twenty nineteen. Brought to you by V. M. Where. >> Hi Lisa Martin with the Cube on the ground at the end. Where. Palo Alto, California For the fourth Annual Women Transforming Technology Even W squared. Excited to welcome back to the Cube. Kathy Chou, VP of R and D. Operations and central services at work. Cappy. It's a pleasure to have you back. It's one of you will be back. So you and I saw each other this morning. Big hug. This is one of my favorite events to be at, and I'm proud to be here with the cute because this this authentic community of women is unlike anything that I've really seen or felt in a long time. Fourth annual. I know it's grown over the last year. What do you What are some of your thoughts, even just walking in the doors this morning? Well, it's funny. It is the fourth annual and I I've been toe all four. The very first time I came, I was not a B M or employee, and I fell in love with the company. The campus because it was the very first time. And every single time I come to one of these events, I either meet someone or multiple people better fantastics or learn multiple things that will help me do what I need to do and I will tell you, and I'm not just saying cause you're here. But last year when I met you, I just felt like there was an instant spark. And like you say at these conferences, don't you feel it's safe? You can. You could be authentic. You could be who you want to be. You could be vulnerable, right? And as we can learn with each other, we can share what we need to work on. You move on and we can also Peter chests a little bit right for stuff that we've done well that sharing is so critical. Eye all the women that I've spoken to today we look at even our own career. Trajectories are looking at a lot of the statistics of the loan numbers that women technology where where is the attrition happening? What's happening in and grade school in middle school when girls, you know between seven and twelve years old, way have to help each other build up cos it's just and I think there's no better >> way than sharing stories and cheer point that means being vulnerable. I think vulnerability is one of the best price you can exhibit, period. But it used truly conceit and feel the impact Hearing. >> As you've said, you've seen that over the last four years that this is really an authentic community in every >> sense of the word. Absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned quite a few things that I'd like to talk about. So first, is these >> young. Let's start first with diversity. Okay, I know a lot of people do talk aboutthe. They think of gender diversity or ethnic diversity. Diversity of the capital. >> Dia's much broader, right? It's okay. Diversity of experience, education, you know, geography, seniority, right. There's all different types of diversity. But if we do hope, focus in a little bit on young girls. Right? Because you think about that. I was just in the I wish conference in Cork, Ireland. Stop back. Yeah. And what was amazing about that was so this is all of Court County. They had all of the what they called secondary school girls every single one of them for two days at this conference. But they got to listen to speakers from all over the world to give them that confidence to stay in, because statistics are when they're in primary school or middle school. Right? Girls say I want to be a computer scientist. I wantto do this techie thing. I'm gonna do Sam with them when they go to high school there, given all these messages like, you can't do it and you don't look like a computer scientist, right? And then all of a sudden it gets It becomes because in her head and it really does affect our confidence. And then, sad to say, years and years ago, when I graduated from college, there was only nine percent of the women were mechanical engineers. Sad to say today, that number is not challenged much. Do something just conferences like these that give us the courage to be better mentors and sponsors of those that will come after us. >> I agree. I think that it's and in some cases it seems like it's so simple where we make I don't think we're making this so hard, but I think that having the opportunity of a community to just have okay like minded people in terms of experiences that they shared well, how did you get through this barrier of, for example, you know, really kind of dissecting to your point diversity with a capital B. There's so many layers to that. What does that mean? How do we achieve it? I mean, if you look at a lot of the statistics companies that have you say females, uh, on the executive staff are like twenty seven percent more profitable. Yes, the amount of oven of reinvesting of income that women do back into the community. Their family's one of the things, Joy said this morning in her keynote joyful Fulham. We need him saying that, >> right? So is it looking at women and people of color as the underrepresented majority that that was absolutely spot on? I absolutely >> thought it was spot on this well, and you know, if you think about it, think about these experiences. You know again about diversity. There's a new dawn. It's a new phrase. But intersectionality is the word, which means, you know Okay, you're a woman. I'm a woman. I'm an Asian woman, But I'm also a woman that lived on the East Coast. I went to these sorts of schools. I had these types of experiences. So what it means is everyone bring something to the table. So if you really think about diversity now, we'LL hear this talk about inclusion. That's kind of the big word. And I've I've actually witnessed this myself on my own team because if you look at my direct staff on paper, when you look at them, they look very diverse. But actually diversity. That's like the tip of the iceberg. What you see is only the little piece when you bring down, get to those deeper layers. You realize, >> really how diverse team Miss Wright of spiritual >> diversity, experiential all of that and by including and created a inclusive environment were able to get the most out of diversity. And I think that's how you do it, because I thought about this. When you single out groups, you're not being inclusive, right? That's a good point. So I think the goal is to get what we can call the model. What we think is the majority, which is the minority to embrace the underrepresented majority and >> your perspective? How do you think V m? Where is doing on that? I was talking with Betsy said earlier, and some other folks and learned that the eggs I don't know how far down this goes, but at least execs are actually their bonuses are related to our tied to diversity and inclusion. That's a huge kind of bold statement that a company like the Mars making, not just to the tech industry, but every industry. Where do you think the emperor is on this journey of really identifying diversity and inclusion and actually starting to realise the positive impact? >> Yes. So first of all, I think you said something earlier. This is a It's an epidemic situation. OK, in that I do tell me, almost in every industry, there isthe right entertainment manufacturing, high tech, legal, professional, whatever way, there's an issue with diversity, and you're absolutely right. The peace and above our bonuses air tied to diversity, inclusion the awareness of the, um, where is second of them. The interesting thing is, there's no silver bullet. If it were that easy, we would've solved it. So what? It iss. It's one of those things where I say it takes a village and it's little things like talk about inclusion earlier, right? Hey, when you have a meeting, make sure everyone's voices voices are heard. Doesn't matter who it is. I don't care if it's a woman and under represent minority or white male. It doesn't matter. You shouldn't it? It shouldn't right. Everyone should be heard. And I was just giving a breakout talk about when you increase. Inclusion will drive more innovation. And that's my job as a leader of six hundred folks in an RD organization is to create that culture that allows people to have confidence, to take risks, to be vulnerable, authentic and to innovate right and to do new things. And if I can create that culture of inclusion, it will drive those business results. >> I couldn't agree more Tell me about like since we spoke last year. I love that driving inclusion to drive innovation. What are some of the things that you've actually seen as outcomes? Maybe just for your team as well as your own expertise as a manager? >> Yes. So I've been with him where for two and a half years, and when I first came Basically my team was a compilation of three separate teams, so each of them traditional silo new themselves in their own style but did not understand the power of the team across. So at that time, no one team was greater than one hundred people. Okay, let's say now imagine a mighty force of six hundred strong marching in the same direction, trying to do things together. One of the things that we're trying to do is start to build platforms across our organization. And what are the commonalities? That that's the difference is what commonalities across our teams so that we can drive that innovation much more effectively and efficiently. And so those are some of the things that we're doing have another fun story to tell me. Everything that I do to try to create an inclusive environment, just have opportunities for team members to meet each other. It's a simple assed. Hey, I don't know. Lisa. Lisa, what do you do? Oh, my gosh. I have a project that might need your help. I don't know how many times when we were working in the silos would enter calling someone outside our team to get the expert advice when it was on her own. And so we had one event when we had two people that sat next to each other. They didn't know each other at all. One needed some machine learning expertise. The other one was in machine learning enthusiast Fast. They came together. They have now built a patent pending piece of micro service called instead ML. That's so, uh, that's what happens when people when you're included >> and you think, Why is it so difficult? In some cases, technology is sort of sort of fuels that right because we get so used to being I could do everything from here >> on the phone from an airplane from the hotel from home, from or ever so we get more >> used to being less communicative. Absolutely right, Tio. Let's actually let's let's go back to the olden days where there were, You know, there was no device and phoniness and actually have a conversation because to your point, suddenly are uncovering. Oh my gosh. All of these skill sets are here. What if we did nothing for years? >> You're speaking my language. Eso You're absolutely right. But there's this. They used to be this rule that's a new one you wanted to communicate to someone. You have to tell them something seven times, >> right, because they're busy doing other times on the age of social media, they say. Now it's eleven times. Oh, great. And how I got exactly. So how often have you seen people who are sitting like this and they're >> communicating with each other? Be attacks and they're sitting right here. Why, it's >> important to go back old school. By the way, I think I'm old school. >> Whenever I want to pick up the phone, talk to my kids. It's on the phone. I don't care if they're, uh, ready for me to talk >> to her, and I just called them. It's because when you're innovating, it's not just the mind, it's the heart. >> And when you catch those human relationships, right is what makes the innovation stick. It makes you want to do more. It makes you want to achieve greater heights. Then you would have cause you're invested. You see, when it's an academic exercise, it's like check the box. But when you're invested in your hearts and you I feel like I can't let Lisa down, believe me, you're going to get more in depth and more advanced innovation. >> So with that and kind of the empathy approach in love to get your perspectives on a I, we talk about it all the time at every event that we go to on the Cube globally. And there's different schools of thought. Aye, aye is fantastic. It's phenomenal. It's it's becoming new standard, even a baby boomers known to some degree what it is. Yes, then there's the It's taking jobs away yet, But he's going to create new jobs. Yes, and there's the whole ethics behind this morning. Joy really kind of showed us a lot of the models and facial recognition at big companies that are better being built with bias. But one of the things I think that I hear resoundingly at events is it's going to be a combination of humans and machines. Yes, because machines can learn a lot. But it's that heart that you just mentioned in that empathy that comes from the human. So do you see those two as essential forces coming together is a. I continues to grow and take over the world. >> It's essential. Like you say. Technology is very How do we sit? Neutral. Okay, If you put it in front of a bad actor, it becomes bad. If you put it in front of a good actor, it becomes good. Okay, so technology is neutral, right? So now the goal is how do >> we ensure that we Khun tamp down the bad actors, people who want to use it for bad? And >> by the way, I am a fundamental believer that there are some jobs that should be automated. >> I mean, come on, some of the And by the way, things >> in the health industry. When you have big data and you've got a lot of things, you have to process a lot of information so we could be more accurate on things. Um, there other examples of if it's not in check, it can go right, right. Where will Over reliance on machines. Unfortunately, the seven. Thirty seven max eight is an example of it being too smart, right, and that >> you needed the human to actually adjust. So now I think also kind of combining a lot of the topics that we talked about. We need to train our children to understand that this technology is here to stay and with each and every one of them, how can they take that wonderful technology and use it for good? And I think that's the whole that's peace around inclusion. That's the peace around, building confidence in these young people and being examples. And so we need more people like joy out there so that she can. She has now raised this flag up saying, Hey, did you realize this >> happen? We need more young people. By the way, she's very young person. I'm >> totally impressed with what she's been able to do in here great for years, very, very inspiring. But if we all did a >> little bit of what joy did, we could change the world. >> Absolutely. The accountability factor and the social responsibility is so important. I was impressed with her on many levels, but one of them was the impact that she's already making with with Microsoft, IBM, uh, and actually starting to impact facial recognition a. I based on the research that she's done and show them Hey, you've got some problems here. So she's She's kind of at that intersection of your point neutral technology, good actors, bad actors. Maybe it's not good or bad. It's just Well, this is the data that we have. And it's training the models to do this. Oh, the but the accountability in the responsibility that it appears that a Microsoft and IBM face plus plus and even Amazon that she said, Hey, guys, look at how far off your models are. It sounds like these companies are actually starting to take some accountability. Civility for >> that? Yes, well, I think she proved it in our talk because last year, right, the numbers were in the eighty eighty percent tiles, and now they're up to ninety five. So you know, she's saying, by kind >> of being that lightning rod on this issue, one person could make this amount of change. Imagine if all was just a fraction of what she did, right? I mean, I think, and again, I feel very because I'm older and I have my own children just inspiring this generation, too. We could build up more joys in this world. >> So you have four boys. Yes. How are you inspiring them to finally become good humans, but also to look at the technology, the opportunities that it creates to be inclusive why it's important that some of the lessons that even parted on your boys >> Yes, first of all, I've one thing that's really >> important to me is I want them to accept whoever their partner will be for whatever they want to do. So if their partner wants to stay home and then you support them, if they want to work and go, do you support them? But just be supportive, be that partner, whatever that is, that's really important. >> The other thing is, I think just >> my husband and I are excellent examples of how that isthe, because he's an orthodontist and I've got a busy high tech job. I'm traveling a lot. My husband does more than his fair share of the household duties, and we split things pretty evenly. So I hope they've seen witness. It's not just talk, it's action and that this can actually work. And fortunately, I'm >> boys are a little older now because if you begin in the beginning, I thought, Oh, working. I don't >> know how these boys are going to turn out right, but three of them are college age and older, and they really turned into some fantastic children. The youngest is on his path as well as a junior in high school. And, you know, and I also see the type of friends that they make and how they treat women and other people that are different from them, and it just makes me very proud. >> Think the world needs more? Kathy Chow's I really dio Are you going off to see Ashley Judd? Her? What? Some of the things that you're looking >> forward to hearing her talking. Well, it's funny. I just came from a VP session. She is I again. You see someone right on the screen and you see him as an actor and you heard about Time's up and her speech and that sort of thing. But way had, but how were we just answered? Questions. She is so thoughtful, so connected, so well spoken communicates in a way that really touches you. She's another one of those lightning rides. I think w t, too, didn't excellent job of getting English speakers this year. Uh, and it's very different from joy. It's much more from a from her view, in her mind went in arts, and Joyce was much more from a technical aspect. But messages are the same, right? It's to be inclusive, understanding, embrace diversity and be authentic. You >> inclusive animators. Kathy is so great to have you back on the Cube. And Charlie, I know we could keep chatting, but we thank you so much of your time. We can't wait for next year. Wait. Excellent. Thank you for the Cuban Lisa Martin. You're >> watching the show from women Transforming Technology, fourth annual somewhere. Thanks for watching.

>> from Palo Alto, California It's the Cube covering the EM Where women transforming technology twenty nineteen. Brought to you by V. M. Where. >> Lisa Martin on the ground at the end. Where in Palo Alto, California for the fourth annual Women Transforming Technology event. W. Squared one of my favorite events, and I'm pleased to welcome back to the Cube, one of the leader female leaders at being where Lily Chang, the VP of of the strategic transformation office. Lily, it's so great to have you on the program again. >> Thank you. It's my pleasure and honor to be here. >> So this event, one of my favorites, as I mentioned, even just walking up to registration this morning. The energy, the excitement, the supports >> is in the air. >> Yes, And then you walk into the keynote, and it was kicked off this morning with such an incredible presentation, and number was actually mentioned earlier. That was about fifteen hundred people just in person today, not even mentioning the live stream. So the momentum in just four years that you guys are creating is huge. >> Yes, Well, where is a great place for diversity and inclusion that is one of our companies. Strategic Motif Way believed that in order to basically create the best technology in the world, today was the evolution and the advancement >> off. All these technology working together, we're servicing all genders origin globally. So that means the creation of this. We >> need to bring all these culture aspect to bring into our design thinking. So when we saw the problem, we are not solving in in a mo no fashion way actually can look at multiple facets. So having this event is part of our passion is really part of our DNA. Now >> I think that's fantastic. That's inspirational for other companies to really look it. It's not just an event that Veum were put on. This is really changing the anywhere from within as well. >> Yes, this a change process has started quite a while ago. I would say inherently Arjun Attic nature off of'em were is that we actually >> do believe in all genders are original founder and CEO was a woman, right? And so we pioneered a virtual ization and we believe in woman leadership. We believe in all levels off woman innovation, together with man and all the origin globally in the >> world That's fantastic. So I wanted last year we talked with you, which was fantastic. We're happy to have you back. I want to talk about something that you guys recently launching aboutthe last year helping women return to work. Tell us about Tara and just >> helping women how they are able to get back into technology. >> Yes, so this is one of my favorite topic. Basically, we talked about glasses, ceilings for decades, about woman in terms of how you break two classes ceiling, how you identified, how you work around it and all the things. There is a huge transparent glasses ceiling being view worldwide for a long time, and that is basically woman care about the society. Women care about the family, so, so, so so all the genders as well. However, there's a lot of the woman were forced. They may be technically very achieving in terms with their career or academic side. They have to basically take care ofthe parenthood, take care of family for various personal reasons. After a couple of years, their passion for the technology still exist. They want to join the war force to propel the world, and basically especially now, was the technology is put to a lot of technology for good, to help sustainability, to help medical field, to help disabled people. All these >> things right, but they're having a little bit of >> difficulty to read. Enter the work face and that's a glass is silly because their technology knowledge may be a little bit dated because just away how in the past ten years how you were in all >> the other Giants has propelled technology so quickly changes so quickly like three months >> is almost like a decade nowadays, right is moving in that quantum speed. So what >> we have done is basically we decided to create a Tara project. Is a woman returned to work initiative and we're basically >> launching specifically, focus on India region, right? And basically we are funding fifteen thousand woman, and we are training them and brought him up to speed about technology. Especially, was our software different data center in virtual ization? Networking storage? Right. So we are giving them a certification program, and that is something in some part of the world. That certificate moves a lot. It's like a pedigree indicate that you not only believe you actually know all this you've got evidence that you really know it and they're people. I certify you so with that, that enable them to be able to jump back into the workforce was full qualification and was a virtual ization being dominant in the world, right? Basically, it's like something that it's really hot and really relevant and were also helping them to basically connect with our customers in India so that they actually could be interview for future positions as well. How so, basically, is a into end strategy transformation to break the huge glasses ceiling >> here. Thick glass ceilings. So you fifteen thousand women this >> has just >> launched last year. How long is the certification program that they >> go through? We want to be able to achieve that. Go in the next couple years, starting this year >> starting this year, fifteen thousand women in the next couple of years. >> In the next couple years >> way, I should have >> got a few thousands already. So in the beginning for the first quarter, two were making very decent progress and Wei have a community partner. Happens to be a woman who co because they have a worldwide organization and they're sending the community message out to promote this. We also working really closely with the Indian government to push for this, to get their recognition for this as well, because we believe that will be beneficial for these woman we brought back to the war force. There's multiple aspect is not just touching the hearts in the soul ofthe many, many family, but is also basically injecting quality, highly qualified, incompetent technical talent back into the India community and industry, so that actually can proliferate and elevate the entire India technology level. >> Two shaves >> Transformative. I feel like that word isn't even strong enough, Lulu. That's remarkable. The potential that has on you mentioned the involvement of women who could have been on the board there for quite a while >> for more than three years now. >> And I was looking at >> some numbers with growth of that community alone is incredible. Over one hundred eighty thousand members in twenty countries So far you've done over eight thousand training's workshops. Hackathons conferences over two point five million dollars has been awarded in developer school in conference scholarships. >> Wow, the momentum moment is very high. It is very hard, you >> said you're even launching another country this year. >> We So we're not sitting on saying OK, we're satisfied. We're never satisfied because the world goes on right? So does the word expand. Thus the technology excel itself. We want to basically leap ahead with all this. So we're not stopping. So this year will Mexico and being where we're launching Costa Rica za So we believe we actually opened a lot of the region of the world and unlock the energy and the innovation and the community's oh gender to work together in India, China, Sofia. And we worked really closely with a lot of the industry technical giants and woman Wilco propelling this tech woman community in us and also in Europe. Now we will leave Costa Rica. It's a very strategic side for bm where >> tell us a >> little bit more about why is it sister team is a >> strategic for a couple reasons we are doing also world we are working together was a global community and the global clock. So Costa Rica is tine zone wise very nicely either bridge in between the other time zone with us and also it's overlapping very well with us times. Oh, so they actually could do a lot of the key business execution, including operation and IT and customer support. Technical support. So we do have technical people over there, but not enough technical woman Momenta way also believe the country can really use some help from us. So we're working with a woman who co and this is a decision will be assessing for awhile. But we believe that ranch in Costa Rico Ashley make it a blossom in that region off the world, not just Costarica. We're kind of looking that we hope it becomes a hub >> That's incredible, just but also not just what you're doing with Tara and with expanding women who code to Costa Rica. It's also the opportunity for actual economic benefits to these countries. But what I also I'm hearing is that, for example, with Tara, you're No, it's not just it's a the end where myopic. We want more women to come back to the workforce the way we want them too injured to be introduced to our customer base so that they can network, >> and it tends to establish report >> other opportunities for employment. >> That's right, even though they do not get a particular position when they are connected to a customer that is a relationship, and that is something that will stay with that woman in that talent for walk. And that is something that we feel is very important to connect all these critical stakeholders together. So Tara has that faucet ahs well, >> and you mentioned that there's already been about a thousand or a couple of thousand >> of thousands already gone morning. >> Twenty five hundred, I believe, >> any favorite success stories that come to mind. >> Yes, my favorites is says Story is >> the very first Tara Certify Woman is a woman who co member, so we're very, very proud of that because that shows the partnership actually works. That means a lot of the technical curriculum and a monthly meet up and all these technical conference. That woman who was trying to do the scholarship they try to handle all those are kind of a cumulatively paying off. Was Tara being the major critical push to push them over that glass ceiling limit? Right? >> I just think that's fantastic. I was looking at the woman who could website just the other day, and I saw that your event it was sold out >> you connect >> twenty nineteen? >> That's right. >> But just the moment on the excitement, the support in this community that is growing, as we mentioned earlier, one hundred eighty thousand plus tell us about the connect event >> Connected is a technical conference. We do talk a little bit about. The leadership in this office is skilled, but it has motive. All technology track. In fact, this year what we want to do is we want to start basically elevating into technology domain track because we now have a very successful who created leadership role like a city director. City Italy. They incubated from Weston ten thousand member in the past three and a half years. Two hundred eighty thousand member. A lot of the kudos and credit go to them, but as a result, we have wealth, body off woman talent that are highly technical and highly versatile in many, many fields. Right, because we believe today, for a poor talent to be successful in technology field, you cannot just specialize in one. If you look at Coyote, you look at a blockchain, all these emerging stuff. It's not just about a Iot machine. Learning is also about virtual ization about how well you can do the logic and the analytics and the data mining and the algorithms. Right? So basically we want to have multiple technology track, and that would include things like cloud like Blough Chan. And then that gives also a possibility for one who quote to create a individual contributor volunteer track, like we want to basically launched a notion off a cloud architect, right? So give basically people away to aspire to growth and so they can actually measure the growth, which is very good in the sense off that you know where you stand, you know, you can't plan for the next step. And so this isn't something that we want to be able to do, and we're basically launching that as well. Um connect also via were hosted open the Global Connect in India. This year we had a breakthrough. We actually have more than a thousand attendees. Wow, so that's like more than twice to jump from last year. Last year was about maybe three hundred. Niche, right? So this is a tremendous growth, and basically it's wonderful to see that there's a lot of technology track and the woman coming in sharing very openly about what they know and the sharing and the learning. And the coaching is part of the whole overall energy as well. >> So if we look at impact so far, the various impact that you talked about with both Tara, which is quite really in its history women who code w. T squared and we look at, say, even in the US alone, fifty percent of the population is female. It's a tremendous amount of women who are just women in general who are technologically savvy but are passed over for these positions. Then he kind of factor in into that fifty percent. How many of them are women who have had to leave the workforce for various reasons that we talked about earlier? There's a tremendous amount of of women out there with skills who aren't being looked at. Where is women who code? And Tara, where are you on changing those numbers from fifty percent too, you know, forty seven percent of forty five percent. Do you have any sort of strategic goals in your office? Numbers wise? Well, for me personally >> and the forewoman who co we wanted basically be able to change the world way. Want to offer all the technical woman in the world a choice for their career letter? So Tara is a >> way to do it to break one particular glasses. Silly, right? And there's also a lot of these scholarships. And olders is to help women to be able to do career, transform native patient change change, for example, Woman Ochoa's part of comeback. We actually handle five awards to recognize five outstanding woman leaders, in our opinion, one of them, she started with a woman who co was a individual member. She was just a junior engineer. But in less than two years periods, she is actually now a VP. Let's fast track. It's very fast track. So we believe in human power and potential way, especially believe in a woman that basically is under representative in a lot of the technology sectors. Our job is to unlock these potential and their barriers and roadblocks in various forms, right big and small. So the job is really to unlock all this way. Want to be able to move the needle up to towards the right direction with all these things that we're doing >> last thing here, let's finish with how you yourself have broken through many, many levels of glass ceilings to get where you are tonight. Share with us a little bit about your career journey. >> Micro Journey is recently about two and a half years ago, I moved from our indie world to strategy transformation office. It's a it's a one of these moments, I would say, is a glass a cliff, Right? You're standing at the edge of this glasses ceiling house and you're just about to plunge it in. That was the feeling I got two and a half years ago. But you know what? I am so loving it. It is basically the best occur decision I've ever made because there was a dimension that I could never have the experience and seeing before because I spent that case in R and D. A beautiful. A lot of these no hot and competency, and I just work with the business world. But in the transformation office, we do nto way actually bridged to world together. So basically, for me it was a fantastic learning journey, and it's just empowerment and the trust I got from the awards executives and all Michael workers, I feel like that is probably >> the most a transformative decision I ever made. It's not just your shifting technology field with the technical world. I literally shift >> into a buy one hundred eighty degree to a difference by truck. But my job is to connect Tonto and stretch together, which is something that I feel has profound impact for the company. And I just love every minute of it. Oh, >> and I love that. That's that's a great story. And it sounds like what you're doing. You're just at the beginning of all of what? Your transformation. So I can't wait. You know you next year. Thank you. Every great thing that happened to the rest of twenty nineteen. Really? Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. Thanks. >> I'm Lisa Martin here, watching the Cube coming to you from women Transforming technology. Fourth annual BMO. Thanks for watching

>> from Palo Alto, California It's the Cube covering the EM Where women Transforming technology twenty nineteen. Brought to You by VM Wear >> Hi Lisa Martin with the Cube on the ground at the end. Where in Palo Alto, California, for the fourth annual Women Transforming Technology, even W. T. Squared on event that is near and dear to my heart. Excited to welcome back to the Cube pretty much. Rog Lachman, engineering leader, blocked in at the end where pretty much It's so great to have you back on the Cube. Thank you, Lisa. It's amazing to be here, and I can't believe it's been a year, a year. And so last year, when Protein was here, she launched her book. Nevertheless, she persistent love the title You just Did a session, which we'LL get to in a second, but I'd love to get your your experiences in the last year about the book launch. What's the feedback? Ben? What are some of the things that have made me feel great and surprised you at the same time? It's been fantastic. I wasn't expecting that when I started to write this book. It was more like I want to impact one woman's life. But what was interesting is I delivered around twenty twenty five talks last year. My calendar's booked for this year, but every time I go give a talk, my Lincoln goes crazy and I'm connecting with all these women and men. And it's just fantastic because they're basically resonating with everything I talk about in the book. I spoke at the Federal Reserve. Wow, I was like, This is a book on tech and they were like, No, this impacts all of us And I spoke to a group of lawyers and actually, law firms have fifty fifty when they get into law, right when they get into whenever I mean live, I'm not that familiar with it. But getting to partner is where they don't have equality or diversity, and it's resonated. So now I'm like, maybe I should just take the word check out What? You It's been impactful. And so last year was all about companies, so I did. You know, I spoke at uber I spoken Veum, where spoken nutanix it's looking a lot of these companies last year. This year is all about schools, fantastic schools of all different type, so I you know, I've done a talk at San Jose State. I went to CMU. They invited me over Carnegie Mellon. I supported the robotics team, which is all girls team. Nice. And it was fantastic because these girls high school kids were designing robots. They were driving these robots. They were coding and programming these robots and was an all girls team. And I asked them, I said, But you're excluding the men and the boys and they said no. When it's a combined boy girls team, the women end up the girls and organizing the men of the boys are actually writing the code. They're doing the drilling there, doing all that. And so the girls don't get to do any of that. And I was looking at just the competition and as watching these teams, the boy girl steams and those were all organizing. And I thought, this is exactly what happens in the workforce. You're right. Yeah. We come into the workforce, were busy organizing, coordinating and all that, and the men are driving the charge. And that's why these kids where this is at high school, Yeah, thirteen to seventeen, where this is becoming part of their cultural upbringing. Exactly. Pretty. In great. Yes, yes. And a very young age. So that was fascinating. I think that surprised me. You know, you were asking me what surprised you that surprised me. And what also surprised me was the confidence. Though these girls were doing all these things. I've never built a robot. I would love to. I haven't built a robot, and they were doing all these amazing things, and I thought, Oh, my God, >> they're like, >> confident women. But they were not. And it was because they felt that there was too much to lose. They don't want to take risks, they don't want to fail. And it was that impostor syndrome coming back so that conditioning happens way more impossible syndrome is something that I didn't even know what it wass until maybe the last five or six years suddenly even just seeing that a very terse description of anyone Oh, my goodness, it's not just me. And that's really a challenge that I think the more the more it's brought to light, the more people like yourself share stories. But also what your book is doing is it's not just like you were surprised to find out It's not just a tech. This is every industry, Yes, but his pulse syndrome is something that maybe people consider it a mental health issue and which is so taboo to talk about. But I just think it's so important to go. You're not alone. Yeah, vast majority men, women, whatever culture probably have that. Let's talk about that. Let's share stories. So that your point saying why I was surprised that these young girls had no confidence. Maybe we can help. Yes, like opening up. You know, I'm sharing it being authentic. Yeah. So I'm looking at my second book, which basically says what the *** happens in middle school? Because what happens is somewhere in middle school, girls drop out, so I don't know what it is. I think it's Instagram or Facebook or boys or sex. I don't know what it is, but something happens there. And so this year of my focus is girls and you know, young girls in schools and colleges. And I'm trying to get as much research as I can in that space to see what is going on there, because that totally surprised me. So are you kind of casting a wide net and terms like as you're. Nevertheless, she persisted. Feedback has shown you it's obviously this is a pervasive, yes issue cross industry. This is a global pandemic, yes, but it's your seeing how it's starting really early. Tell me a little bit about some of the things that we can look forward to in that book. So one thing that's important is bravery, Which reshma So Johnny, who's the CEO off girls code? She has this beautiful quote, she says. We raise our voice to be brave, and we'd raise our girls to be perfect, pretty telling. And so we want to be perfect. We won't have the perfect hair, the perfect bodies. We want a perfect partner. That never happens. But we want all that and because we want to be perfect, we don't want to take risks, and we're afraid to fail. So I want to focus on that. I want to talk to parents. I want to talk to the kids. I want to talk to teachers, even professors, and find out what exactly it is like. What is that conditioning that happens, like, why do we raise our girls to be perfect because that impacts us at every step of our lives. Not even careers. It's our lives. Exactly. It impacts us because we just can't take that risk. That's so fascinating. So you had a session here about persistent and inclusive leadership at W T squared forth and you will tell me a little bit about that session today. What were some of the things that came up that you just said? Yes, we're on the right track here. So I started off with a very depressing note, which is twenty eighty five. That's how long it's gonna take for us to see equality. But I talked about what we can do to get to twenty twenty five because I'm impatient. I don't want to wait twenty eighty five I'LL be dead by them. We know you're persistent book title. You know, my daughter will be in the seventies. I just don't want that for her. So, through my research, what I found is we need not only women to lean in. You know, we've have cheryl sound. We're talking about how women need to lean in, and it's all about the women. And the onus is on the woman the burdens on the woman. But we actually need society. Selena. We need organizations to lean in, and we need to hold them accountable. And that's where we're going to start seeing that changes doing that. So if you take the m r. I. You know, I've been with him for ten years, and I always ask myself, Why am I still here? One of the things we're trying to do is trying to take the Cirrus early this morning rail Farrell talked about like on the panel. He said, We are now Our bonuses are tied to, you know, domestic confusion, like we're way have to hire, you know, not just gender, right, Like underrepresented communities as well. We need to hire from there, and they're taking this seriously. So they're actually making this kind of mandatory in some sense, which, you know, it kind of sucks in some ways that it has to be about the story that weighing they're putting a stake in the ground and tying it to executive compensation. Yes, it's pretty bold. Yes. So organizations are leaning in, and we need more of that to happen. Yeah. So what are some of the things that you think could, based on the first *** thing you talked about the second one that you think could help some of the women that are intact that are leaving at an alarming rate for various reasons, whether it's family obligations or they just find this is not an environment that's good for me mentally. What are some of the things that you would advise of women in that particular situation? First thing is that it's to be equal partnership at home. A lot of women leave because they don't have that. They don't have that support on having that conversation or picking the right partner. And if you do pick the wrong partner, it's having that conversation. So if you have equal partnership at home, then it's both a careers that's important. So you find that a lot of women leave tech or leave any industry because they go have babies, and that happens. But it's just not even that, like once they get past that, they come backto work. It's not satisfying because they don't get exciting projects to work on that you don't get strategic projects, they don't have sponsors, which is so important toward the success, and they they're you know, people don't take a risk on them, and they don't take a risk. And so these are some of those things that I would really advice women. And, you know, my talk actually talked about that. Talked about how to get mail allies, how to get sponsors. Like what? You need to actually get people to sponsor you. Don't talk to me a little bit more about that. We talk about mentors a lot. But I did talk this morning with one of our guests about the difference between a sponsor and a mentor. I'd love you to give Sarah some of your advice on how women can find those sponsors. And actually, we activate that relationship. So mentors, uh, talk to you and sponsors talk about okay. And the way to get a sponsor is a is. You do great work. You do excellent work. Whatever you do, do it well. And the second thing is B is brag about it. Talk about it. Humble bragging, Yeah. Humble bragging talkabout it showcases demo it and do it with people who matter in organizations, people who can notice your work building that brand exactly. And you find that women are all the men toward and under sponsored. Interesting, Yes. How do you advise that they change that? There was a Harvard study on this. They found that men tend to find mentors are also sponsors. So what they do is, you know, I like you to stick pad girl singer, he says. Andy Grove was his mentor, but Andy Grove was also his sponsor in many ways, in for his career at Intel, he was a sponsor and a mental. What women tend to do is we find out like even me, like I have female spot him. Mentors were not in my organization, and they do not have the authority to advocate for me. They don't They're not sitting in an important meeting and saying, Oh, patina needs that project for team needs to get promoted. And so I'm not finding the right mentors who can also be my sponsors, or I'm not finding this one says right, and that's happens to us all the time. And so the way we have to switch this is, you know, mentors, a great let's have mentors. But let's laser focus on sponsors, and I've always said this all of last year. I'm like the key to your cell. Success is sponsorship, and I see that now. I am in an organization when my boss is my sponsor, which is amazing, because every time I go into a meeting with him, he says, This is about pretty much grew up. This is a pretty mers group. It's not me asking him. He's basically saying It's pretty nose grow, which is amazing to hear because I know he's my mentor in sponsor as well. And it's funny when I gave him a copy of my book and I signed it and I said, And he's been my sponsor to be more for like ten years I said, Thank you for being my sponsor and he looked at me. He said, Oh, I never realized it was your sponsor So that's another thing is men themselves don't know they're in this powerful position to have an impact, and they don't know that they are sponsors as well. And so we need. We need women to Fox and sponsors. I always say find sponsors. Mentorship is great, but focus of sponsors Look, I think it's an important message to get across and something I imagine we might be reading about in your next book to come. I know. Yeah, well, we'LL see. Artie, thank you so much for stopping by the Cube. It's great to talk to you and to hear some of the really interesting things that you've learned from nevertheless you persistent and excited to hear about book number two and that comes out. You got a combined studio. I'd love to thank you and thank you. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the queue from BM Where? At the fourth Annual Women Transforming Technology event. Thanks for watching.

from the VMware campus in Palo Alto California it's the Cuban covering women transforming technologies hi I'm Lisa Martin on the ground with the cube at VMware in Palo Alto at the third annual women transforming Technology event and we're here with a cube alumni Betsy Sutter SVP & chief people officer at V and we're so great to have you back on the cube thank you it's great to be here this is a very exciting day yes I love these types of events because you walk in and you just feel the sense of community and empowerment and and that's one of the great things that WT squared is in in and of itself its acronym of organizations that's right industry academia and nonprofits to help women connect learn from each other and support each other not just here in Silicon Valley but beyond and this is 30 annual this was sold out like within hours yes amazing amazing momentum that you guys have brought now to the third year great yeah we're really excited we're really excited and it's a new approach right it's creating as you said a consortium of companies to come together and just have real-time conversations about what's going on around gender equality and so yeah I'm really proud of this conference mostly because it just brings such a diverse set of people together men and women we have more men attending this year than ever before and so the conversations are just elevated they're fun yeah so you started at VMware when I was a startup with about a hundred people and here you were now managing this organization that of 20,000 people yeah big undertaking yeah talk to me about kind of the cultural change in shifts that you've seen and probably been able to drive from you know the last 15 years or so yeah you know the culture has been a pretty deliberate strategy from day one and I give the first CEO and founder Diane Greene a tremendous amount of credit for being really clear about what she wanted to build and she really wanted to build a sustainable company and a culture and she knew culture was the differentiator and even the current CEO today Pat Gallagher and I know that this is the single biggest differentiator that we can continue to strengthen in the company and then all the diversity inclusion and conversations are just part of that at this point in time but it was a deliberate regi plain and simple always keeping an eye on that and the values are at the core of that right and then the culture and the behavior reflect the values and so it's just been steadfast and stalwart on who we want to be over the past 20 years it's our 20th anniversary as a company and yeah I've been here for 17 of those but that's the work that I've really focused on it's been terrific that being deliberate is really key there yep so this third event inclusion in action is the theme yep how do you see that Bing how do you how do you live that and infiltrate that at VMware yeah well you know we are a company that has wanted to disrupt the tech space and so in order to do that we've had to stay focused on innovation innovation innovation and we really innovate in everything not just in our technology and our products but how we bring them to market how we support them but it also affects a lot of the work that I do in my space and in order to innovate you have to be inclusive of just a lot of different viewpoints and I like to say that we started out sort of in as an industrial research kind of company we were born out of Stanford a lot of computer science you know graduate students creating what we've now become and that's just been kind of the path is just collaboration even though we're 22,000 people now we still kind of take that approach to everything we do and speaking of Stanford big news out yes morning yeah gratulations thank you is investing 15 million dollars in a new women's leadership Innovation Lab that's right Danford that's amazing yeah we're thrilled we are so excited and Shelly Carell professor of sociology at Stanford we our partnership has been with Stanford since 2013 I think they've really helped us navigate everything that we've done in the inclusion and diversity space and so this is a new chapter and it's around women's leadership and it's around women's leadership and innovation and this lab I think is gonna reap some great results research based work is sort of at the heart and soul who we are right and so this is just more of that it's gonna be great to take progressive research groundbreaking research and put it into practice and so Shelley and I couldn't be more excited about what's next awesome well one of the interesting things is I was reading in the press release this morning that came out that according to McKinsey companies with diversity at the executive level 21 percent write more profitable that's right why aren't more companies even paying attention you know that that is a great question because most companies are about making money and wanting to be profitable yeah so it's it's perplexing that people aren't really honing in on what research is showing but you know suddenly it comes down to power and influence it's all about who has the power and who has the influence and so part of what we're doing with Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab is figuring out how to get women into more leadership positions and get them into more powerful and influential positions and that will be the thing that equalizes you know gender inequality so in the last six months we have had big movements me too yeah time's up yep growtopia there I'm Emily Chang published recently right how when you when you when that first came out with all the Harvey Weinstein stuff teachers say good we need to be able to get to leverage this moment and was that do you see that as being pulled into the tech industry and and helping to accelerate making this diversity change i I think things are getting accelerated and amplified because I think voices are being used and heard and I think there's a movement and I think women are coming together as a consortium around their gender and understanding that the real issues are around power and influence and tackling it head-on and the quality of the conversations around all of these movements is it's inspiring to me after spending 30 odd years in tech so I think things are really starting to change because women are using their voices yeah speaking of women using their voices you had Laila Ali as a keynote yeah that was so fantastic strong confident woman yeah who the daughter of Muhammad Ali who tried to talk her out of becoming a fighter right tried to - I love how she said he tried to actually kind of get me I think it was my idea to not go into it right so obviously a woman probably born with a lot of natural confidence but I loved how she kind of talked to all of us and said he sometimes that light goes out or its dimmed and I need to remind myself with you our best yeah so you probably see a good amount of females that have that sort of innate confidence that love engineering and I'm gonna do this how do you encourage those women to may be mentor some of the of the either younger or not other females who want to do something but are intimidated by you know maybe don't have that natural confidence how do you kind of facility at that empowerment yeah well I do think Leila's story is amazing and you know most importantly she's an entrepreneur and a businesswoman right I mean what she's done with her career with her foundation but what she's done with her career is most impressive and I love that digging deep and find that warrior from within yeah but I think for women today I think the difference is that we're able to have the conversation with each other and even with the opposite sex and I think companies are starting to understand that if you don't have diversity you're not going to have innovation and you're not going to win and most companies that I've worked for and VMware in particular we want to win we want to lead we want to disrupt and we want to impact the world and we want and need to make money as well but I think for women now the conversation is allowed I know that people are listening on both sides of the fence and we do a lot of VMware just to make sure that conversation is alive one of the things I'm really proud of it VMware and that I really believe is it's been the quality of the conversations since day one that have put us where we are in the world and in the industry and as a company and so the conversation shifting a little bit right we're talking more about this and it's those quality conversations that just keep it going and and that's sort of core to who we are so we'll just continue that trend and it's great being able to talk to the cube because you're allowing us to amplify the quality of the conversation so I'm grateful and we're happy to be a part of that so just just the about the event there are a number of tracks right also that was something that I was mentioned to you before we we started filming was I loved that when I walked in there was a jot yeah I love that and as well as a LinkedIn profile right resume clinic all of these you think minor things those can be really impact that's right if a woman has a great head challenge wow this is fantastic or somebody guiding her on what or what not to put on a LinkedIn profile just even providing some of these things that are foundational yep that's really huge it is really huge and it's also just a new platform for these conversations to continue whether it's just a visual because you're looking at my LinkedIn headshot or my Twitter feed or whatever it is but these are all really small things but matter really small things really matter yes and so building those up into people's psyches and their abilities is sort of what we're trying to do as part of the conference so in context of the third annual event the sold-out events and this great announcement of what VMware and Stanford are doing yeah what are some of those quick wins or exciting ones that you're looking forward to seeing the rest of 2018 yeah I think I love that question I think the key is continuing to join forces to continue to lock arms and continue the conversations and so a lot of what I love to do professionally and personally is create those platforms for people to do those kinds of things and that's what women transforming technology is about this year and has been about the last two years and I think we'll just continue to do that and people will tell us what we need to know and where we need to go awesome if you look back at your career would you have forecast your success being you know the chief people officer is c-level or would you yeah you know what was that yeah I met such that's it I'm just starting at this point in my career to really reflect on that no I never imagined having this amount of responsibility and privilege never in my wildest dreams it wasn't an aspirational goal I knew that I wanted as much influence as I could have to achieve results I'm a professional problem solver this is a pretty meaty problem that we're tackling but no I I didn't a dream it now I feel a huge amount of responsibility to start to talk about it I'm a I think I mentioned you I'm a behind-the-scenes kind of person I like to work back there understanding the problem diagnosing it coming up with a solution and then helping implement it but now it's time to kind of talk about what's happened and where we are and set course for the future with so many wonderful women last question for you yep because the attrition rate is so high for females in technology yeah what advice would you give to a woman who's on the cusp of leaving not to sort of family but just going I'm not sure I feel supported here what advice would you give her yeah I would give that person and I do give this advice on the right to go out and have lots of conversations and just start those conversations you just don't know what you don't know and I've had women come to me and at the end of 45 minutes to an hour tell me they're thinking about doing something else and it saddens me especially if they're at vmware because i don't want them to leave but go out and have those conversations and explore what's next don't be afraid of the conversation and sharing what's happening to you with you at your work and events like women transforming technology are only going to help continue to get more eyes and ears on every side of whatever gap we've got aware of this and help all of us become part of the solution that's right to accelerate diversity because as the data show companies could be far more profitable if they've got that thought diversity that's exactly right and it's just that simple but it's just that difficult exactly yeah it was that simple well Betsy thank you so much but a pleasure joining us and allowing us to be part of the voice and getting this away it's out there for women transforming technology as well as helping to hopefully empower and inspire all of the current and future generations yeah attack no I really appreciate you being here - thank you our pleasure yeah we want to thank you for watching the cube I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at women transforming Technology thanks for watching [Music]

(upbeat music) >> Announcer: From the VMware campus in Palo Alto, CA Its theCUBE covering Women Transforming Technology. (music beats) >> I'm Lisa Martin with theCUBE and we are on the ground in Palo Alto at VMware for the third annual Women Transforming Technology event. Excited to be talking with Stephanie Joe, next Vice President of Operations in the Networking and Security business here at VMware. Hi Stephanie. >> Hi, thanks for having me. >> Lisa: Thanks for joining me today >> Lisa: Absolutely, our pleasure >> So, you've been in tech for a long time at VMware, for about five years. >> Stephanie: Yes >> Tell me a little bit about your journey in tech. Was it, did you want to get into software and technology many years ago? >> Stephanie: So being actually a native of the Silicone Valley and being raised in this in California, my father worked for a high tech company for 30 plus years. And so, for me it was natural to go into technology. I'm very much of a finance person and numbers person, so it gave me the opportunity to take my desire for math and my desire for finance and be close to products and be close to innovation. So, I would say yes, from early on it was no question that I would be working in technology. Its a great place to be in the Silicone Valley for that. >> Lisa: It is. It really is. >> yeah yeah >> So you were in finance for a long time >> Stephanie: Yes >> then moved into operations. >> Stephanie: Yes, a couple years ago. >> How did you get that courage to go, you know what I've been doing this for a long time >> Stephanie: Yeah >> and you mentioned your dad, you know, working in it for 30 years. >> Stephanie: Yes >> I think parent's generation was you get a job and you do the same thing for 30 or 40 years >> Stephanie: In the same company >> Yes. How did you get that courage internally to go you know what I want to try something different. >> Yeah, so being in finance, I had the opportunity to work in many different groups within the finance organization and as I worked in finance, I got the opportunity to take a look at what was important to me and what was interesting to me and although I love my numbers piece, I also was very much interested in process and operations and holding people accountable. And, I got to a point, honestly, where I was in finance and I tried many different pieces of finance, and I got to a point where okay, what am I going to do next? Um, and there's also something that's been important to me is constantly re reinvigorating myself, and rebranding myself, not rebranding but continuing my brand. And as part of that, operations was just the next natural piece and I had thought about making that dive many different times in my finance career, but there was always either that risk of oh its a little scary, or there was something else I still wanted to do within finance. And an opportunity came along a couple of years ago, and specifically in the networking security space. And VMware, it is one of the highest priorities within the company and because of the technology, and because of the opportunity, I said you know, now is the right time to go do this. Now is the right time to take that leap, take that chance. And, at the same time, I also knew I had the backing of supporters and mentors to help me be successful in that move. Um, I knew it wasn't going to be a slam dunk. I've always told people you almost have to do that next thing that you know you're going to be able to contribute, yet at the same time, its a little scary And, you have to have the confidence and the planning around that confidence to go for it. Um and take that risk. And its been worthwhile. It has been a nice change. Its given me new energy and I think I know I am contributing to the company. >> And it must feel good. >> Stephanie: Yes >> You talked about, touched on a number of points we have heard today at the Women Transforming Technology event where we, you know things were kicked off this morning, ahh with Laylah Ali who talked about having, finding that courage, and that confidence. Um, but also needing to be mentioned being around an organization, whether its an organization or just a group who support whatever change that you are thinking of making, >> Yeah >> And I do think some change that's scary is good >> Yeah >> Ah, but I think that is one of the hallmarks of women transforming technology >> Stephanie: Yes >> is this consortium of industry, nonprofits, academia coming together to to confront head on the issues, the diversity issues that we're facing. >> Not just as women in technologies, >> Stephanie: Right a lot of different gaps >> Right But, also providing that support and enabling women and men >> Stephanie: Right >> to have mentors to learn from because it isn't just >> Stephanie: Yes >> challenging to get women in tech, its very challenging to retain women in technology who leave at very high rates >> yes >> for other careers. >> Correct Correct >> So how did you at being at, you said, Cisco for quite a long time and now >> correct VMware five years, >> Did you have women in leadership positions that you looked up to that were mentors to you? >> I think, so its interesting when you dive into your career at the very beginning, long time ago, you don't necessarily think about okay who are my mentors or who do I look up to? Or is there women specifically who can support me? I think for me its become just natural and I've had the opportunity where I've had a combination of both leaders, men and women, that have been mentors to me and supporters and as I moved forward in my career, I've discovered what was important was having, even a diverse set of mentors, men and women, but a circle of women around me too, that were living the challenges I was living. And I also don't think I realized some of the diversity challenges I was living until I got to a certain point and I looked back and went wow and I listened and part of WT2 allows you to listen to some of the other challenges that other people are having and you realize, I'm not alone and that person is experiencing the same thing that I'm experiencing. and I've now turned into a position of, where I am like, how can I help you? How can I help that you live through the same things that um, I've lived through. How can I help you and how can I help you contribute? This is a forum that allows us to come together and create new mentors, to get away from the everyday busyness and be selfish for a day and think about myself and how can I improve on things. Um, but really to connect and share our stories. >> You mentioned >> Stephanie: So I am thankful for that >> the word accountability earlier too and I think one of the things that's great about women transforming technology, women who code, we also, we cover a lot of women events, women and data science. Its at the VMware level, VMware is a huge organization very successful for many years, >> Stephanie: Yes >> But, they the this long-standing partnership Stanford and now the Clayman Institute, and now the new Innovation Lab, from an accountability perspective you are starting to see it. I shouldn't say starting, but you're seeing it in a big way >> Yes >> That's a big investment >> Stephanie: Yeah big investment by a big corporation >> Yes >> With 20 plus thousand people and of course Stanford University. >> Stephanie: right To look at what are these big barriers, um, that are effecting, that effect everybody >> Stephanie: That effect everybody. >> And how can they start to identify them and start to eradicate them and having companies participate and step up to be accountable to that is huge. >> Its huge. And I think, you know, its a journey, right. And I think we all started a couple of years ago just looking at the facts and looking at the data, and not pushing but I think presenting the facts of this is what our own diversity metrics look like. Not just men versus women, but, you know, different different you know, diversity factors in addition to okay, as a result of these facts, then what should we do as far as the next step. And I think over the past couple of years, there has been a natural progression around we're going to start looking at this and we're going to start asking questions, and we're going to start holding people accountable to doing what they said they were going to do from a people perspective, Diversity being one of them. So its been nice seeing that evolvement. Exciting to me is the partnership between VMware and Stanford because I think it takes it to the next level of its not just the data, its not just the facts, its not just we know its important, its what are the underlying behaviors underneath it, what are the underlying actions that we now can take, not just for VMware, not just for Stanford, but for the whole entire community, right? And that's what its all about. Its about coming together as a multiple different companies coming together as a great institution like Stanford coming together saying how can we make a difference in the community that we live in and make a difference from a technology perspective, so >> Yeah >> Its exciting to me and I think it will be interesting to be a part of the journey, but also see where we are a year from now, two years from now. >> Right, so you've, you sound like you have sort of found you voice with ah, wanting to be inspire inspirational >> Stephanie: yeah to other women, whatever stage of their career. >> Stephanie: Yeah >> It just seems like something that sort of occurred to you. Hey, I've been through this. I'm not the only one. A lot of people go through this. Um, what was that kind of ah hah moment when you said I have an opportunity here to give back. >> Stephanie: Yeah, I think its interesting cause I look back and I'm like there wasn't, well maybe their were a couple of moments, where I am like wait wait that comment just made, that was because I was a woman not because of what I was contributing. And, either it was like, okay, that was an interesting comment and how do I handle it. But it really wasn't, I think, until I was up in the higher ranks, right, and I starting saying okay, I've done a lot, we've been very results oriented, how do I start giving back? And how do I start mentoring others? And it started out as mentoring others that were maybe new college grads or maybe just new people to the company. And as I started mentoring to others, then I started realizing too that some of the women that I was mentoring, wait, their living through the same things that I lived through. And there was a big time where I thought oh it was just Stephanie. Right, oh, its just unique to me. Nobody else was dealing with this or it I also went through a period of like I wasn't any different than anybody else, right. And then as I started going through this, I realized no there's others that are living the same path that I lived. Um, and I think that I can help them grow and contribute to their own growth. And by the way, me, at the same time, me learn from them, um which is what its all about. >> Lisa: Very symbiotic >> Yeah >> It takes events like this, like WT squared, to identify hey, there is a lot of commonality and challenges that we all face regardless of gender or sexual orientation or what not. The more you are aware of some of these challenges, the more we can identify how how do we hold acc organizations or what not accountable. It takes that courage though to come together and be the one to raise your hand thinking you might have a dumb question when of course there really are no dumb questions (laugher) And finding that support, I mean, the strength in numbers, right, that's what the Golden State >> Warriors, Golden State Warriors >> Exactly. >> It is the team I love (laugher) >> Um, but its really true and its a very pervasive feeling when you come to an event like this, you walk in, and you feel that there's this inclusion >> Stephanie: Yeah >> Lisa: Across >> Stephanie: You feel the power of the people in the audience, but you also feel the affirmation from the panels or you know, Laylah Ali who is speaking today and her struggles and her journey, um, and just saying I can identify with that, right. I'm not alone, but also how do we together come together and have a voice, right? How do we hold others accountable? And doing it in a way that is fair. I think that's what all of us are ask for. Its not, I have never asked for special treatment because I am a woman or because I am an Asian, but because its fair, right, and I'm treated fair, and I'm treated the way that my peers are treated. Um, and I think that's what we all want. >> Yeah >> Yeah >> You mentioned Laylah Ali, her keynote this morning was it was great. >> Phenomenal I think its so, you you can tell, even if I hadn't seen her speak, you know Laylah Ali is a very strong woman >> Stephanie: Yes >> Physically, mentally, but it was really refreshing for her to say hey there's moments where I got to recheck, what's my purpose here, what am I doing. >> Stephanie: My inside warrior >> Yes, and I love that she said you know we got to find that inner warrior. She's in there >> Yeah >> Sometimes she's quiet, um, maybe has some tape across her mouth, but seeing a naturally innately strong female saying sometimes I don't feel that way, I think that is a very important message to get out, to all of those people, regardless of gender or orientation who don't have this sort of natural confidence that a Laylah Ali has. That's normal. >> Yeah yeah. And for me hearing somebody else say, a couple of things she said having that interior warrior, inside warrior, who, okay give yourself a day to feel bad. Give yourself a day to deal with it. And then its time to go back for the fight. Its time to go focus on what's important to you and bring out that passion and go. And, how many times have all of us felt that? Um, many a times. Um, the other part that, for me, that really hit home for me was confidence. And its funny, cause some people will say Oh,Steph you have very high confidence and I am like no I don't. And she said something to confidence is in planning and being prepared. >> Lisa: Yes >> And as I think about that, that is something that is very true. It resonated very close to me and I think about as I talk to women and they I say you are going to go into this meeting, think about how you are going to prepare for that meeting. Because then it allows you to immediately say yep, this is what we should do. Yep, this is my idea. To be able to have that voice. So I would say for me, those were probably the two pieces, right, confidence and preparation, or being prepared to have confidence and the inside warrior where it just really hit home for me. >> The preparation thing I thought was really cool too because we talk a lot about imposter syndrome. >> Stephanie: Yeah >> And its a real issue that a lot of people face, >> Stephanie: Very true >> Whatever stage of career they are at or industry, but she's right in that if you're prepared for whatever it is that you are doing, that confidence will come. But preparation is really key. >> Stephanie: Yeah I chuckle a little bit because when you say the imposter piece, I will admit I think there was a time in my career where I acted a certain way, and I was in meetings as a certain way, or I went down a path because that's the path you should go down, right. Um, but it wasn't true to myself and so I think the part around being prepared, being confident as a result of being prepared, really allows you to be true to yourself and allows you to bring out the passion. That's important. Um, and that applies to everybody, not just us. >> It does. So in your, kind of wrapping things up here, what are some of the cultural um shifts that you've seen being in tech industry for 20 years and some of the things you are looking forward to in the next year at VMware? >> Stephanie: Yeah, so I will say, cultural shifts, just from the standpoint of awareness, right. I think that is a very important piece of people being respectful and aware of the environment that we're in and people having the conversations. I don't think we would even be having these conversations 10 years ago. and there is multiple different reasons for that. Whether it be results of showing with inclusion and with diversity, you have better business results. Um, or whether it be people speaking up and saying hey, we have a right to have a voice. We have a right to be treated in a certain way. And so, from a culture standpoint, that voice and that awareness has then lead to being able to have the conversations of how people should be treated, how they should be respected, and how we um, should even have the discussion with each other. Right? Looking forward, I look forward to the fact of being able to have a stronger voice. And when I say a stronger voice, I don't mean hey, let's go for the fight and let's make sure we've go the right numbers. But it really is the voice in the room. Um, I think we still have the discussion around the numbers. We haven't necessarily had the discussion of how do we make sure that the people in the room, that is a diverse set of people, that their voices come out, so we get a diverse set of of suggestions and ideas to come to the best outcome. >> Stephanie, thank you so much for stopping by theCUBE, >> Stephanie: Thank you for having me. >> And sharing your backstory and your history. And um, its really nice to hear from other mentors who recognize and are proud to be in that position. So, thank you. >> Its a pleasure. Thank you >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. Lisa Martin, on the ground at VMware for the third annual Women Transforming Technology. Thanks for watching. (closing music beats)

>> Narrator: From the VMware Campus in Palo Alto California, it's The Cube covering Women Transforming Technology. (upbeat music) >> I'm Lisa Martin with the Cube and we are on the ground in Palo Alto with VMware for the third annual, Women Transforming Technology event. Excited to welcome back to the Cube, Lily Chang, VP of strategic transformation here at VMware. Lily it's great to have you back. >> Thank you, it's fantastic to have this event again, for the third time in the history. >> Yes, in fact, I read online that it was sold out within hours and the keynote this morning was... >> Lily: Fantastic >> Fantastic >> And very inspiring. >> Very inspiring. For those of you who don't know, Laila Ali was the keynote this morning. What a great analogy, not just being a sports star, but being someone, a woman, in a very male dominated industry who just had this sort of natural confidence that she just knew what her purpose was. I thought that was a very inspiring message for those of us in tech as well. >> Yeah, and it's also very key that women leaders, such as herself, is willing to come out and share the story, and be the role model and set a path and show the example for the younger generation to follow and to look up to. That is incredible. >> I love for one of the things she said, Lily, when she said she still sometimes kind of loses sight and has to reignite that inner warrior. I thought that was a really important and empowering message too that even really strong women who are naturally confident still have times where they have to kind of remind themselves of what their purpose is. I just thought that was a very impactful statement and I think regardless of any industry you're in. >> That is absolutely true. I mean, we're only human, right? So every one of us experiences challenges in life so there are times even all genders, you're going to bump into road blocks, you're going to bump into challenges and then you need to self motivating and lift yourself up and rise to the ocassions of the challenge. A lot of times these changes, and I'm sure it's true for her as well, that actually make her a better leader. >> Definitely. So you are one of the board members of Women Who Code. This is something that's very near and dear to VMwear's heart. VMwear got involved in 2016 when it was about a 10,000 person organization. >> Actually, a little bit less than that. >> A little less than 10,000? And now it's? >> We were very young. >> And now how large is it? >> It's 137,000 members globally, 20 counties, 60 cities. >> So what's the mission of Women Who Code? >> The mission is very simple. Basically we want to basically help all women that inspire and excel in their technical career journey and in their career development. So that's basically the simple mission statement and for that a very critical thrust that Women Who Code has and kind of coincide with VMware's community vision, is basically technical woman community. So they were very young but we saw the passion, we saw the commitment, and we believed that this is a great mutual opportunity because we want to be a global company. We want to not only view leadership within U.S., we wanted it to be in NIA, to be in APJ, We have R & D research offices everywhere and so we basically collaborated with Women Who Code and that has been a very successful leadership program which only work with them. And they basically blossomed under the collaboration and we're not the only company but we are the one of two founding partner in sponsor for Women Who Code. >> It's grown dramatically as you said. >> Lily: Dramatically. >> Yeah, just a couple of years since you've been involved with VMware. What are a some of things that have surprised you about, not just the growth, but about some of the lesson that maybe you've learned by watching some of these other women come into this organization and be inspired and impact their careers? >> So I see the story, both in VMware woman leadership, and also in outside community woman leadership. Right? So what I see is all these woman basically have the passion but they were a little bit worried about let it come out but when you're actually in a community you're supporting one and other and you have that platform where they feel very comfortable to communicate, network, share, and learn, and so basically that is a very powerful thing and I see the growth and the booster of the potential, it's kind of like we lift them up all of a sudden. Right? One of the stories recently is that, for example, on the external side, We have basically a Canada city director is all volunteer positions. Right. And within a year, she actually moved from a line management position to basically to a director position because the city director role basically expose you to basically get the community view out and that encourage you and challenge you to basically has hands on soft leadership skill and so a lot of the technical woman have a lot of technology and a lot of the technologist mentality but you need to accompany that with a lot of the soft skill. And then the combination of the two that makes a perfect combination. And we see a lot of that in our VMware women as well. So we set out to do basically cities in China, we actually opened China for Women Who Code. It was zero member, and now it has like 3,000-4,000 members. It's actually in China. It's a little bit of a difficult mysterious place. Right? But we made it happen in Beijing. We made it happen in Shanghai. And it's basically participate by a lot of the local company, not just multi-national company. And in India we actually open it up, and in India now is blossomed like crazy so there are like since VMware's opening up in Bangalore basically there are three other cities that joined in. India is like basically a rose in blossoming peak point right now. And we also opened up a Sophia, so basically we work with women who go to do a corporate leadership program. And within the first year, where we appointed some of the city directors from our women, basically we have experience about a 50% promotion rate and pretty much 100% retention rate. >> Lisa: Wow. >> Yeah. >> 50% promotion and 100% retention is incredible. >> It is incredible, so I see that miracle happening and then I become very convinced after year one and then I've also learned that I'm not the only leader in the world that believes in this. That's the reason why they blossom like crazy. >> I imagine growing up in China, I was reading a little bit about your story, that the expansion in China must mean something a bit personal for you as well. It sounds like you were a bit fortunate though, with your parents saying "hey," you had two choices when you graduated from college, flight attendant, or secretary and your parents thought "she should have more options that that." So maybe kind of full circle, how was that for you when those two in Shanghai and Beijing opened? >> To me, I feel like, that is what is 21st century supposed to be. I wish it were true in the 19th century and but bottom line is, minor correction, actually I did interview for those two positions. I was rejected. I was not qualified. >> Lisa: Lucky VMware. >> Yeah. (laughing) Actually lucky United State. >> There you go. >> So basically my dad and my mom, they basically raised me up very differently in that era. They basically feel that they give me kind of almost a virtual space where I do not feel there is any difference between genders. They always made me feel like I'm a equal citizen in the family. I have the same speaking right, my dad, my mom both foster me that so when they learned that I could not get those two possible jobs and I was very well educated, graduated from the best university in the island, quoting my dad, he basically "invested on me," right? So he basically said "well" what he needs to do is "continue to invest in me." So that's the reason why he exported me to United States and then basically I went to the graduate school here and then since then I been very blessed. So this is almost like the Beijing and Shanghai success of the Women Who Code. It's almost like I'm giving it back to my origin. Right? And I'm bringing a lot of the blend between the western and eastern culture together. Right? To open that up which is fantastic and basically in the global environment to make it very diverse and inclusive at the same time. >> So you had really strong parents who instilled this belief in you that you could do anything. When we look at some of the statistics that show that less than 25% of technical roles are held by women and then we also look at the retention, the attrition is so high in tech. What were some of the things that kept you kind of focused on your dreams? How did you kind of foster that persistence? And I'm wondering what your advice is for women who are in tech and might be thinking of leaving. >> Well, very interesting, so first advice I have is, basically believe in yourself and dream very big. Because that, and the second this is never afraid of change. Change is always a good thing and that has been throughout my growth in a foreign country as well as here. Right? And I remember when I was in the university, even thought it was the best university, and I actually changed department and major twice and the third time I attempted to do it, because at that time I told my dad, say "hey, I heard there's this cool computer science thing I really want to go do" he did some calculation and said "look, if you transfer again, the third time, it will take you five to six years to graduate" so he said "no, just stick with it and then later on you want to move, go ahead." Right? So in grad school I changed again and I was very blessed that there are a lot of sponsors and mentors. Not just my parents. Throughout my growth and throughout my journey in the career basically really foster and help me, supported me, give me a lot of advice, so I'm a big believer in mentorship and sponsorship and that's what I believe the technical woman community will offer. It's kind of a genetically built it within that philosophy in the community. Right? It doesn't matter which forum. It is basically bringing in the common belief and the vision together and it's basically peer to peer mentorship and because there are different walks and different levels of women and technologist in that community then you actually could do the tiering and peering and basically help people to either inspire, basically move into new career journey, or elevating themselves. So I'm a very big believer in mentorship and sponsorship. >> Speaking of change, we talked about the changes you've made previously. You've made a big change from R & D to financier. >> Lily: That's correct. >> The very first at VMware to do that? >> Lily: Yes, very first... >> Tell us about kind of the impetus and what excited you and what you are benefiting from. >> Well, I'd been in the R & D career for a couple decades and so every ten years I look at my resume and then I kind of try to have an out of body experience to basically advise myself and say, what would you do differently, so that you actually are setup for the growth for the next ten years. Right? So when I look at my career about a year ago I basically said to myself and said "well, you've got enough R & D experience, you made enough investment. For you to be in the next journey you really need to have the business experience." And even though I have basically with VMware's support and sponsorship I did go back to the business school and got kind of the Berkeley business certificate and I got lots of great executives supporting me. But the reality is if you don't do that role, day in and day out, and really experience it blended into your DNA, it's not going to come natural. Right? And I don't want to be an imposter, so essentially I made a fairly major determination that I want to basically switch into business world. So I'm kind of a unique case in the sense that I'm both over-qualified and under-qualified at the same time. I'm very lucky that I have a lot of the executive sponsorship that I was able to find a perfect role that allowed me to learn and excel and basically be inspired basically in my role today and that is something fantastic. Only after I transfer that's where I learn that I'm actually the first employee in VMware's history that moved from R & D to finance and I still remain as the only one so far and I hope that my success can actually inspire more R & D people because I truly believe that a lot of times when you can actually can look at from the other lens it would just simply make you be able to do your original job better. Like right now, I would tell my old R & D self that some of the decision I made I would have debated and petitioned and argued and thought about it in a completely different way because my thinking has shift which I think is a very healthy shift. >> I agree, and you know, one of the things that Laila Ali said this morning was basically encouraging people to get uncomfortable, to be comfortable and that's, you talked about change, absolutely there's so many opportunities and we know that on one level but it can be pretty intimidating to change something. But I love also what you said. I think there's a parallel with saying now that you have this business experience looking through that other lens at R & D, you would have made decisions differently and I think that is very reflective and an opportunity for organizations to invest in creating a more diverse executive team. When you bring in that though diversity. >> Lily: Exactly. >> And it just opens the door, not just seeing things through different lenses and perspectives whether we're talking about gender or what not, but the profitability that can come from that alone is tremendous. >> Yeah, so for example one of the things that there is a statistics actually based on McKinsey for company that basically has reasonable percentage blend of woman leadership actually grows better and makes much sounder decision and so the experience I have moving from R & D to business and then now I work still very closely with R & D community and the product business unit, basically that's kind of a testemonial for that because the decision making all of a sudden is multi facet. And you always will be able to make a better decision and a sound decision. Now, you will be able to see a different risk at a different level, and we will be communicating in a more common language, like I used to not be able to speak the business tone and the business language, now I actually can be that effective communication bridge, which I find it very powerful and very exciting and very illuminating in terms of just the whole shift, make it a very worth while actually. It's just a very fantastic personal and professional experiences so far. >> You studied that Mckinsey report and that was actually mentioned this morning that the press release that VMwear did with the Stanford Institute investing 15 million in building a womens innovation lab to study the barriers, identify how to remove those barriers, but in that press release McKinsey report found that, and this is shocking, that companies that have more diversity at the executive level, are 21% more profitable. >> Lily: Exactly. >> That's a huge number. >> That's because you actually, for business, right? The technology moves so fast and there are so many different factors will be coming in hitting the business, giving business decision, you just go down a unique lane and not basically bringing all the different facets of perspective, you tend to basically gradually work yourself into a corner or you may just believe what you want to believe. Right? So that's where the other genders perspective or even the inclusive culture will bring you, basically. So this is my firm belief. Right? It's just in a different dimension basically. >> And I think that's great advice for all walks of life Lily. Thank you so much for stopping by The Cube and sharing with us what you're doing with Women Who Code and congratulations on being the first VMware to successfully transition from R & D to finance. >> Yeah, I actually hit my one year anniversary. >> Oh congratulations and thanks so much for your time. >> Thank you. >> We want to thank you for watching the cube. I'm Lisa Martin, on the ground at Women Transforming Technology VMware. Thanks for watching. (digital music)

>> Announcer: From the VMware Campus in Palo Alto, California It's the CUBE. Covering Women Transforming Technology >> I'm Lisa Martin with the CUBE and we are on the ground in Palo Alto at VMware headquarters with the third annual Women Transforming Technology event. Excited to be speaking with Kathy Chou, the VP of R&D Operations and Central Services from VMware. Kathy, nice to meet you. >> Nice to meet you, as well. >> So, third annual Women Transforming Technology event. Sold out within hours. It was standing room only in the keynote this morning. We got to hear from Laila Ali. So inspiring. What a strong female, who used the word purpose a lot during her talk this morning. You're a mom of four boys. You've been a female in tech for a long time, now. What is it that has kept you in tech and pursuing a career in technology as a leader? >> Well, I have been in tech for over 25 years. And it has been an absolute amazing journey. From early career to mid career to now, I'm going to say mid-to-late career, it's just a passion that's I've had. When I was a young girl, I was just good at math and science. And I pursued that passion and ended up with a mechanical engineering degree. And there are many steps along the way where I was getting discouraged. "Why do you want to do this tech thing? "You should maybe drop out, do something else." But I'm so glad I stuck with it. And really, as you mentioned, the four boys. I want to be an example for my sons because I want them to understand there can be women with all sorts of talents. And if they happen to find someone who is technical and wants to do something in this world or do something in hi-tech or management or whatever that is, that they support them in every way, shape, or form. >> How have you gotten the coveted or sought-after work-life balance? What are some of you tips and tricks we can learn from? >> Well, first of all, I call it work-life integration. Because it's really not a balance. You've got to integrate it. And one of the things I've also ... First thing, I've chosen companies that really believe in that. VMware is a company that really believes in this bringing your authentic self to work and making sure that you can integrate your work with your life. And you need to have that balance. In fact, I do a career journey. And when I talk about my career journey, there's above line, below line. And above the line is the work stuff, and below the line is the life stuff. And you need to make sure that they're equally full. Because I believe that if you have a very, very full and busy life outside of work, it'll actually make you a better employee. So I encourage my folks, as a leader now, I'm finally a leader and I manage a team, that if folks have to go and do something in the middle of the day, doctor's appointment, do something with the kid, go do it. Because as long as you get your job done, you can integrate both work and life. >> Lisa: I love that. I think you're absolutely right, that it isn't about ... It's integration. They have to work together. So, from your career in mechanical engineering, what were some of the things that ... Were you just sort of born with an innate, "I'm really interested in this," in terms of keeping your head down and focused and getting into a fairly male-dominated industry and field? Was it just sort of that innate, that you were born with, "Hey I like this. "Yeah, I'm in a male-dominated field, but I don't care?" >> Yeah, it kind of was. Because, you know, my love ... So I had two focus areas in mechanical engineering. One was material science. I just loved material science. And so I ended up working for my first job out of Stanford was Instron Corporation which was a materials testing firm. My other love was robotics. So, I had actually worked for GM on the production line and helped program some of those early robots. And so, I was able to combine those two passions when I ended up going to Instron and developed their robotics line. Now, here's the thing. As I'm going through all of this, am I looking around and realizing, "My goodness, there are no other females here?" That was the case. But my passion for learning new things, and doing something, and making a difference seemed to outstrip the fact that there weren't females. And now that, as I'm getting, again, more advanced in my career, I'm realizing that I have a duty to play as a role-model to say "Hey, you can do it. "You can have a family. "You can have a great job. "You can have a great life outside of work. "You know, as long as you integrate all of those things." So I think with that perseverance, that's how you can get through. >> And I think that there is such a need for those role models because like we were talking about Laila Ali this morning who clearing was born with this natural confidence, which not a lot of women are, >> Kathy: Yes. >> Not a lot of people are, in general. So, I think it's really important that you've recognized you're in this position to be a mentor. >> Kathy: Mm hmm. >> What are some of the ... How do you advise, either women that are in their early stage careers or even those maybe in the middle of their careers that are pondering, "Hey, I don't see any "or a lot of strong female leaders "in the executive suite. "Should I stay here?" You had that internally, but what is your advise to women who might be at that crossroads. >> Yeah. I think the first and most important thing is that it takes courage to stay the course. I know that sounds a little odd, but don't care about what you see around yourself, right? Just know about what do you love? What is your passion? And, you know, I always say that there is something I call the sweet spot. It's where your passion meets your talent. And if you're in a place like that, you're in a very special place. Because that means it's a strength of yours that you also love. And if you do that, it doesn't matter who else is around you. You know, one thing Laila said that I really loved and I really, really believe in myself is preparation. You have to be prepared so as long as you are prepared that's what gives you the confidence. We don't ... Okay, maybe she was born confident. She came out of the womb confident. I certainly wasn't. I was someone who grew up with ... I really lacked a lot self confidence. I was painfully shy. I had trouble speaking in front of people. I worked very, very hard. I was prepared to get over that fear. You know, I put myself ... She mentioned this thing about being uncomfortable. And I think I put myself in a lot of uncomfortable situations as well. I was really resonating with what she said. Speaking in front of large audiences. In fact, I used to memorize a lot of my speeches and then I remember I would forget it in the middle of it and- (gasp) I would be horrified. But you know what? You do a few of those things, you get better and better at it and if you just get out of that comfort zone and you have those little butterflies. I always say if you have those little butterflies, you're stretching your learning and that's what helps you achieve. >> I couldn't agree more. I think that, you know, I think that I always say, "Get comfortably uncomfortable." >> Kathy: Yeah. >> No matter what you're doing. If it's above the line or below the line as you were saying before. But you're right, she talked about preparation, being prepared and we talk a lot about imposter syndrome. >> Kathy: Mm hmm. >> Often times at Women and Technology events, just because it comes up, it's something I didn't even know what it was until a few years ago. And I think just simply finding out that this is a legitimate issue that many people face of any industry, gender, you name it. That alone, knowing that that was legitimate, was, "Okay, I'm not alone here." But if you can go, "Let me prepare and get prepared for what I need to do." That preparation part is, I think, a huge key that, if more people understand that just work and be prepared, you're not alone in feeling that. Sort of maybe setting the level setting there. I think that can go a long way to helping those women in any stage of their career just get that little bit more courage that you said. >> Yes. >> That you need to get out of that comfort zone. And I agree I think goals that make you a little nervous, are good goals to have. >> Totally agree. I have some tips on how to get out of that comfort zone, Or get out of your comfort zone. So, I find, okay, there's always the smartest-person-in-the-room thing you hear about, and, forget about that, okay? Ask questions. You always here this: There's no such thing as a dumb question. And there really is no such thing. I know how many times someone has asked a question say, "I asked that question." >> Lisa: Absolutely. >> And actually it's a brilliant way to be heard. Because a lot of times, a lot of women ... Actually, it doesn't matter. A woman, unrepresented minority, it could be a white male who's shy, right? In an inclusive environment, if you don't speak up, you're not heard. And a lot of the brilliant things that people have, are those questions that people have. Because if they don't understand something, I'm sure there's someone else who doesn't either. And so if you just ask some questions, you'll find that you'll get that courage to ask a few more. And then eventually you get to the point where you actually can advocate. >> I agree. You have to be willing to try and I love that. So, the theme of this event, Inclusion in Action. >> Kathy: Yes. >> I'd love to get your perspective on how do you see inclusion in action here at VMware in engineering, for example in R&D. >> Yes. First of all, I'm on the Diversity and Inclusion Council. So I represent R&D. Yes, I just had a meeting with Betsy Sutter. We had our Diversity and Inclusion Council for VMware so I was representing R&D. So it's something that is very, very important to us. One thing I will say that I've learned at this conference is it's not about the stats. It's not about the fact that you have meetings or goals. It's something you must internalize. It's something, as a leader, I think it's my job and duty to exude it, you know, through example, through being inclusive, to making sure, like I was at an event the other day here at VMware I was talking about I was at the Watermark Conference, and I was basically doing a replay of what I did at the Watermark Conference. And in there, I saw three men. And I said to myself, "You know what? "We need more men at this event." And so, even at this conference today, I want to see more men. It's all about inclusion, right? And I think people sometimes forget that, even though it says Women Transforming Technology, men, women, whatever your sexual orientation, whatever that is, we all care about how women can transform technology. You don't have to be a woman to do that. >> Right. Well one of the things that came out today was the great news about this massive investment that VMware is doing. 15 million to create this lab at Stanford. >> Kathy: Yeah. >> This innovation lab. And we were talking with Betsy earlier. And actually, in the press release, it cited that McKinsey report that states that, companies that have a more diverse executive team, >> Yes. no stats or anything, more diverse, are 21 percent more profitable. And it just seems like a no brainer. Every company wants to be profitable, right? Except for an NPO. So, if all you need to do is to increase that thought diversity alone and you're more profitable, why is this so difficult for so many other organizations to culturally adopt that mindset? >> Yeah. What I find fascinating is that diversity and inclusion is obviously a very hot topic in Silicon Valley, right? Every company is either fearing having their numbers publicly outputted or their working on these things. And yet we're doing a lot of things, but the needle isn't moving, right? So, I think it was mentioned today, by a professor from Stanford. She was saying there's not a silver bullet. Some of these things will take a long time. One of the things that we had talked about was this pipeline of, it doesn't matter again, young women, under-represented minorities, whatever you say in the STEM fields. We need to encourage more of that, okay? And so, what's interesting is there's more, well certainly more females than males that are graduating these days, yet, when you start off in a hi-tech company, you will see quite a bit of balance between male and female, I'll just use that as an example. It's even worse as far as under-represented minorities. But as you move up the chain, what happens is the numbers just fall off. And, one of the root causes that I see as an issue, is that when these women look up at the top and say, "I don't see women." Or if I am a person of color, "I don't see a person of color in this leadership position. "Why should I continue?" And then you see just a lot of attrition happening at those levels. And so, what it takes is every single one of us internalizing how important this is. And I think when that happens, when it's not a, "Oh, it's a project." Or, "Oh, it's an initiative." Or, "Oh, it's a goal." And this, by the way, may take a decade or more. But once we all internalize this, I think that's when the needle's going to move. >> Yeah, we talked a lot earlier about accelerating this. Because you're right, the attrition rates are incredibly high, much higher for women leaving technology than leaving other industries. And a lot of women are looking for those role models, like somebody like you for example. But, I think the more awareness, the more consistent awareness we can get ... And also the fact that, you know, in the last six months we've had the Me Too Movement explode onto the scene, getting this unlikely alliance with Hollywood, Time's Up, Brotopia coming out a couple of months ago, and was something that I actually put off reading because I thought, "I don't think I want to know", and I thought, "Actually, yes I do." Because there's no reason that these things should continue. >> Right. >> But, to your point, it's not just about getting more women involved. It's really about integrating and including everybody. >> Kathy: Absolutely. >> To move the needle, but much faster. Half of 2018 is almost over. There were no big females onstage for CES five months ago. And there's really no reason for that. So the more we can all come together and just identify role models and examples and share the different things that we've been through, the more I think we can impact this acceleration of this movement. >> Totally agree. I actually have a thought that you just triggered around perhaps accelerating this in the best way we can. Knowing, again, there's no silver bullet. But I was at my business school reunion and I was shocked to see that 80 percent of my business school graduates were not working. And what happened is many of these women had taken jobs in consulting firms, investment banking firms, that weren't that friendly. And when they started to have children, they stopped out. And they didn't want to compromise their family. Who does? Nobody wants to do that. But when they wanted to come back, they found that they had either gotten off, they call it the mommy track, right? The train left the station, they couldn't make it back on. Or they weren't willing to take a lower job. And so, because of that, many of them ended up not working. And, you know, that's sad. Because these are really, really smart, brilliant ... >> Lisa: These are Harvard graduates, right? >> They are. Harvard Business School graduates that were not working. And so, like you said, it requires everyone to understand, right? It's the employers, a lot of these men, need to understand that women, if they want ... And by the way, it's not even women these days. It's young men who want to be with their families, as well. Paternity leaves, time off with the kids, those sorts of things. If you allow those people that freedom. You know, when I was young, I felt like I went through this by myself. So I had three kids five and under. My career was not progressing. I was just doing lateral moves and I didn't feel like I was successful in anything. Not successful in my job, not successful at home. And then I had no friends, 'cause I was too busy and work and home. But if I had more of a support network at the time, fortunately I didn't drop out. I could have. I think many people do. So, if we can provide more support at that really important time when they're raising their families, people can see that, "Hey, I can have a great family life and also a great work life." >> So key, just for support alone. And that's one of the things that I think is really exciting about Women Transforming Technology. It's this consortium of organizations and industry and academia and non-profits, coming together to identify and tackle these issues that we're facing. 'Cause the issues that women are facing are issues that corporations, profitable corporations, are facing. But to connect on these challenge points, provide that support and that network, and also, to your point, maybe even providing an unlikely mentor to somebody who might have in your position where, "I don't think I'm being successful anywhere." But you stuck with it, and you might have at times gone, "I don't know why I'm sticking with this." But you had some intestinal fortitude to do that. More of those supportive and mentoring voices and people, the more we can elevate them, and show them to other people who might be struggling, the better we're going to be able to move this needle. >> Completely agree. And you know what? They always say "it takes a village," right? It takes a village to raise a family. It takes a village to work and do what you need to do and make a change in the world, and we all need to do this together. And, by the way, there's nothing more inclusive than that, is there? >> Lisa: Right. >> We all have to deal with this. It doesn't matter your sexual orientation, your age, your gender, your ethnicity, doesn't matter. We all share in this common bond, right, around how do we integrate our work and our life. >> Kathy, brilliantly said. Thank you so much for stopping by the CUBE and sharing your experiences and your wisdom. I, for one, was very inspired. So thank you for your time. >> Thank you, I was inspired as well. I really appreciate it. >> Oh, thank you. Thank you for watching the CUBE. We are on the ground at VMware for the Women Transforming Technology event. Thanks for watching. (music)