Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 11In this episode, Sean says he hasn’t been on a plane for almost four weeks – and that’s unusual because he is always on a plane to somewhere. So he has been able to have dinner with his wife and kids, and it’s been incredible. He says it puts life in perspective, and that’s the most important thing.Sean says that his roughly 30 companies are negatively impacted by COVID-19 – but he says that’s secondary to health and safety. He says everyone is working from home. Sean says he authored a book called “The Science of Growth,” where he looked at pairs of companies and asked, why did one company take off and the other one didn’t. Why is a third of the internet running on top of WordPress? Why are people driving Teslas and not Fiskars? Why do people have a Facebook account and not a Friendster account? Sean says he wouldn’t want to be in the hospitality business today – or the travel business. He quotes Warren Buffett as saying, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” Sean says he typically uses that in board meetings when it feels like companies are swimming to close to the knife’s edge. He says it’s true of a global company, and it’s also true inside a 10 person company. He says he’s pretty proud that his portfolio companies are doing a pretty good job of making sure that they’re doing the right thing. Sean says what some companies are doing over the last five years in terms of share buybacks to inflate their stock. He says there are companies who had really good offers to raise money three months ago and held out to try to get a 5% higher valuation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Each month, “Lochhead on Different” episodes will explore the need to differentiate people, products, and services in a world that encourages a lot of imitation. A best-selling author, top podcaster, and former tech-industry CMO, Christopher Lochhead is a student of not only business and technology and marketing but also human nature, human folly, human genius, and very human joy.Episode 11In this episode: Chris says if you turn on your TV or fire up your browser, you’ll see don’t go to anything with more than 250 people…don’t go to anything with more than 100 people…and now we’re down to 10.Chris says we’re on Zoom right now, and Zoom was started by Eric Yuan. Zoom has given their technology to all the schools in America – K through 12. Google, too, has stepped up to build a website, and Microsoft as well.He says there was a deep connection with people after 9/11 – and it didn’t matter what political, racial, or whatever differences – we all seemed to melt away, and stood as one. He says that’s what’s beginning to happen here.Chris says that megacompanies like Target, Walmart, or CVC – and of course Amazon – are delivering essential services. Chris says if you think about all the major food retailers now, America would be in a very difficult place.I tell Chris that there are people immigrating to the US from Russia – mostly for religious reasons – and they would stand in the aisles dumbfounded, “How is this possible?” The essential services these supply chains deliver are remarkable.Chris says it’s likely corporations are going to miss their next quarter’s numbers by 100%. Pipelines, revenues, and guidance on earnings are all going down.He says a panel of experts at UCSF says 40% to 70% of us are going to get it. That’s 150 million Americans. If one percent of us die, that’s 1.5 million people.Chris says what can we do to drive revenue for our business – if our business is still functioning. He says in the tech industry, there is something called “whitespace analysis.” Chris says this is where companies sell to an existing consumer, rather than selling to a brand-new customer.He says the average commute in America is roughly 45 minutes. That’s an hour and a half a day. And he says that’s an hour and a half a day back. You can transform their lives, because in that hour they can workout, invest time with their family, and keep healthy.Chris says he’s working on a book with Eddie Yoon, and it’s about “radical generosity.” Walmart and Target, etc. are giving away their parking lots for drive-thru testing. Tech companies are giving away their technology. He says as a company what can we do that’s radically generous? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Each month, Tony Uphoff, visionary CEO of Thomasnet.com, joins Cloud Wars Live for a recurring segment. “Uphoff on Industry” will explore the innovations, upheavals, and breakthroughs reshaping the world of manufacturing and industrial markets. Join Tony and me as we discuss disruptive new trends in the digital-industrial world. These include how we design, source and manufacture products. And also the new ways in which industrial companies are getting up to speed on marketing, sales and customer experience.Episode 12In this episode: Tony says about 350 of Thomas are now working remotely – and 75 independent sales reps that they call certified Thomas Partners. He says he’s been amazed to watch his company make that transition and he is proud of his people that got him there. He says these are anxiety producing times, and he’s amazed at how calm people stayed.Tony says that Thomas started to produce some surveys. The first wave Thomas sampled 750 companies, and the second wave they sampled 1,400. The first wave of the study 60% of respondents said they were seeing an impact on the virus in the near future. Second wave, 45% of respondents said they were seeing an impact. That means that some sources in China are coming back online.Tony says that auto companies, electronics companies, aerospace companies, and others have their supply chains disrupted. He says you may see an acceleration of re-shoring in the U.S.I tell Tony that when I was in ninth grade I had a coach that told us, “adversity builds character.” But he said no, “adversity reveals character.”Tony says there’s a lot of people that understand that they can be very productive and live a high quality of life without the strain of commuting. He says that it’s pretty easy to draw a vector point and to see a higher percentage of remote workers. Which means empty offices.Tony says to stay calm while we fly through some turbulence. He says we’re watching how customers and prospects are reaching out to Thomas and looking at the dashboard of their products and services. Tony says they were chatting via Slack today, and seeing users request a feature where a supplier would show lead times for products and services – right on the supplier profile.Tony’s podcast is on all the major platforms as well as https://ThomasNet.com. You can also subscribe to Thomas’ daily email newsletter at https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

“Sadin on Digital” episodes explore the fast-changing and high-stakes world of digital business. Wayne Sadin and I focus in particular on what CEOs and boards must do to lead their companies successfully into the Digital Age. Today, we talk coronavirus and why it’s a number one priority.Episode 13In this episode: Wayne begins by saying the world divides up into the digital haves and the digital have nots. He says if you’re Google, every Googler has a mobile device and they carry it with them everywhere they go. Their network has the ability to handle more than 100,000 people working at home. But he says with construction companies and manufacturing companies, 90% of your staff works in the office – and that’s an abrupt transition.He says meanwhile, you’ve got people quarantined and locked down out of a sense of prudence – and you may want more and more people to work from home.Wayne says people laugh when he comes into a client’s office, because has a power supply, a spare screen, charging bricks, a battery, and two headsets in the bag. But he says, it’s naïve to say everybody’s got a laptop, because that’s not the case. For example, you don’t need a laptop when you’re an accounts payable person. And he says you probably have collaboration tools. On the business side, he says, are your people aware of how to log in? How about printers? Do they have a printer at home?He says the coronavirus is number one priority. Staying home and staying healthy is something he wouldn’t prioritize over corporate profits. He says there are going to be companies that emerge from this crisis in better shape. And there are companies that are just going to fall apart because they can’t operate in a different model.Wayne says the crisis may be over in a couple of weeks, but he says the infection rate is going to overload the healthcare environment. He says what if we had a rolling problem for six months to 12 months. He says that’s his message to IT – don’t assume it’s over. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

For the past 35 years, Ben Rewis has been a leader in the development and deployment of cutting-edge enterprise technology within large financial-services companies. With a renewed passion for AI, Ben is now advising companies ranging from startups to global corporations on digital transformation and the massive opportunities around innovative uses of AI. A surfer buddy of Cloud Wars Live monthly guest Christopher Lochhead, Ben joins us today to share some compelling ideas on AI's vast potential for both good and evil.Ben starts out by saying he got into working for a big insurance company, but he eventually relocated from Maine to California to join VISA – where he ran internet eCommerce services. Then, he moved to JPMorgan Chase and started looking at the fraud algorithms associated with real-time transaction processing.He says as a student of tech, he already sees AI making a big difference in lots of industries – including healthcare, automotive, financial services, retail, telecommunications, manufacturing, etc. He says there are going to be 41 billion devices and 79 zettabytes by 2025 – and they are all benefiting from AI.Ben says he does consulting work for the ag-tech industry. He says an apple tree has 2,000 blossoms and farmers want to cut it from 150 – so you don’t get the little golf-ball sized apples, you get the big, juicy ones. That’s 1,000X transformation – or 10,000X transformation.Ben says things like miniature drones can be weaponized – and just like nukes they could get into the wrong hands. He says this is the most pressing ethical issue we face around safety, and particularly what war represents for our planet. Ben says there’s a ton of benefit for humankind, but also a ton of risk.I tell Ben that an IBM executive, John Kelly, visited the Vatican – and the Pope – and he spent most of the time discussing the notion of bias. Ben says that there’s a challenge with ML systems. They’re not like traditional products and can’t be conjoined with another dataset. For example, a computer vision camera producing class one, and another set of cameras producing class two won’t be the same algorithm.Ben says he loves working with teams that are doing digital transformation – whether it’s a Fortune 100 or a startup. He says he helps teams think through their products and business strategies, and if it’s a big company looking for transformation he is happy to do that too.He says he found technology and wilderness at the age of 17. He says he found nature to be a really great teacher. Ben says pay attention to what it means for your kids’ kids, and try to the leave the world a better place.His website is benrewis.com. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Each month, Charles Araujo joins Cloud Wars Live for a recurring segment known as “Araujo on Transformation.” Charlie is a bestselling author who has three books to his name: “The Quantum Age of IT,” “The Ecosystem Advantage,” and “Performance-driven IT.” He is also an engaging speaker who will entertain and challenge your audience. Charlie has a website called www.charlesaraujo.com, and another called “The Institute for Digital Transformation.”Charlie says at his core, he’s an IT guy who ran technical operations for a billion-dollar healthcare firm – and then spent his career as a consultant for executives who were engaged in large-scale transformational programs – things like organizational design, operational optimization, and process improvement.He says throughout the Industrial Age, it was all about producing a mass product for a mass market. The industrial barons of their time didn’t have robots – they had human beings. But they were basically robots. They trained us to show up on time, every day, and repeatedly do the same thing over, and over again.Charlie says he launched a new digital journal called “Your Digital Future,” and it’s specifically aimed at answering the question of how do digital leaders step into this bold future. And he wrote a piece about why automation fails – and it has to do with the fact that we had to create space in the organizations for them to have a safe path.Charlie says we all have more information available to us than ever before. He says the idea of secrecy in an organization is almost a joke today – so how do we as a company start transforming our entire business model and our operating model around it?Charlie says he uses Amazon and Walmart as an example. Walmart was the Industrial Age masterpiece. They built the world’s most amazing supply chain and they should have been unassailable, but what Amazon has brought to the table is the transformation of the customer experience.He said he had ordered six chairs from West Elm, and they said it would take four months to arrive. When they showed up the two chairs were in the wrong color. And the second time one of those chairs was also in the wrong color. Fast forward to his wife, and she ordered a very extensive flower set from a name-brand florist. The flowers came, and they were very lackluster, but on the spot the agent gave his wife a credit for the entire amount. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 10In this episode, Sean says Andy Jassy has been an incredible CEO of AWS. He says AWS would be one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world the day it went public. And he understands that it basically works for everybody in the world – except for Jeff Bezos. He says there are a ton of customers making very different decisions if AWS was a standalone entity. But, he says, will the CEO of Kroger compete with Whole Foods? He doesn’t think so.Sean says Microsoft and Google are doing in the cloud space exactly what retailers, healthcare companies, and banks, etc. They’re saying, “What’s our incumbency advantage, and what are we best in the world at?”I tell him that Peter Steube, one of our latest Digital All-Stars, has a 10-year trendable data from CIOs and CTOs about the enterprise purchases they’re making. Peter says there is absolutely no question that in the last six months Google Cloud has gone up dramatically – and also Microsoft. Sean says it’s hard to uncouple Google Cloud from the rest of the Google digital advertising business.Sean says AWS needs to be set free. He says that’s a prediction he’s feeling much better about here in February than he was when he made it in January. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

We're delighted to introduce a new monthly guest on Cloud Wars Live: Peter Steube, managing director of Enterprise Technology Research (ETR), will join us each month to discuss enterprise-IT buying trends among big-company CIOs and IT decision-makers around the world. ETR (www.etr.plus) has developed an extensive database of IT buying tendencies over the past 10 years, and tracks whether those buyers are likely to buy more, hold steady, or buy less from specific IT vendors. Peter's monthly sessions on Cloud Wars Live will come under the handle "Steube on Spending."In this episode: Peter Steube says ETR stands for Enterprise Technology Research. At the core of his business, he says, they’re data scientists. He says what ETR has been doing in that time period is building an active network, in which CIOs, CTOs, IT executives, and IT decision makers can do large-scale surveys. He says ETR also works on planned evaluations of emerging technology vendors.Peter says ETR’s primary audience are professional investors, specifically focused on late-stage, publicly-held enterprise tech companies. And he’s proud to say ETR works with some of the largest global hedge funds and mutual funds.He says in early 2020 they’re on pace for approximately 100 interviews with CIOs. They are fully recorded, transcribed, and housed in a searchable library on the platform.Peter says ETR has a formula down to two key metrics – the overall number of respondents, and the proprietary metric called the net score. The net score measures the overall health and trajectory of spend. He says contained in this research is 10 years of survey responses – and a lot of cool tools.Peter says with Thomas Kurian running things, the Google Cloud Platform could change quickly. He says they’re a likely alternative to AWS and Azure, and they seem to be taking a page from AWS’ book. I say to Peter, four or five days ago I saw an interview with Thomas Kurian in which he said, “We’re focused on executing our business plan – and we don’t get caught up in those things.”You can visit Peter at www.etr.plus, and you can participate in their surveys and receive access to their research. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Each month, Tony Uphoff, visionary CEO of Thomasnet.com, joins Cloud Wars Live for a recurring segment. “Uphoff on Industry” will explore the innovations, upheavals, and breakthroughs reshaping the the world of manufacturing and industrial markets. Join Tony and me as we discuss disruptive new trends in the digital-industrial world. These include how we design, source and manufacture products. And also the new ways in which industrial companies are getting up to speed on marketing, sales and customer experience.Episode 10In this episode: Tony says we have the benefit of having had a ringside seat at a lot of these market transitions. He says it always surprises you how long it takes for them to happen – and then the speed with which they ultimately happen. Tony says he thinks we’re at one of those stages right now, with industry 4.0 and digital transformation.Tony says if you look at the valuations of a tech company, it’s much, much higher than a manufacturing company. Tesla is an outlier – sure, he says, they’re bending steel just like the others, but they’ve clearly fused tech at the center.He says a sunflower moves based on the angle of the sun – and that’s what SunBot, a company that captures 90% of the sun’s rays does. It emulates nature, and it’s creating a whole new solar technology.Tony goes on to say it was his chief technology officer who raised the idea that Thomas should develop a business unit called “Thomas Industrial Data,” to sell datasets into the buyside financial institutions. Tony says when he brought that up, he said, “please call me in a month.” But he was right, because the CTO was able to see that much quicker than anybody else in the company.He says he lives in a glass house too, and he’s trying to understand what customer success really means. He says if you’re in the wrong hands, and you’re wildly overpromising on something, and you don’t know exactly what it is. But he says if you go to the other end of the spectrum it’s a license to upsell you after you’ve bought the core product or service.Tony goes on to say that China assembled a 40,000 square-foot hospital in 10 days to assist people for the Coronavirus. They used prefabricated materials, and he is an awe of that.Tony’s podcast is on all the major platforms as well as https://ThomasNet.com. You can also subscribe to Thomas’ daily email newsletter at at https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Each month, “Lochhead on Different” episodes will explore the need to differentiate people, products, and services in a world that encourages a lot of imitation. A best-selling author, top podcaster, and former tech-industry CMO, Christopher Lochhead is a student of not only business and technology and marketing but also human nature, human folly, human genius, and very human joy.Episode 10In this episode, Chris kicks off with John Doerr of the legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins – who famously said the internet was underhyped. He took heat for it – but guess what, John was right. Also, he says Kevin Maney, who co-authored Play Bigger with Chris says the cloud is also underhyped.He says his buddy Big Ben Rewis is advising a startup called Verdant Robotics. They have sensors on plants that are able to detect moisture levels – a/k/a chill hours – and the more chill hours the better, because trees sleep longer in hibernation when it’s colder.He goes on to say that Steve Pratt has a company called Noodle.ai, and their mission is to optimize manufacturing and supply chains. Forty-percent of the food on the planet rots. And 40% to 50% of trucks on the road are empty because they are not optimized – and that creates 42 billion wasted miles, and over 97 million tons of CO2.He says when he was with a company called Mercury that got its start in quality testing it went like this: “Test, test, test. Monitor, monitor, monitor.” Not so for Shadow Inc., which produced an app in two months that screwed up the entire Iowa Caucus.Chris says that a podcast featuring a husband and wife team called Phelim McAller and Ann McElhinney are following the Harvey Weinstein trial, day by day. They have actors in LA read the pieces, and they stitch things together overnight. He says it’s groundbreaking.I tell Chris that people are saying this is the end of innovation. And I say that a bureaucrat was running the U.S. Patent Office in 1907, and he said, “We should now shut down the U.S. Patent Office because everything that can be invented has been invented.”He then turns to the Coronavirus. Corona beer surged over 3,200% globally on Google, and Chris says, “Are those people allowed to vote – or to procreate?” I joke that, “I've got to run because I've got a case of Corona beer that I've to get rid of. I just heard that it's deadly.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Visit Cloud Wars for more.