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All right. Well, we're coming up on the end of the year. I mean, I'll reveal the obvious secret.

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We're recording this a little bit ahead of the end of the year or whatever. That's an odd phrase,

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but I thought we should have a, we don't have any news this episode, but we should have a

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little predictions thing. Whenever I was an analyst, I was low doing predictions,

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but whatever, you can figure out a way to do them in a fun way. So I thought, you know,

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you had the good suggestion that we should look back at previous predictions and kind of rate them.

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And I think, I think what you've done is more or less picked a bunch of other people's predictions.

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So that's good. I think maybe there's one prediction you made, none that I made that we can review.

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So that's, that's good. And we'll kind of look back on those. And, and I think, I think mostly

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what that exercise is fun for is to sort of get a sense of the, the aggregate of what people were

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thinking a year ago. And we can kind of talk about that. And then, and then we'll wrap up with some

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predictions of our own and I'll make some so that, uh, you know, assuming we're here next year,

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which hopefully we will be, uh, you know, we can comment on those as well. What's your,

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let me, let me ask you just one very small, uh, system of working question. Now you, you've been

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around, uh, for a while. What's your, what's your model when you're doing predictions? Like how do you,

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what do you do in terms of how do I come up with them? Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, so for example,

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uh, in some more formalized places, if you have a group, uh, you'll have a spreadsheet and people

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will write a bunch of one-liner, uh, predictions. And then you might allocate each person in this

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group gets 10 points and they can assign however many points they want. So you wait it and you sort

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it. And then you're like, these are, this is our belief in the predictions or something. That's

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an overly complicated way. I think usually what you do is you sit in a room over some like, you know,

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sandwiches or some catering and you just sort of like, as a group, figure out the ones you want or

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don't want before you get bored doing the task. And then a junior person has to write it up, but I

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don't know what, uh, what do you do? I don't think I'm creative enough to come out with the completely

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left field predictions. I think what I typically end up doing is seeing where do I see like a,

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an early indicator, right? Is there some sink signal in the place that says like, wow, this,

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this kind of thing, is this a canary in a coal mine? Let me use a lot of metaphors. Uh, and so,

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you know, that's what, that's what I ended up doing is I look at that and then try to think like,

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how realistic is this? And for purposes of like our podcast, it's, it's probably better to be less

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realistic. Cause that's more fun and hot take like, uh, but yeah, no, I don't have a fancy flow

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charts or sticky notes or scoring systems or, or, you know, internet polls to help me,

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help me pull this down. How about you? Do you do some, uh, consult the magic eight ball or?

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Oh, I think, I think probably similar to you. I just pay attention to what's going on week to week

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and just kind of think about the, uh, the trajectory of it. I mean, I think maybe the only,

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the only thing different, at least in what you said is, uh, I usually go back and like,

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look at stuff I've bookmarked or talked about just to remind myself of things that had happened.

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And, uh, and then it's also like, uh, when you're, when you're all fancy pants, like, uh,

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like we are someone, someone pays for you to have access to analyst sites. So it's fun to go look

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and see what their, their predictions are present and future. Yeah. I think that's the weird thing

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that probably both you and I end up doing is we, for better for us, we end up absorbing a lot cause

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we just keep in touch with what's going on. So I just think our brains kind of grind through on this

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stuff and eventually certain things kind of just squirt out as like, Oh, this is probably what's

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happening. Cause you've been chewing on it for a year. And so it just seems like that's probably

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what happens is these are just insights that come from go going through gobs of information every

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day. Yeah. And it's also a bit of a, uh, I don't know what, what the word is like a spoiled advantage

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of, of like, uh, you know, it's kind of like, well, my prediction is it's more of this. Like when you,

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when you have too much like ongoing commentary about what's happening, it's, uh, it's hard,

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it's hard to like have not checked in for a year and then therefore see how much is advanced. It looks

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like a, uh, a slow encroachment. Uh, I don't know the closer you look at it anyways. So what, uh,

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what have you gathered together of predictions for this past year? What were people saying a year

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ago that would happen? Yeah. So we'll share, uh, the list of ones I'm looking at. I picked up some

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more of high profile sort of forums, not, you know, weird guy just coming up with predictions,

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which is what I would write, but what are, what did we find in some larger publications? So

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you know, one of the first ones I'm looking at, uh, is, Hey, 2018 is going to be the year of the

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voice interface. Like, Hey, Alexa, and you've got, you know, Google home and you have, we all love

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IVR systems. So maybe that was also supposed to be more of it, but that was the first one. Like

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did voice really take off this year? I don't know. What do you think? Do you think that voice,

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I mean, you know, I've Google homes in my house, you know, obviously those sort of devices are big.

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I think I saw there's 10,000 people at Amazon who work on Alexa, which is just unbelievable.

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They must, they must be actually typing answers to the questions.

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I think that's what it is, right? Yeah. What should we have for dinner? And there's like

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three people quick swarming around a cubicle going, I don't know, maybe some stew. Uh, that

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might be it.

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I like, I like that the first thing he thought of was stew. Uh, well, first of all, I think,

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I think I had never connected those two things, but I think the idea of like, uh, you know, Alexa

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and Google home and all these things is basically like, uh, a self-service IVR system is awesome.

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It's just, it's just like a, uh, a decision tree of things to do. But yeah, that, that was, that was one

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of the things I was looking at when I was going, looking through past things is, uh, I, uh, I had

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forgotten how big of a deal that was not big of a deal as in the phenomena, but like, that's all

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anyone talked about for a while was like all those voice things and what's going to happen

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with it. And I don't know, I haven't gotten to go see, you know, the IDC supply chain reports

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or whatever, but, uh, I don't know. I think, I think people kind of like think it's interesting

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and, uh, it's a really good speaker. And, um, but I don't, I, I haven't really heard any like

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great follow on stories of like how, how, how those voice things have like changed people's

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lives or businesses in, um, I mean, you see some, you see some spot stories of things happening at

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certain companies who voice enabled certain stuff, but I don't know. A lot of times it's still faster

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to do things. However, I did it before than talking to a machine. Now they've gotten much better. I

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don't know if you ever had a car that had those first generation sort of voice activation features

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and you had to say it the exact certain way you had to have the, you know, it sounded like a robot

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when you talked to it. So I, I, you stopped using it after the first day. So I mean, these are better

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now, which is great. My, my four year old can scream at the Google home and it somehow knows

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what song to play. Yeah. That's amazing. I think maybe that is the most popular use in our house,

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uh, which, which for me, which is, it makes me wish it didn't exist because like last night I listened

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to the same, what are these kids listening today type song like 20 times. And, uh, and then even

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better, like my son would, my son and daughter would be trying to ask for it again and it

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would take them three or four times to do it. But yeah. So, so the, the potential of stuff

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is there. And I guess, I mean, one last thing for me, at least on that topic is, uh, you know,

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now that I live in a, uh, um, what would you call it? A big city where you walk around a lot

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in Amsterdam, right? Versus being in your car, being isolated, you're kind of like frequently

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out in the environment. Uh, like I, there's this idea to use another one of Siri, where

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if you've got the full Apple kit going on, like your earbuds and your phone and you're

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connected to your internet, you know, there's also 5g. I always wonder what happened to that.

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I've been hearing about that forever. I think 5g and BDI are in the same bucket of, of, uh,

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the future anyways. Yeah. And, and in theory, like you, you hook up your Siri things so that

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at any point I could say like, Siri, when does the next train leave from Amsterdam central

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to go to Muta port? And it would like, tell me something and you know, it would solve my

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problem. But I just like, like, even if that did work, I just can't imagine myself walking

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around in a throng of people. And all of a sudden I'm like Siri and like talking to the

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phone. It seems so weird, but you know, I mean that idea of, and also I could never get

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that thing to work where I just say Siri, but I I'm still, despite like being kind of a voice

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downer or whatever, like I'm still attracted to this idea that I could just sort of like

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say that all of a sudden, no matter where I was and something would happen. Uh, that sounds cool,

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but I'm willing to wait the five to 30 years for it to actually work.

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Yeah. Especially now that we're all in open floor plans where it would just be constantly

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going off all the time. So I couldn't use that at the pivotal office. That's right.

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All right. So that was the first one. Uh, another one in this particular set of ones was talking

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about retailers kind of closing stores to focus on e-commerce stuff and try to fight back

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on Amazon. I mean, I think we saw at least the first part where a lot of retailers were

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closing their doors. I don't know if we saw them then kind of come back in force to actually

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be better online presence as some of them are, you know, one of our retail customers had

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just blew out black Friday, like three times what they ever did before. Of course, everything

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worked perfectly because it was on PCF, but it was like these online presences are, have absolutely

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kicked up for some, but did you see, or did you notice anything around here, around retailers

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kind of up in their game digitally while they closed down brick and mortar?

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No, I mean, not this year, at least like I remember in writing up, working on finishing out

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my, uh, my little book, which I forget if I told you this, we came up with the clever title

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monolithic transformation. We'll see how, maybe it's just monolith, but that's a good, I think

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that'll work. That's better than what is, what is digital transformation. Anyways, like, you know,

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in reading that, like I've looked at a few things, a few examples and retailers have sort of like

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already done as much e-commerce stuff as kind of possible. And I mean, just, I don't study retail

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very well, but so I guess that's a way of saying like this prediction is correct, but old.

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And I mean, I guess, I guess what I have seen kind of anecdotally is, uh, well, one on the

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negative side, and this doesn't really have anything wholly to do with this prediction on its own,

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but some of the, as they say, forces behind it, like, I think Sears is shutting down like

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completely, right? Which is, that has a lot of its own problems besides computers that were driving

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that from the lengthy fun, fun stories I've read. But then also like Toys R Us, I think went out of

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business this year, as I recall. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I think, I think with some exceptions, I think

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most retailers who are going to be online are sort of like, given their late start, usually are like

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at par with like selling stuff online. And I think, I think the one, the one thing as far as like

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replacing to the point of the prediction I've seen is, uh, like at least at grocery stores, um,

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you know, down in Texas, there, there's only one grocery store that matters unless you're, uh,

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you're one of the other grocery stores that is interesting and interested in being a pivotal

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customer. Then there's many grocery stores that matter. But the, the biggest grocery store down

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there is HEB and over the past year they've been adding, uh, or at least I've noticed them adding

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omni-channel stuff, right? Where they'll deliver your groceries. You can pick up your groceries.

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And my sense is that like, that's additional business that they're adding, right? It's not

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like replacing in-store stuff. It's just like another way to get your groceries. So, I don't know.

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I mean, I mean, I feel like I, I would change it slightly, I guess, to be like, I think,

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I think online things are augmenting and growing retailers' business and not sort of like sucking

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away from the, uh, in-store experience, if you will. Yeah. No, it's interesting. I mean, the, I,

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the amusement isn't lost on me that, you know, around my office is an Amazon Go store. Like now

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they've opened, they've actually opened up physical stores and my kids get a catalog in the mail from

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Amazon. Like what the, like you're literally doing the Sears game plan. I know that, that was,

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that was one of my, uh, my main winsomey kind of thoughts when Sears was going out of business is

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I read somewhere that they stopped doing the big catalog some years ago. And, and I was thinking

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like that used to be one of my favorite things as a kid was like, you get the Sears catalog and you

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go circle all the things you want for, uh, for Christmas. And man, even now I'm, I'm taking like a few

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extra seconds to just enjoy that memory. That was always a fun time. So that'd be great if Amazon did

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that. Just print that up and go buy things. Yeah. Destroy all the physical companies and then

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they'll send me catalogs. I think it's a plan to success. Uh, the other one in this list, I'll wrap

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this one up with, uh, besides the CMO, it says we'll be more important after the, uh, the most

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important C level, like after the CEO. And now that I've recently come out as a marketer, uh, I like

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that one. That's, uh, that's good. I think marketing is more important than ever. So yeah, that sounds

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great to me. How about you? Yeah. Way to suck up to your boss. Be like the, the, the head of

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marketing. Very important. Yeah. Yeah. This game is played. Yeah. It was so, so wait, what is the

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prediction again? The CMO? So the prediction was that the, yeah, it'd be the most important C

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level after the CEO. And I think, you know, joking aside, I think some of that is about like this era

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of actual getting messaging figured out. It's very noisy in this marketplace, understanding how you

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actually connect people that actually is really meaningful nowadays. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think,

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I think, uh, to, to be, to be Weasley about it, when I think of this prediction, it's kind of like more

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of a, uh, you know, my favorite metaphor, not one, one of my favorite metaphors is like something's a

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Rorschach test, right? And this is like a Rorschach test of like your perspective on things. And I think

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in some enterprises, some organizations, marketing is the primary value generator, right? Like, um,

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you know, I use a lot of shaving cream and the difference between any giving shaving cream is

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not much, right? Like it might be a different color. Maybe I put it on with a brush or, you know,

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whatever. Like it's really, it's a commodity. And so in that business, like marketing is incredibly

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important, right? Like how you market something is a huge part of what drives your margin. And so

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if you're in that kind of business and you're doing digital transformation or trying to learn how to

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computer better than sure, your CMO is probably going to drive a lot of those projects, determine

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the budget for it. And more importantly, they're the ones who are going to get the value from it. And so

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it's kind of like their deal, if you will, uh, versus like, I think other businesses, like if you

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were, um, I don't know, uh, manufacturing tractors or cars, then like marketing is also important,

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but it's not as important as, as like, well, our tractors are 20% more awesome because of this thing.

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Right. Right. Or, or, you know, like the classic thing in agro tractors and agro agricultural

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stuff is like, we have satellite technology and IOT stuff that makes like programming your tractor and

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gives you, you know, crop yields of like five to 10% more, which means you don't go out of business as a

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farmer or whatever. I don't know that industry. So yeah, I mean, I think, I think more of, of,

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I don't know. I mean, I think it's more indicative of like, you have to figure out how to apply like

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this function of being able to customize the software you have and whoever the ultimate wielder

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of that is what becomes important after the CEO. And maybe there's one exception like, and well,

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I don't know, like when, in talking with retail people, I've noticed that there still is a distinct

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like IT department and, and the, the managers of like, you know, the store experience versus the

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rental tool thing to use a hardware thing. Like they're still kind of independent and, uh, they

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get serviced or helped by IT. So maybe that's the distinction is like, who is IT's primary customer

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that is not IT in the business. And, um, I don't know. I think that's more of what's interesting is

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like IT providing someone, finding that role and, and having them be the customer and who that,

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what that letter after C is before O is just, it just depends on what the moneymaker in the business

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is. There you go. That was my dissembling. If I'm using that word correctly. Good dissembling.

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Uh, I'll move up to the, uh, the new stack next. Actually it was written by Craig McLuckie,

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who I guess is about to be one of our colleagues when, uh, VMware's intent to acquire Heptio is

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completed. But so he wrote up some stuff, uh, for the new stack last year, looking at kind of cloud.

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And, you know, one of his first points was, Hey, multi-cloud is going to be imperative.

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Open source is the foundation for it. That seemed like a safe bet. I think we saw a lot of people

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talking multi-cloud this year, realizing multi-cloud. It seemed like software vendors

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recognize that their future probably lied, you know, lay in being a multi-cloud provider versus

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saying, we're just going to be, Hey, we're just going to couple to a single cloud and hope they

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don't eat us. Instead. It seemed to be more of like, Hey, let's make sure our software runs in

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multiple places on prem and off. So that seems like a pretty safe prediction, but I file accounts

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that has been true this year. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of another, I think maybe

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this was in one of the Gartner or Forrester things, maybe Forrester, but it was essentially,

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yeah, it was Forrester and it was, Oh, I forget. It's what's his name. It's the guy who is Twitter

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picture is black and white and he's got a good smile and a little, and a beard. What's last name

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starts with a B anyways. What, one of, one of his predictions was, uh, that private cloud was going

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to, you know, in, in, uh, 2019 be more fleshed out in a bigger deal. And he had a, he had a pretty,

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um, coherent writeup of it. And so, yeah, I mean, I, I often, uh, I don't know. I have a lot of like

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philosophic angst about like multi-cloud and lock-in and all these kinds of things. But I think,

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I think, I think what, when I hear multi-cloud, I think, I think that people are interested in,

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in two things. Well, one, first of all, I think that prediction is accurate over the past year.

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Uh, yeah. And, and I think, I think what people are talking about, let's take us vendors off the

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table. Cause we're like clever and conniving when we use words, we're just trying to help people.

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But, uh, anyways, I think what people are talking about is like, I don't want to be restricted to

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functionality of some cloud I choose. So I want to be able to have, I want optionality that in the

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future, like prices don't go up and I, I don't regret, uh, choosing this cloud because now I'm

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locked into this pricing and even, and equally worse, I now regret, regret choosing this cloud

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because there's, I have like feature envy of some other cloud that's out there. And then I always,

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I think there's another case of like, I just, you know, literally have to be able to run on multiple

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clouds for various reasons. Uh, and yeah, I mean, I think, I think that is a very real,

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like architectural concern people have. Like it's hard to, it's always been hard when you're making

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it decisions to choose like one platform from top to bottom. Like you always want some variety

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in there and the optionality to try different things. So I think, uh, yeah, I mean, multi-cloud makes a

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tremendous amount of sense if only because you want to, uh, take advantage of as many different

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types of functionality as possible. And then also, uh, man, there's a lot of choice out there at the

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moment. And yet, and yet I feel like you have to make a choice. So when there's, when there's a,

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um, what would you call it? When it, when it's a buyer's market, like you want to buy as much

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optionality as possible, right? Like you don't want to restrict yourself and, uh, you don't want

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to lock into things. So, and lock in in the sense of like, I've committed to this decision and

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therefore I can't decide to do other things later. Uh, right. Like, yeah, I mean, that definitely

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seems a multi-cloud. That's a thing. I think also like to add some more dissembling is actually to

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conceal your, your true intentions with a word wall, which is actually not what I was doing. I think I was

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more babbling. Uh, but to, to add some more babbling, I think, I think, and this is a little

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like, I think one thing that will be interesting to see over the next year is how much, uh, like

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Amazon takes, takes the place that like a, uh, early two thousands Microsoft had of this like

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dominant, like big Island of its own versus all the other players and how that kind of conceptually

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fits in. And I, and I think that kind of situation would drive a tremendous amount of multi-cloud

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think as we saw with open source and Linux versus windows, uh, in the early two thousands.

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Yeah. Good. Uh, well, the last one I'll pull from this one, uh, Craig had mentioned, Hey,

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this will be the year of reliability engineering, you know, is Google's SRE sort of stuff picked up.

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And, you know, I think that there's a lot that we saw probably in pivotal around that is more

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people wanted to treat their platform as a product that offering from us remains extremely popular.

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as people realize that anything they're running, just having, you know, a shotgun approach of

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upgrades and Hey, when do we evolve this thing? How do we run it? And a bunch of admins just support

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50 different products, but instead like treat our core platforms as actual products with life cycles

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and do reliability engineering and make sure that we're thinking about SLOs and who's using this

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thing. And how do we think of error budgets and everything won't be a hundred percent online and

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how do we build reliability in all those sorts of concepts seem to come to the forefront.

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There were definitely some high profile outages this year. Like there will always be,

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but I don't know. Did you see an interesting uptick in people thinking about reliability,

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especially as you know, you just brought up again, a lot of multi-cloud, we're building

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more complicated systems. I mean, the monolith for all of its warts and maybe downsides also

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was probably more predictable. Like if it did crash, you kind of knew how to take it back online.

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Now we're building systems that are almost emergent. Like you don't know how this thing will behave.

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So have you seen an uptick in that or is just, just par for the course? Like, yes, make your systems

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reliable.

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Yeah. Yeah. I think that, I think the way you explained it, I was thinking of it one way when

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you, when you read it, but no, the way you explained it. Yeah, I agree completely. That like,

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I think, I think there is, uh, there's so much discussion of like site reliability engineering

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and, uh, and that kind of thing that there's, uh, there's even like delightful or annoying,

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depending on your perspective, debates about like, is SRE real? And how is it different than DevOps?

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And like you and I have talked about this a little bit from time to time. And, uh, I, I, I,

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I must've been late at night when I should have been going to sleep instead of, you know,

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being on the internet. I was, I remember I was Twittering something that like, uh, you know,

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you've reached success as a thought technology when people are like debating what it is, right?

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Like debating what SRE is and if it's real and what's not. And so, yeah, I think, I think that

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idea as, as we would say it as thinking of a, uh, a, uh, a platform as a product, which is kind

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of the SRE approach. Yeah. I think that definitely like came to a early fruition in this past year

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and we'll see even more of it. And just one more data point coincidentally on that is,

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so I've been trying to finish watching all of, uh, the Rabobank presentations that are out there,

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which is to say all the presentations that this guy Vincent at Rabobank has done. Maybe there's

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other ones I should look up, but it's interesting to look at the timeline of, so they have a platform

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that they put in place maybe a year ago. I mean, pivotal cloud foundry, obviously, but they have

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put in place this idea of a platform as a product that they use to run their online bank. And also that

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they use as their microservices platform for the entire bank. And what's interesting to think about

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their timeline is it took them, I think, three years to get to that point. Like it took them two

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years. Once they decided that they needed to decide on something, so to speak, it took them two years to

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stand something up. So I would have to imagine a year before that they were like, we should decide to

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decide something. And, and so, you know, it took them two or three years to get to the point where they

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stood that up, I think, earlier this year, let's say at the beginning of this year. And so if you think about

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it, like most all other large organizations like them would be on that same timeline or a similar timeline.

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And so they would have had to start about two or three years ago to in 2018, have it be the year they have

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like SRE and platform as a product. And so I think, I think most people, if you think back two or three

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years ago, they would have started thinking about this stuff. And if they're as sort of lucky and with

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it as Robbo is, they, they would have been able to deploy it this year. So yeah, I think that lines up. And it's

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definitely what's in the discussion. Everyone talks about what's DevOps versus SRE versus there's no

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other words, just those two. That's it. All right, good. I got four more for you. So the one I'm looking

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at CIO online, CIO.com. One of theirs was, Hey, Google gets real. The prediction was Google becomes

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the number two public cloud in 2018, outpacing Amazon and Microsoft to customer growth, beating Azure

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in revenue. That has not happened. And obviously Google had some, some turnover at the top with

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Thomas Kurian coming in over Diane Greene's tenure and being in, I don't know, I'm personally still

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bullish on what's happening at Google cloud. It's still great tech. They're expanding at a great pace.

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You know, it's a talented team there. I think they'll continue to try to figure out how do they get the

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enterprise traction when they don't have that initial foothold that Microsoft has by default by being

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already a trusted provider there. And Amazon just has its own ubiquity that they get to sell.

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And Google's still seen, I think, as a, as a consumer sort of company. So that one didn't land,

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but you know, what did you think of this year in Google?

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Well, I think, I think, uh, you know, I'm always sore over Google reader, but that's fine.

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That's a whole other part of the company.

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Me too. Yeah. We're not going to talk about that right now.

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But, uh, yeah, I mean, I think, I think, I think what, what we in our infrastructure,

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enterprise software, whatever it is we do, let's say cloud neck of the woods, what we learn all the

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time is like, uh, Google can be, can seem like they're kind of like aloof, but really it's a bad

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idea to think that they're not going to figure it out. Right. Like, and, and, and as part of that,

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um, like I think something that I I've heard over the past year to the point of this prediction is

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pretty much every developer type person I've talked about is like Google cloud is awesome.

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Like they, they, I've heard it characterized over and over again that Google is like a cloud built

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for developers. Uh, and that would make sense. So yeah, I mean, I think, I think Google is constantly

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well positioned to do very well. And I mean, they're, they're top three, right? Like I, I remember when

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Thomas Kurian was going in, there was something like they had, I don't know, eight, 10% or something

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of the public cloud market, which seems small, but I guess it would, they were the third tranche of,

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of, of, uh, market share ownership. Maybe it's bigger than that. Yeah. I probably got that all

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wrong, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, they have a tremendous amount of potential and I think, I think,

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uh, yeah, I mean, I mean, they, they just, I don't know. They, they, uh, I think they'll do well.

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Yeah. I think that's the safe path. And, and I think, you know, as an example, right? Like,

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like, uh, maybe two or three years ago, like they were talking about Kubernetes and no one

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even really understood what that was. And like the leading thought leadership on Kubernetes was

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literally called Kubernetes the hard way, which was sort of like, this is a very difficult thing,

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uh, to do. And yet that's sort of like, uh, I don't know, a big deal in that space nowadays.

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So yeah, they're, they're pretty good at that. And then, and then as a, uh, as a sidecar,

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like no distant pun intended, uh, for that, like, I think, I don't know. I mean, I think hiring the,

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the, you know, the, the guy Thomas from, uh, from Oracle, it's sort of like all we've been saying,

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and I said this on a software defined talk podcast a while ago, and I think reprised it here a little

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bit is like, everyone's been saying for the past two or three years that Google should have more

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enterprise oriented sales. So they hired an enterprise oriented person.

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And right. I mean, we'll see what happens, right? I mean, there's always cultural problems and things

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like that, but, uh, I don't know. I think it'll probably turn out well.

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There you go. Good. Uh, the last one in the CIO one was actually tongue in cheek that block

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blockchain will literally transform everything in the cloud. And just saying, cause I have to do

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something about blockchain, but you know, non-joking aside, do you feel like blockchain changed the

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world in, uh, in 2018, you know, Amazon at reinvent announced their own ledger database and a

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blockchain sort of service, but it seems like obviously parts of that, and then you get into

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sort of Bitcoin and some other aspects of that universe, which kind of crashed a little bit this

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year, but like the blockchain world, did you see applicability in actual enterprise places of

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people trying to use that sort of model successfully? Nope. I didn't see a ton.

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So I don't, I don't, I don't think there was really, uh, there's always lots of potential in

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the, the only, I shouldn't say the only, the most interesting stories I was here is like supply chain

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management. Um, so yeah, I mean, it seems interesting for that, but it seems way overblown.

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Um, and, and, and I, and I think, I mean, not to, well, not to, let me keep babbling on some more

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here. Like, I think the problem is, and this is from a very non-intelligent stance is like all

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blockchain does is say you had two parties that agreed to something and it's verified by a third

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party. And I'm sure it's a lot more mysterious than that, but it's sort of like, well, if two parties

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can agree on a third party to agree on something, do we need a bunch of fancy math? Like what, like

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you still need this third party. And I think that's kind of what AWS announced is like, we will be your

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third party. So there you go. Right. But if you can't like recruit that third party, then it doesn't

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matter. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there's more nuance to it, but it's sort of like, it seems

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like a lot of over-engineering to trying to avoid picking someone as your third party verifier. Like

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it's really weird. So, uh, I don't know. I mean, I mean, as far as like verifying that stuff happened

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in your supply chain and a few things here and there, it seems interesting, but like, I don't really see

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how it's going to disrupt the global banking system.

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Yeah. I mean, we'll see. I'm not like I'm down on it. It just seems like it's so overhyped,

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but I guess we'll keep an eye on that. 2018 or 2019. Yeah. And then we can talk about our own

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stuff was, uh, it might got to hit machine learning AI stuff. So I'm looking at the pivotal software

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trends and one was like, Hey, you're going to see, you know, even more applicability of things around

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machine learning and AI. You're going to see this come into more ways and more places in enterprise,

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not just against startups doing the chat bots or whatever. So are you seeing a IML pick up the

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pace? I think I've definitely seen more people interested, maybe doing still some initial stuff

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versus transforming their business based on machine learning or doing certain things. But it seems like

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it's becoming a bit more mainstream. I don't know if we're going to have the robots actually running

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companies in two years. Like that. What do you think? You ever see that twilight zone episode where like

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a mainframe ends up eventually firing the CEO, I guess, I guess that's an early version of Elon Musk

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paperclip problem, right? Where, uh, you tell an AI to make a paperclip and it ends up eradicating the

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human race. Cause that's the most efficient way to make a paperclip or something. That makes a lot of

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sense to be a downer. Yeah. I mean, I was going to mention, I'm watching Bojack Horseman and a robot

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just took over our company, but that's very different. Oh, nice. I haven't watched that in a long time.

363
00:32:17,260 --> 00:32:23,820
Uh, yeah. I mean, I think, I think maybe this is one of those where like, uh, we're like, it's not

364
00:32:23,820 --> 00:32:33,380
that it's not happening. It's that there was no significant movement in 2018 versus 2017, if that

365
00:32:33,380 --> 00:32:38,100
makes sense. So yeah, I mean, I agree with what you said. I see a lot of talk and conversation about

366
00:32:38,100 --> 00:32:45,660
potential, but I haven't read, I haven't read enough stories of actual usage in the enterprise

367
00:32:45,660 --> 00:32:49,780
to make me think I've read enough stories of actual usage in the enterprise.

368
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:56,420
Right. Besides the, like, like, Hey, we used the image recognition, like package services from the

369
00:32:56,420 --> 00:33:01,920
cloud providers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. But yeah. Exactly. Like we talked about, uh,

370
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:06,620
Amazon part finder a while back, right. Where it's just like, and I played around with this again

371
00:33:06,620 --> 00:33:11,420
today where you can just like point your phone, uh, you know, using the Amazon app at like some

372
00:33:11,420 --> 00:33:16,120
product and it'll try to say, Oh, this is what it is. So you can buy more of it. And, and it worked,

373
00:33:16,180 --> 00:33:21,600
I tried it on two things or I tried it three times and it worked two times on a, uh, a plug adapter

374
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:26,800
and a pin. And then I tried it a third time on the pin and it got confused, which is fine. Right.

375
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:33,880
Like two out of three is pretty good. Uh, but, um, yeah, I mean, I think the most interesting thing I

376
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:41,920
always hear is like, so if we wanted to do insurance claims, this stuff could help, which sounds awesome

377
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:49,160
and pragmatic, but I haven't heard any more beyond that. Right. Yeah. Another thing I'm bullish on,

378
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:53,220
but how do, how do companies take what we're actually encouraging them to do, which is distributing

379
00:33:53,220 --> 00:33:57,660
more of their data. So you don't have these massive data lakes and all these single massive databases

380
00:33:57,660 --> 00:34:02,020
instead. Hey, have a database per microservice. And then by the way, tomorrow glean the information

381
00:34:02,020 --> 00:34:06,680
from all of them and make quality predictions. So, I mean, it's interesting. Is the architecture

382
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:11,280
actually going to make some of this harder? Maybe not, but I don't know if we've, uh, we've actually

383
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:13,600
landed on something that's repeatable yet. So I guess we'll see.

384
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:19,140
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, and I forget this must be, and I think I mentioned this a while

385
00:34:19,140 --> 00:34:23,560
back there was, there was this great article that was basically like, if you're doing digital

386
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:28,220
transformation and you're not changing your business around, then you're wasting your time. Right. Like

387
00:34:28,220 --> 00:34:32,840
if there's no change to what you're doing, then it doesn't matter. And for example, like, I think

388
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:37,900
there's a lot of practical things I think that machine learning could apply to. Like, uh, I stay at

389
00:34:37,900 --> 00:34:43,560
like Marriott and Starwood hotels and about half of the time I have to email to get my invoice sent to

390
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:48,820
me for whatever reason. And like, that would be a great machine learning thing to be like, Hey,

391
00:34:48,900 --> 00:34:55,020
this one person emails us half the time to get their invoice. So maybe we should just make sure we can

392
00:34:55,020 --> 00:35:00,880
send them an invoice. Right. I mean, there's kind of like that proactive stuff that would seem to be

393
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:06,340
really simple to do, but I don't know. So maybe hopefully next year we'll sort this out and I won't

394
00:35:06,340 --> 00:35:11,300
have to wait to file my expenses. Awesome. So let's take a couple of minutes then and, uh,

395
00:35:11,540 --> 00:35:16,180
have our own hot take predictions. All right. Well, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll start with one to give

396
00:35:16,180 --> 00:35:23,740
you time to read your notes or think, I think, I think, uh, building on the AI and ML machine learning

397
00:35:23,740 --> 00:35:28,940
thing here, here's my bold prediction. I don't know if this is hope or prediction, but I think, I think,

398
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:34,480
I think it pans out using my complicated model for doing predictions. I think, I think people will

399
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:39,340
stop talking about artificial intelligence and they'll just talk about machine learning and

400
00:35:39,340 --> 00:35:43,980
they'll be like, Oh, AI is some Arthur C. Clark stuff. And that's not what we're talking about.

401
00:35:44,020 --> 00:35:48,420
We're just talking about machine learning. And, and I think even the economist has kind of front run,

402
00:35:48,540 --> 00:35:53,320
like, I think they'll have some cover story of like some machine that's like sitting at a desk

403
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:58,480
learning. And, uh, and then that'll be it. We'll call it machine learning forever. No one will say AI

404
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:04,840
AI again. Hmm. Yeah. All right. That's a hot take. Uh, good. So what do I have for you? Uh,

405
00:36:04,980 --> 00:36:08,940
actually I think that, and maybe you'll like this one. I think architects are going to come back in

406
00:36:08,940 --> 00:36:14,820
vogue. Oh, nice. Cause, cause we're going to look at arguably more modern software development. You

407
00:36:14,820 --> 00:36:19,240
cannot, I mean, in your monolithic book, I can't just heads down on a stack anymore. I really do have

408
00:36:19,240 --> 00:36:24,380
to understand how to glue things together, stitch things together, understand big picture. And more

409
00:36:24,380 --> 00:36:28,420
importantly, like, I don't know if it's ever been easier to make absolutely catastrophic decisions in

410
00:36:28,420 --> 00:36:33,940
tech just because we're so empowered on stuff. And so, you know, that choice of multi-cloud might

411
00:36:33,940 --> 00:36:39,060
be great for this project, but I've just added a gob of technical debt potentially for the next person.

412
00:36:39,420 --> 00:36:44,600
So architects being able to come over the top and make informed decisions. So not sort of just these

413
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:50,020
helicopter architects who just kind of, you know, fly around and dispel wisdom, but people who actually

414
00:36:50,020 --> 00:36:55,320
know these systems, it seems like that's going to be increasingly important as I'm maybe doing less

415
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:59,640
raw coding. Cause I shouldn't be writing my own identity system anymore. And instead I'm gluing

416
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:05,180
together a lot of managed services in the cloud. I need architecture. That's not just a dev skill.

417
00:37:05,340 --> 00:37:07,700
So I actually think that's going to be a hotter job next year.

418
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,940
That's good. That's like to use another old sci-fi reference of Frank Herbert. One will have the,

419
00:37:11,940 --> 00:37:18,340
uh, the sleeper will awaken. No, I think that makes total sense. And, and to plug it again,

420
00:37:18,340 --> 00:37:23,060
right? Like if you, if you watch some of Vincent from Bravo banks talk, he's talking exactly about

421
00:37:23,060 --> 00:37:27,720
enterprise architecture and thinking through that. So I think, uh, I think that'll come to

422
00:37:27,720 --> 00:37:33,040
fruition. I like that one. So here, here's another one kind of, uh, something I complained about. I

423
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:37,740
think, I think there'll be a lot of complaining about the online world. And in the U S I've already

424
00:37:37,740 --> 00:37:41,820
heard lots of people talking about, like, we should have some sort of data protection laws and things,

425
00:37:41,820 --> 00:37:46,640
but I think absolutely nothing will happen. And the government won't even talk about it except in a

426
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:51,540
crazy way. Cause just like there will be no U S GDPR stuff. Cause really like,

427
00:37:51,700 --> 00:37:57,100
I don't think we care and there's other things going on. So, uh, I think we'll, we'll just have

428
00:37:57,100 --> 00:38:03,360
the, the extra thing to click on free existence in the U S that we've enjoyed so well, so much,

429
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:08,080
and that Europe no longer has. That's basically how it is in Europe. Now, if you want to look at

430
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:11,700
anything on the internet, you're required to click a different button than you used to.

431
00:38:11,700 --> 00:38:15,840
We've added a new click and sometimes it's even more confusing. There's like a radio button you

432
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:20,060
have to select things on. Uh, but I don't think we'll have that next year.

433
00:38:20,940 --> 00:38:26,760
Got it. All right. So I guess my last one would be, I think you look at the absolute

434
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:31,260
mounds of cash that a lot of companies have on their balance sheets right now. I think you're

435
00:38:31,260 --> 00:38:35,020
going to see even more M and a next year and potentially the big stuff, maybe not just a

436
00:38:35,020 --> 00:38:39,040
little tuck ins of like, Hey, here's a cool company that did, you know, a series a funding

437
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:42,960
round. Let's pick them up. But you might see more of this IBM red hat sort of world of,

438
00:38:43,340 --> 00:38:47,080
you know, some of these mega cloud vendors who are just printing money right now saying,

439
00:38:47,460 --> 00:38:51,860
Hey, how do we tuck in more software companies that might still be multi-billion dollar acquisitions,

440
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:56,900
but we have the cash and let's keep consolidating the market. So I don't know. I just think M and

441
00:38:56,900 --> 00:39:01,240
a is going to be even bigger next year as software companies have more esoteric questions of like,

442
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:06,980
can we beat the service providers? What's this open source versus cloud provider debate going to

443
00:39:06,980 --> 00:39:11,880
result in? Like, can these companies actually not be a cloud provider and still make significant

444
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,840
money on open source? I think there's going to be a lot of good questions we're going to be asking

445
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:19,960
and then probably some M and a as a result. Yeah, no, that's good. I mean, you know,

446
00:39:20,020 --> 00:39:25,460
I am no financial prognosticator, but, but modeling it out in my head, you're right. There's a lot of

447
00:39:25,460 --> 00:39:31,080
cash around, right? Like we're in this weird, in the tech world, this weird situation where like,

448
00:39:32,340 --> 00:39:38,740
like, for example, Microsoft, every, every one seems extremely successful and there's limitless

449
00:39:38,740 --> 00:39:44,980
potential and lots of money around, but people are like all weirded out in the general business world.

450
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:51,280
I don't know. It's always a strange situation. And, and then also, uh, to be all macro person,

451
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:56,740
like, uh, I think next year will be the beginning of the next U S presidential campaign cycle,

452
00:39:56,740 --> 00:40:01,720
right? Like, cause it'll be, and so like, that'll be crazy.

453
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:09,180
And, and then, so, you know, in such a situation and it's sometimes what happens is you've got a

454
00:40:09,180 --> 00:40:14,860
great asset, right? Some tech thing, and you have the ability to take advantage of that and not in a

455
00:40:14,860 --> 00:40:21,080
bad way. And so there's a, uh, there's a flight to like, um, I don't know, the castle to consolidation

456
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:26,020
and doing things to like, hold on to something, build the value and then do something with it. So

457
00:40:26,020 --> 00:40:33,260
sure. That would be interesting. That's a further tech industry consolidation. That, that makes sense.

458
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:34,120
I like that.

459
00:40:34,340 --> 00:40:36,100
Yeah. Should be a fun year either way.

460
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:40,060
So then the last one, and then, uh, and then that'll be it. We'll see how these pan out next year.

461
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:47,380
I think, uh, I think, you know, I think we'll, we'll figure out finally what serverless versus

462
00:40:47,380 --> 00:40:52,620
functions versus whatever are. And I think with, there's plenty of definition, there's plenty of

463
00:40:52,620 --> 00:40:56,680
technical definitions of what it is. Like it's this thing or that thing and what it looks like,

464
00:40:56,680 --> 00:41:02,800
but more of what I mean, even more so than what it is, is what you would use it for and why it makes

465
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:07,140
and what it makes sense. Right. So on one end of the spectrum, you've got Simon Wardley,

466
00:41:07,140 --> 00:41:12,200
who's like serverless is everything and it's going to change the world, which is fine. And then on the

467
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:15,320
other end of the spectrum, I don't know who represents this view, but it's just like, I don't

468
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:20,360
know, sometimes I want to use it. And, uh, somewhere in the middle there is like, basically, I guess

469
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:25,240
what I'm saying is, do you build your entire application on top of whatever serverless is,

470
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:31,460
or is it just a thing that you use in the same way you use cues? And I don't really know what the

471
00:41:31,460 --> 00:41:36,280
answer is, but hopefully we'll sort that out as a community. And, uh, by this time next year,

472
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:40,820
we'll know exactly what it is and how to deploy it. And that'll get sorted out. I think, I think

473
00:41:40,820 --> 00:41:45,860
that'll probably be the main focus of development think over the next year is sorting that out.

474
00:41:46,340 --> 00:41:50,040
I think that's a good question, you know, and a good prediction. We, I spent time at the Gartner

475
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:55,480
show recently and, you know, they've even seen an uptick in sort of queries. If some people who've

476
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,660
kind of thrown up their hands on trying to even run their own container stuff and say, Hey,

477
00:41:58,660 --> 00:42:02,180
maybe I should switch to something else. And that's just an early indicator of something.

478
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:07,260
And other people are obviously, you know, KubeCon, a big event there's, that's not going away anytime

479
00:42:07,260 --> 00:42:13,060
soon, but that question of apps and containers and functions and managed services. And I think

480
00:42:13,060 --> 00:42:17,280
that that's a great prediction. I think we're going to get CRISPR next year versus this all or nothing.

481
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:21,880
I think we'll get a little tighter on what parts of an enterprise portfolio might fit

482
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:26,900
in each one of these. And what's the transition look like from one to the other? Cause nobody's

483
00:42:26,900 --> 00:42:31,740
tomorrow rewriting their ERP system as a set of functions. So what does the future look like?

484
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:37,740
You know, I don't know why, maybe this is my, uh, De Bono lateral thinking thing, but I feel like,

485
00:42:38,260 --> 00:42:42,380
I feel like there's some wisdom that we had, you know, you got two types of screwdrivers,

486
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:46,640
you got a flathead screwdriver and a Phillips screwdriver. And my question is always,

487
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:52,080
why do we have a flathead screwdriver? Right? Like, I mean, have you ever been confronted

488
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:56,960
with a flathead screwdriver job and be like, Oh boy, that was a good choice.

489
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:04,420
Right? Like, like it's always the worst situation when you have to put a flathead screw in. It's

490
00:43:04,420 --> 00:43:09,200
always bad, right? It slips out. It doesn't work. And a Phillips is much better. Cause it's like

491
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:14,360
sticks in there. And I feel like, I feel like that's like, why have this second choice? That's no good.

492
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:18,240
You need, you need to figure out the right, the right kind of way of doing this one,

493
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:21,440
putting a screw in. Maybe if you have a nail, use a hammer, but like, don't,

494
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:26,780
we don't want flathead screwdrivers. Let's make sure that doesn't happen. Like just pick something

495
00:43:26,780 --> 00:43:32,460
and move on. No flathead screwdrivers. Wow. That is a strong note to end on. Maybe you're

496
00:43:32,460 --> 00:43:38,620
going to switch us to metric. I mean, I mean, am I wrong? Is there a good reason to use? Maybe

497
00:43:38,620 --> 00:43:44,840
there's an aesthetic reason. Maybe it might look cool. Right. But like the experience of,

498
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:51,280
of screwing in or worse, screwing out, is that the right phrase? A flathead screw is terrible.

499
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:58,000
It's a bad experience versus a Phillips is just like, boom, done. It works. So that's it.

500
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:01,420
I think the screwdriver community is going to be up in arms about this conversation,

501
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:03,880
but I'm excited about it. That's a, that's a passionate punch.

502
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:09,620
That's right. Well, as always, this has been Pivotal Conversations. If you want to find this show,

503
00:44:10,100 --> 00:44:14,320
I don't know why you'd want to find it if you're already listening to it, but if you want to find

504
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:18,700
this show and all the others, you can go to soundcloud.com slash Pivotal Conversations.

505
00:44:19,340 --> 00:44:23,900
And despite the best wishes of our editorial board, who would like me to tell you this at the

506
00:44:23,900 --> 00:44:28,500
beginning of the episode, which I always forget, uh, what's going to happen over the past two years,

507
00:44:28,500 --> 00:44:33,680
I have a prediction, uh, that the Pivotal Insights and Pivotal Conversation podcast will merge

508
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:37,580
and become just the Pivotal podcast, which I think for you, the listeners will be great

509
00:44:37,580 --> 00:44:42,280
because you'll get access to, uh, both access. You'll hear both of the podcasts and on Pivotal

510
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:47,020
Insights, they do a fantastic job. They'll, I have another prediction. I bet they'll have Vincent

511
00:44:47,020 --> 00:44:52,500
from Bravo Bank on at some point. Uh, but they'll have, uh, they, they talk with customers about how

512
00:44:52,500 --> 00:44:57,260
they've been doing things and, uh, both Dormain and Jeff are great at, uh, interviewing people.

513
00:44:57,340 --> 00:45:01,980
And then you'll also get this podcast. So, uh, hopefully you won't have to really do very much,

514
00:45:02,260 --> 00:45:07,260
uh, and you'll continue to get those as well. So don't get shocked when you start to be even more

515
00:45:07,260 --> 00:45:12,800
impressed with the, with the Pivotal podcast. And with that, we'll see everyone next time. Bye-bye.