Where Did Bobby Allen Land?
Transcript
>> Hey, how's it going it's Keith Townsend principal of the CTO Advisor. And over here on the other screen, we have Bobby Allen. We'll talk about where he's at in a second. But first, Bobby the, some big news hit in a essence talking about where people are going. >> Bobby: Oh yeah. >> Gelsinger is headed over to Intel. >> Bobby: This was huge Keith for me and I think, so I'm a former Intel guy for those on the program that don't know.
I was actually an Intel fellow. My wife and I were both Intel fellows at university of Michigan, meaning Intel paid for both of us to go to grad school there. And then I lived in Oregon for a while. And so I actually coincided with some of the time when Pat was there. And honestly, when Intel and Pat parted ways it always felt wrong. Because Pat was always kind of considered the air parent. So for those who don't know the structure of Intel a lot of the senior level executives have what they call a TA, a Technical Assistant.
Pat was the Technical Assistant to Andy Grove back in the day, right? It was always, he was the first CTO of Intel very well respected in the community. It just felt like, man, this is the guy that's going to take the reins and bring Intel into the future. And so this is really very much like a homecoming. I can imagine for the folks inside of Intel, this just feels right. And this feels like the guy that's going to help them ride the ship and kind of get back on track is where in, into a kind of a new season now.
>> So, a provocative, quick question. Do you think Intel ship could be righted? I mean, obviously Pat is not going to stake his reputation and go somewhere where he doesn't think that he can impact the org but do you think Intel can kind of fix this? >> I do. I do think the ship can be righted. I think that Pat is going to make a lot of changes that could be acquisitions. I'm certainly expecting there's going to be reorgs and new leadership.
I mean, Intel has prowess in manufacturing, supply chain management, things that are very adjacent to the technology and Pat has a vision that's big enough and Intel's got a big enough pocketbook to try out some of those bets. So I do think they can right the ship. To be honest Keith, this is not going to be something that's overnight, 'cause they've had some things that they've been stumbling on in terms of manufacturing processes, changing over. It's going to take a couple years.
I think people need to be patient with Pat but I think he's got the vision and he's got the street cred with the engineers and the folks at Intel that I think he's going to get it done. >> So I'm a big bullish on Intel in general, you know they sponsored the CTO Advisor Hybrid Infrastructure. And I think I like the overall strategy, (mumbles). I think they have a very solid strategy is about execution if Pat proved anything, he can do both strategy and execution.
He pulled VMware kind of out the teeth of AWS and built a juggernaut there. >> Bobby: I agree. >> So, let's talk about what's really important. You know, couple of years ago, you know, a teased the where's Keith going, and you helped me with that. It's been about a few weeks since I last had you on the program. We teased that you're no longer at Cloud General. You are now the what at where. >> So Keith, thanks for having me back on the program.
Yes, I'm no longer at Cloud General much respect to the folks over there. Just want to say for those of your listeners, I want to make this point briefly. I did not leave a toxic environment. And especially when you're an underrepresented group in Cloud, it's important to say that I didn't leave something that was on fire. A lot of respect for the folks over there but I moved on to something that I think is different and a different growth opportunity. So I landed at a large mature startup called Turbonomic.
I'm now the vice president of Strategic Alliances. And my core focus is actually AWS. >> So, first off, congratulations. >> Bobby: Thank you. >> VP of Strategic Alliances at Turbonomics with a focus on AWS. So let's unpack that a little bit 'cause there's a lot there. >> Bobby: Yeah. >> Turbonomic's, formerly known as VMTurbo extremely aligned with VMware community. They provided a lot of telemetry data and not just telemetry data, but spanning data et cetera, was aligned, was directly aligned to that.
So the ability to kind of optimize your VMware environment was the original value prop of VMTurbo. They've, you know, kind of since pivoted and say you know what, it's not just about VMware, it's about the entire cloud movement. Turbonomics is the new brand or not so new it's been a few years now probably about five years. Turbonomics is the new brand. Obviously AWS is the juggernaut in this space and your VP of strategic lines is, tell me what's the strategic relationship between Turbonomics and AWS?
>> Bobby: So there'll be some things that are going to continue coming out over the next year. Some videos we've shot, some things we're doing together. Really what it means is my job is to align a lot of the different organizations within Turbonomic engineering, the product team the engineering team, the marketing team to make sure that we're aligned to a lot of the different things that Amazon is doing. And AWS as we've talked about before has tons of different options that are out there.
And what, what's the synergy that we've seen between our executives and AWS executives is what they are embracing Keith is this term that we've coined automating innovation. Because the way that I would argue we introduced the term confusion as a service before. >> You're right. >> Bobby: And I think the way that you address confusion as a service is by automating innovation as much as possible where someone can kind of realign you. So let me unpack that a little bit. Part of my evolution Keith, in, it's interesting, when you pursue a new job in a pandemic you do some soul searching.
Not just what I want to do when I grow up but why. So I had to think about like what does this next move look like? And part of what I thought about is, where do I think the puck is going to use the Wayne Gretzky analogy? And I think part of it comes back to, I'll give this thought for your audience. Keith I think we're confusing self-service with self-help. Because cloud is really big on self-service that's can I do it on my own?
But self-help is, can I be effective on my own. And I would argue that because there's so many options out there we cannot be effective in choosing in this myriad of options what the right thing to do is so what Amazon is embracing is, Turbonomic is the best way to realign my application to the latest and greatest things that are out there. We automatically do that. So if your app would run better on GP3 storage or IO2 or a different type of VM or different configuration on RDS, we automatically do that for you.
And so what people like is, don't just give me a recommendation, do it for me and free up my mind to work on the next problem. >> So there was a lot of debate on this when Turbonomic was focused in the VMware landscape the team kind of did the same thing where, you know, and there was a lot of debate. Should Turbonomic automatically make recommended changes or should they just recommend the changes and then you go out and implement. I think one of the practical problems we saw out of the VMware world is that no one actually went back and made the recommended changes.
The system has to be automated but there was a huge issue of behind trust. Like why should I trust Turbonomic to make those changes? >> Bobby: Yeah. And even more so, when we talk about custom written applications for the AWS landscape we're talking about which storage platform should I be on, and the infrastructure as a, infrastructure as a service constructs that mail with applications and APIs directly. How do you guys build trust with developers and DevOps teams that your recommendations should kind of be automated?
>> Bobby: Yeah, that's a, that's an excellent question Keith. The trust part is interesting because, what people, would people like about Turbonomic because that we're making those decisions based on performance. So the bedrock of what we're doing is to make sure that we are ensuring the right resources are given to the right applications. So nobody starves and nobody's picking out, right? 'Cause most applications you're going to have, you know, if you think about Thanksgiving dinner, if the two year old at the table got the big piece of chicken, we got a problem.
And that's what's happening in a lot of enterprises, right? The little baby application is getting the big piece of computer, the big piece of storage and then the 16 year old teenager's getting a little itty bitty piece of resources, Turbonomic fixes all of that. But because we start with performance key, not with pricing, some of the other vendors out there are going to look at pricing or look at stuff on paper. We're looking at actual performance metrics of what the applications are using, and then because of that we're earning that trust to make it happen.
You know, we do POVs and PLCs or whatever else is necessary in the environment. But typically in less than 30 days we earn the trust of the organization, they see the actions that we can take proactively, they see that it's based on trust. And honestly Keith here's the other part of it, right? I, I've evolved my thinking in terms of what the real issue is in cloud. I used to think the gap was between information and insight. I don't know what to do.
The real gap Keith in my opinion is between intent and execution. Even if I know what to do, do I have time to do it? And the answer for the most part has been no. Right? What most people are seeing where they're leaning in Keith and we've had some monstrous cloud deals in the past year or so. Right? People are really embracing the Turbonomic's automation, helps them free their minds off for other problems because what they're seeing is, even if I know what I need to realign I don't have time to do it.
I don't have time to explore the options. They've got to consider automation to free them up. Even if it's in their heart to turn things off or spin things down or size things up or whatever they just don't have the time. And so what I think about Keith is when we talk about things being hard in the cloud, I want to make sure that we're embracing better vocabulary and better conversations this year. Like what kind of heart are we talking about?
Are things hard because we haven't had time to do it or because we haven't had time to think about it. (mumbles) can we do it? >> So let's talk about risk mitigation because something that you've said in the past has always stuck with me which was, you can't give to effect of going to paraphrase a little bit. You can't give unlimited resources to apps with limited financial upside. >> Bobby: Yes. >> So I can't simply point Turbonomics at my entire landscape and just say, make it the best performance.
Sometimes I don't care about performance. Cost optimization is sometimes an issue but more importantly, I don't want a undifferentiated application (mumbles) more costs than what it is. So yes, it would be great if it performed awesome. But if I don't need the results for two if I won't use the results for two or three days, why spend the most amount of money to get the results? How do guys balance that? 'Cause I know Turbonomics primary use isn't cost optimization, but cost is a factor.
>> Bobby: Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that Keith. So here's what I would say. I would say the focus is performance, but the outcomes of ensuring performance are that we help your people, your pocket book and the planet. Let me unpack that. So we focus on performance, we help your people because you don't have engineers and architects that are constantly having to pull reports about resizing, right size and deep provision and that type of thing. 'Cause the reality Keith is that applications are not static, right?
Depending on what's happening in your business, there are, you know, whether it's performance review time and then your internal HR app is getting hit. Whether it's a retail customer or retail business and black Friday is coming, applications are moving all the time. So if I'm automating the demand and allocation of resources based on what applications need, I'm freeing up people to focus on more interesting problems. I will often free up money, right? Pocket book, but then I'm also helping the planet because I'm reducing electricity and reducing waste.
What ends up happening is, I am, I'm automating the stuff that I can keep to free my people up to have the better conversations. So again, performance is the goal, the other things I've talked about are outcomes as you do the goal. So here's how I say it to kind of wrap it up. You may not save money, but you will not waste money. If that makes sense. We're going to ensure that you're not wasting resources. And because most of us are in the cloud environment the outcomes are likely, freeing up time, freeing up money and helping the planet.
>> Well, Bobby, I really appreciate you, you know, holding back and not updating your LinkedIn, although that cost my team a little constant nation when they went to go create your profile on the web page. " That's what he, that's what his LinkedIn says now and you can go and update your LinkedIn profile and let the world know that you're at Turbonomics, VP of Strategic Alliances, focused on AWS. That's a big title inside of a bigger organization inside of our overall ecosystem. I'm excited to see what you and the team at Turbonomic does.
For those who want to follow you on the web, where can they stalk you? com for our company. And then you can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn at Ballen_CLT think Ballen and Charlotte representing Silicon South, helping get Charlotte on the map as a destination for tech talent. com. It's the brand new web page. We've spent a lot of time and resources bringing that up. I hope you like it. And of course on Twitter at CTOadvisor talk to you next CTO dose.
