 Hello everyone and welcome back to KubeCon, CloudNativeCon here in Detroit, Michigan. My name is Savannah Peterson, joined with John Furrier. John, we are in the meat of the conference. It's really in crunch time, day two of three days of wall-to-wall coverage and this next guest is running the show at CNCF, OG, been in the community, doing a great job, I'm looking forward to this segment. Me too, I'm even wearing, you may notice, I am in my CNCFT and I actually brought my tea from last year, for those of you. And the reason I brought it actually, I want to use this to help introduce our next guest is the theme last year was resistance realized. And I think that KubeCon this year is an illustration of that resistance realized. Please welcome Priyanka Sharma to the show. Priyanka, thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you for having me. This is your show. How are you feeling right now? What does it feel like to be here? It's all of our show. I am just another participant, but I am so happy to be here. I think this is our third hybrid in-person back event and the whole ecosystem, we seem to have gotten into the groove now. The first one we did was in LA where you have that shirt from, then we went to Valencia and now here in Detroit I can sense the ease in the attendees. I can sense that it just feels great for everyone to be here. And you guys were face-to-face in LA but this is really kind of back, face-to-face, somewhat normalized, right? And so that's a lot of feedback there. What's your reaction? Because the community's changed so much in three years, even two years, even last year. Where do you see it now? Because there's so much more work to do, but it feels like it's just getting started. But also at the same time, it feels like people are celebrating at the same time. Kubernetes is mainstream, cloud native at scale. People are talking about developer, more developers coming on board, more traction, more scale, more interoperability. Just a lot of action, what's your thoughts? I think you're absolutely right that we are just getting started. I've been part of many open source movements and communities. This is, I think this is something special where we have our flagship project considered mainstream, but yet so much to be done right over there. I mean, you've seen announcements around more and more vendors coming to support the project in the boring but essential ways that happened, I think this week, just today, I think. And so Kubernetes continues to garner support and energy, which is unique in the ecosystem, right? Because once something becomes mainstream, normally it's like, okay, boring. But that's happening. And I think the reason for that is cloud native is built upon Kubernetes and so much more than Kubernetes. We have 140 plus projects and folks have a choice to contribute to something totally cutting edge or something that's used by everyone. So the diversity of options and room for innovation at the same time means this is just the beginning. And also, projects are coming together too. You're starting to see formation, starting to see some de facto alignment. You're starting to see some visibility into how the big moves are being playing out, almost the harvesting of that hard work. Yes, I do think there is consolidation, but I would definitely say that there's consolidation and innovation. And that is something I genuinely have not seen this before. I think there are definitely areas we're all really focusing on. I talked a lot about security in my keynote because it continues to gain importance in cloud native, whether that is through projects or through practices. The same, I did not mention this in my keynote, but around continuous delivery. Generally, the software delivery cycle, there's a lot coming together happening there. And many other spaces, so absolutely right. Let's take in a little bit actually, because I'm curious, you get to see these 140 plus projects. What are some of the other trends that you're seeing, especially now as we're feeling this momentum around Kubernetes, the excitement is back in the ecosystem? Yes, so much happening, but I would definitely say that the underlying basis of all these projects, I brought that up in my keynote, is the maintainers. And I think the maintainer group is the talent keeps thriving and growing. The load on them is very heavy though, and I do think there's a lot more real company, the companies around us need to do to support these people because the innovation they're bringing is unprecedented. Besides Kubernetes, which has its own cool stuff all the time, I think I'm particularly excited about the Argo projects. So they're the quadruplets, as I like to call them, right, because there's four of them within the Argo banner. I had Yuan from Argo on my keynote actually, alongside Heba from Kubernetes, and we talked about their maintainer journey. And it's interesting, totally different projects, same asks, which is more support and time from employers, more ways to build up contributors, and ultimately they love the CNCF marketing support. Argo projects is really a great umbrella. There are a lot of action going on, a lot of action going on. Arlon, I saw that, got some traction. A lot of great stuff. The question I want to ask you, and I want to get your reaction to this. You know, we always go to a lot of events with theCUBE, and you can always tell the vibrant of the ecosystem when you see developers doing stuff, projects going on, but when you start seeing the commercialization, the news briefings coming out of this show feels a lot like reinvent. Like, it's like a tsunami. I've never seen this much news. Everyone's got a story, they got announcing products. There was a lot of flow even from the CNCF. What's your reaction to that? I mean, it's a tell sign of activity, certainly, and engagement, but there's real proof coming out, real visibility into the value propositions, rendering itself with real products. What's your reaction to the news flow? Absolutely, I think it's market proof, like you said. That we have awesome technologies that are useful to lots of people around the world. And I think that I hope this continues to increase, and with the wide basket of project portfolios, that's what I hope to see. CNCF itself will continue supporting the maintainers with things like conformance programs, which are really essential when you have people building products on top of your projects, and other initiatives so that the technological integrity remains solid while innovation keeps happening. I know from a little birdie, Brendan, good friend of mine, that you had a board meeting today. And I am curious, because I hope I'm not going out of bounds on an assumption, I imagine that room is full of passionate people. Absolutely. CNCF board would be a wild one. What are the priorities for the board between now and Cape Cod next year? Sure, so the CNCF governing board is an over, it's like an oversight body, and their focus is on working with us on the executive team to make sure that we have the right game plan for the foundation. They tend to focus on the business decisions, things such as how do we manage our budget, how do we deploy it, and what are the initiatives, and that's always their priority. But because this is cloud native, and we're all technologists who love our projects, we also engage closely with the Technical Oversight Committee who was in the SED meeting that we just talked about, and so lots of discussions are around project health, sustainability, how do we keep moving, because as you said, Kubernetes is going mainstream, but it's still cool, there are all these other cool things, it's a lot going on, right? Yeah, you've got a lot of balls in the air. It's complex decision making and balancing of priorities. Yes. And demands, stakeholders, do you have any stakeholders? Every project, every person, every company. Everyone's a stakeholder, you're a key stakeholder. And 100, I mean, I love how community-focused you are, obviously we're here to talk about the community, you have contributors from 187 different countries. It's one of the things I'm the most proud of. Yeah, it gives me all the feels as a community builder as well. What an accomplishment, and supporting community members in those different environments must be so dynamic for you and the team. Absolutely, and it behooves us to think globally in how we solve problems. Even when we introduce programs, my first question is, are we by accident being, let's say, default US, or are we being defaults Europe, whatever it may be, because we really got to think about the whole world. Global culture, it's a global village. Yes. And I think global now more than ever is so important and the Ukraine discussion on the main stage is awesome. I love how you guys did that. Because this is impacting the technology, we need the diverse input. Now, I made a comment yesterday that it might slow things down. I meant, as it's more diversity, there's more conversations. But once people get aligned and committed, that's where the magic happens. Share your thoughts on the global diversity, why it's important, how things are made, how decisions are made, what's the philosophy? Because there's more to get your arms around. Yes, absolutely. It may seem harder or slower or whatever, but once it gets done, aligned and committed, the product's better, everything's better. Yes, absolutely. I think the more people involved, the better it is for sure. Especially from a robustness, resilience perspective, because as they say, sunlight makes bugs shallow. That's because the more eyes on something, the faster people will solve problems, fix bugs and make, look for security, vulnerability, solve all that. So especially in those areas, I think where you want to be more resilient, the more the people, the better it is, 100%. And then when it comes to technical direction and choosing a path, I think that's where, it's the role of the maintainers. And as I was saying, there's only a thousand odd of maintainers for 140 plus projects, right? So they are catering. Wow, they have a lot of responsibility. Right? Serious amount of responsibility. It's crazy, I know. And we have to do everything we can for those people because they are the ones who set the vision, set the direction. And then 176,000 plus contributors follow their lead. So we have, I think the right mechanisms of contribution and collaboration in a global way are in place. And we keep chugging along and doing better and better each year. What's next for you guys? Look at, you got the EU of show coming out. Correct. Amsterdam. The economy looking. I don't see a recession for technology, but that's me. I'm going to bullish on tech. Yeah, there's some layoffs going on, some cleaning up over inflated expectations on valuations and startups. But I don't see this stopping or slowing down, but what's your take? Yeah, I mean, as I said in my keynote, right? Open source usage source in times of turmoil and financial turmoil is one example of that. So we are expecting growth and heavy growth this year, next year and onwards. And in fact, going back to the whole maintainer journey, now is the time there's even more pressure on them. And companies, as they manage their workforces and prioritization, they really need to remember they're building products off of open source. This is open sources on which what their business relies, whether they're a vendor or end user, and give maintainers the space, time, to work on what they need to work on. Yeah, they need a little work-life balance. I mean, the self-care there, I can't even imagine the complexity of the decision matrix in their mind. Speaking of that, and obviously culture must be a huge part of how you lead these teams. How do you approach that as later? I think the number one, so the foundation is a very small set of staff, just so you know. Actually, let's tell the audience, how many people are on the team? You know, it's actually a difficult question because we have folks who like spin up and down and we have a matrix support from the Linux foundation, but about 30 people in total are dedicated to CNCF at any given time. But compare, yes. Y'all do hard work, you're doing great. It's a flat organization. It is pretty flat. Serious, really, beautiful. It's actually, in some ways, very similar to the projects and the contribution to the communities there where it's like, everyone kind of like steps up and does what needs to be done, which is wonderful and beautiful, but with the responsibility on our shoulders, it's definitely a balancing act. So first off, it is, I ask everyone to have some grace for the staff. They are in a startup land with no IPO on the other side of the rainbow. They're doing it because they love, love, love this community and technology so much. And then also they're acknowledging that nobody in open source wants to see a bureaucracy. I mean, everyone wants to see lean, efficient. Yeah, absolutely, John's great. It's a great point and I think that it's just, it's amazing what passionate people can do if given the opportunity. Let's talk a little bit about the literal event that we're at right now. Theme today, Building for the Road Ahead. What was the inspiration for that? Detroit. We're in Detroit. People drive here. In case you didn't know, cars have been made in the city. Motor city. It's everywhere being here in the city, which is awesome. There was of course a geographical element, but it also aligns with where we're at, right? We're building for the road ahead, which frankly, given the changes going on in the world, is a bumpy road. So it's important to talk about it and that's what the theme was. And how many folks have shown up? This is a totally different energy from Los Angeles last year. I'm sure we can both agree. Everyone was excited last year, but this is an order of magnitude. How many folks do you think are milling around? Yeah, it's much more than double of Los Angeles. We're close to 8,000. And it's so, you're absolutely right. The energy is just way up. It's so good. People are enjoying themselves. It's been lovely. That's great. So you're feeling good. You're riding the high. Awesome. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. I mean, I'm a little bit of a zombie right now. Don't look it. We wouldn't know. Nobody knows. They don't know. Hey, if you want to take a break, we got 12 interviews tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. Go on board. You co-host with us. We'd love to have you. Exactly. You're welcome anytime. You're welcome anytime. Thank you. But now it's been such a wonderful show and you folks are part of the reason just that everybody here is contributing to the awesomeness. You're part of it. Look at your smiley face. And Lisa Marley's over there. Lisa's over there. Yes. And Lisa and team. Yes, the team is awesome. Thank you for your support for theCUBE. We really appreciate it. We enjoy it a lot and we love the community. Thank you. Yes, thank you for your support for Cloud Native. Thank you. One last thing I just want to point out because it's not always it happens in this industry. The women outnumber the men on this stage right now. I'm proud of that. And I know the diversity and inclusion is a priority for CNCF. Top priority. Yeah, can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yes, it is something at the forefront of my mind no matter what we do. And it's because I have such great role models. You know, when I was just a participant in the ecosystem, Dan Kahn was leading the foundation and he took it so seriously to always try to uplift people from diverse backgrounds and bring those faces into Cloud Native. And he made a serious lasting impact. And I am not going to let that go to waste. It's not going to be me who drops the ball. We're behind you. All the way. We see improvement over the years. I mean, even from an attendance perspective on stage, I feel like you've done just an outstanding job with the curation and representation. I don't say that lightly. It really matters to me. But even in the audience, looking around, it's so refreshing. Even it sounds silly. The shirts are more fitted. There's different types of shirts. And I mean, you know how it is. We've been in this industry long enough. It's a shirt you want to wear. Exactly. And that's the whole point. I absolutely love it. Have we announced a location for KubeCon North America 2023 yet? It's Chicago. Exciting. All right. How have you seen you? Midwest. This is the first time I've said this publicly. I just realized it's Chicago people. The scoop I won from KubeCon. I feel so lucky we got to break the scoop. I was learning from John's lead there. And I'm very excited. Amsterdam, Chicago. It's going to be absolutely fantastic. Yes, do a smart move. Yeah, right. Especially after this. Right. It's actually not a bad move. Priyanka, is there anything else you'd like to say to folks? Maybe they're thinking about coming or contributing to the ecosystem. Anyone and everyone can and should contribute and join us. The maintainers are holding us all up. Let's rally to support them. We have more and more programs to do that. As you know, we did ContribFest here this week, which was the first time. So we will help you get involved. So you're not on your own. So that's my number one message, which is anyone and everyone, you're welcome here. We'll make sure you have a good time. So just come. Okay. Please do it. I can tell you that Priyanka is not blowing smoke. I feel very welcome here. This community has welcomed me as a non-technical. So I think you're absolutely preaching the truth. Priyanka, thank you so much for being here with us today on the show, for helping hurt the cats and wrangle the brilliant minds that make CNCF possible. And honestly, for just bringing your energy and joy to the entire experience. John, thank you for hanging out with me. I'm glad I could contribute in a small way to the group. I was going to say, I was going to say thanks for founding theCUBE so that we could be here in this little marriage and collaboration that would be possible. I thank all of you for tuning in to theCUBE here alive from Detroit, Michigan. My name is Savannah Peterson. I am thrilled to be sharing this content with you today and I hope to see you for the rest of our interviews this afternoon.