 Live from Washington D.C., it's theCUBE, covering AWS Public Sector Summit. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of AWS Public Sector here in beautiful Washington D.C., springtime in D.C., there's no better time to be here. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, co-hosting along with John Furrier, always so much fun to work with you. Great to see you. And this is a very exciting event for you in particular because you've been doing a lot of great reporting around the modernization of IT and government. I'd love to have you just start riffing, John, just to, well, what's on your mind right now coming into this show? What are some of the questions that are burning? I mean, clearly the most important story that needs to be told and is being talked about here in D.C. and the tech world is, for this show specifically, is the JET-I contract, the Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative. It's a word that's not being kicked around at this show because it's literally the elephant in the room because the contract's been waiting, Oracle's been dragging it on, and Oracle's been part of apparently my opinion and my reporting is involved in some dirty underhanded tactics against Amazon, but it's being delayed because they're suing it and Oracle's out. They have no chance of winning the deal. It's really Microsoft and Amazon are going to get a lion's share of the business. So you have, that's the biggest story in tech and D.C. in a long time is the role of cloud computing is playing in reshaping how government public sector operates. Combine that with the fact that a new generation of workers are coming in who have no dogma around IT technology, how it's bought, it's consumed, and purchased, and the overcharging that's been going on for many, many years, it's been called the Beltway Bandits for a reason and because of the waste and sometimes corruption. So a new generation's upon us and Amazon is the leader in making that change happen. The deal they did with the CIA a few years ago really was the catalyst and since then public sector and the government has realized that there's advantages to cloud, not only for operating and serving society and its citizens, but also competitive niche on a global scale. So a huge transformation, that's the story we're following. That's the story that we got into from the cloud side of the business here in D.C. And that is just raging and expanding and compounded by other factors like Facebook, a responsibility in how they manage the data there. Elections were tied in the balance, you're seeing Brexit in the UK, you're seeing counter-terrorism organizations using the dark web and other cyber security challenges at the United States. Literally, digital war is happening. So a lot of people, smart people have recognized this and it's now for the first time coming out. Right, and I think the other thing that we're also starting to talk much more about is the regulation. I mean, I know that you're friendly with Kara Swisher and she bangs on about this all the time, but then she said in a column the other day, the problem is that they're now guns-ablazing, but do they really understand it? And also, is it too feeble, too little, too late? I mean, Kara Swisher nailed her story in the New York Times on an opinion piece and I've had similar opinions. Look it, she's been around for a long time. I've been around for a long time. I remember when Bill Clinton was president, that's when the internet was upon us, the department of commerce did a good job with the domain name system. They shepherded the technology and they brought it out in a way that was responsible and let government and industry kind of have a nice balancing act with each other and the government really didn't meddle too much. But there was responsibility back then and it wasn't moving as fast. So now you look at what's happening now, the government can't just not ignore the fact that YouTube is in essence its own state and is acting irresponsibly with how they're handling their situation. You got Facebook run by a 30-something year old which essentially could be as large as a government. So there's no ethics, there's no thinking behind some of the consequences that they've become. So this begs the question. As a technology hawk myself, I love tech. Never seen tech I didn't like. I mean, I love tech. But there's a point where you got to get in there and start shaping impact on ethics in society and we're seeing real examples of how just wildfire out of control, how tech has just become uncontrollable in a way. Yes, no, absolutely. And so who is going to be the one to do that? I mean, I know that on the show later you're going to be talking to Jay Carney, who was obviously in the Obama administration now here at AWS. It's a well-worn path from the public sector to technology, Susan Malinari, a couple of other, David Plouffe. What, that is the thing though, that these people really need to get it. They can lay down regulations and laws. Why we're here and the stories we're trying to tell and uncover and extract is, I think the big story that's emerging from this whole world is not just the impact of cloud. We talked about that. We're going to continue to cover that. It's the societal impact. And this real there, there. There's the intersection of public policy and technology and science where you don't have to be a programmer. You can be an architect of change and know how it works. Then being a coder and trying to codify a government or a society. I think you're going to see a new kind of skill set emerge where there's some real critical thinking into how technology can be used for good. You're seeing the trends. Hackathon for good here. You're seeing a lot of different events where you have inclusion and diversity bringing more perspectives in. So you've got the perfect storm right now for a sea change where it won't be led by the nerd, so to speak, but geeky digital generations will change it. I think that's going to be a big story. Not just workforce changeover, but real disciplines around using machine learning for ethics, societal impact. These are the storylines. I think this is going to be a big long 10 year, 20 year changeover. Well, what will it take though for the best and the brightest of the nerds to want to go into public service rather than go work for the tech behemoths that are making these changes? I mean, that's the thing. I mean, it's a war for talent. And as we know, and we've discussed a lot on theCUBE, there's a big skills gap. Well, I think it's been talked about a lot on the web, the millennials want to head work for a company that's mission-based. What more mission-based can you look for than so into our public service right now? And you know, John F. Kennedy's famous line, ask not what your country can do for you, what you can do for your country. That might have that appeal for the younger generation because we need it, right? So the evidence is there, and they look at what's going on with our government. There's so many inefficiencies from healthcare to tax reform to policies. There's a huge opportunity to take that waste. And this is what cloud computing and AI and machine learning can do is create new capabilities and address those critical waste areas. And again, healthcare is just one of many, many, many others in government where you can really reduce that slack with tech. So it's a great opportunity. And where would you say, and I know you've been reporting on this for a long time, where is the government in terms of all of this? I mean, I remember not very long ago when healthcare.gov was rolled out and it was revealed that many agencies were still using floppy disks. I mean, the government is, first of all, it's not this monolithic thing. It's many different agencies, all with their own tech agendas and with their own processes and policies. So where do you place the government in terms of its modernization right now? Well, on the elected official side, it's weak. They're really not that smart when it comes to tech. Most of the people that are involved in the elected side of the hill are either lawyers or some sort of, you know, major that's not technical. So you can see that with Sundar, Pekai from Google and Mark Zuckerberg's testimony when the basic kind of questions they're asking, it's like almost a joke. So I think, one, the elected officials have to become more tech savvy. You can't regulate and govern what you don't understand. I think that's something that's pretty obvious to most digital natives. And then on the kind of the working class, the Defense Department and these other agencies, there's real people in there that have a passion for change. Change agents, Amazon's done really well there. I think that is a piece where you're going to see a movement where you're going to see this digital native movement where people are going to be like, there's no excuse not to do this right. And I think there's new ways to do it. I think that's going to change. And so that's that. On the business side, the how the government procures technology is literally like the 80s. It's like that movie hot tub time machine where it's like, you get thrown back. Everything is based on 1980s procurement, 1990s procurement. I mean, shipping manuals. So all these things have to change. How do you procure cloud? You got to go through a six month procurement process just to spin up some servers. That's not an agility, right? So procurement's got to change. Competitiveness, what does that mean? Oracle deal with Jedi highlights a lot of flaws in the government, which is Oracle's using these rules around procurement to try to stall Amazon. It's kind of like a technicality, but it's so irrelevant to the reality of the situation. So procurement has to change. Well, one of the things you said about how there's a lot of pressure to get it right. And that is absolutely true because we are dealing with national security issues, people's lives, health, these really important topics. And yet the private sector, it doesn't always get it right the first time either. So how would you describe the government, the federal approach to how they start to implement these new technologies and experiment with other kinds of tools and techniques? Well, I think there's obviously some agencies that have sensitive things. CIA is a poster child, in my opinion, of how to do it right. The Jedi Department of Defense is emulating that, and that's a good thing. The Department of Defense is also going multi-cloud as they put out in their statement. Amazon for the Jedi piece, which is for troops in the field. I think that every agency is going to have its own workload, and those workloads should decide which cloud to use based upon the architecture of the workload. Because the data needs to be in the cloud, it needs to be real-time. And to take the military example, you can't have lag in military, it's not a video game, it's real life, people die. Lag can literally kill people in the field. So technology can be a betterment there, but technology will avoid fighting as another one. So you have all these things going on. I think the government's got a really kind of designer thing around the workload. Their mission, their applications, rather than designing around, here's your infrastructure, then decide. How would you, one of the things we talk about all the time, almost ad nauseam on the cube is digital transformation. And so how would you, how do you think about those two? Private sector versus public sector, what are the big differences in terms of these institutions on their own journeys of digital transformation? I think the government's slower, one, that's an easy one to talk about. And there's a lot of moving parts involved. I mentioned some of the procurement things, so the processes, it's the same kind of equation. People process technology, except the people, the process is much more complicated on the public sector side than private sector, unless it's a big company. So imagine the biggest company on the private sector side, multiply that times 100, that's the government. So each agency has a lot of things going on there. But it's getting better. I think cloud has shown that you can actually do that. The people side I think is going to be addressed by this new migration of new generation of people coming in saying, I don't really care how you did it before. This is how we're going to do it today. The processes are going to be optimized so there's some innovation around process improvement that's going to end on the wayside. And the technology every day is coming faster and faster, recognition, facial recognition software. Look at that, AI, these are things that are just undeniable now. They have to be dealt with. What do you do with the privacy? So again, back to process. So people process technology. AWS is a behemoth in cloud computing. What do you want to be hearing here at this conference? I mean, they're so far ahead of Google and Microsoft, but we cannot count those two companies out, of course not. But what are you looking for for sort of key messaging at this show? Well, I'm looking for seeing Andy Jassy's fireside chat with Theresa Carlson tomorrow. I'm interested in some of the use cases coming out of Theresa Carlson's top customers in public sector. Again, it's global public sector, so it's not just in North America here in the United States. I'm interested in also understanding what's real and what's not real around the fear and certainty and doubt that a lot of people have been putting on Amazon because I see Amazon posturing in a way that's saying go faster, make change and it's not so much that they really want to monopolize the entire thing. They're just moving faster. And I think Andy Jassy yesterday saying that, they welcome regulation, is something that they're trying to push the regulators on. So I think they welcome change. So I want to understand if Amazon really wants to go faster or is there an agenda there? It was going on. I know, we think these tech titans are asking for a little too much regulation right now. I mean, obviously Mark Zuckerberg has also said, please regulate us, I can't do this alone. And here we have Andy Jassy yesterday saying those same things. Well, I mean, Andy Jassy said on stage yesterday with Kara Swisher, we can't arrest people. So when, you know, if tech goes, if their tech goes bad, they're only as beholden to the consequences as a private entity. They're not the law. So this is where, again, back that's top story of the year is that what is the role of government? This change is here. It's not going away. It's only going to get faster. So the sooner the elected officials and all the agencies get out in front of the digital transformation, the sooner the better. Otherwise it's going to be a wrecking ball. Well, I cannot wait to dig into more of this over the next two days with you here at AWS Public Sector. All right. I'm Rebecca Knight for John Furrier. You are watching theCUBE.