 From the CUBE Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE Conversation. Everyone, welcome to this CUBE Conversation. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE here in Palo Alto, California in our studios, where we have a quarantine crew and we're doing remote interviews with thought leaders in the industry and people who have been around the block, been through industry cycles, but also can share their perspectives on the COVID-19 situation that we're in, the challenges and the opportunities. And I have with me, Jeremy Burton, a good friend of theCUBE. I've been CUBE alumni now for 10 years. Now the CEO of Observe, it's a stealth startup. I got a little taste of it, it's a cloud thing. It's going to be, you know, part of this whole new guard. Jeremy, great to see you. You're sheltering in place. We're sheltering in the studio. Thanks for joining me. No, thanks for the offer. I mean, it's funny, these days, I welcome chance to actually speak to somebody and particularly somebody that's not at Observe. So this is a rare treat, you know, in the last three weeks. Telling the wife and kids, hey, I'm going to go talk to the CUBE guy. So, you know, I'm going to have some fun for a while. Look, I want to just have a candid, fun conversation because I think one of the things that's interesting to me and one of the things that we're spending a lot of time doing media on is getting the word out about some of the things that are going on. People do have anxiety. They're sheltering in place for the folks that have been in the tech industry, working at home and being virtual, has been part of the thing. It's not a big thing, but for some of the people, it's like a first time thing. And also it's also highlighting a disruption that kind of is off the books, if you will. You know, the classic continuous operations and disaster recovery was also confined to power outages or hurricanes or all those things that we people are protected against. But this is just a surge of the herd of the people going home. It's causing an at scale problem and showing these challenges. But there's also opportunities. What's your take on this? How do you see this evolving? What's your view of the current situation and some of the comments? Yeah, I mean, I think for most of us, we're in a little bit uncharted territory. I mean, I don't really know a whole lot about medicine or the details of the virus or how pandemics happen. But we obviously have to, you know, we deal with the consequences of it. And so I think, you know, right now, although I think it's a fairly bad situation for a lot of people just having been through, you know, a couple of recessions. We all went through 9-11. You know, the world does turn around and you come out the other side. And so the key thing is you sort of very much, it's a cliche, but you've got to live in the moment. What can I do right now? What can I affect right now? How can I make sure that, you know, what I'm working on is a value for when we come out the other side. And when, you know, more curveballs come along, I think you've got a reason about that with the best information you have at the time. So I almost feel like you very much, you've got to just live sort of like day to day, week to week, listen to the data and adapt based on that. But it's certainly starting to reinvent how work is done. I think we've all worked from home at some point. We've all worked using our equipment at home. But the prospect of working that way for months on end, and it may have been the new way of working, is a whole new ball game. So I'm a big believer that this will fundamentally change the way we work. I don't think we're going to go 100% back to the way that we were. And there's going to be quite a lot of readjustments. And I think in that world, there's going to be some, some new companies come along that are big winners. And by definition, there's going to be some big losers as well. Well, people who know theCUBE know that I'm a big fan of you as an executive. I've seen the vision that you have also great technical chops and product chops, but also a good operational view. You've always been a fan of digital. And I think, you know, if you look at video conferencing, for instance, WebEx as a Cisco thing, great bulletproof of the enterprise, but Zoom has come across the scene. I've never seen so many Zoom parties. I did one with my family that they actually liked it. They were having fun. We had cocktails raising the wine glasses up. So, you know, people are Zoom and they're Cuban. We're doing interviews. So video now is not just a corporate thing. You're seeing the engagement of digital taking on a new life. And this is a whole new roles and responsibilities that might reimagine how people do their business because with the events being canceled that are going on, whether they're concerts or just industry or tech events or whatever event, that physical space is gone. Now it's going to digital. So how do you replicate the business value or personal value from physical face to face to digital? It's a whole new venue. There's new roles. It's complicated. It's a complex system. What's your thought on that? It is though, but what I've been pleasantly surprised by, I mean, I love what's going on at the office. I mean, I love the engagement with people and hanging out in the office. And so I was not really a big fan of remote working and virtually working, but I have to say, not only now are we virtually working and we do the Zoom meetings and that's all well and good. It's a big cultural thing when they're observed to do a game night. And so we thought, well, why can't we do a virtual game night and letting some trade secrets here, but our favorite game was Secret Hitler. Yeah, that's a great game. We're not the only favorite. Turns out there's an online Secret Hitler. And you know what, the first time we played it, I mean, the nice thing is, is we've got less than 20 people in the company. So you get 12 or 14 people online. It's actually manageable. But I have to say, I'm almost embarrassed to say it was almost as good sitting there with a drink, playing virtual Secret Hitler as it was sitting around the desk. And so now I'm thinking when we go back to work, maybe we don't need to leave our desks and go have a drink together. We can just sit there on Zoom and play the Secret Hitler online. So, but then you start looking around, well, what are the games can I play online? Not like for one or two players or five players. And I'm not talking about playing, you know, kind of Halo or something like that, but good collaborative games for, you know, tens of people to play at once. There's, I don't know, there's not as many as you'd think. So I feel like the social aspect of it, I mean, online gaming, I think is huge. And, but even the video conference and software, I mean, you would have thought that we would be done with this by now, right? I mean, Skype and WebEx. I mean, we've had those for years, right? And so how does Zoom, which does guess what? Video conferencing come along and start to clear up. And Zoom's not perfect, by the way, but this is almost the crisis that they needed to make a fabulous business. And I do believe, you know, as we start to come out the other side, I think there's going to be much, much investment in the VC world on improving that remote work experience because as much as me and you can talk to a video session, we can't collaborate and work together. The tools for doing that, I think, still relatively poor. You know, I think you're on to something. You know, Zoom, by the way, had 10 million active dailies in December. This month was 200 million in rocket ship. They got 90,000 universities. They essentially made some good moves. I think that's going to be good, but you bring up a good point about these new kinds of opportunities that are going to come out the other side, which is, I mean, think about Secret Hitler for the folks who don't know is a great game that you play with people, you know, in your family or in friend group, like Cars Against Indiana, if you know that game, it's a similar thing, concept, but a different game. It's really fun, you should get it. Check it out online. But think about that online gaming or just what engagement means socially. I mean, the old web days, just like a couple months ago was individual engagement. Did you like my tweet? Did you like my Facebook post? You're getting at something that's a little bit more of a social organizational construct of group engagement, intimacy. Right, right. And the thing is we would do game night once a month and we'd get beers in and get the team together. And once a month was good when everybody had their own life to deal with, now people are craving like, hey, can we do this like every week? And I wouldn't be surprised if the frequency increases from there, but I think that just almost speaks to human beings and that we crave social interaction. And even though most of the people that observe are engineers and by definition should not enjoy as much social interaction, they do, they love it, right? And to me that gaming and social interaction, that's part of work and so you have to have a virtual environment that can reproduce that. I'm going to be very interesting to see some of the entrepreneurial exercises or pitches that come out of this because I think it's going to be a renaissance, not renaissance because it's going to come back, it's always been there, but the new kind of entrepreneurial products coming out are going to address these things. And the question I want to ask you, because you've been on the big company, you've done extremely well in your career, and you get back down to your roots to do the startup. You're launching, you haven't yet launched, so you got hit right here. You're working at home, sheltering in place. I was talking to a couple of VC buddies, venture capitalists, and they're saying, I'm reading books and I'm doing research, but I really can't meet people. So their work has changed. How do you see the investment community reacting to this? Certainly valuations might come down. I'll see their limited partners being hit with the stock market. You're seeing in disruption, what do you see going on in the VC world around this cold, hard time? I think, I mean, certainly all VCs are not created equal, so I think there's going to be different perspectives based on the background of the DNA of the VC involved. I think certainly I'll observe, I feel very fortunate that we've got sort of Hill Ventures, so that these guys were the investors behind Snowflake and behind Pure Storage and many other good companies, but they're very long-term investors. And their advice to me has been, well, look, some of the most innovative times, if you like, have been during and after a major crisis. And so if you make short-term decisions to get you through those crises, I mean, they're all terrible, but they don't last forever and there will be another side. And so make good business decisions and good investment decisions through this because there will be winners that emerge on the other side. And that's really what I try and get the team focused on is guys, for now, yeah, we're sort of hunkered down and it feels bad, but we're probably more privileged than most and we have an opportunity maybe on the other side to take advantage. We don't have a revenue stream. We don't have existing customers. We can sort of take this greenfield business that we've got and go on the offensive when things return to a semblance of normal. So Hill have been fantastic and I would hope that most BCs retain that perspective, which is if it was a good company three weeks ago, it's probably still a good company today. And the best way to create value is to sort of empower, I think the CEOs and executive teams to make the right sort of longer-term decisions, try and capitalize when you come out the other side because there will be losers as well. And I think the wrong decisions now can put you on the losing end of that equation in three, four, five months time. You know, that's a good point. If you were a good company just a few months ago or even weeks ago or a year ago, you're still a good company. That's certainly going to be a tell sign to what happens in some of these companies. I got to ask you a more focused question on this whole, which side of the street are you on? Are you on the, are you riding the wave or are you going to get taken away, washed away with it? Because, you know, there are bats and I want to get into the observe in a minute, but you mentioned snowflake there in the cloud wave. Obviously that's pretty bullish. We're still bullish on that. Obviously it's going to be a game changer. But is there a tell sign for the kind of bets that those good management teams need to make now? Because I agree with you. I mean, when the .com bubble burst in 2000 and really 2004 kicked back up again, 2008 we saw that post and a lot of great companies were created. So what's your advice on which side of history do you need to be on here? Obviously cloud is one. What is your view on that? Yeah, I mean, we've talked for many years. It's not just since I went to the startup, but I'm a huge believer in this transition to digital businesses, frictionless interactions, automation, yes, obviously people are required to run a business, but if you can run a business remotely or the business is automated in a way such that it doesn't require hands on operation, then that's a beautiful thing. My belief is that this terrible situation will force people to really think seriously about what their digital business looks like. If you don't have one, then you may not be able to be in business in a year, two, three years down the line, right? There'll be some carryover, but I think the smart businesses are going to be able to function in an environment such as this. Yeah, I think that's right. And that's going to be playing on everybody's minds. So now more than ever, I'd say the digital business is a necessity. You know, I was just talking to a colleague and we were just talking about how all the events got canceled and you've had history running some of the best events ever in the industry at EMC and we participated in those and you know your stuff when it comes to events. There's economic value in these physical events as a venue, Sands Convention Center, Moscone here in San Francisco. I mean, there's a lot of things that go on, a lot of decision making that's been standardized over the years. And there's an economic value that comes out of those events. Now that's gone and then these little digital teams, some companies have like five people, two people, sometimes maybe if you're lucky you have 10 or more or department and then you got demand generation. All these guys are being told now you have to make up for the shortfall and not just lead but value. And this has just been a big burden for some of my friends out there who are like, wait a minute, you want to take that and move it over here has been kind of a challenge. What is your view on this? Because a lot of people are trying to figure this particular problem out on how to make digital work today and have some extensibility and get success. What's your take? Well, I'm a silly huge believer. I mean, whereas, you know, sort of like we just talked about digital market and your content is still very much king, right? I mean, if you can produce a compelling piece of content online, TV quality with a depth of knowledge there, you're going to attract an audience. Now, can you then make that experience interactive? Can you engage the audience in a deeper way? Yeah, you're probably not going to have something which lasts for a full day or three days online but I think it's really going to force the creativity on the content side to another level, right? It can't just be talking heads and PowerPoint pictures, right? So that rethinking from first principles what an online conference or an online experience actually looks like in a way that it engages the people who are watching to me, that those folks are going to go do very, very well. And the economics, I mean, I know how much it costs to put on a conference with 10 or 15,000 people. I don't know, and by the way, I know how much it costs to put on a virtual event for 10 or 15,000 people and the economics are astounding in their difference. Now, if you're physically somewhere you can feel things that you can't feel online but I mean, come on, this is a problem that requires some innovation to solve, right? I mean, we've talked about virtual reality and augmented reality but it's still pretty clunky and relegated to sort of niche use cases and bad games. But at some point, you know, that technology has to reach the point where it can be useful and engaging and you can approximate to that physical experience. But I think that is going to be critical but many businesses even beyond sort of marketing and virtual events and that kind of thing, many businesses are just going to have to reinvent how they engage and interact with their customers and the automation of their operations and how do you get by when you don't have as many people physically in an office or operating machines? Everybody's going to have to think through that. Yeah, I think that's great insight and that's going to be a great clip that I'll share and I think that's going to be inspirational for the folks trying to solve that problem. You know, the things that we're focused in on, as you know and this is something that we're doing a lot of work on is the engagement with groups and you mentioned the secret Hitler as the game. This is going to be, they're going to see some new clever things go on and I think the group dynamic and having people in whether it's virtual and physical space is exchanging credible things, ideas or jokes or whatever is going to be a new kind of dynamic because that's going to have to fill the void. Yeah, I mean, if you've got, I mean, I've got a small company so we can play these individual games but just think about some of these board type games where I want to have three teams and I want to divide the company up into three. I mean, the logistics of actually figuring that out is ridiculous and it shouldn't be that way, right? And so these are basics of human social interactions. We want to play a game together. We want to divide it into teams but that sounds like a relatively trivial thing but I mean, try and find the number of games available that allow you to easily do that and each team interact independently of the others. It's almost impossible. It's going to be fun to watch and I think a lot of you are going to learn. Well, thanks for the advice. Let's get back to your startup. Let's get a plug in for that. I want to get the plug in obviously you're in stealth so you can't really go into great detail but you have been talking to customers. You are obviously related, that's related to snowflake but you were going to do some things with snowflake. You're in the cloud. Can you just take a minute to give a plug for what you guys are doing for the people who want to know what you guys are leaning towards in terms of the value proposition? Yeah, well, when I look back in my career, one of the times I enjoyed the most was the time at Oracle and working with data and I've been fortunate enough for the last four and a half years or so to be on the board of snowflake, couple of ex Oracle guys. Benoit and Thierry founded the company and they've reinvented the database and I felt like I've sat for 20 years looking for the second coming of the database and we all were sort of head fake thinking it was Hadoop and turns out it wasn't but I think snowflake and the separation of storage and compute that allows them to sort of scale and have a usage-based price model. I just think is absolutely revolutionary and I think is going to be one of the great companies of the new era. And so, when I looked at Observe, really the thesis was that using a platform like snowflake, you could potentially reason about unstructured log data, it's all like Splunk. You could reason about time series data, a little bit like Datadog or tracing data like AppDynamics or in fact any data, you could reason about it together. And today, if you look at the world, if you want to do something with logs, you go get one product. If you want to do something with relational data, you get another. If you want to do time series data, you get another. If you want to do tracing, you get an APM tool. And nobody has the big picture, right? Everybody's got their own little piece of data and their own perspective on where the issue might be in your company, but nobody really knows. And it's usually put together in the brain of the smartest guy in the room and so I thought it was quite simple. Snowflake, you've got this commercial database that can do instruction data or in time series data and relational data. And what if we collect all data within an organization together, structure it, relate it, and then imagine what you could find out about your infrastructure, your applications, your business. So, you know, when does one of the... Is it like a unification kind of concept for users or IT? Yeah, I mean, I think that, yeah, I think the emerging category is, would be observability, but it really is a collapsing of log analytics, metrics monitoring and tracing, you know, into this new category of observability. We don't necessarily just view that though as sort of data coming out of Kubernetes clusters or out of AWS or wherever. We actually could ingest security data. We could ingest data from people surfing your, using your app or surfing your website. We could take logs coming out of machines on a factory floor. So the way we built the product it could be literally any kind of data and we try and structure it and relate it and make sense of it and then make it very easy for people to navigate through it and determine issues and problems. So, yeah, we're pretty excited about it. And like I said, we could not have built this even a couple of years ago because I don't think Snowflake would have been there. And in fact, that was one of the big risks when we started the company. Can we build it on Snowflake? And so here we are two years later and we think we can, well, we're sure we can do it. Yeah, they had a good run too. I mean, look at the growth of Snowflake. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I've never seen anything like it in the last 20 years in B2B. I've never seen anything like it. So, you know, just like I felt in the mid 90s when I was at Oracle, people were making decisions to go with Oracle and then saying, hey, help me get all of my other data in there, my mainframe data, my this, my that. I think Snowflake are going to go through the same sort of growth phase. And hopefully with Observe, we can be like, hey, if you want to put your instruction data or your time series data, we can help you do that very easily. Well, this is exactly the kind of wave that you want to be on the right side of because like you said, just a year or so ago or a couple of years ago wasn't available. This is kind of the new capabilities. Yeah, I feel like there's going to be a lot of businesses grow ridiculously. I mean, you talked about the Zoom numbers. I mean, these are ridiculous growth numbers and there are going to be companies come out the other side that take advantage of the new environment. And as they're growing, as they're scaling, as they build these new micro-service-based applications, they're going to run into issues. We hope at least that it's products with our kind of architecture that's going to be able to help these fast-growing businesses. So yeah, I mean, as I said, we're somewhat fortunate in that we don't have a product yet. But certainly on the other side of this, we think there's going to be plenty of opportunity to help a few folks. We know you got to do a launch and we look forward to hearing more and getting the briefing and looking forward to hearing more about it when you go public. And thanks for coming on and taking the time today. I know you got, you do have a birthday party there and you're going to have some celebration. Thank you for sharing the insights on your vision of digital. I thought that was very compelling and great to see you and stay safe. And great to see you. I mean, I've got, yeah, my 18-year-old it's got a birthday party and she like always would worry what if no one shows up? Well, today she knows no one's going to show up. Except for her family. It's just going to be dad and their family. So thanks for that. And you guys stay safe and it's been great. The last 10 years now in the cube, been that long. But hopefully, you know, he is the next 10 years after this current situation is over. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a lot of fun. Rye, we'll get the content out there. And again, thanks for coming on this, during this important time and sharing your insights and also just making some entertainment here. We're getting some conversations so people can, you know, fill the void and play some games and have some fun. Jeremy, thanks. Great to see you. Jeremy Burton, senior executive in the industry. I've known him for years, been a cube alumni since the cube was formed. Now the CEO of Observe, sharing his insights on the industry, but more importantly, how to be successful and how to come out the other side. Don't be too optimistic. Be focused on today and get through it. That's his advice. Of course, we're the cube bringing you all the data just as we can now with remote interviews during this time. Thanks for watching. I'm John Furrier.