 everyone, and welcome back to AWS re-invent here in wonderful Las Vegas, Nevada. We're theCUBE, I am Savannah Peterson, joined with my co-host Dave Vellante. Day four, you look great. Your voice has come back somehow. Yeah, a little bit. I don't know how. I took last night off. You guys, I know we're out partying all night, but you look great, too. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Well, you were celebrating John's birthday. John Furrier's birthday today. Yes, happy birthday, John. He's on his way to England. Yeah. At his nephew's wedding, awesome family, and so good luck, John. I hope you feel better. He's got a little cold. I know, good luck to the Neelywoods. I love this. I know we're both really excited for our next guest, so I'm gonna bring her out. Lena Smart from MongoDB, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. How's the show going for you? Good. It's been a long week. I just, not much voice left, so. We'll be gentle on you. I'll give you what's left today. All right, we'll take that. Okay. You had a fireside chat at the show. I did. Can you tell us a little bit about that? So we were talking about the Rise, the developer days of platform. In this massive theater, I thought it would be like an intimate fireside chat. I keep believing them when they say to me, come and do these talks. It'll be intimate. And you turn up and there's a stage and a theater and it's like, oh my God. But it was really interesting. It was well attended. It got some really good questions at the end as well. Lots of follow-up, which was interesting. And it was really just about how we've brought together this developer platform that's got our integrated services. It's just what developers want. It gives them time to innovate and disrupt rather than worry about the minutiae of management. Do the cool stuff. Exactly. Yeah, so you know, Lena's funny that she's saying that, well, wow, the lights came on and it was this big thing. When we were at Reinforce, Lena was on stage and it was so funny, you know, you were self-deprecating like making jokes about the audience, it was hilarious. So, but it was really endearing to the audience. And so we were like, you got huge props for that. Absolutely terrifying. Because they told me I wouldn't see anyone because we did the rehearsal the day before and they were like, it's just going to be lights. Sometimes it just looks like blackness out there. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't. They lied. You could see eyeballs. It was terrifying. Would you rather know that going in though or is it better to be, is ignorance bliss in that moment? Ignorance is bliss. Yeah, yeah. It calls Savannah, right? Yeah, yeah. Just go. The older I get, the more I'm just, I'm on the ignorance is bliss train. I just, I don't need to know anything that's going to hurt my soul. Exactly. One of the things that you mentioned, and this actually been a really frequent theme here on the show this week, is you said that this has been a transformative year for developers. Yeah. What did you mean by that? So I think developers are starting to come to the fore, if you like, before, and I'm not in any way being defecating about developers because I love them. I think everyone here does. I was married to one. I live with one now. It's like, they follow me everywhere. They don't. But I think they, this is my opinion, obviously, but I think that we're seeing more and more of the value that developers bring to the table. They're not just code geeks anymore. They're not just code monkeys, you know, turning out lines and lines of code. Some of the most interesting discussions I've had this week have been with developers, and that's why I'm so pleased that our developer data platform is going to give these folks back time so that they can go and innovate and do super interesting things and do the next big thing. It was interesting. I was talking to Mary, our comms person earlier, and she had said that Dave, I guess, my boss was on your show history. Yeah, he was over here last night. And he was saying that two thirds of the companies that had been mentioned so far, within the whole gamut of this conference, use MongoDB. And so take that, extrapolate that, all the developers who are there. I know it's massive. That's awesome. I know, I heard that staff. I was like, did I hear that right? I know, I just had that moment. Yeah. I know, she just told me, I'm like, really? That's so cool. That's the first thing I thought of was then, oh my God, how many developers are we reaching then? Because they're the ones. Right. I mean, it's kind of interesting. So my job is kind of grown from over the years, being the security geek in the back room that nobody talks to, to avoiding me in the lift. I see to the table now, we meet with the board and I think that I can see that that's where the developer mindset is moving towards. It's like, give us the right tools and we'll change your world. And let the human capital go back to doing the fun stuff and not just the maintenance stuff. But then you say that, you can't have everything automated. I get that automation is also the buzzword of the week and I get that, trust me. Someone has to write the code to do the automation. So yeah, definitely give these people back time so that they can work on ML, AI, choose your buzzword. You know, by giving people things like queryable encryption, for example, you're going to free up a whole bunch of head space. They don't have to worry about their data being, you know, harvesties from memory or harvested while at rest or in motion. And it's like, okay, I don't have to worry about that now. Let me go do something fun. How about the role of the developer as it relates to SecOps? They're being asked to do a lot. You and I talked about this at Reinforce. You seem to have a pretty good handle on it. Like a lot of companies I think are struggling with it. I mean, the other thing you said to me is, you know, you don't have a lack of talent at Mongo because you're Mongo, but a lot of companies do. But a lot of the developers, you know, we were just talking about this earlier with Capgemini there, the developer metrics might or the application development teams metrics might not be aligned with the CISOs metrics. What are you seeing there? How do you deal with it within Mongo? What do you advise your customers? So in terms of internal, I worked very closely with the development groups. I worked with Tara Hernandez, who's our new VP of developer productivity. And she and her team are very much interested in making developers more productive. That's her job. And so we get together because sometimes security can definitely be seen as a blocker. You know, funnily enough, I actually had a slack that I had to respond to three seconds before I come on here. And I was like, help, we need some help getting this application through procurement because blah, blah, blah. And it's weird, they kind of change the shift in mindset whereas before they might have gone to procurement or HR or someone to ask for this, now they're coming to the CISO. Cause you know, if I say yes, it'll go through. Talking about social engineering. Exactly, but turn it around though if I say no. You know, I don't like to say no, I prefer to be the CISO that says yes, but. And so that's what we've done. We've definitely got that culture of ask, we'll tell you the risks, and then you can go away and be innovative and do what you need to do. And we basically do the same with our customers. Here's what you can do. Our application is to cure out the box. Here's how we can help you make it even more, you know, streamlined or bespoke to what you need. So mobile was a big inflection point, you know, seems like forever ago. 2007. 2007, yeah, iPhone came out in 2007. You remember your first iPhone? Yeah. Yeah, see? Yeah, it was pretty awesome actually. I do too. I was on the train to Boston, going up to see some friends at MIT on the consortium that I worked with. And I had, it was the wee one member, it was a wee tiny one. Look, you thought it was massive. Oh, it felt. It felt big. And I remember I was sitting on the train to Boston, it was like the Assela, and there was these people, these two women sitting beside me, and they were all like glam like you, and like me. Okay, that's awesome. And you could see them like nudging each other, and I'm just sitting like this, like please look at my phone, come on, just look at it and ask me about it. And eventually I'm like. You're baiting them. Nonstulently laid it on the table, and you know, I'm like, and they're like, is that an iPhone? I'm like, yeah, you want to see it? I thought you'd never ask. I know, and I really played with it, and I showed them all the cool stuff, and they're like, oh, we're going to buy iPhones. And so I should have probably worked for Apple. I was going to say, where was your referral kickback on that? It was a little like Tesla, right? When you first saw Tesla, it was Ray Wong, you know, Ray from Constellation. It really was a moment, and going from the Blackberry keyboard to that. You want to see my car? Oh yeah. Sure, what's the big deal? Yeah, then you see it, and you're like, ooh. Yeah, that really was such a pivotal moment. Anyway, so we lost a track, 2007. Yeah, what were we talking about? 2007, mobile. Mobile, big inflection point is where you got us here. Thank you. You should bring us back. Got you. My mind needs help right now, day four. Okay, so. We're all getting through day four, and we're going to make sure. I'm socially engineering you to enter this, so I can go to bed and die quietly. That's what me and Mary are, we're counting down the minutes. Oh, you're so good. You're breaking into my heart right now. I'm with you, says I'm with you. So I don't know where I was going with this, but okay, there's got to be another inflection point. Three things happened. Right, okay, yeah, tell us what happened. Okay, tell us that, but then. EWS, clouds, 2006, 2007, right? 2007 iPhone, the world blew up, so you've already got this platform ready to take all this data. You've got this little slab of gorgeousness called the iPhone, ready to give you all that data. And then MongoDB pops up, it's like woohoo. But what we could offer was, I mean back then was awesome, but it was, we knew that we would have to iterate and grow and grow and grow. So that was kind of the three things that came together in 2007. Yeah, and then cloud came in big time, and now you've got this platform. So what's the next inflection point, do you think? Good question. I was hoping you wouldn't ask me that. I mean, is it Edge? Is it IoT? Is it, is there another disruptor out there? I think it's going to be artificial intelligence. Is it AI? I mean, I don't know enough about it to talk about it to any level, so don't ask me any questions on it. This is like one of those ignorance-less moments. Yeah. Well, does it scare you from a security perspective? My question, Dave. Yeah, it scares me more from a humanity standpoint. More than social scared you? Because social was so benign when it started. Oh, it was- You're like, oh. I remember- It was like a yearbook. It wasn't a, yeah. I was in the Ocella, and we were- Shout out to Amtrak there. I was with, we were starting basically a Wikibon. It was an open source kind of technology community. And we saw these, and we were like enamored of Facebook and there were these two young kids on the train and we were out and we were picking the brain. Do you like Facebook? I love Facebook, right? Oh, Facebook's unbelievable. Now kids today, I hate Facebook, right? So, but social, at the beginning it was kind of, like I say, benign, and now everybody's like- We didn't know what we were getting into. Right, exactly. I know, can you imagine if you could have seen into the future 20 years ago? Well, first of all, we'd have all bought Facebook and Apple Store. Right, right. And Tesla Store, that far from- Yeah. Yeah, far from there. Okay, so what about quantum? Does that scare you at all? I think the only thing that scares me about quantum is we have all this security in place today, and I'm not an expert in quantum, but we have all this security in place that's securing what we have today. And my worry is in 10 years, is it still going to be secure? Because we're still going to be using that data in some way, shape, or form. And my question is to the quantum geniuses out there, what do we do in 10 years like to retrofit stuff? Like a Y2K moment? Kinda, although I think Y2K is coming in 2038, isn't it? When the Linux state flips, I'll be off the grid, but then I'll be living in Scotland. Somebody else's problem. Somebody else's problem. I'll be with the sheep and Glasgow and Scotland. Y2K was a boondoggle for tech, right? What a farce. I mean- I worked in the power industry in Y2K. That was a nightmare. Oh, I bet. Oh, my God. Yeah, because we just assumed that the world was going to stop and there'd be no power. And we had nuclear power plants. And it's like, holy moly. Yeah. More than moly. I was going to say you did a good job holding that. I did. Other word in- I did because my mom hears this. I have a nuclear power plant. I grew up near Diablo Canyon in California. So, I mean, we were legitimately worried that that exactly was going to happen and what about the waste? And yeah, it was chaos. Oh, yeah. We've covered a lot. Well, what does worry you? Like, is it culture? Why are you trying to freak her out? Oh, no, no, no, no, because it's a CISO. What is going to my head? Trying to get inside the CISO's head. She doesn't think I have enough to worry about. I know. She wants to get the hell out of you. I know. I love having been on. I love having been on. Spiders. Oh, but I like spiders. Well, the spiders are okay. I don't like bridges. That's my biggest fear. Bridges. Seriously. And I had to drive over the Tappin' Zee Bridge, which is one of the longest, for 17 years every day, twice. The last time I drove over it, crying my heart out, happy as anything. Stay out of Auckland. I've never driven over it since. Stay out of where? Stay out of Oakland. I'm staying out of anywhere that's got lots of water because it'll have bridges. Well, it's the thing we're here in the desert. Exactly. Clean, clean, clean, clean, clean. So what scares me? Bridges. There you go. Yeah. I love it. Well, wait a minute. So if I'm bridging technology, is that scary? Oh, boy, that was naff. Is that really bad? That was really bad. Wow. Wow. The pun. A lot of seams in those bridges. It's lit on the Cube Day 4. We are all sorry. I'm curious because I've seen your team is all over the place here on the show floor. Your booth has been packed the whole time. The fingerprint. Talk to me about your shirt. So this was designed by my team in-house. It is the most wanted swag in the company because only my security people wear it. So we make it like, yeah, you could maybe have one if this turns out well. I feel like we're on the right track. It turns out well. Me too. I just love it. It's just brilliant. I mean, it's the leaf. It's a fingerprint. It's just brilliant. That's why I wanted to call it out. Yeah. You see a lot of shirts, a lot of swag shirts. Some are really unfortunately sad or not funny or they're just trying to yard another. It's like with this one, I thought, oh, I bet that's one. It is. It's very cool. I love it. You saw a good one yesterday. Yeah? We fixed shit, remember? Oh, yeah, yeah. That was pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put this straight forward like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But the only thing with this is when you stand in front of a green screen, you look as though you've got no tummy. A portal through your body. And so when we did our first... That's a really good point, actually. Yeah, it's like the black hole to nothing. I'm like, wow, that's my soul, Emily. I was just going to say, I don't want to see my soul like that. I don't want to know. But we had to do like a... It was just when the pandemic first started. So we had to do like our big presentation live announcement from home. And so they shipped us all this camera equipment for home and thank God my partner knows how that works. So he set it all up. And then he had me test with the green screen. And he's like, you have no tummy. I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? He's like, come and see. It's like this. I don't know where it was. So I had to actually go upstairs and felt tip with a magic marker and make it black. Wow. So that was what I did for two hours on a Friday. Yeah. Couldn't think of another alternative, huh? No, because I'm myopic when it comes to marketing and I knew I had to keep the t-shirt on. And I just did that. In hindsight, yes, I could have won. I'd be able to see this. I fixed t-shirt. I don't think my boss would have been very happy. I secure shirt. There you go. There you go. Over to you. I was going to say, I got acquainted. I don't know if I can say this, but I'm going to say it because we're here right now. I got acquainted with the cube wearing a shirt that said, unfuck kubernetes. Because it was a marketing campaign that I was running for one of my clients at KubeCon last year. Yeah, so I... Oh, yeah, I'll give you one of these if you get me one of these. We can do a swapskate. We need a few edits on this film. Yeah, this is none, all of the work I did today. Okay, on that note, I'm going to bring us to our challenge that we discussed before we got started on this really diverse discussion that we've had in the last 15 minutes. We've covered everything from felt tip markers to nuclear power plants. To the darkness of my soul. To the darkness of all of our souls. All of our souls, yes. Which is perhaps a little too accurate, especially at this stage in the conference. You've obviously seen a lot, Leenan, and you've been rocking it. I know John was in your suite up here at the Venetian. What's your 30-second hot take, most important story coming out of the show or for you all at Mongo this year? Genuinely, it was when I learned a two-thirds of the customers that had been mentioned here are MongoDB customers. And that just exploded in my head. So now I'm thinking of all the numbers and the metrics and how we can use that. And I just think it was amazing. Congratulations on that. It was awesome. And it makes sense actually. It was so cool. Because Mongo was so easy to use. We were talking about 10Gen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But Mongo was there. We knew you when. I feel like that's our leg. Yeah. And so Mongo was just really easy to use and people were like, ah, it doesn't scale. It turns out it actually does scale. It turns out it scales pretty well. Thank you. Well, Lena, without question, this is my favorite conversation of the show so far. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. Great to see you. And so it was a pleasure. Thanks, Lena. Thank you. And thank you all tuning in live for tolerating wherever we take these conversations. I bet you weren't ready for this one, folks. We're at AWS Reinvent in Las Vegas, Nevada with Dave Vellante. I'm Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leader for high tech coverage.