 Welcome back to Las Vegas. Lisa Martin here with Dave Vellante. We are covering day two of our coverage of Snowflake Summit 22. It's been a canon of content coming your way the last couple of days. We love talking with customers, with partners. We've got a partner on the program from ThoughtSpot. We're going to be diving into digital transformation with self-service analytics for the modern data stack. Please welcome Kuntal Vahalia, SVP of channel and alliances at ThoughtSpot. Welcome Kuntal. Thank you Lisa, Dave, thank you for having us. Talk to the audience a little bit about ThoughtSpot, give them an overview and then dive into the partnership with Snowflake. Yeah, absolutely. So ThoughtSpot is what we call live analytics for the modern data stack. We want to be the experience layer for all the data that's getting modernized and moving into the cloud. And then specifically to Snowflake, we have seen over the last two days here, Snowflake has made tremendous innovations where they've accelerated a customer's journey into the cloud, especially the data cloud. Our job is to go really unlock that data, generate that value, make it consumable at the experience layer. So what we want to do here with Snowflake is make analytics self-service for the end users on top of the Snowflake data cloud. And we want to empower everyone to create, consume, and operationalize data-driven insights. We think if the end users can generate their own insights through live analytics, we could do have a completely different operating model for the business, right? And I think we can do that in an accelerated fashion on sitting on top of Snowflake data cloud. End users, lines of business. It's line of business users, so we directly go to end users, that's one of our differentiation, not just IT, but as end users as well. So we could be all things to all enterprise across all line of businesses. So what kind of impact are you seeing with your customers? Was there a leaning in to ThoughtSpot and Snowflake and sort of rethinking their data approach? Yeah, I mean the impact could be immense, right? As I said, this is not just about analytics. If we are successful in empowering end users, it completely changes the velocity of the business. We are now driving innovation at every node, at every layer in the organization, not just IT, not just smaller segments in the organization. We're not doing this anywhere in any pocket, right? So I think the impact could be massive if we do this right. And I think we're starting to see that. We have a lot of customers here actually, joint customers, Capital One, Canadian Tires, Walmart, they're all joint customers, where we are starting to see some of those impacts where we have data getting modernized, the stack being ready, and then we're coming in at the top as the experience layer, which is driving that new digital operating model. Describe the maturity curve when you go, you mentioned some of the leaders, let me take a Walmart, I mean, they kind of invented the whole, you know, beer and diapers thing, right? So obviously, a company with tremendous resources and advanced technology. Compare some of those leaders with sort of the other end of the spectrum. When you come into a company and you see, okay, what does that spectrum look like, and what's the upside for the, I don't want to call them laggards, but I'll call them laggards. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we're still early on, I mean, as this is not just exercise in getting the data ready, this is also an exercise in change management, because now, as I said, we're going beyond IT, we are going to line of business users as well. So a lot of change management required, and we have seen companies that are actually putting this in front of the frontline workers, empowering frontline workers to consume analytics and to drive self-service via search and AI, they are on a different curve. They are actually being competitive in the market. That's an advantage for them, right? So we are seeing a lot of companies like Walmart already ahead in that journey with us. Still early days, right? We got to go land in one line of business, go from there to other line of business till we go enterprise-wide. Can you, it sounds like you might be a facilitator of connecting heads of business with the IT and the tech folks, that hotspot. Absolutely, I mean, that is the holy grail. How do we get IT and line of business work frictionless, where everyone has their roles defined, and still get to the outcome where innovation is happening now with IT on the data cloud, and then go beyond IT into the broader business. So yeah, I think that's definitely one of the goals and outcomes of what we do. So what are the roles there? So the business obviously wants to do more business. Put analytics in their hands and it helps them get there. What role does IT play, making sure that those services are available? Are they a service provider? Is it more of a governance and compliance thing? Yeah, I mean, step number one is still to get the data ready. And I think IT still owns the key to that kingdom, especially around governance, security. So I think IT still has to get the data stack ready, right? Step number two is for IT to really build a framework for how to consume analytics for the end users. Step number three, then, is the rule is, hey, we don't need IT to now deliver dashboards or KPIs to the business every day. That's how traditional dashboards work. In our world, once IT does step number one and step number two, the business can take over. And they can now go operate the business on their own using live analytics. Creating self-serve. Absolutely, self-service analytics. Using self-serve in AI. What have you seen in terms of, from the IT folks perspective, we talked about change management a minute ago. It's very challenging to do. But these days, every company has to be a data company. They don't have a choice. What are you seeing from a change management perspective within the IT function across your customers willing to let go in some cases? Actually, what we've seen is, think about the technical debt that IT is owning over the last few years. It's just increasing, right? IT is looking for ways to A, cut costs, B, deliver more with probably the same amount of resources they have. So in some ways, they welcome this new operating model. As long as they can keep the governance, they can keep the security, they can keep the framework around how business is run. As long as IT has a say in that, they're more than welcome to invite business to really drive innovation at the edges through self-service analytics. So what we've found is, IT is a welcome partner in this journey, especially when they have to get the data ready and modernize the data set for us. You guys are announcing a partnership with Matillion this week? Tell us what that's all about. We did, we did. So we did announce a partnership. So I think as I said, step number one is getting the data ready. And I think we have heard from Frank and the rest of this team this week, even Snowflake is taking a best-of-breed approach on the data stack, right? So we want the computer and the storage to be ready, but for that, the data pipeline has to be ready, which is where Matillion comes in with the low-code, no-code approach. So we think between Matillion, Snowflake, and Thoughtspot, we could be the accelerated best-of-breed approach for customers to realize value and be live on the modern data stack. Is that your stack? As we said, we meet the customers where they are, but we think this is the accelerated path for... What are the advantages of... What are you optimizing on in that stack? First with Matillion, we have what we concept, we have this concept of SpotApp. So this is Thoughtspot's way to really capture the IP and the templates for customers to move fast, right? That's where we bake in a lot of the industry IP, a lot of functional IP around end sources and endpoints. So we have some of the SpotApps built with Matillion. So now customers are able to ingest data into the cloud faster using Matillion, right? So that's something we have worked with. Same thing with Snowflake. We are now starting to go verticalize with Snowflake. So we're starting to build a lot of IP around financial services, healthcare and whatnot, which is where I think we are, again, accelerating customers' path on the modern data stack all the way to the experience layer. As a partner of Snowflake's, what does all the narrative around the data cloud, we've been talking about that for a while, a lot of conversation around the data cloud, the last couple of days, where do partners fit into that overall narrative? Yeah, I think multiple places, right? First thing, every layer of the data cloud still needs innovation, still need partners. And every partner adds a different set of value, just like we add value at the top layer, which is the experience layer. But I think, you know, we have channel partners, we have a lot of SI's and GSI's here, especially once we take a best-of-breed approach to delivering customer outcomes. SI's are the neutral ground. They are the ones who are going to have the material expertise and the Snowflake expertise and Thoughts for Expertise all baked into one DNA practice, data analytics practice. So I think at every layer, partners have a role to play and every layer of partners have value to add. What's the engagement process like for customers? When you're talking about the three-way partnership, Matillion, Thought Spot, and stuff like, how do customers get involved? What's your go-to-market look like? Right, I mean, obviously, we're humble, we know where we are. We are a little bit smaller than Snowflake. Snowflake has a head start, so they've been about five years ahead of us. So we are largely targeting customers that are Snowflake-ready, where there is some semblance of data cloud, where data seems to be organized and ready to go. So once we think the customer is at that point in the journey, we have very strong partnership across the entire organization, at a product level, at a field engagement level. And our field teams really understand the value, the joint value between the two organizations. So we start to see Snowflake field and Thought Spot field starting to work together on key accounts once we think the data is ready. And wherever we need to accelerate the data, that's where we bring in Matillion as well, to ingest more data into the data cloud. But that's largely been the engagement model between the three companies. How do you see the announcements that they made around applications affecting what you guys are doing in your ecosystem? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a validation. I think to us, we always said, step number one is to modernize the data, move it to the cloud. That's step number one. But we still have to unlock the data. Like the data still needs to be consumed. And we always said, hey, we are that app that could drive the consumption of data. But now with some of the announcements we have seen, I think the validation is there. Saying, hey, yes, even Snowflake is ready to move in a more accelerated fashion into the application world. But they want to drive consumption not just with the analytics layer, but with a lot of other applications that's out there. What are some of the things that you've heard this week in the last couple of days that really validate the partnership with Snowflake from your perspective? Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is this concept of modern data stack, which is best to breed. I think we have been thinking about that for the long time, or for the last year or so. We have seen this come through at this event here. We see material and Snowflake, and then the SI's around it all coming together. So I think to us, that's the biggest validation that the modern data stack is the right approach, especially best to breed, to drive the right customer outcome. So to me, that's big. Second is this concept of really accelerating applications on top of the data cloud. I think that's again a validation of what we've been trying to do over the last few years, which is the data is modernized. Let's now drive consumption and adoption of that data. So I think those are the two big takeaways. So the modern data stack, to get to the modern data stack, you got to do some work, right? But so the play is to hold out the carrot, which you kind of just did, because once you get there, then you can really start to hit the steep part of the S curve, right? That's right. What would you say are the sort of prerequisites that customers need to think about to really jump on that modern data stack curve? I think they got to first have a vision around the outcomes. What outcomes we're driving? I think it's one thing to say, hey, we just going to move the data over from legacy into the cloud. That's just migration. That doesn't drive the outcomes. To us, what makes sense is, let's start with the right outcomes around supply chain, around retail, around e-commerce. Let's name it, right? I think it starts there. From there on, let's figure out what do we need? What technologies do we need in the stack to enable those outcomes, right? It could be ThoughtSpot at the top. It could be something else at the top. And same thing, it's Matillion and Snowflake, right? But it really starts with what outcomes we're going to drive in what industry and what KPIs are important for our customers. What's next for ThoughtSpot and Snowflake? I was just looking at the notes here. Over 250 plus joint customers, you mentioned some, Disney Plus Capital One, I've seen them around here. What's next for these two powerhouses? Well, I think we're just getting started, to be honest. I mean, those 250 customers, first we got to go drive success for them. I mean, we are a 10-year-old company with a two-year runway because we transformed our business to cloud less than two years ago. So, this 250 joint logos are actually all happened in the last two years. And that's driven us to be probably in the top five adoption drivers for Snowflake, all in the last two years. So, go number one is to really, let's go drive customer success for these joint logos. Second, let's go expand them, right? Consumption is the key criteria, both for Snowflake as well as ThoughtSpot. We are very well aligned. Our pricing models align there. Our incentives align there. We really want customers to go adopt and consume the stack. And then, of course, really, we want to go verticalize ourselves, start speaking the language of the customers and really just get bigger. I mean, we still got to build a machine around this. This is all still early days for us. Early innings, but a ton of potential, but the field is ripe. Field is wide open. I think, I think bottom of the third, bottom of the second, I think we still have a long game to play here. Oh good, most people always use bottom of the first. I'm glad to hear it's really bottom of the second or third. That's pretty good. Yeah, well, 250 logos are there. And it's further along, because I don't want to say it like this, but I'm going to say it anyway. The failure of the big data movement, it pushed us along quite a ways in terms of thinking, putting data at the core, the technology kind of failed us, you know, and the centralization of the architectures failed us, but then the cloud came along. That's right. We learned a lot, and now, you know, technology's advanced. I think people's thinking is advanced, and they realize increasingly the importance of data. And ecosystem is coming. I mean, I think you look around here, this is the secret sauce for the future. This is what's going to really get us moving faster over the next few innings, because now the rest of the ecosystem is coming along. Yep, the momentum is here. That flywheel is moving. That's right. Definitely. Kuntal, thank you very much for joining Dave and me on the program. Lisa, Dave, thank you so much. Thanks for your time. What thoughts, boss, all about what you're up to, a lot of momentum, we wish you the best of luck as you progress into those later innings. Thank you. For Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE. We are live in Las Vegas at Snowflake Summit 22. Dave and I are going to be right back with our next guest. So stick around.