 Live from Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Summit Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. Hey, welcome back everyone. We're here live in Bahrain for exclusive Amazon coverage. It's theCUBE's first time in the region. We're excited to be here as AWS Public Sector Summit and Commercial Opportunities are expanding. Amazon has announced and will be up and running in 2019 with a new region here in Bahrain in the Middle East. It will generate a lot of activity. We expect it to create a tsunami of innovation. Data information is the new oil we're here covering it. This is going to be the beginning of more coverage here in the area for theCUBE. And we're meeting new people and then we run into some luminaries. CUBE alumni is our next guest is a CUBE alumni, John Wood is the CEO of Telos. Also been on theCUBE many times as you might know. Expert in cybersecurity. Just an overall knowledgeable and visionary entrepreneur. Great to see you. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks, John. I really appreciate it. So you're part of the entourage with Teresa, the team as she comes in and cross pollinates Amazon Web Services Public Sector Summit. What she's done in Washington DC and beyond here in the region. It's going to be a new formula that Bahrain and the people here have recognized. But we were in a meeting yesterday where you didn't work town on the table and you looked very clearly at the chief executive officer who reports to the king and the crown prince and said, you don't really know yet what you got. And you're a visionary. So, and we talk about this. I want to get it out here on camera. This is a big freaking deal. It is. Can you explain why and what your vision is of what will happen with Amazon? As you've been a partner of AWS with Telos you've been very successful. Yep. You've seen the moving part, you've seen the impact. Yep, absolutely. Of innovation. What's your thoughts? So, you know, the shot heard round the world back at the end of 2013, John, is when the central intelligence agency made the decision that, you know, the cloud was just secure enough for them. And that kind of made everybody around the world stand up and notice. So yesterday when we were talking with all of the various people around economic development in Bahrain, you know, I said, you know, the shot heard round the Middle East is that Amazon is located here in Bahrain. I think just like what happened in America, it's going to have a massive impact from an socioeconomic point of view here in the Middle East and specifically in Bahrain. What are some of the things that you might expect to see that they got to be ready for here? Well, first of all, one thing I'll say is a market difference from America is that the government here and the business environment here all has agreed it's important to move to the cloud. That in and of itself is a big, big difference in America. In America, it's been a lot more fragmented. It's taken more time. I think here, I think the government and industry is seeing the value of the cloud globally and they're going to be able to move that much faster than even we did in America. They built a Formula One race track in 14 months. They don't have a lot of the baggage that America has in terms of older systems. And I mean more tech baggage or tech legacy, older systems, older databases, kind of a clean sheet of paper. They have a bit of a clean sheet of paper, but they also do have legacy, John. What they've also done though is they've given themselves a two-year timeframe to move everything to the cloud. Now that in and of itself, having a beginning and middle and an end is a really good thing because the journey's going to be relatively rapid and I think the uptick economically as a result is going to be rapid as well. So one of the things that you were also involved in here with Theresa and the local, my reign government and entrepreneurs is you were here with General Keith Alexander who had to leave last night. We had hoped to have him on theCUBE. Four-star general, head of the NSA. He's seen his shares of data and scale. He had a unique perspective. What was some of the things that you and General Alexander were discussing with the government here? Can you share with appropriate some of the things you were talking about? I think we can apply best practices here just like we applied back in America. I think the fact that they've gone to a cloud-first policy is a really good thing. The next step I think is to find a standard that you can actually look to from a security point of view. Because with that standard you can then have a common lexicon and that common lexicon allows you to share data between and amongst each other that much more quickly. You know, one of the things I heard you over here and I kind of observed this and I'm just going to throw it out there because we think the same way with theCUBE is that when you have a cloud model the benefit of the cloud is you can just actually spin up another instance or things. It's horizontally scalable, generally speaking. So as you run your business tell us with Amazon in the U.S. and other areas this is a new opportunity for you. It's almost rinse and repeat, just kind of plug in. And cloud gives you that benefit so this kind of opens up the conversation of opportunities that Amazon will pull with them to Bahrain and the region. Do you agree with that? How do you see this pull that Amazon might have? I think what Amazon can do more than really many other cloud organizations is because they've been at it for such a long time so much longer than the other cloud providers. They can bring best practices to the table. They can bring best technologies to the table. They can bring best partnerships to the table which allows people to actually know with confidence that if they move to the cloud it's going to work and it's going to be more secure. The other thing I will also point out the answer to that is Andy Jassy and Teresa also bring expertise. They'll do work here on behalf of citizens. Well absolutely, you know when Amazon makes a commitment to build a region over a 10 year period it's anywhere between a two to three billion dollar financial commitment to the region so that in and of itself drives economic value into the region. So I've got to ask you a tough question which is obviously the one that's an elephant in the room is instability of the region potentially. How does digital disruption impact say Bahrain and Middle East? You got the horizon, you got cryptocurrency. We know that market's kind of frothy and somewhat unethical in areas. That's a red flag but wants to be legitimate. Cyber security, a big thing. This is your wheelhouse. Cyber security, these new emerging areas. You got AI booming, you got cloud booming. You got the notion these emerging tech. Cyber security at the center of the action. What does that mean for the Amazon? What does that mean for stability in the region? What's the impact? What's your view on cyber security, Middle East, Bahrain, Amazon? Can you share, can you unpack that? So John that's an incredibly broad question so thank you. So from my point of view, I can't deal with the political situation. What we can deal with is what we can control and we know we can help control the security automation orchestration. We know it works. We've seen the most security conscious organization in the world adopt the security. We and Amazon are the security for the agency's cloud and we know that works. As it relates to the political situation, I think here the ruling party understands that's an issue and they're working on it and I can just leave that to them. Yeah, but you're independent of that. You allow the scale piece on Amazon. And what do you hope to do in the region? What are some of your goals as a commercial opportunity with Bahrain? Obviously this partnership at the highest levels, this community here, young people want to work here. So I see it as a huge workforce opportunity for everybody, number one. Number two, I think we can find a way to make sure that everybody can feel confident that it's going to work. So they can feel confident, they can move their workloads to the cloud. People in Kuwait can feel confident. People in Saudi Arabia can feel confident. And again, that confidence builds stability. With stability, with economic stability, there becomes political stability. That's the other point I'll make. Is that at the end of the day, if you have the benefit of having the financial stability, it helps in a lot of different ways. So what's your advice to the folks? If I had the king sitting here in the Crown Prince with a round table, what were some of the things that you would advise them from your experience, kind of looking back on your career and what you've done now, knowing that the region has got a cultural and more of a different economic dynamic, what's your advice to the Crown Prince, the king and folks trying to figure this out? From a cybersecurity perspective, I would want to do something similar, maybe not the same, but something similar to what the United States government did. When the US government decided to adopt the cybersecurity policy, the so-called cybersecurity executive order, there were two parts to it, John. The first was cloud first, which has been done here. And the second was to adopt the NIST framework. The NIST framework gave the common lexicon for all the cybersecurity professionals to be able to push their workload to the cloud. And then guys like me, what we do is we push automation into that framework, which basically means that we get out of the way of the mission and we help make the mission happen much more quickly. What about training and support? What's your impression of the Economic Development Board, some of the work that they're doing? Obviously they have a transition. We heard maybe some of the workforce not yet mature, but they got programs in place. How do you see that developing? How would you put them on the progress bar, vis-a-vis their aspiration? I think in general, some of the workforce issues that they have here are very similar to the workforce issues we have in America. You know, in America often when kids graduate from college, there is a gap between what they get in terms of a degree and what we need in terms of the skill sets. That kind of happens everywhere. I think that simple programs like apprenticeships, which have been around for a long time, can be very, very effective in terms of narrowing that gap so that when the kids come out, that we can actually put them to work and they don't have to be retrained in the workforce. I think that's a big opportunity. I also think there's a big opportunity to bring some of the people here into America to teach best practices and then bring them back that they can bring those best practices into the environments here so they can have that work themselves here. What's your take on the ecosystem? Obviously here, we heard startups are very active, but there's a glass ceiling, if you will, because clouds not yet here in full throttle, capital markets, mechanics have not yet formed, but there's funds of funds, they're just putting this in place, your assessment of the entrepreneurial landscape here. I think it's a small but growing landscape. I think a key point to making an entrepreneurial company successful, we started our company, I started the company back in 1991, which is many, many, many, many, many moons ago, but anyway, what I can remember is I worked so hard seven days a week, the joke was it was nine to five, nine a.m. to five a.m., if you're not here on Saturday, don't bother coming on Sunday. So fundamentally, there's a thing you got to do what is it, Ben Franklin used to say? It's about 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration. So hard work does help a lot, not to say that we don't have that culture here, but I think in general, entrepreneurial is all about making sure you do the work. One of my observations, they're hard working here, so I think that's a good sign. Absolutely. Let's go back and talk about this to your experience, he's mentioned 1991, my first startup was 1997, and so we've seen a few cycles. And so, as cycles come and go, this one seems to be kind of a bigger cycle in the sense of a lot of combining forces going on, you got cloud scale, the role of data, and now AI to automate, and obviously traditional stuff is kind of being moved to another operating model. Given that you've seen so many cycles, what have you learned from those cycles that you could apply here? If you were an entrepreneur here, you're now going to do some business, hopefully here, I think with Amazon, and for people like in government trying to get out of the way or figure out policy, given your cycle experience, these guys are jumping into a wave that's coming. I'll definitely, I have definitely a point of view on this. So for years, back in the United States, I would have one customer, I'd go to this customer, I'd say, hey, this other customer over here, they've done it this way, and this customer would say, I want to do it a different way. And I'm like, well then, everybody's going to be out of sync. Well recently, the CIA decided to publish a case study that talked about moving to the cloud and why they moved to the cloud. And the reason they published this case study was for something called reciprocity. I think if more governments, if more industries can work together from a standpoint of reciprocity, then we're going to be able to more quickly ascertain the threat, discover what the vulnerability is, and mitigate it. What specifically, the reciprocity, should they be working on? Data transfer, information? What are some of the specifics? I think a specific would be the NIST framework as an example. The NIST framework is made up of 1,100 different controls, which are lots and lots of different subsets of other controls around the world. Whether you're talking about ISO, Graham Leach, Wiley, HIPAA, whatever, they're all derivations of a framework, which basically is a common lexicon. So for me, that's something that is very specific what I think they should consider here. So one of the things I want to just get your thoughts before we end here is your observations. As you look around here, you're seeing a cultural shift. A woman's on the Supreme Court in Bahrain. We went to the women's breakfast that Theresa Carlson held yesterday. Packed housing, they kicked us out of our table. They did. They did. We got to make room for the workshop. Great fireside chat with Mary Kamarada, head of analysts and corporate communications for Andy, and Theresa fireside chat. Then they had breakouts. We didn't get kicked out, but we were asked to give up the table for the women to do the workshop. This was a robust packed house. Not just packed, John. It was also just positive, optimistic, happy. They see a future. They see possibilities. There was a lot of give and take. I didn't see any of the stuff that you read about. And I'll tell you, this is my first time in the Middle East. My first time to come to Bahrain, and I'm so happy I've come. I'm so sad. It took me almost 55 years to make it happen. Yeah, I feel the same way. I feel like there's an opportunity bubbling that's going to be really big and legit. And I love the diversity here. That's just surprised me. And my daughter, my 21 years old, asked me. She said, Dad, what's the women like over there? Because there's a perception around culture, around the role of women. Packed house yesterday for the women in tech breakfast. Inspirational speech by Theresa Carlson. Great workshop here. You see women a forcing function. Cultural shift. Cultural shift, but also don't believe everything you read in the paper, right, John? So we all know that you got to go sometimes to really see what things are like. And I'm really happy I came. It's a bubbling, growing, active, really active, really cool nightlife, really cool skyline, very beautiful beaches. It's a great place. The ground truth always trumps fake news and innuendo. Of course, theCUBE is bringing you all the action. We are here with entrepreneur, visionary, John Wood, also the CEO of Telos. A big strategic partner with Amazon, part of the cultural sea change with AWS. Amazon Web Services announcing a region here in Bahrain in the Middle East. I'm John Furrier, your CUBE co-host. You can reach me on Twitter at Furrier, F-U-R-R-I-E-R. If you want to reach out and ping me on Twitter anytime. More coverage live here in Bahrain in the Middle East after this short break.