 Hi, this is Anil Bhartan. Today, we have with us Priyanka Sharma. Now, she's in the role of general manager of CNCF. Priyanka, first of all, welcome to the show in your new role. Thank you so much for having me, Swapnell. What exactly is the role of GM at CNCF, and how different is it from the role of executive director that Dan used to have there? So no difference at all, actually. I am stepping into the role Dan can't had. Across the LF, various projects and sub foundations have different titles for the leadership. And me being a GM is really giving a nod to trying to consolidate everything as one title. So that's really where it comes from. It's the same job. If you look at the CNCF, it has played a very critical role in creating a home for cloud technology like Kubernetes. And now there are so many. I mean, the landscape is so huge, you cannot even see it. So which also mean that a lot of consolidation within a CNCF has to happen from the point of view of project. A lot of projects are overlapping. A lot of projects have gaps. So what are your thoughts about that? Yes, absolutely. And I actually think it's a great thing. So by charter, the CNCF does not intend to be a kingmaker. We are very different, I guess, from many other foundations in that we really focus on spreading the wave of cloud native, for helping the ecosystem build better software quicker and more resiliently. For that, there are multiple tools people can use. They may use option A for telemetry versus option B for reasons that are specific to their system. And we don't want to be getting into the middle of that. We want to support every solid good project out there with a neutral IP space, open governance, best practices, support with marketing, education, et cetera. So it's actually a good thing for the end users to have choice and be able to enable that. Right. And if you look at CNCF, I think it's like 13, 14. It's been four or five years since the organization has been around. A lot of projects under the foundation have kind of matured. The ecosystem itself has matured. There are a lot of companies who are doing and things are moving from testing to production. And there is a very healthy ecosystem there. So what role is Cloud CNCF playing today for the ecosystem? And how do you see the evolution of CNCF itself? Great question. So a few things. First off is, yes, we've made great progress. The first wave of Cloud Native has gone exceptionally well. 2016, when I joined this ecosystem as a project contributor to Open Tracing, we were still talking about what our microservice is, why you need to do cloud computing, very basic, right? And since then, a lot has changed, which is awesome. However, with new maturity comes new complexity. And that's why you see we are still accepting new projects to support the entire development cycle. In addition, the folks, there's the crossing the chasm, as they say, for various technologies and projects. Kubernetes is definitely crossing the chasm right now. But we have not just one but 10 graduated projects, including Kubernetes. So we are supporting all of those projects to also cross the chasm. We need to also make Kubernetes more widespread. So if you notice, most Kube cons that happen, which are our flagship events, I think at least 25% of the audience each year is brand new, first timers. So we actually were having a conversation just a few hours back today about don't underestimate the importance and need for consistent cloud native 101 nurturing. So the job is far from done. We need to go deeper with developer engagement. We need to go deeper with end user engagement. And now that we have made some headway. So the second wave of cloud native is just starting. Excellent. So now when we look at second wave, I mean, so far the ride has become kind of easy breeze. But what are the challenges that you see that you want to tackle as you move into the second wave or what kind of challenges you're setting for yourself, which are like not the easy one, but you see there is a demand. So we have to do that. You know, I had various thoughts and ideas around this stuff. And when I was gonna join the company, the organization, I was going to take a complete few months to do a listening tour. Of course, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. The pandemic hit. The world scenario has completely changed. There's been shelter in place, orders various places. People are suffering many places with illness. There's the COVID illness, and then there's other things that come up when you're stuck at home for so long. So it's not an easy time. It's not a normal time. It's not a usual time. And that reflects for the cloud native community as well. As an example, we've hosted the coup cons our flagship events in person with great fanfare, with lots of support, love and excitement from the community. Now we have to pivot completely and do it all online. In a world where the online solutions are sort of like catching up to be able to support large scale events like ours. So joining in, there are challenges that have been thrown my way by just the timing, right? In addition to the events which we're working very hard on as a team, there is also just your community has different needs. There's some people may want to be switching jobs or looking for jobs. That's one element that we need to think about. Some people may need the support that they felt otherwise by going to meetups, by being more in touch with people around them on cloud native. There are others who might, whose businesses actually might be growing exponentially just because everything's going online. So supporting them with the technology, there are various elements to this new strange time that we find ourselves in. So that is a big challenge. In addition, I would say Dan and Chris have built an amazing massively impactful organization. For me, I intend to keep this momentum going, to keep building on what they have created. We all stand on the shoulders of giants here. I think the next big thing once we get through pandemic is to double down on the end user ecosystem. The end users have grown and become consistently more sophisticated and technical over the times in the last four years I've been involved. We need to support that and enable greater adoption, better insights, safe spaces to discuss and communicate with each other. So that's coming. And then finally, as I said, developer education and engagement has to go deeper and wider. So that's what I said for myself. When you look at CNC, what vision do you have because you yourself have been in the community in the industry for so long. So you, but you were also on the outside. You are not inside Lynx Foundation. You have been working with private companies. So you have an outsider's view. So what unique vision did you bring to the CNC of? Because sometimes when we work within Oregon for so long, we have our own myopic view. So can you talk about that? You're absolutely right. That I have worn and multiple hats seen CNC up through different lenses. And I can bring that perspective to this foundation. I'd say one thing that's been a somewhat disturbing trend I noticed was this othering of different parts of the community. So it's like CNC of staff versus end user versus project creator versus GB versus this. You can have so many different categories. But the reality is I really don't think that's the way the ecosystem truly functions well. I don't think there's that much meat in that way of thinking and we need to change and go back to what we're good at which is being builders and doers and being team cloud native, all of us together. If we invite, then we don't make stand strong and build upon our work, but rather just dissipate energy. And I've seen that trend happen in cloud native. I cannot speculate on the reasons for it but I make a call to each and every one of you, just know we're in it together. I have worn multiple hats in this industry. I have been a project contributor. I have been an educator, a marketer. I have been a developer advocate. I have been a governing board member. I have done many things and now I'm the GM. Let me tell you, we are all in it together no matter what hat we wear and we need to make an extra effort to do that. And that is something I think will be a big change if we can achieve it. You can have a lot of as much GitHub repository for tech issues, but what realistic efforts we can see from CNCF to achieve the vision you are bringing because this is different than a technological problem. I hear that. I think that a lot of it starts with the leadership. I have been put in this position and my number one goal is to always keep my door open these days virtually. So I live by an open calendar. Anybody can book time with me, talk to me, tell me what you think and reach out to me. And I mean it. I have serious blocks open. Of course they're starting to get booked up really quickly, which is nice because that means people are taking me up on this offer that let's engage, let's talk it out. Let's see where we are disagreeing and either agree to disagree, which is a totally fair thing to do or come closer together in some form of consensus. I think conversation is the first step. We all get so busy with the day-to-day work that that goes away to the wayside. And when that happens, it's miscommunication just develops and deepens. So number one is open door policy. Let's talk whenever there's confusion, let's do that. The other is bringing greater transparency. So it's just a habit I have that I picked up at GitLab working under SID, which is being all remote, it's important to document everything. So most of my meetings they will have like a document where we write down agenda, notes, sharing that with the people you talk to. So everyone's actually on the same page. We wrote this down, this is what we're doing. Little things like that can, I think, go a really long way in making sure people are moving in lockstep together. All this is also, by the way, an ongoing effort that you cannot let up. You have to keep being transparent. You have to keep being open. This is not a one-time thing. People have to keep being transparent. People have to keep their door open. It's like an ongoing effort that I will not stop and let up on. So I think it'll make a difference. I'm actually proud to report that I'm already seeing, having taken the time to talk to a lot of people, we really are on the same team. Everyone wants us to just build better software together. And I'm very confident that the cultural change is happening as we speak. Awesome. Before we wrap this up, a last question. We are going through a crisis, a very serious crisis and we don't see any end in the site right now. So it has impacted all of us. Like, for example, we are supposed to be in person at the open source event, but everything is moving to online events. How does this impact the industry in general? Because a lot of these events, they do bring people together, where they not only hallway track, where people just touch base clicks, but actually a lot of partnerships are forced there. So what impact do you see, and how do you see CNCF would respond to that or is already responding to that? Absolutely. Events play a great role in the community and ecosystem, and that's just evidenced by the awesomeness of KubeCon. Being at every KubeCon that I could be at, opened doors for me, connected me to people who were happy to mentor, guide, talk to me. And that's very hard. We cannot lose that, right? We all are waiting for things to change, right? The pandemic to go away one day for us to be able to meet in person. While we wait for that, here on the CNCF team, we are working to make KubeCon EU virtual in August, as awesome of an experience as possible. There's lots of ideas that we have. We sometimes have technology limitations in terms of the platforms that are available, and we're trying to work through that. My sense is that we'll have a bunch of ideas in experiment at KubeCon EU in August, and by the time KubeCon North America, which was going to be Boston, but just today was announced, is going to be virtual as well, by the time that rolls around, I think we'll have a lot more cool engagement and innovation possible. I did a small event a few weeks before joining CNCF just for fun. I just wanted to see other community folks, and the reality is that it was cool because we were able to livestream and we had expected 200 people, but 2000 showed up. No, actually 7,000 at maximum views. It was crazy, crazy numbers. And that's the equalizer that comes with online events. So it's nice to be able to reach more people. We have to figure out the engagement and have more fun games and trivia prizes, ways to connect a maintainer to someone who has a question, ways to connect a student to someone who'll tell them how to contribute. These are the things we need to work on and it's actively underway. Awesome. Thank you Priyanka so much for taking time out and talking to me today, and I look forward to talking to you again. Thank you. Same here, thank you Swapnell.