 Hi, I'm Stu Miniman and this is a special On the Ground here at the V-Tug Summer Slam 2019. It's the 16th year of the event and unfortunately it's actually the final event. I've been to a few of these in Maine, I've been to many more of them at the Winter Warmer at Gillette Stadium and welcoming back to the program someone that's been to many more of these than I have, Chris Colotti, who's a principal technologist today at Cohesity but, you know, who's doing many other jobs and actually used to live here in New England, Southern New Hampshire. Chris, welcome back. Thank you, good to see you as always. So, yeah, give us a little bit of your history with these events and, you know, what you've been seeing at, you know, user groups and, you know, regional events and brought you back, you know, for the final one. So this one, this one was interesting because even last night when I showed up for the night before, I think I knew everybody in the room. It was all hugs and, you know, it's just, it's all about the people. I mean, this is all the same people that we've had up here. But yeah, I grew up in Southern New Hampshire since moved to Tennessee five years ago, but I was actually at another event before this. And when we found out it was the last one, well, Cohesity has always sponsored it. But I actually decided to fly over here being the last one because no one the Harnies really well and see all you guys. It's just, it's kind of an odd thing to have the curtain go down. Yeah. And you talk about the people and communities. Chris, I think back to the earliest days that I came to this event. I'm like, there's that guy on stage. He's almost always wearing a Patriot jersey there. I did make that famous. Figuring out it was, I believe, P90X and some of the other things there. So, you know, what's the workout regimen today this morning? I actually jacked up my neck back into lifting heavy a little bit. But yeah, it was it was always great to be the guy who always came up on stage and always had a brusky jersey on or something. I remember the one year that they were somebody told me they were practicing that year and I was in the middle of the presentation. I was, you know, conflicted on what to do. But no, I think it's it's always been good to come back and talk not just about technology, but I've had so many conversations over the years about where my career is gone and the changes. And it was always that opportunity, you know, a couple of times a year to figure out what changed for everybody. And even now, I mean, there's guys that I've seen that have different shirts on that were, you know, I have one different from last year when I was at the winter warmer. So 16 years, it's safe to say almost everyone here has changed what logo they had here. Many of the companies we've lost a little more hair. We've got a little more gray. So a lot of changes. One thing I tell you, 16 years has been a good run for the Patriots the last 16 years. People don't like us when we talk about that for some reason. We're here in New England. That's true. That's true. At this event, Chris, we always like talking about sports. If they don't like this piece of it, that's all right. But, you know, I tell you, talking to the vendors here, they're always hiring like SES, technical people, you know, if they understand that latest in technology, usually they can they can find a job here. What else are you seeing? What are some of the, you know, kind of in-demand jobs? Of course, you know, the space that your company's playing in, you know, the data is at the center of so much of what we talk. Absolutely. Data protection, data management is a, you know, super hot space. Yep. I think I've definitely seen a lot of, you know, all the new companies are always hiring SES, right? They've got to get their sales up and running. For Cohesity, it's a bit similar. I mean, we took over another couple of floors in one of the other buildings in San Jose, which is great. The growth is unbelievable for people who don't know. You know, we've got a truck rolling around the country that John Hildebrand and I personally pretty much built over the course of a couple of months. But I think that speaks to it. It's it's there's all this stuff happening and everybody's trying to find a different way to get out in front of customers, right? Whether it's a salesperson, whether it's a marketing, whether it's creative videos or something else. And we're always trying to figure out what's what's the next not even technical ability, but what's just the next ability you you want to hire, right? Is it a coder? Is it I mean, we always have developers, right? We're always having developers. But around here, I've been out of the area so much. I'm really not sure like what the hotbed is right now around the Boston area and Southern New Hampshire. Yeah, I mean, you know, Boston's such a hotbed lately for, you know, everything that's going on IOT. Of course, clouds having an impact. Those people that hadn't been to like the seaport district. Oh, my gosh, it's great to see those buildings go up. Oh, yeah, not just, you know, Red Hat put in a big facility there, AWS in Amazon, of course, of a strong presence. But between Cambridge and Boston, there's so much growth here. Chris, I want to give you the kind of final word, you know, as you you've been at, you know, more of these events than than than many people, you know, what's it like to see kind of the end of an era and, you know, any final memories you have from these shows? The only, and I've been talking about this memory and you may remember this one, and Ed Hartley would too, I think, Texi Will, when my challenger broke down. Were you here for that one when I pulled in the gritties? That was my worst memory of these, but it's the one that always comes up when I come back. And everybody saw it on the flatbed driving by, you know, Luigi and everybody. What made it interesting was a horrible situation for me because I drove up here, but it speaks to the community because everybody ran out to ask what happened, do you need to ride home, what's going on. And I do think, you know, the Harnies have done such an incredible job over the years, just bringing all these people together. It's a little bit sad, I think, you know, my wife came up for this, Julie actually flew up because she knows everybody and being the last one, she also won't turn down Lobster at all. I'm happy for them though, I think, you know, a lot's happened in their lives in the last couple of years and to finally get down to Florida and spend more time down there, I'm happy for them. I think it's great. I think they've done, they've left a legacy really, I think, that I don't think anybody can match up here. The intersections of great information, great people and you throw in great new England lobster pests, you really can't go wrong with that. Chris, thank you so much for sharing the update. Always great to catch up on this. Yeah, great seeing you again, we'll see you tonight at the bake. All right, and we'll see Chris and many others at VMworld later this year as well as lots of other shows, be sure to check out thecube.net. I'm Stu Miniman and as always, thanks for watching.