 showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome, welcome, welcome, everybody. We are live yet again with our podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Scotto-Cotaia, CEO and founder of JSA. Along with my fabulous co-host, you know him and love him just as much as I do. Top B2B social influencer, Mr. Evan Kirstal. Hey Evan. Hey Jamie, it's Friday. We made it to JIA for everyone and welcome to Data Movers where we sit down with Husu and the data center world leading today's digital revolution and beyond. So Jamie, it's been a big news week all around, but also in tech. Started the week with the huge Apple reveal. What's your big takeaway? Vision Pro is going to change the world. Is that how I see it? I mean, I'm already thinking of what a website is going to look like with this thing. What are advertising opportunities going to... I mean, developers are going crazy right now, I think. How about you? Yeah, I'll have one. I'll have one of everything in Apple, including the new MacBook 15-inch Air, which is phenomenal. But yeah, I mean, it's going to be it's going to be a four or five year cycle to really turn this into the ultimate consumer product. But so many compelling uses for spatial computing, you'll be able to capture your three-year-old's memories in 3D and sort of relive them in the multiverse at a later time. What a fascinating use case and so many more. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and Ava turns three next weekend. So I wish I had those goggles to capture right now. But also, you know, there is a little scary part to it. Like, well, I live behind... Like, I'm glad that they can see you and like you can engage a little bit more than previous optical wearables. But, you know, I also... I hope we don't all become, you know, disenchanted with one another, unassociated in a way, you know, living in our little bubbles, but... I can't wait to live in the bubble and just tune everything out. Everything is going to disappear and I'll be just finally alone to my own devices. He's like, plug me in. Plug me in. Tune in and turn out. But speaking of tuning in, we're going to tune in to a fantastic guest today. Yeah, and good, good little transition there. Love it, love it. All right, so guys, here at Data Movers, as you know, we always love to get our guests that are so interesting here. There are background stories, their careers, high as lows, what made them, them and their unique perspectives, of course, on the future of our industry. And we are so excited today with our guest, Mr. Pratik Chakravarty, CEO of Zinnier, a California-based company dedicated to accelerating the digital transformation across field service organizations. Welcome, Pratik. Hey, Jamie. Hi, Evan. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. Yeah, good to see you. And I love this topic because although digital transformation is such a trending topic, it's all the rage, obviously, through the pandemic, we saw 10 years of digital transformation in a couple of years. But I'm really curious, on your perspective of how different industries will adopt different use cases like field service in their respective industry. So before we jump into that, maybe introduce yourself, your background and how it led you to specialize in your current role at Zinnier. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Evan. It was fortunate to start my careers on the front lines. Right out of engineering undergrad, I got an opportunity to work on drilling rigs. Wow. And this was during the dot-com boom where every person, every other person was learning how to code. I never wanted to pick it up for some reason. The attraction for me was going out and meeting more people. So Serendipity, I ended up on the front lines. I spent five years in oil and gas. I spent three years working as an engineer in the utility, fixing electric wires and gas pipelines. So in many ways, that kind of formed the core of who I am and what excites me. Got to see the real world problems out there. And then when I moved into my entrepreneurship journey over the last 15 years, my goal is to just solve real world problems. My first startup was helping utilities, adopt the climate change revolution and save energy. My current company, it's about driving digital transformation in infrastructure related industries where we can help frontline workers to the job better. The past experiences have led me to who I am and just solve some meaningful real world problems and hopefully make the world a better place. Love that, absolutely. So in line with us here as well in our core mission at JSA. So Tommy, you mentioned oil and gas, utilities, other infrastructure related industries that you've been able to observe and even transform. What do you find are the pitfalls for these industries as they embark on the digital transformation journeys? Yeah, good question, Jim. One thing to note here is these infrastructure industries are, when I'm generalizing here, are typically laggards when it comes to tech adoption, right? This by no way means that they are less important. They're very important to the core development of our economy. Now when these industries, when they hear the buzzwords, right? You have a workforce, unlike other tech companies, they are all over them. The majority of them are working on the front lines and not at the desk. Imagine the tech adoption curve becomes very tough. Now, when these companies embark on digital transformation, they tend to think of it as a project or let me take a tech tool and just implement it. The sort of realizing that there's that processes have to change, that mindset becomes very, right? How kind of related to that is how do you align all your stakeholders across the board, right? Embracing that change, understanding what is required, how it fits into the process becomes very, very important. And in fact, I mentioned that I started my career on the front lines 20, 25 years back. Now, when we talk to infrastructure companies, some of the same problems still exist. Some of the same problems still exist in the feed, right? Why have they not been solved? Other companies not doing enough, so it's adoption becomes very, very difficult. So having that process mindset instead of using it as one tool or one product to plug it into their existing system and solve is the key. Absolutely. So what are some of these specific pitfalls or roadblocks that you find in these infrastructure related industries, as they embark on their digital transformation journeys? And how do you kind of identify and overcome those? Yeah, yeah, when you talk about all of these field-based industries and how they operate, to look at the evolution, we have been working on tenant paper, right? That's how it started. The industries have existed for ages. This is core to our economy. And when I was working in the oil and gas fields or utilities, we would do our jobs on a whiteboard on a piece of paper and get it done. And things are still operating. The basic question that comes up is, do we need it? Do we need technology, right? Do we really need technology? So from that perspective, the step one becomes, can I drive an ROI and help them understand what are the benefits of technology? The second challenge we face is, hey, there's always a hesitation to adopt technology. People working in the field, imagine the frontline folks. They're not people like us who are working behind the desk. They are doing a day-to-day job on the field and they have been doing it in a certain way. When you try to introduce technology to them, give them an iPad to get the job done, they're raising their hesitation to adopt it. Yeah. Some of the basic challenges that we pick up in the field that we have to fight through to help them understand the benefits. You know, and that makes me think, I was watching the news this morning, we're California based, both of us. And the dock workers, they're not just protesting, better wages, more safer environments, but they're also protesting automation and what AI may be doing to their jobs come the next decade or faster. So, you know, that kind of leads me to, what are your thoughts on the role of AI in industry 4.0, if you will? And what does it mean to these frontline workforce? Yeah, I'm a huge AI fan. Let me take it in a different way. See, I believe what's important to understand why a certain thing is important. One of the recent books I read was starting with a Y by Simon Sinek. Whether it's an organization like us, whether it's a technology, it is always important to start with Y, not with what. Why I am passionate, why we are passionate about infrastructure frontline workers is because we want to make the lives of the frontline workers better. We want to empower them, enable them to succeed in their jobs. And why it is important? 20 years back, Evan, Jamie, when I started my career in the field, people wanted to go out and work in the field. Think about this, the top five companies, none of them were technology companies. There were oil and gas companies, there were conglomerates, there were retail. Everyone had people in the field. The world has changed. Every other person now is coding. Rightly so, technology has changed our lives. So, people do not want to go into the field. People are not going into the frontlines. You're facing a labor shortage. The work doesn't stop. You still need infrastructure industries to drive economy. So, if the CEOs of these companies and leaders, like all of us, to not care about the people, we will not succeed. You can keep talking about AI and everything, but how AI impacts the frontlines becomes important. So that's why I'm passionate about it. Technology is always there. The second aspect is AI has been there since the 1950s. With generative AI, this will only continue to increase. So we cannot shut our eyes and say, no, no, it doesn't impact us. It does in a good way. So the key becomes, let's get ahead of us. If I am the CEO of an infrastructure company, I would be saying, hey, what can I do to train my frontline workers to adopt AI, to re-skill them, to re-train them, right? There will be a new series of skills that are required. But not adopting it, you're just pushing the industries 20 years back, right? Whether you're talking about simple generative AI stuff, like, hey, a person is going into the field to fix an asset. I can pull up a generative AI chat, GPT, and let the person ask questions from my own database to understand what was done on the asset before, right? You can just simple type or voice chat and get all the history and get tips of what can be done. The opportunities are myriad. And you just need that mindset to adopt it, to make life of these frontline workers. And that is why I'm super excited about AI. Not just because of the technology, but because of the impact. Impressive. So let's drill down on that a little bit deeper. So, you know, chat GPT is now in the national global consciousness, but it's kind of been a fun toy for most of us. But you're going really practical with this enhancement to your field service solution with chat GPT, you know, large language model, to allow conversational, you know, natural interaction with your app. So how does that work in reality? Tell us more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just share a quick anecdote about the powers of chat GPT, yeah. We all are excited. It's a buzzword. I truly believe it's transformational. And I'll give you a simple example that is outside the domain of frontline workers. I think we were sharing, I was at my grad school reunion in Boston this past weekend. So we had a professor, you know, he was talking about AI and stuff. And he did a cool demo. He pulled up a chat GPT app. He had written a case, a business case. He had uploaded the business case in the chat GPT. And he started interacting with the chat GPT, asking questions from the case, as if he was a student. Hey, I'm a student here. Can you please summarize this in three words? Or if I were to take an angle of a finance undergrad, how would I approach it? And in other words, this was stunning. We had an audience of 600 people watching in a natural language model. So chat GPT is powerful. It is about how we generate a way of how we use it. How we use it becomes important. So I don't think it's a buzzword, it's real. In our case, you know, a few examples that I will share it. One is when a person goes into the front lines, one of the biggest challenges that in my career is I go out there in the field. If I don't get the support, I will have to come back and make another trip, right? That is money, that costs money, that we lose productivity. And I train a natural language model to use data from my company's past history, so that I can ask questions and get insights into what should I be doing? Another simple example is customer issues. So let's say I onboard a customer on the platform, customer will have questions, right? Today they will call a support desk and try to ask and, you know, we handle that well. And I train them to let customers have access to it. So the key here is, can you find use cases that will add value to the customers, to the companies, and then implement the technology? I don't think this is perfect. I mean, this will change. Internally, I'll give you an example. This will cut down the development time of our coders. And our coders record something they'll have to think through and they'll have a problem solved. That will be a huge advantage. Massive, massive changes that will come to it. And then we are gearing up, we are gearing up to stay ahead of the curve and make some of the benefits and go to the front lines, which unlike the previous years, given you have a technology evolution, it could stay to people like us who are good with technology. It could not go to the front lines. And that's why they insist, that's why for digital transformation to a sense. Yeah, and you know, here at JSA, we've been playing with chat to BT and other AI tools as well. And you know, we're very cognizant too that there are some things to be aware of, shall we say, while implementing AI. So when we talk about infrastructure related industries, what should we be cognizant of? What are the pitfalls potentially when dealing with implementing AI? Yeah, you see, to me, if you ask me, what's the biggest threat to my business, I would say it's data security and privacy. It will always be front and center, especially when you're moving into a realm of AI and artificial intelligence, using data across the board. We have to stay on top of it. Cyber security threats would come in. So keeping an eye on security, privacy, Europe is doing a great job at that. I would say they are more aware and ahead of the curve. Even the regulations that as a software company, we have to meet, I appreciate that. But to me, that's the big area. While we get enamored with technology and the benefits and the value, keeping an eye on unsexy side of things where let's do things correctly, let's make sure we are protecting the privacy of folks out here. To me, that's the biggest threat and cybersecurity threat will keep rising up. It's a real thing. It's not if it happens, it's a question of when it happens, are we ready for it? Yeah, couldn't agree more. All right, Evan, now we're off to that rapid fire. Questions wanna kick us off? Yeah, this is fun. We're really looking forward to embarrassing you in some way. Getting more into who you are, I don't know. It's Friday, it's Friday after all, yeah, absolutely. Friday. All right, so we're in the app economy. Everyone's obsessed with apps. Just tell us what's on the front screen, your home screen on your phone. What app or apps do you really use day in, day out? Yeah, I'll give you a boring answer, it's LinkedIn. Ah! Oh yeah, me too. I'm obsessed over LinkedIn with the reading stuff or finding people, connecting with people, finding people to hire, it's LinkedIn. My wife tells me to spend more time on LinkedIn than with her. So. Well, I just sent you an invite, so I'll go to the app for that. Just make sure you're communicating with your wife through LinkedIn in the news. Yes. And you mentioned starting with the why, I noted that. But what is the latest business book that you would recommend? Yeah, that's the latest one I actually read, but I'll tell you another one. I read the autobiography of Phil Knight. That's a good one. That's the most recent one I've read before starting with the why. Just the history of Nike and how it all started. I'm a huge fan of Onitsuka Tiger, the Japanese brand. I didn't know that Nike and Onitsuka Tiger had common synergies. But even just through adversity, how to start the company, I do read a lot of autobiographies, so I thought that one was good. Yeah, the movie Air was sort of based on that story is really good as well. Nice. So we're all geeks here to some degree. What futuristic tech are you hoping will become a reality? And when and why? You know, I wish I could travel at the speed of thought. Fantasy. I love traveling. I love going to places. The getting there part is painful. So fantasy, maybe Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos comes up with something. But I wish if I want to be in Tokyo, my mind can go there in five seconds. Can I at least be there in 30 minutes or an hour? So that's my hope. I think that's one of Ron's early visions for SpaceX was point to point transportation. Yeah, rocket. So I'm not sure how easy that would be to keep your lunch and get there in 30 minutes. But if one day, who knows? I actually thought you might say augmented reality given the field service opportunities there. I imagine you're looking at a hard or field training. See, that's there. I mean, it will happen. I'm telling you my fantasy. Yeah. Yeah. It just happens already there. Bring me up, Scotty. Just take me there. Yeah. We reorganize my molecules somewhere else. I'll tell you another one. Oh, yeah. I want to travel back in the past. I'm telling you about my fantasies now, but there are moments in history where I wish I was there. Like when Hitler was making his decision to do whatever he's doing or... I just want to be a fly on the wall and say, what's going on? Because there are a lot of lessons to be learned, good or bad. Just to support myself. I don't think that will happen. I don't know if it'll be commercially available because then you would have to like re-change history. How do you not go and like... All right, Jamie. This is completely going off the rails here. I'm just saying like... It's time to continue on here. You have to take a break. I cannot alter it. All right, so my last question here. Apple or Android? Die hard, Apple. My wife will kill me. She loves an Apple. She's a product manager in Apple, launching iPhones via Apple. How's that? Oh, well, this whole podcast has been a love fest for Apple really, so. We love our Apple products. So, yeah, but thank you so much for joining us for Teague. Really a delight to meet you. Can't wait to see how you're transforming field service. It's such an important reason for businesses, for their employees, for the future of work. So, keep up the great work. Thank you. Thank you, Evan. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you, Prateek. And guys, if you enjoyed today's Data Movers podcast, as much as I have, go ahead and check us out at jsa.net slash podcast for upcoming Data Movers episodes. I'm with the data centers. I am such a geek. Okay, Data Movers episodes releasing quickly, every other week, Wednesdays as, and there's other JSA podcast series to check out there too. So, check us out. Yeah, check us out. But this is the best one, really. Let's be clear. I mean. And you can tell it's Friday. We're all a bit loopy today. But be sure to follow us on Twitter, Jamon Curstell, of course, Jay Scotto. And until then, happy networking. Happy networking. Bye.