 Hi, we're back, you're watching theCUBE coverage of Falcon 2022 live from the Aria in Las Vegas, Dave Vellante with Dave Nicholson, and we, yes, folks, there are females in the cybersecurity industry. Amanda Adams is here, she's the Vice President of America Alliance at CrowdStrike. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. It's fantastic to actually, as I was starting to wonder. We do have females in leadership. I'm just kidding, there are plenty of females here. But the cybersecurity industry in general, maybe if we have time, we can talk about that. But I want to talk about the Alliance program, but before I do, you know, you get a nice career here at CrowdStrike, you've kind of seen the ascendancy, the rocket ship, you've been on it for five years. So what's that been like? And if you had to put on the binoculars and look five years forward, what can you tell us in that 10-year span? Oh my goodness, what a journey it's been over the last five, six years I've been at CrowdStrike, almost six years, and really starting with our first core group of partners and building out the alliances, I've seen obviously the transformation with our sales organization as we scaled. I think of our technology, we started with, I think two products at that time, we were focused on reinventing how our customers thought about next gen AB, but also endpoint detection response. From there, the evolution is really driving towards that cloud security platform, right? How our partners fit into that and how we've evolved is not just resell, it's not just focusing on the margin and transactions. We really have focused on building the strategic relationships with our partners, but also our customers and fitting them in that better together story with that CrowdStrike platform. It's been the biggest shift. Yeah, and you've got the platform chops for that. It's, I think you're up to 22 modules now. So you're not a point product. You guys make that point of light. Now in terms of the partners and the ecosystem, you know, it's good here. I mean, it's buzzing. I've said it's like service, I've said it a number of times. It's like service now back in 2013, I was there. Now they didn't have the down market, the SMB that you have. That's right. And I think you're going to have an order. You got 20,000 customers. I predict CrowdStrike's going to have 200,000. I'm not going to predict when. I need to think about that. But in thinking about your colleagues and the partners and the skill sets that have evolved, what's critical today and what do you see as critical in the future? So from a skill set standpoint, if I'm a partner and engaging with CrowdStrike and our customers, if you think about, again, evolving away from just resell, we have eight routes to market. So while that may sound complicated, the way that I like to think about it is that we truly flex to our partners go to market, their business models of what works best for their organization, but also their customers. The way that they've changed, I think from a skill set standpoint is looking beyond just the technology from a platform, building a better together story with our tech alliance partners or store. If thinking about the XDR Alliance, which we are focusing on, there's so much great value in bringing that to our customers. From a skill set standpoint, beyond those services, services we've talked about every day, I know that this is going to be a top topic for the week. Yesterday through our partner summit, George, our CEO, as well as Jim Seidel, that's really the opportunity as we expand into new modules. If you think about Humio or Log Scale, Identity, and then Cloud, our partners play a critical role when it comes into the Cloud migration, deployment, integration services. Really we're not going to get bigger from a services organization and that's where we need our partners to step in. Yeah and we've talked a lot about XDR already in day one here with the extending into other areas. I think that services would become even more critical at that point. As you spread out into really the internet of things, especially all of the old things that are out there that maybe should be on the internet but aren't yet, but once they are, security is important. So what are you doing in that arena from a services perspective to bolster that capability? Is it internally or is it through partners generally? It's definitely, I think we look to our partners to extend beyond the core of what we do. We do endpoint really well, right? Our services is one of the best in the business when you look at instant response, our proactive services supporting our customers. If you think to XDR of integration, building out those connector packs with our customers, building the alliances, we really do work with our partners to drive that. Successful outcome with our customers. But also too, I think about it with our tech alliances of building out the integration. That takes a lot of effort and work. We have a great team internally which will help guide those services to be built, right? You have to have support when you're building the integrations, which is great. But really from like a tech alliance and store standpoint, looking to add use cases, add value to more store apps for our customers, that's where we're headed, right? What about developers? Do you see that as a component of the ecosystem in the future? Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, I think that as our partner program evolves right now, working with our developers, I mean, there's different personas that we work with with our customer standpoint, but from a partner, working with them to build our new codes, the integration, that's going to be pretty important. So we were sort of tongue in cheek at the beginning of this interview with women in tech and it's a topic that on theCUBE that we've been very passionate about since day one on theCUBE. So how'd you get into this business? How did your career progress? How did you get to where you are? You know, I have been incredibly fortunate to have connections and I think it's who you know and your network, not necessarily what you know to a certain extent, you have to be smart to make it long-term, right? You have to have integrity, do what you're saying you're going to do. I first started at Cisco and I had a connection of it was actually a parent of somebody I grew up with and they're like, you would fit in very nicely to Cisco and I started with their channel marketing team, learned a ton about the business, how to structure, how to support and that was the first step into technology. If you would have asked me 20 years ago, what did I want to do? I actually wanted it to be a GM of an organization and I was coming out of, I know. This was great. It really is right up, if you knew me, you'd be like, that actually makes a lot of sense but coming out of college, I had an opportunity, I was interviewing with the Golden State Warriors in California and I was interviewing with Cisco and I had two ops and I was living in San Jose at the time, the Golden State Warriors of course paid less. It was a better opportunity in sales but it was obviously where I wanted to go from athletics. I grew up in athletics playing volleyball. Cisco paid me more and it was in San Jose and really the Golden State Warriors team that I was having that conversation, they said, one year commute is going to be awful. It's awful from San Jose to Oakland but also too, like you have more money on the table, go take that. And so I could have very much ended up in athletics most likely in the back office somewhere. I would love that. And then from there I went from Cisco and I actually worked for a reseller for quite some time looking at it or selling into Manhattan when I moved from California to Manhattan, went to Tenable and that was when I shifted really into channel management. I love relationships, getting snow people, building partnerships, seeing that long-term that's really where I thrive. And then from there came to CrowdStrike which in itself has been an incredible journey. Yeah, I think there's an important thread there to pull on and that is, we put a lot of emphasis on STEM which people sometimes translate into one thing, writing code. That's right. But would you agree there are many, many, many opportunities in tech that aren't just coding? Absolutely. And I think as a father of three daughters, it's a message that I have shared with them. They are not interested in the coding part of things but still they need to know that there are so many opportunities. And it's always, sometimes it's happenstance in terms of finding the opportunity, in your case, it was cosmic connection. That's right. But that's something that we can foster is that idea that it's not just about the hardcore engineering and coding aspect, it's business. That's right. So if there was one thing that I can walk away from today is I say that all the time, right? If you look at CrowdStrike and our mission, we really don't have a mission statement and we stop reaches. Every single day when I come to work and I support our partners, I'm not super technical. I obviously know our technology and I enable and train our partners, but I'm not coding, right? And I make an impact to our business, our partners, more importantly our customers every single day. We have folks that you can come from a marketing operations. There is legal, there's finance. I deal with folks all across the business that aren't super technical but are making a huge impact. And I don't think that we talk about the opportunities outside of engineering with the broader groups. We talk about STEM a lot, but within college and I look to see like getting those early in career folks either through an intern program, could be sales, but also if they don't like sales and then they shift into marketing or operations, it's a great way to get into the industry. Yeah, but I still think you got to like tech to be in the tech business. Oh, you do. Yeah, you do, I'm not seeing anything. It's like deep down, it's like not all of us but a lot of us are kind of just, you know. Well, at least you can't hate it. Right, okay. Women, 50% of the population. I think the stat is 17% in the technology industry. Maybe it's changed a little bit, you know, 20% or less. Why do you think that is? I, you know, I always go back to within technology, people hire from their network and people they know and usually your network are people that are very like-minded or similar to you. I have referred females into CrowdStrike. It's a priority of mine. I also have a circle that is also men, but also too if you look at the folks that are hired into CrowdStrike but also other technology companies, that's the first thing that I go to. Also, I think it's a little bit intimidating, right? I have a very strong personality and I'm very direct but also too, like I can keep up with our industry when it comes to that stereotypes essentially. And some people maybe are introverted and they're not quite sure where they fit in, right? Whether it's marketing, operations, et cetera. So they're not sure of the opportunities or even aware of where to get started. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I think there is a stereotype to that but I'm not sure why it's, is it unique to the technology industry? No. Does it not, right? It happens- I mean, there's so many industries where- I care maybe not so much, right? Because you know- You have nurses versus doctors. I feel like that is flipped, but- Yeah, that's true. Nurses versus doctors, right? Yeah. Well, I know a lot of women doctors though. Yeah, that's kind of- It is a good matter. Yeah, I think it's more women in medical school now than men, but- And I do think in our industry, when you look at companies like IBM, HPE, Cisco, Dell, and many others, they are making a concerted effort around diversity. They typically have somebody who's in charge of diversity. They report, maybe not directly to the CEO but they certainly have a seat at the table. That's right. And maybe you call it, oh, quotas, maybe the old white guys feel a little slighted, whatever. It's like nobody's crying for us. I mean, it's not like we got screwed. See, hay uno problema? We can do this in Spanish. Oh, oh, you're not an old white guy. Sorry, sorry. We can do this in Spanish if you want already. Okay, okay. There we go. No, but I do think that the industry in general, I talked to John Chambers about this recently, and he was like, look, we got to do way better. And I don't disagree with that, but I think the industry is doing better. But I wonder if like a rocket ship company, like CrowdStrike, who has so many other things going on, maybe they got to get to a certain size. I mean, you've reached escape velocity. You're doing obviously a lot of corporate good. Yeah. And we just had, earlier on, motorsports guys was very cool. So maybe it's a maturity thing. Maybe these larger companies with, CrowdStrike's $40 billion market cap, but maybe the $100 plus billion market cap companies. I don't know. I don't know. You guys got a bigger market cap than Dell. I don't think it's necessarily related to market cap. I think it's the size of the organization of how many roles are open that we currently, right? So we're at just over 6,000 employees. If you look at Cisco, how many thousands of employees they have, there's more opportunities. Right, maybe 100,000 employees. That's right. There's more opportunities. How many, what's the head count of CrowdStrike? Just over 6,000. 6,000, so okay. But if you think about the areas of opportunity for advancement, and we were talking about this earlier, when you look at early and career entry level, it's actually quite even, right? Across the Americas, we do have a great female population. And then as progression happens, that's where it teeters off from a female in leadership. And we're doing, we're focusing on that, right? Under JC Herrera's leadership, as well as with George. One of the things that I always think is important though, is that you're mindful as the female within the organization, and that you're out seeking somebody who's not only a mentor, but is a direct champion for you when you're not in the room, right? This is true of CrowdStrike. It's true of every organization. You're not going to be aware of the opportunities as the roles are being created. And really, as the roles are being created, they probably have somebody in mind, right? And so if you have somebody that's in that room that says, you know what, Amanda Adams would be perfect for that. Let's go talk to her about it. You have to have somebody who's your champion. Yeah, there's a saying that 80% of the most important moments in your life happen in your absence. And that's exactly when someone needs to be there to champion you. Did that happen for you? Yes, I have a very strong champion. So I mean, my observation is if you're a woman in tech and you're in a senior leadership position like you are, or you're a general manager, or a P&L manager, or a CEO, you have to be so incredibly talented. Because all things being equal, maybe it's changing somewhat in some of those companies I talked about, but for the last 30 years, all things being equal, a woman is going to lose out to a man who is as qualified. And I think that's maybe slowly changing. Maybe you agree with that, maybe you don't. And maybe that's, some people think that's unfair, but think about people of color, right? They grew up with less opportunities for education. And this is just the statistics, right? So should society overcompensate for that? I personally think, yes, the answer is yes, they should. There should still be some type of meritocracy. That's right. But society has a responsibility to rise up all ships. I think there's a couple of ways that you can address that through Falcon Fund, scholarship programs, looking at supporting folks that are coming out of school, our internship program, providing those opportunities, then just being mindful of whether or not you publish the stats or not, we do have somebody who's responsible for DEI within CrowdStrike, they are looking at that. And at least taking that step to understand what can we do to support the advancement across minorities, but also women is really, really important. Did you not have a good educational opportunity when you were growing up? You were like, you had to, yeah, no, seriously. No, seriously, I went to pretty scary schools. Right. So you could have gone down a really bad path. A lot of people that I grew up with went down really, really bad paths. I think the inflection point, at least for me, what the inflection point was becoming aware of this entire universe, I was headed down a path where I wasn't aware that any of this existed. When I got out of college, they were advertising in the newspaper for Cisco sales engineers, $150,000 a year, we will train. I'm a smart guy, I had no idea what that meant. I could have easily gone and gotten one of those jobs. It was seven or eight years before I intersected with the tech world again. And so, kind of parallel with your experience with you had someone randomly, it's like, you'd be great at Cisco. But if you're not around that, and so you take people in different communities who are just, this might as well be a different planet. Yes, yeah. The idea of eating in a restaurant where someone is serving you food is uncomfortable. The idea of checking into a hotel. The idea of flying somewhere on an airplane. We talk about imposter syndrome. That's right. There are deep-seated discomfort levels that people have because they just, this is completely foreign. But you're saying you could have gone down a path where selling drugs or jacking cars was lucrative? I had, yeah. I mean, we're getting deep into societal things. I was very lucky. My parents were very, very young, but they're still together to this day. I had loving parents. We were very, very poor. We were surrounded by really, really, really bad stuff. So, okay. So, okay. So this, I don't compare my situation to others. An educated white woman, I guess this is my point. The dynamic is different than a kid who grew up in the inner city. Yes. Right? And they're both important to address, but I think you got to address them in different ways. But if they're both completely ignorant of this. They don't know it, so it's a lack of awareness. And they'll never be here. They'll never be here. They'll never be here. And it's such a huge, this is such a huge difference from the rest of the world and from the rest of our economy. So what would you tell a young girl, my daughters aren't interested in tech. They want to go into fashion or healthcare, whatever. Dave's daughters, maybe, would be a young girl preteen, maybe teen interested in not sure which path, why tech, what advice would you give? I think just understanding what you enjoy about life, right? Like which skills are you great at? What characteristics about roles and not really focusing on a specific product. Definitely not cybersecurity versus like the broader network. I mean, literally what do you enjoy doing? And then the roles of, you know, from the skills that this needed, whether that be marketing, and then you can start to dive into, do I want to support marketing for a corporate environment, for retail, for technology, like that will come. And follow your passion, which I know is so easy to say, right? But if you're passionate about certain things, I love relationships. I think that holding myself from integrity standpoint, leading with integrity, but building strong relationships on trust, that's something I take really pride in and what I get enjoyment with. It's obviously your superpower. It is. But then it will go back to, also to just being authentic in the process of building those relationships, being direct to the transparency of understanding, like again, knowing what you're good at and then where you can fit into an organization, awareness of technology, opportunities, I think we'll all lend that to it. But I also wouldn't worry. Like when I was 17 year old, I thought I would be playing volleyball in college and then going to work for a professional sports team, you know, life works out very differently. Yeah, right. And for those of you out there, so I love that. Thank you for that great interview. Really appreciate you letting us go far field. For those of you who might say, well, I don't know, I mean, I don't know what my passion is. I'll give you a line from my daughter, Alicia. You don't learn a lot for your kids. She said, well, if you don't know what your passion is, follow your curiosity. That's great. There you go. I mean, Adam, thanks so much. It was great to have you on. Okay, thank you. Keep it right there. We're back with George Kurtz. Right to the short break, Dave Vellante, Dave Nicholson. You're watching theCUBE from Falcon 22 in Las Vegas.