 Good evening nerd fam, and welcome back to Las Vegas, Nevada. We're here at the end of day two of three days of coverage on theCUBE at Google Cloud Next. It has been an absolutely fantastic week. My name's Savannah Peterson, joined by the Dream Team, Rebecca Dye, John Furrier, and Rob Stricci. Y'all have just been crushing it this week. Very impressed with the energy, the interviews. Our guests have been great. It's our special savvy swag segment, but before we get into the goods, I'd love to ask you each just for a quick highlight today, we'll start with John. My favorite was Jen Goldberg, Ken Goldberg came on. She talked about the Kubernetes 10-year-old anniversary, so it's kind of a private win for, oh, a public, because it's a community, but theCUBE's been to every KubeCon. I know, I love that, and that's how I met you. That's how we met Savannah, and it's just been one of those moments in the industry where it actually worked, and working. So, that was a good segment. And then we just had HCL Tech, which is doing some amazing, they're all in with Google Cloud, so good to hear that. And they're just tons of great stories around, more of the same, which is next generation AI's here, generative AI enterprise, all good stuff. Typical, great Kube day, as usual. Yeah. Yes, I agree with everything John has said. I really also enjoyed Karen Dehut, self-described mission junkie. She's the CEO of Google Public Sector. I know, right? Yeah, that's great. And she just had a lot of great things to say about how Google is helping to modernize our federal government, and also local and state government. Which is a huge issue right now. The regulation is kind of the elephant in the room that I think a lot of people aren't. It'll remain a big issue for a long time. Exactly. No, absolutely. Ron, what about you? Yeah, I think, again, it comes back to simplification, making AI easier, and there was a lot of really good guests on from HCL, and PWC, and the number of others that were on talking about how they're bringing different apps to different things. We talked about tax and sustainability, which. That was the most unexpected one to be for sure. I did not think I'd be talking tax and sustainability with PWC. Tis the season. Tis the season. Also, one favorite one was Karen from Public Center, gave a public shout out to Kevin Mandian, which I thought was awesome because we've had one of theCUBE, and he's on the board of the Google Cloud, Public Cloud Venture. Yeah. So, that was a random, but cool shout out. Yeah, definitely very cool. I'm glad you brought that up too. I mean, that PWC segment was definitely fun, and I hadn't really thought about modernizing tax at the enterprise level. No one wants to pay taxes. Before in my life, frankly, but as a business owner, everything that they were saying made so much sense. Absolutely, yeah. So, what was yours? What was your takeaway? Oh, man, it's tough. I think one of the things that I really took away from is how many people are playing together to achieve success in this space, and you've got, with Google announcing their ARM CPU, there's just, there's a sense that everyone needs components from each other right now, or needs software from each other to be able to be successful, and so this culture of collaboration, which I don't always associate with enterprise, I really find, I associate much more with the open source community, I feel like that's really bleeding into this space and that Gen AI is the backbone of that. Yeah, I mean, I think, again, we had Mark Lohmeyer on and Armon earlier, and what he's building in that, in the CPU, TPU, GPU space, is then Hen is coming on and putting the software on top of the operating environment, which the run environment, which is, I think, just super interesting how they're really working together, and especially when you get to distributed cloud, so I think it's been an exciting week. And the ecosystem here with the booths, I mean, you have a show that we would, you look at, go back four or five years ago, at Google Cloud, the challenger, as Gunton put him, I call it, I mean, trying hard to be number three, really has come into a great position, and they're voting with their wallet, with the booth sizes, their participation, so with that ecosystem comes, get the attention, Savannah. So the question is, what's the swag look like? Because if you're going to like- I was going to say, my favorite part of the day is not happening, you know? Let's get into the real story, which is, who's got the best swag? Exactly, well, you know, I love going to talk to all the booths because you get to chat with people, and they have put a lot of thought into their marketing, at least some of them. As you know, we won't just feature any t-shirt or any pair of socks on the show. It's got to be impressive. But the thing that I obviously noticed, given the branding, totally AI savvy, it's like they knew savvy was going to come by. That is a, that's a troll win. That's a trolling win right there. Troll for the win. Don't they say that everyone's favorite word in their language is their name or something? So I mean, when I saw this bag, of course- Instant winner. It was an instant, an instant winner. We've all got a lot of energy on the show, and I think we were all serving big data energy. Oh yeah, BDA. Yeah, you got that BDA going on here, you know? By the way, the bunny's name is Captain Bumbun. You might need this. Aw, there you go. That might be you. Here we go. First of all, big data, that's an old school term. I know. That starper's going old school. Old school. And shed AI energy. With a very catchy trucker hat, too. We see a lot of black. It's nice to see some color, especially with the pool right outside here in Mandalay. That's an 80s, 90s throwback, too. Super. No, that's not. Oh, trucker hats are all the rage. Oh yeah, and the bucket hats. I'm not featuring any bucket hats because we featured them before, but there are bucket hats. Red hat even went bucket hat this time and said they're a typical fedora. Okay. So we were in a bucket hat era. I got a fun surprise for you in my backpack, actually. I love that the folks at release brought me over a cube, specifically, obviously, because of my earrings. And we see a lot of Rubik's cubes on these show floors, but they're not always branded. And this is a really fun opportunity, and this one is done, so it's not going to frustrate you the whole time, which I'm happy. This is a runner for my top, and I'm going to wait till the end of the segment to announce, but this was a really nice find. As you may or may not know, 80% of swag ends up in the landfill within the first year of being produced, which is really sad. It's a multi-billion dollar industry, and that's pretty depressing, but when you're, so I am a big fan of swag with intent, high quality swag that people are going to use and utilize, and who doesn't want a Yeti mug? I mean, I know Stanley's having its moment, but my gosh, this is a really valuable piece of swag. It's really durable and heavy. I'm excited. I'm probably going to keep that. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate that the folks out here put that together. It's just, it's definitely nice, and they've got good energy over back there by the bar. We also would be silly not to mention the swag from our friends at Kinsey. Oh, yep, I got it. We had Rewired. Rodney was nice enough to sign this bad boy for us, which was really sweet. That was a super special interview that we got to do. Rebecca, I really enjoyed getting to do that. And this was, okay, I have never seen this at a show, and this is, Starburst really has a cool thing going on. This is a tactical pen. So there is a compass on the end of this. There's a flashlight inside, stylus, and if you unscrew it, it's even got a little screwdriver, which is kind of fun. So we had a multi-tool from Intel on at Paris that was one of our favorites. That actually came home with me. It's with the preppers out there. Yes. Also in Vogue, like the bucket hat, is the tiny backpack. Tiny backpacks are making come back. My coach versus a tiny backpack. Really liked that the Confluent people went ahead and did that. It's a nice alternative to the tote bag, not that there's any shame in the tote bag. We are in Las Vegas, and I love a good localized activation. The Optimized Leaf folks have made custom decks of cards. I saw a couple of other ones out there, but it's just a really nice touch. These conferences are such an epic opportunity to make an impression. And why not have fun with it? I find so many companies really just kind of mail it in and are boring. Speaking of not being boring, this was rad. Full Story actually lets you customize your own embroidery on your beanie. They've got their branding on the back, but you can put whatever you want on the front. Noah on our production team and I went and got our custom beanies. And their activation was really cool too, because you didn't have to wait in some long line. You put in your information, and then they texted you when your hat was ready, which was really nice too. So it wasn't a distraction from your show experience. Definitely something that will be coming home with me. The first piece of swag that I picked up today, because it really spoke to me also being in Las Vegas, which is just absolutely, oops, let me get that sticker off there so it's not distracting, was this 404 Broken AF T-shirt from Mabel. I think at the end of a multi-day show in Las Vegas, everyone feels a little bit like their own 404 code. And this one really just made me smile. I do love the sense of humor that folks have a tendency to bring to these shows. Also, given how dehydrated we are in Las Vegas, Pithian has a chapstick, and also they are doing robot sketch drawings. So this is really fun. You go in, you take a selfie in their booth, and then there's actually a robot arm that draws it for you right there in just a couple seconds. Fun little souvenir. I guess that is a job that the robots are replacing to a degree a little bit. If the sketch artist is now being replaced by a sketch bot, I hadn't really thought about that. That is a whole thing. John, why don't you talk about the yearbook? So, well, did you have yours? No, I didn't. I never printed out. Okay, so. Yes, so one of the activations here, this is really fun. This is from OctoAI, yep. From OctoAI, their AI combines two models. They're trying to illustrate how you mix two different types of models. And it comes up with what you were like in high school. So what your yearbook photo would have been. So John Furrier was most likely to master time travel technology. I mean, it just looks fabulous here. The lasers, it's the laser lights, 80s. Yes, very. It's a very fun, that's super fun. You take a selfie and then it calculates the image, gets the text. Oh, yeah. Deages you. Yeah, I love it. I mean, you know, a little judge never heard anything. Yeah, right. Just a little judge. Just a little judge. I am always, yeah. A little more than a little. I really am a fan of the folks at Wiz when it comes to swag. They do a really good job. Their whole installation this week is a diner. They actually have Elvis serving donuts in their booth. But in addition to their lovely and very bright tote bag that was easy to see on the show floor, they also have diner socks, which are pretty darn cute, and a little notebook. So you can get cozy and also, you know. Do a little journaling. Yeah, do a little journaling. That's exactly what I think of doing after a show is just curling up and doing some journaling. Having some meat head. But I do think it's really cute. I might actually keep this notebook because it's so fun. Googs is doing an activation where they are letting you send postcards. We see these at show floors. But it is kind of a nice thing. Say hi to mom. Hi mom, while we're here. And send a postcard to a friend. We also, oh this is, we only have one more t-shirt for us today. And this one is from Reedus. Unstructured like my data. If you know me at all, you know that I am not a structured person. So this one very much made me smile. And again, just another clever example of, of companies doing something a little bit different. I had to go by and say hello to our friends at HCL and see what they had up. Really high quality notebook here. Yeah, just a classic, can't get wrong. A lot of people with the notebooks. Apparently we're all going to go home and journal. So old school, it's such a throwback. Yeah, such a throwback. Okay, so this was the biggest surprise to me on the show floor. I've never seen this as swag. And I can't say that about a lot of things. Lodgy did a crock charm. This is the little charm that you put in your crocs. Crocs having a moment like the bucket hat, like the tiny backpack, everything. I was just going to say ugly is new again, but that's my own personal opinion. But I did think this was really kind of fun and clever. And I mean, if you are a croc where most people wear their crocs all the time, what a great place to have your brand. For sure. Yeah, I wear crocs. You know what the little holes are for? Let your dignity out. Yeah. I wasn't sure what D word you were going to say. Oh, I got it. Diggy, over here. Yeah, let your dignity out. No, I get it. That holds it in. Well then, there you go. Thank you. That is just for you, Rob. You can contain your dignity. Someone who uses a lot of bandanas, I thought this Rocky Linux bandana was kind of nice just because it's not like everything else. You don't see a lot of bandanas on the show floor. So this will probably turn into one of my many sweat rags for sitting under these beautiful hot lights. But that was very thoughtful of them. We've also got, oh, this is just fun if anyone wants to play. We've got a color, a light up bouncy ball, a lot of fidget spinners and a lot of little hand toys. But a little lighty ball is just a little more fun, in my opinion. Oh, this one was super cool. So this is from Dialpad. This is actually an aromatherapy diffuser that plugs into your laptop so that your workspace, wherever you are, will smell lovely. Lavender. I like to think of it as maybe, it's not a humidifier, but in my mind it is because it's so dry here. So I thought, okay. I did think this was a really cute and just thoughtful, different. There's not a lot of things that smell good at conferences. It's nice that there's something that smells good. I think that's great. One pair of sunglasses for us today, this is from the folks at scale. Just thought it was a nice color, you know? Just from at scale? Yeah. Nice. Yeah, yeah. No, it's just a nice little hue. I take the color. Match their outfits. It's the type of color you would actually wear. I think sometimes some of these brand new sunglasses can get a little tacky. And these were the type where I would not be embarrassed if someone reached in my car and checked it out. Palloumi has some really cute stuff going on. So they do, and I like this actually, they do custom stickers for every event that they go to to make it a collector item. People can put them on their laptop, do their little thing, little platypus. Apparently when we were in Paris, and I'm sad that I missed this, they did a platypus with a croissant, which I really feel like I missed out on. They also hooked it up with some very fun socks and a Coosie Vegas place where you definitely need to keep your beverage cold no matter what is in that beverage. And yeah, I think that's actually our whole shebang from this crew. Let me just make sure I didn't miss anything in my little tiny baby pocket. So, that leads us to the debate. Which of these? I do like the book that was personally signed by our guest on the queue. It was very perfect for just the overall intimacy of the gift, of the swag. Right. Yeah. That was very cool. No, I think that is nice. But that was really not for everyone. The aroma thing definitely is smart. I was gonna say, the aroma therapy thing, I think is really cool. I've never seen that before. That gets my, that gets the creative award. I know, I thought this was very clever. I thought this was super clever. What do you think you would use the most? I definitely, look at it. Yeah, I like this color. I mean, this color is so in right now. It's such a good color. And this is a cute thing. I appreciate this, especially, yeah. Because the company branding is not so in your face, it's just, so I like this. I think I would use this. I love the 404 throwback to the URL not found. Right, that's what I'm looking for. It's a generational throwback. And it's got the letters AFN, which is very modern for slang. For sure, Gen Z. Gen Z, you're so hip, John, for it. It's like, it bridges both cultures. Oh my God. Yes. Yeah, it does. Would you say that's your fave then? I think it's my fave. I think so, but I'm with these guys. This is, I have never seen this before. So, there you go. It's such a nice touch. I think I'll actually use quite a bit of this stuff, which makes me feel good about the fact that it's not all going to go into the landfill. And I'm definitely going to cherish this Alkira yet. You're getting muggers. That's a high quality winner. That's a high quality. This is the quality. That ain't cheap. No, this is not cheap, and it's thoughtful. And you know what people aren't going to do? Throw it out. No. You would give it to someone, even if you had one already yourself. Super high quality. I mean, really high quality. From books to custom beanies to... It's the most versatile format too. Car, coffee holder. I do like that it was in that format. I noticed that too. I saw some wine, kind of the tumbler style, and this one is just, it's good. It's very succinct. I think my favorite is the aroma thing, because it's got the generative theme to it. It generates something. Ooh, it has that. So to me, that's deep. Exactly, it's the next level. It's deep tech. Ooh, it smells really nice. It's kind of like what we did, deep tech. Very. It's a deep thought. It's actually kind of energizing. It's not soothing and calming. I think it's meant to be invigorating, in a sense. It smells like I need a massage. I know. I think so too. Any spa certificates in this lineup? That is nice. I know. It's nice. It all of a sudden smells a lot better than I thought it was. It's okay for the wind. It's going to blow a little bit on. It's been a long day at theCUBE. You're going out tonight. You're going out tonight. Oh, well, this was great. Thank you so much for just a fantastic day. It doesn't feel like work when I hang out with the three of you. It feels like a gift, and all of our guests are so exciting. We've got another power pack today. Tomorrow, it's going to be absolutely fantastic. John, Rebecca, Rob. Thank you so much for your help today. Thanks for- Great swag segment. You decide what our winners are too. I mean, tough call, right? You did a great job. You did a great job. And I love this color too. First of all, thank you for doing this segment because it's become quite the thing. Now, they've got the savvy gamification. They're pre-gaming and engineering the wind. And so I got a vote for the savvy logo. I mean, the bag is pretty, I don't know. The bag has got to go back to the original. I know. I mean, this will also get some use with me for sure. All the Martin people watching us now. We got to win next time, so now. So what is the criteria, if you had to say now, the people, if you want to win the swag award here, the savvy swag, what is the criteria? Is it a black box? Or do you have some special formula? Okay, so the way that I think about it is, was it thoughtful? I mean, just period. Because most, if you just slapped your logo on a shirt, that's not thoughtful. So are we thinking about Swagger? Are you thinking about how brand is everything that people say about your company when you're not in the room? So I think it's incredibly critical. So I'm thinking about, if you thought about it, I'm thinking about if it's local in any way, that's a huge player for me. I loved when we were in Detroit, they used a lot of local vendors to upcycle wool shirts into koozies, and they had picked artists from there to do custom shirts for people. And there was just, there were a lot of things there that really activated the local economy, rather than just having things shipped from Shenzhen with your logo strapped on there. And boy, if it's a shirt, it has to be comfortable. I mean, it won't even be considered. If you're walking and the logo sticks to your chest, come on, not happening. No, no, I totally, John, that's a really good point. So the other category that I really think about is utility. Is this just a novelty? We've had some fun desk toys and things on the show before that are interesting to look at, but am I really going to touch that in six months or even a week? Probably not. I think that having function and being able to use it again and again, and then I also think the last factor, I think it was how many brand impressions am I going to get from this swag? If I'm using it, you know, is it something that it's going to sit in the closet or sit on a shelf, or is it going to be my mug that's in my car every time I drive to our studio in Palo Alto? But there is that X factor, is it fun? Is it funny? Is it BD energy, you know, is it this, is it that? Right, oh yeah, and is it catchy? I mean, did it make me feel something? Smile, laugh, do I think you're clever? Exactly, yeah. And it tells you a little bit about the culture within an organization, how they treat their swag and what their attitude is, and it's really fun to see their eyes light up when they realize that we're going to feature it on the show, so I really appreciate getting to do this segment with the three of you. It's really cool. It's a nice touch. I think that's a wrap for day two. It's been absolutely brilliant. I think we're going to enjoy the show that Google's putting on. We got Kingsley on. We got DJs going on tonight. It's going to be absolutely fantastic. Before we do anything else, I need to say a very special thank you to Andrew, Anderson, Jay, and Noah, who are holding down the fort on the production side. Also to Don, who's rocking it. He's selling something right now over there. It's real and indelible, yeah. I don't think he's listening. Yeah. He's going to be listening to the replay of this broadcast now. I know that we were all chatting about it. Up here is the president. I thank all of you for tuning in. Today, two of our coverage here at Google Cloud Next in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for enterprise tech coverage.