>> From Boston, Massachusets
its theCUBE covering Actifio 2019 Data Driven.
Brought to you by Actifio.
>> Welcome back to Boston, everybody.
You're watching theCUBE the leader
in underground tech coverage.
My name is Dave Volante I'm here with my cohost
Stu Miniman, John Furrier is also in the house.
This is Actifio's Data Driven 19 conference
their second year.
Jon Hirschtick is here he is the cofounder
and the CEO of Onshape Inc.
Jon, thanks for coming on theCUBE great to have you.
>> Great to be here.
>> So, love the cofounder, I always ask cofounders
why did you start the company?
>> Well we founded Onshape because we saw an opportunity
to improve how every produce on Earth gets developed
let the people who develop products do it faster
be more innovative and do it through a new generation
software platform based in the cloud.
That's our vision for Onshape, that's why.
>> (Dave) Okay so that's great,
we'll start with the why then,
and the what is just new generation software capabilities
to build a great product, to visualize, to actually create
>> So, we took the power of cloud, web, and mobile
and used it to re-implement a lot of
the classic tools for product development.
Three-D CAD, data management, work flow,
bellow materials, these may not mean anything to you
but they mean a lot to product developers
and we believe by moving it in the cloud
by rethinking them for the cloud
we can give people capabilities they've never had before.
>> Yeah Jon, bring us inside a little bit
So you know I think I've heard a lot
the last few years its like well,
I can just do everything in simulation.
Computers simulation we can have
all these models we can make there.
Three-D printing is changing the way I build prototypes,
so what's kind of the state of the state in your field?
>> So the state of the art in our field
is to model a product in three dimensions
in the computer before you build it for lot's of reasons.
For simulation, for Three-D printing,
you have to have a CAD model to do it to see how it'll look,
how the parts fit together, how much it'll cost,
really every product today is built twice.
First it's built in the computer in three dimensions
as a digital model then it's built in the real world.
And what we're tryin to do is make those Three-D modeling
and data management and collaboration tools
to take them to a whole other level.
To turbo charge it if you will
so that teams can work together
even if they're distributed around the world
they can work faster.
They don't have to pay tax to install
and care and feed for these systems
which are very complicated.
A whole bunch of other benefits.
>> So we should talk about the cloud model.
Are you talkin about a SaaS model, a subscription model,
a different customer experience, all of the above?
>> All the above, yeah.
It's definitely a SaaS model, we do only SaaS.
We are hosted in Amazon AWS we're all in with Amazon.
It's a subscription model and we provide a much better,
much more modern, better, more productive experience
for the users.
>> So you disrupting the traditional,
so the CAD business, is that right?
I mean, is that kind of what's happening?
>> More than the CAD, CAD plus.
Cause there's no such thing as a CAD company anymore.
We're essentially just disrupting the systems
that we built cause I've been in this business
38 years now, I've been doing this.
(laughs) I feel like I'm about half done, really.
>> Let's talk a little bit about your career.
Where did it start out?
>> Well I grew up in Chicago, I went to MIT,
and majored in Mechanical Engineering.
I knew how to program computers
and I go to get an internship in 1981
and they say computers mechanical engineering
you need to work on CAD and I haven't stopped since.
You know, cause we're not done, you know.
We're still working.
>> You were an ME, right?
>> Yup, mechanical engineering, absolutely, yup.
>> Oh, you're a mechanical engineer, oh great.
>> Thermodynamics duo.
>> Before we got off the MIT thing,
you were part of a quite well-known group at MIT
tell us a little bit about that.
>> You're talking about
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers?
>> That's me, I was actually an officer
in ASME we had some great, great events
but the number 21 comes to mind.
>> You're talking about the MIT Blackjack team
yes I was a player on the MIT Blackjack team
and its the team featured in movies, TV shows,
and all that yeah very exciting thing to be doing.
While I was working at the CAD lab as a grad student
and you know, pursuing my legitimate career there
it's also playing Blackjack.
>> Okay, so you've got to add some color
to that so what was the goal of the MIT Blackjack team
and what did you guys do?
>> Oh the goal of the MIT Blackjack team
was honestly to make money using legal means of skill
to obtain an edge playing Blackjack.
And that's what we did using guess what
the theme of data which ties into
this Data Driven conference and what Actifio is doing.
I wish we had some of the data tools
of today I wish we had those 30 years ago
we could've done even more.
But it really was to win money through skill.
>> Okay so you weren't wired
oh is that right, this is all sort of-
>> No, at the time you could not use
a computer in the casino legally.
It was illegal to use a computer
so we didn't use it.
We used a computer to train ourselves
to analyze data to get the systems is very common
but in the casino itself, we were just operating
with good old, you know, this computer.
>> Okay and this computer would what
you would count cards,
you would try to predict using your-
>> Yeah count cards and predict.
And very good observation there.
Card counting is really essentially prediction,
in the sense, its knowing when the remaining
cards to be dealt are favorable to the player.
That's the goal of card counting
and other systems we used.
We had some proprietary systems too
that were very not very well known
but it was all about knowing when you had an edge
and when you did betting a lot of money
and when you didn't betting less.
>> Doubling down on high probability situations,
so did that proceed or did that catalyze,
you know, four decks, eight decks, twelve decks, or
>> There were already multiple decks
so I don't think we drove them to have more decks
but we did, our team really some of the systems
our team pioneered did drive some changes in the game.
Which are somewhat subtle I could get into
but I don't know much time we have.
But there were minor changes that our team drove.
But the multiple decks were already well established
by the time my team came along.
>> How did you guys do, I mean what was your record?
>> I like to say we won millions of dollars
during the time I was associated with the team.
And pretty consistently won.
We didn't win everyday or every weekend,
but we'd run a project for say six months
at a time we'd call it a bank, kind of like a fund
if you will, in those six month periods
we never lost we always won something.
Sometimes quite a bit.
>> Were, was part of your data model
understanding certain casinos were there
certain casinos that more friendly to your methodology, or?
>> Yes, certain casinos have either
differences in rules or more commonly
differences in what I just call conditions.
Like for instance obviously
if there's a lot people betting a lot of money
it's easier to blend in and that's a good thing for us.
It could be their aggressiveness about trying
to find card counters would vary
from casino to casino, those kinds of factors.
And occasionally minor rule variations too that help us out.
>> So you're very welcome at casinos, is that-
>> Well I wouldn't say I'm welcome.
I've actually been barred at many casinos.
>> Really, tell us about that.
>> Well you get barred, you get usua6lly
quite politely asked to leave.
>> By some big guy?
>> Sometimes a big person, but sometimes
just honestly people who like you,
just come over and say hey, Jon,
we'd rather you not play Blackjack here
and you know we'd only play in very upstanding
professional kind of facilities
but still the message was clear.
You know, you're not welcome here.
And in Las Vegas they're allowed
to bar you from the premises with no reason given.
In Las Vegas, it's just the law there.
In Atlantic City, that was not the law
but in Vegas they could bar you
and just say you're not welcome
if you come back we'll arrest you for trespassing.
>> Yeah and you really, you said,
everything you did was legal.
So you know, kind of gaming the system
I guess, through, you know probabilities
and playing well but it's interesting Stu
the casinos can right the system,
they can never lose, but the players, no-
>> Never bet against the house, Dave, right?
>> So, how did you or did you at all
apply that experience your affinity to data
to you know lets fast forward to where you are now.
>> So I think I learned a lot of lessons
playing Blackjack that apply to my career
and design software tools in Solidworks,
my old company, and now Desosystem,
who acquired Solidworks, and now at Onshape.
I learned about uh data and rigor
could be very powerful tools to win.
I learned that even when everyone you know
will tell you you can't win, you still can win.
You know, that a lot of people
told me Blackjack would never work
a lot of people told me Solidworks would never work,
a lot of people told me Onshape would be impossible to build
and you know you learn that you can win even when
other people tell you you can't.
You learn that the long run is a long time.
People usually think of one, Blackjack you have to play
thousands of hands to really see the edge come out
so I've learned that in business sometimes
you'll, you know, sometimes you'll see nothing happen
and you just say just stay the course.
Everything's going to work out right I've seen that happen.
>> Well, they say in business often in times
if people tell you its impossible
you're probably looking at a good thing to work on.
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> So what made it, what was made it ostensibly
impossible and how did you overcome that challenge?
>> You mean Onshape or Blackjack?
Oh Onshape, well a lot of people thought
that using cloud-based tools to build
all the product development tools
people need would be impossible.
Our software tools and product development
we're modeling Three-D objects to the precision
of the real world you know, a laptop computer,
a wristwatch, a chair, it has to be perfect
it's an incredibly hard problem
we work with large amounts of data
we work with really complex mathematics,
huge computing loads, huge graphic loads,
interactive response times, all these things
add up to people feeling oh well
that would never be possible in the cloud.
But we believe the opposite is true.
We believe we're going to show the world
and in the future people will say you know
we don't understand how you do it without the cloud.
Cause there's so much computing required.
>> It seems we're heavy in the cloud space
and if you're talking about this ten years ago
I could understand some skepticism.
In 2019, all of those things that you mentioned
if I could spit it up I could do it faster
I can get the resources I need
when I need it at good economics.
That's what's the clouds built for
as opposed to having to build out
you know all of these resources for themselves so.
>> So what, what was the big technical challenge
was it latency, was it tooling?
>> So performance is one of the big technical challenges
as you'd imagine, you know, we deliver with Onshape
we deliver a full set of tools including CAD,
formal release management with workflow,
if that makes sense to you, bellow materials,
configurations industrial grade
used by professional companies
used by thousands of companies around the world.
We do that all in a web browser and any Mac,
Windows machine, Chromebook, Linnex computer, Ipad, Iphone.
Look at you I mean you're using we run on all these devices
and we're the only tools in our industry
that will run on all these devices.
And we do that, it's kind of magic
there's nothing to install
I could go and run Onshape right here in your browser.
>> You don't need a 40 pound laptop to.
>> No, you don't need a 40 pound laptop,
you don't need to install anything,
it runs like the way we took our inspiration
from tools like Workday, Salesforce, Zendesk, and NetSuite.
It's just we have to do Three-D graphics
and heavy duty release management and all these
complexities that they didn't necessarily have to do.
The other thing that was hard
was not only technical challenge like that.
But we had to rethink how work flow would happen,
how the tools could be better,
we didn't just take the old tools
and throw them up in the cloud window,
we said how could we make a better way
of doing work flow and release management,
and collaboration, than had ever been done before.
So we had to rethink the user experience
and the paradigms of the system as well.
>> You know it was a lot of talk of the edge
and I don't know if it's relevant for your business
but there's a lot of concerns about the cloud being able
to support the edge but just listening to you, Jon,
it's like well everybody says its impossible
maybe it's not impossible, I mean,
maybe you can solve this speed of light problem.
Any thoughts on that?
>> Well I think all cloud solutions use edge to some degree.
Like if you look at any of the systems I just mentioned
Salesforce, Workday, Google Maps,
they're using these devices, I mean,
it's important that you have a good client device
you have a better experience
they don't just do everything in the cloud.
They say there to me
they're like a carefully orchestrated symphony
that says we'll do these things in the core of the cloud
these things near the edge, near the user,
and then these things we'll do right on the client device.
So when you're moving around your Google Map
or when you're looking at the big report in Salesforce
you're using the client too.
This is what our, we have some amazing people
on our team like our, we have the fellow
who was CTO of BladeLogic Ravi Reddy
and he explains these concepts to me,
John Russo from he came to us from Verizon
these are people who know about big systems
and they help me understand
how we would distribute these workloads.
So there's no such thing as something that runs
completely in the cloud
it has to send something down here.
>> So talkin about the company and where you're at
you guys have done several raises,
you've got thousands of customers,
you maybe you want to add a couple zeros to that over time,
what's the aspiration?
>> Yeah, correct, we have thousands,
the good news is we have thousands of customer companies,
that are designing everything you could imagine
and some things you never would.6
Everything from drones to we have a company doing
nuclear counter-terrorism equipment
amazing stuff, we have people doing
special purpose electric vehicles.
We have toys, we have furniture.
Everything in imagine.
So that's very gratifying to us.
But thousands of companies is still
a small part of the world.
This is a $10,000,000,000 a year market
with a $100,000,000,000 in market cap
and literally millions of users
so we have great aspirations
to grow our number of users
and to grow our tool set and capability.
>> So let's talk TAM for a second.
So $10,000,000,000 current TAM,
are there adjacencies emerging with all these
things like Three-D printing and machine intelligence
that actually could significantly increase the TAM
when you break out your binoculars
or even your telescope.
>> Yes, there are adjacencies that are increasing the TAM
through like you say new areas drive us
so obviously someone who's doing more
additive manufacturing, more generative design,
they're going to have more use for tools like ours.
Companies the other thing that I observe
if I can add one it's my own observation
is I think design is becoming a greater component of
GDP if you will.
Like if you look at how much goods
in the world are driven by design value
versus a decade or two or when I was a child
you know I just see this as an incredible amount
like products are distinguished by design
more and more and so I think that we'll see growth
also through the growth and design
as an element of GDP in the world.
>> Jon I loved that observation.
I actually felt like you know
my traditional engineering education
didn't get in much a lot of design thinking.
It wasn't until I was in industry for years
that I had a lot of exposure to that
and its something that we've seen
huge explosion the last ten years.
If you talk about automation versus people
its like the people that design that creativity
is what's going to drive innovation.
>> Absolutely, you know we just surveyed
almost a thousand professionals
product development leaders honestly
I think we haven't published the results yet
so you're getting- we're about to publish it online
and we found that on top of mind
is design process improvements
over any particular technology.
Be it machine learning or- you know,
machine learning is a tool for the product developer.
Additive manufacture is a tool
to develop new products
but ultimately they have to have
a great process to be competitive
in today's very competitive markets.
>> Right you've seen in fact
the impact that Apple has had
and sort of awakening people
to the value of great design.
I had to go back to the Sony Walkman, you know,
I remember when I first saw one
and all right that's very interesting design
and then you know Dark Ages compared to where we are today.
>> You know I hate to say it not a shot at Sony
but Sony was the Apple of the era and what happened?
Did they drop the ball in manufacturing,
was it a cost issue,
no they lost the design leadership pole position
they lost the ability to create the world-leading products.
Now it's Apple and it's not just Apple.
You got Tesla who is lit up the world with exciting design.
You've got Dyson you know you got a lot of companies
that are saying you know it's all about design
in those companies it's not that they're cheaper products
certainly they're rethinking things pushing ahead.
>> Yeah the way you feel when you use these products
the senses that's what the brand experience
is becoming, right?
>> Yup.
>> All right, Jon, thanks so much for coming on TheCUBE
and sharing your experiences with our audience.
Really appreciate it.
>> Well thank you for having me
it's been a pleasure.
>> Really, our pleasure.
All right keep it right there everybody.
Stu Miniman, Dave Volante, Jon Furrie will be back.
Actifio Data Driven 19 from Boston.
You're watching TheCUBE.
(techno music)