>> Narrator: Live from Washington DC,
it's theCUBE covering AWS Public Sector Summit
brought to you by Amazon Web Services.
>> Welcome back everyone you are watching theCUBE
and we are kicking off our day two
of our live coverage AWS Public Sector Summit
here in our nations capital I'm Rebecca Knight
co-hosting with John Furrier,
John it's great to be here 18,000 people
having important conversations around the governments
and Cloud computing let's extract the signal
from the noise let's do what theCUBE does best.
>> Yeah I mean this is to me a very exciting event
because it's got the confluence of what we love; tech
and Cloud computing and all the awesomeness
that that enables but in Washington DC
with the backdrop against the techlash
and this you know narrative around tech
for ill or tech for bad, bad tech whatever
you want to call it antitrust has a lot of narratives
around that there's a huge story around tech
for good so I think there's an interesting balance
there around the conversations
but this is where all the heavy hitters are
this week you got senior people
at the government level here,
you have senior tech people here
all kind of mingling in trying to figure out
how to let the tailwinds of Cloud computing
drive change within government against this backdrop
of tech for ill as Jay Carney
who's the global marketing policy guy for Amazon
and reports to Jeff Bezos former Obama press secretary
he's super savvy on policy super savvy on tech
but this is a really big point in time
where the future's going to be determined
by some key people and some key decisions
around the role of technology for society
for the citizens of the United States
for nation states as people start to figure out
the role of data and all the impact of this,
so super exciting at that level
but also dangerous and people are tiptoeing
a little bit but also want to run hard
that's pretty much the big story here.
>> So let's get into this tech backlash
because you're absolutely right the public sentiment
about technology and the tech behemoths
has really soured the regulators are sharpening
their blades and really paying much more attention
particularly because so many people say
hey wait a minute how does Google and Facebook
know all this stuff about me?
But what do you think? What are we hearing
on the ground in terms of where regulation is going
before the cameras were rolling you were talking
about this idea of regulators working closely
with the innovators observing but not meddling
I mean do you think that that's, is that the direction
we're going in?
>> Well not really I think that's where people
want it to go, I mean I think right now
the surprise attack of tech taking over if you will,
in the minds of people and or whether that's real
or not it's happened right?
So I was talking yesterday around how the internet
when Bill Clinton was president really grew
a little bit slower than the pace it is today
but they did a good job of managing that
they had private sectors take over
the domain name system we saw that grow,
that created the open web and the web was open.
Today it's different it's faster
in terms of technology innovation
and it's not as open you have Facebook,
LinkedIn and these companies that have silos
of data and they're not sharing it
and cyber security general Keith Alexander
former head of the NSA and the first commander
of Cyber Command in the United States
under Obama he pointed out that the visibility
into the cyber attacks aren't there
because there's no sharing of data,
we heard about open data initiatives
from a think tank the roll of data
and information is going to be a critical conversation
and I don't think the government officials
are smart enough and educated enough yet
to understand that so the regulatory groups
want to regulate they don't know how to
they're reaching out to Amazon's, Google's,
and the Facebook's to try and figure out
what's going on and then from there
they might get a path but they're still
in the early stages Amazon feels like they're not harming
anyone their lower prices, faster delivery,
more options they're creating an enablement environment
for tons of startups so they feel
like they're not harming anyone via the antitrust
but if they're going to be monopolizing the marketplace
that's another issue (laughs)
but I still think Amazon's still in enablement mode
and I think and you know they're just running so hard
it's going so fast I think it's going to be a big
challenge and if industry doesn't step up
and partner with government it's going to be a real mess
and I think it's just moving too fast
it's very complicated digital is nuanced now
you got the roll of data all this plays
into effect there.
>> Well you're absolutely right that it's going fast
we had Teresa Carlson on the other day
talking about AWS growth 41% year over year
and she said the Cloud is the new normal,
the Cloud is here more and more governments
and state and local really recognize
and obviously international countries too recognize that
they're adopting these Cloud first approaches.
>> Yeah I mean I think Cloud first approach
is validated 100% there's no debate
I think it's not an aha moment
Cloud is real Amazon has absolutely proven
since the CIA deal in 2013 that this is a viable strategy
for government to get to value fast
and that is the whole speed of the Cloud game
it's all about time to value with agility
et cetera, et cetera we've been talking about that
with DevOps for a long, long time
the real thing that I thinks happening
that's going on to read the tea leaves
and we'll hear from Corey Quinn our host at large
who will come on later is there's a new generation
of talent coming on board, and this new generation
it feels like a counter culture mindset
these are DevOps mindset people
not necessarily DevOps like in the Cloud computing way
they're younger they're thinking differently
and they think like Amazon right?
Not because they love Amazon because that's their nature
they're getting content in a digital way
they're digital natives they're born
into that kind of cultural mindset
of what is all this nonsense?
Red tape what's the bottleneck to solving these problems?
There's really not a good answer anymore
because with cloud computing and machine learning
and AI you can solve things faster
so if you expose the data smart people go;
wow that's a problem that can be solved let's solve it.
So I think there's going to be a resurgence
there's going to be a renaissance of younger people
kind of in a counter culture way
that's going to move fast and impact society
and I think it's going to happen pretty quickly
over the next 10 years.
>> Well that's one of these things that's so inspiring
about being at a conference like this
when AWS Public Sector Summit because we are hearing,
getting back to what you just said
we're solving problems and these are problems
about not just selling more widgets
but this is actually about saving lives
helping people the delivery of healthcare
finding missing persons and POW's who are missing in action.
>> I mean the problems that can be solved
with technology now for good will, I think,
will outweigh the technology for ill as Jay Carney calls it
so right now unfortunately everyone's talking
about Facebook and all this nonsense
that happened with the elections
I think that's pretty visible and that's painful
for people to kind of deal with but in reality
that never should have happened,
I think you're going to see a resurgence of people
that are going to solve problems
and if you look at the software developer persona
over the past 10 to 15 years it went from hire
some developers, build a product, ship it, market it,
make some money to developers being the front lines
power players in software companies
they're in the front lines they're making changes
they're moving fast creating value.
I see that kind of paradigm hitting normal people
where they can impact change like a developer would
for an application in society I think you're going to have
younger people solving all kinds of crisis around
whether it's opioid crisis, healthcare,
these problems will be solved and I think Cloud computing
with AI and machine learning and the role of data
will be a big catalyst.
>> But the money, the money's a thing
we're going to have Corey Quinn on later
talking about this talent gap because there are people
who as you said they're young people who are motivated
to solve these problems and they want to work
for mission driven institutions what better mission
than helping the United States government?
>> I just heard in the hallway
and this has been, I've heard this multiple times
here at this show, I just heard someone
saying yeah but that persons great I can't keep them
what's happening is with the talent is,
the people that they need for Cloud computing
can get a job that pays three times more or more
at the private sector so you know
government doesn't have stock options
>> Rebecca: Right.
>> Right so (laughs) if you're a machine learning--
>> Rebecca: and probably not ping-pong tables in the lounge.
>> Yeah so all kinds of different dynamics
but I think this mission driven culture
of working for society, for good
might be that currency that will be the equivalent
of stock options that I think is something
that we're watching not having seen anything yet
but maybe that will happen.
>> Paid in good feelings (laughs)
we've got a lot of great guests
we've already teed up we've got Corey Quinn,
Bill Britton from Cal Poly to talk more
about Ground Station we have Aileen Gemma Smith
of Vizalytics and Jamil Jaffer,
that's all coming up today.
>> Yeah I mean I think Ground Station
the biggest surprise for me in the show so far
has been Ground Station that product
has got so much traction it's ridiculous
I thought it would be kind of cool spacey
I like it but it's turning into a critical need
for IOT I mean I was just talking with you
when we came on about the airplane having Wi-Fi
on the plane we all like, wow we expect it now
but you go back years ago it was like;
oh my God I got Wi-Fi on the plane
that's a Ground Station like dynamic
people going oh my God I can provision satellite
and get data back all for IOT anywhere in the world
so that is pretty killer.
>> Excellent well I'm looking forward
to digging in with you with many guests today.
>> Good.
>> I'm Rebecca Knight for John Furrier
stay tuned you are watching theCUBE.
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