(phone ringing)
- Welcome to The Shiproom, you're on the air.
Yeah, I'll go with that too.
Okay, my guest today has the distinction
of co-founding a tech startup that writes about
tech, startups, and tech startups
that are starting up in tech.
Please welcome the editor of GeekWire, Todd Bishop.
It is so good to see you again, Todd.
- Good to see you, Brad.
- I'm sure that you hear from IT pros all the time,
they reach out to you.
What are like the common kinds of concerns
or questions, or what are you hearing?
- It's interesting because a lot of it is
coming back around with things that people
have been concerned about in the past.
Clearly, security remains very much top of mind.
- Sure, sure.
- Obviously, there've been solutions that have
come up to address the bring your own device problems.
But, overall, you know, the issues with security,
ransomware, all that stuff is what people talk about,
but quietly. (echoing)
You know, I think people are concerned about,
especially talking to a journalist.
- Oh, sure.
- Making it look as if they are in the spotlight
for having a security issue, when in reality,
it's something that everybody faces.
- Yeah, and I think the point that we try
to tell everyone is, you have to assume
that you've been breached.
The sophistication of the attacks,
the sophistication of the attackers, is world class.
You know, so we have to have these abilities.
You know, most organizations have spent billions of dollars,
you know, building out defenses.
You have to keep doing that,
but you also have to have world class detection,
and world class response capabilities
'cause you will be breached. - Yup.
- And, I think that's what many organizations
are not comfortable saying, you know,
hey, we have to assume breach
because it tends to signal a weakness in it.
No, you're prepared, 'cause that's the reality.
- I do think that there's a risk in going with
a major cloud provider because of potential lock-in.
But, to the extent that you can ride the coattails
of all the security work--
- That's right, you're actually more secure
if you're up in the cloud.
- Exactly.
And, I think that, to me, is one of the big reasons
to consider, even more than they might already be,
getting, you know, off-premises, and getting into the cloud.
(jazzy music)
- [Brad] So, you've been getting press releases
from companies for decades now.
- Yeah.
- You've seen every terrible tech buzzword.
So, I'm gonna put all that expertise to work for a minute.
So, with a straight face, you know,
we need to use this in a real world scenario,
a real world sentence.
You know, one of the great things that we've seen
as we've been building all of our cloud services together,
is because we bring all that data together,
what it provides us is a synergized
deliverable platform for flex outputs.
- Did you just add synergized to that?
- No, that was in there.
- It was in there, okay.
So, I'm trying to think of this one
in more of a journalistic standpoint.
Maybe, you know, we're working
on a variety of stories today.
And, I think that perhaps I need to reprioritize this
because we need some re-architected bandwidth
modulation storage protocols for that image
that you're about to upload to go with that story.
- That was awesome.
You know, one of things that we've noticed
is people have been starting to use OneDrive for business.
is, they go into a co-authoring model,
it increases their productivity but also it gives them
this collabrity cross-unit back-end engagement
for their files, which is unparalleled.
- Wait, is that like for real?
Are you actually using this? - No, I totally made that up.
- Are you making these up?
All right, so yeah, I'll think in journalism again.
You know, we've got a lot of stories going on today,
and I do need somebody to shift from one story to another,
so let's have a parallel task re-scrom-- wow.
So, let's have a parallel task re-scrompulence protocol
on this one. - You got it.
- Yes, all right.
- You see first-hand companies that are succeeding,
and those that are struggling.
- Yeah. - Okay.
Besides the obvious things, what are the things
that great companies are doing really well?
And, the things that organizations that are struggling,
what are the mistakes that they're making?
- I've been really struck over the past few years
by the ability of companies that have actually
been around for a while, to break through.
I think having a clear vision,
and a clear vision that also
is basically product market fit.
Where, it is something that the market agrees,
the basic consumers, the people out there, agree is needed.
And then, you have a vision for getting there.
I think, that really has been the common thing
that I've seen in the companies that have succeeded.
- And, that's advice that we can all take to heart.
You know, whether we're leading a team of five,
whether we're a CIO, whether we're the founder
and the CO of a startup.
Have a clear vision of where you wanna take,
you know, your organization.
And so, focus on the experience
that you're gonna give your users.
And, I think if you have that clear vision,
and you focus on the experience,
I mean, religiously focus on the experience,
you'll have a winner.
So, GeekWire is super well known
for its great coverage of startups.
- Yes.
- You've seen quite a few come and go.
So, with that expertise in mind,
we're gonna play another game here
called Start Up or Made Up.
- Oh my gosh, this sounds great.
- Okay.
Meatbag, an all natural compostable travel bag
made from cured and dried meats.
- That's fake. - Yeah, you're right.
Pooch Findr, a Tinder-style app
that tells you your proximity to dogs that you can pet.
- If that's not real it should be.
- Toilet Tycoon, ultra premium, high end,
luxury bathroom designs.
- Another one that should be real if it's not.
- Hunger Pings, a health monitoring app
that alerts you via text message when you're hungry.
- That's fake, come on. - I know that, right.
Mortgage Hippo. - I'd say that's real.
- Mobagel. - Oh, that's real.
- Lunch Badger, cloud management service.
- Fake. - That was real.
- Oh man, I was doing so well.
- Lunch Badger.
Rhinoceros Rental, a rental service
for armored cars and personal security.
- That's real.
- Fake.
Carrot Fertility, a fertility treatment management app.
- Fake.
- That one is actually real.
- Oh my gosh.
- Rent-a-Ruminant, a company that rents goats
for a more sustainable eco-friendly way to mow your lawn.
- That's real.
(goat screeching)
- That one actually is real, I've actually seen them before.
- Yes, yes.
- There's one other thing that just started up recently,
that really caught my attention.
It has to do with you and Steve Ballmer.
- Yes.
- Doing a podcast.
- We are doing a new podcast called Numbers Geek.
And, it--
- Oh my gosh, that describes Steve to the T.
- Exactly, exactly.
The notion of everything happening out in the world
being so political these days, I think.
And, so passionate, and sometimes theatrical
to the point that people--
- Sometimes?
- To the point that people really
aren't focusing on facts and data.
And, Steve started a non-profit called USA Facts.
And, they basically treat government data
as if it were a company's performance.
And, they put together annual reports.
- Fascinating.
- It's really cool stuff.
And so, we have started this podcast.
And, the whole idea is that we are understanding,
and illuminating, through numbers, data, and facts.
- Now, your organization does in-depth reporting,
you know, data gathering,
you're out in the world getting stories.
How do you support that mobile, you know, team?
And, how do you make sure your people
can collaborate and work together
independent of where they are?
- You know, things have changed so much
just in terms of the overall mobility,
and the ability to work from everywhere.
The thing for me though is, I still need a place
where I can sit down, plug in,
and have a big external monitor.
- There are times when I have to do
like what I call hardcore work.
- [Todd] Yes.
- And, I need a big screen,
I need a keyboard, I need a mouse.
(heavy rock music)
- Yes.
- Then I have light work, you know,
I probably do that on my phone.
- Yup.
- And, my ability to seamlessly be able to move
across all of those in a way that, you know,
it understands who I am, what my unique needs are,
my context, that's been revolutionizing how I work.
- And, I think there's an increasing awareness too
of the need for people to unplug too.
And, I think one of the most fascinating
things that we've seen over the last couple years
is the automated unplugging.
Whether you're in the car, or at home, or the monitoring of
how long you've been using a device.
(bell ringing)
- So, the whole time we've been talking,
this machine learning bot has been listening.
- Yup, of course.
- And, then using adaptive analytics,
it's come up with the 12 most pertinent questions
for you and I to finish up with.
We're also gonna try to solve the Rubik's Cube
while we're doing this.
- Now, this is the simple Rubik's Cube.
It's not the 10 by.
- Start the clock.
(cheering)
- Pick a juice, orange, apple, or beetle?
- How could you be presented with that
and not say beetle.
Are we competing against each other here?
- I'll lose, and so, no.
- How many Oreos do you think
you can fit in your mouth at once?
- Oh yes, okay.
At least this many.
(mumbling)
- Would you rather win the office chili cook off,
or March madness pool?
- March madness.
- How many times in 2018 did you fake a phone call
to get out of a boring conversation?
- Five.
- Is Kanye West actually a musical genius?
- Oh yeah.
- What subject would you tell someone to never major in?
- Journalism.
- (laughing) Journalism.
Would you rather have to talk like a pirate
or an auctioneer for the rest of your life?
- Auctioneer.
- So, I'm gonna go back to one of the questions
you asked Paul Allen.
- Yes.
Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, or Star Trek?
- I've always been a Star Trek guy.
I have a hard time getting into all the Star Wars mythology.
Battlestar Galactica seemed just like a knock-off to me.
Oh my God, don't put that in there.
I'm gonna get killed.
- Before you go, tell me where everyone
can learn more about GeekWire, and about Todd Bishop.
- Obviously, geekwire.com. - Yup.
- But, you can follow me on Twitter @toddbishop.
Todd with two D's, Bishop just like the chess piece.
- And, your new podcast?
- It is geekwire.com/numbersgeek.
- I'm a huge fan of the things that you publish.
- Thank you.
- And, I constantly follow you.
And, I appreciate your willingness to come in
and just spend a little bit of time with us today.
- Thank you so much Brad.
- Thank you.
(upbeat music)
- Yeah, and I hope you could hear
everything I was saying through the Oreo.
- If not, we'll subtitle it.
- And, the reason I would say don't major--
Oh, wow.
- Oh.
- What's that?