DevOps Future – Anuj Kapur & Sacha Labourey, CloudBees

This is Textron TV. I have the great pleasure being joined by two members of the leadership team one fairly new from the from cloudbees welcome gentlemen could be talking with you today. Thank you, man.

Good to be here. Great. I I think it was you b**** Good To Be With You Sasha, you know our audience knows you of course, so well from you know, being a co-founder of of cloud bees and all your experience in industry, and we've talked to you many times before.

Why don't you start and then we'd love to have you introduce yourself a notion. Just tell us a little bit of your background too kind of where you're coming from prior to joining probably so Sasha if you want to start. Yes, so for the lucky we don't know me I used to say that I was boarding up in source and I grew up in the cloud.

I was one of the early member of the G bus team then joined red hat and around 2010 co-founded Cloud bees and so being CEO for 11 years and now I'm focused on on the strategy. Fantastic. Fantastic.

Well, Welcome to Cloud Visa news introduce yourself tells me about building your background. Love to hear it. Yeah, absolutely.

And thanks for thanks for the time. So, you know part of cloud Visa was at sap and then it's Cisco my role Express similar in both company Electronics strategy for the company reporting to the CEO a few students in product management in Cisco most recently in our security business group where I got to see the evolution of security and the new world that we live in but most of my time at Cisco in the recent past was actually spent with our applications business, which was under a external brand called appdynamics and it was really there that I sort of started to understand the power of applications and the power of software to effectively transforming the global 2000 and you know, the more time I spent with them the more time I realized that this was a category that I was a very important inflection point Both in terms of the changes in technology architecture and then in terms of the expectations of customers, so definitely an area that I stated close to during my time at Cisco including developing relationships with the ecosystem. So I'm excited to be here at cloudbees at a company that has so much Heritage and history and and the devops space and you know, the next four weeks.

I think we'll start to tell the world about sort of the exciting things and store for us over the coming years. Well, your background is fascinating too because I've spent some time in the security industry myself was in going through that whole transition from you know, boxes and racks right to you know, virtualized software to now your software company. Now, you're creating software and apps and building security into the apps itself.

So I would imagine your own progression your journey into the world of really creating software as a business will help. We think that would bring a lot to the cloud B's audience because other folks are facing that as well too. Absolutely.

I mean, you know security something that needs to be thought through very carefully, you know, there's obviously a compliance angle as a regulatory angle. There's a risk angle and then there's a control angle but none of those angles can supersede the primary motivation of software developers, which is to ship and build at high velocity and do it at a scale that is reflective of the business needs of the organization. So, I think it's a balancing act between the level of control.

Your imposed and the level of flexibility you create the level of structure you impose and the level of in some ways Independence you encourage and I think that that's a balancing act that a lot of corporations are going through. I think that balance is different depending on what geography you're in what vertical you're in what level of regulatory constraints are posed on you as an industry, but it's been a fascinating Evolution to see how the security industry itself has evolved over the last 15 years and how prominent it's become as a talking point in the transformation efforts of a lot of organizations. And if you look at over the last 12 months just in terms of the capital markets.

It is a category that has continued to remain resilient in terms of both customer spend and then obviously Financial Market participants expectations of future value. And you know, I think it's reflective of the importance that's been applied to it. I think.

Is that are in our space at least that our publicly traded You know, despite the valuation reset continue to demonstrate that their business models are very resilient because the power of software to transform has not gone away and most companies as you said over time will become Builders of software as opposed to Consumers of software. And so I think we are tied into some, you know, very very important Market shifts in the industry that despite the environment we found ourselves and have not receded an importance and certainly the importance of getting it right for our customers has not changed. So it's more important than ever that we are cognizant of way the Market's going and aware of the personas and buying centers.

We sell into to make sure that we're making their lives easier. It's Sasha. I'm curious your thoughts the timing of bringing someone like a new land is presidency CEO given where we are in the market the transformation moved to the software environment software is part of the strategy, right?

It's not just a back office element and that's what you've been working with customers for for years right with a cloud bees. So talk about the timing of the experience and bringing that to bear with Cloud bees and your customer base. Yeah, it's it's interesting what's unique in my opinion about the devops space is a pace at which it's redefining itself.

Every three years ish. You have a number of Innovations either in devops itself or in in accordance space is that we defines a way softer delivery should be should be done or can be largely improved. And so so that that's that's great because it forces you to constantly innovate it constantly to be forces you to be on your guard right and and be a thoughtful about about what you have where you should go and and so on and and cloud is I think is at this inflection point we've built an amazing foundation and and we have amazing customers.

They're very loyal and and we have a lot more that we're doing with them. But the market is also evolving right constantly and and for a lot of those customers the question is what's next and how do I project myself? Next five years and 10 years.

And so I think we're at that point as a company. We worked on some pretty amazing things. And so I'll just joining is is really the perfect wind condition from that standpoint because he gets to leverage that Foundation to boost Cloud bees in that next era.

So I'm super excited about the timing. Many of us that have been around devops for a while kind of think about so what's next where oftentimes people look like? Well, what's the next thing is going to replace devops?

I don't know we're replacing devops as you mentioned slash. It's that inflection point of where we're going next. I'm curious.

You're a nurse your insights into that. Where do you see both Cloud visas the company and also your customers as you're learning more about the Cloud B customers. Yeah, and that's a Absolutely, and that's actually much one of the things that you know, we'll talk more about probably in the next four weeks, which is we have a major customer event coming up.

We obviously weren't able to have that event last year and a physical form and honestly, I'm looking forward to engaging with our customers to understand exactly where they are on their transformation journey and more importantly. What did they believe as an industry? We have gotten right and as an industry we have to get right and I think those are two different things which is there's no debate as an industry.

We have created value. I always go back and look at the security industry as a proxy for devops and the security industry. We went from about a thousand wonders to two thousand vendors to 3,000 vendors and in some ways if you ask your customers and say do you feel more secure now than you did perhaps five years ago despite the fact that you are likely spending more and the stuff for Syria for tax continues to be greater.

But the surface area of your protection continues to be that much greater as well across Network endpoint and Cloud. I think they would say that, you know, the results are next and I think as an industry while we have made great strides in terms of meeting our customers where they are perhaps we have created more technology than we have created outcomes and it's very important that we're cognizant of the operational Readiness and the operational sophistication of our customers and the velocity which they can truly transform and meeting them where their it is Data is and that's one of the things that I think always Don's upon me having worked in larger companies, which is you know, The next new thing is fantastic, but the addressability of that to the global 2000 or the top 20,000 customers that frankly drive a bulk of the it spend continues to be very very narrow. Most of the technology decisions.

They made they're still living with and those decisions were made five years ago 10 years ago, 15 years ago 20 years ago and in some cases even 40 years ago. So the combination of Industry structure the combination of consolidation events, the combination of sort of geographical footprint and the combination of regulatory requirements just creates a estate that is very very heterogeneous that the vendors have to perhaps work extra harder to be able to manage and sort of insert, you know, the right pieces of Technology the right products to effectively create the right outcomes. So that's honestly what I'm looking forward to in a very very compressed setting to meet our customers understand what we've done right understand where the industry needs to go and how see our role as being a part of that as a critical partner as such as said we have created a great Foundation a foundation is underpinned on a level of trust a level of quality and a level of resilience that we have built into our products and I look forward to sort of taking that foundation and understanding what more we can do and more importantly where we think the industry is going and whether they see at least certain level of alignment between where our observations are and their needs and the adventure mentioned is a devops world right in Orlando the 25th through the 29th.

So hopefully folks are checking that out. I'm gonna be there so hopefully both of you And chat some more there. I'm cute.

That's a sorry that we're seeing behind you Mitch. Well, what's that? I already there.

No, I know. I'm well, this is a Fort Lauderdale. So just just down the road a bit.

So it kind of have to go North to get there. So to get to Orlando but you know, it's only a couple weeks away not too far away, September 27th through 29th. Curious so a couple things that I also want to follow up on you talked about companies investing in their technology their technology stack their infrastructure their application all of that in large corporations that you know, that is a massive investment, you know, you know turn that over in a time nor do you necessarily want to in all cases you want to be able to bring bring that forward as well as do transformation and think about new ways of doing things at the same time.

How do you do that with Cloud bees? I started my journey and devops with with Jenkins. So, you know, I know you all well but how do you bring that the strength of Jenkins and Cloud bees and the things that you know, Sasha and team had done have done to this point and continue those things what we've got right to build on for the future thoughts about that either one of you Yeah, absolutely.

Maybe I'll kick it off. Just I'll give you my instead of four week perspective and obviously, you know, Sasha can give you the broader historical archival perspective. So Jenkins continues to be very very relevant in the market and I think that some talk that perhaps it's less.

So now than once was and I think that's true with every technology right? There's more Alternatives I'd play but that does not recede nor ignore nor remove the relevance of what Jenkins is as the fundamental market leader from a build perspective. I continue to be amazed at companies large and small that I end up meeting.

That's a cloud base. Oh you guys are the Enterprise Jenkins I said, yes, we're more than that. But yes, we are the company most closely associated with Jenkins and these are individuals that are effectively developing and that it's software for Next Generation.

Our devices companies that are basically investing in the Next Generation autonomous driving technology. So this is not just for your classic three-tier application that needs to be modernized to be, you know, customer-facing employee facing. Supplier facing there's a lot of that but ci/cd shows up in many environments and chickens sort of underpins many of those development platforms.

I think the critical thing for us is to actually see that over the last 10 years. The market has broadened and so has the relevancy of a company like cars to be able to actually solve problem statements that are jenkins-centric but maybe Beyond Jenkins and that's something that I think we want to be able to be cognizant of which is you know, it's similar to I would say in the inflection point in a very very, you know humble and respectful way that Microsoft went through seven years ago where they decided do we want to be the best productivity application for the windows platform or do we want to be the best productivity application globally for any platform? And so, you know under currents of that are seeping into at least our mindset have been over the last two years and ultimately I think the foundation gives us the confidence to be able to invest in problem statements the future and be able to tie them very The intimately to our Jenkins franchise and the customer base that continues to invest in Jenkins, but to basically take a broader lens into the problem statement the industry and say based on the solutions we have created.

How do we best address those independent of sort of their I would say strong nuclear first to the Jenkins franchise that we have created. So I'm excited by basically that transition that I think is ahead of us over the next 18 months. But by no means does it erode are focused nor are important on the Jenkins Community.

That's frankly made us who we are and continues to invest at a very grasp of pace for the reasons that you highlighted earlier which is you know, if you have trained up 5,000 developers on Jenkins and 80% of your production applications of consequence that you're investing in use Jenkins as a bill to you want to know that there's a vital industry that's gonna be there for you as you modernize those applications and make them a lot more resilient and we want to be there for Our customers for that journey of the next three years as well. So your thoughts. Yeah, I think you know as as anuch said it's the amount of developers and to know how out there is so big and the number of pipelines that have been written.

That's IP. So whatever we end up doing our commitment is essentially that we don't want to leave anybody behind right and so it's great. We understand that.

We have a new use case new type of stuff of Technologies. And so all of that is great and and we're gonna be talking a lot more of that in the months in the coming months, but what's important for us is to be able to leave nobody behind bring bring those bring everybody along that journey in in a constructive way. And so that's that's really what we're what we're bringing for.

As they yeah it it is bringing leave. No one behind but it's also paint the road back. So people know what that future is, right exactly.

We've got up. We've got a future on the platforms that we're on. I'm curious you can sort of look at this question, you know, neither side of what didn't we do well, or what were the learnings that we have that you have specifically a news from the security industry.

I may have I've been doing security and software for a long time and my own opinions about what we kind of did right and haven't done right yet in security interesting. What are some of those lessons that you think you've bring with you of like we learn fourth time it took to get this right but this is what we need to do. You bring out this industry.

I would say this there's at least two and then maybe a third one. The first is never confused technology with the outcome you're creating and the second is never confuse the sophistication of the product or the operational capability of the customer to drive value from that product and I think those were so Um, those are critical lessons that I think any industry can learn from but especially in security. The third one is actually a slight Twist on that.

What I'm excited by in terms of cloud-based is you know, the the one thing in security that unfortunately does not always get discussed is you're sometimes selling on the fair and anxieties of your customers and you know, that is that is I think reflective of the sentiment of your customers. So in some ways it's not wrong but it's not perfectly right either. I think the great thing about sort of having the devops platform Vision that we have is we sell on the hope of it rather than the fear of it and I think the security industry has started to realize that their sales pitch needs to be balanced between the protective nature of the solutions and the transformative nature of the solutions.

I think we have a sort of different mix relative to the capabilities and out. We create but the first two lessons are ones that we absolutely ensure we stayed disciplined around which is it's great to have products and features and capabilities that you think are unique But ultimately how does that synchronize with the outcome that the customer is trying to create for themselves and are we synchronous with that or are we asynchronous to that? And then the second one is again tied to those everyone wants to work on the next unit thing.

Everyone wants to talk about the next few thing. But the operational reality that the customers find themselves and is going to vary across geographies across verticals across size of customer and across whether they're Market leaders, or they're in the middle of the pack in terms of their industry for all the right reasons. So indexing the usability of your platform to the operational reality of your customers, I think is very critical to ensuring that they arrive the outcome necessary, right?

The analogy would be you can buy an $80,000 car or 22,000 car if your customer doesn't realize the difference. In terms of the outcome that's truly matters for them. Then you should ask yourself right why you're actually investing in building an 80,000 car.

So we want to be very very disciplined with regards to the calibration of our product to the needs of our customers. And that's something that I think was so vastly clear in the security industry because every week a new company gets funded that aims actually solve the problem that the 500 of the companies that got funded in the last 52 weeks did not solve. You know just to add a comment to that.

I think that the emphasis in this industry is on the workflow the pipeline it's getting the work done and getting that out in a certain way quicker faster better or whatever you might or more security for that matter as opposed to Battening down the hatches and one other area creating more alarms and alerts and overwhelmed security people don't need another tool. We're on the automation side of this. We're on the creating an improved condition continuous Improvement of that.

So it seems like you're experiences. There will be super helpful. And of course, yeah all the things I think the well absolutely just a touch on, you know, word you use creating value is supposed to protecting value both are important.

I think we want to on the margin we want to be on the on the side of creating value in a secure manner. Fantastic, well, I hope you'll come back as you spend more time working on the strategy and and engaging with customers. Love to hear about what you've learned and where where you're planning to go next, and I'm sure there are lots of cloud bees Jenkins customers and users.

They'll love to hear that too. So you have an open invitation to come back and talk with this. Again.

Thank you so much. Look forward to see you at devops all the two weeks as he said and saying some of that Florida Sunshine as well where we're singing here, but we're singing with the heat. com check it out.

So thank you. Thank you.