Techstrong Gang – May 29, 2025

Hey everybody, $8 billion for big Data. You're watching Textron. Hello everybody, and welcome to Techron Gang.

We're gonna be talking about all kinds of exciting things today, including, well, Salesforce is finally buying Informatica for $8 billion. But let me introduce my fellow cohorts here, starting with Terry Robinson, who's down in Louisiana this week. Terry, How you doing?

Good, nice and muggy down here. Um, hope we'll have a cool conversation. Hope things off a bit.

All right, well, hopefully it won't rain. It Already did that. Of course, John Schwartz already did that.

All right. Well, I, every time I've been in Louisiana, it's rained, so, and it's been a while. John, you, of course, are home in fabulous Northern California still, right?

I am. We're, uh, we're bracing for a heat wave. It's gonna be like 90 degrees here, which for us is, is broiling as you know, you lived here before, you know how 90 degrees, how people freak out when it gets over eight 80 degrees here?

Well, you know, it was always two climates for me. It was one, I worked in San Mateo, so it was 90 degrees every day, and then I drove north, and once I got to like, coma in the cemeteries, it dropped to about 40 degrees, and then I went home. Yeah, With a lot of fog.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. So micro, what they call it microclimates here?

Yes. Well, It was 90 degrees all weekend here. So there you go.

Well, between where Terry is and where you are, we're having a tropical heat wave. There you go. All right, let's jump into this stuff of what's going on with Salesforce, who I guess finally bought Informatica, um, to my way of thinking, this is, uh, an interesting way to go get some data for ai, but John, what's your take?

Yeah, you're exactly right, Mike. Um, it's, so, in a sense, what Salesforce is doing, and they've been doing a lot of acquisitions lately, and this is just the latest, is there kind of in a sense to me, filling out this AI jigsaw puzzle? So they had the data integrity piece with an Informatica.

And so for context, you mentioned they have sniffed around Informatica. They, I believe it was April of 2024, there were rumors, and there may have even been a report that they were, that Salesforce was eyeing Informatica, the market reacted terribly, but that was a year ago, and a lot of things have changed since then. So now we've got this kind of like crazy land rush for acquisitions going on right now.

dot ai. So they're filling out their, their docket, and they're looking at data integrity with this acquisition of Informatica. Um, in a sense, mark Benioff issued a statement that kind of alluded to this idea of combining various technologies from companies they bought, uh, MuleSoft, Tableau, Informatica, and, and into this kind of, uh, data management capabilities of Informatica.

So these autonomous agents that, that, um, Salesforce has been working on, they want them to be safer, smarter, more scalable. Um, I talked to Brad Shiman, who's at, uh, the Fu Futurum group, and he had an interesting take on this. He said that Salesforce had previously had this top-down vendor approach for years where they would provide these, um, great business software products built on top of whatever technology was necessary to deliver those workloads.

Now, in a sense, they're flipping the script and they're building from the bottom up. And I think that plays into this other notion that with AI models commoditized, the, the focus has shifted to integrations that connect enterprise data to those AI models. Um, one other thing in terms of context, I know you talked about this yesterday at the ai, or excuse me, the big, bold, beautiful bill, whatever it's called that includes some very favorable, uh, uh, attempts to, to deregulate AI or to keep it regulation free for 10 years.

So ai, it's, it's basically, uh, a land brush right now, and, uh, these deals are going through and there's a very, very high pressure on these companies to fill the gaps and provide as much as they can to make themselves compelling sell. So I think this is all kind of coming into play right now, and I think you're gonna see even more deals from Salesforce. I know they've got some things cooking in terms of AI agents and announcements that they're gonna make in the next week or so.

Um, I just say, just, just get, just get used to it. This is gonna be a daily occurrence, literally with m and a activity. Well, the part that always made me scratch my head when it came to Salesforce and anything to do with Gen AI was access to unstructured data.

You know, their CRM is a system of record. It's essentially a glorified database for a particular application. And, um, structured data and feeding that into an LLM is a whoopty, do I need all this unstructured data and all this other stuff that's floating around?

And Informatica has, and I can't help but wonder if all these companies that do data management are now gonna get rolled up into the age of ai. And I don't know, I mean, in the case of Salesforce, just listening to you rattle off all the companies that Benioff is referring to, you know, part of my IT soul starts to think of the phrase, you know, Salesforce time, I gotta stick all these things together and it becomes a monster, and hopefully it works. We'll see, yeah.

That's, that is, that is good. That, that is a concern. You, you're, you're not the only person who mentioned that to me.

This, this, this whole idea of how do you piece it all together and it's kind of a work in progress. I think the way that Salesforce does things is they, it's, I, it, it's, it's a, it's probably an unfair word, but it's overkill. Like, when they want to try to prove something that they're doing, they will bludgeon you over the head.

And they do that, that not only with their actions, but with their words and with some of their announcements. So it's a little bit overwhelming, and I think it's, there's a lot of pressure from the top down, especially from Benioff. You know, the interesting context too is that Informatica, a couple of weeks ago laid out their whole AI agent strategy around data integrity and, and, um, data management.

So that, that played a part in, in, in this deal. But this deal has been kind of simmering for a long time. You mean marketing people are saying the same six words over and over again, trying to make a point I'm surprised.

Shocking, actually. Um, I'm kind of wondering what this means though, too. I, one thing that has been touched on is, uh, Salesforce has always been sort of platform agnostic, right?

And so what does this mean when you start taking that bottom up approach? Are you gonna lose a bit of that? And does that matter?

Uh, I, I think that you're spot on in the sense that, um, maybe that top down approach doesn't really kinda work, and the bottoms up doesn't work either. You gotta do it from both ends. And I think that, you know, uh, in the military they say, you know, the best way to take a bridge is from both sides.

So I think that that's what's going on here as well. But you know, Terry, to your point, I do wonder about the security here. And one of the best parts of informatic is they do have this governance framework for data, and they have done that job really well over the years.

But not only do we now have to secure more data than ever, but now we're gonna put together AI agents and we could barely figure out how to secure the identities of machine software and people. But now let's just add in millions of AI agents. I'm kind of looking at all this as a security recipe for disaster, but I don't Know what's your, well, yeah, so of course, obviously that's sort of the first thing that, um, that I, that I thought about.

Um, I think, yeah, there, there are a lot of issues here that could come up. I mean, again, with the AgTech ai, um, it's, it's already that issue's already been raised just in general about, uh, security. And, uh, I also think anytime you create this kind of Frankenstein mishmash of, of things, you open the door, uh, for some real security gaps.

So, um, it'll be interesting to see going forward how they integrate and, uh, what kind of enforcement they put sort of across the board, if that makes sense. So, but I, I definitely worry, uh, about that. And then we've also done a lot of stuff recently, right, on how AI can be used for good and also can be used for bad.

So I think that's, um, it'll, it'll be interesting to see if the, the bad guys get any leverage from a, you know, sort of a deal like this as well. John, I wonder if Salesforce is telegraphing who they're gonna buy when they start putting together these little cliches. Like for instance, we talked in the show not too long ago about, you know, Salesforce bought convergence and after talking about the fact that they had AI agents, they went out and got a company that has AI agents, and then they talked about trusted AI and Einstein for a long time, and now they went out and bought a company that has the governance tools to implement, said, trusted ai.

So what else do you think is gonna be on their acquisition list? Oh, wow. I just, that's, that's a good question.

You know, um, I wonder mean, you mentioned security and we mentioned data integrity and compliance, and mish mashing almost. I almost feel as if they have to have some sort of consulting arm or some sort of consulting play or somebody who kind of over, you know what I mean? Like, it manages all these disparate pieces.

Like, like you said, Terry, it's a Frankenstein monster. And one of the things, without, without getting myself in trouble for breaking an embargo, there is a gonna be a survey coming out about shadow AI and about the, um, the unintentional use of AI with all these pieces coming together and how that leads to a lot of different issues. Um, so I think they, maybe they, they look at that, you know, what they almost, and they almost seem to do to me is they, they, they are very, very, um, uh, uh, attentive to what Wall Street says or how Wall Street reacts, and they almost tend to veer since they're, they seem to have the cash at hand or the stock at hand to kind of auto correct.

They kind of tack their, their, um, their path to what the reaction is. So I, I, I really do wonder, um, again and again, I had another analyst I talked to who, who mentioned this, Keith, uh, this idea that, that Terry's, that Terry brought up, approached about kind of piecing it all together and gluing it all together, because right now it's, it's an an overwhelming mess. And I wonder how their customers, I think about Salesforce customers, you're gonna go from one extreme to another.

Now, you know, how do they interpret this? I mean, I, I'd be a little bit, uh, concerned if I were them. I'm a little trying to figure out how they're gonna do that without p*****g everybody off.

I mean, let's think about how do we use this stuff, right? So the average end user is pulling together documents from here, there, and everywhere, and they're not really taking a minute to kind of think about, well, geez, is this doc that I'm about to expose to Jet GBT or Gemini or whatever it is, is this proprietary information that shouldn't be shared outbound that to them they're just trying to build, like, you know, some sort of marketing collateral or some sort of sales proposal or whatever it may be. And they're just cutting and pasting stuff and throwing it in there and pressing the button and helping something good comes back.

Um, so, you know, Terry, if, if there's always been this tension between ease of use and security, but at that granular level, how do I get in there and kind of make sure that the right policies are being followed in a way that just doesn't aggravate everybody to the point where they just go home and do it There. If I knew exactly how to do that, we be make a, a mint of money here. Um, you know, I think that takes time.

And I think it also takes some real discipline and it, and, and, and I, I'm gonna say, given who Salesforce is and who they've always been, they've probably got some stuff in place, right? To, to start applying some, some discipline here. Um, I can't imagine that they're gonna let it continue to be, uh, you or, or, or foster this giant sort of, I don't, I can't say the word I wanna say, um, uh, about it, but, um, I feel like it's Begins with and ends with, That's the one.

Exactly. And so, um, it's funny how easily that thing wants to come out. Um, but, um, I, I think it really is gonna take the discipline.

I also think there is gonna have to be tremendous oversight, and then you're gonna have to have policy, uh, I guess this is always true with security policy with teeth, you know? Um, otherwise, it, it, it, it's not, it's not really worth anything. It won't, it won't solve any of the problems and people will continue to abuse data.

Um, but, uh, yeah, I, I think that's, it's, it's just the, the discipline thing. It's gonna take some time. And again, I think they probably have something underway.

Y you know, there's, yeah, I was gonna mention, there's, there's a guy, I've, I've talked about this guy before on the show. There's a guy I used to work with who's a consultant to Salesforce, and he was telling me, he's giving me an update on, and what the reaction among the customers is, because he's in a sense, kind of a liaison between the corporate side of Salesforce and a lot of their customers. And so he goes to their, their trade shows, and he talks to the customers and gets feedback.

And even before the last two acquisitions, he said what he was hearing from the customers at Salesforce was a, a high degree of frustration about trying to follow what's, what's going on, and trying to keep pace with what's going on. And, um, they, they, the, the customers felt this urgency to jump into genic ai, yet they also felt there's like a disconnect with Salesforce, and that they're not getting what they want on a very low, low level task, a granular level. And they're getting, being overburdened with these kind of high flying highfaluting, uh, concepts.

So he said they're, they're, they're trying to kind of marry the two. So there is a, there is like a frustration, um, among the, among the customers, and they're trying to kind of thread the needle, so to speak. And it's not easy.

I mean, what they're trying to do is so ambitious, and they're trying to do it incredibly quickly. So it's, you know, there are gonna be lumps or wrinkles in the road. So, you know, to their, to their, as Terry said, they've probably got mapped out this framework where they kind of try to make it as easy as possible with the customer, or they might find themselves in in trouble.

I don't think it's actually too, I think, I think you're right about all of that. I I, but I don't think it's gonna be as quick as maybe they want it to be, or as they, No, it's not that, that was a frustration. The, the, the customers feels like this urgency, they have to move fast.

But, um, it's, it, there's so many factors, right? It's, it's not just the budget's. Like it's not just the data integrity, it's like the upskilling of the cus of the, of the employees.

They're not ready to use it. They have to be pragmatic in their use. I mean, there's like this whole political jungle that goes on.

There's so many factors that these vendors, I'm sure they're aware of them, but they kind of, kind of paper over them and assume the companies are gonna move like highly efficiently. And these, a lot of these companies are just trying to find their way at this point. I'm wondering, um, I don't know.

I'm, I'm trying to think about that a minute, about the upskilling thing. I'm always interested in that upskilling and reskilling people 'cause it's so important, right? Moving forward in a di dynamic environment and everything.

I'm, I'm wondering, is that easier, uh, in, in this case? Are there some synergies there, um, that make it easier to maybe, you know, bring people up? I mean, you're not bringing them from these sort of old fashioned kind of processes and ways of doing things.

They're, they're sort of, the employees are sort of on that track anyway, right? Very tech oriented and very, What is this thing called upskilling that you're referring to? In my experience, I've never actually seen upskilling talk about.

I know. It's like, I, I Never, I never wrote that in a story until the last several months. You know?

And I, Journalists don't get upskill, Mike, I'm just saying, I don't think anybody gets upskill. You're on your own. You gotta go figure it out for yourself.

It's a, But look, your, your employees are your brain trust and you know, it's easy enough to, you know, pigeonhole people. And then when you start making cuts because of economic reasons, like, you know, we're going into a very flaky economic, uh, uh, arena now, uh, you know, you typically lay off people and you know, and, and whatever. And then you end up hiring people and having to train them.

It's like, why not take those people that you have that already know your company and already know your process and already know in, in theory, it's a really good idea, right? To, to upskill and preserve that brain trust. But in, in practice, I'm not sure it happens In theory, it's in theory, it's an awesome idea.

In practice, every company thinks that they're the Yankees of the Dodgers, and they're just gonna go and get a better third base. And turns out that there is no merit third base. So, I mean, you know, it's not funny, but, you know, you see all these companies lay people off and including the federal government, then they gotta go back and hire 'em again a couple of weeks later.

'cause, you know, whatever they thought was gonna happen isn't gonna happen. But I want to ask John one last question on this topic. 'cause I lived out there, and I am a little nostalgic, but you know, when I see Informatica get acquired, part of my soul wants to wonder, you know, is the old guard of the valley going away?

What's going on, John? Yeah. You know, Informatica is an interesting story because as you know, um, they went public and then they were, they were, they went private and then they went public again, I think in 2021.

And I think of this, uh, Amit, I mean, they're down the road from where I live. I, I go down there and visit 'em once in a while. And to me, it was like this era, right?

Of all these companies that you mentioned that we, that we, we think of that, that kind of fall within this huge basket that include Informatica. They're just going away. And I think it makes me think of what Alan talks about.

And he, he drives this home in, in the age of ai, like in any way, they're gonna be three or four major players. And I, and my kind of like, it saddens me to think that a lot of the companies that you and I covered, Mike, are just gonna be part of these larger behemoths. And that's just gonna go away.

I hope I'm wrong. And maybe, um, some startups fill the gaps, but there's kind of this era of, of, uh, these, these kind of venerable companies just being snapped up and being absorbed by someone who's bigger. Hard to imagine that all this winds up being the answer in a trivia contest in a pub somewhere.

But that's where we left all guys. We're gonna move on and we'll be back in a minute. com.

There's a story about a research report from our friends over at the Futurum group talking about how it seems like people are actually investing in the technologies we're gonna need to secure our software supply chains. And there's a lot of them. And this whole investment area, frankly, it's a long time common.

I think we have been talking about DevSecOps now for the better part of half a decade, maybe more. Terry, as you look at the numbers and you see this report and you talk to folks out there, are we finally getting it? Are we, are we making Maybe, so like you, I was, I was kind of happy to see this, right?

Um, uh, supply chain security has been a big issue. It was amplified during the pandemic, and it's about time, uh, that, that people started moving on this. Um, I, I thought some of the survey results were interesting.

You're right. I mean, uh, they are investing in, in software supply chain security. Um, they're really aiming at, uh, application security, posture management, and, and DevSecOps.

Those are the two sort of, uh, big ones there. Um, the thing that really stood out to me, um, and, and it's like Fernando Montenegro, uh, at, uh, RUM said, you know, and, and I was really glad to see this, there seems to be, uh, more collaboration, uh, between sort of the app development and, and cybersecurity teams, which is super important. And you used to see, I mean, probably for years, wrote articles and looked at research that showed a real disconnect there that created all sorts of friction and, and tension.

So that is a real positive that, you know, I see from, um, from, uh, the, the survey results. I mean, I, I, I'm, I'm keen on that. We'll, we'll see in practice if they're really doing it.

And, uh, you know, but for like a little over, I guess 30% of them to say that, that they didn't have that kind of co collaboration and the bulk of them to say that they did. I mean, that's great news. What is that old saying about beating your head against the wall and then expecting a different result?

I think that's called DevSecOps. This is the part that drives me crazy. I mean, so let's get this straight and I'm understand when exactly what's been going on here for the past decade.

Um, security people go look for vulnerabilities and they find them, and then they dump 'em in a spreadsheet and they throw 'em over the wall to a bunch of developers who have maybe, um, about 5% of their time per month, they go fix something. And most of the times it's not vulnerabilities that they're after, they're after other bugs. But if and when they do get around to fixing a bug, it will be the easiest bug they can find to fix, not the one that's most serious, because, well, you know, I got other things to do.

I'm being compensated for building new features and not fixing the crap that I broke or somebody else broke a couple of years prior to that. Then to add, insulting the injury, once I go looking for these bugs that come over from the cybersecurity people, I find that most of the time it's not actually in the code that's running or that the application in question isn't even facing the internet. So I'm kind of like shrugging my shoulders and going, why are I just spending, you know, a day and a half going looking for this stuff in the first place?

This whole thing, this, this whole area of application security has been kind of in the redheaded stepchild of security because the developers assume the security people were doing something about this. And the security people, when you put it to them, were like, well, I'm gonna use the budget for this stuff that I can control, namely network security and endpoint security, but I have no control over software development and application security. So I'm assuming those guys are gonna go fix it.

The thing that I like about this report is it suggests that adult supervision has finally arrived in the room. And that folks are actually talking about, well, maybe we'll co-fund these things together because we have a vested interest in, I don't know if there's fewer vulnerabilities, maybe just, maybe security people will be less stressed out. Call me crazy.

But John, does this amaze you how dysfunctional it is in reality? I was gonna ask you, what, what, what changed what made them decide to, to to kinda become more adult in, in the behavior af since this has been such an issue for so long? I mean, is there like some pressing issue?

Um, I, I feel it's just been one, you know, vulnerability disclosure after another, but it kind of started in my mind with, uh, SolarWinds probably was the first one we kind of brought the problem. Did do you, do you, yeah. Do you suppose it gets accelerated by what's happening with CSA and, and what's happening with this government stance towards people like Chris, Christopher Krebs?

I mean, I, I'm just wondering if there's like this kind of, of self-protective, uh, mode Well, that the industry's in because they don't like government. Yeah. The industry's taking on more of the burden, right?

Of and, and more of the protection because the government's certainly not gonna not gonna do it. And, and the industry's gonna be, you know, vulnerable because if something happens, I mean, it, it's kind of on you, you know? Um, and I, so I, I think you might be right about that, that they're just taking on more, given the, the ceases stuff.

Um, which is really a shame, you know, I'm just gonna throw that in. I think it's, uh, you know, um, ceases being sort of dismantled or, or destroyed, um, at a time when it's probably even more needed. So I don't think c is saying anything that hasn't been said by managers before, but I think that every manager out there will recognize this other piece of this function that happens in the world, and that I can stand in front of my staff or whatever for two years and say the same thing whatsoever.

And then the minute I bring in an outside expert who says the exact same thing, everybody in the room goes, aha, I get it. That's cisa. Yeah.

Well, that looks like it. An RSA that one of the themes, or one of the takeaways was, you know, industry, you, you, you watch yourself, you know, you're responsible for yourself. You get together and, and, and figure this out because we're, we're moving on to, to, to, I don't want to sound like, uh, Alan, but you know, we're gonna concentrate on the border and security.

I mean, that was kind of like the takeaway, but I also just wonder if this, this, this whole idea of, um, security maybe is it accelerated, I think perhaps by all these acquisitions and all the kind of, the use of data more so than ever through, uh, a genetic ai. I was wondering too, if that the AI effect kind of has people scared and, and the possibilities of what could go wrong. You know, when they're in, they're rushed to, to, to, To move to new format, Be scared new Platforms, be scared, you know, they should be, and maybe that is a bit of a wake up call.

Uh, I look at that question on this from two sides. One is, yeah, the first generation of these AI tools are probably generating more vulnerabilities than we care to admit. 'cause they were trained on code that was pulled from the internet, and that code was created by, well, humans that wrote flawed code, and then we drove it into production environments and the machine ate it up.

Now, theoretically, the next wave of these tools should be trained on code that's better vetted for security vulnerabilities, so they won't be in there in the first place. So the AI might make a better decision. And then it becomes an interesting question in my mind.

So, which is more likely to inject the vulnerability in a piece of code a machine that's trained, or a human who's generally untrained? So you gotta ask yourself in the, you know, in the short term, it's probably gonna get worse, but I got a feeling it might get better soon. But Terry, am I being overly optimistic?

Um, no, I, I think it probably will get better soon. I also think there's maybe another dynamic here, uh, when it comes to, I'm, I'm looking at that sort of collaboration between app development and cybersecurity, and that friction that used to be there and now seems to be waning, uh, or at a lot of companies. I'm wondering if we're finally sort of shedding our old skin about, you know, the way things were developed in the past, right?

You had those, you know, the sort of the old guard that developed in very closed environments and, and a lot of the, um, issues that they had security wise when that was no longer the case, right? Um, were because they were no longer safe and secure themselves, right? And now you've had all these vulnerabilities, things that, uh, and, and, and issues with code that, that sort of get out there and open servers.

I mean, I wrote about a zillion stories on open servers, which didn't seem like, you know, those buckets should be left open under any circumstances, but I'm just wondering if that old guard is going away and there's a new way of thinking, or people who have been more trained sort of a, a again, in, um, more modern development, if you will, and now they're seeing the need for security and the security people are seeing the need to work with them, and maybe, maybe we are shedding that skin, you know? So I, I mean, I'm a little optimistic myself. I, I read this, this study with, uh, you know, a little bit of happiness in my heart.

I think they're getting better tools and people will do the right thing. I don't think any developer got outta the bed and said, let me go develop some insecure code that said, you know, we allowed a culture to exist where we, you know, we said, well, uh, you know, vulnerabilities are just the cost of doing business, and we hope nothing bad happens. And that is shifting.

I think we're moving to a climate now where people are saying, Hey, if you've got a vulnerability that's especially, you know, a low level SQL injection or things that should be routinely caught and you're, um, application and it finds its way into a production environment and gets exploited, yeah, that's not the cost of doing business or an unfortunate incident that's just lazy. And I think, you know, as we move along here, we're gonna move from, you know, we're gonna give you the right tools and tell you, you know, hopefully ask you politely to do the right thing to, you know, pretty soon we're gonna start shaming developers for letting stuff go through that. You know, it's one thing if it's a zero day that has some new vulnerability that just got discovered, but it's quite another, if it's just some sort of thing that's been on that oasp list for a decade now, and people are still making the same mistakes over and over again.

But I don't know. So John, as you kind of think about all this for a minute, um, do you feel better or worse? I, you know, so before you, the approach you, you mentioned was almost like triage, right?

Let's, let's only address the wounds that we can, we can patch up and then, and send the soldier back into battle. Uh, and let's overlook the, the big, so I'm actually optimistic at, uh, I think in the short timbers, you said there probably will be, um, some pain, but in the long term, I sometimes have more faith in machines in terms of these types of issues than others. Um, they're be they're working based off of data and they're, they're not biased and they're thinking, I, I hope so.

Maybe I'm, I'm a little bit in the short term I'm scared, but in the long term, I'm more optimistic. So I guess yes, which is for me, a uh, a uh, surprising disclosure because usually I am a little bit skeptical about these things and, and a little bit, uh, nervous about these things. I am still worried though, that if 80% of the code is open source and that original open source code was created by some maintainer somewhere, um, and then it works its way into a downstream piece of software.

And then there's an issue where the vulnerability, so let's say, um, you know, Joe's CIO or Gene CIO, and then, um, wanna get that patched, I gotta go get the maintainer to go think that that's important enough to patch and do something about. And then the maintainer is not getting paid usually for this project. So the maintainer may not think that giving up their weekend to go deal with my issue is worth their time and effort.

So there are all these dependencies in these applications Yeah, Terry, that, um, we need to kinda have a better way of thinking about And would if there's no maintainer, I mean, and you, Or there's only two maintainers, right? And so I, yeah. So yeah, I think you're, I think, I think you're right.

We have to start thinking about it differently. Again, it comes down to some discipline and some expectations and some, you know, some teeth to what your policies are and how, how you're doing things and what, and what you say you're doing matches with what you're actually doing. But I, I do think that it's, uh, I'm still optimistic.

I just feel like it's gonna be complicated. All right, folks. Application security continues to be a tale of two cities.

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And we're gonna revisit this whole feud between the president and Apple, which took another turn when I guess Donald Trump revealed that he had previously told Apple CEO Tim Cook, that there would be 25% tariffs on iPhones not made in the us There were, especially if they are moved to India or wherever, or not coming here to manufacture them. John, I know you looked into this and the first thing that everybody's talking about is, you know, what that would do to a cost to an iPhone would be exorbitant. It'd be ridiculous.

I feel, I feel terrible for, for, for poor Tim Cook. Remember, um, during the first Trump administration, Trump liked him, even though he referred to him as Tim Apple. He really liked him.

And you know, he, he, he, he admired the company and, and Cook did a very masterful job of kind of playing to his ego. But I think, um, and this is gonna sound really juvenile, but I think part of this, what's going on right now, and this was revealed by the New York Times, and a story, I believe was a couple days ago, that Tim Cook turned down the chance to be part of this Middle East trip where Trump and a bunch of tech executives went to, uh, the Middle East, and especially in Riyadh, and, and announced some deals. And, and we kind of, genuflected Cook turned down the opportunity to be part of that.

So I think in a sense that hurt him, but it longer term wisely very wisely in the long term. 'cause he'll be along. I mean, he'll be around longer than than Trump.

I, I would think. But th this whole idea of threatening Apple with, with tariffs if, unless they start building iPhones in the United States, is so patently absurd. There've been studies done on it.

There've been research reports that have come out, first of all would take quite a long time and a lot of money for Apple to build out these type of facilities. And then to find the labor and then to the, is it put the outlay for equipment. So the, the the opt the, um, I would say the conservative guess is that the iPhone would essentially more than double in price.

It would be 3000, $3,500. No one's quite sure what the price would be. There's also this, here's this other, this other thing that has come into play.

Apple has telegraphed this idea that within a decade we may not have iPhones anymore. We may have some sort of AI device that they're, they are gonna be working on or working on already that would replace the phone. So why would you spend all this time and effort and money to build more iPhones in the US when you're gonna move to possibly another product, and that they've telegraphed that for the last year or so.

So there's, it's, it, it just, it, I mean, it just makes, it makes me, it drives me crazy because in a sense he's going after one of the more successful companies that's trying to be reasonable, that has made a commitment of $500 billion to be spent in the US on infrastructure in their own projects. It, it's, it, it's just, it's just a bargaining chip. You know what Mike and, and, and, and Terry, he's going to, Trump's gonna change his mind again.

He'll drop this idea and then he'll move on to something else. You know, just like with China, I, go ahead. I'm sorry.

I, I just don't even think he really wants to bring it, he wants Apple necessarily to bring it over there. I don't think that's the point. I mean, I think the, the point is to dominate and, and, and control and, and, you know, whatever agenda and narrative he has in, in his mind, um, I'm getting whiplash from this, this whole tariff situation.

I'm, uh, you know, but I'm, I'm also looking at the, the market and I'm kind of wondering if the market stopped responding to him doing this too. It's seemed a lot more even. And it's not 'cause things have gotten better, you know, I just think, you know, maybe people aren't responding anymore, um, to this, this, you know, in, It's just, it's just, it's just absurdity.

It's like a, you know, the, the, it was the same time that he threatened the, the, the tariff of a against Apple that he threatened the tariff against the eu. And he had this June 1st, you know, doomsday deadline, which is since, and since he's pushed back, you know, there'll be a 90 day moratorium. Uh, it is just, it's just, it's, it's just like a, he has a bunch shuffled a bunch of, uh, index cards in front of him, and he's mixed them up in the wrong order, and he's just kind of, uh, reluctantly plucking one after another, reading something off that will change.

And you're right, Kerry, I I, I think that every time this happens or there's a thread, the market just is gonna start shrugging it off because they know that This is cluster and, and companies are gonna make the plans. I mean, listen, I've, I've worked with a bunch of economists and they said, you know, the worst thing that could happen when, um, you know, Trump did blanket tariffs and created this uncertainty in, in the market, and people couldn't make their plans, their business plans, right? And prices went wacko and the, the whole bit.

And I think what you're seeing now is that companies at least privately will be defying him and going on with the business plans that they think that they should have and the conditions that they think that they should be in. And maybe they'll have to adjust, who knows? But they, they will, uh, outlive him, so to speak.

You know? Um, and um, so I, I think, I think you're gonna see a lot more of that. I mean, to me, the thing with Tim Cook a again, is a little bit like his thing against Harvard.

Um, I just, I think there's just that, uh, these elements in there that we don't know or care about. You know, I mean, Two things, two things are gonna happen. First is, um, Trump's gonna wind up threatening Mexico with additional tariffs because instead of smuggling fentanyl over the border, the people will be smuggling iPhones.

That'll be sure, right. That'll become a thriving little business. And there you go.

And then if I was Tim Cook, I'd be like, I got the answer here. I'm gonna build a factory in Florida. It's gonna make $10,000 gold apple smartphones, and for an extra 5K you can put a Trump logo on it Too.

Exactly. Yes. We, yes, we talked about that, right?

That, that He's gonna, He's gonna, you know, that's not out of the, that's, it sounds absurd. It sounds absurd. That's, that's a potentially, I mean, apple wouldn't do it, but there, there's an idea.

He might discuss the idea with him, and then Trump will forget about it. But just, you, you, you appeal to the va the, the vanity, you know, the one, I think the one thing that may have triggered Trump too though was, uh, during Apple's, I think it was their latest, uh, quarterly earnings call this month, cook said something, I'm gonna read it. He, so cook is, I mean, one of the great operations experts, regardless of the industry in the history of business, in my opinion, and he, he said he expected the majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin.

They're gonna, they're gonna do that, and they're already doing it. They're already expanding. Um, they're, they're diversifying this supply chain because he is smart.

Um, but, uh, it, it's something again, he's, he's, he's navigated fairly well in terms of how he's handled Trump. And, you know, the, the smart thing that, that, that Cook has also done is he's not responded to any of these threats. And if he has, he's only kept it with its executive staff.

He's, he's really maintained and controlled the narrative here. So, um, I think he'll be Let, let's be fair to him too. I mean, it, it's a rock and a hard place, right?

'cause on the one hand, there's Trump, but you know, the people running China aren't exactly all that same either. So he's probably saying, you know what, maybe I will go to India and see if I can put some, Right. He's, he's dealing with two of the most difficult governments in the world, our own in China's.

And, um, you know, the other thing that doesn't help cook, and I always think about they have to develop, and we've talked about this before, but I'll say it again. They have to develop something outside of the iPhone. I mean, the, the, the whole headset didn't just kind of came and went until Apple Intelligence.

We've had people leave the company because they're so frustrated with the lack of progress. Johnny, I have ended up selling his, uh, his project, um, for AI devices to open ai, which is a big black eye for Apple. So Cook is feeling all this pressure.

Um, and it's, it's, it's gonna be interesting to see how he fares because you cannot depend on the iPhone. And that's kind of put them behind the eight ball here with Trump. And maybe Trump in, in his own weird way, understands that.

I don't think he does. But, um, it, it, Apple's came by one device company and it's all predicated on that device, so it makes them vulnerable. Mm-hmm.

So is the future some sort of Star Trek communicator thing that I tap on my chest that's connected to my glasses with my email as I go through? Or how does that kind of look to you Remember the Knowledge navigator? Yeah, I do On Scully era.

God, wouldn't that be interesting if we went full circle back to something like that? Huh? I don't know.

It was ahead of its time. Yeah. You know, the funny thing is everybody's gonna get glasses whether they need 'em or not, right?

'cause you gotta use 'em to get to the computer. So I know, I know. We didn't just become way more attached to like, whatever that is in technology terms, and then way more distanced from each other, just weirder as a society.

I mean, I don't know. What I, what I wanna know is what's the upside of Apple in Trump's mind? I mean, and I guess I don't wanna explore that his mind too much, but I mean, what's the upside of bringing the manufacturer over here of, of iPhones anyway?

What kind of jobs does he really think that would bring? I mean, Howard Lunik said there are a lot of screws to put into the iPhones and what that would be some stimulating work for people, but also how much could Apple possibly pay people over here to, you know, screw in hundreds of screws? Who wants those?

Yeah, it's like, that was a pro, like in China, the government there understands that they have a shortage of, of workers in manufacturing. They gotta start going to robotics, you know, that they're already looking, they're pushing it. They're like, no, we can't fill these jobs.

Who wants them? I'll give you a glimpse of a future is talking to a friend of mine over the holiday, and they're in manufacturing and they have a big operation in Vietnam, and they've been there now five, six years, and they hired 300 people when they started, and they still have 300 people. But that factory is 3000 times more productive because those 300 people have been augmented by robots.

And so, you know, over time though, you can see how the math's gonna go, whatever manufacturing is, is gonna be more and more robotic over time. And there might be a couple of people standing around to be quote unquote in the loop to supervise this thing. 'cause you know, the only thing bad about robotics and AI, of course, is it's one thing to be wrong.

It's, it's another thing to be wrong at scale when suddenly there's a million germs of yogurt that suddenly needs to be cleaned up. But Well, maybe here's a, you know, the, there's a, there's, there you go. We'll come full circle on this.

Maybe there's an opportunity for upskilling there. Um, you know, for people to manage the robots or the robotics. There you go.

I'm gonna, yeah. And there'll be like degrees of expertise, right? I'll be a first, second or third level robot supervisor.

That's something to go home and talk about over dinner. Thank you. I know one thing.

You better just train yourself for that job. 'cause nobody else is Yeah, I, I just, well, I just feel badly for Apple in a sense. They're, they're, they're the whipping boy for now.

Used to, it was Amazon and Jeff Bes Bezos until he made nice, and I'm sure this will pass this, she, this too shall pass. And then Trump will fixate on another company or another executive. I think the fact that Cook is just kind of laying low is the best strategy.

Eventually the Trump will move on to something else, Right? I think, no, I have a name for that job I just described. You are now officially, you're officially a robot wrangler.

You could explain that to people at home. Sounds much better than a robot manager. So Robot Wrangler, there you go.

I like that. Start looking on LinkedIn because you know that that job title's gonna start popping up there, Mike, you Yeah, it is. And then we're all gonna wind up going to the Robot Wrangler conference.

That'll be a fun, it'll be in Las Vegas, of course, at the Venetian, but yeah. And, and right now somebody's typing in that URL to see if they can claim it. All right.

Anyway, guys, enjoyed the chat. As always. Thanks for being on the show, and thank you all for watching the latest episode.

You of course. Please stay tuned. We have all kinds of exciting content coming up right behind that.

Until then, we'll see you tomorrow.