Sunday, May 19, 2024

Lessons Learned from AWS Leadership Transition

After just three years, AWS is making another change at the top of the leadership org-chart. What lessons can we learn from leadership transitions and what might come next?

SHOW: 822

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #822

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"


SHOW NOTES:


AWS HAS NEW LEADERSHIP. WHY NOW? 

  • Adam Selipsky is out, Matt Garmin is in. What does it mean?
  • Why is AWS making the change now?


WHAT LESSONS CAN WE LEARN FROM SELIPSKY’S 3 YEARS AS AWS CEO

  • Probably don’t take the job immediately after someone is the Nick Saban of tech
  • Don’t be the complete opposite of the previous boss (wings guy vs. wine guy)

[Andy on X] Lead Amazon, married and father of two kids, big sports/music/film fan, experienced buffalo wings eater. Go Kraken!

[Adam on X] Husband & dad. Water skier/tennis player. Fan of Seahawks & Sounders. CEO at #AWS.

  • [Andy Jassy] I’ve always had a lot of respect for Adam, and we met several times to discuss the possibility of coming back to lead AWS. In those conversations, we agreed that if he accepted the role, he’d likely do it for a few years, and that one of the things he’d focus on during that time was helping prepare the next generation of leadership.
  • [Andy Jassy] Matt has an unusually strong set of skills and experiences for his new role. He’s very customer focused, a terrific product leader, inventive, a clever problem-solver, right a lot, has high standards and a meaningful bias for action. 
  • Realize when your job is to lead and inspire vs. producing the weekly report
  • The post-ZIRP CEO of AWS
  • 2021 - $62B, , 2022 - $80B, 2023 - $90B, 2024 - $100+B
  • Lost key people
  • Behind on GenAI vs. other clouds
  • “Wartime CEO” vs. “Peacetime CEO”


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Wednesday, May 15, 2024

AI Safety and Regulation

Mark Collier (@sparkycollier, COO @openInfradev) talks about the advantages of open source AI and the intersection of OSS and AI transparency, safety, and potential regulations.

SHOW: 821

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #821

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SPONSOR:

SHOW NOTES:

Topic 1 - Our topic for today is AI Safety and Regulation. I saw our guest speak at All Things Open here in Raleigh late last year and he is also a Cloudcast alumnus having been on the show previously talking about OpenStack and the OpenInfra Foundation. We’d like to welcome Mark Collier (Chief Operating Officer @ OpenInfra Foundation) for this discussion. Mark, welcome to the show.

Topic 2 - There’s a lot of news today about AI safety and regulation. The industry also seems to be caught up in an AI arms race of who has the bigger model, faster model, etc. OpenAI have become the early category leader but they might have started with good intentions, but, contrary to their name, they aren’t open… at all.  One message in your talk is how open-source software will prevent the coming of the “AI overlords”. Tell everyone a bit of what you mean by this. What is the problem we are facing and many may not even realize it.

Topic 3 - I don’t want to call you old (I think we are about the same age), but you’ve seen some things. You’ve also been around OSS and foundations for a bit now. How can open source solve the problem?

Topic 4 - We hear a lot about AI regulation, but this seems to be a moving target. What is both the current and future state of AI regulation? In my opinion, we haven’t seen a lot of successful regulations to date. We saw recently the EU pass an AI Act. Is this the first of many? The start of a trend?

Topic 5 - Let’s talk about the “day job”. What’s new with OpenInfra Foundation these days?

Topic 6 -  OpenStack releases are still going strong and you’ve even run out of letters on OpenStack releases and have rolled around on the alphabet and are back to C. This is the 29th release of OpenStack. What’s the news for the Caracal release?

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Saturday, May 11, 2024

Bringing Open Source to AI

Happy Mothers Day! And let’s explore some new happenings at the intersection of open source and AI. 

SHOW: 820

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #820

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"


SHOW NOTES:


HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL THE MOMS

  • Call you mom, be good to your wife, and be a role model for the young girls in your life


OPEN SOURCE MEETS AI

  • The big AI question: 1 model, or many models?
  • 2023 was the year of model diversity, and the beginnings of “open” models (Llama 2, Mistral, etc.)
  • Can we make it easier to contribute to an open model?
  • Can we create communities around models?
  • Can we reduce the costs of expensive parts of AI? 
  • How can businesses bring their knowledge to a model, without security concerns about their data? (options like RAG (retrieval augmented generation) exist)


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Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Front-End Clouds and Web Development

Malte Ubl (@cramforce, CTO @Vercel) talks about Front-End web development and clouds, how AI impacts front-end infrastructure, and impacts to the business.

SHOW: 819

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

Topic 1 - Our topic for today is front-end development and front-end clouds, and we’ll also explore AI-generated front ends. Our guest is Malte Ubl, CTO at Vercel. Malte, welcome to the show. Give everyone a quick background on your time at Vercel and Google Search.

Topic 2 - Let’s start at the start. We hear all the time about front-end developers and back-end developers. What is your definition of a front-end and, more specifically, a front-end cloud?

Topic 3 - What are the most common use cases you see today? What problem are you solving when you talk to organizations?

Topic 4 - How much of a front-end is typically integrated with 3rd party services, and how much is build your own?

Topic 5 - Where does AI fit into this from a developer's perspective? Are we to the point where we can develop a front-end from a prompt?

Topic 6 - Let’s talk about the business side of this. Do companies typically have a “front-end problem”? If so, what does it look like, and how do they know?

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Sunday, May 5, 2024

Identifying Leadership Traits to Follow

What are the key characteristics and red flags with today’s leaders in the tech industry? How to identify the leadership skills, the team building skills, and the execution skills.

SHOW: 818

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #818

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"


SHOW NOTES:


WHERE ARE THE LEADERS IN THEIR CAREERS? 

  • Are they a 1st time manager?
  • Have they managed distributed teams? Managed multiple teams?
  • Have they managed a P&L? 
  • Have they had significant success in the past? What was their role?


LEADERSHIP SKILLS, TEAM BUILDING, EXECUTION AND RED FLAGS

  • Are you joining an established “team” or group that’s worked together before?
  • Is the leader repeating a previous success, in a similar or different domain?
  • What motivates the leader? What is their view on competition?
  • What are the leader’s best skills? Do they recognize this? 
  • Does the leader augment their skills with the team around them? Do they recognize this?
  • Does your personality mesh with the team you’re joining, or are you expecting to be a change agent?



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Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Cloud News of the Month - April 2024

Aaron (@aarondelp) and Brian (@bgracely) talk about all the major news stories in Cloud and AI from April 2024

SHOW: 817

TRANSCRIPT: Cloudcast #817 - CNOTM - April 2024

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES: 

Segments Covered in the Show:

  • Good Old Fashioned Cloud News
  • The AI Innovation Continues - Speed Round
  • Trend 1 - 2024 is going to be a year of big announcements
  • Trend 2 - We’re starting to see some (early) reality set in with AI
  • Trend 3 - Lots of things are being lost between Broadcom/VMware and AI discussions

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Sunday, April 28, 2024

Open Source and Business

Every few years we have to be reminded that open source isn’t a business model. Let’s talk about the business dynamics that everyone seems to keep forgetting.  

SHOW: 816

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:  The Cloudcast #816

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"


SHOW NOTES:

OPEN SOURCE IS A LICENSE, NOT A BUSINESS MODEL

  • There are rules around software licenses (e.g. Apache, GPL, etc.)
  • There are no rules about how people feel about software, creators or maintainers

FREE, FREE TIERS, EXTENSIONS, CLONES

  • Red Flags: Writes most of the code, took VC funding (multiple rounds)
  • Green flags: Lots of diverse (companies) contributors
  • Yellow flags:  Foundation owns copyright
  • “There’s the business side and there’s the hippie side of OSS”
  • “I have endless ambitions”
  • “I didn’t build a forever entity”
  • “When is the rug pull going to happen?”
  • If a company takes VC funding, is open source anything more than a marketing vehicle?
  • “Docker figured it out and now they are doing like $100M”. Did they? 
  • When is OSS personal, and when is it a company?
  • Will there never be another Red Hat, or just not another Linux?
  • How much is too much when determining if a company should give things away for free?


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