The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source - The beginnings of Microsoft Azure (Interview)

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

We're on location at Microsoft Build 2018 talking with Julia White, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft — a 17 year Microsoft veteran. We talked with Julia about her take on this “new Microsoft���, Satya Nadella's first appearance as CEO when they revealed the first glimpse of Microsoft’s cloud offering which started with Office, the beginnings of Microsoft Azure, Azure as the world’s computer, and how every company is becoming a software company.

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All right, welcome back, everyone. This is the Changelog, a podcast featuring the hackers, leaders, and innovators of open source. I'm Adam Stachowiak, editor-in-chief of Changelog. On today's show, Jared and I are on location at Microsoft Build 2018 in Podcast Central, talking to Julia White, corporate vice president at Microsoft, 17-year Microsoft veteran. We talked with Julia about her take on this new Microsoft, Satya's first appearance as CEO, when they revealed the first glimpse of

Microsoft's cloud offering, which started as Office, the beginnings of Microsoft Azure, how Azure is becoming the world's computer, and how every company is becoming a software company. Let's start by going back a little further, maybe to the beginning of maybe this cloud, what seems like maybe a story of the beginning. Oh, wow. It was...

The day you were born. An awesome day in 2014. Just kidding. It was Satya's first CEO appearance, roughly, unveiling what I think... And so I'm hoping you can share more of the story. It seems like maybe that was the beginning of what is now Microsoft's cloud. Office was the first thing you were rolling out in terms of a cloud-based application to different devices. You were his co-presenter.

Oh, that day, yes. Your jacket got a lot of press, as much as you did. Take us back to those days. Take us back to that story, that cloud day, those days in the cloud. Yeah. So that day was big for a lot of reasons. We'd already been in the cloud, but I think people kind of woke up and really realized we're serious. The messaging started. Yeah, I think it started sinking in and, but you know,

we'd put a lot of the groundwork down, which was important. So then when people started paying attention, we were ready. Um, but as much as anything, I think that when, you know, Satya came to the helm and starting with that day, but it's continued on since then, it was a real clear pivot of what mattered. Right, right. And the choice to, at that moment, launch the Office apps on iPad, which was what blew everyone's mind, was an important thing. Yeah, crossing over. But it was just a symbol of, hey, all those things you thought we'd never do, it's gone.

Yeah. It's the new norm, which is break all the rules. And it was just shortly after that, I think he stood up and had that Microsoft loves Linux moment. Similarly, I'm just really trying to set down the clear guidelines of like, this is where we're going. We're going to go where our customers are, and we want to make them successful wherever they choose to use, which is obviously a big shift. I want to pin one thing down, too, because in this keynote was, I think it was Scott Guthrie's keynote where he said, Microsoft loves open source. So you got the Linux moment there. But I think what's interesting is that, you know, this is the beginning of the cloud for you, but you've been with Microsoft for a long time.

So I want to share that story because you've got such a history. And you've seen Microsoft maybe in a day where developers didn't, maybe open source developers, indie developers had less love, or maybe there was a different, what did Julia say? Julia Lucian, how did she frame it? A different lens, I think is what she said, for the way Microsoft's perspective was. You've been here for a while, so that was a turning moment. How has maybe the vision of Microsoft,

maybe the perspective of Microsoft changed since the beginning for you. Wow. You've been here for a while. I know, 17 years. Woo! Makes me wince a little bit when I say that. Well, 2001 was the year I got out of the military, so.

Ah, okay, so there you go, right? Long time ago. That was a long time ago. So you feel it, too. I was like, it feels like yesterday, but it wasn't at all. It was not yesterday. No, no. Yeah, well, my gosh, back when I started 17 years ago,

I remember we had the anti-Linux campaign. It was one of the big, I remember the guy leading it, and it was like Linux is free like a puppy. All those crazy campaigns. And it's so funny now. I remember I spoke at, I did the Red Hat keynote, I guess two, three years ago now. Right.

And I remember thinking, God, that's different. Like, here I am, you know, talking about our great partnership, and this is amazing, and we love Linux. And when I, you know, 17 years from now, it was a very, very different thing. So I think just a big shift. And I think there was always energy there, but there was just this strong mantra of, like, you know, Windows or bust. Windows or bust, Windows or bust.

And now we recognize that we just don't, that's not reality, and we don't need to do that. We can be, you know, we want to be with wherever our customers are. Do you have any insight into the Windows robust mentality now? Like what the perspective is on Windows in comparison to say the world is a computer, you know, and Windows is a part of that world as a computer, but not the computer. Right. It seems like Azure, what you run is the computer.

That, I mean, that's, it's the open platform. Right. You run anything you want to run. You can use whatever tools, whatever language or database., it's the open platform. You can run anything you want to run. You can use whatever tools, whatever language, whatever database. So it's a very different, yeah, we still have a point of view, like, gosh, we think Azure is very differentiated and it's this growing computer for the world, but it runs anything, everything, welcomes all developers

versus having an operating system or a toolkit perspective on top of it. The reason why I ask these questions is because I feel like our audience, very indie developer, very open source focused. Right. The changelog has been like we pretty much cover open source. The language is the technologies, the people. Right. And I feel like maybe they need to kind of keep getting reminded that Microsoft is changing.

And someone like you can help them evolve their perspective of Microsoft. Yeah. You know, I always talk about perception lags reality by three to five years. And I think we're in that place with the open source community where what we're doing is actually, I mean, this ironic moment, we were working with GitHub recently and looked at the contributions of what Microsoft's doing, and it exceeds all these other companies that are known at their core.

Did you try that? Was that purposeful? In terms of what? The contributions to GitHub that you kind of... Like to get that stat. Yeah. We're going to be the number one. We're going to get that... We didn't.

We didn't like, hey, we're going to be number one. We really weren't. I mean, to me, it's one of those moments where you're like, wow, it's not something we're faking or trying to make it. It just happened. It literally just happened in terms of we said, hey, everyone, we're thousands of developers, go forth and do what makes you successful internally.

And this is where we got to in terms of the contribution. So it's amazing. To me, that's like a true indicator of change. Satya set out to do it a few years back and it actually happened when you see that kind of stat. One of the things that I've been thinking about with regards to Microsoft's, we'll just call it success in open source, is that open source,

the mindset is really, and it's an idealistic mindset that we realize doesn't exist in reality, but there's this meritocracy to it where it's like, may the best code win or the, you know, let the cream rise to the top. And on our best days, you can't market or you can't like shove or you can't do anything except for like show up with your software to get the respect that people earn through open source efforts. Right. And it seems like specifically with VS Code, but I mean, there's many other efforts as well.

It's like maybe the three to five year lag is because you guys have been earning it through shipping awesome open source software that has really contributed so much to the whole ecosystem. It's like, wow. What's kind of cool is even Microsoft has to earn it, and then you guys have. Totally. People are like, I don't understand this community and how it works. And I always start with exactly your point of it's absolutely earned.

You can't buy your way into it. You can't, like, relationship your way in. You just earn it, which I love at some level. It's just so true and authentic. But, yeah, it is. It is absolutely earned. But it takes time. It takes a long time.

Yeah. But that's okay. We're in. We're doing this thing. Not committed. I mean, the thing I love, actually, is when you look and, of course, we look at the other clouds out there, and I actually think

in a weird and crazy ironic way being more open source friendly than the alternatives, which is how did we become the best in class? Someone who's been around this long, it's interesting. I love it. I'm like, let's go forward and just blow everyone's minds. Anything unexpected coming up for open

source? Anything that's? Like anything that's Windows or anything that's like... Someone did ask me yesterday, when are you open sourcing Windows? Let's see. I mean, I think we are considering things that might surprise you. I don't know exactly when and how they'll come to light, but I

think, I mean, honestly, everything's on the table. What's right for the future of the company? And again, Azure brings a different perspective to everything of what helps Azure grow. What do we need to use for that? Let's go back to the beginning of Azure a little bit and that any platform, anything runs on Azure. Old Microsoft, it would be Windows, right? Windows runs on Azure and it's going to be Windows.

Yep. Was that decision hotly debated? You know, what was the conversation around, are we going to go this way or that? Because that was really like a fork in the road for you guys. It was. I mean, we started, it was called Windows Azure when we launched it, if you remember. I do not remember that, but it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, when we first launched it, it was called Windows Azure. And then it was, I can't remember how many years later, under Satya, that it became Microsoft Azure. And we were, you know, we welcome all. So it wasn't, interestingly though, in the pivot of like, we do, how much do we support Linux, and what does it look like, and how serious are we? It was one of those things where there was

a little bit of pressure, a little bit of pressure, but then as soon as Satya came forward, it was like, of course! It was just this fast, like, absolute decision to move forward. So now actually, Azure's half Linux, half Windows. You look at the number of VMs running. So it's perfectly even.

What's your perspective on Satya's maybe earning it too? New CEO, new direction. How did he set the tone? How did he gain trust from the rest of Microsoft to move those directions? Was it easy for him? What are some clear things he's done that helped enable this new Microsoft? Yeah, I mean, from an internal perspective? Anything you share, like your perspective. I mean, you've been a co-presenter with him.

You've been here for a very long time. I made him improve his style. Is that right? I just want to make sure he gets the points for that. Well, the jacket, did you end up getting a Twitter handle for the jacket? We never did launch a Twitter handle for the jacket. What's the jacket? Yeah, tell them for the jacket? We never did launch a Twitter handle for the jacket. What's the jacket? Yeah, tell them about the jacket.

Yeah, so the jacket. So we, when Satya's first press appearance after becoming CEO, and I was his co-presenter, and I wore this leather jacket that I didn't think was a big deal. It was just a leather jacket, many of my leather jackets.

And, like, the internet blew up over this thing. Because? And people, like, because they would love this. She looked cool. They thought it was awesome. Okay.

And apparently it was awesome. It was awesome. I know. I had no idea. It was the best purchase ever. Right? I just thought you were buying a nice jacket. I know.

Someone was like, you need to put that thing in the Microsoft Museum. It's made in Microsoft history with your jacket. So literally for two years after that stupid presentation, that wonderful presentation, I'm still like, everyone's like, I don't know who you are, but I know you got a good jacket. I know you and your jacket. And then you're trying to, oh, there it is. Oh, he's pulling it up so you can see it. But every, yeah, see, and ever since then, every keynote, people are like, well, I got to look good.

I got to look cool. There's this new bar. I even had our CFO, Amy Hood, who was not known for dressing up. She dresses like a, I don't know, a 16-year-old coder for most days. And she did one presentation, and she was like, I was getting old coder for most days. Um, and, uh, she did want a presentation and she was like, I was getting ready in the morning. I just thought, what would Julia wear? What would Julia wear? That's what I got to do. I feel like maybe I should start asking myself that because I can use some help over here. The jacket is super cool.

We'll, we'll include a link in the show notes for anybody chomping at the bit to want to see this, but very cool jacket. I can see why. So you helped him get a better style. I take credit for a little bit of image improvement of the company with that moment. And then raising the bar and all of the executives to look a little better. So I'm keeping at it.

So aside from style, how did Satya change the direction for the company? What are some milestones for him that you can see that he's done that earn trust from internally as a company? Yeah. I think nothing of this size of change happens overnight. And so, honestly, I think some of his magic in driving the change is just being super consistent. Day in, day out, day in.

And as a new conversation arises, like, oh, should we do this or should we do this? Should we open source, should we not? Should we contribute back or not? It's yes, yes. Lots and lots and lots of decisions every day that are very consistent on the execution. And Scott Guthrie, too. I mean, it's not just Satya.

Right, of course. It's a team. Yeah, it takes a lot of us. Well, why I ask that is because you had a different direction under previous management, let's just say. And not naming names, we all know them. But, you know, it's a big shift. It's a new Microsoft, and everybody keeps saying that.

I think we've had conversations with different executives, different vice presidents in Microsoft, and we keep kind of wheeling back to where did it begin and how did it happen. And that's kind of what we're getting at. Got it. I mean, it sounds so simple, but it begins with starting with what makes our customers successful.

And if you start from that point of view versus starting with the point of view of like, hey, here's my agenda and I'm going to shove it on our customers. Versus, hey, what is our customer's agenda and how do we fulfill that? It seems really simple, but it actually just comes down to that. Like, hey, we want to make sure our customers are super successful. And let's make sure we work that direction versus the other way. Do you remember the first conversations about open source?

One interesting thing, so just from where I was, I was in the Office 365 team for like eight years, and then it was three years I moved over to Azure, so we'd already pivoted on the Azure side to embracing open source fully by the time I arrived into the Azure side of things, so in my office life, all those conversations

were, do we support Android? Do we support iOS? How do we do that? So that was why the office on iPad was so pivotal for that moment. But I think it's less about being open source, but about being cross-platform. It was super symbolic of this is a new direction. And then when I came over to Azure,

we'd made the decision, and we'd been bracing, and we were supporting, and I worked on this partnership with Red Hat, but when you go out into the world, people had no idea that we were doing it. Or if they heard about us doing anything open source, they were super skeptical. And they assumed it was because they embrace and extinguish. I got

told that a lot. I see what you're really just going to embrace and extinguish. I understand. So the conspiracy theory, so high. Which is fine. I understand. You can earn your way out is fine. You know, I understand. You can earn your way out of that, which I think we have. So getting more serious. And then it's just kind of executing it consistently.

I never want to keep bringing you back to the fire, so to speak, to keep saying how you earned it. But again, I'm going to just go back to explaining why, just so you know. Our audience is very developer, very open source, very indie. And I think there's just been this, as Julia said, this different lens, this different perspective of Microsoft that is changing. And I want to give them a reason to see why they can begin to evolve that perspective. What makes it credible? Yeah. Well, I don't want you to keep going on about it.

I'm just explaining our perspective. Yeah. Why we're asking those questions. And no, it's helpful to understand the lens that people will kind of listen to this. Yeah.

What are they looking for? Like, in a business sense, Azure's not going to be successful unless we're super successful with open source. Like, just that. Yeah, yeah. You know, my CFO cares

because Azure can't grow if we're only a Windows platform. Yeah. That is a very limited growth. We can have a much, much bigger growth opportunity so just dollars and cents wise you have to do it. We need to do it.

We want to do it on that front. And then the other thing I think about our own we're so developer oriented internally. We're super dev culture and they're out there like I want to build fast I want to build efficient. I want to contribute. Gosh, open source is a super efficient way to do that. And it just happened. When you said, kind of go forth, use

whatever you want, innovate however you want, it just happened. It wasn't because the developers went there and saw the efficiency of it and how useful it was to use all this different open source code and bring it into our products. I mean, in my perspective, Microsoft has, for a very long time, maybe, I would say always, but I don't know

the entire history of the company, but for a very long time been developer cent would say always, but I don't know the entire history of the company, but for a very long time been developer-centric, but it was always the developers on the Windows platform. And so there's like this huge swath of developers that you're outside of the sphere, and so there was no developer-centric for them. But now, because of the shift to services, with Azure at the forefront of that, well now it's everywhere, all developers. Right, I mean that's the thing. If we used to be about our Windows platform and getting developer engagement on our Windows platform, we had a very specific point of view.

Yeah. Kind of to Julie Lewison's point of view, like, hey, there was a lens about Windows developers and how we get them. And then when suddenly you say, hey, it's not about a Windows platform, it's about this Azure cloud platform, then you're like, oh, all the rules change. Like, oh, okay, I can think about things completely differently. So, yeah, it is the same developer centricity, but a totally different business lens.

Completely different business model, which allows that. It's interesting just the broad sweeping implications of that primary. I mean, it's a big decision, but away from Windows platform and towards cloud platform or Azure just completely changes the opportunities for the business decision-making. It's a whole new ballgame. This episode is brought to you by Linode, our cloud server of choice.

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Once again, leno.com slash changelog. Let's talk about Azure. Yes, near and dear to my heart. Yeah, near and dear to my heart. Yeah, near and dear to your heart. You know your competition better than we do. There's lots of big players in this space. Sure. How does Azure stack up and what, you said it's differentiated.

Give us some of the highlights of why Azure is differentiated. I love that. I've never gotten that question before, just so you're clear. I've never thought about that. Yeah, threw my slider in there. I wasn't ready for the differentiation question. Hang on, what do you mean? There's someone else out there. What?

I have to say, being the number two cloud in the world, it keeps you on your toes. It's kind of a fun place. I was in Office for all these years where you had this number one position. The incumbent, yeah. Yeah, right, and it's all about protecting the franchise, and it was so fun to switch over to Azure where you're like, oh no, we gotta let go, baby. So why, what do we differentiate? Basically, the core of it goes back

to that developer experience, and we went, kind of spent some time, like what's the soul of Azure? The company, Satya made us all spend time, like what's the soul of Microsoft? Why do we you know, Satya made us all spend time like, what's the soul of Microsoft? Why do we exist in his very interesting and philosophical approach to problems? And we did the same thing on Azure. Like, what's our soul and what do we want to stand for?

And the thing we came back to is that developer being productive and having that incredible developer productivity experience as part of our cloud. I'm like, it's just a developer platform. That's what it is. And so that's our core. How do we do that differently? And there's tech, fine.

We'll support all the same tech everyone else does and other things. But how we do it. So one of the things I talk about is around serverless. Event-driven came out. So AWS launched Lambda. Innovative, new. But they didn't put a lot of support around it.

It wasn't like, you've got to figure it out. On the forums, people were like, this is kind of complicated. I don't get it yet. And then when we brought out functions, we had the whole kind of VS toolkit ready. We had SDKs. We had support and docs around it so that you can just get going. And it's a subtle thing, but to me, it's a good example of how we think about

we want every developer, whether you've never heard of serverless in your whole life or whether you're like the master at it, we want you to be great at this. We want to make sure you can be incredibly productive with building whatever you want to build. And so that's, as we think about the technology and how we support it, that delivery of it is much about how we want to be different and more helpful, frankly. And I also, there's a little bit of, you know, Microsoft always been great at saying, we want everyone to be successful. We want to make it something that everyone can access

and not have any judgment. And I think I look at some of the competitors and I see there's a little bit of judgment. You're like, if you're not like the leading edge developer and you don't totally get cloud and then, you know, there's a little bit of like... Which is intimidating, right? Yeah, there's a little bit of like, I guess you don't get it.

And I'm like, I don't judge right? Yeah. There's a little bit of like, I guess you don't get it. Uh, and like, I'm like, I don't judge. We welcome all. And I want everybody to be successful. I don't want any kind of like, Oh, I guess you don't get it too bad for you. I don't know.

I just think that edge doesn't work. So that's how I want to, it's interesting. You got there by doing a little soul searching. Yeah. We're big fans of retrospectives, big fans of iteration. It just,

in the case of Microsoft, you've been around long enough to kind of re-examine who you are. For sure. And even at a, at one single service level to understand what's the direction. Cause you can't, you can't get everybody on board of a plan. Right. Unless you understand who you are and what you're going to do.

Yes. Right. Can you maybe share a bit more about that, that retrospective aspect, like going into that, like who was involved? Yep. How did you get there? What were some thoughts that came from that? Yeah, it was a really important time because I think, you know,

because AWS had started so many years before us, as we came in as a, you know, a second place in the delivery order, I'd call it, we really had to say, we can't just like chase the leader, like that strategy is the most flawed strategy you can find, right? No one wants the same technology from us. An also-ran or a me too. Right, and strategy you can find, right? No one wants the same technology. And also ran around Me Too. Right, and no one wants that, right?

But we had to do some just core matching the tech. So there was work to be done just to make sure we had equivalent technology from a VM's networking storage, that kind of thing. But then we had to stop, and it was the entire leadership team, and it was a pretty long process because it had to be true and authentic because people had to buy into it kind of like or you know we had to earn our own stuff internally right to get everyone on board and it started with just you know what are what's going on in the in the industry broadly what are the topics from a trend and a technology perspective but then i really got into these in-depth like long like over dinner sessions with customers and we'd wallow with them, and we'd start tech, right?

And then you stop, and you start more talking about, what about you, and what do you want as a human? And really getting this another level of conversation with developers, with IT admins, with business decision makers. And the thing we kept hearing was, this is a little scary and a little overwhelming. After you got past the idea of, this is awesome, and there's so much cool tech, it's super great and I can't

wait to do event-driven and containers are awesome. And then they'd be like, and I think it's a lot of work and I don't know which one I should be using and everyone thinks I should know and I don't know and I'm kind of scared by that. And I remember a couple guys, they were like paused and they kind of were like, I just have imposter syndrome all the time. That's how it feels.

And like those to me were like those gems of, okay there's tech and there's, but then there's this truth and this quiet place inside of like, what are you going to do about that? So that's what we grabbed onto. Like hey, we can understand that, we can empathize with that in a way that

I think other companies who are newer and haven't been through the journey that we've been and the humble self ree journey that we've been in the humble, you know, re-evaluate, self-re-evaluation that we went through as a company that gives you a new perspective on the world versus, you know, the hubris of, you know, never making mistakes. And so I think it allowed us to hear that in a different way. And so that's really started to be centering. And then we had this conversation like, God, what's the, that's the history of our company. That's been true of our DNA since the beginning of time. And one of the engineering leaders who works for Scott started saying,

let's help our customers fall into the pit of success. How do we find that in this pit of success idea? So anyway, so it was a long, kind of iterated, iterated, where we really started to get to the point where we would talk to anyone across the team, and you'd just see them, they'd get it. And they're like, yeah, that's what we are. That's how we're different. That's what what we are. That's how we're different. That's what we stand for.

That's what we're going to change the world. And it started to emotionally hook them. You kind of see it. So that, you know, culmination over like the whole course of the time, it was probably nine months of really iterating, spending time thinking like, is that quite right? Not quite right. Move forward and kind of picking our spot. To give you a little credit to your nearest competitor,

they'd never shipped boxed software. So you kind of was born in an idea of you have to get it right because if not, it's a recall, right? That's true. We talked to Julian about the idea of like, what was it, recall bugs, I believe is what it was like to tear, right? Recall class bug, yeah. Recall class bugs where you have to ship software to a store in a box

and somebody buys it, buys a license of it. Yeah. It's a different world. They never, Amazon never had to do that with AWS. That was never a box software mentality for them. So to have to reevaluate how you do it. They are pretty good at shipping boxes though.

Yes. The different kind of boxes. Whole different kind of box. Yeah. Whole different kind of box. But yeah, no, we remember those days of reclass class bugs, yeah. Like, whoo! I mean, it had to change, you had to change your perspective.

Because you had a different DNA then. And to evolve into the new cloud-based world, everything is a computer, or the world's a computer, you had to evolve. Absolutely. And actually, I mean, the real cloud story of Microsoft didn't actually start with Azure.

It actually started back with Exchange, our Exchange server. Okay. Our email server. Yeah. And it was actually Ray Ozzie a million years ago. And we happened to be on the Exchange, running the Exchange server business back then. And he came into the company, and he, remember, he'd come along, and he'd sit with us, and he'd be like, I don't know what's going on at Microsoft here.

I feel like this world's happening, and time has stood still here. And I remember Terry Myerson actually was the engineering leader of Exchange back then, and I was leading the business side. And Ray would say these things that were just like, ah, oh my God, can that be true? Like this world is gone somewhere and we are being left behind and like, you know, and, and so Terry would be like, ah, what are we gonna do about this? And so finally, uh, Terry Myerson, I give him tons of credit.

He's like, we're going to the cloud. We're putting this stuff in the cloud. We're doing it. And, uh, and everyone thought he was crazy. Like literally thought he was crazy. So he actually did it in secret. He did this thing called exchange labs where he launched it as an education program for universities as an excuse to be able to ship things in the cloud that no one, you know, wasn't going to affect businesses. So he stood out, you know, stayed out of the line of fire from the sales team and other things. And so we started kind of secretly out of the back closet, creating this cloud service for our email system and under Exchange Labs.

And it was this crazy and insane story. And Ray Ozzie, every time someone would like, you know, light up at the company, be like, what is this thing? And Ray Ozzie would like protect it and shut them down. And we were always like running, and they're like, Ray, help! Wow.

And that's how it started, like so many years ago. I can't even, I want to say like 10, 12 years ago, like a long time ago. We put the first thing in the cloud. And that's when we learned. I remember they came to me, they're like, how are we going to do customer support on services? And how are we going to make money in subscriptions? And I was like, I got no idea. I'll go figure that out.

Hold on. You know, let's go figure that out. And anyway, but we did it. And then that became, over time, Exchange Online. And then over time from from there, became Office 365. And then right about that time was when the original Windows Azure launched. But that was our first shove into commercial cloud, was over this interesting Ray Ozzie-sponsored side project.

Where do you think Microsoft would be if you didn't have Azure, the cloud direction? If you didn't change direction? If you didn't agree that you were stuck in time and everybody else was moving forward, so to speak? Right. Where do you think Microsoft would be if you didn't do what you've done? We'd be in a bad place. I mean, we'd be in a bad place. I agree. Right? I mean, the world,

this cloud services is where the world is going. There's unquestionable, and because it's a better model. There's so many, and there's so much truth to it. I want to make clear when I say that, we have a clear world view about the cloud and edge. Talk about hybrid, intelligent cloud, intelligent edge is another kind of a flavor of that, essentially.

Where the edge is not your data center, your edge is this distributed thing. So, when I say the world's going to a cloud model, that means the approach, not necessarily that every piece of code will sit on a public cloud. Right, it's involved, yeah. Yeah, but it is the center of the whole of this thing. So we would be in a really bad place,

and it would be true for the Office franchise as well as what we're doing on the Azure side of things. So absolutely essential. We would be in a sad, sad, sad decline. Not number three in the world. No, no, no. That was essential. So I know as I was actually just doing a video

for Terry Myerson's farewell, and I was thinking to you, you shoved us kicking and screaming into public cloud. And like you had the kahunas to do that where a lot of us didn't. open source continuous delivery server built by ThoughtWorks. Check them out at GoCD.org or on GitHub at github.com slash GoCD. GoCD provides continuous delivery out of the box with its built-in pipelines, advanced traceability, and value stream visualization. With GoCD, you can easily model, orchestrate,

and visualize complex workflows from end to end with no problem. They support Kubernetes and modern infrastructure with elastic on-demand agents and cloud deployments. To learn more about GoCD, visit gocd.org slash changelog. It's free to use and they have professional support and enterprise add-ons available from ThoughtWorks. Once again, gocd.org slash changelog. plug. You're a corporate vice president at Microsoft, which is one of the largest companies

in the world. Yeah. We're a budding media company. You're effectively looking at our company. There's more than just us. So I suspect we live very different lives. I'm thinking about your work life. What does it mean to be a corporate vice president? And I was just thinking you have to have worlds of insight into leadership, into getting things done, pushing the ball forward. Can you share with us stuff that you've learned

through the years about how to inspire people to do what they're doing and how to push the ball forward at Microsoft? We all got an opinion, so I'm happy to give you mine. Okay. From the wisdom that I have gleaned over these years. I think, first of all, I think as a leader, authenticity is so core to everything.

And I think other human beings smell bullshit. Can I say that? I have a bit of a pie mouth, so I just got to check myself. No, but human beings smell that. If you don't feel like that leader is being authentic and true to you and brave even though they don't know all the answers, people waver. And so I think that's so, so important is saying

super authentic to who you are and what you believe and getting people to follow you and want to work with you and be with you and take these crazy risks with you. So that's super essential. I think as a leader in tech particularly, you constantly have to be questioning everything you've done and just because it works last year doesn't mean it's going to work next year and that that like uncomfortable push of changing all the time you know human beings don't love change it's caused

us to survive all these years um being risk averse um but like that absolutely destroys you in technology and so having the willingness to be like, I know we did everything like that last year. We're going to change it all next year. And everyone's like, ah. And there's so much resistance in the system. And I remind myself constantly as a leader, like, hey, a lot of resistance, a lot of pushback doesn't mean you're wrong. It just means you're driving change. And change is hard.

And there's uncomfort to that with all the people around you. So being bold and courageous in those moments of heightened resistance is still super important. And I always talk to teams and other things of change doesn't feel good, but it doesn't mean it's wrong. And you have to separate the discomfort and being wrong and realize those are different things. And so don't take that signal.

And a lot of times I'm like, hey, we've got to go drive this change. We've got to move forward. And people are like, everyone's upset about it. And I'm like, hey, we've got to go drive this change. We've got to move forward. And people are like, everyone's upset about it. And I'm like, and you've still got to go do it. There's good ways to do it bad. But just know that that is a truth. And I think it took me a while early in my career. Like, oh, there's a lot of resistance.

I must be wrong. And you're like, actually, no, it's the opposite oftentimes. How can you detect that? Is it always in retrospect? Or how do you know when the resistance is because we're wrong versus the resistance is because it's changed? Because you can become quickly tone deaf if you're like, I'm always right, everyone's always wrong, I just have to jam my

ideas on them. Yes. So I think that combined with really truly listening and really listening with empathy, not just listening for what I want to hear. For most people, listen for what they want and then they remember that part. Or just waiting for their chance to talk.

Yeah, there's that. But I think, you know, it's not just been a lot of time on empathy, which to me has, like, been so essential in my career. Really, really understanding. When someone's saying, I hate your idea, let me tell you why. I think you're totally wrong.

And I'm like, let me, okay, I really want to know. It's time to listen, yeah. Like, okay, I don't want to be wrong. Yeah. Like, please, that's a gift. If you think I'm wrong, I want to know why. Welcome criticism. Yeah, and, like, listen, and to listen. Yeah. Like, okay. I don't want to be wrong. Like, please, that's a gift. If you think I'm wrong, I want to know why. Welcome criticism. Yeah. And like, listen and really listen. And I really try and understand where they're coming from and their, their condition of being. So I can say, you know what, from where you sit and the pressures you're under and the,

what motivates you and what people are expecting of you, your perspective makes a ton of sense. Now I really understand what your point of view is, and I understand why you don't like what I'm doing. And then I can evaluate and say, hey, there's real truth in there that I have to listen to, or like, gosh, that is a condition of being that would, of course, make you resistant to this. I get it. Or is there other people that feel the same way?

Yeah. Is this systemic across the team? Right. Great. Do we need to pause and change one thing before we change several things? Yeah. Yes. Because sometimes your idea could be right, and how you're doing it is bad, right?

Right. So navigating that. Sometimes you need a minor course correction, but sometimes you need to change directions, right? Yes. Clarity, expectation, those are things that often leave people in lack of clarity. No, it's true. You have to go back and here's the mission, here's why we're doing it. This is why it makes sense.

I understand you're in these circumstances, but this is the way we should move forward for these reasons. We've done a bunch of research at Microsoft around brain decision making, human condition, emotion, reaction, and actually with a bunch of PhDs in brain sciences to help our leadership team in general get better.

Right. Awesome. It's fascinating. You have a team of PhDs available to you to make decisions. It's nice. Why not? I love that. There have a team of PhDs available to you to make decisions. You know, it's nice. Why not? I love that. There's a few upsides of being in a big company like ours. But that's one of them.

And the leadership principles that have been laid out, and they're so beautiful and they're so simple and they're so true, which are clarity, which you just spent time talking about, and energy, and business results. Like, those three things. Like, if everything you do as a leader kind of comes down to that. Can you create clarity about where you're going, why you're doing it, what's the purpose? People getting really understanding it, creating energy, meaning people want to follow you.

People are in, they're putting their whole selves in this. They're going. They're with you. They're getting rid of the resistance. And then delivering the results, which then of course gives you reward of like, hey, let's do more of that. So every day, literally, come to work, I'm like, all right, clarity, energy, results. Clarity, energy, results. And it's so simple, yet it's so incredibly effective.

I like that, Jared, a lot. Clarity, energy, results. I like that, too. See? Everyone even remembers it, too. See? Breaks it all down. Because there's like 65 wheels of leadership, blah, blah, blah. I like that, too. See? Everyone even remembers it, too. See? Breaks it all down. Because there's like 65 wheels of leadership, blah, blah, blah.

I can't remember that crap. Give me three. Yeah, totally. I can operate on three. Yeah, and you can do a lot of other things great. But those three are essential. Right. So it's interesting.

We're speaking with you. We spoke with Corey Sanders. And we also spoke with Steve Guggenheimer. And in upper leadership positions. And I can't speak to the results, but across all three of you, what I'm experiencing listening and just conversing with you is clarity for sure. Energy is the number one thing. There's a lean in.

There's an excitement. Definitely. To all three of you guys' response to these questions. So it just manifests itself. But I'm really of the three. I'm really the best. Yes, of course. Corey, you hear that?

On the playback, listen, Corey. He's got the worst jokes, but he wins there. If you can win for being the worst, I guess. What's your day like in your day? Never the same, I would say. What I do and where I spend my energy is essentially creating,

making sure that people have the right direction, and then I'm getting obstacles out of their way. Like, what do we need? This is where we got to go. What do we need to get it done? And, you know, some days I miss that I could sit down and, like, write something or, you know, build something. But it's about making sure that the direction we have set

is moving forward smoothly. And whether that's reviewing something or approving something or authorizing something or giving feedback or tackling a blocker, that's kind of how I spend my time. That's fun, right? Tackling blockers? It's not bad. It's not bad. Sometimes it hurts. I was like, sometimes I think I'm going to glutton for punishment, but that's how it works.

Can you give an example of what a blocker might be and how you tackle it? Maybe a fun one for you, a recent fun one. Let me think of a good one. And how maybe it was strategic and leadership. You know, it's super recent, so let me pick it, because it's super recent and I think it's off my mind. So we announced here Project Connect for Azure, basically bringing the technology that was in the Connect sensor that we launched with Xbox into the HoloLens and now essentially connected with Azure AI services to create a new, very intelligent edge with this incredible depth sensor.

So we made the decision to announce this, we're going to announce this, we're going to do this thing, and we're going to be part of the Azure family. So previously it was over in the Xbox team. And from the Xbox perspective, they had sunsetted the product. And so there was this interesting thing of like, those of us, you know, from the Azure side were like, oh, it makes perfect sense.

The intelligent edge is coming to four, IoT. There's so much incredible opportunity. You have this world leading tech. There's so much technology sitting in that thing, right? Yeah, like unbelievable, right? But then, like, if you were from the Xbox team, you just made the decision to end of life this thing, and then you run on to different pastures, and we'd work with people to move on.

And so it was just like, okay. So there was this incredible resistance to this idea of how we do this and why and when and how are we going to, you know, is it going to feel like we're just bringing something back and all this. And so it really had to, A, provide clarity of like, what is this about and how is it?

And you're like, hey, what you believed this tech was for before, it's about a whole new thing. Yes, it's the same tech, but a totally new use case and a different approach and a different way. So just getting everyone kind of talked down when everyone, you know, came up like, Oh my God, this is ridiculous. This is crazy.

Like, no, no, let me explain why it's not. But I like spend some time and making sure they understand the vision for the future versus, and then also literally listen to like, I didn't know the history. So I had to be like, what, what, what was the history? Tell me, I don't want to do the same things again. I don't want to, you know, step in a big doo doo. History. You got to know that to not make the same mistakes right they repeat

themselves and be sensitive to what history was and make sure that like when we talk about this thing that people get it and they don't be like oh this is something on toes and stuff like that you want to do that so it was an area i kind of dropped in with not a lot of information but like go get it done kind of thing so it was this you know tense intense moment of like understanding listening driving and making sure i was really hearing signal from noise. Like, that didn't matter. That doesn't matter. That's relevant.

That's not relevant. Go. So as an example. So what does the future look like for the Kinect as an edge device or the way you're thinking about it now? I can't wait. I mean, I think it's amazing. Like, literally, the camera can be still,

and you can render like a 3D understanding of an object. Like, if I think it's amazing. Like, literally, the camera can be still, and you can render, like, a 3D understanding of an object. Like, if I think about whether it be retail or healthcare, manufacturers, so many different scenarios where suddenly what was, like, just a camera sitting there looking for movement can suddenly actually see something completely different and help people do more efficiently, especially in healthcare. There's a lot of opportunities there.

So, I mean, we're just early on this one, but wiring it up with our AI services, you're like, man, this could be a game changer. So do you actually, are you going to sell it as an individual product, or is it like you're going to integrate this technology into new products, or what's that? We're actually looking at all options at this point.

We just know we have great tech, and we want to get developers' hands on it and work with it. I mean, again, a little bit of new Microsoft culture. Let's start. Let's put an idea out there. Let's try it. And let's see what unfolds in terms of And this is part of the open source announcement too. The IoT runtime.

So we did. We open sourced our IoT Edge runtime. So people can take that and put it on all different kinds of devices, including this new Project Connect for Azure. So that'll be one of the places. But then what we can do with this incredible depth sensor that we have, in addition to those IoT and AI services, so it just gives a new technology to the stack.

So we served you the softball on the differentiation question. Are there any other questions that we didn't ask that you've just been waiting for? You're like, I can't wait till they ask me about this so I can answer that. I can get to that piece of it. What can we ask you? I actually expected you to ask more like, I can't wait until they ask me about this so I can answer that. I can get to that piece of it. What can we ask you?

I actually expected you to ask more like what this intelligent edge and like hybrid and that area. I don't know if that's as relevant. It's more about build than I don't know what that is relevant to your audience, though. Go ahead and tell us about it. I mean, you're like, we'll find out. Satya is a brilliant man and for real, like the real deal. And he has these ideas that are so deep and so long-term that sometimes people are like,

I don't know what he said. Let's just follow him anyways. I'm sure it's right. But the world view that he's created of intelligent cloud, intelligent edge, and he spent some time on this keynote talking about intelligent cloud, intelligent edge, and I've gotten a lot of questions like,

okay, so is that IoT? Does that mean hybrid? Like, what exactly is that thing that he's talking about? And so I try to break it down for folks. It literally is his point of view, and a shared point of view, that every application type that we build moving forward will be this combination of the technology

that is the public cloud, and the technology, like compute and data, sitting on these edge nodes. And the edge nodes, if you think about it today, the biggest edge nodes are these giant data centers where technology is running. And they're using the cloud and most people call that hybrid. Talk about that as hybrid. But that data center is going to evolve into a huge set of distributed connected devices from cars to tiny little sensors in refrigerators and thermostats and that type of thing.

And each one of those will hold application code and will be running local processing, local compute and AI and make meaningful things, not just dumb sensors that ping back to the cloud and just ping on a regular basis. And so the edge is going to become maybe just as powerful as a data center, but in a far more distributed technology set. And so how do we think about, as a developer,

how do you think about, okay, my world's going to look like that, and every application's going to have a cloud and edge component to it. How do I start thinking about that? And the most obvious way that happens today is IoT. And so we bring it right back to like, okay, this IoT is this use case. People can kind of

get their head around today, right now, and understand it. But I do believe that IoT and Edge will converge over time into this example of what this intelligent Edge looks like. I feel like we're making this chasm, we're crossing this chasm of like application developers, web developers, to now not just delivering

an application to, say, the web and an application on a phone or something like that, to now think, like, well, my device could actually include a drone or a refrigerator or the washing machine or just various interesting things that may end up in somebody's plate. Like, that's an interesting web developer to, say, a world developer. Yeah, I like the way you put it. Ooh, a world developer.

So I think I understand Intelligent edge a little better now that you've explained it because I'm likening it to kind of the move away from like mainframes with dumb terminals, right? So more of a, still a client server model in the traditional sense, but now you have the thick clients, right? So like the idea is our edge points, that button you know right in your house or that thing in your fridge right is not going to be a sensor that's just sending data which is what they've kind of been so far yes they've been dumb dumb edges dumb edges a small and largely disconnected and not a dumb edge right right and so now the idea is like no let move, you know, similar to a thick client architecture, is let's move that intelligence into the edge. Yes.

Of course, still the cloud is where the bulk of the work will be, you know, maybe the source of truth is. Sure. But there's lots we can do in these devices. Of course, smartphones is like the number one example of like a very thick client, right? Like a very smart edge. Yes, absolutely. That's interesting. I didn't put that together.

Yeah, so like the word intelligent edge, I was just like, it was kind of just a buzzword until now it makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. Well, there's two things happening right now. Yeah, what's sitting on the edge is, when it is even connected,

it's kind of a dumb. It's just like, it's hot, it's cold, it's hot, it's cold, it's off, it's on. Like that's the amount of information being processed there and being connected with cloud. But the potential there is going to blow up fast in terms of what's possible and when we can run there.

They even showed the AI, computer vision model running on that Raspberry Pi device. Super simple example, but there's a lot more you can do. Well demos have to be somewhat simple to not fail in real time. That's true, that helps too. It helps. And also approachable.

You get it. Yeah, we're trying to get that. We really tried to put it in examples people could kind of get their head around because it is a different way to think about the world. And so you have to, you know, let me show you some ways we think about it to kind of bring people along.

Well, Julia, thank you so much. I know we've got a hard stop here soon. So it was a pleasure talking to you. You guys as well. Thank you for sharing the backstories. I personally love hearing those. I like to have the opportunity to talk to someone like you, soon so it was a pleasure talking to you guys as well for sharing the backstories i i personally love hearing those yeah i like to have the opportunity to talk to someone like you to lean back into this history like microsoft is a big part of my entire life and so to kind of like

even retrospective back into my life and see where this company is now where it was then and the the process you took to get there yeah Yeah, it's pretty amazing. But I love the, just like I'll call it any maturation. There's a lot of humble pie you eat along the way, but it makes you better. And I kind of love that about Microsoft. And I see other companies that are younger and they're a lot more hubris still.

And I think you're going to figure it out. Where I feel like, God, we have this unique wisdom that I feel fortunate to be part of. All right, that's it for today's show. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoy the show, do us a favor, share with a friend, go on Twitter, tweet a link. If you've got a newsletter or a link list, add it to that.

Whatever it takes, share with a friend if you enjoy the show. And of course, thank you to our sponsors, Rollbar, Digital Ocean, and GoCD. Also, thanks to Fastly, our bandwidth partner. Head to fastly.com to learn more. And we catch our errors before our users do around here at Changelog because of Rollbar. Check them out at rollbar.com. And we're also hosted on Leno Cloud servers. Check them out at leno.com.

This show is hosted by myself, Adam Stachowiak, and Jared Santo. Editing is by Tim Smith. Music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. And you can find more shows just like this at changelog.com or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see right back. Breakfast of champions Breakfast of champions Do you ever put avocado On your breakfast? I love avocado Anytime I put avocado On your breakfast It's a good breakfast Yeah

It's like you're trying To be healthy that day You're doing it right By your body And it's Yeah and it's delicious One step closer to You know

Being good for the day I never put it on mine No? Really? He hates it I'm an avocado hater I don't hate it It doesn't do anything for me

Really? You're like neutral to it I'm neutral Fascinating. I like guacamole. Okay. But just plain avocado, it's just like kind of. It's like a staple in my life.

For me, it's hard for me to be good breakfast-wise if there isn't avocado. I see. So if I don't have avocado, it's kind of like. It's your linchpin. Waffles, syrup, you know, bring it on. Just do it. I see. Where is the, okay, we don't have it.

Let's just go this way. I'm an on or off kind of person. My wife says, you get a flat tire, you don't slash all the tires. You fix the one. And you're like, what? But if I'm going to have avocado. There's avocado. I mean.

I'm kind of like that. Waffles are open. Syrup. Why not? And then there comes the bacon, right? Well, the bacon isn't actually that bad. It shows up. That's when I show up.

I like it. Amen. I was like, oh, does someone say bacon? that bad. If it shows up, that's when I show up. I like it. Amen. I was like, oh, did someone say bacon? I was starting to check out on the avocados, but the bacon came in. I was right back. He was like, I'm neutral. I'm not neutral.