The Data Mix - Episode 15 - Mike Capone

Episode 15 Replay (YouTube)
Brian Booden (LinkedIn)
George Beaton (LinkedIn)

And just like that (well, almost!), we are back with another exciting installment of #thedatamix!

⭐ For Episode 15 of "The Data Mix," we are very lucky to have Qlik CEO Mike Capone!

We have so much to talk to Make about, including:

🎙️ Mike discusses his early career in technology and the pivotal moments that shaped his path.
🏢 Insights into Mike's leadership roles at notable companies, including his tenure as CEO of Qlik.
🧠 Exploring Mike's thoughts on data-driven decision-making and its impact on businesses.
💼 Insightful discussions on Mike's approach to leadership and management.
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Discovering Mike's thoughts on work-life balance and the importance of family.
🤔 Delving into the challenges and opportunities he faced throughout his career journey.

Please join us on Friday 13th October at 4pm GMT / 11am EST.

#data
#analytics
#thedatamix

Transcript

[Music] [Music] hello everyone welcome to the data mixum George and I I well I think George is back it looks like he is um I think the probably the last back I think I think you are back mate yeah um I think the last last time we saw you all um was with Christmas Al and we were running around panicking physically how we were in the wrong place at the wrong time uh well this time all of our Tech just crashed literally before the episode so I apologize if you got two data mix streams at the beginning there but it looks like we are back online are we back online George it looks that way I Ithink so fingers crossed all right good I I love the way that you're dynamically switching your camera like almost like you're complet completely unprepared for this iest of course but um there's been a few technology bugs in the system shall we say yeah I blame Windows updates always always at the least convenient time right always at the time exactly so look it's it's tremendous to be back mate and um I see that you even managed to get your rocket ship in the right place I managed to get the Xbox inthe corner and shot and you managed to get your rocket ship up so the important things are happening in life exactly so what you been up to since we last saw each other three weeks ago oh yeah that was well that that was a backdrop for this episode really wasn't it it's been an interesting um I think we've both been jet setting around that virtually speaking literally speaking um I I've visited two places in Ireland I think my my my last trip concluded yesterday actually um I was at the clickMaster Summit in Dublin which was a fantastic experience um I really really enjoyed it such knowledgeable people there and feeling quite humbled being around guys like Rob uh Rob vinder Barry harmson o like troyansky Nick Webster all of these guys like know what they're talking about and many many clickies in a room that just talk and click for three days so pretty much my I'm living my real life here to be honest how about you yeah well I mean nothing exciting me um this week client workshops um I've been to London notquite as salubrious as uh as as Dublin although you know the beer's not bad but it's a you know it's a London IPA that you drink as opposed to the Guinness in in Dublin um prior to that I think I was um Eastern Europe Lithuania and then the week before I think that was with you in London so yes um sorry about all all these Air Miles um I am getting solar panels installed as we speak so I'm hopefully offsetting my carbon footprint because I do feel bad about the jet setting we do yeah well look that's awesome stuffand I I think that I I'm not really one to talk I've been clocking them up domestically recently and um I'm heading down to see family over the October holiday as I'm sure many other people are at this time those with small children kicking around there as well so yeah it's been it's been an interesting time and as as you mentioned I think it's been about three or four weeks since the sort of conception of this episode show suspense here I think we've marketed this pretty openly as who we'vegot on board um obviously we were able to spend a bit bit of time in London together at Big Data London we'll chat a lot in the actual and the actual chat that we've got but um yeah three or four weeks ago it's been a while it's been a while it feels like so much longer in our lives um we do love to do the episodes in the room but it just wasn't possible this time to make it all happen so here we are exactly this will be an interesting episode it's a bit of a trial for us isn't it um so we're goingto be um playing our recording uh with us as a little picture and picture uh taking comments as they come in um but we'll see because if this works this gives us the flexibility to do quite a few more um using a similar format yeah exactly and just to it's always good to have the sanity check that we are actually online right so I'm just just having a look at the chat here and it's h it's good to see that that Kik is joining us um KY and and we've actually got some contact on the streamwhich is great so um look guys um it's also he has a very you know nice comment for you that you've been reducing your carbon emissions so that's very important as well so um guys if you want to keep on top of the chat of course we love to interact with you but because this is slightly different show this time we're going to we're going to be running the interview H we'll be keeping track of the comments and hopefully we can have some time all at end together where we can continue to chat about youknow Mike's comments um so we're going to be a bit different it's going to be a bit experimental and you'll see us flashing about the screen so yeah should be a good one um how you feeling George you ready to go for this I'm ready for it I'm I'm excited Brian uh let's hope that the pray to the technical gods that the it keeps up nothing bad happens yeah um and yeah do your thing with the with the buttons and make it all come together right nice one so um so let's give the official uh I guess theofficial intro then guys that this is episode 15 of the data mix we are we have recently interviewed Mike Capone and this is the recording of that interview and we look forward to seeing your comments in your chat and the interview lasts about 35 minutes roughly so we'll be back at the end of the show and you'll see us picture and picture to see our reactions as we go as well um thanks guys we look forward to speaking to you shortly [Music] okay [Music] good morning afternoon and evening wherever you are um my name is Brianbuen and my name is George beon and we're back and we're back it's been a while mate this is the data mix and we are at episode 15 of the data mix now parted history of this right there's actually an episode 14.5 of the data mix which did happen and was real but for lots of reasons we technical reasons we couldn't actually bring to you so Las Vegas reason part of Las Vegas related reasons yeah so part of today is being able to write that situation and make sure that you guys get the the contentand the guests that you deserve as our loyal followers so M it's interesting we where are we today we're in London right London why are we in London today big Daya London big Daya London I'll tell you what that's a big expo hall there if you were at click World think a bit bigger I reckon probably more vendors more stuff lots of date Avengers more cramped difficult to walk around difficult to hear each other it's it's uh it's chaos It's a Jungle but really interesting and some really interestingvendors there actually uh but we're not recording there we've moved away somewhere a bit quieter because there are no quiet places in the Olympia um but it's been a really interesting few days actually and for me there's been I won't talk about this too much but for me there's been really interesting stuff about the theory of data and whilst the tooling is really important I've seen a lot of great sessions about things like data literacy and data modeling and how how well attended those sessions are hasreally shocked me because people have shun the product demos and they've gone more for here Theory right the the big thing the big change here is AI in data that's what I was seeing every single vendor was pushing some kind of angle of AI um it's you know this is the human crying industry just now this is what we're hearing all the time so that that's going to be an intro for uh for you and our guest actually to talk about that in the technical side it sets some running themes for us doesn't doesn't itin terms of setting the Baseline for today and as you can see from our caption below there's no there's no suspense here we have a very big guest today we have um click CEO Mike Capone so without further Ado we'll we'll turn mik on let's let's get them on and make sure all of this is working it was like three minutes ago so hopefully it's still working now are you with us Mike I'm still here I didn't run away from backstage guys awesome welcome welcome today Mike nice to see you again youhaven't changed a bit since Vegas you're very kind so yeah Brian and George look it's great to see you guys happy to happy to be back and um certainly talk a little bit about Vegas and then roll forward from there sure that sounds amazing I think I think probably just to kick things off Mike we have to start about you know your gift bag um you were just telling us the story about one particular item in your gift bag that means a lot to us as Scots but maybe not quite as much to you as um Americans and it seems to be ournational drink iron Brew which does divide opinion when it gets exported but it's the only country in the world that outsells Coca-Cola is Scotland I think at last count it was the last country so yeah it's a shame that didn't work but I think you have maybe an acquir taste you have to be brought up on maybe what your thoughts on that like a nice easy question to start with well look I first of all I loved the gift bag you guys rock the gift bag look here's my data mix mug which I use religiously every day this isn't aShameless promotion for you guys I actually use this mug all the time and of course it has a click green in it so that was that was brilliant that wasn't planned oh that's that was our branding Mike not yours so yeah I think it's click branding I think uh look either way I'm I'm riding that one but I have to say so the gift bag was great the whatever that thing was the iron Brew at the risk of offending everybody in scotlands yeah was horribly offensive to my taste buds I as you know and I don'tit's not like I love Coca-Cola but I got to tell you I don't know how you guys choke that stuff down well interesting that's I mean yeah we're very patriotic in Scotland so you know I think hagus similarly the fight's opinion but you know if you're Scott you say you don't like haggus well I look I'll have the last word in the iron Brew debate before we move on here right and I think the thing to say in defense of iron Brew the best way to drink it is George will defend me on this out of a glass bottleand slightly flat and you had plastic bottle very fizzy version probably slightly warm from being CED around Vegas that morning um but yeah like um that's cool we'll let you away with that one but Mike we really really appreciate having you back here again obviously it was fantastic to be on stage in Vegas seems such a long time ago right and so much has happened since then it it does seem like a long time ago and yes you know and it was we were on the cusp of a lot of things in Vegas that we just weren't ready to announce so in the lastfew months we've actually had an explosion of different announcements obviously what we're doing with Talon our AI strategy click stage and you know look forward to discussing that with you guys in your audience yeah but I think so the way we're going to split this up then is uh is Brian's very much going to be asking the questions about the product and I want to ask a few questions about uh Mike the man who is who is the man behind the the company click now because how many what how long have you been there now Mike uh five anda half years five and a half years yeah so you you are you are now the the the face of click and you have taken it through some um very interesting um changes um which to all intense purposes we've kept the same fan club we've kept the same we've kept the same users and we've all been along this journey um with you but um for you to have taken the company through that journey I wonder that that takes a special personality a special character so I just want to understand a little bit about what drives you the man Mike whatgets you up in the morning um and how do you first of all what get you up um at what time is it where you are 8 am yeah it's 8: a.m here it's 8 A.M so we we D your first call of the day I presume uh was with I mean for that we're very grateful um but you know generally what what drives you what keeps you going um each day well so I'm a little bit older than I look my youthful appearance don't let that deceive you um I've been around the block a few times um and you all know I started as a programmer right I Istarted I I know you wouldn't believe it given how non-technical I am these days but I can still write sequel as good as anybody on this uh on this podcast what I'll say is this um at this point in my career the most important thing to me is to be around really interesting and smart people um and I really have the privilege to do that um one of the things that attracted me to click was this fiercely loyal very passionate community of you know luminaries as you guys are aware and customers and users um we have this this loyalty you know wewe have you know 93% grosser Attention our business I mean customers who start with click stay with click as you guys know very well and I get to surround myself with those people all the time and we get to solve really really interesting problems so really uh you know George what motivates me is that that um I'm working with people who really care about what they're doing they're not mercenary they're very loyal and um and together we solve interesting problems and yeah I get to collect a paycheck along the way but um the themore important thing is as I kind of write this chapter of my career like being able to do something super interesting yeah so this this isn't a job for you it's it's more of a it's more of a calling and it's this what we say is is the best way to work is is not to work pick a job that you love um and then you never have to go to work a day in your life that's that that is true that is true you know you're 21 years old and you're out of college and you need to pay the rent then you pick a jobbut you know as you get some flexibility in your life um I I Echo that advice uh very much which is you know you gota you gotta love what you do you gotta love who you work for we had a leadership form a click yesterday had all the people leaders on one webcast you know hundreds and hundreds managers and you know what I told everybody was you know the the first most important decision of your life is who you marry right we kind of know that second most important decision is who you work for you know the company but also the individual theperson and you know so I remind everybody like you are the most the second most important person in many people's lives your team and how you engage with them and how you make them feel and the passion and energy that you give every single day matters and those people go home from work every day after spending you know eight nine hours um working you know with click for click um how do you make them feel and I know I feel great every day and I think most of the click employees share that passion and energy for the company yeah but it'salso getting them I think to coales around a shared Vision Mike so as a as a leader this is what you you're setting the strategy and the vision for the organization which your teams clearly believe in your customers clearly believe in and they follow follow alone that's right that's right and look our passion is always about solving the hard problems right um we're not people view us as a visual analytics company they used to view us that way and you know we and we do that really well everybodyknows that um but what we really excel at what separates us is is solving really hard problems um we have um people uh we have a climate change conference going on in our office today in New York my office in in New York City today um and click as you know helps organizations like the UN and C40 cities to tackle climate change because the technology and the inmemory engine and the associative engine and all those things actually help people do that not not a lot of platforms can do that in fact none um but we can and that's thekind of thing that every click employee knows and believes in so and it is that differentiation of solving hard problems that actually gives people the energy to to to push forward with all the great things that we're doing yeah good and so then when you're when you're not doing that Mike how do you relax how do you kick back then at the weekend um switch off a little bit and maybe stop thinking about the kind of big world problems um and concentrate on your your own um well wellbe thank you that's all right I'mhere just to give you one word when you need yeah no look the good news is I have uh easy and direct answer for that I have a 16-year-old daughter who is you know the most important thing in in my life and my wife's life and um so I love click but you know my my time when I'm not devoting to click is is devoting to her um she's an amazing kid uh she's a great athlete she's a really a really good tennis player and so I end up uh just spending a lot of time with her um you know watching her tennis matches ortraveling to tournaments with her um I don't sometimes that can be as stressful as work um oh yeah yeah competitions and things but um it is a great balance uh that I have uh between you know work and and life um the trick is going to be you know in two years she'll be in University and they'll be a they'll be a little distance and I then I'm gonna have to figure out how to get balanc because right now she's it yeah I think so I've got two kids that have just gone I'm just gonna see what did we justdiscussed this morning about balance and kids get at home yeah so important but I bet she keeps you grounded Mike so when you've had a great day the office and you you're coming out on top um and then you go back home you've got a 16year old daughter uh to bring you right back down to us it is it's very humbling honestly you know because at work I think I told this story before but when the CEO people tend to listen to you right they tend to you know you ask them to do something they tend to to do it at home forget ityou know you know tell my you know whatever Sophie you know do your homework uh no I no no I'm not doing it you know or I'll do it later I'll do it in the morning or don't tell me what to do and okay um so you learn you know you have to adapt your leadership style situationally um to every moment and I've gotten really good at that but that humility that comes from having a teenager it sounds like you've experienced it um is helpful in leading a a big company they're are special people the teenagers I I think they're arace of their own actually I think I I think that's really interesting because you draw the line there between obviously personal and professional success so I mean just focusing on that sort of divide for a minute what's what what how do you measure that Mike right so you clearly juggling all of those things as a CEO of a major business intelligence company or major analytics vendor and then you come home and something else is happening how do you because I think we all struggle with that right and that sort of workingfrom home balance and being work dad and then home dad is you know it's it's hard so you know how how do you kind of keep yourself grounded on that on that side of things yeah you know I learned a long time ago that sometimes you just have to do things one day at a time you know you have these moments where you you wake up and you feel overwhelmed you know even earlier this week like we had click World New York City which is a huge event for us I was obviously the host I did the keyote you know I had customerson stage it was like Monday morning you know first Monday morning I had a board meeting on Tuesday we had our leadership Forum on Wednesday I had client dinners you know so I woke up Monday morning and and you know you get that sort of oh my God look at the look my calendar this week look what it's going to be and then you just realiz just like one day at a time I like all right I got to click world today I'm going to put my head around that and then you know then tomorrow is the board meeting as youguys know I have terrific leadership team I've got an amazing CFO so you know share you know share the share the the load like get get surround yourself with great people and then you know a problem shared is a problem haveed right so you get good people to help you solve problems um and then you know and then you find out then I come to Thursday and all of a sudden my calendar looks better and I get to start my day with you guys and I'm like wow this you know it's gonna be fun I'm gonna have areally and uh and I had that in my mind I was like all right if I can get through Wednesday then Thursday I got the data mix we're gonna have some fun I've got my schedule lightens up a little bit I'm actually G to go to my daughter's tennis match um this afternoon and that's all but you have to if you just let yourself get like totally sucked into the moment and get overwhelmed um you'll never you'll never survive the kind of stress that comes to being a CEO in a private Equity backcompany and having a you know 16y old daughter like I would just implode so one day at a time yeah I think it's super super important to have those external interests as well I think I've noticed that as well in my own life that you know you take out of work is the only thing and you don't have anything else I I owe a lot of people a lot of things for making me do some other things that are completely separate from that and it's had a massive effect on you know positively on wellbe yeah and these experiences actually help you inthe business world as well they they grind you when you go back into your business and you're like okay now I have perspective right so I had a terrible day yesterday but it's just a day that's right goes along with your well it's also um you know so I tell you another story which is you know one of my other diversions is I do a lot of non for-profit work a lot of charity work um on I think you guys know I work closely with on blood cancers um and I also do some educational stuff but last week hadthe opportunity Orlando Bravo who is the principal of Tomo Bravo who essentially I work for has a a charity in Puerto Rico and it's young entrepreneurs and uh and we did I was down in Puerto Rico helping him do like a little shark tank exercise and these are largely kids like they're kids that are like 192 21 22 who are starting businesses with almost no Capital um and grinding away like you know and I think okay like these kids and they're so energetic and optimistic and they have not a lot of breaks right I mean they'rethey're earning it the hard way and I think about you know everything thing that I have at my disposal to be successful and I look at these kids I'm like wow okay like you know what I if they can be so positive and so bold um I should be able to get up every day and be super energetic and super bold and then you obviously the that kind of work it's fun diversion right being a judge in a shark tank competition sure I think um you know not to go too deeply into it that George and I were having a conversation just before we came on airabout the importance of being present right and it's it's there in work but um quite often it's not their personal life and we just all need to remember regardless of this being an analytics or data show whatever it is that being grounded in what you're doing and being present in the moment there's nothing more vital in life for that to happen so I think it was really important for us to have to talk about that that side of things as well indeed yeah and I think you know that's it has been a journeyMike so obviously you know in terms of you know you have you talked about what you've learned what are like if you had the top three things that you could could pick out of what you're learned during those those up and down five and a half years what would what would those be and let's think about that a little bit more from the personal side rather from the we accomplish this as click type of side of things as well yeah well so as we talked about I've been CEO click for five and a half years rightnow I'm not sure you would find a more interesting five and a half years to be a CEO in terms of all the things that have happened you know I kind I wish I was a CEO from like you know 2013 to 2018 versus you know 2018 to 2023 sometimes because it was a little bit more stable environment right so um you know we've had to manage through a pandemic um we've had to manage through a a you know a geopolitical conflict right there's a fairly significant conflict going on in Ukraine I've had toshut down my Russia business which was a very um a terrific business for us uh over time um we've had to and then now we're in hyperinflationary environment um interest trades have gone up so it's really you know it it really does challenge you have to manage and get through cycles and things like that and the lesson learned and I was told the C this is um you just you have to be ready and flexible um you know my my guys you know my team you know James fiser and team you know they put together afiveyear strategic plan and I was like forget it I was like we have no idea what the world's gonna look like in five years there's no such in in the world of tech um you know things changed so quick like gen is exploding like a year ago nobody was talking about gen now it's gen so the big lesson is um just be ready for things to change because they're going to you don't know how but you know and be ready to adapt to those things and do and do you think that's been influenced by Co and the Ukrainebecause these are all like very serious events that have happened in a very short space of time if you look at it over a longetivity period that's a lot of stuff has happened during a very tumultuous period so I mean do you do you does does that make you account for things on more of a one-off basis does your brain start to think differently because these things have happened well if these extreme events have happened once they could easily happen again and 2024 we don't know that and does that affect your contingency planning it doesthere's been more Black Swan events in the last five years than you know there were in the last 50 right when you think about in terms of the the global magnitude of the events right and even things that look small turn out to be really really big so sus Canal getting shut down down right you know nobody had a model for that there was no spreadsheet that said hey if the canal shuts down here's what we're going to do and that had far-reaching incidents but like nobody nobody called that right youknow Fukushima nuclear plan in Japan right another example disrupted Supply chains um and now you've got the China economic you know um sort of pressure that's coming on right now um and so that's why you know I tell my team that we have to be ready but I also tell my customers you have to be ready and that's why what you guys do and and when you're not doing podcasts you know and what click does is super important because the way to see through this stuff is is data and data in real timeand so you know what I told the the audience at click World New York this week like never in the history of the world have you've been more important to your company and to the planet than you are right now because the way that we're going to navigate these Black Swan events is data the way you reroute your supply chain and your shipping lanes and uh pivot business out of Russia somewhere else is is by understanding the data and the opportunities exactly well that's that that seems like a great point to switchup to a little bit more of the data focus of Click because as we mentioned before accounting for these extraordinary events takes it takes new techniques and it takes new strings to your bowl and obviously click has added quite a few of those over the over recent times as well and obviously when we were in Vegas Mike and this was on everyone's lips we we weren't sure why Talent were there in such great numbers and what it meant for the company and then everything closed publicly really quickly after after the event so reallyI really want to start with how how it was and how it's going with Talent how are you guys finding all of that two companies into one because you're both massive companies so how has that process been for for you guys yeah it's a it's a it's an important question um and I know at some point we're probably going to start talking about geni and all all the the hype around that but the reality is we've been getting ready for this moment for five years you know we've always had a vision in our headabout where the world was going and where the world is going is harness as much data as you can in real time get the quality of that data to where you can trust it um and get it ready for analytics and AI um and then analyze it and then leverage AI not in a swivel chair mode of hey I'm going to go type something in chat jpt like you know but bring it in line you know with your business processes so we knew Talon was a great fit you as you know we we invested heavily in data integration so the eunity acquisition we did in 2019amazing you know that business is done terrific um as companies move to kind of modernize their their data Lake infrastructure and move into the cloud with Snowflake and data breaks and um that business doing great um what Talon uh brought which we didn't um really have at scale was this data quality aspect to it as well as a data transformation aspect to it not in the traditional like ETL sense but in kind of a modern like push down transformation sense so now we've got the full answer right we've got you knowthe the data integration in real time we've got the you know data quality data transformation um we've got now obviously the analytics platform that everybody knows us for um and we've got ai automl ai ai capabilities um but it's in line right and and so that that Vision um is coming to fruition the talent integration is going great um we've merged the sales organizations as of August so all of our customers have one uh sales representative who can sell them a piece or the full platform um asyou guys know we do business with a customers way business with us so it's not all or nothing proposition you want to buy data integration and use it with some other analytics platform I don't love it but of course we'll do that by anal say great but more and more we're seeing customers say you know what I just need to solve the problem the problem is an endend problem it's not an analytics problem it's not a data integration problem help me solve the problem as it don't you think it'sironic that the more and more you add to the the product portfolio the less almost the less you talk about click specifically and more about the solving of the problem we noticed that at Big Data London over the last few days is that people are much less concerned with we are using this tool it's more like we need to find something that fits our problem solution right and I think that was that was really important when you differentiated when you talked about talent and you talked about movement and click data integration compared toQuality because maybe I'm speaking out turn here and but I just want to put this out there I think a lot of people wondered what talent would bring to click specifically that we didn't have already right when we had all we had the QDI acquisition and all of that stuff happened and maybe what do you think about that statement mik do you think a lot of people thought well what is the part that this is filling in but I understand it now but maybe some people out there don't yeah it yeah the good news is I mean it's really reallycomplimentary you know when you look at the overlap between the two companies um we've had to do very little um rationalization of of products um they had a very small CDC technology uh that was a little bit of overlap with our our QDI platform which you know we'll we'll deal with but it was very very small um and a little bit of rationalization on catalog which we're working through but the core Talon products um you know the that was was new to us right now yes you you guys know our product well so youknow we had some light transformation capabilities inside of Click sense um Etc but like Talent is best in class in data transformation right Talon is best in class in data quality at scale like you know massive Financial Services customers massive um you know manufacturing customers all using talent and you know if I'm honest we didn't really have those capabilities and to to me you know starting from five years ago when I got to click I realized very quickly that um you know analytics is an important piece of the puzzle but it'snot the only piece and if we just keep like trying to run hard and out compete you know powerbi and Tableau um without creating other points of differentiation um that that was a race that would be really hard but now we've created the solution right the solution more and more if I talk to a CDO is not just the analytics it's oh my God help me get all the data got locked up everywhere in sap in mainframes you know in these Cloud systems you know workday and Salesforce um get unlocked that for me but then curated catalog it get thequality right get the lineage right help me help me build a trusted analy data analytics platform where I know the data is good um and oh by the way govern insecure right you guys see what's happening right now with company people are putting like they private IP into public LMS it's like the craziest thing ever um and my customers are the big Banks Insurance like forget it like if I was a a a data privacy officer right now I'd be having nightmares right and so my job is to help fix all that and togovern this stuff and to give people a trusted platform where they can Leverage The Power of uh gen and llms and yeah like Leverage the public llms as complimentary to what you're doing but for God's sake don't let your data like get out there and we can do all that and and that to me is a very important important point of differentiation between us and our competitors does this bring us nicely into the J I think J I was just going to let you talk about that a little bit as well and that seg is into obviouslyanother big announcement that's that's come out on Rec weeks from look I'm getting the data mix m in there I'm not even looking at the screen and I can see it happening you know what are your thoughts George obviously you know click stage well look I rewind a year not even a year I mean even I think U if we go back to um uh Las Vegas earlier this year when was that uh April yeah April people were starting to talk about chat GPT Jenny I was starting to and I think it was mostly kids saying wow thiscan do a homework for us and it was but it was exploding people didn't really know what it was and then what less than six months later clicker brought a product out and I mean that is um I mean you you talked a little bit earlier Mike about um you know how you can't make a five-year plan but um talk a little bit about how you were able to Pivot so quickly and embrace this technology what was this planned um or do you just have such an awesome team that were able to very quickly build this into um thestrategy and come out with some um you know really convincing products uh so thank you they're very very very flattering I I I feel like we could have moved even faster uh than we did my my team loves me for for that but look the reality is it was really important to me that whatever we did whatever we said was real and if you looked at a lot of the press releases that came out early on um they were Futures it's like here's our vision here's what's happening one of our closest competitors actually pointedtill April 2024 as like a launch date for one of their for you know something like that and so what I told my team is look we got to be we got to be present um but we got to be real and because that's our reputation with our customers is we don't we don't don't sell Futures like we we sell tangible stuff AI is not new you guys know this ai's been around for a long time yeah it's pattern recognition right it's all it is it's pattern recognition what is what is new is the the massive amounts of compute wehave at our disposal the quality of the algorithms has gotten better they've gotten smarter and now the technology is able to improve itself so like that exponential curve is really taken off and that's what we're experiencing right now click's been doing AI for a long time like you you got click world five years ago Josh was on stage showing the cognitive engine the Beast advisor and like all the stuff that chot TBD tells it was great like here's your data loaded into this model and boom here'slike five five suggested charts and graphs and here's some narrative about what we're seeing in the data right but now we can do that at massive scale and we can harness more and more and more data and guess who in memory technology is really good at doing stuff like that right this you know they talk about Vector databases like we we we've known we known Vector databases for a really long time and so what what we needed to do though was we needed to be articulate with our customers about what we'redoing and that's what you know Brian and George we're we're you're seeing right now with click stage is really an articulation of what we've been doing for the last five years to get ready for this moment and all the capabilities really we already have in our platform but in a much more cogent um presentation about you know about what we're doing and how the and how it all kind of hangs together both the data integration um and the um and the analytics and the AI and then of course you know my my passion which is thesemodels are really no good unless the data is good and can be trusted you've seen the horrible F false positives that have come out and as you also know they can be manipulated right these models can be manipulated um I I can tell you stories about what some competitors have done to make the answers to chat GPT look better for their products and that other products and um and we don't like we need to fight that like we have a moral obligation um as providers of data and analytics tools to be able to givepeople veracity when it comes to working with data that that moral obligation is a huge thing right as we move into the area of AI that we don't we don't just use it for the sake of using it and because it's there it has to be the right use case and it's our it's our responsibility and I say our in the Lo in the loosest sense of the word but also the tightest sense of the word we shouldn't let things be getting out there that we don't trust and it's Our obligation to raise the red flags whenthat happens so I like the um you know I I like the idea here of Click stage because it seems to me it's a it's a wrapper around all of that and it was interesting when we heard about it the first time the first thing that someone said to us internally was this isn't something that you can download and I guess from that perspective that's right Mike right it's not a product it's it's setting I think I see a strong direction of setting a framework for how click is going to handle AI moving forwards andthat's what I see primarily stage at is that is that fair would you say that's right no it's completely fair and look we we are as you know we're completely open we API everything right that's been our philosophy from the beginning our customers work in heterogeneous environments we want to help them so you know you can to very today you can punch out the chat jpt using data that's inside of Cl so it's always been our commitment to our our customers but to me the interest you know I'm a verypractical business person at the end of the day again we're back to has kind of solved the problem um I was at an event it was a terrific event it was hosted by HSBC and um and you know the folks said brought from silan Valley Bank in the UK and we're talking about Ai and they had a guest speaker who said um something to the fact of you know Standalone small AI companies it's fine but that's not where I would invest he's like if I was an investor I would invest in companies who can take Ai and apply it to realbusiness problems in workflows and platforms that people are already used to bring the AI in line with you know your existing kind of data analytics platform right and your automation platform right you know click has this amazing automation platform where once you get an Insight you can push it out to you know a POS system or into a CRM system and we do all that stuff and that's really what we're trying to do we're trying to make it Mainline and real and you see our automl platform which is now built into our analyticsplatform like that's what that's what we do we make it very practical and you know that's the solve you know honestly that's what we're trying to solve for look M I know we're running we're running up against the time Factor here as well and we did just just a last mention here we did want to just very briefly touch on um capacity licensing because obviously that's a that's another thing that's come in um of late and it's a new way to I guess get your get your licensing sorted with so maybejust a just a few like seconds on that if you have time because I know we're up against it a lot bit sure I can be very brief um everything we do is informed by customer feedback so over time um as you know analytics is transformed uh from people sitting at a desk like being business analysts like working analytics to much more of a um analytics everywhere right so you know headless analytics you're analyzing things in real time and making decisions and our customers said look it'd be more practical for us to move to capacitymodel versus user model because we don't really think in terms of users anymore we think in terms of um again Solutions and and consumption and a lot of as you know the industries move this way right so if you work with snowflake or somebody else you'd have the same kind of thing so we're really just responding to customer feedback um the advantages are are are many right which is you pay for what you use you know and you pay for our success is your success and vice versa whereas before you know you buythousands of users you didn't deploy them all you had this mismatch and we had to go figure it out now it's pretty simple like are you getting value out of the analytics or not you know and we benefit if you are so it makes puts us on the hook to make sure that you're seeing the benefit from our products we think it's a great alignment and I think that that on the hook thing and that feedback and on the hook of the last two things I'll just mention there Mike is that obviously you know George and I arepart of some feed feedback groups are as are many other customers and for us it's really interesting to see that click are paying pretty serious attention to when these new things are coming out now your feedback would was pretty um pretty sturdy I would say that that we're starting to see that oh the market is saying this really we hadn't seen that so let's let's talk at least talk about it so you know I think the openness of of Click as a company is is something that needs bit Yeah a bit of a mentionat this point absolutely and I think that that feedback look as you mentioned is something that um you know we're seeing the changes happening Qui quickly so when we're talking about something within for example the partner Ambassador forums um that's actually getting fed back very very quickly back into the product and into what's what's being said so for that thank you it's a pleasure look we have I said it before we the greatest uh users in the world now we got the partner advisory we'vegot the luminaries you guys know the energy of those groups there's no shortage of passionate feedback and it really isn't coming upon us to to to take advantage of that because it's Unique I like The Luminaries and the you know the partner uh program that we've got uh it's I've never seen anything quite so so powerful in terms of a user Community well um you know I think that's that's a good good positive way to finish and obviously we could talk for a lot longer mik and we've got tonsof other questions that we could ask but you know we really appreciate the the time that you've given us today George any sort of closing comments here for Mike just try that and Brew again you might second time around like in the same country yeah it'll be fine that'll be fine look um all we can say Mike is very a huge thanks for giving us your time it's h we know it's been a challenge to get us organized but um you know be super appreciated and hopefully the the community will will see this and see a slightly differentsite to you which I think has been a nice nice twist well exactly yeah we appreciate you starting your Thursday with us yeah it's been a great it's been fun I'd love working with you guys so thank you for having me on uh and I'll remember episode 15 yeah we got it we got it so that sort of wraps up for us George and I yeah until the next time George and I say thank you very much for attending episode number 15 of the data mix we'll be back with you very soon thanks everyone thanks all thank[Music] you okay so hopefully you can manage to unmute yourself George this is I'll unmute you there you go okay I hope I can hear you now yeah yeah well how do you how do you think that way there we go we go so yeah I I think I think that was good I I've quite enjoyed the tech mix that we've had here and it's nice to have this sort of reflective period at the end of the show where we're you know we've had a bit of time to think about what's happened our audience has had a bit of time to um to watch what'shappened as well so I think before we sort of dive into it a little bit George we got like 10 minutes left so I just want to you know call out a couple of people in the chat here so um now the first person I'm just going to mention here is let's get the ticker out of the way to start with let's that um we've got the um I love that tune and I know from having checked out LinkedIn live that this is Angelica so thank you very much Angelica we do love our tune here it keeps us going um and I flashed thisone up during the actual show as well but turn up the base Jo I like that I like the attitude we we we live in this place and we are here for you um a couple of others we've got going on here we've got um thanks very much Pete for tuning tuning in um glad you like the picture and picture it's a complete experiment for us George that started about 45 minutes ago so I liked it too though I liked it too yeah I I think that this is a nice little switch up for us rather than you know being on the Fly and having to pushall the buttons it gives us a little bit more time to reflect so thank thanks Pete we appreciate that we appreciate that um we're here we're getting towards the the end of the comments here in n and we've got we've got Jonathan Jonathan you're more than welcome I'm I'm really pleased that you like the that you like the format um or maybe you just like the part with M and you hate us which is okay as well um but you know I I think there's some parts of that that um that really clicked um and we'll just we'lljust get everyone a mention here while we're here Matas thank you very much for joining we appreciate it great talk again we'll assume that's pointed towards Mike and not us um one that we will talk about a little bit more is from anhel here click has the most practical approach to Ai and bi very interesting so be interest what if anyone's get any more thought on that as well um and last last couple here and them we'll dive in h you know from the well you're you're very well well glad we were able to supplyfor you hopefully it was a different slant than you normally see him in the wild and H let's finish with J again who simply sums up up completely with that so thumbs up wow that was that was that was a lot to unpack mate what what are the things that you wanted to touch on out of that episode and you know hav had a bit time to reflect on it one in particular so I genuinely I don't want to sound like a too much of a click Fanboy here but I have been impressed at how quickly click have moved on click stage and and toactually properly embody um uh an AI a chat GPT type experience um within within click sense and then Mike says yeah but we could have moved faster I'm kind of glad I'm not in his Dev team because I think S I mean what did they have six to 12 months um from that initial sort of wave to having a product out I thought that was impressive I think I think when you think about it in context like you see the time frame there is there's not a lot of time to react there right something pops up on the face of theplanet overtakes everything that's happening and not really production ready in a lot of cases or knowing how to use it to make it production ready as a challenge so we say but I think that the call back to the earlier things that we've seen from click is it quite interesting with the cognitive engine and you know the responsive charts and knowing which chart to select and that kind of thing that was all Ed back several years ago now and it's not new stuff for click so I think one of the interesting things that Mike mentionedthere was um just the volume and the compute has just made everything more feasible um probably the main reason that something like chat GPT has not arrived sooner is because there's never been enough power to actually Supply it and we're only just reaching that threshold now and I'm reticent to turn this into like a a geni you know dedicated discussion but I think it is it is worth remembering that that happened quite a few years ago for click now yeah so it's more rather than it being just in the right place at theright time um would you say they were just waiting for this day they were putting all the building blocks in place the uh the developments the trials everything from having the chatbot um in there um has you know LED them on this path and they were just waiting for the uh the explosion in compute power yeah look I think I think there has to be a bit of balance here right we have to be at least slightly um skeptical here and say not every bi company is prepped for everything that ever happens right I think there is alot of Truth in in the statement that um you know we know about Insight bot and insight advisor and all of that kind of thing has been around we know that the Beast and the cognitive engine have been around for a while so and those have been quite public things that have been like so I do think that they had a bit of a leg up here and that it wasn't uh this clearly isn't a strategy that's just landed on the ground and and run with it um that's that's my opinion on it anyway it' be interested to hear what what otherpeople think but yeah yeah well there's a couple of interesting comments now um uh coming in one from um JM sorry I po pronunciation but um y stage is great talent is great but the comone integration with click will be a game changer um we need road maps yeah look I think in the technology space that we work in nowadays this is one of the most challenging is and Mike referen and his call you know five year road maps that is very difficult to ascertain when something like chat GPT or NE just lands out of nowhere or a a real a real usableversion of it lands out of nowhere how much do you flex your plan to you know make that happen and I think one of the things that Jos I think your comment is great actually stage is great talent is great but the combo and the integration and there's the that word integration again and um I think I think click has grown up a little bit into a big boys bi tool is the way that I would I would or a big boys platform now used to just be you know you've got your click View and you've got your click sense but we've seen the portfolioexpand and you have to give them a you have to give them a modicum of credit for that because they they filled the gaps quite well and I was probably a bit bushy on the call there when I talked about what's I effectively asked the question what is talent for and what does it replace in the product suite and how what Gap does it fill Mike answered it quite eloquently and I think it's important that people know that in a in a pretty basic capacity why these companies are being purchased because sometimes it canjust get lost in the portfolio right and when it's a big acquisition you want to have that clarity about where it's going as well yeah but they've kept the same North Star um I would say um and that was to be a a leader among bi tools they didn't you know they're they're not a uh they're not a powerbi um they're um they're certainly not uh a tableau but what I think um they have been really good at is they they've had for a long time they've had this uh inmemory Advantage um you know they were one ofthe first products out there to kind of get rid of the cube um and come out with inmemory analysis and then what came along was compute um and um you know companies like snowflake um and then for a while powerbi was um was was taking over there it's I'm still not entirely sure if you know I'm hearing a lot of people saying um in memory is dead I would like to argue um with that because when you're then doing Edge Computing when you're sort of working offline as such um and you don't necessarily haveum direct access to tools like snowflake um then in memory still is useful but what I've seen click do really well is um is take the opportunities as they come along um and um uh work well with them um you know there's the saying that you make your own luck well you know when the opportunities come they've just I think um used them to their advantage okay I sound like a click Fanboy again but no I think I think that's fair but I think to counterbalance that just a little bit you could say that click have introducedan overwhelming amount of arms to their limbs to their body and for the average person who is involved in click that that gamut of things that you can be involved in is much much wider now and I think there is you know because we we are an agnostic show here we can talk about things like powerbi and Tableau and we're certainly not saying that click is the answer to everything but I think brand dilution here is it works two ways right it's great to have all these strings to your bow but is is the message coming across thatyou're brilliant at everything or is the message coming across that you do just do everything and I think that's one thing that I think needs to just be honed a little bit because obviously you know click stage fantastic concept great to see great to see that there's presence out there but we do need to see it in action and we do need to see that actually walk in the talk rather than walk in the walk rather than just talking and that maybe seems harsh but I think in a world where you're constantlyacquiring and you're constantly making promises you do have to back those up so I mean do you think that's a counterbalance there to to what you were saying yeah I do because there's um there is a concept that um or they could be accused of just taking every single opportunity that comes along um and then you know one of them will pay off so yeah that's that's probably the other way of looking at it and there there has sometimes been a little bit of criticism about their their product Suite is nowso wide that um we're not we're not quite sure what the overall strategy is I I think when you kind of meled in one of the other things we talked about briefly at the end was capacity licensing and having been in touch with you know various parts of the community Through various channels over the last um over the last we while that the feedback on that has been I would say generally positive but not overwhelmingly so because there are things with capacity licensing like Mike said which are fantastic you on aconsumption basis if you have a bunch of readon users or professional users and you have a company of a certain size that absolutely makes sense however if you need something that's maybe in a tier that is not the tier that works for you financially but you get the other stuff does it then make it worth it and what about the smaller organizations as well how does capacity licensing work for them so again just sitting on the fence and Playing devil's advocate on that a little bit I would say that to touch on the feedback loop that has beenpretty strong and I know that some of those points that I have just talked about there are an active discussion with various parts of the community so I want to be careful that we give a balanced view here right of what what things are and it's not just the case of you know it's great you've got stage and talent and capacity licensing those are all very good additions but they all have their things that people need their Clarity on it so yep all food for thought and good um good discourse a really interes of um it'svery different for us the way that it's happened and the tech that we've done but we hope we might not do this all the time but I think there's a good chance that we could we could switch it up a little bit as we go through what do you think mate I it's been good yeah I've enjoyed it y I think it's it's been an interesting way to and especially listening back as well um it's uh reliving The Experience yeah yeah it's worked for me all right nice nice well you know what it's it's a lovely pleasure to bewith you as always with your rocket in the background my Xbox and R2D2 sitting there as well and we're just rounding out on the hour now so um it's Friday October holidays are on the way in Scotland um so I think it's about time we release our audience so just thank you very much for everyone that's attended we hope you like the format George any words from you to close just have a lovely weekend everybody when it comes and thank you for being uh thank you for being online with us um and watching the watching Mike back with usas well in uh in real time superb well we will be back very soon with episode 16 of the data mix um we will let you know as soon as that is on the board have a great weekend everyone we will see you then cheers bye [Music] bye