Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering NAB 2017, brought to you by HGST. Hi, welcome back to theCUBE. We are live from NAB 2017. I'm Lisa Martin in Las Vegas, excited to be joined by the co-founder of Avalanche, Josh Colden. Hey Josh, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. So tell us a little bit about what Avalanche is. Well, Avalanche is a file navigator for filmmakers. It allows the difference being from something like Windows Explorer or an Apple Finder, is that it allows you to work with files wherever they are on different computers and the cloud, on different units of production as they're moving around the world without having to do all the low level coordinating of that data. So in media we're talking about massive files. How is this different from Dropbox, Box, et cetera? So those tools actually try to synchronize your data, so if you put a big media file in Dropbox, it'll try and copy not only that file to the cloud, but also of course to any other computers you have your Dropbox running on. What Avalanche is doing doesn't necessarily, it can move it, but it doesn't necessarily move it. Instead, let's say you're an editor or studio and you want to see what's happening on set, you can see all the files as they're coming off of camera and interact with them, rename them, make notes, whatever has to happen, see the notes that are already applied to them, and when those files show up in editorial and say a hard drive, that's when all that happens and gets synchronized locally. So it allows people to work in a very intuitive and natural production workflow without actually trying to copy huge amounts of data across the net. In terms of like the production life cycle, are we talking about pre-production, production, post-production or the whole kitten caboodle? It's the whole thing because what happens in production is you see teams of people kind of ad hoc join the production, they might have teams during pre-production that are there for a bit and then teams that come on in post-production. So there's always this coordination problem of knowing who has what, where is the camera, post-production is looking for camera reports that only people that were on set know about. And this provides a mechanism to kind of have a continuity between all those different teams across the entire production pipeline. Continuity is key. What, give us an example, so you had mentioned that this is really built for filmmakers. If something is filmed and the crew or the director just said, you know what, that would have been great if we actually shot that for VR. What's the process of them or how simple is it or seamless for them to go back in, pull something out, change it? Well, in those kinds of situations, I mean production generally usually has a lot of planning involved. So you're going to know going in those kinds of issues. If it's something as big as like we want to have extra footage for VR or whatever. But one thing that happens is, let's say for example, there's a costume change where you've got a product which is a suit or something that needs to be placed in the scene for the financing. And then somebody spills something on it but story-wise that works so they're going to keep it in. People that are in the product teams later down the line might need to know these changes have occurred so that they can either push back and say no, we need to reshoot that with a clean suit or whatever that information might be, that back and forth. So this makes that even possible at all. Before, it would just be making sure that somebody on production called that team and explained it to them. Right now, with this, you can just put a quick note on any device and it eventually will be findable. You can just search it like Google and find any information related to that suit or that shot or that production day, any kind of different ways of searching for the stuff you're looking for. It's facilitating a little bit of automation. You talked about the connectivity but also it sounds like the visibility is there. Right, it improves the visibility, yeah. Yeah, we call it discoverability because right now a lot of the stuff isn't discoverable. Once, say, you don't know what row database entry is once you've lost that row number, there's no way to find out where that data comes from anymore. It's just completely disconnected. So we use a framework that's open source underneath called C4, the Cinema Content Creation Cloud and that framework provides a mechanism that what they call indelible metadata where it binds attributes to media in a way that doesn't easily get lost. So downstream, you can discover relationships you didn't expect to be there. You don't have to pre-plan all the relationships and build them in advance. So one of the things that you and I were chatting about before we went live is how Silicon Valley approaches this cloud versus how Hollywood approaches it. Tell us a little bit more about your insights here. I thought it was very intriguing. Yeah, this is a really interesting thing because not a lot of people realize because a lot of people on both sides, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, we're using the same terminology. We're talking about the cloud, we're talking about files, we're talking about copying things but there's subtle differences that get lost and so what I've been working on a lot in the open source community and in standards is helping to communicate this new concept that what we really need is like a web for media production, right? With the normal web that most of Silicon Valley and cloud tools are built on, you're expecting to be able to transfer all your data each time. You go to the website, you get the webpage right then, you get all the images that it links to right then but you don't want to do that when you're doing media production because that might represent terabytes of data for each shot and you need to work relatively quickly, you might be doing renders or composites. These things might take many, many, many elements to layer together. You can't be requesting this data as you need it every single time. You want to kind of get there and do all the processing you can possibly do all at once. So an architecture like that calls for a different kind of internet and internet where your data moves less often, right? You get it to the cloud and you leave it there and you do all your processing on it or it's an editorial, you do all your editing with it. The pieces that you need are in the right places and you move them as little as possible. You move command and control and metadata between those locations but the media itself needs to arrive either maybe by hard drive or get synced in advance. There's different ways of that moving but it doesn't happen at the same time that the command and control is happening. So yeah, we are trying to communicate that difference that Hollywood is used to it happening because they have the data center in their building. Silicon Valley's used to it happening because it's small data across the network. And that's where that disconnect is happening is, they both think it's just a quick call but it works for them because of a different architecture that they're building on top of. Different architecture is different, I imagine, objectives. How are you helping to influence Silicon Valley coming together with Hollywood and really them influencing each other whether it's Hollywood influencing the type of internet that's needed and why and Silicon Valley influencing maybe get away from the on-prem data centers, leverage hybrid as a destination, as a journey, leverage the cloud for economies of scale. What's that influence like? Yeah, it's really fantastic because I think it's a perfect, it's really, really good relationships between the kinds of skill sets that Silicon Valley companies bring to the table and the content creation talent that Hollywood has. In fact, there's a lot of what Hollywood, production studios don't want to have to invest in. They don't want to have a data center if they can have a secure, productive, as you need it tool set that they turn up the performance on when they're in production and then turn it off when they're done. That's exactly what we do with camera equipment. We rent it for the production and we give it back. So we're used to in Hollywood that production model. So it's kind of teed up and ready to use all those services. It's just this kind of plumbing level that has been everybody's pain point. So from a collaboration perspective, are you facilitating like a big cloud provider meeting with one of the big studios and really collaborating to kind of cross pollinate? Yeah, so I've been working on with the Entertainment Technology Center, which is funded at USC, they're funded by all the major studios and have other members like Google and other big vendors for cloud and whatnot. And these groups are very interested in trying to collaborate with technology companies and figure out the best ways to work together. And I have a lot of experience with cloud and computer technology and Silicon Valley style services. And also for production. So I've been working extensively in trying to bridge that gap in terms of the understanding, but also in terms of some fundamental tools, like I was saying the open source framework, C4, so that kind of like the web and HTML and all that stuff came about, nobody could go to that level of the internet and create that new economy of the internet until those foundations were in place. So that's what we've been pushing. Speaking of foundation, last question before we wrap here, where are you in this kind of first use case example of the meaning of the mind? How close are you to really seeing this facilitated to really support what both sides need? We've actually been doing a number of production tasks over at ETC, we've shot several short films using these things. So all of these things are actually in place and usable today. It's just a matter of getting people to start using them, being aware of them, they're all free and easy to use relatively for technical people, for Silicon Valley people. And then there's going to be another layer that we're really, that's why we're talking a lot about it, that's going to be the software companies and the hardware companies supporting it. We're pushing it through standards, so it will be showing up on everybody's radar soon and we'll see higher level integrations. So the digital artists that don't know how to do that lower level software stuff, we'll just get it for free when the tools they use. And that's kind of what the Avalanche file manager does. It provides a lot of that kind of cloud technology underneath and you don't have to worry about it. It just looks like a file manager. Very exciting. Thanks so much, Josh, for sharing your insights and what you're working on. We look forward to seeing those things coming to the forefront very soon. All right, thank you. Thanks for joining us on theCUBE and we want to thank you for watching theCUBE. Again, I'm Lisa Martin. We are live at NAB 2017 in Las Vegas, but stick around, we will be right back.


You're tuned into the COVID-19 community report here on KDRT LP 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Autumn Lab A-Reno and today is Tuesday, February 9th, 2021. We're sharing local news and resources focusing on what's impacting Davis and nearby cities in Yolo County during the COVID-19 pandemic. My guest today on episode 51 is Dr. John Bose, Superintendent for the Davis Joint Unified School District, and we'll get to that interview in just a few minutes. I do want to say I'm pre-recording this episode as I'm trying to take a few days off this week and with the speed of developments in COVID, reporting just once a week is tricky, but I do my best. These reports are as of Friday, February 5th. Last Tuesday, Yolo County's public health officer, Dr. Amy Sisson, reported to the Davis City Council that Yolo County residents still face great risk, even as the number of cases of COVID-19 decrease and the number of vaccinations given increases. Sisson noted that while average new cases are decreasing and have been since mid-January, even at that, our numbers are still nearly double what the county was seeing during its summer surge. For example, 56 new cases were reported on February 4th alone. Sisson also said that the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus will require continued vigilance on the part of the public. The new variants are far more transmissible than the original, and cases around the increase, especially in Southern California. She urged residents to continue doing everything we've been doing for the past year, wearing masks, staying six feet apart from others, not gathering in groups, staying home as much as possible, and washing hands regularly. Finally, Dr. Sisson said that until the vast majority of us are vaccinated and we reach herd immunity, it'll be necessary for people in public to continue with masking and distancing. As I say, most weeks we're in this for the long haul or we're in this until it's done. You know, most of my conversations of late have centered around two topics, testing and vaccination. As my interview last week with Mayor Gloria Partita of Davis noted, the options for asymptomatic saliva-based testing have increased with the addition of a third site at the Veterans Memorial Theater. In a post-show discussion about the episode on my Facebook, one commenter noted it was a shame the Healthy Davis Together program could not be expanded to other parts of the county, where she said many essential workers and care facilities are actually located. Mayor Partita replied that Healthy Davis Together is working on increasing availability and noted that folks who don't live in Davis but work here are already eligible. The program has other aspects as well, such as help with quarantining when needed and incentives, gifts and assistance for businesses and participants. Learn more at HealthyDavisTogether.org. And Yolo County has begun an all-out effort to educate and prepare its residents for vaccination. Even as questions abound about vaccine availability and current supplies here in Yolo have been exhausted, in a meeting with area nonprofits last week, the county's public information officer and COVID communications team lead, Jenny Tan, said their planning for the moment the tears open up to more people and more doses become available. To date, the county has administered approximately 7,000 first doses and 3,000 second doses to its residents. Something you can do right now is fill out the brief vaccine interest form, and here's the link. And that will get you notified when it's time for your phase and tier. The forms available in English, Spanish and Russian and the county can provide assistance completing if necessary. I just did it today. It took me about two minutes to complete. And so I encourage everyone to do that as doing so will help the county organize and schedule future vaccine clinics. Let's take a moment for music and we'll be right back with our interview. My guest today is Dr. John Bose, who served as superintendent for the Davis Joint Unified School District since July 2016. For the past 30 years, he's led thousands of certificated, classified staff and students throughout the state. He's led DJUSD's innovative work to promote 21st century teaching and learning to create safe and welcoming campuses that are responsive to student and staff, social and emotional needs to close achievement and opportunity gaps and to further the work of diversity, equity and inclusion. I want to note we recorded this interview last week on the heels of a school board meeting that lasted until 1230am. And that's just one of many long meetings in recent weeks. And also in the midst of a several day website outage that's part of a widespread external platform problem. John, I really appreciate you taking time to speak with me during the midst of all that. Thank you, Autumn. Great to be here again and appreciate the opportunity. Sure. So the last time I interviewed you was in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. And we spoke then about the rapidly evolving logistics of shifting to virtual instruction. I don't think any of us could have predicted then just how challenging this year would be or the kinds of stress it would place on the district and all its parts admin teachers, students, parents. And so now we're at a place where urgent calls to return to in person instruction are budding up against public health orders that urge continued caution and DJ USD is faced with decisions that bring challenges at every turn. Before we get on to how you're approaching that decision making when we last spoke you were really concerned about digital divide issues and the kinds of equipment and connectivity blocks many families might face during the pandemic. How did the district resolve that. Well, we recognize that at times there is opportunity and crisis achieving one to one hybrid program has been a long standing goal of our district and it was an unrealized one. We realized with an immediate need to create from scratch. An initial distance learning program. It was critical that students had computers for home and a way to access the internet. So we're able to really focus our resources and utilize some funding that came to help districts for this effort. And we have fully achieved a hybrid one to one Chromebook program and hotspot program for students and families. If there is a family and DJ USD that needs a hotspot or Chromebook to access distance learning, and they don't have one now we want to get one in your hands. But that those early efforts have really paid off and we see a few people lined up every day at our tech office for some troubleshooting, you know, exchange of a computer hotspot. But that's worked out great and we plan on maintaining the one to one computer program into the future. Great. Thank you for that. That was the easy question. So next, I know the school board has outlined parameters for a phased return to schools. We'll talk about those in just a minute. But let's start with how you got to this point. What has guided the discussion and what internal and external frameworks have been part of that process. When you're faced with complex and immediate crisis, like the pandemic. It's important for decision making that we're clear on the principles and the beliefs that our decision making is anchored in. And we've used six guiding principles and DJ USD, beginning with those of equity, access, and innovation. Those really help guide our initial work and spoke of just a second ago, that equity and access issue, making sure every student has a Chromebook and a hotspot. As we began to develop the distance learning program our students and now we realize that the principles of continuity compatibility and efficacy were key to make sure, making sure that we designed a distance learning program that would provide quality instruction, and would be able to transition to the different phases we might find ourselves and as we've moved from shelter in place orders of varying degrees of restrictiveness and from the purple to the red tier back to the purple and then into deep purple. But these guiding principles have been a great anchor to help guide our decision making. And then internally, there's been physical work on on school sites to help ease or help guide guide you into that transition. The last time we spoke I know you also mentioned things like, you know, filters and having testing on site, can you can you speak to some of that. Sure. And we formalize exactly what those conditions are at our board meeting on January 19. And it starts by letting the community know that we have outfitted every HVAC unit and every classroom with merge 13 filters, and with air purifiers those are in every classroom. We've ensured that safety protocols are in place and sync with the new Cal OSHA COVID-19 safety plan. We have a well defined process for notifying families if there's a COVID exposure and quarantining and contact tracing. And real important is our relationship with Healthy Davis together and being able to establish a symptomatic COVID-19 saliva testing for students and staff on or near every campus in our district. Wow. Can you, I want to move on to, you know, the big topic of the day you've been hearing an awful lot from from parents who some parents who are very eager that the schools reopen to in person instruction. I realize there are different plans in place for elementary versus second secondary schools. There are hybrid approaches I'd like to know more about that and then I'd like to know what options families have in choosing what works best for their families so let's start with plans for elementary sites. We just approved that plan last night for an elementary hybrid model and for a preschool hybrid model as well. And the guiding principles and forming that plan for those of continuity compatibility and equity. We provided an initial hybrid elementary plan that would have resulted in a lot of shuffling of students and staff into new assignments. And we heard both from our educators and our families that that was very it was very important to them because of the social emotional connections that it developed through distance learning with current teachers that that was a priority. So we went back to our educator task force revise the plan had that vetted by our superintendents all advisory team which includes parents, educators, all sorts of folks from across the community and came back with a elementary hybrid model that allows students for a choice. Students can come back on campus, they can remain in distance learning, but on either circumstance, they'll keep their same teacher. That was a key piece in the development of that model. So, and then secondary schools are there a different set of criteria or different set of operating instructions if you will for secondary sites. Well it's really interesting because the same principles and form the development of the secondary model continuity compatibility and equity and this focus on making sure students and teachers were able to stay together. But with older students and secondary, some more skills, some more independence, some more maturity, they're using a simulcast or a zoom in the room model. So whether you are a student participating on campus or participating from home, you'll essentially be in class together with the teacher you've already had for the course of the school year. Okay. I think the big question everyone's been asking is, when, and we've already talked about some of the external factors that that complicate that answer, you have to be responsive to changing public health orders. You have to make sure that all the thing, all the factors. We talked about testing sites available. Contact tracing all the, you know, the physical requirements are in place. But what is the latest thinking and again, there was a school board meeting last night, February 4, and I realized some of these decisions may have been made there. And some are also made on the 19th and the 21st of January. Yeah. And in those meetings, two important external conditions were established, whereby we'll be able to return to a hybrid model of instruction. And we're ready to go on the internal variables we discussed earlier. Sure. So first, our county Yolo County will need to be in the red here for two weeks. That's the first condition. The second is that either the Pfizer Moderna or another emergency use authorized vaccine that may become available has been made available to our employees. Both shots or if it's one shot like the Johnson and Johnson, it's approved and came our way and then employees have time to recover. So when vaccines are available, and we've been in the red tier for two weeks, we would be ready to come back and a hybrid model. And also a date by which we would remain in distance learning for the rest of the year, and that was established last night. So during the week of May 3 to 7, if you can hear a little bit of flexibility, if those external conditions are not met, we would remain in distance learning for the rest of the year. The rest of the academic year, right, which ends June 10, I believe this year.  And she talked about the number of vaccines that have been given already and that the fact that our county is currently out of vaccine and you know everyone's waiting. She also about talked about the, the tiers under which people will receive vaccine so I imagine that the ongoing development there is actually going to have quite a bit to do with when the schools can can reasonably expect to reopen and and it's still a question mark. Correct. Yeah, vaccine supply is critical factor. Yeah. All right. I've mentioned a couple times I know you're hearing a lot from from parents you're hearing from the community. Tell us a little bit more about what you're hearing from teachers what their concerns and their hopes have been during this process and I mentioned one mechanism by which you're getting teacher input and I'd like to hear more about what that process has been like the your administration and the school board and their communication with teachers. Sure. So I'm in touch with a lot of teachers and what I think they're primarily concerned about are making sure that our students are learning that our students are safe and healthy, and that they're doing well, not just academically, but socially emotionally. And just because we're in distance learning does not mean you need to be alone. And the social emotional component is a critical aspect of our work. You know, when people say where's the answer. It's in the room and who we've had in the room is teachers and other educators and support staff in the development of both our distance learning program and our hybrid models. Our teachers are professionals and experts they know what they're doing. And they've helped to design distance learning and hybrid models that are right for Davis and we're confident in their work and the models that have been adopted. Yeah, I think our board shares the same concern the teachers and our support staff do that our campuses are safe for students and for staff. And that's why we place these internal and external variables in place because we want to do everything in our power to reduce community spread of COVID and Yolo County and Davis. Yeah, I over the last 11 months I've interviewed several teachers and I'll be talking to more in the coming weeks and, you know, I, I, I share your what you just said that they are most concerned about the students but they're also concerned about their, their own well being and the long anticipated roll out of again the vaccines. It's heavy on their minds to understand we've heard that we've heard that and I think that's why the condition was set. With regard to vaccine and the red here for two weeks. Great. John, I want to ask you about I was on Twitter this morning and I saw a tweet you wrote about the youth true student survey and I hadn't heard of that so I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about it. Sure, so we have partnered with youth truth for probably a decade now and it is a survey that we've given to students we've also started to provide an option for parents to take the survey. But in addition to the California healthy kids survey the youth truth provides us a lot of climate data, and we find out information that we can disaggregate and all kinds of ways. How am I feeling about school. Are there important adults in my life at school. So what kind of programs are you involved in on our different campuses, and it's really helped to inform our programming, both in terms of social emotional development and our local control and accountability plan and how we can best use those precious dollars to make sure that we provide a program with an equity stance to make sure that when there is a student need, we are meeting that need. You touched on something there too and that's the whole topic of extracurriculars and and kind of what's happened to those during the pandemic. So what are the discussions like around around that people are very eager for their kids to be able to return to things that, you know, feed their growth and development and the pandemic has complicated that what's been happening during the pandemic are our sports groups meeting in any way or extracurriculars meeting in any way. This is an important part of a recent meeting and resulted in a board motion. So we have had athletic conditioning going on since March we've had to pause once or twice, but our athletic teams have been able to engage in conditioning work. We are proceeding with expanding on campus engagement activities for extracurricular co curricular and curricular opportunities for students. We sent out a parent survey we had a great response over 1900 respondents with all kinds of ideas about what those activities could look like they need to be done well and safely. We have coordination with the school principal and consistent with whatever the public health guidelines at the time are typical of Davis because we have such great community support for the district 300 respondents said they'd be willing to help volunteer for our programs. So here are looking at things like gardening, reading groups movement, all sorts of activities that our students will be able to come to campus and engage in safe activity, but that peer engagement and opportunity to connect with friends you've only seen through a screen for the year is very important. It's very priceless right now. And I'm not at all surprised you got 300 volunteers from from putting out a query this being Davis. So, alright, we're down to our last couple of minutes john thinking back over the last year, and all this work all this decision making what are you most proud of. Well important one is our partnership with healthy Davis together. This is the program sponsored by UC Davis and the city, and they have been fantastic partners and setting up free saliva based testing. I would encourage everybody to do that you can get free testing at the senior center by the county offices at the vet center by Davis high school, and at the Mundavi healthy Davis together has helped fund the air purifiers that we're placing and our classrooms, we have a filter program on with them, and I'm very proud of our staff for the way they stepped up and reimagined education, essentially, and a couple of weeks and launched our initial Google classroom and then our current distance learning program real tremendous effort. Alright, and finally, what are your hopes for the months ahead, where would you like to see all of this by, let's say the end of the academic school year. Sure. So, our goal is to launch our hybrid model and offer the opportunity for students to be back on campus. At the same time we're already planning for summer school, and how that might look different and from more students than the traditional summer school program. And then we're planning for a full fall reopening. We don't have a crystal ball and can't say what late August early September will look like. You're currently planning for a full reopening. I want to, you know, thank our staff for everything they've done for our students and I want to thank our parents and everyone else friends, relatives, neighbors who have put different parts of their life on hold to help students in a very different environment than anybody is used to be. Well, again, I want to thank you for making time for this interview for using the opportunity to talk to the community about all this important decision making that's going on. Obviously our school district is a central part of our Davis community. I know many families chose to locate here in the first place, and we're all concerned about the health and well being of our kids as they navigate this really interesting time so thank you very much for joining me today. Thanks for what you're doing autumn and the opportunity to be here again. Appreciate it. This is the COVID-19 Community Report from KDRT 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Autumn LeBae Renault. This is Episode 51, and I'll be back next week. Thanks.


Internal Revenue Service IRS tax news. Dirty dozen. IRS urges anyone having trouble paying their taxes to avoid anyone claiming they can settle tax debt for pennies on the dollar known as OIC or Offer In Compromise Mills. I've never understood that term pennies on the dollar as if it's a bad thing. I mean if someone owes me a hundred dollars and they give me the dollars along with some pennies on top of the dollars, I'm okay with that. The pennies aren't worth much but maybe they're being used as like a paperweight so the dollars don't blow away.   Honestly even take it out just a couple of them would turn the dirty dozen into a terrified ten turning the tables on the dirty dozen. And from there it would be even easier to make them into a sackless seven followed by a feckless four and finally just a whiny one. Whining because one is the loneliest number. Okay here we go. IR 2022-119 June 7 2022 Washington. As the sixth item on the 2022 quote dirty dozen end quote scams warning list the Internal Revenue Service today caution taxpayers with pending tax bills to contact the IRS directly and not go to unscrupulous tax companies that use local advertising and falsely claiming they can resolve unpaid taxes for pennies on the dollar. So you might see advertisements that say if your tax bill is over a certain threshold say $10,000 or something come to us and they're at least alluding to the ability to lower the tax bill and they're at least alluding to to do that usually the offer and compromise or although there might be other techniques that could lower the tax bill in some cases as well. The offer and compromise is a real thing but the problem is one of the problems with these what they're calling the mills the OIC mills are that oftentimes they're targeting people that are vulnerable people because if you have a very large tax bill you're feeling kind of vulnerable and somewhat desperate possibly to try to lower the bill at that point in time and also they're often going through basically advertising companies. So oftentimes you might have the advertising companies that are actually targeting the ads towards these groups of individuals who aren't the actual firms right and then they might be then giving the leads their lead sources that are then going to the actual different firms and so one that could be costly because the advertisements can be costly that the prices they charge might be high and you don't know who the in person that you're going to be working with is in that system. So what you would like to do generally is basically do your own research first first go to the iris website look at your own circumstances and then there's a lot of information on the offer and compromise the other thing that people often get into tax problems with is like their sole proprietor and they get a bunch of 1099s and they just don't file their tax returns and because they don't file the tax returns the iris only knows about their income they don't know about the expenses that they have had. So they get a tax bill that's way out of proportion because they get taxed on the income rather than the expenses. So in that case you might actually have to tell the iris hey look I had expenses here and then so that's another kind of the two common things that can get the tax bill out of control and then the other tool is this offer and compromise and then if you do talk to someone for help from there you'd like to go to someone that you know the actual firm directly with the firm rather than going through an advertisement lead generation thing because then you don't know where you're going and you're probably going to have higher costs than you otherwise would because those advertising companies take a big chunk out of the out of it. So in any case quote no one can get a better deal for taxpayers than they can usually get for themselves by working directly with the IRS to resolve their tax issues in quote said IRS Commissioner Chuck Reddick. Now I'm not totally certain on that personally actually I mean if you had a representative that that knew what they were doing in the areas of offering compromise and lowering debt that have people that have large debts then that could be good. The problem is if you're dealing with something that is a mill that then they're going to have an absorbent it costs to do that. So that would mean in my perspective you would certainly want to do your own research in terms of the offering compromise and whether or not you've reported your taxes or not look at your options yourself and then make sure that when you're looking into someone if you're looking for help with that that you're doing your research on it quote taxpayers can check online for their best deal as well as calling a specialized collection line where they can get fast service by using the voice and chat bots or opting to speak with a live phone a sister in quote so offer and compromise. So here's the major tool that these kind of I guess the mills are are kind of alluding to. So the offering compromise mills make outlandish claims usually in local advertising regarding how they can settle a person's tax debt for pennies on the dollar. So the reality usually is the taxpayers pay the OIC mill a fee to get the same deal they could have gotten on their own by working directly with the IRS. So the offering compromise itself. I mean it's kind of complicated but it's all there. So you do. You can look at everything on the offer and compromise. The problem is the offering compromise is only going to be applicable for certain kind of situations. So oftentimes if you go into like what they're saying a mill kind of situation they'll check out to see if you would get the offer and compromise. If you don't qualify for the offer and compromise then you might end up with just basically a payment plan which which you know if that's if that's the end result you could easily set up a payment plan yourself possibly. So and what would qualify for an offer and compromise usually if your tax debt is below. I mean if you don't have the capacity to pay the tax debt and you can see this would be similar to any kind of lender borrower kind of situation the IRS is basically saying you owe us money due to the taxes. If you're saying I don't have any money I don't have the money to pay it and it's unlikely that I'm going to get the money in the future. It would be beneficial for both sides of that transaction to try to come to an agreement where you could pay the money. So that's that's when the offer and compromise might come into play. And that would mean that what would you have to do. Well you would think you'd have to give the IRS basically financial statements and tell them where you stand now your balance sheet what kind of assets and liabilities you have and your income threshold and your potential income thresholds in the future. So if you have a tax debt for example and you're driving around in a hundred thousand dollar car and living in a you know million dollar house or something like that and saying you can't pay the fifteen thousand dollar tax bill that's probably not going to work for the offering compromise because they're going to say right there you know they're going to have to say that you can't pay the bill. So that's kind of the gist of the offering compromise. So the IRS has compiled the annual dirty dozen list for more than 20 years as a way of altering taxpayers alerting taxpayers and tax professional community about scams and schemes. The list is not a legal document or a literal listing of agency enforcement priorities. It is designed to raise awareness among a variety of audiences that may not always be aware of developments involving tax administration. OIC males offering compromise males are a problem all year long but tend to be more visible right after the filing season is over and taxpayers are trying to resolve their tax issues perhaps after receiving a balanced do notice in the mail. So clearly the thing that helps you know a lot of basically tax professionals in general and clearly the IRS mills is the enforcement mechanism of the IRS because the fact that the IRS is intimidating.  People panic at that point which is kind of the point of the IRS's letter and then you might look for assistance on that if you think that the mills or a tax professional can basically lower the amount. What you'd like to do is go to a legit CPA firm possibly and talk to them about it. But the problem there is a lot of times tax professionals don't really specialize in the offer and compromise process a lot of times. So it is kind of a specialty type of area. But they can probably give you at least some guidance on that. But many case for those who feel they need help there are many reputable tax professionals available and there are important tools they can help people find the right practitioner for their needs. So obviously if you talk to your tax preparer that would be the place to go if you have one a lot of people are doing taxes online possibly or with with other kind of resources. But you know talking to a CPA firm or something like that might be a good place to at least get some idea and maybe a better kind of reference tool to find the right person to handle the right problem. So IRS dot gov is a good place to start scoping out what to do. These quote mills and quote contort the IRS program into something is not misleading people with a chance of meeting the requirements while charging excessive fees often thousands of dollars. So that's of course the problem because the mills are charging a big fee to go through the filing process for the offer and compromise which again if you really look at the offer and compromise it's fairly they're getting quite good on the IRS that kind of laying out the requirements for the offer and compromise. So it's pretty much right there. Although again it's still kind of confusing for a lot of people but you can do your research on the IRS website and offer or OIC as an agreement between the taxpayer and the IRS that results the taxpayers tax debt. The IRS has the authority to settle or compromise federal tax liabilities by accepting less than full payment under certain circumstances. So that's where the offer and compromise is kind of a legitimate thing. Right. Because that means they're going to they're going to settle the tax debt for something other than what the tax debt was. But there has to be specific circumstances on why they would do that. And usually those circumstances are those that both parties IRS and the taxpayer benefit. Why. Because the taxpayer can't pay the debt like they're not likely to be able to pay them. And that's generally the idea.  So this is where the kind of scammy stuff comes in. Because if someone you should be able to find out fairly quickly whether or not the offer and compromise is likely to have any kind of chance of going through. So again if if if your income is fairly good if you're a young person you have a lot of income potential in the future and you're driving and you have assets and so on that are significant even if you have a significant tax bill not likely the offer and compromise is going to go through. Because again it's usually there because the IRS has determined that you're not going to be able to pay the tax bill. And you can get to that assessment. You would think with a pretty you know pretty quick assessment. So obviously if they're pulling people in dangling the offer and compromise filing the paperwork for the offer and compromise when they know that you're not going to qualify for the offer and compromise from a fairly short discussion then you know that's not good that's that's that's nefarious kind of scammy stuff. So this costs honest taxpayers money and time before taxpayers start investing time to do the paperwork necessary to submit the offer they'll want to check out the IRS's official offer and compromise pre-qualifier tool. So there's a link to that tool here to make sure they're eligible to file one. Note even though individuals and businesses can submit an offer the tool is currently only available to individuals. The IRS also created an OIC offer and compromise video playlist that leads taxpayers through a series of steps and forms to help them calculate an appropriate offer based on their assets income expenses and future earning potential. Find these helpful easy to navigate videos on IRS dot gov forward slash OIC the IRS reminds taxpayers that under the first time penalty abatement policy taxpayers can go directly to the IRS for administrative relief from a penalty that would otherwise be added to their tax debt. So you might be able to abate because the first time abatement penalty a tax bill that you that you would otherwise pay. So OIC mills are one example of unscrupulous tax preparers taxpayers should be wary of unscrupulous quote ghost in quote preparers and aggressive promises of manufacturing a bigger refund. So anytime you're talking to a tax professional and they're saying I'm going to I'm going to get you this huge refund or something like that. That's usually not good because you can because the whole idea of the taxes isn't really to get a huge refund is to pay as little as taxes as possible. If you do the good planning involved then you're going to have less money that you're going to pay throughout the year kind of thing. But in the case ghost preparers although most tax preparers are ethical and trustworthy taxpayers should be wary of preparers who won't sign the tax returns they prepare often referred to as ghost preparers for e file returns the quote ghost in quote will prepare the return but refused to digitally sign as the paid preparer. So that doesn't look like a good sign if you're paying the person for the preparer and they're not willing to sign their own return that might mean that they're going to be disappearing next year when the IRS possibly audits the return and says the whole thing is messed up in your refunds ridiculous and what were you thinking kind of thing and that's what you want to avoid. So by law anyone who has paid to prepare or assist in preparing federal tax returns must have a valid preparer tax identification number no one has a P 10 paid preparers must sign and include their P 10 on the return inflated refunds not signing a return is a red flag that the paid preparer may be looking to make a quick profit by promising a big refund or charging fees based on the size of the refund. So this is the difference between like a scammer and a legitimate business.  They're typically proud to sign their returns. They want to sign the returns build the reputation and being a solid area for for a good time and erupt and be reputable right. A scam is the person that goes from town to town. And if they're if they're basically saying they're going to have a huge refund and they do scrupulous things to get a huge refund and then they charge you a portion of that huge refund. Don't be surprised if that tax preparer isn't there when you get the tax letter from the IRS saying hey some of the stuff you put on here looks not correct. Could you give us some more verification you're going to say where's my tax preparer. Well he's in the other town now scamming somewhere else because that's the that's the difference between scams and a business. So unscrupulous tax return preparers may also require payment payments in cash only and will not provide a receipt invent income to qualify their clients for tax credits. That's going to be going up these days because these tax credits there's refundable credits like earned income tax credit are becoming significant quite significant right claim fake deductions to boost the size of the refund direct refunds into their bank account not to the taxpayers account. Now if they tell you yeah I'm just going to get your refund in the my account is like wait a second what that doesn't seem so choose wisely wisely the choosing choosing a tax professional page there's a link to that it's on irs.gov irs.gov has information about tax preparer credentials and qualifications. The IRS directory of federal tax return preparers there's a link to that here with credentials and selected qualifications can help identify many preparers by type of or credential qualification. Taxpayers are legally responsible for what's on their tax return even if it is prepared by someone else.


Okay, tell us a little bit about your your family and your early life my family. I grew up in Amsterdam. I have two brothers my dad was actually never home and So my mom kind of raised us My dad was also Much pretty much an alcoholic so when he was there Is what it was it was not nice of being at home. So All my my brothers and I tried to escape the house as much as possible as you can understand Which actually led to the fact that I was out of the house by 16 But after that the relationship with my mom got better and it's good now. She's still alive, so But you were going out in Amsterdam you were very young you were what about 15 Ah Yeah, well Amsterdam is is the place where it all happened for gays and I came out of the closet when I was 15 beginning of 16. So for me it was easy So just discover everything at the early age and being so close to it close to everything so yeah, it was more or less natural that you Hit the bars early when we were living in Amsterdam, so But you were you were keeping a bar You were a bar keeper. I guess they called yeah only 16 now. I was 17 the end of 17 when I started working in the bars, so But still early yeah, I Guess I just I just liked being in gay bars, so what gay bars do you remember from that time from that time? I started working in the traffic. It was a small bar in Rechers-Waastrad It's gone now like most of the bars actually in Amsterdam after that I Did start it that did my study as well. So I will work next to my study and and I used to after after the traffic I started working for Monford Longer in Club it And also I still did my study, so that was about four or five years When I got back from the States I Start working in the player in the clubs again, so I did it for a pretty long time tell us about the things you experienced you were very young and Certainly some of the things you saw had to be Yeah Some of that some of that I remember my first time I went into the Argos because I was really interested into letter I figured out later I was about 17. I think 17 18 But I didn't dare to go into the dark rooms. I wanted it really really much, but I just didn't have the guts to do it Yeah More or less I'm not shocked that easily But the Argos was an iconic Yeah, it was world-famous. Yeah, what tell us about what you saw what you've experienced what I experienced there was I came in there very shy boy and After a couple of years that was done Now it's like I said I Was in there with a friend of mine and who was also really getting into into letter and You know, well, we just we just discovered it and Eventually get balls and get get courage enough to go in But what did you see when you went in lots of guys in leather lots of guys in leather That was kind of more or less the only fetish that people were really Really into that those days You didn't see a lot of robber and you didn't see any sports where at all Yeah, that's all kinds of leather, but they were all in leather Interesting How long were you going there before you finally went into the basement? About three months But I saw in the basement was something I was longing for for years Guys having sex I think there was no other place in those times than to do it as in bars with the dark Yeah I'm still I This this point I this time I still like dark rooms. I prefer dark rooms over internet sex How long were you going to the Argos before you actually went into the dark rooms and what why did you do that? Because I was interested in having sex with other men and I know it was happening down there.  Like I said that the traffic bar when I started working is gone The April is gone her fan is gone And those were all the bars in the regular swastra where we used to go out a lot. I actually had a Double life in Amsterdam one in the warmest rod one in the regular swastra And one of the scenes I was working in and the other scene I was fucking You have a rule no bondage on the first day what what is that? picked up the guy in the articles the other night and We had some fun until He asked me if you could time me up And that's interesting as I think everything is especially the first time I Agreed to that And it all went wrong from there He actually forced me to have sex when I didn't want to want to any more I was still young I was 20 20 something But after that for me, it's always rule number one no bond that's on the first day and that's because of a bad experience So if someone is viewing this interview and they want to experience bondage Do you have any advice for them take do it with somebody that you trust and that you know You mentioned that you moved to the United States when you were about 21 or so What took you there? Why did you go there? I took me there? My school actually my I did an intern intern intern management management internship in San Diego, La Jolla But at Merritt hotels, I was doing the International School for Hospitality Management In the Hague the hotel school the Hague and I had I had to do an internship So that's more or less the reason that I did I've run there Stayed there for two years And actually I think San Diego is quite boring So what I did was I worked my days back to back most time So eight days working four days off and then go up to San Francisco and see my friends over there and have some fun Tell us about the San Francisco you experienced in those days It was 92 so we just For me it wasn't is nice city. I had a lot of friends there, but on the other hand the city was really depressed because of everything that happened years before and But still I had a lot of fun over there and a lot of guys in letter and It was a nice city. I love it. I still do I think San Francisco was Really in a state of change Yeah, yeah Then from everything possible to nothing possible Because of the laws because of the gift of the city of the government Dark rooms weren't allowed anymore. So all the clubs went underground But it still happened never changed tell us a little bit about the underground I think that's happening more now It got back actually, but in those days All the dark rooms closed in San Francisco because of a HIV and AIDS But if you knew your way around there it was easy there were all houses being turned into sex clubs What differences did you experience between? The San Francisco scene versus what you knew in Amsterdam San Francisco is more open You could walk down the streets in your letter. Yeah Especially mark Side of mark that was it was great. I had I had a good I had good experiences over there being a letter Go to the eagle go to the beer bus and You saw you saw people on the streets in letter and in Amsterdam you didn't see that In the bar muster in the bar I was pleased to find that Guys for more guys in San Francisco or more of a community than in Amsterdam Really? Yeah, really. Oh everybody knows each other knew each other over there and Friendships were easier I'm a little surprised You experience is differently. Well, I think that the Dutch scene is very More true to form Yeah, but in those days it was really small a small thing so You said that when you were in San Francisco that the young gay man could not have cared less about safer sex Practices this was the early 90s. Why was that the case? Ignorance I think But Also, the younger the younger guys in San Francisco didn't experience all the deaths and and all the friends dying I Was I was I came out early. So for me a lot of guys in my in my A lot of friends of my died at those days, and I'm still lucky that I can sit here to be honest It's the younger guys who grew up after that Didn't experience that and never never had to go to the funeral of a good friend So I think the more inhibited and more That's a little bit shocking considering the information at that time, yeah But I think if you don't look at it you don't Are you if you look away? It's not your neighbor But your travels to the United States have not always been No, they've not always been positive. I was working for a big hotel chain At my internship they offered me a very good job in San Francisco so I could transfer over there But the problem is I had to get my cream card and Since I was not married then I Had to get married But my green card my green card for my for my internship expired So I had to go back to Holland. So I'm married over here With an American Very good friend of mine But it turned out I had to take an HIV test for applying for the green card and It turned out bad That was more or less the time that I found out I was HIV positive as well as back in 92 and I couldn't go back to to the States anymore and So more or less My career was ruined. So I had to go back to Amsterdam And which I did What did you do when you got back to Amsterdam? I started working in the clubs again Okay, and for a couple of years Until I met my ex-boyfriend and Which are who I met at the harvest action And he decided together with me that I Should not work in the nightlife anymore. So We more or less figured out something for me to do which Eventually ended up in opening my own business Before we jump to that when we met to prepare for this interview you mentioned that the Berlin the German letter scene is incredible, and I think that is the Iconic letter scene today. What are your thoughts on that? I think the letter scene in Amsterdam was more flourishing in those days than the scene in Berlin Amsterdam was the gate capital of Europe Lot of guys from the States always came to Amsterdam a lot of guys from around the world came to Amsterdam and Berlin took over many years later actually Okay, what are your thoughts on that today? I like Berlin, but I'm going to raise in Amsterdam And I think it's a pity that the whole scene died down Do you feel let me rephrase that why do you feel that it's really died down in Amsterdam? because all the bars are closing down actually Also a lot of guys from Amsterdam go to Berlin or Antwerp alone to have fun and Amsterdam's not a traffic for gay tourists anymore. It's too expensive to price themselves out of the market and it's it's it's too busy with Tourists having stacked parties and that sort of thing. So it's a completely different tourist market right now and as a gay Myself I would not go to Amsterdam with those hotel prices and the prices for restaurants and everything But do you feel that it's the tourists that caused the bars to close or is there some other reason no That's not the reason and that's called the internet Amsterdam is really really is still really attractive city. I still love it and I always will But the internet made sure that all the gay bars are closing down. I Think that's a worldwide problem actually it is we see it all over we do but You mentioned that you discovered you were HIV positive very early on and You also said at one point when we prepared for this interview that you were one of the first people to go on the So now tell us about that Well, I just I found out that I was HIV positive in 1991 Luckily for me that they didn't put me on a CT because my T cells were my thesis was still great and good and I could postpone taking medication for another four years and After those four years the first the first cocktails were Were intended so Yeah, I was lucky that I could postpone taking medication until that happened. So in 1905 I started to take my first pills What are your thoughts on the HIV treatments today? This is my sixth cocktail and I'm taking this one for many years now so Actually, I'm very healthy and very happy Only the side effects of taking pills ten to six years Are actually worse than the cause itself Why is that? Because pills are ruining your body from inside Taking pills for 26 years is taking a take taking effect. So I'm still feeling fine, but Taking cholesterol medications. I have diabetes. I have Stomach problems and that's all because of the medication not because of the HIV But I'm still Feeling pretty healthy and I can do whatever I want. So I'm not complaining about it. What are your thoughts on people who see the cocktails today as Basically a controlled disease similar to diabetes. What do you have to say to them? If you still have a choice Getting infected by HIV Make sure that you don't get it because taking pills for 26 years is a nightmare better not But it's their own it's their own life It's their own body and I'm not the guy that has to tell people what to do or what to do I can only advise them and out of my experience And that's what I would say When you were younger You were against gay marriage Why was that the case? I try to explain this I Think to be integrated in society We don't have to do this you don't have to do exactly the same as all those trades do I was against it because I Think we prove our relationships as well Just living together in Holland. We had the same rights. We could have Samo leaves contract. So that's on the same level as a marriage the whole idea of marriage Didn't attract me and I was not only against gay marriage. I was against straight Lucas talking because I'm married now for 12 years. Why did your point of view change? Actually to put it bluntly because it was it was it was easy for me and my and my boyfriend then my husband now Legally to buy a house read we could we could ease it was easier okay, but When the day was there I was really happy that I did it so now I can understand how people got married Tell us How and my black body start I would start it And also perhaps tell us what it is in Amsterdam. What do you mean? What it is? Tell us a little bit about the shop Black body is a fetish shop. I started it almost 25 years ago 24 to be exactly next year with 25 I Started out as a specialist in rubber my Ex-boyfriend who I talked about already and I were heavily into rubber 24 years ago and We always had to go to London to get it because in Holland you couldn't get anything Some pieces that robbed some pieces of expectations that was about it. So we always went to London to buy it and We started talking to the guys who produced using it over there and Then the idea started started to shop in Amsterdam, so that was 24 years ago and from 90% rubber at that time Including some toys and some leather Right now we have a shop that's about 40% letter and rubber and 60% Sportswear from brands like boxer and addicted Because the whole market changed the whole fetish scene changed. Oh, what did sorry the whole market changed fetish changed as well, so We changed with it and for us it was a way to survive the crisis What crisis do you mean that the economical crisis in 2008? which really hit us twice because Now first of all there were no tourists in Amsterdam second of all the whole DVD market collapsed and I was selling a lot of DVDs back then So then sportswear came around We moved to a bigger shop in Kirkstraat Right now we have a pretty pretty big sportswear collection boxer cell block addicted our own brand in rubber We do some leather as well What plans do you have for the shop in the future? That all depends how internet is developing because 30% of our shop for 30% of our turnover is online so 70% is still shop and that's enough to keep the shop open but If we're I don't know how that's gonna change. I have no idea if people are still coming to Amsterdam to the shop to buy You have you even have a lot of customers on online customers that come from Holland and don't bother to come to Amsterdam anymore Wow, that's interesting. Yeah, how has black body benefited the Amsterdam community? We're more or less introduced to the rubber scene than Amsterdam Okay Got more Accepted in into the letter scene because that was hard in the beginning Rubber was something completely different on the letter, but I am I have a lot of fetishes letter rubber uniforms, so for me it was more or less When black body When black body opened up that rubber was more accessible to people so more more people started wearing rubber into the letter scene as well What are your thoughts on that change in the scene? I think it's good Yeah, when you use when you use because a part of the letter party is 25 years ago You only see guys running around in black leather and Hardly I know Robert there was some rubber but not a lot and that all changed a lot And I think that's good because there's a lot of people with a lot of different fetishes. Okay, I Think it's good that they mix if you could change any aspect of your Leather fetish Would you change anything? Why not? Because I enjoyed my life so far and I joined I joined I was enjoying the scene the only thing I would change is Getting away from their computers and start going out again. I Missed that I really missed that. I'm not really into the big parties, but I Like losing in the small bars, and I missed that What's the biggest misconception Well, most of the people know me from the business, so they don't know me at all my the biggest mixed misconception people think that I'm really unapproachable Well, Rick, I would like to thank you for a lovely interview Dark lands during Belgium leather pride. Thank you for driving down from Amsterdam to do this. I Love being here. So Lovely. Thank you very much. All right


Good morning, live from Las Vegas at Snowflake Summit 22. Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante, Dave, it's great. We have three wall-to-wall days of coverage at Snowflake Summit 22 this year. Yeah, it's all about data and bringing data to applications and we got some big announcements coming this week, super exciting. Collaboration around data. We are excited to welcome our first two guests. Before the keynote, we have Sunil Sanan, SVP of Data and Analytics, Service Offering Head at Infosys. And Chris Degnan, alumni, is back with us, the Chief Revenue Officer at Snowflake. Guys, great to have you on the program. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having us. Sunil, tell us what's going on with Infosys and Snowflake and the partnership. Give us all that good stuff. Yeah, I think with the convergence of data, digital and computing economy, that convergence is creating so much possibilities for our customers. Snowflake and Infosys working together to help our customers realize the vision and these possibilities that are getting driven. We share a very strategic partnership where we are thinking ahead for our customers in terms of what we can do together in order to build solutions, in order to bring out the expertise that is needed for such transformations and also influencing the thinking and the point of view in the market together so that there is cohesive approach to doing these transformations and getting to those business outcomes. So it's a partnership that's very successful and it's strategic for our customers and we continue to invest for the market. Got some great customers, some of my favorite CVS, Nike, William Sonoma, gotta love that one. Chris, talk to us about the Snowflake data cloud. What makes it so unique and compelling in the market? Well, I think our customers really, are going through digital transformation today and they're moving from on-premise to the cloud and historically speaking, there just hasn't been the right tool set to help them do that. I think Snowflake brings to the table an opportunity for them to take all of their data and allow it to go from one cloud to the other so they can sit on AWS, it can sit on Azure, it can sit on GCP and it can move around from cloud to cloud and they can do analytics on top of that. So data has been traditionally really hard. We saw that in the big data movement but we learned a lot and AI has been challenging. So what are you seeing with customers? What are they struggling with and how are you guys helping them? Yeah, so if you look at the customer journey, they have invested in a number of technologies in the past and are now at a juncture where they need to transform that landscape. They have the challenges of legacy debt that they need to get rid of or transform. They have the challenges of really bringing a cohesive understanding within the enterprise as to what these possibilities are for their business given the strategy that they are pursuing. Business and IT cycles are not necessarily aligned. You have the challenge of very fragmented data landscape that they have created over a period of time. How do you put all these together and work with a specific outcome in mind so that you're not doing transformation for the purpose of transformation but to be able to actually drive new business models, new data-driven products and services, ability for you to collaborate with your partners and create unique competitive advantage in the market? And how do you bring those purposes together with the transformation that's really happening? And that's where our customers grapple with the challenges of bringing it together. So Chris, how do you see it? Because you know what I was talking about, legacy debt, I think technical debt, you kind of started out making the data warehouse easier and then this data cloud thing comes out and you're like, oh, that's an interesting vision and all of a sudden it's way more than vision. You get this huge ecosystem, you're extending, we're going to hear the announcements this morning, we won't spill the beans, but really expanding the data cloud. So it's hard to keep up with where you're at. So I think modernization, right? So how do you think about modernization? How are your customers thinking about it? And what's the scope of Snowflake? Well, I think historically you asked about AI and ML and in the AI world, historically they've lacked data and I think because we're the data cloud and we're bringing data and then making it available and democratizing it for everybody and then partners like Infosys are actually helping us bring applications and new business models to the table to our customers and they're innovating on top of the data that we already have in the Snowflake data cloud. Chris, can you talk about some of the verticals where you guys are successful with Infosys? The three that I mentioned are all retailers but I know that finance, healthcare and life sciences are huge for Snowflake. Talk to me, give us a perspective of the verticals that are coming to you guys saying help us out, we got to transform. Well, I'll give you just an example. So in the retail space, for example, Kraft Heinz is a joint customer of ours and they've been all in on Snowflake's data cloud and one of our big customers as well is Albertsons and Albertsons realizes, oh my gosh, I have all this information around the consumer in the grocery stores and Kraft Heinz, they want access to that and they actually can make supply chain decisions a lot faster if they have access to it. So with Snowflake's data sharing, we can actually allow them to share data, Albertsons share data directly with Kraft Heinz and Kraft Heinz can actually make supply chain decisions in real time. So these are some of the stuff that Infosys and Snowflake help our customers solve. So traditionally, the data pipeline goes through some very highly specialized individuals whether they're the data engineer, the data scientist, the data analyst. So that example that you just gave, our organization, you mentioned before democratization. So democratization is to me as a business person, I actually can get access to the data. So in that example that you gave between Kraft Heinz and Albertson, is it the highly hyper specialized teams sharing that data or is it actually extending into the line of business, folks? Well, so that's the interesting part for us is I think Snowflake, we just recently reorganized my sales team this year into verticals. And the reason we did that is customers no longer want to talk to us about speeds and feeds of how fast my database goes. They want to actually talk about business outcomes. Hey, how do I solve for demand forecasting? You know, how do I supply, fix my supply chain issues? Those are things, those are the, and that's how we're aligning with Infosys so well is they've been doing this for a long time. Can't really, we haven't. And so we need their help on getting us to the kind of next level of the sales motion and talking to our customers on solving these business challenges. So. In terms of that next level, Sunil, question for you. Where are the customer conversations happening at what level? I mean, we've seen such dramatic changes in the market in the last couple of years. Now we're dealing with inflation, rising interest rates, Ukraine. Are you seeing the conversations in terms of building data platforms rising up the C-suite as every company recognizes, we've got to be a data company. We're not going to be in business. Absolutely. And I think all the macroeconomic forces that you talked about that's working on the enterprises globally is actually leading them to think about how to future proof their business models, right? And there are tons of learning that they've had in the last two to three years in digitizing and embracing more digital models. The conversation with the customers have really pivoted towards business outcome. It is a C-suite conversation. It is no longer just an incremental change for the companies. They recognize that data has been doubted as a strategic asset for a long time, but I think it's taking a purpose and a meaning as to what it does for the customers. The conversations are around industry verticals, what are the specific challenges and opportunities that the enterprises have and how do you realize those? And this cuts across multiple different layers. We were talking about how you democratize data, which in our point of view is absolute must in terms of putting a foundation that doesn't take super specialized people to be able to run every operation and every bit of data that you process. We have invested in building autonomous data in AI state that can process data as it comes in without any manual intervention and take it all the way to consumption. But also investing in those industry solutions. Along with Snowflake, we launched the healthcare and life sciences solution. We launched the Omni Channel for retail and CPG. And these are great examples of how Snowflake Foundation enables democratization on one side, but also help solve business problems. In fact, with Snowflake, we have a very special partnership because our point of view on data economy is about how you connect with the network partners externally. And Snowflake brings native capabilities on this. We leverage that to drive exchanges for our customers. And one of the services company in the recycling business, we are actually building an exchange which will allow the data points from multiple different sources and partners to come together so they have a better understanding of their customers, their operations, the field operations and things like that. So they're building a data ecosystem? Yes. Are they, is it a two-sided marketplace where you guys are observers and providing the technology and the process, you know, guidance, what's your role in that? Yeah, so we are seeing that evolution come in two stages, maybe even more. Customers are comfortable building an ecosystem that's kind of private for them, which means that they know who they are sharing data with, they know what the data is getting used for and how do you really put governance on this so that on one side you can trust it and on the other side, there's a good use of that data and not, you know, compromise on data quality or privacy and some of the other regulations. But we do see this opening up to the two-sided marketplaces as well. Some of the industries lend themselves extremely well for that kind of play. We have seen that happening in trading area. We've seen that happen in, you know, the credit checks and things like that, which are usually open for, you know, those kind of ecosystem. But the conversations and the programs are really leading towards that in the market. You know, Lisa, one of the things that I thought about this weekend is I was excited to come to Snowflake Summit and see one of the, you know, thesis I have is that we're going to move not just beyond analytics, including analytics, but also building data products that can be monetized. And I'm hoping we're going to see some of that here. Are you seeing that, Chris, in the customer base? It's a great question, Dave. So we have, you know, I just thought of it as he was talking about it, that we have a customer who's a very large customer of ours who's in the financial services space and they handle roughly 40% of the credit card transactions that happen in the U.S. And they're coming to us and saying they want to go from zero in data business today to a $2 billion business over the next five years. And they're leaning on us to help them do that. And one of the things that's exciting for me is they're coming to us not saying, hey, how do you do it? You know, they're saying, hey, we want to build a consumption model on top of Snowflake. And we want to use you as the delivery mechanism and the billing mechanism to help us actually monetize that data. So yes, the answer is, you know, I used to sell to, you know, chief data officers and CIOs. Now I'm talking to VPs of sales and I'm talking to chief operating officers and I'm talking to CEOs about how do we actually create a new revenue stream? And that's just, I mean, it's exhilarating to have those conversations. That's data products and they don't have to worry about the infrastructure. That comes from the cloud. They don't have to worry about the governance. As Sonia was saying. Just put it in Snowflake. Just put it in Snowflake. There you go.  It's this layer that's not just multiple clouds. You see a lot of your, quote unquote competitors, adjacent competitors saying, hey, we're now running in Google or we're running in Azure. We've been running on AWS. This is different. This is different. Isn't it? It's a cloud that floats above the infrastructure of the hyperscalers and that's a new era, I think. Yeah. It's a new era. I think the hyperscalers want to, you know, keep us as a data warehouse and we're not, the customers are not letting them. So, I think that's, you know, where emphasis kind of saw the light early on and they were our innovation partner of the year, this past year and they're helping us and our customers innovate. But you're uniquely qualified to do that. Where it's, I don't think it's the hyperscalers agenda, at least that I never say never with the hyperscalers, but yeah, they have focus on providing infrastructure and yeah, they have databases and other tools, but that cross cloud that continuum to your point, talking to VPs of sales and how do you generate revenue? That maybe is a conversation that they have, but not explicitly as to how to actually do it in a data cloud. That's right. I mean, those are the fun conversations because you're saying, hey, we can actually create a new revenue stream and how can we actually help solve our joint customers' problems? So, yes, it is. Well, and that's competitive differentiation for businesses. I mean, these, as I mentioned, every company has to be a data company. If they're not, they're probably not going to be around much longer. They've got to be able to leverage a data platform, like Snowflake, to find insights, to be able to act on them and create value. New services, new products, to stay competitive, to stay ahead of the competition. That's no longer a nice to have, right? It's 100%. I mean, I think they're all scared. I mean, like if you look in the financial services space, they look at some of the fintechs as the giant, 800-pound gorillas look at the small fintechs as huge threats to the business and they're coming to us and saying, how can we innovate our business now? And they're looking at us as the innovator and they're looking at emphasis to help them do that. So I think these are incredible times. So the narrative on Wall Street, of course, this past earning season was consumption and who has best visibility and they were able to, Snowflake had a couple of large customers dialed down consumption, some consumer-facing. Here's the thing, if you're selling a data product for more than it cost you to make, if you dial down consumption in the future, you're going to dial down revenue. So it's going to become less and less discretionary over time and that, to me, is the next era that's really exciting. The key there is understanding the unit of measure. I think that's the number one question that we get from customers is, what is the unit of measure that we care about that we want to monetize? Because to your point, if it costs you more to make the product, you're not going to sell it, right? And so I think that those are the things that the energy that we're spending with customers today is advising them, jointly advising them on how to actually monetize the specific unit of measure that they care about. Because when they get the Amazon bill the snowflake bill, the CFO who starts knocking the door, the answer has to be, well, look at all the revenue that we generated and all the operating profit and the free cash flow that we drove. And then it's like, oh, I get it, keep doing it. Well, if I'm going on sales calls with the VPS sales and their sales team, fantastic, right? I'm helping them generate revenue, right? That's a great conversation. New dynamic. And I think the adoption is really driven through the value that they can drive in their ecosystem. Data products are similar to products and services that these companies sell. And if you're embedding data or insights or AI into your product services, that makes you that much more competitive in the market and drive value for your stakeholders. And that's essentially the future business model that we're talking about on one side. The other one is the agility. Things aren't remaining constant. They're constantly changing. And we talked about some of those forces earlier. All of this is changing. The landscape is changing the needs in the economy and things like that. And how you adapt to those kind of models in the future and pivot it on data capabilities that lets you identify new opportunities and create new value. Speaking of creating new value, last question, guys, before we wrap. What's the go-to-market approach here between the two companies? Where can customers go to get engaged, I imagine, both sides? Yeah, I mean, the way that partnership looks good to me is sell with, co-selling. So I think we look at developing joint solutions with Infosys. They've done a wonderful job of leaning into our partnership. So, you know, Sunil and I have a regular cadence where we talk every quarter. And our sales teams and our partner teams are all leaning in on co-selling. I don't know if you have- No, absolutely. We proactively identify the opportunities for our customers. And we work together at all levels between the two companies to be able to bring a cohesive solution and a proposition for the customer and really help them understand how to, what is it that they can get to and how you get that journey actually executed. And it's a partnership that works very seamlessly through that entire process, not just upstream when we are selling, but also downstream when we are executing. And we've had tremendous success together and look forward to more. Congratulations on that success, guys. Thank you so much for coming on, talking about new possibilities with data and AI and sharing some of the impact that the technologies are making. We appreciate your insights. Thank you. Thank you so much. For our guests and Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live in Las Vegas from Snowflake Summit 22. We'll be back after the keynote with more breaking news.


Hi, thank you, Hannah. It's a pleasure to be here virtually in Europe. Our enemy as a whole. I'm actually from Europe originally So it's nice with COVID. I haven't had a chance to get back and I'm originally an assets boy But I hope Those in the UK don't hold that against me too much And I know this has been an incredibly unprecedented time With you know complete lockdowns working from home facing a lot of challenges across the board But it's been really interesting for us to see how actually important the web was kind of gave us a bit of a kick on I'm just like wow this ecosystem Is vital And so I just want to say thank you Because we really think it's it's all of us together that are building this web And as google we want to do everything we can to be the best possible partner To help you And we actually think the web is really different We think that's a good thing We don't think the web is just about kind of you know copying other platforms I really think the web is free It allows you to dream build monetize it in your particular way And I think this is something that's really special about the web We love with the user experience That the web is so fluid users are able to literally surf the web get instant access With zero friction It's trustworthy by default from the beginning of the web if you know we have to be safe on the end of this click We're not downloading software in the light So we have to make build safety in and just make it this lovely experience as you kind of traverse the web And of course it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. It means that when I share something to you I know it's going to work. I don't have to think about like oh I'm in clubhouse. Does that person have the ios app for it? I can just send it over and it just works You think that's really really important Now what are we doing to kind of take this you know high-leveling that makes the web so Kind of special for us and improve it together You're going to hear today. We're going to talk about a bunch of these themes We think on the user experience side is super important for us to make the web as frictionless as possible That then plays into that surfing the web So we're going to talk a lot about core web vitals page experience identity pains all these pieces that enable a low friction web Then trust is obviously really important and is very top of mind These days, so we're going to talk through what are we doing and what's our point of view on making the web Private by default and secure and then capabilities. It's not just about making things fast It's making things really powerful everywhere. And so talking about what we're doing there which is really exciting So on the friction side, you know, we talk a lot about building this, you know instant web And this is what we're really trying to drive to when we talk about getting low times down That's only part of it. We want to make this as instant as possible We want to get rid of all jank in the UI We want to have this like beautiful smooth seamless experience And then we have transactions as a part of this How do we just really make these seamless and trustworthy transactions? So a user can come in and they can convert As quickly as possible, which is good for them And also good for you on the business side Now we're going to talk about core web vitals and how we really want to give you all of the tools to measure what a high quality Experiences and we've talked about this in the past and we're going to go deep into it And excited to get your questions on that today Um, you know, we're not quite at io yet But I thought maybe it's time for for a new metric that I could just kind of Seed in there for you because we always want more metrics to To go after And so the new metric that i'm proud to announce today is time to tasty Actually, i'm kidding. We're not giving a new metric Hopefully you've got the memo that we really want to work closely on how we deliver these new metrics and make sure they're Very valid. You're a key part of the journey with metrics I'm making sure that we validate the business impact But this is actually something that I that I think about a lot if not getting just So obsessed just with each individual metric, but really thinking about The overall experience and then as we offer you a platform We want to give you the ability to build something very tasty as quickly as possible We don't want you to have to spend any more time than you need So you can focus on the the features that you want for your users And I think this is kind of the balance that we're trying to work to at the moment is how do we deliver taste And nutrition at the same time Right the users don't come in and to a restaurant and ask for the nutrition labels They're looking for really tasty food. So they're looking for these great experiences that you can deliver But it's on us collectively to like deliver that in a package that's going to be As healthy as possible for them So this is why I think it's so important for us to focus on the user experience here Now trust as I said privacy is very important at the moment. It's another key part of quality And this gives us a chance to kind of rethink the platform and a chance to do better You know a lot of the trust work That started on the web started very low level You know with cookies and things like that that were just very generic now We're able to build purpose built right? So this is a way we think about evolving the platform is we have low level Primitives we see how you use them and then hopefully we can up level and give you Capabilities that are actually better fit for your actual needs such as the conversion measurement API And again, it's really important Uh, that we're not just trying to build a web that you know, maybe loads fast, but it's kind of boring Right. We want a powerful web We want you to deliver the best possible experience that makes the best use of The devices that your users have all of their capabilities and we recognize that the web is a real spectrum Um, yeah, it's not just this kind of general platform where there's there's uh, you know, just some documents on it Um, there's a world of publishing which has unique needs. There's a world of commerce that has unique needs There's productivity and apps And we're really spending a lot of time Thinking about like what are the capabilities that we need to deliver? For your particular vertical, so that's a key thing that we want to learn from you It's like what what are the needs for your business? And we bring in machine learning really to the web and you're going to see there's a lot more At iO and the like too and so we really want to understand your use cases here in particular I've been working with the tensorflow team On how to not just build, you know, kind of like the fun demos That you you see a lot with like, you know, capturing body positions and things like that which Are really core But also tying into again your particular use cases and when you're able to get all of the models Bring them down use them directly in the browser I think that's going to unlock a lot of potential as well for you really excited about that And then to finish up, we just really understand that we're in this together as an ecosystem And so there's uh, it's not just about google obviously. That's one of the things we love about the web It's not our platform. It's our collective platform And you represent a lot of the critical components and there's a lot of partners that we work with that build infrastructure That's really important. And so it's it's very very vital for us This is why we work a lot with the cms is cv n's and and other folks that are in their commerce platforms How do we work together to build the content for the end user? And we understand that you know platform is all about the the value that extends to you And into how you use it and so this is why i'm so excited that we'll put this on to learn more from you Obviously, we're going to be sharing a lot of information too But i'm very keen to understand your needs so we can take that back to the team and evolve the platform together Thank you so much