Robert Peter Robbie Williams is an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995 and again from 2009 to 2012. He has also had commercial success as a solo artist. Williams rose to fame in Take That's first run in the early to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and group members, Williams left the group in 1995 to launch a solo career, in which all but one of his 11 studio albums have reached number one in the UK. Williams also released seven number one singles. On July 15, 2010, he rejoined Take That. The group's subsequent album Progress became the second-fastest-selling album in UK chart history and the fastest-selling record of the century at the time. Gary Barlow has since confirmed that Williams had left for a second time, although the departure was amicable and that Williams was welcome to rejoin the band in the future. He is the best-selling British solo artist in the United Kingdom and the best-selling non-Latino artist in Latin America. Six of his albums are among the top 100 biggest-selling albums in the United Kingdom, and in 2006 he entered the Guinness Book of World Records for selling 1.6 million tickets of his Close Encounters tour in a single day. Williams has received a record 18 Brit Awards-winning Best British Male Four Times, and two awards for outstanding contribution to music and the 2016 Brit's icon for his lasting impact on British culture, eight German Echo Awards, and three MTV European Music Awards. In 2004, he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame after being voted the greatest artist of the 1990s. According to the British phonographic industry, BPI, Williams has been certified for 19.5 million albums and 6.8 million singles in the UK as a solo artist. Williams also topped the 2000-2010 UK Airplay Chart, racking up almost 50% more plays than the Sugar Babes at number two. In 2014 he was awarded the freedom of his hometown of Stoke-on-Trent, as well as having a tourist trail created and streets named in his honour. Early Life Williams was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. His parents, Janet, Nay Farrell, and Peter Williams, also known as Pete Conway, ran a pub called The Red Lion in Baslam, before his father became the licensee at the Port Vale FC social club, this led to Williams' lifelong affinity for the team. His maternal grandfather was Irish and hailed from Kilkenny. Williams attended St Margaret Ward Catholic School in Tunstall, before attending Dance School Uckth in Tunstall. He participated in several school plays, and his biggest role was that of the artful dodger in a production of Oliver. Take That 1990-95, First Stint In 1990, the 16-year-old Williams was the youngest member to join Take That. According to the documentary Take That, for the record, his mother read an advertisement seeking members for a new boy band and suggested that he try out for the group. He met fellow member Mark Owen on the day of his audition interview with Nigel Martin Smith. During the heights of the band's popularity, Williams was known as the extrovert and cheeky practical joker of the band. Although the majority of the band's material was written and performed by Gary Barlow, Williams did perform lead vocals on their first top ten hit Could It Be Magic, I Found Heaven, and everything changes. However, he had conflicts with Martin Smith over the restrictive rules for Take That members, and he began drinking more alcohol and dabbling in cocaine. In November 1994, Williams's drug abuse had escalated to the point of his having a near-drug overdose the night before the group was scheduled to perform at the MTV Europe Music Awards. According to the documentary For the Record, he stated that he was unhappy with his musical ideas not being taken seriously by lead singer Barlow and Nigel Martin Smith, because his desire to explore hip-hop and rap conflicted with the band's usual ballads. Barlow explained in interviews that Williams had given up trying to offer creative input and merely did as he was told. As well as Williams's friction with the management of the band, Jason Orange had problems with his increasingly belligerent behavior, his lack of interest in performing, and his frequent habit of missing the band's rehearsals. Both Orange and Barlow confronted Martin Smith about the internal conflict, because they did not want him dropping out while touring and before any possible future touring of America, which never took place. During one of the last rehearsals before the tour commenced, the group confronted Williams about his attitude and stated they wanted to do the tour without him. He agreed to quit and left the group in July 1995, it would be the last time for 12 years that they were all together. Despite the departure of Williams, take that completed their Nobody Else tour as a four-piece band. They later disbanded on February 13, 1996, Williams's 22nd birthday. Shortly afterwards, Williams was photographed by the press partying with the members of Oasis at Glastonbury Festival. Following his departure, he became the subject of talk shows and newspapers as he acknowledged his plans to become a solo singer, and he was spotted partying with George Michael in France. However, a clause in his take that contract prohibited him from releasing any material until after the group was officially dissolved, and he was later sued by Martin Smith and forced to pay $200,000 in commission. After various legal battles over his right to a solo career, Williams was victorious in getting released from his contract with BMG. On June 27, 1996, Williams signed with Chrysalis Records. 2009-12, 2nd stint. On March 27, 2009, Williams stated he felt ready to rejoin take that. He said, �I�m in regular contact with them, even gaz, and it�s looking more likely by the week.� The lads all seem up for it and some people think it�s a done deal. I think it would be fun. Williams was eager to rejoin the band on their The Circus live tour, but these plans never materialized. In September 2009, Williams was reported to be working in New York with take that, however these rumours were never confirmed. While it was rumoured that Williams would reunite with take that on November 12, 2009 for a children in need charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall, they merely greeted each other warmly on stage between performances. However, both did join with the other acts in the final song of the evening, with Williams putting his arm around Gary Barlow and singing �Hey Jude.� On July 15 that Williams rejoined take that. In November 2010 the take that album Progress was released, becoming the fastest selling album since 2000 and the second fastest selling album in UK history. Williams explained that the longstanding feud between himself and Gary has been resolved, and how close they now were. The band also announced the Progress live tour which would travel across the UK, including a record-breaking eight nights at Wembley Stadium in London, then continue across Europe. The tour was the fastest selling in UK history with ticket hotlines and websites crashing under the demand. In August 2012, take that performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Williams was due to perform with the band but dropped out due to his wife giving birth at around the same time and thus the group performed as a four piece. Solo career 1996-98, life through a lens and IVE been expecting you. After leaving take that, Williams launched his solo career starting off in 1996 by covering George Michael's Freedom, the single reached number two in the UK singles chart. Recordings for Williams's first album began at London's Maison Rouge Studios in March 1997. Shortly after his introduction to Guy Chambers, Williams released Old Before I Die which would be the first single taken from his debut album. The single reached number two on the UK charts, however, it was largely ignored on international charts. His debut album, Life Through a Lens, was released in September 1997. The album launched with his first live solo gig at the Elisabeth-Martre Theatre in Paris, France. The album debuted at number 11 on the UK albums chart. Williams released what would be the fourth single taken from his album. Angels became Williams bestseller in the United Kingdom. The song, apart from becoming a hit around Europe and Latin America, caused sales of his album to skyrocket. The album remained inside the British Top 10 for 40 weeks and spent 218 weeks there altogether, making it the 58th bestselling album in UK history with sales of over 2.4 million. The album eventually managed to sell over 3 million copies in Europe. Williams and Chambers started writing the second album in Jamaica in early 1998. The first single, Millennium, became Williams' first solo number one single in the United Kingdom.It also became a top 20 hit in many European countries, Latin America and Australia. When the album I V E Been Expecting You was released in late October 1998, it debuted at number one in the UK albums chart. The album received more attention outside the United Kingdom, leaving its mark in the European and Latin American markets with hits such as No Regrets, a collaboration with the pet shop boys singer Neil Tennant and the divine comedies Neil Hannon. A cover of a track from World Party's album, Egyptology, became Williams' second number one hit in the UK.Williams finished the year with a European tour late in 1999. The album I V E Been Expecting You sold almost 3 million copies in the UK and was certified 10x platinum by the BPI. In Europe, the album sold over 4 million copies. 1999-2001, Sing When You're Winning and Swing When You're Winning. In 1999, Williams was signed to Capitol Records in the United States, a part of Emmy. He embarked on a US promotional tour and released his first US and Canadian single, Millennium. The album The Ego Has Landed was released in July 1999 in the United States and Canada. In the middle of promotion and the tours in 1999, Williams began work on his third studio album. This time he had finally found his inner confidence. The first single taken from the album was Rock DJ, a song inspired by Williams' UNICEF mentor, The Late Ian Dury. The video created by Fred and Fareed showed Williams in an attempt to get noticed by a group of females, first stripping and then tearing chunks of skin and muscle from his body, and caused controversy in the United Kingdom and many other countries. The video was edited by Top of the Pops for its graphic content and many other channels followed suit. The song became an instant hit, reaching number one in the UK, becoming his third number one single as a solo artist, and New Zealand. The song went on to win Best Song of 2000 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, Best Single of the Year at the Brit Awards and an MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects. When the album, Sing When You're Winning was released in August 2000, it topped the charts in many different countries. In the UK the album was certified 2X Platinum on its first week of release. After the success of his third album, Williams wanted to take another musical direction. He took two weeks off from his tour to record what would be his fourth studio album, a big band album. Born from his lifelong love for Frank Sinatra combined with the success of the track Have You Met Miss Jones, that he recorded for the film Bridget Jones Diary in early 2001 THE album was recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. Williams took the chance to duet with his longtime friend Jonathan Wilkes, little voice star Jane Horrocks, Saturday Night Live star John Lovitz, Rupert Everett and actress Nicole Kidman. The first single released from the album was a duet with Kidman, on Something Stupid. Originally a hit for Frank and Nancy Sinatra, the song became Williams' fifth number one hit in the UK. It eventually went on to become one of the biggest hits of 2001. Beyond the Sea was featured over the credits of the film Finding Nemo in 2003 and was also released on the film's soundtrack CD. A DVD called Robbie Williams Live at the Albert Hall was released in December of that year. So far, it has become one of the best-selling music DVDs in Europe, being certified 6X Platinum in the United Kingdom and 2X Platinum in Germany. 2002-05, Escapology and Intensive Care In 2002, Williams signed a record-breaking £80 million contract with Emmy. The contract included a number of provisos, including the label seeding greater creative control to the artist and a commitment to breaking Williams into the US market. So far it is the biggest music deal in British history. The deal was brokered by Ingenious Media, a leading UK corporate finance advisory business. Williams began working on what would be his fifth studio album, spending a year in the recording studio. The album heralded a new era for Williams. He had taken a more active role in the making of this album, giving an indication of his growing confidence in the studio. One fine day, Nan's song, and Come Undone were the first songs that Williams wrote without the input of Guy Chambers. Most of the songs were recorded in Los Angeles. The album's first single, Feel, written by Williams and Chambers, was recorded as a demo. When they started working on the album and were trying to re-record the vocals, Williams felt unsatisfied with it, so he decided to include the demo version and then release it as the first single. When the single was released in late 2002, it became Williams' biggest international hit, going number one in countries like the Netherlands and Italy, as well as reaching the top ten in almost every single European country. When Williams' fifth studio album, Escapology, was released in late 2002, it hit number one in at least ten countries around the world. In the United States, however, it failed to make such an impact. Escapology sold almost two million copies by the end of 2003 in the United Kingdom. In October 2003, Williams released his first live album, Live at Nebworth. In October 2004, Williams released, Greatest Hits, a retrospective of his career, and also, to reveal the new tracks he had been working on with the then new collaborator, Stephen Duffy. Radio, the compilation's first single, debuted at number one in the UK Singles Chart, becoming Williams' sixth number one hit. When the compilation was later released it debuted at number one in the U-Cand was the best-selling album of the year in the U-Cand Europe. Eight years after the release of Angels, in February 2005 the British public voted it as the best single of the past 25 years at the 2005 Brit Awards. After touring Latin America in late 2004 for the promotion Greatest Hits, Williams started working on his sixth studio album. Recorded at his house in the Hollywood Hills, the album was co-written by Stephen Duffy over the course of 24 months. The album Intensive Care was launched in Berlin on October 9. It became a smash hit around the world. In November 2005, Williams took home the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Male, but also, entered in the Guinness Book of World Records when he announced his world tour for 2006, selling 1.6 million tickets in one single day. Williams kicked off his Close Encounters world tour in South Africa in April 2006, when he finished his European leg of the tour. 2.5 million people had seen the show, and after touring Latin America and Australia the numbers went up to 3 million. 2006-09, Rudabox and Reality killed the video star. Williams released his much anticipated dance electro-album, Rudabox, on October 23, 2006. It featured collaborations with the Pet Shop Boys, William Orbit, Soul Meconic, Joey Negro, Mark Ronson, Chris Greerson and The Orr Boys. It received mixed reviews, all music gave it a four-star rating, the NME 8 out of 10, and Music Week and Mojo were equally positive, but it received much weaker reviews from some of the British press. The album sold 2x platinum in Europe with sales of over 2 million making it the fastest platinum-selling album of 2006. To promote his album, Williams commissioned a series of short films. Goodbye to the Normals was directed by Jim Field Smith and features Baslam Normals by Robbie Williams. Rumors of a new studio album CO written with Guy Chambers surfaced in early 2007, along with known commitments required by Williams to his Emmy contract. British singer-songwriter Laura Critchley commented that she had sung vocals for three songs, and said that it would not be released until 2009. In February 2009, it was confirmed that Williams had written material with Guy Chambers and Mark Ronson. A spokesman said that Williams was planning to begin the recording sessions in March and that the new album would be released in late 2009. This will probably be the last Williams album released by Emmy. On his official website, Williams confirmed that he was working with producer Trevor Horne on his new album, which would eventually be titled Reality Killed the Video Star, a reference to the song Video Killed the Radio Star by Horne's former Ben the Buggles. The album was released on November 9, 2009 in the United Kingdom. On October 11, 2009 Williams published a 12 track compilation album, titled Songbook, as a free CD for the newspaper The Mail on Sunday. The CD is a one-off album of some of his biggest hits including several rare live performances. That same evening, Williams made his comeback on The X Factor results show, performing his new single Bodies for the first time live. On October 20, 2009 Williams opened the BBC Electric proms at the London Roundhouse. It was his first live concert for three years and was broadcast across 200 cinemas worldwide. Accompanied by a string section, Horne section, full band and producer Trevor Horne, Williams performed several new tracks from Reality Killed the Video Star and older tracks. Reality Killed the Video Star was previewed in the UK on the Spotify music streaming service on November 6, 2009, an official released on November 9. In a high-profile chart battle, Williams' album was pitted against X Factor 2008 runners-up JLS who released their debut album the same day. JLS beat Williams to the number one spot by 1500 sales. The album was also released in the United States, Williams' first album to be released there since 2002's Escapology. In late November 2009, Williams travelled to Australia to perform at the Aria Music Awards of 2009. 2010-12, In an Out of Consciousness and Take the Crown. In October 2010, Williams released his second greatest hits album, In an Out of Consciousness, The Greatest Hits 1990-2010 to celebrate 20 years as a performing artist. A single, Shame, was also released, which was written and sung by Williams and Barlow. On October 21, 2011 Williams signed with Island Records, Universal Music, following his departure from his previous record label Emmy in 2010. He said in a statement, �I�m really thrilled to be joining the Universal family at what I think is the most exciting time in my career.� Williams was the opening act at the Diamond Jubilee Concert, which was co-organized by Gary Barlow, held outside Buckingham Palace on June 4, 2012. During the end of August his official website began a countdown to the release of information regarding his latest solo material, with an image of his face and his mind unveiled daily as the countdown expired. In late August revealing the track listing and the name, Take the Crown. Take the Crown debuted at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart making it Williams�tenth No. 1 album. It also marked the second time that Williams had a No. 1 single, Candy, an album at the same time on the chart. The first time was in 2001 when �Something Stupid and Swing When You�re Winning� were No. 1 on the singles and albums chart respectively. The albums lead single, Candy, premiered on September 10, 2012 and was released on September 11 in most countries in October 29 in the UK. In the UK, Candy became Williams� first No. 1 single since Radio, 2004, and his seventh solo No. 1 single. In its first week the song has sold 137,000 copies becoming the fastest selling male artist single of the year. On November 26, 2012 Williams announced a 17-date stadium tour of Europe. Williams also confirmed that the support act for the tour would be Alimas who also duets with him on kids. Universal and Emmy merged in 2012, bringing Williams' Chrysalis Virgin Recordings full circle to Universal. 2013-14 � Swings Both Ways and Under the Radar Vol. 1 In September 2013, Williams announced a follow-up to his 2001 Swing album, titled Swings Both Ways for Release in November. The album features covers and original songs, whilst also including duet recordings with Michael Buble, Oli Muzz, Rufus Wainwright, Lily Allen and Kelly Clarkson. In November 2013 Williams made a cameo appearance in the video to Mrs. Songhand on Heart. Williams released a compilation album entitled Under the Radar Vol. 1 on December 1, 2014 through his website, featuring b-sides, demos and other previously unreleased songs. An example of the latter is Run It Wild a song that he once got very, very excited for and prepared for last year's Take the Crown Stadium tour. These are loads and loads of songs that I've written that I'm incredibly passionate about, I want you to hear them, otherwise they're just going to remain in my computer. Williams claims that Guy Chambers isn't happy about these songs being released online, he thinks I'm a lunatic for not putting them on an album that we've promoted with TV performances and at radio stations and a big tour, Williams said. But I'm an impetuous bugger, and I want them out now, now, now. 2016 Present, The Heavy Entertainment Show In May 2016, it was announced that Williams had signed a recording contract with Sony Music. In a statement, Williams said, They're Sony Music inspired, I'm inspired. I'm more ready than I ever have been and I'm totally convinced I'm in the right place. I look forward to working on this album, which is an album I'm immensely proud of, in this exciting new partnership with Sony Music. The Heavy Entertainment Show became his twelfth UK number one album, putting him level with Madonna. Other projects. Collaborations One of his most famous collaborations was on The Song Kids, a duet with Australian pop star Kylie Meenog. The single peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart in 2000. Williams also collaborated with Australian film star Nicole Kidman on a cover of Frank and Nancy Sinatra's Something Stupid. The single reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in 2001. His single No Regrets featured Neil Tennant, and Neil Hannon on backing vocals. In 2001, Williams recorded We Are the Champions with Queen for the 2001 medieval adventure film A Night's Tale. In 2002, Williams appeared on the track My Culture on the one giant leap album, alongside rapper Maxi Jazz, which features lyrics from the hidden track Hello Sir from Life Through a Lens. Williams also features on a double CD titled Concrete which was released on the same day as Rudebox. The CD features a concert recorded for the BBC featuring the Pet Shop Boys and Williams singing their classic hit Jealousy. Their joint effort, She's Madonna, was released as a single in March 2007. On August 13, 2007, a Dean Martin duet's album was released, on which Williams sings Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone. In 2010 he announced that he was to release Shame, a duet with take that lead singer-songwriter Gary Barlow as the first single from his greatest hits collection In and Out of Consciousness, the greatest hits 1990-2010 which was certified silver in the UK and charted in 19 countries worldwide. In 2012, Williams recorded a duet with Mexican recording artist Thalia for the Spanish song Te Quiero Digist, Muniquita Linda, included on her album Habitum Siempre. Other work. In 2005 Williams provided the voice of Dougal in the film adaptation of The Magic Roundabout. On August 26, 2010, it was announced Williams would become a guest vocal coach on the ninth series of German reality television show Popstars, Girls Forever to teach candidates for a girl group. On September 20, 2010, Williams released his second book called You Know Me in collaboration with Chris Heath. The book features a collection of photographs of Williams from the past 20 years of his career and discussion of them by Williams as transcribed by Heath. Williams launched a radio show titled Radio Rudibox on October 6, 2011 where he played music and interviewed Gary Barlow. Video Game Williams features in his own karaoke video game, We Sing Robbie Williams which was released on November 12, 2010 by Nordic Games Publishing Ave. Achievements It has been claimed that Williams has sold more albums in the UK than any other British solo artist in history and has won more Brit Awards than any other artist to date. His record sales stands at over 77 million worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. Williams was entered in the Guinness Book of World Records when, after he announced his world tour for 2006, 1.6 million tickets were sold in one day. He has been presented many awards, including 17 Brit and 8 Echo Awards. In 2004, he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, after being voted as the greatest artist of the 1990s. Williams appears in the list of the all-time top 100 biggest selling albums in the United Kingdom six times. In October 2009, it was announced that he would receive the Outstanding Contribution to British Music Award at the 2010 Brit Awards. In September 2010, Williams switched on the Blackpool Illuminations, stating that it was one of the greatest honours he had achieved. In October, media control named Williams the most successful album artist of the millennium due to the fact that he had spent number one on the German Albums Chart for 38 weeks since 2000. He also reached that charts top 10 135 times. Personal Life Since 2006, Williams has spent most of his time in Los Angeles. Williams moved back to the UK in 2009 when he bought an £8.5 million mansion in Compton Bassett, Wiltshire, nearby to close friend Jonathan Wilkes who lives in Swindon. Williams sold the mansion a year later to move back to Los Angeles.  He has discussed how his friend Elton John booked him into a clinic to cope with his drug use that emerged from the depression he was experiencing while still in take that. He revealed in 2011 he had been battling lethargy caused by a type of hormone imbalance called andropause for a number of years and thought at first it was a return of his depression. Interests Williams has a strong interest in UFOs and related paranormal phenomena, and has pursued this interest during his 2007-08 sabbatical. His interest in the subject led to him taking part in a documentary for BBC Radio 4 with John Ronson. The documentary followed them to a UFO convention in Nevada during which Williams connected his interest in the paranormal with the desire to understand his childhood fears of his mother's interest in the world's mysteries, elves, demons, witchcraft. Williams became an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery to officiate the wedding of friends. Relationships and fatherhood Since May 2006, Williams has been in a relationship with the Turkish-American actress Ada Field. She was featured in the UFO documentary that Williams did for BBC Radio 4 in April and took part in a field investigation he did in Trout Lake, Washington in August 2008. There has been speculation for many years about Williams's sexuality, with many speculating that he may be bisexual. In an interview with The Daily Star, he stated, �I love musical theatre and a lot of the other things that are often associated with gays. I am 49% homosexual and sometimes as far as 50%. However, that would imply that I enjoy having a particular sort of fun, which I don't.� On November 26, 2009, Williams proposed to field live on the Australian radio channel 2DAYFM in an interview on The Kyle & Jackie O'Shoe. A few days later Williams denied the engagement, using his official blog to say �Hey all, we are not engaged.� Rob. Williams' daughter Theodora Teddy Rose was born on September 18, 2012. His second child Charlton Charlie Valentine was born on October 27, 2014. Wealth. In 2011 his wealth was estimated at £90 million. Williams is a lifelong supporter of Port Vale, based in his hometown of Stoke-on-Trent. In February 2006, he bought £240,000 worth of shares in the club, making him the majority shareholder. However the club entered administration on March 9, 2012, and as a result Williams lost all of his shares in the club and received only a fraction of his original investment back. Charity. Williams has set up a charity in his hometown of Stoke-on-Trent entitled Give It Some, its goal being to improve local conditions and strengthen community life by giving money to those who are disadvantaged. Williams, with the help of friend Jonathan Wilkes, has organised charity football matches called Soccer Aid to Raise Money for UNICEF UK. A mixture of celebrities and professional football players have played soccer aid matches in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012 at Old Trafford in Manchester and Wembley Stadium in London. Williams has been the patron of the children's charity The Donna Louise Trust, based in Stoke-on-Trent, since 2002. The charity offers respite and palliative care to terminally ill and life-limited children who are not expected to live past the age of 16. Awards. Williams has won various awards with some of his more recognised accolades being the Brit Awards. He has won a record 18 Brit Awards which also include the Brits he won with take that making him the most successful artist in the history of the awards. He has also won eight Echo Awards from the German music industry.


It looks okay. No, and maybe it can be a little bit more material. Just a little bit. At the start of the meeting, what do we have? Loads of material. Yeah, but it was almost nothing. But you remember, most of the passing is from the inside, because you have the stones. No, yeah. But this corner is always so different. It's so funny, because when you're racing you don't see how much is actually going the other way.  No, it is. It's better to be focused and drive through page three. No, but bikes don't need to be going both if you go outside and inside, because it was clear heats last year. Not even I'm from inside. No, let's look at Batec in the front there. It was always full ups and inside there. But it was taking him all the time. Yeah, but like last year, you also cut many times from inside and the bike power to go. We don't need to cross that. Because out of that corner, it was like a small jewellery, you could hit and you get some extra speed. Well, it looks very similar to how the track was last year, to be honest. It looks like maybe there is a little bit of more material in the first and second corner here. But, you know, when the track is prepared like this, obviously the setup is going to play a vital role here. I'm sure we will see passing as well. We saw it last year. Hopefully I can produce something similar to what I did last year at the GP and hopefully even win.


Live from the MGM Grand Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, it's theCUBE at splunk.conf 2014. Brought to you by headline sponsor, Splunk. Here are your hosts, Jeff Kelly and Jeff Frick. Hi, welcome back everyone. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are at the splunk.conf 2014, the fifth annual Splunk user conference at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. We've gone two days of wall-to-wall coverage. John Furrier was here yesterday. Jeff Kelly's been here for the duration. I got to step in today with, you know, what is really one of our favorite shows? We'll cover about 50 events on theCUBE this year. And I got to say, Splunk show is one of our favorites because we get so many practitioners on.  So another great day, ton of great interviews. We'll all be online, obviously, you can watch them if you miss them live. So, Jeff, what do you think? I know you're about Splunk that we need to Splunk Jeff here because I think he's running out of steam. No, it's a rarer to go. I'm upset we don't have more segments to do today. I know. I could go for another five hours. I think it's three days next year. We're gonna go for three days. Absolutely packing another day. There's no question about it. Look, my take on the show is, what I came in here wanting to see was, number one was kind of the enthusiasm of the attendees. Was it gonna match the level last year because last year was pretty incredible? And I'd say it matched and then some. Just the number of attendees increased significantly. Obviously we're in a new venue this year. They had to go to a venue that could accommodate more people. But the energy is still there. And again, one of the best ways to judge the traction of any software company, any technology company really is, can they produce customers that are willing to talk about how they're using the tools, using the solutions for delivering business value? And they did that. And they do that every year and they're consistent in that. And I think that speaks a lot to why they're so successful. They've built not just an application, but a platform that people are driving real business value with. And then in this big data space that I cover every day, one of the challenges we've seen is, well, where are all the applications? Because ultimately that's where the value's gonna be delivered. There's a lot of innovation going on in the infrastructure and the plumbing level. And that's critical. It's a critical enabler. Things around Hadoop and no SQL databases and SQL on Hadoop, et cetera, et cetera. And that stuff is all very important. In fact, you couldn't have a lot of the, you wouldn't see the application certainly without that foundational level layer. But the question is always, where is the business value being driven? And it's up to stack at the application level. And Splunk's one of the very few companies that can say, we're doing this for real in production with real customers across a number of vertical industries. We had on healthcare, transportation, retail. So you name it and they're covering it. So yeah, I mean, there's not much negative you could say about Splunk. They're doing a great job. I think the biggest challenge for them going forward, we touched on it a little bit in the previous segment. One of the things that Sanjay from Cisco brought up is they're going to have to shift from that IT buyer to the business buyer. They're really going to expand and go, put this into overdrive. There's a much bigger potential customer base if you can open up the line of business buyer. And I'd say they're in a position to do that because of the outcomes that they can talk about in business terms, not technical terms, but they still have to execute. And they still have to make that shift. So that's one of their challenges. And then of course, when you scale, when you're scaling as fast as Splunk is doing, this is similar challenge that company Tableau has, a company who showed we did fairly recently about a month ago. For a company like Splunk and like Tableau, they're very well known for their customer service and their fanatical focus on the customer. As you scale, there's always that risk that you're going to lose that focus. So they've got to maintain that focus as well. I think they clearly have it now. It'll be interesting to see over the next 12 months how that holds up. But really great show, love doing this show because you just get such great content. I hope the audience enjoyed it. A lot of good stuff. Yeah, and they really touch on so many trends that we cover at all the shows that we go to. And I'm curious to get your insight because they play with Hadoop, they play with AWS, they play in the cloud, they play on-prem with Mint. Now they're increasing their mobile activity. So, and they're doing analytics, right? And big data, and really hardcore big data with unstructured data, structured data, mainframe data, machine-to-machine data. We see and you cover a lot of little parts of that puzzle, but I don't know that there's someone who kind of embraces all of those things so universally. I would tend to agree with that. I mean, I think as I mentioned, look, the foundational layer, the infrastructure layer is critical which this thing scales out and to be clear, Splunk is not positioned as a kind of a storage layer. They're not for large-scale storage. They're not for bringing in, dumping in all your data from 10 years worth of log data and customer data. That's not their role. Their role is to provide operational analytics on fairly, quote-unquote, hot data, data that's relatively new. So there's a lot of other parts that are important to this ecosystem. But again, as you move up the stack you get closer and closer to the business value. And it gets much easier to tell the story as you get higher up the stack. It's very difficult to translate how MapReduce is going to create business value. That's a tough story to tell. Not that it doesn't happen, but that's a marketing challenge for sure. But it's much easier to say, well, we have an application that's going to allow you to increase efficiency by X percent on your trains and that's going to save you millions of dollars on fuel costs. This person gets that. Under the covers, whether it's Splunk or someone else, there's all these enabling technologies. And there's Hadoop and MapReduce that might be doing its thing. But it's much easier once you get to the top of that stack to explain the business value. And that's one of the things that... It's interesting that Splunk has picked this space. I think the founders are very astute and realize that it's going to be the application that's going to be critical. And then of course, modeling their search functionality around Google can't lose there. So again, it's hard to find faults. Splunk's doing a great job and we're looking forward to being back next year and seeing what their customers are up to by then. Yeah, some of the other potential gotchas that came up on the analysts call that we listened to a little earlier is it takes a long time to get their salespeople up to speed. I think it's about a year before they figure their salespeople are what they call tenured and really producing revenue at a good rate because it's not an easy sale and there's so many solutions. Clearly they had a great quarter last quarter, $100 million quarter for the first time which was a breakthrough quarter for them but their net income at the bottom is not much. If any are slightly negative but everyone talks about the fact they've got terrific growth margins at the top line but they're investing heavily, they're growing. And I think one of the guests said, when's Amazon going to make a profit too? So huge opportunity just in terms of investing in the market opportunity that they see as being so big and so vast and you see that in their R&D efforts having all these applications across all these different platforms. Well, look, when you're a growing company like Splunk you want to take advantage of this. This opportunity doesn't come around every day. When you're in this growth phase you've got to take advantage of it. So while they're on track to do $420 million plus in revenue this year I'm quite confident that their goal is not to be a $500 million company. They want to be a multi-billion dollar company and in order to do that you've got to gain massive adoption. So they're in that mode right now they're doing things like lowering prices for their cloud solution. They're increasing the amount of data you can bring into entry level environments. They're trying to make it easier for people to get started with Splunk expand that footprint. And as this company matures then they can ratchet up the revenue and excuse me ratchet up the profit by maybe scaling back a little bit on what they're funneling back into the business for R&D. Now of course this is a delicate balance because they've got to continue to innovate. There's plenty of companies out there that are going to be nipping at their heels. Startups that are seeing what Splunk is doing and saying, well we can do that and we can do it better. So we're going to go after that market and then you're going to have on the other side the big players, IPMs of the world they're not going to just sit back and let Splunk take this market. So it's going to be extremely competitive. I mean we've sized this big data market. It's going to be $50 billion plus market by 2017. That means there's a lot of companies that want their piece of that. So they're going to have plenty of competition. So they have to be careful how they balance the responding to investor pressure to deliver profit and pumping revenue back into the company to continue the innovation. So it's not easy. And that's one of the tricks of growing a company is when do you take your foot off the gas pedal a little bit? I don't have an answer. Yeah, that's not happening here. I would say this, I would say at the very least it's not now, they've got to continue to scale this thing. So the question is when and we'll see. And a lot of it will be based on, I think to some degree they probably won't want to say this because they want to, it'll Splunk like any good solid company is going to say we respond to our customers first and foremost. That's true, but it'll be interesting if the pressure starts ratcheting up from Wall Street and from investors to return more of a profit and return more of that money to the shareholders. We'll see how they respond. But right now, I think shareholders understand or getting better understanding of Splunk. We've talked of course of the last two days how it is a bit of a challenging story for Wall Street to kind of get their arms around Splunk and what they do because they're are they apps company, are they a platform company? But I think they're starting to get it. And smart investors will, who are in this for the long term understand that now is the time to invest in growth, not the scale back. Yeah, and Jeff Bezos has been doing that for decades now, right? Kind of basically running the company as he wants to run it. So I just wanted to capture a couple of quotes. I think we did, I don't know how many interviews we did over the last couple of days, 25, 30 interviews. But there's some, I think there's some interesting quotes that kind of sum up some of the big themes. One of them was from Godfrey, sold in the CEO during the keynote. They're really talking about security as an analytics challenge, not a monitoring challenge. Really a different way in baking security into everything you do. Guido had a great quote about, you know, store first, schema on read, flexible analytics at top, at scale. Which I thought was really a powerful statement as opposed to figure out your schema, then load the data, then run the analytics. So really flipping everything kind of on its head. Shani Antani from GE, phenomenal in the keynote. I think the best part of his talk was really about defined outcomes. What are you doing things for? Are you doing it so that you can deliver more value to your customers? And if you're not, don't do it. And really being iterative in what you do as a company and how you deliver, thinking customer first as opposed to product first or feature first. Lina, Josie, great guest. One of our women in tech featured gals really had the great bumper sticker, I think. Always start with the data. And she was very clear she's managing a huge portfolio of products along a number of delivery methodologies, but always start with the data. Devani Lamas, we see more and more focus on front end UI design and making it easier for customers to deal with your applications. And really her great quote I thought was combining human insight and intuition and powerful computing power. Really leveraging what computers can do and what computers can do well. And really that's some of that automated pattern recognition that they put into the 6.2 release. Mark Raff, the security keynote, you gotta watch it. Again, he had a really great quote at the end, especially if you have anyone in your family that was in World War II, it will speak to you directly and I'll just leave it at that. And then finally, I think a theme that we've heard. Well, let me go back one more. Jim Nichols, I think was terrific when he told us that his biggest Splunk user is a customer service agent with the liberal arts background. I mean, that's gotta be music to Splunks ears in terms of that person learning the tool, recognizing the opportunity, applying their knowledge and their objectives to really create a new dashboard and a new way to use Splunk that no one had else designed in the company. I thought that was pretty powerful. And then finally, Aaron Fulkerson in three words, really this evolution of data and going from reactive to proactive to predictive. And really that being kind of the holy grail is to get out to that predictive and in an SLA business as he described being able to solve problems before the customer even knows they exist and leveraging that predictive. So those are just some of my highlights. All that's embedded in the videos. We'll have all the videos in the interviews tagged up shortly, but those are some of my great takeaways. I'll leave it to you to close this out, Jeff. Well, you know, a great show. Really enjoyed it. It's always fun coming to .conf. Looking forward to being back again next year. I wonder if we'll be here or if we'll have to expand even further. I think MGN is almost as big as it gets, right? Well, there's Moscone and what goes on there. So there's always a Las Vegas convention center where they're consumer electronics show. You can still get a little bit bigger. So that's it. We are out. We're wrapping up two days a day today, two days of wall to wall coverage. Here it's blunt.conf. We're the last guys here. They're cleaning up in the corner. We're closing down the place like we like to do. Thanks for watching. Stay tuned. We'll be, check the SiliconANGLE.tv for our upcoming events where we're going. Busy season, busy year. Also, you can find all of the interviews there. Go to wikibon.org for the wikibon analysis research. We're tired. Jeff's got some great stuff up there on big data that you definitely got to see. And of course, siliconangle.com for the latest tech news. I'm Jeff Ricks, signing off with Jeff Kelly from spunk.conf. You're watching theCUBE. Keep it tuned in. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.


Okay. So, let's start here with a theoretical yield problem. Okay? So, it says here, the theoretical yield of iron was 30 grams. Okay, so 30 grams of iron. Let's make up a question. How many grams of aluminum did we start with? Okay? Is everybody okay with that? Let's try that problem. So, what did it say? The theoretical yield of iron is 30 grams. So, the mass of iron, 30 points, it actually says 30.0 grams. Okay? So, do iron and aluminum weigh the same amount? So, we got to convert things from mass units to what units? In order to mole units, right? Why mole units? Because mole is an amount, right? It's like counting things. Okay? So, instead of weighing these two things, which would be the practical way of doing it, because in the lab it's easier to weigh things than atoms, especially than to count down, of course. We have to convert from weight to counting back to weight. Okay? So, that's what we're essentially doing. So, how do we convert from mass to moles? You guys remember? So, what we're trying to figure out is the mass of the aluminum, right? And we've got the mass of iron. You guys can help me any time. It's all being recorded. So, molar mass, very good. So, grams on the bottom, right? Grams of iron. One mole on the top, very good. And that's going to be one mole of iron, right? It's good for you guys to put the iron there. Just kind of get these conversion problems because we're going to go to aluminum in a second, you know? So, we've got to make sure that we're talking about iron or aluminum. So, now we've cancelled out grams of iron. But remember, we're looking for mass of aluminum. So, have we gotten that yet? So, what do we got to do now? Mole to mole. So, figure out the moles of aluminum, right? So, what's the mole to mole ratio here? Or, yeah, or a 2 to 2. Let's just keep it, just keep it 2 to 2. Because why? There's a coefficient here is 2, coefficient here is 2, okay? So, 2 mole Fe, 2 mole Al. And you guys are right, it's a 1 to 1 ratio. So, we figured out the number of grams of al yet? No. What do we do? Mole or mass again? What is it? How do we find it? Look at the periodic table, right? 2698. So, the mass of aluminum yet? You guys think you can do that on here? Just remember, this is what chemistry is all about. Once you learn the periodic table and once you learn cancelling units, you should be able to do anything in chemistry. Okay, so let's do it together. 30 times 2 times 26.98. Okay, that number divided by 55.35. That number divided by 2. And what do you guys get? 14.5. 14.5. Why only that many sig figs? Because you started with 30.0. Yep, because you started with 3 sig figs. Congratulations. So, if the theoretical yield, if the theoretical yield of that is 30 grams, then you must have started with this many grams of aluminum. That's what it said. Does that make sense to everybody? Are there any questions before we kill this video? We'll do a percent yield. Okay. Question? Yeah. Why did we use 2 moles of al? Why did we use 2 moles of al? Because it said the chemical equation is balanced to 2 to 2. If you wanted to, you could say a 1 to 1 is the same, right? Because 2 divided by 2, of course, equals 1, right? But I just like to, especially with introductory or general chemistry students, just keep it what's presented on the chemical equation and it really, you know, makes your job a little easier so you don't have to always take ratios and stuff. Does that answer your question? Yeah, you take this from the problem. Yeah, you take it from the actual chemical equation if that's what you were thinking. Okay. Any other questions? Okay, cool. Good job guys.


President and Mrs. Jorge Blanco, ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to have you as our guest this evening. President Jorge Blanco and his lovely wife represent a country rich in history, blessed with natural beauty and filled with creative and robust people. This morning at the welcoming ceremony, I mentioned the great accomplishments of your people. Mr. President, you can be rightfully proud of your country's freedom. Eugenio Maria de Austos, a writer from the last century, truly a man of the hemisphere once wrote, no one knows better the meaning of justice and freedom than those who have lived under despotism, well, such is the case of those who lead the Dominican Republic today. In our lifetime, through your efforts and those of good people like you, the Dominican Republic has been rescued from tyranny and brought safely into the family of free nations. Your personal commitment to the high ideals of liberty, Mr. President, is exemplary. There can be no greater vocation for any statesman than to lead his people to a more free, just, and humane society. In pursuit of that vocation, you have set a standard of statesmanship and patriotism, which is a model not only for the Caribbean but for the Western Hemisphere, indeed for the leader of any country, seeking to create a climate of dignity and freedom in which the human spirit can flourish. This is not to suggest that under a free government, there are no problems. One of the perplexing difficulties, as we're both fully aware, Mr. President, is ensuring economic growth and progress. World events totally beyond our control can dramatically change the rules of the game. Such was the case with energy costs during the last decade. Maintaining healthy economic growth in the face of rising energy costs has been a major challenge to democratic governments throughout the world. Progress can no longer be taken for granted, but instead requires constant diligence and a commitment to the long-run well-being of a country. Yet there's no reason that, working together, free people cannot triumph over adversity today, just as we have in the past. Juan Pablo Duarte, the great Dominican patriot, said it well. Let us work for the country, he wrote. For in so doing, we work for ourselves and for our children. President Blanco, your government is today ensuring a better tomorrow. You're meeting a challenge head-on, working diligently to rebuild your economy through fiscal responsibility and courageous reform in public administration. You've improved your country's business and investment climate. And by stressing the importance of the private sector and by providing practical incentives for investment, you've made certain the Dominican Republic will be part of the economic upsurge now taking place in the United States as it spreads throughout the global economy. Some of you may not be aware that President Blanco in his country has established enterprise zones to encourage investment and commerce. Mr. President, perhaps you've got some tips on how to get great ideas like that through the legislative process here in Washington. Seriously though, Mr. President, in the strength of Dominican democracy have not gone unnoticed by our Congress. Your support and the example of a strong Dominican democracy deserve credit for helping assure the passage of the Caribbean Basin Initiative. You prove that there is a better way and it works. Together we can show the world that, indeed, freedom works. Together, well, it's up to us. President Jorge Blanco, we honor you tonight for the part that you and your country are playing in the cause of human freedom. Now, if you will all join me in a toast to President and Mrs. Jorge Blanco and to the Dominican Republic. Mr. President Reagan, Senora de Reagan, damas y caballeros, esta cena será imprescedera en mi memoria en la de mi esposa y en la de los miembros de nuestra delegación. Podemos, desde ahora, considerarla entre los momentos estelares de nuestras vidas. Sentimos, por encima del aire protocolar, la simpatía y el cariño que el presidente Reagan, su gentil esposa, Doña Nancy de Reagan, y los altos funcionarios de esta nación nos ofrecen a recibirnos como emisarios de la democracia que representamos con legítimo orgullo. Nos complace comprobar una vez más que la democracia dominicana es respetada y admirada por la gran democracia de los Estados Unidos de América, ambas asociadas y coincidentes en la defensa de los valores humanos que dieron origen a nuestras respectivas naciones. Tenemos un pasado común de ideales y principios y un presente lleno de responsabilidades que deberán contribuir a la construcción de un futuro más promisorio para nuestros pueblos. Agradezco, Presidente Reagan, su reconocimiento a la vocación democrática de nuestro pueblo y a la firme voluntad del gobierno que tenemos a bien dirigir, de luchar tesoneramente con fe y voluntad in quebrantable por el mantenimiento del sistema democrático, no obstante las adversidades de una crisis económica mundial sin precedentes que afecta toda la comunidad internacional, principalmente a los países en vía de desarrollo. Desde el mismo momento en que asumimos el poder nos hemos trazado un objetivo claro y preciso, sanear las finanzas y la economía de la nación dominicana tal como usted acaba de señalar en sus palabras. Para ese insporterable objetivo, estamos dedicando nuestros mayores esfuerzos y sacrificios conscientes de que una casa en orden y la adopción de políticas conducentes a un desarrollo sostenido y de medidas reformadoras que aseguren un verdadero régimen de justicia social son pre-requisitos indispensables para el fortalecimiento y la plena vigencia de nuestras instituciones democráticas. La presidencia de un país grande o pequeño tal como es los Estados Unidos de América y la República Dominicana es una fragua donde se forjan los liderazgos en la toma de conciencia de los recursos y las aspiraciones de sus respectivos pueblos. Por eso no vacilamos en apoyar y defender su generoso programa de la iniciativa de la cuenca del Caribe, la cual es ya una realidad que sirve para ensanchar nuestros mercados y al mismo tiempo constituye un gran estímulo para la iniciativa privada, un motor permanente y necesario para el desarrollo de nuestras sociedades. Hago votos sinceros porque de nuestras conversaciones surjan soluciones adecuadas y justas a problemas comunes que garanticen realizaciones positivas para el desarrollo de nuestras economías y la prosperidad de nuestras naciones. Presidenta Reagan, me siento profundamente conmovido por la mención de Eugenio María de Hostos y de Juan Pablo Duarte. Eugenio María de Hostos es el maestro por excelencia de todas las generaciones dominicanas. Juan Pablo Duarte conjuntamente con otros dos grandes patriotas fundaron nuestra república, pero la mención del nombre de Juan Pablo Duarte aquí en estos salones de la Casa Blanca constituye un reconocimiento formidable de los ideales que sirvieron para forjar la independencia nuestra del 27 de febrero de 1844. Dentro de la belleza de este salón donde los hombres han venido a compartir con el calor de las bellas mujeres y trajes que indudablemente van a formar parte de nuestra memoria en forma constante la cogida de la democracia americana hacia nosotros que usted tan dignamente dirige y prestigia colma muchos de nuestros anhelos y resultado fructífero de nuestras conversaciones para hacer finalmente la estampa de regreso hacia nuestro país. Brindemos por la aventura personal del señor presidente y de su distinguida esposa. Brindemos por la felicidad de nuestros respectivos pueblos. There was a part of the President's remarks that were improvised. I'd like to transmit to those who didn't understand the English what he said. President Reagan, I have been deeply moved by your mention of Eugenio María de Oztos and Juan Pablo Duarte. Eugenio María de Oztos, it was the teacher power excellence of all successive generations of Dominicans as the years have gone by. Juan Pablo Duarte together with other two great patriots was the founder of our modern republic. But the mention of the name of Juan Pablo Duarte here in this room of the White House is an extraordinary recognition of the ideals that have shaped our nation throughout the years and which led to the independence movement which led to in turn to our independence declared on the 27th of February of 1844. Into this beautiful room have come men. They have come to share the warmth with the beautiful ladies who have accompanied them and with all of their beautiful dresses. And this undoubtedly will be an indelible part of the recollection that we have of this evening. But of all, Mr. President, the welcome, the warm welcome that you have given us on the behalf of the great American democracy of which you are a worthy leader and to which you bring so much prestige fills every one of the aspirations that we might have had when we came to this city. And the fruitful results of our conversations will be the golden touch that will accompany us upon our return to our country. Thank you. One wonderful moment when fate takes his hand. I'm able to mix and make them all friendships to be here when the President asked me to come here tonight. Actually, he told me to come in from Nevada. You just do what the President says. And a lot of things went through my mind if you can imagine. Number one, they said you've got 25 minutes. And as you know, I am known for my short shows. And so that's the first thing we had to deal with. And then of course dealing with a language barrier. But we took care of that fairly quickly because I realized that dignity and honor and love really knows no language barrier. So we hope that we'll be doing something that you might enjoy. A lot of things went through my mind as to what I should do in terms of a medley of my hit. Instead, I just decided we'd kind of mix it up and do as many different kinds of music as possible within the timeframe given. And as we were coming in here tonight, as you can see, we brought a great many instruments. And the Secret Service certainly went through every instrument and every musician. And it reminded me of the time that rest his soul, Mr. Jack Benny came to the White House and he came with this violent case under his arm. And the security agent said, Mr. Benny, I'm not trying to embarrass you or offend you, but I have to ask you what's in the case. And Mr. Benny in his inimitable style said, a machine gun. And the Secret Service agent said, thank God, we were afraid you brought your violin. We hope that we'll be doing something that you might enjoy. The kind of show that you get tonight is in direct proportion to the kind of audience that you are. Being Indian, I don't need to do this for a living. We're going to do something that I very rarely do. I don't know why we haven't done this in a long, long time. Maybe when I hear your reaction to it, I'm fresh in my memory. And to President Jorge Blanco, Mrs. Blanco, we hope that you might enjoy this. Thank you very, very much. I think all of us must be very grateful that Wayne Newton has come and entertained us as wonderfully as he has. You know, there are many things said about him that he is the greatest performer in the history of Las Vegas. There is another thing that they say about him that he has never played to an empty seat. He is the entertainer's entertainer. And with all the respect that his entertainers and audiences have paid him, they don't match the honors that he has received for his good work in so many worthy endeavors and worthwhile causes. He has never said no to any of those. And I think we're all very grateful to have had him here tonight. And Wayne, I hope you won't have to wait four years before you can come back again. I'll see you next year.