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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explain why ServiceNow's fast-growing security business is becoming central to Bill McDermott's AI strategy. Highlights 00:01 — I wanted to chat a little bit about ServiceNow's Q2 performance, but mostly what CEO Bill McDermott disclosed on the Q2 earnings call. Very strong performance across the board. They beat on all their numbers, doing very nicely. And what McDermott did, what he used the Q2 earnings call for in his opening remarks, was to lay out what I think is a significant new direction. 01:15 — Now, on top of that, we see a lot of anxiety from businesses now about — while they see the huge potential of AI, they also see that it raises security to levels that it hasn't been at before. So McDermott is sort of pairing those things up: the fully integrated Control Tower plus security plus governance. 02:14 — He said, “We're going to be able to handle all that simply and easily for customers.” He said that whichever chip wins, whichever lab wins, whichever price-per-token regime wins, he said, ServiceNow is going to be able to handle that. You're not — any of the customers aren't going to be, you know, going down a dead end or a dead-end alley if they choose to work with ServiceNow. 03:23 — He said CEOs have been losing sleep over this idea of risk at scale, and we're going to help those CEOs sleep well at night. So it's a big promise. It's a big adaptation for ServiceNow, but I think it's one that's consistent with some of the steps that McDermott has been making in the past, and it's very timely now to bring these two forces together. 03:59 — Now, one of the things that has made McDermott so successful over his seven years at ServiceNow, and before that at SAP, is his ability to use these earnings calls as almost like a come-to-Jesus discussion of where we as a company are, where the external market is with customers, and how aligned we are not just with where customers are now, but where they're heading. Visit Cloud Wars for more.
Don’t miss the AI partnership revolution Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this episode, Vince Menzione sits down with Amit Sinha from WorkSpan and Marc Monday from ServiceNow to dissect the rapid evolution of AI-native partnerships and the shifting dynamics of the channel ecosystem. They explore how the hyperscaler co-sell model has transformed into a complex strategy of asymmetrical collaboration that demands unprecedented speed, simplicity, and scale from publishers. By integrating AI agents to orchestrate workflows, manage high-risk renewals, and automate low-dollar deals, companies can activate their sellers and drive explosive, exponential growth in their partner programs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP4cFBcCI9Q Key Takeaways The partner channel is no longer just a piece of the strategy; it is the entire strategy for winning in 2026. Modern co-selling is an asymmetrical collaboration where publishers must often do more than fifty percent of the heavy lifting. Implementing AI agents within partnerships can lead to massive revenue impacts, such as a 24% higher lift on renewals for companies like Boomi. True scaling requires moving beyond traditional time-and-materials consulting toward outcome-based frameworks for customers. Activating sellers through continuous AI-driven account orchestration is the ultimate key to unlocking exponential ecosystem growth. The market is moving faster than ever, necessitating that partner enablement and roadmaps shift to agile, sprint-based cycles rather than long-term rigid plans. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags AI native, ecosystem shifting, hyperscalers, Work Span, ServiceNow, lifecycle incentives, cloud native, consumption led, DocuSign, Gong, Boomi, workflow orchestration, asymmetrical collaboration, CRM integration, marketplace private offers, high propensity, seller activation, agentic solution, outcome based consulting, LLM control tower. Transcript Amit Sinha and Marc Monday Audio Episode [00:00:00] Marc Monday: We have to be soup drop dead simple and we’re gonna talk about that nice. In this world. It has to be simple. Even though under the covers it’s very complicated, [00:00:10] Vince Menzione: you can feel it happening. The ecosystem is shifting beneath us. The way Hyperscalers are partnering, how AI is remaking the channel and what it means to win in 2026. [00:00:21] Vince Menzione: Welcome to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host. And each week I sit down with leaders at the intersection of technology, partnerships and outcomes. The voices shaping how ecosystems actually work. We talk about what’s real, what’s changing, and what it takes to lead in this era where the partner channel isn’t just part of the strategy. [00:00:43] Vince Menzione: It is the strategy because being in the room [00:00:46] Marc Monday: changes everything. Let’s start. [00:00:52] Vince Menzione: And, uh, two incredible friends up on, uh, up on stage. But I think I’m just gonna have my, one of my first friends come up. Amit Sinha from Work Span, a great, great friend and supporter. We’ve been together since the beginning, since the very first ultimate partner in Dallas when we commandeered Microsoft facility. [00:01:12] Amit Sinha: Yeah, [00:01:12] Vince Menzione: you have a little bit that you’re gonna share first and then we’re all gonna come join you. [00:01:16] Amit Sinha: Absolutely. And [00:01:17] Vince Menzione: then we’re gonna have my other great friend, mark Monday on us on stage with us as well. So yeah, [00:01:21] Amit Sinha: what a privilege. Uh, what a privilege. Vince, you do an amazing job as a community and, uh, incredible. [00:01:27] Amit Sinha: Shout out to Alexandra. Uh, we work together at Cisco talking about lifecycle incentives across the whole lifecycle. So amazing work done there as well. So. Very quickly, I’m gonna talk to you about AI native partnerships. A quick motivation. That’s me. Of course, we are using Nano banana to cover that. [00:01:45] Amit Sinha: That’s me looking up a Yellow Pages. I will date myself. That’s, uh, McDonald’s coming to India and me looking up, uh, the nearest McDonald’s, right? And this is me now booking Uber Eats Ma and I had this real experience yesterday night. I flew in from Sapphire in Orlando and I was hungry. Ma said, let’s, let’s get Uber Eats. [00:02:06] Amit Sinha: And we had a great. De this is digital native, right? We had no idea the world would transform this way, but completely new ways of working. Okay. Um, and, uh, another great experience that Mike, my co-founder and CEO seated the back half, I spent a decade at SAP, uh, doing hana, which was a database product, but it was on premise. [00:02:28] Amit Sinha: We had these racks and our whole gig was actually take an amazing HANA database with this server mounted, deployed. Wow. The CIO and the CFO, that this is the most amazing thing. And they would not say, Hey, you can’t take that box away, because it’s such a good insight that I get for my, uh, analytics product, right. [00:02:47] Amit Sinha: So that’s the old way. And look at us. We are all cloud native, right? Cloud has gotten to a place where it’s not just about infrastructure, running things and meters and stuff like that in a scalable way. It is a also source of innovation. New capability, new business model, consumption led business model. [00:03:07] Amit Sinha: Whole new way of working, right? So this comes to the new world now, what does AI need to look like? We heard all the amazing speakers talk about, uh, you know, the promise of ai, right? But you have a choice. Uh, you have a choice to do it yourself or, uh, especially as partnership professionals, right? When you do it yourself, you have this chat bots and stuff that you get from all the major. [00:03:33] Amit Sinha: You can always get more productive, but that’s about half an hour saved. The bar is too low there. So this is an amazing piece of, uh, research put together by all the experts. Vince, thank you for doing that. Uh, we had Jay McBain lend his voice as well. We had Rob Moyer with all his, uh, decades of, you know, insight and wisdom as to what would the future with AI look like, uh, encapsulate in that. [00:03:57] Amit Sinha: So go ahead, take a picture. Uh, this is not gated. Um, beautiful piece of content has also new insights from leading firms. AI native, I would dare say frontier firms who are like DocuSign or Gong who are really pioneering AI native partnerships, Boomi, and how they’re powering their renewal business case across AWS Google and Microsoft Marketplaces. [00:04:21] Amit Sinha: Uh, this really talks about that. And here, uh, this is the thought leadership that we bring to the table. And again, this is not a vendor pitch. This is, you know, as you elevate from the low bar about making yourself productive where you’re cut and paste, uh, into a chatbot, your context so that you can get a better co-sell email out there. [00:04:40] Amit Sinha: You DIY, this thing. But if you think of working with works span, these are three things that you should think about. First is imagine instead of cut and paste, you have your entire partnership context right there. And because the context is there, the right better together story, the right case study, the right partnership documents, the right opportunity and accounts that intelligence not only informs you, but also your team in a, in an extended way, and even your partnership in an extended way that’s fully automated. [00:05:13] Amit Sinha: Second is it’s not just informing you or sensing you, it is also acting. And I think this is where there are, you know, death by a thousand cuts if happening in the world where all this time gets taken up, right? But if you have an agent that scales in ly, whether you are big mature partnership, you got lots and lots of accounts and opportunities to cover, the agent can do that. [00:05:36] Amit Sinha: Or if you’re a new partnership, how do you get to market quickly? With the right assets, the right get to market content. This can work both ways. And lastly, how do you secure this partnership is done in trust. So you should have an agent for every partnership, uniquely your partnership with Microsoft, your partnership with ServiceNow, your partnership with uh, AWS and Google. [00:05:59] Amit Sinha: They all get a different agent. And the point here is these agents can work in a circle of trust and the boundary that gets established. So via work span, come talk to us outside. And with that, Vince, let’s uh, bring Mark along. Come on, mark. [00:06:17] Vince Menzione: Alright. I am gonna have you and then Mark, uh, yeah. Want mark in the middle? [00:06:22] Marc Monday: Oh, uh oh. [00:06:24] Vince Menzione: So, uh, let me move over so I get back to the picture slide. Look at those two handsome gentlemen up there. Uh, thrilled to have you Mark as well. Uh, for those of you who don’t, because you’ve been, you were just in Boca with us this Yeah. This winter. [00:06:39] Marc Monday: That’s right. [00:06:40] Vince Menzione: And, uh, tell us about your new role at ServiceNow. [00:06:43] Marc Monday: Well, I have the absolute privilege of leading the partner channel at ServiceNow. Yeah. Um, it’s comprised of our partner programs, our program gives and gets, and importantly our five routes to market, our consulting and implementation partners, our resell partners, our service provider partners, our hyperscaler partners, and importantly our build partners. [00:07:03] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it. So let’s talk about the partner programs and why they’re so critical to ServiceNow right now. [00:07:08] Marc Monday: I think in this world scale is everything, and so this profession has always been a bit mercurial and a little bit of a black box for organizations. What does the partner team do? What does that look like? [00:07:21] Marc Monday: But what we have to continue to do is explain, this is your force multiplier. Working together in collaboration helps you scale beyond your individual numbers. And that’s really the thing that we’re focused on is how do we drive that? And I have three big things that we have to focus on is we have to be sup, drop dead simple, and we’re gonna talk about that [00:07:40] Vince Menzione: nice. [00:07:41] Marc Monday: In this world, it has to be simple. Even though under the covers it’s very complicated. We have to be incredibly fast. Agility is the key in this very moment. And then as I said, with that becomes the scaling element and the force multiplier. [00:07:56] Vince Menzione: And you have spent many, you, well, we both worked at Microsoft together. [00:07:59] Vince Menzione: It’s [00:07:59] Marc Monday: true. [00:07:59] Amit Sinha: Way back way. [00:08:00] Marc Monday: I feel like you’re punking me having me right before lunch. Like I remember back at Microsoft, you did something to me, so I’m gonna have you right before lunch. [00:08:07] Vince Menzione: It’s, no, it’s really terrific to have you. But, uh, so yeah, you, you mentioned about like the change and the specificity and the clarity around it. [00:08:16] Vince Menzione: Amme you have, uh, broken the model, so to speak, working with ServiceNow, right? Yeah. You went from being a traditional. I’ll call it co-sell Engine Marketplace Company. Uh, tell us, tell us, tell us about the innovation that’s going on in the room. We’re working with ServiceNow. [00:08:31] Amit Sinha: Absolutely. Uh, when you think of co-sell, the first mine goes to just co-sell with the hyperscalers, right? [00:08:36] Amit Sinha: Because they kind of pioneered and started this in a unique way. We, of course, got started with Microsoft eight years ago, doing not just co-sell and P two P, but since then AW S and Google right. You would be surprised to know that we do about 10% of AWS sales through work, expand co-sale. Right. Just [00:08:53] Vince Menzione: wow. [00:08:53] Amit Sinha: But that’s where we started. Where we ended up is really looking at all partner types and all motion types and. Mark and I disagreed and he, he really pushed me hard on this. Yeah, and the point here is if you look at your build partner motion, it’s also a co-sell. You build, then you co-sell and go to market, [00:09:11] Vince Menzione: right? [00:09:12] Amit Sinha: If you think about your services partners, right? You have a product. They have amazing last mile services and digital transformation. Uh, capabilities, and again, there’s a coastal motion there. So where we world works span eventually was not just coastal with hyperscalers, but across all partner types. And Mark, thank you for pushing us on that. [00:09:31] Amit Sinha: Yeah. And being a pioneering partner on works span with us. I really appreciate [00:09:34] Marc Monday: this. It was a fun rumble we got there. [00:09:37] Vince Menzione: So why does it matter now for ServiceNow specific? [00:09:40] Marc Monday: Yeah. I mean the reality is, um, I’m gonna say something provocative. We’re, we’re all friends. Yeah. Um, Cosell iss probably a misnomer. It’s not a 50 50 coequal relationship. [00:09:53] Vince Menzione: Yeah. You don’t walk in together holding it back. [00:09:55] Marc Monday: It’s asymmetrical collaboration. I love that. And I want to put the stake in the ground. The co-sell motions that have been created by the hyperscalers are wonderful. The pipe has been opened, but the reality is the publisher. Has to do a lot of the work and the systems are there, but the key is not just connecting into partner center as an example. [00:10:16] Marc Monday: Yeah. But building your own infrastructure and processes. That’s where the magic comes together, and that’s where we really drive scale. And so if we approach co-selling is asymmetrical collaboration and recognizing that you probably need to do more than 50%. When a, when a a team collaborates on co-authoring a book, it’s not like someone’s writing every other word, and it’s exactly 50%. [00:10:40] Marc Monday: Or if a pilot, a co-pilot is with a pilot on a plane, they’re not doing exactly 50% of the work’s, [00:10:46] Vince Menzione: right? No. [00:10:47] Marc Monday: This asymmetric approach requires that we do a lot of the work on our side. Yeah. And that’s where AM and team have really helped us a ton. [00:10:55] Vince Menzione: And ServiceNow was known as a ticketing solution back in the day. [00:10:58] Vince Menzione: Right. And you’ve kind of, I mean, it it, it started that way. [00:11:01] Marc Monday: We have a wonderful heritage 20 plus years Yeah. Of workflow orchestration. Yeah. And in a diggen world, what are we really doing? We’re orchestrating workflows, and importantly, we need to govern those workflows and we need to sequence them in a meaningful way. [00:11:17] Marc Monday: And so our vision of a control tower across any hyperscaler, any LLM, any workflow, any system of record, any time, that’s the key to everything. [00:11:27] Vince Menzione: And so now you’ve taken the work span approach and driven it across what I see, like taking, taking this. This stack, we’ll call it. Yeah, the tower. Yeah. And then applying all of the methodologies and best practices on what we’ve called co-selling and ecosystem orchestration, essentially is what it really is. [00:11:46] Amit Sinha: Absolutely. [00:11:46] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:11:47] Amit Sinha: Yeah. And we are thrilled to partner with ServiceNow on this. So ServiceNow, as you guys know, uh, release their CRM product. So we got in at the ground floor on that opportunity and with the now assist agents as well. What we’ve really built is an integration between work span as a platform. [00:12:03] Amit Sinha: And ServiceNow, CRM as well. So if anybody is using that all the way from ServiceNow opportunities to Marketplace private offers, you can a genetically do that. Of course you can do it on Salesforce Hub, spot and Dynamics, but now ServiceNow is an additional option on that. I wanna really double click though, mark, on your point around asymmetry around this, when we say six to seven partners are gonna surround the end customer, right? [00:12:27] Amit Sinha: Yes. They will come at different points in time. Yes. Right? And they will also have different roles to play. So just as you think of a team, right? A soccer team for that matter, or a football team, pick your analogy right. Not everybody’s equal. Right? There’s always a qb. There’s always somebody who holds the prime on the deal. [00:12:45] Amit Sinha: There’s always a role to play. [00:12:46] Marc Monday: Yeah, [00:12:47] Amit Sinha: and I think what’s beautiful about our partnership here is when you look at it applied to services partners, it’s about building billion dollar businesses around ServiceNow, using their competency, but knowing the kind of joint accounts you need to go pursue in order to. [00:13:03] Amit Sinha: You know, burn down their inventory or, or co-sell alongside. If it’s the build partner, it’s about attacking an industry vertical or a joint account there. Right? So knowing very intelligently who to partner with and when to bring them on is the AI orchestration that is key in this partnership [00:13:19] Vince Menzione: here. Yeah. [00:13:19] Vince Menzione: So important. ’cause you, it isn’t single threaded this, this asymmetrical approach. [00:13:24] Amit Sinha: Right. So [00:13:25] Vince Menzione: incredible. You just ha you just finished your big event. I was hoping I did spare Share with us a little bit of your perspective on what’s been changing and how your ecosystem is evolving. Uh, I had Jen Odes in the studio. [00:13:38] Vince Menzione: That’s right. As you know, back in the fall. Fall, go back and watch it again. Yeah, it’s available. Great. Great podcast interview. Yeah. And you’ve been on stage at our events before and we’ve had that as a podcast, but take us how things are changing from the partner type perspective. We have MSPs in the room. [00:13:53] Vince Menzione: I know MSPs are, I know again, hands on the steering wheel. So important, right? Yeah. This technology is so complex. How are you thinking about ecosystem in your role? [00:14:03] Marc Monday: Yeah, I said earlier it’s about simplicity, speed, and scale. Yeah. Last week we had our big customer event knowledge, and on the first day we had our partner event. [00:14:13] Marc Monday: I think the biggest thing that’s happening right now is the pace of change is a bit overwhelming at times. And keeping pace with that is super critical. So what we’ve tried to do and what we announced last week was a lot of investment in giving our channel partners the exact same tools that we use in our business, right? [00:14:32] Marc Monday: So we were really focused on. Um, delivering business value. And so we took our, the solution that we use or the tools that we use for, um, delivering, uh, business value through our partners. It’s an assessment tool. Um, we’ve syndicated that to our partners. We’ve made that available. We also put a little bit of a stake in the ground around what do customers expect right now? [00:14:56] Marc Monday: Um, the time and materials business is gonna be under a tremendous amount of pressure. Some studies are predicting that it could be. Compressed by as much as 30% customers are looking for outcome based. Yeah. Um, they may stop on that journey and, and have something that’s fixed fee. But the reality is everyone is expecting value from the, the technology that they buy, and particularly from an agent perspective. [00:15:21] Marc Monday: We really leaned in on that and published what I think is a pretty good framework mm-hmm. For, um, outcome-based consulting. And we had a couple partners co-author that with us, which was really wonderful. Nice. Um, and it was a nice piece of co-creation and I think I’m seeing more and more of that where we’re co-creating with our partners in ways that we’ve never done before. [00:15:41] Marc Monday: And then I think importantly, security and reliability, um, and managing risk increasingly will be important. In an agentic world, we call it a control tower. We made two fairly big acquisitions in the last several months in terms of both the front door and the back door in terms of securing with the calls that are going into that agent or from that agent. [00:16:04] Marc Monday: To your various data sources. And so for us trying to bring that all together with our strong history of workload flow, orchestration, and then importantly, governance, security, and risk, uh, in the environment today, when you have the potential for hundreds of thousands or even millions of agents touching your core systems of record, [00:16:24] Vince Menzione: how are you thinking about both tiering your partners and also enabling your partners? [00:16:30] Marc Monday: Yeah, I think this is also an, an an area where I’d love to benchmark with y’all, um, because, you know, historically most of us built a fairly robust learning plan for our partners. You’d have a certification and then you would have a competency, and then you, maybe you’d have a wrapper around that competency. [00:16:48] Marc Monday: And it would take a long time, maybe 12 or 18 months to get to that highest level of certification. And it was incredibly robust and that’s wonderful. But when the roadmap is moving so fast that we’re releasing weekly, monthly, and every 90 days, does that type of training still hold water? So I’m proposing that we have both a volume view of how many trained individuals can we get as quickly as possible, and then value. [00:17:16] Marc Monday: And so we don’t want to lose this rich history, what I would describe as the rear view mirror, how we got here, but we also need to approach the windscreen, the windshield, where are we going and what is that opportunity? Yeah, so we have to go a little bit faster when it comes to enablement, [00:17:32] Vince Menzione: so. You, you were in a partnership, you, you call it a built on partnership. [00:17:37] Vince Menzione: Is that, is that the approach that [00:17:38] Amit Sinha: Yeah. ServiceNow has an ISV program called The Built On Partnership. Built On [00:17:41] Vince Menzione: Partnership, yeah. [00:17:42] Amit Sinha: Uh, so we sign onto that program, great accelerators to build lot of coaching and help to build on the ServiceNow platform. It’s not just the CRM integration, where it’s the opportunities and orders. [00:17:54] Amit Sinha: And by the way, this is the best platform or order management out there. So if you think of, uh, of your, if you are a MSP or consulting partner, building orders for your customers, now you want them to land on the marketplace, right? You wanna build that highway. Think of work span, right? So that’s where we came in and we said that if we look at the large number of channel partners, MSPs, who need to do that and are using ServiceNow as a platform to do it, can they genetically do it right from the now CRM? [00:18:24] Amit Sinha: Yeah, so that’s why we came in. The three big use cases we saw, number one was renewals. You talked about Alexandra doing it. Renewals is so [00:18:31] Vince Menzione: important. Yeah. [00:18:32] Amit Sinha: Oh my goodness. If you think about the renewals playbook [00:18:34] Vince Menzione: was so huge, [00:18:35] Amit Sinha: six months, nine, you know, uh, 90 days out, you wanna build that playbook. Mm-hmm. In an agent way when you reach out. [00:18:43] Amit Sinha: And by the way, you heard, uh, die Talk about 462 billion of uncontested Cloud commits out there. Yep. You want your high risk renewals to go against the high propensity to buy accounts. Right. So imagine that matchmaking, if you were to do it humanly, it’ll take you days. If you had an agent to do it like the now assist agent, it can just be done like that. [00:19:06] Amit Sinha: So that was the first use case we went after. Nice. The second one was the low dollar automation. We all have businesses that we land, right? Sub 50 K deals, so we have inside sales teams calling on those customers all day long. So now imagine a Gentech solution where you take all those low dollar deals and again, tie to the marketplace. [00:19:26] Amit Sinha: How can you have express private offers, right, from your opportunities? So those were the two use cases that we went after first and boy, uh, we got some amazing results, [00:19:36] Vince Menzione: I bet [00:19:36] Amit Sinha: for one of these companies, Boomi, we showed that 24% higher lift on renewals. That’s like hundreds of millions in impact just in one year alone. [00:19:46] Vince Menzione: And using AI internally as obviously you’re an AI company. Yeah. How are you thinking about how’s the impact of AI helping the partner function within ServiceNow? [00:19:54] Marc Monday: I, I think there’s this really wonderful opportunity right now where in the short term, we’re taking busy work out of the partner management profession. [00:20:05] Marc Monday: Um, partner managers historically have spent a lot of time chasing data and chasing information and really acting as an ombudsman for the partner within the organization. That work is very quickly. Getting identified. That’s phase one. The thing I’m actually a little more excited about is when it can expand the horizon to have different types of conversations, expanding the partnerships, expanding the multi-partner oppor opportunities. [00:20:29] Marc Monday: That, for me is the next phase, but we, I believe we are the most progressive when it comes to using AI on ourselves and really trying to take the profession to the next level. [00:20:40] Vince Menzione: Nice. Well, I was gonna, I was gonna, I want to go back to the platform again. ’cause you, you’re, you’re starting, you, you mentioned renewals, you’re mentioning some of the success. [00:20:50] Vince Menzione: What else can you point to on the success side, [00:20:52] Amit Sinha: there’s some, uh, amazing research that Sam here has done, uh, with all the data that Wepan has. So we looked at close to a million opportunities and, uh, looked at all the companies doing well. And we actually tabulated how many sellers are engaged on co-sell, not the partnering team, but how many end sellers. [00:21:11] Amit Sinha: This shows the extent of the transformation that the company has gone through, and what we found was amazing. If more than 50% of your sellers have engaged on 10 or more deals, your ecosystem is exponential. It doesn’t need the kind of the doctoring or the prod or the push to kind of say, Hey, use partners. [00:21:31] Amit Sinha: The sellers get it themselves, right? So we, we did this analysis and found like, wow, how can we then get sellers to activate? And the bottleneck that we found was. That there are not enough partner managers to assist every seller in the world. I think that seller activation is the unlock that AI can do. [00:21:50] Amit Sinha: Imagine if you have a partner agent sitting on every account and every opportunity 24 by seven, right? As the world changes, as the world evolves, as the solutions come in. As you know, market events happen. These agents are listening, positioning the right. One of those six partners, or all six partners for that matter, in front of people. [00:22:10] Amit Sinha: So I feel like that that big unlock is seller activation. Yeah. So if all partner managers do with ai, next is one. Of course, get yourself skilled up and yourself productive. But next, direct it to your own internal sales teams and get them activated on your partnerships because that’s where you will move the revenue lever the fastest, in my opinion. [00:22:30] Vince Menzione: Fantastic. What advice do you have for whether they be ISV partners or other partners in the room? ’cause we have partners of all types here. Yeah. What would you have, what would you say to them that need to do differently or better? [00:22:43] Marc Monday: Yeah. [00:22:44] Vince Menzione: Starting today, [00:22:46] Marc Monday: I, I don’t wanna be a broken record, but I would just say go faster. [00:22:48] Marc Monday: However fast you think you’re going, it’s not enough. Yeah. Um, the reality is I think Bill McDermott says like, the market’s never been this fast before and it will never be this slow again. Oh. The reality is this is the pace we run at, and the only way we can run at this pace is if we have the agents doing much of the work for us. [00:23:09] Marc Monday: So I would say go faster. The second thing I would say is automating a bad process is a bad process. So really go and interrogate the workflow that you’re actually thinking about identifying. I’ve seen too many instances from partners and partnerships where you’re taking a bad process and you’re trying to build automation. [00:23:29] Marc Monday: Go back and deconstruct it or start fresh blank piece of paper. Um, again, to my metaphor of the rear view mirror and the wind screen, like it’s, we should honor the past. We’ve done a wonderful job in the last 30 years of building all of this stuff. It’s just not built for this speed. So we need to really stay focused on what’s in front of us. [00:23:49] Vince Menzione: We talked a little bit earlier in one of the other sessions about the playbook and the three year plan, and then maybe moving to sprints. That’s right. How are you, how are you thinking? Are you thinking along the same lines? A [00:23:59] Marc Monday: hundred percent. Uh, we need to move at the pace. Sorry, I’m, we need to move at the pace that the roadmap is moving. [00:24:05] Marc Monday: So if we’re doing weekly, monthly, and quarter releases, we don’t wanna whipsaw the channel. We have to be careful of that. But the reality is, if we’re pivoting our product strategies or release strategies on a quarterly basis. We have to have that same level of agility. That’s where the people who’ve grown up in this profession taking really complicated stuff and making it simple is so critical. [00:24:26] Vince Menzione: Ami, you touched on AI’s role in the partner function. But let’s expand on that. What, what’s it gonna look like in two years? If AI becomes, will it replace the partner function? What, what do you see happening? [00:24:38] Amit Sinha: Absolutely not. I think, uh, we are seeing this evolution and, and you can see the parallels in the engineering organization. [00:24:44] Amit Sinha: When Claude Cursor came along, you saw engineering completely transformed as to how products are now built. How they are, how product managers write PRDs, how engineers actually code this, you know, code the scaffolding all the way to the user experience, how it’s tested. Everything has fundamentally changed. [00:25:01] Amit Sinha: So if you went and asked the engineering leader, how will your role change? Right? Imagine answering that question today, right? It’s fundamentally different. I feel like it’s coming to every function. Whether you want it or not, it’s coming to every function. And the partnership leader will look like the partnership operator that Rob talks about. [00:25:19] Amit Sinha: Yes. It’ll be about orchestrating real time relationships at the account level, at the opportunity level, and being a hands-on person. Uh, i, I would say even at the leadership level or down to partner managers, how can you cover the breadth of accounts and opportunities that’s out there to, for you to prosecute? [00:25:36] Amit Sinha: It’ll not look like I’m managing a partnership. It’ll not look like, Hey, I have to offer an MDF. It’ll not look like, Hey, let’s do A QBR, you know, and get all the teams engaged because that’ll be too late essentially. So this operator perspective is what’s gonna change just as it changed in engineering, it’s gonna happen in partnerships [00:25:56] Vince Menzione: perspective as well. [00:25:57] Marc Monday: Big plus one on what Rob’s talking about. I, I, I’m a big fan of that and I love this idea of using what’s happening in the developer world as an analog for where we’re going. Yeah. Um, I met a product manager last week and she was saying that she was producing 30 or 40 product requirement docs every week. [00:26:14] Marc Monday: Um, that’s remarkable output and she can only do that because of the way she’s leveraging ai. The same will be true for a partner manager, a 10 x, a 20 x, a 30 x on each individual once we get to that stage, and it will happen very quickly. [00:26:29] Amit Sinha: Yeah. Imagine putting a hundred joint account plans together in a day. [00:26:33] Amit Sinha: Yep. [00:26:33] Vince Menzione: Right. Incredible. [00:26:34] Amit Sinha: Imagine putting like five connections on an opportunity just surrounding your deal right now. Right. Doing that. [00:26:41] Vince Menzione: I couldn’t even, I, I couldn’t even imagine. I know you couldn’t even imagine when we were back in the days we were running PAMs and Yeah, totally. Those resources, what they had to do and what’s all totally automated today. [00:26:52] Marc Monday: It. It’s true, it’s true. I was, um, I was bemoaning this, I’ve been on the road a lot lately and I was like telling my wife, like, I long for the days where you have one meeting and you go, you know, you go to New York and you do a two hour QBR and you go to a nice dinner and then maybe you walk around Central Park. [00:27:06] Marc Monday: The reality is you’re doing a hundred of those every single day. It’s a different era. That’s where we need to get the tools to work for people. [00:27:15] Amit Sinha: Mark, I love your analogy around the rear view mirror versus the windshield. Mm-hmm. You have to see through the windshield. [00:27:20] Marc Monday: We do. We do. It’s amazing. Don’t be afraid. [00:27:23] Marc Monday: I, I mean, I would just say do not be afraid. Be excited. We in this room, get to lead the path. Yeah. It is an absolute privilege. [00:27:32] Vince Menzione: So insightful, gentlemen, you’ve been incredible to be on stage with today. Uh, I we have a le a little less than a minute. I was hoping maybe if there was like one question we could take. [00:27:42] Vince Menzione: I got John with a mic and then it’s lunchtime after this, so [00:27:48] Marc Monday: ask on because he can be more pithy. [00:27:50] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:27:55] Vince Menzione: Well, you’re both are gonna be around here. I hope [00:27:57] Marc Monday: we will be here. [00:27:58] Vince Menzione: Mark didn’t have you got to sleep in your own bed last night? [00:28:00] Marc Monday: Uh, yeah. It was a long day, but yes. I thank you for, it was very late. Thank you so much. Let’s put this on the record. Marks down. We’re having the event in Bellevue. That was great. [00:28:09] Marc Monday: We’re gonna [00:28:09] Amit Sinha: bring it back. We’re gonna bring it back to Bellevue. [00:28:12] Marc Monday: Seven mile commute is the best trip that I’ve had in many, many weeks. [00:28:17] Amit Sinha: Thank you. Well, thank you, gentlemen. It [00:28:19] was [00:28:19] Marc Monday: incredible. [00:28:20] Vince Menzione: Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. If today’s conversation resonated, share it with a partner leader in your network. [00:28:28] Vince Menzione: Subscribe where you listen, and head over to the Ultimate partner.com for show notes related content and the resources for this episode. And if you haven’t already, now’s the time to register for the Ultimate Partner Live event in Reston, Virginia, [00:28:44] Marc Monday: October [00:28:45] Vince Menzione: 26th through October 28th. Until next time. Keep showing up in the rooms that matter because being in the room changes everything.
Tom Ackerman talks with St. Louis soccer broadcaster Bill McDermott about Marcel Hartel's reported move to Hannover 96, what it means for CITY SC and the club's need to add an impact striker. Cardinals President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom then breaks down the organization's deadline acquisitions, development philosophy and young pitching depth, before Bernie Miklasz evaluates Matthew Liberatore's struggles and Michael McGreevy's steady rise.
St. Louis soccer broadcaster Bill McDermott joins Tom Ackerman to discuss Marcel Hartel's reported move to Hannover 96, what his departure would mean for St. Louis CITY SC and the pressure on sporting director Corey Wray to add an impact striker. They also examine CITY SC's new midfield additions, its position in the Western Conference and the difficult schedule ahead.
ServiceNow has been hammered in the software selloff, but our Q2 2026 earnings breakdown reveals a business quietly repositioning itself for the AI edge. CEO Bill McDermott and CFO Gina Mastantuono delivered 25% year-over-year revenue growth, accelerating subscription guidance, and two strategic acquisitions, Veza and Armis, that push ServiceNow into identity, access, and device-level cybersecurity. We break down why McDermott calls this the fastest-growing risk and security business among the top 10 enterprise cybersecurity players, and why the market still treats ServiceNow like an AI-era loser rather than an edge-AI beneficiary.The conversation covers GAAP versus non-GAAP metrics, including a 55% decline in GAAP operating income, balance sheet strength post-acquisitions, full-year subscription revenue guidance near $16 billion, and a reverse DCF on free cash flow per share to gauge what the current stock price is actually pricing in. We also compare ServiceNow's cybersecurity revenue against pure-play peers like Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and Fortinet using data from our research dashboard.If you're evaluating semiconductor and AI infrastructure stocks, foundry exposure, or non-correlated edge-AI plays for portfolio diversification, this ServiceNow deep dive lays out both the bull case and the real risks.Semi Insider members get access to CSI's research platform and tools, plus deeper research as it happens. Join at chipstockinvestor.com.Get 15% off your fiscal.ai membership with our link: fiscal.ai/csiThis content is for general information or entertainment only and is not specific or individual investment advice. Forecasts may not develop as predicted, and there is no guarantee any strategy discussed will be successful. All investing involves risk, including loss of principal. CSI owns shares of ServiceNow.
Nate Gatter continues into Hour 2 of Sports Open Line by talking more Home Run Derby, and then lots of World Cup discussion with none other than Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott!
Nate Gatter guest hosts tonight's edition of Sports Open Line, where in the first hour, he is joined by KMOV Sports anchor/reporter Jacob Cersosimo to talk some Cardinals baseball. Then, Sam Dykstra, writer for MLB Pipeline, joins the show to talk through the Cardinals draft haul and what it means for the team's future! Nate then continues into Hour 2 by talking more Home Run Derby, and then lots of World Cup discussion with none other than Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott!
Mark is joined by Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott. He previews tonight's United States vs Belgium World Cup Round of 16 match. Who has the edge? How will Balogun's suspension being banned impact things?
In hour 1 of The Mark Reardon Show, Mark is joined by Josh Hammer, Newsweek's Senior Editor at Large and the Host of The Josh Hammer Show on 97.1 FM Talk. They discuss FIFA's decision to suspend Folarin Balogun's one game suspension for tonight's US vs Belgium World Cup game, the left continuing to grow more extreme and more. He is then joined by Scott Faughn, the Host of “This Week in Missouri”. They discuss whether or not Amendment 5 can win on the upcoming August Missouri primary ballot. In hour 2, Sue hosts, "Sue's News" where she discusses the latest trending entertainment news, this day in history, the random fact of the day and more. Mark is then joined by Mike Gonzalez, a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the Co-Author of “NextGen Marxism: What is it and How to Combat it.” They discuss the Trump Administration's new report on thousands of examples of how the Smithsonian Museum is failing its basic task of showcasing American history. He is later joined by KSDK Sports Director Frank Cusumano. They discuss the Cardinals big series win over the Cubs as well as the USMNT's World Cup match against Belgium. In hour 3, Mark is joined by Bill King, a Research Fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute, a former businessman, lawyer, opinion columnist and editorial board member at the House Chronicle and the author of "Unapologetically Moderate". King was in New York City over the Fourth of July and shares what he saw. Mark is then joined by Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott. He previews tonight's United States vs Belgium World Cup Round of 16 match. Who has the edge? How will Balogun's suspension being banned impact things? They wrap up the show with the Audio Cut of the Day.
In hour 3, Mark is joined by Bill King, a Research Fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute, a former businessman, lawyer, opinion columnist and editorial board member at the House Chronicle and the author of "Unapologetically Moderate". King was in New York City over the Fourth of July and shares what he saw. Mark is then joined by Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott. He previews tonight's United States vs Belgium World Cup Round of 16 match. Who has the edge? How will Balogun's suspension being banned impact things? They wrap up the show with the Audio Cut of the Day.
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Mark is joined by Bill McDermott, "Mr. Soccer". He previews the United States Round of 32 World Cup match against Bosnia & Herzegovina.
In hour 3, Mark is joined by Duane Patterson, with Hot Air, the Host of the Duane's World Podcast and the producer of The Hugh Hewitt Show. They discuss the latest on an Iran peace deal, the Supreme Court rulings and more. Mark is then joined by Bill McDermott, "Mr. Soccer". He previews the United States Round of 32 World Cup match against Bosnia & Herzegovina. He is later joined by Curtis Houck, the Managing Editor of News Busters at the Media Research Center. He reacts to the liberal media's reaction to the recent Supreme Court rulings, Nina Totenberg falsely reporting Justice Alito's retirement and more. They wrap up the show with the Audio Cut of the Day.
In hour 1 of The Mark Reardon Show, Mark is joined by Charles Lipson, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago who writes regularly for The Spectator Magazine, Real Clear Politics and others. They discuss where the United States currently stands with Iran, the latest Supreme Court rulings and more. Mark is later joined by John David Danielson, a Senior Editor at The Federalist. They discuss his latest piece which is titled, "After 250 Years, Our American Republic is Coming Apart." In hour 2, Mark is joined by Jessica Fox, the Chair of Celebrate St Louis. They discuss St Louis' Fourth of July weekend festivities including the big concert under the Arch. Sue then hosts, "Sue's News" where she discusses the latest trending entertainment news, this day in history, the random fact of the day and more. Mark is later joined by Michael Langston, the Production Coordinator for the St Louis Cardinals. He promotes the newly released 2026 St Louis Cardinals Yearbook. In hour 3, Mark is joined by Duane Patterson, with Hot Air, the Host of the Duane's World Podcast and the producer of The Hugh Hewitt Show. They discuss the latest on an Iran peace deal, the Supreme Court rulings and more. Mark is then joined by Bill McDermott, "Mr. Soccer". He previews the United States Round of 32 World Cup match against Bosnia & Herzegovina. He is later joined by Curtis Houck, the Managing Editor of News Busters at the Media Research Center. He reacts to the liberal media's reaction to the recent Supreme Court rulings, Nina Totenberg falsely reporting Justice Alito's retirement and more. They wrap up the show with the Audio Cut of the Day.
In hour 3, Mark is joined by David Amelotti, an Investigative Reporter and Anchor at First Alert 4. He discussed his recent conversation with Governor Kehoe about the St Louis City Police Board issues and more. Mark is later joined by Mr. Soccer himself, Bill McDermott. He previews the United States Men's National Team's World Cup match against Turkey and more. They wrap up the show with the Audio Cut of the Day.
In hour 1 of The Mark Reardon Show, Mark is joined by Charles Lipson, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago who writes regularly for The Spectator Magazine, Real Clear Politics and others. They discuss the socialist wave in Tuesday's New York primaries. He also questions where the US is in their peace negotiations with Iran. Mark is later joined by Brad Young, 97.1 FM Talk's Legal Analyst and a Partner with Harris, Dowell, Fisher and Young. They discuss President Trump's two big victories from the Supreme Court, the conclusion of a massive lawsuit with Bayer and Roundup use and more. In hour 2, Sue hosts, "Sue's News" where she discusses the latest trending entertainment news, this day in history, the random fact of the day and more. Mark is then joined by Leland Vittert, a Host on NewsNation, a Former Fox News Reporter, a St Louis Native & Former KMOX Intern and the Author of "Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, a Grateful Song, and My Journey with Autism." They discuss the socialist wave that recently occurred in the New York primaries and more. In hour 3, Mark is joined by David Amelotti, an Investigative Reporter and Anchor at First Alert 4. He discussed his recent conversation with Governor Kehoe about the St Louis City Police Board issues and more. Mark is later joined by Mr. Soccer himself, Bill McDermott. He previews the United States Men's National Team's World Cup match against Turkey and more. They wrap up the show with the Audio Cut of the Day.
Jack Buck's Father's Day tribute. Mr. Soccer Bill McDermott talks about the success so far for the US both as a host and as a team. Cardinals President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom joins to talk about the struggles for Liberatore relievers, Baez and more. KMOX Sports Contributor Bernie Miklasz joins to discuss Baez, and all things Cardinals.
Mr. Soccer Bill McDermott talks about the success so far for the US both as a host and as a team.
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at how ServiceNow's AI strategy, open platform, and workflow data fabric are driving its next phase of growth. Highlights 00:02 — ServiceNow is off to a hot start, not only with its quarterly results, but also in how CEO Bill McDermott is framing where the company is right now and, in terms of that, how that new position, which he says is, "We're 100% AI native," is going to allow them to pursue five what he called hyper-growth markets for quite some time. 01:06 — Who is AI native, and who is just sort of glossing over, applying some AI lipstick to their traditional solutions and technologies? The term that ServiceNow uses to refer to that latter category is AI sidecars, where they say that's just a little AI glomming onto traditional technology, and that's becoming less appealing to customers. 02:34 — Among the highlights he pointed out to support the strength of the company, he said, "We've got a $28 billion RPO, remaining performance obligation, that grew 23.5% in Q1." In addition to that, he said, "We've got the most open enterprise platform." 03:14 — First, its core ITSM business. He said with the complexity that's going on in enterprises and the more reliance on data that's going to be taking place here in the AI era, we're going to see a 50x —not 50%, 50x — boom in the number of tickets that are being sent through for IT support. 04:12 — He talked about what's going on there with Moveworks and the changes that ServiceNow has made to that, and how that's going to simplify things and help bring down the anxiety some people have about AI. And finally, he said, "Our workflow data fabric," which helps pull all the data together, is so essential for what's going on now with AI. Visit Cloud Wars for more.
In the second hour of the show, Nate Gatter chats with Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott on the start of the World Cup, along with this weekend's match between Bosnia and Panama at Energizer Park! Then, a dive into more MLB labor issues and what negotiations could look like as this season continues.
In the first hour of Sports Open Line with Nate Gatter, he opens the show by discussing the initial offers of MLB's labor negotiation, continues on that topic, along with Cardinals baseball with KMOX Sports Contributor Bernie Miklasz. Then, a conversation with Lauren Harris, McKendree softball All-American shortstop! In the second hour of the show, Nate chats with Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott on the start of the World Cup, along with this weekend's match between Bosnia and Panama at Energizer Park! Then, a dive into more MLB labor issues and what negotiations could look like as this season continues.
Chris and Amy are getting their own day at Busch Stadium on June 17; what are some good 'call signs' for Chris and Amy when they're at the Air Show tomorrow?; Tom Ackerman called-out Chris over pickleball this morning; Did you see this? Spotify listeners are choosing nostalgia; Lynn Worthy joins from the Post-Dispatch to talk Cardinals; Major Garrett from CBS on the comings-and-goings in Washington, DC; and Bill McDermott previews the men's World Cup tournament,
Chris and Amy discuss what to wear for their Mississippi Yacht Club' attire for the Chris & Amy day at Busch; Joe Pfeiffer joins from the Cardinals, Chris will appear at the Community America Credit Union grand opening today between 5-7pm along with Fredbird, Matt Adams and Kevin Siegrist; Bill McDermott is known as 'Mr Soccer' and he previews the World Cup.
KMOX alum Bill McDermott joins Chris and Amy ahead of the US, Canada and Mexico hosting the World Cup soccer tournament this month. He handicaps the possibility of Lional Messi's Argentina facing off in a game in Kansas City against Cristiano Ronaldo, and says it is unlikely. The US opens their group play on June 12 against Paraguay. (Photo by Jay Biggerstaff/Getty Images)
Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow This is a Reporter’s Notebook episode – no guest, just some thoughts from the ground at ServiceNow‘s Knowledge 2026conference in Las Vegas. Earlier on Tuesday I spent about 40 minutes in a press fireside chat with ServiceNow chairman and CEO Bill McDermott. He’s one of the most practiced executives in enterprise technology, and he came with big takes. This episode skips the valuation conversation and focuses on what he said about where the industry is going. Three arguments are worth pulling out. First: the AI race isn’t won by the best model – it’s won by whoever can make AI deterministic and governable enough to actually run an enterprise on. “Governance isn’t a feature. It’s the whole ball game.” Second: AI isn’t optional, it’s arithmetic. With a projected shortage of 50 million workers globally by 2030, McDermott’s argument is that AI isn’t coming for your job – it’s coming to fill the jobs there won’t be enough people to do. Third: ServiceNow’s platform, with a hundred billion workflows already running, was always the foundation AI needed to land on. The stat that lingered longest: by McDermott’s own accounting, only one in ten enterprises has actually moved AI into a real, impactful business process. Which means for most of your customers, the agentic business isn’t something they’re navigating yet. It’s something they’re aspiring to. And that’s the channel opportunity. Read Full Transcript Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last sixteen years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. A rare double-up on In The Channel today. We've already dropped a great interview with Tim Coach from Cynomi on third party risk management. But this is something different altogether. This is a what I like to call a Reporter’s Notebook episode – no guest, just me and some thoughts I want to share from my time on the ground at ServiceNow’s Knowledge 2026 conference in Las Vegas. Specifically, I spent about 40 minutes in a room with ServiceNow chairman and CEO Bill McDermott, along with my peers in the indsutry press, in a fireside chat format. You know, I'm always somehow just a tiny bit disappointed when there's not an actual fireplace. But I digress. McDermott is one of the most practiced and polished executives in enterprise technology – he knows exactly what he’s doing when he talks to press. But he’s also genuinely quotable in a way that a lot of enterprise CEOs aren’t, and I came out of that session with a few things I wanted to think out loud about. Fair warning: he spent a meaningful amount of time on the ServiceNow valuation story and the disconnect between where Wall Street has the stock and where he thinks the business is going. I’m going to mostly skip that part. You’re solution providers, not analysts or institutional investors. What I want to talk about is what he said about where the industry is going, because I thought it was worth unpacking. So. The line that’s stuck with me since I walked out of that room. “Governance isn’t a feature. It’s the whole ball game.” That’s the sentence I’d put on the poster if I were running ServiceNow’s marketing right now. And it’s not just a pithy line – it’s the entire strategic argument the company is making, distilled down to nine words. Here’s the bet McDermott is making, and I think it’s worth understanding because it has real implications for how you think about the next few years of your business. The first bet is that the AI race isn’t going to be won by the best model. It’s going to be won by whoever can make AI safe enough, governed enough, and deterministic enough to actually run an enterprise on. He drew a distinction that I thought was clarifying. He said – and I’m quoting – “You can’t have a probabilistic solution for an enterprise. It has to be deterministic and it has to be right every time.” That’s the core argument against the pure large language model play. An LLM gives you the best answer it can given the data it has. It’s probabilistic by nature. That’s fine for a lot of things. It is not fine when you’re running IT service management for a bank, or HR workflows for a public sector organization, or customer operations for a telco. ServiceNow’s argument is that the governance layer – what they’re now calling the AI Control Tower – is the thing that makes AI enterprise-safe. Not just a nice add-on. The precondition. The second bet is that AI isn’t optional. It’s arithmetic. McDermott came back to this a few times. There’s a projected shortage of 50 million workers globally by 2030. The workforce isn’t growing fast enough to meet demand. Birth rates are declining. The enterprise can’t staff its way out of the problem it’s about to have. And so the argument isn’t “AI will help you be more efficient.” The argument is “AI is the only answer to a math problem that is already in motion.” He put it bluntly: AI isn’t coming for your job. AI is coming to do the jobs there won’t be enough people to fill. That’s a different pitch, and for a lot of your customers, it’s a more honest one. Is it a glass-half-full take? Sure. But considering the number of glass-completely-empty takes around AI and what it may do to the workforce of the future, I think it's worth considering. The third bet is the one that I find most interesting, and it was stated less explicitly, but I think it’s the most important one for your business. The bet is that ServiceNow was built for this moment. That the platform that’s been processing workflow for twenty years – the one that already has a hundred billion flows running, most of them untagged and unidentified – was always the foundation that AI needed to land on. He said it directly at one point: “This platform was always waiting for AI.” And I think what he’s really saying is: the hard part isn’t the AI. The hard part is knowing what to do with it. Knowing which workflows to activate. Knowing how to govern what you activate. Knowing how to quantify the outcome. And ServiceNow’s argument is that twenty years of enterprise workflow data, and the relationships and trust that come with it, is a moat that a hyperscaler or a pure-play AI company cannot replicate. There was a moment in the session – a little lighter – where McDermott talked about his relationship with Jensen Huang. He joked that every time he appears on stage with Jensen, NVIDIA’s market cap goes up by about a trillion dollars. He then pointed out that his own company’s multiple hasn’t quite kept pace with that. He was being self-deprecating in the way powerful people can afford to be. But the point underneath it was real: the NVIDIA partnership gives ServiceNow something the pure platform story couldn’t – a direct line into the AI infrastructure conversation, not just the AI governance conversation. There was one stat he dropped that I’ve been chewing on since then, a statisitical representation of the challenge that he faces, and that you face. And also of the opportunity, for those who play the game wisely. Only one in ten enterprises, by McDermott’s accounting, have actually moved from AI experimentation into AI that has genuinely impacted a core business process with real agentic workflows. One in ten. This is the CEO of the company that just staked its entire conference on the theme of “Welcome to Agentic Business” telling a room full of press that nine out of ten enterprises aren’t there yet. He wasn’t being pessimistic – he was making the case for the runway. But I thought it was an unusually honest thing to say out loud, and it’s worth noting. Because if one in ten is the number, then for most of your customers, the “agentic business” isn’t something they’re navigating. But it's probably something they’re aspiring to. And the opportunity for the channel isn’t to tell them about it. It’s to get them there. And that’s exactly what the Go Live AI guarantee, and the AI Control Tower, and the whole machinery of what ServiceNow announced this week is designed to do. Give the channel a way to close the gap between the aspiration and the reality, at a predictable pace, with a quantifiable outcome. If you want a bit more on the Go Live AI guarantee and the AI Control Tower, we covered it in this morning's episode of The Buzz, and tune in right here tomorrow, because ServiceNow's channel leader, Michael Park, has a lot to say about the mechanices of the Go Live AI guarantee in particular. One last quote I’ll leave you with. Someone in the room asked McDermott how he stays energized given the complexity of everything happening right now. He didn’t hesitate. “This is the best time I’ve ever seen for innovation in the enterprise.” He’s a CEO, so you take that with appropriate seasoning. But I was in the room, and I’ll tell you – to me it felt like he meant it. More from Knowledge 2026 coming this week, so keep your favorite podcast app nearby. If you’re finding In The Channel useful, please follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening – we’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and most major directories. Ratings and reviews are always welcome. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.
Reporting live from ServiceNow’s Knowledge 2026 conference in Las Vegas, the message from CEO Bill McDermott and NVIDIA‘s Jensen Huang was clear: the era of AI pilots is over. ServiceNow is repositioning itself as the AI Control Tower — the governance layer that sits above every AI agent an organization is running, regardless of where those agents were built. McDermott’s framing centered on what he called the “AI blind spot” — the growing reality that most enterprises are deploying agents without meaningful visibility into what those agents are actually doing. A live demo on stage showed a real-time prompt injection attack being detected and shut down by the platform. The most concrete channel announcement is the new “Go Live AI” offer — a total satisfaction guarantee committing to 100 days to production. Not a pilot, not a proof of concept. For solution providers, this is a commercial tool designed to help move customers from evaluation to commitment by absorbing some of the delivery risk. Jensen Huang’s argument was that AI should be used to “elevate ambition,” not just reduce costs — a framing that gives partners a more expansive conversation to have with clients about what outcomes are now possible. The morning’s most compelling demo came from FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam, who showed ServiceNow’s new AI agent Otto resolving a distribution hub staffing gap in minutes that historically took three days. FedEx reported 2,000 incidents offloaded, 3,000-plus hours saved, and 85 percent accuracy in production. For Canadian solution providers, ServiceNow is offering two new tools: a governance platform to make AI deployments defensible, and a commercial guarantee to make those deployments sellable. More on what this means for the Canadian market in this week’s In The Channel interviews from the show. In brief: Zoho research reveals Canada's “false comfort zone” in workforce security. Released ahead of World Password Day, Zoho's State of Workforce Password Security 2026 report—based on over 3,300 respondents including 174 in Canada—finds that while the Canadian attack rate (30%) is slightly better than the global average, significant vulnerabilities remain. The standout finding is the AI belief-to-deployment gap: while 89% of Canadian organizations believe AI will strengthen their security posture, only 46% are actually ready to deploy AI-powered security today. The primary blockers aren’t budget, but legacy infrastructure (52%) and migration complexity (48%). The report also highlights that 73% of Canadian organizations lack complete identity visibility across their workforce, leaving them exposed to orphaned accounts and unmanaged third-party access in highly integrated North American supply chains. Syncro and Guardz embed cybersecurity directly into the MSP workflow. Announced this morning, the two companies have launched a native integration that brings the Guardz cybersecurity platform inside the Syncro RMM/PSA environment. The move is designed to eliminate the “toggle tax” of managing separate security consoles, but the real channel hook is the automated billing: the integration uses Syncro's Universal Billing to automate client invoicing for security services, removing the manual reconciliation that often eats into MSP margins. Coming on the heels of the Guardz 2026 MSP Threat Report—which found that 90% of SMBs have at least one user with compromised credentials—the partnership aims to make proactive security a standard, billable part of the daily workflow. Huntress distribution deals are now officially live. The managed security platform's expansion into major distribution is now official. Huntress has signed deals with Ingram Micro, Vertosoft, Liquid PC, and QBS Software. For the Canadian reseller community, the Ingram Micro partnership is the headline, providing a more streamlined procurement path for the Huntress Agentic Security Platform and its 24/7 SOC. The move signals a transition for Huntress from an MSP-centric “challenger” brand to a broader mid-market and public sector player, using distribution scale to reach resellers who haven’t traditionally played in the “security-only” vendor space. Kiteworks names Oracle veteran Julia Rasekhi to lead partner strategy. The Content Communications Governance (CCG) platform—which has a significant Canadian footprint—has appointed Julia Rasekhi as its new senior vice president of Strategic Partnerships and Strategy. Rasekhi joins after 17 years at Oracle, and her mandate is to accelerate a transition toward partner-led growth for the company’s regulatory compliance and file sharing platform. As enterprise security increasingly moves from “network” to “content,” the hire suggests Kiteworks is looking to scale its GSI and reseller relationships to meet new data sovereignty and CPCSC requirements in Canada and globally. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, I’m Robert Dutt, today is Wednesday, May 6, 2026, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today. I’m reporting live from Las Vegas, where ServiceNow’s annual Knowledge conference got underway this morning with what may be one of the boldest keynotes I’ve seen at an enterprise software show in years. CEO Bill McDermott took the stage alongside NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang to make a simple but sweeping argument: the AI pilot era is over, and “Agentic Business” — where autonomous AI agents actually do the work — is here now. The repositioning McDermott is making is significant. ServiceNow is no longer pitching itself as just a workflow platform. It is now positioning itself as the AI Control Tower — the governance layer that sits above all the AI your organization is running, whether it was built on ServiceNow or not. The framing McDermott used was the “AI Blind Spot” — the idea that most organizations are deploying agents without any real visibility into what those agents are actually doing. A live demo on stage showed a real-time prompt injection attack being detected and shut down by the platform. The point was clear: if you don’t have a control layer, you don’t have an AI strategy, you have an AI liability. The most concrete announcement for the channel is what ServiceNow is calling its “Go Live AI” offer — essentially a total satisfaction guarantee. This is, as far as I know, the first time a major enterprise software company has put a guarantee like this in writing. The commitment is 100 days to production — not a pilot, not a proof of concept — an actual deployed agentic workflow. If you’re a partner trying to move customers off the fence on AI investments, this is a commercial tool. ServiceNow is essentially absorbing some of the delivery risk to help you close. Jensen Huang’s contribution to the morning was framing the economic case. He pushed back on the idea that AI is purely a cost-cutting play, arguing instead that enterprises should be using AI to “elevate ambition” — to do things they couldn’t do at all before, not just do existing things cheaper. The NVIDIA partnership is powering a new layer ServiceNow is calling the AI Factory, which provides the compute and model infrastructure underneath the platform’s agentic layer. The most vivid demo of the morning came from FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam, who walked through a live scenario showing ServiceNow’s new AI agent — called Otto — solving a staffing gap at a FedEx distribution hub in real time. The gap that historically took three days to resolve was closed in minutes. FedEx reported 2,000 incidents offloaded, over 3,000 hours saved, and 85 percent accuracy. Those are the kinds of numbers that end the “pilot conversation” fast. For Canadian solution providers, the takeaway is this: ServiceNow is giving the channel two new tools. A governance platform to make AI deployments defensible, and a commercial guarantee to make those deployments sellable. I’ll have more on what this means for Canadian partners specifically in my In The Channel interviews from the show later this week. And there was plenty going on aside from here at Knwoledge 26. In brief today: First, New research from Zoho highlights a “false comfort zone” for Canadian workforce security, with local attack rates sitting at 30 percent. While 89 percent of Canadians believe AI will strengthen their security, only 46 percent are ready to deploy it due to legacy infrastructure bottlenecks. Second, Syncro and Guardz have announced a major partnership, embedding the Guardz cybersecurity platform directly into the Syncro MSP workflow. The integration includes automated client invoicing through Syncro's Universal Billing to help MSPs capture security margin without the reconciliation headache. Third, Huntress distribution deals are now officially live with partners like Ingram Micro, Vertosoft, and Liquid PC. For the Canadian channel, the Ingram Micro relationship is the headline, signaling Huntress’s move to scale beyond its MSP roots into the broader mid-market. And finally, Kiteworks has appointed 17-year Oracle veteran Julia Rasekhi as its new SVP of Strategic Partnerships. This newly created role is a clear signal that the content governance player is shifting toward an aggressive, partner-led growth strategy in regulated markets. Full details and links in the show notes or the blog post. Later today on In The Channel, we take a look at third-party risk management, and why it's both an opportunity for managed service providers, and a threat as insurance providers get serious about supply chain risk, with Tim Coach from Cynomi. And if you haven’t heard it yet, check out yesterday's episode with Frances Edmonds, HP Canada's sustabiility leader, on just how important sustainability is on Canadian procurement documents. That’s how we’re seeing the headlines today. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.
"We are a growth company," ServiceNow Chair and CEO Bill McDermott says while discussing the company's first-quarter earnings on "Bloomberg Open Interest."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We caught up with Lee Newton, who called in from “North Caro-lacky,” as she called it! Lee is awoman who was born to sing and love doing it! We talked about her many ventures including a new album coming out soon!! Nashville Recording Artist and Singer/Songwriter Lee Newton comes from humble beginnings in a small town in Western North Carolina. Growing up, she experienced her share of hard times, but music was always a source of hope. At just five years old, Lee began singing in church alongside her mother. Her love for music blossomed when her father, a local cab driver, filled their home with the sounds of Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Patsy Cline. At seven, he placed a guitar in her hands, teaching her to play as they sang together while he drove his taxi on calls. Lee is in the studio recording her fifth studio album, alongside producer Bill Mcdermott. The first single, “The Long Goodbye,” was released September 13, 2025. The full album has an anticipated release in 2026, continuing Lee's trademark blend of raw emotion, soulful delivery, and timelessstorytelling. With a voice as authentic as her story—and a heart devoted to faith, family, and community—Lee Newton continues to carve her place in country music, bringing her daddy's dream of the Grand Ole Opry closer with every song. Be sure to check Lee out here: Website: leenewtonofficial.com FB: Lee Newton IG: lee_newton_ Tiktok: Lee Newton YouTube: Lee.newton
No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Technology | Startups
Few teens are business owners, but by age 16, Bill McDermott had purchased and was running a local deli. Now he runs leading global technology powerhouse ServiceNow, a company that is defining how the world's largest organizations transform for the digital age. Sarah Guo sits down with ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott to discuss his journey from child entrepreneur to CEO, and how he navigates his role as a leader in the age of AI. Bill argues that human connection is still a vital part of being a successful leader, and as such, AI must be used to serve people rather than substitute for ambition. He breaks down the mechanics of hyper-growth, and the art of staying customer-centric at a global scale. They also discuss the future of enterprise software, how generative AI is fundamentally reshaping the labor market, and what founders need to know about building a resilient company culture that survives economic and technological shifts. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @BillRMcDermott | @ServiceNow Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 00:50 – Bill McDermott Introduction 01:14 – Lesson from Buying a Deli 07:35 – Leadership in the AI Era 09:41 – How Bill Got Hired at Xerox 15:47 – Can Agency Be Taught? 18:40 – Seeing Change as Opportunity 25:18 – ServiceNow as an AI Control Tower 30:30 – Which SaaS Gets Disrupted? 32:22 – Defining a Platform Business 36:25 – Does AI Decrease Implementation Time? 39:06 – Agents Will Reshape the Workforce 40:59 – Success Signals at ServiceNow 44:07 – Enterprise Attitudes About AI 48:41 – How AI Has Changed Customer Conversations 50:48 – Bill's Curiosity Beyond ServiceNow 52:29 – Day in the Life of a CEO 57:27 – Conclusion
BIG SPORTS SHOW 2 20 BILL MCDERMOTT TRENT BURNS STARTING FIVE DRAFT CFP BREAKOUT by
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore why Bill McDermott says ServiceNow is not a SaaS company and why SaaS is “on the menu.”Highlights00:03 — Welcome back to Cloud Wars Minute. The big thing is ServiceNow. As Bill McDermott says, ServiceNow is hungry and SaaS is on the menu. He went to great lengths in ServiceNow's recent Q4 earnings call, and also in a follow-up interview with Jim Cramer of Mad Money, to say that ServiceNow is doing great. We hit and exceeded all our numbers. We are not a SaaS company now.00:34 — One of the reasons McDermott wants to emphasize this separation from the SaaS community is because the SaaS business has been getting ravaged by Wall Street analysts who are thinking that AI, generative AI is going to completely gut the whole SaaS model. So they have knocked anywhere from 50, 60, 70% off the market caps of some leading SaaS companies.01:09 — He said AI, generative AI, and workflows and data are going to be the new model, the old model of traditional SaaS applications, or of what McDermott referred to repeatedly as features and functions. He said those are things of the past. We are the AI platform on which a lot of these SaaS apps will work and they'll operate.02:03 — Hyperscale is a nice name, but it doesn't really describe all that they do. Some of them offer applications, application development. They all offer databases. You've now got SaaS companies that got caught up in just features and functions that don't drive value and don't get companies better prepared for the AI Economy. They're all rolled together now.03:05 — "Our stock price and our valuation have taken a huge hit because we are being misinterpreted as being part of the SaaS world." We are not in the SaaS neighborhood. We are not a SaaS company. SaaS is on the menu. We're hungry. AI and ServiceNow are going to eat a lot of these, devour a lot of these feature and function application companies. Visit Cloud Wars for more.
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down ServiceNow's latest AI expansion with Anthropic and what it means for enterprise workflows.Highlights00:04 — I recently reported on ServiceNow's expanded collaboration with OpenAI. That agreement makes OpenAI's models the go-to solution for companies running upwards of 80 billion annual workflows on the ServiceNow platform.00:17 — Now, ServiceNow has announced that Anthropic's Claude models will be integrated into core ServiceNow workflows for tasks like app development, with Claude serving as the default model powering the ServiceNow Build Agent — the company's tool for easy development of agentic workflows.00:37 — This is what ServiceNow Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott had to say about the announcement: “ServiceNow and Anthropic are turning intelligence into action through AI-native workflows for the world's largest enterprises ... Together, we are proving that deeply integrated platforms with an open ecosystem are how the future is built.”01:12 — In addition to Build Agent, ServiceNow is integrating Claude alongside purpose-built solutions throughout the implementation lifecycle, with the aim of achieving a 50% reduction in the time it takes customers to deploy solutions built on the ServiceNow AI platform.01:31 — ServiceNow and Anthropic are also building agent-based workflows for specific industries, including healthcare and life sciences, for tasks such as research and analysis. Just as it has done with OpenAI, ServiceNow is integrating Claude directly into workflows — and it's this integration that can lead to much better outcomes for AI initiatives.02:03 — By making these model choices the default, ServiceNow removes the guesswork from customer decision-making and enables customers to rely on the company's expertise to achieve the best results. Visit Cloud Wars for more.
The Frank & Jill Show ft Alvin Reid 11-25-25 - Dr. Rick - Bill McDermott by
The Frank and Jill Show 11-10-25: Bill McDermott - Bob Costas by
In today's Cloud Wars Minute, ServiceNow's push into CRM meets Salesforce's expansion into ITSM (IT Service Management), powered by agentic AI.Highlights00:14 — While I'm focusing here on Salesforce and ServiceNow, and some changes each is making to get into markets dominated by the other, the larger point here is about how agentic AI is triggering new competition and new approaches. Today, I'm going to share about five repercussions with you.01:15 — On Salesforce's Q2 earnings call, Marc Benioff said, “Hey, we're going to get into IT Service Management.” Salesforce is changing from being an apps company to a data company. It just so happens that ServiceNow and CEO Bill McDermott have been making it very plain that they intend to move aggressively into the CRM business, which has been Salesforce's prime area.02:34 — So, I'm going to mention big implications. One, these companies are looking for new hunting grounds — new areas to help customers do more and to allow these vendors to make more money. Agentic AI is also blasting out boundaries, because agentic AI, I think, optimally works on an end-to-end basis.03:36 — Benioff, on the earnings call, said Data Cloud and agentic AI — Agentforce — are "at the heart of our company strategy", not their applications. Which leads into this: I don't think, as Satya Nadella said, “apps are dying,” or “SaaS is dying,” but I do think that agentic AI is going to change profoundly what apps do, how they work, and how customers can extract value from them.04:44 — We are seeing agentic AI knock down a lot of boundaries. You're going to have more wide-ranging tools that let [customers] see all of their data, be able to develop end-to-end processes that are more effective, more successful, and give them better insights — and, mostly, better business outcomes. Visit Cloud Wars for more.
For Bill McDermott, work has never been just a job.On this Labor Day rerun of Grit, first published Jan 9, 2023, the ServiceNow CEO reflects on what he learned from his earliest jobs and how he carried those lessons from a deli counter in Long Island to the boardroom of an $80B software company.We cover:Why Bill bought a deli when he was in high school — and how he competed against 7-Eleven (04:00)Interviewing at Xerox and wanting it more than anyone else (08:17)Unwavering optimism and being a source of strength for others (12:34)How a love of work has shaped Bill as a person (16:44)Facing challenges and keeping a promise to his father (22:00)Enjoying the present and keeping an eye on the future (30:01)Leaving Xerox for Gartner and learning from a tough experience (33:29)Sloan Kettering and Father Michael Judge (39:22)Following the “original dream” vs. building something new at ServiceNow (44:59)Losing an eye and getting a pep talk from two Medal of Honor winners (51:15)Why Bill started and ended his book with quotes from two Kennedys (01:01:21)Connect with BillXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
Big Sports Show Bredan and Bill McDermott on City SC 8.18.25 by
Jen Siess is live from Hotshots for the first of four editions of the Soccer Showcase, Jen will talk with Dale Schilly as well as Mr. Soccer himself Bill McDermott along with City SC player Jake Girdwood-Reich.
In this episode of the CPQ Podcast, we dive deep into one of the most talked-about moves in the CPQ space—ServiceNow's acquisition of Logik.ai for a reported $500 million. I'm joined by Anandan “AJ” Jayaraman, VP of the Lead to Cash portfolio at ServiceNow, and Christopher Shutts, Co-Founder and CEO of Logik.ai, for an exclusive, behind-the-scenes conversation. Together, we explore what this acquisition means for the future of CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote), CRM, and Revenue Operations. Discover why Logik.ai's composable, headless architecture, world-class configuration engine, and Amazon-like user experience caught ServiceNow's attention. Learn how the combined power of AI-driven quoting, Salesforce and Shopify integrations, and a unified ServiceNow platform is setting a new standard for modern CPQ. Chris shares how the acquisition talks began around Christmas 2024 and what it was like working with ServiceNow's leadership—including inspiration from CEO Bill McDermott's Winner's Dream. AJ reflects on his global journey across India, Israel, and the U.S., and explains how CPQ is at the heart of modern enterprise selling. Whether you're in sales ops, revenue management, CRM architecture, or enterprise technology, this episode delivers key insights on: Why CPQ is core to digital selling How AI is transforming CPQ for sales reps and admins alike What this means for Salesforce, Shopify, and standalone customers Subscribe now and stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving CPQ and Revenue Tech landscape.
ServiceNow Inc. CEO Bill McDermott discusses earnings, AI, regulations and says artificial intelligence is helping save on labor costs and making the company faster. “We’re slowing down the hiring in jobs that are — quite frankly — soul crushing jobs," McDermott said to Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the second hour of the show, we shift the focus over to soccer, where we are joined by Tom Timmermann, who covers STL City SC for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, to talk about their recent acquisitions. Then Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott, to discuss the USMNT.
In the first hour of tonight's Sports Open Line, Nate Gatter reacts to the poll we asked online, about what the Cardinals should do at the trade deadline. Then, we are joined by Brad Thompson, Cardinals TV analyst for FanDuel Sports Network Midwest. Plus, lots of talk about the All-Star game and Home Run Derby. In the second hour of the show, we shift the focus over to soccer, where we are joined by Tom Timmermann, who covers STL City SC for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, to talk about their recent acquisitions. Then Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott, to discuss the USMNT.
The Frank and Jill Show Show 7-8-25: Joe Holleman - Bill McDermott - Dr. Rick Lehman by
Eric Yuan turned a simple belief into Zoom, the platform that kept the world moving through a once-in-a-century shutdown and redefined modern work. On this episode of Grit, the Zoom CEO shares why velocity beats size, how a family-first ethos powered his leadership during COVID, and why the coming wave of AI dwarfs the original internet boom. He details how he's refreshing Zoom's culture for 7,500 people, opting for virtual deal calls over in person meetings, settling into life as an empty-nester, and keeping Zoom nimble enough to outpace Big Tech and the next wave of AI startups.Guest: Eric S. Yuan, Founder & CEO of ZoomChapters: 00:00 Trailer00:44 Introduction01:47 Walking with swagger03:48 Extremely exciting moment10:05 Classic innovators' dilemma12:59 Laser-focused bandwidth17:56 Family first: lead by example22:09 Everybody was doing their road shows25:34 The entire world was dependent28:04 Community care31:57 Valuation and a co-founder35:17 A lot of unhappy days39:25 Building Zoom for consumers46:57 Holograms?52:01 Home53:23 Huge competition, high velocity1:00:33 Where companies get wrong1:04:52 Giving back1:13:12 Who Zoom is hiring1:13:24 What “grit” means to Eric1:14:24 OutroMentioned in this episode: Webex by Cisco, Glean, Apple, HP, Netscape, Yahoo, Brian Armstrong, Emilie Choi, Coinbase, New Limit, Elon Musk, Windy Hill, Magic Leap, Rony Abovitz, Jony Ive, OpenAI ChatGPT, Bill McDermott, ServiceNow, Carl EschenbachLinks:Connect with EricXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner Perkins
Send us a textWhat happens when raw talent meets determination? Dalton Hicks, a rising country music artist from South Carolina, joins us for a heartfelt conversation that traces his musical journey from his great-grandmother's piano to Nashville's recording studios.Dalton opens up about the profound influence his grandmother Olga had on his musical beginnings, sharing how her passion for piano sparked his own love for music. When she passed away, he channeled that connection into creating songs that would make her proud. This relationship forms the emotional foundation for his authentic approach to songwriting.We dive deep into Dalton's creative process, exploring how he crafts songs independently—starting with lyrics and developing melodies that feel true to his experiences. Unlike many Nashville artists, he writes alone, allowing his genuine voice to shine through in every track. His latest release is approaching an impressive 400,000 streams without promotional investment, a testament to the authentic connection he's building with listeners.The conversation takes us to Nashville, where Dalton recorded at the now-demolished Omni studio with renowned producer Bill McDermott. Working alongside session musicians who've played for country's biggest names marked a pivotal moment in his career. Now with professional management behind him after being discovered on Instagram, Dalton candidly discusses navigating the business side of music while staying true to his artistic vision.What stands out most is Dalton's mission to inspire through music. "I want to be the person to bring the moments out of the gutter. I want to inspire people to get out of the gutter and have a happy life," he explains with genuine conviction. His desire to be more than "just another country singer" reflects his commitment to creating meaningful art that resonates beyond typical genre conventions.LinksJay Franze: https://JayFranze.com Support the show
MICHAEL COHEN & DOUG WREN Put together the first broadcast in the history of Major League Soccer. It was April 6, 1996, at Spartan Stadium in San Jose, the homestanding Clash (now Earthquakes) and DC United. Early in the 30th MLS season I talked with both of them about that first broadcast. Cohen was the producer, Wren the director. [The announce team of Phil Schoen, Ty Keough and Bill McDermott appear in another podcast.] This game was played in front of nearly 32,000 fans, on national television, and it went right down to the wire before they got a goal. [No spoilers here.] This conversation also includes bigger-picture topics about how soccer is broadcast in this country and abroad.This is one of two episodes. Recorded February 25, 2025. Part 1 30:50Part 2 33:30
In the second hour of the show tonight, we take a soccer focus. Alvin Reid of the St. Louis American, joins us to talk about his recent article on the 25 sports things he wants to see in 2025. Then, Dale Schilly, STL City Academy Director and Y98 Matchday Analyst, joins us, followed by Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott.
Jen Siess is in for Sports Open Line tonight! Guests in the first hour include Scott Miller, NYT Contributor and author of 2 books, the next being Skipper: Why Baseball Managers Matter and Always Will. Then, we have Kevin Ryans, Sports Anchor/Reporter for Fox 2 and KPLR 11. And we round out the first hour with a replay of a conversation from over the weekend between Tom Ackerman and Billikens Head Coach Josh Schertz. In the second hour of the show tonight, we take a soccer focus. Alvin Reid of the St. Louis American, joins us to talk about his recent article on the 25 sports things he wants to see in 2025. Then, Dale Schilly, STL City Academy Director and Y98 Matchday Analyst, joins us, followed by Mr. Soccer, Bill McDermott.
Guest: Dan Streetman, CEO of TaniumA graduate of West Point who served in Iraq combat operations, Tanium CEO Dan Streetman can't help but compare his business career to his military experience. Understanding huge structures and processes is a crucial skill at both Tanium and in the Army, he says, as are the skills for aligning people around a shared mission.“Before you go on an operation, you write a thing called an operations order ... [and] one of the most important things at the operations order is this paragraph called the commander's intent,” he explains, “which describes how you believe the mission is going to be accomplished and why it's important.”“You may end up doing something completely different. But as long as you understand the mission and the commander's intent, the organization can do amazing things.”Chapters:(01:05) - Election Day (02:44) - Ranger School (06:42) - Parenting and business school (09:59) - Military structures (12:27) - Serving in Iraq (15:59) - Back to normal life (21:37) - Working out (24:14) - Quality sleep (26:37) - Non-founder CEOs (31:35) - Getting the job (35:56) - Earning respect (38:49) - TIBCO (43:40) - Redline (46:37) - Going public (53:54) - Time horizons (58:35) - Free AI (01:03:11) - Whar “grit” mans to Dan (01:03:40) - Who Tanium is hiring Mentioned in this episode: Ronald Reagan, Terri Streetman, Ironman Triathlons, Jeff Bezos and Amazon, Stanley McChrystal, Jon Abizaid, Charles Jacoby, Thomas Siebel and C3, Salesforce, Bill McDermott, Carl Eschenbach, Marc Benioff, Garmin, Mark McLaughlin, Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke, World Series of Poker, Amdocs, David and Orion Hindawi, Citrix, Harvard University, Pets.com, Ben Horowitz, Vista Equity Partners, Vivek Ranadivé, Robert Smith, Operation Warp Speed, BreakLine, Bipul Sinha and Rubrik, Mikhail Gorbachev, F. Scott Fitzgerald, OpenAI and ChatGPT, and Google.Links:Connect with DanLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
David Schneider is a General Partner @ Coatue and one of the great operators of the last 20 years. Prior to Coatue, David was instrumental in ServiceNow's growth to over $100B+ public market value. David led the growth of the company from $100M to $5BN in revenue. Before joining ServiceNow, David held senior positions at Data Domain, the company he joined at $0 in revenue and scaled to $1BN in revenue and an IPO and acquisition. In Today's Episode with David Schneider We Discuss: ServiceNow: Secrets to Scaling to $5BN in ARR: What are David's biggest lessons from scaling ServiceNow to $5BN ARR? What worked? What did not work? What are the most common reasons companies plateau? How did ServiceNow roll out so many different products so effectively? How did David hire and ramp 180 people in 90 days? 2. From OG Operator to Newbie Investor: What have been the single most challenging elements of making the transition to VC? What advice did David get from the biggest names on entering venture? How long did it take David to do his first deal? What advice does he give other operators entering? How does doing deals in 2024 compare to when David started doing deals in 2021? 3. VC Value: Do 90% of VCs Really Damage Companies: Does David agree that 90% of VCs actually detract value? What does David mean when he says that the worst VCs are "seagull VCs"? What are David's biggest tips to founders on how to get the most out of their board? What is enough ownership for David to really give the time needed to a company? 4. Lessons from the Greats: Doug Leone, Bill McDermott, Frank Slootman: Doug Leone: What has David learned from Doug on what it takes to be a great investor and board member? Frank Slootman: What has David learned from Bill on how to be the best leader of a mega company? Bill McDermott: What has David learned from Frank about decision-making and execution.