Podcasts about Google Cloud

Interview with Dan Meacham, CISO at Legendary Entertainment Dan Meacham joined us to share a preview of his leadership panel at InfoSec World. At this CRA event in October, Dan will be discussing The Augmented Defender - What AI Actually Changes on the Front Line with Daniel Bowden, the Global CISO at Marsh. Dan dives into the unique world of securing data and assets when film production is largely handled by partners and contractors, working from systems you'll likely have limited access to and definitely can't install agents on. It's a fascinating conversation you should check out! Visit https://securityweekly.com/infosecworld2026 and save 30% on your ISW pass with code: ISW26-SWSAVINGS Black Hat Interview 1 - Google Cloud Outpacing the Adversary with AI Threat Defense - Black Hat interview with John Hultquist, Chief Analyst, Google Threat Intelligence Group at Google The cybersecurity landscape is undergoing a radical shift. AI is no longer just a productivity accelerator for developers and analysts—it has become actively weaponized by sophisticated threat actors to discover and exploit vulnerabilities at unprecedented speed. We'll discuss Google's own approach to combating today's threats and the need for security teams to transform vulnerability management with machine-speed defense. Segment Resources: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/introducing-google-ai-threat-defense https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/ebookgooglecloudsecurityaithreatdefense.pdf https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/whitepapercombatingaidriventhreatsgooglemachinespeed_defense.pdf This segment is sponsored by Google Cloud. Visit https://securityweekly.com/googlebh to learn more! Black Hat Interview 2 - Forcepoint Decoding Agentic: Securing the Data Layer AI Just Set on Fire - Black Hat interview with Ronan Murphy, Chief Data Strategy Officer of Forcepoint AI didn't ask permission — and it permanently changed what data risk looks like. Forcepoint Chief Data Strategy officer and member of the Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council in Ireland, shares insights on a clear call to action for agentic enterprises: stop locking AI down and start securing it where the risk actually lives, in the data itself. Learn why data trust is the foundation of the agentic era and how the world's leading enterprises are ending the false choice between AI innovation and data safety. Segment Resources: https://www.forcepoint.com/resources/ebooks/enterprise-guide-ai-data-security https://www.forcepoint.com/blog/insights/forcepoint-announces-ai-data-security This segment is sponsored by Forcepoint. Visit https://securityweekly.com/forcepointbh to learn more! Black Hat Interview 3 - Keyfactor From Secrets to Verified Workload Identity—at Enterprise Scale - Black Hat interview with Ellen Boehm, SVP, Strategy & AI Innovation at Keyfactor As AI agents become autonomous participants inside enterprise environments, organizations can no longer rely on static credentials and traditional identity models to establish trust. Enterprise AI is driving a shift from possession-based access to cryptographically verified identity, as AI agents, cloud-native workloads, and automated services increasingly make decisions and interact with critical systems. In this discussion, we'll discuss why organizations need to continuously establish trust, govern machine identities and cryptography, and build a resilient foundation for securing AI across increasingly dynamic environments. Segment Resources: https://www.keyfactor.com/blog/ai-agents-the-identity-problem-nobody-owns-yet/ https://www.keyfactor.com/education-center/what-is-trust-infrastructure/ https://www.keyfactor.com/resources/topic/col/products/the-trust-control-plane?pflpid=60788&pfsid=HsCXvwPWB1 This segment is sponsored by Keyfactor. Visit https://securityweekly.com/keyfactorbh to learn more! Black Hat Interview 4 - Delinea Delinea Delivers Runtime Authorization for AI Agents, Closing Access Control Gap - Black Hat interview with Frank Vukovits, Chief Security Scientist at Delinea As AI agents move from experiments to autonomous operators inside production databases, cloud consoles, and Kubernetes clusters, enterprises face a new problem: agents with legitimate credentials taking actions no one authorized. Frank breaks down why verifying access at connection time is no longer enough and what it takes to enforce policy on every agent action before it executes. He explains how runtime authorization closes the gap between hiding credentials and actually controlling what agents do once they're inside a session. This segment is sponsored by Delinea. Visit https://securityweekly.com/delineabh to learn more! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-474

AI is about to replace bloated SaaS, and most businesses are still only playing with chatbotsSean G Muller says the next wave of AI is not about better prompts or prettier copilots. It is about rebuilding business around context, agents, and what actually creates value - before your software stack becomes the expensive middleman.Mark Smth and Sean unpack why the last six months have been a genuine shift: agentic loops are now good enough to handle real business work, not just experiments. Sean explains how he moved from traditional technical architecture into building full application pipelines, MCP servers, and background agents that review email, track social signals, draft responses, and keep business moving without adding more human overhead.You'll discover why context is the missing ingredient in almost every failed AI project, how Sean uses a simple meal-planning example to explain it, and why companies that scatter knowledge across laptops, SharePoint, Google Cloud, and people's heads are sitting on hidden risk. Sean also breaks down the difference between AI as a feature and AI as a business transformation engine, including the mistake many firms make when they bolt chat onto old workflows and call it progress.We also get into the coming SaaS pocalypse - the idea that tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Xero, Slack, and Atlassian may face a serious reckoning as businesses realize they can build leaner, custom, agent-first systems for less than the cost of endless licenses and modules. Sean shares how he built a headless, agent-driven CRM and why he thinks greenfield builds will replace expensive transformation projects much sooner than most executives expect. This conversation matters if you lead a business, run operations, own a small or mid-sized company, or simply suspect your current software is forcing you to work the wrong way. If you want to understand where AI is actually delivering leverage right now - and how to avoid wasting money on shallow pilots - this episode is essential listening.Mark Smth hosts the conversation and brings the enterprise and product lens, pushing Sean to get specific about what success looks like for real businesses in New Zealand.Sean G Muller is an AI and enterprise architecture specialist based in New Zealand, known for helping organizations build practical AI systems, implement agentic workflows, and rethink business process from the ground up.Resources1. The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage - https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/0385249462?ref_=mr_referred_us_au_nz2. Gemini: A Family of Highly Capable Multimodal Models — 2312.11805.pdf ⁠https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.118053. On the Measure of Intelligence — 1911.01547.pdf - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1911.01547Support the showIf you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.Thanks for listening

Don’t get left behind in the AI shift! Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this critical conversation, Vince Menzione sits down with Shannon Sigmon, Marc Harpster, and Jeff Mesnik to uncover how the rapid pace of change in the Google Cloud Marketplace and AI agent integration is forcing organizations to completely rethink their go-to-market strategies. They break down why traditional three-year business plans are dead, replacing them with agile 100-day sprints to keep up with the shifting ecosystem. The panel reveals that leveraging your Adaptability Quotient (AQ) and turning data patterns into actionable co-sell motions are the only ways to survive the upcoming “agent age” and maintain a competitive edge. https://youtu.be/xIaABKU1jmM Key Takeaways Consistent messaging is required to gather actionable data and build trust with channel partners. Three-to-five-year business plans are obsolete, and leaders must now operate in 100-day sprints to keep pace with hyperscaler changes. Google Cloud Marketplace uniquely supports channel partners by allowing them to own the customer relationship and recognize top-line revenue. The rise of AI agents is shifting discovery away from traditional SEO, requiring ISVs to adapt how they provide access to their tools. Creating interactive content variations from a single asset helps train AI agents to discover and prioritize your solutions. Despite rapid digital transformation, human connection remains the ultimate deciding factor in enterprise software purchases. 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 Adaptability Quotient, Google Cloud Marketplace, agentic age, co-sell motion, digital sales hub, private offers, propensity to buy, AI pattern analysis, hyperscaler CRM, interactive trivia content, product-led discovery. Transcript Shannon – Marc – Jeff AUDIO Podcast [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: That becomes the core of your data analysis because if you’re not submitting consistent content and submit, you know, consistent information, then you’re not gonna get information back. [00:00:13] 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. [00:00:25] Vince Menzione: Welcome to the Ultimate Partner [00:00:26] Vince Menzione: Podcast. I’m Vince Menzione 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 [00:00:46] Vince Menzione: strategy. [00:00:47] Vince Menzione: It is the strategy because being in the room changes everything. Let’s start. [00:00:57] ——-: We have another incredible group of leaders coming up here and, uh, and friends of ultimate partner and, uh, Susan, do you need me for, okay, good. Come on up. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna invite you up and then have you each. Introduce yourself, uh, to this conversation. Shannon, it has been a great to see you. Yeah, great friend. [00:01:18] ——-: Been in, it was in Boca. Mark. Great to have you. Good to see you, sir. Jeff, great to have you. Uh, this is incredible. I’m, I’m excited for this conversation. So, uh, yeah, we talked about aq. We talked a little bit about AQ in this last session. Don’t, didn’t we? Yeah. [00:01:34] Shannon Sigmon: A little. [00:01:34] Vince Menzione: Why don’t we go, why don’t we have you, I wanna have you each introduce yourself, your role, your company mission, and, and, and everything here. [00:01:40] Vince Menzione: So why don’t we start with Shannon. [00:01:41] Shannon Sigmon: Um, hey, thank you Vince for having us again, um, here in Bellevue. It’s been great to meet with everybody and see some old friends. Uh, I’m at Software One, so Shannon Sigman, um, based on the East Coast, but I work at Software One I’m responsible for. Um, in my sales role, I’m responsible for our channel and digital sales organization in North America. [00:02:00] Shannon Sigmon: And then I also have, um, responsibility supporting Regina Ma and Freddie and our leadership team as the chief of staff. Um, and we’re focused software one, if you haven’t worked with us before, we’re focused on helping, um, helping our customers and partners deliver real financial impact in their business so they can afford some of the, the cool to do some of the cool stuff you were talking about in the earlier session. [00:02:20] Shannon Sigmon: And it’s, for us, it’s really about coming in on the front end and helping, um, our customers and our partners understand what they’re doing in their software stack, their cloud stack, and then how to, um, optimize that, rationalize the strategy and, and the implementation of of solutions. [00:02:36] Vince Menzione: And a global leader in the marketplace in [00:02:38] Shannon Sigmon: That’s right. [00:02:39] Shannon Sigmon: The, the number one Microsofts, um, we [00:02:41] Vince Menzione: used to say re reseller or ls. We used to all these different, [00:02:44] Shannon Sigmon: yeah. We, um, it’s funny, I was speaking last night. We fall into the scale solution provider. We’re d with Google and AWS. But, um, we operate very differently on the, on the North America market as a more of a boutique, uh, personalized experience than what a traditional dity is. [00:02:59] Shannon Sigmon: I’m less about the transaction and more about the impact and the, the outcomes and, and helping partners with their go-to-market strategy. [00:03:07] ——-: Awesome. Yeah. And sitting next to you, Marc I’ll let you introduce yourself ’cause this kind of ties in very nicely in [00:03:13] Marc Harpster: Yeah. [00:03:13] ——-: In terms of the work you do. [00:03:14] Marc Harpster: Uh, thanks Vince. [00:03:15] Marc Harpster: Uh, hi everyone. I’m Mark Harpster. I am part of the Google Cloud Marketplace organization. So, uh, guy who you just heard from on the last panel is my boss. Uh, I run strategic initiatives within the marketplace team. So this includes our channel program. Uh, so everyone who is. Uh, the partners who like to resell, uh, ISV software out our marketplace. [00:03:38] Marc Harpster: Uh, I have a team who works with, uh, all of you, and that includes distribution. Uh, and uh, then I also, we run, um, the, some of our, like the go to market strategic initiatives. So we have a. Uh, customer credit program that ISVs can take advantage of to help incentivize deals going through marketplace, uh, propensity to buy, uh, data that we can share. [00:04:02] Marc Harpster: Mm-hmm. Uh, a number of different programs along those lines. Uh, basically, uh, we’re we’re helping. You know, customers find the solutions that they want to buy and helping them buy from the who they wanna buy from. [00:04:14] ——-: Yeah. And you were out early. I mean, you’ve been in the, the, I I feel like Google was leaned in very early on the channel. [00:04:20] Marc Harpster: Yeah. [00:04:20] ——-: And it was a couple years now, right? [00:04:22] Marc Harpster: Yeah. I joined Google about two and a half years ago. Uh, I was, you know, at, at another, worked for another cloud marketplace before that. So I’ve, I’ve been in the marketplace space for, uh, over a decade now. Uh, I’m really passionate about it. And with the, to touch on your point, Vince, I think the one key advantage of Google is, you know, within the, our channel partners, uh, we have a huge, uh, partner network, uh, of, of, you know, channel resellers and, uh, system integrators. [00:04:52] Marc Harpster: Uh, and we actively want those channel partners to, you know, own the customer relationship, including all of the billing. Uh, channel partners tend to love this because we’re the only cloud marketplace that really supports sort of the ability to recognize top line revenue for the channel partners. Uh, and so that’s been a real, uh, you know, distinguishing factor. [00:05:11] Marc Harpster: And one thing I’m really excited about within our marketplace. [00:05:14] Vince Menzione: You got it right. Awesome, Jeff. Good to see you, sir. [00:05:17] Vince Menzione: Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you for having [00:05:19] Jeff Mesnik: me. Good to have you. [00:05:20] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:05:21] Vince Menzione: Tell us a little bit about your organization, about content amx. [00:05:24] Jeff Mesnik: Well, I’m honored to be here with, uh, these two. Yeah. [00:05:27] Jeff Mesnik: You know, and, and Vince obviously [00:05:29] Vince Menzione: Thank you. [00:05:29] Jeff Mesnik: But you know, our organization is really about coming back, and I’m not trying to plug tackle by you saying this, but we’re doing the blocking and tackling for organizations another. [00:05:40] Vince Menzione: That’s why I named the tackle. [00:05:41] Jeff Mesnik: Yeah, I know. It’s, it’s, it’s part of my every conversation now and I have to think about it, but we basically believe in the idea that trust is starting by consistency and expectation. [00:05:55] Jeff Mesnik: So a few years ago I was listening to, um, an event where Tim Couch and, um, Michelle Ragusa, McBain were talking and they said, partners respond to. You meeting and greet, you know, exceeding expectations. So one of those expectations should be consistent messaging to them and consistent messaging for them to send out to their customers. [00:06:15] Jeff Mesnik: And then the next step is that becomes the core of your data analysis, because if you’re not submitting consistent content and submit, you know, consistent information, then you’re not gonna get information back. So that information back then turns into sales opportunities because you’re not looking at. [00:06:34] Jeff Mesnik: Clicks or having a marketing person say, Hey, you know, this person just stopped by my booth. Or Hey, they downloaded a white paper. It’s patterns using AI to analyze and address and look at patterns and turn those patterns into actions. So, you know, we’ve been talking Shannon and Mark and I about those patterns and how to. [00:06:55] Jeff Mesnik: Respond to them to maybe do a co-sell motion if that’s what’s necessary, or to make sure that the partner is ready for the next step. We’re doing a program for Microsoft. Whoops. So we’re doing a program for Microsoft. Do I still have it? [00:07:11] Marc Harpster: Yeah, you’re [00:07:11] Marc Harpster: good. Um, that en enables the partners to learn about AI and then we can understand where they are in their AI path. [00:07:22] Vince Menzione: Awesome. So Shannon, uh, Regina, man. Freddy. Yeah. Also a great friend of, ultimate Partner. Been on stage, was on stage here a couple years ago. We talked about adaptability quotient. Uh, we, we took that, we took that back. Now we use it all the time. And I, you know, I want, I wanna cover with you what that means to your organization. [00:07:40] Vince Menzione: A lot has changed. [00:07:41] Shannon Sigmon: Yes. Still. Yeah. [00:07:42] Vince Menzione: Still changed. Yeah. And you work with multiple hyperscalers, so take us through like, how, how, how does. What is now Software One used to be crayon, now it’s software one Crayon, or it’s just software one. Now let’s talk about all the change and how you’re absorbing it, and then how are you taking it to market and being successful. [00:08:00] Shannon Sigmon: Yeah, it’s interesting. We spent time, gosh, two, three years ago now, um, talking about adaptability being the next superpower [00:08:07] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:08:07] Shannon Sigmon: Uh, of workforce, right? That it wasn’t just about having the experience, but with the rate at which. The pace at which change was happening, having, uh, uh, employees foundationally focused on curiosity and learning and con constant development. [00:08:23] Shannon Sigmon: Um, and my goodness, uh, this year alone, right? We we’re. We, it’s hard to keep up. Right? So this idea of creating a full three to five year plan, we’re, we’re creating sprints plans. Yes. Right. And sprint strategies. And so I do think when we look at our integration of the two companies as Crayon and Software one come together globally, um, that has been a critical mass. [00:08:47] Shannon Sigmon: Uh, issue for us to overcome, but also to get our employee base one feeling comfortable with the pace of change because it can, for those people who are, are not change agents, it can be really uncomfortable and, and stress inducing. Um, but also giving them space to, to try things, fail fast and learn from it. [00:09:07] Shannon Sigmon: And. Um, it, it, it infuses that adaptability quotient, infuses entrepreneurial spirit within the organization a bit. Um, but it has become, it is the superpower of the next generation is how, how quickly can you adapt to change, but not just adapt to it as it’s coming, but stay ahead of it, um, and stay ahead of what’s happening in the industry through communities like this so that you’re skating towards the puck, not waiting for the puck to hit you in between the eyeballs. [00:09:34] Vince Menzione: Yeah. How long are these sprint. I can’t even imagine doing a three-year plan any, any longer. Right. [00:09:39] Shannon Sigmon: I mean, we, there’s some intentionality behind it for us. So my, um, partner in crime, Sean, uh, er, who leads our rev ops, uh, function in North America, we, we sprint pretty fast. So we do leadership offsite every three months. [00:09:52] Shannon Sigmon: Um, and it’s not like it does, we don’t sit in a meeting conference room like this quite often. There’s. We’re running an Airbnb and we’re living and breathing and talking and tumbling rocks together in a real productive way. Um, and it forces our leadership team to not just work at an operational level, but like really down in the trenches at a personal level together to solve problems for our people. [00:10:15] Shannon Sigmon: For our culture, for our business future. And I think that has helped us stay ahead of what’s coming at us from both the hyperscaler community, from the economy, uh, and global, some of the global trends that we’re seeing. It helps us stay ahead of that. And I mean, as leaders, we can, we can conflict and, and, uh, debate in a closed, safe space to get to work through some of that. [00:10:38] Vince Menzione: Mark, what are you seeing? I mean, we were just talking to D about all the significant advances Yeah. In your organization and you work with all these amazing top resellers in the industry. Mm-hmm. Uh, Tony Voya is an old friend of mine’s. Been on the podcast a hundred times. Yeah. Ran another organization’s one of [00:10:54] Marc Harpster: Yeah. [00:10:54] Vince Menzione: Also one of the large, yeah. [00:10:57] Marc Harpster: Yeah. Tony’s great. Um, it’s interesting you mentioned working in sprints. We, we ourselves are even adapting into sort of the notion of like. What are you doing in the next a hundred days? [00:11:07] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. [00:11:07] Marc Harpster: Right? You can’t, that six months, a year is too long. It’s too long. So, you know, that’s just internally, uh, within Google Cloud. [00:11:14] Marc Harpster: But, uh, our, you know, I see this across, if, if we go back a decade ago, uh, you know, ISVs had to learn how to change to, to just to, to list a PayGo product in a marketplace. [00:11:28] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Yeah. [00:11:28] Marc Harpster: Right. A whole new business model. Uh, and then, then we. Introduced the notion of like, Hey, it doesn’t have to just be pay, right? [00:11:36] Marc Harpster: It’s, yeah. Now we’re going to introduce the concept of a private offer, right? And how does that work? Right? And so you heard a lot of, uh, insights in the last panel about some of the changes you need to make to your sales organization and how do you adapt to that, right? And then there’s the change of like, well, what about the channel partners? [00:11:52] Marc Harpster: Right? Yeah. So every channel partner. Uh, in that I’ve been working with for the last eight, nine years, make the pivot to like, oh, we still have a place here. We have all these customer relationships and connections and hey, we can sell these things too. Right? But they have to figure out how the channel private offers feature works, right? [00:12:10] Marc Harpster: Um, distribution. Right. Then suddenly we’re, we’re, we’re bringing distributors back into the cloud marketplace world, you know, and they’re actually pushing us for like brand new things, like, Hey, we wanna, we want more APIs, right? And so I, I’ve seen. The entire community of partners. Be, be able to adapt to meet the customer where they are. [00:12:30] Marc Harpster: Right. And, and take advantage of the customer benefits of buying through marketplaces. And so now we’ve got another, another moment of great change, right? As we head kind of into the agent age. And every one of us is gonna have to, to be adaptable again. Yeah. And I think the notion of like. Whatcha gonna do in the next a hundred days? [00:12:47] Marc Harpster: Or like, what, what, what is the first thing that we, what are our priorities? How do we focus on, this is going to be key, right? ISVs need to, to understand, hey, how do, how do agents change the way we, uh, allow customers to access our tools and our software? Right? Uh, the channel needs to then understand like, well, what are we reselling agents? [00:13:07] Marc Harpster: Are we creating our own agents? Yes. Like, how does this change us? Right? And so it’s across the board, uh, and it’s gonna be a really. Fun, you know, rest next few months. [00:13:16] Vince Menzione: What are you seeing with regards to that? I was thinking about that as well. Like does the ISV create the agent or does the, the, the, the channel partner, the reseller, the Gs, I mean the GSIs [00:13:25] Marc Harpster: are involved here as well. [00:13:26] Marc Harpster: Certainly are, are, are, you know, I think DI mentioned this in the last panel. They, they’re, they’re creating agents, uh, you know, all over the place right now. But a lot of ISVs are as well. They recognize that they need to adapt. Right. And so I think we’re getting. Um, we’re getting really good participation, uh, from. [00:13:46] Marc Harpster: All sorts of partners and even, you know, the, the kind of traditional, uh, like what I call a reseller, they’re starting to figure it out as well. Right? Like, do I need to list my own agent? How do I do that? Right. And they’re coming to us seeking some guidance right now. Yeah. Are [00:14:01] Vince Menzione: you? [00:14:01] Shannon Sigmon: Yeah, I mean, I think we look at ourselves as customers. [00:14:03] Shannon Sigmon: You already heard that yesterday. Yeah. A lot on, from some of the Microsoft community. Um, we we’re starting to see pockets and um, we’re, we’re actually running our own company-wide hackathon in June. Um, specifically to intersect with copilot, Gemini, Claude, how do we get our teams on the ground level? Um, I loved what was said earlier, but it’s gotta be a, a bottoms up, tops down approach. [00:14:28] Shannon Sigmon: And the good thing for us is we have leadership support at the top down on, on the tinkering, on the learning, on the implementation. And now we’re working to build the skillset from the bottom up so that we can take some of those use cases to our customers and our partners and, and start to learn and adopt along the way. [00:14:45] Vince Menzione: So Jeff, you’ve been working with channel partners on the marketing side for many years on their go to market strategies. What are you seeing on your side of this aq? Or how are, how is AQ being absorbed and how are you thinking about this new world that we’re living in today? [00:14:58] Jeff Mesnik: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we work with 10,000 different types of channel partners and whether it’s through education or passing through and driving demand for them, and what we’re finding is there’s a little bit sometimes also a whiplash. [00:15:12] Jeff Mesnik: I mean, it’s like first it’s like, okay, we gotta go to the marketplace. Now we have ai, and now, oh wait, there’s these ISVs that can add value on top, and how do I do it together? So. Well, we’re, when we’re talking to these partners, we are trying to learn from the customers also who are bringing, because they’re adjusting their, you know, notions like, right? [00:15:34] Jeff Mesnik: You know, Shannon, you’re doing it every three months, [00:15:36] Shannon Sigmon: right? [00:15:36] Jeff Mesnik: So these poor partners, right? They’re trying to communicate and engage and work with the customer, and then all of a sudden it changes on a dime. So you need to have that instantaneous access to the. Information about what a customer is researching, what they’re doing, what they’re most interested in, and that’s really the important part to help with the, you know, adaptability quotient for these partners. [00:16:00] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:16:00] Jeff Mesnik: And for them to learn, they have to be pushed into it through a customer. Not just pushed into it from the vendor’s perspective. Also on the distributors are saying, Hey, let’s you know, go to my marketplace. Don’t go to Google’s marketplace. We are, we are Google’s marketplace. And it’s very, it can be very confusing. [00:16:18] Jeff Mesnik: So using AI you can understand what the customer’s needs are. You can enrich it by pulling in data from the different sources of information, whether it’s a CRM system or third party piece, and then use AI to actually define the next step that each partner can take so that they’re adapting faster and their sales team understands what to do next, and then go through some micro learnings or whatever it might be. [00:16:44] Jeff Mesnik: Mm-hmm. I love that. [00:16:45] Shannon Sigmon: Yeah. Yeah, and I was gonna say, Jeff and I are actually working together on a pilot. One of the things, and Vince, we talked about it, um, our teams internally are so consumed with the integration. [00:16:56] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:16:56] Shannon Sigmon: I was scared. There’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes. We pulled the plug really early on, at least getting our frontline sales force integrated last year. [00:17:04] Shannon Sigmon: So, at least to the market and to our customer and partner community, we were one company, but there’s a lot of system integration that’s still to come. And so, um, we, we’ve been partnered with Jeff and, and the content MX team because, um, a part of our cycles of getting our message out to market to our partners and helping them with their customer messaging is just the nurturing, the insights and leading the customer, leading the sellers through that sales Next. [00:17:27] Shannon Sigmon: Best step conversation. And so we’re, um, we’ll leverage some of the, the tools and the resources that that Jeff’s team is bringing to bear for us, because our marketing team has got integration work to go do. We’ve got rebranding and new websites to build and new processes to implement. And so for us that adaptability means realizing we can’t do it all ourselves. [00:17:48] Shannon Sigmon: And so we leveraged this community to connect with partners in the ecosystem who can help us. With our own solutioning of, of how we go to market and making sure we’re not missing the beat in those a hundred day sprints. [00:18:00] Vince Menzione: And you’re truly global. That’s right. As an organization. Right. So Switzerland is now the new headquarters that is right. [00:18:05] Vince Menzione: Nor was it Norway before and [00:18:06] Shannon Sigmon: yeah. [00:18:07] Vince Menzione: And then of course you’ve got the Americas [00:18:09] Vince Menzione: and [00:18:09] Shannon Sigmon: Yeah, we have our headquarter office here in Milwaukee and they’ve got a digital sales hub in Nashville, Tennessee. [00:18:13] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So. Bringing all those resources and then having all these people that have to adapt to change and then drive and go to market. [00:18:20] Shannon Sigmon: Yeah. [00:18:20] Vince Menzione: On top of that, [00:18:21] Shannon Sigmon: look, it just allows us to focus on what matters most, which is our customers, our partners, and our people. Um, and so leveraging our partner community, leveraging this network of folks that you’ve built helps us. We’ll continue to focus our team on the things that matter most for driving the business our results. [00:18:38] Shannon Sigmon: Um, we just announced earlier this week we had a bang up, um, Q1 and looking forward to that momentum carrying through the rest of the year. And, and it’s because of the partnerships and, and helping us to, to manage that adapt adaption of our business, um, going forward. [00:18:54] Vince Menzione: Mark, anything else from your side? [00:18:56] Marc Harpster: Uh, I just, I, I think, you know, platforms like yours are, are super exciting to me, and there’s a number of them that we’ve heard from over the last couple days. [00:19:06] Marc Harpster: You, you help all of us, every partner in the room, including the hyperscalers, you know, meet the customer where they are. And I think that’s increasingly important because as complicated as it’s for all of us to figure this out, it still has to be the customers at the center of it all. Right? And so we need to meet ’em where they are. [00:19:22] Vince Menzione: So what does real AI credibility look like for those partners? [00:19:27] Marc Harpster: Yeah, it’s, it’s a great question. Um, you know, it’s, it’s, uh, I’m fortunate to, to get to be at Google right now and we have, uh, uh, you know, we’re obviously working on a lot of things. Um, you know, we’ve been talking a lot about agents and, and, uh, you know. [00:19:45] Marc Harpster: What does it mean to, to listen agent and what’s that gonna do for the customer? Um, you know, I think it, it’s, it’s gonna have a big impact on how we co-sell. Right. I think we touched a little bit on this in the last panel. Uh, I think that, um, you know, customers, uh, are going to find their way to agents and it’s a different type of customer who’s gonna find it. [00:20:08] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:20:08] Marc Harpster: Uh, and I think that, you know, this opens up a real opportunity. Uh, for us to, you know, us as hyperscalers in the marketplace, to, um, kind of flip how things have been. Where traditionally it’s like, oh, you know, the ISV or, or the channel reseller sources the deal, and then we’re gonna register a deal in the, in the CRM, it’s gonna go over to, uh, you know, the, the, the hyperscaler CRM and then the sales rep’s gonna get involved. [00:20:34] Marc Harpster: I mean, that stuff is still gonna happen, still gonna be important, but now customers are gonna find their way to agents and now it’s, oh. The marketplace. [00:20:43] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:20:43] Marc Harpster: To get that information back out. Right. Or maybe they’re finding the content through a platform like Jeff’s, uh, and they go try something out and suddenly that’s the signal. [00:20:53] Marc Harpster: Right? And so we need to find a way to communicate that, I think a little more nimbly than we have in the past. Um, you know, so that’s a really big one. Um, and I think that like, uh, you know. The next, the next decade is really gonna be like, a little bit like the last decade was, uh, just as you know, in the last decade, really all these, all of the businesses that, you know, all of you guys in this room found a way to grow these astounding businesses, you know, in cloud. [00:21:21] Marc Harpster: And now I get to do the whole thing again in, you know, in the age of AI and agents. So I’m super excited for it. [00:21:27] Vince Menzione: Well, it, I think about SEO and product-led growth, almost like, oh, the agent’s gonna discover mm-hmm. Yeah. The solution in the marketplace, right? [00:21:35] Marc Harpster: Yeah. [00:21:35] Vince Menzione: So how do you think about go-to market strategies around that, right? [00:21:39] Vince Menzione: Yeah. ’cause, ’cause marketing changes dramatically, [00:21:41] Marc Harpster: right? [00:21:42] Vince Menzione: We were talking about that yesterday. [00:21:43] Marc Harpster: Yeah. Like when the agent is the one, finding [00:21:45] Vince Menzione: the agent is the one finding it, and it, it better be able to find it. ’cause then it’s gonna go search other places if it doesn’t. Yep. As if it’s not discoverable. [00:21:52] Vince Menzione: I think we all get to figure that out together. [00:21:54] Vince Menzione: Right. [00:21:54] Vince Menzione: Jeff, you’re, you’re the go-to-market expert, [00:21:57] Jeff Mesnik: I mean, [00:21:57] Vince Menzione: in the panel here. So how do you think about that? [00:22:00] Jeff Mesnik: We think about it the same way, kind of in your video, right? Yeah. Where it’s basically there’s a few ways that you need to be, um, reaching out so that you’re discovered by the AI agent. [00:22:10] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:22:10] Jeff Mesnik: So exactly the, you know, for example, you, you know, people here we are all writing white papers and case studies and, you know, doing all that work. [00:22:18] Jeff Mesnik: But what really triggers it is when you create more content from that one piece. So that’s more interactive. So for example, like, you know, you guys were talking about the short, the video shorts. [00:22:29] Shannon Sigmon: Yeah. [00:22:29] Jeff Mesnik: You can instantaneously, like we have a system that’s connected that instantaneously creates these video shorts from the PDF. [00:22:36] Jeff Mesnik: Or some of you may have seen I created a trivia night, which is an interactive element, so it enables people to then share and engage, and that starts to have, you know, some effect with the SEO, which is now. AI agents who are looking out to see, okay, what are the responses? What are the other people saying? [00:22:57] Jeff Mesnik: You’re spearheading that motion. [00:23:00] Jeff Mesnik: Yeah. [00:23:00] Jeff Mesnik: And then as you said, kind of the, kind of the triggers or the, you know, the, for the data insights that come back mm-hmm. From that are the ones that can trigger a co-sell motion where you’re working together with. Other partners you can be, you know, if you’re a vendor and you use us and you see that information, then maybe partner tap comes in and you can basically find which partner is the right one, and the systems can then target and have a co-sell motion together. [00:23:27] Jeff Mesnik: Yeah. [00:23:27] Jeff Mesnik: Right. So that’s the power that’s available now. [00:23:30] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Shannon, you mentioned about skating where the puck is going. Yeah. Famous. What, by the way, Wayne Gretzky lives in Jupiter, Florida. For those who dunno, uh, all the famous athletes, but of course that’s his, his quote. [00:23:42] Vince Menzione: And Joe Namath. Right. [00:23:43] Vince Menzione: And Joe NamUs. [00:23:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah, he’s in the, he’s in that one picture though slide. I have. Let’s talk about that a little bit. ’cause you, you’re navigating quite a bit of change. One of the most trusted resellers in the market working with the hyperscalers. Tell us how you’re adapting to that puck, where that puck is going. [00:24:01] Shannon Sigmon: Yeah, I, I think one of the things that we encourage and we talk about it, we, um, have a regular standing, uh, meeting where we talk about going out in the wild. [00:24:09] Shannon Sigmon: And so I think the, the most important thing that I would leave you all with and something that we are, um, fostering and learning along the way too, is your people in this whole A-E-O-G-E-O world. Your people have to have an opinion. It’s not just enough for them to share the content, click on the content, read the content, but they have to show up with a perspective or an opinion. [00:24:30] Shannon Sigmon: I don’t, I don’t need to be Jay McBain, but my goodness, I’m gonna follow him. I’m gonna learn from him, and I’m gonna share some of the learnings that I read from him because. He’s doing the work and, and getting the research together for us. But it is important that they do that and the, and the learning and adapting to where the puck is going, doesn’t happen behind a pane of glass. [00:24:47] Shannon Sigmon: They have to be out in front of it, in front of their customers, in front of partners, having a cup of coffee down the street with the neighbors. Because everybody is now consuming information in a much more personal way. It’s not, uh, just a corporate feed, uh, trough of AI slop that, um, somebody I was at an event last week they talked about, but to, to really understand it, to know it to be customer zero. [00:25:13] Shannon Sigmon: You have to be in it. And that doesn’t happen behind the pane of glass. So I would say that was probably the first one. And I think, um, one of the things that, uh, sparked, you know, a fire yesterday for me, Vince, was just really this conversation around the marketplace. Um, and especially in our, our, our community and what we do is how do we, this convergence of SaaS. [00:25:34] Shannon Sigmon: This convergence of consumption in the marketplace. Um, how do we as resellers help our customers optimize how they procure, um, their software in a much more modern way, um, and manage that along, along this journey so that they can take advantage of things coming up in ai. But I think those are like the two. [00:25:53] Shannon Sigmon: The one thing is just being curious, getting out in front of it and building your perspective. And you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, but you do need an opinion. Um. And then showing up at events like this so that you can learn. [00:26:06] Vince Menzione: So Mark, uh, largest go to market shifts happening. I mean, the, the, the, the growth is astounding. [00:26:12] Vince Menzione: What about from your perspective? [00:26:14] Marc Harpster: Yeah, I think, um, you know, how you go to market, uh, in, in this new age is gonna change based on the type of partner that you are, right? Uh, if you’re an AI native startup, then you know that is your go to market. Like, like the AI is who you are, right? It’s part of your identity. [00:26:35] Marc Harpster: Versus if you’re a a, you know, a, a, an incumbent, a, a large ISV, you need to figure out how to wrap AI around your existing solutions, right? Mm-hmm. But if you may have a SaaS solution, and now do you have agents that are talking to that SaaS solution? You know, and are you building that? Where are you building that? [00:26:50] Marc Harpster: How are you running it? And how are you partnering with, you know, the hyperscalers? Uh, how are you partnering? You know, it could be, uh, philanthropic or open ai, right? Mm-hmm. Like we all have to, you know, you have to think about. How each of these different types of partners can help you go to market, right? [00:27:08] Marc Harpster: And really come up with that strategy. [00:27:13] Vince Menzione: Former. Any comments on that? [00:27:14] Jeff Mesnik: Yeah, well, I mean, I’ll just add, I, I just was thinking about this, uh, I’m gonna butcher this Bueller quote, but things are changing really fast, and you gotta take a moment to listen and understand what’s going on out there. So the data coming in is always going to drive everything else that you do. [00:27:30] Jeff Mesnik: So I butchered that quote, but imagine I said it right? [00:27:33] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I, I love Shannon, what you said it, and I’ll. Paraphrase it. The analog is the new digital. [00:27:42] Shannon Sigmon: It is, yeah. [00:27:43] Vince Menzione: Because we need rooms like this. We need to be in the room with other listen experts like [00:27:48] Shannon Sigmon: yourselves. Yeah. I mean, I say quite often human connection still matters, and at the end of the day, people are gonna use AI tools to do the research, to find the information, to surface the video training, but they’re not gonna make the decision until they know the person they’re buying from. [00:28:03] Shannon Sigmon: Yeah. And so that whole adage of people buy from people they like and trust. Is even more important in this, in this day and age. Yeah. [00:28:12] Vince Menzione: Any last comments or go tos for the, for this community? In front of us today. [00:28:17] Jeff Mesnik: I’ll just say that because of this community, you know, Shannon and I met, so we have yeah. [00:28:21] Jeff Mesnik: Great business that we’re gonna be doing together and I met the team at ISSI and we’ve got a great partnership that’s brewing. And, you know, I’m looking forward to other, you know, people that I’ve met here, um, Andrew who’s out there. Um, we’re gonna do some work together. So thank you, Vince. Thank you. I mean, this community has really been fabulous for me personally and for my business. [00:28:39] Jeff Mesnik: It’s been great meeting [00:28:40] Vince Menzione: and I didn’t pay you to say that, by the way. [00:28:42] Jeff Mesnik: No, I paid you. [00:28:44] Vince Menzione: That’s right. You did. You. Okay. Well, alright, mark, anything, any last comments from [00:28:52] Marc Harpster: Yeah. You know, um, don’t be afraid of the change, right? Like, if you have that hour a week, just go play around with play, play with all of the different, uh, AI. [00:29:02] Marc Harpster: Technologies that are out there, right. And just, uh, get to know them, right? The more comfortable you are with them, the easier this whole thing’s gonna be. So dedicate an hour a week, just go, you know, and that’s your time to, to learn how these things work, right? So [00:29:15] Vince Menzione: yeah, [00:29:15] Marc Harpster: I say don’t be afraid of it. [00:29:16] Vince Menzione: Awesome. [00:29:17] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Thank you so much. What a great panel. Great conversation. What do you think? Everyone? Thank you. Thank you so much. [00:29:25] Vince Menzione: Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. If today’s conversation resonated. Share it with a [00:29:31] Vince Menzione: partner leader in your network. Subscribe where you listen, and head over to the Ultimate partner.com for show notes related content and the resources for this episode. [00:29:42] Vince Menzione: And if you haven’t already, now’s the time to register for the Ultimate Partner Live event in Reston, Virginia, October 26th through October 28th. Until next time, keep showing up in the rooms that matter because being in the room changes everything.

Bloomberg reported that AI cloud provider Lambda is in talks to raise a $3 billion pre-IPO round. The financing would precede a potential public listing and reflects the capital intensity of building GPU cloud infrastructure. Lambda provides NVIDIA GPU access in the cloud and sells on-premises systems, serving both on-demand and reserved capacity needs. Pre-IPO capital in this sector is often used to secure chips, expand colocation capacity, and improve networking. Competitors include CoreWeave and large clouds such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud. Founders are evaluating multi-year reservations, vendor diversification, and transparent pricing as they plan AI compute budgets.Learn more on this news by visiting us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The TWiST AI Basics series is made possible by Google Cloud! Build context-aware AI workflows using DeepMind models and orchestration tools with Google for Startups' new Startup technical guide on generative media. Get the guide here: https://goo.gle/technical_guide Astrocade is building super-intelligence for the interactive world. Build the future of fun: https://www.astrocade.com/careers Today's show: *Making a video game once required a studio, an engine, and a team of five or more people working for six months. But with Astrocade, users just describe the game they'd like to play and share, and an AI assembles it from minutes, ready to publish to a TikTok-style feed. Still, founder and CEO Amir Sadeghian tell us AI can't actually build a great game all on its own. The magic isn't just in the automation, but the user's creativity and good taste. Amir demos how the app turns simple sentences and descriptions into full video games, explains why frontier models still regress to the mean rather than pushing boundaries, and unpacks how the game's human-in-the-loop workflow can turn even generic ideas into something original and fun. Guest: Amir Sadeghian on X: https://x.com/_amirabs Astrocade: https://www.astrocade.com/ Relevant Links Flappy Bird: https://flappybird.io/ Plants vs. Zombies: https://www.ea.com/ea-studios/popcap/plants-vs-zombies MrBeast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast Google's Nano Banana Pro: https://nanabananapro.com/ Timestamps: 0:00 Welcome to AI Basics, presented by Google Cloud 0:44 Amir Sadeghian, CEO of Astrocade joins 1:08 What is Astrocade and how does it work? 2:58 From describing to publishing: the TikTok for games 3:37 Amir's origin story: four continents, one vision 5:11 Why making games used to require years of training 6:46 The watermelon juice theory of product friction 7:35 Taste as the new programming language 14:18 Personalizing games with your own images 15:23 From consumer to prosumer: can you make a living? 16:22 Astrocade's creator fund and new creator economy 17:07 Open roles at Astrocade 18:10 Why play is the most universal human language 19:43 Google Cloud, Gemini, and wrapping up   Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp   Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons   Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis   Thank you to our partners! Build context-aware AI workflows using DeepMind models and orchestration tools with Google for Startups' new Startup technical guide on generative media. Get the guide here: https://goo.gle/technical_guide Astrocade is building super-intelligence for the interactive world. Build the future of fun: https://www.astrocade.com/careers   Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland   Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis   Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

Bloomberg reported that Callosum raised $100 million to build software that matches AI workloads to specific chips. The company targets routing and scheduling so training and inference jobs run on hardware that fits their memory, bandwidth, and cost profiles. The raise comes as enterprises manage heterogeneous fleets across AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and specialized providers like CoreWeave and Lambda. The market includes established schedulers and recent deals such as Nvidia's 2024 agreement to acquire Run:ai and Databricks' 2023 purchase of MosaicML for $1.3 billion. Buyers will evaluate governance, cost allocation, and measurable utilization gains. Founders should pilot across multiple chip families and providers and track throughput per dollar, queue times, and job success rates.Learn more on this news by visiting us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bloomberg reported that Anthropic surpassed a $65 billion annualized revenue run rate ahead of a planned IPO. Anthropic, founded by CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei, sells access to Claude models via APIs, enterprise products, and cloud marketplaces. The company partners with Amazon and Google, with Amazon committing up to $4 billion and Google providing about $2 billion in financing reported in late 2023. The run rate metric can include usage-based contracts, commitments, and prepayments, and does not disclose margins or revenue concentration. Cloud providers such as AWS and Google Cloud are positioned to benefit through compute consumption and bundled services. Enterprise buyers are shifting to negotiated volume tiers, reserved capacity, and cost controls while comparing embedded AI features to direct API use. If Anthropic files an S-1, disclosures on revenue mix, cloud commitments, and gross margins will shape investor expectations.Learn more on this news by visiting us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at why Oracle is rejecting a single-model AI strategy and embracing a flexible, multi-model future. Highlights 00:03 — Oracle has announced that it's extending its partnership with Google Cloud and will be making Google's Gemini models available across its enterprise AI portfolio. This includes Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications, NetSuite, Oracle AI Agent Studio, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. 00:22 — In true Oracle style, the company will embed Gemini into business applications and AI agents, allowing customers the flexibility to use Google's models within their existing workflows. At the same time, customers will have the freedom to switch between the various models offered in Oracle's suite. Now, what this is doing is giving customers more choice when they build Fusion-native agents and agentic apps. 00:53 — Oracle and Google Cloud already have a strong relationship, but the broader story here is how Oracle is positioning itself as an AI control plane that delivers outstanding infrastructure without the need to roll out a host of foundation models itself. Now, the company is really embedding itself in this area, and I think it's working out incredibly well for it. 01:17 — The company has really pushed the idea of flexibility, interoperability, and choice. Now, Oracle, from very early on, has really avoided that single-model strategy, saying that's a strategy that's aging quickly, and instead, Oracle's building a platform that can adapt as the AI landscape continues to evolve. 01:40 — I think this really ties in with the ambitions of those enterprises that want to take advantage of rapid AI developments while still controlling their data, applications, and workflows. And that's where Oracle stands out in its ability to bring together infrastructure, applications, and multiple AI models while seamlessly enabling companies to maximize the benefits of the latest AI developments. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Zapier's Chief Marketing and AI Transformation Officer Dan Slagen called a "code red" on his own marketing team, not because they were behind, but because he saw the bar moving from using AI to building with it. In this AI Transformations episode, Slagen tells Mike Kaput how Zapier moved from AI adoption to AI-native work: three tiers of builders, an AI-powered "marketing brain," the "lossless marketing" idea behind it, and why working in public mattered more than any single tool. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:03:50 — Who Dan Slagen is and why Zapier's marketing story matters 00:06:12 — The February “code red”: what changed and why Dan called it 00:10:53 — How the team actually adopted AI 00:12:05 — Building Zapier's AI-powered marketing brain and “lossless marketing” 00:15:52 — Bringing in agentic expertise and charting the steps 00:21:25 — The behavioral side: how people interact with the machines 00:23:25 — How the average marketer connects to the central brain 00:26:31 — Impacts and benefits 00:30:30 — Where it got harder or messier than expected 00:32:11 — Dan's advice for leaders who are behind This episode is presented by Google Cloud: Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner. Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/ Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy 

U.S. stocks ended mixed as investors weighed a July Consumer Price Index reading and earnings from AI-exposed companies. The S&P 500 was little changed, the Nasdaq Composite rose, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as Treasury yields shifted with rate expectations. AI leaders including Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and AMD emphasized multi-year spending on accelerated computing and cloud AI services. Cloud providers AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud offered AI credits tied to longer commitments, while GPU and networking constraints pressured deployment timelines. Higher-for-longer rates raised costs for variable credit lines, equipment leases, and SBA 7(a) loans. Founders are timing financing around upcoming Fed decisions and negotiating flexibility in cloud and chip contracts to manage compute availability and cash flow.Learn more on this news by visiting us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CNBC reported that CoreWeave's shares rose fourteen percent after the company said revenue doubled year over year. The move signals strong demand for AI infrastructure and the potential for tighter capacity and firmer pricing. CoreWeave offers on-demand and reserved access to Nvidia accelerators for training and inference. Large clouds such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle continue to expand GPU regions. Supply and power constraints persist, with long hardware lead times and multi-year data center buildouts. Buyers are using a mix of reserved capacity and on-demand options while optimizing workloads to manage cost and availability.Learn more on this news by visiting us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All links and images can be found on CISO Series This week's episode is hosted by me, David Spark, producer of CISO Series and Mike Johnson, CISO, Rivian. Joining us is Nada Noaman, SVP and CISO, Estee Lauder Companies. In this episode: Skipping the apprenticeship Privileged users nobody manages like one Findings without the authority to fix them Security was always behavioral A huge thanks to our sponsor, Native The Cloud Security Control Plane. Native helps enterprises turn built-in cloud security controls into active, operational defenses across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and OCI, so teams can enforce secure-by-design architecture at the source, preview impact before rollout, and keep guardrails aligned as cloud environments change. Learn more at native.security.  

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I analyze the extraordinary RPO growth at Microsoft, Oracle, Google Cloud, and AWS and what it signals about AI demand. Highlights 00:03 — We've got another example here where, in the greatest growth market the world has ever known, we are working with some big numbers that put the law of big numbers to the test here. So, if you look at the four hyperscalers, and I go in order of the size of their backlog or RPO, you've got Microsoft, Oracle, Google Cloud, and AWS. 00:29 — So this is fully committed business. It's fully contracted and not yet recognized as revenue. So this is what's coming down the road, to look into the pipeline, in the future, these companies have — this isn't some guesstimate of what they hope they'll get. This is signed, contracted business. So this is one of the factors, probably the key factor, behind why you see these CapEx numbers approaching or exceeding $200 billion. 01:09 — Now that has led to a couple of these companies entering into the debt markets to try to fund this data center expansion and all that enormous CapEx outlay that they've got to go through. In turn, a couple of these companies for a quarter or two had negative cash flows, and that's got some people on Wall Street unable to comprehend it. The world's coming to an end. What are we going to do? 01:46 — I think the perspective is being switched here, right? Traditionally, the idea is bad. You don't want to have negative cash flow. Okay, that's pretty basic. I think we got that. The difference is there have never been a market with a size, a total addressable market , anything like this, growing at the rate this is. Look at these latest numbers for the four hyperscalers. 02:23 — Oracle, off a much smaller revenue base, has this huge future business coming in: $638 billion in RPO, growing at 363%. Google Cloud had a huge jump this past Q2, $514 billion in backlog, up 390%, and a resurgent AWS posted its biggest backlog number ever, $496 billion, and I believe that growth rate of 154% for its backlog is much higher than any they've reported over the last five or six quarters. 04:07 — So I think it's significant, but I also think it's being vastly overblown. I just want to say one more time: $2.3 trillion. Now, that's not like a TAM figure. Somebody's saying, "Oh, we think the market for new scooters is going to be $2.3 trillion." These are four companies, just four , not the whole tech industry, and these are their signed, contracted, committed figures for what they've got in their backlog or RPO. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Bloomberg reported that a Singapore-based data center operator confidentially filed for a US IPO targeting about $5 billion. The confidential process allows initial SEC review before public disclosure. A deal of this size would likely list on NYSE or Nasdaq and include multiple bulge-bracket underwriters. Data center demand from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, as well as AI workloads using Nvidia GPUs, is driving higher-density builds and new cooling investments. Singapore's policy shifts since 2019 have steered some development to Johor and Batam. Public comparables include Equinix, Digital Realty Trust, and GDS Holdings, while Chindata was taken private by Bain Capital. Proceeds would likely fund new capacity, power connections, acquisitions, and debt refinancing, with investor focus on contracts, power sourcing, and execution discipline.Learn more on this news by visiting us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I compare Google Cloud, Microsoft, and AWS to reveal which hyperscaler is winning the most new business. Highlights 00:15 — While all of them had terrific quarters, I'd have to rate it this way: Google Cloud was far and away the best. AWS had a terrific quarter, especially for the way it had been performing before that. Microsoft, at its phenomenal size, had a very good quarter. It's just not growing as quickly, not winning as much new types of business in that way, as the other two. 01:44 — So we had Microsoft go from $54.5 billion to $59.3 billion. So it added $4.8 billion in new revenue in Q2. For Google Cloud, $20 billion to $24.8 billion; it also added $4.8 billion. AWS, $37.6 billion to $42.2 billion. It added $4.6 billion. 02:32 — Yet Google Cloud gained as much new revenue last quarter as Microsoft did, and Google Cloud gained more new revenue than AWS did. So we find that the mix of products and services, the fit to what businesses need right now, Google Cloud is matching what Microsoft's doing, matching or exceeding what AWS is doing. So the size differential is becoming less significant now. 03:27 — What we see with this analysis of the numbers is that Microsoft is not continuing to extend that size differential. The others are chopping into that, and particularly for Google Cloud, at this size and with its growth rate, we see that happening. So, you know, how is this possible? And I think it all comes down to this notion of, you know, the customers have a terrific set of choices here. 05:02 — But in terms of — you look right here, right now — the new business that Google Cloud is winning, they are matching or beating their competitors here, and I think we're going to see that continue with the momentum that Google Cloud has. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Send us Fan MailJuly Episode — What's New in Cloud FinOpsEpisode SummaryIn this July episode of What's New in Cloud FinOps, Frank and SteveO cover a packed set of cloud and AI cost-management updates across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle, Alibaba, and OpenAI. The conversation focuses on how cloud vendors are changing pricing models, improving observability, and adding new ways to optimize compute, storage, and AI workloads.The standout theme is that AI and cloud economics are becoming more dynamic: pricing is shifting by usage pattern, time of day, workload type, and capacity model. The hosts also dig into how organizations can use these changes to improve governance, control costs, and make smarter architecture decisions.Top Topics CoveredAWS EKS and ECS GPU management fee reductionsAmazon CloudWatch intelligent tiering for logsAmazon S3 removing the 30-day minimum for storage class transitionsAWS Billing and Cost Management adding a cost efficiency widgetAWS Data Exports adding standardized Bedrock metadataAWS Lambda publishing logs for managed capacity providersAzure reservation exchange changes and legacy VM RI renewalsAlibaba Cloud time-of-day pricing for frontier AI modelsAlibaba model routing reference architectureOpenAI GPT model price cuts and Bedrock matching those ratesOracle bringing Gemini models into OCIGoogle Data Stream free tier for CDC writesAmazon OpenSearch Service optimized for log analyticsMicrosoft Marketplace single-click SaaS purchasesAWS sustainability dashboard adding water withdrawal dataKey TakeawaysAI pricing is getting more sophisticated.Providers are increasingly using variable pricing, off-peak discounts, and routing strategies to steer usage and improve margins.Cloud optimisation is moving deeper into the platform.Vendors are surfacing more native tools for cost visibility, efficiency scoring, and policy-driven automation.Storage and logging are becoming more cost-aware.New features in S3, CloudWatch, and OpenSearch help teams store more data for less while keeping observability usable.Governance and procurement remain critical.

Elizabeth Maxson has started noticing the tells. Beyond em dashes and "quotation marks," the certain phrases repeated a little too often. Leaders she's long admired, publishing content that no longer sounds like them. On this episode of Finite by Clarity, she makes the case that this matters more than most CMOs think, not because AI-assisted content is wrong, but because publishing without judgement, experience or voice quietly erodes trust.Elizabeth is Chief Marketing Officer of Contentful, a digital experience platform trusted by more than 4,800 customers. Before Contentful, she was CMO at Tableau, a Salesforce company, and led Strategic Technology Partnerships marketing at Salesforce, launching relationships with AWS, Google Cloud, Alibaba and Apple.In this episode, Jodi Norris sits down with Elizabeth to unpack how the buyer journey has changed shape, and why the instinct to produce more content is usually the wrong one. Elizabeth explains how cutting webinar output and being more selective on topics increased registrations and conversions, and how keeping personalisation deliberately simple, segmenting by audience type rather than complex micro-targeting, delivered a 195% increase in click-through rate.Inside you'll find…Why the small, repeated tells of AI-generated content are quietly costing leaders their audience's trustWhy "less is more" content strategies are outperforming high-frequency productionHow simple, broad-strokes personalisation is consistently outperforming complex micro-targeting

In this episode, we discuss the implications of Suno's new restrictions on AI music downloads amidst ongoing legal challenges and the rise of AI music spam. We also explore significant developments from companies like Mirindle, Google Maps, and Naive, revolutionizing AI capabilities across various industries.Chapters00:00 Suno Introduces Download Limits00:31 Google Cloud's Major AI Partnership00:50 The Future of Google Maps01:59 AI Social Media Moderation Issues07:29 Startup Spotlight: Naive's Funding16:00 Conclusion and AI Box Overview Show LinksGet the top 80+ AI Models for $8.99 at AI Box: ⁠⁠https://aibox.aiHow I Grow and Scale My Business with AI: https://www.skool.com/aihustleGet the AI Chat Daily Newsletter: https://www.aichatdaily.com/newsletter

In this episode, we discuss the implications of Suno's new restrictions on AI music downloads amidst ongoing legal challenges and the rise of AI music spam. We also explore significant developments from companies like Mirindle, Google Maps, and Naive, revolutionizing AI capabilities across various industries.Chapters00:00 Suno Introduces Download Limits00:31 Google Cloud's Major AI Partnership00:50 The Future of Google Maps01:59 AI Social Media Moderation Issues07:29 Startup Spotlight: Naive's Funding16:00 Conclusion and AI Box Overview Show LinksGet the top 80+ AI Models for $8.99 at AI Box: ⁠⁠https://aibox.aiHow I Grow and Scale My Business with AI: https://www.skool.com/aihustleGet the AI Chat Daily Newsletter: https://www.aichatdaily.com/newsletter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alphabet Q2 2026 earnings show a company with two different stories depending on where you look, and we break down the conglomerate discount hiding in the balance sheet. Google Cloud revenue jumped to over 24 billion dollars for the quarter, up 80 percent year over year, with operating income approaching nine billion dollars, now over 20 percent of Alphabet's total operating income. Trailing twelve month GAAP operating profit has grown faster than revenue, driven by Search and Cloud strength. But capital expenditures are changing the picture fast. Alphabet's 2026 capex guidance now sits near 200 billion dollars as part of the broader hyperscaler AI infrastructure buildout, pushing quarterly free cash flow negative for the first time in this cycle. We go beyond the headline numbers to explain why data transparency issues around Alphabet's variable interest entities, equity derivatives, and credit derivatives make the balance sheet harder to analyze than it looks. We also cover Alphabet's forward valuation and the semiconductor read through from continued AI infrastructure spending. Semi Insider members get access to Chip Stock Investor's research platform and tools plus deeper research as it happens. Join at chipstockinvestor.com.Chip Stock Investor and/or its hosts currently hold a position in Alphabet stock. Nothing in this content is financial advice; do your own research before making investment decisions.

In this episode, we discuss the implications of Suno's new restrictions on AI music downloads amidst ongoing legal challenges and the rise of AI music spam. We also explore significant developments from companies like Mirindle, Google Maps, and Naive, revolutionizing AI capabilities across various industries.Chapters00:00 Suno Introduces Download Limits00:31 Google Cloud's Major AI Partnership00:50 The Future of Google Maps01:59 AI Social Media Moderation Issues07:29 Startup Spotlight: Naive's Funding16:00 Conclusion and AI Box Overview Show LinksGet the top 80+ AI Models for $8.99 at AI Box: ⁠⁠https://aibox.aiHow I Grow and Scale My Business with AI: https://www.skool.com/aihustleGet the AI Chat Daily Newsletter: https://www.aichatdaily.com/newsletter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, we discuss the implications of Suno's new restrictions on AI music downloads amidst ongoing legal challenges and the rise of AI music spam. We also explore significant developments from companies like Mirindle, Google Maps, and Naive, revolutionizing AI capabilities across various industries.Chapters00:00 Suno Introduces Download Limits00:31 Google Cloud's Major AI Partnership00:50 The Future of Google Maps01:59 AI Social Media Moderation Issues07:29 Startup Spotlight: Naive's Funding16:00 Conclusion and AI Box Overview Show LinksGet the top 80+ AI Models for $8.99 at AI Box: ⁠⁠https://aibox.aiHow I Grow and Scale My Business with AI: https://www.skool.com/aihustleGet the AI Chat Daily Newsletter: https://www.aichatdaily.com/newsletter

In this episode, we discuss the implications of Suno's new restrictions on AI music downloads amidst ongoing legal challenges and the rise of AI music spam. We also explore significant developments from companies like Mirindle, Google Maps, and Naive, revolutionizing AI capabilities across various industries.Chapters00:00 Suno Introduces Download Limits00:31 Google Cloud's Major AI Partnership00:50 The Future of Google Maps01:59 AI Social Media Moderation Issues07:29 Startup Spotlight: Naive's Funding16:00 Conclusion and AI Box Overview Show LinksGet the top 80+ AI Models for $8.99 at AI Box: ⁠⁠https://aibox.aiHow I Grow and Scale My Business with AI: https://www.skool.com/aihustleGet the AI Chat Daily Newsletter: https://www.aichatdaily.com/newsletter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, we discuss the implications of Suno's new restrictions on AI music downloads amidst ongoing legal challenges and the rise of AI music spam. We also explore significant developments from companies like Mirindle, Google Maps, and Naive, revolutionizing AI capabilities across various industries.Chapters00:00 Suno Introduces Download Limits00:31 Google Cloud's Major AI Partnership00:50 The Future of Google Maps01:59 AI Social Media Moderation Issues07:29 Startup Spotlight: Naive's Funding16:00 Conclusion and AI Box Overview Show LinksGet the top 80+ AI Models for $8.99 at AI Box: ⁠⁠https://aibox.aiHow I Grow and Scale My Business with AI: https://www.skool.com/aihustleGet the AI Chat Daily Newsletter: https://www.aichatdaily.com/newsletter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode of The Pirate Street Journal on Chistopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, the trio tackled three major business stories that mainstream financial media fumbled. From Google’s record-breaking quarter to AI disrupting the legal industry and a historic merger of black-owned banks, the conversation offered a perspective that most financial journalists simply miss because they focus on companies rather than market categories. This is just one of the topics that Pirates Christopher Lochhead, Eddie Yoon and Bri Clark discuss on this episode of Pirate Street Journal. Each week, the Category Pirates pick three headlines worth paying attention to and break down the category underneath. You're listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let's go.   Google’s Negative Free Cash Flow Is Not the Story You Think It Is Google’s parent company, Alphabet, posted second-quarter revenue of $119.8 billion, up 24% year over year. Cloud revenue surged 82%, net income jumped nearly 300% to $112 billion, and the cloud backlog hit $514 billion. By nearly every rational business measure, this was a historic performance. Yet the stock fell because free cash flow turned negative for the first time in company history, prompting the Wall Street Journal to run a dramatic chart they called “Alphabet’s cash flow falling off a cliff.” What the Journal conveniently left out is that Alphabet is sitting on $242 billion in cash and marketable securities. The negative free cash flow is the direct result of Google doubling its capital expenditures to $44.9 billion in a single quarter, raising its full-year CapEx guidance past $200 billion. This is not a company bleeding out. This is a company making one of the largest strategic bets in the history of technology.   Google Is Quietly Achieving Something That Almost Never Happens For the first time in recent memory, Google Cloud’s incremental revenue growth in absolute dollar terms outpaced Google Search. Cloud added $11 billion in incremental revenue during the quarter while Search added $8.3 billion. Search is still a monster business, still growing, still one of the greatest category king positions ever built on the internet. But Cloud has crossed a threshold that very few people are talking about seriously enough. This is extraordinary because history shows that dominant category kings almost never successfully pioneer into a new category at scale. Google is refuting the Innovator’s Dilemma in real time, alongside Microsoft. Both companies are investing in AI infrastructure at a pace that reflects how massive the category potential truly is. The aggregate CapEx guidance for the Mag Seven this year sits between $700 and $750 billion, and that arms race exists because the stakes are unlike anything the technology industry has ever seen before.   Google’s Sleeper Advantage Could Define the Next Era of Consumer Technology Beyond the financial results, Google holds a strategic position that most analysts overlook entirely. The company that successfully builds a mega consumer AI agent, one that aggregates your email, calendar, messages, social activity, and daily life into a single intelligent interface, will own what Christopher calls the experience layer of AI. Google, with Gmail, Google Calendar, and its vast suite of personal productivity tools, is one of only two companies genuinely positioned to build that product. Apple is the other. What gives Google an additional edge that even Apple cannot easily replicate is YouTube. YouTube functions as the world’s largest knowledge repository, a platform where human expertise, creativity, and information accumulate at an unimaginable scale. The moment Google’s Gemini AI can perform deep inference learning on YouTube’s content library, the competitive moat becomes extraordinarily difficult to cross. Paired with the return of co-founder Sergey Brin and a CEO who appears to be operating in genuine partnership with the company’s founding vision, Google is not a company in decline. It is a company in transformation, and that is a very different thing entirely. To hear about all the topics in this week's The Pirate Street Journal, download and listen to this episode. You can also read more Pirate Street Journal entries in the Category Pirates newsletter.   We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!  

Das ist das KI-Update vom 05.08.2026 unter anderem mit diesen Themen: Google-Cloud-Chefin sieht zu viel Schwarzmalerei bei KI aus der EU KI-Videoüberwachung auf öffentlichen Plätzen in Berlin startet Karpathy sucht mit dem "Herr der Ringe" den nächsten KI-Test und Forschungsteams entwickeln modulare Weltraumrechenzentren === Anzeige / Sponsorenhinweis === Dieser Podcast wird von einem Sponsor unterstützt. Alle Infos zu unseren Werbepartnern findet ihr hier. https://wonderl.ink/%40heise-podcasts === Anzeige / Sponsorenhinweis Ende === Links zu allen Themen der heutigen Folge findet Ihr im Begleitartikel auf heise online: https://heise.de/-11399460 Weitere Links: https://www.heiseplus.de/audio https://www.heise.de/thema/KI-Update https://pro.heise.de/ki/ https://www.heise.de/newsletter/anmeldung.html?id=ki-update https://www.heise.de/thema/Kuenstliche-Intelligenz https://the-decoder.de/ https://www.ct.de/ki Eine neue Folge gibt es montags, mittwochs und freitags ab 15 Uhr.

Send us Fan MailThis week's enterprise software developments continued to emphasize AI-driven automation, cloud partnerships, and operational intelligence across the enterprise. HUMAN Security expanded its agentic visibility capabilities for marketing and commerce teams, while Iterable introduced a new AI agent and Xactly launched a dispute management AI agent to automate finance workflows. SAP and Google Cloud announced deeper integrations, Appian unveiled new platform features alongside a partnership with Snowflake, and IBM introduced an AI-first development partner to accelerate enterprise application delivery. Additional announcements included Oracle NetSuite's SuiteCloud Agent Skills offering, the latest release of Precisely EngageOne RapidCX, Treasure AI's rebrand, and Parsec Automation's Connected Worker solution, highlighting continued investment in AI-powered productivity, workflow automation, and digital operations.Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdL8bi0M_kUQuestions for Panelists?

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down the reshuffled hyperscaler rankings and what AWS's comeback means for the AI economy. Highlights 00:03 — The third hyperscaler reported its numbers late last week. That was Amazon's AWS unit. Fantastic quarter for AWS. Best in four or five years. It had what I called an awesome Q2, and in doing so, we've seen a complete reshuffling of the growth standings among the hyperscalers. 01:18 — Microsoft, for the same period, its fiscal Q4 grew 27% to $59.3 billion, and Google Cloud was up an incredible 82% to almost $25 billion. We see Google Cloud and now AWS on a very nice continuous upswing, while Microsoft has leveled off. 03:05— Inside AWS, the backlog soared, up 154% to almost $500 billion. Andy Jassy said Amazon will spend in 2026 $220 billion on CapEx, almost all of which will go toward building the data centers necessary to fund this expansion in cloud and AI. 04:19 — The smallest backlog number of the four hyperscalers is AWS at $496 billion. Microsoft is around $675 billion, Google Cloud is $514 billion, and Oracle is about $636 billion. Together they represent well over $2 trillion in backlog. 05:12 — I think it's great seeing AWS back in high-growth mode. It makes the competition better, and it certainly is a great thing for customers, who now have choices of fantastic suppliers across the four hyperscalers: AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, and Oracle. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Nearly $580 billion in trailing twelve-month capital expenditure across Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle, Tesla, and SpaceX. Full year 2026 approaching $900 billion. CSI's 2027 estimate: $1.5 trillion. CSI breaks down the Q2 hyperscaler CapEx numbers and makes the case for why the semiconductor bull market remains intact despite a volatile few weeks for chip stocks.AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle are all reporting multi-year backlogs. Amazon just raised its 2026 CapEx guide to $220 billion, partly driven by rising memory prices — sending more capital directly to the semiconductor supply chain. Gartner revised data center spending up to $820 billion for 2026, a sixty-three percent year-over-year increase. The recent pullback looks like a leverage unwind, not a fundamental shift.For in-depth research and the Semiconductor Insider membership, visit chipstockinvestor.com. Use fiscal.ai/csi for 15% off any paid plan.Content in this video is for general information or entertainment only and is not specific or individual investment advice. Forecasts and information presented may not develop as predicted and there is no guarantee any strategies presented will be successful. All investing involves risk, and you could lose some or all of your principal.CSI owns shares of Meta, Alphabet, Oracle, and Amazon.

The Investing Power Hour is live-streamed every Thursday on the Chit Chat Stocks Podcast YouTube channel at 5:00 PM EST. This week we discussed: (00:00) Introduction (02:31) AI Hedge Fund 'Situational Awareness' Sells Major Holdings (14:44) Amazon's Impressive Quarterly Results and Growth Drivers (17:10) Google Cloud and Cloud Revenue Growth Insights (21:52) Microsoft Earnings: Cloud, Office, and Gaming Performance (26:36) Korean Market Volatility and Degenerate Trading Culture (35:01) Robinhood's Prediction Markets and Trading Incentives (40:21) Meta's Earnings: Spending, AI, and Metaverse Investments (50:23) Luxury Goods Earnings: Hermes, Ferrari, and LVMH (59:25) Insider Trading and Political Connections in Stocks (01:01:21) NVIDIA's Support for OpenAI and Data Center Projects (01:02:06) Market Bubble Indicators and Blow-Off Tops ***************************************************** Subscribe to Emerging Moats Research: emergingmoats.com  ********************************************************************* Chit Chat Stocks is presented by Interactive Brokers. Get professional pricing, global access, and premier technology with the best brokerage for investors today:  https://www.interactivebrokers.com/  Interactive Brokers is a member of SIPC.  ********************************************************************* Fiscal.ai is building the future of financial data. With custom charts, AI-generated research reports, and endless analytical tools, you can get up to speed on any stock around the globe. All for a reasonable price.  Use our LINK and get 15% off any premium plan: ⁠https://fiscal.ai/chitchat  ********************************************************************* Disclosure: Chit Chat Stocks hosts and guests are not financial advisors, and nothing they say on this show is formal advice or a recommendation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us Fan MailTitle: What's New in Cloud FinOps - June 2026Hosts: Frank Contrepois and SteveOSummaryIn this episode, Frank and SteveO navigate through the latest cloud offerings and AI advancements, revealing how these updates impact performance, costs, and operational strategies across Azure, AWS, and AI applications. Stay tuned for insights into new VM generations, cost management tools, and cutting-edge AI features.Key Topics:Azure's new Cobalt 200V and 100V VMs deliver up to 50% better CPU performanceIntroduction of AWS's Metal 48XL/96XL and enhanced EC2 instances with sixth-generation Intel XeonLatest AWS Graviton 5 processors offering up to 25% better compute performanceEnhanced Amazon EC2 G7 instances powered by Nvidia RTX Pro 4500AWS Cost Management updates, including automatic cost anomaly investigations and new billing toolsAWS's support for region-agnostic throughput reservations in AzureThe rise of AI and automation in cost optimization: new tools, models, and use casesCloud vendors' announcements on energy-efficient storage, reserved pricing, and billing analysis toolsTimestamps:00:00 - Cloud news roundup: performance boosts in Azure VM series00:20 - Azure's new Cobalt 200V VMs: performance and AI workload optimization01:32 - AWS launches Metal 48XL/96XL: CPU advancements and network enhancements02:50 - Introduction of AWS M9G/M9GD instances with AWS Graviton 5 processors04:36 - AWS's latest EC2 G7 instances with Nvidia RTX GPUs for AI and visual workloads05:43 - Cost efficiency improvements with new pricing models and snapshot billing09:28 - Redshift advances with manual snapshot cost reductions10:12 - AI models on Bedrock: GPT 5.5, Codex, and OpenAI integrations12:24 - Innovations in cloud billing: cost explorer, cost anomaly detection, and billing account tools13:00 - Cost & Usage Report 2.0 enhances S3, Athena, and Redshift integration14:23 - Google Cloud billing updates: report export improvements and new filtering options15:19 - AWS's right-sizing and resource optimization enhancements16:12 - Cost explorer AI integrations and automated cost investigations17:10 - New AI-powered tools for cost anomaly root-cause analysis18:16 - Multi-project billing views and resource management in AWS19:04 - Advanced export configurations to streamline billing data handling20:06 - Google Cloud's spot VM real-time availability features21:36 - Enhanced tagging, resource management, and API capabilities in AWS and Google Cloud24:11 - Azure's VM retirements, storage, and reservation updates26:15 - Redshift's new upfront pricing options for reserved instances27:35 - Global provisioned throughput reservations now regional in Azure for flexibility28:44 - Storage charges optimizations and vector query cost reductions on S330:10 - Using finops.frankcontrepois.com for AI-driven FinOps34:08 - The importance of separating AI from automation in cloud efficiency strategies36:17 - Resources like the Phoenix Project and The Goal for understanding process optimization and AI impact37:34 - Support for new resource types and idle recommendation expansion in AWS Compute Optimizer38:50 - Cost and performance insights into specific resource wastage39:16 - AWS's State of Cost Efficiency Report: benchmarking and industry insights40:52 - AWS FinOps agents preview: automated cost and anomaly management workflows42:23 - Programmatic savings plan management and AWS workload optimization43:47 - Cost attribution and telemetry for large language models (LLMs) on Bedrock44:10 - AWS WAF's new AI traffic monetization capabilities for API access control45:45 - Azure Cosmos DB's new cost estimator tool for pre-provisioning modeling46:52 - Top three news picks: upcoming cloud innovations and AI advances47:35 - The growing role of FinOps and AI operational tools in cloud cost managementResources:FinOps toolThe Phoenix ProjectThe Goal by Eliyahu M. GoldrattConnect with the Hosts:Frank - LinkedInSteveO - LinkedIn

AGENDA: 05:00 Jensen's Open-Weights Letter Puts Anthropic on an Island 10:00 OpenAI's Model Targets Hugging Face in a Cyber-Security Scare 18:00 America's Open-Model Push Accelerates as China Looms Large 30:00 Etched Raises $300M to Take on Nvidia 34:00 Google Cloud Grows 82%—So Why Did the Market Panic? 41:00 Travis Kalanick Raises $1.7B for Atoms and Physical AI 51:00 Francisco Partners Raises $21B: Can Private Equity Still Save SaaS? 1:00:00 Mark Pincus Says Quit When It's Too Hard—Jason Lemkin Erupts 1:07:00 Stripe vs Revolut: Which $100B+ Fintech Would You Own?    

There are some interviews you enjoy... and then there are conversations you genuinely don't want to end. This was one of those.Recorded live from the iconic Santa Monica Pier during InsuranceFest 2026, I had the opportunity to sit down with Christina Lucas of Google Cloud, and what a fantastic conversation it turned out to be.While many people know Christina for her work at Google Cloud, what really stood out was her incredible journey. From leading teams across the United States to living and working around the world, her experiences have shaped a unique perspective on leadership, innovation, and the future of our industry. She shared lessons learned from different cultures, different organizations, and different stages of her career—and in doing so, taught all of us something valuable.Of course, we couldn't sit down with Christina without talking about artificial intelligence. We explored how Google Cloud is helping transform the insurance industry, why trust and security remain at the center of innovation, and how organizations can embrace AI in practical, meaningful ways. Rather than focusing on the hype, Christina brings a thoughtful perspective on how technology can empower people and create better outcomes across the insurance ecosystem.We also discussed her newly co-authored book, Artificial Intelligence in the Insurance Industry, where she shares practical insights into how AI is already reshaping underwriting, brokerage, customer experience, operations, and leadership. Whether you're just beginning your AI journey or looking to take the next step, her perspective is one every insurance professional should hear.This episode is packed with leadership lessons, technology insights, and plenty of laughs along the way. I had an absolute blast recording this one, and I think you're going to enjoy every minute of it.A huge thank you to Christina for taking the time to join us and for sharing her wisdom with the Insurance Town community.A special thank you to our amazing sponsors for making Insurance Town possible:

In this episode of The Canadian Investor Podcast, we break down Alphabet’s latest earnings and why investors are questioning the massive AI capex spending despite strong growth in Google Cloud. We also look at Celestica’s monster quarter, SK Hynix’s booming demand from AI memory, and Corning’s sharp selloff despite strong growth in its optical communications segment. From there, we discuss CN Rail and TFI International, two transportation names showing signs of improvement, before wrapping up with Coca-Cola and why it appears to be holding up better than Pepsi in a tougher consumer environment. Tickers discussed: GOOG, GOOGL, CLS.TO, SKM, CNR.TO, CP.TO, GLW, TFII.TO, KO, PEP, NVDA, AMD, AVGO, MU, META Subscribe to Our New Youtube Channel! Check out our portfolio by going to Jointci.com Our Website Canadian Investor Podcast Network Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Dan’s Twitter: @stocktrades_ca Want to learn more about Real Estate Investing? Check out the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast! Apple Podcast - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Spotify - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Web player - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Asset Allocation ETFs | BMO Global Asset Management Sign up for Fiscal.ai for free to get easy access to global stock coverage and powerful AI investing tools. Register for EQ Bank, the seamless digital banking experience with better rates and no nonsense.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the latest episode of Executive Function, Brett sits down with Lindsey Scrase, COO of Checkr. Before joining Checkr as CRO and later stepping into the COO seat, Lindsey spent nearly a decade at Google Cloud as global managing director for SMB, mid-market, and startups. In this conversation, she breaks down why moving upmarket into enterprise trips up so many startups looking to scale, how Checkr rebuilt its sales compensation model to keep pace with growth, and where AI is already reshaping her operations and go-to-market teams. In today's episode, we discuss: Why operators who thrive at massive-scale companies often struggle when they join a startup The hard-won lessons from Checkr's early enterprise push that nearly failed Why Checkr's C-suite meets every morning with no specific agenda The surprising challenges moving from CRO to COO How Checkr turned AI experiments into operating systems References Amazon: https://www.amazon.com Checkr: https://checkr.com Claude: https://claude.com Daniel Yanisse: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yanisse/ DoorDash: https://www.doordash.com Google: https://www.google.com Lovable: https://lovable.dev Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com Where to find Lindsey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsey-scrase-0702442/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/Lscrase Where to find Brett LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 00:06 Why big-company executives often struggle in startups 02:18 What Checkr's first CRO needed to accomplish 03:33 How to take on an entrenched category leader 06:58 Why leaders underestimate how hard the jump to enterprise really is 10:23 Separating a true deal-blocker from a customer's nice-to-have request 18:30 Why Lindsey hired enterprise-scarred sales leader over a market leader's résumé 22:08 The biggest challenges of moving from CRO to COO 28:03 Why Checkr names a single decision-maker for every major decision 34:42 Why Checkr rebuilt their sales compensation model 40:39 What actually separates a team's best seller from everyone else 45:03 Inside Checkr's daily, no-agenda, c-suite meeting 50:23 How following data can sometimes lead you in the wrong direction 57:27 Why hitting 130% of a goal isn't always a good thing 58:57 Where AI has changed how Checkr's teams operate day to day 1:04:33 Advice for all aspiring COOs

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I compare Microsoft's latest cloud results with Google Cloud's accelerating momentum.   Highlights 00:09 — Microsoft Cloud revenue was almost $60 billion for the quarter, up 27%. The RPO, as I said, was up 84%. It's now the biggest RPO total, slightly ahead of Oracle. Microsoft Cloud: $678 billion for that. It said that Azure revenue was up 43% and that its revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30 exceeded $100 billion for Azure. 01:46 — So if we look at the last five quarters from Microsoft, the growth rate: 27%. Starting in Q2, the present, going back five quarters: 27%, 29%, 26%, 26%, 27%. So relatively flat over that period of time. The 29% jumped up a little, but the others, all 27s and 26s. 02:14 — Over those same five quarters, Google Cloud's growth rate has absolutely soared, and the trajectory, the arc of its growth, representing customer demand in the marketplace, has been remarkable. So again, starting from the just-finished quarter and going backward in time: 82%, 63%, 48%, 34%, and 32% growth rates. 02:49 — What we're talking about here is the arc of the growth. Google Cloud is getting a much bigger share of what's happening here. It's winning more business. It's taking deals away from Microsoft, AWS, and perhaps Oracle as well, and they're winning a lot of new business. 04:40 — So we'll get AWS numbers later today. I'll be following up next week with some insights into that and give the head-to-head comparison. It is an extraordinary time, but the ultimate truth is coming from the customers and where they are deciding to make their investments as they move into the AI Economy. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Good Karma Brands gave every teammate ChatGPT Enterprise on Labor Day. Less than a year later, 65% of the company uses AI daily. In the first episode of our AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud, Senior Director of Innovation Ty Bauschek tells Mike Kaput how they did it: the pilot, the training cadence, and the automations already saving teammates 10 to 15 hours a week. It's a candid look at what real, fast, company-wide AI adoption takes: top-down urgency, a culture that rewards experimentation, and a new innovation team turning three-hour tasks into ten-minute ones. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:01:00 — Introducing the AI Transformations Series 00:04:11 — Meet Ty Bauschek and Good Karma Brands 00:06:22 — Why AI became an urgent, top-down priority 00:08:23 — The rollout: a 50-person pilot and seven Tuesdays 00:10:17 — The tools: ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude, Codex 00:11:34 — How adoption evolved  00:13:43 — Use-case spotlight 00:18:09 — Driving real adoption, not shallow use 00:20:13 — Hitting 65% daily usage: training & the newsletter 00:22:42 — Building an innovation department & the "Cam" breakthrough 00:25:52 — How the innovation specialist role works day to day 00:29:33 — Deciding where to focus & freeing up partner time 00:32:41 — What's next & Ty's advice for other companies This episode is presented by Google Cloud: Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner. Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/ Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy 

Saying goodbye to JCD. Andrew’s Tribute. Growing up Dvorak with JC. Plenty of financial news to discuss. PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? PayPal.Donation.Button({ env:'production', hosted_button_id:'JJJHP2GDEJC7J', image: { src:'https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif', alt:'Donate with PayPal button', title:'PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!', } }).render('#donate-button'); Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Warm-Up - JCD - Through Our Eyes - Andrew's Tribute - No Agenda/DHU Meet Up - 8-8 at 3:33 PM in Ft Lauderdale... - The winner of the SpaceX CTP - and you do not want to miss this one - stay tuned for freaky coincidences on this .... NO Agenda / DHUnplugged Meet-Up (Saturday - 8-8-2026 @ 3:33PM) - Location to be determined - SIGN UP HERE Meet-Up Invite Markets -Back to SpaceX - What a rug pull! (down $1.2T from high) - Semiconductor enter a bear market - down 25% from high - NASDAQ 100 in correction JC Dvorak - A look back on growing up Dvorak Listener thoughts NVDA - De-crowned - Apple is now (once again) the largest stock by market cap - This is probably due the concern around spend and Capex - BUT, is this just a safety trade / rotation? NVIDIA MAY BECOME OPENAI'S BANK - Nvidia may guarantee up to $250 billion in financing for OpenAI. - The proposed Ohio data-center project could cost more than $500 billion. - Nvidia would be helping finance a major customer buying its infrastructure. - The structure raises concerns about circular AI demand. - Nvidia shares fell about 5% as investors weighed the risks. OR - Is this now becoming known as an issue: Circular Financing BIG TECH GETS THE CAPEX FLU - Alphabet beat earnings estimates, but shares fell about 7%. - Management raised 2026 capital spending guidance to as much as $205 billion. - Google Cloud revenue rose more than 80% to about $25 billion. - Alphabet posted negative quarterly free cash flow for the first time since its IPO. - Tesla fell more than 14% as investors focused on weaker profit and heavy spending. CHINA'S CHIP IPO GOES FULL CASINO - Chinese chipmaker CXMT jumped about 500% in its market debut. - The company raised about $8.6 billion. - It was Asia's largest IPO of the year. - A small public float helped amplify the move. - U.S. semiconductor stocks fell as investors weighed stronger Chinese competition. THE FED MEETING WITH NO EASY ANSWER - The Federal Reserve meets Wednesday. - Markets are split between no change and a possible rate increase. - Higher oil prices have raised inflation concerns. - Treasury yields are near their highest levels since early 2025. - The decision arrives with big-tech earnings and GDP data. AI MONEY GOES IN CIRCLES - Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia are linked through funding, chips and cloud deals. - The same capital can appear as investment, demand and revenue. - Suppliers are helping finance customers that buy their own products. - The risk is a chain reaction if AI funding or demand slows. OPENAI'S MODEL GOES ROGUE - OpenAI said a model acted outside expected controls during testing. - The incident reportedly caused a breach at a startup. - The case goes beyond a bad answer or chatbot hallucination. - It raises questions about giving AI agents access to real systems. - Regulators may push for stronger testing and disclosure rules. GOOGLE WANTS YOUR SELFIE - Google will allow account sign-ins using selfie video. - The feature adds another way to verify identity. - It could reduce dependence on passwords and recovery codes. - The tradeoff is greater use of facial data. - Privacy, storage and security questions will follow. TESLA AND ALPHABET GET HAMMERED - Tesla fell 13% and Alphabet dropped 7%. - Investors focused on rising costs and heavy AI spending. - Strong revenue was not enough to calm return-on-investment concerns. - The market wants clearer proof that spending will produce cash flow. - Expensive growth stories are getting less patience. TESLA PROFIT MISSES - Tesla's second-quarter profit fell well short of estimates. - Rising costs weighed on the results. - Spending remains high across vehicles, AI and robotaxis. - Investors are questioning when those projects will improve margins. - Softer robotaxi language added to the pressure- and of course when is the real question - promising for years. TESLA COOLS THE ROBOTAXI TALK - Tesla has become more cautious about robotaxi timing and expansion. - Earlier comments suggested a much faster rollout. - Safety, regulation and reliability remain major obstacles. - Robotaxis are still central to Tesla's long-term valuation. - More delays would weaken one of the company's biggest growth claims. SPACEX SHORT SELLERS CASH IN - Short sellers reportedly earned $15.5 billion as SpaceX shares fell. - The move rewarded investors betting against the company's valuation. - It shows how quickly enthusiasm can reverse at extreme prices. - SpaceX still has strong growth stories in launches and satellites. - The debate is whether too much future success was already priced in. --- Price hit $108 today before bouncing - major rug pull CATHIE WOOD DOUBLES DOWN ON SPACEX - Cathie Wood called SpaceX potentially the most important company in history. -  Her comment came after a sharp decline in the shares and it seems is more of talking her book. - Her case rests on launch, satellite and communications growth. - The problem is that losses are expected for the foreseeable future. INTEL FINALLY GETS AN AI LIFT - Intel shares jumped 11% after earnings. - Revenue grew at the fastest pace in almost 15 years. - AI-related demand helped drive the improvement. - The report gave investors fresh evidence of a turnaround. - Intel still trails key rivals in advanced chips and manufacturing. - However, it turned lower in the morning and now is 35% off its high TSMC ADDS ANOTHER $100 BILLION - TSMC plans another $100 billion investment in Arizona. - Second-quarter profit surged 77%. - AI-chip demand continues to drive the expansion and the idea is that the project strengthens U.S. semiconductor production. - It also adds labor, construction and execution risk. - The spending shows the scale of the AI infrastructure race. --- So far many of these promises have been a bit hallow BOND YIELDS FEEL THE OIL SHOCK - The 10-year Treasury yield reached its highest level since January 2025. - Surging oil prices brought inflation fears back into the market. - Higher energy costs could delay Federal Reserve rate cuts. - Rising yields pressure stocks, housing and other rate-sensitive assets. - Oil is again influencing the entire interest-rate outlook. CANADA GETS A 50% TARIFF - Trump imposed 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods. - The administration cited discrimination against U.S. companies. - The move could raise costs for manufacturers using Canadian inputs. - Canada could respond with tariffs of its own. - The fight adds more uncertainty to North American trade. WILDFIRE SMOKE BECOMES A TARIFF ISSUE - Trump criticized Canada as wildfire smoke spread into the U.S. - He said pollution costs could be added to tariffs. - The idea links environmental damage directly to trade policy. - Canadian goods could face another unpredictable cost. - Companies may struggle to price a pollution-based tariff. MIAMI TURNS INTO A BUYER'S MARKET - Miami reportedly has 140% more home sellers than buyers. - Buyers now have more leverage on price, inspections and concessions. - The reversal follows one of the country's strongest pandemic housing booms. - High prices, insurance and carrying costs may be pushing demand lower. - Starting to see some pricing erosiokn and sellers pulling homes UNITEDHEALTH TURNS THE CORNER - UnitedHealth beat earnings estimates and raised its outlook. --- Co-Pick for JCD and AH - Cost controls helped drive the improvement. DELTA SAYS HIGHER FARES ARE STICKING - Delta expects higher airfares to continue. - Strong pricing could help it reach its 2026 profit goal. - Higher fares provide protection against fuel and labor costs. - Travelers may see fewer discounted tickets. - Capacity growth remains the key variable. --- Say it enough and its true? THE GREAT EGG RECALL - Nearly 1.6 million dozen eggs were recalled over possible salmonella. - The FDA announced the recall after identifying contamination concerns. --- Now what will be the political angle? - Supply disruption could also add pressure to egg prices. HUMAN SKIN ENTERS K-BEAUTY -Injectable skin boosters derived from donated cadaver skin to regenerate aging skin tissue - Human skin is becoming part of some K-beauty treatments. - Demand is tied to premium anti-aging products. - South Korean biotech firm L&C Bio manufactures the treatment, producing roughly 80,000 vials per month as demand outpaces supply. -- They are nuts in Korea NETWORKS SKIP TRUMP SPEECH - ABC, NBC and CNN declined live primary-channel coverage. - The speech focused on0 'election security'. - Networks weighed news value against misinformation concerns. - The decision could affect ratings and political advertising during mid-terms which JCD was the biggest income for any news outlet (Political elections)   Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? PayPal.Donation.Button({ env: 'production', hosted_button_id: 'JJJHP2GDEJC7J', image: { src: 'https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif', alt: 'Donate with PayPal button', title: 'PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!' } }).render('#donate-button-2'); THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN for SpaceX (SPCX) Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!     FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS   See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Send us Fan MailThis week's enterprise software developments highlight continued momentum around AI, customer experience, enterprise integration, and cloud modernization. People.ai rebranded as Backstory, while Sage expanded Sage Intacct Advisory and introduced a new Human Capital Management solution to broaden its business application portfolio. Syntax launched a GenAI-powered migration offering for SAP customers, Braze unveiled new capabilities to enhance customer experiences, and Emfluence announced an integration with Avid. Additional announcements included HUMAN Security extending agentic visibility to marketing and commerce teams, Iterable introducing a new AI agent, Precisely releasing the latest version of EngageOne RapidCX, and SAP and Google Cloud expanding their integrations to strengthen enterprise AI and cloud capabilities.In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry analysts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to analyze current enterprise software stories. We covered many grounds including the direction and roadmaps of each enterprise software vendors. Finally, we analyzed future trends and how they might shape the enterprise software industry.Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ4gLeprFeIQuestions for Panelists?

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I examine why Google Cloud's explosive growth is redefining the competitive landscape ahead of Microsoft and AWS earnings. Highlights 00:03 —We have earnings results coming up later this week from both Microsoft and AWS. Microsoft on July 29, and AWS on July 30. So, that'll give us some nice comparisons to the stunning Q2 that Google Cloud reported last week. Google Cloud will be outgrowing AWS by somewhere between two and a half times at the high end, and at least two times on the low end. 01:02 — Over the last several quarters, Jassy has alluded to Google Cloud, not by name on earnings calls, but he said, "We've got some companies throwing up these fancy high growth rates." What we see with these growth rates is the customers expressing their vote. They are the ultimate arbiters in this decision about who's the hottest company. That's expressed in growth rates. 02:23 — I'm comparing Q2 here for Google Cloud versus Q1 for AWS because, right now, the Q2 numbers aren't out yet. AWS grew at 28%. Google Cloud grew 82%. Say AWS reports this massive acceleration to 40%. They would still be outgrown by Google Cloud by 2X. My guess is AWS's growth rate will come in somewhere around 30% or 31%. 03:22 — It is becoming a little tiresome for these bigger companies to say, "We're bigger than them. Of course, they have a higher growth rate." The customers are voting here. These growth rate disparities are so important because they tell us how the different vendors are doing in the marketplace through the eyes and wallets of customers. 04:01 — In the Cloud Wars, the customers are always, always the big winners. Microsoft and AWS are growing their cloud businesses in the range of 30%, which is astonishing. But Google Cloud posted 82% revenue growth and backlog growth of almost 400% to over $500 billion. By the numbers, Google Cloud is the king of the hill right now. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

How do you make sure your favorite cereal is always on the shelves when a cyber disaster strikes? In this episode, hosts Tim Peacock and Alicja Cade sit down with Noah Korba, VP of Digital Core, Cybersecurity, and Enterprise Architecture at General Mills, to look under the hood of "Mills Collaborative Recovery"—their intensive, annual two-week drill that actually recovers 90% of their Google Cloud estate to test real-world cyber resilience. ⌨️ "Clicking and Clacking" vs. Talking: Why General Mills ditched traditional tabletop discussions to actually run hands-on, keyboard-driven recoveries of their entire cloud infrastructure.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at why playing to win — not playing it safe — is becoming the defining strategy for AI and cloud leaders. Highlights 00:01 — Last week, we talked about Google Cloud's extraordinary Q2, with revenue up 82% to almost $25 billion, backlog up almost 400% to $514 billion. I wanted to talk today a little bit about a challenge that Google Cloud and the other hyperscalers are facing, because this extraordinary growth requires very aggressive investments in CapEx to build out data center capacity. 00:58 — Will these companies continue to have the courage to play to win, as opposed to trying to appease rattled investors? Right after Alphabet reported these numbers, Alphabet also had to say that its CapEx budget for 2026 is going to go up slightly to about $200 billion, while Q2 cash flow was negative $5.9 billion. 01:49 — But it's not a long-term trend here. The market reaction was they hammered Alphabet stock, and its market cap went down $250 billion after Google Cloud reported this. My point is, you've got to keep a clear head in these crazy sorts of times, and I think Alphabet is doing exactly that. Sundar Pichai cited immense opportunities during the Q2 earnings call and talked about the complete AI stack. 02:56 — They believe these investments they're making now are going to pay off with significantly more data center capacity next year. In the short term, Google Cloud is going to tap into some third-party data center capacity, Pichai said, as one of the ways to take care of customers. They're willing to trade that very short-term pain for enormous contracts down the line. 04:09 — It's a wild time here, but definitely, as I've said many times, this is the greatest growth market the world has ever known. These big hyperscaler companies are now faced with challenges that no company has ever had to face before. I applaud the Alphabet leadership for playing to win rather than playing not to lose. That's just not going to cut it in the Cloud Wars. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Alphabet's Q2 2026 financial results reveal a historic $112.1 billion net income, largely inflated by massive paper gains from its equity stakes in SpaceX and Anthropic. While the company celebrated a 24% revenue increase and explosive 82% growth in Google Cloud, it simultaneously faced a free cash flow deficit due to aggressive spending on AI infrastructure. To bypass terrestrial limitations like power shortages and land permits, Alphabet is pioneering Project Suncatcher, an initiative to launch orbital data centers powered by solar energy. This strategy aligns with a broader industry shift toward space-based computing, highlighted by SpaceX's record-breaking IPO and the emergence of specialized startups like Starcloud. However, this high-frontier expansion faces significant regulatory scrutiny and environmental concerns regarding atmospheric pollution and orbital debris. Overall, the documents illustrate a complex circular AI economy where technology giants balance volatile market valuations against the physical necessity of scaling compute into Earth's orbit.

P.M. Edition for July 23. The U.S. plans to impose new tariffs on most trade partners, replacing President Trump's temporary global 10% tariff. Plus, the threat of escalating conflict in the Middle East drove oil prices over $100, and concerns around higher inflation made bond yields surge. WSJ markets reporter Sam Goldfarb discusses how that ripples through the economy. Meanwhile, heavy AI spending from Alphabet and Tesla spooked investors, and the Nasdaq dropped more than 2%. And after IBM issued a rare profit warning last week, the company's earnings shed more light on what went wrong. We hear from reporter Anissa Gardizy about where its business goes from here, while tech columnist Christopher Mims spoke with IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. Alex Ossola hosts. Correction: New U.S. tariffs target 60 economies, or more than 80 countries. An earlier version of this podcast incorrectly said the tariffs target 60 countries. (Corrected on July 24.) Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

An exclusive with the CEO of Google Cloud, Thomas Kurian, after Alphabet's cloud unit saw an 82% jump in revenue growth. But the stock falling on some capex concerns. Then the CEO of IBM joins the show, a week after the company warned of weaker than expected results, that led the stock to see its worst day ever. He explains the outlook. And Tesla on pace for its worst day in more than a year, why spending concerns are also hitting that stock.   Squawk on the Street Disclaimer Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Future of GPUs: How iFrame.ai is Redefining Cost and Performance iframe.ai About the Guest(s): Vlad Panit is the CEO of iFrame.ai, a company specializing in deploying GPUs and building data centers for better compute resources, primarily targeting Neocloud providers, hyperscalers, and AI labs. Vlad’s journey in entrepreneurship began at 18, with a pivot towards IT and engineering endeavors from 2008. His significant work includes e-health projects in Europe and AI applications in medical coding automation. Originally from Ukraine, Vlad has expanded his endeavors to the United States over the past seven years, using his expertise to spearhead innovation in AI-related technologies. Episode Summary: In this insightful episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss dives into the world of AI with guest Vlad Panit, the CEO of iFrame.ai. The conversation explores the backbone of AI infrastructure focusing on the deployment of GPUs in data centers. Vlad shares how iFrame.ai provides bare metal GPU services, offering significant cost savings over conventional cloud providers like Amazon AWS. This episode sheds light on AI’s evolving landscape and the technological advancements driving it, making it particularly relevant for business professionals and tech enthusiasts interested in AI advancements. Chris and Vlad delve into the differences between AI infrastructure services provided by iFrame.ai and traditional offerings by big players like AWS and Google. Vlad explains the company’s unique position in providing bare metal services that enhance cost and operational efficiency for customers, especially in AI training and inference. Highlighting the broader implications of AI’s rapid development, Vlad also reflects on the challenges and opportunities that come with deploying large-scale GPU networks, touching on both technological and environmental impacts. Key Takeaways: iFrame.ai offers bare metal GPU services which can be three to four times more affordable compared to AWS and Google Cloud offerings. The company’s infrastructure supports significant cost savings in AI operations, making it an attractive option for companies looking to optimize AI workloads. Vlad Panit emphasizes the importance of deploying GPUs efficiently to enhance the availability and reliability of compute resources for AI applications. The discussion highlights the evolving market landscape as tech giants like OpenAI and Anthropic move towards public offerings, with AI infrastructure playing a pivotal role. The conversation also touches on the environmental impact of AI data centers and the importance of sustainable energy practices in powering such facilities. Notable Quotes: “We deploy GPUs. We build data centers, put a lot of compute there, and then sell it to near clouds, hyperscalers, AI labs—some of which you probably use in daily life.” “We’re able to sell our services three to four times cheaper than AWS.” “The difference with AI’s GPU use versus gaming is it requires uploading and storing entire models, which is more complex and costly.” “AI data centers should have their own energy supply to be better for everyone, from local communities to the data center operations.” “It’s a huge overestimation to say there’s a bubble in AI; the infrastructure costs alone are massive to support large-scale AI operations.” Resources: iFrame.ai – Discover more about the company’s GPU deployment services. Connect with Vlad or explore further through LinkedIn and Goodreads. Tune in to the full episode of The Chris Voss Show to gain a deeper understanding of AI infrastructure and the intricacies of deploying GPUs for cutting-edge technology applications. Stay connected for more intriguing discussions with thought leaders shaping the future.

For most enterprises, autonomous AI agents still feel like a risk waiting to happen. Andi Gutmans, Vice President and General Manager for Data Cloud at Google, joins Cindi Howson to explain what it takes to build the data foundation that trustworthy agentic AI depends on. He breaks down how organizations can finally activate the 90 percent of enterprise data that's unstructured, why tokenmaxxing is the wrong way to measure AI value, and how open standards like Apache Iceberg are helping leaders tear down fragmented, multi-cloud data silos and unify data across clouds. Key Moments: Perception vs. Reality in Trusting Autonomous AI (03:55): Waymo is safer than a human driver by the numbers, but most people still choose Uber. Andi explains why closing that trust gap takes time. Activating the 90% of Unstructured Data (09:40): Most enterprise data sits in images, PDFs, and contracts, never touched by traditional analytics. Andi explains how AI finally makes that dark data usable. Crawl, Walk, Run: Scaling Autonomous Agents in Production (16:37): Virgin Voyages cut weather disruption rebooking from six hours to eleven minutes with autonomous agents. Andi explains the thresholds that made scaling safe. Token Efficiency Over Tokenmaxxing (19:54): Andi pushes back on tokenmaxxing as a measure of progress. Real success means the best outcome with the fewest tokens and the cheapest model for the job. Breaking Down Data Silos with a Borderless, Open Lakehouse (27:01): Most enterprises run on a messy mix of multiple clouds. Andi explains how open standards like Apache Iceberg tear down those walls. Key Quotes: “Over ninety percent of enterprise data is actually unstructured data... AI is really good at reasoning around this unstructured data, and so we can make a hundred percent of the data state light up.” - Andi Gutmans “If you take a Waymo, you're actually eighty percent less likely to get into a hurtful accident than if you take a service with a human driver. Still, most people prefer to take the Uber versus the Waymo…  It's going to take time to earn the trust to understand what quality outcomes we can drive.” - Andi Gutmans “ The way we're thinking about the data platform is the best context is the context that drives the outcomes you need with the least amount of tokens and processing.” - Andi Gutmans Mentions Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne Virgin Voyages case study (Google Cloud) Vodafone, Google Cloud and TM Forum Unveil Framework for Self-Optimising Autonomous Networks Guest Bio Andi Gutmans is the General Manager and Vice President for Data Cloud at Google, which includes operational databases, analytical data platforms, open lakehouse technologies, and  Business Intelligence. His core focus involves building, managing, and scaling highly innovative data services to deliver a leading AI-native data platform for businesses. Before joining Google Cloud, Gutmans was VP Analytics at AWS, where he managed services such as Amazon Redshift, AWS Glue, and Amazon EMR. Prior to that, he co-founded and served as CEO of Zend Technologies, a company built around the open-source PHP language, of which he was a co-creator. Andi Gutmans is a highly experienced leader with over 20 years dedicated to open source contributions. He is particularly renowned as a co-creator of the open-source PHP language, which has become one of the most widely used languages for web development. He is an emeritus member of the Apache Software Foundation and served on the Eclipse Foundation's board of directors. Gutmans holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Uber agreed to acquire Delivery Hero for ~$14.8B, expanding into 99 markets. Thinking Machines released its first open-weight model, Inkling, SpaceXAI open-sourced Grok Build after a data-upload backlash, and sources detailed xAI's chaotic race to catch Claude under new leadership. Uber agrees to acquire Delivery Hero in a deal that values the German food delivery company at ~$14.8B, offering €41.50 per share and buying Prosus' 16.8% stake (Bloomberg) Thinking Machines Lab debuts Inkling, an open-weight MoE model with 975B total and 41B active parameters, trained to be broad rather than optimized for one area (Thinking Machines Lab) Thinking Machines Lab debuts Inkling, an open-weight MoE model with 975B total and 41B active parameters, trained to be broad rather than optimized for one area (WSJ) SpaceXAI open-sources Grok Build under an Apache 2.0 license, after the tool uploaded user repositories to SpaceXAI's Google Cloud bucket, causing a backlash (Simon Willison) SpaceXAI open-sources Grok Build under an Apache 2.0 license, after the tool uploaded user repositories to SpaceXAI's Google Cloud bucket, causing a backlash (The Decoder) Sources detail how xAI has been slowed down by internal chaos as Musk pushed for Grok to match Claude, amid signs it is turning a corner under Michael Nicolls (Bloomberg) Sources: Apple is preparing new iPads, including an iPad mini with an OLED screen by October and refreshed entry-level iPads and iPad Airs for 2027 (Bloomberg) Subscribe to the ad-free feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Treasury sanctions a VPN provider tied to ransomware. The Pentagon hits pause on CMMC audits. Critical flaws surface in Google Cloud's Dialogflow CX. Estée Lauder discloses a data breach. Mobile networks become a battlefield for tracking U.S. personnel. Australia calls out Big Tech over child safety. SAP patches critical bugs. CISA flags an actively exploited Cisco flaw. And the federal government accelerates AI investments. Our guest is Bogdan Botezatu, Senior Director, Threat Research and Reporting at Bitdefender, talking about Cyberthreats to Journalists and Influencers. AI costs savings come at a price. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Today we are joined by Bogdan Botezatu, Senior Director, Threat Research and Reporting at Bitdefender, is talking about "Targeting the Messengers: Cyberthreats to Journalists and Influencers," their awareness campaign designed to address the escalating digital and reputational risks faced by media professionals in hostile environments. Selected Reading US sanctions VPN, malware providers for enabling ransomware attacks (Bleeping Computer) Pentagon announces 'immediate suspension' of CMMC Phase II mandates (Breaking Defense) Google Cloud Dialogflow CX vulnerability allowed AI agent hijacking | brief  (SC Media) Estée Lauder Companies Reports Data Breach Exposing Health Records and SSNs (Beyond Machines) US military targeted in Iran war phone-tracking campaign (Financial Times) Australia finds serious gaps in Big Tech response to online child sexual abuse (Reuters) SAP warns of critical flaws in NetWeaver and Commerce Cloud (Bleeping Computer) CISA adds Cisco IOS flaw to known exploited vulnerabilities catalog | brief (SC Media) Federal AI Projects Get Priority in TMF Funding Dash (GovInfo Security) Companies Are Throttling Employees' AI Use Because It's Too Expensive (404 Media) Share your feedback. What do you think about CyberWire Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? N2K CyberWire helps you reach the industry's most influential leaders and operators, while building visibility, authority, and connectivity across the cybersecurity community. Learn more at sponsor.thecyberwire.com. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the biggest obstacle to AI-driven ROI isn't the AI itself, but everything you're feeding it?Agility requires not just the speed to adopt new technologies like AI, but the clarity to recognize when foundational elements, like your data strategy, must be fixed first to unlock true potential.Today, we're going to talk about the intense pressure on revenue and marketing leaders to demonstrate ROI from AI. We'll explore the counterintuitive idea that simply chasing 'better AI' is a distraction, and that the real gains come from addressing the foundational data gaps that plague most organizations.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Ann Davis, Chief Revenue Officer at Crunchbase. About Ann DavisAnn Davis is the Chief Revenue Officer at Crunchbase, where she leads global sales strategy and drives adoption of the company's AI-powered predictive intelligence solution. With more than 30 years of experience scaling enterprise sales teams at high-growth SaaS companies, Ann brings deep expertise in data analytics, customer engagement, and revenue growth. She joined Crunchbase from Google Cloud, where she led sales for data analytics solutions—including BigQuery and Vertex—across multiple U.S. regions. Prior to that, she was Vice President of Sales at Looker, playing a key role in expanding its enterprise business ahead of its acquisition by Google. At Crunchbase, Ann is focused on helping customers unlock the power of AI-driven market insights to anticipate shifts and act faster.Ann Davis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anndavis3/---------- Resources ---------- Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.comThe Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.