Safi Bahcall

Thanks for having me, Lynn. Happy to be here.

Thanks for having me, Lynn. Happy to be here.

Thanks for saying so.

Thanks for saying so.

When you look at some of the biggest ideas that have created some of the biggest businesses and industry in the last two decades, it's cloud services. The idea that you can take every company's IT budget, every company in the world, the tens of millions or hundreds of millions or billions that they spend on computers and technology and give it to one of two companies on the planet.

When you look at some of the biggest ideas that have created some of the biggest businesses and industry in the last two decades, it's cloud services. The idea that you can take every company's IT budget, every company in the world, the tens of millions or hundreds of millions or billions that they spend on computers and technology and give it to one of two companies on the planet.

That's a lot of money. That's roughly a trillion dollars in revenue. And 15 years ago, 20 years ago, if you would have said, here's my idea, I'm going to go to every company in the world. And you know, your IT budget that you're buying these metal boxes and these software things that you buy, forget it.

That's a lot of money. That's roughly a trillion dollars in revenue. And 15 years ago, 20 years ago, if you would have said, here's my idea, I'm going to go to every company in the world. And you know, your IT budget that you're buying these metal boxes and these software things that you buy, forget it.

Just give it to one company or maybe two companies, throw away all your computers and they'll do everything in the cloud for you. People would have said, you're nuts. That's a crazy idea. And not just old established companies, but really good companies like Microsoft and Google, who were dominating cloud IT at the time, 15 or 20 years ago, or a dominating business to business.

Just give it to one company or maybe two companies, throw away all your computers and they'll do everything in the cloud for you. People would have said, you're nuts. That's a crazy idea. And not just old established companies, but really good companies like Microsoft and Google, who were dominating cloud IT at the time, 15 or 20 years ago, or a dominating business to business.

Those companies said, yeah, nobody's going to do that. It took a tiny little player, someone that was nothing in the business to business world, a company that was known for selling diapers online, which was called Amazon at the time. It was basically a mail order catalog that was splashed onto the internet. And they said, what if we try this crazy thing?

Those companies said, yeah, nobody's going to do that. It took a tiny little player, someone that was nothing in the business to business world, a company that was known for selling diapers online, which was called Amazon at the time. It was basically a mail order catalog that was splashed onto the internet. And they said, what if we try this crazy thing?

And they came from nowhere in this space versus much, much bigger business to business competitors. And clobbered them. So that's an example of a recent business where everybody wrote the idea off as crazy. And if you go back in time, so many of these ideas were written off as crazy from funny examples of Airbnb.

And they came from nowhere in this space versus much, much bigger business to business competitors. And clobbered them. So that's an example of a recent business where everybody wrote the idea off as crazy. And if you go back in time, so many of these ideas were written off as crazy from funny examples of Airbnb.

Who's going to rent out their room to have people sleep in their bedrooms or whatever? Yeah. All the way back to the transistor, nobody's going to believe that you can make a switch out of a tiny little metal sandwich, which of course transformed the last century with all the rise of electronics.

Who's going to rent out their room to have people sleep in their bedrooms or whatever? Yeah. All the way back to the transistor, nobody's going to believe that you can make a switch out of a tiny little metal sandwich, which of course transformed the last century with all the rise of electronics.

So if you look over time, the biggest businesses in the world, the biggest ideas that changed society, most of them were written off as crazy.

So if you look over time, the biggest businesses in the world, the biggest ideas that changed society, most of them were written off as crazy.

Well, it's funny you mentioned the Andy Jassy example because Andy Jassy was not the originator of the cloud services idea. He was the guy who led the business after it started getting some traction. Another example is Steve Jobs. Oh, he invented the iPod. Well, not really. There are quite a few people.

Well, it's funny you mentioned the Andy Jassy example because Andy Jassy was not the originator of the cloud services idea. He was the guy who led the business after it started getting some traction. Another example is Steve Jobs. Oh, he invented the iPod. Well, not really. There are quite a few people.