Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
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In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I share some key takeaways from my interview with Frank Slootman, the CEO of Snowflake.
Highlights
00:20 — Slootman’s not only got great perspectives on business, but he’s also got a very straightforward, refreshing way of speaking. Right now, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and so many of the other things going on in the cloud, we are at a great, great time in history, he said.
01:11 — We’ve got the rise of AI, new ways of ensuring that the fuel behind the full power of AI, which is data, is brought to bear, and that those things combine to drive incredible business innovation and opportunity for customers. His big point: there’s no AI strategy without a data strategy.
Ask Cloud Wars AI Agent about this analysis
02:14 — Slootman also said that this kind of computing is not free. In fact, he said it’s very expensive, so it’s more important than ever that executives have a very clear understanding of this cost. And at the same time, he said this new capability will vastly improve the service experience for customers.
03:02 — In the video interview that we will be posting here today, Slootman tells this hilarious story about, “I just want to add a new car to my Sirius subscription.” But these simple functions are often a lot more difficult than one would expect. Ultimately, he says, with AI, we’re going to take this service from its current state of maddening to a state where it’s autonomous and much better.
03:51 — Later this morning, we’ll be posting my full-length analytical article based on this conversation with Slootman and my assessment of Snowflake in the market today. A big point he made was that we’re seeing data estates inside companies. In the past, they had been defined sort of in IT terms; the perimeter was what shaped it.
04:47 — Snowflake is the number 10 company on the Cloud Wars Top 10. It’s much smaller than the other companies, but it has forced other big tech companies to reassess their thinking around the data cloud. It continues to bring great innovation and opportunity for customers.
- Watch the full Frank Slootman interview
- Read my analysis from discussions with Frank Slootman about his 2024 outlook
