Jerry Chen, Partner, Greylock | AWS re:Invent 2017 #reInvent #theCUBE https://siliconangle.com/2017/12/29/greylock-partner-tracks-cloud-and-cryptocurrency-trends-reinvent-reinvent/ Greylock partner tracks cloud and cryptocurrency trends A glance at the portfolio of companies for the Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Greylock Partners pretty much says it all. With a focus on startups and growth stage businesses, Greylock has successfully parlayed investments in areas of technology that have spawned some of the industry’s major players, including Facebook, Airbnb, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Red Hat and Cloudera. And much of that success can be attributed to spotting the next technology wave when it’s still miles offshore. In 2003, a young intern working at a fledgling company called VMware Inc. witnessed the rise of virtual machines to consolidate enterprise servers. A few years later, in 2007, that same intern (now an executive with VMware) connected with some developer colleagues who were singing the praises of a new cloud business being offered by an online bookseller called Amazon. And in 2014, when Greylock had an opportunity to invest in a young open-source company called Docker Inc., the former VMware intern published a blog post that described exactly why his firm was backing container technology. His name was Jerry Chen (pictured). Today Chen is a partner with Greylock and has become one of the leading experts in cloud computing technology. Chen and his firm have been closely tracking major trends surrounding the cloud wave, with the first shift being the rise of database migration tools to facilitate movement to and from cloud platforms. So, what about the second shift? “The second wave is cloud-native developers … men and women coming out of college who never racked a server building cloud-native databases,” Chen said. “You’re seeing another generation of applications being built that look nothing like the generation behind.” Chen stopped by the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and spoke with co-hosts John Furrier (@furrier) and Lisa Martin (@LuccaZara) during the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. They discussed recent developments around cloud-native computing, Amazon’s go-to-market strategy for developers, a continued role for the C-suite in enterprise information technology decision-making, and Greylock’s recent investments in the evolving digital currency industry. This week theCUBE features Jerry Chen as our Guest of the Week. AWS more active in cloud native This next wave of cloud-native development can be partially seen through recent actions by Amazon Web Services Inc. In August, the company joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, a signal that it would take an active role in the cloud-native community. And in November, AWS introduced cloud-native networking for its Elastic Container Service containers. Amazon’s strategy is also clearly focused on courting developers with new tools such as SageMaker, a framework for data scientists to streamline machine learning models that was introduced in November. “They’re going to try to win the hearts and minds of the next generation of apps which can be around AI and data,” Chen said. In addition to building what Chen refers to as “systems of intelligence,” AWS is also attacking the cloud market through two other ways. One involves verticals, a go-to-market focus on industries such as government, healthcare and financial services. The healthcare vertical represents a particularly significant area of focus for AWS, as it has been at the leading edge of IoT device integration. During AWS re:Invent, the company released several tools designed to facilitate asset tracking, security and management for “internet of things” devices. The third component of the AWS cloud strategy is its bread-and-butter, the infrastructure platform through which the company has built a significant position, currently owning 44 percent of the public cloud market. “Storage, security, compute … check,” Chen said. Developers will play a key role As the calendar moves into 2018, AWS will have to deal with competition from cloud providers such as Google, Microsoft Azure and Alibaba. Developers have emerged as a major force within the enterprise as they make decisions on which applications to build and what technology to use, so the major players will undoubtedly woo them with new tools, according to Chen. ... Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent.