Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Uplink, where we explore the world of digital infrastructure, uncovering the technology fueling AI and cloud innovation, with the leaders making it happen so you've been at Megaport what how long now?

Speaker 2: 0:37

oh gosh, since October. So I think I just crossed the six-month mark.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Oh wow, it's crazy. Longer. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. You made a massive impact. I'm curious. I get a lot of change. Your role's very different, but it's still similar. You've been on a mission for a while. Uh, you've got a huge following. I'm pretty sure I like stroll down the streets and people high-five me and say, oh, you work for that company, you work for alexis's company. I'm like that's pretty much right. So, um, tell me about the mission that you've on, whether it's changed, um, what you're feeling in the market. And I think most people are trying to figure out what is the coolest role in the world. And I think you know they will tell me you've got it. I think I got it.

Speaker 2: 1:16

I don't know how I got so lucky. I always joke, or at least I was joking here at ITW. People ask what I do and I was like, well, I had a social media addiction and somehow it turned into a career. Lucky enough, I found someone to support it, but I've also I mean kudos, kudos to y'all. I've also been told like your CEO is so forward thinking and to bring someone on like that when this is really a role in.

Speaker 2: 1:41

B2B. That's very undefined right Like we don't have a blueprint or what community go to market or what social selling looks like. There's no like influencer playbook for IT.

Speaker 1: 1:54

For any industry, for IT even, in particular. You know, I think I've seen influencers more broadly across. I think you know fashion and whatever, but yeah, I think in tech it's limited. But in networking you know fashion and whatever, but yeah, I think in tech it's limited, but in networking you know you own that space. So yeah, I mean it's a privilege to have you in the business. We just want to keep setting you free and watching what you create. But to your point, you're building some interesting stuff. Like I love all the crazy ideas you're coming up with.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Well, it's been fun. You asked, you know, coming from Cisco to Megaport, like what was the difference? Number one, very large company and very small company. But also, you know, I kind of I put my stake in the ground on making network engineering cool again.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Yes.

Speaker 2: 2:37

I was a Cisco SE for five years Route switch, wireless data center security. I was touching all of these products and I almost made a case against studying cloud or studying cyber security. Um, because networking is really fundamental. And then I came to this company where what are we doing? We're connecting to the cloud. You know, we're doing all these crazy things with ai, and it's not that I've had to completely pivot, because networking is still fundamental and megapore at core. We're a network as a service company, but it's almost brought in my worldview to okay, well, how does networking interact with all of these other technologies, which almost strengthens the mission.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Adds the story. Yeah, like we always think that I think you presented this at some point. But networking is like oxygen and nothing works without it. Try and be on a plane without a network connection and you'll know really quickly how frustrating that is what's a data center without a network?

Speaker 2: 3:37

Yeah, just an island.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Exactly an island, with a lot of stuff going on but no one can do anything with it.

Speaker 2: 3:42

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:43

So that becomes key. So I think the mission is still there, um, but yeah, it's getting broader, it's pushing into different spaces. Ai is really interesting. You know, we launched that ai exchange then. We have like 35 providers on the platform now and it's changing super quick, um. But what's not changing is the access that people need. So that what's interesting is that, as the world's changing, the mission that megaport's been changing is the access that people need. So what's interesting is, as the world's changing, the mission that Megaport's been on is actually becoming more important 100%, yeah, the instantaneous automation of what we've built to be able to connect to all these things immediately.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Some companies solve a problem at the time and then it changes because the use case either changes or what customers need, etc. That moves away from that as it evolves and what's happening is we're becoming more relevant, more important. We're seeing significantly large telcos and so forth. Look at us and try to replicate it. It's so difficult to do, particularly when you look at network automation and then when you look at the billing platforms and so forth, but it's becoming more relevant. I think that's certainly from my perspective as a company. What are you doing around? You've got some cool ideas around the community, which is different. Again, I think your point is no one's ever done this before, so I mean you get to ideate. Come back to the, the business. That's what I love about some of the stuff you brought to us. And you're like what do you think about this? And you probably figured out.

Speaker 2: 5:08

My answer is always going to be yes and more I think a big thing, especially when we're looking at the online landscape today.

Speaker 2: 5:16

right, social media is meant to bring people together, and what we're seeing is people gravitate towards these online communities where they can have shared interests across many different facets, whether that's hobbies, whether that's career and you don't necessarily have to be in the same location to do that anymore, and so, of course, in-person networking, happy hours, socials all of those are very important, but when you're able to bring people together around a shared interest globally, it becomes a lot more powerful, and so we're looking at starting one around cloud networking, ai, all of the skills that network engineers are going to need to move into the future. Obviously, the network team we just talked about it. Everything comes back to the network and they get stuff thrown at them left, right and center all day long.

Speaker 1: 6:05

It's not an easy gig.

Speaker 2: 6:07

No, and they need to know how to support it. And so where I see us, you know Megaport's really a connector of all different technologies, Like we said, whether it's cloud, whether it's AI, whether it's cybersecurity, whether it's traditional campus networking campus networking, and so we're really in a spot where we've got so many wonderful partners, from our data center operators to our ecosystem partners, to bring everyone together and accumulate that shared knowledge for our customers.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Yeah, and what I loved is and we're here at ITW. I mean, we spend all this time and energy to fly around the world to meet and connect with people. The beautiful thing about social is you can do it from anywhere and it engages anyone, in any country, any region, any socioeconomic situation. You don't have to pay for a flight to ITW, as an example, but as you build that community, I think that the next piece for us was then how do we run those events globally? Like do we have to bring everyone together? I know you're also thinking about something cool there.

Speaker 2: 7:04

Yeah. So to kick off the community, my biggest thing is that, especially if you're starting a community as a vendor, you know as a business, you should be looking at what additional value can you provide to your customers. You can't just get your customers together and expect them to provide the value.

Speaker 2: 7:24

Of course, maybe you're providing the platform or your initiative to get them together, but what we really wanted to do was center this community around knowledge sharing and resource development, and so we're kicking this off with a virtual summit. So we're bringing in, like I said, our partners, our ecosystem players from all over the world to help share knowledge across what we do as a business. We have three different tracks that we're planning on whether that's fundamentals maybe you are an advanced engineer or maybe you're an executive so that there's something for everyone and then using that to help give people a path into the community so that we can have some sort of structure or backbone around things we're talking about, things we're learning about, and it's not just a free-for-all.

Speaker 1: 8:07

I know we're going to bring together a whole presenter speakers content. We're trying to get a broad array. It shouldn't be a sales pitch or anything like that. It's going to be educational content. We should push to the audience and ask them for who they want us to bring in, who they want to hear from, or have you got it all locked down?

Speaker 2: 8:25

We've got some ideas, but if anyone has other ideas, I'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 1: 8:29

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I mean, who do you want to hear from? Who do you want to learn from? Who should we get on the sessions that we're presenting, maybe like 20-minute blocks, like TED Talks, and then that kicks off also into what an ongoing community continuing, continuing conversation. Yeah how do you keep continuing the conversation? You figure that out. You're working out the tech stack uh, a little bit oh hustling work in progress.

Speaker 2: 8:53

Okay, I can't share all my secrets, I know you get too excited, all right.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Well, it's coming soon. When's that sort of planning? October, okay, october, all right. I'm blowing it all out for you because basically, what I'm doing is holding you to commit.

Speaker 2: 9:07

Chopper's so excited. He wants this done now. That's right, that's what he's really saying.

Speaker 1: 9:11

I'm excited about it. But I love what you're building and I love that no one else is. Well, you're just sort of hacking your way through the jungle. At the moment there's sort of two types of people One of people, one of the ones you'd sort of drop behind enemy lines in a jungle with a compass and a shoelace and a machete and you and you've got to make a path, and then that's you, and then there are those that are following the path and then you've got then, you know, roads built after that. So I think you're literally trying to sort of augment what you've seen, uh, with maybe other industries, into tech or at least networking, and build it. So you know, we're super proud to see what you're building and really excited to support it. I also know it's going to make a big impact on the community and the industry as a whole. So, yeah, keep doing what you're doing. We'll keep pouring gas on that fire, appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 9:58

Yeah, yeah, keep coming up with crazy ideas. Keep me on an airplane.

Speaker 1: 10:00

Yeah, that's one last thing have you will, that's.

Speaker 2: 10:06

That's one last thing. How are you dealing with all the crazy travel? Uh man, I'm learning how to live on the road. I think I've gotten a lot more efficient with packing, so it's funny. When I traveled in college, I used to really like shoes right, I used to buy a lot of shoes and every time I travel I'd bring five, six pairs of shoes because I was like which ones do I want to wear?

Speaker 1: 10:21

I don't know how you're feeling.

Speaker 2: 10:22

I've parted down to two pairs. I've got my gym pair and my everyday pair. Perfect Because shoes when you're traveling.

Speaker 1: 10:29

I don't like to check them on.

Speaker 2: 10:31

No, check bag you just got to go in the carry-on, so I have a product down to two yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:35

I'd say I've gotten a lot more efficient. You figured it out and you've been to every continent, from what I can tell.

Speaker 2: 10:40

I'm missing Antarctica.

Speaker 1: 10:42

Well, I told the communities like that, I think you turned up to London and what you're 100 people in a bar turned up Because you just sent a post and said let's get the community together yeah, you know, the marketing team really wants me to replicate that.

Speaker 2: 10:57

Now, every time we hold an event, they're like hey, can you post on linkedin about it? I'm like I can't do it for every single thing that we do. It's not gonna work.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Yeah, right, but it is cool, but the point is you, you built that brand in the united states. It's clearly everywhere um. I mean, that was fun I literally walked down the streets in australia and you, australia, and you get people saying that I work at your company and how you're making a massive impact. So, yeah, I wonder how far it goes. We just keep sending you to random countries and just at one point, no one will turn up and you'll finally figure out that that's the location that they haven't been following you?

Speaker 2: 11:30

Someone asked me.

Speaker 1: 11:31

we were walking around ITW and someone stopped me and they were like man, I'd imagine you're used to that by now and I was like not really right, like it doesn't you never really people you never meet saying hey, I know all about you how's, how's your cats doing?

Speaker 2: 11:45

they're not cats names and I'm like, oh god, um, it's, I will say, at conferences. I kind of expect it now like it's gotten more normal at conferences. Where it's weird is like out on the street, like I was out walking in san francisco with my friend and this guy stopped me and was like do you post on linkedin and? I was like, oh god, it's happening that's so cool out in the wild yeah, that's yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:08

Not at a tech conference, yeah, okay. Oh, there you go. All right, I'll keep doing what you're doing. We love having you.