55. Interview with Bill Conner: Lessons from a serial value creator

25:26What do they need to do?

25:27Bill Conner:Easiest analogy I've got is kind of like surfing. I guess I'm on the water analogies this day. At least for this hour. But, you know, I talked about looking over the sunset, right? If you're a surfer, you're out there and, you know, they're always looking for that perfect wave, right? Right. And you can tell the good surfers and bad ones by the ones that know how to pick the wave. And there are a lot of waves that come in, but not all of them are the good ones. And so part of that is experience, right? Because the more you do it, the more you get to see it. But I also think you've got to just have a wide angle perspective.

26:07Bill Conner:And I do believe having, you know, looking at wider views than the swim lane you're in or the lane on the track that you're running in, you got to look at all nine lanes. Because at least in technology, it's a lot of specialty. But discontinuity comes when one hits another. Think of the wave theory again. the biggest disruptions when you know that wake of the boat gets bisected by another one it amplifies that wave even bigger so i've had some good ones i've had some bad ones but clearly more right than wrong as a track record and i think it's you know you got to be open-minded you got to be willing to look you got to trust your instincts but then you've got to have the depth to go really deep to try to understand the why i love that yes it's like breadth of vision but also the ability to go deep i mean it's it's it's not it's clearly not an easy skill to master well we're talking about why and the who and the what i mean uh thinking about your career more recently with with you know these leading firms in cyber security like entrust and sonic wall you know technology is taking you around the table with with the very highest echelons of Western societies.

27:28And what I mean by that, listeners, is, you know, Bill's been around the table with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the UK's National Cybersecurity Centre, GCHQ, you know, and several others in the international intelligence community. And I think Bill legendary told NATO a decade ago that the next battlefront will be cyber. So I think the thing here is, you know, as software eats the world, Bill, is there a clear line between those who lead our societies and those who lead in tech? And are those two areas converging and who should be scanning the horizon?

28:01Bill Conner:You know, from my upbringing, I believe in public-private. I was fortunate out of that National Youth Science Camp. The governor of Arkansas was a Rockefeller. The governor of West Virginia, where the National Youth Science Camp was a Rockefeller, was Jay Rockefeller, who ultimately then became Senator Rockefeller. So he and I used to host the National Youth Science Camp every summer on the Hill. So, you know, what did I do? I helped him, right? I helped him with science camp, because I cared about it. I cared about the kids in science. And that became a relationship that, you know, he and I wrote the FCC stuff in his office that's now in place in the SEC and in our laws.

28:48Bill Conner:You know, after 9-11 and, you know, that night Bush spoke to the joint sessions, I was briefing joint sessions the next morning on cyber and the implications of that. And you mentioned NATO, and yeah, that was pre-9-11. I was on the Joint Forces Advisory Board here in the U.S. and as a private citizen with expertise in data and digital and security, which is why I was there. And, you know, I was younger, and certainly a lot of those generals, I can tell you, did not exactly like me. And that was fine. I wasn't there to be liked. I was there to for cause and for a reason. And and I that's why I did the joint work for the, you know, Homeland Security on public private partnership on cybersecurity.

29:42Bill Conner:I just I believe you got to give back. And, you know, that's why I did so much work with Tony Blair and Andrew Pinn in the UK, because you governments need to take this stuff seriously. Because it does have national impact for the businesses and the government and the citizens at the end of the day. That has definitely been a feature. I mean, you've even talked to the Vatican at various points, which for most people would be a fantastic thing. I mean, this has clearly proved important for you personally and for your business. And are there some sort of hints you can give the younger generation who are coming up and trying to understand how to influence the world and help make the world work and, you know, why it's important to give you time, why it's important to give your expertise?

30:33Bill Conner:You know, I think it's a personal choice, Jonathan. You know, I grew up in a poor home. It wasn't poor. I mean, it wasn't poor, but it was poor, relatively. and people helped along the way. I didn't get here without so many mentors financially, mentally, professionally and I talked about Senator Rock. I've got so many people, Andrew Pender who was your e-envoy that was trying to bring digital to the UK before digital was even cool. So to me, it's just something that's been about it. So what I would tell the people listening that are younger, you all have some passions. And I'm not talking about the ones just for you.

31:26Bill Conner:What are you passionate about in the society you live in? And if you can find a way to connect what you do, and I don't care if it's tech or non-tech, honestly, because we all bring some kind of value to this world. It's a lot of fun to get more scale and leverage out of it. and meet other people that have similar passions.

31:52Let's go away from the social and the public-minded a little bit to the more venal side of the fence here. We're looking over here in Europe, we're aghast at how much, frankly, American companies are giving to people to sign up. you know individuals are commanding a couple of billion in seed funding as we've just seen with with one of the founders raising that recently and the transfer fee packages the sign-on bonuses for some of these ai scientists the guys who are publishing papers would make certainly english soccer clubs but even like american basketball clubs even a little bit where are we with the ai hype is it too much and and obviously you're in the ai game you've got your your fingers on the on the on the thrust controller jitter bit how are you finding holding on to this rocket ship and you know is it got a little bit too hypey for you what's your thoughts on that

32:49Bill Conner:it's way hyped for sure but underneath all that smoke and hype is a real fire um uh as you and i've talked paul when i started this journey um uh it's real uh as i've said when I came into this job, my next 20 years will be at this intersection of AI, coding, and security. It is the next generational technology transition that's going to reshape the world, just like mobile did, just like data did and digital early on, just like the internet did, it's going to reshape the world we know. And I think you can really see that by what I'm calling this sovereign behavior now that has broken out across the world.

33:47Bill Conner:Because I just think 18 months ago when we started this journey together, Paul, at Jitterbit, and when we said US was clearly in the lead and it's the wild, wild west and lots of money and lots of capability being built, right? If we went to the UK, a little more standoffish and not quite so sure, got to think about this, let's wait and measure it, size it up, study it, and then be a little more, a little cautious. And then you go to Brazil, right? Where, you know, we have a large facility and customer base and, you know, they were trying to spell AI. So to, you know, this last round now, And you see, even with all the global leaders, it's a it's a sovereign race from the Middle East to China, to the UK, to the US.

34:42Bill Conner:It is now and, you know, it's interesting. One of the ex Federal Reserve individuals that's now at an investment bank and I were having a discussion. And it's kind of interesting because he put it in perspective. If you look at all of our GDPs, they're all down, right? The economy globally is not in a good space. And he said, if you look around, there are a lot of things you can't control right now. Wars, politics in some cases, a lot of cases. There's just a lot of things impacting businesses and governments. and you can't influence. And so if you're government and you're going to bet on how to get GDP up and if your business is going to bet on how do I get my cost down and business up, enter AI.

35:39Bill Conner:And so while I think the hype is there, I think there's a deep hell belief and I think you're now seeing coming out of that hype, the real fire underneath that the transforming infrastructure of AI, supply the chips the processing the energy supply the the tools the llms the rack it's kind of like quality in the early days right people are getting the lexicon they're starting to see how it can transform and if you look around what else is going to transform you i would offer that's the leading engine in the train what's it going to do it's going to pull energy back to our earlier discussion on nuclear, nuclear is back.

36:25Bill Conner:Why is nuclear back? Because you know what? I did my undergrad around solar. Solar is a topping system. It's not variable. It can't scale in the same way that gas, coal, or nuclear can. They all have different. So I think there's That AI revolution and innovation is driving then a consumption of energy, not just for the tools, but for society that's energy craving still, whether it's electric cars or any other tools. I mean, no one said that electric cars are going to take less energy. Super interesting. I like the way you drew the whole thing together there, because when you see the scope of the change going all the way back to energy, and obviously you say back to the start of your career, it really does tie it together about how big this could be and maybe puts the hype into perspective.

37:27Bill Conner:Well, and I think that's why you see even the Middle East right there. They've got an energy dependent society that can take advantage of that today, but take a lead on powering the capacity and the capability and take it in a transformative mode to transform a whole culture and an industry. That's why I think, to your point, Jonathan, there is a lot of hype. But I can tell you it is overhyped. But if you pull back the PowerPoints, you pull back the BS, there is a fundamental truth underneath those that is a very strong, compelling assumption that is, I think, going to be revolutionary for the next 20 years.

38:15Bill Conner:As we embrace that, it's going to be like cyber, right? Everybody was like, oh, cyber is great. But then it was cybersecurity. Then it was cyber arms race. Paul and I talk, you know, when we're not on podcasts like this, but when we're over a glass of wine or together, we talk about what is an AI race. And we're kind of in that now. But in that AI race, we've got to remember the security. It's going to be good and bad. So you've got to be prepared. And that's what I think we're trying to do at Jitterbit is make sure you understand the privacy security and build in those checks and balances along the way.

39:01You know, we are entering an absolutely a new age, but we're still really pioneering it. And you are as well in moving a company forward. Building AI infused technologies is super hard. And the reason I think it is is because others may not yet see its relevance, but you're leading a whole team. And you've got a development team, you've got a sales team, and you've got the customers to convince. How do you lead under these circumstances?

39:31Bill Conner:Well, you lead with it being part of the business and the culture and the change, right? So it's a really important question, Jonathan. And we talked about it earlier, Paul. 85 % failing, you know, let's give benefit of doubt, maybe it's 50 % right now. Our whole framework that my CTO and I took when I came in was how do I evolve and revolutionize at the same time? So we have a local platform, as I kind of mentioned. It does integrations, it does APIM, it does EDI, and it builds apps, mobile web and system apps. What we decided to do was infuse AI into that low-code platform. What do I mean by infuse?

40:21Bill Conner:Today, instead of just coding, we're now giving you a UI UX that is AI. because at its technical underpinning, AI is a voice or prompt instead of a code. So it's still coding behind it. So what we chose to do for our customers is infuse the AI into the products with how the customers use it today. So that same UI, UX, and that's important because AI is a non-deterministic system. And if I infuse it into the existing products, UI, UX, and use cases, guess what? I'm now applying UI and AI at the lowest level of the data and use case. That means it's got more accountability and less hallucinations.

41:16Bill Conner:Really, really, really important. No one in our space is doing that. What it means for the user, though, is now they can code in low code or they can use AI interchangeably. It's just a click, go back and forth. Now, if you're a line of business, what's been most interesting about building applications with it is, you know, you still needed 90 days of training and probably 90 days to code an application. It could be less. It could be more. Guess what? AI reduces that by orders of magnitude. But how did you used to build an app? You used to build an app by someone in the business that knew what the hell they were doing would go sit down with ISIT, tell them what they want.

42:03Bill Conner:He would write it down. Then he would sit down with coders to go code it. You got to have people. You got to have resources. You got to have time and you got to be able to get picked in that priority against resources of money and people to do that. Now, they don't have to do that at all. What we found in all the betas working with our customers is because you can do it as a novice or an expert in our system, that most of those people were truly experts. That's why they were telling others what to go code. And instead of telling the person, they're just typing it in a prompt or saying it in natural language to the AI.

42:45Bill Conner:And it's coding it for them. And now they can build a prototype. And guess what? Because it records all that stuff. IS and IT can look at it and go, oh, I've got all the security, the privacy, it's timestamped, it's digitally signed. So all the documentation, all the stuff that used to be a burden, it bridges the world. So that's the difference that we're approaching it. And then we're trying to take, because I'm from Arkansas and we were cobbler's kids, you know, we're trying to use that technology in. So, you know, we just were in London announcing our Genic technology about a month and a half ago, I think, Paul, keep me honest.

43:25Bill Conner:And, you know, we were putting those agents in our company to do for us what they're going to do that we're now putting on our marketplace to do to others or for others. So it's really how you think through the disruption and the enablement. What's so cool about that, it doesn't change what they do today. It just changes how they can do it. So you can go at your own speed. If you want to go faster, lean in, go. And by the way, if you get stuck, you can go back to what you were doing before and get around it. So I just I think it's really to the tech people listening to this, think through how you introduce it on the business side.

44:12Bill Conner:If you're pondering AI, think of what AI is going to do for you. What do you want it to do for you? Think through that, because that's why projects are founded. If you think of it as just an LLM and efficiency to cut resource out, that's what business outcomes do you think it can help you solve? Is it a resource issue? Is it a speed issue? Is it a money issue? Is it a process issue? That's how we tend to apply it. And I think that's true at Jitterbit. I think it's true with our customers and partners, and I think it's true for anyone that's wanting to look at this disruptive technology or enablement.

44:55Bill Conner:You've got to think through it before you just throw it out. You mentioned earlier on that you haven't done everything right in your career. There's been the odd failure. Looking back, is there anything that sort of stands out to you that you might have done differently in your tech journey so far? There's always a beta in your video repertoire, right? That VHS took it over. Beta was better technology, but didn't make it right. That was kind of my silent circle experience. After Entrust, I took my year off. Really loved what silent circle was doing. It had ephemeral certificates that, you know, around encryption.

45:34Bill Conner:So ephemeral certificates are a fancy word per se, and taking ambient noise and a bunch of random stuff and creating encryption out of that. And they use the current technology use it's most known for now is WhatsApp. This science circle came out with that capability about when WhatsApp did, but we were trying to move, I thought we would move that from a consumer WhatsApp piece to an enterprise grade. So business could use encrypted texts and we had something called a black phone. It was the first encrypted phone because it basically took the Android system, operating system, and we rewrote it for privacy.

46:24Bill Conner:So if you're on an Android or an Apple today, your privacy settings are frankly junior compared to it. Most people don't use them, and if they do, they don't know what they're using, and they're really not fine-grained control. So the Black Phone was the first phone that was built with security and privacy in mind on a modified Android platform. It's in the Smithsonian today. I can go see my mistake. So anyway, I'll just leave it there. The problem was it was a great idea. It was great capability. It just didn't have enough money. It was underfunded and hard enough, unique enough, that it just didn't make it.

47:24What does the future hold? Let's look into our crystal ball. Where do you think AI is headed? not for the pioneers and these multi-billion play LLMs and those lucky enough to sign on, but for the rest of us in the tech industry, how do you see it all developing?

47:40Bill Conner:I think for the next five years, it's going to be pioneering. And I think the ones that are going to succeed are either on the edge, pushing the frontier on the tools and the capabilities and embedding it into their current products. And then I think five to 10 years is a different life cycle. This is, I mean, we talked about Moore's Law earlier, right? I just, the life cycle, and you've heard me talk about it all, But, you know, when we built our first app builder AI integration, right, with our low code and introduced it in London, by the time we'd come back to London six, five months later, it had already been ripped out and replaced again.

48:37Bill Conner:So, you know, I'm used to pretty fast life cycles in software where, you know, it's 12 to 24 months. Microsoft is, you know, Satya is saying it's six months. I will tell you it might be six months at Microsoft scale. I'll tell you it's a three month operating scale on some of these AI capabilities. And we're in the early piece of that innovation. So I just, I, you know, I think the next five years are going to be innovating heavily. And the people that take those innovations and embed them, knowing it might not be for a very long time because the capability is changing, you've got to be built for that.

49:25Bill Conner:But I think that's a value proposition, too, because I tell customers and partners this. If you think your company is going to be able to keep up with the AI technology and speed and lifecycle, you're not. Unless you're a very big company. You're going to have to rely on your vendors to embed that. And you then to add AI to your process or tools to work with it. So think of layered AI as the way, as a business should be thinking of it, not that you're going to control the whole AI stack, because if you try to build it all the way, you'll never get there. That's so interesting because for several years now, and you see it hard in cyber especially, the mantra is lose the vendors, consolidate, simplify your tech stack.

50:21And what you're saying is forget it, pipe dream.

50:24Bill Conner:I do think you will not rely on just one. I mean, we introduced layered AI. The first layer is our infused AI. The second layer is the agenda that rides on top of it, right? And then the third is what other AI you build into it, whether you use Copilot or other things in your enterprise that are part of the other pieces. I think that part layered is going to be similar to security because the further AI gets away from the source data, the more the hallucinations, because it's got to make assumptions. That's why this approach we took at Jitterbick is so important. Because we built it off the 20 years of machine learning and data and use cases, that AI is picking that up right from the source and the data and the use cases we built over time and adding to it.

51:21Bill Conner:And then I can look across those different products and data silos that we've now integrated into our platform and do another layer that is more accountable because it's closer to it. So the next layer AI is much more effective and trustworthy and accountable for its outcome. So by the time I get to Eugenic, it's really effective. It's really accountable. And you're not worried about the privacy and security because it's nested, it's layered, and it's linked. But if you just go build AI at the top of that stack and think it's going to go down and touch 30 different data silos, you're going to have some wild hallucinations in your dreams.

52:08Within that very, very grounded view of how AI can develop in its layers and so on, is there anything that particularly excites you about this journey that you think, wow, we are going to be able to do that if we get this right moving forward?

52:24Bill Conner:You know, that's an interesting question, John. To me, it reminds me of two big changes. The IP stack, because data is just, you know, it's going to change the world because you're going to have interconnectivity where we didn't. So it's going to just power. And then the security piece. I think AI is equal to both of those plus then some. And to me, that's why, you know, being aware of it is one thing, understanding it's even more important. And I think just like we learned with dimming with quality, you know, you got to learn the lexicon. You got to you've got to spend time with it because, you know, I can tell you we've done the surveys.

53:12Bill Conner:The next generation expects it. They're using it. They're playing with it. They're using it in their life. They're going to expect it in the world. And, you know, I'm not the young guy, but I'm a technologist at heart and a marketeer, I guess, too, clearly. But you have got to spend the time in your business figuring out how to incorporate and where to incorporate it and why.

53:45You know what? This really grinds my gears. I just think, is there anything in particular that frustrates you about the current tech scene?

53:56Bill Conner:I mean, the numbers are staggering being thrown around right now. I mean, money abounds, unlimited. But I think that's also because of what we talked about around sovereignty. A few people get it. They really get it deeply at country state level, our nation state level, and at business levels. And even in private equity, right? So I think the stakes are extremely high. Are they overflated and hyped? Probably, ultimately, yes. But it's the fear of missing out. It's hard to say. History will judge the bets. I was with a company that no longer exists, that spent$9 billion on IP. That was a good bet.

54:55Bill Conner:But there were a lot of other bets they made that didn't pan out, right? That cost them stuff. So there will be bets that are made and cashed in, and there's going to be a lot of bets that are not cashed in. As I used to say, in the VC world, one in 10 is all you're looking for. Now they're like three in 10. But there are a lot of big checks and there's a lot of people with the knowledge making a lot of money. But just because they have it right in one environment doesn't mean it's going to work in yet another environment. Everything's not portable, even in AI.

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