Our second annual GeekWire Cloud Tech Summit brought together some of the most interesting people in cloud computing for a full day of talks, interviews, and presentations that painted a clearer picture of this fast-changing world.
Over 600 people joined us Wednesday at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue a little more than a year after our first Cloud Tech Summit to hear from speakers at top cloud companies like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google, as well as several Seattle-area startups that are defining the next generation of the technology and tools that will be used to build the tech products and companies of the future.
Had some amazing conversations about #serveless, dev tools and open source with @mweagle @lindydonna @txase at Geekwire Summit. Excited to see the passion & energy about serverless! #GWCloudTech
— Sanath Kumar Ramesh (@sanathkr_) June 28, 2018
Microsoft introduces new data and edge-computing services for Azure customers at the GeekWire Cloud Tech Summit
The day kicked off with Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich announcing several new features for edge computing and data storage in the cloud. He also shared his view of Microsoft’s recent GitHub acquisition, and explained why the promise of the blockchain is starting to become real.
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Carlos Guestrin of Apple and the University of Washington followed with an interesting and inspiring talk on the role machine learning should play in tech products and society, warning aspiring machine-learning users to be careful about the data they use to inform their systems.
David vs. Goliath in the cloud: Do investors see an opening for startups to take on AWS and Azure?
If you haven’t already, go contribute your identity to the intersectionality board#GWCloudTech #DiversityandInclusion #WomeninTech #WomenInSTEM pic.twitter.com/eWLW86EzxI
— Laura Szkolar Sienkiewicz (@dr_doodles) June 27, 2018
Our business track focused on the money-making opportunities in the cloud, as venture capitalists identified the areas that they’re betting will produce big returns.
“If we found the right entrepreneur, who came to us and said ‘we are going to go start something that is going to take on AWS’ … If they have the right approach, absolutely,” said Chris Kelly, principal of DFJ.
Why some CIOs are walking, not running, to the cloud
The CIO panel provided the reality check, reminding everyone in attendance that there are lots of companies that need to move slowly into the cloud and modern software development practices to avoid breaking their businesses. And three Seattle-area CEOs — Geeman Yip of BitTitan, Michel Feaster of Usermind, and Joe Duffy of Pulumi — shared their view of the modern cloud and what it takes to build a business amid some of the tech industry’s biggest companies.
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“The idea that there is going to be one monolithic AWS or Azure — no way,” Feaster said. “Abstraction will emerge, Kubernetes, multicloud, containers, that’s where value moves. To me it’s just the same ideas being repeated.”
Fun fact about @GeemanYip.
The man never passes up a photo booth opportunity. #GWCloudTech pic.twitter.com/Ak11shW9PH
— Grady Gausman (@GradyGausman) June 27, 2018
Upstairs, tech tracks continued throughout the day on artificial intelligence and machine learning, serverless computing, DevOps, SaaS, and hybrid cloud.
A highlight of the event was the lunch session hosted by Stripe that focused on “the engineer’s path” and the importance of diversity and inclusion in any organization.
“Make sure your manager always have your back. If that’s not the case, get a new team” ????? @leftoblique #GWCloudTech pic.twitter.com/eup1LH3hIl
— Jennifer Arlem Molina (@arlemJM) June 27, 2018
Amazon Web Services’ Peter DeSantis, vice president of global infrastructure and customer support, closed out the event discussing some of the recent advances the cloud leader has made in developing custom silicon for evolving cloud workloads.
It was also fun welcoming back Guillaume Wiatr, who sketched drawings inspired by on-stage interviews and presentations.
Check out some candid shots from the photo booth here:
A big thanks to the presenting sponsor of the 2018 GeekWire Cloud Tech Summit: Salesforce.
Also, thanks to gold sponsors: OfferUp, Stripe, Expedia, F5, Joyent, University of Washington Professional & Continuing Education and Skytap.
And to our silver, supporting and exhibitor sponsors: City of Bellevue, Moz, Acumatica, Colocation Northwest, Avalara, First Tech Federal Credit Union, Bellevue College, Imperva, Foster School of Business, Pluralsight, Procogia, Acute Angle, AWS and Qumulo.
We’ll see you all at our next event, the GeekWire Summit, Oct. 1-3, at the Sheraton Seattle.
