CIO Exchange Podcast

Progress in AI technology has moved faster than our ability to leverage it for the many ways in which it can create value. In this episode, Yadin looks back on the past CIO Exchange episodes focused on AI, and shares a special announcement. 

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Timestamps:

(01:04) Paul Roetzer

(01:50) Trevor Schulze

(03:03) Tim Crawford

(03:51) Peter Shen 

(04:30) Jeff Boudier 

(05:17) Suhail Nimji 

(06:07) Missy Young 

(07:19) Srini Koushik

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Yadin Porter de León on LinkedIn

CIO Exchange on X
Yadin Porter de León on X

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How can companies move fast, securely? In this episode, Yadin sits down with Laura Bell Main, CEO of SafeStack and co-author of the book Security for Everyone, to discuss securing organizations of all sizes, navigating security conversations when selling to large enterprises, and some common missteps with security and AI. Laura dives into practical tips for both growing a company and prioritizing security.

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“We need to remember that security is the oldest problem there is, so it isn't something you grow into. It isn't something that suddenly appears one Tuesday morning and you're like, oh, right, security matters now.”

“This is how your company is seen in the world. It's a bit crass to say security can help you sell, but it really kind of can.”

“We're never going to win. We just have to give up on that entirely. There is no 100 percent secure, there's no done. That's okay, that's cool.”

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Timestamps:

(01:16) How smaller organizations can become secure

(05:21) Security can help you sell 

(06:05) Communicating security measures when pitching

(08:54) Security and AI tools

(11:01) Putting data in LLMs

(17:24) AI explainability requirements in the EU

(26:37) Understanding ROI in cybersecurity

(32:40) The role of dopamine in cybersecurity

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Laura Bell Main on LinkedIn

CIO Exchange on X
Yadin Porter de León on X

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VC Investor Yon Hardisty, Founder of Healthtek Incorporated, joins Yadin on the podcast to share his advice for CIOs and his perspectives on long-term investing. They discuss navigating board and executive staff conversations. They also dive into lessons from the gaming industry that can help improve preventative healthcare, and vice versa

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“The thing that I would do is as a CIO, I would let the board members know that I know who their customer is as well as they do. And what I bring to the table is I also know technology better than they do.”

“It's not about the technology. It's about the human.”

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Timestamps:

(01:00) Yon’s approach to long-term investing 

(07:41) Managing shareholder value and short-term pressure 

(12:49) The connection between games and healthcare

(15:29) How did Yon introduce game concepts to healthcare?

(18:45) Guiding the board towards long-term investments 

(22:08) How are tech trends changing the way people invest? 

(27:29) Advice to a CIO pitching to a C-level executive

(28:28) Advice to CIOs for conversations with the board and executive staff

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Yon Hardisty on LinkedIn

CIO Exchange on Twitter

Yadin Porter de León on Twitter

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Are CIOs prepared for the space age? In this episode, Yadin sits down with Elizebeth Varghese, Partner / Principal, Space Economy Acceleration Leader at Deloitte and the author of Stellar Singularity: Navigating the Spacefaring Economy. They discuss the impact that space technologies have on terrestrial companies and why every company will become a space company. They dive into the democratization of space and advice for CIOs.

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“The democratization of space is here.”

“The boundaries of technology and space and non-tech space are blurring. Whether it's telephone services or download speeds, latency of data computing, launch vehicles, infrastructure, data analytics, everything is starting to have a component of space tech in it.”

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Timestamps:

(01:16) What will the space age look like? 

(03:35) How space technology transforms businesses

(07:32) When are spaceports coming? 

(08:34) The democratization of space 

(10:02) The four value streams of space exploration 

(13:51) Are enough CIOs focused on the space economy? 

(15:41) Everyday things that stem from space tech 

(17:18) Challenges in space that mirror terrestrial challenges 

(22:44) Advice for CIOs talking to the board about space 

(26:48) Inspiration from space drives innovation 

(30:48) Choosing space technologies 

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Elizebeth Varghese on LinkedIn

CIO Exchange on Twitter

Yadin Porter de León on Twitter

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hat does it mean to be a truly sustainable business? What factors should be included in the definition of 'sustainability'? In this episode, Yadin sits down with Srini Koushik, President of Technology, Sustainability, and AI at Rackspace. The two discuss the 'Three E’s' of sustainability that should be top of mind for tech leaders and delve into examples of how this framework applies to recent technologies. They specifically dissect the sustainable use of AI and explore the various considerations regarding how to employ it."
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“As technologists, we live and operate in an environment that has the ability to impact this in a meaningful way. How you choose the technologies you use, how you consume it, how do you kind of make it available to a broader subset of people so that they can enjoy the benefits that technology brings, those are all things under our control.”

“As technology leaders, we're going to have to be a lot more conscious about the decisions we make as to where you use technology and how you do that. I think the sustainability framework we've been talking about gives you a much better, it's not that you're not going to make mistakes, but, it will be, it'll kind of weed out some of the really bad ideas very quickly”.

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Timestamps:

(00:50) Sustainability beyond the “green aspect” 

(02:01) The three “E’s” of sustainability 

(04:29) Applying the three E’s to AI 

(06:46) Ethical and “green” use of AI 

(09:40) AI to augment humans 

(18:00) The evolution of the definition of sustainability 

(23:07) The progression of technology and human knowledge 

(27:55) We broke it, and we can fix it 

(31:32) Will AI reach everyone equally? 

(33:02) Call to action for technology leaders

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Srini Koushik on LinkedIn

CIO Exchange on Twitter
Yadin Porter de León on Twitter

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Switch is an innovator in the data center industry, providing services that are 100 percent renewable with a perfect uptime record. In this episode, Yadin sits down with Switch’s CIO, Missy Young, to discuss how Switch’s sustainability practices trickle down and benefit their customers' ESG efforts, as well as their bottom line, and how AI is impacting the data center capacity across the industry. They delve into examples of how Switch partners with large companies and why so many digital transformations are failing within enterprises. 

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“A lot of people think it costs you way more to go green. No, not necessarily. It's not true. It depends on how you do it. But when you have a middleman who is buying the energy for you and then marking it up 80 percent and selling it to you, then yes, it's going to cost more. But if you can buy direct, you're going to get a much better bang for your buck.”

“When C-level executives want to do digital transformation, it is a necessity that they have buy-in from the team. It is a necessity that they figure out, am I making sure that these employees don't feel fear because of this change? Am I making sure that they still feel valued? Am I making sure that I'm assigning the right tasks to the right people? Am I sure that they're not so afraid of the complexity of this change that they're not even going to do it?”

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Timestamps:

(01:31) The scale of Switch’s services

(02:17) Why people aren’t running their own data centers

(04:27) The value beyond a perfect uptime record 

(05:21) How Switch formed their buying cooperative 

(08:56) 100 percent renewable data centers 

(11:38) Becoming net water positive 

(12:38) How this supports customer ESG initiatives 

(13:45) The "AI gold rush" and lack of data center capacity 

(17:22) How Switch partners with companies / FedEx case study 

(19:48) Why are transformations failing? 

(25:00) What Missy sees happening next 

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Missy Young on LinkedIn

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Yadin Porter de León on X

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Is implementing generative AI different from implementing other tools? Should CIOs build or buy, and how should they choose their AI partners? IIn this episode, Yadin sits down with Suhail Nimji, VP/Head of Business Development, Corporate Development, and Partnerships at Jasper, to discuss what he is seeing and hearing in the market. They dive into the change management differences with AI, as well as the questions CIOs should ask as they build AI partnerships.

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“This is a journey, not a sort of, hey, we've implemented this thing and let's go. And so when I talk to CIOs about the landscape, it's more so who can you partner with on this journey? And I think that's the most important thing to think about. Because it will be iterative.”

“The CIO's job is to be thinking about the next frontier constantly while having one eye on the present and one eye on the future. And to think that this is like a net new sort of revelation for them would be remiss. Their entire job with their leadership is to think about, how are we implementing the best technology for our customers, for our employees? How do we give the best experience? Generative is just another sort of like, oh, look, there's another tool that we should go evaluate.”

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Timestamps:

(01:15) What is the current conversation about generative AI? 

(02:30) What is different about the AI conversation now? 

(07:34) Is upskilling and reskilling a big part of the conversation?

(09:32) AI creates workflow change, more than a technical one 

(12:22) Deciding who to partner with

(15:05) Trust in AI partnerships 

(16:20) Questions tech leaders should ask as they choose AI partners 

(21:44) Data security and privacy 

(24:38) Is this different than other tools? 

(27:27) Build versus buy 

(29:14) Are there unique hurtles when rolling out AI solutions?

(30:47) Change management 

(33:54) Suhail’s advice for CIOs

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Suhail Nimji on LinkedIn

CIO Exchange on X

Yadin Porter de León on X

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Incidents like the Log4j incident and new governmental regulations have forced tech leaders to examine the security of their software supply chain. Understanding the complexities of this is challenging; how can CIOs determine their exposure and prioritize their vulnerabilities? In this conversation, Yadin sits down with Chip Childers, VP Security, Compliance, Open-Source & Privacy Engineering & Chief Open Source Officer at VMware and Jim Mercer, Research Vice President - DevOps & DevSecOps at IDC, to discuss the software supply chain and how CIOs should think about it, in depth. They look at how we became so reliant on the open-source community and the impact of generative AI.

“When you talk about the idea of having to have development resources to do patching, it's those transitive dependencies, honestly, that you may not be able to patch because you're relying on other people's work. That's why understanding this complexity really matters.” - Chip 

“I don't think a lot of organizations realize how dependent they are on this open source community as we've started to kind of grow out, develop applications and rely so heavily on open source.”- Jim

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Timestamps:

(01:15) Why are we concerned about the software supply chain?

(05:25) Building complex systems on top of other complex systems

(08:15) Realizations from the Log4j incident 

(11:22) Resulting shifts from new compliance and regulations

(16:21) Creative chaos in the software industry 

(18:48) Reliance on the open-source community 

(19:23) How can you identify where code is coming from?

(20:17) Prioritizing vulnerabilities 

(23:08) The snowball effect in the supply chain

(25:00) How do you understand your exposure?

(33:15) The impact of generative AI 

(37:27) Where should CIOs start heading into board level conversations? 

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Chip Childers on LinkedIn

Jim Mercer on LinkedIn

CIO Exchange on Twitter

Yadin Porter de León on Twitter

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How would an artificial intelligence advise CIOs to think about AI? In this special episode of the CIO Exchange podcast, host Yadin Porter de León brings on an artificial intelligence as a guest for the first time, called Pi. Yadin asks Pi a variety of questions about itself and how it works, AI generally, and how CIOs and technology leaders should be thinking about generative AI. This conversation offers insight into how an AI-powered conversational tool engages and answers questions.

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“Every conversation I have helps me become a better conversationalist, and I can also apply what I've learned in one conversation to new conversations, like the one we're having right now.”

“I would encourage technology leaders to be optimistic about the future of AI. It has the potential to be a force for good in the world, and I hope that we can all work together to make sure that happens.”

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Timestamps:

(01:51) Pi’s voice and gender 

(02:26) How does Pi work? 

(03:14) Digging deeper into the technology 

(03:36) How Pi learns 

(06:02) How Pi’s conversational skills developed

(07:00) What does Pi think is top of mind for CIOs? 

(08:23) Pi’s advice for CIOs who want to engage with generative AI

(09:03) Concerns around data privacy

(09:20) Influencing versus manipulating

(10:07) Pi and thinking, humor, and empathy

(12:04) Is AI being hacked a concern? 

(12:39) Can Pi explain why AI poses little risk? 

(13:50) What does Pi think about the humans who trained it? 

(15:06) How should CIOs engage with AI in ways they aren’t thinking about? 

(16:18) Pi’s final thoughts for technology leaders

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Link to Pi

CIO Exchange on Twitter

Yadin Porter de León on Twitter

What mindset shift should CIOs and CTOs make in order to succeed in an AI-driven world? How can they take control of their destinies and future proof to ensure responsible AI use in their organization? In this episode, Yadin sits down with Jeff Boudier, who is responsible for Product and Growth at Hugging Face, to discuss in depth. They cover using a principles-first approach, teaching a machine to be friendly, and increases in productivity. 

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“AI is becoming the default way to build technology and most technology is going to be running some machine learning models in the background. Those models are going to be running everywhere from cloud to data center all the way to your pocket.”

“At the end of the day, what I'm really looking forward to is for every single company in the world to be able to build and own their own models.”

“Open models, open datasets and open source AI are really the only way forward for enterprises. If they want to be future-proof,  in terms of auditability, in terms of regulation, in terms of compliance, then it's about being in control of your own destiny, right? Because AI is so key to everything you're going to be offering to customers.”

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Timestamps:

(01:46) The start of Hugging Face seven years ago 

(02:41) What was machine learning like at that time?

(03:49) Teaching a machine to be friendly 

(04:46) The shift that resulted from the seminal paper “Attention Is All You Need”

(06:20) The shift from writing an application to finding a model

(07:18) The increase in productivity from machine learning 

(08:21) Ethical use of AI 

(09:55) Are enterprises ready to think through complex AI questions?

(11:08) How CTOs are moving to a “model mindset”

(12:20) Evaluating models 

(14:40) Offering end-to-end solutions 

(16:13) Using a first principles approach

 (20:49) Where will AI run? 

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Jeff Boudier on LinkedIn

CIO Exchange on Twitter

Yadin Porter de León on Twitter

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