In this interview, Peter High and Stephen Gillett discuss World Class IT Principle One, People, Principle Two, Infrastructure, and Principle Four, IT and Business Partnership. Among the other topics they discuss include:

Stephen’s transition from Symantec to Google/Alphabet, including how his original role as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at GV led to his work with their moonshot factory, X

X’s process for identifying which moonshots to pursue, which include (1) addressing a huge problem, (2) employing a radical solution, and (3) using relatively feasible technology

Stephen’s ambition to work on an ambitious enterprise security project, and how that led to a cybersecurity project within X that resulted in Chronicle

A high level overview of Chronicle, which will offer an intelligence and analytics platform to help enterprises manage their own security-related data, and a malware intelligence service

The benefits of being an Alphabet company, including the ability to leverage Google’s infrastructure and machine learning expertise, their ability to attract talent, and the credibility they have with potential customers

Stephen’s diverse career and how that prepared him to be a CEO, such as honing the ability to see things from a holistic perspective, which is one of the advantages IT has over many other functions within an organization

Stephen’s perspective on digital, having been one of the first executive to carry the digital title, such as how digital can be applied to internal operations as well as to the customer experience