James D. Wilton (@jamesdwilton, Managing Director, @Monevat) talks about pricing strategies for SaaS products and organizations as well as his new book, Capturing Value: The Definitive Guide to Transforming SaaS Pricing and Unshackling Growth

SHOW: 889

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #891 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

• Monevate (homepage)
• Capturing Value: The Definitive Guide to Transforming SaaS Pricing and Unshackling Growth (James Wilton new book)

Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. Tell us about your background…

Topic 2 - Five evolving pricing models today’s investors and VCs should be aware of

Topic 3 - How to eliminate revenue losses caused by misaligned pricing or unnecessary discounts

Topic 4 - Exploring the science and discipline behind pricing - particularly for ventures with subscription offerings

Topic 5 - The do's and dont's when migrating your current customers to new pricing strategies

Topic 6 - How AI Is redefining SaaS pricing models

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

In the 2010s, many CIOs adopted a Cloud-First strategy for building their digital services and skills. So how would a CIO build an AI-First strategy in today’s world?

SHOW: 890

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #890 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

• Capture low-hanging AI fruit with Agents
• How to make your product idea go viral in your company

WHAT CONSIDERATIONS SHOULD GO INTO AN AI-FIRST STRATEGY

• 3-month, 6-month, 12-month projects
• What are the AI possibilities?
• AI Center of Sharing Experiences
• Base Models vs. Trained/Aligned Models
• Augment vs. Replacement (or AI Beginning) activities
• Vendor offering vs. Open Source evolution
• Cost Modeling and Cost Monitoring
• The Ecosystem (of the large LLMs) is questionable - will they be viable in 1-2yrs?
• Security policies - how broad, how strict, how to evaluate? 
• Data scientists vs. non data scientists?

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• BlueSky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

Brian and Michael Cote (@cote, Co-Host @SoftwareDefinedTalk) talk about the ethics of using AI at for internal and external facing work.

SHOW: 889

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #889 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS" 

SHOW NOTES:

• Software Defined Talk (Eps.500)
• How do teachers know if students use AI for projects?
• Cote’s Newsletter (go subscribe!)
• How to play DnD with AI 

Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. Tell us about your background…

Topic 2 - What does your day-to-day use of information look like, and how do you translate that into things you create/publish?

Topic 3 - Where do today’s AI tools come into play for your work? What else would you like them to do?

Topic 4 - Why did you have concerns about the Ethics of using these tools, or the Ethics of the output of these tools? What’s the general rules or sentiment about using AI tools within your company (or people you know)?

Topic 5 - At what point do you think it’s your Ethics problem, and when/why should your company care?

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

Does your boss’ boss know what your group does? How far up the org chart is it before your group is unknown? Let’s look at ways that your group can make sure it has visibility up the ranks of your management team. 

SHOW: 888

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #888 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

• WordPress CEO doesn’t know what his Sustainability team does
• Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR CEO DOESN’T KNOW WHAT YOUR GROUP DOES?

• Elon Musk eliminated 80% of Twitter/X workforce
• CEOs/CFOs are starting to think about AI in terms of reduced workforce
• WFH/RTO policies will be an on-going issue for the next few years
• How does your group align to value-creation at the company?
• How does your group measure the value they bring to the company?
• How does your group measure the cost/ROI they bring to the company?
• How does your group communicate their value upward in the organization?
• How does your group communicate their value outward in the organization?
• How do your stakeholders (internal & external) talk about your group?
• Does your group complain too much? What is your annoyance factor?

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• BlueSky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

As we start in 2025, we wanted to offer advice on job searching and evaluating roles. The market and the interviewing process have shifted; what do you need to know in 2025 if you seek a new opportunity?

SHOW: 887

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #887 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

• Considerations when evaluating a startup vs. a more traditional role
• Red Flags
• Considering Burnout
• How has the macro environment changed funding and employment
• Networking
• Keeping a routine

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

As a new year is upon us, let's make a checklist of the most important areas to focus upon to make Q1 successful and set up the rest of 2025 for success. 

SHOW: 886

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #886 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

SOME TIPS, TRICKS, SUGGESTIONS AND REFLECTIONS AS WE BEGIN YET ANOTHER YEAR

• General Stuff - Get rid of clutter, set goals, 
• Health - Make it a daily priority (schedule it, between meetings, every little bit helps)
• Budgets - What can you do if they aren’t finalized?
• Skills - If you aren’t growing, you’re regressing. What are you going to focus on?
• Prioritization - Do you understand them in your company, your group, and you personally?
• Networking - Are you aligned to the power centers in your business?
• Justifications - Where are costs and ROI going to be the most scrutinized in your company? 
• Understand the Game - How is technology impacting your business/role? How is your industry changing?

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• BlueSky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

Jake Moshenko (@jacobmoshenko, CEO of @AuthZed) talks about the challenges of securing AI interactions, as well as authentication best-practices for AI Agents and RAG patterns.  

SHOW: 885

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #885 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS" 

SHOW NOTES:

• Authzed (homepage)
• SpiceDB - Authorization that scales (GitHub)
• Google’s Zanzibar (research paper)
• Annotating Zanzibar (by AuthZed)
• Authzed CEO discusses Auth for AI RAG and Agents (TheCUBE)

Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. Tell us about your background and why you decided to start AuthZed.

Topic 2 - AuthZed is based on technology from Google called Zanzibar. There’s an in-depth research paper, but give us some background on the types of problems it solves and why it was so appealing to you. 

Topic 3 - Authorization is used for every application, but let’s talk about it in the context of AI or AI Agents. This is still a fairly new concept, but what authorization-related challenges do you expect GenAI or AI agents to create for developers and operators?

Topic 4 - Is this space moving so fast that people already realize they’ll likely need something more modern, like Authzed, or are there mistakes they are making today that are going to cause serious red flags soon? 

Topic 5 - What is the typical path for companies or teams to adopt Authzed, and is it something that can start small and grow (or merge with other groups), or does it have to be centralized like at Google? 

Topic 6 - What are some of the more important areas that people building and growing AI systems that need authorization should be keeping an eye on? 

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

It’s that time of the year again. Brian and Aaron wrap of the year in Cloud and AI, and make predictions for 2025.

SHOW: 884

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #884 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

• Cloud + AI News of the Year 2024 (shows, summaries, links)

LINK TO TOPIC DETAILS

Predictions, or 2025 areas of focus?

Aaron

• 2025 will be the year of AI ROI, and Agentic AI will make this worse
• There will be at least one “SkyNet scare” of Agentic AI
• 2025 will also be the year of inference (see ROI)

Brian:

• Gov’t vs. AI (US Trump, EU, China)
• Emergence of an AI Agent stack or standard?
• Useful or killer AI apps? (new focus of Weekend Perspective)
• AI pricing evolves based on usage patterns or just need for revenues?

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

If AI is going to be the next big trend in tech and impact every aspect of society, how do you go about trying to evaluate where it is today and where it might be in a few years or a decade?

SHOW: 883

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #883 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

HOW MIGHT YOU CONSIDER THE BEGINNING OF A TECHNOLOGY MARKET SHIFT?

• What’s the landscape of players in the game?
• What are the potential moats? (technology, economics, people, political policies, geographic)
• What are the economics of the technology shift? Where will big changes happen? 
• What are the usage patterns? Are they well defined? 
• How long behind the consumer shifts will the enterprise shifts happen? 
• What behaviors will need to change (significantly) for this to have wide adoption?
• How might this impact my work, my family, my company, etc.?

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• BlueSky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

It’s that time of the year… Aaron and Brian answer emails and questions for the second half of the year.

SHOW: 882

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #882 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

Question 1 - There was a lot of talk about Broadcom’s changes to VMware at the beginning of the year, but not as much since then. What’s going on in the world of virtualization?

Question 2 - Both of you have talked about working remotely for quite a while. What’s your take on RTO mandates? Any suggestions for remote workers?

Question 3 - Have either of you found any valuable uses of AI in your day-to-day job?

Question 4 - Now that the US elections are over, how do you expect the US Gov’t to be involved with the tech industry (anti-trust, CHIPS ACT, AI regulation, etc..)

Question 5 - AI models and GPUs  seem to get all the attention in the news. Are there other areas of AI that you think are really important but aren’t getting much attention right now?

Question 6 - Are cloud skills still considered valuable? Do certifications matter anymore?

Question 7 - What’s going on in the open source communities like the CNCF?

Question 8 - What surprised you the most this year?

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod

In the late 70s and early 80s, a music revolution started because a bunch of talented musicians played on 100s of albums, behind the scenes. Would the AI startup community benefit from a similar infrastructure of experts?

SHOW: 881

SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #881 Transcript

SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 

CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw

CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"

SHOW NOTES:

• Yacht Rock Documentary (HBO Max - Trailer)

WHY DON’T WE HAVE EXPERTS BEHIND THE SCENES OF EVERY STARTUP?

• History of the interactions between bands like Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Kenny Loggins, Toto, Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald, etc..
• Why do VCs allow startups to hire their own back-office people? 
• Why aren’t there services that offer startup backend services, not just one off SaaS services?
• AI could be used to scale those services. 

FEEDBACK?

• Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
• Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
• BlueSky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
• Instagram: @cloudcastpod
• TikTok: @cloudcastpod