It's theCube!

Covering VMworld 2018.

Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem partners.

>> Welcome back everyone, it's theCube's live coverage

in Las Vegas for VMworld 2018, it's theCube.

We got two sets, 24 interviews per day, 94 interviews total.

Next three days, we're in day two of three days coverage.

It's our ninth year of covering VMworld.

It's been great.

I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante, next guest,

Cube alumni, number one in the leading boards right now,

Sanjay Poonen did a great job today on stage,

keynote COO for VMware.

Great to have you back.

Thanks for coming on.

>> John and Dave, you're always so kind to me,

but I didn't realize you've been doing this nine years.

>> This is our ninth year.

>> That's half the life of VMware, awesome.

Unreal.

Congratulations.

>> We know all the stories, all the hidden, nevermind,

let's talk about your special day today.

You had a really, so far, an amazing day,

you were headlining the key note with a very special guest,

and you did a great job.

I want you to tell the story, who was on,

what was the story about, how did this come about?

Tech for good, a big theme in this conference has really

been getting a lot of praise and a lot of great feedback.

Take us through what happened today.

>> Well listen, I think what we've been trying to do

at VMware is really elevate our story and our vision.

Elevate our partnerships,

you've covered a lot of the narrative

of what we've done with Andy Jessie.

We felt this year, we usually have two 90 minute sessions,

Day One, Day Two, and it's filled with content.

We're technical company, product.

We figured why don't we take 45 minutes

out of the 180 minutes total and inspire people.

With somebody who's had an impact on the world.

And when we brainstormed, we had a lot of names suggested,

I think there was a list of 10 or 15 and Malala stood out,

she never spoke at a tech conference before.

I loved her story, and we're all about education.

The roots of VMware were at Stamford Campus.

Diane Greene, and all of that story.

You think about 130 million girls who don't go to school.

We want to see more diversity in inclusion,

and she'd never spoken so I was like, you know what,

usually you go to these tech conferences and you've

heard somebody who's spoken before.

I'm like, lets invite her and see if she would come

for the first time, and we didn't think she would.

And we were able to score that, and I was still

a little skeptical 'cause you never know

is it going to work out or not.

So thank you for saying it worked, I think we got a lot

of good feedback. >> Well, in your first line,

she was so endearing.

You asked her what you thought a tech conference,

you said too many acronyms.

She just cracked the place up immediately.

>> And then you heard my response, right?

If somebody tells me like that, you tell VMotion wrong

she looked at me what?

>> Tell them about our story, real quick, our story

I want to ask you a point in question.

Her story, why her, and what motivated you to get her?

>> Those stories, for any of you viewers, you should read

the book "I'm Malala" but I'll give you the short

version of the story.

She was a nine year old in the Pashtun Area

of the Swat Valley in Pakistan,

and the Taliban setted a edict that girls

could not go to school.

Your rightful place was whatever, stay at home

and become a mom with babies or whatever have you.

You cannot go to school.

And her father ran a school, Moster Yousafzai,

wonderful man himself, an educator, a grandfather,

and says know what, we're going to send you to school.

Violating this order, and they gave a warning after warning

and finally someone shot her in 2012, almost killed her.

The bullet kind of came to her head, went down,

and miraculously she escaped.

Got on a sort of a hospital on a plane, was flown

to London, and the world if you remember 2012,

the world was following the story.

She comes out of this and she's unscathed.

She looks normal, she has a little bit of a

thing on the right side of her face

but her brains normal, everything's normal.

Two years later she wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

Has started the Malala Fund,

and she is a force of nature, an amazing person.

Tim Cook has been doing a lot with her

in the Malala Fund.

I think that actually caught my attention when

Tim Cook was working with her, and you know

whatever Apple does often gets a little bit of attention.

>> Well great job selecting her.

How's that relevant to what you guys are doing now,

because you guys had a main theme Tech for Good?

Why now, why VMware?

A lot of people are looking at this, inspired by it.

>> There are milestones in companies histories.

We're at our 20 year birthday, and I'm sure at

people's birthday they want to do big things, right?

20, 30, 40, 50, these decades are big ones and

we thought, lets make this year a year to remember

in various things we do.

We had a 20 year anniversary celebration on campus,

we invited Diane Greene back.

It was a beautiful moment internally at Vmware during

one of our employee meetings.

It was a private moment, but just with her to thank her.

And man, there were people emotional almost in tears

saying thank you for starting this company.

A way to give back to us, same way here.

What better way to talk about the impact we're having

in the community than have someone

who is of this reputation.

>> Well we're behind your mission 100%, anything you need.

We loved the message, Tech for Good, people want to work

for a mission driven company.

People want to buy >> We hope so.

>> from mission driven companies, that stated clear

and the leadership you guys are providing is phenomenal.

>> We had some rankings that came out around the same time.

Fortune ranked companies who are changing the world,

and VMware was ranked 17th overall, of all companies

in the world and number one in the software category.

So when you're trying to change the world, hopefully as you

pointed out it's also an attractor of talent.

You want to come here, and maybe even attractor

of customers and partners.

>> You know the other take-away was from the key note was

how many Cricket fans there are in the VMworld Community.

Of course we have a lot of folks from India, in our world

but who's your favorite Cricketer?

Was it Sachin Tendulkar?

(laughs)

>> Clearly you're reading off your notes Dave!

>> Our Sonya's like our, >> Dead giveaway!

>> Our Sonya's like our Cricket Geek and she's like,

ask him about Sachin, no who's your favorite Cricketer,

she wants to know.

>> Sachin Tendulkar's way up there, Shayuda Free,

the person she likes from Pakistan.

I grew up playing cricket, listen I love all sports

now that I'm here in this country I love football,

I love basketball, I like baseball.

So I'll watch all of them, but you know you kind of have

those childhood memories. >> Sure

>> And the childhood memories were like she talk about,

India, Pakistan games.

I mean this was like, L.A. Dodgers playing Giants or

Red Socks, Yankee's, or Dallas Cowboys and the 49ers,

or in Germany playing England or Brazil in the World Cup.

Whatever your favorite country or team rivalry is,

India Pakistan was all there more, but imagine

like a billion people watching it.

>> Yeah, well it was a nice touch on stage, and I'd say

Ted Williams is my favorite cricketer,

oh he plays baseball, he's a Red Sock's Player.

Alright Sanjay, just cause your in the hot seat,