FinOps in Action

FIA - Jarred Clore
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Jarred Clore: [00:00:00] Optimization was, and I'd argue still is, um, it's supposed to be a concurrent task with innovation. It's not supposed to be an afterthought. there's FinOps in action and there's FinOps in action.

Intro: Welcome to FinOps in Action. I'm your host, Alon Arvatz. Each week I'll sit down with FinOps experts to explore the toughest challenges between FinOps and engineering. This show is brought to you by 0.5, empowering teams to optimize cloud costs with tip detection and remediation tools that drive action.

Alon Arvatz: Hello everyone and welcome to FinOps in Action and today I'm really, really excited to have a very special guest. Our guest today actually worked with multiple C-Suites, it's Fortune 500 companies and steered 300 million plus cloud programs. Until today, he still manage just one of the biggest cloud spends out there.

Fun fact, he was the [00:01:00] first hire of AWS for cloud cost optimization. So we have a real OG today here with us. I'm happy to welcome Cloud FinOps delivery leader at Cisco. Jarred Clore. Jarred, how are you doing today?

Jarred Clore: I am fantastic, Alon. Thanks for asking.

Alon Arvatz: That's great, and like we said, you're, you are a real og. You've been in this space for quite a while, so please share with us what is the one thing you got wrong when you started your FinOps career.

Jarred Clore: Yeah. Hey, sure. I appreciate that. Um, yeah, I am an og. I have the scars to prove it. Um, but let, let, let me, uh, uh, answer that question by giving a just a little bit more background about myself. Um, so I was sort of thrown into the deep end of, of, at the time it wasn't even called FinOps, it was just called cost optimization. Um, but it seems like Alon of practitioners are, uh, thrown into the deep end. But I started, um. As you mentioned, um, doing cost optimization at AWS as an employee, that was my first exposure. Um, I came from [00:02:00] a background in consulting, um, so it was natural for me to be very matter of fact with customers, and I had that consulting mindset. I mean. I'm going in, I am, I'm trying to save companies money, right? I'm, I'm trying to make the people I'm speaking to look good to their, uh, leadership, right? Um, but I'd often to be met with, um, or I'd often meet with customers who were very attrition risk. Um, they were hostile customers. Um, they were promised big savings by migrating the cloud. But they weren't really seeing it. They weren't seeing those savings. And some were just following trends of the time and were shocked at the sticker price. Um, I mean, this was a time when cloud was really, You know, just the, the hot thing to do it. It was really gaining traction. This is like, uh. 20 16, 20 17.

20 18, 20. Yeah. About 2016 and 2019 ish. Um, some had formal business cases that justified their migration, but there was just a gap that was on paper between [00:03:00] what was on paper and the reality of the situation. And so they moved to cloud with really good intentions. Um, but now they were in the hot seat. their finger at AWS they, they're saying, Hey, AWS lied to us. We're not saving money. heck, I remember being screamed at by one

Alon Arvatz: Wow.

Jarred Clore: the first time I think I almost cried on the job. Uh, it was pretty bad. Um, but as, uh, many already probably know this, um. didn't lie about the value of the cloud. Um, the customer's just familiar with on-prem spending patterns and behaviors, um, and they weren't, You know, familiar with how to optimize costs. So off I go onto a customer and I am, You know, preaching the gospel of what was just simply called cost optimization back then. Trying to calm them down, trying to turn, You know, bend that cost curve, and building them a plan, um, that was sustainable for, You know, cont to keep the cost not so scary. And then I would walk away hope for the best. [00:04:00] And hoping for the best was probably the best I ever got. I'd follow up with the customer, um, often in person, like I'd fly out to them. I would, You know, have the, the cost consultation. Initially I'd, I'd do a follow up, You know, 30, 60, 90 days later. It just depends on the complexity. And I'd spend hours training them and showing them potential savings. Um, and then I'd see little to no change, which in fact, sometimes I'd even actually see it even worse. the, the phrase I said often was, you could lead the horse to water, but you can't make it drink. And that was so true. Um, I could not believe the lack of change. so it took a quite a while for me to, to see that trend. And once I spotted it, it took even longer for me to really figure out that it was cultural. It was, it was something I wasn't familiar with. Um, and my consulting background, it was, we were hired to do a, like, to solve a problem and they were onboard because they paid a lot of money for us to solve a problem with this. [00:05:00] Cost consultation, if you will. Uh, that wasn't the case. They weren't paying, uh, for my help. They were just, I was just part of the package. I was there to help save them, um, from their own peril. Um, and I realized what was missing was. The executive sponsorship. Um, that was the, the, the big thing I could, You know, teach all the engineers how to do the right stuff, but I wasn't focusing on top down sponsorship.

They had, they knew there was a problem, but it wasn't, You know, something that was on their radar or mandated to them. This was a time when efficiency, uh, was stepping aside for innovation. So adopting this amazing new thing called cloud to remain competitive, spend, spend, spend, innovate. That was the idea.

Just spend, spend, spend, get on cloud. That's what, that's what all the cool kids are doing. That's how we remain competitive, uh, in our market. Um, they thought that was the path to innovation. And when I didn't have executive sponsorship to [00:06:00] innovate. Efficiently or to cost to optimize. I essentially built an optimization plan with the customer that was up.

When we get to it, we get to it kind of activity, and that was really challenging. They looked at it as a afterthought um. Optimization was, and I'd argue still is, um, it's supposed to be a concurrent task with innovation. It's not supposed to be an afterthought. Um, and kind of giving a long-winded answer right out the gate.

But I think this is really important because it really ties into some of the current trends we're seeing. If you wanna think of a more, You know, current context of, of this very problem, You know, re uh, showing itself Again, think about AI spending. Spend, spend, spend, innovate, then all of a sudden someone says, Hey, wait, what are we getting for all this spend? And it's deja vu for me. I'm kind of seeing those real big rock problems reinvent themselves, come back to me and say, Hey, You know, let's, let's find the business value. Let's get top down executive [00:07:00] sponsorship early so that we can make this a effort that we're tracking in real time and

Alon Arvatz: Yeah, no, that's awesome. And there is so much, uh, in there. And I'm still, I'm still stuck with this customer yelling at you. Oh my God, that's terrible. I can tell you I can't, I can't forget one call. I had been previous startup when I knew a customer is really mad at me, at us, and I remember like getting on this call, taking a deep breath and then going through it was terrible.

And he didn't yell at me. So I can just imagine how it was like. But I actually wanna go back to your experience of trying to drive action and drive change and seeing that it's unsuccessful. And I'm curious if that is what led you to move from a consultant point of view to a practitioner that actually drive change internally within the organization.

Jarred Clore: Yeah, uh, it's a good question. I, um, I kind of, I was the, uh, what's the expression? Those [00:08:00] who can't do teach. Um, I kind, I, I sort of felt that. Um, but it, but I knew I could do it. I had, um, encountered so many, um, common and niche scenarios. that I felt, You know, I really have something to contribute, um, to, um, uh, to the private industry. And so I wanted to go and be that guy. Um, and, and You know, really the proof was in the pudding. You know, there's, you can never, uh, under, you can never anticipate all of those challenges, but when you'd seen as many as I had seen, I felt very confident that I could hit the ground running. And so it was actually a really logical transition to, uh, You know, to especially to take that role at Cisco, um, because Cisco was my customer. Um, in, in, in my previous role. And so it was like, Hey, I already know Alon about the background of this customer. I see the challenges they're facing. I would love to help, You know, take, help them take [00:09:00] action further by really rolling up my sleeves and dedicating myself to that

effort.

Alon Arvatz: Yes, I hope Cisco weren't the ones yelling at you.

Jarred Clore: No, no, they, they certainly weren't. Um, I, would love to tell you, uh, which customer it was, but there's probably some kind of, uh. Disclosure problem plus, uh, I I don't, I don't

Alon Arvatz: Yes.

Jarred Clore: don't wanna get PTSD

just

thinking

Alon Arvatz: Yeah.

No need. No need. But sounds like, You know, you took it to the extreme, like from a consultant to going into probably one of the largest, uh, uh, scale cloud environments out there. How is it like driving FinOps in the scale of Cisco?

Jarred Clore: Oh, yeah. Uh, well, first of all, um, there's never, uh. think of a use case, there's probably a, uh, one I can find in in Cisco. It's kind of the culmination of all things I've seen. Um, and then, and then some. But overall it is a really good question because, um, I can kind of like walk [00:10:00] through where I entered the Cisco space versus, You know, what I know from the history. Um, when Cisco started this cloud journey, it was thought that every business unit would manage their cloud, uh, costs. I mean, this is a company of companies, so this is a very complex organization. Um, since no one knew the workloads in the business units better than the business units themselves, um, they were left unchecked and, um, unchallenged to optimize anything, uh, initially. Um, but eventually, You know, that hits, uh, a groundswell. And we realized that we needed to take a two-pronged approach. That top-down executive sponsorship that I had mentioned earlier, um, was definitely missing. And that wasn't just like an it, like a CFO or I'm sorry, A CIO, that was actually like leaders across all of the individual business units needed to get on board, um, because each of them controlled their own domain. Um, but then there was also the bottom up advocates that were [00:11:00] so important for us, um, because it was one of those things where they could evangelize their FinOps successes or, You know, sometimes their lessons learned. but they were able to really show, hey, You know, we didn't take this seriously. And now that we have. Look how we've cut our costs and, You know, no change of the business other than increased profitability. And that was like a, that, that those real stories that happened within Cisco or what, what or what kind of motivates other business units to go want to try to do the same. And so that kind of helped us evolve our hub and spoke model of centralized spin ops. Um, I sit in it, uh, which is focused on serving the business, and that's our goal. So while we provided the, the right information to the right people across, uh, across the business, uh, we, we also turned our attention to tasks that provided, You know, pan Cisco value across all of Cisco. And I think the best example of that is rate [00:12:00] optimization.

Um, that was a big one for us. Um, and at our spend volume, uh, and our scale in specific services, rate optimization has come. Probably to the forefront as being the largest savings potential

we have, and it's where I focused Alon of my time. And these were just topics that were just not thought of whenever you distributed out and have everyone manage things individually.

Alon Arvatz: Yeah. Interesting. And lately I saw a post on LinkedIn where he said that you first need to do usage optimization. When You know you're optimized, move to right optimization, I wonder what you think about it and if it's realistic in Cisco scale.

Jarred Clore: I mean, that's yes and no. Um, so on an individual. Um, business unit that might work. If you can get down to the workload level, that's even more attainable. But there's an opportunity cost to an action. And so I always say, You know, it's not an, and it's not an OR [00:13:00] conversation. It can be an and conversation. Um, you should be looking at optimizing your usage. While simultaneously working on rate optimization, it's just what parts of that does that mean? Uh, and what I mean by that is, You know, there are big rock items like working on your EDP or your PPA with your provider, your enterprise cloud agreement, whichever provider you have. there's that type of rate optimization, but there's also commitments. And that's probably where, You know, Alon of people are making, putting Alon of time and focus into, um, you shouldn't just be going and buying some gigantic commitment and calling it a day. Uh, what I would recommend people to be doing is working up on incremental commitment purchases to get to the watermark that they, you're comfortable with. While simultaneously working their way down on usage optimization and making sure that that becomes more efficient over time. And there will be, it's a bit of a balancing act, but it's, it's one where I think you'll find the [00:14:00] realistic, um, uh, savings watermark where they meet in the middle somewhere. Um, and you don't end up actually overcommitting and sinking your unit costs into a static

number.

Alon Arvatz: Yeah. And would you recommend question that I've been thinking about Alon lately, uh, would you recommend, uh, doing usage optimization? In a place where it won't impact the near term cost because of commitments that were already purchased, or you would say, Hey, no, You know what? Don't deal with that. When the commitment will be over, we can look at it again.

Jarred Clore: Uh, that's a great question, and this is probably, I don't think there's a wrong answer to this one, but I would say in my take, um, if it can be optimized, optimize it, because that will, if, if you have the cycles to do that and you are capable, go for it. If you've got other business value driving work that you can achieve in lieu of that. Go pursue that instead. Um, but the reason why I'm [00:15:00] always telling people optimize wherever you can is one, it's a cultural shift. And if the, that's kind of like a muscle that the more you, um, kind of hone in on, uh, and you, and you get that muscle memory, it'll stick so that when that contract or that commitment does, uh, uh, come time for renewal, You know, where you, where you really stand. but also because of the fact that, um. If it's not now, it's, it becomes a conversation of when, and I've seen folks where they, like, they, they have a big focus on, You know, optimizing their environment or security. Like there, there, there'll be a moment where they really, You know, build a campaign around something.

And if it doesn't land right, then it's, okay, well we moved on to something else. And so I'd, I definitely want to get that down to, uh, if there is no potential savings, still means, hey, we're operating more efficiently. Come that day also. can, um, lead to growth in other areas. It may not individually help the p and l of that specific business unit, by [00:16:00] being able to cut their costs, there might be some expansion or there might be a data center shutdown, or there might be an acquisition. There's always ways to increase the cost somewhere else, that often happens in a, in an enterprise environment.

Alon Arvatz: Yes, absolutely. I'm sure there is always opportunities to increase your cost, and I have to agree with you, and it goes back to what you said in the beginning where you saw companies not taking action and saying, Hey, in the end, if it's a matter of culture, so if it's a culture, it's a culture. So it's, it's beyond the bottom line influence.

It's the long-term influence of the, of the culture itself. So I have to agree and.

Jarred Clore: Yeah, there, there's a, there's FinOps in action and there's FinOps in action.

Alon Arvatz: That's true. Exactly, exactly. I'm going to endorse that. And if we're talking, sounds like you went from, from a place where it was completely distributed, distributed to a place where things are more centralized within it, within FinOps. Um, [00:17:00] it's obviously, You know, the right thing for right optimization. I wonder if like for user optimization.

You follow the same principles of centralizing it or you had a different model?

Jarred Clore: You know, we want to get there, but at our scale we can keep tabs on the usage. But optimizing it, it, it's just complex due to the unique needs of every business unit, uh, and team within them. so we ident, we definitely identify the potential. we notify the users. So I guess in a way, we're managing the notifications, the reporting, the, the visibility centrally. Um, but we're not taking action on it centrally. the thinking there was that we just need to ensure that we have established trust with our users and matured our practice before we really start increasing our risk appetite. Uh, historically, we've, uh, been risk adverse, um, but there's definitely interest in be, uh, beginning to be more, You know. Centralized [00:18:00] in, in those usage, usage optimization tasks. We'll start in lower environments one day. Um, and then we'll hopefully get to that production environment once we, uh, You know, drive some real proof and, and, and build some confidence across our, uh, business units.

Alon Arvatz: Interesting. So how does it work today? Do you like automatically shut down resources? How? How do you go about it?

Jarred Clore: Uh, not necessarily. So ideally we provide enough notifications that no one is surprised, like a very ITIL controlled shop. Uh, You know, we'll, we'll be letting them know weeks, days, hours, You know, numerous notifications so that, um, there's plenty of notifications before execution. But the, um, if they wanna like, manage that optimization experience, they can opt out of that at any time.

Just, You know, just give us business justification. Why, why no is an answer and you don't want us to touch this and automate this and we'll leave you alone. We'll, we'll hit the snooze button, we'll revisit this, You know, in a certain amount of time. but the other thing we also, and this is what we probably [00:19:00] really encourage more than us taking the action on their behalf, is. If they wanna perform the optimization so that they can control the opt, um, the outcome. Fantastic. Please go ahead. We, we would love it if our notifications drove their action as opposed to us automating it away for them.

Alon Arvatz: Interesting. But if you, they got all notifications, they did not opt out, you would shut it down from the centralized team. Yeah.

Jarred Clore: That would be the goal. Yeah. Yeah, it would. It'd be numerous notifications, numerous alarms, like saying, Hey, this is. Going to happen on this date if you don't take action. that way if we do cause an issue, we can at least fall back on, hey, you were notified numerous times. and that way, You know, we kind of save face in that.

Alon Arvatz: But I would also guess that in your scale at least, uh, not all, also it's a company that, that has like many, many years behind it. Uh, I, I would guess there are resources. That it's also would be hard to find the [00:20:00] owner. Is that a situation that happens and how do you deal with it?

Jarred Clore: Uh, we're actually really good at that. Uh, we've got a really, really mature allocation model. There was a large focus on that. At the very minimum, we have the owner for the account and where the activities occurring, um, but down to the resource level. That might be a little bit more challenging. Um, but the, the account owner is responsible for all of that spend.

So, and that's sometimes a distribution in this. So I have numerous people I can choose from in there, but ultimately, um, it's easy for, easier for me to find that resource. Um, the. The more challenging thing, or I would say the part that gives me a little bit of heartburn is now that I've been working with Cisco for so long, I know these workloads.

I know which ones are very sensitive. So even when I know that there is an opportunity, I'll see the workload and I'm thinking, oh, I would hate to cause an impact to this. So I will go above and beyond just the [00:21:00] standard notifications and I will start pinging them in WebEx and just saying, Hey, like I really don't want to do this.

Like, please, You know, let us, uh, like talk about this. Do you really wanna opt out? Like I'm actually encouraging them maybe to opt out because even I know their risk appetite on this one isn't probably gonna be worthwhile.

Alon Arvatz: Wow, that's interesting and good for you about the ownership, because I hear many enterprises out there really struggling with that, and you do it based on accounts from what I understood. But you do it also based on tags.

Jarred Clore: Uh, yep. It just depends on where they are in the business. So I guess that it's a company of companies we have brought in. Certain we've acquired certain organizations that are much more mature in their tagging, uh, coverage. Um, and then others that are, uh, we ha we still try to define the standard process that we can overlay on top of that.

So that's usually at the account

level.

Alon Arvatz: Yeah. Cool. And I wanna get to something you said earlier. You said that the biggest opportunity. Is with rate optimization. Now we talked about commitments. I [00:22:00] wonder if when you say like rate optimization, you also mean negotiating with the cloud vendors and the opportunity there to reduce costs.

Jarred Clore: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a, there's huge, and I think this is something that's really underserved in Alon of FinOps materials, probably due to the sensitivity of, uh, contract negotiations and the fact that you can't share, um, your discounts publicly. Uh, that's definitely controlled by the cloud provider, but there are definitely strategies that, and, um. I think this is where more money is left on the table that people don't know about than anywhere else. You think with a pen stroke, you can save more than any of your optimization efforts, and folks aren't giving this the proper due diligence it deserves. Uh, this is, um, You know, and I, I probably know probably a couple things here.

So, For those who are in this space, for your listeners that are in this space or who have thought of venturing into this [00:23:00] space? Uh, I would definitely tell you start early because I get people that have asked me questions over LinkedIn or just through my network. They'll, they'll be like in, in some of these, uh, public events, they're talking about it and I'm like, Hey, how long until you're, you're, you're looking to, You know, either rewrite your EDP or PPA or start a new one and they're like.

Oh, it's coming up next month. Well, then that's a real challenge. This is a really complex topic. Um, it involves Alon of stakeholders. Um, it takes Alon of back and forth, Alon of analysis, legal review, uh, you name it. And so when you're, when you're thinking about this. wish people would be out there like six to eight months in advance. Um, You know, consider the provider's timing too, that actually works in your favor. So if you don't even have one and you're thinking about getting, You know, a better, uh, discount, maybe you're moving from a managed. Provider like an MSP, um, to [00:24:00] being on your own. Um, think about the motivations for the account team at the, at the cloud provider.

They, those salespeople wanna make numbers. They want to meet it, You know, before year end. So like a, a quarter end. So, You know, just being able to set your schedule up and set yourself up for success by getting there early. I think it's gonna be huge. Um, if you don't mind, I could share

more.

Alon Arvatz: I love,

Jarred Clore: of things

are just

kind of

coming at me.

Alon Arvatz: I would love to share as many tips as you have.

Jarred Clore: Uh, yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, other one I would say is. Assess your scale, and definitely feel free to leverage your network or partners or, uh, the teams in your, in your company that are gonna be able to, You know, really add to this. if you're, if you're like an enterprise class customer, you're a large cu uh, spend customer with any single cloud provider, you shouldn't be going at it alone. Um, there is a. Um, You know, people probably within your own organization, um, You know, procurement, vendor management, [00:25:00] finance, engineering, um, the deal potential is just way too large to, um, to, to just walk away or, or to, to be understaffed. Um, so if you don't have resources at the ready for that, or they don't know what they're doing, and it's, you're all kind of coming together and not sure how to address this. There are specialists out there, there are consultancies. Um, there's, uh, You know. bill, Bain, Deloitte, crayon, I'm, I'm, I'm missing many. But there are, there are, uh, consulting organizations who focus solely on this effort and definitely feel free to reach out to them and scale your team. And then, and I'm trying to give answers that aren't commonly things you could. Look up, like you could probably just Google what should I do in a vendor negotiation with a cloud provider. Um, uh, other ones that I would think are a little bit more on the secret sauce, uh, side of things would be. Think of the partnership. It is not just you asking for a discount, it's [00:26:00] mutually beneficial.

What's in it for, uh, the cloud provider to give you even more of a discount? And you'll often find that their first offer is very competitive. Um, but there's still areas where you can negotiate or you can sweeten the pot and you can give a little so that you can get more back. And so that might be things like. Being a referenceable customer, or maybe you can provide a case study. Um. What else? It could be also, say they could use your company logo. Um, you can, um, migrate that additional workload to become an all-in customer. Or maybe you have a data center that you need to migrate to cloud and haven't even landed on a provider for that yet.

It's, You know, several years out in the future before you're leasing your data center expires. to your account team about that because that can be worked into a year, two, year, three deal, uh, of your multi-year agreement. Um, these are things that, You know, they want to earn your business, they want your business, and they want to make sure, uh, You know, they know about your landscape. Um, so it's really a [00:27:00] partnership and you just have to be willing to give some information about what your plans are and in turn, they can work that in and make that a mutually beneficial thing. the, the last part I would just add that I don't think is. kind of common sense. I think it's good for any negotiation.

Um, um, but you can't get it if you don't ask for it. Um, nothing is really off limits in these discussions. And the worst you can be told is no. Um, so if you think that if this isn't good enough or I, I wish I could get a no, a specific rate discount on this service or, um, You know, I want to get just in this region, or I want.

Um, I wanna lower my commitment because I'm planning on doing a giant optimization thing, or I don't want to talk about graviton. Whatever it is you want to, uh, get in your, uh, environment. You just have to ask for it.

Alon Arvatz: Yes. It never hurts to ask for anything, by the way, as a general advice for life.

Jarred Clore: Yeah. And it, and it, and it, it's really interesting to me 'cause I hear people talk in these [00:28:00] conversations about, well, we only get so many at bats, we only can ask for so many things. like, no, ask for 'em all. I'm like, just, just, just make a list. Put 'em all out there. See what sticks.

Alon Arvatz: Absolutely a hundred percent. And in the end of this, sounds like you really need to understand the incentives of the cloud providers, like they're incentivized to move data centers to the cloud. So if you can tell them, okay, You know, I'm gonna pay less, but I'm gonna move something to the cloud. It goes with their incentives.

And they also have Alon of, by the way, Alon of programs and plans that allows you to. Allow them to give discounts if something happens. Okay? If you give them logo rights, if you give them a case study, if you're doing a migration. So it's really understanding what, uh, incentivized the account managers, the cloud providers, and work out of that.

Jarred Clore: Absolutely.

Alon Arvatz: Cool. And as, [00:29:00] wow, it's already, uh, getting close to the end. But I have to ask another question, and that's around culture, because we start with culture and the fact that you understood it. FinOps is all about culture. And I'm curious how you drive culture across Cisco.

Jarred Clore: Um, yeah, it's a great question. Culture is, You know, the universal question, uh, everyone listening has, has a culture in their organization and at Cisco, I mean, it's everything. Um, it's huge in the FinOps world, it's huge in Cisco. Um, I've seen folks try to run FinOps in, in just isolation, and it never goes well.

It's, it's just too multidisciplinary, um, to, to be run in silos. Um, but when you can detect that in an organization like Cisco, You know that you've got that one person trying to run FinOps or even just. to be a little more sensitive to costs. You know, what I've, what I see there is an opportunity, um, that becomes part of the spoke in the hub and spoke model as a [00:30:00] central, um, FinOps team.

How can I better serve them to help them? that's probably the, the biggest opportunities at scale within Cisco has been around those individual practitioners of FinOps and helping them, enabling them. And also not just giving them the tools to succeed and the best practices and the training, it's also about evangelizing them, putting them on a pedestal and helping, and this is probably the most important, making sure everyone I sees their value, um, because I see these people with remits of, You know, tens or hundreds of millions of dollars overall and. have three, a team of three, a team of two, that becomes really challenging to say, Hey, like you're, you're just completely taxed with all of the reactive work of FinOps and we need to move you into a more proactive space, but we need you to have a team of like five or six. So in that regard, like [00:31:00] resourcing has been huge and being able to make sure we, You know, identify the values that we can get them, those resources to show the ROI of investing a head count. That's been huge for us. Um, and then the other part within an organization like Cisco, I've noticed is that, You know, we're taking things in a very. tower perspective. And this is, You know, something that I think we're, we're, we're evolving from. Um, we've, and in many of our business units, we have evolved from that, but they've taken a very ivory tower perspective.

And, and, and You know what I mean by that is a very academic or textbook approach. You know, they go informed and they optimize and they operate and then that cycle just goes on. Um, they're not taking the specific context and culture of that business unit they're operating in into account and. I, I think you had a, a, uh, colleague of mine, um, say this numerous times and I couldn't agree more. Um, you really need to meet the business where they're at. Um, And so what you have to do is you have to find the value for the situation to them. [00:32:00] so for us, uh, overall governments has

been

critical. Uh, we were doing graded optimizing, but by the time we worked through a campaign, there was more of the same. Um, it was like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, if you've ever heard

that. Uh.

Alon Arvatz: Yeah.

Jarred Clore: term, You know, once we finished, we had to start all

over

again.

Alon Arvatz: Yeah.

Jarred Clore: Um, And so we pivoted, we solved that problem. You know, we, we implemented more governance and it's more about what's needed at that moment, uh, that provides the most value rather than what's next in any logical sequence of FinOps events.

Alon Arvatz: Yeah. No, that's great. These are all great advice. Um, Jarred, thank you for sharing all that and. Specifically, your journey is amazing. Like from a consultant, especially leading FinOps at Cisco and Cisco scale. That's fascinating how, how you went through the process and how you took the things you learned on your first role and implement throughout your career.

So that's really awesome. Uh, but you won't leave us before. You will tell us more about yourself,

Jarred Clore: so I think one of the things [00:33:00] that, um, anyone who knows me knows is I, I like to add Alon of levity to the conversation. I think FinOps can be a very serious conversation. I think Alon of our business conversations, I mean, especially when you go meeting to meeting, to meeting can get pretty mundane.

So I like to, You know. Add a little levity, tell a joke. I'm a, I'm a little bit sarcastic, a little bit humorous, and I like to insert that Alon. I used to actually be a, uh, joke writer in college. Uh, I'm a standup comedian. I, I wouldn't say I'm any good at it, but, uh, I, I do some standup comedy work, um, in, in my, uh, spare time and, uh, which is, which kind of dovetails into what I would say my other activities are, which would be renovating my house. Uh, which if you've seen some of the work I've done, it is a comedy act in, in, in real time, um, as it, And so is my, uh, my, my tennis game. Um, although I'm pretty good at it, I, I like to say I'm good at it. If my shoulder's not acting up, I'm, I'm pretty decent at that

as

well. And

Alon Arvatz: Yeah.

Jarred Clore: then I also like to play ice hockey.

So I like to keep active, uh, with, with sports if my body can, uh, still keep up.

Alon Arvatz: [00:34:00] Nice. That's really, really cool. So do you have a favorite joke, something that you wrote and you really, really love?

Jarred Clore: Oh, geez. You can't put me on the spot. It's like a, it's like a asking the monkey to dance. Um, I don't know. I don't know. Uh, and if I did, I don't know that would be appropriate for a podcast. Uh, these are,

Alon Arvatz: Okay. Okay. No problem. We can move on. And where do you live today?

Jarred Clore: I am in, uh, sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.

Alon Arvatz: Nice. Are you originally from Arizona?

Jarred Clore: No, no, I, uh, I've, I've grown up in the, uh, northeast, uh, uh, just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ghost dealers if you're a fan. Um, and I, I've lived a little bit all over upstate New York for, uh, undergrad and Boston for grad school, uh, Chicago, Seattle, and, uh, Denver, um, and San Francisco before I ended in, uh, Phoenix permanently.

Alon Arvatz: Okay, nice. So it's, it got an. More colder and gloomier and [00:35:00] then gradually become hotter and nicer, basically.

Jarred Clore: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, uh, I could, when I was in consulting, it was live anywhere. There's a major airport and the weather is great, and the cost of living was low. And so I planted roots here and tried to move away a few times, but I keep coming back.

Alon Arvatz: Okay. That's good. That's good. I've, I've actually, I've been once to Arizona, by the way, uh, for the Grand Canyon, if it counts, but

Jarred Clore: counts. Absolutely.

Alon Arvatz: Yes. But, but I need to get to Phoenix at, at 1.0.

Jarred Clore: 82. That was a high for the, uh, historic high for that day

in the

year.

Alon Arvatz: Oh wow.

Jarred Clore: Um, this is where Alon of snowbirds come. And then we've got, uh, some, uh, the Barrett, jacks and Auto Show and the waste management open coming up around the corner where we'll get more, and then we get spring training for the MLB coming up right after

that.

Alon Arvatz: Nice, nice. So I definitely have to, to [00:36:00] visit Phoenix. And one last thing, uh, Jarred, is there a book or a movie you would like to recommend to us?

Jarred Clore: Hmm. Um, one that I recently, uh, read, uh, not too long ago. It's been about a year or so, but it, it's top of mind in the, uh, tech context. Um, I don't know if you've heard of the book, uh, software Wasteland by Dave McComb. Um, so this is a. It's a really interesting read because I'm, I, I'm a pragmatic, no-nonsense kind of guy.

I kind of just tell it like it is. I, I probably should. Develop a better filter. But, it always, it's always irked me that in every company there seems to be this very expensive yet kind of terrible application stack. Um, You know, You know, we we're innovators, but we end up with, You know, our own tech complexity and shadow it. Um, but what this book does is it calls all of that out. I mean, it talks about the app-centric model of it that isn't helping anyone. Um, and it kind of pivots it, [00:37:00] um, into more, You know, where the data is, not where the app is. Stop looking at apps, start looking at data. Um, it walks through situations. I think we've all, all seen, um, there are ones like, uh, the single source of the truth even though there are multiple single sources of truth. Um, and then there's integration projects. that never end. Um, and then things like, uh, shiny new systems that somehow make everything more tangled, not less. And so I think your listeners would enjoy, like, would enjoy seeing something that probably represents their own company in, in, in, uh, Dave McComb's story. Um. It makes it relatable, even if it is maybe a little painful. Um, but I think more specifically, it's not just a rant, um, which I might do in my own time. I might rant about some of those things, but, uh, it lays out a very clean, sane way to think about things. Um, You know, you put shared, well modeled data in the center and you let applications, You know, go on [00:38:00] top that are thinner. Uh, and then you, uh, you kind of put that. together. And that way it can kind of work as one common stack and not one disparate, kinda like stacking it up and not making it a ecosystem that goes left and right at it. so it gives you the language and the courage to kind of push back, um, on, on that.

And I think we could all, uh, benefit, um, to call out things that

are

broken like

Alon Arvatz: Yeah,

Jarred Clore: You know, that's not necessarily a bad

thing.

Alon Arvatz: it sounds like a must book for Enos practitioner out there.

Jarred Clore: yeah, it's kinda like if you don't want to go to the bar and have a drink to drown your sorrows, you read this book and you're like, oh, it's not so bad out there. This guy gets it too.

Alon Arvatz: Absolutely. Cool. Um, Jarred, that was fantastic and I'm sure many people would like to. Ask you questions and consult with you, what is the best way to reach out?

Jarred Clore: I think LinkedIn is, is a really good place to start.

Alon Arvatz: Okay, cool. You heard Jarred reach out via LinkedIn. Jarred, thank you so much for sharing all of these insights and fantastic [00:39:00] experience. Uh, I really love the tips for negotiation and here through all your personal journey of going to Cisco and moving from this model to more centralized and having something hybrid for optimization.

It's been really, really fascinating. So. Big thank you for joining us today,

Jarred Clore: Oh, and that was my pleasure. Thank you.

Alon Arvatz: and I would also like to thank our audience for joining us, uh, once again, I'm sure you enjoyed it just as much as I did and learned Alon. Jarred, thank you again. This has been another fun, exciting, interesting, fascinating episode of FinOps in Action. Hope to see you all next time.

Outro: That wraps up another episode of FinOps in Action. Thank you for joining. For show notes and more, please visit FinOps in action.com. This show is brought to you by 0.5, empowering teams to optimize cloud costs with tip detection and remediation tools that drive [00:40:00] action.