Christian Reilly - CTO at Citrix

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:00) Hello, my friends. Today we are talking to Christian Reilly, the CTO at Citrix, and we discuss becoming an agent for positive change, learning to ask the right questions by practicing active listening, and the importance of putting your team in the roles and positions where they can be most effective. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO Podcast.

(Christian Reilly at 00:00:24) Here we go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:25) This is the Modern CTO Podcast. Christian, what's up, buddy?

(Christian Reilly at 00:00:38) Hey, how are you?

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:39) Fantastic. Jake said you had to go taming the kids or something?

(Christian Reilly at 00:00:42) Yeah, I just had to make sure they don't speak. So it's for the very rare occurrence, I'm actually at home for once.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:48) How old are they?

(Christian Reilly at 00:00:50) One's 16, one's 13, and one's 11. But they're crazy gamers, so they're dancing up and down here all over the place, shouting and screaming at Fortnite and other stuff.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:01) Yeah, well, that's what you do as a kid though, right?

(Christian Reilly at 00:01:03) Oh, absolutely, I think so. Been a long time since I was a kid.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:09) I've got two that are under the age of two, so.

(Christian Reilly at 00:01:12) Oh, my.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:12) Yeah, you can't talk to them and get them to be quiet because they don't really listen.

(Christian Reilly at 00:01:18) Yeah, we had three under five at one point, so that was fun.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:22) Oh, man, that's tough. So are you in Florida at the headquarters? Are you in the UK?

(Christian Reilly at 00:01:29) No, I'm in the UK, actually. Yeah, so I spend about, I don't know, probably about 75% of my time circling the globe, so I don't really have a home. I just hang out on planes, which is pretty cool.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:40) Well, how I found you was I'm scrolling through, I think like Twitter or LinkedIn or something, and I see some Formula One type cars and some racing stuff, and then I saw a title of CTO. I'm like, okay, who's this awesome person? Let's click on that guy. And then I took a screenshot and I said, oh, I want to talk to him in the future, and sent it to Chloe, and here you are.

(Christian Reilly at 00:02:02) And here we are. How about that? Yeah, so for the last few years, we've been an innovation partner with the Red Bull Racing Formula One team. So yeah, they've used a lot of our technology for various things, both in their factory in the UK here for car design and a lot of the processes that they have around the design of the car. But then they also use it trackside. So they go to 20 races a year in places that they don't choose, right? So they just rock up at wherever the Formula One governing body says we're gonna have a race here this year. And then they plug in a bunch of infrastructure. And yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. They gather a lot of telemetry from the cars during the whole race weekend and sort of sharing that back and forth with the UK and wherever they happen to be in the world. So yeah, I mean, if you're into motorsport, it's a dream relationship for us to have because not only do we get up close and personal to it all, but it really helps us to showcase the technology for the customer. People just, the light comes on when they see the extreme use cases that these guys have and how much they rely on our stuff. So yeah, I mean, it's really not a bad problem to have.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:08) Yeah, it's like the sports, the baseballs and the footballs, they got into it publicly sooner first, right? And then now you see this technology applied to the Formula One stuff. They must be real excited.

(Christian Reilly at 00:03:21) Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, the whole motorsport world, it's the most technology advanced thing I think I've ever seen, other than probably what the guys at NASA do, which is probably, yeah, opportune time to talk about that with the 50-year thing with Apollo. But yeah, I mean, it's incredible. And some of the things they do, you know, they have like 30,000 design changes a year to the car. You know, they tear the whole thing down when they move from place to place. I mean, they lovingly call it the circus, you know, because they're moving around in this 20 times a year constant state of evolution, not only of the car, but of the entire team. And yeah, I mean, it's a real pleasure and privilege to be involved with it. And as I say, we've done it for the last few years and, you know, great relationship with them. We got to know them and there's a great cultural fit. You know, I mean, Red Bull generally are an incredible brand. You know, they do so much other stuff other than Formula One, of course. But, you know, the cultures are very similar inside of Citrix and the race team. So, you know, it's kind of funny. You walk around our offices and you see everybody wearing the Red Bull team gear with the Citrix logos on it, and it's like, wow, it just goes like one big happy family. It's always a lot of fun.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:28) That is amazing. 30,000 design changes to the car a year. That reminds me, I was talking with CTO of Salesforce. He was saying how they basically rebuild their entire systems, like, quarterly or several times a year, and I was like, whoa, I was really surprised by that. That's interesting.

(Christian Reilly at 00:04:46) Yeah, it's cool. You know, and as I say, it's a great showcase, right? Because I mean, they are really keen to help us move the ball forward as well. So they take every bit of alpha code that we make available and, you know, they bend it and tweak it and try and break it. And the good about that is it features then in our mainstream releases. So, you know, however we can help push the envelope with those guys, it benefits all our customers. So yeah, it's just such a great relationship, and I, you know, I think I was really fortunate to fall into that as the exec sponsor for it. So, um, yeah, I don't know how that happened, but.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:18) Yeah, I know, right? It's not something you want to change. Now, does this whole Red Bull thing that we're talking about, does it fit into the concept of, you know, redesigning digital workspaces and how you're reimagining that?

(Christian Reilly at 00:05:30) Oh, 100%, yeah. I mean, you know, if you think about some of the use cases that these guys have got inside the team, I mean, the number one thing that you experience above all else is just how paranoid every team is about their intellectual property. You know, because if you think about it, I mean, they're talking about literally trying to shave one one-hundredth of a second off, which is the difference between winning and coming second. And, you know, nobody ever remembers who came second. So everybody wants to win, win, win, win. And so, yeah, I mean, if you think about what they've done, I mean, they've taken some very complex work processes, which is what's interesting for us, right? I mean, you know, through all customer conversations, the technology is one thing, but really diving into and deeply understanding the work process and what it is that these guys are really trying to do is fascinating, because then you become much more engaged in the language of their business and understand, you know, what it is that puts the cars on the road, what it is that keeps the drivers safe, what it is that excites their team members as well. So yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, look, I mean, it's a very regulated sport, so there's only certain things that you're allowed to do with the technology. You know, they have some limitations on the amount of time that they can spend in the wind tunnels, the amount of scale that they can build a car up to actually take in the wind tunnel. So yeah, I mean, there's all these things around it, but I think if you were just to look at it and say, well, could they do what they need to do without our underlying technology? Probably not. And I think if you take that to the extreme, it's kind of like, yeah, every single bit of what they do is digital. I mean, everything from parts management of the car, you know, the additive manufacturing that they do, it's just mind-boggling. But I think, you know, that's the direction of a lot of customers that we see going in this truly digital way, which really is all about increasing productivity and making sure that getting stuff done in the most efficient way is front and center. So yeah, it's fun times.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:20) They limit the amount of time you can spend in the wind tunnel?

(Christian Reilly at 00:07:23) Yeah, absolutely. So there's, in fact, they have limitations now on the amount of processing power you can use for simulation.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:31) Oh, because that's where my next question was going. I was saying if they're going to limit your wind tunnel, let's just simulate it.

(Christian Reilly at 00:07:36) Yep. You would think so, right? But then the problem with that is that then you're actually limited to, let's call them cycles of compute that you're actually allowed to use, which is regulated by the Formula One governing body. So yeah, I mean, and, you know, of course, that's trying to keep some level of fairness, right? Because obviously there's the teams at the top, you know, the Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Red Bull Racing, that have a lot of resources, you know, good money. And of course it's a business, right? So the higher you come in the table, the more money you get, and the more money you get, the more investments you can make. So yeah, I mean, it's not like it looks on the TV when you see the cars just go around. You think, that's kind of cool, they must have good drivers. There's a whole, I mean, it's like an 800-person team behind the guys at Aston Martin Red Bull Racing just doing incredible, incredible stuff.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:24) We should get together with Netflix and you should do like a behind-the-scenes tech of like what happens at Red Bull Racing.

(Christian Reilly at 00:08:29) Yeah, well, so you know there was a Netflix series that was done, or was it Prime? It was Amazon Prime or Netflix, whichever one, that was all about the F1 season of the year before last. I think it was the last season, actually. So they released an eight-part series which was really giving you an in-depth look behind some of the teams and what was going on, you know, some insight into the lives of the drivers and what they have to do, you know, outside of driving the car. And then it followed a couple of teams very closely, including Red Bull. Um, you know, and it's just a phenomenal sport. I'm sure all sports are the same when they're behind the scenes. But, you know, I'm a massive Manchester City soccer fan, so there was another documentary done on that as well. So I've been pretty lucky actually getting all this behind-the-scenes stuff from Prime and from Netflix. So long may that continue.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:19) That's awesome. You would like my grandfather. He, we got to the United States from Greece because he's a professional soccer player.

(Christian Reilly at 00:09:25) Oh, okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:25) And then he landed in Miami down near Fort Lauderdale, and in the off-season, he would work at the docks, right? Because he needed something to do. And then he got into powerboat racing, and then he won the world championship for powerboat racing in like 1988.

(Christian Reilly at 00:09:37) Wow. Offshore powerboat racing.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:39) Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah, he was a copilot with Don Johnson, who is like a popular movie guy, but then also in boat racing.

(Christian Reilly at 00:09:46) Yeah, the guy from Miami Vice, yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:48) Yeah, yep. Yeah, anyway, he was like throttle. I think Don was the steering person, and he was like the throttle person, and then there was a third person. I don't remember, but...

(Christian Reilly at 00:09:58) So it was like Crockett and Tubbs for real life.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:02) Right? I love it. Now, your kids, they're, you said a couple of them are getting older, right? Are any of them showing interest in tech or programming?

(Christian Reilly at 00:10:09) Oh, yeah. So my son, in fact, I just got his school report. It's kind of funny. He's now the same age I was when I got my first PC. Well, my first computer actually wasn't called a PC, but his school report was kind of like, hey, he's done great, you know, but like, this guy's got such a super keen interest in anything to do with computing or computers. He's actually been holding the computer club and teaching these guys how to do JavaScript and stuff. So he's 11. So he started off with a thing called Scratch a while back, which is kind of a very straightforward, you know, early programming or introduction to programming, very, very simplistic. And then he moved on through Codecademy and on to JavaScript. And so he's been teaching, and he's been doing a bit of Python. So yeah, I mean, now the funny thing is I was never really a brilliant programmer. I did it and had to do it as part of the courses I did, but this guy's just got such an aptitude for it, and he's probably got more patience than I did. I didn't have a lot of patience for stuff that didn't work. So yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, my, I have girl, girl, boy. So the two girls, you know, they're just kind of like consumers of tech rather than makers of it. You know, they're constantly doing something on one of the myriad devices that they have. And, you know, all three of them don't realize that Dad controls the internet though, right? So all you gotta do is just flick off the home router, and that's the end of their fun. So, yeah. No, it's amazing to watch them. You know, they consume tech. Like, my eldest daughter taught herself how to speak Korean, which is a long story, but she likes this boy band called BTS, which is like just exploding.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:39) Of course. Of course.

(Christian Reilly at 00:11:40) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:41) We're fans of BTS here at the show.

(Christian Reilly at 00:11:43) Oh, okay. Well, there you go, right? So she was a BTS fan before the BTS Army was invented. But of course, the guys couldn't speak much English then, if at all. All the fan sites were in Korean, so she's like, you know what, for Christmas I want the, you know, kind of the Rosetta Stone kind of thing that teaches you a different language. So she absolutely burned through the first couple of introduction things to Korean. So now she has Korean video pen pals, and so she spends her time talking to them in English, and they speak back in Korean. So they learn each other's language. So yeah, so you walk past the bedrooms in my house and it's like you could be in three different countries. Crazy.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:19) That's amazing. You get some JavaScript object-oriented type lessons over here, and then you get some Korean. And then what's the other one into?

(Christian Reilly at 00:12:27) Yeah, so she's a gymnast, so she's more of, yeah, you usually find her hanging upside down in one of the doorways or something. She's got these bars on the doors that you do your core strength training. So yeah, so she'll be hanging upside down like a bat somewhere doing core strength training while the other two are doing their own languages, but, you know, for different reasons. So it's a pretty madhouse.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:46) My wife has gotten into the silks. You know, have you seen the silk things that they're hanging from? Yeah. So that's what she does every week. She goes with her friends and hangs up the silks and then does the crazy stuff. So I love it. And so I'm curious to know, like, right now, I'm gonna take it back from family stuff back—well, actually, before we go back to work stuff, you mentioned that you got into a little bit of programming younger. But was programming your first introduction to technology, or was it, like, a lawnmower? Like, what got you into technology?

(Christian Reilly at 00:13:20) Yeah. So I mean, I had the very first Atari home video game unit, right? Like, I guess most people my age probably did. You know, and I remember playing Pong and playing the sort of the tennis game, which was, you know, kind of a—I don't know. It was an—I don't even know if it was eight-bit back then, but it was just basically two squares. You know? Oh, I'm sorry. A square and two lines that you control with a dial thing. That was fascinating enough. But then in 1983, I got my first home computer, which, in the UK, there was a mass market computer made, which came about the same time as the Commodore VIC-20 and, you know, some of the early sort of Sinclair, a little bit later than the '81, but right about that same time where, you know, home computers were kind of new. And it was an offshoot of the British Broadcasting Corporation called the BBC, and the BBC computer was intended to be deployed in schools around the—really, the—the—yeah. I mean, that was kind of like one of the earliest. In fact, there was some kind of partnership with Acorn Computer. I can't remember exactly how it works. That was a long time ago now. But, yeah. So basically, the idea was that these home computers, which came in a Model A and a Model B, and the Model A had 16K of RAM, and the Model B had 32K of RAM. So if you could afford a Model B, you were like, wow. You were the talk of the street. And so, yeah, I bought that, and I remember opening at Christmas and connecting it all up to—you know, that was connected to a TV back then, and it, you know, it had a cassette player that you would load the games on and whatever. But it came with its own language, which is a derivative of BASIC. And BASIC is such a great language to learn if you want to get into just, you know, sort of functions and structured procedures and so on and so forth. But I was more interested in what was in it, so I took it apart on the day after Christmas Day. And I remember my mom coming down and she was like, "What the hell are you doing? I've just—you know, this is a brand new computer." I just wanted to see what it does. So I just took the entire thing apart. So I was fascinated by what was in it. And, you know, back then, I didn't know, you know, one part of the chipset from the other. I could just identify the inbuilt speaker that was in it, which was a really tinny kind of little thing that was welded on the side there. And it actually had a Rockwell processor in it. So it was obviously long before Intel came on the scene with PCs. And so I started to learn BASIC, and you could buy a book that came with it that would have, like—you know, it was 100 programs in it where you could do everything from fractal design or you could run random sequences for number generation. I mean, just a fascinating introduction. And so, yeah, that was really where I think my passion ignited because I was then fascinated by, you know, how all this stuff works and then went on to buy my own EPROM blower years—couple of years later, which allowed me to sort of take the programs that I'd learned to write and then burn them onto EPROMs and then stick them inside a sideways RAM ROM board that went onto the main motherboard itself. So this thing ended up being like a really tricked out—imagine it being like some kind of voodoo laptop that you'd see nowadays. But, yes, I mean, that was, what, was 1983, '84? And then I went on to build or help build the school's Econet system, which was a very rudimentary kind of, you know, way to connect these BBC computers together through a thing called Econet. Again, that very, very simplistic networking. And, you know, from there, just kind of thought, "Hey. This is kind of cool," and realized I had somewhat of a passion and perhaps an aptitude for it, and the rest is history.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:38) Nice. So you then you do some schooling. You end up—did you go, like—have you been at Citrix for, like, a super long time, or did you have some other interest?

(Christian Reilly at 00:16:47) No. No. So I actually started my career. My first placement was at a company called Technology PLC, which is based in the UK. And, eventually, that was subsumed somewhat into ICL and into Fujitsu, so it's a bit of a long story. And then—I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So that was kind of a big company, of course. So that was—I started off doing systems engineering when I was 21. So that was basically, you know, you take over an account as we recall. So this would be one of the big banks or one of the big industrial companies. And then you would be effectively responsible for kind of the technology platform associated with what they were trying to do. So I did that for a year or so, and then I actually left and joined an engineering construction company. So I spent 21 years, or just short of 21 years, in an engineering and construction company working through pretty much every department related to IT and then being involved in some really iconic projects around the world and, you know, taking different levels of responsibility, different team leadership roles, becoming more conversant with different parts of IT on the business side, you know, on the finance side, on the pure technology side, on the application side, on the system side. And, yeah, I kind of just went all over the place, really. I'm kind of unique because even though I was in one company for a long time, it was a very, very big company. And within that, there were lots of opportunities to do different things. And, you know, I was kind of a little bit one of the kind of guy who'd always put his hand up and say, "Hey. I'll go. I'll go do it." When somebody would say, "Hey. We need somebody to go to, you know, Uzbekistan," I'd be like, "I'll go. I'll go." Just because I love travel, and I love the thought of being in different countries and learning different cultures and understanding what it takes to build IT infrastructures in different countries was a heck of a learning experience. So, yeah, I mean, I was very fortunate. You know? I kind of fell into the job. I didn't know much about the company when I joined them. They just actually acquired another company in my hometown. And it turns out to be one of the biggest companies in the world based in San Francisco. So then I ended up moving to America and lived there for a long time. And, yeah. So I guess, you know, when you make those decisions twenty-odd years ago, you never know how it's gonna pan out. What—pretty cool. So then the story goes, which is interesting. Citrix was a big strategic vendor to us when I was at Bechtel. And, you know, I got on with all the Citrix guys really well, the leadership team. You know, we built a lot of very, very cool stuff using core Citrix technologies, very much similar to Red Bull, but on a much bigger scale. And then, you know, eventually—and I always joke to people in the customer world now and say, "Hey. You know, if you do a good job with our technology, we'll hire you." And so that's exactly what happened. And I joined Citrix as CTO about 4.5 ago.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:22) Amazing. Yeah. That's so exciting. I like your attitude too because you were up for new opportunity. You were willing, like, "How can I jump in and be useful?" These are excellent traits. Now how does your team look? Do you have—do you lead a team at Citrix?

(Christian Reilly at 00:19:37) Yeah. So we've got the CTO office, which is, by design, a very nimble organization. So the way I like to explain it, it's kind of—if you take and it's never quite the same on any day, but there's really kind of four key elements to it. So about 25% of our time is spent wondering about the future. So, you know, we kind of look at key trends, not just in technology, but also some socioeconomic trends. You know, we're heavily invested in trends around, you know, the future of work. And I know it's kind of a cliché, but it's important to understand, you know, how—what will work look like? How will it get packaged? Where will it get done? Who will be doing it? Because there's so many interesting trends that are to do with the human element of work rather than just technology. So, you know, we spend a lot of time looking at that and trying to figure out where that's headed. About 25% of our time is spent directly with customers, which, of course, due to the background of some of the people on the team, they've all come from large customer environment. So it's a very natural thing for us to go do there in the field sort of side. About 25% of our time is spent working directly with the product and engineering teams, so making sure that we bring the feedback and kind of help to align some of the roadmap activities. And then about 25% of our time is spent with our key technology partners. So that could be anybody from sort of Microsoft to Google to Amazon to IBM, and then a lot of our big system integrations. So Fujitsu, again, I meet with regularly, so that's kind of interesting. Now that's all come full circle 25 years later. You know, guys like DXC and so on. So, yeah, I mean, it's a great—

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:00) Oh, you know DXC? They're in Tampa.

(Christian Reilly at 00:21:00) Of course. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. They home. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it's great. We have a very, very lightweight team, but a very capable team with lots of great different experiences. And I think, you know, as we mentioned before, when you kind of go around and look, lots of people have come from a certain background and have done really, really well. But I think the people that we've got, they've kind of got a mixed background, you know, some technology, some business, some customer experience. You know, we've got a really light team, I would say, but that's by design. You know? We don't want a big heavy, amorphous mass of people just trying to, you know, convince the world that they should be doing stuff. But, yeah, I mean, you know, it's fun, you know, above all else because we're going in a completely sort of new direction for the company, a lot of which needs to be validated, of course, from a technology perspective, but also through the customer lens. So, you know, it's great. There's never two days that are the same, and, you know, we get to meet a lot of great customers. We spend a lot of time with CIOs and COOs and all these new roles that are appearing in customer worlds, you know, the chief digital officer, the chief revenue officer, the chief HR officer. So, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, never two days the same and very rarely we're in the same physical place two days running as well. So it's, yeah. It's good.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:16) I love it. It's like it matches my energy level. I'm a—I like to move. Right? Now we've got some questions from the audience. Is that cool? I asked some questions.

(Christian Reilly at 00:22:24) Some questions.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:25) So one of them is about this concept of "your vibe attracts your tribe." We've been talking about this a lot on the show and, like, culture and your team. And the question really is, have you found that to be true? Have you found the leader's vibe attracts the people that are around the leader?

(Christian Reilly at 00:22:42) Yeah. No. Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, it's kind of interesting. I think as you start to get a little bit later in your career, you know, you kind of go two ways. You can kind of go down the kind of the fat, dumb, and happy route where you kind of make more money and whatever, and you kind of ignore everything that's going on around it. Or you kind of look at it and say, you know, "I have an opportunity here to use my brand, if you want to call it that." Although I get a little bit nervous about saying that, I think, because it seems a little bit trite.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:06) Reputation. Reputation.

(Christian Reilly at 00:23:08) Reputation. Yeah. Let's call it that. To actually, you know, not just help people in the organization, but then to build a good network and a good constituency outside of that. You know? And it's kind of interesting. You know, what always makes me laugh is, you know, I have some great relationships with some of our competitor CTOs, guys I've known for a long, long time. And people always ask me to say, like, "How do you guys get on so well?" And it's like, you know, "You gotta remember that this is a very small industry that we're in," you know, and all of us should be working together to do what's best for customers. So I think when you look at it in terms of the vibe of attraction travel, I'd absolutely say yes. But I think that then transcends the direct reports or the people inside the organization because I think especially, you know, with the days of social media now, you know, we all like to have good solid exchanges of opinions on Twitter, you know, not vendor bashing each other, but just, you know, "Hey. Here's what I think. Here's what you think. Well, this is this. This is that." And I think when people look at that from a third party, they actually look at it and say, "You know what? These guys are pretty good. You know, they're intelligent. They're articulate. They've got their own points to make. And, you know, we can kind of get behind these guys as a customer or as a partner or as a potential employee." So, yeah, I think it's critical. You know? I mean, I have two very, very simple goals in life, which is, you know, just meet everybody on the level that you meet them on, whether it's the janitor or the CEO. And the second one is just don't be an idiot. It's not really difficult. It's really not that difficult.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:35) I love that advice. No. That's fantastic. The next question, asking really great questions. So often the question that you ask yields the result. Right? So if I ask you something, your brain instantly starts processing that. But how do you get your teams to ask better questions to solve better problems?

(Christian Reilly at 00:24:56) Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we try and do is work on a thing that we call active listening. And it sounds like another one of these "Hey. It's a big leadership thing." But it's actually very important because, you know, we're very fortunate to engage with lots of customers, and it's really only by listening that you really learn how to ask the questions. And that might sound counterintuitive. Right? But, you know, there's a way to actively listen because you're not listening because you want to ask the next question. You're listening because you want to hear, assimilate, you know, correlate, and then kind of figure out what the customers or whoever you're talking to is really actually saying.

(Christian Reilly at 00:25:32) So, you know, I always like to say with the team, you know, guys, we should never have the answers. We should always have the questions because nobody gets everything. But if you know the right questions to ask, you know, and I have this other philosophy, which is pretty simple, which I call ABC, which is always be connecting. So every time somebody says something, it's kind of how can that then spark another thought, and what if I ask a question a slightly different way? Or I've heard something now that makes me not want to ask that question because I understand that it's either a contentious issue or it may be a political issue or it may be something else.

(Christian Reilly at 00:26:03) And I think the only way you can do that is by truly actively listening. I mean, there's nothing worse than any vendor or, frankly, anybody doing a presentation, just doing a kind of show up and throw up. Right? Which is like, hey, I've come to say my piece, and I've got a hundred slides, and you're gonna listen.

(Christian Reilly at 00:26:17) It's kind of like, whoa. That's really not my way and not the way that the team operates for sure. You know, so, and as I say, we spend such a long time in the customer environment and that's a very privileged position. Right? So you can't just go in and do a whole, you know, the vendor speak. It's like, how can I understand what it is that you're really trying to tell me? And you do that by the active listening piece, and then the questions are much more natural, whether they're for confirming or even some cases challenging what you've heard, but doing it clearly in a way that shows that you understand the context in which either the answer was given or the introduction or whatever it is. You know, it sounds easy, but it's actually really hard because most people just want to stick in, this is what I know. I'm gonna talk about this. So the connecting bit's really important.

(Christian Reilly at 00:26:58) And I think, you know, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that we have a team of diverse experience and skill set actually helps with that because we're able then to collaborate with each other. And when we get together, you know, we have a much wider, you know, kind of pool to pull from intellectually. So, yeah, that seems to work for us.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:16) And I really like what you said about competition because as I'm getting older and having more experience in the business world, what I'm realizing is the companies that do the best, they focus their attention on the customer versus focusing their attention on what the competitor does. And some people, I even brought this up in an investor pitch once and they were very fearful of the competition. And I said, look, if your competition is doing something so much better than you, then your customers are going to tell you that as they're coming or going. You're gonna learn about what people are doing from your customers if you're listening to them really well.

(Christian Reilly at 00:27:49) Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I mean, I think it's kind of, it's okay to fear some competition, but I think it could be an unhealthy obsession. You know, I think you kind of have to, we, I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with the work, but Clayton Christensen, which is one of the things that I live by. So Clayton Christensen's understanding the customer jobs to be done.

(Christian Reilly at 00:28:12) So that was a piece that he wrote a couple of years ago in the Harvard Business Review, which really talks about, you know, understanding how to reach a customer and how to actually use innovation to reach a customer. And, you know, it's absolutely fundamental to what I try and drive within the CTO office, which is, you know, every conversation that we should have should be about advancing the customer journey in whichever way we want to define that. You know, so I think the notion of focusing, you, I mean, you know, the danger is that you end up trying to do a beauty contest between vendor A, B, and C. And, you know, I mean, if you don't know your own value proposition and you don't know, you know, kind of where you are in the customer value chain, then you're kind of in a bit of a dodgy position anyway. So yeah.

(Christian Reilly at 00:28:55) I mean, look, we understand what's going on, and it's interesting because as the Citrix story evolves and as our sort of products and services change over time, it's very clear that we're gonna meet different types of competition. So I think being aware of who the competition truly is versus who it was is also very important. So when we take a sort of a three to five year lookout, we definitely see competition there that hasn't been in our usual space and in some cases may have been cooperative in the past. So we have this kind of coopetition view where sometimes we'll be cooperative, sometimes we'll be competitive.

(Christian Reilly at 00:29:34) But I think that's just the nature of business. And, you know, I think as long as we're all doing the best thing, yeah, I mean, look. As long as we're all doing the best thing for customers, then, you know, customers are smart. Right? And they typically tend to buy people and solutions. You know? They don't buy technologies. So I think there's a whole, that whole soft skills thing, which I, you know, it's good to see it being talked about in tech because I think we have this notion that, you know, tech is really for STEM people and nobody else. I think that's a really bad, certainly going into the next generation of the workforce. I think that's a really bad proposition. Of course, we still need technical skills, but I think these softer skills are becoming much more important and will become even more pronounced as we go through the next generation of work.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:13) Yeah. We noticed a switch maybe ten, fifteen years ago, I'm just guessing, where that person that was the only person who could do it, like the hero type person when it came to programming started to die out because more people were educated in the language and technology. And then people started to get a real edge when they had people skills or soft skills, and they could work together because now you need a bunch of people working together with a bunch of different experts in order to take a really advanced project to the market. And so now these individuals who have maybe slightly less technical ability, but they have human interaction and they can work with you

(Christian Reilly at 00:30:53) and you can get something done

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:54) and they can drive an outcome, those people are becoming very valuable.

(Christian Reilly at 00:30:59) Absolutely. I mean, I think if I look at our product design team as an example. Right? I mean, some of the brightest individuals who are not deeply technical, but they understand, you know, how the human psyche works. They understand the science of individuals and the relationship between individuals and their technology.

(Christian Reilly at 00:31:17) And, I mean, that's amazing stuff. Right? I mean, that's bordering on the kind of psychology major world rather than a technology world. And so yeah. I mean, I think there's so much opportunity out there for all sorts of new roles and skills or whatever. And that's it. I mean, I don't buy into this notion that AI is gonna replace everybody. I think it's gonna create so many more opportunities in areas that we don't understand yet. So, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the technology landscape as an industry and as an opportunity space is changing, and I think for the better.

(Christian Reilly at 00:31:51) Right? I mean, I remember when I first came into this, in a work life, some of the, I mean, there were very few women around, frankly, in technology. The ones that were around were kind of like the help desk supervisor or whatever or, you know, IT, HR, or something like that. Now, I mean, some of the coolest people I follow on Twitter are really seriously badass women cybersecurity professionals, and it's kind of like, this is pretty awesome. So I think there's something in that in terms of the analytical mind.

(Christian Reilly at 00:32:20) I honestly believe that. If I look at my wife as an example, I mean, she could out-analytical me any moment of the day. I might be able to sort out technology with her, but, you know, the, I mean, I just think that's a great thing for diversity at Citrix. You know, so I think opportunity abounds, and it's, you know, it's gonna get even more interesting as all these roles that are currently unfilled begin to double or even quadruple over the next decade or fifteen years. And we're gonna have this massive, massive gap, you know, in terms of opportunities versus the people that can fill them.

(Christian Reilly at 00:32:53) So, you know, I think as an industry, it's wise of us to make it more open, to make it more inclusive, and to actually appreciate that, you know, these soft skills are a critical part of what we're gonna need as an industry going forward.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:06) Absolutely. And when you were talking about AI and some of the fear there, it reminded me about when in the United States, when the Internet was coming out, everyone was super fearful that the post office and people would stop using mail because you had email and that we would just completely lose the post office and shipping would go down and that would crumble. And, actually, the exact opposite happened. It amplified the number of packages being sent because now people were selling items online and they were communicating and getting to know other people. And so that increased the mail level. And so that was really interesting because when you're talking about, okay, everyone's scared AI is going to take over everything. The exact opposite might happen. It might actually create significantly more jobs.

(Christian Reilly at 00:33:48) Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, that's a great point you raised about the growth in online. What I've also noticed, I mean, obviously, we study some of the trends that I mentioned earlier, like, you know, contingent worker and gig economy. I can tell you that everything that I order, pretty much everything that I order from any kind of online capability that I use usually ends up being delivered by somebody who's using either their own car or their own little van to deliver that on behalf of X, Y, Z.

(Christian Reilly at 00:34:15) You know, it's not the, I mean, in some cases, it is the big guys that you'd expect, you know, kind of the UPSes of the world and the DHLs of the world. But, you know, I could tell you at least certainly from the things that I buy, you know, from a T-shirt to a book or whatever, they get delivered by all sorts of means. Right? So I think there's an interesting network effect thereof, you know, some of these technologies. And that, of course, is the obvious ones like Uber and so on.

(Christian Reilly at 00:34:40) But I think that's a really interesting trend for us to watch, not just because of the impact of online, but just the way that work will evolve. You know, you think about things like Fiverr as an example. You know, Etsy is another example. All these things where people use their skills to create something that's easily marketable and easily sellable is fascinating. So I think all these opportunities that spring up are gonna be myriad compared to what we've seen before.

(Christian Reilly at 00:35:07) And, you know, we should be looking at technology as the enabler of something, not anything to be frightened of.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:13) I agree. We should look at it as an enabler, not something to be frightened of. Now your team, we've mentioned a couple things that we like and how we, behaviors that we have as individuals that are successful. But I'm curious, what stands out to you? Like, let's say, in your CTO office or your group of people, what's the behavior or some sort of trait that stands out?

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:35) And when you see that, you think to yourself, I wanna invest some time into that person. I see a bright future for them.

(Christian Reilly at 00:35:42) Yeah. I mean, I think I'm a big fan of change agents. You know? I mean, I've been called that in my career historically. I've been lucky enough to have had lots of good mentors over my time that have enabled, you know, my kind of challenging status quo and wanting to do things differently.

(Christian Reilly at 00:36:02) I think, fundamentally, one of the biggest, certainly in my opinion, one of the biggest traits that you can have as a leader is to identify the change agents and put them in roles and positions where they can be most effective. And, you know, it's interesting because most change agents that I've seen and the ones that are in my team, certainly, they don't have big teams of their own. They're just very capable of understanding how to build relationships, how to build trust, how to build constituents, and how to very cleverly look at things in a different way and bring people along. And I think that's a skill that, to this day, I don't believe that's anything you can teach.

(Christian Reilly at 00:36:38) I think you can identify and nurture it, but I don't think you can actually teach that. I think, like a professional curiosity, you know, like I had when I was at Bexhill and still have now, which is, you know, I'll put my hand up and go anywhere around the world because I want to learn how things work somewhere else. And I, you know, I'd like to believe that we could have an impact all over the world. And so I think to do that, you know, professional curiosity where you're constantly challenging, you kind of have this thirst for not just knowledge, but you have a thirst for experience and you have a thirst for making an impact. I think that along with being a change agent are definitely the things that I look for.

(Christian Reilly at 00:37:12) Because, you know, I mean, as I said, we have a small team by design, but it's very impactful if you look at the kind of number of touch points that we have through the organization. And, you know, you can't do that by hierarchy or by org chart or by, you know, corporate architecture. You have to do that by people who are invested in the mission, who understand what it takes to get the job done, who are self-starters, who are change agents, and, you know, frankly, are a bit bonkers to wanna spend half their life on a plane. But that's okay. I mean, you know, that's a perfectly good trade.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:45) Yeah. Because they don't see it as half their life on a plane. They, that's like an attribute of something else that they're after. They see it as the change that they're creating in the world, and that's just something that's a part of it.

(Christian Reilly at 00:37:56) Right? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, the plane at that point is a tool of the job. Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:01) I love it. So as we start to wrap up, let's say I'm gonna give you a hypothetical situation here. We'll have a little fun. Let's say you're working out at the gym. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:11) And as you're walking back to your car, in front of you pulls up Elon Musk. Okay? He's got the brand new 2020 Tesla, and the door opens. And he's like, hey, you wanna hang out? You say yes. You go hang out. He takes you to the SpaceX factory. Right? And he's got this curtain.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:28) He pulls back the curtain. There is a time machine. Now here's the thing. So you're gonna go into this time machine, and you're gonna go back to the exact moment where you were taking apart that computer, where your parents are like, what are you doing? Why are you taking apart this computer?

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:43) And you get to give yourself one piece of advice for the future, what would it be?

(Christian Reilly at 00:38:49) Oh, man. You know, I would hope that on the trip back there, which is, what, thirty-six years, in the time that it took to get there, Elon would also have invented a here's some more patience capsule that you could swallow on the way back. Right? And so when I land there and I start taking that thing apart, my next thirty-six years is littered with a bit more patience because I think if I, you know, with the benefit of age, not only is slowing down, but wisdom comes into it. And, you know, I look back and, yeah, I was impatient because I knew what I wanted to do.

(Christian Reilly at 00:39:27) I knew what I wanted to be. I always wanted to be a CTO, not because of the title, just because of the things that it can do materially to change technology or to change your way or to change your customer. And yeah, I mean, I was very, as I say, I was very fortunate in Bechtel because we built some things that really are iconic and help to change economies and change the landscape of countries. And, you know, it's a bit like the famous Steve Jobs phrase where he said, "I want to put a ding in the universe."

(Christian Reilly at 00:39:57) I don't think I'm anywhere near that, but I had that same passion and that same desire. But I was just so impatient. You know, I didn't want to sit and wait and learn. It was like, "Hey, why am I not doing this now? I'm ready for it." So, you know, and I think that's an okay trait to have. But I know that I probably upset a few people along the way because of my impatience, which was nothing more than passion and want and willingness, but maybe not channeled in the way that most people would understand that. They probably just know I was like a bee in a bottle, I don't know.

(Christian Reilly at 00:40:28) But that's okay. I mean, you know, I've chilled out a bit now, and now I appreciate that. But again, it was certainly not intended in any other way than just wanting to go out there and get some stuff done. So yeah, hopefully the patience capsule that I swallow on the way back to 1983 will set me up for the next phase.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:49) It was the opposite. There was an issue with the patience capsule, and it turned out to be like a motivation capsule. So now you've like tripled your amount of energy.

(Christian Reilly at 00:40:57) There you go. There you go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:58) That's usually how it goes with those types of experiments, right?

(Christian Reilly at 00:41:01) Absolutely. Absolutely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:03) Thank you so much for coming on and hanging out. I'll have Jake and Chloe like loop back with Jenna and let you know when we publish the episode and the clips and all of that. Also, I don't know if you make your way around to Sweden very often, but there is a guy there named Ben, and he's got a company called BIMobject that's publicly traded. He's fantastic. Can you remind me a bit of him?

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:23) He also likes to race. He races some of his—he's got like some Ferraris or some Porsches and stuff he races. But he is—I went to Sweden and hung out with him like a month or two ago for a couple days. The guy is just awesome. And his company is like in 20 countries. It's pretty cool. But I will send him the Formula One series that you were telling me that was like behind the Formula One. I'll be like, "Oh, I talked to Christian today. This guy is pretty cool. Follow him on Twitter," and then maybe introduce you guys.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:51) But I don't know. I just like to introduce people that I think would get along together.

(Christian Reilly at 00:41:54) I appreciate that. Thanks a lot. Thanks for the opportunity. It's been great fun.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:57) Thank you so much. Have a great day.

(Christian Reilly at 00:41:58) All right. Yeah. Take care.