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Victoria Livshitz, Cloud Pioneer and Serial Entrepreneur (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the the-network-is-the-grid-computer-in-the-cloud dept.

Victoria is someone we'd all like to sit down with and learn from. She's worked as a software engineer for Ford, as an engineer for Sun, as founder and CEO of a company called Grid Dynamics, and as founder and CEO of her latest company, Qubell. Before that, she and her husband taught chess. Here's an article in which Victoria talks about "Envisioning a New Language" back in 2005 when she was still at Sun. Because of this and other early musings on what came to be called network computing, grid computing, and later cloud computing, Victoria has been called "the mother of the cloud." Maybe, maybe not. In any case, she knows a great deal about cloud developments. For this conversation she brought along Qubell's CTO, Stan Klimoff, who also knows his stuff.

This interview doesn't cover all we learned from Victoria and Stan, just all we could fit into our new "keep videos under 10 minutes" mandate, which we don't mind because, in return, there's a new button that lets you skip preroll ads longer than 30 seconds after only five seconds. Yay! We'll post another conversation with Victoria next week or the week after. We're looking forward to it and hope you are, too.

36 comments

  1. Lemme guess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    She had rich, well connected parents, like 99% of tech "leaders"

    1. Re:Lemme guess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except what those stories don't tell you is her husband already had a mechanical engineering masters and came to America to do a masters in EE and then immediately took a job with Ford after graduating. The "hard times" delivering pizzas was his part time job while he worked on his second masters degree...at a school that costs $40,000 a year! Yes, I think they had some family help.

  2. Lemme guess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lemme guess. You didn't google.

    If you had, you'd have quickly found this article:

    http://neonnotebook.com/three-things-wish-known-20s-victoria-livshitz/

  3. Lemme guess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not to mention this:

    http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/entrepreneurs/2011/09/21/cloud-computing-pioneer-victoria-livschitz-cloud-is-new-reality/

    She's the very opposite of your kneejerk supposition.

  4. Interesting observation by Stan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stan Klimoff: I used to be an active member with the community several years ago, but it has been a long time now... And it’s really good to hear that Slashdot is returning to the roots, several years ago most of the posts on the front page were about politics for some reason.

    Doesn't appear to me that slashdot has changed much since it drove him away.

    1. Re:Interesting observation by Stan by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I fail to see how "original content"/hangout_videos about buffing up some biz I've never heard about is returning to the roots. they're always very generic videos which work mainly to prop up the interviewed person and I don't think there has been a single video about how to do x or here's the basics about tech subject xyz. I don't want the setup for the video to be "this person is so fucking great and has been at x y z and is now at g/f/p". the setup should be at most be summary of what's in the video and that summary better be interesting. in other words, the subject and content should be the vehicle for propping up the content not empty praise words about a person I've never heard about before(and therefore for me are about as meaningful as the zombie professor introductions on zombie mockumentaries).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:Interesting observation by Stan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used to work at IBM back in the early 90s. At the time, the mainframe business was dying and P2P networks were all the buzz. It was all about how we would move away from centralized computing. The power was moving to the end point in the network (i.e., the many thousands of PCs). Now, it looks like we are going back to the centralized computing framework. I fail to see how this is innovative since we are mainly going back to an idea that was common place in the past.

  5. Re:jew bitch with a penis... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With your mom

  6. A cloud pioneer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is not something positive. I definitely don't want to learn from her. Go away.

  7. interesting story by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

    Regardless of how you feel about the cloud, her story is pretty inspiring.

    Goes to show what you can accomplish with some motivation and hard work (And a genius level IQ probably doesn't hurt either.)

    1. Re:interesting story by uCallHimDrJ0NES · · Score: 1

      You left out "opportunity" and "market".

      --
      Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
    2. Re:interesting story by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      True, but those other traits let people see and then exploit the two you mentioned.

  8. Victoria Livshitz, Butt Pioneer and Serial Entrepr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >Victoria Livshitz, Butt Pioneer and Serial Entrepreneur
    >early musings on what came to be called network computing, grid computing, and later butt computing
    >Victoria has been called "the mother of my butt." Maybe, maybe not
    >In any case, she knows a great deal about butt developments

    Why so many stories about people's Butts lately /. ?

  9. Who? by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 1

    Who?

    1. Re:Who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently someone who clung onto Sun Microsystems for five years after their stock tanked.

  10. live shits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    LOL her name has "shit" in it.

  11. Oh really? by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 1

    The cloud is just client/server architecture, nothing more. It's neither new nor exciting nor special, and usually a bad idea unless you have full control over the server.

    1. Re:Oh really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but it's not just run of the mill client/server tho bro, it's client/server where the cia/nsa/fbi (and whatever foreign nationals happen to hack it) have access to all your mission critical files! Now THAT'S innovation baby!

    2. Re:Oh really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't know wtf you're talking about do you? It is not, lolzers, "just client server" you tard.

  12. We Need More Of This! by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 2

    [...] founder and CEO of her latest company, Qubell.

    Because what we need is more Qubell.

  13. Slashdot by PaddyM · · Score: 2

    Slashdot has been called the "mother(*&^%$ of editing". For good reason. Her last name is Livschitz.

  14. Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How much did Jon Lovitz or whoever pay to get this puff piece on here?

  15. fruedian slip by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Freudian slip

  16. Gots to agree w/gl4ss . . . by sgt_doom · · Score: 2

    . . . I mean, I read a bunch of books per month by people who say they are great, and their bios say they are great, and they usually have blurbs by others saying they are great, and when I'm done with the book I realize it is almost pure bullcrap! And that is what they pay these people for?

    1. Re:Gots to agree w/gl4ss . . . by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

      I mean, Cloud Computing, is what the CIA is down with, right? What is the purpose of having all the data on someone else's servers that they have control over, huh?

  17. keep videos under 10 minutes by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    Why a 10 minutes mandate? There are a few daily situations where I listen to videos while doing something else, and I'd like to see more one hour-long videos.

  18. To set the record straight by VictoriaL · · Score: 2

    I have been called many things, but "the mother of the cloud" is the first. Robin has a wild imagination. - Victoria

    1. Re:To set the record straight by cusco · · Score: 1

      On behalf of myself and I'm sure most other long-time SlashDot posters I'd like to apologize for the current disgusting mess in this thread. There's always been plenty of opposing and/or absurd views on SlashDot, some of them outright vile, but the current flood of 4chan refugees posting as AC over the last year or so has been making the site less and less pleasant to visit. Sorry about that.

      Actual question posted below.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  19. Mother of fail by Hypotensive · · Score: 1

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/16/cloud_computing_is_fail_and_heres_why/

  20. Mainframe By Another Name? by cusco · · Score: 1

    To me it appears that the "cloud revolution" is more of a return to the mainframe and time-sharing model than anything really novel. The components are more modular and we have much nicer front ends and better DB engines, but is there really anything that sets the Cloud Computing model apart?

    --
    "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  21. Some Translation by nukenerd · · Score: 2
    From the interview :-

    .... mining of data, the formation of new business intelligence that can now sit on data sources the size of Google, and how to make sense of them. ..... shed light on peoples’ buying trends and preferences to boost sales—every small business owner’s dream. ........ Owning and managing the cloud will be relegated to a small number of service companies that can add value to products.

    Translation :- stuffing adverts down the users' throats.

    Second thoughts, it didn't really translating, it's plain enough already.

  22. "They had no U.S. work experience..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those were the days in 1991 when someone with no experience could make it in the software industry. Today they'd be working at McDonalds (if they could get through the protesters) because they didn't have 5-10 years experience with ASP.NET, Oracle, and Python.

  23. Life imitating The Onion? by Briareos · · Score: 1

    The Onion: "Christ, Article A Video"... :)

    --

    "I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole