Posted: 4 Min ReadExpert Perspectives

A Conversation with Lee Moore of Google Cloud

Connected by Broadcom

Broadcom is connecting everything. Our technology — both semiconductor and infrastructure software—powers the most complex IT environments in the world and touches everyday life — from the latest mobile and home devices to the Cloud, to service provider networks, to software and critical infrastructure. The Connected by Broadcom interview series features discussions with leaders who partner with Broadcom to take their business to the next level.

In our ever-connected world, few companies play as central a role as Google Cloud, whose cloud platform serves as a vast global nexus tying together people and devices across the world. As cloud demand grows exponentially each year, Google Cloud’s technology has also evolved to ensure mission-critical functionality that will meet increased customer needs. In a wide-ranging conversation for our “Connected by Broadcom'' series, Lee Moore, who oversees Customer Experience at Google Cloud, described how innovation and partnership inform his approach to the job.

Lee is a 30-year veteran of Accenture where he made his mark solving complex customer challenges across different verticals. His role at Google Cloud spans customer engagements across the globe and involves working with the sales and the professional services teams and also with partners like Broadcom. Here are the highlights from our conversation.

The Special Relationship

Broadcom and Google enjoy a unique relationship. Broadcom supplies wireless chips for Google phones as well as chips for its data center and cloud services. At the same time, Broadcom is one of Google Cloud’s biggest customers for its cloud products. (Looking back at the speed with which Broadcom migrated over to Google Cloud, Lee referenced the transformation as “an amazing case study.”) This bidirectional relationship has also forged a special bond.

While Lee deals with Broadcom primarily as one of Google’s customers, the fact that Broadcom is also a big supplier to his organization further cements what he described as a foundation of trust. “It means that we don't have to get to know each other every time,” he said. “We don't have to learn how to trust each other every single time. We can innovate together, decide something on a Friday and start on a Monday to just get on and do it together. And that speed in today's world is something that just cannot be replaced.”

Shared Commitments to Innovation

Lee observed that company success rests upon having strong core values where innovation and the pursuit of engineering excellence trumps all else. It’s also a trait shared by Google Cloud and Broadcom, where he said, it’s the heart of how the two companies operate their businesses. That common point of departure has also smoothed the way for close collaboration over the years. As Lee pointed out, “the fact that we both want to make a difference and want to connect the world just helps us to work together much more easily.”

Those shared commitments are particularly important for Google Cloud as the cloud transition enters a new phase in its evolution. As more customers adopt hybrid cloud implementations, either operating multiple clouds or retaining certain workloads on-premises, Google Cloud’s working to ensure that customers can flourish equally well in that public-private environment. At the same time, the company continues to bring new, innovative technologies to the cloud. One of the most notable is Artificial Intelligence, a topic that’s become part of the popular lexicon. When it comes to AI and Machine Learning, Google Cloud has a long heritage and is now working on applying their experience to making its cloud do even more for customers in the months ahead.

How Partnership Pays Dividends

Lee also heralded the partnership with Broadcom as it allows the companies to design amazing chips together to meet customer demands. That’s particularly important given the accelerating adoption of AI. Indeed, AI requires high performance compute power and storage, particularly when it comes to TPU circuitry. Things like parallelization for compute power, distributed computing, distributed storage, low latency networking products - all become key to continue that evolution well beyond Moore's Law. So the more that companies can advance the state of the art, the faster its uptake.

Investing in Partner Success

Lee had three lessons to invest in a successful partnership:

  • Zoom out from the current situation and think long term. Don't try to solve a problem with a short-term fix that is more likely than not to jeopardize a medium and long-term situation for your customer.
  • Live in your customer's shoes. Lee puts it this way: if you don’t work for an organization, you don’t know as much about that company as their employees. So, if you’re working with another company, invest the time to truly understand what they go through every day. 
  • Nobody's ever been fired for being bold and ambitious. So, don’t be shy with your customers. Oftentimes, a proposal may still be a few years ahead of its time and the customer will give the thumbs down. But sometime in the future, they may very well call back and tell you the time is now ripe to give it a go. 

Keep Customer Experience Top of Mind

Over the course of his long career, Lee has learned the importance of being able to solve customer issues while continually innovating. Otherwise, he notes, you’re leaving the field open to the competition. Being the executive in charge of cloud customer experience, Lee has to be ready for every eventuality after a customer has signed a contract with Google Cloud. So, when customers need support - everything from migration and implementation to training and education around the cloud – he mobilizes his teams to work with customers to keep their platforms up and running. As cloud demand scales, that creates both opportunity and challenge. Many customers use Google Cloud for mission-critical platforms. That amplifies the need to make sure the service holds up, even during peak periods of use. For example, consider the demands put on the system during the recently concluded Football World Cup when many customers were streaming this quadrennial global sporting competition. When crunch time came Google Cloud met the challenge and scored big.

Broadcom products have been designed and optimized for end-to-end integration and deliver the best-possible performance. That’s Connected by Broadcom.

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About the Author

Vijay Nagarajan

Vice President, Wireless Connectivity Division, Broadcom

Vijay is currently running global wireless connectivity product efforts at Broadcom Inc., and evangelizing semiconductor solutions and innovation, through Connected by Broadcom, a video series featuring peers and guests from the technology world.

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