From humble beginnings growing up in Hawaii, Mark Thiele found himself doing odd jobs after high school trying to find his way in the world. He foundhimself in the unlikely position of being a computer technician, and with no formal education quickly became a self-taught engineer; rebuilding computers and then complex software environments such as kernels and operating systems. Mark then got involved with data centers quite by accident, just being in the right place at the right time. Throughout his storied career, he has been involved in every facet of the data center and critical infrastructure; from construction to turn-up, site reliability engineering, DevOps, SaaS, Cloud, and now 5G and Edge. His passion for technology is only surpassed by his drive towards making things more efficient and creating unique solutions to complex problems. As Thiele puts it, the next generation won’t know how to start a fire, make dinner, find and meet friends or simply know the essential life skills without technology. We have created an “information now” culture where everyone expects information at their fingertips in real-time, wherever they may be. Change is inevitable; it is evident by the experiential transformation generated by companies like Amazon, Uber, Lyft, Door Dash, Uber Eats, Facebook, and other such platforms. As the world becomes more connected, and we become increasingly dependent on technology, the infrastructure supporting it becomes society’s lifeblood. We’re on the precipice, and the future could be extremely tenuous if we don’taddress the foundational needs of technology and humanity. COVID-19 is an excellent example of mother nature telling us; it’s time to reset. This is an opportunity to work on the basics, a foundation whereby we don’t end up building a house of cards. It’s not the end of the world; it’s a new beginning. According to Thiele, “The technology industry owes the world now; the industry has made a lot of money off the world. The vast majority of that money has been made off of nothing. Facebook is 80% nothing. Google searches. 80% nothing. It's not like we're sending somebody to the moon with the technology built. It's not like we're curing cancer with the technology being built, we are creating a lot of nothing, and they're getting alot of money for it. And it's time for those industries to figure out a way to help guide the population into the future” Thiele has amassed a proven track record of trendspotting with a deep understanding how those trends would impact the evolution of the information technology industry. As a result, he has become one of the industry’s preeminent thought leaders.

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