Keith Adams, Slack - #NEXTConf - #theCUBE
Channel: SiliconANGLE theCUBE
Date: 2016-06-21

01. Keith Adams, Slack, visits #theCUBE!. (00:15)
02. The Role of Chief Architect at Slack. (01:07)
03. Some Foundational Principles in Scaling. (02:00)
04. How Cloud Services Fit Into Slack Architecture. (04:44)
05. Slack Avoiding the PAAS System. (06:11)
06. Chat as a Platform?. (07:39)
07. Case Uses for Slack. (11:11)
08. Real Time vs. Synchronous Email Layers. (12:17)
09. Too Much Slack? Too Many Channels at Once?. (13:26)
10. Slack Hardware. (15:17)
11. The Show's Reaction to Slack Presence. (16:15)
12. The Synergy Between Platform and Search. (19:09)
13. What To Look For From Slack. (19:47)

Track List created with http://www.vinjavideo.com.
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How Slack is breathing new life into an old concept | #NEXTConf
by Tim Hawkins | Jun 22, 2016

Since shifting focus from its unlikely beginnings as a video game company, Slack is fast becoming an industry leader in professional chat-based communication tools.

Keith Adams, chief architect at Slack Technologies, Inc., joined Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the Nutanix .NEXT Conference 2016 event in Las Vegas to talk about his vision for the direction of Slack.

The Slack vision

Even though the Slack network only currently supports a user base of 3 million users, the company is valued at $3 billion, and it has just received another round of funding worth $200 million. With this substantial valuation, Slack is confident about its broad plans to become a tool that business professionals will embrace worldwide.

“Our goal is to affect the lives of every knowledge worker in the world,” said Adams.

More than a communications tool

Online text-based chat has been around for decades, so the concept is hardly anything new. Slack’s goal is to take this concept and create a highly user-friendly communications environment for business professionals. Originally little more than a set of custom IRC functions for a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game company, the heart of Slack has grown into the billion-dollar company that exists today.

“It’s true that chat has historically been treated as a little bag on the side of your product,” explained Adams. “One of the things we strive to make happen in our messaging product that isn’t a given in competitor messenger products is a sense of place.”