Name: Legendary Honeywell CEO teams up with Vertiv CEO to build a data center powerhouse
Uploaded: 2020-03-10
Duration: 6 min 17 s
Description: Vertiv IPO is charging ahead despite the market selloff and coronavirus.

[ MUSIC ] Dave and Rob great to see both of you. This is a lot of interest in virtue of your, your company newly listed on the New York Stock Exchange. And then you rang the opening bell for the NYSC to celebrate the IPO and a lot of curiosity about you, Dave, the CEO famous for turning around Honeywell, what was it about Vertiv that got you interested to not only invest, but to stick around and help Rob run the company? [ LAUGH ] Well, I don't know that I'm helping Rob run it. I'm more like providing some advice here and there. I like Vertiv because it had all those same Honeywell characteristics. All the stuff that I like, had a Great position in a good industry, you can differentiate with technology. It has a great path for organic sales growth, a great path for inorganic sales growth, margin expansion. So that's the sort of thing I get my jollies from. And being able to work with somebody like, Rob, who's got unbelievable industry knowledge Very successful in his own right was just, I thought it was gonna be a lot of fun so far it has been .>> Rob, tell us first a very quick description of what does vert of do? And what do you want it to be ?>> first of is a company that provides the base equipment for data centers, we power and cool data centers around the globe. Well, we wanted to be known as the leading innovator of providing solutions and protecting the data that needs to be stored in all places. And how can Dave help you get there? I'm so excited to be partnered with Dave. And as a mentoring coach, I've always had that throughout my career. And what Dave has done at Honeywell Is very similar to what we have to do here. So having somebody an icon like Dave, working with us mentoring coaching the team to get there faster I've heard people describe furtive as a $ 4 billion startup but it's kinda funny because the company has been around for more than the company's been around for more than 50 years. You operate In more than 100 countries and you already have so many big customers like, Amazon, and AT & T, and Verizon so from that starting point Dave, where's the company headed? First of all, I love this start- up idea. I think it's a great way to think about it because if we take a look at our industry Data is growing over 20 % a year and has been for a long time. It is tough doing vision for future that doesnt have further explosion in the amount of data. A data has to be stored somewhere and data centres are gonna matter, and that's of the same point for us. Second big item, latency. People get tired of having to wait for, okay, send something. The things turn and goes, comes back, takes too long. We help reduce that latency because you're not just going to see this big 30, 000- square foot data centers. You're gonna see this little 4- foot by 5- foot data centers, and they're gonna be all over the place. Because people don't want to wait, they want you know, they want instantaneous response. Obviously, this is a very exciting time that you've taken on this big project but also it's at a time where the stock markets are so volatile and are selling off on very serious concerns about the corona virus. How is this impacting your plans? Are you. Feeling like you have to hold off for a little bit for now? No, I think you know one of the things that Dave and I both siiii on is in these times, this is when you invest more. This is when you get ahead of your competitors. You don't pull back. We're in this for the long term, the Coronavirus will come and go as it relates to the markets. So, this is a five or 10 year venture for us. So the short term stuff, that's just noise, right? I see you nodding, and start laughing. Yeah, I completely agree, yeah. China is an important market sure for Vertiv. You've got factories there. You have employees there. So how are you navigating what's going on with this whole virus and your growth strategy? I couldn't agree with Rob more was one of the big things we did at Honeywell in the recessions we kept investing. And as a result of that, when we came out of the recession, we did even better. So this same possibility exists here. We're gonna keep investing and doing the things we need to to get the organic growth machine really cranking. But it's a little bit different because this is a very unknown unpredictable virus and economists are already saying that As the virus spreads, businesses and consumers are gonna scale back. And so the risk of recession is much more a possibility. How are you two preparing for that possible scenario? Well, one thing we see is the continued use of cell phones and data. Even in a recession time, there's more and more data being created. So I'm not saying we're recession proof, but I'm saying the economy continues to get smarter use more data, more AI, more machine learning, and driving. So looking ahead a few years and beyond all these worries about recession and the virus What do you think that [ UNKNOWN ] is gonna be looking like? How are people going to describe it that's different than the way they describe it today? We're gonna be the company that's enabling edge data centers. And what we mean by that is for example, if you watch Netflix, Hulu, something like that, when you pull that up on your TV, and you see that little Spinning dial people don't like that. That's called latency. So putting data centers closer to the consumption of the product allows for that link to go away. Is that how you're picturing it today? Yeah, absolutely. I think edge is going to be one of the things that defines us, and think of it this way instead of everything going on. To Finland a 20, 000 square foot data center, you're gonna have these data centers that maybe two feet by five feet. And it's just gonna get processed a lot closer to the action, so the consumers don't have to wait. And what about your stock? Where do you see that it's gonna be in the next couple years, you came out IPOing around $ 10 a share. [ LAUGH ] What's your prediction? That's always tough to do, cuz especially when you're running two markets the way [ LAUGH ] they are today I would just say whatever it is people are gonna look at and say man, those guys way outperformed all the indices that they get compared with. And David I always say, buy now while supplies last. [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] Chaching, man. [ LAUGH ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Vertiv IPO is charging ahead despite the market selloff and coronavirus. 

Legendary Honeywell CEO teams up with Vertiv CEO to build a data center powerhouse

Leadership

Despite the market selloff and coronavirus.

Vertiv IPO is charging ahead

Vertiv IPO is charging ahead despite the market selloff and coronavirus.