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\nEpisode 37 | August 15, 2018<\/h3>\n
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If your idea of a great job includes pursuing untethered research, shepherding brilliant researchers and helping shape the long-term strategy of one of the largest tech companies in the world\u2026 oh, and also publishing prolifically, authoring patents, winning awards and speaking around the world\u2026 you are in good company. That\u2019s what Dr. Victor Bahl<\/a>, Distinguished Scientist and Director of Mobility and Networking<\/a> at Microsoft Research, does for a living. And he loves it!<\/p>\n Today, in our first live podcast, recorded at the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit <\/a>2018,<\/span> Dr. Bahl shares some fascinating stories from his long and illustrious career, gives us an inside look at what\u2019s new in networking, and, explains why, in an industry where it pays to be the smartest person in the room, it\u2019s important to be a world-class listener.<\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Craig Mundy, who was the CTO of this organization took me out for dinner. I was again a young researcher, and I didn\u2019t know what it was about. And he started talking to me about this cable\/DSL duopoly. So, he started to explain to me how in rural America people had no access in the internet, right? And the duopoly concept was about the fact that everybody was relying on these cable and Telcos to provide them connectivity. And they would provide connectivity where their business model made sense. So, as he was explaining this to me, he started to say, well, Victor, we must be able to do something in wireless to prevent that. And then he said, so are you going to do this? This is exactly how he said, are you going to do this? And so, here\u2019s a CTO of Microsoft Research at that time, asking me. So that got me going on this stuff.<\/p>\n Host: You\u2019re listening to the Microsoft Research Podcast, a show that brings you closer to the cutting-edge of technology research and the scientists behind it. I\u2019m your host, Gretchen Huizinga.<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: If your idea of a great job includes pursuing untethered research, shepherding brilliant researchers and helping shape the long-term strategy of one of the largest tech companies in the world\u2026 oh, and also publishing prolifically, authoring patents, winning awards and speaking around the world\u2026 you are in good company. That\u2019s what Dr. Victor Bahl, Distinguished Scientist and Director of Mobility and Networking at Microsoft Research, does for a living. And he loves it!<\/strong><\/p>\n Today, in our first live podcast, recorded at the Microsoft Research 2018 Faculty Summit, Dr. Bahl shares some fascinating stories from his long and illustrious career, gives us an inside look at what\u2019s new in networking, and, explains why, in an industry where it pays to be the smartest person in the room, it\u2019s important to be a world-class listener.<\/strong><\/p>\n That and much more on this episode of the Microsoft Research Podcast.<\/strong><\/p>\n (applause)<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: Yeah, this is our first live podcast, and I\u2019m honored to have you be the guest, Victor. You\u2019re a distinguished scientist and the Director of Mobility and Networking at MSR. And you say you have one of the best jobs in the industry. How would you describe what you do? What inspires you? What gets you up in the morning?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Well, first thank you for having me here. Yeah, I do have the best job in the world! I think, if I reflect on what I have, you know, I\u2019m around some of the smartest people in the world. They are on the top of their game. Talking to them ups my game. And every day is a learning experience for me. I also feel that this organization is set up amazingly well, providing complete flexibility to the kind of things we want to pursue. So, we can really go after our own passion. I also feel that the, our CEO has empathy, and has shown that, and that allows us to not only just go after tech problems, but also things that affect the societal benefits. And hey, the pay is not bad either, so, you know if you take all that into account, it\u2019s one of the best jobs I could have had.<\/p>\n Host: How would you describe or define the big goal of mobility and networking researchers at MSR? What big issues are you looking at, the big questions you\u2019re trying to solve?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: I think we are trying to build the most reliable, the most accessible, the most secure, fastest network on the planet. And so, if you think about it from that perspective, there are many, many problems that you need to solve, including things like broadband access to the billions of people who don\u2019t have it. When I talk about accessibility, that\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about. When I talk about reliability, I\u2019m talking about a network that never goes down. And, then similarly, there are other problems, same thing with security. You don\u2019t want your packets or your data to be compromised in any way. So yeah, we work on some of these things, and the scale is so large, it\u2019s just fabulous for us.<\/p>\n Host: Let\u2019s talk a little bit about philosophies of research. I kind of ask myself, you know, do you ask different kinds of questions as a researcher in technology, or do you just ask the same questions with different deadlines? Where do you fall on that question, and where do you think MSR falls on that?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah, that\u2019s a good question, I think. And you bring up an interesting point about timelines, and I think that\u2019s kind of the key here, that I believe in Microsoft Research that we have time on our side. Whereas engineers and folks who work on the product, they have to deliver pretty quickly. Now, with time on our side, that luxury allows us to now try things that may not get there very quickly. And it also allows us to take a lot of risks. And so, in research, I believe we deal with ambiguity very well. You know, you give us a whole set of data, you give us a generic problem. And we have trained ourselves to try to identify, with great crispness, what the hard problem there is, and then we go after that. So yes, there is a difference between how, you know, engineers, very smart engineers, will deal with a problem in the product space, and researchers will deal with them in the MSR space.<\/p>\n Host: That\u2019s an interesting comparison with the engineer and the researcher in the sense that if you\u2019re an engineer, you have that deadline, and sometimes that can be a benefit, right? I have to solve this quickly to deliver on a deadline.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: So, it\u2019s not like we don\u2019t give ourselves deadlines too. You know, we impose these deadlines on us to sort of put a stake in the ground in some sense of saying, you know, we are on top of this stuff. So yeah, deadlines do help. Now, there are different kinds. If you have very short deadlines, then you might compromise just here and there to get to that deadline.<\/p>\n Host: Well, and I would say that from a researcher perspective, yeah, deadlines can help incentivize you. But also, they don\u2019t allow you to take the kinds of risks that may come up with a serendipitous discovery along the way.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah, but I mean, you know, to be very fair and honest about it, there is a culture of trying to produce a lot of papers, right? So, they put these self-imposed deadlines and try to publish. That\u2019s their, sort of, their product, as I say. In reality, we should be able to take time. I don\u2019t think research can be done without leisure, to be honest. You really need time to sit back and think and reflect. And not everybody understands that. I mean, people might sort of say that you\u2019re not working, but that\u2019s actually not true.<\/p>\n Host: I hear you.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: This is a completely necessary ingredient to doing this. And that is why, if you think about MSR, we don\u2019t tell our researchers what to work on. But we hire the kind of individuals who are very \u2013 so self-driven that they won\u2019t just not do anything. You know what I mean? So yeah, I think that there is…<\/p>\n Host: It\u2019s a balance and an ebb and flow probably, a little bit.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah.<\/p>\n Host: Off the topic, but it\u2019s like slow food and fast food. Sometimes you have better benefits if you take time to reduce the sauce.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah, but the hamburgers taste very good, though.<\/p>\n Host: When you\u2019re super hungry, absolutely. So, Victor, collaboration is a big deal in systems and networking.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yes.<\/p>\n Host: Which totally makes sense if you think about it, networking. What individuals, organizations, industries do you collaborate with, and why do you think it\u2019s so important to work together on the kinds of problems you\u2019re addressing?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah, I actually believe in this very deeply. So, there\u2019s multiple types of collaboration, of course. The most obvious one is where you\u2019re collaborating with engineers and where you know you can sort of think about, they have some very hard problems to work on, and you know they\u2019re not sure exactly how to go about it. And so, you understand what they\u2019re trying to do. And then once you\u2019ve understood that, you try to help and you\u2019re sort of collaborating with them. And so, this is sort of the typical research\/engineering collaboration. But if I step back, I think in research, we have to collaborate with more than just the product group guys. Collaborating with, believe it or not, the government, is really important. Government officials don\u2019t necessarily know what is doable, what is not doable. So, you have to sort of work with them for them to understand the aspects of technology that can compromise people and ones that don\u2019t. We collaborate with academia, and this is the source of talent that we are to hire. And they have to train these people to work with us. So, then you know, these brilliant people that we work with, once they understand the problems we\u2019re working on and the students come and work with us as interns, that\u2019s another form of collaboration. And then, a fourth form I would say is just the businesses. I mean, a lot of the stuff in technology is actually creating new business models, right? I mean, if you think about Google, one of the big successes was not necessarily the search. They had a breakthrough in the business model. So yeah, I mean, if you really want to be successful, you\u2019ve got to work with all these different individuals, I think, or individual players.<\/p>\n Host: Let\u2019s talk briefly about network system, writ large. What are the historic challenges of network systems, and how has the landscape changed with the advent of the cloud?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: So, I\u2019ve been doing this for a long time, so I guess I should be able to say\u2026 The world that I walked into after getting my graduate degree to the world that exists today is different. But it\u2019s way more exciting now than it was then. So, when I graduated, there was no cloud, right? There was internet. And even the internet had not really picked up. There was no web, for that matter. The web happened after I started working. And I was working in wireless. The telco industry was taking off; cellular networks were big. And we were starting to connect to one another. Our generation connected the world. And the next generation will figure out what\u2026 So in terms of connecting the world, we\u2019ve gone into many dimensions here, but you asked specifically about the cloud. In the cloud, it\u2019s all about scale. I mean, we have such massive scales. They\u2026 You know, we have something in the order of 54 regions, and these regions have multiple datacenters. We\u2019ve got over 150 datacenters around the world, and they\u2019re getting further built. We have tens of thousands of miles of fiber in the wide area. We have hundreds of thousands of miles of optics inside the datacenter. So now think about these millions of components that are connected to one another. And we rely on them so much, you don\u2019t want them to fail ever.<\/p>\n Host: No.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: That\u2019s the problem, right? We have now created these complex systems, and we rely so heavily on them. And we have to constantly figure out, what is the discipline with which we design, we build, we add more features, so we can do well? So, I think the world earlier was a little bit simpler, but it was beautiful, because we were discovering new things. Now it feels that we have discovered a bunch of things, but now everybody wants them, and so now it gets very, very complicated to try to make sure that everybody gets it.<\/p>\n Host: I love how you describe \u201cmy generation connected the world,\u201d now you guys go figure out how you\u2019re going to keep that going.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: It\u2019s true. It\u2019s very true.<\/p>\n Host: In this giant scale.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: It\u2019s very true. Every generation\u2026 this is our generation\u2019s gift to the next generation.<\/p>\n Host: It is. Victor, you have some great stories from your career here. There\u2019s one I\u2019d really like you to tell our audience today, and it\u2019s the one about how the first wireless hotspot came about.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Right, right. Oh, how many years ago was that? That is 1999. So, I had graduated. I had gone, got my PhD while I was working. And then I came to Microsoft Research. I was this newly minted PhD, and I wanted to do something great with my life. And so, we were in this building. I said, we\u2019ll create a Wi-Fi network. At that time, there was no Wi-Fi, by the way. There was a standard, this was called A22.11 and I wanted to create a lab out of this building that I was in. So, one of my managers was very supportive of that, and so he gave me the green light to do it. So, I created that lab, and I put A22.11 in that building. So, now this was also the time when 3G networks were starting to come. And in the media, everywhere you read, it all talked about 3G. They talked about, that\u2019s what was going to create a ubiquitous coverage. Bill Gates was the CEO at that time, and we showed him what we had. And we convinced him, and he made the decision, to expand this network that I\u2019d created to all the buildings in Microsoft. It was about 35 buildings at the time. And that was a big deal. There was nobody in the world at that time who had this, right? So, it was Bill\u2019s forward-looking vision that he made that decision and made that happen. But then, that lighted up everybody\u2019s eyes. And then other companies started to look at, oh, maybe we should do it too. So, as I was thinking about all this stuff, I thought, hey, I\u2019ve got this going here. I can probably do it in public spaces too. I can go to malls and I can go to shopping centers, and I can go to airports and I can be connected. And I don\u2019t need the 3G network. I mean, this is all indoor technology. All I need is a way to authentic people, and whoever has put the network there, they can figure out how they want to charge. Either they can give it free or not. So, I wanted to do this for real, so I went to Crossroads, and said, your shopping center will be the first Wi-Fi hotspot in the world. They had these bragging rights that they were convinced of. So then, over a period of a year and a half, with another student of mine at the time, he and I, we build this up. And this actually ended up becoming the first Wi-Fi hotspot.<\/p>\n (music plays)<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: Well, before we get into two big topics that I want to cover with you, let\u2019s talk for a minute about the breadth of work that\u2019s coming out of your group. And there\u2019s some really exciting stuff going on. Fantastic projects, for example, in live video analytics. So, give us some highlights of the research that we\u2019re seeing in this area, just kind of high-level, and what research from other groups has really enabled those products to come to life?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah. So, I like this project for a number of reasons. You know, you asked me when we began, why I like this job, or why I think it\u2019s one of the best jobs. So, this is a great example of tech that can be good for business, and it\u2019s good for society, right? So, the scenario is straightforward. You and a lot of people \u2013 all of us get stuck in traffic. And we want to not be stuck in traffic. That is just wasted time. So, we started looking at the cameras, right? And then we thought, well, we\u2019ve got all these cameras that are taking this video of traffic flowing and things of that nature, but they\u2019re not doing anything active with it. They\u2019re sort of like take the video and then later on you would analyze it. So, that got us going in that space. Now, there are many technical problems here. But I think, since you asked me to stay high level, you should think of it this way. In Beijing, there are 20 million cameras. And in London there was a camera for every 7 or 8 people there in the city. If you go to New York, you see cameras. And the question then, you ask, is, okay, who\u2019s looking at the video? I mean, when something bad happens, you go back and look at the video, right? And so, in this day and age, why can\u2019t I build technology where I can do vision research? There\u2019s been a lot of great work that has gone in vision, computer vision. And so, we decided that we could take some of that work. We could build these systems and roll them out to try to take advantage of these streams and create workflows that would have an impact.<\/p>\n Host: I would love to spend an entire hour with you just on live video analytics, but we\u2019ve got to move on. Because I can\u2019t let an interview go by with you without talking about the dynamic spectrum, the spectrum opportunity, TV white space. You were there pretty well from the beginning.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: I was, yes.<\/p>\n Host: So, in broad strokes again, tell us how the TV White-Fi came about.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Sure.<\/p>\n Host: And how it\u2019s developed over the past couple years.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah, so, you\u2019re right. I was there from the very beginning. Actually, my story on that starts in the year 2003 when Craig Mundy, who was the CTO of this organization took me out for dinner. I was again a young researcher, and I didn\u2019t know what it was about. And he started talking to me about this cable\/DSL duopoly. So, he started to explain to me how in rural America people had no access in the internet, right? And the duopoly concept was about the fact that everybody was relying on these cable and Telcos to provide them connectivity. And they would provide connectivity where their business model made sense. So, as he was explaining this to me, he started to say, well, Victor, we must be able to do something in wireless to prevent that. And then he said, so are you going to do this? This is exactly how he said, are you going to do this? And so, here\u2019s a CTO of Microsoft Research, at that time, asking me. So that got me going on this stuff. And then this amazing thing happened that we discovered that this new spectrum was going to become available. And this was spectrum that was reserved for digital TV. It was being used for analog TV, and it was going to be converted to digital TV. And the rule of thumb there is that digital TV will use one-third the spectrum of the analog TV. So that means you\u2019ve got two thirds spectrum leftover, right? These are the frequencies that are left over. Of course, the Telco companies came and said, we want that, we\u2019ll pay you for that. And then, you know, we went and said to them, if you give it to Telcos, you\u2019ll have the same problem. All these millions of people in US, and even not US, just billions around the world, which will again be left out. You would not have solved the problems. So, what they did is, even though everybody was broadcasting digital, they started putting TV stations in analog space to not to lose that spectrum. Because they know they couldn\u2019t really sell it, but they didn\u2019t want to give it up too. They knew this was a major resource. So, this was a serious problem now for us. So, the technical problem then became, can you now sense the frequencies? If nobody\u2019s using it, just use it. So that is where we created this notion of opportunistic networking. And we went after that. A lot of papers written, a lot of like press. Nobody was really doing the work. But we took on the work. We actually built a system like that. This was cutting-edge. Nobody had ever built anything like that. We brought the FCC chairman. I gave him a two-and-a-half-hour sort of a lecture on how these things work. I showed him the network on Redmond Campus and showed him the demo. He and his colleague asked us all kinds of questions, but we sent them convinced. Five days later, they awarded to say yes, let\u2019s\u2026 unlicensed spectrum is allowed.<\/p>\n Host: Nice.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: And then, so this was a big, big win for us. And the final thing I would say is that Microsoft now has an Airband Initiative where we have promised to connect 2 million people in the United States by 2020 based on this technology. And in Africa, we\u2019ve done the same thing. Hundreds of thousands of students have come online, and they\u2019ve written\u2026 I\u2019ve gotten mail from them saying that this has changed their life. They actually said God should bless us, because how much we had changed their life.<\/p>\n Host: Wow.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: So yeah, this was a big story for us.<\/p>\n Host: Well, also if listeners want to drill in a little bit more, I did a podcast with Ranveer Chandra, who explained in more detail the dynamic spectrum TV white spaces. All right, a lot of talk lately about edge computing or the intelligent edge. Can you give us an overview of what it is and why it\u2019s important, and what are the big research challenges for edge computing?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Today, cloud vendors sell you storage and they sell you compute. I want them to sell you latency as well. So that\u2019s how we conceived of edge computing. It was actually conceived in 2009. So, the idea of edge is that you have many applications which are very latency-sensitive, so edge is very, very important when computing has to be very close to the data, but then the devices are not\u2026 you don\u2019t want the devices to be very big. They\u2019re just very small. So, when I thought about edge and conceived it, I thought about edge in conjunction with cloud. And what has happened in the last two years they manage the edge with IoT. Any sector you look at, it\u2019s all about IT. It\u2019s all about automation. And so\u2026 it\u2019s all about sensors. And so now they have to connect some computing device, and that\u2019s your edge. That\u2019s your intelligent edge. So, I think in research there are many problems that still need to be solved. All the problems we solved in the cloud actually apply to the edge too, things like availability, reliability, security. All that has to be solved in now this domain. And the assumptions that were made for the cloud are a little bit different from the edge.<\/p>\n Host: So where does that live in the research organization? What kinds of things are you working on to make that a reality?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah, so the biggest thing is about reliability. So, you know if you\u2019re going to create a dependency of your business on the cloud, you need to make sure that the edge is always available. So, I think one of the problems is that in the cloud, you\u2019ve got hundreds of thousands of machines, and we know how to make availability. If something goes down, we\u2019ll just switch you over, you won\u2019t even know. Now, in edge, we don\u2019t control the system, because it\u2019s sitting on your premise. It\u2019s some heterogenous piece of hardware, and so even thinking about, how do we give you the same sense of security that you have in terms of the availability of the system as we have in cloud? So that\u2019s one problem we\u2019re working on. Other problems have to do with security. I\u2019ve been sort of working with, talking to some researchers yesterday about there\u2019s this problem with physical security. In cloud, we have everything contained, it\u2019s lock-and-key, people are watching. You know, you put the edge here, now, you can have physical security problems where people can actually turn some things off, take the disk out, read it, put it back in. How would you ever know if this happened? And one of the things that always came up was that we\u2019re building these datacenters so quickly, why do we need these edges? So, one of the things was to just build applications that convinces people that you can do this without cloud, so we\u2019ve been doing that as well.<\/p>\n Host: Yeah, you know, I talked to Ben Zorn a while ago, and we talked about the Internet of Things and how not unregulated necessarily, but I could make a device and can sell it to you.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah.<\/p>\n Host: And I don\u2019t have all of the same fallbacks that I put into it.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yes.<\/p>\n Host: So, you\u2019ve got a smart doorbell, you have a smart fork, connected to everything. And it\u2019s like a host of problems.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yes, it\u2019s very serious if you think about it. So, we all like this stuff. But when things go down, you need to fix this.<\/p>\n Host: Who do you call?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: What are you going to do, right?<\/p>\n Host: Who are you going to call?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Who are you going to call? Ghostbusters, right. But seriously, though, so I think the challenge for all of us is to actually build self-sustaining systems, self-managing systems. And, but I don\u2019t say that too much, because when I say that, it always tends to take people in the direction of, oh my god, we\u2019re going to The Matrix, or we\u2019re going to something else.<\/p>\n Host: Yeah, see, there\u2019s a whole question I ask all of the researchers was what keeps you up at night? But we\u2019ve kind of covered that, on that.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Sure.<\/p>\n Host: So, let\u2019s talk about a big thing and kind of live there for a second. The big announcement this week of the Open Network Emulator.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yes, yes.<\/p>\n Host: Which seems to be predicated on the underlying assumption that the cloud is too big to fail, to use a phrase. Tell us about Open Network Emulator. What is it? Why do we need it? How did you build it?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah, the Open Network Emulator is, once again, now it\u2019s going to become a theme in this podcast, about reliability and availability. Let me put it in perspective as to what it is. As the name suggests. It\u2019s an emulator. It emulates networks. And we\u2019ve known that for a long time, how to do that. But it\u2019s been very hard to emulate cloud-scale networks, right? These are very, very large, as I\u2019ve been saying again and again. The larger story here is verification, network verification. And the way network verification ties into availability is as follows. So, let\u2019s say everything is working perfectly well. Barring hardware failure, everything should be fine. But then somebody, who is part of your team, goes and changes something somewhere. And I have horror stories about that that I can tell you, but I will not\u2026 But goes and changes something at some point, and that thing, as has happened in the past, can bring down an entire region, because, you know, if you break the network, your packets are going nowhere. They\u2019re not going to the right places. Let\u2019s put it that way. And that\u2019s a complete no-no for businesses, right? So, this thing, talking about what keeps me up at night, if something happens somewhere, things will go bad. Millions of people will be impacted, and I don\u2019t want to be the source of that, right? So, the emulator was built to prevent that. And the way the emulator works is that now, networking engineers and operators, when they do changes, they make the change, but they actually don\u2019t even know if they\u2019re making the change to the network. They actually are changing the emulator. Because it mimics the network underneath so amazingly that you can\u2019t tell the difference. So, once you make the changes, the emulator will then try them out and make sure everything is good. Once everything is good, it\u2019s going to go and put in on the network below, and voila, if we did the work right, it should all work. Now, this is how we achieve availability, and it\u2019s been phenomenal. I\u2019m not going too deep into technical details here, but there is some major technical problems that we needed to solve to make it that way. And so now, we have decided that this is such an important resource for everybody that just hoarding it ourself is not the right thing to do. So, we are making it available to the entire community so that they can now \u2013 and it\u2019s not just for production systems, but also for students that are now graduating. Because it emulates the network so well, they can actually do some amazing research without having major datacenters available to them.<\/p>\n Host: Wow.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: So, we just think that this will be very valuable to the entire community, both researchers and industry, and governments also, you know. So, that\u2019s what we are doing with the Open Emulator.<\/p>\n (music plays)<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: As a director of a large group at Microsoft, you have to have some skill in dealing with people. And when we talked before, you told me a little about your own management philosophy, particularly as it relates to how you inspire, shepherd and even protect the people that you\u2019re working with. And you said that it was sort of anchored in the way that you were treated when you were a young researcher.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yes, yeah.<\/p>\n Host: So, tell us about that, what you think.<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah, so, you have to grow as a manager. And what I mean is, let me start by saying that what worked then, doesn\u2019t seem to work now. So, you have to continuously evolve. There is no fixed style. I mean, there are certain core things here, that means respect for the individuals, making sure that you don\u2019t smother them too much in the sense of like they can\u2019t even grow. But as to how you deal with people, I\u2019ve realized it\u2019s generational. So, when I started doing this, a certain set of things worked really well. As a new set of people are coming in with a different sort of an outlook towards life, those old things don\u2019t work anymore. So, what the people who are in my group tell me a lot is, \u201cVictor, listen.\u201d So, I try to listen. A lot. But generally, I think that when somebody comes into my room, with an idea, they should leave feeling great about the idea. Because I have enough humility to say that I don\u2019t know it all. I can express opinion, I can give advice, but I don\u2019t squish any idea, because I feel like, you know, again and again, people have surprised me, massively, about what started off and what it became, because they are just great. And I think that part of your job as a manager is to provide enough air cover so the other individual actually believes that you support them, you will go to bat for them. So, you can have a little bit of discussion here. But once I have said I would, I would go to bat for any of my guys at any point.<\/p>\n Host: Just briefly, give us the story of Victor Bahl and Microsoft Research. How did you get here? What was your path to Microsoft Research?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Yeah, So I was like any other immigrant students at that time. I had come from India. I came here when I was 18. I did my bachelors and masters, and then I got a job at Digital Equipment Corporation. And I was fortunate enough to land in a group where there were very smart people there too. Most of them had PhDs. Most of them had graduated from MIT at the time. So anyway, being around PhDs sort of convinced me that I had to do a PhD myself. And so, DEC had an amazing program at that time. They had a program called GEEP, which was for Graduate Engineering Education Program. It was really for educating people who had come with bachelors to masters. But every so often, they would take somebody who had masters and fund them for a PhD. I was actually selected for that and so that allowed me to get my PhD while I was working. When I came back, they gave me a director role and wanted me to lead that team. But I had been doing networking, and that\u2019s where I wanted to be. So, then my brother was in Microsoft, and so he said, come here, and at least you\u2019ll get to see your niece. So, then I came here for an interview, and I met Rick Rashid, who was the head of Microsoft Research at the time, and they said all the right things. And it sort of like felt to me that I had this amazing opportunity. And yeah, so then I ended up here. And I was\u2026 there\u2019s a funny story there too. I ended up in a group which was called Operating Systems. So, when I ended up, I was doing networking, so I said, hey, we\u2019ve got to change the name of the group, because I do networking, I mean, you know? So, they were thinking about it, and I was in a room with like 7, 8 people I guess. I was the only networking guy. So, I said, \u201cNetworking and Systems.\u201d And then I was voted down 7 to 1, \u201cSystems and Networking.\u201d<\/p>\n Host: Are you kidding?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Because they were all from systems, and they didn\u2019t want networking to be first. So that\u2019s how, it could have been Networking and Systems everywhere instead of people saying Systems and Networking.<\/p>\n Host: Well, as we close, what do you see on the horizon for the next generation of Networking and Systems researchers? What big, exciting, unsolved problems might inspire the next group to be the next Victor Bahl?<\/strong><\/p>\n Victor Bahl: Well, I don’t know about the next Victor Bahl. I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll be their own self. But, I think we live in great times. It\u2019s so amazing. So, I already mentioned to you, things around cloud and things. But what is exciting beyond all this cloud stuff is, think about what other available devices that are coming along the line, right? I\u2019m wearing this watch here which tells me a lot of stuff. This is just the first version of what we\u2019re doing. So, I am not able to predict what precise world we will go towards. I have some broad strokes there of that. But what I\u2019m convinced about that is that the set of problems that are coming our way, and the kinds of things we\u2019re going to do, are just going to be phenomenal. I mean, it\u2019s just\u2026 if I was to be born again now, I wouldn\u2019t mind getting born right now. So, it\u2019s just a great time to be alive, yeah.<\/p>\nRelated:<\/h3>\n
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\nEpisode transcript<\/h3>\n
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","byline":"","formattedDate":"August 15, 2018","formattedExcerpt":"Episode 37, August 15, 2018 - In our first live podcast, Dr. Bahl shares some fascinating stories from his long and illustrious career, gives us an inside look at what\u2019s new in networking, and, explains why, in an industry where it pays to be the…","locale":{"slug":"en_us","name":"English","native":"","english":"English"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500561"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664851,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500561\/revisions\/664851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500561"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=500561"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=500561"},{"taxonomy":"msr-event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event-type?post=500561"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=500561"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=500561"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=500561"},{"taxonomy":"msr-promo-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-promo-type?post=500561"},{"taxonomy":"msr-podcast-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-podcast-series?post=500561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}