Along with big businesses, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have an interest in the digital market. Investors look at what customers want and what businesses can provide in order to understand the bigger picture. The team at General Catalyst Partners do their best to make well-informed decisions when backing enterprises.

Steve Herrod, managing director at General Catalyst Partners, talked with John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during this week’s VMworld conference about the digital landscape.

Who’s involved?

Businesses deal with pressure from their classic infrastructure, developers and the end user, according to Herrod. Developers hold more power than they did only a few years ago, and although technology is advancing, it can be hard for an organization to change how its infrastructure is implemented.

Businesses want to take customers from where they are to where they need to be in the most efficient way possible. But with so many influences, companies have to deal with “a lot of experimentation,” said Herrod.

Heterogeneity

What keeps infrastructure companies working hard is their focus on three principles: efficiency, control and choice, according to Herrod. These principles provide a level of heterogeneity and choice that investors and customers love. VMware, Inc. provides the flexibility and solution choice that customers crave, he explained.

However, with all those choices, implementation can become complex, which means companies are forced to “dumb down the interfaces,” said Herrod.

Simplicity

At present, the best solution is the simplest solution and that’s what users want. What’s even better is a range of solutions that “hold across a multi-cloud platform,” said Herrod.

Even security has to be made simple. Right now automation and the reduction of false positives are key in security, Herrod states. Customers want to use more and worry less.

There are a lot of factors to consider when looking at the current digital landscape, but almost all of them can be boiled down to making things easier and “focusing on security,” said Herrod.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the VMworld 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE