UPDATED 02:37 EST / DECEMBER 30 2022

CLOUD

The ongoing mission to close the skills gap for IT practitioners

What started with a simple phone conversation seven years ago led to a $2 billion acquisition in 2021.

That is how much Pluralsight LLC paid to acquire A Cloud Guru Ltd. in the middle of last year. When company co-founder Ryan Kroonenburg just missed getting hired for a job at a major cloud provider in 2015, he spoke with his brother, Sam, on a phone call and expressed frustration at losing the opportunity over a lack of cloud skills. The two decided to join forces and the outcome was a global business designed to raise the level of cloud expertise.

“It’s all about upskilling and getting people cloud fluent,” said Faye Ellis (pictured, right), principal training architect, AWS, at A Cloud Guru, a Pluralsight company. “We focus on practical skills, the ability to get something done, and get something configured within the cloud.”

Ellis spoke with theCUBE hosts Lisa Martin and Dave Vellante at AWS re:Invent, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. She was joined by Mattias Andersson (pictured, left), senior developer advocate at A Cloud Guru, and they discussed how A Cloud Guru’s model is helping raise the level of technological expertise for businesses. (* Disclosure below.)

Commitment to learning

The growing need for more robust cloud skills was captured recently in the company’s most recent “State of the Cloud” report that surveyed 1,000 technologists across industries and throughout the world.

“Only 8% of the actual individuals that are working with the technology say they have extensive skills with the cloud,” Andersson said. “That’s a huge gap between the people that are wanting to build that forward as the leadership of the organization and the people that are available.”

Acquiring new cloud skills does not depend on age, as members of the A Cloud Guru team have discovered.

“I heard a wonderful story from a customer just yesterday that a female CFO in her seventies just got her Cloud Practitioner certification,” Ellis said. “A career in cloud is a commitment to learning. I’d love to be in my seventies and still learning new things.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent:

(* Disclosure: Pluralsight LLC sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Pluralsight nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE

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