This week, the big talk in the tech world was MongoDB Inc.’s stock soaring in the wake of blowout fiscal first-quarter earnings results.

“We believe the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence represent the next frontier of software development,” MongoDB President and Chief Executive Officer Dev Ittycheria said, citing what he saw as the opportunity for the company to seize on the rise of generative AI models, such as ChatGPT.

While the company probably tightened the expense belt to get the numbers, it does serve as a bellwether, according to industry analyst John Furrier (pictured, left), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming stuiod.

“They’re the proxy for developers, because the MongoDB database also uses a lot of cloud compute,” Furrier said on the latest episode of theCUBE Podcast. “If MongoDB is doing well, that’s the canary in the coal mine that developers are continuing to drive the innovation cycle.”

Meanwhile, Dell Technologies Inc.’s revenue plunged 20% in its fiscal first quarter. The bottom line is that servers and storage are soft right now, according to theCUBE industry analyst Dave Vellante (right).

“People came out of the pandemic, and they bought servers, storage and networking to replenish the headquarters,” he said.

Cisco Systems Inc. was interesting last month, because it was chewing through its backlog, Vellante added.

“It’s really mixed right now. It’s no longer a supply problem. Dell can get servers; they can build servers. Pure Storage Inc. did okay. NetApp Inc. did okay, but not great,” he  said. “I mean, storage is not a great business right now. It’s soft. I think, again, what happened is replenishing the HQ. And now people are taking a pause because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Two schools of thought on AI

Debates around how, or if, AI should be regulated or banned continued to make the news this week. The United States and Europe were drawing up a voluntary code of conduct for AI, according to a top European Union official on Wednesday.

There seem to be two schools of thought emerging on AI these days, according to Furrier — pro-AI and anti-AI.

“I find that really fascinating that there’s actually the emotional response of AI in the world right now. It’s a very weird time,” Furrier said.

Last week, Dell announced Project Helix, a joint initiative with Nvidia Corp., which aims to combine Dell’s servers with Nvidia’s fastest graphics processing units to leverage AI for business results. At the same time, this year’s Red Hat Summit event had plenty of talk around the role of AI.

“Then, we just had Zeus Kerravala in here prepping for Cisco Live. And he’s thinking, well, they’re not going to do a big, huge AI announcement,” Vellante said. “It’s just that AI is going to be everywhere, so they’re not going to hook their wagon up to AI. It’s very confusing right now.”

What AI may do is expose “our supercloud narrative to be true,” Furrier said. “Basically, my feed is like, ‘AI is going to kill us!’ Then the next set is, ‘How to integrate AI into your life.’ So infusing with AI, and then it’s going to kill you. But I think AI is one of those things that’s horizontal. It’s going to be in all developers’ toolkits.”

It will likely be embedded in all apps, which will pose questions for entrepreneurs looking to establish the next Dropbox Inc. or the next Airbnb Inc., Furrier added.

“These are companies that made their business successful because of Amazon and cloud. What’s that next-generation startup look like?” he asked. “Get the product market fit really quick with AI. Then, what do they do next? What’s the path?”

Is that next-generation startup OpenAI LP? Not in Furrier’s view, who said they more function as the browser.

“I think they’re the Netscape,” he said.

Incumbents are going to benefit from AI if they can apply it in the right way, according to Vellante.

“There’s going to be some company that comes out of the woodwork with some new business model like keyword search. The VCs will say, ‘Oh, that’s a stupid idea,’” he said. “Then they’ll come through the side door and blow people away. I think that’s how it’s going to go.”

Watch the full theCUBE Podcast below to find out why these industry pros were also mentioned:

Hock Tan, president and CEO of Broadcom Inc.

Charles Fitzgerald, consultative strategist and investor

Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst at ZK Research

John Chambers, CEO of JC2 Ventures

Jason Calacanis, internet entrepreneur

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon

Tom Gillis, SVP, GM of Cisco Systems Inc.

Steve Mullaney, president & CEO of Aviatrix Systems Inc.

Chuck Robbins, chair & CEO of Cisco Systems Inc.

Frank Shaw, chief communications officer at Microsoft Corp.

Jerry Chen, partner at Greylock

Adrian Cockcroft, tech adviser

Adam Selipsky, CEO of Amazon Web Services Inc.

Matt Garman, SVP of sales and marketing at AWS Inc.

George Gilbert, principal at TechAlpha Partners

Michael Scarpelli, chief financial officer at Snowflake Inc.

Edward Zander, business executive

David Berlind, editor-in-chief, Blockchain Journal

Doug Gold, chief operating officer at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP

Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO and chairman of Apple Inc.

Bill Clinton, former U.S. president

Warren Buffett, chairperson of Berkshire Hathaway

Jeff Bezos, chairman of Amazon Inc.

Frank Slootman, CEO of Snowflake Inc.

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Photo: SiliconANGLE