It's one of our favorite times of year, the selection committee has filled out the master bracket, and NCAA March Madness is underway.
To Celebrate this great sporting tradition, we've created our own version, #CUBEmadness. Tech Athletes have longed for their opportunity to shine in the arena. theCUBE Selection Committee is hard at work finalizing the field for our inaugural #CUBEmadness 2014.
On Thursday March 20, 2014, 32 brave Tech Athletes will enter the #CUBEmadness tournament. There will be one winner, and that winner will be determined by you, our audience.
With 3,300 theCUBE interviews, and only 32 CUBEmadness slots, the Selection committee was forced to leave out some great segments, but with only 32 slots, .....
We thank all of theCUBE alumni for sharing their knowledge and insight with the community.
What is #CUBEmadness? CUBEmadness will be a tournament showcasing some of the best theCUBE interviews. In total, there will be four regions Big Data, Cloud, Infrastructure and Tech Athletes. Each region will consist of eight participants who will battle for the right to play in the #CUBEmadness Final Four. All match-ups are created at random. There is no seeding. The crowd will vote its favorite Tech Athlete on to the next round.
Over the course of the next few weeks, rivalries will be created and tears, unquestionably, will be shed.
Will a Cinderella story emerge or will pumpkins come out at midnight? The crowd will decide.
Will the tournament be riddled with blowout victories or tension-filled buzzer beaters? (Buzzer Beaters, Please!)
Will controversy arise? Absolutely.
Here at the friendly confines of theCUBE studios, we are cheering for ties and good sportsmanship between all Tech Athletes. However, where would the fun be in a tournament without drama? So stand behind your favorite Tech Athlete, vote often, spread the word! Let’s celebrate the incredible sensation that is #CUBEmadness at theCUBE, where we have been “Extracting the signal from the noise” since 2009.
Here is the tournament breakdown by dates:
March 20 – 24, 2014: Round 1 - Interviews
Big Data Region
Bill Schmarzo, EMC vs Jeff Hammerbacher, Cloudera
Amr Awadallah, Cloudera vs Arun Murthy, Hortonworks
Hilary Mason, Accel Partners vs Abhi Mehta, Tresata
Inhi Cho Suh, IBM vs Christian Chabot, Tableau
Cloud Region
Satya Nadella, Microsoft vs Pat Gelsinger, VMware
James Hamilton, Amazon vs Jerry Chen, Greylock
Jason Stowe, Cycle Computing vs Chad Sakac, EMC
Jeff Jonas, IBM vs George Kadifa, HP
Infrastructure Region
Gary Orenstein, Fusion IO vs Craig Nunes, HP
Steve Mills, IBM vs David Richards, WANdisco
Fred Luddy, ServiceNow vs Martin Casado, VMware
Joe Tucci, EMC vs George Slessman, IO Data Centers
Tech Athlete Region
Richard Schlesinger, CBS News vs Michael Dell, Dell Computer
Fadi Chehade, ICANN vs Geoffrey Moore, Author
Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight vs Douglas Leone, Sequoia
David Pogue, Yahoo Tech vs Chris Wegrzyn, DNC
March 25 – 27, 2014: #CUBEmadness Sweet Sixteen
VOTING AT SiliconANGLE.tv
Big Data Semi Finals
Bill Schmarzo, EMC vs Arun Murthy, Hortonworks
Abhi Mehta, Tresata, vs Christian Chabot, Tableau
Cloud Region Semi Finals
Pat Gelsinger, VMware vs Jerry Chen, Greylock
Jason Stowe, Cycle Computing vs Jeff Jonas, IBM
Infrastructure Region Semi Finals
Craig Nunes, HP vs Dave Richards, WANdisco
Martin Casado, VMware vs George Slessman, IO
Tech Athlete Region Semi Finals
Michael Dell, Dell vs Fadi Chehade, ICANN
Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight vs David Pogue, Yahoo Tech
Sweet 16 Voting closes Midnight Eastern, Thursday, March 27.
March 28 – 31, 2014: #CUBEmadness Elite Eight
April 1 – 3, 2014: #CUBEmadness Final Four
April 4 – 7, 2014: #CUBEmadness Championship
April 8, 2014: #CUBEmadness Champion will be crowned.