While the technology enabling remote work has seen leaps and bounds in the last year, the foundations have been in place for far longer. In a time where the virtual workspace is more necessary than ever before, how much do we really understand it? In this episode, Mark Templeton shares his experience as a visionary in the virtualization space, insights on apps and the cloud’s development, and why remote work will continue to evolve.

Press play to hear Mark Templeton’s thoughts on…

Figuring Out the Future of Work 

“Whether it was collaboration, software, or security or management or networking, video, different types of technologies, like voice to text, text to voice—we just imagined all the pieces that would need to be possible to enable work from anywhere.”

The Impact of Remote Work on People

“We talk a lot about technology, but technology is only as good as the people that adopt it. So as the pioneer behind the virtual workspace, how important do you think in-person collaboration is or human to human contact? Because taking human interaction away from even a work environment leaves a lot of questions about how you build a culture, how you share common values."

Returning to the Office

“What we found is that people overwhelmingly want to have the flexibility to work in a hybrid environment where they can choose what they want when they want. However, we've seen that productivity data and culture show that it's more effective if people are either altogether or all remote.”

We decided that work was not a

place. If work is not a place

and it's something that you need

to be able to conduct from

anywhere, then how do we define

that? We imagined all the pieces

that would need to be possible

to enable work from anywhere.

That's Mark Templeton, former

President and CEO of Citrix

Systems, an early pioneer in

virtualization technology. Over

20 years, Mark shaped the

strategy, growth and execution

at the company and helped grow

Citrix from a young public

company with only one product

into a global software leader

with annual revenues of more

than three billion, and more

than 100 million users worldwide.

Mark is a visionary. Early on at

Citrix, he saw how technology

would change the way people work.

Long before anyone coined the

term "the future of work," he

championed a vision for a

software-defined virtual

workplace that could make it

possible for people to work from

anywhere with an Internet

connection. Today, Mark speaks

widely about entrepreneurship

and the future of work. In this

episode, he shares insights from

more than two decades in the

technology sector, including how

apps and the cloud have evolved.

How to communicate a vision for

digital change and execute it,

and how the world of remote work

will continue to evolve. This is

Daniel Saks, co-CEO of AppDirect,

and it's time to decode the

future of the virtual workspace.

Welcome to "Decoding Digital," a

podcast for innovators looking

to thrive in the digital economy.

I'm your host, Daniel Saks, and

I'll sit down with other

founders, CEOs and changemakers

to decode the trends that are

transforming the way we work.

Let's decode. Welcome, Mark.

Thank you, Daniel. It's a joy to

be with you here.

Always fun to discuss. You are

known as the person and the

seminal visionary behind the

concept of the virtual desktop

and virtual workspace. At Citrix,

you helped define a movement of

a software-defined workspace.

Today, I'm thrilled to decode

that topic with you. If we can

take our listeners past, present

and future of the concept of the

virtual workspace would love to

get your original thoughts on

what a virtual workspace would

look like where we are today and

where we're going.

I'm not going to try to answer

that in the single answer. I'd

say, the roots of all of this

were consistent with the roots

of Citrix. Citrix began its

life with the idea of remote

access. It was when apps were

fat, and pipes were thin,

everything was dial-up. Working

remotely was very difficult. You

only worked remotely when you

had to. Those that had to were

people who travelled or sales

people who didn't work in the

office on a regular basis. The

original technologies and ideas

that launched Citrix were around

enabling remote access. As time

went on, the pipes got fatter.

They always had latency issues.

They were never quite fat enough.

They got better all the time

from dial-up to ISDN, to the

Internet and so forth. Apps got

more efficient and thin. That

took a long time, from two-tier

client server to three-tier

client server to web apps, and

so forth. Along the way, the

whole idea of enabling remote

offices, enabling people to work

remotely, to be closer to their

customers became more and more

important for businesses to grow.

We at Citrix were growing quite

rapidly. I remember in the late '

90s, we went public in 1995, we

were about 15 million in revenue.

Then the next year was 45

million, the next year 125

million, the next year 250

million, the next year 400

million. We broke through 400

and 500 million, or so, and was

mostly to enable remote

access. We were doing a fair

amount of business also

delivering Windows desktops to

non-Windows devices. Back in

those days, you had thin clients,

you had Unix workstations that

were still very popular,

Macintosh of course. We at

Citrix had a challenge, it's

like, "OK, we're the kings of

promote access. What do we do

for an Act Two?" That's when a

lot of work went into reaching

into our imaginations, talking

to customers, talking to our

partners, getting lots and lots

of points of view. That then led

us to imagine making the

workplace completely virtual.

When we asked ourselves that

question, it led us to a lot of

other adjacent capabilities.

Remote access being one of them,

but remote access to not only to

applications, but to documents,

to people, simultaneous slow

access, so collaboration. It led

to all of those ideas. It led to

deep thinking about security

issues when you had

collaboration across companies

and across business units and so

forth. All of that then led us

to make a video, because we

couldn't describe it in any

other way. We made a video

called the Virtual Workplace,

and we launched it in November

of 2001 at our customer

conference that we, in those

days, called iForum. It was our

best shot at imagining what a

fully virtual workplace would be,

and what its value would be.

That's the key thing, Daniel,

that we were focused on, and

that is, what problems does this

solve for customers and

therefore would cause them to

want to buy it and buy into our

vision?

The vision of remote access and

then the idea of the virtual

workspace was very novel at the

time. You've used words like

imagination and deep thinking to

come up with something that was

a meaningful transformation.

Speak to your philosophy on the

importance of imagination and

deep work to truly innovate work

transformational endeavors.

It's a great question.

First of all, imagination roots

itself in each person's child.

Some of us are better at being

comfortable with our child

within us, and some of us are

less comfortable with it. A

child-like mind also relates

to being a student and being

curious and being interested in

the unknown. That's something

that, I don't know, it's in my

DNA I suppose, that I studied

product design when I went to

university. It was all about the

creative process and finding

those ideas within your child

self. If you think about it,

children, they don't know what

they don't know, and they

imagine the impossible because

they don't know what's

impossible. That's where these

ideas root themselves. A lot of

people in tech are gifted with

this capability, and why we have

so much invention and so much

trial and error, because that's

another characteristic of being

comfortable with your child that, "

If I'm wrong, how bad is that?

That's not the worst thing in

the world. If I'm wrong, I'll

have learned something." What's

Edison's quote that was so

fantastic? It took him 65,

000 tries to figure

out what one-way would work, or

something like that.

Right, yeah.

That's a very child-centered

thinking and where imagination

roots itself. It also roots

itself in what I call the analog

brain, which is right here, your

heart. It's the adult part of

your persona, it's more digital.

It's more about what do I need.

It's calculating. It's rational.

The analog part of your brain,

the limbic part of your brain,

is much more about what you want,

what you desire. Much more of

what you'd hear from a child.

Being comfortable with both of

those things and mediating them

is where the source of

imagination is, and where

invention and disruptive

invention comes from.

I know you're a fan of Dr. Seuss,

as am I.

Are there other inspirations you

have to tap into your child self?

I've never been asked that

question before. It's probably

the number one inspiration, in

that sense has been my children.

My children have always been an

inspiration for me. They've

always loved all the gadgets

that I would bring home. The

interesting thing about it is,

I'd bring something home. I'd

explain to them how it worked.

They had no interest in how it

worked. They only wanted to know

what it could do. That's the

difference between a child's

mind. It's like, "What can it do?

What can it do? How can you make

me better? Is it fun? Does it

have potential energy?" etc.

versus how it actually worked.

I'd say, my children were

definitely an inspiration.

Another big inspiration in that

regard in my life was my mom,

who's an artist. She always

believed that the most powerful

thing you could ever be was

yourself. The worst thing you

could ever say to my mom was, "I

wanted to do something because

someone else was doing it." She

never wanted me, or any of my

brothers and sisters to be

followers. It's like, "No, I

want to know what you want. I

want to know what's on your mind."

She was very much an artist, and

very much in her child. Even at

89 years old, she's still that

way, I'd say.

It's fantastic. On Decoding

Digital, we speak to digital

transformation stories, and

those who bring new products to

market. The invention or the

vision of this virtual workspace

laid the groundwork for most of

the disruptive innovation that

exists today, whether it's in

the software as a service world,

the platform as a service world.

Maybe, taking this example of

imagination and childlike

thinking, take us to the moment

where you came up with a concept

of saying, "We're going to go

from remote access to creating a

virtual desktop or workspace."

I wish I could tell you that it

was a childlike imagination

process. The fact of the matter

is, when we looked forward, and

as a public company serving a

lot of customers, we had a lot

of business partners, a lot of

employees and out of great

respect for all of them, our

role is to look into the future,

and have a future, and

chart a future. That was one of

our core jobs for our customers

and partners. We felt like, "Gee,

we're not doing our job if we

don't come up with an Act Two."

This was out of necessity, to be

honest. We knew we had to

challenge ourselves to create

headroom, and a future for the

company. As I said earlier, we

talk to a lot of people. In the

end it got down to being a very

small group getting together on

a whiteboard and writing down

what our ideas and beliefs were.

One of those was a saying that

been repeated often now for a

lot of years that we decided

that work was not a place. If

work is not a place, and it's

something that you need to be

able to conduct from anywhere,

then, how do we define that?

Then, we drew Venn diagrams and

put different types of software,

whether it was collaboration

software, or security, or

management, or networking, video,

different types of technologies

like voice-to-text, text-to-

voice. We just imagined all the

pieces that would need to be

possible to enable work from

anywhere. We were doing all of

that, because we knew we had to

do some new things in order to

continue to grow and add value

for our customers. That was the

source of it. Obviously, it did

require imagination, as well.

Interestingly enough, a couple

of us on the Citrix executive

team had been Apple dealers in

part of our prior career. I had

been an Apple dealer. I had a

dealership in Williamsburg,

Virginia. Dave Jones, who was

also on the team, had an Apple

dealer in Cape Town, South

Africa. I looked over to Dave,

and I said, "Hey, Dave, do you

remember Apple's knowledge

navigator video?" He yells, "

Yeah, man, wasn't that great?" I

said, "Yeah. We need to create

our version of the knowledge

navigator. Take all these ideas,

and package them that way, so we

could share them." That's what

led to the video. That's what

led to the idea that work is not

a place. That is what led to the

whole notion of a virtual

workplace. All the enablers of

that, which turned out to be

software, mostly all software,

obviously supported by the right

hardware. Then, we felt that

customers were very locked in

to various applications,

networks, devices, etc. When we

made the video, it expressed our

point of view that customers

shouldn't be locked into any

particular device, or network,

or place to work, etc. Device

independence was an important

idea on the whiteboard, as well

as new devices like, now we have

in the video there's a device

that's a lot like a Microsoft

Surface Duo like this, except,

instead of having screens just

on the inside, it had one more

screen on the outside that gave

you contextual information that

would then lead you inside the

device. There was a lot of

imagination. We had to let it

loose, so that we could find

whitespace to grow into.

How has your definition of

virtual workplace evolved over

the years?

The way it's evolved is, I would

say, from being very much an

outcome and capability-based

thing driven by technology to

understanding that there are

tremendous cultural and human

issues to a workplace that's

fully virtual. By the way, I

don't pretend to understand it

at this point. We're all in the

midst of a giant beta test of

that. There'll be plenty of

research both by professionals

and by companies trying to

figure out, do we want people to

go back to the office? Do we not

want people to go back to the

office? Do we want them back

part of the time? If so, why?

My understanding, or my thinking

on it is evolving along with the

pandemic, with an understanding

that there are a tremendous

number of cultural, human and

even mental wellness aspects to

the workplace and the notion of

making it virtual.

We talk a lot about technology,

but technology is only as good

as the people that adopt it. You

seem to me as a very human

leader. As a pioneer behind the

virtual workspace and the

concept of remote access, how

important do you think in-person

collaboration is or human-to-

human contact?

It's extremely important. The

question is, does it lead to

breakthroughs that you wouldn't

otherwise get, because taking

human interaction away from even

a work environment leaves a lot

of question about how you build

a culture, how you share common

values, etc. By the way, these

are all areas for invention and

innovation that we're going to

see explode over the next few

years. We see what has been

done with video platforms of all

types. Obviously, Zoom has got

an amazing response from the

world at large. There'll be lots

of invention that'll fill in

some of these gaps, but in the

end, that human-to-human contact

and presence is essential to

long lasting deeper types of

relationships. On the other

hand, I'm not sure that virtual

organizations and experiences

prevent invention and innovation.

From a mental wellness

perspective, it's important.

There may be a little evidence

of that if you look at history,

there are people who work in

remote offices, either by

themselves or in a very small

group, and they hate it. They

learned to hate it, and it's

because they themselves have a

craving for more interaction.

Then, there are those who

absolutely love it and wouldn't

work in an office environment if

they had to. Those are facts

about people, and that says

something to me. It says that

some people are cut out, either

because of their personalities,

what they do in terms of their

skill sets, etc., where they

like the solitude and what they

get from the solitude. Then

there are other people who, and

I'll put myself in that category,

I'm energized by others. I need

others to provide energy to me.

When I'm with others, that's

where I'm most creative and most

imaginative, and I'm enjoying

myself most.

We've looked at a lot of

productivity data of all remote

work versus all in-person

collaboration. Then we've also

done a lot of surveying of our

teams and our merchants to see

if they would rather worked in

person or remote. What we found

is that people overwhelmingly

want to have the flexibility to

work in a hybrid environment

where they can choose what they

want, when they want. However,

we've seen that productivity

data and culture show that it's

more effective if people are

either all together or all

remote, so there could be an

even playing field for people to

collaborate. Do you have a

perspective on how that evolves?

Yeah, I do. My perspective is,

most people want the world to be

binary. It's a zero or a one.

The fact of the matter, most of

the world is in between. It's

not black or white, it's gray.

People generally want binary

answers to this question. It's a

black or a white, a zero or a

one. The answer here happens to

be gray, because this depends

upon the business you're talking

about, the work that people are

doing, the generational aspects

of the workforce. I'm a baby

boomer. My children are

millennials. Then you have the X

and the Y Gen, and so forth.

It's a complicated question to

have a singular answer. What's

likely is that younger

generations are much more

comfortable because they were

born digital, and much more

comfortable with the digital

experience and in some ways

prefer it and are very

productive in it. The opposite

is true for older guys like me.

I learned digital. I wasn't born

digital. I was part of the

digital revolution, which has

been an amazing personal journey.

I don't think there's an answer

to that question that can be

expressed in a definitive way.

This is where each company is

going to have to examine the

workforce itself, the culture of

the company, the work that

people are doing, and then how

they want to reinforce their

culture and make sure that they

put a set of policies together

that make all of that work for

them as a business. Peak

productivity, I'm not sure

that's the goal. You can't run

a car at its peak power output

for a long time. You can for

some period of time. Peak

productivity is often enabled

by time where there's solitude,

and time when there's to reflect,

and time to learn from others

and listen, and some of those

other activities that are harder

to do in an office environment

where people feel like they're

under a microscope.

At AppDirect, our mission is to

make technology universally

accessible so anyone can thrive

in the digital economy. The

concept of universal technology

came from universal healthcare

in Canada where I'm from, or

other countries, where everyone

has the right to have this

access. In the consumer world,

we've made a lot of progress

where probably a few billion

people now are connected, have

access. However, in the business

world, we're far from

democratizing technology. There

is huge inequalities between the

companies that can afford masses

of IT and none. Software-as-a-

Service was a great start to

offer a subscription-based model

where more businesses can access

these tools at a lower cost, but

I still think we're at the

beginning of that journey. Can

you comment on how long you

think it will take for these

technologies to be democratized

so an individual can have access

to tools to make them thrive?

When you were talking about the

AppDirect mission and point of

view, I couldn't help, but think

of, at Citrix we invented a

protocol called ICA. Originally

it stood for, you know what, I

can't remember because as CEO, I

changed the meaning of it to

Independent Computing

Architecture. When we talked

about our mission as a company,

we said it also stood for

information citizenship for all.

It was because the receiver

could run on the crappiest

little screen that you could

find anywhere in the world, and

we felt that that architecture,

that approach would be the

method to democratize computing.

Frankly, someone who's listening

to this will say, "Yeah, it's

like going back to the mainframe."

Because right now, if you take

the aggregate total of several

hundred nodes of the hyper-scale

clouds with the network that

connects them together, we have

something called the worldwide

computer. All you need is a

Chromebook or something that

runs a browser, and you can

access most of the world's

knowledge. In fact, you can

access most of the world's

applications, if not all of the

world's applications. We have

the means at this point. The

question is now how does that

play out. Obviously, it's got a

lot to do with economics. There

are a number of initiatives that

have been tried over the years

to change the economics of a

client-side device. We, at

Citrix, participated in many of

those initiatives because of our

belief in information

citizenship for all. Probably

the answer is that people in the

world that can't yet afford it,

those economies have to improve

enough to where the devices will

be within the reach of people to

then democratize computing. P.S.

if we zoom out, my point of view

is that today, a lot of people

will use the term Third World

versus First World or Western

versus developing. In most

cases, what you're referring to

as the Western World is under

500 years old in the sense of

being the dominant GDP in the

world. What we're referring to

as the developing world were

historically the world's largest

economies. They're trying to re-

emerge because the so-called

Western World we've been living

so far above average for so long,

we're being pulled down to the

mean, while the world that is re-

emerging, they're being pulled

up to the mean. Think of the

economies around the world where

people still feel blessed to

have a form of transportation,

to have a roof over their head,

to educate their children, to

eat three meals a day, or even

two meals a day. We have such an

under appreciation for that in

the US, and in most so-called

Western economies. That's part

of the struggle. Part of the

struggle that's going on is

we're tending more toward the

mean, and going in fits and

starts. Other economies are

ascending and enabling citizens

to have some of the fundamental

things that humans need. If you

were sitting on Mars with a

telescope, that's probably what

you'd be observing, along with

other things.

It's a fascinating observation.

What's emerging today, to your

point, is this digital divide,

where you have a digital world

versus an analogue world. Those

that have access to the tools,

the information, to the capital,

in order to leverage technology,

to increase GDP and to be able

to make for themselves. In order

to create more equity, there

probably needs to be more effort

to providing that access.

I'm a huge believer in Darwin,

in the sense that humans have a

capacity to achieve. They're so

resilient in spite of crazy

obstacles. I had fun for a

little over a year running a

cloud company called Digital

Ocean. We had 12 data centers

around the world. Two thirds of

our business was outside the US,

Daniel. If you looked at the

data we had about our developers

and our customers, over 60

percent of them were self-taught.

They taught themselves to code.

They were in India, and Brazil,

and China, and throughout Asia,

and Eastern Europe. They would

tell us the stories about their

lives. We wanted to know. We

wanted to know them. They would

talk about going to school, and

going home, and mom and dad.

They wanted to know, what did

they study in science and in

math, and technology that day.

It was a hugely important topic.

Whatever assets they had,

probably not the kind of laptop

that you and I are sitting in

front of. They were focused on a

STEM type education as a high

priority. They are the next

generation of digital

entrepreneurs. We forecast that

in 2025, there'll be 100 million

people that could code whether

at most self-taught, and using

cloud services to invent digital

businesses. I'll add my more

editorial comment. These are

countries that either missed the

Industrial Revolution, or were

victims of the Industrial

Revolution. My editorial is,

somebody there's thinking, "OK,

we missed that. We were a victim

of the Industrial Revolution.

We're not going to miss the

digital revolution."

Fascinating perspective. Mark,

thank you so much for joining me.

I'm so excited that we've

covered a range of topics. As a

closing bit of wisdom, what

piece of advice would you have

for listeners today who are

looking to transform themselves

and their businesses for the

benefit of tomorrow?

I'd say the one bit of advice

would be, if you see a

problem, I want you to get up

from wherever you're sitting and

run to the bathroom. The reason

I want you to run to the

bathroom is because there's a

mirror. I want you to look in

that mirror with the utmost of

honesty, I'd say brutal honesty,

and decide whether you are the

problem, or you're part of the

solution. The reason I'm giving

that advice is I find that a lot

of people are unwilling to

consider themselves to be the

problem and are not good at

introspection. Introspection and

people who are deeply

introspective end up not only

knowing themselves best, they're

able to collaborate and find

people that make them better.

They know what pieces they're

missing, and what pieces to add

to themselves.

It's so powerful. Mark, I want

to thank you again. You've been

an incredible leader and a great

mentor to me. Those words of

wisdom are so powerful. Thanks

again for joining us on the

podcast and hope to catch up

again soon.

Likewise, Daniel. This has been

so much fun. I want to thank you

for having me as your guest. I

look forward to staying in touch.

I love what you're doing at

AppDirect.

On the next episode of Decoding

Digital.

There's always this fear within

organizations of not hiring IBM,

of not going to the blue chip

that is already available and

existent, and betting on a

player that may not be around.

A couple of months or years from

now, you'll need that backing

that Halo from the leadership of

the sea level to say, "You know

what, we want you to do that

because that's kind of what

change will look like for us.

That's what's going to make us

competitive five years from now."

Founding partner of La Famiglia,

Jeannette zu Furstenberg.

Thanks for listening to "

Decoding Digital." Make sure you

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learn more, visit

decodingdigital.com. Until next