Mitch Klein with Silicon Labs
On this week's Industrial Talk we're onsite at Distributech 22 and talking to Mitch Klein, Director, Alliances Strategy with SiliconLabs about “Digital Transformation doesn't happen without powerful Computer Chips”. Get the answers to your “Computer Chip” questions along with Mitch's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!
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MITCH KLEIN'S CONTACT INFORMATION:
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchellklein2/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/siliconlabs/
Company Website: https://www.silabs.com/
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
industrial, platform, mitch, industry, chips, klein, silicon, game, podcast, place, absolutely, innovation, listeners, highway, contact information, professionals, trend, digitization, applications, metering
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welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge Industry Focus on innovations and trends while highlighting the environment. Keep moving. So put on your heart, wherever your work boots,
and let's go alright, right welcome to industrial talk the number one industrial related podcast in the universe. That's right up saying that. But Mitch, it's number one. Mitch is in the hot seat. But I still have to go through my blog. I just wanted to point that out. Because it's a podcast one it is. That's right. And it is celebration of you industry professionals all around the world. Because you are bold, you are brave. You dare greatly. You are changing lives and you are changing the world. That's why we appreciate you here on this particular podcast. It is an ever expanding industrial ecosystem of professionals like you.
There is one of many
Mazzi we've got a Mitch Klein. Silicon Labs is the company let's get cracking. Oh, as you can tell from behind we are broadcasting live from DistribuTECH 22 here in Dallas. Gotta like I don't know if I can keep up with all of this. Just absolutely fatigued after
this amazing to be live in person again.
I think people are still trying to figure that out. It's like Ken, what? Hey, Dwight fist bump. You still are what?
What are we looking for monitors and I should be talking to him. Don't do that.
They don't. But it is quite nice to see. See activity. There's a lot. A lot of companies these OEMs all over the place. And some of them. I know some of them. I don't know. Some of them are big. Some of them are not so big.
If you see the registration line this morning. I heard there were 10,000 registered registrations. Really they were all out there in the lobby trying to get their badges get ever seen a line like that? Absolutely amazing.
Oh, thank God it came in yesterday. We had a little personnel issue with that, too. So but we got in, look at us. We soldiered on and we made it. Alright, for the listeners out there. Give us a little bag of background on Mitch.
Okay, thanks. I will. And actually I've been in the IoT longer than those letters ever put together. Way back retail or even if you want to talk about doing installations in people's homes and businesses way, way back
before somebody said, Hey, let's call it IoT. You were doing this a we're just trying to connect these devices and sort of pull information out?
Yeah. It is it is. And, you know, I've been been involved in many aspects of IoT. But right now, as we talk about industrial and smart cities, communities, this is an incredibly exciting place to be right now.
I wish I was younger. I wish you know, as you can tell we are we go to the same barber and everything. But anyway. I do. I agree. I think it's what always challenges me is the philosophy that this innovation is happening. It seems like it's just blistering fast. It seems like more use cases are becoming you know, more and more. And it's like, hey, we can do it this way. And we can buy this and this and we can come up with that. Do you find that the case?
I do. And actually I working for Silicon Labs or any of your viewers that don't know who saw collapses. So, you know, we actually publicly traded company, and we make silicon, make the chips. We make the software that goes on top of it. And we make the tools to be able to deploy that software on the chip. And when I first came on board about eight years ago, to me, I never expected silicon or chips to be an exciting or interesting industry. Right? It sounds very engineering, kind of like that. But you know what we are we're developing the stuff of the future, the stuff we're working on today. You can see three to five years from now, which is absolutely phenomenal and a really exciting place to be Like, like what? And it's so the waiting
ships have been in the news, haven't they? Yeah. Is that good? But Jim, you guys have got got a lot of work to do.
We do. And I'd say about it was last year, late last year. So the collapse actually sold off our industrial and automotive business businesses, so that we are now the only pure play IoT company. So we only make chips to war IoT. And business has been through the roof.
Yeah. Yeah, there you are. You're, you're right in the middle of this velocity of people saying, I need to connect this, I need to do this, I need to pull this data, I need to send it to the cloud, I need to put it on the edge. I need to do it all. And you're right there.
Yeah. And actually, we're driving it not just responding to it. And we get to try it. And personally, in my role, see, I represent Silicon Labs, in the lines in terms of determining our strategies. So we drive on the technical, but we also get to try where the different technologies and platforms are going and what their priorities are. It's a really exciting place to be I have to tell you, I have
to ask the question, yes. What are some of the trends taking place out there that you guys are seeing? Because, honestly, personally, there is a lot of noise. And if I was a manufacturer, or if I was a utility, it would be hard for me to decide what direction I go, because it's just, it's noisy.
You've nailed it. That is exactly one of the biggest challenges. And let's just talk about on the on the industrial, commercial, real estate retail. On that end, the biggest trend we're seeing is the trend of open platforms. And there's a reason for that. Because things are moving so quickly, when when one commits to a proprietary platform, you are limited in terms of where and what you go.
That's, that is the first time I heard that I've heard and I've heard companies saying, Hey, we're an open platform. We do it. But but there's a there's a business rationale behind it. Because do you want to get locked in with a platform that has no flexibility with the velocity that's taken place out there, and all that stuff?
Exactly. Right. And the nice thing about the open platforms is in many cases, of course, in this case, I'm talking about why sign. But in many cases, you can make the change over to an open platform and bridge into your existing products, so that you're not necessarily locking out any existing customers or any variances to
see, honestly, just between you and me and the fence post. The reality is, is that digitization of industry, and I'll just use the macro component, the digitization of industry, is here to stay. No question. And I'm looking for me if I was in that, outside of my silky smooth voice, if I was in the market to try to find solutions, I'm looking for a Sherpa. I'm looking for that digital Sherpa to say, No, you need to go here. Here are the reasons why. And this has greater value for you. That type of thing. Yeah, and
don't get me wrong. I mean, Silicon Labs, we provide the silicon for plenty of proprietary platforms. Because honestly, that was the only way to go for for many years was really to develop your own thing. But now as we're seeing platforms again, I use Weisen as an example, because we are really committed to this platform. Weisen is an open standard that essentially think about it as like a highway, we provide the highway and the applications can get on and off at highway as well. So for example, your city your community, looking to go into what the digital digitize, but you've got you know, where do I start and where do I
use the worldwide web says I have to digitize that's where it started.
Yeah, we're seeing obviously metering is really all started right yeah, you know, but now you can take your electrical your water, your gas metering, and all run it down the exact same backhauls same highway which is why son or you could be a community that really wants to focus on city lighting smart light lighting is huge because it's enormous amounts of costs that you can save getting into a smart
city we have only begun to tap into the realization that there is real and I'm always gonna look for the economic I got it but the bottom line economic value of of doing this and doing it right and, and be pinpoint focused on making it happen. but not let all the other garbage gets in the way that it has to take place. We just have to do it.
And there's just so much data coming out on top of all these propriety. So what do you do with that? So I'll give you one example that that was, in terms of, okay, let's say we do smart street lighting. And then we do traffic control. We put those two where they can communicate with each other. You have a baseball game, a hockey game, or something like that. The game gets out. What's that? What's that traffic? You're trying to get out of the hospital? Oh, it's but imagine if this is now all automated, it can sense it can tell you how the game got out. You got this many cars, we're gonna adjust the trap that this way. We're going to make one. And that's just a really basic application.
But I'm telling you right now, it's cool. Because we've all been there. Yes. listener, you have been there Exedy that concert? Or a game of some sort. And you're stuck. And you I know I've had that thought and I've gone communicate control these lights a little bit different
than how many times you circle around the city looking for a parking spot. Like it happened here. Like on my lane today, right here. Right. So like you were saying early on Stein about applications, Dream It? Because you can do it.
Yeah. And the technology is there it is. It always gets down to the human point. Right? It's always human. Yeah. And when I say that it's the technologies available. And but it's just Are we capable as a collective group where we can do this and make it happen? It's always human. So if I was somebody that said, Boy, I like, like what Mitch is saying, How do I get a hold of
you? Well, you can reach out to me at Mitchell.Klein@siliconlabs.com. Or you can just go to our website, SCI labs.com. You're awesome. My pleasure. Yeah, it's great chatting with you. There was
nobody no, that's cool stuff. I, you're the you're the chip fake makers.
We are. And I'd like to make chips for anyone. So please get in touch with us, we can make chips feed to Hey,
yo, man, all the contact information for Mitch will be out at industrial talk.com. So fear not all that contact information, which Thank you very much.
My pleasure. All right, listeners, we're
gonna wrap it up on the other side. So fear not, we will be right back.
You're listening to the industrial talk, Podcast Network.
As always, thank you very much for joining industrial talk and for your support of this platform that celebrates industry heroes all around the world, because you deserve it. That's Mitch Klein. If you're going to reach out to him on LinkedIn, you're going to have to find it through Mitchell Klein. But better yet, just go out to industrial talk.com Find his conversation and boom, you will have all his contact information. Now, as you can tell by the buzz and the chirping in the background, we weren't live sorry about the quality of the conversation with the noise in the background. But that's what we have to do. We have to be at these conferences, and definitely celebrate these professionals everywhere we can go because this platform is for you. All right. How do you get involved? Easy, go out to industrial talk.com click there. And we would love to have a conversation because we're building a platform that is definitely committed to education, collaboration, because you don't have all the answers. And definitely innovation. So go out to industrial talk.com Get involved. It is an ever expanding ecosystem of industrial problem solvers such as yourself. Again, thank you very much for joining. We're going to have more from this particular conference, distribute tech, because we've got a bunch of great conversations lined up so stay tuned do not go away.
Transcript
welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge Industry Focus on innovations and trends while highlighting the environment. Keep moving. So put on your heart, wherever your work boots,
and let's go alright, right welcome to industrial talk the number one industrial related podcast in the universe. That's right up saying that. But Mitch, it's number one. Mitch is in the hot seat. But I still have to go through my blog. I just wanted to point that out. Because it's a podcast one it is. That's right. And it is celebration of you industry professionals all around the world. Because you are bold, you are brave. You dare greatly. You are changing lives and you are changing the world. That's why we appreciate you here on this particular podcast. It is an ever expanding industrial ecosystem of professionals like you.
There is one of many
Mazzi we've got a Mitch Klein. Silicon Labs is the company let's get cracking. Oh, as you can tell from behind we are broadcasting live from DistribuTECH 22 here in Dallas. Gotta like I don't know if I can keep up with all of this. Just absolutely fatigued after
this amazing to be live in person again.
I think people are still trying to figure that out. It's like Ken, what? Hey, Dwight fist bump. You still are what?
What are we looking for monitors and I should be talking to him. Don't do that.
They don't. But it is quite nice to see. See activity. There's a lot. A lot of companies these OEMs all over the place. And some of them. I know some of them. I don't know. Some of them are big. Some of them are not so big.
If you see the registration line this morning. I heard there were 10,000 registered registrations. Really they were all out there in the lobby trying to get their badges get ever seen a line like that? Absolutely amazing.
Oh, thank God it came in yesterday. We had a little personnel issue with that, too. So but we got in, look at us. We soldiered on and we made it. Alright, for the listeners out there. Give us a little bag of background on Mitch.
Okay, thanks. I will. And actually I've been in the IoT longer than those letters ever put together. Way back retail or even if you want to talk about doing installations in people's homes and businesses way, way back
before somebody said, Hey, let's call it IoT. You were doing this a we're just trying to connect these devices and sort of pull information out?
Yeah. It is it is. And, you know, I've been been involved in many aspects of IoT. But right now, as we talk about industrial and smart cities, communities, this is an incredibly exciting place to be right now.
I wish I was younger. I wish you know, as you can tell we are we go to the same barber and everything. But anyway. I do. I agree. I think it's what always challenges me is the philosophy that this innovation is happening. It seems like it's just blistering fast. It seems like more use cases are becoming you know, more and more. And it's like, hey, we can do it this way. And we can buy this and this and we can come up with that. Do you find that the case?
I do. And actually I working for Silicon Labs or any of your viewers that don't know who saw collapses. So, you know, we actually publicly traded company, and we make silicon, make the chips. We make the software that goes on top of it. And we make the tools to be able to deploy that software on the chip. And when I first came on board about eight years ago, to me, I never expected silicon or chips to be an exciting or interesting industry. Right? It sounds very engineering, kind of like that. But you know what we are we're developing the stuff of the future, the stuff we're working on today. You can see three to five years from now, which is absolutely phenomenal and a really exciting place to be Like, like what? And it's so the waiting
ships have been in the news, haven't they? Yeah. Is that good? But Jim, you guys have got got a lot of work to do.
We do. And I'd say about it was last year, late last year. So the collapse actually sold off our industrial and automotive business businesses, so that we are now the only pure play IoT company. So we only make chips to war IoT. And business has been through the roof.
Yeah. Yeah, there you are. You're, you're right in the middle of this velocity of people saying, I need to connect this, I need to do this, I need to pull this data, I need to send it to the cloud, I need to put it on the edge. I need to do it all. And you're right there.
Yeah. And actually, we're driving it not just responding to it. And we get to try it. And personally, in my role, see, I represent Silicon Labs, in the lines in terms of determining our strategies. So we drive on the technical, but we also get to try where the different technologies and platforms are going and what their priorities are. It's a really exciting place to be I have to tell you, I have
to ask the question, yes. What are some of the trends taking place out there that you guys are seeing? Because, honestly, personally, there is a lot of noise. And if I was a manufacturer, or if I was a utility, it would be hard for me to decide what direction I go, because it's just, it's noisy.
You've nailed it. That is exactly one of the biggest challenges. And let's just talk about on the on the industrial, commercial, real estate retail. On that end, the biggest trend we're seeing is the trend of open platforms. And there's a reason for that. Because things are moving so quickly, when when one commits to a proprietary platform, you are limited in terms of where and what you go.
That's, that is the first time I heard that I've heard and I've heard companies saying, Hey, we're an open platform. We do it. But but there's a there's a business rationale behind it. Because do you want to get locked in with a platform that has no flexibility with the velocity that's taken place out there, and all that stuff?
Exactly. Right. And the nice thing about the open platforms is in many cases, of course, in this case, I'm talking about why sign. But in many cases, you can make the change over to an open platform and bridge into your existing products, so that you're not necessarily locking out any existing customers or any variances to
see, honestly, just between you and me and the fence post. The reality is, is that digitization of industry, and I'll just use the macro component, the digitization of industry, is here to stay. No question. And I'm looking for me if I was in that, outside of my silky smooth voice, if I was in the market to try to find solutions, I'm looking for a Sherpa. I'm looking for that digital Sherpa to say, No, you need to go here. Here are the reasons why. And this has greater value for you. That type of thing. Yeah, and
don't get me wrong. I mean, Silicon Labs, we provide the silicon for plenty of proprietary platforms. Because honestly, that was the only way to go for for many years was really to develop your own thing. But now as we're seeing platforms again, I use Weisen as an example, because we are really committed to this platform. Weisen is an open standard that essentially think about it as like a highway, we provide the highway and the applications can get on and off at highway as well. So for example, your city your community, looking to go into what the digital digitize, but you've got you know, where do I start and where do I
use the worldwide web says I have to digitize that's where it started.
Yeah, we're seeing obviously metering is really all started right yeah, you know, but now you can take your electrical your water, your gas metering, and all run it down the exact same backhauls same highway which is why son or you could be a community that really wants to focus on city lighting smart light lighting is huge because it's enormous amounts of costs that you can save getting into a smart
city we have only begun to tap into the realization that there is real and I'm always gonna look for the economic I got it but the bottom line economic value of of doing this and doing it right and, and be pinpoint focused on making it happen. but not let all the other garbage gets in the way that it has to take place. We just have to do it.
And there's just so much data coming out on top of all these propriety. So what do you do with that? So I'll give you one example that that was, in terms of, okay, let's say we do smart street lighting. And then we do traffic control. We put those two where they can communicate with each other. You have a baseball game, a hockey game, or something like that. The game gets out. What's that? What's that traffic? You're trying to get out of the hospital? Oh, it's but imagine if this is now all automated, it can sense it can tell you how the game got out. You got this many cars, we're gonna adjust the trap that this way. We're going to make one. And that's just a really basic application.
But I'm telling you right now, it's cool. Because we've all been there. Yes. listener, you have been there Exedy that concert? Or a game of some sort. And you're stuck. And you I know I've had that thought and I've gone communicate control these lights a little bit different
than how many times you circle around the city looking for a parking spot. Like it happened here. Like on my lane today, right here. Right. So like you were saying early on Stein about applications, Dream It? Because you can do it.
Yeah. And the technology is there it is. It always gets down to the human point. Right? It's always human. Yeah. And when I say that it's the technologies available. And but it's just Are we capable as a collective group where we can do this and make it happen? It's always human. So if I was somebody that said, Boy, I like, like what Mitch is saying, How do I get a hold of
you? Well, you can reach out to me at Mitchell.Klein@siliconlabs.com. Or you can just go to our website, SCI labs.com. You're awesome. My pleasure. Yeah, it's great chatting with you. There was
nobody no, that's cool stuff. I, you're the you're the chip fake makers.
We are. And I'd like to make chips for anyone. So please get in touch with us, we can make chips feed to Hey,
yo, man, all the contact information for Mitch will be out at industrial talk.com. So fear not all that contact information, which Thank you very much.
My pleasure. All right, listeners, we're
gonna wrap it up on the other side. So fear not, we will be right back.
You're listening to the industrial talk, Podcast Network.
As always, thank you very much for joining industrial talk and for your support of this platform that celebrates industry heroes all around the world, because you deserve it. That's Mitch Klein. If you're going to reach out to him on LinkedIn, you're going to have to find it through Mitchell Klein. But better yet, just go out to industrial talk.com Find his conversation and boom, you will have all his contact information. Now, as you can tell by the buzz and the chirping in the background, we weren't live sorry about the quality of the conversation with the noise in the background. But that's what we have to do. We have to be at these conferences, and definitely celebrate these professionals everywhere we can go because this platform is for you. All right. How do you get involved? Easy, go out to industrial talk.com click there. And we would love to have a conversation because we're building a platform that is definitely committed to education, collaboration, because you don't have all the answers. And definitely innovation. So go out to industrial talk.com Get involved. It is an ever expanding ecosystem of industrial problem solvers such as yourself. Again, thank you very much for joining. We're going to have more from this particular conference, distribute tech, because we've got a bunch of great conversations lined up so stay tuned do not go away.
About the author, Scott
I am Scott MacKenzie, husband, father, and passionate industry educator. From humble beginnings as a lathing contractor and certified journeyman/lineman to an Undergraduate and Master’s Degree in Business Administration, I have applied every aspect of my education and training to lead and influence. I believe in serving and adding value wherever I am called.
