The Data Stack Show

220: From Box Office to Big Data: Bridging Marketing and Technology Through Data-Driven Leadership with Brian Schwartz of SIZE Dec 18, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Brian’s Background and Journey in Data and Marketing (0:56)
AI and Data Strategy (2:12)
Experience at DreamWorks Animation (3:15)
Marketing Timeline for Movies (5:18)
Data-Driven Decisions at Expedia (9:04)
Advising High-Growth Companies (14:59)
LinkedIn Connections and Networking (17:57)
Tension Between Marketing and Data Teams (19:59)
Technology Spending in Marketing (22:07)
Advice for Tech Leaders Facing Brand Marketers (25:50)
Frequency of Replatforming (30:11)
Understanding Data Accessibility (33:58)
Data as a Product (00:37:58)
Overhyped AI Applications (39:00)
Underutilized AI Opportunities (00:41:51)
AI's ROI Challenges (47:01)
Effective AI Support Systems (52:33)
Potential Ventures to Pursue Outside of Data (56:04)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (1:00:11)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Bridging Marketing and Technology Through Data-Driven Leadership with Brian Schwartz of SIZE Dec 16, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

219: The First 90 Days of Data Leadership: What the LinkedIn Posts Don't Tell You with Matt Kelliher-Gibson, The Cynical Data Guy Dec 11, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Lightning Round Setup (1:15)
Scenarios for New Data Leaders (2:33)
Optimism vs. Reality (3:14)
Cynical Perspective on Data Roles (5:32)
Monitoring Systems Discussion (9:31)
Executive Alignment Challenges (12:54)
Understanding Team Dynamics (17:32)
Head of Data vs. Head of Product (20:13)
Product Development Steps (22:14)
Consequences of Product Decisions (24:14)
Challenges in Data Team Dynamics (26:03)
Attribution Reporting Complexity (28:24)
Long-Term Vision for Data Teams (29:22)
AI Summaries Discussion (30:19)
Closing Thoughts on AI Nuance (32:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Unspoken Truths of Data Leadership with Matt Kelliher-Gibson, The Cynical Data Dec 09, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

218: Breaking the Language Barrier Between Data and Business with Joyce Myers of Modern Technology Solutions Dec 04, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Joyce's Background and Journey in Data (0:39)
Technological Growth in Logistics (3:51)
Leadership and Communication in Logistics (6:54)
Impact of Data Quality (9:13)
Significance of Data Entry Accuracy (12:05)
Data's Role in Decision Making (16:01)
The Cost of Adding Data Points (21:26)
Real-Time Data in Logistics (24:28)
Understanding Master Data (31:15)
Data vs. Information Distinction (33:21)
Navigating Change in Data Management (37:35)
Career Advice for Data Practitioners and Parting Thoughts (41:10)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Small Errors, Big Consequences: The Reality of Data Quality with Joyce Myers of Modern Technology Solutions Dec 02, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

217: Bridging Data Models with Business Intuition with Zenlytic’s Founders Ryan Janssen and Paul Blankley Nov 27, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ryan and Paul’s Background and Journey (1:05)
Excitement about AI and Data Intersection (2:50)
Evolution of Language Models (5:05)
Current Challenges in Model Training (6:51)
Founding Zenlytic (9:12)
Integrating Vibes into Decision-Making (12:58)
Precision vs. Context in Data (15:03)
Understanding Multimodal Inputs (17:47)
The Challenge of Watching User Behavior (19:26)
Empathy in Data Analysis (21:32)
AI in Analytics (23:18)
The Complexity of Data Models (25:33)
Self-Serve Analytics Definition (28:15)
Evolution of Self-Serve Analytics (32:09)
Distillation of Data for End Users (36:44)
Challenges in Data Interpretation (39:22)
Building a Semantic Model (44:18)
Using AI for Comprehensive Analysis (46:51)
Future of AI in Analytics (51:31)
Naming the AI Agent (52:53)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (54:21)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Large Language Models Haven’t Always Been Large with Ryan Janssen and Paul Blankley from Zenlytic Nov 25, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

216: From Raw Data to Business Results: Building High-Impact Data Teams with Ethan Aaron and John Steinmetz Nov 20, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ethan's Background (0:47)
John's Background (1:16)
Data Teams vs. Engineering Teams (2:04)
Career Paths in Data (3:40)
Pressure of Large Companies (6:10)
Contrasting Industries: Expedia vs. Gallo (9:02)
Establishing Trust in Data (11:30)
From Sales to Data (16:30)
Understanding Success Metrics (18:58)
Creating Daily Business Value (23:03)
Aligning Data Work with Leadership Goals (29:30)
Differences Between Data and Software Engineering (31:25)
The Role of Data in Business (35:56)
Understanding Data Contracts (39:35)
Accuracy vs. Usability in Data (41:51)
Observational Skills in Data Roles (44:03)
Defining Product in Data vs. Software (47:07)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (52:42)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Understanding Business Needs Before Building Data Solutions with Ethan Aaron and John Steinmetz Nov 18, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

215: Data Sharing and the Truth About Data Clean Rooms with Patrik Devlin of Wilde AI Nov 13, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Patrik's Background and Journey to Wilde (1:12)
The Evolution of QR Codes (4:09)
Marketing Analytics and Clean Rooms (9:52)
Challenges in Data Sharing (13:20)
Technical Challenges with Clean Rooms (15:37)
Exploring Current Data Infrastructure (19:11)
Data Orchestration Tools (22:50)
Performance Tuning and Data Syncing (24:00)
Choosing Data Tools (26:08)
Mother Duck and Data Warehousing (00:30:31)
Flexible Data Architecture (32:40)
DuckDB Implementation (35:36)
Data Marketplace Concept (38:34)
Asset Availability in Data Queries (42:21)
Transition from Software Engineering to Data Stack (46:36)
Data Contracts and Type Safety (49:10)
Database Schema Perspectives (50:27)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (51:35)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Sharing Deep Dive and Building Secure, Scalable, Flexible Data Solutions with Patrik Devlin of Wilde AI Nov 11, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

214: Will Salesforce Be the Most Successful AI Company? And Do You Need That in Real-Time? Featuring the Cynical Data Guy Nov 06, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Cynical Data Guy Explanation (00:00:44)
Marc Benioff's LinkedIn Post (1:28)
Agent Force Overview (2:23)
Speculating on the Backstory (4:08)
Top Comment Reaction (6:22)
Salesforce's Success in AI (7:30)
Distribution as a Key Factor (9:10)
Salesforce's Dashboarding Solution (10:20)
Data as a Byproduct Discussion (14:22)
Historical Data Value Debate (17:15)
Real-Time Data Processing Challenges (19:54)
Real-Time Data Use Cases (22:10)
Legacy Systems and Data Management (28:06)
Psychology of Data Usage (29:15)
Final Takeaways on Sales and Data (32:21)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: A Take on Salesforce Agentforce and More with the Cynical Data Guy Nov 04, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

213: How AI Can Bring Advanced Data Outcomes to More Businesses featuring Taylor Murphy of Arch Oct 30, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Taylor's Background and Journey in Data (0:45)
Modern Data Practices and AI (1:46)
Arch's Mission and Collaboration (3:02)
Data Movement and Business Needs (6:12)
Bundling and Unbundling of Data Tools (8:26)
Cost of Computing and Data Storage (13:22)
AI Agent Models in Data Analytics (16:09)
AI Analyst and Data Democratization (18:34)
Decentralizing Data Expertise (20:08)
Anchoring Questions in Business Metrics (23:32)
Challenges for Mid-Market Companies (27:55)
Creating Metrics in Organizations (29:53)
User Experience in AI Interactions (34:54)
Human-AI Collaboration (36:49)
Managing AI Agents (39:39)
Understanding Customer Data Needs (42:47)
Automation of Data Parsing (45:05)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (46:16)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: From ETL to AI: Taylor Murphy’s Journey to Transform Data Analytics Oct 28, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

212: Scaling Startups with Purpose: Jonathan Bragdon’s Blueprint for Capital-Efficient Growth Oct 23, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Jonathan's Background in Data and VC (1:05)
Working with CPG Data (3:45)
Details of Purchase Data (6:20)
Funding Fast-Growth Companies (12:21)
Venture Studio Model (16:34)
Learnings from Consulting and Incubation (19:35)
Founder Obsession (21:54)
Capital Stack Introduction (24:18)
Capital Efficiency in Startups (28:05)
Value Creation in Venture Capital (33:37)
Revenue-Based Financing (38:43)
Exit Aperture and Dilution (39:39)
Importance of Fit in Investment (41:51)
Setting Expectations Early (44:06)
Aligning Financial and Problem-Solving Goals (46:21)
Technical and Process Focus in Startups (49:21)
Identifying Tech and Process Debt (52:39)
Advice for Aspiring Founders (54:53)
The Craft vs. Problem Focus (57:09)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (58:48)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Founder Obsession and Funding Options with Jonathan Bragdon of Capacity Oct 21, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

211: From Classroom to Data Science: Career Advice and AI Trends with Angelica ‘Jelly’ Spratley Oct 16, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Disney Data and Analytics Conference (1:15)
Flatiron School Overview (3:51)
Defining Industry-Ready (4:48)
Transitioning to Data Science (6:33)
Teaching KPIs (8:10)
Self-Advocacy in Career Development (11:22)
Managerial Credibility (16:11)
Bridging Academic and Industry Gaps (19:30)
Managing Projects with Non-Technical Stakeholders (21:35)
Transitioning from Industry to Teaching (23:38)
Relating Data Science to Personal Interests (25:32)
Creating Engaging Learning Experiences (28:42)
Involvement in Data Literacy Organizations (31:09)
Addressing AI Concerns in Education (34:16)
Collaboration for AI Safety (38:22)
Remote Work Trends (41:09)
Productivity in Remote vs. Office Settings (44:11)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (46:13)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Navigating the Data World with Angelica 'Jelly' Spratley: Career Transitions, AI Insights, and Industry-Ready Skills Oct 14, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

210: From Reporting Basics to AI Automation with Eric Dodds and John Wessel: Navigating the Complexities of Data Standardization, Observability, and Business Alignment Oct 09, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Reporting and Analytics Discussion (1:09)
Automation in Reporting (3:16)
AI's Impact on Analytics (5:00)
Data Quality Challenges (6:56)
Reinventing Reporting (9:23)
Automated Reporting Services (14:35)
Growth Trajectory of Reporting Tools (16:01)
Market Size Comparison (18:04)
Static vs. Time Series Data (21:27)
Differentiating Reporting and Analytics (26:26)
Ad Hoc Analysis vs. Reporting (29:52)
The Role of Data Scientists (34:03)
Planning the Reset (38:36)
Focus on Business Problems (41:30)
Identifying Business Needs (44:01)
Heuristics and Intuition (48:03)
Importance of Monitoring (52:20)
Observability in Analytics (55:53)
Observability in Metrics (58:08)
Consistency in Definitions (1:02:39)
Impact of Changing Definitions and Final Takeaways (1:04:15)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Back to the Basics: The Importance of Solid Reporting and Analytics Oct 07, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

209: Storytime with Cynical Data Guy: Data Projects, $50K Web Scraping Fails, and the Role of CDOs Oct 02, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Previewing the Next Cynical Data Guy Episode (0:13)
Story Time: Coolest Data Project You’ve Worked On (1:13)
Failed Web Scraping Project (3:40)
Building a Neural Net for Matching (5:22)
Rebuilding the Project Strategy (7:04)
Project Completion and Politics (9:35)
Agreeable Data Guy's Pricing Story (11:00)
Balancing Advanced and Simple Solutions (14:15)
Insights from Pricing Team Meetings (16:19)
Building for Scale vs. Immediate Needs (18:29)
Open Source Data Formats (19:46)
Disaster Recovery Experiences (22:34)
Reflections on Chief Data Officers (25:01)
Cynicism in Data Projects (28:19)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (30:20)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Projects Gone Wrong Sep 30, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

208: The Intersection of AI Safety and Innovation: Insights from Soheil Koushan on LLMs, Vision, and Responsible AI Development Sep 25, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Soheil’s Background and Journey in AI (0:40)
Anthropic's Philosophy on Safety (1:21)
Key Moments in AI Discovery (2:52)
Computer Vision Applications (4:42)
Magic vs. Reality in AI (7:35)
Product Development at Anthropic (12:57)
Tension Between Research and Product (14:36)
Safety as a Capability (17:33)
Community Notes and Democracy in AI (20:41)
Expert Panels for Safety (21:38)
Post-Training Data Quality (23:32)
User Data and Privacy (25:32)
Test Time Compute Paradigm (30:54)
The Future of AI Interfaces (36:04)
Advancements in Computer Vision (38:46)
The Role of AGI in AI Development (41:52)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (43:07)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Balancing Safety and Innovation for AI with Soheil Koushan of Anthropic Sep 23, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

207: Why Niche Data Tools Fail, Broken Hiring Processes, and the GUI vs. Command Line Showdown with The Cynical Data Guy Sep 18, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Welcome to another episode of the Cynical Data Guys (0:24)
Post on Short Sellers in Data (1:36)
Investment Areas in Data (4:04)
Teaching Git with GUI (9:00)
Understanding Data Scientist Roles (12:25)
Interview Process Critique (15:39)
Hiring Process Challenges (19:19)
Defining Team Fit (21:05)
Effective Hiring Framework (23:05)
Cynical Take on Trust Issues (25:02)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (26:05)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Open Source Data Tools: Buying or Selling? Sep 16, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

206: Reviving Old-School Customer Experiences Through Modern Data Strategies, Featuring Edward Chenard, Seasoned Data Leader and Analytics Officer Sep 11, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Edward's Background and Journey in Data (0:44)
P&L Ownership Discussion (1:15)
Challenges in Profit Ownership (3:38)
Data Team Dynamics (5:52)
Role Clarity Between CFO and CDO (7:31)
Nuances of Data Leadership (11:24)
Focus on Relevance in Data Work (14:05)
Best Buy's Personalization Project (18:39)
Building a Data Stack (21:00)
Crowd-Driven Algorithms (25:26)
Event-Based Personalization (28:12)
Corporate Politics and Implementation (31:00)
In-Store Experience Innovations (33:16)
Impact of Data Science at Best Buy (37:14)
The Importance of Data Teams in AI Implementation (39:19)
Using AI Conversationally (42:09)
Book Recommendations for Data Leaders (44:24)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (47:05)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Modern Data, Old-School Customer Focus: A Winning Strategy with Edward Chenard Sep 09, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

205: How to make LLMs Boring (Predictable, Reliable, and Safe), Featuring Nicolay Gerold Sep 04, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Nicolay’s Background and Journey in AI (0:39)
Milestones in LLMs (4:30)
Barriers to Effective Use of LLMs (6:39)
Data-Centric AI Approach (10:17)
Importance of Data Over Model Tuning (12:20)
Capabilities of LLMs (15:08)
Challenges in Structuring Data (18:28)
JSON Generation Techniques (20:28)
Utilizing Unused Data (22:36)
Importance of Monitoring in AI (34:11)
Challenges in AI Testing (37:40)
Error Tracing in AI vs. Software (39:24)
The AI Startup Landscape (40:53)
Marketing for Technical Founders (42:41)
Generative AI Hype Cycle (44:33)
Connecting with Nicolay and Final Takeaways (47:59)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What are LLMs Actually Good At? Featuring Nicolay Gerold Sep 02, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

204: Will a Duck DB-Like Excel Emerge by 2075? And Is Data Every Company’s Most Valuable Asset? Featuring Benn Stancil of Mode Aug 28, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Benn's Background and Journey in Data (0:48)
Reflection on Strategy and Vision (2:10)
The Importance of Doing It Your Way (4:10)
Early Experiences and Blogging (6:27)
Self-Imposed Pressure in Startups (8:24)
The Challenge of Decision-Making (12:11)
Key Decisions in a Startup's Trajectory (15:48)
Understanding Startup Anxiety (17:24)
Importance of Focus in Data Startups (20:02)
Product Market Fit Insights (24:38)
Cultural Change and Product Fit (30:23)
Evolution of Data Teams (31:57)
The Role of High-Profile Data Successes (34:12)
Challenges of Data in Smaller Businesses (36:16)
Product Team Dynamics (38:18)
The Future of Excel (41:11)
Anti-Patterns in Data Usage (45:05)
Imagining Excel's Replacement (47:05)
Exploring New Data Solutions (49:24)
The Role of LLMs in Data Analysis (51:29)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (53:10)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Will Excel Exist in 50 Years? Featuring Benn Stancil of Mode Aug 26, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

203: From Data Dreams to Practical Marketing Outcomes with Spencer Burke of Braze Aug 21, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Spencer's Background at Braze (1:54)
The Early Days of Braze (2:41)
Finding Product-Market Fit (4:44)
First Major Customer (6:33)
Unique Aspects of Braze's Growth Team (8:07)
Startup Culture Experience (10:40)
Data and Marketing Perspectives (12:50)
Common Marketing Data Challenges (15:50)
Changing Dynamics in Marketing Tech (18:12)
Evaluating Marketing Tools (19:38)
Transformation of Marketing Tools (22:18)
Marketers Becoming More Technical (24:10)
API Utilization in Marketing (25:46)
Connecting Customer Experience (29:09)
Flexibility in Data Integration (32:05)
Pushing vs. Pulling Data (34:35)
Anomaly Detection in Data Reporting (37:02)
Understanding the Importance of Core KPIs (39:09)
Making Data More Consumable (42:38)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (44:51)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Get Better at Data, Get Better at Marketing with Spencer Burke of Braze Aug 19, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

202: Predicting the Impact of Competitive Entrants With Synthetic Controls with Evan Wimpey of Elder Research Aug 14, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Evan's Background and Journey in Data (0:40)
Discussion on Synthetic Controls (1:04)
Evan's Educational Journey and Marine Corps Experience (2:54)
Joining Elder Research (4:38)
Synthetic Controls Explained (6:54)
Measuring Impact with Synthetic Controls (9:05)
Building the Control Group (12:54)
Qualitative Context in Data Analysis (14:50)
Final Steps with Synthetic Controls (16:29)
Client Analytics Maturity (18:56)
Outsourcing Decisions in Analytics (21:09)
Cohesion Between Analytics Teams (24:18)
Validation of Predictive Models (26:37)
Confidence in Marketing Predictions (29:01)
Setting Expectations for Data Science (36:09)
Evan's Background in Data Comedy (39:44)
The Journey to Award-Winning Jokes (41:29)
Creating New Jokes (46:22)
Get the Joke Book and Final Thoughts in the Episode (48:46)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Comedy and Synthetic Controls with Evan Wimpey of Elder Research Aug 12, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

201: AI Real-Talk: Uncovering the Good, Bad and Ugly Through Prototyping with Eric, John, and Matt Aug 07, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Current State of LLMs (1:12)
Historical Analogy to the iPhone (3:32)
Limitations of Early iPhones (5:02)
Comparing LLMs to Historical Technologies (6:08)
Skepticism About LLM Capabilities (9:11)
Broad Nature of AI Innovations (10:12)
User Input Challenges (14:32)
Transcription and Unstructured Data (16:19)
Single Player vs. Multiplayer Experiences with LLMs (18:50)
Revenue Insights from ChatGPT (20:27)
Contextual Use of LLMs in Development (23:43)
Implications of Human Involvement (26:15)
The Role of Human Feedback (29:19)
Customer Data Management and LLMs (31:25)
Streamlining Data Engineering Processes (34:24)
Prototyping Content Recommendations (37:42)
Summarizing Content for LLMs (39:51)
Challenges with Output Quality (41:18)
Data Formatting for Marketing Use (43:20)
Efficient Workflow Integration (46:20)
Exploring New Prototyping Techniques (50:56)
Distance Metrics for Improved Relevance (53:00)
Improving Search Techniques (56:46)
Utilizing LLMs in Customer Data (59:15)
Challenges in Customer Data Processing (1:01:10)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:02:12)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: AI Roundtable: Putting AI in Historical Context and Real-Life Learnings Through Prototyping, with Eric, John, and Matt Aug 05, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

200: Data Team Struggles: Telling Stakeholders the Truth vs. What They Want to Hear (How to Tell The Truth, Tactfully) Jul 31, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Lightning Round Discussion (1:21)
Data Team's Truthfulness (2:21)
Culture as a Blocker (9:10)
Misconceptions about Data Jobs (10:32)
Cultural and Technological Influences (11:51)
Challenges in Data Science Projects (15:19)
Embracing the Process (17:23)
Barriers to Entry (19:36)
Hiring Data Leaders (22:06)
Challenges of Data Leadership (25:38)
Evolving Hiring Criteria (27:30)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Jaded Takes on Data Linkedin Jul 29, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

199: How To Use Data Analytics and AI To Increase Profitability With Smarter Procurement, Featuring Cameron Jagoe of ProcureVue Jul 24, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Cameron's Background and Journey in Data (1:49)
Running a Bakery (3:03)
Applying Analytics to Bakery Operations (7:07)
Reevaluating Business Operations (18:08)
Optimizing for Profitability (19:09)
Working at Newell Rubbermaid (20:11)
Value Engineering Projects (22:11)
Starting a Center of Excellence (24:53)
Productizing the Approach (29:48)
Tech Stack for Data Analysis (31:40)
Data Cleaning and Classification (35:16)
Market Build and Pricing Accuracy (37:13)
The AI Tool as a Pointy Stick (38:20)
Sourcing and Sales as Two Sides of the Coin (41:04)
Challenges with Parsing Data (44:06)
Personal Journey and Company Success (46:44)
Final thoughts and takeaways (47:45)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Better Analytics, Smarter Purchasing, and Improved Profitability with Cameron Jagoe of ProcureVue Jul 22, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

198: Building AI Search and Customer-Enabled Fine-Tuning with Jesse Clark of Marqo.ai Jul 17, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Jesse’s background and work in data (0:35)
E-commerce Application for Search (1:23)
Ph.D. in Physics Experience Then Working in Data (2:27)
Early Machine Learning Journey (4:35)
Machine Learning at Stitch Fix (7:28)
Machine Learning at Amazon (10:39)
Myths and Realities of AI (13:49)
Bolt-On AI vs. Native AI (17:26)
Overview of Marqo (19:46)
Product launch and fine-tuning models (23:02)
Importance of data quality (25:38)
The power of machine learning in search (32:02)
Future of domain-specific knowledge and product data (34:08)
Unstructured data and AI (37:19)
Technical aspects of Marqo's system (39:42)
Challenges of vector search (43:27)
Evolution of search technology (48:15)
Future of search interfaces (50:43)
Final thoughts and takeaways (51:53)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Exploring the Evolution of AI and ML in E-commerce Search Optimization with Jesse Clark of Marqo.ai Jul 15, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

197: Deep Dive: How to Build AI Features and Why it is So Dang Hard with Barry McCardle of Hex Jul 10, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Overview of Hex and its Purpose (0:51)
Discussion on AI and Data Collaboration (1:42)
Product Updates in Hex (2:14)
Challenges of Building AI Features (13:29)
Magic Features and AI Context (15:22)
Chatbots and UI (17:31)
Benchmarking AI Models (19:06)
AI as a Judge Pattern (23:32)
Challenges in AI Development (25:31)
AI in Production and Product Integration (28:43)
Difficulties in AI Feature Prediction (33:38)
Deterministic template selection and AI model uncertainty (36:21)
Infrastructure for AI experimentation and evaluation (40:11)
Consolidation and competition in the data stack industry (42:27)
Data gravity, integration, and market dynamics (47:12)
Enterprise adoption and the bundling and unbundling of platforms (51:03)
The open source databases and the middle ground (53:18)
Building successful open source businesses (57:00)
The fun approach to product launch video (1:01:14)
Final thoughts and takeaways (01:03:15)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Why is Building Great AI Features so Hard? Featuring Barry McCardel of Hex Jul 08, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

196: Why Big Query Was a Big Deal, Observability AI, and How AI is Like a Guy at the Bar, Featuring David Wynn of Edge Delta Jul 03, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

David’s Background and Career (0:49)
Econometrics Work at UPS (3:14)
Challenges with Time Series Data and Tools (7:15)
Working at Google Cloud (11:28)
BigQuery's Significance (13:51)
Comparison of Data Warehouse Products (17:23)
Learning different cloud platforms (20:17)
Coherence in GCP (23:04)
Observability and data analysis (32:44)
Support for Iceberg format in BigQuery (36:31)
AI in Observability (40:25)
AI's Role in Observability (43:39)
AI and Mental Models (46:04)
Final thoughts and takeaways (48:32)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Google Cloud Deep Dive and Observability AI with David Wynn of Edge Delta Jul 01, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

195: Supply Chain Data Stacks and Snowflake Optimization Pro Tips with Jeff Skoldberg of Green Mountain Data Solutions Jun 26, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Jeff's Background and Transition to Independent Consulting (0:03)
Working at Keurig and Business Model Changes (2:16)
Tech Stack Evolution and SAP HANA Implementation (7:33)
Adoption of Tableau and Data Pipelines (11:21)
Supply Chain Analytics and Timeless Data Modeling (15:49)
Impact of Cloud Computing on Cost Optimization (18:35)
Challenges of Managing Variable Costs (20:59)
Democratization of Data and Cost Impact (23:52)
Quality of Fivetran Connectors (27:29)
Data Ingestion and Cost Awareness (29:44)
Virtual Warehouse Cost Management (31:22)
Auto-Scaling and Performance Optimization (33:09)
Cost-Saving Frameworks for Business Problems (38:19)
Dashboard Frameworks (40:53)
Increasing Dashboards (43:29)
Final thoughts and takeaways (46:28)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Breaking down Keurig’s Supply Chain Data Stack with Jeff Skoldberg of Green Mountain Data Solutions Jun 24, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

194: Building Retail Churn Prediction on DuckDB with Clint Dunn of Wilde Jun 19, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Clint’s Background and Journey in Data (0:51)
Starting a Data Career (2:01)
Transition to Startup SaaS World (4:27)
Clint’s Connection to a Federal Reserve Database (5:31)
Challenges in Predictive Modeling (10:27)
Data Input Challenges (15:50)
Marketers' Workflow and Data Integration (18:29)
Soft ROI vs. Hard ROI in Data Analysis (00:21:31)
Balancing Internal Marketing and Data Team's Value (22:35)
Simplifying Data Inputs for Predictive Models (25:09)
Data Analysis Workflow and Tech Stack (29:06)
Open Data Formats and Impact on Data Platforms (34:40)
The S3 and Ecosystem Model (37:08)
In-browser SQL Queries with DuckDB (39:24)
Data Security Concerns and Solutions (41:47)
Clean Rooms and Data Sharing (43:32)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (47:35)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Hard Data ROI and Productizing Retail Churn Prediction with Clint Dunn of Wilde Jun 17, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

193: Introducing the Cynical Data Guy: Is Data-Driven a Myth? Jun 12, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Introducing a special edition of the show with the cynical data guy (0:19)
Metadata and LLMs (2:32)
Data-driven culture (8:44)
No-code orchestration tools (17:09)
No Code vs. Low Code (19:58)
Enterprise Challenges with No Code Solutions (20:08)
No Code Tools for Small Companies (21:40)
Inappropriate Use of Tools (23:06)
Final thoughts and takeaways (24:05)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Cynical Data Guy’s Origin Story Jun 10, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

192: Business Logic As Code: A New LLM-Powered Operating System for Business Automation with Binny Gill of Kognitos Jun 05, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The history of computer science and AI inflection point (1:23)
Binny's early programming experiences and the constraints of technology (2:14)
Getting interested in computer programming (5:02)
The experiment that impacted the starting of Kognitos (8:23)
Challenges in traditional computer science (16:04)
Reimagining programming and debugging through natural language (19:08)
The operating system for applications (20:19)
Changing the paradigm of programming (21:25)
Complexity in software compilation (22:05)
Challenges in automating business processes (24:50)
Solving business process problems with Kognitos (27:39)
AI as a tool in business solutions (34:05)
The future of AI and specialized intelligence (37:08)
Using LLMs for Context Generation (40:43)
Biases and Data Set Source Transparency (41:48)
Next Innovation in Data (44:34)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (47:06)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: From Programming Tic Tac Toe to Building an Operating System for Natural Language Programs With Binny Gill of Kognitos Jun 03, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

191: From Amazon to Consulting: Time Series Forecasting and How to Communicate Data Analytics Insights with David McCandless of McCandless Consulting May 29, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

David's Background and Journey in Data (0:30)
Transition to Time Series Forecasting (2:03)
Working on Time Series Forecasting at Amazon (2:55)
Challenges and Experience in Time Series Forecasting (4:32)
Transitioning to a New Role at Amazon (5:52)
Tools and Methods for Time Series Forecasting (8:17)
Forecasting Impact and Accuracy (15:30)
Explaining Variance and Lessons Learned (18:58)
Understanding Downstream Consumers and Empathy for Business Leaders (20:36)
Amazon's Culture and Decision-Making Process (24:27)
Assimilating into Amazon's Culture (26:04)
Interpreting Data for Business Stakeholders (28:34)
Consulting for Small Businesses (30:28)
Challenges in Automation and Maintenance (32:18)
Analyzing Financial Metrics for Small Businesses (34:51)
Tooling and Data Solutions for Small Businesses (39:52)
Empowering Small Businesses with Data (46:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Practical Applications for Time Series Forecasting with David McCandless of McCandless Consulting May 28, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

190: Aligning Data Teams and Data Tools With Business Needs Featuring Ben Rogojan, the Seattle Data Guy May 22, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ben’s background and journey in data (0:18)
Relating data to business outcomes (2:33)
Facebook's approach to data-driven business outcomes (4:43)
Subjectivity and data-driven business outcomes (8:43)
Infrastructure and data collection at Facebook (12:04)
The importance of first-party data and the death of third-party cookies (16:27)
Facebook's Data and Attribution Challenges (20:08)
Facebook's Infrastructure and Tooling (23:41)
Differences in Data Approaches (28:26)
Challenges of Data Project Alignment with Business Outcomes (32:58)
Integration of Data into Tools and Partnerships (35:12)
Building Alliances with Embedded Data Analysts (38:08)
Budgeting for Data Teams (40:02)
Healthy Team Dynamics and Budgeting (44:18)
Data Team Reporting Structure (46:23)
Connecting with Ben and More Content (50:55)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Success From Mid-market to Enterprise with Ben Rogojan May 20, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

189: Customer Data Modeling, The Data Warehouse, Reverse ETL, and Data Activation with Ryan McCrary of RudderStack May 16, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ryan's Background and Roles in Data (0:05)
Data Activation and Dashboard Staleness (1:27)
Profiles and Data Activation (2:54)
Customer-Facing Experience and Product Management (3:40)
Profiles Product Overview (5:10)
Use Cases for Profiles (6:44)
Challenges with Data Projects (9:19)
Entity Management and Account Views (15:33)
Handling Entities and Duplicates (17:55)
Challenges in Entity Management (22:18)
Product Management and Data Solutions (26:08)
Reverse ETL and Data Movement (31:58)
Accessibility of Data Warehouses (36:14)
Profiles and Entity Features (37:47)
Cohorts Creation and Use Cases (41:17)
Customer Data and Targeting (43:09)
Activations and Reverse ETL (45:57)
ML and AI Use Cases (55:53)
Data Activation and ML Predictions (57:02)
Spicy Take and Future Product Features (59:47)
ETL Evolution and Cloud Tools (1:00:50)
Unbundling and Future Trends (1:02:10)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: How to Get Business Teams Closer to Customer Data (The Right Way) May 13, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

188: How To Invest in Data Infrastructure and Data Projects That Create Business Value with Matthew Kelliher-Gibson of Rudderstack May 08, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Matt KG’s Background in Data (0:35)
Challenges in purchasing data tools (1:28)
Early experiences in data analysis (9:51)
Matt’s Transition to a subprime auto loan company (13:19
Transition to RudderStack and software purchase decisions (17:36)
Tech Problems: People and Process (22:02)
Challenges in Purchasing Data Tools (22:55)
Budget Constraints and Purchasing Decisions (24:46)
Challenges with Platform Documentation (26:55)
Metrics and Cost Efficiency (30:11)
Risk and Conviction in Purchasing Decisions (32:53)
Justification and Value Creation (38:17)
Connecting Data to Business Value (42:03)
Navigating Business Relationships (46:25)
Empowering Analysts (49:54)
Relational Capital and Team Competency (51:29)
Final thoughts and takeaways (54:16)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Navigating the Procurement Process for Data Infrastructure Tooling With Matthew Kelliher-Gibson of Rudderstack May 06, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

187: Startup Lessons and Torch Passing with Kostas Pardalis May 01, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Kostas Passes the Baton as Co-Host of the Podcast (0:24)
Reflecting on the Podcast (2:56)
New Co-Host John Wessel and His Background in Data (4:34)
Kostas Journey in Data (10:55)
Rudderstack's Explosive Growth (21:28)
The Podcast's Inception and Marketing Activities (24:19)
Evolution of the podcast (27:22)
Memorable guests and experiences (28:29)
Connecting with industry leaders and key innovators in the space (33:05)
Kostas' new venture (36:26)
Advice for the new co-host (42:17)
Final Thoughts and Takeaways (44:47)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Why Is Kostas a Guest on His Own Podcast? Apr 29, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

186: Data Fusion and The Future Of Specialized Databases with Andrew Lamb of InfluxData Apr 24, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The Evolution of Data Systems (0:47)
The Role of Open Source Software (2:39)
Challenges of Time Series Data (6:38)
Architecting InfluxDB (9:34)
High Cardinality Concepts (11:36)
Trade-Offs in Time Series Databases (15:35)
High Cardinality Data (18:24)
Evolution to InfluxDB 3.0 (21:06)
Modern Data Stack (23:04)
Evolution of Database Systems (29:48)
InfluxDB Re-Architecture (33:14)
Building an Analytic System with Data Fusion (37:33)
Challenges of Mapping Time Series Data into Relational Model (44:55)
Adoption and Future of Data Fusion (46:51)
Externalized Joins and Technical Challenges (51:11)
Exciting Opportunities in Data Tooling (55:20)
Emergence of New Architectures (56:35)
Final thoughts and takeaways (57:47)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Open Source and the Evolution of Data Systems with Andrew Lamb of InfluxData Apr 22, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week: A Decade of Supporting the Data Community with Pete Soderling Apr 18, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Pete’s background and the origin story of Data Council (1:04)
Reflecting on 10 years of Data Council (2:07)
Impact of the pandemic on conferences (5:25)
Rebuilding after the pandemic (7:42)
Evolution of Data Council (10:33)
Balancing content and sponsorship (16:17)
Selecting speakers and content at Data Council (19:39)
Highlights from the conference this year (21:58)
Realization of AI Future (22:45)
Embracing AI at Data Council (23:31)
Announcement of Prime Ventures (25:43)
Improving Data Council (27:45)
Trends and Technologies (29:46)
Cautions for Startups (31:47)
Connecting with Data Council and Final Takeaways (33:09)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week: AI Isn’t Just Hype - How To Successfully Apply LLMs Today with Tristan Zajonc of Continual Apr 17, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Tristan's Background and Journey into Data (1:14)
Evolution of Machine Learning and AI (3:13)
Impact of Generative AI (6:33)
MLOps and Challenges in Early Data Science (8:48)
Success and Applications of AI Today (11:34)
Continual AI Copilot Platform (18:04)
Challenges in building remarkable AI assistants (19:58)
Reliability and accuracy in AI responses (25:31)
Regulation and adoption of AI assistants (31:30)
Future of AI assistants and Continual AI (33:12)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week: How To Do Self-Service Data Analytics and Business Intelligence Right with Ryan Dolley of GoodData Apr 15, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ryan’s background in data (0:58)
Transition from Performing Arts to Data (2:23)
Understanding End Users in Data Projects (6:08)
Learning from Failures in Data Projects (8:07)
The self-service era (19:50)
Struggles of self-service (21:23)
The disillusion with dashboards (26:23)
GoodData's approach (30:06)
Merging wisdom with modern approach (31:50)
User experience with GoodData (34:05)
Defining metrics and AI (36:35)
Connecting with Ryan and GoodData (39:26)
Final thoughts and takeaways (41:06)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

185: The Evolution of Data Processing, Data Formats, and Data Sharing with Ryan Blue of Tabular Apr 10, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The Evolution of Data Processing (2:36)
Ryan’s Background and Journey in Data (4:52)
Challenges in Transitioning to S3 (8:47)
Impact of Latency on Query Performance (11:43)
Challenges with Table Representation (15:26)
Designing a New Metadata Format (21:36)
Integration with Existing Tools and Open Source Project (24:07)
Initial Features of Iceberg (26:11)
Challenges of Manual Partitioning (31:49)
Designing the Iceberg Table Format (37:31)
Trade-offs in Writing Workloads (47:22)
Database Systems and File Systems (55:00)
Vendor Influence on Access Controls (1:01:58)
Restructuring Data Security (1:03:39)
Delegating Access Controls (1:07:22)
Column-level Access Controls (1:14:19)
Exciting Releases and Future Plans (1:17:47)
Centralization of Components in Data Infrastructure (1:25:37)
Fundamental Shift in Data Architecture (1:28:28)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Two Parallel Tracks of Development In Data Processing with Ryan Blue of Tabular Apr 08, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

184: Kafka Streams and Operationalizing Event Driven Applications with Apurva Mehta of Responsive Apr 03, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Apruva’s background in streaming technology (0:48)
Developer experience and Kafka streams (2:47)
Motivation to bootstrap a startup (4:09)
Meeting the Confluent founders and early work at Confluent (6:59)
Projects at Confluent and transition to engineering management (10:34)
Overview of Responsive and event-driven applications (12:55)
Defining event-driven applications (15:33)
Importance of latency and state in event-driven applications (18:54)
Low Latency and Stateful Processing (21:52)
In-Memory Storage and Evolution of Kafka (25:02)
Motivation for KSQL and Kafka Streams (29:46)
Category Creation and Database-like Interface (34:33)
Developer Experience with Kafka and Kafka Streams (38:50)
Kafka Streams Functionality and Operational Challenges (41:44)
Metrics and Tuning Configurations (43:33)
Architecture and Decoupling in Kafka Streams (45:39)
State Storage and Transition from RocksDB (47:48)
Future of Event-Driven Architectures (56:30)
Final thoughts and takeaways (57:36)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Event-Driven Applications: Where Low Latency Meets High Impact with Apurva Mehta of Responsive Apr 01, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

183: Why Modern Data Quality Must Move Beyond Traditional Data Management Practices with Chad Sanderson of Gable.ai Mar 27, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Chad’s background and journey in data (0:46)
Importance of Data Supply Chain (2:19)
Challenges with Modern Data Stack (3:28)
Comparing Data Supply Chain to Real-world Supply Chains (4:49)
Overview of Gable.ai (8:05)
Rethinking Data Catalogs (11:42)
New Ideas for Managing Data (15:16)
Data Discovery and Governance Challenges (18:51)
Static Code Analysis and AI Impact on Data (24:55)
Creating Contracts and Defining Data Lineage (27:31)
Data Quality Issues and Upstream Problems (32:32)
Challenges with Third-Party Vendors and External Data (34:29)
Incentivizing Engineers for Data Quality (40:28)
Feedback Loops and Actionability in Data Catalogs (45:30)
Missing metadata (48:57)
Role of AI in data semantics (50:27)
Data as a product (54:26)
Slowing down to go faster (57:38)
Quantifying the cost of data changes (1:01:24)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Data Supply Chain with Chad Sanderson of Gable.ai Mar 25, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

182: Building a Dynamic Data Infrastructure at Enterprise Scale Featuring Kevin Liu of Stripe Mar 20, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Kevin’s background and work at Stripe (0:31)
Evolution of Data Infrastructure at Stripe (2:18)
Kevin's Interest in Data (5:29)
Software Engineer or Data Engineer? (8:27)
Speech Recognition Work at Amazon (11:06)
Efficiency and Cost Management (15:50)
Metadata and Query Analysis (18:38)
Surprising Discoveries in Metadata Analysis (21:43)
Optimizing Cost and Value (23:55)
Product Sizing Stripe Data (26:39)
Popular Tool for Data Interaction (30:08)
Enabling Data Infrastructure Integration (35:22)
Value of Data Pipelining for Stripe (39:32)
Next Generation Product and Technology (43:54)
Maximizing value in a decentralized environment (51:34)
Future of open source projects in data infrastructure (57:59)
Final thoughts and takeaways (59:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Exploring the Intersection of Software Engineering and Data Management with Kevin Liu of Stripe Mar 18, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

181: OLAP Engines and the Next Generation of Business Intelligence with Mike Driscoll of Rill Data Mar 13, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Michael’s background and journey in data (0:33)
The origin story of Druid (2:39)
Experiences and growth in Data (8:08)
Druid's evolution (21:46)
Druid's architectural decisions (26:32)
The user experience (30:06)
The developer experience (35:14)
The evolution of BI tools (40:55)
Data architecture and integration (47:53)
AI's impact on BI (52:26)
What would Mike be doing if he didn’t work in data? (56:27)
Final thoughts and takeaways (57:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Making the Data Stack Serverless in the Cloud with Mike Driscoll of Rill Data Mar 11, 2024

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

180: Data Observability and AI for Data Operations Featuring Kunal Agarwal of Unravel Data Mar 06, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The evolution of data operations (1:13)
Unravel's role in simplifying data operations (2:17)
Kunal’s journey from fashion to enterprise data management (5:23)\
The Unravel platform and its components (10:08)
Challenges in data operations at scale (16:34)
Users of Unravel within an organization (22:32)
Calculating ROI on data products (25:55)
Understanding the cost of data operations (27:01)
Measuring productivity and reliability (30:59)
Diversity of technologies in data operations (34:52)
Efficiency in cost management (44:15)
Implementing observability in AI (47:55)
Challenges of AI Adoption (50:17)
Final thoughts and takeaways (51:36)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What’s Driving The Evolution of Data Operations? Featuring Kunal Agarwal of Unravel Data Mar 04, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Kunal Agarwal of Unravel Data.

179: Time Series Data Management and Data Modeling with Tony Wang of Stanford University Feb 28, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Tony's background and research focus (3:35)
Challenges in academia and industry (6:15)
Ph.D. student's routine (10:47)
Academic paper review process (15:26)
Aha moments in research (20:05)
Academic lab structure (23:09)
The decision to move from hardware to data research (24:43)
Research focus on time series data management (27:40)
Data modeling in time series and OLAP systems (32:01)
Issues and potential solutions for parquet format (37:32)
Role of external indices in parquet files (42:19)
Tony's open source project (47:11)
Final thoughts and takeaways (49:30)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: How is Academic Research Shaping the Future of Data Processing Systems? Featuring Tony Wang of Stanford University Feb 26, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Tony Wang of Stanford University.

178: How to Build a Data Stack to Win PLG, Featuring Peter Chapman Feb 21, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Peter's background and journey in data (0:26)
Introduction to PLG (4:18)
Starting in data at Heroku (6:05)
Building the data stack at Heroku (8:13)
Data stack requirements for early-stage companies (12:00)
Differentiating PLG companies from open source companies (19:26)
Venture capital and open source as a lever for growth (22:56)
Initial data modeling and analysis (25:38)
Operationalizing Data (29:16)
Sales and Marketing Operationalization (31:52)
Identifying Signals (34:16)
Challenges in Developing Signals (37:07)
Account Management for Developer Tools (42:30)
Challenges in Achieving Margins (45:02)
Leveraging Infrastructure for Margins (47:35)
Inference vs Training (54:55)
Final thoughts and takeaways (57:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Building a Future-Proof Data Stack from Day Zero? Featuring Peter Chapman Feb 19, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Peter Chapman, a GTM consultant.

177: AI-Based Data Cleaning, Data Labelling, and Data Enrichment with LLMs Featuring Rishabh Bhargava of refuel Feb 14, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The overview of refuel (0:33)
The evolution of AI and LLMs (3:51)
Types of LLM models (12:31)
Implementing LLM use cases and cost considerations (00:15:52)
User experience and fine-tuning LLM models (21:49)
Categorizing search queries (22:44)
Creating internal benchmark framework (29:50)
Benchmarking and evaluation (35:35)
Using refuel for documentation (44:18)
The challenges of analytics (46:45)
Using customer support ticket data (48:17)
The tagging process (50:18)
Understanding confidence scores (59:22)
Training the model with human feedback (1:02:37)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:05:48)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Exploring the Evolution of AI and ML with Rishabh Bhargava of refuel Feb 12, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Rishabh Bhargava of refuel.

176: The Fundamentals of Event-Driven Orchestration and How Generative AI Is Shaping Its Future with Viren Baraiya of orkes.io Feb 07, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Viren’s background in data (0:39)
Evolution of Orchestration (1:52)
AI Orchestration (3:00)
Understanding Conductor and orkes (6:26)
Event-Driven Orchestration (8:10)
Viren’s Transition to Founder (12:27)
Non-Technical Aspects of Being a Founder (15:50)
Democratizing AI for Developers (18:16)
The evolution of microservices orchestration (21:56)
Challenges in appealing to the 99% developer group (24:32)
Value of orchestration for developers (30:31)
Role of orchestrators in managing faults (37:37)
The intersection of AI and orchestration (40:27)
Evolution of AI (44:04)
Thriving in AI Environment (47:58)
Final thoughts and takeaways (51:25)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Evolution of Application Orchestration Featuring Viren Baraiya of orkes.io Feb 05, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Viren Baraiya of orkes.io.

175: The Parts, Pieces, and Future of Composable Data Systems, Featuring Wes McKinney, Pedro Pedreira, Chris Riccomini, and Ryan Blue Jan 31, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Introduction of the panel (0:05)
Defining composable data stack (5:22)
Components of a composable data stack (7:49)
Challenges and incentives for composable components (10:37)
Specialization and modularity in data workloads (13:05)
Organic evolution of composable systems (17:50)
Efficiency and common layers in data management systems (22:09)
The IR and Data Computation (23:00)
Components of the Storage Layer (26:16)
Decoupling Language and Execution (29:42)
Apache Calcite and Modular Frontend (36:46)
Data Types and Coercion (39:27)
Describing Data Sets and Schema (42:00)
Open Standards and Frontiers (46:22)
Challenges of standardizing APIs (48:15)
Trade-offs in building composable systems (54:04)
Evolution of data system composability (56:32)
Exciting new projects in data systems (1:01:57)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:17:25)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Exploring the Evolution, Challenges, and Benefits of Composable Data Stacks Featuring Wes McKinney, Pedro Pedreira, Chris Riccomini, and Ryan Blue Jan 29, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming discussion with a panel of experts as Wes McKinney (Co-Founder, Voltron), Pedro Pedreira Software Engineer, Meta), Chris Riccomini (Seed Investor, various startups), and Ryan Blue (Co-Founder and CEO, Tabular) join the show.

174: Does Your Data Stack Need a Semantic Layer? Featuring Artyom Keydunov of Cube Dev Jan 24, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Artyom’s background in the data space (0:32)
The growth and changes at Cube (5:58)
Pain points of managing metrics definitions across different tools (9:39)
Trade-offs between coupled and decoupled semantic layers (12:12)
Making a case for implementing a semantic layer (14:17)
The evolution of semantic layers (23:28)
Challenges in designing a decoupled semantic layer (24:16)
Different approaches to solving the interface problem (26:58)
Implementing a SQL engine in Cube (35:58)
Overhead and debugging in semantic layers (39:08)
The semantic layer and its importance (46:26)
The need for semantics in data products (47:34)
What’s the future of semantic layers and user experience? (51:49)
Final thoughts and takeaways (57:34)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Why is a Semantic Layer Important in the Modern Data Stack? Featuring Artyom Keydunov of Cube Dev Jan 22, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Artyom Keydunov of Cube Dev.

173: Data Analytics Is a Team Sport, Featuring Jay Henderson of Alteryx Jan 17, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

No Code Analytics (1:22)
Analytics as a Team Sport (2:31)
The workflow of someone without Alteryx (11:27)
Alteryx's ability to handle diverse data sources (14:32)
The balance between ease of use and complexity (23:06)
Enabling casual end users with a no code interface (24:19)
Taking analytics to the data (31:47)
The boundaries between data engineers and end users (33:44)
The importance of collaboration in analytics (34:12)
The potential of every employee being a data worker (35:28)
The human nature of the product and users in large enterprises (00:45:38)
Final thoughts and takeaways (46:21)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Bridging the Gap Between Messy Data and Sophisticated Analytics with Jay Henderson of Alteryx Jan 15, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Jay Henderson of Alteryx.

172: How WebAssembly is Enabling the Third Wave of Cloud Compute with Matt Butcher of Fermyon Technologies Jan 10, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Matt’s background and journey with Fermyon (2:32)
WebAssembly and enhanced security models (3:43)
The IOT Startup and Google Acquisition (10:49)
Google's Early Containers (11:50)
Scaling and anticipating requests (20:22)
Introduction to WebAssembly and its importance (23:32)
The Benefits of WebAssembly (30:57)
Comparison of Virtual Machines, Containers, and Micro VMs (33:12)
The Importance of Fast Startup Times in WebAssembly (37:39)
Metaphysics and software development (42:12)
The importance of effective communication in code development (43:18)
The challenges and progress of WebAssembly (47:40)
Requirements of different teams and different jobs (52:17)
Final thoughts and takeaway (53:14)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: WebAssembly: The Future of Cloud Workloads Made Simple with Matt Butcher of Fermyon Technologies Jan 08, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Matt Butcher of Fermyon Technologies.

171: Machine Learning Pipelines Are Still Data Pipelines with Sandy Ryza of Dagster Jan 03, 2024

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The role of an orchestrator in the lifecycle of data (1:34)
Relevance of orchestration in data pipelines (00:02:45)
Changes around data ops and MLOps (3:37)
Data Cleaning (11:42)
Overview of Dagster (13:50)
Assets vs Tasks in Data Pipeline (19:15)
Building a Data Pipeline with Dexter (25:40)
Difference between Data Asset and Materialized Dataset (28:28)
Defining Lineage and Data Assets in Dagster (29:32)
The boundaries of software and organizational structures (37:25)
The benefits of a unified orchestration framework (39:56)
Orchestration in the development phase (45:29)
The emergence of analytics engineer role (51:53)
Fluidity in data pipeline and infrastructure roles (52:40)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Does Machine Learning Need Its Own Orchestrator? Featuring Sandy Ryza of Dagster Jan 02, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Sandy Ryza of Dagster.

170: Discussing Data Roles and Solving Data Problems with Katie Bauer of GlossGenius Dec 27, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The evolution of the data scientist role (1:03)
Common problems in different companies (2:05)
Measuring and curating content on Reddit (4:29)
The challenges of working with unstructured content at Reddit and Twitter (11:03)
Lessons learned from Reddit and applying them at Twitter (13:17)
Data challenges and customer behavior analysis at GlossGenius (20:16)
How the data scientist's role has changed over time (00:25:10)
The essence of the data scientist/engineer role (29:00)
Dynamics and overlaps between different data roles (32:09)
The perfect data team for Twitter (34:19)
Building a data team at a startup like GlossGenius (36:36)
The right time to bring in a dedicated data person in a startup (38:52)
The analytics engineer role (46:25)
Challenges in implementing telemetry (50:31)
Final thoughts and takeaways (52:24)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What is a Data Scientist? Featuring Katie Bauer of GlossGenius Dec 26, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Katie Bauer of GlossGenius.

169: Data Models: From Warehouse to Business Impact with Tasso Argyros of ActionIQ Dec 20, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The Evolution of Databases and Data Systems (2:33)
Abstracting Data for Business Users (4:31)
Building a Database for Google-like Search (7:58)
The Big Data Explosion (11:10)
Selling Myspace as First Customer (13:14)
Starting ActionIQ (16:57)
The customer-centric organization (22:46)
Transitioning to customer data focus (23:53)
Understanding business users' needs (28:30)
Supporting Arbitrary Queries and Data Models (34:42)
Unique Technical Perspective of Clickstream Data (37:01)
The value per terabyte of data (46:45)
Building a product for multiple personas (50:45)
Composability and Benefits (58:05)
Evolution of Storage and Compute (1:00:09)
Composability and Treasure Data (1:02:10)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: From Databases to Customer Data Platforms with Tasso Argyros of ActionIQ Dec 18, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Tasso Argyros of ActionIQ.

168: Decoding Data Mesh: Principles, Practices, and Real-World Applications Featuring Paolo Platter, Zhamak Dehghani, and Melissa Logan Dec 13, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Defining data mesh (6:37)
Addressing the scale of organizational complexity and usage (9:04)
The shift from monolithic to microservices (12:24)
The sociological structure in data mesh (13:59)
Data product generation and sharing in data mesh (17:27)
Data Mesh: Simplifying Data Work (24:09)
Getting Started with Data Mesh (29:14)
Building products for Data Mesh (36:42)
Building a customizable and extensible platform to shape data practice (39:28)
The characteristics of a data product (48:40)
Defining what a data product is not (50:45)
The origin of the term "mesh" in data mesh (53:32)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: A Data Mesh Deep Dive with Paolo Platter, Zhamak Dehghani, and Melissa Logan Dec 11, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation regarding Data Mesh with Paolo Platter, Zhamak Dehghani, and Melissa Logan.

167: Data-Driven Investing and Company Building with Ben Miller of Fundrise Dec 06, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ben’s background in real estate (3:27)
Why Fundrise was Started (4:37)
Democratizing Investment Opportunities (6:35)
Investment Thesis for Venture (11:55)
Challenges with Data and Technology (12:34)
Importance of Data Model Abstraction (20:03)
Data Infrastructure and Investments (23:22)
Evolution of Data Engineering (25:12)
Closing the Tooling Gap (34:23)
The user base segmentation (36:28)
The emotional reality of investment decisions (40:50)
Data inputs for real estate investment (47:07)
The work of data infrastructure (48:28)
The limitations of underwriting analysis (49:36)
Improving accuracy with data infrastructure (52:43)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Fundrise's Data-Driven Approach to Investment in Real Estate and Tech with Ben Miller Dec 04, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Ben Miller of Fundrise.

166: Data Processing Fundamentals and Building a Unified Execution Engine Featuring Pedro Pedreira of Meta Nov 29, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The concept of composable at a lower level of data infrastructure (1:28)
New architectures and components that allow developers to build databases (3:44)
Pedro's background and experience in data infrastructure (6:18)
The Spectrum of Latency and Analytics (12:59)
Different Query Engines for Different Use Cases (16:32)
Vectorized vs Code Gen Data Processing (19:33)
Vectorization and Code Generation (21:21)
Examples of Vectorized Engines (24:33)
Rewriting Execution Engine in C++ (27:22)
Different Organization of Presto and Spark (33:17)
Arrow and its Extensions (37:15)
The similarities between analytics and ML (44:33)
Offline feature engineering and data preprocessing for training (48:00)
Dialect and semantic differences in using Velox for different engines (50:01)
The convergence of dialects (52:23)
Challenges of substrate and semantics (53:18)
Future plans for Velox (58:09)
The discussion on evolving Parquet (1:03:38)
The integration of the relational model and the tensor model (1:07:29)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: How Does Composability in Data Infrastructure Differ at Different Levels of Abstraction? Featuring Pedro Pedreira of Meta Nov 27, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Pedro Pedreira of Meta.

165: SQL Queries, Data Modeling, and Data Visualization with Colin Zima of Omni Nov 22, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Colin's Background and Starting Omni (1:48)
Defining “good” at Google search early in his career (4:42)
Looker's Unique Approach to Analytics (9:48)
The paradigm shift in analytics (10:52)
The architecture of Looker and its influence (12:04)
Combatting the challenge of unbundling in the data stack (14:26)
The evolution of analytics engineering (21:50)
Enhancing user flexibility in Omni (23:44)
The evolution of BI tools (32:53)
What does the future look like for BI tools? (35:14)
The role of Python and notebooks in BI (39:48)
The product experience of Omni and its vision (45:27)
Expectations for the future of Omni (47:52)
The relationship between algorithms and business logic (50:51)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Building a Data Product for Data People: Looker's Vision and Omni's Future with Colin Zima Nov 20, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Colin Zima of Omni.

164: How The GTM and Data Teams at Snowflake Work Together with Travis Henry and Hillary Carpio Nov 15, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The Unique Perspective of Practitioners (2:10)
Account-based Marketing (6:30)
Sales Development Representatives (SDR) (8:05)
Descriptive, People, and Engagement Data (11:38)
Data Overload and Actionable Data (14:20)
Working with Data Teams and Internal Data (17:52)
The relationship between business and data teams (22:27)
The importance of collaboration between marketing and data teams (24:17)
Travis and Hillary writing a book (25:33)
The taxonomy of personas (34:23)
Bucketing and grouping people in data systems (35:37)
Account-based marketing and sales alignment (39:00)
The data-driven approach and reliance on technology (44:25)
Managing complexity in data and account-based marketing (45:35)
Adapting to change and evolving data artifacts (51:58)
The importance of understanding the business (54:58)
Collaboration between data and go-to-market teams (55:56)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Navigating the World of Data Overload with Travis Henry and Hillary Carpio of Snowflake Nov 13, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Travis Henry and Hillary Carpio of Snowflake.

163: Simplifying Real-Time Streaming with David Yaffe and Johnny Graettinger of Estuary Nov 08, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Johnny and David’s background in working together (1:56)
The background story of Estuary (4:15)
The challenges of ad tech and the need for low latency (5:44)
Use cases for moving data at scale (10:35)
Real-time data replication methods (11:54)
Challenges with Kafka and the birth of Gazette (13:54)
Comparing Kafka and Gazette (20:22)
The importance of existing streaming tools (22:28)
Challenges of managing Kafka and the need for a different approach (23:40)
The role of compaction in streaming applications (26:54)
The challenge of relaxing state management (34:01)
Replication and the problem of data synchronization (36:48)
Incremental Back Fills and Risk-Free Production Database (46:03)
Estuary as a Platform and Connectors (47:45)
The challenges of real-time streaming (57:56)
Orchestration in real-time streaming (1:00:51)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Shortcomings of Apache Kafka with David Yaffe and Johnny Graettinger of Estuary Nov 06, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with David Yaffe and Johnny Graettinger of Estuary.

162: Accelerating Enterprise AI Transformation With Open Source LLMs Featuring Mark Huang of Gradient Nov 01, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The potential of AI-driven applications (1:34)
The need for hardware infrastructure in AI experimentation (2:40)
Oligopoly on the closed side (11:50)
Advantages of private side vs. open source (13:18)
Leveraging valuable data within enterprises (16:00)
The urgency of adopting LLMs in the enterprise (24:02)
Expansion of LLMs into new business verticals (25:06)
The challenges of operationalizing LLMs (29:32)
Seamless experience with OpenAI (37:29)
Operationalizing with Gradient (38:36)
The early genesis of Gradient (48:53)
The democratization of AI through endpoints (51:44)
What is the future of language models? (54:07)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: How LLMs are Transforming Enterprise Workflows with Mark Huang of Gradient Oct 30, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Mark Huang of Gradient.

161: The Intersection of Generative AI and Data Infrastructure with Chang She of LanceDB Oct 25, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Chang’s background and journey with Pandas (6:26)
The persisting challenges in data collection and preparation (10:37)
The resistance to change in using Python for data workflows (13:05)
AI hype and its impact (14:09)
The success and evolution of Pandas as a data framework (20:04)
The vision for a next-generation data infrastructure (26:48]
LanceDB's file and table format (34:35)
Trade-Offs in Lance Format (42:45)
Introducing the Vector Database (46:30)
The split between production and serving databases (51:14)
The importance of unstructured data and multimodal use cases (57:01)
The potential of generative AI and the balance between value and hype (1:01:34)
Changing expectations of interacting with information systems (1:13:53)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:15:32)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: How Did Pandas Become a Data Science Powerhouse? Featuring Chang She of Eto Labs Oct 23, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Chang She of Eto Labs.

160: Closing the Gap Between Dev Teams and Data Teams with Santona Tuli of Upsolver Oct 18, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Santona’s journey from nuclear physics to data science (4:59)
The appeal of startups and wearing multiple hats (8:12)
The challenge of pseudoscience in the news (10:24)
Approaching data with creativity and rigor (13:22)
Challenges and differences in data workflows (14:39)
Schema Evolution and Quality Problems (27:01)
Real-time Data Monitoring and Anomaly Detection (30:34)
The importance of data as a business differentiator (35:48)
The SQL job creation process (46:25)
Different options for creating solver jobs (47:20)
Adding column-level expectations (50:17)
Discussing the differences of working with data as a scientist and in a startup (1:00:18)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:04:01)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Intersection of Physics, Data Science, and Product Development with Santona Tuli of Upsolver Oct 16, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Santona Tuli of Upsolver.

159: What Is a Vector Database? Featuring Bob van Luijt of Weaviate Oct 11, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

How music impacted Bob’s data journey (3:16)
Music’s relationship with creativity and innovation (11:38)
The genesis of Weaviate and the idea of vector databases (14:09)
The joy of creation (19:02)
OLAP Databases (22:21)
The progression of complexity in databases (24:31)
Vector database (29:23)
Scaling suboptimal algorithms (34:34)
The future of vector space representation (35:51)
Databases role in different industries (39:14)
The brute force approach to discovery (45:57)
Retrieval augmented generation (51:26)
How generative model interacts with the database (57:55)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:03:20)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Enhancing Search and Recommendation Systems with Vector Databases with Bob van Luijt of Weaviate Oct 09, 2023

In this bonus conversation, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Bob van Luijt of Weaviate.

158: The Orchestration Layer as the Data Platform Control Plane With Nick Schrock of Dagster Labs Oct 04, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Nick’s background and journey in data (2:28)
Founding Dagster Labs (7:50)
The evolution of data engineering (12:32)
Fragmentation in data infrastructure (15:04)
The role of orchestration in data platforms (19:53)
The importance of operational tools for data pipelines (25:01)
Lessons learned from working with GraphQL (26:19)
The role of the orchestrator in data engineering (34:51)
The boundaries between data infrastructure and product engineering (37:33)
Different orchestrators in the data infrastructure landscape(42:03)
The role of MLOps in data engineering (46:04)
Data Quality and Orchestration (51:04)
Future of Data Teams and Orchestration (54:27)
Final thoughts and takeaways from (58:01)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Power of Data Orchestration: A Game-Changer for Data Infrastructure, Featuring Nick Schrock of Dagster Labs Oct 02, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Nick Schrock of Dagster Labs.

157: From Search Engine to Answer Engine Using Grounded Generative AI, Featuring Amr Awadallah of Vectara Sep 27, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Amr’s extensive background in data (3:23)
The evolution of neural networks (9:21)
The role of supervised learning in AI (11:17)
Explaining Vectara (13:07)
Papers that laid the foundation for AI (15:02)
Contextualized translation and personalization (20:07)
Ease of use and answer-based search (25:01)
AI and potential liabilities (35:54)
Minimizing difficulties in large language models (36:43)
The process of extracting documents in multidimensional space (44:47)
Summarization process (46:33)
The danger of humans misusing technology (54:59)
Final thoughts and takeaways (57:12)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: How Can Large Language Models Revolutionize Decision-Making? Featuring Amr Awadallah of Vectara Sep 25, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Amr Awadallah of Vectara.

156: Simple, Performant, Cost-effective Data Streaming with Alex Gallego of Redpanda Data Sep 20, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Alex’s background in the data space and the creation of Redpanda (4:23)
The cost and complexity of streaming (11:07)
The evolution of storage with Kafka (12:04)
The distinction between streaming technologies (15:10)
Simplicity as a Core Design Principle (27:03)
Cost Efficiency in a Cloud Native Era (30:44)
Removing complexity with Redpanda (34:21)
Migrations and compatibility with Redpanda (40:35)
The Future of Redpanda (43:44)
The Story Behind Redpanda (46:45)
Final thoughts and takeaways (50:25)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Redpanda: Revolutionizing Streaming Systems and Challenging the Kafka Status Quo with Alex Gallego Sep 18, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Alex Gallego of Redpanda.

155: Bringing Innovation to Enterprise Resource Planning with Emilie Schario of Turbine Sep 13, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Emilie’s background and journey in data (3:42)
The problem of three-way match (8:56)
Operational workflows and how data stacks solve them (13:16)
Turbine’s solution as a lightweight ERP (14:05)
Workflows and analytics (14:59)
Consolidating information into helpful application (27:41)
Challenges in operational workflows (32:19)
Friction and hurdles in ERP usage (39:28)
A solution for purchase order management (40:47)
Turbine’s focus and limitations (45:26)
Building a software that gets out of the way (52:51)
Final thoughts and takeaways (54:25)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Making ERP Systems More User-Friendly with Emilie Schario of Turbine Sep 11, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Emilie Schario of Turbine.

154: Making Cross-Company Data Exchange Easy with Pardis Noorzad of General Folders Sep 06, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Pardis’ background and journey in data (3:24)
AI before the hype (8:37)
Founding General Folders (12:36)
Data collaboration challenges (15:31)
Examples of data sharing (17:40)
Data transfer in various industries (22:16)
Defining the transfer problem (28:30)
The demand for scalable solutions (32:06)
Data transfer and model exposition (41:02)
Data governance and API (43:23)
Final thoughts and takeaways (56:48)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Simplifying Data Collaboration with Pardis Noorzad of General Folders Sep 04, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Pardis Noorzad of General Folders.

153: The Future of Data Science Notebooks with Jakub Jurových of Deepnote Aug 30, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Jakub’s journey into data and working with notebooks (2:43)
Overview of Deepnote and its features (7:22)
Notebook 1.0 and 2.0 (14:04)
Notebook 3.0 and its potential impact (15:46)
The need for collaboration across organizations (17:16)
Real-time, asynchronous, and organizational collaboration (28:02)
Challenges to collaboration (32:03)
Notebooks as a universal computational medium (36:14)
The rise of exploratory programming (41:40)
The power of natural language interface (43:04)
The evolving grammar of using notebooks (47:02)
Final thoughts and takeaways (55:50)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Exploring the Evolution of Notebooks with Jakub Jurových of Deepnote Aug 28, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Jakub Jurových of Deepnote.

152: Three Steps To Enhance Product Analytics with Ken Fine of Heap Aug 23, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ken’s background and journey to Heap (2:32)
Heap’s problem-solving approach (8:19)
Auto-capture and its significance in the marketplace (13:03)
Providing qualitative context: sessions and surveys (16:23)
Collection and storage of data (25:42)
Challenges of real-time data collection (26:40)
The true gap in the market today (37:39)
Consolidation and aggregation of data solutions (41:58)
Simplifying the data stack (47:32)
A different approach in engineering and software development (51:12)
Skills and Stages in Company Growth (55:58)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:02:52)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Auto Tracking in Product Analytics with Ken Fine of Heap Aug 21, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Ken Fine of Heap.

151: How To Unlock the Data Warehouse for Marketing with Chris Sell of GrowthLoop Aug 16, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The need for reverse ETL in marketing (2:24)
Closing the gap between engineering, data, and marketing teams (8:37)
The analytics persona’s opportunity (11:53)
Interface layer (13:06)
Approach to messy warehouse data (15:57)
The need for a complicated infrastructure (28:43)
Challenges in data integration for marketers (29:26)
The evolution of the analytics stack (31:53)
Orchestration of the data warehouse (38:39)
The role of marketing tools (40:35)
Generating custom assets (46:27)
The shift towards making data processes easier (48:13)
Final thoughts and takeaways (49:23)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: How Can Reverse ETL Revolutionize Marketing Data Management? Featuring Chris Sell of GrowthLoop Aug 14, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Chris Sell of GrowthLoop.

150: How Salespeople Use Data, Salesforce vs. Snowflake, and How LLMs Are Transforming Sales with Brendan Short of Groundswell Aug 09, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Brendan’s background and journey to Groundswell (2:25)
The impact of generative AI on sales reps and product building (5:38)
Lead sourcing challenges (12:22)
Salesforce as a data model (14:30)
The need for guardrails in building applications around sales (24:37)
The question of interfaces in the layers of Salesforce (26:11)
A UI solution for sales and marketing (30:45)
The future of logic and machine learning models (37:11)
The battle for data ownership (39:36)
Actioning data and the role of refineries (46:03)
The potential for decentralized systems using generative AI (46:59)
Product building for the future (57:47)
Building trust in data tools (59:10)
The era of innovation (1:09:20)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:10:43)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Generative AI Transforming the Sales Process Featuring Brendan Short of Groundswell Aug 07, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Brendan Short of Groundswell.

149: Turning Tables Into APIs for Real-time Data Apps, Featuring Matteo Pelati and Vivek Gudapuri of Dozer Aug 02, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Building Dozer: Simplifying Data Sources into APIs (1:13)
Bridging Data Engineering with Application Engineering (4:19)
Turning Data Sources into APIs (7:46)
The cost of caching (12:59)
Challenges with legacy systems (14:30)
Real-time data integration (19:31)
YAML and SQL experience (25:37)
Behind the scenes of Dozer (29:18)
Heavy Workloads and Low Latency (42:00)
Use Cases of Dozer (45:51)
Reliability and storing data from different connectors (51:35)
Importance of observability in serving data to customers (53:24)
Final thoughts and takeaways (56:34)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

.

The PRQL: Turning Data Into an API with Matteo Pelati and Vivek Gudapuri of Dozer Jul 31, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Matteo Pelati and Vivek Gudapuri of Dozer.

148: Exploring the Intersection of DAGs, ML Code, and Complex Code Bases: An Elegant Solution Unveiled with Stefan Krawczyk of DAGWorks Jul 26, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Stefan’s background in data (2:39)
What is DAGWorks? (3:55)
How building point solutions influenced Stefan’s journey (5:03)
Solving the tooling problems of self-service at an organization (11:44)
Creating Hamilton (15:53)
How Hamilton works with definitions and time-series data (19:34)
What makes Hamilton an ML-oriented framework? (23:39)
Navigating the differences between ML teams and other data teams (26:27)
Understanding the fundamentals of Hamilton (28:25)
Dealing with types and conflicts in programming (33:18)
How Hamilton helps improve pipelines and maintaining data (37:11)
Why unit testing is important for a data scientist (44:54)
The ups and downs of founding building a data solution (46:32)
Connecting with DAGWorks and trying out Hamilton (50:01)
Final thoughts and takeaways (52:46)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: A Methodology for Better DAGs with Stefan Krawczyk of DAGWorks Jul 24, 2023

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Shop Talk: Snowflake Summit Recap Jul 21, 2023

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

147: Where Data and Infrastructure Converge Featuring Lars Kamp of Resoto Jul 19, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Lars work on Resoto in helping to cut cloud costs for organizations (2:02)
The trend of large resources to micro resources (5:59)
What are some of the typical resource drains in data infrastructure (8:56)
Managing cost on the backend with scale and experimentation (12:51)
Solutions for resource management problems (17:38)
How Resoto is solving pain points in resource management (26:17)
Navigating the complexities of data infrastructure (29:01)
Resoto’s solution for interpreting difficult cloud data products (36:35)
Exploring relationships of data points and finding solutions (43:40)
Querying in graph database (47:46)
How to go from graph to SQL (49:13)
How can data teams plan for costs in the coming years (50:53)
Final thoughts and takeaways (53:49)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Cloud Resource Management Is a Data Problem Featuring Lars Kamp of Resoto Jul 17, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Lars Kamp of Resoto.

146: What Is a Customer Data Platform? Featuring Soumyadeb Mitra of Rudderstack Jul 12, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Soumyadeb’s background and journey in data (5:49)
Defining customer data (8:10)
The complexity of customer data collection (10:04)
What is a CDP and how it is properly deployed (17:12)
Bridging the gap of data collection and useful analytics for marketing (21:46)
How Rudderstack translates data and the new profile feature (25:30)
The foundations of data in building a 360 degree customer profile (30:30)
Solutions for the intersection between engineering and business users (34:35)
How AI and other future technologies will impact data (41:14)
Final thoughts and takeaways (46:30)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Building Data Products for Multiple Personas with Soumyadeb Mitra of Rudderstack Jul 10, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Soumyadeb Mitra of Rudderstack.

145: What is Synthetic Data? Featuring Omar Maher of Parallel Domain Jul 05, 2023

The PRQL: Synthetic Data and Self Driving Cars with Omar Maher of Parallel Domain Jul 03, 2023

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

144: Explaining Features, Embeddings, and the Difference Between ML and AI with Simba Khadder of Featureform Jun 28, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Simba’s background in the data space (3:05)
Subscription intelligence (6:41)
ML and Distributed Systems (9:09)
The Brutal Subscription Industry (12:31)
Serendipity in Recommender Systems (16:31)
Subscription as a Strategy (20:47)
Customizing Content for Subscribers (22:19)
Creating User Embeddings (25:53)
Building Featureform (28:01)
Embedding Projections (32:47)
Spaces and similarity (35:53)
User embeddings and transformer models (38:22)
Vector Databases for AI/ML (45:05)
Orchestrating Transformations in Featureform (51:00)
Impact of new technologies on feature stores (56:17)
Embeddings and the future of ML (59:20)
The gap between ML and business logic (1:02:26)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:06:37)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Feature Stores and ML Ops with Simba Khadder of Featureform Jun 26, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Simba Khadder of Featureform.

Shop Talk: Accountability and Opportunity for AI Jun 23, 2023

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

143: Collaborative Data Analytics on the Data Warehouse, featuring Rob Woollen & Stipo Josipovic of Sigma Jun 21, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Stipo and Rob’s background in data (2:43)
What is Sigma? (7:46)
Takeaways from building analytics products in-house (9:16)
Sigma’s approach to datastore interface (11:32)
Why analytics and BI are still not a solved problem (15:50)
Combining SQL and spreadsheets for useful interface (23:17)
The evolution of BI to today (29:40)
Overcoming the challenges of collaboration in working with data (33:17)
Creating operational coding that humans can understand (46:50)
The future of BI (54:00)
Cloud’s impact on BI and analytics (1:00:04)
The value of getting close to the data for analytics (1:02:21)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:08:45)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Modern Analytics Using Common Paradigms, Featuring Rob Woollen & Stipo Josipovic of Sigma Jun 19, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Rob Woollen & Stipo Josipovic of Sigma.

Shop Talk: Why AI Is Not Another Crypto Jun 16, 2023

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

142: Martech’s Separation and Return to Data Infrastructure with Scott Brinker of HubSpot Jun 14, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Scott’s background in martech (3:10)
Where things have gone wrong between IT and marketing (5:46)
The explosion of digital marketing data (12:04)
Costs of having data siloed (16:14)
The convergence of marketing and IT teams around data (19:27)
Navigating the massive landscape of martech tools (26:10)
Needed tools in the martech stack (31:11)
The importance of an accurate attribution model (34:37)
Building tooling for marketers and developers to use (39:20)
Future areas of development in the martech space (44:46)
Final thoughts and takeaways (52:40)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Marketing, Martech, and Data with Scott Brinker of HubSpot Jun 12, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Scott Brinker of HubSpot.

141: A Journey From Backend Engineer to Data Engineer with Ioannis Foukarakis of Mattermost Jun 07, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ioannis’ background and journey in data (2:42)
Rudderstack’s transformations feature and examples of its application (4:20)
Winning the transformations contest at Rudderstack (7:21)
How Ioannis’ transformation project works for data governance (9:40)
Memories from college for Ioannis and Kostas (12:30)
Getting into the world of software development (17:27)
The changes in data and engineering over the years (20:29)
Bridging java with python (23:15)
Dealing with ML workloads in the past vs. workflows of today (26:30)
Data engineers and ML engineers (33:12)
Dealing with data in the early stages to ensure reliability later on (38:39)
What creates problems with data quality? (42:11)
Exciting developments in data engineering (46:48)
Final thoughts and takeaways (51:12)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Portability of Engineering Fundamentals with Ioannis Foukarakis of Mattermost Jun 05, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Ioannis Foukarakis of Mattermost.

140: Stream Processing for Machine Learning with Davor Bonaci of DataStax May 31, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Davor’s journey from Google and what he was building there (3:32)
How work in stream processing changed Davor’s journey (5:10)
Analytical predictive models and infrastructure (9:39)
How Kaskada serves as a recommendation engine with data (14:05)
Kaskada’s user experience as an event processing platform (20:06)
Enhancing typical feature store architecture to achieve better results (23:34)
What is needed to improve stream and batch processes (27:39)
Using another syntax instead of SQL (36:44)
DataStax acquiring Kaskada and what will come from that merger (40:24)
Operationalizing and democratizing ML (47:54)
Final thoughts and takeaways (56:04)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Kaskada Serving as a Recommendation Engine with Davor Bonaci of DataStax May 29, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Davor Bonaci of DataStax.

139: Decoupling the Execution Engine From Python’s Pandas with Aditya Parameswaran of Ponder May 24, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Aditya’s background and journey in the data space (2:47)
What does Ponder do? (5:18)
101 on Pandas and why people utilize it (6:42)
The challenge of translating Pandas to a big data platform (16:11)
Data Warehouses and ML workflows (21:27)
The differences in the “zoo” of data languages (26:56)
Why do ML and data engineering have to be so different in languages? (34:39)
Builders should be adapting to the users and not the other way around (39:32)
Will we see a singular data interface in the future? (46:19)
Aditya’s most surprising discovery in his research (50:40)
Final thoughts and takeaways (53:18)

Read more of Aditya's work:

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Removing the Execution Engine Language Barrier with Aditya Parameswaran of Ponder May 22, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Aditya Parameswaran of Ponder.

138: Paradigm Shift: Batch to Data Streaming with A.J. Hunyady of InfinyOn May 17, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

A.J.’s background and journey in data (2:23)
Challenges with Hadoop ecosystem (8:50)
Starting InfinyOn and the need for innovation (10:02)
Challenges with Kafka and Microservices (14:01)
Real-time data streaming for IoT devices (19:28)
Paradigm shift to real-time data processing (22:17)
Benefits of Rust (29:45)
Web Assembly and Platform Features (36:29)
Analytics and Event Correlation (40:16)
Real-time data processing (47:03)
ETL vs ELP (52:20)
Final thoughts and takeaways (57:07)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Infrastructure Systems and the Rust / WebAssembly Combo with A.J. Hunyady of InfinyOn May 15, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with A.J. Hunyady, Founder and CEO of InfinyOn.

137: Data Collection Secrets & The Search Data Problem with Josh Wills May 10, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Josh’s background in data working at Google, Slack, and other companies (1:21)
The need and process for high quality data (4:33)
Digging into auction code (14:03)
Joining Slack and working in the early days of the company (18:00)
Not fighting the last war in data (25:42)
Building a product, while using the product (30:35)
Transitioning to the search team at Slack (36:50)
Usage patterns of search (41:21)
Josh’s work in helping build DuckDB (46:20)
Having the right toolset to increase precision and efficiency (52:42)
Final thoughts and takeaways (56:03)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Engineers in the Front End with Josh Wills May 08, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric previews his upcoming conversation with Josh Wills, an experienced data scientist who has worked with IBM, Google, Slack, DuckDB, and more.

136: System Evolution from Hadoop to RocksDB with Dhruba Borthakur of Rockset May 03, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Dhruba’s journey into the data space (2:02)
The impact of Hadoop on the industry (3:37)
Dhruba’s work in the early days of the Facebook team (7:54)
Building and implementing RocksDB (14:33)
Stories with Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook (24:25)
The next evolution in storage hardware (26:14)
How Rockset is different from other real-time platforms (33:13)
Going from a key value store to an index (37:15)
Where does Rockset go from here? (44:59)
The success of RocksDB as an open source project (49:11)
How do we properly steward real-time technology for impact (51:17)
Final thoughts and takeaways (56:18)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Hardware Innovation Begets Software Innovation with Dhruba Borthakur Co-Founder and CTO, Rockset May 01, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Dhruba Borthakur of Rockset.

Data Council Week (Ep 7) - What’s Next for Data Council? With Pete Soderling of Data Council Apr 28, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The origin story of Data Council (0:39)
Developments for the future of Data Council (2:42)
The emphasis of AI and ChatGPT at this year’s conference (3:54)
The support of the data community (5:31)
Biggest changes and innovations in the industry (7:10)
What’s next for the Data Council? (10:46)
Getting connected with Data Council (13:07)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 6) - All About Debezium and Change Data Capture With Gunnar Morling of Decodable Apr 27, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Gunner’s background in data (0:32)
Setting the vision in early days of Red Hat and spearheading Debezium (6:20)
Replication of data in Debezium (9:47)
The patterns and processes of Debezium (16:21)
Debezium working with Kafka (19:03)
Building a diverse system while incorporating common interfaces (24:09)
The importance of documentation in open-sourced projects (27:59)
Debezium’s vision moving forward (31:32)
Why aren’t there more CDC open-sourced solutions? (34:35)
Connecting with Gunnar (37:27)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 5) - The Difference Between Data Platforms and ML Platforms with Michael Del Balso of Tecton Apr 26, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Michael’s journey to co-founding Tecton (0:22)
The evolution of MLops and platform teams (3:50)
Understanding boundaries between the data platform and the MLops (8:42)
Differences in machine learning vs data pipelines (16:58)
The systems needed to handle all these types of data (22:22)
Developer experience in Tecton (25:15)
Automating challenges in ML development (32:30)
The most difficult part of the life cycle of prediction (37:24)
Exciting new developments at Tecton (39:27)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 4) - Using Data Anonymization for Identity Protection With Will Thompson of Privacy Dynamics Apr 26, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Will’s background in data (0:28)
Privacy dynamics and data anonymization (4:18)
Addressing data privacy problems in the space (10:33)
Developer experience with Privacy Dynamics (13:49)
How does Privacy Dynamics work? (21:09)
Update of real-time anonymized data (26:29)
The problem of dates and other complexities in data (31:24)
Being a data engineer in a startup (34:44)
Moving at the speed of a startup (41:01)
Connecting with Will and Privacy Dynamics (43:28)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 3) - GTM 101 for Engineers With Chase Roberts of Vertex Ventures Apr 25, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Chase’s journey to where he is today (0:51)
Lessons in go-to-market roles which helps in the VC world (2:38)
Differentiating between go-to-market and distribution (8:13)
Taking an idea to the market (11:33)
Hardest part of the pitch (17:08)
Playbooks for go-to-market founders to follow (20:25)
Focus of sales and marketing in go-to-market strategy (28:01)
Answering the what and how of the problem you are solving (32:30)
The importance of pricing in a go-to-market strategy (46:11)
Connecting with Chase (1:00:58)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 2) - The Convergence of MLops and DataOps With Team Featureform Apr 24, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Introducing the team from Featureform (0:31)
In the work vs. leading the work (3:01)
Difference between MLOps and data ops (7:06)
The MLOps cycle (10:12)
What is Featureform and what makes it different? (13:30)
Is there another layer needed in feature stores? (18:46)
Getting in touch with Featureform (23:55)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 1) - The Evolution of Stream Processing With Eric Sammer of Decodable Apr 23, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Eric’s journey to becoming CEO of Decoable (0:20)
Does real time matter? (2:12)
Differences in stream processing systems (7:57)
Processing in motion (13:04)
Why haven’t there been more open source projects around CDC? (20:34)
The Decodable experience and future focuses for the company (24:31)
Streaming processing and data lakes (32:54)
Data flow processing technologies of today (39:01)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

135: Database Knob Tuning and AI with Andy Pavlo and Dana Van Aken of OtterTune Apr 19, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Origins of OtterTune (4:43)
The problem of knob tuning (6:25)
Roles of machine learning (9:32)
OtterTune’s development and industry recognition (12:03)
The challenges of database tuning and the role of human expertise (16:15)
Tuning in production (20:23)
Observability and Data Collection (23:37)
Data Security and Privacy (29:59)
Optimizing on-prem vs. cloud workloads (35:52)
Performance benchmarks (40:20)
Future opportunities OtterTune is focusing on (43:55)
Importance of automated tuning services (50:45)
Challenges in Benchmarking Real Workloads (58:43)
The Story Behind the Name OtterTune (1:08:58)
Balancing Technology and Human Factors (1:13:23)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Database Tuning and Optimization with Andy Pavlo and Dana Van Aken of OtterTune Apr 17, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with with Andy Pavlo and Dana Van Aken of OtterTune.

134: Unpacking the AI Revolution and the Technology Behind A Feature-First Future with H.O. Maycotte of FeatureBase Apr 12, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The journey of H.O. into data and becoming the CEO of FeatureBase (2:37)
Characteristics of the super evolution in technology (6:36)
ChatGPT as the missionary of AI (9:45)
The tension between authenticity and technology (13:12)
What is FeatureBase? (17:53)
Comparing FeatureBase to feature stores (25:58)
Workload capacities and possibilities in FeatureBase (33:20)
The importance of developer experience on a platform (38:23)
Exciting developments for FeatureBase in the future (47:13)
Final thoughts and takeaways (53:52)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: AI and the Super Evolution with H.O. Maycotte, CEO at FeatureBase Apr 10, 2023

On this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with H.O. Maycotte of FeatureBase.

133: Building the Data Warehouse for Everything Else with Sammy Sidhu of Eventual Apr 05, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Sammy’s background in data and tooling (2:46)
Going from multipurpose engineering to a CTO position (5:14)
Changes in technology and deep learning models (7:31)
The state of self-driving and adoption (13:49)
What is Eventual and what are they solving in the space? (20:54)
What are daft and data frame and how they work? (28:11)
Building a query optimizer (33:42)
Sammy’s take on what is going on in data and future possibilities (45:18)
Eventual’s future and its impact on the space (51:44)
Final thoughts and takeaways (53:47)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Self-Driving Technology and Data Infrastructure with Sammy Sidhu, Co-Founder and CEO of Eventual Apr 03, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Sammy Sidhu, Co-Founder and CEO of Eventual.

132: Data Quality and Data Contracts with Chad Sanderson of Data Quality Camp Mar 29, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Chad’s background in data (2:10)
Breaking down data quality (4:02)
Semantic and logical layers of data (10:04)
What are data contracts and how do they work? (17:41)
Implicit contracts at companies (24:01)
Where do data contracts fit in data infrastructure? (28:14)
The value of data contracts to the producer and consumer (31:18)
Tools needed in effective data contracts (46:13)
The importance of community in data quality (50:53)
Getting connected to Data Quality Camp (1:00:55)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:01:53)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Value of Data Contracts with Chad Sanderson, Head of Data, Data Contracts Advocate, Data Quality Camp Mar 27, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Chad Sanderson of Data Quality Camp.

131: How Data Teams Interact With Marketing Tools with Jason Davis of Simon Data Mar 22, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Defining CDPs (2:28)
The data team's role in marketing (7:41)
Leveraging commonalities across businesses (12:49)
Building a CDP with customer data (18:05)
Challenges in identity modeling (23:00)
CDP lifecycle and one-to-one data (30:06)
Segmentation and optimization (33:23)
Real-time data in the cloud (40:37)
The future of AI and machine learning (43:02)
Final thoughts and takeaways (46:42)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Unleashing the Potential of CDPs with Jason Davis, Co-Founder and CEO of Simon Data Mar 20, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Jason Davis of Simon Data.

130: From Business Intelligence to Product Analytics and Beyond with Vijay Ganesan of NetSpring.io Mar 15, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Vijay’s background in data (2:09)
The journey of founding ThoughtSpot and its impact in the world of BI (2:49)
The maturation of BI (6:34)
What is NetSpring.io? (8:21)
Bridging the gap of BI and product analytics (14:41)
Why data warehouses and not time-series databases? (19:58)
The difficulty of using SQL in product analytics (28:35)
Challenges in pricing models for product analytics and tooling (35:41)
Combining analytics and attribution (42:00)
What’s the next wave of product analytics? (47:28)
Final thoughts and takeaways (53:41)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Business Intelligence and Product Analytics With Vijay Ganesan, Co-Founder and CEO at NetSpring.io Mar 13, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Vijay Ganesan of NetSpring.io.

129: Databases, Data Warehouses, and Timeseries Data with David Kogn of Timescale Mar 08, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

David’s background and journey to Timescale (2:12)
What are time series databases? (14:13)
How Timescale would have impacted David’s trajectory early in his career (17:51)
Innovation in postgreSQL (21:02)
Why does Timescale build their timeseries databases differently? (27:08)
The challenges of building a new database on top of an old software (32:22)
Writing outside of SQL and Timescale’s secret sauce (37:47)
The importance of the developer experience in Timescale (54:08)
How does someone know when they need to implement time series functionality (56:51)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:04:57)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Time-Series Data 101 Mar 06, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with David Kohn of Timescale.

128: The Possibilities Are Endless for Synthetic Data with Alex Watson of Gretel.ai Mar 01, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Alex’s background working for NSA and starting a company (1:51)
The Gretel.ai journey (9:30)
Defining synthetic data (13:26)
The evolution of AI in deep learning data and language learning (16:28)
The properties of synthetic data (21:31)
Boundaries between synthetic data and prediction models (25:52)
The developer experience in Gretel.ai (36:44)
Stewardship and expansion of deep learning models in the future (45:36)
Final thoughts and takeaways (52:17)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Boundaries Between Synthetic Data and Prediction Models Feb 27, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Alex Watson of Gretel.ai.

127: The Anatomy of a Data Lakehouse with Alex Merced of Dremio Feb 22, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Alex’s background in the data space (2:41)
Comics and Pop Culture Blending with Finance training (5:20)
What is a data lake house? (7:36)
What is Dremio solving in for users? (11:21)
Essential components of a data lake house (16:35)
Difference between on-prem and cloud experiences (33:53)
What does it mean to be a developer advocate? (41:31)
Final thoughts and takeaways (49:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What Does It Mean to be a Developer Advocate? Feb 20, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Alex Merced of Dremio.

126: Crossing the Product Analytics Chasm with Spenser Skates of Amplitude Analytics Feb 15, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Spenser’s journey to Co-Founding Amplitude (3:02)
Looking back over the last decade of success at Amplitude (8:31)
Going from Engineer to Sales (14:41)
Comparing product analytics and general analytics (20:11)
How cloud data warehousing has impacted analytics (31:38)
Providing an out-of-the-box experience for consumers (41:12)
Final thoughts and takeaways (54:27)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Amplitude - From Startup to IPO Feb 13, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Spenser Skates of Amplitude Analytics.

125: Authorization Is A Data Problem with Jeff Chao of Abbey Labs Feb 08, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Jeff’s background at Netflix and Stripe leading him to Abbey Labs (2:22)
What Abbey is solving in the space (5:16)
Tackling permissions in an organization (7:30)
Opportunities to improve the availability of data (10:14)
The challenge of tackling a new problem area at a new company (14:59)
What is the most common challenges in the identity and security space (18:43)
Importance of identity and the ability to track it in data (22:46)
Connecting all the different platforms without frustrating the user (30:32)
What are the parts of access data that needing to be tracked (36:10)
Dealing with the varieties of data in security and managing permissions (40:26)
Final thoughts and takeaways (51:52)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Solving Identity in Marketing vs. Security Feb 06, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Jeff Chao of Abbey Labs,

124: Pragmatism About Data Stacks with Pedram Navid of West Marin Data Feb 01, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Pedram’s journey into the world of data (4:05)
What should the datastack at an early-stage startup look like? (9:53)
New ideas surrounding access control for data (24:45)
What can data teams learn around complexity from software engineering (30:55)
Scaling up instead of scaling out in processing data (37:40)
Why DuckDB is making so much noise in the market (41:06)
Final thoughts and takeaways (53:25)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What Does the Modern Data Stack Mean to Normal Companies? Jan 30, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Pedram Navid of West Marin Data.

123: What Is a Universal Database? Featuring Stavros Papadopoulos of TileDB, Inc. Jan 25, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Stavros’ journey into data and founding TileDB (3:12)
What problem was TileDB going to solve? (12:05)
Defining database systems (21:35)
What part of database architecture is TileDB? (31:58)
Storage engine solutions (42:37)
What does the API look like in using TileDB? (50:40)
What makes genomics unique in working with data (55:28)
Final thoughts and takeaways (1:06:46)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Bringing Innovation to the Lowest Level of Databases Jan 23, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Stavros Papadopoulos of TileDB, Inc.

122: Why Accounting Needs Its Own Database with Joran Greef of Tiger Beetle Jan 18, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Joran’s background leading him from accounting to coding (3:10)
What is Tiger Beetle? (5:53)
Double-entry accounting and why it is important for a database (12:28)
The need for low latency and high throughput (26:27)
Why financial database software needs a laser focus (29:01)
What are people using to implement a double-entry system? (36:09)
Safety in financial software and addressing storage faults (40:26)
Final thoughts and takeaways (55:52)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Do We Need A Dedicated Database for Every Use Case? Jan 16, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Joran Greef of Tiger Beetle.

121: Materialize Origins: Breaking Down Data Flow Layers with Arjun Narayan and Frank McSherry Jan 11, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Defining data flow (2:31)
Are there limitations in timely data flow operation and/or building operators? (8:20)
Areas of incremental computation that are having an impact today (17:10)
Building a library vs building a product (24:06)
Combining delight and empathy into a focus (27:52)
Final thoughts and takeaways (32:42)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

120: Materialize Origins: A Timely Dataflow Story with Arjun Narayan and Frank McSherry Jan 04, 2023

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

What is Materialize? (2:43)
Frank and Arjun’s journey in data and what led them to the idea of Materialize (6:22)
The good and the bad of research in academia vs starting a company (25:20)
The MVP for databases (33:49)
Materialize’s end-to-end benefit for the user experience (43:03)
Interchanging Materialize in warehouse and cloud data usage (48:25)
The trade-offs within Materialize (1:00:02)
Final takeaways and previewing part two of the conversation (1:09:25)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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The PRQL: What’s our first ever two-part episode about? Jan 02, 2023

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming two-part conversation with Arjun Narayan and Frank McSherry of Materialize.

119: The Data Stack Show Wrapped: 2022 Dec 28, 2022

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

118: Bringing Powerful Business Intelligence to Mobile with Zack Hendlin of Zing Data Dec 21, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Zack’s extensive background in the world of data and the genesis of Zing (3:02)
Working on relevance, feeds, and ads at Facebook & LinkedIn (9:20)
Exploring BI and queries on mobile devices (16:48)
Reliance of input quality in data (23:28)
Delivering a mobile-first experience in BI (30:11)
Limitations of visualization on mobile devices (34:00)
How BI tools interact with one another in Zing (45:21)
The future of user-experience in consuming data (49:19)
Final thoughts and takeaways (59:56)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Do You Need Business Intelligence on Your Phone? Dec 19, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Zach Hendlin of Zing Data.

117: DX for Data Tooling with Taylor Murphy of Meltano Dec 14, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Taylor’s journey into data (3:09)
What’s been going on at Meltano recently? (7:28)
Addressing basic problems in data even with advancements in technology (12:23)
What makes Meltano unique in the space (16:53)
Why the CLI experience is important (25:37)
Quality vs quantity in supporting connectors (35:51)
What does data ops look like for Meltano (46:44)
Takeaways and closing thoughts (52:56)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Is Business Logic Moving Further Down the Stack? Dec 12, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Taylor Murphy of Meltano.

116: Data Democratization & Self Service with Aron Clymer of Data Clymer Dec 07, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Aron’s background in the world of data (2:18)
Recent Clients and major projects (3:30)
Helping to spearhead data-driven growth at Salesforce (6:50)
Stories about Marc Benioff, co-founder of Salesforce (16:12)
Biggest learnings as a consultant in the data strategy space (17:58)
The need for data democratization (23:33)
Advice for Aron’s younger self in consulting (28:45)
Current trends in data democratization and sales service (35:01)
Aron’s favorite tools and platforms to use (42:19)
Favorite part of the consulting process (47:45)
Final thoughts and takeaways (50:29)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Analytics: Same As It Ever Was Dec 05, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Aron Clymer of Data Clymer.

115: What Is Production Grade Data? Featuring Ashwin Kamath of Spectre Nov 30, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ashwin’s background in the data space (2:43)
The unique nature of working with data in finance (7:32)
Technological challenges of working in the finance data space (13:55)
The third-party data factor and judging if it is reliable enough (17:07)
What made Ashwin decide to go out and build his own company? (31:47)
Defining data decay and data storing and why both are important (37:52)
Advice on the importance of data quality (42:10)
Final takeaways and wrap-up (50:49)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Managing Complexities of Financial Data Nov 28, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Ashwin Kamath of Spectre.

114: Solving Data Infrastructure Problems at Startups and Enterprises with Max Werner of Obsessive Analytics Consulting Nov 23, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Max’s career journey (2:54)
Going from a small startup to a big enterprise (11:15)
Dynamics of a switchboard operator (17:09)
Common threads through different companies (20:53)
When data is not the answer (26:57)
The evolution of CDP (29:38)
Data sources to include in a CDP (35:16)
Working with event data (37:19)
Max’s take on other tools (41:18)
The cutting edge in data (43:09)
Building your data company in an evolving environment (49:28)

Find Max: https://www.obsessiveanalytics.com/

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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The PRQL: The Data Switchboard Nov 21, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Max Werner of Obsessive Analytics Consulting.

Shop Talk: Kostas Settles the Real-Time vs. Streaming Debate Nov 18, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas talk shop around the topic of streaming.

113: What Is Streaming Graph? Featuring Ryan Wright of thatDot Nov 16, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ryan’s background and career journey (2:49)
Quine and where it came from (4:36)
Graph databases 101 (7:17)
Use cases for graph databases (13:44)
Purposes for graphs (22:27)
How to use Quine (31:49)
Quine’s performance and scale (43:06)
Educating users about a new product (49:13)
The team that would optimize Quine (52:23)
When graph will gain popularity (56:15)

Quine: https://quine.io/

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Graph as a Utility Nov 14, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Ryan Wright of thatDot.

Shop Talk: What Coalesced at Coalesce? Nov 11, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas talk shop around experiences at the Coalesce conference in New Orleans.

112: Python Native Stream Processing with Zander Matheson of bytewax Nov 09, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Zander’s background and career journey (2:32)
Introducing bytewax (5:16)
The difference between systems (10:57)
Bytewax’s most common use cases (16:15)
How bytewax integrates with other systems (20:25)
The technology that makes up bytewax (24:31)
Comparing bytewax to other systems (34:17)
What’s next for bytewax (36:31)

Try it out: bytewax.io

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Who Needs a Stream Processing Engine? Nov 07, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Zander Matheson of bytewax.

Shop Talk: The Business of Data Infrastructure is Uniquely Challenging Nov 04, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas talk shop surrounding data infrastructure.

111: What if Your Code Just Ran in the Cloud for You? Featuring Erik Bernhardsson of Modal Labs Nov 02, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Erik’s background and career journey (2:51)
Managing scale in a rapidly changing environment (6:35)
The people side of hypergrowth (12:36)
Coding competitions (17:50)
Introducing Modal Labs (19:02)
How Erik got into building Modal (21:45)
The employee experience at Modal (28:09)
How a data engineering team would use Modal (31:21)
What it takes to build a platform like Modal (36:27)
What makes Modal different (42:49)
Evolution coming for the data world (45:52)
Untapped areas in the data world (48:46)
Spotify playlists (52:03)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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The PRQL: Erik Bernhardsson Just Can’t Stop Solving Problems Oct 28, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Erik Bernhardsson of Modal Labs.

110: How Can Data Discovery Help You Understand Your Data? Featuring Shinji Kim of Select Star Oct 26, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Shinji’s background and career journey (3:35)
Defining “data discovery” (6:03)
The best conditions to use Select Star (8:45)
Where Select Star fits on the data spectrum (13:38)
Why Select Star is needed (17:35)
How Select Star uses metadata (21:02)
Exposing data queries (27:04)
Composing queries into metadata (33:27)
Automating BI tools (37:28)
Limits to data governance (41:39)
Maintaining economies of scale (48:56)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Shop Talk: Why Are There So Many Flavors of Databases? Oct 24, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas talk shop about the wide world of databases.

The PRQL: What is Data Discovery? Oct 21, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Shinji Kim of Select Star.

109: How Does Headless Business Intelligence Work? Featuring Artyom Keydunov and Pavel Tiunov of Cube Dev Oct 19, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

The context of Headless BI (3:31)
What Cube Dev does (9:24)
How Headless BI works with other tools (13:03)
An analysis of LookML (18:04)
User interaction with Cube Dev (23:40)
Who manages data artifacts (25:22)
Taking care of the developer experience (30:37)
Levels of performance (30:37)
Artyom and Pavel’s background and career journey (35:47)
Why you should use Cube Dev (43:38)
Roles within a data organization (48:55)
How Cube Dev impacts visualization (53:35)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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Shop Talk: Will the Future of the Customer Data Platform Include a Shared Logic Layer? Oct 17, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas talk shop around the wide world of data.

The PRQL: What Comes to Mind When You Think of ‘Headless’? Oct 14, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Artyom Keydunov & Pavel Tiunov of CubeJS.

108: You Can’t Separate Data Reliability From Workflow with Gleb Mezhanskiy of Datafold Oct 12, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Gleb’s background and career journey (2:51)
The adoption problems (10:53)
How Datafold solves these problems (18:08)
The vision for Datafold (26:27)
Incorporating Datafold as a data engineer (38:53)
The importance of the data engineer (42:12)
Something to keep in mind when designing data tools (46:46)
Implementing new technology into your company (53:18)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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Shop Talk: Is It Possible for Excel To Die? Oct 10, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas talk shop around the wide world of data.

The PRQL: Are Marketers the Worst Data Quality Offenders? Oct 07, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Gleb Mezhanskiy of Datafold.

107: Building Modern Data Teams with dbt Labs, REI, and Robinhood Oct 05, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Introducing our guests (3:05)
Defining “data team” (4:40)
How data teams emerge and evolve (14:11)
The need that forces the creation of a data team (21:12)
The backbone of the data team (26:23)
Building a career within a data team (36:39)
Advice for new data team managers (47:35)
Question and answer time (52:38)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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Shop Talk With Eric and Kostas: Transitioning From Consumer to Builder Oct 03, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas talk shop regarding transitioning from consumer to builder.

The PRQL: What Can We Learn From the Patterns of Successful Data Teams? Sep 30, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming panel discussion around the topic of building data teams.

106: Optimizing Query Workloads (and Your Snowflake Bill) with Vinoo Ganesh of Bluesky Data Sep 28, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Vinoo’s background and career journey (2:43)
How to benchmark cost (7:54)
How Bluesky addresses rising Snowflake bills (14:01)
“Workload” as defined by Bluesky (17:14)
Space for BI optimization (22:55)
How products manage bill growth (28:34)
How to optimize your workloads (35:37)
Bluesky’s partnerships (39:53)
Getting real-time feedback on your work (44:50)
Where to begin reevaluating your Snowflake game (50:47)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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Shop Talk With Eric and Kostas: Data Politicians Sep 26, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas talk about data politicians in this new special show format.

The PRQL: Comparing Snowflake to a Car Sep 23, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Vinoo Ganesh of Bluesky Data.

105: The Modern Data Stack Is Just Getting Started with Astasia Myers of Quiet Capital Sep 21, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Astasia’s background and career journey (3:03)
How Astasia evaluates data companies (5:25)
Defining “modern data stack” (8:39)
The limit of the complexity of a solution (18:44)
How risky early-stage acquisition really is (26:15)
Flashing headlight advice for investing (30:17)
Signs you should do a product integration (33:38)
The next data infrastructure opportunities (36:19)
The likelihood of two data worlds merging (43:55)
How important open source is (49:14)
Data-centric ML (53:47)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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The PRQL: Kostas Becomes a Prophet Sep 16, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Astasia Myers of Quiet Capital.

104: A Decade of Change in the Data Space with Benn Stancil of Mode Sep 14, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Benn’s background and career journey (2:28)
The problem Benn sought to solve (4:48)
Data engineering a decade ago (9:58)
Technology inside vs. outside Silicon Valley (18:11)
What’s next for data (24:42)
Mode’s evolution and journey (29:31)
Challenges of getting enough context to create (39:21)
Current trends that won’t see long-term benefits (48:44)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What Does 10 Years in the Data Space Give You? Sep 09, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Benn Stancil of Mode.

103: Everyone Is Invited to the Data Lakehouse with Kyle Weller of Onehouse.ai Sep 07, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Kyle’s background and career journey (2:38)
Unique challenges in building data engineering products (9:33)
The problem set Databricks resolves (13:46)
About Onehouse (17:15)
From Microsoft to Onehouse (20:59)
Why there’s so much distance between data powers (24:45)
Why the data lake is not enough (30:15)
Who should have a lake house (39:03)
Why we have all three data platforms (43:53)
How to step into the data lake house world (49:48)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Who Really Needs To Know How a DBMS Works? Sep 02, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Kyle Weller of Onehouse.ai.

102: Building Pinot for Real-Time, Interactive User Analytics with Kishore Gopalakrishna of StarTree Aug 31, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Kishore’s background and career journey (2:30)
Internal analytics versus user-facing analytics (3:49)
New ways of thinking about analytics (8:06)
What makes Pinot different (13:45)
How Pinot transforms systems (21:53)
Understanding the data landscape (32:40)
The Pinot user experience (36:27)
Something exciting about StarTree (40:05)
When you should adopt this technology (43:15)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Warehouses on Steroids Aug 26, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Kishore Gopalakrishna of StarTree.

101: The Future of Machine Learning with Willen Pienaar of Tecton and Tristan Zajonc of Continual Aug 24, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

When is it right to use ML? (5:22)
ML business models (10:21)
Significant changes in delivering ML (19:07)
Why ML is different (25:19)
SQL becoming more important (34:39)
Graduating from SQL-based to real-time (37:22)
Space for a new role (45:11)
State-of-the-art models (49:03)
The most exciting thing in the ML space (53:59)
Open source in ML (56:39)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Can Machine Learning Be Commoditized? Aug 19, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming live stream episode featuring Willem Pienaar of Tecton and Tristan Zajonc of Continual.

100: Data Quality Is Relative to Purpose with James Campbell of Superconductive Aug 17, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

James’ role at Great Expectations (2:33)
What Great Expectations does (5:49)
How Great Expectations approaches data quality (7:01)
Why a data engineer should use Great Expectations (16:41)
Defining “data quality” (19:16)
Translating expectations from one domain to the other (27:00)
Community around Great Expectations (30:59)
The user experience (33:41)
Something exciting on the horizon (40:27)
Interacting with marketers in a non-technical way (43:57)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What’s the Hardest Part About Data Quality? Aug 12, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with James Campbell at Superconductive.

99: State of the Data Lakehouse with Vinoth Chandar of Apache Hudi Aug 10, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Vinoth’s background and career journey (3:08)
Defining “data lakehouse” (5:10)
Databricks versus lake houses (13:37)
The services a lakehouse needs (17:37)
How to communicate technical details (26:55)
Onehouse’s product vision (31:41)
Lakehouse performance versus BigQuery solutions (36:44)
How to deliver customer experience equally (40:17)
How to start building a lakehouse (44:00)
Big tech’s effect on smaller lakehouses (55:33)
Skipping the data warehouse (1:04:39)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Does Lakehouse Architecture Really Mean the End of the Data Warehouse and Data Lake As We Know It? Aug 05, 2022

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Vinoth Chandar of Apache Hudi.

98: Category Theory and the Mathematical Foundation of the Technologies We Use with Eric Daimler of Conexus Aug 03, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Eric’s background and career journey (3:30)
Presenting to people without knowledge of AI (11:04)
Why math was chosen over AI (19:03)
From compilers to databases (25:42)
The contribution of category theory (30:09)
The Connexus customer experience (37:45)
The primary user of Connexus (46:33)
Interacting with 300,000 databases (51:07)
When Connexus begins to add value (54:02)
The best way to learn this mathematical approach (55:46)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Farm to Table Abstract Mathematics Jul 29, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Eric Damlier of Conexus AI.

97: How To Build an Organization-Empowering Data Team with Emilie Schario of Amplify Partners Jul 27, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Emilie’s background and career journey (3:00)
Hypergrowth at GitLab (5:23)
Being close to the money in data (9:50)
Big things taken from GitLab to Netlify (13:00)
Defining “data organization” (17:53)
The first roles you should hire for (22:06)
Defining “analytics engineer” (23:44)
One role to bridge different needs (27:26)
Why data analysts are needed (30:51)
How to avoid a kitchen sink of data (40:20)
Data engineer archetype (45:48)
Data roles crossing over (48:09)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: If You Were Building a Data Team What Would Your First Hire Be? Jul 22, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Emilie Schario from Amplify Partners.

96: How To Collect and Leverage Data From the Physical World with Prateek Joshi of Plutoshift Jul 20, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Prateek’s background and career journey (2:10)
The lack of advanced data tools for the physical world (4:55)
Dealing with data from the physical world (10:53)
Stocks in the physical world (14:20)
What it takes to execute this kind of project (19:05)
Challenges around this infrastructure (25:56)
ML tools that are useful in this environment (31:55)
Physical instrumentation and environmental interaction (36:43)
Current adoption of physical instrumentation (42:50)
Data’s responsibility in sustainability (45:56)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Collecting Data in the Physical World Jul 15, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Prateek Joshi.

95: How the Metrics Layer Bridges the Gap Between Data & Business with Nick Handel of Transform Jul 13, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Nick’s background and career journey (2:40)
What Transform does (5:53)
Metrics layer vs. metrics store (8:04)
Signals vs. metrics (13:24)
The user of a metric layer (14:34)
Using Transform within an organization (17:05)
How to fuse two sources into a metric (23:54)
Currently supported databases (28:46)
Community engagement (31:33)
Optimizing for queries, metrics, and use cases (35:33)
Technology and the human factor (40:49)
Managing metrics amidst fast-paced change (46:53)
Out-of-the-box metrics store (49:26)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Marts Aren’t Just for the Enterprise Jul 08, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Nick Hansel from Transform.

94: Notebooks Aren’t Just for Data Scientists With Barry McCardel of Hex Technologies Jul 06, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Bary’s background and Hex (3:05)
Reconciling two sides of data (9:16)
Collaboration at Hex (15:10)
What it takes to build something like Hex (20:02)
Defining “commitment engineering” (26:01)
How to begin working with Hex (30:56)
Hex customers and uniqueness (40:31)
The future in a world of data acquisition (45:30)
Crossover between analytics and ML (51:33)
Advice for data engineers (57:19)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Have You Ever Been a Part of a Company That Has Done Analytics Really Well? Jul 01, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Barry McCardel of Hex Technologies.

93: There Is No Data Observability Without Lineage with Kevin Hu of Metaplane Jun 29, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Kevin’s background and career journey (1:54)
Metaplane and the problem that is solves (6:47)
The silence of data problems (9:53)
Data physics work that requires more (13:35)
Trusting data when bugs are present (19:12)
Building a navigable experience (22:36)
Developing anomaly detection (30:06)
What Metaplane provides today (35:05)
Metaplane’s plans for the future (37:45)
Comparing Bigquery, Snowflake, and Redshift (40:56)
Why data goes bad (48:15)
Advice for data trust workers (59:24)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What Are the Similarities Between VCs and Tilapia? Jun 24, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Kevin Hu of Metaplane.

92: Building a Decentralized Storage System for Media File Collaboration with Tejas Chopra Jun 22, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Tejas’ background and career journey (2:49, 43:04)
Digital collaboration with Netflix Drive (7:57)
A formal version control component (23:44)
Centralized store vs. local affairs (31:05)
The different skill sets a data engineer needs (37:38)
How to get into data engineering (40:57)
New technologies coming into day-to-day work (44:39)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What is Netflix Cloud? Jun 17, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Tejas Chopra of Netflix.

91: The Future of Streaming Data with Stripe, Deephaven, Materialize, and Benthos Jun 15, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

How we should think about batch versus streaming (6:02)
Defining “streaming ETL” (9:34)
A brief history of streaming processing platforms (22:07)
The birth and evolution of Benthos (28:41)
What led Jeff to build a new tool (34:29)
Why you shouldn’t share all the data (37:23)
Making streaming technologies approachable to engineers (42:09)
Breaking out of traditional terminology (52:58)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Can Streaming Simplify Your Data Flows? Jun 10, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming livestream panel talking about all things streaming. Don't miss next week's episode with experts from Stripe, Deephaven, Materialize and Benthos

90: The Modern Data Stack Has a Join Problem with Ahmed Elsamadisi of Narrator AI Jun 08, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ahmed’s background and career journey (2:27)
Why the modern data stack “sucks” (4:53)
The limitations of progress (9:13)
Showing data with only 11 columns (11:55)
Managing one table that rules them all (19:02)
Viewing the world as timestamped activities (32:40)
When this model becomes harder to use (35:15)
The two parts you need in a company (44:41)
Those who use Narrator (48:32)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Can One Table Rule Them All? Jun 03, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming episode with Ahmed Elsamadisi of Narrator AI.

89: Solving Microservice Orchestration Issues at Netflix with Viren Baraiya of Orkes Jun 01, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Viren’s background and career journey (2:23)
Engineering challenges in Netflix transitions (6:05)
How Conductor changed the process (9:30)
Building a lot more microservices (16:04)
Open sourcing Conductor (17:38)
Defining “orchestration” (22:05)
Using an orchestrator written in Java (31:04)
Building a cloud service around microservices (34:59)
Differentiating product experiences (37:17)
Orchestration platforms in new environments (42:15)
Advice for those early on in their career (46:10)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What are the Different Flavors of Orchestration? May 27, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Viren Baraiya of Orkes.

88: What Is Data Observability? With Tristan Spaulding of Acceldata May 25, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Tristan’s background and career journey (2:43)
Updating old technology (11:40)
Defining “data observability” (18:44)
The primary user of a data observability tool (29:56)
Handling an incident (33:01)
Why multipliers for data observability (37:06)
Early symptoms of a data drift (43:12)
Tuning in the context of data engineering (50:11)
What keeps Tristan working with data (55:12)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Does Data Exist if We Do Not Observe It? May 20, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Tristan Spaulding of Acceldata.

87: Why Is Now the Golden Age of Data Analytics? With Cindi Howson of ThoughtSpot May 18, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Cindi’s career journey (2:36)
Major shifts in analytics (6:34)
Where we are in formation of the modern analytics cloud (9:07)
The process of moving into the cloud (11:01)
How to accelerate the digital transformation (17:29)
Common patterns amongst company cultures (19:42)
Data regulations affecting change (22:34)
ThoughtSpot customer base (24:06)
The need to know SQL (27:42)
Power users leveraging the AI Insights (31:24)
Who should audit technology (32:33)
The ways that education is happening best (36:28)
Stuck in descriptive analytics (40:43)
Changes in company structure (43:54)
Defining an analytics engineer (46:57)
The impact on IT as a function (50:33)
Enjoying data analytics (53:06)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Can You Trust AI Enabled Analytics? May 13, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Cindi Howson of ThoughtSpot and Host of The Data Chief Podcast.

86: Solving the Data Quality Problem with Bigeye, Great Expectations, Metaplane, and Lightup.ai May 11, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Guest introductions (1:02)
Defining data quality (4:08)
Forgetting to apply software best practices (8:33)
Differentiating observability and data quality (17:53)
Who should care about quality in the organization (26:55)
Why this is still a valid conversation (35:44)
The jurisdiction of various components (45:39)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

85: You Can Stop Doing Data Fire Drills with Barr Moses of Monte Carlo May 04, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Barr’s background and career journey (2:12)
Trust: a technical or human problem? (9:47)
Behind the name “Monte Carlo” (15:41)
Defining data accuracy and reliability (17:36)
How much can be done with standardization (22:27)
How to avoid frustration when generating data about data (25:49)
Defining “resolution” (28:59)
Understanding the concept of SLAs (33:25)
Building a company for a category that doesn’t exist yet (37:40)
What it looks like to use Monte Carlo (44:07)
The best part about working with data teams (47:28)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Be Careful, Young Padawan, When Comparing Software Observability and Data Observability May 02, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Barr Moses of Monte Carlo.

Data Council Week (Ep 5): A Primer on Spatial Data With Gabriel Hidalgo of Carto Apr 29, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

How Gabriel got into data (1:54)
What Carto is (5:28)
Location data vs spatial data (6:37)
Time data vs space data (7:50)
System supports for spatial data (9:50)
Explaining “spatial functions” (14:19)
Who uses Carto and why (15:52)
What’s coming for Carto (19:15)
What Gabriel does at Carto (22:22)
The coolest things Carto’s done (23:52)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 4): The Data Council Origin Story With Pete Soderling Apr 28, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Pete’s start in data and Data Council (2:01)
Learning more from failure (6:42)
Shaping terminology and definitions (9:30)
What investors look for in data technology (12:43)
Working as a data engineer (16:32)
Data Council takeaways (18:16)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 3): Product Analytics the Right Way With James Greenhill of PostHog Apr 27, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

How James got started in data (2:42)
What makes PostHog different (10:43)
Why we need product analytics (13:40)
Capturing and collecting data (15:17)
Dealing with drift on a platform like PostHog (19:45)
Starting from the metrics versus events (22:50)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 2): Testing and Observability Are Two Sides of the Same Coin With Ben Castleton of Great Expectations Apr 26, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ben’s background and career journey (2:13)
The birth of Great Expectations (5:02)
Defining software engineering (9:38)
Adopting open source products (13:04)
Working in data versus healthcare (18:01)
What's next for Great Expectations (20:29)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Council Week (Ep 1): Discussing Firebolt’s Engine With Benjamin HoppDiscussing Firebolt’s Engine With Benjamin Hopp Apr 25, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Ben’s career journey (2:55)
What makes Firebolt different (3:58)
Firebolt’s data product family (7:37)
Table engines and Firebolt (10:57)
Ben’s favorite part of ClickHouse (12:52)
The experience of building an optimizer (15:19)
Where Firebolt fits into architecture (17:27)
Working in the data space: to love and dislike (19:51)
Coming soon in the near future (24:35)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com

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The PRQL: A Data Council Austin Quintuple Apr 22, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview an upcoming mini-series for next week featuring conversations with experts at Data Council Austin.

The Data Stack Show Live: Solving the Data Quality Problem Apr 21, 2022

Don't miss our livestream event on April 27 as we talk about all things Data Quality with some of the best in the business.

84: Why Are Analytics Still So Hard? With Kaycee Lai of Promethium Apr 20, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Kaycee’s background and career journey (2:34)
Why analytics are hard (7:28)
Defining “data management” (11:47)
Defining “data virtualization” (15:57)
The relationship between data virtualization and ETL (18:34)
Where a company should invest first (21:40)
Building without a Frankenstein stack (25:19)
How Promethium solves data stack issues (27:53)
Giving context to data (35:14)
Cataloging: background, at Promethium, future (39:29)
Who uses data catalogs (48:00)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Does Putting All Your Data in One Place Create More Problems Than it Solves? Apr 15, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Kaycee Lai of Promethium.

83: Closing the Gap Between Business Analytics and Operational Analytics With Max Beauchemin of Preset Apr 13, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Max’s career journey and role today (2:56)
Hitting the limits of traditional BI (11:06)
The most influential technology (14:34)
Merging with BI and visualization (17:35)
Two thoughts on real-time (21:02)
Defining BI (24:53)
How many have actually achieved self-serve BI (29:54)
How preset.io fits in the BI architecture of today (32:36)
How to use preset.io to expose analytics (35:23)
The analytics process to power something like embedded (42:45)
Opportunities that exist right now in the BI market (44:53)
Commoditization in visualizations across business models (47:58)
What it felt like to create data tooling (51:34)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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The PRQL: BI, Real-Time, and Data Tooling Apr 08, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Max Beauchemin of preset.io.

82: Databases: The Fun Never Stops with Robert Hodges of Altinity Apr 06, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Robert’s background and career journey (2:21)
How studying languages influences database work (5:13)
Why Robert has been working with databases for 40+ years (7:50)
Explaining the ClickHouse database (10:43)
How ClickHouse is able to focus on latency (13:39)
The use cases behind ClickHouse (19:19)
How ClickHouse is different than other databases (25:47)
Why old problems are just now getting addressed (29:04)
How ClickHouse works with others against another (33:03)
When to implement ClickHouse (38:53)
The distance between ClickHouse and the end-user (42:24)
New database technologies (47:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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The PRQL: What Inspires Continued Innovation in Databases? Apr 01, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Robert Hodges of Altinity.

81: Digging into Data Ops with Prukalpa Sankar of Atlan Mar 30, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Prukalpa’s background and career journey (3:16)
Applying a data-driven mindset to poverty (7:21)
What Atlan does (11:53)
The makeup of a realistically functioning data team (15:25)
How to create a company’s first data team (18:13)
Defining “agile data” (22:01)
The necessity of data ops (26:36)
The minimum data stack needed (29:16)
Data team size (31:58)
Where to start when you need to make adjustments (34:51)
Collaborate with different parts of the data stack (41:27)
Defining the metadata plane (44:29)
Lessons from facing crazy data problems (48:31)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Data Team Diversity & Maturing Data Ops Mar 25, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation about data ops and diversity with Prupalka of Atlan.

80: Is Reverse-ETL Just Another Data Pipeline? With Census, Hightouch, & Workato Mar 23, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Panel introductions (2:23)
What is driving the trend behind Reverse ETL? (5:24)
The obstacles to building an internal Reverse ETL tool at scale (15:34)
How to decide system management vs. user flexibility (20:14)
Why previous products failed in creating this category (29:12)
Increased demand and democratization of datastack skills via SaaS (42:03)
Broader applications for Reverse ETL (47:29)
Limitations of Reverse ETL (55:05)
How user technical ability affects design and build roadmaps (58:14)
What do you anticipate comes next for Reverse ETL? (1:02:45)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Is Reverse ETL New or Old? Mar 18, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming panel discussion on reverse ETL and the modern data stack.

79: All About Experimentation with Che Sharma of Eppo Mar 16, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Che’s background and career journey (4:23)
Coherence between hemispheres in the human brain (6:58)
Raising Airbnb above primitive AB testing technology (8:54)
Economic thinking in Airbnb’s data science practice (14:24)
Dealing with multiple pipelines (16:48)
Eppo’s role in recognizing statistically significant data (20:01)
Defining “experiment” (23:25)
Types of experiments (25:57)
The workflow journey (27:18)
Dealing with metric silos (34:21)
Why we still need to innovate today (37:03)
Where experimentation can be used (39:36)
How big a sample size should be (43:29)
How to self-educate to get the maximum value (45:39)
Bridging the gap between data engineers and data scientists (48:14)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

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The PRQL: Is A/B Testing Only Relevant for B2C? Mar 11, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Che Sharma of geteppo.com.

78: The Etymology of Reverse ETL & Why It’s a Key Piece Of The Modern Data Stack with Boris Jabes of Census Mar 09, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Boris’ background career journey (2:32)
The origins of “reverse ETL” (6:39)
Reverse Fivetran (16:35)
Product as an experience (22:41)
Fivetran users vs Census users (24:14)
How to add value to a data dump (26:56)
Ways companies are creating IP (33:48)
The cascade effect of the modern data stack (37:56)
Defining “data federation” (43:51)
Lessons from building a product (49:10)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Reverse ETL and the Distinction Between Operation vs Analysis on Data Mar 04, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Borris Jabes of Census.

77: Standardizing Unstructured Data with Verl Allen of Claravine Mar 02, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Verl’s career journey (2:46)
M&A data evaluation criteria (7:12)
What Claravine does (10:48)
The breadth of data (15:03)
Adding to content and advertising data (18:22)
How Claravine standardizes data (23:53)
Designing a data model (25:40)
The underlying technologies of building a product (33:43)
The main consumer (35:02)
Maintaining quality (39:06)
Helping solidify definitions (41:37)
Implementing Claravine’s model across various companies (44:54)
Internal changes affect on the model (46:47)
Connection brought about by structure (49:19)
Applying unstructured context to structured stamping (52:36)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: If Everything Is Data, How Can We Make Sense of It All? Feb 25, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Verl Allen of Claravine.

76: Why a Data Team Should Limit Its Own Superpowers with Sean Halliburton of CNN Feb 23, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Sean’s career journey (3:27)
Optimization and localized testing results (7:49)
Denying potential access to more data (13:46)
Other dimensions data has (18:32)
The other side of capturing events (20:55)
Data equivalent of API contracts (25:03)
SDK restrictiveness for developers (27:40)
How to know if you’re still sending the right data (30:38)
Debugging that starts in a client of a mobile app (36:08)
Communicating about data (38:36)
The next phase of tooling (41:49)
Advice for aspiring managers (45:21)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com

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The PRQL: How Important Is the Human Factor When Working With Data? Feb 18, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming show with Sean Halliburton of Warnermedia.

75: How To Become a Data Engineer with Parham Parvizi of the Data Stack Academy Feb 16, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Par’s background and current role (2:48)
About Talend (6:46)
Nonlinear pathways to data engineering roles (11:08)
What a data engineer needs to be successful (17:37)
Before “data engineer” was a title (27:59)
Signs you should be a data engineer (32:39)
Curiosity and data engineering (38:31)
Defining the modern data stack (45:07)
How to get a feel for data engineering (52:52)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Can We Define the Role of the Data Engineer (Yet)? Feb 11, 2022

In this PRQL, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Parham Parvizi of tura.io.

74: Kostas Respawns at Starburst, is Interviewed by Eric, and Reminisces About Winamp Feb 09, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Big News: podcast hits, Kostas’ career change (2:19)
Kostas’ career start in data pipelines (4:09)
The Winamp and Napster era (11:46)
Starting an API gateway (16:56)
Observing new technology from afar (23:43)
Starting Blendo (32:38)
Problems faced in architecting the product (37:12)
Kostas’ role at Starburst (40:25)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What Prompts a Conversation About Winamp & Quake Arena on The Data Stack Show? Feb 04, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview some exciting news coming up on episode 74 of the Data Stack Show.

73: What a High Performing Data Team (and Stack) Looks Like with Paige Berry of Netlify Feb 02, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Paige’s career path (2:44)
Paige’s role and responsibilities at Netlify (6:38)
Sharing data insights (8:55)
Scope in the context of delivering an insight (12:39)
Defining “insight” (15:10)
Where the client journey begins (16:43)
Miscommunication because of vague terminology (20:06)
Netlify’s internal knowledge repository (23:01)
Breaking down Netlify’s hub and spoke model (30:45)
What data tools to use and when (35:21)
The metric layer and BI (44:17)
Next steps in the data space (49:42)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: How High Performing Data Teams Put Tooling in the Background Jan 28, 2022

This week on the PRQL, Eric and Kostas discuss tooling as they preview the upcoming show with Paige Berry of Netlify.

72: Building Data Ops Into the Data Lifecycle with Douwe Maan of Meltano Jan 26, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Douwe’s career journey (3:04)
The missing piece in GitLab’s data tooling (7:35)
The open-source offering in the data space (12:38)
Singer’s connection with Meltano (22:31)
How Meltano manages connectors on a diverse codebase (35:21)
The data house side of Meltano (39:47)
Data house operating versus Airflow (44:06)
Meltano’s vision present today (47:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Is It Viable to Manage Integrations Open Source? Jan 21, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview the upcoming show featuring Douwe Maan of Meltano.

71: ETL at the Edges with Jimmy Chan of Dropbase Jan 19, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Jimmy’s career background (3:01)
How to use Data cubes (5:52)
What Dropbase is and who it is built for (11:01)
Getting sales and marketing data in usable formats (16:46)
Ensuring data remains flexible and transferable (28:36)
Defining what “offline data” is and how to use it (34:09)
How Dropbase can work with the rest of the data stack (43:30)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Is Kostas an Excel Power User Yes/No? Jan 14, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview the upcoming conversation with Jimmy Chan of Dropbase.

70: The Difference Between Data Lakes and Data Warehouses with Vinoth Chandar of Apache Hudi Jan 12, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Vinoth’s career background (3:19)
Building a data lake at Uber (6:52)
Defining what a data lake is (14:01)
How data warehouses differ from data lakes (22:46)
When you should utilize an open source solution in your datastack (37:36)
Evolving from a data warehouse to a data lake (45:09)
Early wins Hudi earned inside of Uber (52:30)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: What Old Tech Concepts Were Borrowed to Build the Data Lake House? Jan 07, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview the upcoming show as they talk about data lakes and data warehouses and why these are important.

69: What is the Modern Data Stack? Jan 05, 2022

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Panel introductions and backgrounds (2:55)
What the modern data stack means to each of our panelists (5:04)
Defining the fundamental components of a modern data stack (17:22)
How the modern stack drives insights and actions for businesses (28:03)
Getting to a uniform definition to the modern stack (33:45)
Managing the modernization of a large scale data stack (39:09)
How testing works in the dbt context (48:44)
The relationship between the data warehouse and the data lake (52:25)
What has us most excited or the future of modern data stacks (56:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Should Data Trust Drive the Evolution of Your Data Stack? Dec 31, 2021

In this PRQL, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming show where they discuss the modern data stack with some of the top experts in the industry.

68: Season Three Recap: Holiday Edition with Eric Dodds and Kostas Pardalis Dec 29, 2021

In this episode, Eric and Kostas look back over the great topics and guests from season three of the Data Stack Show. The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data. RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

67: Now is the Time to Think About Data Quality with Manu Bansal of Lightup Data Dec 22, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Manu’s career background and describing Lightup (2:31)
Why traditional tools don’t work for modern data problems (6:04)
How a data lake differs from a data warehouse (11:35)
Defining data quality (14:07)
The business impact of solving and applying data quality (31:36)
Constructing a healthy financial view on the impact of data (41:09)
How to work with unstructured data in a meaningful way (47:44)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Will Data Quality Always Require a Human in the Loop? Dec 21, 2021

Eric and Kostas preview the upcoming show by talking about data quality.

66: How Data Infrastructure Has Evolved and Managing High Performing Data Teams with Srivatsan Sridharan Dec 15, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Starting his career on the first-ever data team at Yelp (2:00)
How to approach the adoption of new technology (7:04)
When to use stream processing vs. batching (11:35)
What is a pipeline and why is it core to a data engineer? (14:07)
Where a new data scientist should begin their career (19:14)
The key factors impacting a new technology decision (27:09)
Managing team emotions in decision making (34:25)
The unique challenge of Fintech vs other consumer industries (45:03)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: How Would You Define a Data Pipeline? Featuring the RudderStack Eng. Team Dec 10, 2021

On the PRQL this week, Eric and Kostas bring in some of the Rudderstack engineering team to discuss data pipelines and preview episode 66 of the Data Stack Show.

65: Operationalizing Data from the Warehouse With Aayush Jain of Cliff.ai Dec 08, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Aayush’s career background (4:13)
How his biological sciences academic training impacts his work (8:04)
How do we allow dashboards to get messy? (9:35)
Building cultural or technical solutions to effective dashboards (15:19)
Using data dashboards to make material business improvements (23:19)
What is business observability? (32:23)
Building a platform for operations teams (43:15)
How important community is to the cliff.ai business proposition (41:03)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Why is the Data Engineer's Role Expanding? Dec 03, 2021

In this show PRQL, Eric and Kostas talk about the evolution of the role of a data engineer and preview the conversation with Aayush Jain.

64: Data Stack Composability and Commoditization with Michel Tricot of Airbyte Dec 01, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Announcement: Data Stack Live! (1:00)
Michel’s career background (4:13)
Solving the technical and process challenges of moving data (7:04)
Lessons learned from managing data at Live Ramp (9:35)
How to build a modern data stack (16:19)
Triggers to signal when more data infrastructure is needed (23:19)
Why Airbyte is an open-source product (30:23)
Airbyte’s role in providing support to open-source problems (38:15)
How important DPT is for the Airbyte protocol and platform (41:03)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: The Beauty of Commoditization Nov 26, 2021

For this week's PRQL, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming episode with Michel Tricot.

63: The ETL - ELT Flip With Ciaran Dynes of Matillion Nov 24, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas have a conversation with Ciaran Dynes, the Chief Product Officer at Matillion, a powerful and easy-to-use, completely cloud-capable ETL/ELT solution.

The PRQL: What Part of the Data Stack Will Be Commoditized Next? Nov 19, 2021

On this week's PRQL, Kostas and Eric preview their upcoming conversation with Ciaran Dynes of Matillion.

62: The Internet of Everything with Rob Rastovich of ThingLogix Nov 17, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Rob’s career began as an early adopter in internet marketing and then he got the bug for machine-to-machine IoT (2:47)
Making assumptions about mass scale (8:44)
Pervasiveness of IoT in the market (11:47)
Initial reactions to technological advances that we take for granted today (17:28)
What makes IoT unique (23:56)
Killing the SQL server (29:11)
What really separates a smart device from a dumb device that can send data to the cloud (33:13)
5G, LoRa, and drawbacks and advances in widespread IoT adoption (37:05)
Security and privacy in IoT (41:23)
Using IoT as a cattle rancher (45:20)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Are you afraid of IOT? Nov 12, 2021

In this PRQL, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Rob Rastovich of ThingLogix, Inc.

61: What is Data Design? With Kevin Gervais of Touchless Nov 10, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Kevin’s interaction with data at an early age (2:35)
Working with telecom data (5:08)
Analyzing emojis in customer sentiment (8:44)
Infrastructure needed for diverse data (12:22)
Building better interfaces and looking out for human error (24:17)
Dealing with differences in identities in different layers of the stack (41:21)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The PRQL: Will we ever get rid of the CSV? Nov 08, 2021

Data Debrief: The Highs and Lows of Open Source Projects Nov 05, 2021

Eric and Kostas break down further topics from episode 60 about stream processing and open source projects.

60: Architecting a Boring Stream Processing Tool With Ashley Jeffs of Benthos Nov 03, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

A brief overview of Ashley’s background (2:47)
Benthos’ creation and the problems it was meant to address (4:01)
Use cases for Benthos (18:25)
Key features of Benthos that make it stand out (22:23)
Adding windowing to Benthos for fun (29:23)
The highs and lows of maintaining an open source project for five years (32:17)
The architecture of Benthos (36:23)
The importance of ordering in streaming processing (42:15)
Gaining traction with an open source project (53:21)
Benthos’ blobfish mascot (58:03)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Debrief: What Open Source Data Projects Have Come Out of Facebook, Whoops, *Meta? Oct 29, 2021

On this week's debrief, Kostas and Eric talk about the variety of open source projects that come from Facebook.

59: Making ETL Optional with Justin Borgman of Starburst Data Oct 27, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Starburst Data is Justin’s second startup (2:42)
Starburst focuses on doing data warehousing analytics without the need for the data warehouse (4:14)
Multi-cloud solutions among merger and acquisition use cases (8:32)
Ways the stack is increasing in complexity (12:25)
Comparing essential components of a data stack from 2010 to now (15:01)
The future of ETL (27:36)
The best maturity stage for an organization to implement Starburst (31:27)
Starburst connectors (36:55)
Monetizing enterprise solutions while promoting open source ones (41:52)
The history of Presto and Trino (45:37)
Benefits of a decentralized data mesh (49:53)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Debrief: Will Enterprise Build The Future of Data Tooling? Oct 22, 2021

On this week's Data Debrief, Eric and Kostas dig more into the topic of data tooling.

58: Data Federation is No Longer The "F" Word with Scott Gnau of InterSystems Oct 20, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Solving problems with data has been a long-time passion of Scott’s (2:52)
Day-to-day use of data at InterSystems (6:25)
The technical aspects involved in constructing a data fabric (17:52)
Companies at a variety of maturity levels can adopt a data fabric (26:49)
A paradigm shift in the marketplace (28:39)
Comparing and contrasting data fabric and data mesh (30:49)
Sharing data across the business and not having it siloed in different departments (39:46)
Privacy and security within a data fabric (41:22)
The future of data fabric and pushing the edge (43:17)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Data Debrief: Can Tools Help Solve Data Quality Organizational Challenges? Oct 15, 2021

On this Data Debrief, Eric and Kostas are joined by Brian from Rudderstack to talk about Data Quality.

57: Improving Data Quality Using Data Product SLAs with Egor Gryaznov of Bigeye Oct 13, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Egor’s software engineering background and history with Uber (2:19)
Experimentation platforms and analytics definitions (7:49)
Bigeye’s function and use cases (9:40)
Managing the relationship between the data engineer maintaining the pipelines and the downstream teams providing the context (18:49)
Pinpointing problems in data compared to problems in software (21:55)
Defining data quality at Bigeye (24:13)
Machine learning models as a data product (28:38)
Determining SLAs (32:22)
How Bigeye brings different parties together and addresses natural communication barriers (36:42)
Looking at when an organization needs to implement data quality tooling (45:54)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

56: Stream Processing and Observability with Jeff Chao of Stripe Oct 06, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Jeff’s history with stream processing (2:52)
Working with Mantis to address the impact of Netflix downtime (4:20)
Defining observability as operational insight (6:58)
Time series data and the value of data today (18:52)
Data integration’s shift from batch to streaming (29:34)
The current state of change data capture (32:20)
How an engineer thinks of the end-user (56:21)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

55: Tables vs. Streams and Defining Real-Time with Pete Goddard of Deephaven Data Labs Sep 29, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Pete’s background in data engineering and capital market trading (2:10)
Comparison of the tooling from 2012 when Deephaven started with that of today (10:30)
Taking a closer look at defining real-time data (19:47)
Getting non-technical people, clients, and developers all on the same platform (36:11)
Deephaven’s incremental update model (40:25)
Kafka, timely data flow, and Deephaven (44:22)
Use cases for Deephaven (51:52)
Going to GitHub to try out Deephaven (1:02:43)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

54: The Center of the Modern Data Stack with Neil Rahilly of Mixpanel Sep 22, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Neil’s programming hobby turned into a career and how he cold-contacted Mixpanel for a job (2:28)
Lessons learned from nine years at Mixpanel (5:05)
Defining product analytics (8:06)
How Mixpanel has evolved into the product it is today (10:56)
The importance of Mixpanel’s real-time analysis (19:52)
Looking at Arb, Mixpanel’s own arbitrary segmentation database (23:44)
The business impact that the rise of the cloud data warehouse had on Mixpanel (34:56)
Sub-second latencies and real-time use cases (49:05)
Career advice from Neil (1:02:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

53: What Religion, a Cult, and a Tech Product Have in Common, with Bart Farrell of DoKC Sep 15, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

Bart’s journey from southern California, to New York, to Egypt, to London, to Spain (3:31)
Exposure to different communities and finding shared language and experience (10:21)
Looking back at early online communities and how they furthered your learning journey (27:50)
How the level of niche-ness impacts a community (44:06)
The cautionary tale of WeWork (57:28)
Surefire community killers (1:03:44)
Open source communities in tech and the passion that drives them (1:08:11)

Follow the Data on Kubernetes Community at DoK.community and on Twitter at @DoKCommunity. You can follow Bart at @birthmarkbart.

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

52: Discussing Data Warehouses, Lakes, and Meshes with James Serra of EY Sep 08, 2021

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

James’ background at Microsoft and current work with EY’s data fabric (2:22)
The external and internal facing components of EY’s data fabric (6:39)
The importance of the data lineage (11:29)
The most important requirements for data quality (15:32)
Looking at the data capabilities of Microsoft (21:30)
The data warehouse, explained (29:00)
Using a data warehouse or a data lake (34:33)
Defining the buzzword data mesh (51:13)
The problem with data mesh (59:31)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

51: Democratizing AI and ML with Tristan Zajonc of Continual Sep 01, 2021

Topics in this wide-ranging conversation include:

Tristan’s background with Cloudera and the need for continual operational ML and AI (3:15)
How the complexity of Continual is hidden behind a simplicity of use (14:48)
Focusing on data that lives within a data warehouse (18:43)
Understanding features in the ML conversation (22:47)
The three layers of Continual (26:11)
The importance of SQL to Continual (30:19)
Caching layers and the data warehouse centric approach (38:28)
Betting on the warehouse being a central component of data stack architecture (43:34)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

50: From Data Infrastructure to Data Management with Ananth Packkildurai Aug 25, 2021

Highlights from this week’s episode:

Ananth’s background (2:51)
The evolution of Slack (4:54)
Kafka and Presto’s two of the most reliable and flexible tools for Ananth (9:43)
How Snowflake gained an advantage over Presto (13:24)
Opinions about data lakes (17:23)
Core features of data infrastructure (23:22)
The tools define the process, and not the other way around (31:30)
Defining a data mesh (36:44)
Data is inherently social in nature (40:31)
Lessons learned from writing Data Engineering Weekly (49:14)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

49: MLops - The Finalization of the Data Stack with Ben Rogojan of Facebook Aug 18, 2021

Topics in this conversation include:

Ben's background and his shift to data engineering (2:19)
Trends in the data space: finding the most efficient tools, the Snowflake phenomenon, and keeping up with new functionalities (5:33)
Key differences in data practices in small companies and Facebook-sized companies (12:38)
Having to build tools specifically designed for Facebook because of SaaS product limitations (16:00)
Team structure at Facebook (18:17)
Developing more robust systems that are resistent to pipeline failure (19:50)
Defining data stacks (24:01)
A sample data stack for a young company (28:37)
Why Redshift and Snowflake have trended in the opposite direction (33:02)
BigQuery and Snowflake comparisons (36:06)
MLOps and whose responsibility is it (39:12)
Feast, Tecton, and feature stores (45:40)
Having a good community around an open source product (49:30)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

48: Season Two Recap with Eric Dodds and Kostas Pardalis Aug 11, 2021

Highlights from this week’s episode:

Dissecting the different team structures from organizations in season two (1:16)
The people behind the data are key to the data itself (9:17)
Open source licensing and the core components needed for large scale commercial viability (15:13)
Game-changing core technologies in the new data economy (22:09)
Snowflake vs. Databricks battle. "The UFC of Geeks" (25:54)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

47: Taming the Four Dragons of Data with Sven Balnojan of Mercateo Gruppe Aug 04, 2021

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Sven's Ph.D. in Singularity Theory (2:59)
The Databricks vs. Snowflake conversation (8:17)
The difficulty of not just inventing something new, but making it accessible (18:01)
Databricks and unstructured data (22:22)
Organizational change responding to technological change (29:27)
The three-dimensional evolution of a successful open source project (40:31)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

46: A New Paradigm in Stream Processing with Arjun Narayan of Materialize Jul 28, 2021

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Introducing Arjun and how he fell in love with databases (2:51)
Looking at what Materialize brings to the stack (5:28)
Analytics starts with a human in the loop and comes into its own when analysts get themselves out and automate it (15:46)
Using Materialize instead of the materialized view from another tool (18:44)
Comparing Postgres and Materialize and looking at what's under the hood of Materialize (23:16)
Making Materialize simple to use (32:33)
Why Materialize doubled down on writing 100% in Rust (35:43)
The best use case to start with (42:03)
Lessons learned from making Materialize a cloud offering (44:22)
Keeping databases to the cloud for low latency (48:31)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

45: Open Source and Attribution with Ophir Prusak of Codesmith Jul 21, 2021

Highlights from today's conversation include:

Ophir's decision to switch from software engineering to marketing and riding the startup train (2:39)
Open sourcing in the world of software (5:55)
How open source has changed Ophir's life as a marketeer working at startups (10:28)
Chartio's sunsetting drove Ophir to search for a data tooling replacement (27:27)
Discussing trends in adoption of tools for small scale and large scale companies (35:01)
Data challenges related to attribution--how wrong do you want to be? (44:07)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

44: Leveraging Data in a Post-Covid World with Ruben Ugarte of Practico Analytics Jul 14, 2021

Highlights from this week's episode:

Ruben's background (2:36)
Massive shifts in data caused by COVID (4:47)
Big Tech is no longer untouchable (9:54)
Accelerations in the BI space (15:17)
A focus on people and on trust (23:43)
Numbers are filtered by the biases of the people viewing them (28:46)
AI trends and adoption (38:06)
Using qualitative data for insights, particularly at early stages (40:56)
Recommendations for taking stock of who is using the data and assessing what their skills are (50:06)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

43: Modern Authentication and User Management with Sokratis Vidros of Clerk.dev Jul 07, 2021

Highlights from this week's episode:

Sokratis' realization that big corporations were not the best thing for him (2:56)
Transitioning for Workable to Clerk.dev (3:40)
Convincing developers to outsource components to a service (9:36)
Clerk's layered solutions and how it affects the developer and the end-user (12:41)
Starting with Clerk from scratch vs. using Clerk to replace an existing component (19:55)
Synergies and SaaS starter kit (24:06)
Building Clerk to avoid a single point of failure (29:19)
Reflecting back on the transformation and growth of Workable, and how it was like working at eight different companies (33:03)
Lessons that Sokratis has taken away from his years as a developer (42:18)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

42: Scaling Data Science with Ryan Boyer of Shipt Jun 30, 2021

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Ryan's full circle path from stocking shelves at Target to using data science for a company owned by Target (2:00)
Building great tools and wielding them effectively (5:04)
Changes at Shipt since being acquired (9:29)
How people’s bias impacts models built by data scientists (12:30)
The different data sources Shipt incorporates (22:02)
How Ryan's work as a data scientist has changed as Shipt has grown (25:29)
How data science helps marketing (31:38)
Improving search experience (34:23)
Shipt's evolving data stack (38:27)
New trends in data science (47:06)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

41: Doing MLOps on Top of Apache Pulsar and Trino with Joshua Odmark of Pandio Jun 23, 2021

Highlights from this week’s episode:

Joshua started his first company at age 15 and then sold two more startups after that (2:15)
Embracing the open source movement and not reinventing the wheel if you don't have to (12:15)
Pulsar seemed built to address Kafka's weaknesses (17:23)
Using Redis as a coordinator for federated learning and taking advantage of its portability (23:05)
The pillars of Pandio and some practical use cases (31:24)
Feature stores and model versioning (38:23)
Seeing Pulsar as the future because of the ability to run tens of millions of topics (41:04)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

40: Graph Processing on Snowflake for Customer Behavioral Analytics Jun 16, 2021

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Launching Affinio and the engineering backgrounds of the co-founders (2:36)
The massive transformation in customer data privacy regulation in the past eight years (6:23)
Creating the underpinning technology that can apply to any customer behavioral data set (10:05)
Ranking and scoring surfing patterns and sorting nodes and edges (14:13)
Placing the importance of attributes into a simple UI experience (19:28)
Going from a columnar database to a graph processing system (25:20)
Working with custom or atypical data (32:46)
The decision to work with Snowflake (37:43)
Next steps for utilizing third-party tools within Snowflake (52:18)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

39: Diving deeper into CDC with Ali Hamidi and Taron Foxworth of Meroxa Jun 11, 2021

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Meroxa is a real-time data engineering managed platform (4:53)
Use cases for CDC (6:20)
Meroxa leverages open source tools to provide initial snapshots and start the CDC stream (12:29)
Making the platform publicly available (14:14)
What the Meroxa user experience looks like (16:10)
Raising Series A funding (17:49)
Easiest and most difficult data sources for CDC (20:23)
The current state of open CDC (23:16)
Expected latency when using CDC (29:56
CDC, reverse ETL, and a focus on real-time (36:39)
Are existing parts of the stack when Meroxa is adapted? (39:45)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

38: Graph Databases & Data Governance with David Allen of Neo4j Jun 02, 2021

Highlights from this week's episode include:

David’s background in comparative databases (1:50)
David’s experience and lessons he learned from writing his book (3:23)
How writing a technical book compares to writing technical documentation (4:41)
The process of writing a book (6:30)
The best and worst part of David’s book writing experience (8:02)
An introduction to what Neo4j is (9:08)
What you need to graph (11:13)
Typical problems a graph database is a good solution for (13:00)
The difference between performance and relational databases (18:41)
How Neo4j addresses performance and ergonomics (23:30)
Neo4j and scalability (26:20)
How Neo4j fits in the modern data stack (31:48)
Neo4j use cases (35:45)
Practical implementation of Neo4j (40:51)
Neo4j’s relationship with open source (45:50)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

37: The Components of Data Governance with Dave Melillo of FanDuel May 26, 2021

Highlights from this week's episode include:

Dave's "nerdy" interests in sports statistics and data (2:12)
Trends in collecting, processing, and using data (4:45)
Finding a better term for "reverse ETL" (5:48)
The blurring of the distinction between sources and destinations (7:41)
The role of BI is changing (13:24)
Data governance and the physical execution behind it (19:00)
Data governance is defining and managing data in a logical way that is actionable by the business (23:43)
Consolidation of tools and services (28:49)
Databricks vs. Snowflake (33:49)
Dave's focus on regulatory data at FanDuel (45:47)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

36: Crypto and Compliance with Nick Fogle, Co-Founder of Churnkey and Wavve May 19, 2021

On this week's episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas talk with Nick Fogle, co-founder of Churnkey and Wavve. Together they discuss how having a legal background can impact engineering decisions, dealing with privacy and compliance concerns, and selling Wavve and starting Churnkey as a result.

Highlights from this week's episode include:

Nick's background in economics and law and teaching himself to code (2:01)
Thinking like a lawyer and trying to minimize risk to the greatest extent possible (4:23)
GDPR and compliance (8:23)
Blockchain contracts (18:26)
Unique challenges surrounding compliance with a cryptocurrency startup (21:41)
Reconciling the right to be forgotten, GDPR, and blockchain permanence (27:16)
Building Churnkey after developing it as a way to lower churn among Wavve users (31:31)
How Churnkey's stack works (37:16)
Crypto predictions (39:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

35: The Future of Development is Distributed with Jim Walker of Cockroach Labs May 12, 2021

This week on The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas talk with Jim Walker, the VP of product marketing at Cockroach Labs, about distributed systems, competing against the speed of light, and making data easy.

Highlights from this week's episode include:

Jim background of translating deep technical concepts into understandable English and his work at Cockroach Labs (2:23)
The origin of Cockroach Labs and distributed SQL (6:10)
Living without Atomic Clocks (10:10)
Having the speed of light as the ultimate competitor (13:49)
CockroachDB’s users (19:35)
Figuring out big data for transactions (25:14)
Dealing with failure (35:04)
Open source code, community, and consumption (39:26)
Making data easy, and what's next for Cockroach (43:12)
Bringing programming into marketing (46:18)

Mentioned Links:

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

34: The Intersection of Data Engineering and Marketing with John Marbachm of Grafana Labs Apr 28, 2021

On this week's episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas talk with John Marbach, senior growth manager at Grafana Labs. In this conversation, John discusses marketing ops and the blending of roles of data engineering and marketing.

Highlights from this week's episode include:

Grafana Labs John Marbach Senior Growth Manager
Introduction to John Marbach and working in the blurred lines between marketing and data engineering (2:14)
How managing pipeline building and consuming data influences the use of downstream tools (6:28)
Experiments in marketing (11:28)
Exploring the role of marketing ops (15:35)
How accruing technical debt can grind things to a halt (20:35)
Matching the stack with the company's scale (24:48)
CDPs and marketing to developers (28:40)
Biggest challenges and barriers between data engineering and marketing (35:19)
Takes on reverse ETL (39:07)
Thoughts on cryptocurrency and the blockchain (44:08)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

33: ML is a Data Quality Problem with Peter Gao from Aquarium Learning Apr 14, 2021

On this week's episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas talk with Peter Gao, co-founder, and CEO at Aquarium Learning. A former engineer at Cruise Automation, Peter and Aquarium Learning help ML teams improve their model performances by improving their data.

Highlights from this week's episode include:

How getting hit by a drunk driver made researching self-driving cars personal for Peter (2:12)
Filtering out the hype in self-driving car news to get a clear picture of its state today (6:52)
The data required for a self-driving vehicle (13:56)
Operation Vacation and how Aquarium can help provide the tools to make models better (16:53)
Utilizing neural networks to index data (20:41)
How Aquarium fits in the ML stack (30:25)
Interesting use cases of Aquarium (33:59)
Distinguishing subclasses of machine learning (40:05)
Human involvement in machine learning (46:13)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

32: Cooking with Data Ops with Chris Bergh from DataKitchen Apr 07, 2021

On this week's episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas talk with Chris Bergh, the CEO and head chef at Data Kitchen. DataKitchen’s mission is to provide the software, service, and knowledge that makes it possible for every data and analytics team to realize their full potential with DataOps.

Highlights from this week's episode include:

Chris' background and how the lessons learned in the Peace Corps and at NASA apply to him today (2:03)
Why AI left Chris feeling like a jilted lover (7:49)
Most projects that people do in data analytics fail (10:12)
Three things that DataOps focuses on (16:37)
Comparing and contrasting DevOps and DataOps (22:30)
The types of data that DataKitchen handles and building a product or a service around DataOps (29:29)
Fixing problems at the source instead of just offering a tool to slightly improve things downstream (37:17)
Where we are at in the process of how companies are going to run on data (41:43)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

31: How a 160 Year-Old Publisher is Using Data with Jenna Lemonias From the Atlantic Mar 31, 2021

On this week's episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas chat with Jenna Lemonias, director of data science at The Atlantic. The Atlantic, a publication that's been around since 1857, is adapting with the times and is implementing and emulating some of the data science practices seen at big tech companies.

Highlights from this week's episode include:

Jenna's background in astrophysics and how she pivoted to data science (2:14)
Differences in dealing with data at a FinTech company and then at a publication (4:40)
The relationship between analog and digital data at The Atlantic (9:22)
How The Atlantic structures its data science team (11:44)
The role data engineering plays (14:42)
Using natural language processing and machine-generated metadata (17:37)
The Atlantic's data stack (28:22)
The kind of data that's important to The Atlantic (29:44)
Big projects forthcoming for the data science team (37:13)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

30: The DataStack Journey with Rachel Bradley-Haas and Alex Dovenmuehle of Big Time Data Mar 24, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas are joined by the co-founders of Big Time Data, Rachel Bradley-Haas, and Alex Dovenmuehle, formerly of Mattermost and prior to that, Heroku. At Big Time Data, they work together to provide companies with the ability to derive value and insights from decentralized datasets, improve business processes through data enrichment and automation, and build a scalable foundation to enable a data-driven culture.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Rachel and Alex's background and their goal to make data approachable for companies everywhere (3:09)
The data stack journey: making decisions when you're small that allow you to grow with your data and your organization (12:28)
The problems faced when a data stack isn't nurtured early on (15:59)
Changes in data stack technology (21:32)
How Alex and Rachel's roles at Big Time Data differ and interact with each other (39:00)
Client use cases (43:34)
Comparing the stacks of seed-stage startups, mid-sized companies, and giant enterprises (48:54)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

29: The Present and Future of Data Engineering with Joe Reis and Matthew Housley from Ternary Data Mar 17, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas are joined by Matthew Housley, CTO, and Joe Reis, CEO and co-founder of Ternary Data. These self-described “recovering data scientists” focus on teaching skills to build a solid foundation for organizations to work with their data.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Joe and Matt’s background and expertise (2:44)
Common threads and trends in the data sphere (9:39)
Differences and commonalities between startups and enterprises and the way they deal with data (18:28)
Discussing how the role of data engineering has evolved over the years and what it might morph into in the near future (27:52)
The ideal data infrastructure and what future shifts excite them (39:52)
How ML is shaping the data space (44:30)
The state of real time (49:56)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

28: Next Gen Data Governance with Stefania from Avo Mar 10, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas are joined by Stefanía Bjarney Ólafsdóttir, the CEO and co-founder of Avo. Avo, which started in 2018, provides data analytics governance as a service, helping organizations make data-driven decisions to improve their customer experience.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Stefania's background with mathematics, philosophy, bioinformatics and consumer mobile (2:39)
Making pioneering decisions as head of data science at QuizUp (8:34)
Is less more? Choosing fundamental parts of the customer experience and understanding them very well (16:56)
Bringing data consumers closer to data producers (18:34)
Avo mission to provide analytics governance as a service (25:09)
Avo use cases (36:37)
Focusing on event-based data (44:29)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

27: Building B2B Marketplaces with Mike Luby from LeafLink Mar 03, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas are joined by Mike Luby, director of engineering at LeafLink. LeafLink is a cannabis industries B2B wholesale marketplace where thousands of brands can manage and track their orders and relationships.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

The infrastructure LeafLink provides for the cannabis supply chain and how it deals with compliance issues. (2:03)
Structuring product management organization to launch high-velocity teams (8:08)
How it started vs. How it's going (12:00)
Containerization and leveraging AWS tools for LeafLink's stack (13:19)
Shifting to an event-driven architecture (24:46)
Using APIs to provide critical integrations for customers to automate and optimize their businesses (32:47)
Keeping an eye for the future but building for today (36:56)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

26: Democratizing the Insurance Market with Daniel Gremmell from Policygenius Inc. Feb 24, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric and Kostas are joined by Daniel Gremymell, head of data at Policygenius, Inc. Policygenius, an insurance marketplace, strives to make it easy for people to understand their options, compare quotes, and buy a policy all in one place with help from licensed experts.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

What brought Daniel to Policygenius and how his background in industrial engineering and statistics impacts what he does (1:49)
Policygenius consolidates carriers and pairs insurance customers with live experts to get the best prices and plans (6:29)
How data analysts and data scientists re-shape the customer experience of selecting insurance (10:36)
How roles and titles like "head of data" are changing the industry (24:32)
Organizing a company with structured embedding (27:28)
Policygenius' data stack (31:31)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

25: MLOps and Feature Stores with Willem Pienaar from Tecton Feb 17, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas is joined by Willem Pienaar, tech lead at Tecton to discuss machine learning, features and feature stores.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Willem Pienaar's background in South Africa and southeast Asia and from Goject to Tecton (1:58)
Tecton was founded by the builders of Uber's Michaelangelo (6:37)
Defining features and their life cycles (10:05)
Comparing a feature store to a database (16:40)
Data architecture in a feature store (26:16)
How feature stores evolve as a company expands (30:12)
Main touchpoints between the feature and the data infrastructure (37:59)
How Tecton manages productizing complex architectures (41:44)
How Feast and Tecton work together (45:12)
Tecton impressing VCs and preparing for a competitive, emerging market (48:14)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

24: Demystifying AI with Duc Haba Feb 10, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Eric is joined by Duc Haba, an AI researcher and enterprise mobility solution architect consultant who most recently did AI consulting work with Cognizant. Their discussion revolves around demystifying artificial intelligence and why so many people either fear AI or place too much trust in it. Duc talks about some of the AI projects he has worked on, some successes and some failures, and points to how the data biases that humans bring into the models can radically alter the outcome of those endeavors.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Duc's background with AI and getting to work with LeVar Burton (1:44)
Demystifying AI and coming up with a definition for it (3:34)
Misplaced fears of AI (7:53)
Misplaced trust in AI (10:36)
Public versus hidden AI (13:58)
Acquiring the data needed for to train AI models (23:11)
Examples of interesting AI projects Duc has worked on (27:58)
Where to go to learn more about AI (35:06)
Thinking of AI as something that can help your business do something better with what it's already been doing (39:53)
Anticipating the near-future of AI (44:16)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

23: Migrating from On-Premises to the Cloud with Alex Lancaster from Intuit Feb 03, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by the risk data engineering manager at Intuit, Alex Lancaster. Alex has been with Intuit, known for its products like QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mint and more, for 15 years and was part of a recent massive and successful re-architecturing from on prem to cloud-based.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Alex and his role at Intuit (1:51)
Data marts at Intuit (2:57)
Revolutionary changes in the data engineering space in the past 15 years (6:46)
Security in the cloud vs. on prem (12:46)
Data architecture at Intuit (15:42)
Doing ETLs inside or outside of the database (19:11)
How to transition successfully from on prem to cloud. Forklifting vs. re-stacking (23:22)
Alex’s application of software engineering skills to data engineering (28:44)
Dealing with data engineering challenges related to security and regulation (31:48)
Pipelines managed and challenges in data types (36:45)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

22: Season One Recap with Eric Dodds and Kostas Pardalis Jan 29, 2021

Season One of The Data Stack Show is in the books, and in this episode, Kostas and Eric take a look back at some of the biggest takeaways, trends, and topics from the season. With some great guests already set for season two, the next slate of episodes is shaping up to take an even deeper dive into the world of data and the people shaping it.

Key points in the conversation include:

Patterns with data warehouses and data lakes (3:38)
Looking back at the people behind the data and their stories (8:12)
Minimizing flaws while remembering that data is built by humans, for humans (11:02)
Using proven technology and making mature solutions (15:20)
Data involves a significant amount of trust (23:38)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

21: Data Integrity and Governance with Patrick Thompson and Ondrej Hrebicek from Iteratively Jan 20, 2021

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by the co-founders of Iteratively, CEO Patrick Thompson and CTO Ondrej Hrebicek. Iteratively helps companies know that their data can be trusted by helping capture clean, consistent product analytics. Today’s conversation digs into the behind the scenes of Iteratively and how trust in data can help accelerate the velocity of an organization.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Patrick and Ondrej’s background and the biggest problem Iteratively addresses (2:50)
Why some companies still use spreadsheet schema management and the potential pitfalls they’re setting themselves up for with this (4:39)
Defining schema in the context of data (7:02)
Viewing the process as a team sport (11:34)
Identifying common mistakes and implementing best practices (13:46)
A walkthrough of Iteratively (17:13)
Utilizing a JSON schema format (26:58)
Laying Iteratively on top of or integrating it with an implementation for analytics (30:36)
Entry point into organizations (33:02)
Organizational change and velocity realized after implementing Iteratively (36:04)
What’s next for Iteratively? (42:47)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

20: Transforming the Real Estate Market with Predictive Analytics with Arian Osman from Homesnap Jan 13, 2021

This week on The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by Arian Osman, a senior data scientist at Homesnap who is also nearing the end of his PhD in computational sciences and informatics and is the developer of an e-commerce clothing brand. Homesnap is designed for both homebuyers and agents to access data from the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), providing real-time, accurate information to all parties involved.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Arian’s background and an overview of Homesnap (2:30)
Utilizing data in Arian’s e-commerce clothing brand (7:14)
Homesnap’s sell speed feature and visualizing outputs (13:28)
The psychology that drives upper and lower limits (19:33)
Deciding the life-cycle of a model (25:50)
Collaborating with internal stakeholders (30:47)
Unique challenges of data in the real estate domain (38:16)
Useful third-party tools (43:33)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

19: Defining Data Governance with Stephen Bailey from Immuta Jan 06, 2021

This week on The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by Stephen Bailey, Director of Applied Data Science at Immuta. Immuta is a startup that focuses on enabling data teams to have really fast, efficient, and understandable access controls on their data.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

The problem that Immuta solves (2:04)
Stephen’s background researching how the brain works (4:56)
Immuta’s stack (15:09)
Leveraging metadata (18:02)
The main use case for Immuta is simplifying the access control layer (20:06)
Unifying data (31:52)
Defining the quality of data (34:04)
Learning to trust the numbers (39:42)
What’s next for Immuta (46:15)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

18: Data Science in Health Insurance with Jason Haupt of Bind Dec 31, 2020

This week on The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by Jason Haupt, data science lead at Bind, a no-deductible health insurance company determined to give immediate answers and clear costs before point of care. Jason’s unique background of having a Ph.D. in particle physics and working at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN have informed the way he goes about approaching data at Bind.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Jason’s background in particle physics and his path to Bind (2:53)
A cloud-only approach to data and utilizing AWS (9:01)
Focusing on activities that help its members (12:08)
Dealing with 12,000 columns of data from an insurance claim form (17:13)
Rethinking the relationship between marketing and product teams (25:28)
Examining the data pipeline (29:30)
Privacy and security concerns with medical information (35:45)
How experience with the LHC impacted the way he thinks about data (40:06)
Transition from academic work to industry (46:20)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

17: Working with Data at Netflix with Ioannis Papapanagiotou Dec 09, 2020

This week on The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by Ioannis Papapanagiotou, senior engineering manager at Netflix. Ioannis oversees Netflix’s data storage platform and its data integration platform. Their conversation highlighted the various responsibilities his lean teams have, utilizing open source technology and incorporating change data capture solutions.

Key points in this week’s episode include:

Ioannis’ background with academia and Netflix (4:42)
Comparing the data storage and data integration teams (6:19)
Discussing indexing and encryption (20:31)
Netflix’s role in the open source community (27:21)
Implementing change data capture (40:42)
Using Bulldozer to efficiently move data in batches from data warehouse tables to key-value stores (42:43)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

16: Applying the Event Sourcing Pattern at Scale with Andrew Elster from Earnnest Dec 03, 2020

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric finish part two of a conversation about Earnnest, a digital platform originally designed for facilitating real estate transactions. In the previous episode, they talked with the CTO and co-founder Daniel Jeffords, and in this week’s episode, they talked with the other co-founder, Andrew Elster, CIO and chief architect. Andrew describes more about Earnnest’s stack and their decision to utilize Elixir and talks about their vision for scaling up their product.

Key topics in the conversation include:

Andrew’s journey from electrical engineering, to avoiding pirates in oceanic oil exploration, to starting Earnnest (2:57)
Keeping the platform flexible to expand beyond real estate transactions (10:24)
Being adaptable to support existing workflows (18:33)
The evolution of the database and implementing event sourcing (25:01)
Using a functional language like Elixir (30:54)
Developing Earnnest with scale in mind (37:33)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

15: Early Stage Analytics and Learning from the Y Combinator Experience with Axel Delafosse from Pool Nov 19, 2020

This week on The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric are joined by Axel Delafosse, founder and CEO of Pool, a messaging app designed to help couples spend less time deciding what to do and spend more time together. Axel shares his story of how he went from having his idea being shot down in person by Paul Graham to being accepted for Y Combinator. While Pool is still a young startup, Axel offers wise insight from lessons he’s learned along the way.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Pool Messenger, “the ultimate antidote to decision paralysis” (2:50)
Pitching to Paul Graham and applying to YC (6:17)
The importance of the co-founder relationship (14:01)
The YC experience and losing Facebook’s API (17:37)
Products die, relationships last (22:05)
Breaking down the data stack (28:50)
Using data and conversations with users to evaluate the experience (36:12)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

14: Breaking Down Electronic Money Transfers and Modernizing Real Estate Transactions with Dan Jeffords of Earnnest Nov 11, 2020

This week on The Data Stack Show, Kostas and Eric chat with Daniel Jeffords, CTO and co-founder of Earnnest, a financial tool for the real estate industry. Earnnest’s digital platform allows buyers to securely and electronically deposit funds directly to an escrow holder and keeps agents, buyers, and escrow holders in the loop with automated emails and tracking information.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Earnnest’s approach to the way payments are handled in an antiquated real estate industry (2:12)
Clearing up the differences in the way money changes hands, ACH, wire, and checks (12:39)
How Earnnest works and who are the involved parties (21:06)
Disrupting a highly regulated industry (24:24)
Emphasizing security and transparency (30:09)
Erlang, Elixir, Dwolla and more. How Earnnest uses data (33:40)
Trying very hard to store very little data (42:58)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

13: Building Open Source Products at Scale with Reza Shafii from Kong Inc. Nov 06, 2020

This week on The Data Stack Show, Reza Shafii, vice president of products at Kong Inc. discusses open source projects and products with Kostas and Eric. Kong is a cloud connectivity company best known for being the creator and primary supporter of Kong, the most widely adopted open-source micro service API gateway.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Being a self-proclaimed middleware geek (2:17)
Middleware explained (5:41)
Kong as a company, open source project, and a brand (10:44)
Drawing the lines between the open source and property parts of a SaaS platform (24:22)
Dealing with the extra friction in adopting middleware from the bottom up (33:02)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

12: Building a CDP on your Data Warehouse with Nicholas Ziech-Lopez of MessageGears Oct 28, 2020

In this episode of The Data Stack Show, hosts Kostas Pardalis and Eric Dodds talk with Nicholas Ziech-Lopez, director of product strategy at MessageGears. MessageGears is designed to reduce data friction for marketers by connecting directly to a brand’s data source and using their live data. This episode centered around the world of CDPs and where MessageGears fits in that space.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Nicholas’ arrival at MessageGears and the company’s background (2:20)
MessageGears data sources (6:52)
Accessing the data warehouses (9:19)
Coordination and crossover of data and marketing roles (20:57)
Being a customer marketing platform (31:43)
Dealing with messy data (36:04)
Bridging the physical and digital world with consumers (43:49)
What’s coming up next for MessageGears (51:09)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

11: Why Modern Cyber Security is a Data Problem with Jack Naglieri of Panther Labs Oct 21, 2020

This week’s episode of The Data Stack Show features a conversation with hosts Kostas Pardalis and Eric Dodds and guest Jack Naglieri, founder and CEO of Panther Labs. Panther, a San Francisco based startup, is an open platform that helps security teams detect and respond to breaches in cloud-native environments, providing a modern alternative to traditional SIEMs.

Highlights from this week’s episode include:

Introduction to Jack and Panther Labs (2:33)
The different pillars of data security (10:24)
Onboarding process for a company using Panther (18:40)
Thinking of security as a data problem (24:55)
Using S3 and other infrastructure suggestions that will be helpful in the long run (32:16)
Use cases for analyzing past and real-time data (39:20)
Panther’s data stack (42:54)
Open source technology being helpful for the community (47:57)
The future for Panther (54:39)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

10: The Evolution of the BI Market with Huy Nguyen of Holistics Oct 14, 2020

In this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas Pardalis and Eric Dodds are joined by CTO and Co-Founder of Holistics, Huy Nguyen. Holistics takes an approach to business intelligence and data analytics that they call DataOps. They focus on data team productivity and company-wide access to insights.

Important points in the conversation included:

Introduction to Huy and Holistics (3:12)
Approaching BI with more than just visualization (8:59)
How friction between different roles within an organization is addressed by Holistics (15:20)
Holistics as a complementary tool (23:25)
Describing their own data stack (34:47)
History of BI and trends for the future (39:33)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

09: Building the Operating System for Work with Ivan Kanevski of Slapdash Oct 07, 2020

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas Pardalis and Eric Dodds are joined by Slapdash co-founder Ivan Kanevski. Slapdash describes itself as the operating system for work. Slapdash emphasizes reducing the time people spend controlling their computer in relation to the time they spend expressing their intent.

Key topics discussed were:

Starting Slapdash and expanding on tools from working at Facebook (3:31)
Being client agnostic and working with the tools that people bring to the job (7:35)
Distinctions between mouse-centric and keyboard-centric users (12:58)
Slapdash’s approach to collecting data (16:08)
Building Slapdash to scale and using Postgres (19:45)
Using a graph model and a focus on efficiency (24:50)
Challenges of reducing latency (29:35)
Opening up Slapdash to be programmable (38:17)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

08: When data alone is not enough - Reinventing book shopping at Bookshop.org with Mason Stewart Sep 30, 2020

In this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas Pardalis and Eric Dodds chat with Mason Stewart, the lead engineer at Bookshop.org. Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. Their hope is to help strengthen the fragile ecosystem and margins around bookselling and keep local bookstores an integral part of our culture and communities.

Among other topics, today’s conversation talked about making what some might call boring decisions with the data stack that are better described as mature decisions and the intertwining of human interaction with data for problem solving and recommendations.

Background on Mason and Bookshop.org (3:28)
Technical challenges of keeping up with a rapidly expanding business (10:00)
Interacting with data from fulfillment partners (14:36)
Data schema for books and dealing with Elasticsearch (24:46)
Human intervention in recognizing problems and exceptions (31:38)
In-depth look at Bookshop’s data stack (37:06)
Using curated lists from bookstores instead of algorithmic recommendations (43:50)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

07: Discussing Data Engineering Best Practices with IFTTT’s Peter Darche Sep 23, 2020

In this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas Pardalis and Eric Dodds connect with IFTTT data scientist Peter Darche. IFTTT is a free platform that helps all your products and services work better together through automated tasks. Their discussion covered a lot of ground involving their data stack, their use cases and clearing up once and for all how to pronounce the company’s name.

Background on IFTTT (2:12)
Peter tells the proper way to pronounce IFTTT (3:34)
An overview of IFTTT’s technological architecture (6:14)
The uses of data and analytics at IFTTT (8:04)
Constructing the data stack (10:11)
Dealing with challenges (15:20)
Best practices for communicating with internal teams about the data (23:04)
Discussing functional data engineering (26:05)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

06: The Technical Challenges and Opportunities of Building a Startup Inside a Large Bank with Sam Bledsoe of Ruby Sep 16, 2020

This week on The Data Stack Show, Kostas Pardalis and Eric Dodds continue their conversation about Ruby, a start-up designed to help families navigate their financial situation in some of life’s most challenging moments, by talking with the Nashville company’s CTO Sam Bledsoe. This follow-up discussion digs into how their data engineering and marketing setups co-exist and how they rely on Azure.

Sam’s background and more info about Ruby (2:11)
Privacy-related challenges at the intersection of banking and medical data (4:33)
What to expect from using Azure (15:06)
Breaking down the stack (24:44)
The need for marketing people with technological skills (36:20)
Talking Big Query, RedShift, Spark and data virtualization (41:15)
Biggest changes anticipated in moving as a spin-off from the bank (43:59)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

05: The Convergence of Data Engineering and Marketing with Nic Discepoli of Ruby Sep 09, 2020

On this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas Pardalis and Eric Dodds are joined by Nic Discepoli for the first of two conversations about Ruby, a startup where he is the customer analytics lead. This Nashville-based company is designed to help families navigate their financial situation in some of life’s most challenging moments, often corresponding with a medical event. Their conversation included topics like:

Launching Ruby and Nic’s involvement in the company (3:35)
Realizing that tracking data manually on spreadsheets was no longer sustainable (7:07)
Rundown of Ruby’s toolset (9:50)
Challenges with data quality (14:27)
Using unique IDs and following UTM parameters through the stack (21:04)
Recalculating customer acquisition cost with data (33:05)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

04: Relational to Real-Time with Change Data Capture with DeVaris Brown of Meroxa Sep 02, 2020

In this episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas Pardalis and Eric Dodds talk change data capture (CDC) with DeVaris Brown, co-founder and CEO of Meroxa. Their conversation digs into the benefits of utilizing CDC and how Meroxa is using it. Highlights from the conversation include:

Introduction to DeVaris and Meroxa (3:24)
Why CDC has more traction today (6:58)
How CDC is changing the way we build products (12:52)
Where CDC is playing an important role (21:11)
The experience that Meroxa delivers (24:42)
Looking at Meroxa’s sources, technology and data stack (27:28)
DeVaris’ vision for the company (37:10)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

03: Turning All Data at Grofers into Live Event Streams Aug 27, 2020

In this week’s episode of The Data Stack Show, Kostas Pardalis connects with Satyam Krishna, a data engineer at Grofers, India’s largest low-price online supermarket. Grofers boasts a network of more than 5,000 partner stores, a user base with three million iOS and Android app downloads, and an efficient supply chain that allow it to deliver more than 25 million products to customers every month.

Satyam offers insights into how he helped build the data engineering function at Grofers, how they developed a robust data stack, how they’re turning production databases into live event streams using Change Data Capture, how Grofers’ internal customers consume data, and the company made adjustments due to the pandemic.

Topics of discussion included:

Satyam moving from a developer to a data engineer (2:43)
Describing Grofers’ data stack and data lake (6:41)
Who is consuming data inside the company and what are some of their common uses specific to Grofers? (12:03)
What are the biggest issues day-to-day as a data engineer? (18:21)
COVID’s impact on business practices and the data stack (21:28)
The big problem of data discoverability and metadata cataloging (27:44)
Completely changing architecture to something that can scale up (33:16)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

02: The Importance of Data During a Global Pandemic with Utkarsh Gupta of 1mg Aug 19, 2020

In this episode, Kostas Pardalis sits down with Utkarsh Gupta, senior engineer of data science at 1mg, India’s largest online healthcare platform.

Together they discussed 1mg’s data infrastructure, its response to the global pandemic and how data drives their product and their business. Highlights from the show included discussions about:

Utkarsh and 1MG’s background (1:32)
1mg being based on a bedrock of data (4:25)
Business analytics (5:33)
Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on business (11:40)
Description of 1mg’s data stack (16:53)
Biggest challenges faced and managing collaboration (27:08)
Opinions on open source technology (40:31)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

01: Discussing Mattermost Data Infrastructure with Alex Dovenmuehle Aug 12, 2020

In this episode, Kostas Pardalis sits down with Alex Dovenmuehle, head of data engineering for Mattermost, an open-source self-hosted communication tool that optimizes dev workflows in highly secure environments. Kostas and Alex discuss:

Alex's background and experience (2:29)
Data stack Mattermost is using (9:25)
How Mattermost built their Data Stack (21:05)
Using data to understand the story of the customer's journey (24:58)
Focus on privacy and security (26:33)
Practical ways Mattermost is using data (37:14)
What's next for data analytics at Mattermost and wrap up (42:45)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

00: Welcome to the Data Stack Show Jul 31, 2020

Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data

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