My semi-regular co-host and bestie Carly Taylor joins me once again. This time we chat about the true cost of replacing engineers with AI. We explore the implications of mass layoffs, the importance of company culture, and the potential for burnout among tech workers.

It seems like quite a few data practitioners I talk with are miserable. Forced to deliver things ever faster, there's not enough time to THINK. Instead, the pressure is to deliver "stuff" in two-week sprints. In this episode, I rant about why not everything needs to be a sprint, and why we need to treat Deep Work versus Delivery Work differently.…

John Thompson joins me to chat about his upcoming book, The Path to AGI, his book writing process, and much more. John Thompson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkthompson/

Things aren't great in the world of data practitioners. Lots of technical debt and lack of pride in one's craft. The pressure to do more with less only compounds this problem. And AI will make it far worse. If you think the amount of poorly made data architecture and models is bad now, I think we're in for another level very soon. With AI CoPilot o…

Join Eric Broda and me for a fascinating discussion on the cutting edge of AI! We chat about the rapidly evolving world of AI agent ecosystems, exploring their potential to transform industries and reshape the future of work.Eric shares his hard won perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing consultancies in the age of AI, and why he be…

Hugo Bowne-Anderson and I chat about the future of AI and automation, agents, and much more.

Ghalib Suleiman, Kevin Connolly, and I have all run data teams. In this episode, we chat about a bunch of data team "what ifs" - running a data team, hiring and firing, and executive commitments

With AI becoming engrained in nearly every product, there's still a BIG problem - AI and product teams have trouble working together. Whether it's different communication and working styles, or lack of a common language, AI teams stall because they can't align with Product. Anne-Claire Baschet & Yoann Benoit join me to chat about unifying AI and Pr…

David Jayatillake joins me to chat about semantic layers, assessing value in data work, AI, and much more. David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-jayatillake/

In data modeling - and pretty much anything else - do you choose "old school" or "new school"? In other words, do you move slow and methodically or fast?

Evan Wimpey joins me to chat about working as a professional comedian, some Bayesian jokes, and other stuff that happened before ;)

Tony Baer, Matt Housley, and Juan Sequeda and I recap our thoughts on Data Day Texas 2025.

My "twin" Carly Taylor joins me to chat about careers, why Big Tech and Ivy League schools are overrated, and much more. Carly's Substack: https://carlytaylor.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carly-taylor-data/

Remco Broekmans and I chat about data modeling and the business, Data Vault, and using AI to accelerate data modeling.

It's Friday and Eevamaija Virtanen and I are hanging out at Data Day Texas in Austin. In this episode, we chat about her upcoming talk, "Bridge Skills."

Chip Huyen joins me to chat about AI Engineering, AI Agents, and much more.

Jamie Davidson (Chief Product Officer at Omni, Former VP of Product at Looker) joins me to chat about "modern" data modeling, going from a startup to Google and back to a startup, and much more. Omni: https://omni.co/

Burnout is a big topic right now. Carly Taylor and Ghalib Suleiman join me to chat about burnout and ways to deal with it.

Sarah Levy (CEO of Euno) joins me to chat about modern data governance for analytics. Euno - https://euno.ai/

Carsten Bange (Founder & CEO of BARC) joins me to chat about trends in data, analytics, and AI. BARC website: www.barc.com Carsten on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carsten-bange/ BARC Data Culture Summit: https://barc.com/events/data-culture-summit%20/ BARC DATAfestival: https://barc.com/events/data-festival/…

Will AI chatbots replace old school BI dashboards and reports? Or can they co-exist with one another? Will AI help the often poor adoption by the business of dashboards and reporting? I rant about this and more in this latest episode.

Dave Colls and David Tan join me to chat about building effective machine learning teams, the challenges they face, the 7 deadly wastes in data and ML, writing a book, and much more. Get their book here: https://amzn.to/3DS2OMp

It's 2025! We made it! ;) In this podcast, I rant about why data modeling matters more than ever, AI, and why humans will seek out "human" things in 2025 and beyond. ❤️ Your support means a lot. Please like and rate this podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 🤓 My works: 📕Fundamentals of Data Engineering: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/fu…

Simba Khadder (CEO of FeatureForm) joins me to chat about feature stores, reinforcement learning, surfing, and much more.

It's December 31, 2024. Gordon Wong and I wrap up 2024 and chat about what we're excited about in 2025 in data and otherwise. ❤️ If you like my podcasts, please like and rate it on your favorite podcast platform. 🤓 My works: 📕Fundamentals of Data Engineering: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-data/9781098108298/ 🎥 Deeplearning.ai…

Matt Housley and I have a LONG chat about working in consulting, leaving your job, AI, the job market, our thoughts on what's coming in 2025, and much more. ❤️ If you like my podcasts, please like and rate it on your favorite podcast platform. 🤓 My works: 📕Fundamentals of Data Engineering: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-data/9…

The first time I met Amr Awadallah, he struck me as a rare person genuinely curious about the world and how technology and AI impact it. We discuss his early roots as an entrepreneur, the founding of Cloudera and Vectara, the challenges of AI in enterprises, what makes humans unique, and much more.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a young gentleman upgrading my Google Fiber. While he was originally pursuing a career as a software developer, he and his friends decided against it after seeing the progress of ChatGPT over the last couple of years. As a father of two teenage boys, I often think about the nature of work, including …

Tiankai Feng joins me to chat about the people side of data, aligning on the value of data strategy, and much more.

This morning, a great article came across my feed that gave me PTSD, asking if Iceberg is the Hadoop of the Modern Data Stack? In this rant, I bring the discussion back to a central question you should ask with any hot technology - do you need it at all? Do you need a tool built for the top 1% of companies at a sufficient data scale? Or is a spread…

Health insurance denials are a big topic in America right now. Holden Karau joins me to talk about using AI to appeal health claim insurance denials. Fight Health Insurance: https://fighthealthinsurance.com/

I’ve been asked many questions about building a personal brand for the last few weeks. Perhaps it’s the uncertain job market, people wanting to branch out, or something else. I’m unsure what’s in the air right now. In this episode, I share some thoughts on building a personal brand.

Hannes Muhleisen is the creator of DuckDB and CEO of DuckDB Labs. We finally got a chance to meet in person at the Forward Data Conference in Paris. We hit it off immediately, and at times, I felt like I was talking with my long lost brother. Hannes is a very cool guy! While at the conference, we recorded a chat about all things DuckDB, the challen…

Dave and Johnny run Estuary, a data integration company focused on real-time ETL and ELT. We're also friends, so we decided to have a chat. In this episode, we chat about the current state of the data integration space, running a startup while raising kids, and much more. Estuary

Regular guest Gordon Wong joins me for a half hour to chat about tech stacks for analytics, semantic layers, and much more. Gordon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordonhwong/

Bill Inmon is considered the father of the data warehouse. I just got back from spending a couple of days with Bill, and we discussed the history of the data industry and the data warehouse. On my flight back, I realized people could benefit from a short version of our conversation. In this short chat, we discuss what a data warehouse is (and is no…

Valentin Becerra and I chat about DJing, AI, space engineering, and much more.

Multi-tenancy in databases is very difficult to pull off at scale. Gwen Shapira and I chat about multi-tenant databases at Nile (and elsewhere), AI, RAG, and much more.

While at lunch with a friend today, the question came up of whether he should invest his time into content (videos and courses) or consulting. Having run a consultancy (and exiting the consulting game), I quipped that consulting often has a negative net present value. What do I mean? Listen on... Note - I'm trying out a new format where I'll record…

What if the world's metadata were interconnected in a decentralized way? This is part of the vision of Ole Olesen-Bagneux's Meta Grid. We have a chat about what it is, and its implications for the data industry.

We've got so many awesome tools and technology, but I often don't think we know how to properly use them. In this episode, I discuss what I think is one of the biggest problems in the data industry - the skills gap.

Albert and I discuss the do's and don't of finding a job in the data field. Do you do a portfolio project? What's the market like these days? This and more are discussed. Enjoy.

Tanya Bragin and I have a wide-ranging chat about the tension of open source and commercial products, Clickhouse, aligning marketing and product, and how she manages her time.

People often ask me for career advice. In a tough job market where people are sending out thousands of resumes and hearing nothing back, I notice a lot of people have weak networks and are unknown to the companies they're applying to. This results in lots of frustration and disappointment for job seekers. Is there a better way? Yes. People need to …

Chris Riccomini and I chat about building his latest project SlateDB, building data intensive infrastructure, writing, investing, and much more.

In this episode, I have a chat with Antti Rask, Juha Korpella, Niko Korvenlaita, Russell Willis, and Kosti Hokkanen. We chat about data, startups, and business in Finland and Europe.

Let's do things the right way, not just the fast way. My works: 📕Fundamentals of Data Engineering: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-data/9781098108298/ 🎥 Deeplearning.ai Data Engineering Certificate: https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/data-engineering 🔥Practical Data Modeling: https://practicaldatamodeling.substa…

I speak at a lot of conferences, and I've lost track of how many questions I've answered. Since conferences are top of mind for me right now, here are some tips for asking good (and bad) questions of speakers. My works: 📕Fundamentals of Data Engineering: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-data/9781098108298/ 🎥 Deeplearning.ai Data…

Wes McKinney and I chat about Positron, Arrow, how he created Pandas and Arrow, and what makes him tick.

I've seen a TON of horror stories with tech debt and code migrations. It's estimated that 15% to 60% of every dollar in IT spend goes toward tech debt (that's a big range, I know). Regardless, most of this tech debt will not be paid down without a radical change in how we do things. Might AI be the Hail Mary we need to pay down tech debt? I don't s…