As I travel this Fall, I'm reminded that most people don't work at fancy tech companies. Most people work at traditional companies with "boring" data and tech stacks. And that's OK. Boring is good.

Jordan Morrow has written a ton, including four books. We chat about the process of writing books, the ins and outs of working with a publisher, the role of AI in writing, and much more. If you're interested in writing a book, this is a crash course in what you should know. Enjoy!

Venkat Subramaniam is a programmer, author, speaker, and founder of Agile Developer, Inc. I've seen him speak several times, and was always blown away by his passion and technical depth. So, I was excited to have him on the podcast. We chat about agile development in the real world, learning to do less, and much more. Venkat is extremely wise, and …

Uncle Rico is a character in the movie Napoleon Dynamite, who is stuck in the past, reminiscing about his days as a high school football star. If only he'd won the game and went to the state championship. Some of the data industry reminds me of Uncle Rico. During a recent panel, there was a question about whether AI can help with data management (g…

Paco Nathan is a national treasure. He's not only an OG in the field of AI, but he's also instrumental in early hacker and cyberpunk culture. When I first met Paco, it suddenly clicked that I'd seen his name in various cyberpunk and alternative zines back in the 1990s. We have a chat all sorts of crazy stuff, and I feel like we only got to 5% of th…

Bethany Lyons and I chat about disrupting the recruitment industry, startups, and the future of work.

Last week I talked about how good you have to be at your job. Yesterday's OpenAI announcement of it's "reasoning" model, o1, got me thinking about how good AI needs to be to do our jobs.

Ergest Xheblati is a data architect and author of Minimum Viable SQL Patterns. We chat about the opportunities and challenges of SQL, things that don't change in tech and data, writing and publishing books, and much more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ergestx/ Other links: https://www.ergestx.com/links/…

Dylan Anderson is a UK-based data strategist. We chat about bridging the gap between data and strategy, why talking about business value is a waste of time, and much more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylansjanderson/ Substack: https://thedataecosystem.substack.com/

While speaking to one of my best friends, who's worked as a pilot for over 30 years, he mentioned that a "good" pilot doesn't crash the plane. In tech and data, "good" is viewed differently. How good you have to be at your job?

Jordan Tigani is back to chat about why small data is awesome, data lakehouses, DuckDB, AI, and much more. Motherduck: https://motherduck.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordantigani/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jrdntgn?lang=en

Demetrios Brinkmann is the co-founder of the massively global MLOps Community. We chat about AI hype vs reality, building a global tech community, and ROI of AI projects, and much more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpbrinkm/ MLOps Community: https://mlops.community/

"Do you and Zach Wilson hate each other?" I get asked questions like this, and it makes me laugh. We're good friends for the record. Most people play zero sum games, where one person wins and another loses. Questions like this got me thinking about how content creation is a positive sum game. You can consume content from many people, and this benef…

Vinoo Ganesh is an open source enthusiast and contributor, and a data and ML engineer. We chat about strong open source communities, LLMs and AI, and much more.

Lekhana Reddy is a data content creator focusing on mindfulness. We chat about how mindfulness in technology is key, especially given the need to maintain humanity with the rise of AI. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lekhanareddy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/storytellingbydata/

Until recently, Nik Suresh wrote under a mysterious blog that had several viral posts, including the famous "I Will F*cking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again." For the longest time, he was an underground sensation, with nobody (not even his friends) knowing his identity. In this episode, we chat about his blog posts (I'm a huge fan), the realit…

I've been saying for years, most companies are barely doing BI, let alone AI. Last week, I posted about this on LinkedIn and it went viral. Here, I unpack what I mean by that post. The post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7230408663125913600

Rehgan Bleile joins me to chat about the challenges and importance of AI governance and adoption. We also discuss the lack of representation of women in conferences, and efforts to create genuine opportunities for women speakers. AlignAI: getalignai.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rehganavon/ Women in Analytics: https://www.womeninanalyti…

Most people approach their careers via 1:1 - 1 employee: 1 employer, 1 consultant: 1 client, etc. In this rant, I discuss why you should consider 1:many as a way to level up your career and visibility.

Christian Steinart and I chat about data consulting in unsexy and niche industries (like roofing in Christian's case). We go through starting a consultancy, the mental game of running a business, getting leads, and much more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiansteinert96/

I've been head's down finishing my upcoming Data Engineering course on Coursera, and working on the new book. In this episode, I chat about the differences between courses and books, why high quality content matters more than ever in the age of AI, and much more. Enroll in the new DeepLearning.AI Data Engineering Professional Certificate course her…

Chris Bergh joins me to chat about all things DataOps. We also discuss lean, removing waste from data processes and teams, and much more. DataKitchen: https://datakitchen.io/ DataOps Manifesto: https://dataopsmanifesto.org/en/

Hanging out in Berlin right now. Re-read Peopleware (originally released in 1987), and it got me thinking about what hasn't changed in tech and data. Namely, we tend to rush through things in the name of productivity instead of focusing on quality. Will AI help this? Maybe and maybe not.

Lexi Pasi and I chat about symbolic logic in AI, building and managing data science teams, math, and the shapes of ML/AI problems. Lexi is one of my favorites to talk to because she's so left-field yet so effectively reasonable and logical (she does have a PhD in logic...).LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrapasi/…

I've been told that I "say the quiet parts out loud." It might be calling out "data science" and AI as overhyped, or anything else I've ranted about online over the years. In this episode, I unpack what that means and why I do it.

Joseph Machado and I chat about teaching data engineering, trends in data engineering, and the state of data content and influencers. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephmachado1991/ Website: https://www.startdataengineering.com/

Data can be a rough industry. Data professionals often feel alone and in need of someone to talk to. I've been hosting "data therapy" sessions for the last couple months. Here are my thoughts on them, and why I think they're critical to helping professionals feel heard and learn from others. Join here: https://practicaldatamodeling.substack.com/…

Paco Nathan and I chat about early chatbots, and all things AI, especially since the 1980s. We also riff on how we intersected in the early days of the Internet. Paco is one of my faves, so expect him back for another interview soon. X: https://twitter.com/pacoid LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ceteri/…

Shachar Meir joins me for a chat about the three missing ingredients in data, going out on your own, the state of the data industry, and much more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shacharmeir/

Matthew Mullins joins me to chat about a recent "get off my lawn" post along the lines that a lot of things we're trying to reinvent in data have already been done, and we're generally overcomplicating the hell out of things. I agree with him. In this episode, we rant about a few of the topics in his post. The post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/up…

Lindsay Murphy joins me to chat about whether companies are ready for AI in their data and analytics workflows. The verdict - listen and find out more :) Lindsay's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaymurphy4/

It's not enough to know or peddle one data modeling technique these days. That's like fighting in the UFC knowing only thumb-wrestling. The world is very complicated with respect to data. To be a data practitioner, you need to be awesome in not just one, but MANY data modeling techniques. This is what I call Mixed Model Arts, which will be discusse…

What's up with Finland and data? I think Finland might have among the strongest contingencies of data practitioners in the world. Pound for pound, Finland might rule the planet for data competencies. I chat with the The Finnish Data Mafia, jokingly my friends who are responsible for the upcoming Helskini Data Week.…

Just wrapped up a course with Sol Rashidi on transitioning your career from practitioner to leader. The notion of "success" kept recurring, so I spend this podcast unpacking it. What is success and why should you figure out what it means for you?

This wasn't the interview I expected to do. I thought I'd interview Nick Freund about his startup, Workstream. Between the time we scheduled our podcast and when we hit the record button, he shut down his company. That's a pretty major shift, to say the least. What's it like to shut down a company? Nick discusses the various pivots of his startup, …

I've had plenty of discussions over the last couple of weeks about data teams - what are they, and how do I measure their success? I dive into a distinction I make about data teams - enterprise vs product - and some key ways to gauge them.

Doug Needham is an OG DBA and data architect who built DataOps workflows back in Desert Storm (!) and has managed to stay very current with data to today. We talk about data architecture war stories, the hard work to do generative AI in the enterprise, and much more. Enjoy!

Some things happened over the last day that I need to call out. Women and other underrepresented groups need to be treated better in tech and data. Whether it's all-male panels at conferences or mansplaining on social media, I'm pretty embarrassed and irritated by how women are treated in our industry. My message for this episode - stop being a d*c…

Juha Korpela is a world-renowned expert in conceptual data modeling. He joins me to discuss the power of conceptual data modeling, why the data modeling world is broken today, data products, and much more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkorpela/

In this episode, I talk about why history matters for technology professionals. When you understand the history of technology, techniques, and approaches, you have the context to understand where they fit into your situation. Ignore history at your peril.

On a panel this week, we discussed the topic of career progressions. It got me thinking about the various ways people navigate their careers. Here's my advice if you're trying to move up the corporate ladder, frustrated in your current role, or want to jump ship and do your own thing.

Yulia Pavlova (Director of Technical Innovation at Thomson Reuters) joins me to chat about the role of AI in disinformation/misinformation in the media, communicating complex topics to nontechnical people, and much more. I personally consider the current state of the media as one of the central challenges today, and I learned a lot chatting with Yu…

Is data modeling a waste of time? I meet a number of people who say it is. In this episode, I dissect some of the arguments against data modeling, and give reasons why it matters more than ever today.

Safiyy Momen and I chat about the good and bad of the Modern Data Stack, controlling cloud costs, boring engineering, and much more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/safiyy-momen/

Gordon Wong and I chat about why most data teams aren't that valuable, and ways data teams can deliver more value.

Just got off the plane from Spain, and I'm quite jet lagged. Nonetheless, here's your Friday rant. In this episode, I chat about an experience I had with someone telling me Python is a slow language. If you can't tell, I think programming language wars are dumb, and I give some reasons why.

Roman Yampolskiy is an AI safety researcher who's deeply concerned with the dangers of General Super Intelligence. We chat about why he doesn't think humanity has much time left, and what we can do about it. Twitter: https://twitter.com/romanyam?lang=en

I'm sitting in the Amsterdam Airport (Schipol) and wrote some of my book on the flight over to Europe. In this episode, I'll talk briefly about my book writing process, and how it differs today from when I wrote Fundamentals of Data Engineering.

Jarod Santo and Adam Stacoviak from The Changelog join me for 1.5 hours of free-flowing chats about planned obscelescene, old school vs new school consumer tech, the XZ Backdoor incident, the job market doldrums (plus tips for finding work and starting a biz), and being unemployable. Jarod and Adam are two of my favorite people to talk with, since …

In today's Practical Data Modeling group discussion, we chatted about how to get buy-in for data modeling. The question was intentionally vague, because context is key. I give some thoughts on this topic, and how you can generalize this to most situations where you need to get buy-in. Practical Data Modeling: https://practicaldatamodeling.substack.…