We’re living through a technology revolution that is transforming the data landscape.
A tightening job market. A tsunami of mergers and acquisitions. Open source license updates. New tools launching daily.
This pace of change can inspire fear and uncertainty. It’s hard to locate truth in a sea of logo landscapes, launch videos, and LinkedIn posts.
One of my long-held maxims in data is that if you want truth, get as close to the source as possible. I rarely trust a data set that's been ultra-processed.
The same goes for new technology; the best source isn’t the VCs or the growth marketers, it’s the builders. The ones who committed the first lines of code.
Builders like Hannes Muhleisen of DuckDB, Guillermo Rauch of Vercel, Ryan Blue of Iceberg, Alexey Milovidov of ClickHouse, Erik Bernhardsson of Modal, Lloyd Tabb of Looker, now Malloy.
They are remaking the world of data with their technologies, riding the waves of ever-smarter-agents, hyperscaling clouds, accelerating GPUs, and code-first workflows that leave others unsettled. As important as knowing what they’ve built is understanding why they decided to build it.
My aim for this podcast is simple: elevate the voices of builders and let their stories guide us through this time of rapid change.
Data people love communities because it’s a way to help each other out. Slack groups, Discord channels, Reddit subs, and real-life Meetups are where data geeks congregate and share hard-earned lessons about tools, code, and culture.
Sharing these conversations is one way I can give back to a data community that has been so generous to me over the years. Beyond doing recorded interviews, I’m also excited for continuing our Data Talks on the Rocks live events where we gather in person.
Beyond the tech talk, this forum is an opportunity to emphasize what shouldn’t be lost, yet: our human stories, the kind you might tell at a post-conference happy hour. Hannes once lived on a boat with a duck (hence DuckDB). Joe Reis loves to go climbing (or "bouldering") around the globe. Erik Bernhardsson has never owned a car.
I’ve been working with and around data people for decades. I moved from Boston to San Francisco in 2008, back when cloud computing, “Big Data”, and data science were ascendant. Lacking a data community to join, I created a few of my own: the first R Meetup in San Francisco, a listserv known as the Data Drinking Group, and an angel investor group that became Data Collective (now DCVC). While CTO at a startup named Metamarkets, I hosted regular data salons in our SoMa offices.
For me, Data Talks on the Rocks is my next chapter after years of gathering communities and fostering conversations with builders.
I look forward to sharing our next story with you.
