The Sequel Show

What you should do when you mess up your data w/ Benn Stancil, Founder & CAO @ Mode

allie@getcensus.com (Benn Stancil) — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 17:00:00 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

Confidence intervals and precision needs vs wants
The Spam bot problem and issuing corrections
Shipping to vision vs shipping to need (and knowing when to say no)
Market-based economy for data asks
The Microsoft SQL servers con
Analytics-driven change rather than product team-driven change

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather to sharpen their skills.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

The value of investing in your data w/ Cyril Marques, Founder & CEO @ Montreal Analytics

allie@getcensus.com (Cyril Marques) — Thu, 6 Oct 2022 21:00:00 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

His background and path to founding Montreal Analytics
The importance of investing in your data
Why clients trust Cyril and his team
How Montreal Analytics leads organizations in the right direction
Learning through trial and error
Whether a shared data stack is the best path forward

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather to sharpen their skills.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

The role of efficiency, automation, & collaboration in the modern sales era w/ Peter Kazanjy, Co-founder & CRO of Atrium

allie@getcensus.com (Peter Kazanjy) — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 21:00:00 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

The right amount of precision in different scenarios
What modern sales is (and what you need to be successful)
Why salespeople are crucial to your customers
Using automation to inform sales behavior
The trick for identifying talent before you have the data and track record
The importance of pipeline hygiene versus “being good at sales”
Remote work vs clustered work

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather to sharpen their skills.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

Getting to the “science” in data science w/ Sarah Krasnik, data consultant & advisor

allie@getcensus.com (Sarah Krasnik) — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 22:00:00 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

How Sarah got into the world of data
Data modeling vs data building (and depth vs variety)
The organizational pieces that need to fall in place before you get to the science in data science
How experience in sales helps with technical product translation
Why Sarah started writing (and what she gets out of it)
UI power features and their feasibility
The code vs no-code debate

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather to sharpen their skills.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

Tipping points: How individual decisions make big impacts in data careers & data teams w/ Emily Hawkins, data engineering manager @ Drizly (LIVE @ Summer Community Days)

allie@getcensus.com (Emily Hawkins) — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:00:00 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

Emily’s background, her journey to data, and what she does at Drizly
Answers to your burning questions, like: What type of alcohol is the most popular?
How Emily moved up the data ranks from engineer to manager
Value of optimizing old vs building new
The evolution of data sharing throughout Emily’s career
How data engineers and data analysts differ at Drizly

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather to sharpen their skills.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

How an understanding of human psychology can create an impactful data story w/ Jessica Zhang, data scientist @ Notion

allie@getcensus.com (Jessica Zhang) — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 21:00:00 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

Jessica’s early career in banking
Differences between data across different types of companies
How data roles differ from consumer banking to investment banking
The importance of statistical rigor and running experiments
The art of persuasion and corporate psychology in data
How to improve interconnectivity between departments
What B2B SaaS companies can learn from B2C companies
Striking the right balance in data

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather to sharpen their skills.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

Building a culture that prioritizes learning opportunities w/ Scott Breitenother, founder and CEO of Brooklyn Data Co.

allie@getcensus.com (Scott Breitenother) — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 23:00:00 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

Scott’s journey to becoming “unhireable”
Why management consulting is so intense
Why you need tool conventions
The risk of analysis paralysis
The value of career learning vs salaries
To what degree trust is earned through work and wisdom rather than title or name
Empowering others through data

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather to sharpen their skills.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

Building a better future for interviewing and evaluating technical talent w/ David Corea, senior analytics manager at CoderPad

allie@getcensus.com (David Corea) — Fri, 27 May 2022 17:44:41 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

How CoderPad approaches technical interviewing for their data team
What makes running technical interviews at most organizations so difficult
How we, as interviewers, can do a better job at helping candidates see we’re on the same side
What analytics teams should track during their hiring process
How to build KPIs that reflect your rate of learning in your organization
The five “whys” (and how to ask them)

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather to sharpen their skills.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens.

How community supports, inspires & pushes the data industry to learn faster w/ Tristan Handy, founder and CEO of dbt Labs

allie@getcensus.com (Tristan Handy) — Thu, 12 May 2022 21:57:02 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

The history of dbt Labs (and the dbt community)
How community became an opportunity for the dbt Labs team to transfer their internal culture and values outward (and how they did so)
The original vision and purpose behind the dbt community (and how it’s matured)
How community helps data practitioners glean second-hand gold from software engineering (and what this means for functional engineering)
How real time is real time enough?
How to help engineers better conceptualize the world of modern data
The bull and bear cases for the semantic layer
If data and analytics will develop into a singular-language world

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens.

How to choose what goals, metrics, and systems to obsess over with Barr Moses, Co-founder & CEO of Monte Carlo Data

allie@getcensus.com (Barr Moses) — Mon, 4 Apr 2022 22:07:09 +0000

Some of our topic highlights include:

The history and background of Monte Carlo
Why the planning process is so important for data teams
How to set (and crush) a data goal
The difference between being obsessed with systems and being obsesses with goals
How data teams waste time
How often data downtime and data issues are tied to a lack of knowledge transfer and process within an org
How we can continue to improve the corporate culture around data

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Want to discuss the best practices we covered in this episode? Come hang out in The Operational Analytics Club, where all your favorite data leaders gather.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens.

Growing a meaningful data career ft. Jessica Cherny, senior data analyst at Ironclad

allie@getcensus.com (Jessica Cherny) — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 22:59:04 +0000

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens.

What it means to work with a "keeping the lights on" perspective in data ft. Egor Gryaznov, co-founder and CTO of Bigeye

allie@getcensus.com (Egor Gryaznov) — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 21:37:19 +0000

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens.

Scaling reliable data (and human) pipelines ft. Marc Stone, head of analytics at ClickUp

allie@getcensus.com (Marc Stone) — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 08:00:00 +0000

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode over on Twitter @borisjabes.

Know someone that you think would be an awesome guest on The Show (hint: you can totally nominate yourself)? Reach out to our content and community team.

Resources:

Music by the talented Joe Stevens.

What data teams can learn from finance ft. Jeremiah Lowin, CEO of Prefect

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 23:59:59 +0000

Before we get into the episode notes, I want to take a beat to thank all of you for supporting the Show over the last year. It's been amazing watching it go from a fun way to connect with some of my favorite folks in data to a full, polished podcast (featuring even more awesome people). We couldn't do it without you and I'm looking forward to giving the best and brightest of our industry the stage in the coming year.

To kick things off with season 2, we have a great episode with Jeremiah Lowin, founder and CEO of dataflow automation tool Prefect. In this 1-hour, 7-minute episode, Jeremiah and I dive into the lessons that the wider data industry can learn from the experts in data finance. Some of the major points include:

How he got his start in data finance
The difference in reporting in terms of uncertainty vs outcomes
The case for hearing/focusing on problems vs solutions
Building non-political organizational culture
Non-managerial growth in data careers

As always, let me know what you think of the newest episode over on Twitter at @borisjabes.

Resources:

Prefect’s Website: https://www.prefect.io/

Find Jeremiah on Twitter:https://twitter.com/jlowin

Find Jeremiah on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlowin/

Prefect’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prefect/

Prefect’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/PrefectIO

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

Know someone you think would make an awesome guest on the podcast (you can totally nominate yourself, too)? Send your suggestions to our content and community team.

Lessons in building and scaling data teams w/ Erik Bernhardsson, former CTO of Better.com

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Wed, 8 Dec 2021 16:50:31 +0000

In today’s episode, I talk with Erik Bernhardsson, the former CTO at Better.com and early engineering manager at Spotify. We talked about how to build recommendation systems (including whether you should build them at all). We also covered some best practices on building and scaling data teams, what the essence of music is, and whether data teams should be thought of as an engineering discipline (and what programming languages we should embrace in the data world). We also took a deep dive into how to manage and govern the data team and how to measure the impact.

Also - if you're looking to stay up to date on the best and most colorful data industry commentary between episodes, check out our new newsletter: The Operational Analytics Diggest.

Resources:

Erik’s Website: https://erikbern.com/

Find Erik on Twitter:https://twitter.com/bernhardsson

Find Erik on Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/erikbern/

Erik’s Github: https://github.com/erikbern

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

The importance of the persuasive data team w/ Benn Stancil, chief analytics officer & co-founder @ Mode

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 17:00:00 +0000

In today’s episode, I talk with Benn Stancil, chief analytics officer & co-founder at Mode. Honestly, this might be my favorite episode of the Show to date. We had a hearty discussion about data teams and Benn's perspective as someone who started his career as an analyst with an economics degree. Our conversation turned to more philosophical notes around what makes a data professional persuasive (and why that matters), why being wrong is OK (and sometimes a pivotal part of a successful career), and the function of data teams in organizational decisions.

As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a data-loving friend and let me know your thoughts on our discussion over on Twitter at @borisjabes.

Resources:

Benn‘s Substack: https://benn.substack.com/

Find Benn on Twitter:https://twitter.com/bennstancil

Find Benn on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benn-stancil/

Find Mode on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mode-analytics/

Mode’s site: https://mode.com/

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

Lessons in detecting operational issues and embracing failure as a positive w/ Monte Carlo Co-founder and CTO Lior Gavish

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Fri, 5 Nov 2021 21:39:21 +0000

In today’s episode, I talk with Lior Gavish, the co-founder and CTO of Monte Carlo. We talk about his security background, his previous company Sookasa, and the origin story of Monte Carlo, and much more (including the infamous data mesh). We also get into managing and detecting operational issues, what data managers should learn before installing alarms, and what it means to think with a “failure is a feature, not a bug” mindset. Bonus: If you’ve ever wondered if it’s better to be wrong consistently or randomly by 1%, we talk about that, too.

Resources:

Monte Carlo’s site: https://www.montecarlodata.com/about-us/

Connect with Lior on Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/lgavish/

Find Monte Carlo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/montecarlodata

Find Monte Carlo on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/monte-carlo-data/

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

The evolution of the data industry & data jobs w/ Avo CEO and Co-founder Stefania Olafsdottir

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 16:38:08 +0000

Well, Sequel Show fans, we officially have some amazing theme music. Huge thanks to the talented Joe Stevens for our new theme song that makes all my synth-wave dreams come true.

In today’s episode, I talk with Stefania Olafsdottir, the co-founder and CEO of product analytics platform Avo. We covered an amusing amount of ground--as always in The Sequel Show--from the etymology of cow vs beef to the visualization of weather data. The meat of the show focuses on Stef’s early background as an associate researcher to the accuracy and specificity (or lack thereof) of data role titles today. We dive into the influences of data teams on their companies, how these teams evolve, and the facts, assumptions, and suggested actions these data champions can present. Don’t worry, we also discussed Stef’s experience as the CEO of Avo and took a look at how the company got its start (and her vision for the future of Avo). You don’t want to miss it.

Resources:

Avo’s site: https://www.avo.app/

Connect with Stef on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avohq/

Find Avo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/avohq

Find Avo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avohq/

Music by the talented Joe Stevens: https://www.joestevenssound.com/

Adventures in analytics engineering education and community w/ Claire Carroll, co-founder of analyticsengineers.club

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 23:39:45 +0000

In our latest episode, analytics engineer and community builder extraordinaire Claire Carroll sat down with us to talk about her journey from data analyst to analytics engineer to co-founder of analyticsengineers.club, an educational community for aspiring AEs. We cover a lot of ground, discussing her data-industry origin story, the fundamentals the next generation of AE should have in their toolkit, and the goals of her new training course. More broadly, Claire breaks down the gaps in the current data ecosystem and the difference between being a data consumer and a data creator. It's an episode you're not going to want to miss out on.

As always, let me know what you think over on Twitter at @borisjabes.

History of Snowplow Analytics, data collection mind sets, and what the warehouse as a single entity means for data w/ Alex Dean, CEO and co-founder of Snowplow

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Fri, 2 Jul 2021 22:56:40 +0000

In this live episode with Snowplow CEO and Co-founder Alex Dean, we dive into all things Snowplow and data collection. Alex runs us through the history of Snowplow--how the company was born and how it evolved--as well as what parts of the platform have grown in complexity. We break down what it means to think about events in a mind-frame of abundance vs scarcity, how to adapt to ever-changing regulations around privacy, and data architecture and infrastructure best practices. Alex rounds the discussion out with some advice on how to approach anonymous users over the next five years, and what a world where the warehouse is a single entity means for post-collection data structures.

Let me know what you think over on Twitter at @borisjabes.

Data Orchestration and Config as Code with Nick Shrock, Creator of Dagster

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Fri, 4 Jun 2021 20:12:01 +0000

In this live recording, I'm joined by Nick Schrock, the creator of Dagster.

Data Maturity: When to Switch Processes and Tool Stacks - Operational Analytics Conference 2021

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 01:40:55 +0000

In April 2021, we hosted our first Operational Analytics Conference on Clubhouse. This is the full recording of the first session talking about the next General of Data Tool with this panel

Boris Jabes - Founder & CEO at Census
Christophe Bogaert - head of data platform at Tasman Analytics
Scott Breitenother - Founder of Brooklyn Data Co. (and the first data hire at Casper)
Emily Hawkins - data infrastructure lead at Drizly
Zeeshan Qureshi- tech lead & engineering manager at Shopify

Don't have time to listen to the whole session? you can get the best sound bit on https://blog.getcensus.com/data-maturity-when-to-switch-processes-and-tool-stacks/

Data Product Management - Operational Analytics Conference 2021

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 01:37:27 +0000

In April 2021, we hosted our first Operational Analytics Conference on Clubhouse. This is the full recording of the fith session talking about the next data in product management with the following panel:

Boris Jabes - Founder & CEO at Census
Jeff Feng - a PM at Google
Adam Kinney - principal PM at Mixpanel
James Mayfield - co-founder of Transform
Lauren Reeder - product lead at Segment

Don't have time to listen to the whole session? you can get the best sound bit on https://blog.getcensus.com/data-product-management/

Data Careers: Building and Leading Modern Data Teams - Operational Analytics Conference 2021

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 01:33:30 +0000

In April 2021, we hosted our first Operational Analytics Conference on Clubhouse. This is the full recording of the fourth session talking about the Building and Leading Modern Data Teams next General with the following panel

Rachel Bradley-Haas- Co-founder of Big Time Data
Joey Freund - Data Development Manager at Shopify
Garegin Ordyan- Director of Analytics at Fivetran
Emilie Schario - Senior Engineering Manager at Netlify

Don't have time to listen to the whole session? you can get the best sound bit on https://blog.getcensus.com/data-careers-building-and-leading-modern-data-teams/

Data Disasters: The Untold Stories - Operational Analytics Conference 2021

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 01:29:01 +0000

In April 2021, we hosted our first Operational Analytics Conference on Clubhouse. This is the full recording of the third session talking about the worse data mistakes with the following panel

Julie Beynon - Head of Analytics at Clearbit
Jeff Sloan - Data Product Manager for Treatwell
Olya Tanner, Customer Data Architect here at Census
Brooks Taylor - Lead Data Scientist at Segment
Eric Xiao - Senior Data Platform Engineer at Shopify

Don't have time to listen to the whole session? you can get the best sound bit on https://blog.getcensus.com/data-disasters-the-untold-stories/

How Do You Build a Data-Driven Culture? - Operational Analytics Conference 2021

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 01:22:39 +0000

In April 2021, we hosted our first Operational Analytics Conference on Clubhouse. This is the full recording of the second session talking about the Data-Driven Culture. Our panel is

Michelle Ballen-Griffin - Head of Data and Analytics at Billie
Jeff Ignacio - Head of Growth and Revenue Operations at Upkeep
Sean Lynch - a co-founder here at Census
Praveer Melwani - Head of Business Operations and Finance at ‎Figma
Max Mullen, a co-founder at Instacart
Michael Stoppelman, who led Engineering for Yelp for 12 years. (I said it was star studded!)

Don't have time to listen to the whole session? you can get the best sound bit on https://blog.getcensus.com/how-do-you-build-a-data-driven-culture/

The Next Generation of Data Tool - Operational Analytics Conference 2021

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 01:11:29 +0000

In April 2021, we hosted our first Operational Analytics Conference on Clubhouse. This is the full recording of the first session talking about the next General of Data Tool with this panel

Boris Jabes, - Founder and CEO of Census
Martin Casado- General Partner at a16z
George Fraser - CEO of Fivetran
Jeremiah Lowin - Founder & CEO of Prefect
Barr Moses - Co-Founder and CEO of Monte Carlo

Don't have time to listen to the whole session? you can get the best sound bit on https://blog.getcensus.com/cambrian-explosion-or-consolidation-where-is-data-right-now/

Special Episode Data After Dark 01

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 23:47:49 +0000

In this episode, we talk with TJ; He's the head of data at the largest streaming service “you’ve never heard of.”

Data Engineer or Analytics Engineer. Does it even matter?

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 03:31:40 +0000

In this live recording, I'm joined by

Olya Kudriavtseva - Head of Data @ Wave.tv

Taylor Murphy - Data Lead @ Gitlab/Metlano

Seth Rosen - Co-founder @ Hashpath

James Densmore - Dir of Data Infrastructure @ Hubspot

We ended up talking about the difference between the various data-related engineering jobs.

The show that kicked off the podcast. With Fivetran, dbt & Materialize

allie@getcensus.com (Census) — Sun, 7 Mar 2021 03:42:32 +0000

In this initial episode our guests were:

We discussed why we built our companies, the past, present and future of data warehouses, what data teams will look like in the future and how all of this will affect what we do every day.