The Joe Reis Show - podcast cover

The Joe Reis Show

The official podcast of tech/data nerd and "recovering data scientist" Joe Reis. He provides refreshingly candid thoughts on the world of technology and data. Each week, he broadcasts from somewhere in the world, sometimes ranting solo or with the smartest people in the business.

Episodes

Beers and Data with Friends in Helsinki, Finland

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.

Nov 12, 202452 min

5 Minute Friday - The Quality Paradox

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.substack.com/ 🤓 My SubStack: https://joereis.substack.com/

Nov 08, 202411 min

5 Minute Friday - Asking Good Questions at Conferences

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 Engineering Certificate: https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/data-engineering 🔥Practical Data Modeling: https://practicaldatamodeli...

Nov 01, 202413 min

Wes McKinney

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

Oct 30, 202459 min

5 Minute Friday - Is AI a Hail Mary for Tech Debt?

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 see why not... My works: 📕Fundamentals of Data Engineering: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-data/9781098108298/ 🎥 Deeplearning.a...

Oct 25, 20248 min

Anne-Claire Baschet and Yoann Benoit - The Data Death Cycle

Anne-Claire Baschet and Yoann Benoit recently wrote a wonderful article called The Data Death Cycle, which describes the feedback loop of doom that many data teams find themselves in. Here, we discuss the Data Death Cycle in detail. Article: https://medium.com/craftingdataproducts/the-data-death-cycle-6b10ef261d8e

Oct 24, 202414 min

Larry Burns - Reimagining How Data Teams Can Add Value

Larry Burns and I chat about all things data teams—how they fail, their challenges, and how they can add value. To add value, we need to reimagine not only how we think about data but also how we manage knowledge. Larry brings a fresh and battle-worn perspective to the data field, and if you work on or manage a data team, this conversation is worth a listen. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larryburnsdba/

Oct 23, 20241 hr 1 min

5 Minute Friday - Speaking at Conferences

This week I posted about how some major conferences charge a bunch of money for tickets and sponsorship, but don't pay speakers. As a speaker, I find this unethical and exploitative. Here, I unpack my thoughts on speaking at conferences. If you're a speaker, or want to become one, this is worth your time to listen. My post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josephreis_this-morning-i-had-to-decline-a-speaking-activity-7252331326287011841-NPG6

Oct 18, 20249 min

Vijay Yadav - GenAI-Ready Data

Vijay Yadav (Director of Data Science at Merck) joins me to chat about a very interesting project he launched at Merck involving LLMs in production. A big part of this discussion is how to make data ready for generative AI. This is a great example of an LLM-native use case in production, which are rare right now. Lots to learn from here. Enjoy! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay-yadav-ds/

Oct 16, 20241 hr 4 min

5 Minute Friday - Playing Not to Lose

In my newsletter last week , I wrote "Data’s still a mess. Most data initiatives fail. Data teams are seen as a cost center and not getting the support they deserve. Same as it ever was." Here, I unpack those four sentences. Data teams need to stop stop playing to not lose. Instead, they need to play to win!

Oct 11, 202412 min

Navnit Shukla - Data Wrangling and Architecting Solutions on AWS, Writing Books, and More

Navnit Shukla is a solutions architect with AWS. He joins me to chat about data wrangling and architecting solutions on AWS, writing books, and much more. Navnit is also in the Coursera Data Engineering Specialization, dropping knowledge on data engineering on AWS. Check it out! Data Wrangling on AWS: https://www.amazon.com/Data-Wrangling-AWS-organize-analysis/dp/1801810907 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navnitshukla/...

Oct 09, 202457 min

5 Minute Friday - Field Notes, Early Fall 2024 Edition

I've spent the last three weeks visiting the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Here are my observations and anecdotes about the data and ML/AI industry from countless chats with executives, practitioners, and pundits.

Oct 04, 202410 min

Ilya Reznik - How to Lead New and Existing ML Teams and More

Ilya Reznik has been in the ML game for ages, having worked at Adobe and Twitter and led teams at Meta, among others. We chat about leading ML teams, AI today, creating content, and much more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ibreznik/

Oct 01, 20241 hr 3 min

5 Minute Friday - Boring is Good

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.

Sep 27, 20246 min

Jordan Morrow - How to Write Amazing Books

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!

Sep 26, 202437 min

Venkat Subramaniam - Moving Beyond Agile as a Buzzword, Learning to do Less, and more

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 I very much enjoyed our discussion. Enjoy! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vsubramaniam Twitter: https://x.com/venkat_s...

Sep 24, 202458 min

5 Minute Friday - Uncle Rico

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 (governance, modeling, etc). Some people were quick to dismiss this, saying that machines are no substitute for humans in their understanding and transl...

Sep 20, 20246 min

Paco Nathan - Hacker Culture, Cyberpunk, AI, and More

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 the stories..

Sep 19, 20241 hr 13 min

Ergest Xheblati - Things That Don't Change

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/

Sep 12, 20241 hr 14 min

Dylan Anderson - Bridging the Gap Between Data and Strategy

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/

Sep 10, 20241 hr

5 Minute Friday - How Good Do You Have To Be At Your Job?

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?

Sep 06, 20249 min

Jordan Tigani - Why Small Data is Awesome, DuckDB, and More

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

Sep 05, 202454 min

5 Minute Friday - Zero-Sum vs Positive Sum Games

"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 benefits everyone. Here, I unpack the differences of zero sum and positive sum games.

Aug 30, 20247 min

Vinoo Ganesh - Strong Open Source Communities

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.

Aug 28, 202457 min

Lekhana Reddy - Building Technology Mindfully

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/

Aug 27, 202450 min

Nik Suresh Will F*cking Piledrive You If You Say AI Again

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 realities of data science and data engineering, and much more. This is a very candid and fun chat where I'm actually the fanboy, so enjoy! Blog: https://lud...

Aug 24, 20241 hr 5 min
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