The Data Stack Show – Details, episodes & analysis

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

• False Hope in Data Roles (1:17)
• Naivety of Junior Data Analysts (4:27)
• The Challenge of Defining Data (6:41)
• Struggles with Enterprise BI Tools (9:43)
• Career Advice for Data Professionals (12:36)
• Generational Shifts in Data Roles (16:51)
• Self-Service Data Requests (18:17)
• The Importance of Analysis Skills (19:46)
• The Broader Context of Analysis (21:44)
• Boring Challenges in AI Deployment (23:29)
• Technology Development vs. Human Absorption (26:14)
• VC Resolutions for 2025 (27:00)
• Value Addition in Leadership (32:08)
• Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up (33:06)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

• Brian’s Background and Journey in Data and Marketing (0:56)
• AI and Data Strategy (2:12)
• Experience at DreamWorks Animation (3:15)
• Marketing Timeline for Movies (5:18)
• Data-Driven Decisions at Expedia (9:04)
• Advising High-Growth Companies (14:59)
• LinkedIn Connections and Networking (17:57)
• Tension Between Marketing and Data Teams (19:59)
• Technology Spending in Marketing (22:07)
• Advice for Tech Leaders Facing Brand Marketers (25:50)
• Frequency of Replatforming (30:11)
• Understanding Data Accessibility (33:58)
• Data as a Product (00:37:58)
• Overhyped AI Applications (39:00)
• Underutilized AI Opportunities (00:41:51)
• AI's ROI Challenges (47:01)
• Effective AI Support Systems (52:33)
• Potential Ventures to Pursue Outside of Data (56:04)
• Final Thoughts and Takeaways (1:00:11)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Rishabh Bhargava of refuel.

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

• Viren’s background in data (0:39)
• Evolution of Orchestration (1:52)
• AI Orchestration (3:00)
• Understanding Conductor and orkes (6:26)
• Event-Driven Orchestration (8:10)
• Viren’s Transition to Founder (12:27)
• Non-Technical Aspects of Being a Founder (15:50)
• Democratizing AI for Developers (18:16)
• The evolution of microservices orchestration (21:56)
• Challenges in appealing to the 99% developer group (24:32)
• Value of orchestration for developers (30:31)
• Role of orchestrators in managing faults (37:37)
• The intersection of AI and orchestration (40:27)
• Evolution of AI (44:04)
• Thriving in AI Environment (47:58)
• Final thoughts and takeaways (51:25)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Viren Baraiya of orkes.io.

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

• Introduction of the panel (0:05)
• Defining composable data stack (5:22)
• Components of a composable data stack (7:49)
• Challenges and incentives for composable components (10:37)
• Specialization and modularity in data workloads (13:05)
• Organic evolution of composable systems (17:50)
• Efficiency and common layers in data management systems (22:09)
• The IR and Data Computation (23:00)
• Components of the Storage Layer (26:16)
• Decoupling Language and Execution (29:42)
• Apache Calcite and Modular Frontend (36:46)
• Data Types and Coercion (39:27)
• Describing Data Sets and Schema (42:00)
• Open Standards and Frontiers (46:22)
• Challenges of standardizing APIs (48:15)
• Trade-offs in building composable systems (54:04)
• Evolution of data system composability (56:32)
• Exciting new projects in data systems (1:01:57)
• Final thoughts and takeaways (1:17:25)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming discussion with a panel of experts as Wes McKinney (Co-Founder, Voltron), Pedro Pedreira Software Engineer, Meta), Chris Riccomini (Seed Investor, various startups), and Ryan Blue (Co-Founder and CEO, Tabular) join the show.

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

• Artyom’s background in the data space (0:32)
• The growth and changes at Cube (5:58)
• Pain points of managing metrics definitions across different tools (9:39)
• Trade-offs between coupled and decoupled semantic layers (12:12)
• Making a case for implementing a semantic layer (14:17)
• The evolution of semantic layers (23:28)
• Challenges in designing a decoupled semantic layer (24:16)
• Different approaches to solving the interface problem (26:58)
• Implementing a SQL engine in Cube (35:58)
• Overhead and debugging in semantic layers (39:08)
• The semantic layer and its importance (46:26)
• The need for semantics in data products (47:34)
• What’s the future of semantic layers and user experience? (51:49)
• Final thoughts and takeaways (57:34)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Artyom Keydunov of Cube Dev.