I Lost You Right After You Left Academics

As Ben Lorica will readily admit, at the risk of dating himself, he belongs to the first generation of data scientists. In addition to having served as Chief Data Scientist for the likes of Databricks and O'Reilly, Lorica advises and works with a number of venture capitals, startups and enterprises, conducts surveys, and chairs some of the top data and AI events in the world. That gives him a unique vantage point to identify developments in this space.

Having worked in academia teaching applied mathematics and statistics for years, at some point Lorica realized that he wanted his work to have more practical implications. At that point the term "data science" was not yet coined, and Lorica's exit strategy was to become a quant. Fast forwarding to today, Lorica still has friends in the venture capital world.

That includes Intel Capital's Assaf Araki, with whom Lorica co-authored two recent posts on data management and AI trends. We caught up with Lorica to discuss those, as well as new areas for growth and the trouble with unicorns and what to do about it.