Intro

In this season premiere of The Data Chief podcast, your host Cindi Howson sits down with three industry visionaries to explore the trends, predictions, and must-take actions for data leaders in 2025. Get ready for a deep dive into: 

• The generative AI revolution with Matt Turck, Partner at FirstMark Capital
• The future of data science and genAI with Steve Nouri, Founder of GenAI Works and AI for Diversity
• Data Engineering in the Age of AI with Joe Reis, author of "Fundamentals of Data Engineering" and the upcoming "Mixed Model Arts."

Plus: Hear their fun predictions for everything from sports to space travel!

Key Moments:

• The generative AI revolution: Matt Turck, Partner at FirstMark Capital shares his insights on the evolving AI landscape, the rise of unstructured data, and why now is the time for enterprises to embrace AI. (1:40) 
• The Future of Data Science: Steve Nouri, Founder of GenAI Works (an 8-million-strong community!) and AI for Diversity, discusses the impact of GenAI on data science roles, the ethical considerations of AI, and exciting trends like embodied AI and agentic AI. (29:36) 
• Data Engineering in the Age of AI: Joe Reis, author of "Fundamentals of Data Engineering" and the upcoming "Mixed Model Arts," provides his expert perspective on the importance of data modeling, the need for upskilling in data teams, and the potential for a universal semantic layer. (1:00:00) 

Key Quotes:

• “I would predict that there's going to be a number of big acquisitions in our general space in 2025. This whole tension between the public markets doing very well, especially in tech, but the private markets still recovering - I think lends itself well to a wave of consolidation.”  - Matt Turck
• “Anything that requires democratization, I'm a big fan of. And certainly, the ability to query natural language databases and all things, making that available to everyone is a very powerful idea. You guys at ThoughtSpot know this better than anyone.” - Matt Turck
• “We are seeing people doing less coding, more relying on their co-pilots. It's going to evolve to become more and more robust. So we will be relying more on AI to do the coding.” - Steve Nouri
• “Well, that's what, you know, the tagline is, AI will do everything for you. It'll even do your laundry, the jobs that we don't like. And so you're actually saying you see a future where that actually is not too far off.” - Steve Nouri
• “I think that there's definitely a FOMO and a bit of a prisoner's dilemma problem with adopting AI in the organization because they're getting a lot of pressure from the top down, especially to do AI. Understanding what that means to your organization should be table stakes.” - Joe Reis
• “Learning never stops, investment never stops. And the best investment you can make is always improving yourself, no matter what that looks like.” Joe Reis

Mentions:

• FirstMark MAD Landscape 2024
• The MAD Podcast with Matt Turck
• AI4Diversity
• GenAI.Works
• Fundamentals of Data Engineering
• Joe Reis Substack 

Guest Bios:

Matt Turck is a Partner at FirstMark, where he focuses primarily on early-stage enterprise investing in the US and Europe. Matt is particularly active in the data, machine learning and AI space. For the last 10+ years, he has been organizing Data Driven NYC, the largest data/AI community in the US, and publishing the MAD Landscape, an annual analysis of the data/AI industry. He also hosts the weekly MAD (ML, AI, Data) Podcast. He can be followed on X/Twitter at @mattturck.

Steve Nouri is the CEO and Co-founder of GenAI Works, the largest AI community. He is a renowned AI leader and Australia's ICT Professional of the Year, has revolutionized AI perspectives while championing Responsible and inclusive AI, founding a global non-profit initiative.

Joe Reis, a "recovering data scientist" with 20 years in the data industry, is the co-author of the best-selling O'Reilly book, "Fundamentals of Data Engineering." He’s also the instructor for the wildly popular Data Engineering Professional Certificate on Coursera, in partnership with DeepLearning.ai and AWS.

Joe’s extensive experience encompasses data engineering, data architecture, machine learning, and more. He regularly keynotes major data conferences globally, advises and invests in innovative data product companies, writes at Practical Data Modeling and his personal blog, and hosts the popular data podcasts "The Monday Morning Data Chat" and "The Joe Reis Show." In his free time, Joe is dedicated to writing new books and articles, and thinking of ways to advance the data industry.

Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.