E13: The Evolution of Data Science with DJ Patil

Today on the podcast, I interview DJ Patil, an entrepreneur, investor, scientist and leader in public policy. The former (and first) U.S. Chief Data Scientist, DJ wrote the book on being Data Driven (literally: O'Reilly Data Driven) and now puts his knowledge to work as General Partner of Great Point Ventures.

Highlights
00:29 - Intro
[1:50] - A discussion of the “Sexiest Job in History: Data Scientist” HBR article and how data science has changed since that article's publication
[5:00] - As far as we've come with Data Science, there are still problems - DJ shares some of the problems he sees that remain and how the Data Science community helps solve them
[5:43] - We dig into the emergence of the Data Engineer as a key role due to the requirements of usable data for Data Science (cleaning, prepping, etc.)
[9:00] - Data Challenges are culture problems moreso than deployment or process challenges - it's more about how to think in the proper way and get an entire organization on the same page
[10:10] - We discuss some of the difficulties of introducing ideas into the public sphere/government and how to create strategies to overcome them
[14:44] - How the Data Community helped via "crowdsourcing" with the national Covid response
[17:52] - Building off of the Covid response, DJ explains why he's begun to think of Data Scientists as a new kind of First Responder
[19:51] - How do we make use of data in organizations and how do startups compare to enterprises when it comes to making use of data?
[25:33] - Platform/Infrastructure shifts surrounding AI, LLMs, generative AI and how the industry is responding as well as how founders can better collaborate/respond
[27:37] - Quantum Round (Rapid-fire questions)

--

Thank you to everyone who made Data Council 2025 Oakland an incredibly experience! This year's talk videos will be uploaded to YouTube by end of May 2025.

Subscribe to our newsletter to get updates for once they're ready to view!