Ken's Nearest Neighbors

In this episode I give a short update on the podcast, ask for feedback on ways to improve, and talk about the future of KNN and my YouTube channel.

Dylan Beirne is a quant trader and data scientist, most focused on golf. Currently he works with Nellie Analytics, part of SIG, modelling and trading golf. He’s worked on analysis and strategy with the last 2 Ryder Cup European Teams and 2 International Presidents Cup teams, as well as a variety of golfers, from major winners and world #1s to challenge tour players. As it so happens, As it so happens, I was running analytics for the US team in many of those team events, which makes Dylan and I rivals in a way. In this episode, we learn how Dylan transitioned from construction into working in sports analytics, we dive deep into the business of sports gambling and trading, and we share our thoughts on the analytics battle that goes on behind the scenes of the biggest golf events. Follow Dylan Beirne on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dylan__beirne

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Maria Parysz. Maria is the CEO of LogicAI, founder of ElephantAI and the mastermind behind kaggle days. Kaggle days is a series of in person kaggle events that has it's own beautiful community. In this episode we learn the origin story behind kaggle days, about the current world championships, and about how Maria AI managers as an underserved community.

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Walter Reade. Walter is a data scientist at kaggle where he helps to prepare competitions. He is also a kaggle grandmaster with an incredible story. In this episode we learn about how Walter landed his role at kaggle, how he became a kaggle grandmaster, and some of the unique projects that he worked on along the way.Walter's Links:Kaggle: https://www.kaggle.com/inversionTwitter: https://twitter.com/walterreadeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reade/

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Christina Sathopolous. Christina is an Analytical Lead at Google where she works with the Waze. She also teaches at two international business schools and has built a impressive brand as a linkedin creator and public speaker. She is also well known for the #bookaweek challenge on linkedin. In this episode we dive deep into her decision to relocate back to Spain from New York, her work as an analytical lead, and the books that changed her life. Books mentioned:The One Thing: https://amzn.to/3FhZgBOCaptivate: https://amzn.to/3SwGXvrChildren of Time: https://amzn.to/3FfzsGcAurora: https://amzn.to/3W1J8Kl

Today I had the pleasure of welcoming back  @Shashank Kalanithi . Shashank is the reigning iron analyst, a data analyst turned senior data engineer, a youtuber that now has over 100,000 subscribers and a good friend. In this episode we talk about how technology can be one of the great equalizers for inequality, how he was able to 6x his income through this field over the last 4 years, and about his experience in the iron analyst competition. I have linked the full competition in the description below if you’re curious about that as well. This was a great chat with Shashank, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Iron Analyst: https://brightdata.com/iron-analyst

DJ is an educational content creator on YouTube who covers Machine Learning relating topics, from Reinforcement Learning to Information Theory. As a Data Scientist at Lyft, he's successfully pushed for Causal Forecasting as the best mechanism for company-wide planning. He would argue it's the only valid data-driven approach to planning. His graduate education is formally in financial engineering, which he's used as a quant within the hedge fund industry. In this episode we dive into his experience with financial engineering, how he transitioned to his work at Lyft, and how he believes reinforcement learning will be the future of the field.

Jeremy Frank is the creator of the Twitter account @MLBRandomStats which has amassed nearly 100,000 followers. He's currently studying data science at Purdue University, and has previously interned at Sports Reference (creators of Baseball Reference, Basketball Reference, etc.) and for the Houston Astros working in their research and development team. In addition, he is known for co-creating the popular Wordle spinoff MLB Pickle (mlbpickle.com) and co-authoring two books about baseball stats across the history of sports. In this episode we learn how Jeremy got into sports, how teams use baseball data, and what he thinks of the new MLB rule set.Jeremy's Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLBRandomStats

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Patrick Akil. Patrick is a software engineer, consultant, and host of the  @Beyond Coding Podacst. In this episode we learn about Patrick’s unique view on taking risks early in your career, we also learn some best practices for having difficult communication with your bosses and peers, and finally we learn about the very opportunistic way he was able to become the host of the beyond coding podcast. I loved this conversation and if you want to hear more of us talk, I was on his show a few weeks ago and that episode is linked in the description. Now on to our talk.Connect with Patrick here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-akil/

Today I had the pleasure of iterviewing Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic who was introduced to me via my good friend and podcast guest  @Luke Barousse .  Cole tells stories with data. She is Storytelling With Data CEO and author of the forthcoming book "storytelling with you: plan, create, and deliver a stellar presentation" and best-selling books "storytelling with data: let’s practice!" and "storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals," which has been translated into a dozen languages, used as a textbook by more than 100 universities and serves as the course book for tens of thousands of SWD workshop participants. For more than a decade, Cole and her team have delivered interactive learning sessions sought after by data-minded individuals, companies, and philanthropic organizations all over the world. They also help people create graphs that make sense and weave them into compelling stories through the popular SWD community, blog, podcast and videos. In this episode Cole tells us how data people can quantify what are traditionally considered "soft skills", where professional development intersects with career development, and how you as a data practitioner can maximize your career through communication. Links:YouTube -  @storytelling with data  LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/colenussbaumer/ Website - https://www.storytellingwithdata.com/Storytelling with You - https://amzn.to/3xHAer1Storytelling with Data - https://amzn.to/3S5OG4b