April 2023 Recap of “Three Data Point Thursday” and more.
April 2023 Recap of “Three Data Point Thursday” and more.
In Case You Missed It: dbt Labs acquires Transform to expand, Mental models for the data space, ChatGPT, and data trends.
I’m Sven writing this to help you build things with data. Whether you’re a data PM, inside a data startup, internal data lead, or investing in data companies, this is for you.
This special in-between issue serves as a recap of the last editions and more of my writing. It features a few quotes from each piece so you can get a feel for them and quickly jump around the Three Data Point Thursday universe.
Enjoy!
Why did dbt Labs acquire Transform - ThDPTh
Because they're expanding their market away from analytics engineers.
“Dbt Labs acquired a metrics layer company for one sole reason:
Dbt Labs has been targeting a new market segment for quite some time. A customer segment that isn't the analytics engineers anymore.”
ChatGPT in perspective - ThDPTh
Andrew Ng puts ChatGPT and other LLMs into perspective, and we talk about how you should use them in your business.
“ Please turn exciting new research and technology in data into usable products for us all.
That’s as true and hard for ChatGPT as it was for large-scale data processing (thank you, databricks gang). You do that by:
Not getting distracted by the latest trends (“ChatGPT”)
By having an excellent process to integrate trends into your products (“How to NOT ChatGPT”)
By thinking about generative artificial intelligence, not just “Google Bard.”
Not ignoring trends either!
If people want to use generative AI as “inspiration” (a term used by a friend), they do. No sense in trying to “catch them”; instead, the question becomes, how do you use gAIs in a helpful way to advance a specific discipline, to increase value to everyone?”
Mental Models for the Data Space
Build your data company faster, better manage your data products, and invest smarter using data-specific mental models. (Mental Model article on medium)
“I’ve spent the last couple of years collecting a lot of mental models relevant to the data space. I’ve used them as a data product manager to make product decisions. I’m using them every day in my newsletter to understand and evaluate data companies and data trends.
I’m using them in my job at Meltano to understand users daily. I always use them to get to the bottom quickly and make a good decision without needing more feedback or weeks of research.
And you should too.”
How to change how your company works with data - TF
The industry's efforts to change how we work with data, how you can choose your way, and tons of transformations to choose from (Thoughtful Friday #28).
“Data startups are growing like weeds; trends and company-wide transformations are everywhere. “Best practices for the data space.” All of those are clear signs that we have no clue at all.
There are no best practices in an exponentially growing space like the data space. The future of the data space is entirely unpredictable.“
Until next week,
Sven