The Joe Reis Show

Are you a giver or a taker?It seems like every few months, I have to put out a PSA about how I get annoyed at unsolicited pitches from people who are one-sided and transactional. These people are takers. I've got no time for takers.Instead, pay it forward. Give away your ideas in free articles and videos. Mentor people. Create an open source project. Be a friend and a human without asking anything in return. Be a giver.

In this episode, I sit down with Wendy Turner-Williams, a distinguished tech leader and executive with a deep history at companies like Microsoft and Salesforce. She's of the original minds behind what became Azure Data Factory, among other foundational tech. In this wide-ranging conversation, Wendy charts the trajectory from the early days of the Internet to the current AI-driven hype cycle and looming crisis. She explains how these tools of innovation are now being turned against the workforce and why this technological revolution is fundamentally more disruptive than anything that has come before. This episode is a candid, unfiltered discussion about the real-world impact of AI on jobs, the economy, and our collective future, and a call for leaders to act before it's too late.Timestamps:00:22 - Catching up: The tough job market and writing new books. 05:49 - Wendy's impressive career history at Microsoft, Salesforce, and Tableau. 06:17 - The origin story of Azure Data Factory and other foundational projects at Microsoft. 09:18 - A personal story about the challenges of being a woman in Big Tech in the early days. 13:02 - A look back at a favorite early-career project: Digitizing physical maps with nascent GPS technology in 2001. 18:11 - The state of the tech industry: "Tech is cannibalizing itself because of AI." 20:31 - The massive, impending shock to the job market and why AI is different from previous industrial revolutions.27:26 - Why the "human in the loop" is a temporary and misleading solution. 29:55 - Breaking down the numbers: The staggering quantity of white-collar jobs projected to be eliminated. 36:37 - Why leaders are failing to act and conversations are happening behind closed doors without solutions. 38:25 - Discussing potential solutions: Should companies have quotas for their human workforce? 45:21 - The need for "truth tellers" and leaders who are willing to question the current path and drive human-centric transformation. 53:15 - The grim reality for recent graduates with computer science degrees who can't find jobs. 56:22 - The risk of IP hoarding and engineers deliberately crippling systems to protect their jobs.01:00:20 - Final thoughts: Are we waiting for a "let them eat cake" moment before we see real change?

Matt Housley joins me for our monthly chat. This time, we discuss my article The Pedantic Layer, fraud, and more.

There are very few people like Stephen Brobst, a legendary tech CTO and "certified data geek," Stephen shares his incredible journey, from his early days in computational physics and building real-time trading systems on Wall Street to becoming the CTO for Teradata and now Ab Initio Software. Stephen provides a masterclass on the evolution of data architecture, tracing the macro trends from early decision support systems to "active data warehousing" and the rise of AI/ML (formerly known as data mining). He dives deep into why metadata-driven architecture is critical for the future and how AI, large language models, and real-time sensor technology will fundamentally reshape industries and eliminate the dashboard as we know it. We also chat about something way cooler, as Stephen discusses his three passions: travel, music, and teaching. He reveals his personal rule of never staying in the same city for more than five consecutive days since 1993 and how he manages a life of constant motion. From his early days DJing punk rock and seeing the Sex Pistols' last concert to his minimalist travel philosophy and ever-growing bucket list, Stephen offers a unique perspective on living a life rich with experience over material possessions. Finally, he offers invaluable advice for the next generation on navigating careers in an AI-driven world and living life to the fullest.

The AI hype cycle seems to be calming down a bit, and this is awesome. Humanity always craves another hype cycle, so I give some ideas on what I think is next after AI.

Ever wonder how companies in the crowded data and AI space build powerful alliances to drive revenue and growth? In this episode, I sit down with Eleanor Thompson, a partnerships expert based in London and founder of a successful partnerships consultancy. Drawing from her experience running the partner program at Fivetran during its hyper-growth phase, Eleanor shares the essential strategies for building a successful partnership ecosystem from the ground up. We also also discuss the mental fortitude required for entrepreneurship, drawing surprising parallels between running a business and competing in high-intensity fitness events like Hyrox. Tune in to learn:The fundamental reasons why partnerships are critical for expanding your reach and generating revenue. When is the right time for a startup to focus on partnerships (hint: it's not day one). Eleanor's "4A" framework (Alignment, Ability, Audience, Accountability) for identifying the perfect partner. The key roles, from Partner Sales Engineers to Partner Ops, needed to build a successful partnerships team. Red flags to watch for when a potential partner is more focused on margin than customer value. How AI can be used to identify ideal partners and even predict their future success. Find Eleanor Thompson online:LinkedIn: Eleanor Thompson Website: https://branchworks.io #BusinessPartnerships #DataEngineering #AI #Entrepreneurship #Tech #Startup #GoToMarketTimestamps00:49 - Who is Eleanor Thompson? 02:25 - Why Do Business Partnerships Exist? 05:26 - When is the Right Time for a Company to Start Building Partnerships? 06:40 - The 4A Framework for Defining Your Ideal Partner Profile 08:20 - Joe's Experience Partnering with Big Tech 12:33 - How to Structure a Partnerships Team in a Growing Tech Company 20:49 - What is Partner Operations and Why is It a Critical Hire? 22:30 - The Importance of Trust and Referral Fees 25:15 - Eleanor's Journey as an "Accidental CEO" 30:10 - The Mental Fitness and Resilience Required to Be a Founder 41:20 - How to Use AI in Your Partnership Strategy 45:00 - How to Spot a Good Partner on the Very First Call 46:33 - Red Flags to Watch For in Potential Partners 51:35 - How Fitness and Hyrox Competitions Fuel Business Success 59:45 - Where to Find Eleanor Thompson

Is reality setting in for the AI bubble? Who the hell knows. This is definitely the most bipolar bubble I've ever seen, making the dotcom bubble look downright tame. In this rant, I discuss why AI is in its televangelist moment, and why a reality check is necessary to keep real progress on AI on track.

What are the hidden dangers lurking beneath the surface of vibe coded apps and hyped-up CEO promises? And what is Influence Ops?I'm joined by Susanna Cox (Disesdi), an AI security architect, researcher, and red teamer who has been working at the intersection of AI and security for over a decade. She provides a masterclass on the current state of AI security, from explaining the "color teams" (red, blue, purple) to breaking down the fundamental vulnerabilities that make GenAI so risky.We dive into the recent wave of AI-driven disasters, from the Tea dating app that exposed its users' sensitive data to the massive Catholic Health breach. We also discuss why the trend of blindly vibe coding is an irresponsible and unethical shortcut that will create endless liabilities in the near term.Susanna also shares her perspective on AI policy, the myth of separating "responsible" from "secure" AI, and the one threat that truly keeps her up at night: the terrifying potential of weaponized globally scaled Influence Ops to manipulate public opinion and democracy itself.Find Disesdi Susanna Cox:Substack: https://disesdi.substack.com/Socials (LinkedIn, X, etc.): @DisesdiKEY MOMENTS:00:26 - Who is Disesdi Susanna Cox?03:52 - What are Red, Blue, and Purple Teams in Security?07:29 - Probabilistic vs. Deterministic Thinking: Why Data & Security Teams Clash12:32 - How GenAI Security is Different (and Worse) than Classical ML14:39 - Recent AI Disasters: Catholic Health, Agent Smith & the "T" Dating App18:34 - The Unethical Problem with "Vibe Coding"24:32 - "Vibe Companies": The Gaslighting from CEOs About AI30:51 - Why "Responsible AI" and "Secure AI" Are the Same Thing33:13 - Deconstructing the "Woke AI" Panic44:39 - What Keeps an AI Security Expert Up at Night? Influence Ops52:30 - The Vacuous, Haiku-Style Hellscape of LinkedIn

What's the nature of skills and competency when we're all just AI enabled button pushers? I rant about why we need to retain our sense of competence and uniqueness in an age where everything is rapidly becoming a sea of sameness and lameness.

Is AI the silver bullet for modernizing our aging software systems, or is it a fast track to creating the next generation of unmaintainable "slopware"?In this episode, I sit down with Marianne Bellotti, author of the amazing book "Kill It With Fire," to discuss the complex reality of legacy system modernization in the age of AI. We explore why understanding the cultural and human history of a codebase is critical, and how the current AI hype cycle isn't a silver bullet for legacy IT modernization efforts.Marianne breaks down a recent disastrous "vibe coding" experiment, the risk of replacing simple human errors with catastrophic automated ones, and the massive disconnect between the promises of AI agents and the daily reality of a practitioner just trying to get a service account from IT.Join us for a pragmatic and no-BS conversation about the real challenges in software, the practical ways to leverage LLMs as an expert partner, and why good old-fashioned systems thinking is more important than ever.Find Marianne Bellotti:Socials: @BellmarWebsite: https://belladotte.tech/Book, "Kill It With Fire": https://nostarch.com/kill-it-fire

Matt Housley joins me to chat about whether it matters that AI is PhD level, clanker content (the new term for AI slop), a retrospective on Fundamentals of Data Engineering, and much more.

Shane Gibson just published a book - The Information Product Canvas. We discuss his journey as an author and publisher, why shared language is critical in data projects, the iterative processes that can enhance data team efficiency, and the role of canvases in business strategy. We also get into how AI might evolve the landscape of data and publishing.

Does today's use of AI coding agents remind you of a drunken high school or college party? Just like people discovering drugs and alcohol for the first time, I feel like the tech and data industry is in a similar place. "Just vibe..." is the mantra now.But when I talk with developers and data practitioners in private, I get different vibes. There's definitely a concern that we're collectively building lots of slopware and are setting ourselves up for trouble as an industry.

Kostas Pardalis (Co-Founder @ Typedef) joins me to chat about the rapid evolution of AI and data infrastructure, next generation architectures, and much more

In this episode, I unpack how Big Tech is using massive AI investment to justify mass layoffs. All of this AI projects keep failing for the same reasons every other tech wave and IT project has: bad data, org problems, etc. Will AI be different?

Shane Murray (Field CTO Monte Carlo, Former Head of Data NY Times) joins me to chat about the impact of AI on data teams and business strategies, data observability on unstructured data, and more.

I'm very type-A and goal-oriented to a very unhealthy degree. In this rant, I explain how I'm slowly letting go of this and instead focusing on long-term sustainability.

Madison Schott joins me to chat about about her journey from working as an analytics engineer to creating content about dbt, SQL, data modeling, and more.

Are you vibe coding? Using Claude Code, Cursor, etc? I really don't care. I also talk about the power of no, Spartan Races, and more.

Peter Hanssens is an Australia-based data engineer, business owner, and community pillar. He runs Cloud Shuttle, a data engineering consultancy and organizes DataEngBytes, a series of meetups and conferences throughout Australia and New Zealand. We chat about building data engineering communities, running conferences, and much more.

Aaron Neiderhiser (CEO of Tuva Health) has an audacious goal of improving US healthcare analytics. It all starts with the data. Aaron discusses his journey and obsession with making sense of the gigantic mess of US healthcare data.

There have been lots of social media posts declaring things to be dead - SQL, R, data engineering, BI, etc.I give my thoughts on these proclamations, why it's a wrong way to think about our space, and more.

Jeroen Janssens and Thijs Nieuwdo join me to chat about all things Polars. We discuss the evolution of the Polars library, its advantages over pandas, and their journey of writing 'Python Polars: The Definitive Guide.'

In this episode, I rant and speculate about why small teams and companies are the future, AI native data architectures, why the future is awesome, and more.This episode is brought to you by Keboola. Check out their new MCP server at https://www.keboola.com/mcp

Regular guest Gordon Wong joins me to chat about the impact of AI on attention and expertise, product management, and much more.

In this episode, I ramble and speculate about what the next-generation data architectures look like. Thanks for Keboola and GoodData for sponsoring this episode.Keboola: https://www.keboola.com/mcpGoodData: GoodData.com/resources

Zhamak Dehghani (creator of Data Mesh, CEO of NextData) joins me to chat about what she thinks is next in data - autonomous data products, decentralized data and AI, and much more. Zhamak is one of the people I most respect in our industry. She's a once-in-a generation phenomenon who will change the trajectory of our industry.

Matthew Scullion (CEO, Co-Founder of Matillion) joins me to chat about the future of data engineering, namely agentic data engineering teams. What does this new world look like? Matthew shares some ideas of what he's building at Matillion, and the broader context of what agentic AI means for the data ecosystem, teams, and workflows.

Wrapping up the week at Snowflake Summit. As always, the big platform ate away at their partners. If you're a partner, what can you do to shield yourself from platform cannibalization? In this episode, I give some advice from what I've seen in the data ecosystem over the years.

Svetlana Tarnagurskaja (CEO of the Dot Collective) joins me to chat about her entrepreneurial journey in the data space, building a boutique data consultancy, competing with Big Consulting, the challenges of building a team, and the importance of creating a human-centric company culture.The Dot Collective: https://www.thedotcollective.co.uk

Hannes Mühleisen shows off DuckLake and answers live questions.DuckLake: https://duckdb.org/2025/05/27/ducklake.html

Ash Smith is a data engineer based in Perth, Australia (the most remote city in the world). We chat about data products, interoperability, and the importance of collaboration and incentive structures within data teams.

Regular guest Gordon Wong and I chat about what you should think about if you want to work in data. Spoiler - it's probably not what you think.Shoutout to GoodData and MonteCarlo for sponsoring this episode.

Imagine writing SQL and getting instant results as you type? Yes, this is reality now. It's amazing!DuckDB/MotherDuck's Instant SQL made a big splash at last month's Data Council. Hamilton Ulmer gives a demo of Instant SQL at the Practical Data Community.----------------------------Instant SQL: https://motherduck.com/blog/introducing-instant-sql/Practical Data Community Discord: https://discord.gg/gNfw5AKWSK

Gaëlle Seret is a data leader based in France. We chat about how she helps large organizations drive change, especially around data architecture and strategy. We dig into her approach to upskilling teams, why data strategy matters, and how to work through the inevitable organizational challenges that come with transformation. We also discuss the AI in learning and work, and some interesting differences in education between USA and France. Enjoy!

Last week I posted about the gulf in the data industry between people in favor and opposed AI. The data industry has an atrocious track record of success over the decades. Shall we keep repeating the same mistakes with AI? I think AI denialism is holding back and AI has the potential to help us correct a lot of the sins of the past, namely quick delivery of value. Whether we get there is another question...Thanks to dbt, GoodData, and Ellie.ai for sponsoring this podcast.dbt: https://www.getdbt.comGoodData: https://www.gooddata.comEllie.ai: https://www.ellie.ai

Ryan Russon is an ML Engineer. He stopped by my house for a practical and grounded chat about ML and AI. Enjoy!---------Join dbt Labs May 28 for the dbt Launch Showcase to hear from executives and product leaders about the latest features landing in dbt. See firsthand how features will empower data practitioners and organizations in the age of AI.Thanks to dat Labs for sponsoring this episode.

Some people speculate that AI will make software and data engineers obsolete. If the only thing engineers do is write code, sure. But we do a lot more than that, and I believe we'll actually need more engineers, not fewer.In this episode, I discuss how I think AI will change the craft of software and data engineering. Spoiler - I think it will make it way more fun and productive.------------------------------Thanks to dbt and GoodData for sponsoring this episode. Please support them, as they're awesome.dbt Launch ShowcaseJoin dbt Labs May 28 for the dbt Launch Showcase to hear from executives and product leaders about the latest features landing in dbt. See firsthand how features will empower data practitioners and organizations in the age of AI.---------GoodData WebinarAnalytics and data engineering used to live in separate worlds—different teams, different tools, different goals. But the lines are blurring fast. As modern data products demand speed, scale, and seamless integration, the best teams are embracing engineering principles and best practices.In this no-BS conversation, Ryan Dolley, Matt Housley, and Joe Reis, dive into how engineering principles are transforming the way analytics is built, delivered, and scaled.

Laura McDonald is an enterprise account executive, and she walks me through navigating the complex world of enterprise sales. We chat about the sales cycle, the importance of building relationships, the challenges of navigating long complicated procurement processes, and much more. Whether you're a sales rookie, an experienced salesperson, a founder, or just interested in sales, you'll learn something new from this conversation.

I've spoken all over the world, at the biggest events, the most intimately small, and everywhere in between. In this Practical Data Community lunch and learn, I share some experiences with public speaking, give some advice on getting your first public speaking gig, how to prepare, preparing talks, dealing with stage fright, getting paid, and much more. Enjoy!From the Practical Data Lunch and Learn, May 9, 2025

Dia Adams and Gordon Wong join me for a chat about data strategy in the age of AI.

Michael Drogalis joins me to chat about building his company - Shadow Traffic - in public. We discuss sales, the psychological toll of rejection, the rollercoaster of entrepreneurship, and strategies for audience building and content creation.

John Giles joins me to discuss his new book, "The Data Elephant in the Board Room," conceptual modeling, the unreasonable effectiveness of data modeling patterns, and more.

Zhamak Dehghani joins the Practical Data Community for an open-ended Q&A about autonomous data products, Data Mesh, NextData and much more.NextData: https://www.nextdata.com/Practical Data Community: https://discord.gg/gNfw5AKWSK

I've recently spoken to several groups of students (undergrad and graduate) about the data industry, career advice, and more. Here, I distill some of my major points about careers, finding work, and more.If you're graduating this Spring 2025, congrats!This episode is brought to you by GoodData.

Jessica Talisman and I hang out at my home and chat about libraries, data, ontologies, knowledge, shitty tech jobs, and much more.

Sarah McKenna joins me to chat about all things web scraping. We discuss its applications, the evolution of alternative data, and AI's impact on the industry. We also discuss privacy concerns, the challenges of bot blocking, and the importance of data quality. Sarah shares ideas on how to get started with web scraping and the ethical considerations surrounding copyright and data collection.

I recently overheard someone say, "I Don't Need to Learn Anything Anymore" because AI would do all of this person's work. This got me thinking about the future of learning, human expertise and depth, and more.

Juan Sequeda and Jesus Barrasa are among the top experts on graphs in the world. In this episode, we chat about the definitions of semantics, ontologies, and the differences between RDF and property graphs, etc. We also talk about how AI is giving graphs a new surge of interest.

Data teams have had a rough few years. Lots of layoffs and cuts, doing more work with fewer resources, and a general sense of malaise. On top of all of this, now we're in the middle of a trade war. This is war. If you're a data team, you need to act accordingly.

Tim Berglund is the OG of DevRel. We chat about the art and craft of developer relations, hacking on hardware, and much more.