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. Highlights00:29 - 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)-- Mark your calendars for May 12-14, 2026 and join us for Data Council AI, the technical conference built by engineers for engineers. It's the only event where you'll be able to connect with 2,000+ practitioners for 3 full days of technical deep dives, battle-tested architectures and production insights in San Francisco, the heart of the AI world. Visit us at https://www.datacouncil.ai/ for the latest updates or subscribe to the newsletter as we release more details about the 2026 event!

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