High Signal: Data Science | Career | AI

Episode 40: The Economic Reality of AI: Friction, Talent, and the Future of the Firm

May 25th, 2026  |  58 mins 32 secs

ai, data science, genai, ml

Steve Tadelis, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley and former senior economist at eBay and Amazon, joins High Signal to bridge the gap between economic theory and the high-stakes reality of data science and AI. Drawing on his experience at the forefront of the world’s largest marketplaces, Steve discusses the "invisible friction" that prevents organizations from acting on data: a combination of misaligned incentives, organizational inertia, and the "Upton Sinclair problem," where leaders are effectively paid not to understand new paradigms.

Episode 39: The 100-Year Lead: What Baseball Teaches Us About the Future of AI

May 12th, 2026  |  56 mins 7 secs

Chris Fonnesbeck, creator of the open-source Bayesian modeling library PyMC and veteran analyst for the Yankees and Mets, joins to unpack why baseball has been a leading indicator for data science and analytics for over a century, and why builders and AI leaders need to pay attention now. The reason it has led is simple: huge incentives and a culture that treats decisions as quantifiable. With wins worth about eight to ten million dollars apiece and front offices built around probabilistic reasoning, baseball has had every reason to push the methods further and faster than industry. The arc runs from Henry Chadwick's 1860s box score, to FC Lane's linear run estimator decades before formal regression, to Bill James and Moneyball, to today's Hawkeye cameras logging six or seven terabytes per game, automated strike zones adjudicated through a game-theoretic challenge system, and a pitch-design industry that turns marginal pitchers into elite ones by tweaking grip and release.

Episode 38: Why AI Won’t Fix Your Data Culture, It Will Only Amplify It (And What To Do About It)

April 16th, 2026  |  45 mins 46 secs

ai, data science, genai, ml

Noah Bruegmann, President of Data CRT, joins High Signal to discuss how to move your data function from a cost center to a strategic "value center". He explains how AI amplifies your existing data culture, the importance of "no-assistance" reporting, and how rebranding documentation as "Context" can finally secure executive buy-in. Drawing on 15 years of experience spanning trading floors and Silicon Valley startups, Noah argues that for too long, data teams have been submerged under an "iceberg" of invisible data preparation. He details how the arrival of LLMs and agentic tools is fundamentally shifting this landscape, automating technical drudgery and allowing data professionals to transition into what he calls "Jack Ryan" mode: acting as high-level intelligence analysts rather than mere number crunchers.

Episode 37: Engineered Intelligence and The Data Science Problem in AI

April 2nd, 2026  |  46 mins 14 secs

ai, data science, genai, ml

Jordan Morrow, SVP of Data & AI Transformation at AgileOne and the "Godfather of Data Literacy," joins High Signal to discuss the shift from being "data-driven" to becoming "AI-enabled." Jordan warns that many organizations are walking into the same traps that derailed the data science era a decade ago: prioritizing expensive tooling and hype over the cultural change and literacy required to actually move the needle. The pattern is already visible: enterprise AI projects are failing at around 90%, while individuals doing shadow AI are quietly thriving. The catch is that shadow AI brings its own risks, with people feeding sensitive data into public models without governance. He argues that because AI is probabilistic rather than deterministic, the bottleneck for success has shifted from technical coding ability to a user’s ability to apply "Engineered Intelligence," a blend of machine capability and human emotional intelligence.

Episode 36: AI and the Judgment Problem in Data Science

March 19th, 2026  |  1 hr 3 mins

ai, data science, genai, ml

Dawn Woodard (Distinguished Engineer, LinkedIn), Andrés Bucchi (LATAM Airlines), and Jeremy Hermann (CEO & Co-Founder, Delphina) join High Signal for a deep dive into the shifting architecture of data science & analytics in the era of AI. As the industry moves from static dashboards to vibe coding and conversational querying, this panel of industry veterans explores why traditional data fundamentals—strict cataloging, verifiable outputs, and a single source of truth—are suddenly the most critical bottlenecks in the AI era.

Episode 35: Beyond Online Experimentation: Generative Software That Optimizes Itself

March 4th, 2026  |  55 mins 11 secs

ai, data science, genai, ml

Martin Tingley, Head of Windows Experimentation at Microsoft and former Head of the Experimentation Platform Analysis Team at Netflix, talks about why humans are the bottleneck in experimentation, and how a five-level maturity framework points the way toward self-optimizing software.

Episode 34: Duolingo and the Future of Personalized Education with AI

February 10th, 2026  |  45 mins 39 secs

Bozena Pajak, VP of Learning at Duolingo, joins High Signal to discuss the evolution of AI at Duolingo: from personalized difficulty models to the current generative frontier where AI characters provide low-stakes and high impact conversational practice. We discuss the role of AI in overcoming one of the biggest hurdles in language acquisition, speaking anxiety. We also talk about how Bozena's team leverages agentic workflows to scale content and why the next wave of personalization involves shifting from difficulty levels to "thematic lenses" tailored to specific user interests.

Episode 33: Why Your AI Product Will Be Obsolete in Six Months (And What To Do About It)

January 27th, 2026  |  1 hr 21 secs

Benn Stancil joins High Signal to ask some uncomfortable questions about the current AI moment. Is now actually a terrible time to start a company, if the tools you build on today are obsolete in six months, at what point does the head start stop mattering? Is all that context engineering you're doing a waste of time, destined to go the way of Boolean search syntax in the 90s?

Episode 32: The Post-Coding Era: What Happens When AI Writes the System?

January 12th, 2026  |  41 mins 44 secs

Nicholas Moy, former Head of Research at Windsurf & now at Google DeepMind, joins High Signal to discuss the shift from "co-driving" to a truly "agentic" era of development. We discuss Windsurf's journey from early prototypes that struggled with compounding errors to the successful launch of their agentic coding product. Nick explains that building a startup in the current climate requires a strategy of "disrupting yourself" to avoid the innovator’s dilemma; companies must be ready to pivot as soon as a new frontier model makes previously impossible features viable. He argues that traditional technical moats are increasingly fragile, and true defensibility now comes from real-world usage data, brand reputation, and a deep intuition for what users need at the frontier of these capabilities.

Episode 31: Why Data Governance In Your Org is Broken (And How to Fix It)

December 29th, 2025  |  47 mins

ai, data science, genai, ml

Cara Dailey, VP and Head of Data Strategy at Early Warning (the parent company of Zelle), joins High Signal to discuss the evolution of high-stakes data leadership and governance. From her early work in online advertising at DoubleClick to shaping data strategy at Nike and holding Chief Data Officer roles at Bank of the West and T. Rowe Price, Cara has seen every iteration of the data leader’s role. Now, she’s navigating her 'product era'—shaping the data strategy for Early Warning's Decisions Intelligence business, where she leverages rich financial data and data science to drive fraud monitoring and modeling.

Episode 30: The AI Paradox: Why Your Data Team’s Workload is About to Explode

December 10th, 2025  |  50 mins 18 secs

Chris Child, VP of Product, Data Engineering at Snowflake, joins High Signal to deliver a new playbook for data leaders based on his recent MIT report, revealing why AI is paradoxically creating more work for data teams, not less. He explains how the function is undergoing a forced evolution from back-office “plumbing” to the strategic core of the enterprise, determining whether AI initiatives succeed or fail. The conversation maps the new skills and organizational structures required to navigate this shift.

Episode 29: Why AI Adoption Fails: A Behavioral Framework for AI Implementation

November 27th, 2025  |  49 mins 25 secs

ai, data science, genai, ml, nudge

Liz Costa of the Behavioral Insights Team returns to High Signal to deliver a critical behavioral science playbook for the AI era focused on human and business impact. We discuss why the potential of AI can only be fulfilled by understanding a single bottleneck: human behavior. The conversation reveals why leaders must intervene now to prevent temporary adoption patterns from calcifying into permanent organizational norms, the QWERTY Effect, and how to move organizations past simply automating drudgery to achieving deep integration.

Episode 28: From Context Engineering to AI Agent Harnesses: The New Software Discipline

November 13th, 2025  |  50 mins 34 secs

ai, data science, genai, ml

Lance Martin of LangChain joins High Signal to outline a new playbook for engineering in the AI era, where the ground is constantly shifting under the feet of builders. He explains how the exponential improvement of foundation models is forcing a complete rethink of how software is built, revealing why top products from Claude Code to Manus are in a constant state of re-architecture simply to keep up.

Episode 27: Why Your Data Team Doesn't Have a Seat at the Table (And How to Earn It)

October 29th, 2025  |  41 mins 35 secs

Paras Doshi (Head of Data, Opendoor; former data leader at Amazon) joins High Signal to unpack the playbook for building an indispensable data function. He shares his experience tackling the classic scaling challenge of fragmented data at Opendoor, where rapid growth led to inconsistent metrics across the business, and turning the data function into a centralized strategic asset.

Episode 26: Gen AI's True Cost: Why Today's Wins Are Tomorrow's Debts

October 16th, 2025  |  43 mins 14 secs

ai, data science, genai, ml

Vishnu Ram Venkataraman (Generative AI Executive & Entrepreneur; former AI Leader at Credit Karma and Intuit) joins High Signal to unpack the true cost of generative AI. Having scaled AI solutions impacting over 140 million users, Vishnu reveals why the ease of shipping Gen AI prototypes often masks significant operational and engineering debts, challenging the conventional wisdom of rapid deployment.

Episode 25: How Data-Driven Growth Redefined a Media Giant

October 2nd, 2025  |  56 mins 22 secs

ai, data science, genai, ml

Sergey Fogelson (VP of Data Science, Televisa Univision) joins High Signal to reveal how the world’s largest Spanish-language media company built a sophisticated data engine from the ground up. This transformation fueled a tenfold expansion of its digital streaming business by redefining how the company connects with 300 million viewers worldwide. At the heart of this success is a proprietary household graph that creates a single, privacy-first view of a massive and culturally diverse audience.