Ryan Dolley, VP of Product Strategy at GoodData and co-host of Super Data Brothers podcast, joined Yuliia and Dumke to discuss the DBT-Fivetran merger and what it signals about the modern data stack's consolidation phase. After 16 years in BI and analytics, Ryan explains why BI adoption has been stuck at 27% for a decade and why simply adding AI chatbots won't solve it. He argues that at large enterprises, purchasing new software is actually the only viable opportunity to change company culture - not because of the features, but because it forces operational pauses and new ways of working. Ryan shares his take that AI will struggle with BI because LLMs are trained to give emotionally satisfying answers rather than accurate ones. Ryan Dolley linkedin

Bogdan Banu, Data Engineering Manager at Veed.io, joined Yuliia to share his journey of building a data platform from scratch at a fast-growing startup. As Veed's first data hire, Bogdan discusses how he established a modern data stack while maintaining strong governance principles and cost consciousness. Bogdan covered insights on implementing consent-based video data processing for AI initiatives, approaches to data democratization, and how his data team balancs velocity with security. Bogdan shared his perspectives on making strategic vendor choices, measuring business value, and fostering a culture of intelligent experimentation in startup environments.Bogdan's Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bogdan-banu-a68a237/

Martin Fiser, Field CTO at Keboola with 8 years at Google, joined Yuliia and Scott to challenge modern data stack complexity and costs. He advocates for all-in-one platforms over fragmented solutions, highlighting how companies waste up to 40% of time on tool integration. Martin shared insights on US-European cultural differences in data approaches and warned against "development by resume" culture where engineers prioritize trendy tools over business outcomes.

Yuliia will explore certain aspects that are sometimes get overlooked in data engineering when onboarding a new tool. A new tool that promises a high ROI, saves time may provide those benefits - still, it is important to be aware all the unintended negative consequences.