Benn Stancil, cofounder and CTO at Mode, returns to The Analytics Engineering Podcast to discuss the evolution of the term "modern data stack" and its value today. Tristan wrote on this idea for The Analytics Engineering Roundup in Is the Modern Data Stack Still a Useful Idea? For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to https://roundup.getdbt.com. The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by dbt Labs.

One of the biggest surprises of the generative AI revolution over the past 2 years lies in the counter-intuitiveness of its most successful use cases. Counter to most predictions made about AI years ago, AI-assisted coding, specifically AI-assisted data work, has been surprisingly one of the biggest killer apps of generative AI tools and copilots. However, what happens when we take this notion even further? How will analytics workflows look like when generative AI tools can also assist us in problem-solving? What type of analytics use cases can we expect to operationalize, and what tools can we expect to work with when AI systems can provide scalable qualitative data instead of relying on imperfect quantitative proxies? Today’s guest calls this future “weird”.  Benn Stancil is the Field CTO at ThoughtSpot. He joined ThoughtSpot in 2023 as part of its acquisition of Mode, where he was a Co-Founder and CTO. While at Mode, Benn held roles leading Mode’s data, product, marketing, and executive teams. He regularly writes about data and technology at benn.substack.com. Prior to founding Mode, Benn worked on analytics teams at Microsoft and Yammer. Throughout the episode, Benn and Adel talk about the nature of AI-assisted analytics workflows, the potential for generative AI in assisting problem-solving, how he imagines analytics workflows to look in the future, and a lot more.  About the AI and the Modern Data Stack DataFramed Series This week we’re releasing 4 episodes focused on how AI is changing the modern data stack and the analytics profession at large. The modern data stack is often an ambiguous and all-encompassing term, so we intentionally wanted to cover the impact of AI on the modern data stack from different angles. Here’s what you can expect: Why the Future of AI in Data will be Weird with Benn Stancil, CTO at Mode & Field CTO at ThoughtSpot — Covering how AI will change analytics workflows and tools How Databricks is Transforming Data Warehousing and AI with Ari Kaplan, Head Evangelist & Robin Sutara, Field CTO at Databricks — Covering Databricks, data intelligence and how AI tools are changing data democratizationAdding AI to the Data Warehouse with Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO at Snowflake — Covering Snowflake and its uses, how generative AI is changing the attitudes of leaders towards data, and how to improve your data managementAccelerating AI Workflows with Nuri Cankaya, VP of AI Marketing & La Tiffaney Santucci, AI Marketing Director at Intel — Covering AI’s impact on marketing analytics, how AI is being integrated into existing products, and the democratization of AI Links Mentioned in the Show: Mode AnalyticsThoughtSpot acquires Mode: Empowering data teams to bring Generative AI to BIEverybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are[Course] Generative AI for Business[Skill Track] SQL FundamentalsRelated Episode: The Future of Marketing Analytics with Cory Munchbach, CEO at...

Send us a text Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [[email protected]] and tell us why you should be next.

Abstract Making Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, VP, IBM Expert Services Delivery, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun. This week on Making Data Simple, we have Benn Stancil, Chief Analytics Officer + Founder @ Mode. Benn is an accomplished data analyst with deep expertise in collaborative Business Intelligence and Interactive Data Science. Benn is Co-founder, President, and Chief  Analytics Officer of Mode, an award-winning SaaS company that combines the best elements of Business Intelligence (ABI), Data Science (DS) and Machine Learning (ML) to empower data teams to answer impactful questions and collaborate on analysis across a range of business functions. Under Benn’s leadership, the Mode platform has evolved to enable data teams to explore, visualize, analyze and share data in a powerful end-to-end workflow. Prior to founding Mode, Benn served in senior Analytics positions at Microsoft and Yammer, and worked as a  researcher for the International Economics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Benn also served as an Undergraduate Research Fellow at Wake Forest University,  where he received his B.S. in Mathematics and Economics. Benn believes in fostering a shared sense of humility and gratitude.

Show Notes 1:22 – Benn’s history7:09 – Tell us how you got to where you are today9:14 – Tell us about Mode12:08 – What is your definition of the Chief Analytics Officer?21:53 – Why do we need another BI tool?24:09 – What’s your secret sauce?27:48 – Where did the name Mode come from?28:41 – How do we use Mode?31:08 – What is you goto market strategy? 32:38 – Any client references?34:58 – “The missing piece in the modern data stack” tell us about thisMode  Email: [email protected] [email protected] Twitter: benn stancil Connect with the Team Producer Kate Brown - LinkedIn. Host Al Martin - LinkedIn and Twitter.  Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [email protected] and tell us why you should be next. The Making Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Technical Sales, IBM, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.

"Modern art" was a terrible label because, ya' know, time would pass and here we are 50 years after the end of that period shaking our heads at what a short-sighted semantic gaff that was. We share that observation for no particular reason. On this episode, we sat down with broad, deep, and entertaining thinker Benn Stancil from Mode to talk about one facet of the modern data stack: the metrics layer. What is it? Who's thinking about solving for it? What is a monthly DAU? These are questions to ponder that, hopefully, won't leave you impersonating a piece of modern art. For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

A debate has erupted on data Twitter and data Substack - should the modern data stack remain unbundled, or should it consolidate? In this conversation, Benn Stancil (Mode), David Jayatillake (Avora) and our host Tristan Handy try to make some sense of this debate, and play with various future scenarios for the modern data stack.  For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to https://roundup.getdbt.com.  The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by dbt Labs.

Send us a text Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [[email protected]] and tell us why you should be next.

Abstract Making Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, VP, IBM Expert Services Delivery, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun. This week on Making Data Simple, we have Benn Stancil, Chief Analytics Officer + Founder @ Mode. Benn is an accomplished data analyst with deep expertise in collaborative Business Intelligence and Interactive Data Science. Benn is Co-founder, President, and Chief  Analytics Officer of Mode, an award-winning SaaS company that combines the best elements of Business Intelligence (ABI), Data Science (DS) and Machine Learning (ML) to empower data teams to answer impactful questions and collaborate on analysis across a range of business functions. Under Benn’s leadership, the Mode platform has evolved to enable data teams to explore, visualize, analyze and share data in a powerful end-to-end workflow. Prior to founding Mode, Benn served in senior Analytics positions at Microsoft and Yammer, and worked as a  researcher for the International Economics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Benn also served as an Undergraduate Research Fellow at Wake Forest University,  where he received his B.S. in Mathematics and Economics. Benn believes in fostering a shared sense of humility and gratitude.

Show Notes 1:22 – Benn’s history 7:09 – Tell us how you got to where you are today 9:14 – Tell us about Mode 12:08 – What is your definition of the Chief Analytics Officer? 21:53 – Why do we need another BI tool? 24:09 – What’s your secret sauce? 27:48 – Where did the name Mode come from? 28:41 – How do we use Mode? 31:08 – What is you goto market strategy?  32:38 – Any client references? 34:58 – “The missing piece in the modern data stack” tell us about this Mode  Email: [email protected] [email protected] Twitter: benn stancil Connect with the Team Producer Kate Brown - LinkedIn. Producer Steve Templeton - LinkedIn. Host Al Martin - LinkedIn and Twitter.  Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [email protected] and tell us why you should be next. The Making Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Technical Sales, IBM, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.

In this talk, former podcast guest Benn Stancil walks through what he believe the next evolution of the modern data stack should look like - and more importantly, how those who use it should experience it. Register to catch the rest of Coalesce, the Analytics Engineering Conference, at https://coalesce.getdbt.com. The Analytics Engineering Podcast is brought to you by dbt Labs.

Benn is Chief Analytics Officer and a Co-founder at Mode Analytics, but you may know him from his Substack newsletter (benn.substack.com), where each Friday he dives into a semi-controversial topic (recent examples: "Is BI Dead?" and "BI is Dead").  In this episode, Benn, Tristan & Julia finally hash out some of these debates IRL: what is the modern data stack, why is the metrics layer important, and what's the point of all of this? For full show notes and to read 6+ years of back issues of the podcast's companion newsletter, head to https://roundup.getdbt.com.  The Analytics Engineering Podcast is sponsored by dbt Labs.

In this video, President and Founder of Mode, Benn Stancil discusses new ways to align the optimal application boundaries in the modern data stack, providing a set of guidelines for determining how and where to draw the lines between your many tools. He also motivates an example of these boundaries by demonstrating how metadata surfaced in an analytics tool like Mode can increase overall data confidence.