The CEO and C-”Data Stuff” Divide

Joe's Nerdy Rants #22 - Weekend reads and other stuff

Writing this while I’m in Toronto. Thanks to DAMA Toronto and Deloitte for the awesome event!

The mini-tour continues. I look forward to seeing you if you’re in Helsinki, Silicon Valley, Vegas, Denver, or Texas.

Thanks,

Joe Reis

P.S. Want me to speak at your event in the first half of 2024? Please reach out to me by 11/6/2023. No matter who you are, I won’t accept talk or event inquiries after this date.

The CEO and C-”Data Stuff” Divide

This week's Wall Street Journal article caught my eye - “The Divide Between CMOs and CEOs is Growing, Research Finds”. In a nutshell, CEOs think they understand what marketing and CMOs are supposed to do, and CMOs often feel that CEOs don’t have the first clue.

How long has marketing been around? Since we’ve been selling things. The modern incarnation of marketing is from the 1960s Mad Men era. You’d think marketing is a solved problem, with the core tenants easily understood in the C-Suite. Nope. It's not even close, and it’s getting worse. The article states, “Nine out of 10 CEOs say that the role marketing plays is clearly defined at their companies, according to a new McKinsey survey that tracks relationships between CEOs and CMOs. But only 22% of marketing chiefs say their jobs are well-defined and understood by other C-suite executives, down from 31% in 2019.” Again, marketing is a well-established field, and there’s still massive confusion about its role in companies.

The gap between expectations and reality is enormous. If CEOs are this disconnected from marketing - a field that’s been around for decades - how connected do you think a CEO is to “data,” which is comparatively a brand-spanking new field? This trickles down, especially when Boards of Directors pressure CEOs to have a story about AI. CEOs are pressuring CIOs (and similar roles) to deliver on AI, whatever the hell that means.

My good friend, Sol Rashidi (one of the planet's top Chief Data/AI Officers), laments the difficulty of getting traction with data initiatives. CEOs seem to expect that a CDO will magically fix all data problems. This puts Chief “Data-stuff” Officers in a bind. The CDO role isn’t often empowered or outlined properly, so there’s a ton of confusion about the boundaries and division of labor between CDOs and other C-titles, like CIO, CTO, Chief Digital Officer, etc. Because data is often owned by other departments (marketing, sales, finance, etc), it’s often a mess outside the jurisdiction of the CDO. Everyone wants to own the data but not be accountable for improving it. We could go on and on, but you get the point.

I’m unsure of the fix for this challenge, as it’s well above my pay grade and not solvable in a newsletter rant. But if CEOs are still amiss about marketing, I’m unclear how most companies make tangible progress with “data” without a massive re-think of how we approach it. The only job with a shorter tenure than CMO is the CDO. Data is hard on a good day, and CDOs are often set up for failure. Something clearly needs to change.

Listen to the audio clip above on this topic, which is also my 5-Minute Friday on Spotify.

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Cool Weekend Reads

Here are some cool things I read this week. Enjoy!

Tech, AI & Data

What The Goddamn Hell Is Going On In The Tech Industry? (Ludicity)

“I am near absolutely convinced that the vast majority of our species' ability to produce things of value for the human race is just utterly squandered at large companies. I suspected we were wasting about 50%, but the volume of stories I got, frequently from serious companies, including some of the FAANG places that mere normal engineers like me look up at in awe while we worship at the altar of StackOverflow, just blew my mind. A lot of them involved doing variations of almost exactly what I did in different stacks, and every single time management just buried what happened.”

Really good read if you’re pissed off at the number of technical resources that are wasted and squandered.

Welcome to the Offensive ML Playbook (OffSecML Framework)

Want to modify an LLM’s ground truth, do backdoor attacks on ML models, and much more? This playbook has you covered. Enjoy!

Through the Ages: Apple CPU Architecture (Jacob’s Tech Tavern)

I feel like Apple’s now at the top of the game with their M3 CPU. I use a Macbook Air M2, and it’s beyond what I need for most applications. Being a Mac fanboy since the 1980s, I’m fond of their chipsets. This is a VERY detailed look at Apple’s CPU architecture since the beginning. I agree with the author that their CPU is a massive competitive advantage. The joys of vertical integration…

Business & Startups

The Big Reset in Seed to Series A Graduation Rates is Real and Permanent (Venture Reflections)

In 2021, I remember a prominent VC saying about the explosion of pre-revenue early-stage startups, “This will never end.” Famous last words.

Why are we still surprised that startups are hard? (Benn Stancil)

“The downside of this is that we can’t hack your way to startup success. We can hack your way into getting attention, or term sheets, or even a few years of vertical revenue growth. But we can’t outrun the work; not forever. Eventually—as the company grows, as the market figures out our hacks, as more people copy what we’ve done—the work we’ve put in becomes our only competitive advantage.”

Benn nails it. Hard work pays off. It’s just that simple, and just that difficult.

Current thoughts on social media (Martin Fowler)

How does an OG like Martin Fowler use social media? Read on. PS. Good shoutout for Usenet, which I was on in the early/mid 1990s.

New Content, Events, and Upcoming Stuff

Monday Morning Data Chat

Coming up…

Apache Hudi Deep Dive w/ Nadine Farah (YouTube)

In case you missed it…

Why is Data Security So Hard? w/ Yoav Cohen (Spotify, YouTube)

Data Conference Recap (Coalesce, Gitex Dubai, DEWCon) w/ Kevin Hu (Spotify, YouTube)

Data Warehouses and Semantics Deep Dive, SDF, and more w/ Lukas Schulte - (Spotify, YouTube)

Improving Your Health and Wellness - Techie Edition w/ Colleen Fotsch (Spotify, YouTube)

Data Engineering AMA w/ Matt Housley & Joe Reis (Spotify, Youtube)

The Joe Reis Show

Coming up…

Peggy Tsai, Dave McComb, and many more….

This week…

5 Minute Friday - The CEO and C-Data Stuff Divide (Spotify)

Bill Inmon - History Lessons of the Data Industry. This is a real treat and a very rare conversation with the godfather himself (Spotify)

In case you missed it…

5 Minute Friday - Wherever You Go, There You Are (Spotify)

Matt Sharp & Chris Brousseau - Writing "LLMs in Production" (the midway edition) - (Spotify)

5 Minute Friday - AI Carnival Barkers (Spotify)

Events

November

Finland, 11/9 - Agile Data Engine Summit - register here

San Jose, CA, 11/16 - TBA

Las Vegas - Gable’s Party during ReInvent, 11/28

December

dbt + Joe Reis Roadshow - TBA

2024

Data Day Texas (Austin) - register here

Data Modeling Zone (Arizona) - register here

Skiers in Data (Switzerland) - March, TBA

Malaga, Spain - May, TBA

South Africa - TBA

Dubai - TBA

Australia - TBA

Asia - TBA

Friendly reminder - Do you want me to speak at your event in the first half of 2024? Get your inquiries to me by 11/6/2023. I won’t be accepting talk or event inquiries after this date. Thanks.

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You can also find me here:

Monday Morning Data Chat (YouTube / Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts). Matt Housely and I interview the top people in the field. Live and unscripted. Zero shilling tolerated.

The Joe Reis Show (Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts). My other show. I interview guests, and it’s totally unscripted with no shilling.

Fundamentals of Data Engineering (Amazon, O’Reilly, and wherever you get your books)

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Thanks! - Joe Reis