Salma Bakouk is the CEO and co-founder of Sifflet, a Full Data Stack Observability platform. Before Sifflet, Salma was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in Sales & Trading in Asia, leading key Data & Analytics initiatives. Salma holds an Engineering Degree from École Centrale Paris in Applied Mathematics and a Master's in Statistics and Data Science.
Datacast Episode 132: Big Data Engineering, Data Culture from First Principles, and Reimagined Metadata with Suresh Srinivas
Suresh Srinivas was the Chief Architect of Uber’s data platform, responsible for all data initiatives at the company, including the Databook, Data Quality, and Data Lineage initiatives. Suresh was part of the original team that built Hadoop at Yahoo! and co-founded Hortonworks, which developed and supported open-source software to manage big data and associated processing.
He is leading the OpenMetadata Project to build Metadata APIs & specifications and a single place to discover, collaborate, and get your data right.
Datacast Episode 131: Data Infrastructure for Consumer Platforms, Algorithmic Governance, and Responsible AI with Krishna Gade
Krishna Gade is the founder and CEO of Fiddler AI, an AI Observability startup that helps AI-forward organizations build trusted AI solutions and connect model outcomes to business KPIs. Fiddler addresses problems in model monitoring, explainability, analytics, and fairness.
An entrepreneur and engineering leader with strong technical experience in creating scalable platforms and delightful products, Krishna previously held senior engineering leadership roles at Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Microsoft. At Facebook, Krishna led the News Feed Ranking Platform that created the infrastructure for ranking content and powered use-cases like Facebook Stories and recommendations like People You May Know, Groups You Should Join, etc. Krishna’s team built Facebook’s explainability features like ‘Why am I seeing this?’ which helped bring much-needed algorithmic transparency and, thereby, accountability to the News Feed for both internal and external users.
2023 Annual Review: The Year of Intensity
The end of the calendar year presents us with a valuable opportunity to reflect on the year that was and plan for the year that will be. It's easy to glaze over the former and focus on the latter, but failure to reflect will eventually manifest as a failure to grow.
I started conducting a Personal Annual Review 9 years ago as a sophomore in college. It has been an immensely helpful exercise to which I would credit many of my greatest areas of progress. This annual exercise nurtures and develops sparks of inspiration, celebrates my uniqueness, helps me appreciate all the good in my life, tracks my personal growth, and allows me to strategically plan all the great and beautiful things I want my future to hold.
For the 2023 annual review, I will follow the template by Intelligent Change outlined in their “Best Year Journal” - a tool for setting relevant goals and having a fulfilling year ahead that I have been using.
Datacast Episode 130: Towards Accessible Data Analysis with Emanuel Zgraggen
Before founding Einblick in 2020, Emanuel was a postdoc in the database group at MIT and got his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown University. He worked on various interactive tools for visual data exploration and analysis during this time. Most of them either influenced or are direct predecessors of Einblick.
Before coming to the US, Emanuel worked as a Software and Data Engineer for various financial companies in Zurich. He tried his luck as a freelancer building in-studio touchscreen installations for Swiss National TV and developing a Spotify clone that failed miserably.
Datacast Episode 129: Early-Stage Product Management, Product-Led Revenue, and Startup Monologues with Diana Hsieh
Diana Hsieh is the Head of Product and Co-Founder at Correlated. She thrives on working with enterprise software startups. She was previously the first PM at infrastructure startups, including Cockroach Labs and Timescale. Before that, she was a VC at Norwest, focused on investing in early-stage enterprise software companies. Diana is always on the hunt for her next favorite coffee shop on weekends.
Datacast Episode 128: Building Trust with Founders, VC Funding for the Cloud, and The Next Platform for Data Apps with Jason Risch
Jason Risch is an investor on the enterprise team at Greylock - investing in security, AI/ML, data, infrastructure, and developer tools. Before joining Greylock, he incubated ML companies at AI Fund and was a management consultant at McKinsey. Jason is a Bay Area native, graduated from Stanford, and when not working, can be found reading, hiking, playing Age of Empires, and cheering on Stanford Football.
Datacast Episode 127: Data Intelligence for Insurance Transformation with Heather Wentworth
Heather Wentworth is the Chief Data Officer of Accelerant, an MGA-enabling insurtech focused on improving how risk is exchanged across the insurance ecosystem. She is passionate about delivering innovative solutions and business models that improve business outcomes and drive revenue growth. She was nominated as one of the top 100 Insurance Innovators of 2022 by Lightico.
Datacast Episode 126: Vector Search Engine, Building An Open-Source Business, and Digital Technology Through The Lens of Language with Bob Van Luijt
Bob Van Luijt is the CEO and co-founder of Weaviate, the business created around the open-source vector database Weaviate. Besides Weaviate, Bob frequently speaks on open-source, digital technology, software business, and business philosophy. He has spoken at 100s of events on the topics mentioned above all over the world, including a TEDx talk.
Datacast Episode 125: The Next Wave of Developer Platforms, Data Products, and Software Infrastructure with Sakib Dadi
Sakib Dadi is a vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners in their San Francisco office, where he primarily focuses on early-stage investments in developer platforms, data products, and software infrastructure. He has been involved with Bessemer’s investments, including Prefect, Coiled, Arcion, Periscope Data, Okera, Guild Education, and Sila Nanotechnologies. Before joining Bessemer, Sakib worked in product at Viagogo, an international marketplace for buying and selling tickets for live events.