The Joe Reis Show

Jaksot

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  Nobody Knows... 11.09.2026 16min

  I talk to executives and practitioners around the world about AI and what comes next. Everyone has predictions and pontifications, and everyone seems to think someone else has the answers. But the more conversations I have, the clearer it gets that nobody knows what's next. In this episode, I explore that uncertainty and how we move forward anyway.Because in the end, nobody knows...
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  Why AI Agents Will Break Modern Data Engineering (And How to Fix It) w/ Christophe Blefari (Nao) 10.09.2026 57min

  In this episode of The Joe Reis Show, I catch up with my good friend Christophe Blefari, co-founder of NAO, to dig into what's actually happening on the front lines of AI agents and data engineering. We talk about the evolution from building SQL IDEs to agentic analytics harnesses, how prompt-driven workflows are reshaping data teams, and why age-old problems like data discovery, modeling, and documentation are suddenly roaring back. We also dive into the risks of "token slop," whether data and software engineering roles are destined to merge, Christophe’s take on DuckDB’s acquisition by AWS, and the realities of building AI tools across Europe and the US.Nao: https://getnao.io/
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  The Return of Conceptual Data Modeling w/ Sami Hero (CEO of Ellie.ai) 08.09.2026 49min

  In this episode, I sit down with Sami Hero, CEO of Ellie.ai, to talk through the evolution of data modeling and why foundational conceptual modeling is more critical now than ever. With the explosion of AI agents, LLMs, and semantic layers, many teams assume they can bypass data modeling and just let an AI infer meaning directly from raw tables. We dig into why that mindset leads to bad decisions, how companies end up with 15,000 Snowflake tables and thousands of unmaintained dashboards, and why defining core business concepts is the real prerequisite for reliable AI. We also discuss the resurgence of ontologies, lessons from old-school methodologies like MERISE, and how to balance speed with sound architecture.
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  Agents, Self-Service BI Redux, and "Death of Data Teams" 04.09.2026 19min

  AI agents are being pitched as the “death of the data team,” with CEOs supposedly able to do the work themselves. We’ve heard versions of this promise before, from self-service BI to low-code analytics.In this episode, I revisit that history and ask what agents actually change. Who prepares the data, resolves conflicting definitions, and checks the answers? What does the hiring research tell us about demand for experienced people and opportunities for juniors?
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  Bringing Distributed Compute & AI to the Edge w/ David Aronchick (CEO of Expanso) 01.09.2026 52min

  In this episode of the Joe Reis Show, I sit down with David Aronchick, co-founder of Expanso and one of the early pioneers behind Kubernetes, Kubeflow, and the CNCF. We dive deep into the evolving data landscape and discuss why the architectural pendulum is swinging back from pure cloud centralization toward distributed edge compute. David breaks down the real operational nightmares of edge data collection, why treating your bronze tier as a "toxic waste dump" breaks downstream pipelines, and how applying schema and context upstream makes your data truly AI-ready. We also get into the critical need for data provenance, data bills of materials, and what agents actually need to communicate reliably.Website: https://expanso.io
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  Are You Still Hands-On? 28.08.2026 24min

  I get asked all the time whether I’m still “hands-on.” The short answer: not in the traditional sense. My work has shifted toward writing, teaching, advising, investing, building companies, and working with the people building what comes next. In this episode, I argue that technical relevance isn’t about staying trapped in the same operating mode forever, and that AI is drastically changing what “hands-on” even means.------------------------Sponsor: FivetranWith the rise of AI and agents, having centralized, trustworthy data is the absolute foundation for building tools and training models. Fivetran automates your data pipelines, removing the need to build fragile connectors so your data arrives clean and reliable. By handling the messy infrastructure behind the scenes, Fivetran allows your team to focus on building the future. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠fivetran.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more.The Joe Reis Show is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
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  Building with AI, DuckDB + RDF, and the Semantic Future w/ Dan Bennett (Head of Tech @ S&P Global) 27.08.2026 52min

  On this episode of The Joe Reis Show, I’m joined by Dan Bennett, Head of Technology for the Enterprise Data Organization at S&P Global.We get into what it actually looks like to build with modern AI coding tools like Claude Code. Not just as a toy, but for writing production-grade C++. Dan walks through how he built an open-source RDF extension for DuckDB, why rock-solid test coverage is non-negotiable when working with LLMs, and why engineering leaders need to keep their hands dirty to understand where this tech is headed. We also react to the breaking news of AWS acquiring DuckDB Labs, talk through the shift from "human-in-the-loop" to autonomous agents running in headless VMs, and dive into why data semantics across organizational boundaries remains one of the hardest - and most important - unsolved problems in our industry.Website: https://nonodename.com/
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  The Mixed Model Arts Manifesto 21.08.2026 15min

  I discuss the The Mixed Model Arts Manifesto. That's it. That's the show.
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  Agentic Analytics and the Death of Dashboards? | Oliver Laslett (CTO of Lightdash) 19.08.2026 1t 4min

  Will AI agents solve the data industry's hardest challenges, or are we just amplifying existing chaos?In this episode, I chat with Oliver Laslett, Co-founder and CTO at Lightdash, to explore the frontier of agentic analytics, data modeling, and modern software engineering practices. We dive deep into how AI is shifting daily workflows from writing SQL and DBT models to higher-order system thinking, why the hardest data problems remain human and organizational, and the cultural differences in tech optimism between London and San Francisco.Oliver also breaks down why permissions, curation, and data lineage are still the true bottlenecks, and why high-ownership communication matters more than ever in an era of AI slop.
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  The Great Recomposition: Why Everything is Blurring Together 14.08.2026 21min

  It feels like everything is converging right now. Data forms and systems are converging. Agile and Waterfall are starting to look strangely compatible. Software engineering, data engineering, and AI engineering are bleeding into each other. In this episode, I explore why AI is collapsing boundaries we spent decades creating, and why semantics, architecture, specification, and judgment may matter more as a result.-----------------------Sponsor: FivetranWith the rise of AI and agents, having centralized, trustworthy data is the absolute foundation for building tools and training models. Fivetran automates your data pipelines, removing the need to build fragile connectors so your data arrives clean and reliable. By handling the messy infrastructure behind the scenes, Fivetran allows your team to focus on building the future. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠fivetran.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more.The Joe Reis Show is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
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  Stop Overpaying for AI! The Rise of Small Open-Source Models w/ Daniel Svonava (Superlinked) 13.08.2026 51min

  Are massive frontier AI models actually worth the cost?In this episode, I sit down with Daniel Svonava, Founder of Superlinked, to break down where AI is actually heading in production. We dive into why the hype around massive frontier models is shifting toward targeted, small open-source models, and how to orchestrate smart agents without blowing through your budget.Daniel shares how Superlinked is building open-source inference infrastructure, why small models are rapidly closing the performance gap, and how you can engineer faster, cheaper, and more control-driven AI systems.
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  The "X Is Dead" Fallacy 07.08.2026 18min

  Every so often, the tech industry declares something dead. Data warehousing is dead. Data modeling is dead. Semantic layers are dead. SQL is dead. Now AI is supposedly making entire professions obsolete. I get it. Ragebait gets the clicks and comments. But it's also lame and disingenuous.In this Freestyle Friday, I unpack the logical fallacies behind these claims, why technology almost always evolves instead of replaces, and how separating fundamentals from shapeshifting implementations gives you a much clearer view of where the industry is actually headed.-----------------------Sponsor: FivetranWith the rise of AI and agents, having centralized, trustworthy data is the absolute foundation for building tools and training models. Fivetran automates your data pipelines, removing the need to build fragile connectors so your data arrives clean and reliable. By handling the messy infrastructure behind the scenes, Fivetran allows your team to focus on building the future. Visit ⁠⁠⁠fivetran.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more.The Joe Reis Show is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
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  Building Real AI Systems: Inside "Architected Intelligence" with Jacob Miller and Jeremy Mumford 05.08.2026 48min

  In this episode, I crashed Pattern's office to sit down with Jacob Miller (VP of Platform Intelligence) and Jeremy Mumford (Lead AI Engineer) from Pattern to discuss their newly co-authored book, "Architected Intelligence." We dive deep into the reality of building scalable AI systems, explaining why companies cannot simply put an LLM in front of everything. We also explore the importance of curating data to avoid the "semantic swamp," the reality of adapting organizational structures to external marketplace algorithms, and the collaborative process of writing a tech book using AI as an "anti-sycophantic" sparring partner. We also discuss the booming tech and startup scene in Utah, the future of autonomous cloud agents powered by budget-friendly AI models, and more.Buy Architected Intelligence: https://amzn.to/4haOqArThe Joe Reis Show is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
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  My Podcast is Invitation Only. Please Stop Spamming Me. 03.08.2026 1min

  I'm getting a ton of emails from individuals and PR agencies asking to be on my podcast. Almost all of it is AI slop spam of the most bland and uninteresting kind. "I have an AI startup solving X." Yeah, you and everybody else... my Goldendoodle also has an AI startup. As a reminder my podcast is invite-only. If you or your PR agency sends me these types of messages, I will ignore them or berate you for spamming me with this nonsensical and offensive slop.
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  The Post-Literate Engineer 31.07.2026 26min

  Marshall McLuhan predicted a post-literate world in The Gutenberg Galaxy. That world may now be arriving: humans are reading less, AI is reading more, and engineers can increasingly produce code, schemas, documentation, and infrastructure without fully understanding what they created. Perhaps this describes you? ;)In this Freestyle Friday, I look at the gap between production and comprehension, why judgment is becoming more valuable than cranking out code and diagrams, and how software and data engineers may evolve from writing code, shipping widgets, and building pipelines to creating the context and semantic infrastructure that machines need to act.-----------------------Sponsor: FivetranWith the rise of AI and agents, having centralized, trustworthy data is the absolute foundation for building tools and training models. Fivetran automates your data pipelines, removing the need to build fragile connectors so your data arrives clean and reliable. By handling the messy infrastructure behind the scenes, Fivetran allows your team to focus on building the future. Visit ⁠⁠fivetran.com⁠⁠ to learn more.The Joe Reis Show is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
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  The AI Backlash Is Real! - AI Journalist Sharon Goldman on Data Centers, Hype, the Future of Writing 30.07.2026 58min

  I sat down with Sharon Goldman - AI journalist, formerly at VentureBeat and Fortune, now running her own platform, Ground Level AI on Substack - for a conversation that went a lot further than I expected.We cover a lot of ground about the AI backlash, data centers, AI hype vs. reality, and the future of writing.Check out Ground Level AI: https://www.groundlevel-ai.com/The Joe Reis Show is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
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  The Data Engineering Lifecycle & Undercurrents - Mental Model Mondays 27.07.2026 9min

  It's been four years and a day since the Fundamentals of Data Engineering was published. The big mental models of the book are the Data Engineering Lifecycle and its Undercurrents. I also discuss what would change about the book if I write it again today.Thanks to everybody who has supported the Fundamentals of Data Engineering over the years. It's super cool to see the massive impact that the book has had on the data industry and its practitioners around the world.
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  Why AI Agents Are Replacing Traditional Data Engineering w/ Matt Glickman 23.07.2026 50min

  Are AI agents replacing traditional data engineering tasks?I sat down with Matt Glickman, CEO & Co-founder of Genesis Computing and former Snowflake and Goldman Sachs executive, for a conversation about where data engineering is actually heading. Most organizations today are stuck in "demo mode" or using LLMs as expensive code completers, simply writing code faster to feed legacy data architectures. But if you look at the industry from first principles, humans were never meant to be data machinery. In this episode, Matt and I break down how true agentic data systems work, why current enterprise architectures will fail under agent-scale query volumes, and what it really takes to capture institutional knowledge before it leaves the building. We also cover Matt’s front-row seat at Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis, his early days turning Snowflake into an enterprise giant, and how AI-native companies will outpace traditional enterprises. If you're building, architecting, or leading teams in the AI and data space, this is a conversation you don't want to miss.The Joe Reis Show is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
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  Conway's Law - Mental Model Mondays 20.07.2026 4min

  Here's a new show where I quickly cover a mental model that applies to your work as a data leader or practitioner.Kicking things off is Conway's Law.
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  Party's Over. The AI Market Is Entering Its Accountability Phase 17.07.2026 27min

  It's been a crazy summer for AI. AI enthusiasm remains high, but the market is starting to ask far harder questions. Semiconductor stocks are in a bear market. IBM’s shares fell sharply. Data-center projects are facing political and community resistance. Enterprises are adopting AI, but many are struggling to turn experimentation into measurable returns.In this Freestyle Friday episode, I look at why these signals do not necessarily mean an AI winter. Instead, they suggest that AI is moving from a "possibility market" into an "accountability market", where capability, economics, infrastructure, and organizational reality finally have to reconcile. Put another way, things are going to get real.-----------------------Sponsor: FivetranWith the rise of AI and agents, having centralized, trustworthy data is the absolute foundation for building tools and training models. Fivetran automates your data pipelines, removing the need to build fragile connectors so your data arrives clean and reliable. By handling the messy infrastructure behind the scenes, Fivetran allows your team to focus on building the future. Visit ⁠fivetran.com⁠ to learn more.-----------------------Sponsor: Revefi Save serious money on your cloud costs with Revefi’s new autonomous AI DBA, a tool built to handle the gritty reality of cloud data management so you can stop babysitting your infrastructure. Start saving money today at ⁠⁠revefi.com/ai-dba