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Great episode to kick off 2021. Dr. Haixun Wang has been at the forefront of introducing AI-based innovation to the world's leading technology companies including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon. He's the current VP Engineering and Distinguished Scientist at Instacart where he focuses on improving the grocery delivery experience with AI.Listen and learn...Why knowledge graphs may be the solution to improve today’s e-commerce search experience. Why it’s hard to create an algorithm to help shoppers pick items from store shelves.What defines a “technology” company.Why it’s difficult to “make the physical world smart”. What happens when you search “insomnia" on Amazon.Haixun’s proudest accomplishment.Resources mentioned in the discussion with Dr. Wang:Our episodes with...Bill DavidowAlex from Josh.aiDarius from MeratasCharlene LiTiernan RayDave KelloggHaixun's quarantine reading: In Search of Lost Time by Marcel ProustHaixun's blog

Darius Goldman, CEO and Founder of Meratas, discusses the future of education and how income share agreements (ISAs) are making college and trade school more accessible. Meratas partners with educational institutions to offer a financing option to students who can attend courses for free up front and pay later with a portion of future income. Meratas is off to a fast start with 30 education partners and 3,100 students.Listen and learn...How ISAs create opportunities for students who couldn’t otherwise afford higher educationDarius’ perspective on the future of education: “It’s a luxury to get educated for the sake of enrichment"How a waitress working three low-paying jobs is now selling software thanks to a Meratas-backed ISA What Darius will be most proud of when Meratas transforms the education marketH/t to Jason Calacanis (@Jason) whose great interview with Darius led to this week’s podcast.Episodes and organizations referenced:Tess Posner, CEO of AI4ALL Charlene Li, best-selling author of The Disruption MindsetPatty Hatter, SVP Palo Alto NetworksPrehiredLambda SchoolCourseraKhan Academy

On this week’s podcast, Michael Shepherd, Distinguished Engineer at Dell Technologies focused on AI, describes the present and future of intelligent software. Fascinating discussion about using AI for good… and what could happen if we lose control. Worth listening to hear when Michael thinks we’ll achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence), where bots are indistinguishable from humans. Listen and learn… About Michael’s vision for “analytics at the speed of thought”. How Michael describes the “three Vs of big data”. Why laptops may soon not need charging cables. Why knowing the answer will be less important in the future. Research referenced in this episode: Imagine a world without wiresGoogle’s DeepMind beats doctors at breast cancer detectionThe ethics of AI

In this special episode with Dr. Helen Gu, author or co-author of 80+ academic papers on distributed computing and AI for systems management, we discuss the past, present, and future of AI for IT Operations.Listen and learn...How and why the technology behind common problems like image recognition fails when applied to machine dataWhere Helen and her team were nine years ahead of AmazonWhy unsupervised machine learning is required to predict and prevent system downtimeWhy machine learning is well-suited to anomaly detection for machine dataThe next technology breakthrough that will eliminate sleepless nights for developersResearch papers referenced on today's episode:Helen's 10-year Symposium on Cloud Computing award about elastic resource scalingFixing the hang bug problem

Chris Curtin has been on a journey over the past twenty plus years to modernize iconic brands like Disney, HP, and Visa. He has been at the forefront of new payment technologies, consumer channels, and business models. We discussed the future of everything with Chris. Listen and learn...Why it will soon be as easy to send money to Botswana as it is to send photos or emoji.How Chris defines "brand".What it was like negotiating Visa's Olympic Games partnership.The best leadership advice Chris has received.How Coldplay (and the Pope) just may show up in your living room soon.Companies and episodes mentioned:MicrosoftShopifyVisaDisneyHPOur episode with Alex Capecelatro, Josh.ai CEO and FounderThanks to Lister Delgado from IDEA Fund Partners for the introduction!

This week, we had a fascinating discussion that unveiled the dirty secret of AI and machine learning: algorithm performance is only as good as data quality... and data pipelines break frequently. Data Scientists spend most of their time wrangling data. Barr Moses, CEO and Founder of Monte Carlo, explains how the problem is getting solved and what that means for the future of technology. Plus, learn… The five pillars of data health How to quantify the impact of data downtime How Barr thinks about being intentional when establishing company culture and values Barr’s advice for female and under-represented minority entrepreneurs raising venture capital Shark populations off the coast of South Africa? Well, just listen :). Companies and people mentioned in the episode: GainsightThe Great RBGKamala Harris

This week's special episode of AI and the Future of Work features execs discussing how they use AI to reduce downtime. More important, they share how, as leaders, they're navigating the complicated relationship between humans and machines.Listen and learn from some of the best:Joel Eagle on how McDonald's thinks about managing data at scale to improve the guest experience.Mark Settle, seven-time CIO and best-selling author of Truth from the Valley, on how the shift to cloud-based apps has changed user behavior.Ray Lippig, Program Manager at J.B. Hunt, on how anomaly detection is changing the logistics business.Sean Barker, CEO of cloudEQ, on how AI means we can architect cloud solutions designed for resilience.Plus, hear three predictions for how AI will change work in the next 18 months.For the first time, we also published a video version of this week's podcast on YouTube. Enjoy!

On this week’s episode of AI and the Future of Work, Colin Fletcher shares insights including... What he meant by “AIOps” when he coined the term and what has happened since then.How the most mature organizations adopt DevOps.How AIOps will change in the next three years. The new definition of automation everyone in IT will soon be talking about. ...And of course, the not-so-secret recipe for earth's best fried chicken. People mentioned in this episode: Patrick Debois, Bridget Kromhaut, Charity Majors. Companies mentioned in this episode: GitLab, ServiceNow, Splunk, New Relic, AppDynamics, BigPanda, Gartner.

Welcome to this week's "best of" episode of AI and the Future Work. Today, we’re opening the vault and re-introducing you to Dave Kellogg, serial high-tech CEO, board member, and of course Dead Head discussing SaaS metrics earlier this year. I’m proud to share that the podcast just crossed 100,000 downloads so I’m taking this opportunity to thank you for listening. If you enjoy the show, please rate us wherever you get your podcasts to demonstrate your support for independent media and help more listeners discover our amazing guests. It’s a week before the election and we’re all political scientists and data junkies for the next eight days. Dave is the original SaaS scientist. Listen as he puts on a master class about the metrics that matter plus offers coaching for entrepreneurs about how to tell stories with data. If you don’t know your CAC from your LTV or how to calculate the true sales cycle, listen up. Metrics matter not just to pitch your company but to run your business, validate your hiring plan, groom your product backlog, and define your marketing strategy. The future of work may be AI but even the best AI won’t replace the kind of decision-making that only comes from really understanding how to analyze your customer's journey. Oh, and if you're not already subscribed to Dave's great Kellblog, you're missing the best SaaS content. Subscribe now!

Patty Hatter, former CIO, COO, and current SVP Customer Services at Palo Alto Networks, shares advice for women about how to break the glass ceiling in Silicon Valley. Hear how Patty went from engineering grad student to global exec by cultivating an authentic leadership style.Listen and learn:How six months in Europe shaped Patty's career.The advice Patty says served her best when leaving Bell LabsWhy Patty says "being a CIO is the best role to have had in the past."Tips for dealing with unconscious bias in the workplace.Patty's advice to women convinced they can't accomplish what men can in high-tech.Here's a link to the great episode with Mark Settle referenced in the show.

This week's discussion is about the pandemic, AI, and mental health. Deryk Van Brunt is a serial entrepreneur, trained epidemiologist, and Professor at the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health.CredibleMind uses AI to improve access to mental health resources. What once was relegated to the shadows of healthcare is now mainstream. Anxiety and stress have spiked due to social isolation and the increased burden of elder and childcare. Like all fields being disrupted by AI, the fear of biased training data is real. Who owns your mental health data? Who is responsible for monitoring the performance of AI algorithms? Deryk introduces us to the future of holistic medicine. Listen and learn… The current state of mental health. Did you know over half of the U.S. population has a diagnosable mental health condition over the course of a lifetime?How the pandemic has exacerbated the mental health problem.How to mitigate the impact of biased training data.How virtual healthcare providers like Woebot are giving new meaning to the term “the therapist can see you now".Here’s a link to the CDC article referenced in the show. Deryk can be reached at Deryk @ CredibleMind dot com or via the CredibleMind website. 

New format this week: a special panel discussion with Justin Fitzhugh from Snowflake, Liz Holland from Dell, and Luca Blanzuoli from Credit Suisse...Learn insights about the future of AI in IT Operations from the pros:"We couldn't keep the environment available without AI technology.” -Liz from Dell“It’s time to switch paradigms. It’s not ok to have outages with the same root cause twice. We should have no outages.” -Luca from Credit Suisse “AI is like having a PhD on the team transferred from generation to generation... without having to earn the degree.” -Luca from Credit Suisse"We can't keep up with the growth of our business without AI and automation. As a data management platform, the business expects us to continuously innovate." -Justin from SnowflakePlus...We coin a new IT acronym. You'll soon replace "KTLO" with "KTTPOTS". We discuss what you need to know to start a new DevOps or SRE team.We learn how Dell was able to migrate 140,000 global employees to home offices...over a weekend!Thanks to our wonderful panelists for a fun conversation. Enjoy!

This week's guest deserves credit for helping transform Intuit into an iconic technology brand with a reputation for great company culture and values-driven leadership.We get a unique look into the secrets that have made Cassie and Intuit successful and, more important, what Cassie's doing to define the post-pandemic future of work for self-employed entrepreneurs. Listen and learn...Why Scott Cook, Intuit founder, advised employees to "love the problem not the solution."How Cassie has changed her leadership style to support remote teams.What "customer obsession" means at Intuit.Why Cassie says "there's no prosperity without equality."What Intuit is doing to narrow the pay gap.What Cassie learned from Clay Christensen.Episodes mentioned:Charlene Li shares lessons for disruptors.Deborah Hanus shares how Sparrow is fixing company leave policies.

Special guest Gareth Rushgrove, editor of the popular DevOps Weekly newsletter (since its inception ten years ago!) and former product lead at Docker and Puppet, joined the podcast this week for a wide-ranging discussion about the culture of IT operations, security and software development, and the future of application monitoring.Listen and learn:Why Gareth thinks teaching developers to write secure code is a "socio-technical" problemWhy the perceived "go fast vs. be secure" perceived tradeoff is wrongWhat Gareth has been doing to support the Open Policy Agent and accelerate adoption of infrastructure as codeWhat's ahead for Kubernetes and container managementWhat advice Gareth "newsletter iron man" has for listeners... and the one mistake he made when launching DevOps Weekly

Ever wonder what "knocker-uppers" did in Britain when alarm clocks were invented? Curious what scribes did after the printing press? Loom operators after the cotton gin? Throughout history, those on the right side of innovation thrive.In this crossover episode, host Dan Turchin is interviewed by Service Desk Institute Chief Value and Innovation Officer David Wright. Hear how technology is changing customer service... and improving the lives of customer service agents while forcing them to upskill and re-skill.Listen and learn:What skills won't be replaced by AIHow the service desk is being transformed by automationWhy "augmented intelligence" is improving employee serviceWhat's happening now to mitigate the impact of bias in training data

Greg Poirier understands what it’s like to carry the pager. He started as a systems engineer and has since spent a career developing products that help systems engineers sleep at night. In this episode, Greg explains the past, present, and future of IT operations. He also shares techniques for surviving the quarantine as a geek and an artist.Hear from the master… What is observability and why is it more important during the pandemic? What do great product teams do better than everyone else? Will we ever achieve NoOps? Is that even the right vision? Pets? Cattle? Discuss. Is monitoring dead? 

Brent Knipfer started from humble beginnings having taken an oath of poverty in the Peace Corps. He's now one of the leading authorities in the IT community on the topic of designing AI-first, data-driven strategies.Listen and learn...Why the secret to great AI is having great humans first clean your dataHow to optimize your CMDB for AIWhy service agents that accept recommendations from AI have the lowest MTTRWhy Brent's mantra is "leap to the future"How Brent has made it through the quarantine... including a preview of outrageous outfits he's been designing for his debut on the runway post-COVID

Barclay Rae, co-author of the ITIL v4 guides and ITSM consultant, and Sanjeev NC, AI enthusiast and former Product Marketing lead at Freshworks, join host Dan Turchin to discuss where AI is helping organizations and why fears of job elimination are unfounded.Listen and learn...Why "artificial" is a better description of today's AI technology than "intelligent"How AI is helping reduce training time for help desk agentsKey metrics you should be using to make sure your AI project is successfulThe skills you need to lead your organization's first AI projectWhat gamification has in common with AI

Deborah Hanus, Sparrow founder and CEO, joins Dan Turchin to discuss how improving the complicated maternity, paternity, and medical leave process makes life better for employees. Deborah shares her vision for the company, why the problem exists, and what it was like raising two rounds of funding as a solo founder.Listen and learn:What inspired Deborah to start SparrowWhy leave policies are so complicated and how COVID-19 has made the situation worseHow leave policies create gender bias and how Deborah recommends companies fix the problemWhy leave is tightly connected to job satisfaction and quality of lifeThe world Deborah hopes exists when Sparrow is wildly successful

Tiernan Ray has published articles in every major tech and business publication over his 25-year career. This week, he joined Dan Turchin on the podcast to discuss what it means to practice responsible journalism at a time when audiences and advertisers are fickle and we're contending with a pandemic, social unrest, political turmoil, and backlash against social media for promoting hate.Listen and learn...Why journalistic integrity matters even as fact-checking departments at organizations like Barron's are being eliminated.How the pandemic has created opportunities to tell stories about scientific topics that weren't previously exposed to mainstream audiences.Why it's important for writers to not allow their social media brands to influence their presentation of facts.How leaders like former Cisco CEO John Chambers, Applied Materials CEO Gary Dickerson, and Five9 CEO Rowan Trollope are managing company culture as "serendipitous moments for collaboration" go away.Follow Tiernan on Twitter.