The Joe Reis Show

Joe Reis
  • 5.0 (21)
  • Technology
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Twenty years in this industry and the hard parts still haven't changed. That's what this show is about. I'm Joe Reis. I co-wrote Fundamentals of Data Engineering, I teach data engineering around the world and on Coursera, and I've watched the same failures repeat for two decades with new logos bolted on. Each week I broadcast from wherever I happen to be. Solo rants. Long conversations with the people actually building things. Data engineering, architecture, AI, and how to survive a career in it. If you want the polished version, there are a thousand podcasts for that.

  1. 2h ago

    The AI Market Is Entering Its Accountability Phase

    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: Fivetran With 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

  2. 1d ago

    The Database Is Not the Data Model

    A short rant based on my new article this week, "The Database Is Not the Data Model" "In discussions with data practitioners, I keep seeing the same confusion. Someone pulls up a DDL file, a folder of dbt or SQL, or an ERD reverse-engineered from a Postgres instance and says: “Here’s our data model.” Not to be pedantic, but that’s a schema. Schemas are great. But data modeling is more than just schema design." Let’s dive into the difference in this podcast and the article. Article: https://practicaldatamodeling.substack.com/p/the-database-is-not-the-data-model

  3. 1d ago

    Why 80% of AI Projects Fail & How to Build an AI-First Company - Steve Brown (AI Futurist)

    In this episode, I chat with Steve Brown, an AI futurist, independent consultant, and former professional at Intel and Google DeepMind. Steve shares his insights on helping global leadership teams decode the future of artificial intelligence. We dive into the common pitfalls of corporate AI adoption, including why so many AI initiatives fail due to poor communication and a lack of cultural integration. Steve outlines a definitive three-step path to AI transformation, emphasizing the critical difference between 20th-century cost-cutting and 21st-century labor amplification. The conversation also explores how AI is reshaping middle management, the distinct differences between "AI-first" and "AI-native" businesses, and the staggering acceleration of physical AI and humanoid robotics.

  4. Jul 10

    The Data Anarchy Tax: Why No One Owns Your Data

    In this Freestyle Friday episode, I break down results from the June 2026 Pulse Survey on organizational dysfunction among data engineers. I also dig into why data product ownership (or lack thereof) is one of the fundamental issues standing between companies and success with data and AI. ----------------------- Sponsor: Fivetran With 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

  5. Jul 8

    How I'm Actually Using AI to Write a Book

    I walk through exactly how I use AI for idea generation, review, editing, and drafting on my upcoming book, Mixed Model Arts. This is also the first in a new Wednesday format where I answer listener questions about what I'm building. -------------------- Mixed Model Arts will be out soon. If you want to get a good deal on the e-book and on-demandcourse, please go to Practical Data Modeling.: https://practicaldatamodeling.substack.com/

  6. Jul 7

    Is AI Replacing Data Engineers? - Kirill Bobrov (Luminousmen)

    Kirill Bobrov, a senior data engineer at Spotify and author of the blog Luminousmen, joins me to talk about his viral "Drunk Post" repost, whether the AI boom is real infrastructure or another bubble, why engineering judgment can't be automated away, and the process of writing a technical book on concurrency. Luminousmen: https://luminousmen.com/

  7. Jun 26

    What I'd Do as a Junior Data Engineer in 2026

    With AI reshaping employer expectations, junior candidates in data are facing real anxiety about the job market. I share the technical and personal skills I'd focus on, my top five traits I look for in a candidate, and how to build a network from scratch. ----------------------- 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. With a five-minute, zero-touch setup, it deploys 18 specialized agents across your data estate to automatically manage FinOps, performance tuning, and data quality. If you want to cut your cloud costs by 30% to 70% and get back to actual data architecture, check out what they are building at revefi.com/ai-dba

  8. Jun 25

    Max Beauchemin on Agentic AI and His Claude Code Moment

    Maxime Beauchemin, creator of Apache Airflow and Superset, joins me to talk about his path from data orchestration to the frontier of AI. We cover his "Claude Code moment," his new agentic workflow tool Agor, and what a software-utopia future might actually look like.

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5
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About

Twenty years in this industry and the hard parts still haven't changed. That's what this show is about. I'm Joe Reis. I co-wrote Fundamentals of Data Engineering, I teach data engineering around the world and on Coursera, and I've watched the same failures repeat for two decades with new logos bolted on. Each week I broadcast from wherever I happen to be. Solo rants. Long conversations with the people actually building things. Data engineering, architecture, AI, and how to survive a career in it. If you want the polished version, there are a thousand podcasts for that.

Information

  • Creator
    Joe Reis
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    392
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Joe Reis
  • Show Website
    The Joe Reis Show

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