High Signal: Data Science | Career | AI

Delphina

Welcome to High Signal, the podcast for data science, AI, and machine learning professionals. High Signal brings you the best from the best in data science, machine learning, and AI. Hosted by Hugo Bowne-Anderson and produced by Delphina, each episode features deep conversations with leading experts, such as Michael Jordan (UC Berkeley), Andrew Gelman (Columbia) and Chiara Farranato (HBS). Join us for practical insights from the best to help you advance your career and make an impact in these rapidly evolving fields. More on our website: https://high-signal.delphina.ai/

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June 18 · 53 min
Episode 41: The Verification Crisis: Why Trust Is the New Bottleneck in AI
Noah Smith, economist and author of Noahpinion, joins High Signal to look at what AI is already changing… and what it isn’t. The conversation moves beyond the usual productivity hype to ask harder questions: Is agentic coding actually increasing revenue per hour worked? Will software remain a high-margin business if AI makes it easy to clone? And what happens when generating content, code, vendors, applications, and companies becomes much cheaper than verifying them?
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May 26 · 58 min
Episode 40: The Economic Reality of AI: Friction, Talent, and the Future of the Firm
Steve Tadelis, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley and former senior economist at eBay and Amazon, joins High Signal to bridge the gap between economic theory and the high-stakes reality of data science and AI. Drawing on his experience at the forefront of the world’s largest marketplaces, Steve discusses the "invisible friction" that prevents organizations from acting on data: a combination of misaligned incentives, organizational inertia, and the "Upton Sinclair problem," where leaders are e
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May 12 · 56 min
Episode 39: The 100-Year Lead: What Baseball Teaches Us About the Future of AI
Chris Fonnesbeck, creator of the open-source Bayesian modeling library PyMC and veteran analyst for the Yankees and Mets, joins to unpack why baseball has been a leading indicator for data science and analytics for over a century, and why builders and AI leaders need to pay attention now. The reason it has led is simple: huge incentives and a culture that treats decisions as quantifiable. With wins worth about eight to ten million dollars apiece and front offices built around probabilistic reaso
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April 16 · 45 min
Episode 38: Why AI Won’t Fix Your Data Culture, It Will Only Amplify It (And What To Do About It)
Noah Bruegmann, President of Data CRT, joins High Signal to discuss how to move your data function from a cost center to a strategic "value center". He explains how AI amplifies your existing data culture, the importance of "no-assistance" reporting, and how rebranding documentation as "Context" can finally secure executive buy-in. Drawing on 15 years of experience spanning trading floors and Silicon Valley startups, Noah argues that for too long, data teams have been submerged under an "iceberg
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April 2 · 46 min
Episode 37: Engineered Intelligence and The Data Science Problem in AI
Jordan Morrow, SVP of Data & AI Transformation at AgileOne and the "Godfather of Data Literacy," joins High Signal to discuss the shift from being "data-driven" to becoming "AI-enabled." Jordan warns that many organizations are walking into the same traps that derailed the data science era a decade ago: prioritizing expensive tooling and hype over the cultural change and literacy required to actually move the needle. The pattern is already visible: enterprise AI projects are failing at around 90
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March 19 · 1 hr 3 min
Episode 36: AI and the Judgment Problem in Data Science
Dawn Woodard (Distinguished Engineer, LinkedIn), Andrés Bucchi (LATAM Airlines), and Jeremy Hermann (CEO & Co-Founder, Delphina) join High Signal for a deep dive into the shifting architecture of data science & analytics in the era of AI. As the industry moves from static dashboards to vibe coding and conversational querying, this panel of industry veterans explores why traditional data fundamentals—strict cataloging, verifiable outputs, and a single source of truth—are suddenly the most critica
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March 5 · 55 min
Episode 35: Beyond Online Experimentation: Generative Software That Optimizes Itself
Martin Tingley, Head of Windows Experimentation at Microsoft and former Head of the Experimentation Platform Analysis Team at Netflix, talks about why humans are the bottleneck in experimentation, and how a five-level maturity framework points the way toward self-optimizing software.
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February 10 · 45 min
Episode 34: Duolingo and the Future of Personalized Education with AI
Bozena Pajak, VP of Learning at Duolingo, joins High Signal to discuss the evolution of AI at Duolingo: from personalized difficulty models to the current generative frontier where AI characters provide low-stakes and high impact conversational practice. We discuss the role of AI in overcoming one of the biggest hurdles in language acquisition, speaking anxiety. We also talk about how Bozena's team leverages agentic workflows to scale content and why the next wave of personalization involves shi
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January 27 · 1 hr
Episode 33: Why Your AI Product Will Be Obsolete in Six Months (And What To Do About It)
Benn Stancil joins High Signal to ask some uncomfortable questions about the current AI moment. Is now actually a terrible time to start a company, if the tools you build on today are obsolete in six months, at what point does the head start stop mattering? Is all that context engineering you're doing a waste of time, destined to go the way of Boolean search syntax in the 90s?
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January 13 · 41 min
Episode 32: The Post-Coding Era: What Happens When AI Writes the System?
Nicholas Moy, former Head of Research at Windsurf & now at Google DeepMind, joins High Signal to discuss the shift from "co-driving" to a truly "agentic" era of development. We discuss Windsurf's journey from early prototypes that struggled with compounding errors to the successful launch of their agentic coding product. Nick explains that building a startup in the current climate requires a strategy of "disrupting yourself" to avoid the innovator’s dilemma; companies must be ready to pivot as
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Dec 30, 2025 · 47 min
Episode 31: Why Data Governance In Your Org is Broken (And How to Fix It)
Cara Dailey, VP and Head of Data Strategy at Early Warning (the parent company of Zelle), joins High Signal to discuss the evolution of high-stakes data leadership and governance. From her early work in online advertising at DoubleClick to shaping data strategy at Nike and holding Chief Data Officer roles at Bank of the West and T. Rowe Price, Cara has seen every iteration of the data leader’s role. Now, she’s navigating her 'product era'—shaping the data strategy for Early Warning's Decisions I
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Dec 11, 2025 · 50 min
Episode 30: The AI Paradox: Why Your Data Team’s Workload is About to Explode
Chris Child, VP of Product, Data Engineering at Snowflake, joins High Signal to deliver a new playbook for data leaders based on his recent MIT report, revealing why AI is paradoxically creating more work for data teams, not less. He explains how the function is undergoing a forced evolution from back-office “plumbing” to the strategic core of the enterprise, determining whether AI initiatives succeed or fail. The conversation maps the new skills and organizational structures required to navigat
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Nov 28, 2025 · 49 min
Episode 29: Why AI Adoption Fails: A Behavioral Framework for AI Implementation
Liz Costa of the Behavioral Insights Team returns to High Signal to deliver a critical behavioral science playbook for the AI era focused on human and business impact. We discuss why the potential of AI can only be fulfilled by understanding a single bottleneck: human behavior. The conversation reveals why leaders must intervene now to prevent temporary adoption patterns from calcifying into permanent organizational norms, the QWERTY Effect, and how to move organizations past simply automating d
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Nov 13, 2025 · 50 min
Episode 28: From Context Engineering to AI Agent Harnesses: The New Software Discipline
Lance Martin of LangChain joins High Signal to outline a new playbook for engineering in the AI era, where the ground is constantly shifting under the feet of builders. He explains how the exponential improvement of foundation models is forcing a complete rethink of how software is built, revealing why top products from Claude Code to Manus are in a constant state of re-architecture simply to keep up.
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Oct 30, 2025 · 41 min
Episode 27: Why Your Data Team Doesn't Have a Seat at the Table (And How to Earn It)
Paras Doshi (Head of Data, Opendoor; former data leader at Amazon) joins High Signal to unpack the playbook for building an indispensable data function. He shares his experience tackling the classic scaling challenge of fragmented data at Opendoor, where rapid growth led to inconsistent metrics across the business, and turning the data function into a centralized strategic asset.
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Oct 16, 2025 · 43 min
Episode 26: Gen AI's True Cost: Why Today's Wins Are Tomorrow's Debts
Vishnu Ram Venkataraman (Generative AI Executive & Entrepreneur; former AI Leader at Credit Karma and Intuit) joins High Signal to unpack the true cost of generative AI. Having scaled AI solutions impacting over 140 million users, Vishnu reveals why the ease of shipping Gen AI prototypes often masks significant operational and engineering debts, challenging the conventional wisdom of rapid deployment.
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Oct 2, 2025 · 56 min
Episode 25: How Data-Driven Growth Redefined a Media Giant
Sergey Fogelson (VP of Data Science, Televisa Univision) joins High Signal to reveal how the world’s largest Spanish-language media company built a sophisticated data engine from the ground up. This transformation fueled a tenfold expansion of its digital streaming business by redefining how the company connects with 300 million viewers worldwide. At the heart of this success is a proprietary household graph that creates a single, privacy-first view of a massive and culturally diverse audience.
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Sep 15, 2025 · 49 min
Episode 24: Rebuilding an Airline for the 21st Century: LATAM's Data-Driven Transformation
Andrés Bucchi (Chief Data Officer, LATAM Airlines) joins High Signal to unpack how a century-old airline reinvented itself with data and AI—and how that transformation is unlocking value from fuel efficiency to fraud detection. LATAM has built a massive data operation, experimenting across everything from pricing to operations, while customers benefit from a more reliable and secure travel experience. We dig into how LATAM fostered an experimentation culture, why existing data infrastructure is
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Sep 2, 2025 · 51 min
Episode 23: Why Most AI Agents Fail (and What It Takes to Reach Production)
Anu Bharadwaj (President, Atlassian) joins High Signal to unpack how humans and AI agents will work together across the enterprise, and how that shift could change the very nature of teamwork. Atlassian employees have already built thousands of agents across product, marketing, engineering, and HR teams, while customers like HarperCollins are cutting manual work by 4x as industries from publishing to finance rethink their workflows. We dig into how Atlassian’s culture enables bottom-up experime
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Aug 19, 2025 · 46 min
Episode 22: Why a Trillion Dollars of Market Cap Is Up for Grabs (and How AI Teams Will Win It)
Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures) joins High Signal to unpack why a trillion dollars of market cap is up for grabs as AI reshapes enterprise software. He explains why workflows are now changing faster than packaged software can keep up, how “liquid software” is redefining CRM and marketing automation, and why background agents will require a new kind of “agent inbox.” We discuss the compounding errors that arise when tools are chained too finely, the hidden AI technical debt accumulating in today’
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