Richie Cotton, Senior Data Evangelist, DataCamp

Richie Cotton is definitely one of the more different guests we've had on the pod, and I'm not talking only about his penchant for loud tropical shirts. He's a math guy, or a maths guy, as they'd say in his native England.

He's been a data scientist, a government researcher, and even a math teacher, which follows family tradition. And for the past 10 years, he's worked with DataCamp, an online education site that focuses on data science and AI, and where Richie serves both as senior data evangelist and as a podcaster.

In a sense, he's still teaching. But he's also an influencer, although he prefers "connector," with tens of thousands of followers. Richie joined us to talk about DataCamp's mission, how a boy from a small northern English town is managing in New York City, and those fabulous shirts of his, for this episode of Pressing Matters from Big Valley Marketing, the podcast that brings you conversations with the top media and influencers in B2B tech.

I'm Dave Reddy, head of Big Valley Marketing's Media and Influencers practice, and I'm your host. Through research and good old-fashioned relationship building, we've identified B2B tech's top 200 media and influencers, including Richie. Here's our chat. Enjoy.

Transcript

Dave Reddy 0:00

Richie Cotton is definitely one of the more different guests we've had on the pod, and I'm not talking only about his penchant for loud tropical shirts. He's a math guy, or a maths guy, as they'd say in his native England. He's been a data scientist, a government researcher, and even a math teacher, which follows family tradition. And for the past 10 years, he's worked with Data Camp, an online education site that focuses on data science and AI, and where Richie serves both as senior data evangelist and as a podcaster. In a sense, he's still teaching. But he's also an influencer, although he prefers connector, with tens of thousands of followers. Richie joined us to talk about Data Camp's mission, how a boy from a small northern English town is managing in New York City, and those fabulous shirts of his for this episode of Pressing Matters from Big Valley Marketing, the podcast that brings you conversations with the top media and influencers in B2B Tech. I'm Dave Reddy, head of Big Valley Marketing's Media and Influencers practice, and I'm your host. Through research and good old-fashioned relationship building, we've identified B2B Tech's top 200 media and influencers, including Richie. Here's our chat with Richie. Enjoy. Richie, thanks so much for joining the program. You know, you and I met in New York City back, I think it was December, and uh you agreed to come on the show then. And here we are. It's uh it's June, or well, we'll be running this in July, and it's it's great to have you on.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Uh yeah, great to be here, Dave. It's great. I get to tell my superhero origin story.

Dave Reddy 1:46

Yours. Well, so is yours like Superman? Did you come from another planet? Where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, it it wasn't quite Cripton, but I grew up in an area of the n in the northeast of England called Teesside. So Teesside is kind of it's like British Pittsburgh. It's a sort of it was an industrial area, but yeah, it's famous for two things. So, first we have Captain James Cook. He was the first European to go to Australia and Hawaii. So yeah, yeah, famous explorer. And also we have the first ever railway in the world, the Stockton uh Darlington Railway.

Dave Reddy 2:19

The first railway and James Cook, those are two pretty cool things, man. It's two two cool things, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah.

Dave Reddy 2:25

I I I I for another podcast altogether, but I just read the popular book about James Cook that was recently put out. He was a fascinating, killed in Hawaii, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, uh got eaten by the locals.

Dave Reddy 2:37

Yes, yes. Tough way to go. So that is you called it it's the peak district, is that correct? So where where England's highest mountains of roughly, I don't know, 1100 feet or so are?

SPEAKER_01 2:50

So actually, uh the Peak District is uh a slightly different area of England. I lived there later on in a town called Buxton. Buxton is famous for having spa water. So in the center of town, there's like some water comes out of the rocks. People go there and fill up their jugs of water with like dirty rock water. It's a big thing for tourists.

Dave Reddy 3:10

Well, so what kind of you know, Americans are, you know, we think of Paris, the French, we I just did it. We think of France, we think of Paris. We think of of England, we think of London. Talk to me about those two areas. I I think they're up more in the northwest. Talk to me about those two areas. What's it like growing up there as opposed to what Americans think Americans think of England, which of course is largely London or the Scottish Highlands where the uh the royals go to play.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah, I mean, I guess uh I I grew up in a small town and it's so Teaside is one of those areas where it was a big industrial area, so it kind of fell on hard times in the sort of end of the 20th century. But it's got some great countryside, so I become more of an outdoorsy person. I think because of this, the yeah, the hillside around uh Teaside is is pretty amazing. It's uh very scenic.

Dave Reddy 3:57

Well, I you know, next time I go to England, I'm gonna head up there. I've I I like uh I am ashamed to say I've only been to London. What do mum and dad do?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

So I come from a family of educators. My mum is a primary school teacher, uh elementary school teacher for my American friends. And my dad was he was an educational psychologist working for the local council. So he's working with uh kids with special needs, things like that. You'll seriously joke that he was responsible for all the teenage pregnancies in the local area.

Dave Reddy 4:28

Well, I hope not directly. So you uh so you uh that education is not only what they did, it's part of your story. And in fact, it's in a sense kind of the way you influence, which we'll get into a little bit later. But so maybe it's no surprise, given you were raised by educators, that you studied, as we say in America, math, and as you say in Britain, maths. So were you always a numbers guy? I mean, you know, you came from you know two teachers, so it was either that or English, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

So yeah, definitely. I think having parents involved in education sort of helped me a lot uh in that respect. But yeah, I I love maths from uh a young age. Although I have to say, when I was maybe about seven, I got put in like the special math class for like kids who weren't doing very well. No kidding. Yeah. You and Einstein. I know, I know, right? So they put me in there because I wasn't doing any work, and then they kind of realized I was just bored out of my mind. So they gave me some harder work and put me back in regular class, and it was like, okay, yeah, actually, Richie's quite good at this stuff. But yeah, I was just bored with uh the work they were giving me.

Dave Reddy 5:33

I was okay at math, and and it wasn't what I wanted to get into, but you know, I I I I I I I did I did well, and I had a friend who was really good at math that helped me get better grades in high school. I didn't take a single lick of math in college. But it's a to me, it's a it's a it's just a different part of the brain than those of us who are more, and you're good with words too, but those of us who are more words people, I I think literally is. So like when did you when did you figure out, or was it after they they they said they said we got to put this kid in remedial math, and oh my god, he's a genius. When did you figure out that numbers were your thing? Were you was it just something you were doing as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Or yeah, definitely. I always enjoyed that as a child. I think as a teenager, I read a few biographies of mathematicians. So there was a book called The Man Who Knew Infinity. It was about Ramanujant, this Indian mathematician from the early 20th century. He was like this genius who got discovered and went to Cambridge. Actually, he's another one who died tragically. And then there's a book called The Man Who Loved Only Numbers about Paul Edish, was the most prolific mathematician of all time. Weird dude. He just spent like all day taking amphetamins so we could do math better. So he was just like doing maths for like 18 hours or something. But yeah, this is what I wanted to be. I was like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna be a mathematician when I grow up. And it didn't pan out exactly like that, but that was that was my childhood dream.

Dave Reddy 6:57

Okay. And you but you don't do the amphetamins thing, you just do it.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

No, no, never tried that stuff.

Dave Reddy 7:02

Good to know. You know, although I I I would imagine that'd be one heck of a way to get a lot more math done. Yeah, it's it's funny you say that. I mean, writers obviously against sort of put people into two categories, which we shouldn't, but for the fun of it, I will. You know, there's plenty of weirdo writers out there, right? But uh you've you you hear about these scientists, these genius scientists and genius mathematicians, and they almost always have some bizarre story. So, what are your idiosyncrasies? I think uh tasting shirts, maybe. I was gonna say to our viewers, I I've I've met Richie once, uh, pardon me, our listeners, we have no viewers. I've met I've I've met Richie once, and now I'm seeing him on camera right now, and he is wearing a wonderfully loud shirt, just as he did at lunch in December. And God bless you, man. It's fantastic. What is that, like a parrot?

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Or uh this is it's like uh Cuban style scene. It's it's got a car on it, yeah, and yeah, a jungle scene. It's it's very nice.

Dave Reddy 8:05

I love it. My uh my loudest search are my favorite things to wear. I just don't have the guts you have to wear them as as often. So early in your career when after you now you went to school at obviously in the UK, it was I believe was it Warwick or or or Buxley?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah, so uh it's called the University of Warwick. Warwick is a lovely town. The university is actually in Coventry, which is a city that was sort of bombed to bits in the Second World War. And so it was rebuilt. It's all concrete. So Coventry, it's a it's it's kind of a nice city, but it looks absolutely ugly. So they'll a little bit of a Soviet feel. Yes. It's got, yeah, a Soviet kind of feel. So they call it the University of Warwick because Warwick is a posh town that's uh a lot more scenic. Got it. Okay, great.

Dave Reddy 8:53

And you studied math there, obviously. And but in an early in your career, you sort of followed, I guess, what would have been a traditional path for a although you were bouncing around a lot for a guy with that degree, you know, software tech, math and data scientist at uh what I believe was a health and science lab. And my favorite one, although it was for a short time, following in mom and dad's footsteps, a math teacher. So uh tell me first about you can tell me about any of those, but I'm I'm mostly curious about what it was like teaching kids math, you know, sort of being on the other side of the after having been a math student all those years.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah, so I mean, you talk about a career plan, I absolutely have no plan whatsoever. This has been very much an improvised career. So after I graduated from Warwick, I had zero plan at all. And so I ended up being a supply teacher uh teaching math. And I started off in it was a failing school, and there was like day one, here are the keys to your classroom, go teach. I'd never done any teaching before, and that was like a real trial by fire. I was only, I think, 23 at the time, and so what age what age were we talking about? Oh, so this was like 14, 15, 16 year olds. Oh, yeah. And they were like throwing chairs across the movie. I was gonna say it was like it was tough. Like the the teaching part of things went okay, the classroom control, I was not good at that at all. So I only did that for a while. I think I'd be better now as a with a few more decades of experience. But yeah, that that was that was a rough period of my life.

Dave Reddy 10:28

Which is why I think you only did it for eight months, right? So you were done. I did. Right. All right, okay. So you did a whole variety of things, and then in 2012, jumping ahead, you started a company with the very clever name of Damned Liars. So talk to me about damned liars and how you got there and start and decided to do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah, I'm so this comes from the famous quote about liars, damned lies and statistics. But before this, I'd been working for government research laboratory. It was all doing it was data science around chemical health and safety. But after the financial crash in 2008, we had a few years of government cutbacks, all the budgets were being squeezed, I got sick about it. Okay, I'm gonna go off and do my own thing. And at that point, I was like, you know what, I'm a genius data scientist, I'm I'm really good at this stuff. And so I got a few clients quite quickly, and I was going off to kind of teaching, well, doing some research projects for different companies. But then it turned out having a research scientist background with zero business experience again, that was kind of a tricky sell to a lot of companies. So I was I was moderately successful, but not wildly so. So I did that for a little while, and then I ended up accidentally writing a book.

Dave Reddy 11:40

Accidentally, I would love to accidentally write a few books. How does one accidentally write a book?

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah, so I'd started to get involved in the R community. So R is a programming language for statistics and and data science. And there was one professor uh uh called John Vizzani who uh he wokes up at the City University of New York and I'd been messaging about some software he'd been making like about some bugs in it, and I'd hassled him so much, he was like, he sort of realized I was I was asking insightful questions, and he told me he wanted to write another book, but he didn't want to do it alone. Was I interested in co-authoring this book with him? So I was like, okay, this is my big break, let's do this. And so we pitched O'Reilly, and they said yes. So uh we wrote we pitched the of the book called Learning Arts is about how to learn this art programming language. And as soon as we'd signed, John was like, you know, I'm actually quite busy. Can you just write this thing yourself? And yeah, so that turned out to take quite a lot of time, and trying to run a business and write a book at the same time, it was like it was hard work. So I thought, okay, I'll get a steady job. So I started working in uh a debt collection data science uh company. So I was doing that and then writing the book, and the book turned out to be a big hit. So the book came out I think 2013. Even now, it sells like 10 copies a month or something. I'm like all everything in there is completely out of date. It's no use to anyone at all. But somehow people are still buying the book. I'm like, please don't do that. It's it's a terrible idea. But you know what? I get like if you learning R is the book.

Dave Reddy 13:17

Learning R. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Which too so I'm sorry, I interrupted you. So you were gonna you were gonna add on to that.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

No, it's very nice. I I get like $50 of royalties or something every month. It's like three months. Did him right?

Dave Reddy 13:31

Well, I mean maybe not New York, it's more lunch, but sure. All right, great. And then you've been doing that for a few years, and and I'm curious, at what point we're gonna get to data camp soon, but at what point did you start building your your influencer following because you your your audience, because you've got you know 23,000 followers on LinkedIn, which you know, in the B2B tech world, that's significant. I mean, I know everyone thinks about Shakira and you know, other other celebrities with millions of followers, but B2B Techers, 23,000 is a lot of people. So how when did you start doing that? Are you doing that at this point, or is that when you get to Data Camp?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

That was after I joined Data Camp. So yeah, it struck you. I would have to say I'm not a great influencer, I'm more of a connector. So a lot of the my LinkedIn influences around being connected to different people because I love reaching out to people. And I have to say, this is a good trick if you're starting out in your career and you want to look more prestigious, more famous than you actually are, is just click connect on a load of famous people. And then once you get like to a couple of thousand connections, because a lot of people just say yes, whatever, and then you know people start going, oh, this person's connected. Maybe I should connect with them. And it kind of snowballs a bit, and that just works out really well. So you can get a little bit more famous that way.

Dave Reddy 14:53

So you have to follow in order to be followed. Exactly. Yes. Interesting. That that's the first uh it it makes total sense, but you're the first person who's actually admitted that on this show.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

That's yeah, I'm I I've I really should post more on LinkedIn and like do the influencer thing. But yeah, I'm not a great social media person. Like it feels more hard work than it should be in that respect. I have full respect for people who do this every day.

Dave Reddy 15:20

You're you're uh you're doing great. So I I think you're selling yourself short. But I had a before we get into data camp, I I I did have a question. So you at this point, through Damned Liars, you'd unless I'm missing something, you had lived pretty much in England most of your life, right? Okay. And then all of a sudden we end up in the Middle East. Not incredibly unusual, but unusual enough that I have to ask, how did you end up in Qatar and what'd you do there?

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Oh, yeah. So I was I was living in Nottingham and looking for a new job, and this was yeah, end of 2013, start of 2014. And most of the jobs in data science were based in London. And I was like, well, I don't even fancy going to London. It's a big city, I don't want to live somewhere that big. And so I just expanded my search and I saw this job in Qatar, and it was like, oh, this sounds like uh, you know, a bit of an adventure. Let's go for it. Right. And so, yep, I got the job. And at that point, one of the quirks of living in Qatar is that if you're a man and a woman living together, you have to get married. So had a like rush wedding with my girlfriend, so we got married, moved out there, met up with a load of other people who were like, Oh, yeah, yeah, we got married to come here too. So very common thing. But yeah, I was working for Wild Cornell Medicine, so this is the medical arm of Cornell University, and at at the time, uh so Qatar had this big program to try and convert all the wealth they're getting from the gas industry into having an educated population. So there was this huge push for education, which is pretty amazing, and also it was being sponsored by by the sheikh's wife, and so because this came from like the top woman in the country, it was like a very kind of like almost a feminist movement in some sense.

Dave Reddy 17:06

Really? That's fascinating. Well, and speaking of feminists, I have to ask, did the shotgun wedding work? You still married?

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yeah, yeah, still married. It's gone well like uh a little over 12 years later. Yeah. It was like it was a good couple of years before it sunk in. I was like, oh, maybe this could be a long-term relationship.

Dave Reddy 17:26

Glad it worked out. Sort of a very very peculiar, mildly arranged marriage. Okay, so you come back, or how did you come back from Qatar or did you start data camp there? How did you come up with data camp and where did you start it?

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Uh yeah, so after I'd been in Qatar for a little over two years, the gas price dropped dramatically. There's a big crash, and suddenly research funding gave a lot more gas. And so I knew my days were numbered there. So I started looking around and I'd been to a conference and bumped into a guy called Hadley Wickham, who was is very prominent in the R community. And he told me about this new company called Data Camp and suggested that I teach a course on there. So I I took a well, as I was job hunting, I took a look at it. I was like, okay, maybe I'll I'll teach a course just to um see just to get you know get a little bit more famous, get a bit of uh prominence. I saw that that data camp was recruit was hiring. And so I looked at this job, it was all about managing the our curriculum. I was like, this job's got my name on it. So I applied and then I heard nothing. So I was like, oh no. And so a few weeks later, I was like, you know, there's no way they rejected me. There must must just be an admin problem. So uh feeling cocky. And I emailed the the career sort of email and I said, Okay, I'm sure you're still considering my application. I'm gonna be at this conference, I will see you there, we can discuss my application then. And it turns out the HR person had just rejected my application outright. But when I sent the email, the CEO got copied in and he was like, Oh, Richie Cotton, I know that name from somewhere. And it turned out our CEO, uh Joe Gunlison, when he was first learning R, he'd learnt how to do it from a lot of the stuff that I've been writing online. So I basically taught our CEO how to use R, and he was like, Okay, let's do this. So uh I got a job that way.

Dave Reddy 19:30

So so your book may be completely useless at this point, other than the fact that it makes you 50 bucks a month, but it got you this gig, or at least parts of it. Yeah. That's awesome. For the uninitiated, tell us what R is.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Yep. So R it's oh, well, it at the time it was the most popular programming language for working with data. These days, Python is more popular, so R is like more of a niche thing, but at the time it's like the most popular thing for if you want to crunch some numbers, you want to do some statistics, you want to do some machine learning, then R is the language to use.

Dave Reddy 20:04

Back to Datacamp. So you you obviously got the job. And by the way, that that that's at Brasca Honeys, my friend. That's a hell of an email you just you just sort of re-re-reread for us. Tell us about Data Camp. What's its mission? What's your role there? You've had various roles over the past 10 years. What are you all about? What are you trying to do?

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yep. So Data Camp's mission is just to teach people about data skills and AI skills. So we have online courses, and more recently, we do in-person training as well. But the thing is like whatever job you have, there's gonna be data involvement somehow. There's gonna be these days, there's gonna be AI involvement somehow. A lot of people have no background in this whatsoever. Maybe people are a bit frightened about using these things. And so we just want to provide training to make sure people can cope with all this like influx of data and AI in their jobs, in their lives, not feel frightened and do this whole reasonable price. And you have a massive audience, right? How big is the audience at this point?

Dave Reddy 21:01

Yeah, I think we've got it's close to 20 million users. Wow. How much of that just jumping ahead a little bit, how much of that has increased since the arrival of ChatGPT?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Oh my, no, it's been a huge explosion. And I I would say the profile has changed a lot as well. So back when Datacamp started, so it was founded in 2013, and the initial audience, it was data scientists, it was people who were already working with data, and we've gradually expanded and gone, I guess, more mainstream. So people are only like kind of casually using data. That was like kind of our next audience. And then as soon as ChatGPD hit is like everyone's like, oh, AI, what's this? I need to know about it. And so at this point, just everyone needs data camp or something similar. Like you you've got to learn about this stuff or you fall behind.

Dave Reddy 21:47

Right. And I some I know this is gonna sound odd, but I think laymen sometimes forget that there is no AI without data. I mean, it's the the the artificial intelligence comes from. the data that it it sucks up and spits back out as you know here's your here's your here here's your here's what your prompt asked me to do based on all this data I just quickly read, right? I mean that's my very like kindergarten level understanding of how a a uh an LLM works.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Absolutely. I mean you you you're spot on there.

Dave Reddy 22:20

So you're a data evangelist or maybe now you're a data and AI evangelist. What is it's a great title by the way what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Yeah I mean it feels like I should be wearing robes right as uh the evangelist I I prefer the tropical shirts but sure yeah it's it's a whole different wardrobe. But my job is I host our company podcast called Data Framed. I also run our webinar program. I write things about data and my job is really just to make feel make people feel less terrified about all this data and AI coming their way, just make them feel happy about learning and hopefully they get excited and come take some courses on Datacamp.

Dave Reddy 22:58

And then the reason you and I know each other and I presume a lot of folks in my position know you is you often have folks on for webinars and so forth who are experts who come from you know companies that folks like me represent in the in the B2B tech world who are talking about this. And I and I think that's really fascinating. And there's just something there's something about the community there, right? I mean it it's it's it's not journalism per se. It's more and granted this is one of the four things that journalism is supposed to do it's it's education. And so you're still doing what your mom and dad you know did but you're just doing it in in a very 2026 way.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Absolutely I mean yeah education's the family business and I I'm very excited about this because there's I feel like just knowing about stuff just makes life better. You know you you understand the world a little more it's a little less terrifying and yeah you can have a lot of success that way.

Dave Reddy 23:54

I I I am curious however so so and I and I I ask this of all folks who are you know very good at at science and particularly these days with AI. How frustrating is it to try to get it across to people like me just how important all this stuff is I think it's actually the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

I think in general people have a lot more data skills than they think. Like a lot of people go, oh, I'm not a numbers person, but you think like basically everyone can understand a weather forecast. So weather forecasts are these like really complex machine learning models about like stuff that's going to happen in the future. And it's like everyone can just look at a forecast and be okay I know what to do. I can make decisions on this I can decide whether to wear a coat today or take an umbrella. It's just like you're already doing data-driven decision making. It's just you don't know it. So I think in general a lot of people just need that little bit of confidence like a little prompt to go, oh yeah, this is actually possible. I'm I'm better than this than I thought.

Dave Reddy 24:51

It is scary. And and you know and I say that I'm you know I'm in my 50s and I didn't think I'd ever get to the point where I'd say to myself tech scares me. But there are moments when I swear to you I feel like my parents trying back in the day when they were trying to set the VCR and I'd be like dad come on this this is all you have to do. And they'd watch me do it and they'd think I was a magician. So I I I think you know the programming the VCR was probably the uh the equivalent of how I feel when I watch somebody working with an LLM it's like what how how and what and you know so maybe I should take a few more of your courses.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

I I'm totally there with you I think this is something everyone feels and because there's been so much going on the last few years it is really difficult to keep up. I mean I I work in this space and I find it hard to keep up but you just got to be patient with yourself because this stuff it's getting easier to use all the time and you spend the time you you're gonna get it.

Dave Reddy 25:50

It's funny because it's for the first time in my career typically I advise clients because you know people get antsy we've got to change our messaging we've got to change our messaging and I get that like every two or three weeks. It's like hey let's just stick with this for about six months and and now I'm more like yeah maybe you're right and and there's obviously a happy medium but I you know AI you know by the time this runs half of what you and I will have talked about will be obsolete.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

It's amazing right absolutely yeah I'm the the speed of progress has been pretty incredible. One of those things is like AI is supposed to help automate things supposed to make your life easier but everyone I know in the space they're they're looking exhausted now. There's been so much going on for like years now I feel like tiredness is kind of the price of admission for living in interesting times.

Dave Reddy 26:38

As we've mentioned before you can't have AI without data. What is your sense as a data evangelist, as a guy who's deep in the space and learning about it and to your point still learning about it every day? The the the big question is this a force for good? Is it a force for evil? Is it both?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Oh yeah uh so big philosophical question. I I think LetTech is is most likely to end up being something like aeroplanes sorry air airplanes for okay maybe maybe we just call it planes. So when planes were invented it created new ways for people to die. So through crashes through bombers that you know kill people that way and it's environmentally kind of a terrible thing. But at the same time planes also bring the world together you know they make business more efficient uh they let people go on vacation to new places like I visit what maybe 25 countries you know that's an amazing personal enrichment. So on balance planes are a force for good even though there are some new problems that didn't exist before and I think the same is true of AI. Like we've already had new ways of people dying due to AI and there's gonna be more of those but also there's all these amazing things that are happening basically AI and on balance it's a good thing.

Dave Reddy 27:53

Here's a little side Jeopardy question for you. Who is the pilot in the first fatal plane crash? Oh gosh I'm gonna fail on Jeopardy and not I don't I don't know the answer to my phrase it's obvious it was one I don't know which one I can't remember which one but I I read a book about the Wright brothers. It was one of the Wright brothers at it doing doing an exhibition of flying and they were out somewhere and they crashed he lived as far as I remember but his his passenger did not and if I've got that wrong we're gonna cut that out of the episode but I is there anything particular about AI that you say to yourself, hey we should slow this down or are you sort of more on the let's just keep innovating the community will take care of it kind of well maybe because I have a background working in the in the government of the Borgia I I'm quite in favor of regulations in general.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

So having I think a lot of people hate on the regulations that okay we shouldn't slow down innovation and that and that's true. But then when I quiz them they start saying okay well maybe we need this and that and maybe if we just start regulating the really dangerous stuff uh we should do that and somehow they end up reinventing the EUAI Act and I'm like okay maybe maybe this is maybe this is a good idea. So definitely like the the very dangerous stuff the stuff that causes authoritarianism the stuff that causes people to die the stuff that you know just has bad influences on society.

Dave Reddy 29:18

I want regulation to discourage and and that is you know I was at a conference this week where that very question was asked of a gentleman who's the CEO of a company that works with AI American model or EU model? Because right now the American model is do whatever you want and the EU model is slow down a little bit. So you're obviously an EU model fan.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

I suppose it's the European but I think the the major cultural difference is that throughout the 20th century I think Europe had a lot of problems with authoritarian governments and say with the the US hasn't quite experienced yet. So that's kind of the where the difference in philosophy comes from it's especially a European who gave who who likes the American model.

Dave Reddy 29:58

So maybe we'll move over here who knows how do you use AI at data camp? I mean what how does do you how do you use it personally how do you use it as a company?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Oh my so we've recently switched to being Claude users so we're going full anthropic mode here. We're actually as a company we are one of the top 1000 users of Claude so yeah a lot of data gamers the software side of things is built using using generative AI, agentic AI. On a personal level I'm a big fan of the idea of automate what you hate. If you get AI to do all the bits of your job that you really hate then you're gonna make your life better good for your mental health. So for example I really hate writing marketing copy I can talk about data all day or talk about AI all day but the marketing tough is oh so I get a lot of AI assistance with writing that it's just better at it than I am. Other things like interacting with project management software like in general I'm more of a force for chaos than being an older person. And so having AI update all like the the project management boards that's great just doing all those tasks.

Dave Reddy 31:07

I'm a big fan of that you've lived in a couple of spots in the US and now you're in the metropolitan New York City area and I wanted to come back to that because you earlier mentioned that London scared the heck out of you of the small town boy. So I'm a small town guy and I live outside of San Francisco now and in a medium sized town but even today you know the the the innate small towner in me when I go to New York after about two days I'm like I gotta get out of here how have you dealt with the culture shock over these past few years oh man uh it definitely was a culture shock and I was very nervous about moving to New York.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

So when I joined Data Camp the company was originally based in Cambridge just outside Boston and then a few weeks after I arrived I see you and I was actually we're relocating to New York and I was like oh I've just I've just bought furniture anyway so I got kind of tricked into moving to New York and I was like oh this is gonna be a disaster but actually I I've climatized now I complain about all the tourists walking too slowly I have opinions about bagels. Yeah I'm I'm a New Yorker now.

Dave Reddy 32:19

Can you no longer eat pizza outside of New York City? Well that leads me to my last question which is the question I always ask and I'm I'm very curious in your case. So Teaside area metropolitan New York City That's a really tough one. I have to say at this point like both these areas both Teaside both New York uh they're very close to my heart I think my dream though is to live in the mountains you know once once I'm done with working I'm I'm retiring to the mountains somewhere but we're not sure if they're going it's going to be back in the peak district of England or the mountains of New England or Colorado or oh yeah that that's entirely dependent on whether the whether the US government lets me stay in the country. Yeah well I certainly hope they do Richie because I love what you guys are doing at Data Camp. It's great stuff you know the sort of combination of teaching and entertaining it it it's just a it's it's a great thing. Thank you so much. That was a whole lot of fun I really appreciated your time.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yeah thank you so much Dave I really enjoyed this.

Dave Reddy 33:24

I'd like to thank you all for listening today and once again a big thank you to Richie Cotton of Datacamp. Don't forget to join us next month when we chat with yet another member of the B2B tech top 200. In the meantime if you've got feedback on today's podcast or if you'd like to learn more about Big Valley marketing and how we identified the B2B tech top 200, be sure to drop me an email at dready at bigvalley.co that's D-R-E D Y at bigvalley all one word dot co. No M. You can also email the whole team at pressing matters at bigvalley.co once again thanks for listening and as always think big