PODCAST · technology
The Joe Reis Show
by Joe Reis
I’m Joe Reis, co-author of Fundamentals of Data Engineering, creator of Mixed Model Arts, international speaker, and long-time observer of the tech industry’s favorite recurring mistakes.Weekly broadcasts from somewhere on the road. Expect raw solo rants and long-form conversations with the engineers and leaders actually building things. I dive into data, AI, architecture, and career survival.This podcast is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
Episodes
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Build a Career That Looks Like You
A lot of people ask me for career advice. My latest advice is learn the fundamentals, build useful things that interest you, and stop outsourcing your direction to everyone around you. But originality doesn’t automatically pay the bills, copying is part of learning, and “do what AI cannot” is…
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The Pendulums of Data
The data industry rarely moves in a straight line. We swing from centralized to decentralized, batch to real-time, general-purpose to specialized, abstraction to control, and governance to self-service. In this episode, I unpack why these cycles keep repeating, what forces push the pendulum in…
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This Year’s Better Mousetrap: New Tech, Same Old Problems
We see a lot of hype cycles in our industry - Data mesh. Generative AI. Agents. Now context. Every cycle brings a new label and a familiar promise: this will finally make your organization’s data useful. The technology has improved enormously. So why do the same problems keep coming back? In this...
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DuckDB - The Past, Present, and Future, DuckLabs, and More w/ Hannes Mühleisen
Hannes Mühleisen (co-creator of DuckDB) joins me to chat about the past, present, and future of DuckDB, Ducklabs (recently acquired by AWS), and more. Note - parts edited due to AWS's request.
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Why Off-The-Shelf AI Fails for Business Analytics w/ Rob Collie
In this episode, I'm joined by Rob Collie, CEO of P3 Adaptive, early pioneer of Power BI and Power Pivot at Microsoft, and author of the new book Fair Game: Customizing AI to Your Business is Easier Than You Think. Most business leaders play with off-the-shelf ChatGPT or Claude and think it's…
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Designing the AI-Driven Data Foundations: Architecture, Principles, and Practice w/ Sanjeev Mohan
Former Gartner VP Analyst and principal at SanjMo, Sanjeev Mohan, joins me to break down the reality of AI adoption, data foundations, and why enterprises are hitting roadblocks with agents and LLMs. From comparing the current AI boom to the dot-com era to unpacking his new concept, ECL (Extract,...
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Why Write Books?
This week at dbt Summit, Tristan Handy (co-founder of dbt) asked me why I write books. It's a good question, especially today when reading is declining and any answer is seemingly at your fingertips. In this Freestyle Friday, I discuss why I write books, why they still matter, and much more. If...
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Nobody Knows...
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...
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Why AI Agents Will Break Modern Data Engineering (And How to Fix It) w/ Christophe Blefari (Nao)
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...
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The Return of Conceptual Data Modeling w/ Sami Hero (CEO of Ellie.ai)
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...
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Agents, Self-Service BI Redux, and "Death of Data Teams"
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...
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Bringing Distributed Compute & AI to the Edge w/ David Aronchick (CEO of Expanso)
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...
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Are You Still Hands-On?
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…
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Building with AI, DuckDB + RDF, and the Semantic Future w/ Dan Bennett (Head of Tech @ S&P Global)
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...
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The Mixed Model Arts Manifesto
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)
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...
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The Great Recomposition: Why Everything is Blurring Together
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…
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Stop Overpaying for AI! The Rise of Small Open-Source Models w/ Daniel Svonava (Superlinked)
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,...
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The "X Is Dead" Fallacy
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...
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Building Real AI Systems: Inside "Architected Intelligence" with Jacob Miller and Jeremy Mumford
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...
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My Podcast is Invitation Only. Please Stop Spamming Me.
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...
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The Post-Literate Engineer
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…
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The AI Backlash Is Real! - AI Journalist Sharon Goldman on Data Centers, Hype, the Future of Writing
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...
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The Data Engineering Lifecycle & Undercurrents - Mental Model Mondays
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...
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Why AI Agents Are Replacing Traditional Data Engineering w/ Matt Glickman
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"...
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Conway's Law - Mental Model Mondays
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
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...
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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...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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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The AI Boom Looks a Lot Like the Gold Rush
Standing on the high plains near South Pass, Wyoming, where the Oregon and Mormon trails once crossed, I look at the remnants of the 1800s gold rush and draw a direct line to the current AI boom.
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Why Your AI Agents Die in Testing - Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan
Prukalpa Sankar, founder of Atlan, joins me to unpack the piece most AI projects are missing: context. We get into building an enterprise "second brain," why agents get abandoned in testing hell, and what it actually took to rebuild Atlan as an AI-native company.
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The Semantic Swamp: Snowflake Summit 2026 Recap - Juan Sequeda
Juan Sequeda joins me straight off a month of travel to unpack the real state of AI agents in the enterprise, the danger of a "semantic swamp," and why pragmatism beats pedantry every time in data architecture.. 🎙️ SPONSORS Revify - surprise Snowflake bills? One customer cut theirs 50% in 48...
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Building a Data Career Outside the Coasts - Ryan Dolley
Ryan Dolley and I record from the historic Guardian Building in Detroit to talk about building a data career away from the coastal AI bubble, and why Detroit's comeback energy makes it a city worth watching. 🎙️ SPONSORS Revify - surprise Snowflake bills? One customer cut theirs 50% in 48 hours.→...
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AI, Energy Shocks, and the End of the Old Playbook
Back from months on the road across Asia, Europe, and the US, I unpack the mood I kept running into: uncertainty. Energy shocks, supply chain chaos, and AI upending the playbook for vendors and practitioners alike. Plus updates on my book and an upcoming Salt Lake City conference....
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How AI Agents Are Changing Data Consulting - Chris Tabb
Chris Tabb, founder of LEIT Data, joins me live at Confluent Current London to talk honestly about how AI agents are reshaping the consultancy business model, from billing structure to internal knowledge management.
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Why You Feel Behind in AI (and Aren't) - Eric Weber
Eric Weber makes the case that the feeling of falling behind in AI is mostly manufactured. We're miscalibrating what's true for the top 0.1% in San Francisco against everyone else. We get into judgment as the real bottleneck, and why so many people are quietly leaving corporate roles.
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Tristan Handy: AI Agents Are the New Consumers of Data
Tristan Handy and I unpack a shift coming to data infrastructure: within 12 months, the primary consumers of data won't be humans, they'll be AI agents. We dig into compute costs, "context stores," and why the industry shouldn't just build horses with wheels.
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Why 90% of Data Teams Are Failing at Data Modeling
NOTE - Sorry for the edits in this video. I used Descript to edit out the umms and uhhs, and it was a bit too aggressive. Will make it less jarring in future videos. Thanks. Walking around Salt Lake City, I break down results from the April 2026 data modeling survey: 90% of respondents have a...
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The Hidden Cost of AI Agents on Your Cloud Bill - Sanjay Agrawal
Sanjay Agrawal, CEO of Revefi and co-founder of ThoughtSpot, joins me to talk about how AI agents are quietly driving unpredictable spikes in cloud data spend, and why most FinOps practices are built for a world that no longer exists.
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Data Engineering in 2026 - Zach Wilson
Zach Wilson and I happen to be in Stockholm on the same night, so we sat down to talk about what it actually takes to be a data engineer in 2026.
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AI Agents Can't Fix Data - Josh Wills
Josh Wills has spent 25 years writing data pipelines. He uses coding agents daily and keeps hitting the same wall: they jump to conclusions and ship pipelines nobody understands. We get into the $200K vibe-coded pipeline problem, and why politics is the last job LLMs will ever touch.
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Tokenmaxxing Is for Fools
Everyone says if you're not maxing out AI every second, you're getting left behind. I disagree. I talk about minimizing AI use for deep cognitive work, my new minimalist travel setup, and the skills that will actually get you left behind.
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The Future of Data Catalogs --Shinji Kim, Snowflake/SelectStar
Shinji Kim, founder of SelectStar (acquired by Snowflake), joins me to talk about the deal, and why in a few years we may stop calling these things "data catalogs" at all as the category evolves into a living AI context layer.
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WTF Is a Software Moat in 2026?
Recovering from jet lag and hiking the hills of Salt Lake City, I break down a conversation with a VC friend about what's actually defensible in the age of coding agents, and what isn't.
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The Future of Open Data Infrastructure - George Fraser, Fivetran
George Fraser, CEO of Fivetran, breaks down why the "modern data stack" has evolved into "open data infrastructure," and why data gravity is the most overrated concept in data management.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
I’m Joe Reis, co-author of Fundamentals of Data Engineering, creator of Mixed Model Arts, international speaker, and long-time observer of the tech industry’s favorite recurring mistakes.Weekly broadcasts from somewhere on the road. Expect raw solo rants and long-form conversations with the engineers and leaders actually building things. I dive into data, AI, architecture, and career survival.This podcast is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.
HOSTED BY
Joe Reis
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How many episodes does The Joe Reis Show have?
The Joe Reis Show currently has 417 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Joe Reis Show about?
I’m Joe Reis, co-author of Fundamentals of Data Engineering, creator of Mixed Model Arts, international speaker, and long-time observer of the tech industry’s favorite recurring mistakes.Weekly broadcasts from somewhere on the road. Expect raw solo rants and long-form conversations with the...
How often does The Joe Reis Show release new episodes?
The Joe Reis Show publishes regularly with 417 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to The Joe Reis Show?
You can listen to The Joe Reis Show on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Joe Reis Show?
The Joe Reis Show is created and hosted by Joe Reis.
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