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’s systems, and why modular stacks—mixing local and cloud models—will beat monolithic apps. The conversation also surfaces early memory architectures, what breaks when one IC manages 100 agents, and how these shifts change the real bottlenecks in scaling AI.
LINKS
Tomasz' Website (check out his blog!) (https://tomtunguz.com/)
Tomasz on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasztunguz/)
Building effective agents by Erik Schluntz and Barry Zhang at Anthropic (https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-agents)
How we built our multi-agent research system by Anthropic (https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/multi-agent-research-system)
Tim O'Reilly on The End of Programming As We Know It (https://high-signal.delphina.ai/episode/tim-oreilly-on-the-end-of-programming-as-we-know-it)
Delphina's Newsletter (https://delphinaai.substack.com/)
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Episode 21: Why Great Data Still Leads to Bad Decisions (And How to Fix It)
Amy Edmondson (Harvard Business School) and Mike Luca (Johns Hopkins) join High Signal to unpack what actually drives good decisions in data‑rich organizations. Using contrasts like the Bay of Pigs vs. the Cuban Missile Crisis and product cases such as Airbnb’s work on measuring discrimination, they show how decision quality tracks conversation quality—framing options, surfacing uncertainty, and challenging assumptions. We cover common failure modes (correlation vs. causation, anchoring, hierarchy, false precision), practical meeting designs that raise the signal, and where algorithms and LLMs help or hinder human judgment.
LINKS
Amy on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amycedmondson/)
Mike on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/profluca/)
Where Data-Driven Decision-Making Can Go Wrong: Five pitfalls to avoid by Michael Luca and Amy C. Edmondson (https://hbr.org/2024/09/where-data-driven-decision-making-can-go-wrong)
Many Analysts, One Data Set: Making Transparent How Variations in Analytic Choices Affect Results (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2515245917747646)
Trillion Dollar Coach by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle (https://www.trilliondollarcoach.com/)
Delphina's Newsletter (https://delphinaai.substack.com/)
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Episode 20: Incentives, Accountability, and the Data Leader’s Dilemma
Daragh Sibley, Chief Algorithms Officer at Literati and former Director of Data Science at Stitch Fix, joins High Signal to unpack how machine-learning moves from slide-deck promise to bottom-line impact. He walks through his shift from academic research on how kids learn to read to owning inventory and personalization algorithms that decide which five books land in every child’s box. We dig into the moment a data leader stops advising and starts owning P&L-critical calls, why some problems deserve simple analytics while others need high-dimensional models, and how to design workflows where human judgment and algorithmic predictions share accountability. Along the way we talk incentive design, balancing exploration and exploitation in inventory, and measuring success in dollars—not dashboards.
LINKS
Daragh on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daragh-sibley-2111835/)
Eric Colson on Why 90% of Data Science Fails—And How to Fix It (https://high-signal.delphina.ai/episode/why-90-of-data-science-fails-and-how-to-fix-it-eric-colson)
Sudarshan Seshadri on High-Stakes AI Systems and the Cost of Getting It Wrong (https://high-signal.delphina.ai/episode/high-stakes-ai-systems-and-the-cost-of-getting-it-wrong)
Delphina's Newsletter (https://delphinaai.substack.com/)
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Episode 19: Defaults, Decisions, and Dynamic Systems: Behavioral Science Meets AI
Lis Costa, Chief of Innovation and Partnerships at the Behavioural Insights Team, joins High Signal to explore how behavioral science is reshaping public policy, digital platforms, and machine learning.
She explains how defaults influence behavior at scale, why personalization and chatbots are unlocking new kinds of interventions, and what happens when AI systems meet real-world complexity. We also discuss the limits of nudging, the promise of boosting, and why building for human decision-making requires more than just good models.
LINKS
The Behavioral Insights Team (https://www.bi.team/)
Lis Costa on LinkedIn (https://uk.linkedin.com/in/elisabeth-costa-6a5b35248)
High Signal podcast (https://high-signal.delphina.ai/)
Delphina's Newsletter (https://delphinaai.substack.com/)
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Episode 18: High-Stakes AI Systems and the Cost of Getting It Wrong
Sudarshan Seshadri—VP of AI, Data Science, and Foundations Engineering at Alto Pharmacy—joins us to explore what it takes to build high-stakes AI systems that people can actually trust. He shares lessons from deploying machine learning and LLMs in healthcare, where speed, safety, and uncertainty must be carefully balanced. We talk about designing AI to support pharmacist judgment, the shift from bottlenecks to decision backbones, and why great data leaders are really architects of how irreversible decisions get made.
LINKS
Suddu on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ss01/)
Careers at Alto Pharmacy (https://www.alto.com/careers)
High Signal podcast (https://high-signal.delphina.ai/)
Delphina's Newsletter (https://delphinaai.substack.com/)
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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