The Joe Reis Show

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 future of writing.Check out Ground Level AI: https://www.groundlevel-ai.com/
Timestamps00:00 – Intro & Sharon Goldman’s background in AI journalism 01:48 – April 2022: Covering DALL-E 2 and the early AI landscape 02:40 – The unexpected boom of ChatGPT and public reaction 06:31 – AI Slop vs. Original Human Writing: Does human content still stand out? 10:21 – Will AI replace journalists and writers? 13:28 – Going solo: Transitioning from Fortune & VentureBeat to Substack 20:47 – How AI tools transformed modern writing & editing workflows 23:21 – The growing societal backlash against AI & data centers 28:07 – "Mutual Blindness": Power dynamics, tech hype, and public anxiety 35:11 – Younger generations' views on AI, job safety, and Waymo 38:21 – San Francisco vs. the rest of the world: The AI bubble 42:30 – Sovereign AI and global perspectives (Europe & China) 51:42 – Enterprise adoption vs. AI expectations 57:22 – Where to find Ground Level AI & wrap-up

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 Fundamentals of Data Engineering over the years. It's super cool to see the massive impact that the book has had on the data industry and its practitioners around the world.

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" or using LLMs as expensive code completers, simply writing code faster to feed legacy data architectures. But if you look at the industry from first principles, humans were never meant to be data machinery. In this episode, Matt and I break down how true agentic data systems work, why current enterprise architectures will fail under agent-scale query volumes, and what it really takes to capture institutional knowledge before it leaves the building. We also cover Matt’s front-row seat at Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis, his early days turning Snowflake into an enterprise giant, and how AI-native companies will outpace traditional enterprises. If you're building, architecting, or leading teams in the AI and data space, this is a conversation you don't want to miss.

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.

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