I have been doing video interviews with a number of C-level executives about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. Here is the index to the growing list of interviews.
This time it is Brett Hurt, who is the CEO and co-founder of data.world, a Public Benefit Corporation (and Certified B Corporation) focused on building the world's largest collaborative public data catalog. He has always been a data guy - prior to this he founded Bazaarvoice (which went public) and Coremetrics (which was acquired by IBM)
Brett is also the co-owner of Hurt Family Investments (HFI), alongside his wife, Debra. They are involved in 93 startups and counting and 29 VC funds, mostly based in Austin, TX
It has been an amazing year for new data streams - COVID-19 related, the census, the election polling, shortened sports seasons - see others I had identified here. So, it was nice to have someone who has been a lifelong data guy.
He says "data is one of the least networked resources". At one extreme, online advertising data has been highly optimized to help companies market and sell. He hopes vast troves of cancer, climate change, nutrition, poverty and other data which are highly siloed can evolve on that trajectory. His mission is help those data silos, make cost of accessing that data much lower and to democratize the traditional world of analytical tools which were designed by "IT people for use by IT people". He talks in terms of "data philanthropists" - bringing open source concepts to data world.
He talks about data as facilitating "story telling" and also has advice for young data scientists. We spend some time on the Certified B entity format which prioritizes purpose alongside profit. We also spend time talking about the phenomenon which is Austin, TX where he was born and raised and where he is obviously very well connected.
Bit of trivia - he missed explaining the Owl icon on his swag. Owl is acronym for Web Ontology Language, which helps with knowledge representation.
Wide ranging, very optimistic conversation. Ontology, Knowledge Graph - data geeks will especially enjoy listening to him.
