 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Everybody, welcome to our podcast series, Data Movers. Jamie Scott-Okataya, your host, founder and CEO of JSA. How long, of course, with my fabulous co-host, top B2B social media influencer, Mr. Evan Christel. Hey Evan. Hey there, good to see you as always and thanks for joining us here at Data Movers, where we sit down with the most influential folks in today's telco and data center world, supporting the network infrastructure requirements of our modern world. But before we jump into a fantastic episode around data and data science, data practices, let's talk about the real world. I'm actually in the real world at an event in person, meaning, greeting, networking, and it's a pretty strange experience actually when I went to get my badge and check in and go through all the COVID protocols and COVID passports and tests and I was given a badge, which you really can't see but on the video, but it says green badge is hugged will do. Red says I need distance, you know, red light and yellow says elbow bump. So Jamie, on the continuum of green, red and yellow, where are you these days? Oh my goodness, this is a tough one. Honestly, I had just gone to my stepdaughters engagement party the other day and they had the same system, these little ribbons that you choose which color you are as you walk in the door and I sort of froze and thought, I don't know. I don't, it kind of changes with the mood. How much do I know these people in this room? Well, let's look around at this room. How long clothes are we? So I mean, there's so many factors. So I don't know, if I'm in a room with strangers, I'm red, I'm cautious. I agree with you. And I'm still shocked how many people have gone right back to handshakes, like nothing's ever happened. We're just shaking hands firmly and that's it. But let's get on with the show. I think we have a pretty amazing guest. We do, we do as always. But today, I'm really, really, really excited I know I said this often, but we do. We get the best guests on data movers, I gotta say. So let's dive right into it. We're gonna get to his background stories, career highs and lows, his unique perspective on the future of our industry. Who am I talking about today? Of course, Nick Amabili, CEO of Das 42. Hey guys, good to be here with you. Yeah, good to have you. And I love this topic, particularly during the pandemic where we're turning into this data-driven, not just society, but we're turning into data-driven individuals. And when you talk about enterprise, every modern business lives and breathes data, data analytics, but take us a little back. How did you get into the business of data and big data tech and become the CEO ultimately at Das 42? Yeah, it's been, as you said, kind of a long and winding journey. So I went to school for economics and it's kind of funny when I think about folks in the data analytics industry and folks who do this for a living, it's oftentimes people who are not actually like computer science people. It's a lot of people coming from social science backgrounds or kind of more traditional engineering and sciences and stuff like that. So that's me, went to school for economics, started to learn statistical programming, and got really into the sort of technical side of the quantitative analysis. I started my career in economic consulting, supporting antitrust litigation. So kind of totally random and separate from a lot of... That's commonly. Yeah, right, exactly. But by no means am I some antitrust expert doing more like econometric analysis and stuff like that, which was very interesting, but sort of long story short, I then went into the number of different startups and most recently was the head of business intelligence at jet.com, which got acquired by Walmart and prior to that was in senior analytics roles here at Etsy. So I think my feeling was like, hey, I'm a little bit ahead of the curve on some of these big data technologies back at Etsy. It was more like a dupe stuff and things like that, which is kind of a little bit dated these days. But felt I was ahead of the curve and basically started a company that I wanted to kind of make my own hours, work from home and all that good stuff. Our first customer was some small startup here in New York and then our second customer was Amazon. So realize it was destined for bigger and better things since then. So now we're about 65 people, mostly based in New York and Denver, private equity backed and work with some really great customers helping them implement modern data platforms. Wow, wow, so impressive. Wow, thank you. I had like 12 million things that I wanted to say even when you were talking about that. Your background is incredible. And I guess my first question here is the pandemic. Yeah. Living this crazy world that we are, has it accelerated this sense of, well, it has, right? This digital transformation for many industries, but how are data analytics playing into this? What are you seeing? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, certainly there were, when we first got started back in, you know, 2015, 2016 timeframe, a lot of our clients were more like digital natives and sort of folks who were born in the cloud and stuff like that. So we were doing a lot of work with more like startups. And we've really seen that shift to more enterprise and traditional type of companies. And if you think about it, right? You know, a lot of our customers are going through a broad transformation in their industry in general. They're moving from brick and mortar retail to direct to consumer. They're moving from movie theaters to streaming and all kinds of stuff like that, right? So I think it really has accelerated things. I mean, especially with the stay at home kind of situation around COVID, a lot of folks have turned to digital streaming and we work a lot with media entertainment companies specifically around the digital streaming platforms that they're using. So we've seen just tons of additional data and additional interest around how do we engage with customers directly? How do we acquire new customers? How do we retain them? What are they doing when they get here? All that kind of stuff. So we've seen just a ton of demand recently for the work that we do. Well, that's really interesting. Love your background on the e-commerce side. And you know, we're super consumers now. Yeah, that's right. Whether it's product services, the food, what have you. So we're sort of generating and consuming more data than ever at home. What have you seen in the remote work world? Anything counterintuitive or any insights you might share? Yeah, you know, I think one of the things just as sort of a business ourselves that I've seen that's been a challenge and I'm sure many people feel this way is it's been so tough to engage with our workforce and our teams, you know? And especially, you know, you were just saying, I mean, about how you're in-person right now, right? And I've been to a few in-person events recently and it just feels refreshing to get back out there with partners, with customers, with employees and our team. And it's just something that, you know, I think was really lacking. And for a business like ours, you know, we were always sort of distributed and had a remote first culture. So we made the transition nicely, but, you know, we just weren't able to do the things that we wanted to do with our team, like getting together and stuff like that. But, you know, I don't think these problems are isolated to us. You know, I think it's a lot of folks who are experiencing this. And, you know, as we were talking right before we came online here, you know, just getting some time off with friends and family and just, you know, disconnecting a little bit from the always-on Zoom culture is certainly a welcome for, I'm sure, many folks. Absolutely. You know, saying here at JSA, we were remote first since day one, almost 17 years now. So we were remote before remote was a thing. Yeah, totally. And, you know, I just, but we still got together. We still, you know, hung out as a family and went to events together and to not have that critical, you know, sharing, collaborating time together is, it's starting to really wear on us, you know, and everyone, like you said, we're not alone here. What other trends do you have your eye on in the next, say, 12 months and beyond? Yeah, it's a good question. So one, I guess, maybe a counter trend or something that I want to at least, you know, talk about quickly is sort of, you know, the machine learning and AI. There's a lot of, you know, hype out there, but I want to tell folks that, you know, a lot of the work that we do and a lot of what we're seeing in the industry is it's still pretty early on, it's early days for those type of things. So folks don't have to feel necessarily that they're missing out on kind of the next wave. I do think it's going to be an awesome trend, you know, over the next three to five years, but a lot of our customers are still what I call getting off of spreadsheets, you know, and onto kind of modern, cloud-based, you know, infrastructure and platforms. And, you know, we were just talking about the pandemic, right? And being able to, you know, ask and answer your own questions. So this concept of like self-serve analytics and building your own reports and doing it in a way that I can access from any computer. Like I don't have to download any software or anything like that. I could just get on my phone, get on my laptop, you know, access the data that I need, build my own reports is super important. But one of the trends that I think is kind of in between the business intelligence and analytics trend that we're seeing today and machine learning and sort of AI, which I think is a little bit further out is more of this idea of data applications. So understanding, you know, what are folks doing in their day-to-day jobs and how can we insert data and analytics into the places that they're already working in. So, you know, one just quick example is, you know, you think about salespeople out in the field, they're always in Salesforce, right? They're updating opportunities or updating leads, all this kind of stuff, right? So instead of having those salespeople go to another business intelligence tool to access data and analytics, what if we put, you know, that analytics right into Salesforce for them? So that's something that they're used to. And so identifying those type of workflows and inserting data and analytics into those workflows is super important. And I think that's kind of a trend in the next, you know, year or two, that's really going to take off. That's really interesting. I watched a couple of your videos and you talk a lot about the healthy data, data integrity and verification of data. It seems to be your key idea or topic. What can we do to get better, more trusted data? Yeah. And how do you help clients do that? Yeah, it's a really good question. And this is like, as you noted, it's kind of a personal passion of mine because, you know, when I was the head of business intelligence at Jed or at Etsy, you know, you would ask like 10 different people, hey, what are orders for yesterday? How many customers did we get? You know, what was the top selling item, et cetera, et cetera. Just some basic questions of the business and you would get 10 different answers if you asked 10 different people. And so that's one of those things that just like, to me, you know, I just am on a mission to try to help folks. That's the word I was looking for, mission. Yeah, exactly. That's my mission. That's what I'm saying. That's right, exactly. Get religious about it, right? But, you know, but the idea, I think that and why I actually started a consulting firm was because there's a real organizational and process piece to it. Like technology is only part of the solution here. And certainly technology can accelerate and augment what we do, but at the same time, a lot of it is kind of people in process. And so what we do is, you know, we set up these data governance initiatives with our clients at DOS42 to basically, you know, encompass all these different aspects of data governance because it's a very broad topic. You know, you mentioned like data quality. We also talk about data literacy, data discoverability. So in other words, like if I'm trying to find, you know, how many orders we had yesterday at somewhere like jet.com, you know, I want to be able to, you know, type that into like a little internal search engine and find the canonical govern trusted report for orders or customers or whatever it is. So that's data discoverability. And then when I get access to that report, I need to understand what I'm looking at. So I need that data literacy component to say, okay, this is exactly what we mean by customers is exactly what we mean by an order. And so making those kind of definitions of KPIs and metrics and dimensions, making those trusted and transparent is super critical. But again, a lot of it is like, you know, sort of organizational process driven. And so it's kind of like thinking about data as a product. Like, you know, you talk about Silicon Valley type product management where they're managing software products. It's like same concept, you know, we have to document the data. We have to sort of create a life cycle around the data roadmap to, you know, iterate and improve on our data analytics, you know, and then provide SLAs to folks that they know, you know, this data is fresh, this data is updated, and this data is trusted. So it's kind of a complex thing, but it's something that we hope our customers do at DOS42. And to your point, it's people driven, you know. And now with this shortage of people in the workforce, this age of resignation that particularly here in the States we're facing, are you, what do you, I mean, do you think that it's gonna force companies to go faster into automation or, I mean, what do you see as the future? Yeah, I think like, you know, kind of it's almost a concept of augmenting humans to let them do more, right? And so that's really kind of what I think about is like there's some things that people and humans are really good at, you know, and there's some things that computers are really good at, right? So let's try to find those different things and then augment the capabilities, you know, with the other. So, you know, like you mentioned, kind of just the great resignation and stuff like that, that the recent trends around just the talent shortage and everything like that, but you know, it's really data governance is cross functional. It's not just about the data and analytics team. It's about the marketing team, the sales team, the customer service team, the engineering teams. It's really kind of almost a matrix style type approach where we need to engage a broad group of stakeholders in a company to come together. And, you know, there are some kind of best practices and methodologies and things that we bring to the table. But at the end of the day, you know, we set up these initiatives and it's always a people driven initiative at the end of the day. Yeah, well said. Speaking of people, you do actually have an office just down the street from Times Square, but you also said you're a very remote culture as well. So what do you do in that office? Do you grow your data scientists in a lab? Like in a bio lab, like the matrix? Is that what you're doing there? Yeah, I wish. I wish we could just clone a lot of the folks that we have on our team and make more of them. We have such great people on our team, but yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny when we're talking about this, like the remote culture, we like to augment with kind of, you know, folks in an office. And so, you know, it's very flexible. I mean, especially here in New York where, you know, folks might have roommates or small apartments without home offices. We want to be able to provide a space both for collaboration, but also for like, you know, pretty focused work. So we do have an office here in New York. We also have an office in Denver, but, you know, we get together and, you know, we, you know, put our heads together, whiteboard, just like, you know, kind of everyone else, but we still have a very flexible, kind of, you know, work-from-home policy, if you will. Nice, you don't sound like a New Yorker though. So are you a transplant or what's going on here? Yeah, I can't claim to be a New Yorker. You know, now I live up in Westchester right outside the city, but I've been a little bit of a rolling stone. I was born in Florida. I went to school in Maryland and D.C. and then lived in L.A. for a time. So I just kind of roll around and, you know, always find something interesting wherever I'm at. Yeah, well, it's been a tough time to be in New York City. What's it like these days? Like, at the moment, tower things looking. You know, it's funny. I do feel like it's coming back, you know. You know, unfortunately, I think a lot of the local businesses, just like, you know, whether it's the lunch places, the bodegas right down the corner, the delis, all that kind of stuff in midtown have, you know, have been impacted. But, you know, I was just down there maybe last week and it feels like there's some tourists now in Times Square, you know. So maybe that's the leading indicator of, you know, kind of resurgence back in New York, but it's starting to feel a little bit more. I mean, I will say that a lot of the office buildings are still, you know, pretty thinly populated and, you know, that's unfortunate, but I feel like things are starting to feel a lot better, certainly a lot better than, you know, kind of late last year, for sure. That's great. That's great to hear. I think, Jamie, you're going to go into our rapid fire questions, right? Yeah, and I was going to say, Nick, you and I must have like crossed paths somewhere because I went from New York to sort of LA, West Coast recently, but I spent a good portion of my career in New York City. So let's get to our rapid fire section where we're just going to ask quick questions for first thing on your mind, responses. And of course, let's talk New York with your favorite restaurant in New York City. Yeah, so probably one of the most frequently visited restaurants for me is Blue Rib and Brasserie. It's kind of like this French famous, this famous place down in the village there. It's a great spot, French, you know, oysters, you know, steak frites, good wine, you know, all that good stuff. So I'm really glad you didn't say TGA Fridays in Times Square. That's all right, I wouldn't really disappoint. We're right across the street from the new Margaritaville Hotel in Times Square. You know, like Jimmy Buffett hanging out, you know, for a lot more kind of thing. So what about pizza? Like, are you, what side of the pizza fence do you sit on? Is it New York style and crust or deep dish Chicago? I was literally talking about this. I was talking about the key issues. Yeah, I was talking about this with my wife last night, but you know what, I'm actually a Neapolitan pizza guy. That's my favorite, you know, I think that you can't go wrong with that. Neither, basically. Kind of, I'm going to split the difference on that one, Sidney and Bolton. Oh, I like that one. I like that one. My family's from around there. So yeah, absolutely. There you go, love it. Okay, so favorite social media platform and why? And Evan, you cannot weigh in and sway him here. I know what one yours is. You better not disappoint me. Oh man, we'll see. I gotta admit, I'm not really on many social media platforms. You know, so LinkedIn has to be the top one for me because that's the only one that I'm on. Although every now and then I see some TikTok videos or Instagram posts and I'm like, wow, that's very interesting. Well, you're a data guy. You know these companies are just sucking all your GC data from you, probably. Yeah, so. You know, he's like, yeah, I'm not on GC. Yeah, so LinkedIn, you have to be. Yeah, so other than that, I've since lead into a lot of my accounts. I'm not looking to gal it all the way, but Evan, he's, go ahead. Yeah, I'll be in the metaverse next. That'll be big, it'll be huge. But what about your phone? What's on your home screen? What's your top app on your home screen? I mean, obviously it's gonna be Gmail, my calendar app and slash. So boring, so boring. I know, I know, like I don't really, you know, mostly news apps and that kind of stuff, outside of work stuff. We may have to give up this question, Jamie. No one like tells us something like really shocking. Yeah, I know we're, well, we love a bunch of workers. We're all done on our work apps. Like, that's where we live, it's sad. Let's try something else. What else do we have? Well, how about, what's your favorite sport? Ah, okay, I'm a big golf fan, so I watch a lot of golf, play golf. It's also kind of boring, but, you know, that's one of those, exactly. Oh, sorry, even the word put me to sleep. I know, right? But I get to watch all the, you know, the IBM and the hype, you know, tech ads for enterprise folks like myself who are, you know, sitting there watching golf all day. Actually, I will, you know, getting aside, I met or saw Jack Nicholas speak at an event last week in Florida. He's still puttering around, literally. So in late 80s, I think early 90s, I don't even know, but he's a legend. It was really fun to see him. So, well, that was amazing. Well, thanks so much for joining us here. And it's great to see your perspective on data, data science, big data leveraging data for business efficiency and management. And you're not as geeky as I thought you were, but it's really been a good experience. Hey, we're geeky and proud here by the way. That's right, that's right, that's right. We're in a badge. Well, thanks so much for having me, guys. It's been great to be here. It's been fun. Nick, you were amazing. I so appreciate you. And guys, if you love our Data Movers podcast, as much as I do, go ahead and check us out. And we have more dropping every other week on Wednesdays. It's jsa.net slash podcast. And check out other podcast series we've got going on there. Yeah, and be sure to follow us on Twitter, except for you. But everyone else, except for Nick, everyone else can follow us on Twitter. And yeah, I look forward to engaging there. And as always, guys, stay safe and happy networking.