Inspirations: What Fuels The Data Score, Composed by DataChorus?
From Podcasts to Newsletters: My Daily Dose of Inspiration
Welcome to the Data Score newsletter, composed by DataChorus LLC. The newsletter is your go-to source for insights into the world of data-driven decision-making. Whether you're an insight seeker, a unique data company, a software-as-a-service provider, or an investor, this newsletter is for you. I'm Jason DeRise, a seasoned expert in the field of data-driven insights. As one of the first 10 members of UBS Evidence Lab, I was at the forefront of pioneering new ways to generate actionable insights from alternative data. Before that, I successfully built a sell-side equity research franchise based on proprietary data and non-consensus insights. After moving on from UBS Evidence Lab, I’ve remained active in the intersection of data, technology, and financial insights. Through my extensive experience as a purchaser and creator of data, I have gained a unique perspective, which I am sharing through the newsletter.
I want to thank all subscribers and readers of “The Data Score, composed by DataChorus.” Each time I think the audience for long-form articles on data, technology, business, and investing has peaked, new subscribers prove me wrong!
How do I decide what to write about? I simply write about topics that are interesting to me. This approach keeps me motivated and helps me learn as I share my insights. Note: I avoid writing about my day job as The Data Score, composed by DataChorus, is entirely independent from my employer.
Over the years, many content providers have inspired me, sparking ideas I want to explore. In this article, I’ll share my regular sources of inspiration. There’s so much great content that it’s impossible to consume it all daily, weekly, or monthly!
I catch up on content while commuting or traveling for work. I’m a big fan of podcasts and often go for runs just to listen to more (though the running part has slowed lately). I listen at 1.5x speed to get through more episodes. Though I attempt to listen to podcasts and read newsletters on the train, I can’t absorb both simultaneously.
For my readers in the northern hemisphere, maybe this will provide new content that you’ll have time to consume while on vacation (or on holiday) and also inspire you.
Podcasts on Data, Technology, Investing, and Business Decisions:
Analytics Power Hour: I may be biased as a recent guest, but I’ve been a fan long before my friend Val Kroll joined as a co-host. Besides my episode (#244), recent exceptional episdes are “#237: Crossing the Chasm from the Data to Meaningful Outcomes with Kathleen Maley ” and “#240: Asking Better Questions with Taylor Buonocore Guthrie.”
The Alternative Data Podcast: You might notice a theme with my guest appearances, but there are only two! This podcast is a must-listen in the alternative data space. A year ago, I was in the middle of an exceptional run of guests that included Alex Izydorczk, Mark Ainsworth, me, Ed Lavery, and Mat Ober. What a run of shows that somehow included me! More recently, Qaisar Hasan was on the podcast, sharing insights from his journey through to creating Maiden Century.
The Hedgineer Podcast: Michael Watson’s podcast is essential for anyone in finance and technology. His experience at Citadel in various leadership roles allows him to provide valuable perspectives on excellence. Notable episodes include those with Carson Boneck and Kirk McKeown.
Lenny’s Podcast: A must-listen for product owners and managers. Lenny interviews those close to the teams doing the work, offering perspectives on turning ideas into valuable technology products. A recent episode with Ami Vora is particularly insightful.
Experiencing Data with Brian T. O’Neil: Brian, the founder of Designing for Analytics, explores what makes a data product successful and seeks a definitive definition of a data product. I discovered Brian through the Super Data Science Podcast.
Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’shaughnessy: This is a great podcast for getting inside the thought process and insights of world-class institutional investors. He gets great guests like Bill Gurley and Michael Mauboussin. It’s also fun when there are former clients from when I was a sell-side analyst who were clearly destined for greatness in investing and have achieved a lot—and ended up on the podcast, like Gaurav Kapadia and Anne-Marie Peterson (and both who are unlikely to remember me).
Decoder with Nilay Patel: His interview style is really great at exploring the key drivers of what is shaping decision-making at technology firms and at uncovering the real tensions and blockers to strategies succeeding or failing. An example is this interview with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber.
Quantitude: This podcast probably isn’t widely followed, but it’s really enjoyable in a nerdy but informative way. It’s two professors in the social sciences who break down complex statistical models into easy-to-understand examples. For example, the episodes “Nolinear Latent Growth Cuvrve Models (Taylor’s Version)” or “Multicollinearity: The Usual Suspect” (spoiler alert if you haven’t seen The Usual Suspects).
Out of the Comfort Zone: I had the privilege of working with Wanda Wallance as a career coach a number of years ago. She also has an amazing podcast that digs deep into emotional intelligence factors that help people navigate taking a stretch assessment and expanding beyond there core strengths (hence the title “Out of the Comfort Zone"). Here’s a recently released show about risk and fear of failure. I also share a link to an older episode with Scott Solomon, who was head of the Evidence Lab for a period of time and also the creator of the “Ruthless Efficiency” approach to organization, prioritization, and task management in the digital age. I’m not joking when I say Ruthless Efficiency changed my life.
Waters Tech Podcast: Wei-Shen Wong and Anthony Malakian host guests from the finance and technology sectors, offering deep-dive interviews and journalism. Check out a recent interview with Bloomberg’s Tony McManus.
Newsletters and Blogs on Data, Tech, Investing, and Business Decisions:
In the flow
It’s Pronounced Data: Dan Entrup’s weekly newsletter and his frequently expanding map of the data landscape are a key part of my routine in staying aware of what’s happening across the industry. Plus, his meme game is top-notch.
Alternative Data Weekly: John Farrall’s weekly newsletter keeps me updated on industry happenings, with valuable previews of key articles and podcasts.
The Rollup: Matt Ober’s newsletter on Beehiiv covers a wide range of timely topics across investing, data and technology. It’s a key part of my weekly routine. https://www.mattober.co/
TLDR: They have some great daily news summaries from the world of tech and data: https://tldr.tech/newsletters
Ben’s Bites: another great source of daily news from the world of data and tech https://bensbites.beehiiv.com/
World of DaaS: Somehow I had been missing this until recently and it is in my rotation now: https://www.worldofdaas.com/
Investing Newsletters:
Sweet Stocks: Alex Sweet is a friend and former colleague at Sanford Bernstein. In a time of meme stocks moving the market, Alex’s research shows what actual, high-quality, institutional-grade, fundamental research looks like. He goes deep into the fundamentals of companies across many sectors. It reminds me of the type of work I learned to do at Bernstein.
Net Interest: Another great newsletter that does deep dives on investing themes. Of note was a great article about banks in disguise (eg the massive amounts of cash given to Starbucks in the form of prepaying for future mobile purchases).
Deep Dives on Data and technology
Magis: Alex Izydorcyzk’s newsletter isn’t published on a regular basis, but when he does publish, it’s time to stop and read it. I constantly find myself nodding along with his points about extracting insights from data and avoiding the pitfalls.
AI Snake Oil: Sayash Kapoor and Arvind Narayanan’s newsletter is essential for discerning reality from hype in the AI landscape. Their scientific approach clarifies the rapidly changing AI sector
High ROI Data Science: Vin’s newsletter is crucial at the intersection of technology and business, always tying the latest tech hype back to actual business value.
Random Walk: Moses Sternstein cleverly brings together data and insights about the market.
Lenny’s Newsletter: With 700,000 subscribers and growing, Lenny’s newsletter on product building is invaluable. Each article enhances understanding through his research, interviews, and guest columns.
Asymmetrix: Alex Boden’s newsletter offers deep dives on data and technology companies, including M&A analytics. It’s worth checking out.
Sorry for any I’ve missed
I consume many more newsletters than the above. I feel like I’m forgetting some important newsletters in my regular rotation. I’m sure after I publish, it’s going to dawn on me that I’ve forgotten something! It is best not to make perfect the enemy of good.
Podcasts Outside Data, Tech, Investing, and Business Decisions:
It’s not all data and investing for me. I thought I’d share some other content I consume. There’s quite a few music related items below, plus comedy and sports.
Rick Rubin’s Content: Though he doesn’t play an instrument or know recording technicalities, Rick Rubin excels at getting the best from artists. His new podcast, Tetragrammaton, features long-form interviews with diverse creatives. His interviews on the Broken Record Podcast (co-hosted with Malcom Gladwell) are like brainstorming and therapy sessions with musicians. The Creative Act (Book): Rick Rubin published a collection of essays on the topic of creativity. I liked this book so much I bought a copy for everyone in my band. It helps me a lot with writing creatively and having the confidence to publish. I recommend it to anyone who works on anything that is creative.
The Creative Act: A Way of Being: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886 - I read it, but the Audiobook is good too:
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend (Podcast): I’m just a big fan of Conan and his silly sense of humor, but also his willingness to commit to a bit more than he really should. His Hot Ones appearance was unhinged because of how much he wanted to commit to the joke that “it wasn’t that spicy,” even though it really was affecting him. By the way, Sean Evan’s might be the best interviewer of any interview show. He and his team do really great research to prepare for the questions.
60 Songs that Explain the 90s (Podcast): Despite the title, the host covers 120 songs, breaking preconceived rules. Rob Harvilla’s monologues capture 90s teenage life related to each song.
Bandsplain (Podcast): This podcast hosted by Yasi Salek continues where Rob Harvilla left off, unconstrained by an arbitrary song limit, covering songs missed by "60 Songs that Explain the 90s."
Switched on Pop (Podcast): This one is probably a surprise to those who know me well. In this podcast, Nate Sloan, a Musicologist (is that a real thing?) and Charlie Harding, a song writer, break down popular music into its components, explaining why it’s popular from a music theory point of view.
The Rewatchables (Podcast): The “Podfather’s” greatest invention. Bill Simmons and his team discuss older movies with made up categories and share hot takes about the movies. Sometimes it’s more fun than rewatching the actual movie.
The Fulhamish Podcast: While living in London, I adopted Fulham as my club, initially for its American players and charming ground. This podcast is the unofficial voice of the fans and it captures my feeling of devotion to this small London club.
Revisiting older content
In addition to consuming recent content, sometimes I go back to older material. Here are some suggestions for older content, but I recently decided to go back and revisit it.
Masters of Scale (Podcast): Reid Hoffman’s podcast helped me understand scaling a technology-driven business from a good idea. The earliest episodes are exceptionally good. In fact, the first episode might be my favorite of them all. The first episode, featuring Brian Chesky (Airbnb), emphasizes the importance of handcrafted efforts to find product-market fit. Chesky’s 14-star review framework is particularly insightful.
The Unicorn Project (book): This is the sequel to the Phoenix project and, by all accounts, way better than the original. How could Gene Kim’s fiction about developers be a best-seller? Once reading it, I joked, along with a few other of my colleagues, that it was about UBS Evidence Lab! It was a best seller because we weren’t alone in trying to innovate inside a large, well-established, successful company. After reading it, I thought about how we worked differently. I’m re reading it now. Sure, the technology seems dated looking back at the ~2018 story line, but the concepts still hold true. https://www.amazon.com/Unicorn-Project-Developers-Disruption-Thriving/dp/1942788762
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (Book, not the movie): Revisiting this classic, I wonder why many people in business and investing love the story but resist using new data and techniques for their own decisions. The book explores parallels with decision-makers reluctant to embrace data-driven options. https://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393324818/
The Innovator’s Dilemma (Book): Clay Christensen’s book explains why large, established companies should out-innovate startups but often struggle to do so. Though I’d heard a lot about it, I only read it recently. https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Change-Business/dp/0062060244
Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day (Book): I learned of the book from Lenny’s Podcast, who had interviewed them. It’s from the authors of Sprint, a book that explains Google Ventures approach to innovation sprints. I read “Make Time” and found their ideas on prioritization really helpful. It is a great companion to Scott Solomon’s Ruthless Efficiency. There is a lot of overlap but also some opposite views. I especially valued the idea of planning ahead to decide what the highlight of the day would be. https://www.amazon.com/Make-Time-Focus-Matters-Every/dp/0525572422
Bonus: fiction inspiration
The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy: The Thre Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death’s End (Books): I don’t usually read fiction, but after enjoying the Netflix series “3 Body Problem”, I decided to read the trilogy, which was published 15-20 years ago. I’m halfway through and looking forward to finishing it on vacation this summer! https://www.amazon.com/Remembrance-Earths-Past-Three-Body-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B01N198VU5
Final Thoughts
I hope this provides some inspiration for you, especially for my friends in the northern hemisphere, as we head on summer vacations and holidays and you have time to catch up on content.
What great content do you consume to draw inspiration?
- Jason DeRise, CFA (in vacation mode)
Usually I define jargon, and there probably is some in this lighter article. If anything is not clear, please check out my Jargnoator post. I’ve been keeping it updated when I use jargon that I hadn’t defined previously.
