00:00:00 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Hello and welcome to value driven data science brought to you by Genevieve Hayes Consulting. I'm your host, doctor Genevieve Hayes and today I'm joined by guest Jonathan Stark to talk about building your authority as a data scientist.
00:00:16 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Jonathan, welcome to the show.
00:00:18 Jonathan Stark
Hey, thanks for having me great to be here.
00:00:20 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Jonathan is a former software developer who now helps independent professionals make a living while increasing their impact on the world.
00:00:29 Dr Genevieve Hayes
He's the author of hourly billing is nuts. The host of the podcast ditching hourly, the Co host of a second podcast, the business of Authority.
00:00:39 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And he somehow in amongst all this fits in the time to write a daily Email newsletter, all of which I highly recommend, thanks.
00:00:49 Dr Genevieve Hayes
For anyone out there who's familiar with Jonathan's work, you'll know he often speaks about the importance of finding your niche.
00:00:57 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And that's the topic. I suspect we're going to come back to over the course of this episode.
00:01:02 Dr Genevieve Hayes
However, to get the ball rolling, Jonathan, could you explain to our listeners how you found your niche as an authority on pricing and building authority?
00:01:14 Jonathan Stark
Sure, I was doing software development my my one and only corporate job. I did actually file maker development and it's like a database desktop database.
00:01:27 Jonathan Stark
Built some workspace applications. Ended up getting dissatisfied with the corporate life. Went out and got a job at a small consultant.
00:01:36 Jonathan Stark
And we build hourly at that consultancy and over time I found that that was annoying at best and problematic at worst and LED to a lot of traps, hourly billing traps and the the canonical story is that one day it just.
00:01:55 Jonathan Stark
Like a tonne of bricks that if we were going to increase our profits, the smart thing to do would be to fire our best person because he was the most expensive and we build him out at the same rate as all the other slower.
00:02:07 Jonathan Stark
And I was like that I just couldn't. No that's wrong. I said to myself, you know, that can't be right.
00:02:12 Jonathan Stark
So I explored that idea for a little while and then came up with the idea that hourly billing might be nuts.
00:02:18 Jonathan Stark
It was the source of all the problems that we had as a firm. Most of them shortly, and I I went solo to kind of explore that space without risking.
00:02:27 Jonathan Stark
Damaging the I was the vice president of the firm at the time and you and I brought the idea to the owner like hey, what if?
00:02:33 Jonathan Stark
What if we stopped doing hourly and he's like I get what you're saying, but I don't know how to do it and I was like me, neither let me go find out. So I went solo and when I did that I fairly I was fairly well known in the space I spoke at the conference regularly and I was writing in the actual paper.
00:02:49 Jonathan Stark
Magazine every month.
00:02:50 Jonathan Stark
And and so people were like, wow, why would this guy who's like the second banana at one of the best firms in this space and it's kind of well known for this stuff?
00:02:59 Jonathan Stark
Why would he leave? And so I had a lot of friends that were asking me that question behind the scenes.
00:03:03 Jonathan Stark
And I said, look, I just can't Unsee the the craziness of hourly billing. I'm going to try something else. And so they.
00:03:11 Jonathan Stark
We're sort of, I think, a mad. In my mind. They were imagining I was gonna fail in the first year, but I did the opposite of fail in the first year and then they started asking.
00:03:19 Jonathan Stark
Me how did you do that?
00:03:21 Jonathan Stark
So I started to informally give talks and sort of try and explain how it worked for me and how I did it and what I read to come up.
00:03:28 Jonathan Stark
With those
00:03:29 Jonathan Stark
Ideas and and and it honestly that just never stopped.
00:03:33 Jonathan Stark
It just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, so my background being in software I had a just a million Connexions in that space and I understood.
00:03:41 Jonathan Stark
Their worldview and all of the things that they would deal with on a particular project or client. All all the client service.
00:03:47 Jonathan Stark
Of and then I had this weird random skill of like how to price in a different way and that was novel and there was a lot of interest in it and people would just ask me to write about it and speak about it, and so eventually many years later, probably 10 years later, I finally said look, I'm going to take this really seriously and.
00:04:05 Jonathan Stark
Wrote a book about it.
00:04:06 Dr Genevieve Hayes
With a lot of data scientists, they're not even at the point of worrying how to price. They're worrying how to get themselves out of this trap of looking like every other data scientist.
00:04:17 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, that's a that's a very similar trap that even independent freelancers or contractors or consultants. They're the same problem.
00:04:23 Jonathan Stark
It's the same thing. It's not a pricing issue per say, but it would hold you back from improving your prices.
00:04:30 Jonathan Stark
So to me, positioning is like a foundational business construct where if you're not standing out from the crowd, if there's no meaningful difference between you and the next one.
00:04:38 Jonathan Stark
Next person with your same job title. Whether you're an employee or freelancer or working at a firm or whatever.
00:04:44 Jonathan Stark
If there's no difference between Alice and Bob, then they're gonna pick the cheapest one. Like why wouldn't they cause it's it's the the last bastion of differentiation is who's cheaper, and if there's no qualitative or or some other meaningful difference between the chooser like in the mind of the chooser and price is the last choice, so that's not. And that's not a game you want to win.
00:05:05 Jonathan Stark
You don't want to win the race to.
00:05:07 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Because this is what I've found, just speaking to people in the industry. So we've got this really in demand skill.
00:05:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Everyone keeps getting told we need more data scientists in the world. And if you speak to the head of data science or analytics at pretty much any organisation, they'll tell you their greatest challenge is finding data science.
00:05:28 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Talent right? And yet I had to guess a few episodes ago and he'd had quite a successful career as a software developer.
00:05:37 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And then went and did a data science masters and he thought, you know he should be able to just, you know, sift through the offers and yet he couldn't get any.
00:05:48 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Even for those data scientists who are actually working in the industry, a lot of them are working in large teams of data scientists and the powers that be who are assigning the tasks. They just see you as you know, data scientist day data scientist B data scientists C.
00:06:05 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And they can't tell the difference, and so it's sort of this paradox. We've got this high demand skill set, but the people who have that high demand skill set aren't necessarily in high demand. I'd almost call that the commoditization of data scientists.
00:06:20 Jonathan Stark
Right, it's an interesting concept where someone is has so much schooling and has invested so much time and money into that.
00:06:27 Jonathan Stark
And is, you know, highly special. I would call it. I mean, I'm sure there's specialisation was in within data scientists, but it's pretty highly specialised already.
00:06:36 Jonathan Stark
As a skill set to an outsider, and yet even though the ones that do get picked maybe, can you know start and this?
00:06:44 Jonathan Stark
I assume those starting salaries are like low 6 figures or maybe higher, but whatever. Regardless, it's it's not a. It's not. You're not digging ditches like it's not a salary. It's not like a.
00:06:56 Jonathan Stark
Low paying thing and yet.
00:07:00 Jonathan Stark
If they can't, if if the chooser the the employer, the manager, the client can't tell the difference between one and the other, that's kind of the the definition of a commodity.
00:07:13 Jonathan Stark
Normally when you talk about commodities, they're usually very low price. Then they're you know it's just something foundational like coal.
00:07:20 Jonathan Stark
Or something. It's just like you don't care who you buy the coal from. It's like it's regulated. There's a quality to it.
00:07:26 Jonathan Stark
You buy grade B coal and you get grade B coal. It doesn't really matter if you get it from supplier or supplier B unless supplier A or supplier B does something to make themselves different from the other one or the rest of them.
00:07:38 Jonathan Stark
This is the same concept applies here where even though it's a, it's a white collar professional job that pays well where's the where's the upward mobility?
00:07:47 Jonathan Stark
Where is the where? Are you gonna get your? Or if you went solo or running your own consulting business, how would you justify premium fees when someone can just Google data scientist?
00:07:59 Jonathan Stark
Near me.
00:08:00 Jonathan Stark
And get ten hits and then sort of hit them all against each other to get the best price. So the question becomes how do you stand out from the crowd?
00:08:11 Jonathan Stark
How do you become the Seth Goodman? Say the purple cow. What is the thing that you can do that would be meaningfully different to the buyer?
00:08:20 Jonathan Stark
And I'm going to use that term broadly to include employer and so forth.
00:08:23 Jonathan Stark
To get the buyer to pay a premium like this, one of all the ones is better for reasons that matter to me. So like that becomes the question.
00:08:33 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That's something that I think a lot of data scientists haven't figured out.
00:08:39 Jonathan Stark
I agree, that's my experience.
00:08:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, they all do this degree. Everyone learns how to programme in Python. They all learn how to fit machine learning models and then they go and work at Big Corp or a BIG4 consultancy or something.
00:08:57 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The ones that I've seen do it well are the ones who actually managed to find a niche somewhere, so the previous guests that I mentioned earlier who was struggling to find a job, he got a job as a data analyst initially and then he took advantage of his background in software engineering.
00:09:17 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And use that to leverage himself into a niche where he was translating from data engineering. Speak into data science speak.
00:09:29 Jonathan Stark
Right, yeah, that's a that's a good example. Like someone that can bridge the gap between 2 discs.
00:09:33 Jonathan Stark
Is a little bit of a differentiator for sure. I mean, the big one would be being able to bridge the gap between the data science and the business side.
00:09:43 Jonathan Stark
The business value that could be theoretically created, and this is so like my experience with data scientists, is mostly indirect.
00:09:52 Jonathan Stark
You know, through people that are, you know some, but I haven't worked closely with too many data scientists, so so correct me if I'm wrong.
00:10:00 Jonathan Stark
But the stereotype I guess I would say. Or maybe the middle of the bell curve is that the the data scientists kind of want to sit in the basement and perfect their models.
00:10:11 Jonathan Stark
And then they say, look at this amazing model to the business side and the business side is like what is this for? Like what? OK that's cool. It does this magic trick.
00:10:20 Jonathan Stark
But I don't see any clear application of that in the market and it feels like someone that was familiar with all of the things that you just said Python And data models and blah blah blah blah blah stuff. I don't, you know, even as a technical person, that stuff is all.
00:10:34 Jonathan Stark
To me.
00:10:35 Jonathan Stark
You know all that, but you also know marketing or you also know how to capture, say like user user outcomes or like a user journey.
00:10:47 Jonathan Stark
Or you know how to do user testing or you understand design thinking. Forget about it. I mean, you'd be like superhuman. Again, this is me as an outsider.
00:10:57 Jonathan Stark
Sitting, you know, sitting on the sidelines, it feels like someone who could speak business. All of the the business value creation side and.
00:11:04 Jonathan Stark
Say like OK?
00:11:05 Jonathan Stark
Look, now let me go now I understand what would create value for the business from the business people, the marketing folks. Maybe the lead.
00:11:12 Jonathan Stark
Worship and they go or sales perhaps, and then they go into their toolbox and they do a magic trick.
00:11:19 Jonathan Stark
That delivers that thing instead of justice being like, you know, perhaps comparing their model to the models that other scientists data scientists are making.
00:11:27 Jonathan Stark
Being like Wow mine's the coolest or I solved this huge problem that nobody else could solve, but it's like a bunch of data scientists trying to impress each other versus this has real business value now.
00:11:38 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That's interesting what you said about the whole marketing side of things, because one of the things I've often heard raised about.
00:11:45 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You know how data scientists can stand out is through superior communication, and you know, it's everyone's talking about data storytelling and things like that, but the idea of actually using the marketing skill set.
00:11:59 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That's one I haven't heard being raised before.
00:12:02 Jonathan Stark
It's it's very communication any? I mean there it is possible that that story driven I'm not. I'm sort of familiar with that, but it might be meaningfully different from what I'm talking about, which is.
00:12:14 Jonathan Stark
To me it's me. It's like good marketing, like the good kind of marketing where you identify a problem or you create a desire.
00:12:22 Jonathan Stark
You create it, perhaps create a desire, but I think in this case it's even easier. You are familiar enough with the customers of the business that you work at you.
00:12:31 Jonathan Stark
You have an interest in the actual customers of the business and not just satisfying your manager and pressing the person in the next.
00:12:38 Jonathan Stark
That you're like wow, you know I work at Google X or something and and the goal of this particular moon shot project, should it get approved is to make the entire world a better place to make at least 1 billion people's lives better in the next 5 to 10 years. What could I do with my superpowers?
00:12:58 Jonathan Stark
My resume, my skills that I have that would make someone's life real person an actual person's life better. And you know, like an end user like think about the end user of all of this.
00:13:08 Jonathan Stark
Stuff instead of just being like wow, isn't this cool? Not saying everyone does this, but it's it seems pretty common.
00:13:14 Jonathan Stark
That's like wow, I made this thing. Do a magic trick and then just the business people like.
00:13:17 Jonathan Stark
Scratching their heads like great.
00:13:19 Jonathan Stark
It's it's almost like presenting them, so presenting the business with like some crazy tool like a like a woodworking tool, and they're just looking or a sex.
00:13:30 Jonathan Stark
Right? Like for now, like old timey navigation tool and they just look at it like OK that like looks amazing and it seems pretty cool and it probably has some uses but I don't know what they are.
00:13:40 Jonathan Stark
You know, it's like the dots are just not automatically connected, like they don't see your thing and automatically say oh, I know how we can improve people's lives, create value and perhaps capture some of that so that we can come back.
00:13:51 Jonathan Stark
Tomorrow and do it again.
00:13:53 Jonathan Stark
So that that sort of full.
00:13:57 Jonathan Stark
What would you call that the the sort of overview of the entire point of the business is something that does seem to be lacking, at least in the stories I've heard.
00:14:07 Jonathan Stark
So you could call it a communication skill. It's really a question of empathy, so it's like are you empathetic with the end user of the products and services that this business that you work at?
00:14:17 Jonathan Stark
Gates, if you are empathetic with those people and you have perhaps talked to them or maybe seeing a focus group, and I'm not seeing design by committee or anything like that. I'm just saying like you, recognise the problems.
00:14:27 Jonathan Stark
Understand the problems of the end user that would, I would imagine it certainly, as a software developer that's always informed.
00:14:34 Jonathan Stark
My decisions in what tools I would choose to pick and what I would choose to build with those tools.
00:14:40 Jonathan Stark
How much time or money or effort I would put into it based on the size of the problem that I'm solving and just either sometimes it's just good enough.
00:14:49 Jonathan Stark
To be for it to be good enough, other times it needs to be super robust depends on the problem you're solving.
00:14:54 Jonathan Stark
And understanding that full big picture, at least a little bit, then then you'd be able to tell the story of why this crazy sextant.
00:15:03 Jonathan Stark
This crazy tool that you can't understand by looking at it why it matters? Like why does OK this thing's crazy and cool.
00:15:09 Jonathan Stark
Why does it?
00:15:09 Jonathan Stark
Better, it's like, well, if you were trying to get from like I don't know, say England.
00:15:14 Jonathan Stark
To the new world.
00:15:15 Jonathan Stark
And you don't want to get lost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This is the solution like WOW that are now all of a sudden.
00:15:21 Jonathan Stark
The Sexton makes sense. It's like valuable because you don't want to drown.
00:15:25 Jonathan Stark
So that's that would be the the most powerful gap I can think of.
00:15:30 Jonathan Stark
So if you had, if you're gonna put 1 foot in data science and the other foot somewhere else.
00:15:34 Jonathan Stark
It would be marketing.
00:15:35 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And this is reminding me of something. I think it's Scott Adams once said where he's talking about the skills stack that people can.
00:15:43 Dr Genevieve Hayes
World he was talking about in his own context as a cartoonist, he was saying he's not the greatest cartoonist ever.
00:15:51 Dr Genevieve Hayes
He wasn't the greatest person at business, but by knowing a little bit about business a little bit about drawing, he was able to produce Gilbert, which is definitely not the greatest cartoon ever. And yet it's one of the most.
00:16:03 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Successful comic strips of all time.
00:16:05 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly right. I think that there is a temptation, especially in highly technical fields. There's a temptation to base yourself worth on your where you feel like you rank against your colleagues or competitors and and it's just irrelevant if you're good enough, so you're pretty good. You're C plus.
00:16:26 Jonathan Stark
D minus data scientist. But if you combine that with like a solution, sorry, a problem driven or an outcome driven mindset, it feels like you'd be unstoppable, and it seems rare outside.
00:16:40 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Especially since a lot of data scientists, because it's a relatively new profession. Early career data scientists and have had limited time in the profession.
00:16:52 Jonathan Stark
So I mentioned file Maker earlier. It's very user friendly tool. It's not hard to understand. In fact that's its strong suit.
00:17:00 Jonathan Stark
It's it's got lots of limitations with the strong suit. Is that a subject matter expert can take it and really create some streamlined workflows very quickly. Very easily in a robust way.
00:17:13 Jonathan Stark
It's shocking it, but it's it. But it it doesn't scale great beyond.
00:17:17 Jonathan Stark
That so I after a while, but at the beginning I just wanted to learn everything about it. I wanted to know what every menu did all the way.
00:17:26 Jonathan Stark
Drilled all the way down. I wanted to learn everything about it. I wanted to be able to make it do tricks so I wanted to push it past its limits.
00:17:32 Jonathan Stark
I just loved it. It was just so much.
00:17:34 Jonathan Stark
Fun to play with. It was so fun to play with it and you know there there was a joke in the community. It was like.
00:17:39 Jonathan Stark
Got a problem, what's the solution? File maker you know. Whatever tracking whatever file maker is like, do you need Turkey timer file maker? That's the answer to every.
00:17:49 Jonathan Stark
And we were just a lot of us. Well, just being for myself. I was obsessed with the tool itself for a long time because it was so it made me feel super human because I could very easily do this stuff that that you know was.
00:18:03 Jonathan Stark
I thought it was amazing and then when I went into the web, eventually it felt too small and I wanted to like.
00:18:08 Jonathan Stark
I want to be on the web when that started to happen and so I.
00:18:11 Jonathan Stark
Started doing web stuff and I just loved.
00:18:13 Jonathan Stark
Loved learning more about the tools and getting better at the tools to a point where I was considered an expert in both the file maker and especially in mobile web.
00:18:22 Jonathan Stark
After the iPhone came out, I was considered an expert by peers, but I knew there were lots of people that were better than me, but I was more well known because I would publish, you know, I. I published stuff for.
00:18:34 Jonathan Stark
That business people could.
00:18:36 Jonathan Stark
Understand because I recognised that I was obsessed with the tool but no. Nobody who paid me cared. You know what I mean?
00:18:41 Jonathan Stark
It was all about solving their problems like like this is so cool you can make it go like this and it can stand on its head.
00:18:48 Jonathan Stark
But why do you care? You care because now you don't have to hire three more customer service people, which is going to save you over 150 grand a year.
00:18:56 Jonathan Stark
If you give me 50,000.
00:18:58 Jonathan Stark
Dollars so they so being able to connect the dots between what's in it for them, the buyer and this magic trick that I can do on my end meant that I didn't have to be the world's best. At certain I was.
00:19:12 Jonathan Stark
I was pretty good at file maker, but I was definitely not the world's best at web development. I mean, come on.
00:19:18 Jonathan Stark
Right, but I picked a super tight niche mobile in particular and I became well known for it because I wrote a book about it and and then I would always connect. Well, not always. I I was bad at it at first, but I got better at connecting.
00:19:32 Jonathan Stark
What I could do with valuable business outcomes and and being able to do that meant that I didn't have to be the best PHP developer in the whole wide world because I could.
00:19:44 Jonathan Stark
You know it didn't need to be. It didn't matter it.
00:19:46 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Was irrelevant, one of the questions that often comes up when you're talking about data scientists is should you generalise the data scientists.
00:19:54 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Or should you specialise in one area like computer vision or natural language processing? So it sounds like what you're saying is.
00:20:04 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Is it doesn't matter if you're a generalist data scientist or a specialist in a particular field. What's most important is that you've got a dual special speciality of being able to market your skill set to the business.
00:20:21 Jonathan Stark
That's one way I think that's the the important thing, the the the broadly speaking. The important thing is to be different, to stand out in a way that's meaningful to your buyers, not your rainbow hair or something. If that's not meaningful like yes, you're different, but that doesn't count if no.
00:20:36 Jonathan Stark
Who cares? You need to be meaningfully different to the people you want to serve. That could be your buyers.
00:20:42 Jonathan Stark
It could be your manager, it could be your boss. It could be the CEO of the company. It could be clients.
00:20:45 Jonathan Stark
It could be agencies that you're working through. One way to be meaningfully different would be this idea of understanding marketing, understanding the business side.
00:20:53 Jonathan Stark
You don't have to be out there marketing, you don't. It's not. I'm not necessarily saying you have to market yourself, although that wouldn't hurt.
00:20:59 Jonathan Stark
But understanding the point of bringing a product to market and being able to present the value proposition to the audience in a in an articulate way, that alone would would make you much different from the people in the next in the.
00:21:14 Jonathan Stark
Cube Farm that, but that's just one way. So like another way could be to niche down on a horizontal.
00:21:20 Jonathan Stark
So like you could look at your your toolkit and get super focused into one thing inside the toolkit. Maybe it's you know, like you said, computer vision.
00:21:29 Jonathan Stark
Or maybe I'm not sure is that I don't know if I would characterise that as toolkit or domain.
00:21:35 Jonathan Stark
The space, but it doesn't matter. It's like whatever. If it makes you meaningfully different to the people you want to serve, your buyers or bosses or blah, whatever.
00:21:43 Jonathan Stark
Then that that would work too, like that could work. You know it, no one's gonna care if you're the tallest data scientist probably, but if you if they do care about someone who understands computer vision and can maybe apply it to climate change or something, then it's like oh now all of a sudden I'm having a rolodex moment, like maybe I should introduce this person to.
00:22:05 Jonathan Stark
Seth Godin or someone else who wrote the Carolina Act. Or you know someone, someone in that space like so that would be a meaningful difference.
00:22:12 Jonathan Stark
If it's not a meaningful difference to the people that you hope to serve you, you need. You've got more work.
00:22:18 Dr Genevieve Hayes
When I whenever I attend conferences, it always seems like the guest speakers are all senior managers in various organisations, so I went to a conference couple of weeks back and every speaker there had a title like Chief Data Officer, Head of Data and Analytics.
00:22:37 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Et cetera, et cetera? Is it necessary to hold a senior management role to establish your authority in data science?
00:22:45 Jonathan Stark
No, you could be. You don't need to be managing people to be delivering results. That's the thing it's like that's the the genius of understanding the problem space that you're that you're bringing your superpowers to bear against is about delivering results like meaningful results to people who care. So if if if you're just like last night I was literally Googling.
00:23:05 Jonathan Stark
Or chat GPT consultant right? Because that is, you know. As we're recording this that just hit the airwaves, so to speak.
00:23:14 Jonathan Stark
And I was like, I'll bet you this feels like there's a way I could drop the million or so words that are on my website that I wrote into a data model and justice create a chat bot of Maine.
00:23:27 Jonathan Stark
But who do I ask? I don't know. I googled for chat GPT consultant. I found one. I mean it looked.
00:23:33 Jonathan Stark
It's obviously very new, right? But this person had some, some what looked like credible indicators, and even had a like a $250 paid.
00:23:44 Jonathan Stark
Phone call which I would have jumped on but it was like it was like shut off. It was like I guess he decided not to do that anymore or something.
00:23:51 Jonathan Stark
It was like still there. The artefact of the page was still there. I guarantee you there will be well I I would be surprised if there wasn't some solo consultant or small firms that were going to specialise specifically.
00:24:04 Jonathan Stark
In GT3 and and like what what? How do like? OK it's it's. It's a magic trick, but what?
00:24:11 Jonathan Stark
What can I do with it so I feel like I feel like I have a business case for something that chat GPT? Might be able to do, but I don't want to learn it. I just want.
00:24:19 Jonathan Stark
Wanna tell me? I'd be shocked if there wasn't a individual contractor, consultant. Whatever you call it, who might not even have a masters in data science that just been, you know, fooling around with this open API or open AI APIs and can just make stuff happen.
00:24:36 Jonathan Stark
They might not even be that great at it, but it wouldn't have mattered to me in the moment. It was definitely worth 250.
00:24:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I used to lecture in universities. Well, I still lecture in universities and there was always this joke among lecturers.
00:24:48 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You don't have to know everything in the course at the start of the semester, you just have to be one week ahead of students.
00:24:54 Jonathan Stark
I have made a whole career writing books on that premise, where it's like, I I love my favourite person to teach is someone who I beginners.
00:25:03 Jonathan Stark
I love that zero to 1 transition. I do not get excited about the 99% to 100% perfection. End of the spectrum.
00:25:13 Jonathan Stark
To me, that sort of diminishing returns that happen at the high end of the excellent scale. So like people that Coach top performing athletes, that's that's the kind of thing has no interest for.
00:25:21 Jonathan Stark
Me, I have no interest in that. A lot more interest in taking a bunch of beginners and and from nothing from zero to wow I can do something with this and then let them go off to the races.
00:25:33 Jonathan Stark
On their own and have fun and explore. That's my favourite piece.
00:25:37 Dr Genevieve Hayes
One of the things I was reading the other day. It was an article on what should you write about if you're writing on.
00:25:43 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The Internet and it was saying that 95% of people are either beginners and want to learn the beginners stuff, or if they're not beginners, they want a refresher course on the beginner stuff. So you're better off writing the beginner stuff than the stuff that is for that 1%.
00:26:01 Jonathan Stark
Right, the stuff that will impress your friends, right? So like there was a I. I just remember the frustration very clearly because I'm old enough to have learned software development from books, paper books.
00:26:13 Jonathan Stark
So I would go to Barnes and Noble or borders and I'd stand in the computer science aisle and I would read about PHP two and and my SQL and and like oh I'm gonna buy this.
00:26:25 Jonathan Stark
I gotta buy this one I gotta and then I'd like manually type it in like it was brutal and and I just the pain of being a total beginner.
00:26:33 Jonathan Stark
Feeling like you know, I can figure things out. I'm like smart enough but but the but the author wanting to write the Bible on the thing and skipping over the basics at the beginning that just left me dead in my tracks. So like I remember a PHP book in particular.
00:26:49 Jonathan Stark
Where it starts off by saying you know type echo open quotes hello comma World close quotes semicolon. I'm like into what type it into what type it into a web browser.
00:27:01 Jonathan Stark
Where am I supposed to type? It didn't tell me where to type it, it just assumed I knew how to set up my entire PHP development environment and I was like so angry.
00:27:09 Jonathan Stark
Right, I remember that anger that they skipped over the you know what to them was so obvious that it wasn't worth mentioning.
00:27:17 Jonathan Stark
And to me it was everything. I I the I had to like go and this is pre stack overflow. This is pre Google. This is there's nowhere else to go is like the back to the bookstore.
00:27:27 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That's exactly what happened to me when I learned latex, so used latech to write my PhD thesis and I bought the textbooks from the university bookshop and they all assumed that I'd set up a latex environment.
00:27:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I guess exactly and what?
00:27:41 Jonathan Stark
It's like the hardest part.
00:27:44
I ended up doing at the end.
00:27:46 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I I was supervising an honest student at the time who was doing his honours thesis in latex and I actually forced him to teach me how to set up the environment because I couldn't find any other way of doing it.
00:28:01 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, I ended up having a a friend like I. I got a friend to like help me get started with it.
00:28:06 Jonathan Stark
It was like, yeah, it's so frustrating. So anyway, you know the the this is all sort of follow on from the idea of like you don't have to be best in the world or even close.
00:28:16 Jonathan Stark
Those if you've got some other complementary skill that creates like a force multiplier like the Scott Adams quote about it, like I'm not a great cartoonist and I was never great at business, but I but he could. The intersection of the two created something greater than the sum of.
00:28:33 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The parts I understand that.
00:28:36 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You can establish your authority if you're working in a larger organisation by doing all those things that you've mentioned.
00:28:44 Dr Genevieve Hayes
But yeah, I've worked in both management and technical roles. One of the things that made my life a whole lot easier when I was a manager was that I did get access to senior management, so it was much easier to get my voice heard was much easier to get credit for my own ideas.
00:29:05 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Because often when I was working in a technical specialist role, my work was feeding into a manager who would then white label the work.
00:29:14 Jonathan Stark
That's a nice way to put it. White label. Yeah, yeah.
00:29:19 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And so this creates can create a challenge if you're in a non management role. And also there's if you have a organisation with a lot of office politics. I can imagine the data scientist sitting next to you might feel threatened by you deciding to become.
00:29:39 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The authority.
00:29:40 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, and I I only had one corporate job, but you what you're describing is the same as my experience.
00:29:45 Jonathan Stark
It was just a different domain space and again it was like you know I'm 54 just about.
00:29:52 Jonathan Stark
You know it was like when when you found out like the the person in the next queue over had a blog which was a novel concept.
00:29:58 Jonathan Stark
At the time I mean, it was Zynga. No, not Zynga, Zynga, and and before Myspace. Friendster like that. This is going way back, like late 90s. And to hear that like someone was.
00:30:12 Jonathan Stark
Blogging about some technical concept was a little bit like, huh? You know, who does he think he is or who does she think she is or whatever?
00:30:19 Jonathan Stark
And meanwhile you've got the sort of Deadwood corporate employees that are just hiding. They're threatened by people that are obviously trying to do something a little bit more proactive with their career, whether it's blogging or taking on raising their hand first when a new project is is offered, you know. And and yeah, of course, I mean, but to me, that was.
00:30:39 Jonathan Stark
20-30 years ago, I don't think those politics will ever be different. Was like when you're saying the thing about someone white labelling your genius idea.
00:30:49 Jonathan Stark
It's like, well, that's the game you're playing. If you're in, I mean in a big organisation like that's part of the, you know, become a manager, like if you don't like that.
00:30:56 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, it's not like it's not gonna change. I wouldn't. I wouldn't spend my life trying to change that dynamic, but if if you, I mean that's one of the reasons I became dissatisfied at that job. I was like I feel like I'm delivering tonnes of value I.
00:31:08 Jonathan Stark
I can point to situations that I've demonstrably improved.
00:31:14 Jonathan Stark
The workflow and I'm still making my same terrible salary so you know we had the raise conversation. They strung me along for a long time and then they gave me like a paltry raise and I left.
00:31:23 Jonathan Stark
So it's like, alright, this is not the right place for me. You know, it's just, it's just the right place for me.
00:31:27 Jonathan Stark
So if someone is maybe more entrepreneurial or they're just getting beat down by the office politics.
00:31:33 Jonathan Stark
There are other paths.
00:31:34 Jonathan Stark
To take, I mean, there's no shame in changing your strategy at all. It it might be the.
00:31:39 Jonathan Stark
Best move.
00:31:40 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, and that's something I'd like to explore because.
00:31:44 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I've spoken to other guests about, you know, the possibility of going up the corporate ladder and becoming, you know, data science manager and another guest I spoke to were talking about the possibility of becoming, you know, the technical guru within a particular workplace, but.
00:32:03 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You know one of the things that you often talk about in the business of authority is the idea of becoming an independent profession.
00:32:11 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And going solo, both you and your co-host Rochelle Moulton are solo entrepreneurs. That's something that you don't see a lot of in the data science profession. I'm interested in exploring what that could potentially look like for a data scientist.
00:32:29 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, let's do that because I mean, first of all it is. It's pretty personal decisions. Some people just like to work better in teams. Some people are more.
00:32:35 Jonathan Stark
I'm like kind of.
00:32:36 Jonathan Stark
An outdoor cat loan wolfee type of.
00:32:40 Jonathan Stark
And and I I didn't like the experience of managing employees because it stressed me out so much in terms of like making payroll and and, you know, being being like trying to straddle that.
00:32:50 Jonathan Stark
Like I wanna be friends with you, but I can't really be friends with you because that's not it. It's part of my job to be your not your friend. I hated it. I hated all of the.
00:32:59 Jonathan Stark
Complexity of that. So Solo is the right thing for me. It's not the right thing for everyone so, but but it is the thing that I know.
00:33:06 Jonathan Stark
Just about and it surprised me last night that I didn't get more hits when I searched for chat, GPT consultant or GPT 3 consultant the the closest one I got was that one that seemed seemed to be an old an old.
00:33:19 Jonathan Stark
I don't know how old it could be. I mean, I don't know at Chet GBT, I just heard of it yesterday, so it can't be that old, but I was surprised that there weren't more.
00:33:27 Jonathan Stark
Because it seems like an obvious.
00:33:31 Jonathan Stark
For something, are you familiar with the Gartner Hype cycle? Yeah, so things that are nearing the top of the hype cycle are a great place for technical people to hang out, and they don't always that.
00:33:43 Jonathan Stark
You know some of the things you know VR AR is taking forever. It's not really, you know, metaphor. It's like you know it's like maybe this is just hype.
00:33:51 Jonathan Stark
I was I was at the top of that so I was on. I was attached to my card was attached to mobile in 2007 and then 2010. It was like the top of that hype cycle.
00:34:03 Jonathan Stark
And something like stable diffusion or GBT 3. It is really at this point. It's hard to imagine it not having huge business implications and that they're going to be tonnes of business.
00:34:16 Jonathan Stark
People who are like how can I use this to either cut costs or open up an opportunity or capture an opportunity that.
00:34:24 Jonathan Stark
Previously would have been impossible because I couldn't staff for it, been too expensive.
00:34:28 Jonathan Stark
Or how can I? You know, I'm paying $5000 a month for a bunch of mediocre bloggers to create content.
00:34:34 Jonathan Stark
So my SEO is better like do I need this anymore so there's there are gonna be business people who hear about this because it's broken through to the.
00:34:41 Jonathan Stark
Mainstream, I feel like if I could be wrong about that, but I feel like it's in the mainstream now at least a little bit. I bet you the news shows are going to talk about.
00:34:50 Jonathan Stark
And business people are going to hear about it will definitely be in things like Harvard Business Review and things that normal business people read.
00:34:57 Jonathan Stark
And they're gonna be wondering, who can I talk to? They can speak my language but understands what the capabilities are and can brainstorm with me about how to apply it to my business. And that's a perfect fit.
00:35:10 Jonathan Stark
For an independent consultant.
00:35:12 Jonathan Stark
Who wants to, you know, heaven forbid charge by the hour, but certainly could charge by the hour. Quite a bit of money.
00:35:19 Jonathan Stark
I mean, I'm just like some guy that runs my own business and I would have dropped 250 bucks for a 15 minute conversation in a heartbeat. I would have dropped 500, you know. And imagine someone running. Oh, I don't know, Starbucks.
00:35:32 Jonathan Stark
Right or Nike? And they're a senior VP of Marketing and and or or as CIO or CTO at A at a funded start up.
00:35:41 Jonathan Stark
And they're just like I suspect, that there's a good use case here that could either capture a huge opportunity.
00:35:51 Jonathan Stark
Dramatically cut our costs, but I don't even know there's no book like where do I find out? I have to read the documentation for the thing that's not going to happen.
00:35:57 Jonathan Stark
I don't even understand it, so to have someone that can speak to those business cases and say yes or no, that's feasible.
00:36:05 Jonathan Stark
That's not feasible. It can't really do that yet, but maybe in three years or yes, it can do that right now, but it's going to take.
00:36:11 Jonathan Stark
Six months to train the model on your on your data set I see a problem that this looks like a tool that might solve it, but I don't even know.
00:36:18 Jonathan Stark
How to find out?
00:36:20 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I mean what you're saying about chat GPT. I wrote a LinkedIn post about it just on.
00:36:26 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And the number of people who like this post was dramatically higher than the number who'd like my previous posts.
00:36:34 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I know a number of those people who are liking it. They're not nerds, they're just ordinary people working in a business environment. This chat EPT is capturing the imaginations of everyone.
00:36:47 Jonathan Stark
Stable diffusion did it about three months ago, but not not. May not like this, it's hype cycle, right? And so it's like and there's a downside to hitching your cart to the hype cycle, which is that eventually it goes into the through of dissent.
00:36:59 Jonathan Stark
Management, but the business cases for something that can essentially do an amazing job of it. It feels like you're about it.
00:37:08 Jonathan Stark
We didn't explain what it is, but it feels like you're going for something that it doesn't exist, so it creates it on the fly and it's shocking.
00:37:14 Jonathan Stark
It's shocking is you're like wow, this is shocking, but again, it's it's doing a magic trick like stable.
00:37:19 Jonathan Stark
Fusion does a magic trick, but with Chad GPT.
00:37:22 Jonathan Stark
It feels so close to solving a business case like content marketing for example or or customer support. It feels like it's right there.
00:37:30 Jonathan Stark
You know that you're like OK, so think a business person can just see the demonstration that the the the. The mind-blowing demo of it doing something just mind-blowing? I mean it's mind-blowing. And then you're like, wow.
00:37:44 Jonathan Stark
So you're like alright, there's got to be an application for this, but.
00:37:46 Jonathan Stark
Kind of like you've got business people looking for product market fit instead of the product creator looking for product market fit.
00:37:53 Jonathan Stark
So there's this massive amount of interest right now, so if someone was like like, let's just say wondering if chat GPT can do anything for your business, let's talk 500 bucks. You know, for a phone call.
00:38:06 Jonathan Stark
I don't. I feel like you'd you'd be booked solid like if if people were finding that if they were finding like that link, you know if they were, if if if the Google results were so quickly like you know, chapter GPT consultant.
00:38:20 Jonathan Stark
And someone just owned that in the next two or three weeks, or was on the morning shows talking about it or or interview, interviewed or popular, you know, had something blow up on LinkedIn. Whatever the awareness, if the awareness.
00:38:33 Jonathan Stark
Was generated quickly because I imagine people will go on to the next thing and a couple of you know, maybe a week or two there would be some new crazy thing like you know, aliens on the moon.
00:38:45 Jonathan Stark
And did we off to something else, but like an independent consultant is exactly what is needed. You don't need Mackenzie for this answer, you just need an independent consultant.
00:38:54 Jonathan Stark
You need a recognised expert. You need an authority. So if you have an authority, if you not you whoever listening. If you've got an ebook on business applications.
00:39:05 Jonathan Stark
Or chat GPT or the business capabilities of chat. Even like top 10 business business applications of chat GPT right now like the top ten current business applications for.
00:39:16 Jonathan Stark
That debt I feel like you'd get even more you're if you got it. If you got 1000 likes on that, you'll get 10,000 on this because it's like it's just seems so obvious that something's there.
00:39:27 Jonathan Stark
But anyway, yeah, but yeah, just a really long answer on a specific use case, but you could say the same thing about certain applications of computer vision or text to speech.
00:39:37 Jonathan Stark
I I want that to work so badly I want I've got so many uses for that right? Like just all kinds of stuff.
00:39:44 Jonathan Stark
There's all kinds of stuff it it just seems so close to a clear business case, but like who do?
00:39:48 Jonathan Stark
To ask.
00:39:50 Dr Genevieve Hayes
One of the things that you talk about in.
00:39:53 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I think it's your book, the Freelancers Road map is the idea of the product ladder, so this is having different levels of services ranging from an ebook up to full blown consultancy engagements. I could imagine that you could develop some sort of product.
00:40:10 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That are based on your chat J PT consultancy. You could have your a book on you know chat JPT for.
00:40:18 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, exactly.
00:40:19 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And then you could have how to train your workforce in using the chat GPT API, which you'll I'm sure will inevitably come out.
00:40:28 Jonathan Stark
That's even more technical. I I think that's Even so the the product ladder is. You're totally right. The product ladder for something like this for consultancy or someone that was capable of, is it called programming chat? GPT. Is that even what you call it? Or is it training? I don't even know.
00:40:42 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I'd say training.
00:40:43 Jonathan Stark
Training it, but then you have to write some application that sits on top of it probably so that would be like a project and that would be a high ticket thing that I would value price and would be in the six figures to start.
00:40:53 Jonathan Stark
And then further down, the latter would be probably something like a road map below that would be a feasibility phone call where it would be for business owners.
00:41:00 Jonathan Stark
You'd want it to be for business owners. Well, the highest value would be for business owners who say for you know, chat GPT for business owners and but what that means is you need to be able to speak their language because if you just like if.
00:41:12 Jonathan Stark
I say you, I mean, not you personally, but you know if people are just talking in.
00:41:16 Jonathan Stark
Like about models and blah blah blah and training data and bias in the data. And can I make money with this or not like that's what they want to know.
00:41:25 Jonathan Stark
Can I make money or save money with chat GBT and they'll and you'll say? I don't know how do you make money and they'll say, well, one thing we need to do is create 1000 blog posts a month. Can it do that maybe?
00:41:37 Jonathan Stark
Like how good they have to, you know you can start having a quest.
00:41:39 Jonathan Stark
Around that, but until you you can comfortably talk about results that you can. Business results that you can deliver, probably measured in dollars, but maybe not.
00:41:48 Jonathan Stark
Maybe some different number, than it's just. It's gonna be hard to communicate. It's gonna be hard to differentiate. It's gonna be hard to increase your prices. Easier to interchange you with other people with the same master's degree.
00:42:02 Jonathan Stark
Or that are on the seam I.
00:42:03 Jonathan Stark
Don't know contributing to the you know on the open AI team. I don't know if they have employees or if it's open source or what the.
00:42:09 Jonathan Stark
But but yeah, so the the obvious thing would be the easiest, most obvious thing to spin up, because it takes takes basically no time or money, is just a feasibility phone call for chat, GPT for business owners, chat, GPT feasibility, phone call for business owners you know and be like. Do you have business problems that you suspect might be solved with chat GPT?
00:42:29 Jonathan Stark
Let's jump on a phone call and explore what you're trying to do, and I can either tell you on the fly whether or not it's feasible, or and if it is feasible, what it would take, or I'll do some follow up research and get back to you that would sell for $500 in a second.
00:42:43 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So suppose if you're doing that as a solo independent professional and you do, you're a $500.00 phone call and the person really loves what you have to say. And then they say OK, come in and do this massive IT project and you don't have the team behind you. How do you navigate your way through that?
00:43:02 Jonathan Stark
I would say, well, first of all, you, you're implying that you want that project, right? So let's assuming you want a project like that, then you would well let me ask you a question, could you put that kind of a team together? Is that impossible? Where would you get that team?
00:43:18 Dr Genevieve Hayes
At the moment, with chat GPT, you'd probably be struggling.
00:43:21 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, it's too new so you just have to say no to them. So you'd say. Here's here's what I propose instead.
00:43:27 Jonathan Stark
What I propose is we create an MVP, a proof of concept, while the so we can get to markets fast with something basic that does some of what you're asking it to do.
00:43:37 Jonathan Stark
Some of what you want it to do, and while that's going on, perhaps you use it to get funding.
00:43:42 Jonathan Stark
Or increase revenue so that you've got more money so you can. Really I don't know. Get people away from Google or something.
00:43:48 Jonathan Stark
Get people away from other you know, lure people away with higher salaries. Or you could you could put them in touch maybe.
00:43:55 Jonathan Stark
There's I think I came across a couple of firms that are positioning themselves as kind of like like GBT.
00:44:01 Jonathan Stark
3 consulting firms where they just do a bunch of developers or whatever you'd call them scientists that do stuff.
00:44:07 Jonathan Stark
So you could maybe introduce them to a group that could be total eggheads and don't understand business at all because you're the translator.
00:44:17 Jonathan Stark
Between the business you understand the business needs because that's your, that's your dual. You know 1 + 1 = 3 thing.
00:44:24 Jonathan Stark
Well, you understand business needs. You understand about delivering results and making or or making money or cutting costs.
00:44:30 Jonathan Stark
And you also speak egghead. I hope that's not too offensive, but you know I'd nerds, I I think nerd is.
00:44:36 Jonathan Stark
I take it as a compliment. You also know how to talk to nerds like me and you can say, alright, I'll what I'll do is. I'll put you in touch with a couple of firms.
00:44:44 Jonathan Stark
I'll help you pick the one that seems like the best bang for the buck for what we need to have done, which probably take at least six months, maybe a year.
00:44:51 Jonathan Stark
And I'll oversee the project, not manage it. You'll have project managers but and they'll have a project project manager, but I'll oversee it to help ensure that they don't go off down a rabbit hole of like boy. It would be fun to build this thing that isn't actually gonna deliver any business value.
00:45:06 Jonathan Stark
And you kind of babysit them and make sure that you're there as an advocate for the client, and so the normally I'd call it a dev shop, but this isn't really a dev shop, but so they are you make sure they stay on track and they're sticking with the plan and they can't fool basically the business owner because on purpose or by accident. So like technical firms.
00:45:26 Jonathan Stark
Agencies can get off track and the communication.
00:45:30 Jonathan Stark
And going back and things get lost in translation between the business and the firm. And that's when budgets go way over.
00:45:36 Jonathan Stark
And that's when a firm will deliver something and the CEO blows up because this isn't what we wanted it all.
00:45:42 Jonathan Stark
This isn't going to do what we need. You know that like all of that, you would be there to ensure or at least decrease the odds of that happening.
00:45:48 Dr Genevieve Hayes
When you started that answer, you prefaced it with, supposing this is what you actually want to do. What happens if it's not what you?
00:45:55 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Want to do?
00:45:55 Jonathan Stark
Keep doing those phone calls. Keep raising your price.
00:45:58 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Just politely declined.
00:45:59 Jonathan Stark
Just say ohh, I'd be happy to introduce you to someone who can do that, but that's not, that's.
00:46:03 Jonathan Stark
Not the direction I'm taking my business.
00:46:05 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So wow and.
00:46:09 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, that does. It takes a little while to get used to, but you do have to decide what kind of business am I trying to build here.
00:46:14 Jonathan Stark
Is it going to be one where I build a huge team of implementers underneath me? That's one style it can work.
00:46:20 Jonathan Stark
Or do I want to be? Or do I not want to worry about payroll and one on ones and hiring and firing?
00:46:25 Jonathan Stark
Do I just want to be, you know, a brain that they wheel into the room that can translate?
00:46:30 Jonathan Stark
Business needs to spec. And then here's your plan. Do the model like this see what comes out of it and get back to me and I'll be, you know, I'll be out walking my dog.
00:46:40 Dr Genevieve Hayes
We've got two ends of the spectrum here. We've got your newly minted data scientists who's just finished their master of data science, and they may be a 20 something, or they may be have had a completely separate career prior to that, and then retrained. And then we've got our chat GPT.
00:47:00 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Consultant who's clearly figured out how chat GPT.
00:47:05 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Books. How do you get from point A to point B?
00:47:09 Jonathan Stark
Oh well, for me that's an interesting answer cause there's a lot going a lot, a lot going on in the question that is as murky as knowing what you want to be when you grow up.
00:47:20 Jonathan Stark
You know, are you chasing dollars or bliss? There's a lot of that stuff in that question, but the thing that worked for me and has always worked for me.
00:47:27 Jonathan Stark
Because I've had a lot of really.
00:47:29 Jonathan Stark
My background is fairly diverse, you know, went to music school for crying out loud, you know, and it just taught myself computers with books and borders and then wrote and then, well, I'm an author how that happened, I don't I. I barely have an undergraduate degree, you know.
00:47:42 Jonathan Stark
So I am a big fan of just doing the thing that you almost can't stop yourself from doing anyway, so for someone.
00:47:51 Jonathan Stark
So if I was talking to like like one of my nephews or my nieces and they're like I'm thinking about, what should I?
00:47:55 Jonathan Stark
Major in college.
00:47:56 Jonathan Stark
I'd be like liberal arts, you know, like don't pick anything and just pick whatever you pick. You're not gonna end up doing that. So pick something fun.
00:48:03 Jonathan Stark
Right? Like pick something you're gonna enjoy something that you have a deep curiosity about and you almost can't.
00:48:08 Jonathan Stark
Go wrong I. I feel like that's maybe a bold statement, but you almost can't go wrong because you're just gonna apply yourself so much more thoroughly and deeply.
00:48:18 Jonathan Stark
And then the students next to you who are just doing this because they think it's a good way to get a a big paycheck, right? Like I just don't find the money motivation to be very strong in reality in in Hollywood.
00:48:29 Jonathan Stark
It's like, you know, greed is good. It's a. It's a thing in movies, but in reality I just don't see it playing out.
00:48:34 Jonathan Stark
Perhaps this is talking from a place of privilege in the born in the United States, and so forth, but.
00:48:38 Jonathan Stark
It's like if you. If you are super, genuinely curious in the possibilities of AI in general or general purpose AI or whatever it is, or GBD 3 or stable diffusion or whatever computer vision blah blah. You know all the all the acronyms, just pick the one that you're super excited about.
00:49:00 Jonathan Stark
And that will help you stand out because your enthusiasm will just be it infectious and this.
00:49:05 Jonathan Stark
Is this is?
00:49:05 Jonathan Stark
Completely happened to me in music. It completely happened to me in with file.
00:49:10 Jonathan Stark
It completely happened to me with web development. It completely happened to me with mobile, web and iPhone stuff and it got me book deals and huge corporate contracts because I was so excited about it and I just love learning about it so much that I was cut.
00:49:24 Jonathan Stark
Edge all the time. You know what I mean? Even if I wasn't the best in the world, which I wasn't, I could answer any question.
00:49:31 Jonathan Stark
Somebody hit me with on the spot and if I didn't and if I couldn't, which was rare. I knew exactly where to find the answer because I was so excited about it.
00:49:40 Jonathan Stark
Like when I not to believe the point, but when I first went to liberal arts school I made I didn't major in. I don't even know if I had a major I don't remember.
00:49:47 Jonathan Stark
And I did terrible. My grades are terrible and I had.
00:49:49 Jonathan Stark
Good sets, it wasn't like you know, I have a broken brain. I was just not applying myself, didn't care totally partying and I was like I'm probably gonna flunk out of college if I don't change my major to music.
00:49:59 Jonathan Stark
And when I changed my major to music, I got 100 in my first class. I didn't actually change my major first first, I just took a music class. I'm like. This will be easy. I love this stuff. I got 100 a perfect score.
00:50:10 Jonathan Stark
In the course because I was super excited about it, it was so much fun. I would rush home to do my homework.
00:50:15 Jonathan Stark
You couldn't stop me from doing my homework, and I feel like if you you're just giving yourself such a great, unfair advantage.
00:50:21 Jonathan Stark
If you pick something that you're incredibly passionate about and justice, go deeper and deeper and deeper into it and it's I don't know.
00:50:27 Jonathan Stark
I mean, it's it's sort of like do what you love and the money will follow as kind of a trope that that you hear from parents.
00:50:32 Jonathan Stark
But it's worked for me. I mean, it's totally worked for me, so that's what I would say to that. You know, it's like, be curious you can't fake it.
00:50:41 Jonathan Stark
You can't fake curiosity, so if you pick something that you're so curious about that you just can't stop, you're on the weekend.
00:50:46 Jonathan Stark
You're goofing around with it and like, oh, I've got a crazy idea. I just had a thought in the shower. I'm gonna.
00:50:50 Jonathan Stark
Something you know and to me that is like if you have that follow it. A lot of people don't don't have that and so they just like.
00:50:58 Jonathan Stark
Well, I'm not excited about anything and then I don't know what to.
00:51:00 Jonathan Stark
Do I don't know what to say in that in that situation.
00:51:03 Dr Genevieve Hayes
With data scientists, some, in my experience, with most of them is there is something they're very excited about. You know you get them started on their pet topic, and you've got 1/2 hour conversation.
00:51:14 Jonathan Stark
Perfect yeah go way down go go down that rabbit hole. Don't be broad. Go way down that rabbit hole. Yeah that's what I would say if they have a pet. What did you call it a pet?
00:51:24 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The topic here.
00:51:25 Jonathan Stark
Follow that that's the that's the rabbit to chase.
00:51:28 Dr Genevieve Hayes
All of my jobs and this is not just data science I've found. I'm always very good at making friends with the IT people in any organisation because I love learning about it. I.
00:51:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I did my original degree in actuarial studies and statistics and then I did I and that was that was my money degree so that was what was going to make me money. And then you might find this hard to believe that calculating insurance prices is not exciting.
00:52:00 Jonathan Stark
I am shocked.
00:52:02 Dr Genevieve Hayes
It makes good money, but yeah, not the most exciting thing you can do with your life. So I later on did a master in computer.
00:52:10 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That's and I basically just did any course that interested me, so I did the. It was mostly artificial intelligence and machine learning, and I had a.
00:52:22 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Blast I love programming I I love learning about all this software development stuff.
00:52:29 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I found I'd start having conversations with the IT guys in the Organism.
00:52:35 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And no one ever talks to the IT guys in the organisation.
00:52:38 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, my brothers and my my youngest brothers 19 guy it's like could you reset my password again?
00:52:46 Jonathan Stark
You know, it's like, yeah, I, I, I I get it, yeah.
00:52:49 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So I'd start talking to the IT guys that my degree cause they'd they'd hear I was doing computer science and they'd say so. You're learning Java and you're learning JavaScript and.
00:52:58 Dr Genevieve Hayes
You know, tell me about this. And yeah, I just start asking them about you know how they learned it and you know these guys who were known to be introverts who never had conversations with people.
00:53:10 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I don't know. It's like a 45 minute conversation with them because they loved talking about that.
00:53:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And you learn.
00:53:16 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So much from that person that you don't realise that if you ask can you reset my password?
00:53:22 Jonathan Stark
I think if somebody has that like that it. I mean you're lighting up talking about it, right? So like if you, if you have that the listener, if they have. If you know what that pet topic is.
00:53:32 Jonathan Stark
That's the thing. Chase it. Chase it right. And like you can I mean crying out loud? It's a cutting edge technology and you're positioned to work in that space.
00:53:41 Jonathan Stark
The money is gonna be a side effect. It's gonna like don't even worry about that like I know you need to worry about money but the it's like an unfair advantage that you actually are excited about chasing that rabbit.
00:53:52 Jonathan Stark
Like go do it. Go do it eventually you'll get sick of it. You'll go so deep. 10 years later, you might be like you find the bottom.
00:53:58 Jonathan Stark
Maybe, maybe not. You know something so new, maybe it won't. We will, maybe we won't live long enough to find the bottom of this one, but you know, with me in the past I've I've found the bottom and have been like if I make one more. If I design one more login screen I'm gonna.
00:54:11 Jonathan Stark
You gonna quit. I'm just gonna I can't take it anymore like it's not fun anymore. Yeah the I found the edges where I was interested to explore and then boom iPhone came out and it was just all new again I was super I literally Steve Jobs held that thing up in 2007.
00:54:24 Jonathan Stark
I think it was January 2007. He was like you get it, you get what I'm saying. It's a it's a mobile communicator. It's an iPod. It's a web browser.
00:54:32 Jonathan Stark
All in your pocket. And here is he pulled it out and I was like that is all I'm doing from now on and instantly I knew that was it.
00:54:39 Jonathan Stark
Not everybody has that pet project, so it's a little. It's a little they need to go on more of an exploration to find a rabbit. But if you see that rabbit chase.
00:54:48 Jonathan Stark
And and don't don't worry about it, just chase it. It'll be fine.
00:54:52 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, it's that's that actually describes my entire career as a data scientist. I was at a conference in 2015 and this it was a futurist and he came on and he mentioned data science and AI and machine learning and I remember I had a. I was managing team and I was trying to find something to.
00:55:12 Dr Genevieve Hayes
For learning and development for one of my team members who I was managing.
00:55:16 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I thought, well, maybe I could get him to become a data science expert. So I went back and I googled it and it's like stuff this he's not going to become the data science expert.
00:55:24 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I'm going to become.
00:55:25 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The data science expert.
00:55:25 Jonathan Stark
I'm gonna OK yeah, I'm excited about this, yeah.
00:55:28 Dr Genevieve Hayes
He can build his.
00:55:29 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Own career.
00:55:31 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, I was the same thing happening with pricing like when I when I switched off of.
00:55:36 Jonathan Stark
Development, I was like you know what? I can't stop thinking about this value pricing thing. It's like it's a much more fun problem for me now at this stage of my life. It's a much more fun problem and I'm beating a dead horse. I suppose at this point.
00:55:46 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Is there anything on your radar in the API data and analytics space that you think is going to become important in the next three to five years?
00:55:54 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, I mean I I know this question was coming and we kind of already brought it up. But business application real beneficial business applications of of some of the stuff that's coming out of, you know chat, GT3 and stable diffusion are both very interesting.
00:56:08 Jonathan Stark
The deep fake stuff is both scary and exciting. I don't know what's gonna happen with that. I feel like that will be an entire.
00:56:14 Jonathan Stark
Discipline the way I don't know. Social media marketing, like social media became an entire ecosystem of of consulting and freelancers and and SEO was the same thing when Google, you know, I think.
00:56:25 Jonathan Stark
I think this sort of AI generated content is going to be the same thing, like a gigantic sea change in culture.
00:56:34 Jonathan Stark
You know, like what's true even mean. Did this happen? Did it not happen? Doesn't matter is this movie based on a true story or is it based on a prompt I just typed in?
00:56:42 Jonathan Stark
You know, I don't. I don't know why it won't happen that like right now. You can type in a prompt.
00:56:46 Jonathan Stark
And have it create a Limerick for you.
00:56:48 Jonathan Stark
Or you can type in a prompt and have it generate. You know a picture of an astronaut walking on the top of a tree.
00:56:55 Jonathan Stark
Or you know some surreal thing that no one's ever thought of before. I don't know why the end game of that isn't type in a prompt like Sci Fi action. Comedy starring Harvey Keitel and Ryan Reynolds in the style of Blade Runner.
00:57:08 Jonathan Stark
And I watched that movie. You know what I mean? Like that's to me, that's the next that'll that'll be what Netflix becomes or gets disrupted by is that you can just generate a movie based on a prompt and for two hours be like delighted by this thing that only you.
00:57:24 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And when I was playing with chat GPT, I typed in the first line of Heroes by David Bowie, and I asked her to finish this song for me.
00:57:33 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And what was really interesting was it gave me the 1st 5 lines of heroes, exactly as David Bowie wrote it. And then it started changing it and it wrote a completely different song.
00:57:44 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I can imagine that happening where someone writes the first paragraph of the book and then gets chat GPT or something else to write the boring bits for example.
00:57:54 Jonathan Stark
Exactly right, like? Why do you think I want to feed a million words of origin of of stuff I wrote on my website and give me 350 pages on ditching hourly billing for solo entrepreneurs? Book right? Or at least first draught?
00:58:08 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, I mean it's it's gonna be a sea change like.
00:58:11 Jonathan Stark
We're going to be job titles that we can't even imagine now that are normal for our kids or my kids. You know it's gonna be normal to have some kind of like AI job title.
00:58:23 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Every single student that I've had, they are all excited by this, so I see our future generation who actually want to learn about this stuff and aren't just doing it because it'll make them a nice fat paycheck.
00:58:38 Jonathan Stark
It's like there's so many you know it's easy.
00:58:41 Jonathan Stark
For me to.
00:58:41 Jonathan Stark
Say, but I mean like, there's so many ways to make money, it's like might as well pick something you like.
00:58:46 Jonathan Stark
Pick something you're excited about. It's you know it's like, yeah, if you wanna if you know you could be a CPA and you'll definitely have business and you'll do OK and but do you want to be?
00:58:57 Jonathan Stark
You is that you wanna be? Is that what you wanted to be when you grow up and it's like I'm not saying everyone should become a fireman or whatever they thought they were gonna be a firefighter.
00:59:04 Jonathan Stark
But you know?
00:59:06 Jonathan Stark
Yolo, if you're not happy if you're not happy you're.
00:59:08 Jonathan Stark
Not happy it doesn't matter what your salary is. If you're not happy, you're not happy.
00:59:13 Jonathan Stark
So don't you wanna be happy?
00:59:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That's a good segue into my final question. What final advice would you give to data scientists looking to create business value from data?
00:59:24 Jonathan Stark
Understand business right? I mean how you gonna create business value if you don't even know what it is. So find out what it is and and that could be localised to the place where you where you work.
00:59:33 Jonathan Stark
Go to your manage and be like at a strategic level cause your manager might know they might not have told you at a strategic level what. What is the plan for 20?
00:59:40 Jonathan Stark
23 for this company, like what is the CEO's plan? Probably has one. He or she probably has one.
00:59:45 Jonathan Stark
They probably shared it with the executive.
00:59:47 Jonathan Stark
Team well what?
00:59:48 Jonathan Stark
Is it and then find out like how would you help move that needle?
00:59:52 Jonathan Stark
Is there some way I can help do that, so either in a local sense, find out what business value the business that you work inside of is trying to create?
01:00:00 Jonathan Stark
And look for ways to do that, which is more broadly speaking, read a business book you know.
01:00:04 Jonathan Stark
Just like find out what what it's all about, like what is what would be a good one. This is interesting.
01:00:10 Jonathan Stark
What would be a good starter business book? E myth E myth revisited? Read that it's perfect for technicians, which is the the mindset of this audience.
01:00:18 Jonathan Stark
It's it's, you know, it's it's sort of entrepreneurial that talks about starting a bakery and stuff but but trust me, that would be a good book for starting.
01:00:25 Jonathan Stark
Starting to understand what business people worry about.
01:00:29 Jonathan Stark
You know it's easy to be the technician and like you said, when you're when you're bright ideas were getting white labelled by the manager. It's easy to imagine that we're the only ones doing anything important here.
01:00:38 Jonathan Stark
Or the sales people think we're the ones that actually make the money here. I can't believe that marketing gets all the budget or whatever it is.
01:00:44 Jonathan Stark
It's like, no. Those people actually do something like running a business is just as much of a skill as training a data model.
01:00:49 Jonathan Stark
It's just a different.
01:00:50 Jonathan Stark
It's not a bunch of people mooching off of your master's degree, so find out what those things are like.
01:00:57 Jonathan Stark
Like, yeah, I'd I'd say E myth is a very easy way to start. That's a good starting point for somebody who just doesn't think about this stuff.
01:01:03 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I would add to that reading your own newsletter, Jonathan, that has taught me so much about business. So every day I look forward to your email and Seth Goden's email and between those you will learn far more about business than I learned during my original business training.
01:01:22 Jonathan Stark
Wow, well thanks. That's high praise.
01:01:25 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So for listeners who want to learn more about you or get in contact or sign up for your email list, how can they go about doing that?
01:01:34 Jonathan Stark
Yeah, just go to jonathanstark.com and there's a bunch of links right up at the top that you can sort of choose your own adventure if you want to listen to podcasts.
01:01:41 Jonathan Stark
Feel like that better? That's one thing, if you want to read the back catalogue of emails, that's another place you can go.
01:01:47 Jonathan Stark
You know, there's it's, it's all there. It's sort of like a lobby signs signs for everything.
01:01:53 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And yeah, as I'll say, once again, sign up for the daily Email newsletter. It's fantastic, and every Sunday there's a comic and that is literally the highlight of my week so.
01:02:05 Jonathan Stark
Thanks yeah, Speaking of someone who's not that great of making comics. But yeah, thank you, I appreciate it. It's fun to do.
01:02:12 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, I have several of them printed out and attached to.
01:02:15 Jonathan Stark
Walls yeah cool NFT's.
01:02:17
They quick.
01:02:19 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And yeah, thanks so much for joining me here today is Jonathan.
01:02:23 Jonathan Stark
Uh, my pleasure anytime.
01:02:25 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And for those in the audience, thank you for listening. I'm doctor Genevieve Hayes and this has been value driven data science brought to you by Genevieve Hayes Consulting.