My data hot take is that the most data driven companies run their analyses in Excel in the beginning, the modern data stack be damned, while companies who start out with a modern stack tend to have over-engineered data departments serving execs who prefer to go with their gut.
Conversation
Replying to
This is totally not backed by anything more than idle speculation, extrapolating from a very small sample size.
But … if the company is seeded with really good metrics-driven operational types, they tend to start out with Excel? Because they can’t wait for data infra?
3
7
“Oh yeah, we figured out that these good outcomes are driven by these five leading indicators, so we have Joe in finance update them manually for us every week. Took us awhile to get there, though.”
“You have who do what how?!”
1
5
Arguably you have a very small window in time where this is true (poor Joe!), but I now think it bodes well if you have some process control or growth model running in a spreadsheet … before you build out all your data infra.
5
Replying to
Excel is accessible to execs who know what questions to ask and want to quickly write a “query” themselves. Most modern data tools are passively consumed by business users who delegate the data exploration to others. It’s definitely a different orientation towards the business
1
Replying to
We start at Excel Microsoft. Get your data in order. Fanya means average, median. Range. Then we go into R
Replying to
Ooh. I feel a VM vs Kubernetes equivalent for software teams waiting to enter the discussion…
1
Show replies
Replying to
Bro where did you put the camera? Just yesterday I was thinking "hmm, what APIs can I use to get all that data for the WBR and pipe it into a database to build a dashboard...wait. Hold on. XKCD 1205. Nah, Excel it is."
2