The Joe Reis Show

In this episode of The Joe Reis Show, I catch up with my good friend Christophe Blefari, co-founder of NAO, to dig into what's actually happening on the front lines of AI agents and data engineering. We talk about the evolution from building SQL IDEs to agentic analytics harnesses, how prompt-driven workflows are reshaping data teams, and why age-old problems like data discovery, modeling, and documentation are suddenly roaring back. We also dive into the risks of "token slop," whether data and software engineering roles are destined to merge, Christophe’s take on DuckDB’s acquisition by AWS, and the realities of building AI tools across Europe and the US.Nao: https://getnao.io/

In this episode, I sit down with Sami Hero, CEO of Ellie.ai, to talk through the evolution of data modeling and why foundational conceptual modeling is more critical now than ever. With the explosion of AI agents, LLMs, and semantic layers, many teams assume they can bypass data modeling and just let an AI infer meaning directly from raw tables.
We dig into why that mindset leads to bad decisions, how companies end up with 15,000 Snowflake tables and thousands of unmaintained dashboards, and why defining core business concepts is the real prerequisite for reliable AI. We also discuss the resurgence of ontologies, lessons from old-school methodologies like MERISE, and how to balance speed with sound architecture.

AI agents are being pitched as the “death of the data team,” with CEOs supposedly able to do the work themselves. We’ve heard versions of this promise before, from self-service BI to low-code analytics.
In this episode, I revisit that history and ask what agents actually change. Who prepares the data, resolves conflicting definitions, and checks the answers? What does the hiring research tell us about demand for experienced people and opportunities for juniors?

In this episode of the Joe Reis Show, I sit down with David Aronchick, co-founder of Expanso and one of the early pioneers behind Kubernetes, Kubeflow, and the CNCF. We dive deep into the evolving data landscape and discuss why the architectural pendulum is swinging back from pure cloud centralization toward distributed edge compute. David breaks down the real operational nightmares of edge data collection, why treating your bronze tier as a "toxic waste dump" breaks downstream pipelines, and how applying schema and context upstream makes your data truly AI-ready. We also get into the critical need for data provenance, data bills of materials, and what agents actually need to communicate reliably.Website: https://expanso.io

I get asked all the time whether I’m still “hands-on.” The short answer: not in the traditional sense. My work has shifted toward writing, teaching, advising, investing, building companies, and working with the people building what comes next. In this episode, I argue that technical relevance isn’t about staying trapped in the same operating mode forever, and that AI is drastically changing what “hands-on” even means.
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The Joe Reis Show is invitation-only. Unsolicited guest pitches and PR outreach are not considered.