The Data Stack Show - The PRQL: How is Academic Research Shaping the Future of Data Processing Systems? Featuring Tony Wang of Stanford University

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

In this bonus episode, Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Tony Wang of Stanford University.

Welcome to the Data Stack Show prequel. This is a short bonus episode where we preview the upcoming show. You'll get to meet our guest and hear about the topics we're going to cover. If they're interesting to you, you can catch the full-length show when it drops on Wednesday. We have Tony Wang on the Data Sack Show today. Tony, we have a lot to talk about. Both academia, the data industry, different kinds of selling, and some cool data stuff in general. But we'll start where we always do.

Give us an overview of your background. Yeah, I'm Tony. I'm a PhD student at Stanford University. One of the few people today still studying data systems and databases. Before that, I was at MIT for four years, studying mostly electrical engineering and hardware engineering. And before that, know i was i came to the u.s from china when i was 16 i went to a private boarding school up in new hampshire

i love to ski and i bike a lot so california has been pretty good for both so one of the rare areas where you can where you can drive like four or five hours, hopefully only, and ski. And also have, you know, decent weather year-round when you're not skiing. Yeah. And it's a great place for database research too. So you kind of get all, you check all of your boxes. Parts of California are great for database research to be sure. Yes. Yeah. And that's like one of the reasons that I'm really excited to have tony here today eric like i think it's the first time that we have someone who is actually pursuing a phd we have many people who have successfully done their phds and starting companies but someone who's like in

the process of the phd i think it's like the first time. So I'm super excited to talk about what it feels like to do that, do research. And learn, of course, like what's, let's say the state of the art right now, what like the academia is interested in and most importantly, what's the connection between that and the industry out there? Because there is a continuum, right? Like the things that happen in universities special and stuff, like databases, they have an impact out there

to the systems that we build tomorrow. So super excited to chat about that. What about you, Tony? What you would like to talk about today? Sure, I can talk about that. I can also talk about the stuff I'm working on and my thoughts on different data processing systems and what I hope will become more popular in the future from a technical perspective.

Although I know that a lot of beta products are also driven by other aspects as well that I have less of an insight on. Yep. Sounds good. So what do you think, Eric? Should we go and do it? Let's do it. I can't wait. All right.

That's a wrap for the prequel. The full-length episode will drop Wednesday morning. Subscribe now so you don't miss it.