The Data Stack Show - The PRQL: Will Excel Exist in 50 Years? Featuring Benn Stancil of Mode

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

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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. Welcome back to the show, everyone. We are here with Ben Stancil. You probably all read his newsletter. I know we do, Ben. Welcome back to the show, everyone. We are here with Ben Stancil. You probably all read his newsletter. I know we do. Ben, welcome back to the show. It's been years, I guess, at this point since you were first on. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

All right. So much to talk about, a startup called, well, I started my career in DC doing like policy research for a couple of years, ended up at a startup in San Francisco shortly after on a data team there. Shortly after that, it was acquired by Microsoft, worked at Microsoft briefly. Most of my career was then after that, me and a couple other folks started a analytics BI. We'll figure that out later, I guess, company called Mode, which sold a way for folks and data teams to make dashboards and charts and do analysis and things like that. Worked on that for about 10 years. About a year ago, we sold to ThoughtSpot, which is a larger startup BI tool. Was at ThoughtSpot for a little bit. And as of now, a few months ago, no longer with either of them. And so I am unencumbered, I suppose. Yes. Unencumbered, unencumbered. Yes. Nice wording. All right. So Ben, for the show, we started talking a little bit about Excel

and whether we think that will exist in 50 years. So that'll be a fun topic. You know, AI was part of the conversation there and just how we work now. But what are some topics that you want to dive into? Like I said, I am now unburdened by... Say whatever you want. Yeah. So great.

To the credit of both Demode and ThoughtSpot marketing teams, they were never emphasized a whole lot of editorial oversight. But yeah, all that stuff, it's like a lot of stuff going on. Interesting to kind of see where it's headed and get y'all's takes. Great. Well, let's dig in.

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.