Data Renegades explores data, code, culture, and everything in between. The show features conversations about building with data, software, and the teams and practices around them. It is produced by Heavybit, which works with developer tools and infrastructure companies.
Episodes
Ep. #14, Databases for Humans and Agents with Hannes Mühleisen
On episode 14 of Data Renegades, CL Kao speaks with Hannes Mühleisen, co-creator of DuckDB, about building databases that people actually want to use. Hannes explains how conversations with frustrated statisticians shaped DuckDB’s architecture and why useful software sometimes requires abandoning your own assumptions. They explore DuckLake, the Quack client-server protocol, and how a focus on huma
Ep. #13, Building Trillion-Scale Data Pipelines with Josh Wills
On episode 13 of Data Renegades, CL Kao sits down with Josh Wills to explore how AI agents are reshaping software engineering, data science, and data infrastructure. They discuss verification, benchmarking, pre-training data pipelines, multimodal AI, and why understanding a problem may matter more than writing code. Josh also shares lessons learned from decades of building large-scale data systems
Ep. #12, Agent Orchestration at Scale with Maxime Beauchemin
On episode 12 of Data Renegades, CL Kao sits down with Maxime Beauchemin to explore what happens when software teams start working alongside armies of AI agents. Max shares the thinking behind Agor, his collaborative platform for orchestrating coding agents, and reflects on how AI is reshaping engineering, product, design, and data work. They also dive into the future of agentic workflows, technic
Ep. #11, Contrarian Bets and AI Skepticism with Michael Stonebraker
On episode 11 of Data Renegades, CL Kao sits down with Michael Stonebraker, legendary database pioneer and creator of Ingres and Postgres. They explore the origins of modern relational databases, why specialized systems outperform one-size-fits-all platforms, and what today’s AI hype gets wrong about enterprise data. Stonebraker also shares hard-earned lessons on startups, research, and staying re
Ep. #10, Data Modeling Matters Most with Toby Mao
On episode 10 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Toby Mao. They explore how real-world data problems at Netflix and Airbnb led to the creation of SQLGlot and SQLMesh, and why data modeling remains the hardest challenge in data engineering. The conversation also dives into how AI is reshaping engineering workflows, without replacing the need for strong architectural thinking.
Ep. #9, Radical Accountability in Software with Wes McKinney
On episode 9 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Wes McKinney, creator of Pandas and co-creator of Apache Arrow. They explore how AI coding agents are reshaping software development, why data infrastructure remains surprisingly resistant to automation, and what semantic layers mean for the future of analytics. Wes also shares bold predictions about “radical accountability” in s
Ep. #8, One Human Plus Agents with Scott Breitenother
On episode 8 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Scott Breitenother to explore how AI is reshaping the modern data stack and redefining the role of data teams. They discuss the evolution from spreadsheets to autonomous agents, the realities of data democratization, and why future workflows may revolve around one human working alongside multiple AI assistants. The conversation b
Ep. #7, Truth-Seeking Data Systems with Bryan Bischof
On episode 7 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Bryan Bischof to explore his journey from pure mathematics to building real-world ML systems. They dig into recommender systems, surprising data bugs, and why truth-seeking should guide data teams. The conversation also covers modern data tools, visualization limits, and the realities of “self-serve” analytics.
Ep. #6, From Big Data to Curiosity-Driven Insight with Roger Magoulas
On episode 6 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson speak with Roger Magoulas about the real bottlenecks holding data organizations back. From the origins of “big data” to today’s explosion of tools and pipelines, the conversation focuses on why understanding, semantics, and communication matter more than ever. The episode is a call to shift from constant firefighting toward curiosity-driven in
Ep. #5, The Identity Crisis of BI with Benn Stancil
On episode 5 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Benn Stancil to explore how data tools evolve, and sometimes lose their identity. Benn shares lessons from building Mode, the risks of drifting from an opinionated product vision, and why most companies struggle to turn data into meaningful decisions. The conversation also dives into the future of BI in a world increasingly shape
Ep. #4, Streaming Made Practical with Micah Wylde
In episode 4 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Micah Wylde. They trace his journey from building fraud detection at Sift Science to architecting massive real-time systems at Lyft and ultimately founding Arroyo. In this conversation, Micah breaks down the real complexity of streaming systems, why schema evolution is still the hardest challenge in data, and where the industry m
Ep. #3, Building Tools That Shape Data with Maxime Beauchemin
On episode 3 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Maxime Beauchemin. They explore the origins of Airflow and Superset, the evolution of open source in the data ecosystem, and how today’s tooling reshapes the role of the data practitioner. Max also shares a forward-looking perspective on agentic workflows and how AI is accelerating everything from BI to pipeline development.
Ep. #2, Data Journalism Unleashed with Simon Willison
In episode 2 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson speak with Simon Willison. Together they dive into the origins of Datasette, the evolution of data journalism, and the surprising ways open source tools shape global reporting. Simon also explains how LLM-based agents will redefine data cleaning, enrichment, and analysis. A must-listen for anyone building or scaling data teams.
Ep. #1, Introducing Data Renegades
In this debut episode of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson dive into the unconventional paths that led them into developer tools, civic tech, and machine learning systems. CL recounts his experience building early open source infrastructure, mobilizing communities through data transparency projects, and now shaping how we design software around LLMs. This episode sets the tone for the show’s
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