see if you can find that like empathetic
innovation and imagination understanding
the consumers in business but also
having you know the computing and stats
and machine learning and analytic skills
to implement the solution that's where
you make a lot of money by bridging this
gap that's where all the dollar signs
are
so there's often this huge gap between
I'll just call it business executives
over here and technical contributors so
on the one end you have business
executives their strength is that they
they understand the problem that's like
their main strength is they understand
the problem in the marketplace the
business problem that needs to be solved
in order for the company to be more
successful and their biggest weakness is
no tech skills right even if they come
from a technical background in most
cases they're going to be so far removed
from actual any sort of technical
implementation that they have no idea
how you'd actually solve the problem
they're like we know that our customers
want more of this they need more of that
if we had this one thing it would be
really helpful now the strength of the
tech individual contributor they can
build a technical solution but their
bigness weakness tends to be that they
don't understand the business context so
let me ask this if you've worked as an
individual contributor a data scientist
the data analyst the software engineer
anything like that where you're on the
front line actually building something
how many times have you thought that
like the executives or the higher-ups in
the company we're stupid right like it's
probably like me I definitely used to
think that all the time I remember I had
one friend who not surprisingly had a
PhD and he's like man anyone who goes to
business school comes out dumber
he's like an MBA will literally make you
a dumber human and he thought that all
the executives at his company because
they all had fancy business degrees from
top schools or whatever he thought they
were all idiots
he thought they're all so stupid and
just having an MBA made you dumb that's
what this gap is anytime that you feel
like you're like oh man the executives
the people in charge oh they're such
morons if I was just in charge I could
do this so much better that's that's
usually not true that's this gap of
Understanding between the middle and of
course the business people they get so
frustrated they're like why can't you
finish faster why can't you do the thing
that we're asking why you know why is
this so difficult
I said to do this and it's not done on
time why why why I don't understand why
we can't do it on time so these people
get frustrated because the technical
team can't build the solution the way
that they want it on time because they
don't have a technical understanding of
what it takes to actually build design
implement the solution right so that's
that's like this gap is is they don't
understand Tech and then the gap going
in this direction is they think that all
the executives in the team are stupid
they're stupid they're unrealistic you
know they don't know how any of this
stuff works and the problem is the
technical individual contributor doesn't
really understand business all right
like they don't understand how critical
it is to actually get things out in the
marketplace so that they can get
feedback and the business strategy of
what they're trying to do why they're
trying to do it how this business
differentiates itself from competition
and how the consumer the end-user who
buys the product and uses it how they
think how they feel because people
aren't logical right one challenge is
the technical individual contributor
tends to be someone who's very logical
problem is they project that on to other
people and think because I'm logical
other people should be logical and think
robotically objectively and rationally
like I do but it turns out most people
don't think objectively or rationally
they think and respond emotionally so
they're like oh man everyone's so stupid
if they just did the thing that smart
and makes sense and is logical we'd be
more successful and that's just not true
because that's not how consumerism works
that's not how people make purchasing
decisions that's not how people actually
live their lives they do it emotionally
they do it based on habits they do it
based on feelings and that's what the
business executives understand so the
individual contributors think that
they're idiots
because nothing they're doing is logical
it doesn't make sense and the business
executives think that these people are
incompetent because they just can't get
the right solution on time like this is
so easy why can't you just do it so this
long-winded speech show
you but there's a huge opportunity by
bridging this gap and to be the person
bridges the gap is the data scientist or
in this case self-made billionaire and
the same reason that the people in this
book were able to make themselves
billionaires is the same reason that
data scientists can make themselves very
wealthy just through working as a data
scientist right like that's why the pay
for data science is so high because what
you want to do as a data scientist is
understand the business problem and
simultaneously be able to formulate a
solution to it if you can sit on both
sides of the fence call us the duality
mindset which which essentially just
means like having two simultaneous and
opposing points of view within your mind
at the same time and I know that I said
simultaneously at the same time but
having these two opposing points of view
in your mind at the same time of like
okay here's what the business wants
here's what the business needs here's
what customers think and feel and how
they operate irrationally and the
problem that they want to solve I'm
holding on to that over here and then
over here I'm like okay how do we
actually build and implement a technical
solution that will make customers happy
so if you can do both of those things at
the same time which is really a data
scientists job is to build an automated
system using data using advanced
analytics using computing to solve a
real business problem so if you can find
that like empathetic innovation and
imagination understanding the consumers
in business but also having you know the
computing and stats and machine learning
and analytics skills to implement the
solution that's where you make a lot of
money by bridging this gap that's where
all the dollar signs are so if you
understand more about that read this
book I think you'll find it super
insightful to see that like this is
really how you can create the most value
in a business understanding the
customers and their problems but also
having a cold hard technical solution
that solves the problem because
essentially what he's saying is that you
want to find these people who can bridge
the gap and give them opportunity within
your company pay them a lot because
they're extremely valuable because if
they quit they're gonna go
make a billion dollars somewhere else so
you should just pay them more give them
all the opportunity given them the
vacation time they want the cool
projects whatever they want to work on
as long as they can understand the
customers and the problems and formulate
solutions they're really gonna make your
company successful which again is why
data scientists make money and are
successful as well
you
