20 Comments

Digital transformation with uncertain goals always seems to me like focus on the process rather than focus on the end result.

How much of the modern data stack do we really need to get value out of our data?

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Mar 12, 2023Liked by Benn Stancil

Regarding the Heat example: I would be bullish in that I think this sort of investment would help them win more games. But I might be bearish in that I’d literally bet against them if the betting market moved “too much” towards favoring them - in terms of the number of wins expected for the season, or championship odds, or whatever else you can bet on.

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Mar 11, 2023Liked by Benn Stancil

If they are making an announcement about it I am out. And with the $ they claim they are going to spend, no matter what happens, they will claim it is a success no matter what happens. If they started small, I would probably be more on board.

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NickE Likey!

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Benn Stancil

The argument breaks b/c of Branding - not because of the motive.

Replace JPMorgan with Microsoft, Data Investment with OpenAI, and Jammie with Satya.

And suddenly this search for promise / hope in data is not such a bad investment.

I think the issue here is more about the amount and corporate branding. 12B is too big of a sum for innovation - everyone understands this and immediately red flags it. If the announcement said the investment is going to be $500M, in partnership with leading Silicon Valley VCs - WS analysts might react differently.

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Benn Stancil

These are two different questions. The JPM question is purely one of money - will the $12B be returned with upside? The Miami Heat question is one of championships - to hell with money, will they win more games? To bet against data at JPM is to question whether they can run their business $12B better with more investment in data (a fair question) while to bet against the Heat is to assume they'll somehow play worse with more data (seems unlikely).

If you ask the question of will the Heat make more money by making this investment, now it's a very different take.

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Here I was just about to start playing fantasy baseball again

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