If you talk to any executive, they’ll tell you that leveraging data is a competitive advantage. But according to today’s guest, a lot of companies still don’t know exactly what that means and how best to operationalize data to gain that advantage.

Cassidy speaks with Benn Stancil, Chief Analytics Officer and Founder at Mode, about how the modern data stack has evolved and why the current data playbook is incomplete.

Previous to Mode, Benn was an analyst at Microsoft and Yammer, where he helped lead product analytics. He also worked as an economic analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.

At Mode, Benn leads internal analytics efforts and provides strategic oversight and guidance to product directions. An active content contributor to the data science community, you can find Benn’s articles at benn.substack.com.

They discuss:

-How the switch to remote work affected Mode and the SaaS industry

-Mode’s origin story

-The gray areas of self service and the role analysts should play

-Why Benn writes articles and what he gets out of it

-The missing piece in the modern data stack

-Why the most important quality for a good data team is curiosity

-How to usher your company out of the old world into the new world of data

Follow Benn on Twitter, or email him at benn@modeanalytics.com.

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

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