Numbers And Narrative

Yaneer Bar-Yam - Founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute Summary: Joe sits down with Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam to talk about what happens when conventional calculus and statistics go wrong, and how the growing field of "complex systems" mathematics can help us understand everything from revolutions to how to contain disease like Ebola

Jed Cohen - COO/Co-founder of RocketHub Summary: A former actor launched, grew and now successfully sold a crowd funding site

Rob Dubbin - Comedy writer talking programming, college sports and coding your own video game Summary: How, and why, does a comedy writer build a football simulator? Interview Timeline:  - (02:20) Background on Rob Dubbin - (06:22) Dubbin talks about injuries in sports and the state of football - (09:36) Dubbin builds a simple, fast, football simulator - (37:10) 'Real Human Praise' - an automated twitter account

Cezary Podkul - Washington Post and ProPublica Reporter Summary: What fiscal changes has Chris Christie promised and how has he delivered on those promises?

Steve Kettmann - Author of ‘Baseball Maverick,’ How Sandy Alderson Revolutionized Baseball and Revived the Mets Summary: Who was Sandy Alderson and how only looking at stats can dilute the game of baseball  Interview Timeline:  - (02:02) - Choosing to use the word 'revive' in the book title - (07:56) - In combat, baseball, the backstory of Sandy Alderson - (15:38) - "Don't let stats ruin baseball" - (24:01) - Watching the game vs reading the numbers - (38:00) - The resurgence of of older conventional wisdom

Jonathan Darman - Author of ‘Landslide,’ LBJ, Reagan and New America Summary: Describing two very different presidents, Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson   Interview Timeline:  - (01:40) The strengths and weaknesses of Reagan and Johnson - (08:28) Growing away from the Political Machine and Party Bosses - (35:07) Robert McNamara identifies the the emerging  suburban consumer - (40:32) The intelligence of Ronald Reagan - (56:40) What is suprising about Lyndon Johnson?

Myra Norton - President and COO of Pegged Summary: Discussing how she went from teaching math to running a company   Interview Timeline:  - (00:24) Myra and Pegged Software - (01:45) Providing fairer access to job markets - (04:33) The advantage of a focused market approach - (09:39) Myra North's path through academia and big business - (28:40) So, would you like to do a startup? - (34:50) Learning to do sales is about teaching and helping people solve their problems

Jesse Andrews - Accomplised author and screenwriter Summary: Discussing both his new movie and sports   Interview Timeline:  - (02:15) Synopsis of "Me and Early and the Dying Girl" - (05:39) Jesse answers the question, "Is this story biographical?" - (08:18) The book to screenplay to production process - (20:23) Will algorithms be writing screenplays? - (26:06) Topics in sports!  

Glen Coppersmith - Scientist, Statistician, Data Whisperer Summary: Quantitative methods in mental health   Interview Timeline:  - (02:44) Why did you choose to build a life around mathematics? - (09:20) A philosophy grounded in application - (14:36) Building a company around applied mathematics - (16:47) Introducing a psychology degree to computer science - (26:10) Continuing education at Hopkins - (28:50) Moving to Qntfy and other projects - (32:45) Focusing in the particulars of Twitter data - (37:10) The mission of Qntfy - apply modern quantitative methods to mental health - (43:40) "Moneybollocks" - doing the math but missing the point

Dan Rosenheck - Professional Services Correspondent at The Economist Summary: An Opening Day's celebration of baseball and statistics   Interview Timeline  - Introduction to Dan Rosenheck - (01:50) Spring training stats, do they matter? - (10:55) Stat Cast, what is it? - (15:3 0) Catchers make pitchers better - (21:53) High stakes fantasy league - (30:00) Meaningless vs worthless statistics - (32:06) Looking for the baseline to measure if adding spring training had a effect - (38:50) Capping off the importance of spring training - (41:20) How Dan got into statistics - (50:15) Presenting results through twitter

Lowell Putnam - Co-founder and CEO of Quovo Summary: How to build a data science startup for investment data   Interview Timeline  - Introduction to Quovo and basic terminology - (08:00) What gave birth to Quovo after the crisis? - (16:50) How Quovo uses data and could use other types of data - (21:10) Security - (23:01) How Putnam got interested in numbers - (26:15) Putnam as a self-taught developer and managing Quovo - (37:30) Communicating with investors - overconfidence - (38:40) Startups, disruptors, and big business - (40:30) Reflections on the current economy and predictions for the future - (47:10) Where has your peer group moved? - (50:15) Hiring, recruiting, and retaining  

Alan Wilkis - Head Honcho at Wildcassettes, an independent record label Summary: Turning Big Data and post-modern paranoia into a hit band   Interview Timeline   - (04:44) Stories from traveling on the road and Wilkis' music career - (09:24) How Allan got started in the music industry - (13:24) Wilkis describes his music, lifestyle, and influences - (23:55) How Wilkis started forming bands and becoming successful in the music industry  - (30:06) Wilkis finds Joywave and the growth of Big Data the band  - (40:34) Podcast conclusion and Wilkis plugs Big Data  

Jordan Bar Am - VP, Sales and Business Development at DipJar Summary: Labor activist turned-tech entrepreneur chases passion and profit   Interview Timeline - (01:19) Introduction to Dipjar - (04:25) Building the team with nontechnical co-founders - (06:48) Finding and vetting engineers - (08:35) How does Dipjar motivate the engineering team? - (10:21) Dipjar's status - (14:11) Why Jordan started Dipjar - (15:18) Jordan's career path - (17:23) Bringing a data driven approach to business - (20:24) How starting Dipjar changes Jordan's perspective - (24:08) Realizing the vision of Dipjar - (26:05) How did you increase your technical knowledge? - (28:06) Jordan, where are your colleagues now? - (30:41) Moving from a analytic idea to a compelling narrative - (32:38) The future of Dipjar