E552 'Navigating the Intersection of Sports, Data and AI' with Databricks' Ari Kaplan

Today's guest is Ari Kaplan, Head of Evangelism at Databricks. Founded in 2013, Databricks democratizes insights to everyone in an organization. Their Data Intelligence Platform provides a unified foundation for all data and governance, combined with AI models tuned to an organization’s unique characteristics. Now, anyone in an organization can benefit from automation and natural language to discover and use data like experts, and technical teams can easily build and deploy secure data and AI apps and products.

Ari is a leading AI and data influencer and was named one of DataIQ’s Top 20 AI Influencers in America in 2024. He created and led the Chicago Cubs' analytics team, inspired Moneyball and held leadership roles at Databricks, IBM and Nielsen. A Caltech Alumni of the Decade, he’s authored five best-selling books and consulted for Fortune 500s. Ari also led the Raoul Wallenberg investigation and has been profiled by CNN, Time and the History Channel for his pioneering work in analytics and AI.

In this episode, Ari talks about:

0:00 His journey from sports fan to analytics pioneer transforming the industry

5:54 How the Moneyball legacy fuels his ever-evolving tech innovation journey

9:00 Being the Databricks evangelist to inspire global AI innovation

11:45 How Databricks uses AI internally, inspires careful customer innovation

15:38 Driving unstoppable global growth momentum through their passionate community

19:10 His passion for using data science to free wrongly imprisoned, missing people

22:01 His optimistic vision for AI’s rapidly transformative future

25:31 How AI shifted from skepticism to an essential productivity tool rapidly

To find out more about all the great work happening at Databricks, check out the website www.databricks.com