Guest Biography:

Lak is Head for Data Analytics and AI Solutions on Google Cloud. His team builds software solutions for business problems using Google Cloud's data analytics and machine learning products. He is the author of Data Science on GCP (O'Reilly), BigQuery the Definitive Guide (O'Reilly) and Machine Learning on GCP and Advanced Machine Learning on GCP (Coursera). He founded Google's Advanced Solutions Lab ML Immersion program. Before Google, Lak was a Director of Data Science at Climate Corporation and a Research Scientist at NOAA. Follow him on Twitter at @lak_gcp.

TIMESTAMP / TOPIC 

0:00 - Introduction and Lak's background in Machine Learning (pattern recognition) 

2:07 - How Lak started at Google, and his career working in weather 

3:50 - Lak's first experience with analytics in the cloud, and how coud would fundamentally change the way we did large analtyics 

6:28 - What does Lak's team do at Google Cloud? 

11:16 - How quickly is the landscape evolving when it comes to AI/ML? 

14:42 - What are some of the trends Lak see's when it comes to Analytics and ML? 

19:30 - What kinds of opportunities and threats is this creating for businesses? 

22:55 - What are the top challenges for enterprise leaders in this space? 

25:45 - How do you find the right people to hire in this space? 

27:22 - What are some of the common misconceptions and mistakes you see being made?

29:32 - What are some of the competitive advantages and things that make GCP unique when it comes to data & analytics? 

33:54 - Which products do you recommend people start with, and what do they enable our customers to achieve? 

35:15 - Any compelling themes why people start using BigQuery?

36:43 - Any favorite projects you've been involved with while at Google, and what are some of your favorite products? 
39:34 - What's something you've changed your opinion on when it comes to AI/ML?

42:26 - What are some of the mistakes you've made in your career?

44:03 - What advice do you have for young engineers looking to get into ML? 

45:22 - What's something folks might not know about you outside of work? 

If you'd like to learn more about:

Lak's Current team:  https://cloud.google.com/solutions

His previous team:  https://cloud.google.com/training/data-ml

Or you can find his books at:

Data Science on GCP: https://www.amazon.com/Data-Science-Google-Cloud-Platform/dp/1491974567

BigQuery the Definitive Guide: https://www.amazon.com/Google-BigQuery-Definitive-Warehousing-Analytics-ebook/dp/B07ZHQ3MGN/ref=pd_sbsd_14_1/134-2570499-9607803?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07ZHQ3MGN&pd_rd_r=2ada4001-93ee-40ce-abbf-d7f9c2803c7d&pd_rd_w=BIU8A&pd_rd_wg=nEwG5&pf_rd_p=2c2d0d3b-b3c5-4110-93fa-2c1270309ac1&pf_rd_r=JN81Q14PVAKCM1PX4GX1&psc=1&refRID=JN81Q14PVAKCM1PX4GX1