Yet another way of classifying data scientists

There are many axes along which we can classify data scientists. We can classify based on the primary specialty, in terms “analytics”, “business intelligence” and “machine learning”. We can classify based on domain, into “financial data scientists” and “retail data scientists” and “industrial data scientists”. We can classify by the choice of primary software tool,…

Beer and diapers: Netflix edition

When we started using Netflix last May, we created three personas for the three of us in the family – “Karthik”, “Priyanka” and “Berry”. At that time we didn’t realise that there was already a pre-created “kids” (subsequently renamed “children” – don’t know why that happened) persona there. So while Priyanka and I mostly use…

A banker’s apology

Whenever there is a massive stock market crash, like the one in 1987, or the crisis in 2008, it is common for investment banking quants to talk about how it was a “1 in zillion years” event. This is on account of their models that typically assume that stock prices are lognormal, and that stock…

English Premier League: Goal Difference to points correlation

So I was just looking down the English Premier League Table for the season, and I found that as I went down the list, the goal difference went lower. There’s nothing counterintuitive in this, but the degree of correlation seemed eerie. So I downloaded the data and plotted a scatter-plot. And what do you have?…

Stirring the pile efficiently

Warning: This is a technical post, and involves some code, etc.  As I’ve ranted a fair bit on this blog over the last year, a lot of “machine learning” in the industry can be described as “stirring the pile”. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with this image from XKCD by now: Basically…

Duckworth Lewis Book

Yesterday at the local council library, I came across this book called “Duckworth Lewis” written by Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis (who “invented” the eponymous rain rule). While I’d never heard about the book, given my general interest in sports analytics I picked it up, and duly finished reading it by this morning. The good…

The nature of the professional services firm

This is yet another rejected section from my soon-t0-be-published book Between the buyer and the seller.  In 2006, having just graduated from business school, I started my career working for a leading management consulting firm. This firm had been one of the most sought after employers for students at my school, and the salary they offered…