Do Data Fundamentals Still Matter in the Age of AI? - Freestyle Friday (April 10, 2026)

Do fundamentals still matter, or are we all just "vibe engineering" our architectures now?

Coming to you live and sweating from the hillsides of Phuket, Thailand, this week's Freestyle Friday dives into the tension between chasing the newest tech and mastering first principles. After a recent LinkedIn debate suggesting teams "don't have time" for fundamentals anymore, I had to set the record straight.

I cover why building data platforms without a theoretical framework is like building a house on a Thai hillside without a geologist (spoiler: it ends in a mudslide), the limits of Kimball, and why the rise of AI actually guarantees that data engineering is going to become more critical, not less.

Plus, an update on my upcoming book, Mixed Model Arts, and where you can catch me keynoting around the world in the coming months.

Links to my Upcoming Events:

• April 29: Agentic Analytics Summit (Cube)

• May 6-8: Data Innovation Summit (Stockholm, Sweden). Catch my Keynote on May 7th and my Mixed Model Arts workshop on May 8th!

• May 18-20: Current (London, UK)