Conor's Newsletter: Issue 39
Calculating churn rates, machine learning metrics, and the passion economy
Let's get to the stories and links that I thought were worth sharing this week. As always, enjoy the newsletter. If this was forwarded to you, you can go ahead and subscribe at conordewey.com.
What I read —
I've written in the past about a gap between technical skills that are commonly taught and those that are most useful in business. This post on churn rates is well worth your time. You’re All Calculating Churn Rates Wrong.
"In short, a good metric is one which ties closely to the business or customer use. Consider their point of view when answering a metrics question." What Machine Learning Metric to Use In Interviews.
I quickly read through this book from Chartio on managing your data stack and current best practices. While the content stays pretty high-level, I found it useful to have all of this information condensed. Cloud Data Management.
I'm all-in on the idea of "The Passion Economy" described in the post from a16z, especially the ability to open doors to new forms of work. The Passion Economy.
What I found interesting —
Google made some pretty important changes to their search algorithm. Open Sourcing BERT.
There's more than enough stats knowledge here to keep anyone busy. The Little Handbook of Statistical Practice.
Tired of explaining that "I don't have the time" doesn't mean "literally every second of my schedule is accounted for." This Tweet x100.
Quote I'm pondering —
“Today, most software exists, not to solve a problem, but to interface with other software.” — Ian Angell