Data Analysts Are More Valuable Than Ever (If They Adapt Fast)

I don't think in any way it I'm kind of the belief now there will be more demand for data analysts because what they can do will be much more extensive and much higher quality. I mean I definitely find that myself. — We've always said that. But it's maybe not going to be, you know, it's not going to be everyone wants, you know, your value isn't going to be because you're an amazing PowerBI developer, right? Or someone who's like amazing at Dex. Your value is going to be what sort of insights can you create regardless of what tool you're using or how you're creating it that is going to drive effectiveness in my business, you know, or in a business like that is what is more important, you know. Um, [snorts] and I think you've got to, this is why vibe coding in my mind was always the biggest trend I had ever seen, right? I said it from day one and it is playing out exactly as I thought and even faster, probably faster than I thought. I mean, I [clears throat] I was making wild predictions that I didn't think were wild, but most people probably were like, "Oh, really? " You know, I said, "There's going to be 20 times the amount of developers. " This was like a year and a half ago or a year ago, and I reckon we're probably already there, honestly. like we're already there within a year because everything is going to code, you know. So if you're if you want to become like a powerful like a really valuable um an analyst, right? You should be amazing at vibe coding using Claude code using whatever um coding tool that you can get your hands on to develop an automated analytics pipeline that is going to be far superior to the um what came before. you know like um so you know the just the role is changing but the amount of analysts that are going to be required is going to be way more it's [clears throat] way more it truly is but if you're clinging on to the ways of doing things with Excel and also in PowerBI in some ways well then I think you're going to be too slow you're going to be held back like you know you're not going to you're going to not going to be as effective as all of these new ways of working right — well yeah I mean the interesting thing that I think is happening with Excel is Excel has become a full code tool that basically with the Excel the ability of anthropic to write to um the native word W word, Excel, PDF and PowerPoint formats. — Those have become immediately full code tools — that you know you basically just you do all your work in code you render it and then you export it to the format. It's not like you open the format and then work in that format that it's just it's the last step rather than the first. — And so yeah, I think Excel is going to continue to be I mean Excel is unkillable, I think. But I think it's largely because — it's it made the immediate transition when Microsoft and Anthropic kind of joined forces that it became overnight a full code tool. And so you've got, you know, people like Nate Jones writing these incredibly detailed, you know, skills that can now, you know, assemble a, you know, a seven-part, you know, financial report, you know, validated against, you know, against specific set of requirements that just runs automatically. You know, it's like Excel made the jump in a really unexpected way. Um, see I kind of feel like Excel is going to lose its relevance. That's kind of the other insights that I had because well I still think there's some there'll be some utility in the in Excel. But my big insight is I think the canvas is changing the canvas. So just think of Excel as a canvas as for doing lots of things. Okay. But when I go and do something, when I consider doing something new like I did um at the beginning of the week, I wanted to build a financial model. uh the idea of a financial model and like if I wanted to go do that in Excel right now, taking away I haven't used co-pilot. I mean, I had gone into Excel for a long time, but I defaulted to go to lovable first and I was like, I'm going to create this in lovable. like a web app basically um of a financial model. And legitimately, I think compared to how I would have had to done it do it in Excel historically to get to where I got, I think I did it in maybe 5% of the time, it was a better experience. It would the actual app is way better. It's way easier to share it with someone else because I just share them a web link and then they can like play around in it. It's just overall better. You're the creative guider around like what output you want. Look, I've always said I've said this, you know, I saw this so early. I always said, you know, you got to become the full stack AI professional. It's not about just being a data analyst anymore.

It's about being full stack. You've got to learn how to use code to build automations, to build many apps. Like, you know, you don't have to build Salesforce. You can you can build something effective, which you can do in a day like I did with this presentation app. I mean, it literally took me a day to build this. Probably less than a day. Like, probably took me about three hours to build this thing, you know, just constantly asking AI or talking to AI, talking to AI just with multiple tabs, like all the things that I've been saying that I've been doing. Um, and um yeah, no, that's just it's just that is the future. That is absolutely the future. Um, you know, and and man, there's some crack takes out there. There has been some absolute just garbage takes I see them every day even today you know like you know I sometimes I just shake my head there's like just so much misinformation out there that people that just don't have a clue about what is actually going on right like I see it I see you think about all the people that say for example okay just say for example how many people have you seen in the last two years doubt open AAI and chat GPT being successful — They have 900 million weekly active users on their mobile app for God's sake. How could you say that is at all like some sort of failure or like they're not doing well. They have 900 million active users. It's the fastest growing app in the world. — Even though there I'm one I'm skeptical. I'm sk about them. I really think I think Google in the long run I think Google has everything on top over them. All they have is first mover advantage. — Sure. But like you're just not taking into like in my opinion you're not taking into account that having users matters so much. Like 900 million damn users using your product actively every single week. Like the amount of people who have doubted that was going to happen over the last 2 to 3 years. I've seen things weekly, monthly and I was like, "No, they are going to crush it. They're going to crush it. " And to think that they couldn't um uh like evolve their product into something else or something new or add new products on or find new other revenue streams is silly. They will find a way. Google didn't make money for a long time because uh because but they had the users. They found a way. That is exactly what chat GBT will do in an environment where there won't be just one winner. There will be lots of winners. There will be a lot of people who win. — You know, I mean, it was funny because when you said you had a lot of predictions, I u Yeah, I listen to I was like I completely agree with all of them. I'm waiting for one I don't agree with. And that I think that's the one that you know I think I kind of look at stuff like this and I know I know open router is not um is not a representative um sample. Yeah. So if we can blow this up. Um so this is just like a week. This is um this is monthtodate open router uh tokens. And as I say that um you know that um it's not a representative sample. I think when you look at who's using open router it's probably much more heavily code and much more heavily um you know kind of gaming folks. But if you look at the fact that Google is has jumped out to, you know, a four or five point, you know, percentage lead when they were just a couple months ago where they were pretty dramatically behind. I think now it's like Google has they've got the better models. They've got the much broader set of capabilities. They're cheaper in some things and um they've got there's nobody who has better access and is that — it's going to be because I was talking to a friend who does a lot of Power Automate. I said explain to me why Power Automate has any advantage over cloud skills. And he's like it has one. it he said it has enterprise security that or large organizations trust and it's like I think he's right that you know because I said from a from a development standpoint there is zero advantage again the minute you step out of all code you're slower you're more inefficient but I said you know I think that's absolutely right that the enterprise security is going to be the winning ticket — well that's always been the thing that Microsoft has lent on whenever there's been some sort of disruption. It's like, oh, security security. — So, you know, that is that is — Oh, look look yeah I mean enterprises but enterprises um that's my like that is what big one of big tech strategies is to scare the out of enterprises about security.