Data Minds #5 — Hilary Mason

In this episode, I interview Hilary Mason (Founder at Fast Forward Labs)

You Will Learn

• About Hilary’s path to data science
• How FastForward Labs is different than a typical data science consulting company
• About FastForward Labs’ cutting edge Machine Learning research
• The importance of a diverse background / skillset in data science
• Hilary’s thoughts about data science as a service and Blackbox Machine Learning
• The importance of empathy and storytelling in data science
• How you can develop your domain expertise, empathy and storytelling skills
• and much more

Meet Hilary Mason

Hilary Mason played a major role in defining data science and evangelizing the discipline. Hilary is one of the pioneering data practitioners along with folks like DJ Patil, Jeff Hammerbacher, Pete Skomoroch, Monica Rogati, Josh Wills, Andrew Ng and more… the way this group defined data science reminds me of the Philosophical Breakfast club.

Haven’t heard of the Philosophical Breakfast Club? In Laura J Snyder’s TED talk, she tells the story how four natural philosophers coined the term “scientist” between 1833 and 1834. This group was the Philosophical Breakfast Club.

*Note: The term “data science” existed over 30 years ago, originally as a substitute for “computer science” by Peter Naur.

Fast forward in time to the 21st century to within the last 10 years… DJ Patil and Jeff Hammerbacher coin the term “data science” to describe their jobs at Facebook and LinkedIn.

*Note: Josh Wills’ definition of “data scientist” is probably the one that is most cited / referenced. You’re probably familiar with it =>

“Data Scientist (n.): Person who is better at statistics than any software engineer and better at software engineering than any statistician.”

Hilary Mason was part of this “Original Gangster” (OG) crew of data scientists (i.e. a 21st Century Philosophical Breakfast Club) who defined the data science industry.

More About Hilary Mason

Hilary is Founder and CEO of Fast Forward Labs, a machine intelligence research company, where she leads a team of applied researchers advising Fortune 500 executives, governments, and startups. She’s also the Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners, a silicon valley venture capital firm. Previously, Hilary was Chief Scientist at bitly.

Hilary co-hosts a DataGotham, a conference for New York’s home grown data community, and co-founded HackNY, a non-profit that helps engineering students find opportunities in New York’s creative technical economy. She’s on the board of the Anita Borg Institute and an advisor to startups including Sparkfun Electronics, Wildcard, and Wonder. Hilary served on Mayor Bloomberg’s Technology Advisory Board, and is a member of Brooklyn hacker collective NYC Resistor.

Subscribe to Data Minds

Get notified of new interviews with top data minds from around the world, subscribe to Data Minds.