SQL

20 statements across 17 episodes · 8 bullish · 5 bearish · 14 people on the record · first statement Jun 19, 2015 by Spencer Kimball · said 112 times in 46 episodes since 2013 · across every show →

Mentions by year

brought up most by Matt Turck (17), Paul Dix (9), Nitay Joffe (7), Tristan Handy (5), Daniel Chia (5), Ben Rogojan (Seattle Data Guy) (5), Anthony Deighton (5), Nate Stewart (4)

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0362013201420152016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodes it came up in
002.53562013201420152016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions per episode
2025 15 mentions in 3 episodes 5 per episode
2024 7 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
2023 8 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2022 20 mentions in 5 episodes 4 per episode
2021 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2020 9 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2019 15 mentions in 5 episodes 3 per episode
2018 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2017 1 mention in 1 episode
2016 13 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
2015 9 mentions in 3 episodes 3 per episode
2014 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2013 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about SQL, oldest first

Jun 19, 2015 neutral
Disclosure
Kimball in 2015: CockroachDB SQL support is aspirational and not started
“The top, the very top, SQL, is aspirational. We do intend to do it but we haven't started working on it yet.”
Spencer Kimball Jun 19, 2015 ▶ 11:45 Spencer Kimball, Cockroach Labs // A New Kind of Database (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)
Sep 14, 2015 neutral
Insight
Deighton: Key data insights often lie outside chosen query selections
“Oftentimes, ah, from a question perspective, the interesting insights in the data are actually found outside of your selection, ah, outside of your query.”
Anthony Deighton Sep 14, 2015 ▶ 5:00 Anthony Deighton, Qlik: Top 10 Requirements For Visual Analytics (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)
Oct 21, 2015 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Birchbox trained nearly its entire company workforce to write SQL
“Trained almost the entire company to use SQL.”
Liz Crawford Oct 21, 2015 ▶ 24:22 Liz Crawford, Birchbox // Data Science & Analytics at Birchbox (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)
Oct 17, 2018 bullish
Assertion Partly supported
CockroachDB combines NoSQL elastic scalability with SQL strong consistency
“So, you know, Cockroach bridges the gap. It's both of those things. It has both of those things, and it doesn't compromise.”
Spencer Kimball Oct 17, 2018 ▶ 0:57 Ultra-Resilient SQL for Global Business // Spencer Kimball, Cockroach (FirstMark's Data Driven NYC)
May 13, 2019
Insight
Stancil: Technical data skills are learnable, analytical thinking is harder to teach
“They're gonna need SQL skills, they're gonna, they might need Python or R skills, they'll need something like Excel but those things are learnable, whereas I think, like, the way of thinking is often harder to teach.”
Benn Stancil May 13, 2019 ▶ 18:24 The Case for Hiring More Analysts // Benn Stancil, Mode (FirstMark's Data Driven NYC)
May 13, 2019
Insight
Stancil: Knowing SQL and charts doesn't make someone a data analyst
“Me knowing SQL and me knowing how to create a chart doesn't make me an analyst any more than knowing Photoshop makes me a designer.”
Benn Stancil May 13, 2019 ▶ 5:56 The Case for Hiring More Analysts // Benn Stancil, Mode (FirstMark's Data Driven NYC)
Nov 13, 2019 positive
Insight
Elsamadisi: Time and customer identity replace foreign keys when relating multi-system data
“Instead of depending on foreign keys to relate the data, you can actually just use time and customer.”
Ahmed Elsamadisi Nov 13, 2019 ▶ 8:44 How to Answer Data Questions Without Being Miserable // Ahmed Elsamadisi, Narrator (Data Driven NYC)
Dec 11, 2020 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Handy: Data transformation has shifted inside data warehouses using SQL
“What's happening now or over the past, you know, five or so years, the, Transformation step now happens inside the data warehouse and it happens in SQL. And because of that, it is now accessible to a dramatically larger number of people.”
Tristan Handy Dec 11, 2020 ▶ 15:57 Fireside Chat: Jeremiah Lowin (Prefect), Tristan Handy (dbt) with Matt Turck (Partner, FirstMark)
Mar 15, 2021 negative
Insight
Narayan: Software requiring code rewrites in new languages is largely doomed
“Any pitch. I'm generally very skeptical where you can tell folks, you can have all these great new benefits of low latency or whatever it is, but you got to start all over from scratch, right? You have to throw everything out there and you're going to rebuild …”
Arjun Narayan Mar 15, 2021 ▶ 7:37 Fireside Chat: Arjun Narayan (Founder & CEO, Materialize) with Matt Turck (Partner, FirstMark)
Jun 21, 2021 positive
Opinion
Gong: The data ecosystem critically needs a SQL linter like SQLFluff
“The other one that I, I'd point to that I haven't used deeply myself, but I just think is a thing that the world really needs is SQL fluff. SQL FL U F F. And it's a linter for SQL. And I'm just kind of shocked that we have got to 20 21 without there being a, l…”
Abe Gong Jun 21, 2021 ▶ 24:19 Fireside Chat: Abe Gong (Founder & CEO, Superconductive) with Matt Turck (Partner, FirstMark)
Jun 28, 2022 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Handy: Data processing will be polyglot with non-SQL abstractions within five years
“We really do think that the future of data processing is polyglot, and I think that if you look in five years, you will find more robust abstractions on top of data, and even in the DBT ecosystem, than SQL.”
Tristan Handy Jun 28, 2022 ▶ 24:51 The Next Layer of the Modern Data Stack | dbt's Tristan Handy
Jun 28, 2022 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Handy: 100x more people write SQL than Spark or Scala
“There are actually two orders of magnitude more human beings on the planet that can write SQL than can write Spark or Scala or whatever.”
Tristan Handy Jun 28, 2022 ▶ 7:34 The Next Layer of the Modern Data Stack | dbt's Tristan Handy
Oct 10, 2022 bearish
Opinion
Stancil: dbt's SQL-based semantic layer is not a real semantic model
“They're moving in, like, the semantic layer tool, so basically they're saying, give us raw data, and we will tell you, like, apply semantics to it. The way that they do that now is through SQL. So, like, semantics are kind of, like, air quote semantics. It's b…”
Benn Stancil Oct 10, 2022 ▶ 22:37 Separating Data Hype From Substance | Fireside Chat with Mode Co-Founder Benn Stancil
Mar 2, 2023 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Argyros: Most enterprises handle CX data operations using analyst teams writing SQL
“The way this problem is solved in most enterprises is that you deploy armies of analysts, and they get tickets and requests, and they write SQL, right?”
Tasso Argyros Mar 2, 2023 ▶ 1:57 The Composable CDP & The CX Hub | ActionIQ Founder & CEO, Tasso Argyros
May 31, 2023 neutral
Disclosure
Wiggins: NYT data science stack relies on SQL, scikit-learn, and Go
“So the data stack is, in my team, the data stack is SQL and scikit, and occasionally Go”
Chris Wiggins May 31, 2023 ▶ 20:55 A Conversation with Chris Wiggins - Author of "How Data Happened"
Apr 3, 2024 negative
Insight
Standard SQL queries are virtually impossible for complex location data analysis
“Trying to put together SQL queries in such a manner to understand those interrelationships is virtually impossible, and honestly was part of the reason that you don't see a lot of the value derived when you buy the data, because you have to spend so much time,…”
Gary Little Apr 3, 2024 ▶ 17:25 Foursquare’s Remarkable Transformation Into Leading Location Intelligence Platform | Gary Little
May 3, 2024 positive
Assertion Contradicted
VAST Data enables native SQL querying directly on Parquet objects
“You can write a parquet object and then query it using SQL natively off of our platform without needing any higher layers on top.”
Renen Hallak May 3, 2024 ▶ 15:55 The $9B Startup Going After Snowflake and Databricks | Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data
Jan 23, 2025 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rogojan: SQL will remain essential as LLM raw data-dumping approaches fail
“The next one I said SQL isn't going anywhere, and I kind of said that for more than one reason. One, I feel like someone's going to tell us it's time to revamp data lake v one again, where we'll just dump everything in there and we'll let an LLM figure it out …”
Ben Rogojan (Seattle Data Guy) Jan 23, 2025 ▶ 51:39 Understanding Data Engineering in 2025 | Ben Rogojan, Seattle Data Guy
Jan 23, 2025
Insight
Rogojan: Understanding data flow takes longer than learning SQL syntax
“SQL you can learn quickly. What's going to take time is just getting a sense for how data Operates and flows and data sets in general.”
Ben Rogojan (Seattle Data Guy) Jan 23, 2025 ▶ 18:50 Understanding Data Engineering in 2025 | Ben Rogojan, Seattle Data Guy
May 1, 2025 negative
Opinion
Mike Palmer: Forcing SQL concepts into natural language is engineering hubris
“So the idea that I'm supposed to adopt a SQL semantic concept into my natural language is the ultimate hubris of engineering.”
Mike Palmer May 1, 2025 ▶ 36:34 Dashboards Are Dead: Sigma’s BI Revolution for Trillion-Row Data
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