StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Jun 21, 2021 · 28m · mad

Fireside Chat: Nick Schrock (Founder & CEO, Elementl) with Matt Turck (Partner, FirstMark)

Nick Schrock · 20m spoken Matt Turck · 4m spoken
0:00 / 0:00
▶ Watch on YouTube →

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

In this Data Driven NYC fireside chat, host Matt Turck interviews Nick Schrock, Founder and CEO of Element and co-creator of GraphQL, about the modern data ecosystem and Dagster. They explore how data orchestration is evolving to bring software engineering rigor, local testing, and developer productivity to complex data workflows.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Matt holds 16.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Matt as informed peer 2.0 Guest teaching 3.6 Guest disagreement 1.8 Matt pushing back 0.4
05100:0010:0020:000:58–5:30 · Matt as informed peer 3/10 The Evolution and Current State of the Data Ecosystem Matt demonstrates domain context by asking a targeted follow-up on whether data challenges have shifted from compute scale to productivity, which Nick confirms using Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The tone is highly collaborative and introductory.5:30–9:43 · Matt as informed peer 1/10 Defining Data Orchestration with Factory Analogies Matt prompts with basic, layman-level questions to let Nick define data orchestration. Nick takes complete lead in explaining orchestration using a factory assembly line analogy.9:43–14:56 · Matt as informed peer 2/10 Origin Story and Technical Architecture of Dagster Matt references Dagster's 'solid' abstraction to guide the interview into technical details. Nick outlines the genesis of Dagster and its focus on process computation and local developer tooling.14:56–21:31 · Matt as informed peer 3/10 Target Users and Competitive Positioning vs. Airflow and Prefect Matt lists competitor projects across the data ecosystem to prompt market positioning. Nick takes sharp, opinionated aim at rival tools like Prefect and Airflow, mocking Prefect's self-description as an 'insurance company'.21:31–24:22 · Matt as informed peer 1/10 Commercial Strategy and Open-Source Roadmap Matt asks about commercialization plans and future open-source milestones. Nick shares high-level plans for pre-1.0 stability, commercial revenue models, and asset tracking extensions.0:58–5:30 · Guest teaching 3/10 The Evolution and Current State of the Data Ecosystem Matt demonstrates domain context by asking a targeted follow-up on whether data challenges have shifted from compute scale to productivity, which Nick confirms using Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The tone is highly collaborative and introductory.5:30–9:43 · Guest teaching 4/10 Defining Data Orchestration with Factory Analogies Matt prompts with basic, layman-level questions to let Nick define data orchestration. Nick takes complete lead in explaining orchestration using a factory assembly line analogy.9:43–14:56 · Guest teaching 4/10 Origin Story and Technical Architecture of Dagster Matt references Dagster's 'solid' abstraction to guide the interview into technical details. Nick outlines the genesis of Dagster and its focus on process computation and local developer tooling.14:56–21:31 · Guest teaching 5/10 Target Users and Competitive Positioning vs. Airflow and Prefect Matt lists competitor projects across the data ecosystem to prompt market positioning. Nick takes sharp, opinionated aim at rival tools like Prefect and Airflow, mocking Prefect's self-description as an 'insurance company'.21:31–24:22 · Guest teaching 2/10 Commercial Strategy and Open-Source Roadmap Matt asks about commercialization plans and future open-source milestones. Nick shares high-level plans for pre-1.0 stability, commercial revenue models, and asset tracking extensions.0:58–5:30 · Guest disagreement 1/10 The Evolution and Current State of the Data Ecosystem Matt demonstrates domain context by asking a targeted follow-up on whether data challenges have shifted from compute scale to productivity, which Nick confirms using Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The tone is highly collaborative and introductory.5:30–9:43 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Defining Data Orchestration with Factory Analogies Matt prompts with basic, layman-level questions to let Nick define data orchestration. Nick takes complete lead in explaining orchestration using a factory assembly line analogy.9:43–14:56 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Origin Story and Technical Architecture of Dagster Matt references Dagster's 'solid' abstraction to guide the interview into technical details. Nick outlines the genesis of Dagster and its focus on process computation and local developer tooling.14:56–21:31 · Guest disagreement 6/10 Target Users and Competitive Positioning vs. Airflow and Prefect Matt lists competitor projects across the data ecosystem to prompt market positioning. Nick takes sharp, opinionated aim at rival tools like Prefect and Airflow, mocking Prefect's self-description as an 'insurance company'.21:31–24:22 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Commercial Strategy and Open-Source Roadmap Matt asks about commercialization plans and future open-source milestones. Nick shares high-level plans for pre-1.0 stability, commercial revenue models, and asset tracking extensions.0:58–5:30 · Matt pushing back 1/10 The Evolution and Current State of the Data Ecosystem Matt demonstrates domain context by asking a targeted follow-up on whether data challenges have shifted from compute scale to productivity, which Nick confirms using Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The tone is highly collaborative and introductory.5:30–9:43 · Matt pushing back 0/10 Defining Data Orchestration with Factory Analogies Matt prompts with basic, layman-level questions to let Nick define data orchestration. Nick takes complete lead in explaining orchestration using a factory assembly line analogy.9:43–14:56 · Matt pushing back 0/10 Origin Story and Technical Architecture of Dagster Matt references Dagster's 'solid' abstraction to guide the interview into technical details. Nick outlines the genesis of Dagster and its focus on process computation and local developer tooling.14:56–21:31 · Matt pushing back 1/10 Target Users and Competitive Positioning vs. Airflow and Prefect Matt lists competitor projects across the data ecosystem to prompt market positioning. Nick takes sharp, opinionated aim at rival tools like Prefect and Airflow, mocking Prefect's self-description as an 'insurance company'.21:31–24:22 · Matt pushing back 0/10 Commercial Strategy and Open-Source Roadmap Matt asks about commercialization plans and future open-source milestones. Nick shares high-level plans for pre-1.0 stability, commercial revenue models, and asset tracking extensions.

speaking balance: gold is Matt, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Matt 29.6% · guest 70.4%0:00 · Matt 29.6% · guest 70.4%3:00 · Matt 19.5% · guest 80.5%3:00 · Matt 19.5% · guest 80.5%6:00 · Matt 5.9% · guest 94.1%6:00 · Matt 5.9% · guest 94.1%9:00 · Matt 11.1% · guest 88.9%9:00 · Matt 11.1% · guest 88.9%12:00 · Matt 5.3% · guest 94.7%12:00 · Matt 5.3% · guest 94.7%15:00 · Matt 16.8% · guest 83.2%15:00 · Matt 16.8% · guest 83.2%18:00 · Matt 11.4% · guest 88.6%18:00 · Matt 11.4% · guest 88.6%21:00 · Matt 9.9% · guest 90.1%21:00 · Matt 9.9% · guest 90.1%24:00 · Matt 30% · guest 70%24:00 · Matt 30% · guest 70%27:00 · Matt 57.7% · guest 42.3%27:00 · Matt 57.7% · guest 42.3%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 19:40 Nick critiques Prefect's positioning

Nick forcefully rejects Prefect's framing as an 'insurance company' for data, remarking that insurance companies never make developers happier or more productive.

 Hardest push from Matt ▶ 3:45 Matt frames the shift from scale to productivity

Matt pushes Nick to validate his summary that the data ecosystem's early wins were about raw compute scale whereas current challenges focus on higher-level developer productivity.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:38 Nick's factory analogy for orchestration

Nick educates the host on orchestration by framing data pipelines as assembly lines in a factory where workers blindly execute tasks on arbitrary timers without proper coordination.

 Matt holds his own ▶ 17:44 Matt maps out the orchestrator competitive landscape

Matt demonstrates strong ecosystem familiarity by citing specific incumbent and open-source data orchestrators including Airflow, Prefect, Luigi, and Kedro.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicMatt as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementMatt pushing backWhy
The Evolution and Current State of the Data Ecosystem 3311 Matt demonstrates domain context by asking a targeted follow-up on whether data challenges have shifted from compute scale to productivity, which Nick confirms using Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The tone is highly collaborative and introductory.
Defining Data Orchestration with Factory Analogies 1410 Matt prompts with basic, layman-level questions to let Nick define data orchestration. Nick takes complete lead in explaining orchestration using a factory assembly line analogy.
Origin Story and Technical Architecture of Dagster 2400 Matt references Dagster's 'solid' abstraction to guide the interview into technical details. Nick outlines the genesis of Dagster and its focus on process computation and local developer tooling.
Target Users and Competitive Positioning vs. Airflow and Prefect 3561 Matt lists competitor projects across the data ecosystem to prompt market positioning. Nick takes sharp, opinionated aim at rival tools like Prefect and Airflow, mocking Prefect's self-description as an 'insurance company'.
Commercial Strategy and Open-Source Roadmap 1210 Matt asks about commercialization plans and future open-source milestones. Nick shares high-level plans for pre-1.0 stability, commercial revenue models, and asset tracking extensions.

Statements from this episode (7)

Insight
Data operations require specialized software engineering rigor and tools
“What really needs to happen in this data space is the software kind of engineering of vacation of data. The acknowledgement that this is not an off outsourceable thing anymore, that this requires software engineering process specialized for the data domain and…”
Nick Schrock Jun 21, 2021 ▶ 2:54
Insight
Data challenges have shifted from compute scale to developer productivity
“An amazing engineering achievement happened in the early, you know, throughout the 2010, which was solving these massive pure technical scale problems. But now we're talking about organizational scale, dealing with complexity and dealing with developer product…”
Nick Schrock Jun 21, 2021 ▶ 5:08
Insight
Data orchestrators are the central leverage point for organizational data platforms
“We think this like orchestrator is really the central leverage point that makes sense to be the data platform.”
Nick Schrock Jun 21, 2021 ▶ 9:14
Insight
Data orchestrators must be productive developer environments, not just operational tools
“It's critical not to just think of it as a operational tool, but as a place where people can productively work.”
Nick Schrock Jun 21, 2021 ▶ 9:32
Insight
Data teams should focus on computation processes rather than physical datasets
“People think of data sets as physical things, right? Like a table and a database. Right. But in the modern world where you're really applying software engineering processes to data, all that data ends up being computed. And so what we thought really is that yo…”
Nick Schrock Jun 21, 2021 ▶ 10:48
Assertion Supported
Prefect founder Jeremiah Lowin launched it after facing constraints changing Airflow
“Jeremiah was a primary contributor to Airflow, wanted to make some changes, wasn't able to do so, and went and started went and started Prefect.”
Nick Schrock Jun 21, 2021 ▶ 20:21
Insight
Data tools should upskill analysts with engineering processes, not replace them
“The way to do this is not to try to remove analysts from the equation. The way to do this is to bring engineering processes into their life and, you know, so-called upskill them.”
Nick Schrock Jun 21, 2021 ▶ 25:49
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 400 conversations transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more