Thomas in't Veld: Business Value Requires Data Modeling, Not Tooling

Thomas in't Veld, founder of Tasman Analytics, joined Yuliia and Dumke to discuss why data projects fail: teams obsess over tooling while ignoring proper data modeling and business alignment. Drawing from building analytics for 70-80 companies, Thomas explains why the best data model never changes unless the business changes, and how his team acts as "data therapists" forcing marketing and sales to agree on fundamental definitions. He shares his controversial take that data modeling sits more in analysis than engineering. Another hot take: analytics engineering is merging back into data engineering, and why showing off your DAG at meetups completely misses the point - business understanding is the critical differentiator, not your technology stack.