1 brutal truth about growth most data folks miss
Jul 15, 2025 11:06 am
Hey
Yesterday I had a long chat with a marketing director at a bank.
She told me, almost apologetically, how frustrated she gets with data teams.
“They’re brilliant,” she said. “But they act like we’re idiots.”
Oof.
Her exact words:
They throw a number at me and expect me to just believe it.
I’ve been on both sides of this.
When I was deep in infra, optimizing pipelines and proud of my DAGs.
But business folks kept asking me to “just explain what this means for Q3 revenue”.
So I got defensive and technical and lost the room. Every time.
Here’s what I learned the hard way:
Our job is not to explain airplane tire pressure. It’s to land the damn plane.
They don’t want to hear how clever our systems are.
They want to know: Are we getting from point A to B safely?
So yeah, your work is complex. But if no one trusts it, it doesn’t matter.
Being technically excellent isn’t enough.
Not if you want to be seen. Heard. Promoted. Pulled into the real decisions.
That’s what I help data leaders learn.
Until tomorrow,
Yordan
PS: I’m hosting a live group coaching call on July 24 for Data Gibberish Pro members only. If you’ve got a question you want answered live, drop it here: this form