The World’s 7 Most Powerful Data Scientists

O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media and highly regarded technology trend watcher and good idea amplifier, wrote a short piece for Forbes on the topic of the “World’s Most Powerful Data Scientists.”  He also provided some amplifying information in a piece on Google+.  This post captures the gist of both of those, since Tim’s list is well thought out and insightful. I absolutely strongly endorse most of what he wrote and most of the names he picks: Tim is so very well connected and so very smart it is hard to argue.

But as a guy who likes to think for myself I have to tell you one of the names on the list had me scratching my head wondering if  Tim has been under the influence of someone’s political talking points. Tim faced a real challenge in coming up with his list and I don’t want to criticize, but I wonder about a few he left off the list as well.

One of the great’s, for example, is Jeff Jonas.  Jeff is non-stop-action when it comes to data and how to make it relevant to users and how to make data find the right data and the relevance find the user that needs it. And he has been at it for years. There are others as well, like Barney Pell, and Danny Hillis, and who knows how many others that seem worthy of being on a list like this.

But Tim had to build a list and I’m glad he did, I like his writing style and his ideas. Here is his list...