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Klaviyo Data Science Podcast

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast

By Klaviyo Data Science Team

This podcast is intended for all audiences who love data science--veterans and newcomers alike, from any field, we’re all here to learn and grow our data science skills. New episodes monthly. Learn more about Klaviyo at www.klaviyo.com!
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Klaviyo Data Science EP 19 | 2021: A Data Science Year in Review

Klaviyo Data Science PodcastMar 09, 2022

00:00
42:01
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 46 | ML Ops 101
Apr 09, 202445:11
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 45 | SegmentsAI: An AI Case Study on Delivering Value
Mar 04, 202442:14
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 44 | The Data Powering EDI
Feb 12, 202452:17
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 43 | 2023: A Data Science Year in Review
Jan 16, 202401:56:23
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 42 | Unlocking Customer Insights with RFM
Dec 11, 202340:04
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 41 | Incident Response, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Break Production
Nov 13, 202346:50
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 40 | Platform Abuse and Misuse
Oct 13, 202343:31
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 39 | Are you going to science fair?
Sep 12, 202301:07:16
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 38 | Production 101
Aug 09, 202342:01
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 37 | How research works (part 1)
Jul 12, 202346:13
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 36 | There's No Place Like Home (Page)
Jun 06, 202342:09
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 35 | How to become a data scientist
May 04, 202339:43
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 34 | Books every data scientist should read (vol. 3)
Apr 11, 202344:20
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 33 | How to found a (data science) team

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 33 | How to found a (data science) team

Listen to the full episode on Anchor, or in your favorite podcast distribution platform!

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

Starting from scratch

We’ve talked about a lot of aspects of data science on this podcast — building software features, conducting research, learning new methods and skills, recruiting new members — but there’s one we’ve always avoided: building a new team from the ground up. A large reason for that is personnel — while your cohosts may be intrepid, they are not experts in this area.

This month, we bring on two people who are: Eric Silberstein and Ezra Freedman, who founded the Data Science team at Klaviyo. We draw on their wealth of experience, knowledge, and lessons learned the hard way while founding a young team.

As you might expect, these lessons extend beyond data science teams in particular — whether you’re founding another team or starting a new business, or looking to join a team in its early stages, you might be able to learn from our discussions, such as:

  • How setting concrete goals is key for a new team
  • How to think about your first hire, and your next five
  • How to steer a team through large organizational changes while maintaining its culture and essence
“When you view the world, do you think of it as ‘if-then’ statements, or do you tend to think of it as some sort of function to optimize? Our team needed both.”
- Eric Silberstein, VP of Data Science


Read the full writeup on Medium!


Mar 07, 202357:39
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 32 | How iOS 15 changed the world (and data science answered)
Feb 07, 202339:46
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 31 | 2022: A Data Science Year in Review
Jan 11, 202301:06:10
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 30 | These Are a Few of our Favorite Tools
Dec 06, 202251:39
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 29 | Detecting the Unexpected

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 29 | Detecting the Unexpected

Nov 08, 202242:59
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 28 | Our Favorite Data Science Project
Oct 04, 202248:01
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 27 | NLP Conversations at Scale

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 27 | NLP Conversations at Scale

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

Using NLP to communicate at scale

Last episode, we discussed the history and practice of natural language processing, or NLP. This month, we’re here to discuss an exciting and cutting-edge application: using NLP to help businesses converse with their customers at scale. See the power of NLP in action as we talk with NLP experts on the Conversation AI team at Klaviyo about:

  • How NLP enables a qualitative shift in how businesses communicate
  • What intent classification is and why it matters
  • Tips on tailoring NLP to a highly specific use case
“There’s a lot of ways to think about the term ‘intent’. One way is what is the customer saying, and you can assign some sort of value to that. But the real intent that we’re interested in is what response are they hoping to get.”
- David Lustig, Data Scientist

See the full show notes on Medium!

Sep 07, 202241:47
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 26 | NLP: Foundations and History
Aug 02, 202249:53
Klaviyo Data Science EP 25 | Using A/B testing to optimize your strategy
Jul 07, 202238:52
Klaviyo Data Science EP 24 | Changing the subject (line)

Klaviyo Data Science EP 24 | Changing the subject (line)

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

Using data science to help people write

Using machine learning models to generate text, images, and other creative objects is, as they say, a bit of a hot topic right now. There are examples of models like this in action all across the internet and across different fields and disciplines. Today, we discuss one of those fields in more depth: marketing. In particular, the Klaviyo data science team recently released the Subject Line Assistant tool, which helps marketers craft better subject lines. We take a close look at that tool, how it works, and the thinking behind it to examine what it looks like to use AI to help a human write. We’ve brought on four experts from Klaviyo, and you’ll hear about subject lines from a variety of angles, including:

  • What a subject line is, and why it’s arguably the most important part of an email
  • What holds people back from writing great subject lines and how the team went about solving those problems
  • How a specialized human-in-the-loop model for a highly specific context can look
“Subject lines are a very unique type of text generation problem. We’re not asking for a short story where there’s a lot of leeway to really hit a home run — you have a limited amount of space to communicate a brand message, communicate what the email is communicating, make a connection with your audience, and encourage them to interact.” - Josh Villarreal, Data Scientist

Head over to the full show notes to see all the information about this episode!

Jun 09, 202240:59
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 23 | How to write (good) code

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 23 | How to write (good) code

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

Writing code for computers and people

No matter what sort of data science work you do, it’s fairly inevitable that you’ll have to write code to accomplish your goals. For substantial projects, it’s also fairly inevitable that you’ll have to work with other people to see them to completion. As anyone who’s dived into a legacy code base can tell you, writing code that other people (and yourself in the future) can understand is both an essential skill to have and a difficult practice to master. This episode, we talk specifics about improving your coding skills. We’ve brought on four software engineering experts from Klaviyo, and you’ll hear about writing good code from a variety of angles, including:

  • What exactly is good code?
  • The biggest misconceptions that come with writing code
  • How to prepare for your first code review
  • Our panel’s top tips for improving your coding skills, tailored to your level of experience
“You don’t have to make a perfect work of art. It doesn’t have to be bug-free. But it should absolutely be an act of polite and intelligible communication for the next person who will interpret what you create.” - Zac Bentley, Lead Site Reliability Engineer
May 12, 202250:19
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 22 | Data Privacy & Security

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 22 | Data Privacy & Security

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

What are data privacy and security?

Data privacy and security are huge and hugely important topics — in all likelihood, you already know a little about them if you’re reading this intro. But they are both crucial to any good data science work, and this month we explore the fundamentals of both topics: why data privacy and security are necessary to deliver the value you promise your customers, who they matter the most to, and how to build privacy and security into your own data science work. The panel includes some of the foremost experts on the topics at Klaviyo from data science, engineering, and security and risk governance, so you’ll get to hear about these topics from a variety of angles, including:

  • How approaches to data privacy that seem intuitive can fail, and fail spectacularly
  • The consequences of not taking privacy and security carefully enough
  • How to make people actively want to work within the security environment you set up
“The worst case is that you violate your customers’ trust. And if you think about personal relationships you have where someone has violated your trust, it’s really hard to build that back.” - Dom Lombardi, Security Risk and Compliance Manager Learn More

For the full show notes, see the writeup on Medium.

Apr 05, 202240:39
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 21 | Insight for Sore Eyes
Mar 10, 202244:23
Klaviyo Data Science EP 19 | 2021: A Data Science Year in Review
Mar 09, 202242:01
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 20 | Making the right (customer) call
Mar 07, 202242:03
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 18 | Sparking User Creativity with Showcase

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 18 | Sparking User Creativity with Showcase

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

Fuel for the Creative Fire

It’s no secret: being creative is hard. Creativity requires time and energy, at the bare minimum, and lacking creativity can spiral into writer’s block and other such conditions. That may be okay if you’re just sending out a tweet here or there — but what if your core user base consists of people who need to be creative, day in and day out? The Creative team at Klaviyo recently tackled the problem of helping users get inspired to create content, and I sat down to discuss the thinking that went into the resulting feature, Showcase. You’ll hear about the development process for Showcase, but also about the underlying problems that Showcase is trying to solve and the process of coming up with a solution like Showcase. Specific topics include:

  • Using data science to answer questions that seem simple… even when they aren’t
  • Ensuring data privacy in solutions that have to scale
  • Controversial sandwiches, and why they make great marketing tools
“There are actually a lot of sites where you can subscribe to literally every single email that a company sends out… but you have no sense of: did these emails do well? What about them was good? Is this something I should copy? It’s just throwing out a bunch of data with no context or insight whatsoever.” 
— Charlie Natoli, Senior Data Scientist See the full episode writeup, including links and who's who, on Medium.
Nov 29, 202141:08
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 17 | The Power of Back-of-the-Envelope Math
Nov 03, 202145:08
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 16 | Using Data Science to Answer Tough Questions (feat. Plytrix)

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 16 | Using Data Science to Answer Tough Questions (feat. Plytrix)

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

Solving difficult problems with data science

This month, we talk with Shane Suazo, the founder of Plytrix Analytics, about using data science to drive efficient business growth. Shane and Plytrix work with Vital Proteins, and we dive deep into their story and highlight the places where using specific — and powerful — data science techniques helped accelerate a growth opportunity into a growth story. You’ll hear about all that and more, including:

  • Establishing a single source of truth as a foundation for advanced analyses
  • Preventing churn with minimal cost
  • The most important advice for translating general data science techniques to the reality of a specific business
“It’s enabled Vital Proteins to send more timely messages with more relevant offers — offers that are better-tailored to our high-value customers specifically.”
 — Shane Suazo, Plytrix Links
About Klaviyo

Klaviyo empowers creators to own their own destiny and helps growth-focused ecommerce brands drive more sales with super-targeted, highly relevant email, SMS, Facebook, and Instagram marketing. Interested? We’re always looking for great people to join our team.

Who’s who

Edited by: Michael Lawson

Logo by: Griffin Drigotas, Ally Hangartner from Klaviyo Design

Oct 05, 202134:27
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 15 | Books every data scientist should read (vol. 2)

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 15 | Books every data scientist should read (vol. 2)

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

(More) required reading for data science

A question we frequently get asked is: what books should I read to be a better data scientist/machine learning engineer? This may not surprise you, but there isn’t just one answer — in fact, we spent an entire episode talking about three ways to level up your data science knowledge and skills. This month, we’re back with three more:

  • One of the foremost foundational texts for understanding machine learning models in a statistical way
  • A survey course for a broad variety of machine learning models, with the opportunity to go in depth on topics like deep learning
  • A foundational text in designing and analyzing experiments — both in ideal scenarios and in cases where the standard assumptions aren’t met
Mentioned this episode

We discuss the following books and courses in this episode:

About Klaviyo

Klaviyo helps growth-focused ecommerce brands drive more sales with super-targeted, highly relevant email, Facebook, and Instagram marketing. Interested? We’re always looking for great people to join our team.

Who’s who

Edited by: Michael Lawson

Logo by: Griffin Drigotas, Ally Hangartner from Klaviyo Design

Sep 08, 202137:32
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 14 | Data Science in the Wild (feat. Super Coffee and Lunar Solar Group)
Aug 03, 202126:08
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast Ep 13 | How to run a product experiment
Jul 19, 202134:09
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast Ep 12 | How data science teams (should) grow
Jun 08, 202141:46
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast Ep 11 | Books every data scientist should read (vol. 1)

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast Ep 11 | Books every data scientist should read (vol. 1)

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

Required reading for data science

A question we frequently get asked is: what books should I read to be a better data scientist/machine learning engineer? This may not surprise you, but there isn’t just one answer — depending on the skills you have, your knowledge base, the point of your career that you’re in, and many other factors, there are many books you could read that will help you learn more. This month, we cover several ways to improve the skills you need to contribute to a data science team. You’ll hear about all that and more, including:

  • Object-oriented programming, how to think about it practically, and how it can help anyone on a data science team
  • The ethics of machine learning and AI, and why understanding AI ethics is one of your most powerful tools
  • How Pac-Man delivers some of the most powerful data science insights of our time
Mentioned this episode

Some more reading or viewing that we mention in this episode:

Contact us

The best place to reach the podcast is by messaging me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lawson_m_t.

Apr 08, 202143:27
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 10 | Once in a (customer) lifetime
Mar 23, 202131:49
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 9 | Measuring up with benchmarks
Feb 17, 202133:40
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 8 | 2020: a data science year in review
Jan 19, 202146:58
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 7 | Laying a Stable Engineering Foundation
Dec 10, 202040:33
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 6 | Navigating Seasonality in E-commerce
Nov 06, 202045:06
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 5 | How to recommend products and influence people

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 5 | How to recommend products and influence people

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

Recommender systems: how do they work?

We get recommendations for all sorts of things today: routes to take when we drive, places to eat, books to read, petitions to sign, and of course, things to buy. We take a deeper look at the task of making the data science and software systems that dispense useful recommendations at scale, with a special focus on recommending ecommerce products. You’ll hear from data scientists and engineers about:

  • The best (and worst) recommendations we’ve ever gotten
  • How the recommendation systems you take for granted actually work under the hood
  • Why dining room tables are basically the same thing as people’s favorite colors
Oct 05, 202046:50
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 4 | What Makes Reporting Good?

Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 4 | What Makes Reporting Good?

Welcome back to the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This episode, we dive into…

What makes a report good?

Data-centric teams likely take it as a given that good reporting is a key to living a happy life, but what exactly makes a report good? We dive into the topic of reporting and discuss ways to make a report exceed expectations. You’ll hear from data scientists and product designers about:

  • Why bad reports may be worse than no reports
  • Why good reports may be more like the movie Inception than you think
  • How to design reports with your target audience in mind
Sep 03, 202041:10
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 3 | Behind the curtain with form A/B testing
Aug 06, 202036:17
Klaviyo Data Science Podcast EP 2 | Starting out in Data Science
Jul 07, 202039:30
Episode 1: How to do research (in a pandemic)

Episode 1: How to do research (in a pandemic)

We’re excited to unveil the first episode of the Klaviyo Data Science podcast! This podcast is intended for all audiences who love data science--veterans and newcomers alike, from any field, we’re all here to learn and grow our data science skills.

We’re jumping right into the action with this episode. This is a deep dive into research in action. We’ll learn about what’s happening in the world of ecommerce in the wake of COVID-19, and more importantly how we figured out what’s happening. We’ll dig into the whole research funnel, from forming a hypothesis, to analyzing and learning, to taking what you’ve learned and iterating again.

Also in this episode:

  • Mastering dinner table conversations with friends and family
  • Using automation to win friends and influence marketers
  • How to smell good in quarantine

Want to learn more about Klaviyo? Check us out at www.klaviyo.com!


Jun 03, 202041:13