Techstars Startup Week Seattle 2018

What drives our data-driven decisions is it a better customer experience or the bottom line of a business? The big data we analyze, slice and dice represent real human interactions and or tools that impact human day to day living. Being data-driven impacts decisions that drive these real-world transactions that affect people not computers. Whether it be a customer, a patient or a stakeholder, the decisions our algorithms, dashboards, and systems help us make impact us. How being data-driven impacts the end-user isn't always considered. Instead, the parameters and goals of the business often come first. This leads to many of the current problems we are seeing arise today in big tech and in small companies. The push to be more data-driven to help businesses perform better can sometimes leave stakeholders behind.

At the end of the day, our decisions can't just be for the benefit of businesses and entities. We need to consider how the algorithms we create impact the daily lives of those who interact with it.