Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal (11/29) tells the story of the prospective Facebook IPO, and prior IPO’s from LinkedIn, Pandora, and Groupon.  Forbes (11/27) has an interview with Monica Rogati – Senior Data Scientist at LinkedIn.  There’s a connection.

When we started statistics.com almost 10 years ago, that job title “Data Scientist” was not around.  Nor were those companies, which are entirely dependent on extracting information from data.  A big part of their success is using machine learning and statistical techniques to match people to other people, to music they will like, to things they might buy,  to jobs they might want, etc.

Check out Monica’s interview here.  The power of “good technical skills” + “good communication skills” is nothing new.  It has long been true that statisticians and programmers with both have a leg up in the job market.  What’s striking about today’s world is that, for the first time, the “data scientist” is the keeper of the crown jewels.  Turning data into information is the principal asset of today’s fastest growing firms.