When anyone can collect your data, who gets to decide whether they should?

Sarah Zabel spent 31 years in the Air Force and retired a two-star general in cyber and communications. She learned early that being able to gather data never settles whether you should.

She and Bob get into surveillance and the guardrails that keep it honest, how to read a statistic without getting played, and why she phones the researchers behind a study before she trusts it. Along the way: what it takes to think clearly in a partisan age.

The tools are new. The questions are old. And the answers shape how free we stay. Listen now.

[00:05:40] Two majors at the Academy, and why the pilot track was off the table

[00:07:20] The programming job in Japan that was really early analytics

[00:11:18] The one rule she keeps returning to about what data lets you do

[00:11:58] The line the Department of Defense is not allowed to cross

[00:14:48] Why the technology is new but the questions never are

[00:17:49] The forgotten 1960s data company that predicted our present

[00:23:58] Government is not a business, but it should be one thing

[00:29:24] The detail missing from Air Force records that reframes a heated debate

[00:44:16] The free tool that cracked open her hardest research question

[00:48:03] How she interrogates a headline-grabbing study before believing it

[00:51:21] Data, analysis, presentation: three levels most people blur into one

If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future by Jill Lepore

Fighting Chance, Sarah Zabel's award-winning book on the science of depression.

Google Scholar

National Institutes of Health

Flock cameras

Sarah Zabel is a retired U.S. Air Force major general and a 31-year veteran of the communications and cyber field, with assignments ranging from the National Security Agency to Vice Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency. A computer scientist by training, she is the author of Fighting Chance, an award-winning book on the science of depression, and is running as an independent candidate for U.S. Congress in Idaho's First District.

🔗 Website: Zabel for Congress | Author site

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Curious Data is an original production hosted by Bob Lytle. Brought to you by Centri Analytics. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.

Can the numbers tell you when it is time to bet on a long shot?

Michael Bridgford spent his early career crunching data as an investment banking analyst at William Blair. Now he is running for Congress as an independent in what may be the tightest district in the country. Bob asks the obvious question. What did the data actually say?

They dig into the numbers behind the decision, a House margin of two votes, a district once decided by six, and a voter base where independents outnumber both parties. Along the way they get into AI reshaping finance, why Iowa ranks second in the nation for data centers, and the counterintuitive research on how long a representative should really stay.

It is a conversation about reading the odds before you act, and what the numbers reveal about a system most people feel is broken. Listen now.

• [00:01:17] From a farm in the middle of nowhere to a career in finance
• [00:02:54] A 23-year-old analyst, 100-hour weeks, and a deal that involved Warren Buffett
• [00:04:28] How AI now does in minutes what a $300,000 analyst used to do
• [00:05:56] What government owes workers as AI reshapes the economy
• [00:07:44] The state AI law that is already on the books next door
• [00:10:48] Why attention has become more valuable than money in politics
• [00:15:02] The data point on Iowa data centers that surprised even the candidate
• [00:18:43] The numbers that made a long shot look like the right bet
• [00:22:25] A district decided by six votes, and why that changes the math
• [00:33:31] The case for term limits, starting with a 10 percent approval rating
• [00:39:18] A 50-year study on congressional seniority that defies common sense
• [00:45:14] The Gallup number that says nearly half the country is up for grabs

• William Blair, the investment firm where Michael began his career
• Claude, the AI assistant referenced on automating analyst work
• Gallup, the source for the independent voter figure

Michael Bridgford grew up on a family farm near the Quad Cities and built a career in finance, starting as an investment banking analyst at William Blair before moving into investments, sales, and distribution across the country. He lived in Chicago, Texas, and California before returning to the Quad Cities area, where he lives with his family. He is now running for Congress as an independent in Iowa, his first run for public office, making the case that the numbers point to a rare opening for a candidate outside the two parties.

🔗 Website | LinkedIn

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Curious Data is an original production hosted by Bob Lytle. Brought to you by Centri Analytics. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.

What if the smartest thing you bring to data is not an answer, but a better question?

Craig Simpson has spent 15 years at IDC learning to pull signal from messy, incomplete data. He left South Africa at 18, finished two degrees by correspondence while working full time, and kept walking away from the classroom for the real world.

In this episode, he and Bob get into why AI is often very wrong, why first-party human conversations still beat anything you can scrape, and how curiosity separates a real analyst from someone staring at a spreadsheet. Then the conversation takes a turn into wildlife, drones, and using data to fight rhino poaching across Southern Africa.

It is a case for the human edge in a world racing to automate it. Listen now.

• [00:05:45] The backwards career path: leaving university at 18 to build a life abroad
• [00:07:07] Finishing two degrees by correspondence while working full time
• [00:12:49] Why anyone who claims to know exactly where a market is heading is lying
• [00:15:39] First-party data vs the AI prompt, and why one always comes up short
• [00:18:11] The trait that separates a real analyst from someone staring at numbers
• [00:21:19] Why AI is often very, very wrong, and who has to catch it
• [00:23:18] Beyond connectivity: why telcos could compete with the hyperscalers
• [00:24:23] 6G being built with AI baked in from the start
• [00:27:47] Why the future data war moves to the skies above us
• [00:28:59] How the mobile phone, and now Starlink, changed everything in Africa
• [00:30:36] A live, unplanned data test: how many Africans have a smartphone
• [00:34:22] Using data and drones to fight rhino poaching
• [00:36:00] Why shutting down all tourism is not how you save the wildlife
• [00:40:40] What triggered the massive 2010 poaching spike
• [00:43:35] The family ledger Craig has kept every day for 20-plus years

IDC (International Data Corporation)

Starlink

Pew Research

Craig Simpson is a Research Director in IDC's Data & Analytics group, based in Prague and originally from Cape Town, South Africa. He has spent more than 15 years at IDC across multiple stints in technology market research, with a current focus on telecom operators and IT services. He left university early to build his career abroad, later finishing his studies by correspondence, and he brings a first-principles, endlessly curious approach to data. Outside of work, he supports wildlife and anti-poaching efforts across Africa, using data to help balance conservation and tourism.

🔗 LinkedIn | Website

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Learn More About What We Do: What we do

Curious Data is an original production hosted by Bob Lytle. Brought to you by Centri Analytics. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.

If AI can run a million tests a minute, what is the one thing only a human can do?

Bob Lytle sold his last company, took a pause, and came back with a question worth building a show around. If artificial intelligence is only as good as the data behind it, who decides which data to trust?

In this first episode, Bob shares why he built Curious Data, the three promises he is making to listeners, and the idea at the center of it all. Everybody is already a data analyst. He traces a career that runs from jingle producer to credit bureaus to political data, and lands on the one skill AI cannot replicate.

Curiosity is what turns messy information into better decisions, and it is the reason humans stay in charge. Listen now.

• [00:00:00] Why Bob hit pause after selling his company, and what he built next
• [00:01:39] The three promises behind every Curious Data episode
• [00:02:18] Data or gut: how to actually back up a decision
• [00:04:27] The listeners who marvel at the internet yet still cannot tell what is true
• [00:04:49] Where the phrase curious data came from, and the 10,000 hours idea behind it
• [00:06:09] The question a curious kid asks that a machine never will
• [00:06:31] The one thing that keeps humans in charge, no matter how fast AI gets
• [00:08:16] From jingle producer to Navy veteran
• [00:09:52] Musical data, credit scores, vote totals: why data is like air
• [00:10:54] The three challenges Bob wants you to hold him to

Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours idea

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Learn More About What We Do: What we do

Curious Data is an original production hosted by Bob Lytle. Brought to you by Centri Analytics. Production and editing by Podcast Your Brand.