Small teams believe more data equals better AI—but more data also means higher cost, privacy risk, and slow projects. This episode builds the “Data Minimalist” playbook: a practical, privacy-first approach to get measurable AI value from the smallest useful dataset. Lyric opens with a founder vignette where trimming inputs sped an initiative to production and preserved trust. Nova defines the minimal signals that actually drive decisions (coarse identifiers, event labels, outcome tags), explains pseudonymization and retention heuristics, and shows how to choose what never to collect. Stryker presents scrappy engineering patterns—edge enrichment, hashed tokens, ephemeral evidence bundles, and local-first inference—that reduce API exposure and latency. Pulse closes with a 21-day pilot plan (owners, KPIs: precision of suggestions, data storage reduced, time-to-value) and three immediate plays listeners can run this week. Visit apexblue.com/data-minimalist for templates, scripts, and a redaction checklist. Stay smart, stay curious, and stay ahead.