Alternative Data Weekly #257
Theme: Data assets & human workflows; monetize some data, ignore others
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QUOTES
“It used to be that you set your data management, and you held to your policies, and you’d review those once every year or two, that has completely changed with generative AI. Data management has to be much more dynamic, equitable and secure — but it also has to be deeply integrated into the organization itself.” - Marina Kelly, Chief Information Security Officer, City of Raliegh, NC
News
Pods
Charts
Final Thoughts (Give & Take)
#1 – Alex Boden of Asymmetrix published Everything is a Data Business - on Kroll-StepStone Private Credit Benchmarks. September 2025.
My Take: There is an uptick in firms wanting to explore the data assets they have in-house to determine if monetizing those data assets is an option. I have argued in the past the process you must go through to evaluate your data’s value (organize the data, determine the governance standards, etc) is of value whether you ultimately externally monetize the data or not.
Related: Alternata’s The 5 Myths of Data Monetisation. September 2025.
#2 – Steve Towns published Strong Data Practices Support Decision-Making and AI Adoption. September 2025.
My Take: There is a ton of value that can be created in government with better use of existing data. Of course, the government needs to lead with privacy and governance and typically takes the role of follower rather than leader when it comes to technology advancement and adoption. States and local municipalities are just now upgrading data infrastructure to support future needs.
#3 – Julie Bedard, Elizabeth Lucero, Ruth Ebeling, Frank Breitling, Consuelo Garcia-Garcia, and Ayush Sakhuja of BCG published AI Is Moving Faster Than Your Workforce Strategy. Are You Ready?. September 2025.
My Take: AI is opening up a host of more interesting job opportunities. One theme is people can focus less on the “hos” and more on the “why” and “what” … problems I tend to think are more interesting to work on. There in an increasing focus on workflows and presses as people take a step back and think about how AI will change their workplace.
BONUS: Marco Castillo published In Favor of Not Being Data Driven. September 2025. “Being ‘not data driven’ doesn’t mean being careless. It means refusing to be trapped by data. It means valuing intuition, creativity, and long-term perspective alongside analysis. It means knowing when to listen to numbers and when to ignore them.”
What else I am reading:
CDO Trends published The Data You Wrote Off Just Got a Second Life. September 2025.
Ryan Wang of Fast Company published Good AI innovation means focusing on workflow not cutting jobs. September 2025.
Michael Spencer published How do normal people view Generative AI technology?. September 2025.
Vin Vashishta published Papers Worth Reading 9/15/2025. September 2025.
Tom Fox published A friend for the compliance officer: Co-thinking with AI. September 2025.
Thani Shamsi published An Exciting New Chapter for Monda: Introducing Monda Share. September 2025.
James Butcher of Solomon published Synthetic Data is Transforming Market Research. September 2025.
Daniel Goldberg published a follow-up to his poll on moving earnings disclosures from 4x to 2x per year.
Eagle Alpha published a summary of their September 17th NY conference.
Source: Ethan Kho of the Odds on Open podcast published an interview with Vinesh Jha. Ex-PDT Partners Director on How Small Trading Firms Can Still Compete. September 2025.
My Take: Odds on Open is a new podcast for me…always looking for good new sources.
It was good to hear the origin story of Extract Alpha (Minute 11). There was an opportunity to help the newer “alternative data” vendors get to market. The opportunity when starting Extract Alpha was that Vinesh had unique experience from the buy-side that he could leverage when helping new data vendors prepare for going to market.
They discussed crowded trades & basics around quant trading. Vinesh suggested signals get crowded more slowly than people expect.
Three datasets Vinesh described as good for forecasting earnings (this is where the largest alpha lives):
Earnings call transcript offering (common data; what you do with this data is the important part)
Detailed earnings estimate data from the sell side
Estimize (crowd sources earnings estimates) … Extract Alpha acquired in 2021.
Highlights (47-minute run time)
Minute 01:00 – interview starts; PDT quant quake 2007.
Minute 05:00 – understanding model failures & how to react; no models are perfect.
Minute 09:00 – importance of a good culture.
Minute 11:00 – the founding of Extract Alpha.
Minute 15:30 – quant quake and crowded trades; how is this different today?
Minute 19:00 – what are the most interesting datasets for generating alpha?
Minute 32:00 – starting a new hedge fund?
Minute 36:00 – Vinesh’s thoughts on mid-career shifts.
Minute 40:00 – competing against the big guys.
Minute 44:00 – what separates exceptional quants from those who don’t last.
Source: Neudata published The Future of Alternative and Market Data 2025. September 2025.
This is the result of 171 responses from both data buyers & sellers between June & August 2025. This was a more positive report than in recent years. 89% reporting they expect spending to increase or stay the same this year.
What about AI? The use of AI for internal efficiency by data buyers has nearly doubled over the last year.
Bonus: Ramsey Shaffer published AI Hype Cycle. September 2025.
Give & Take
I really enjoyed this sentiment from Joe Reis (Givers and Takers).
“Ironically, the long game is sometimes the shortest path to success. Build your audience first. Build trust first. Then worry about monetization. That’s the giver mindset.”
I’ve spent the past 5 years producing the ADW for free (I do have about 30 people paying me monthly, plus the weekly sponsor … THANK YOU!).
My former employer, ModuleQ, “dissolved” about a month ago. Since then, this community has provided me with a ton of wonderful opportunities. Everything from a simple check-in to an introduction to cool new roles.
Thanks!