What The Hell Does Data Is The New Oil Mean

On Saturday I think I mentioned the David Friedberg thing about how data is the new oil, and I’ve been noodling on what exactly that might mean every 90 minutes or so since. At face value it’s pretty obvious, right? Data has always been a global commodity, but knowing how or why we know something is about to be the most valuable thing on the planet thanks to A.I.’s incredibly high ceiling for facilitating deep fakes and hallucinating facts that are not even remotely true. I don’t know who it will be, but someone will probably make a trillion dollars just off of data verification services at scale. And we’re also moving into a section of human history where data synthesis previously only dreamt about will become not only possible but accessible. A.I. might cure cancer in a week once its allowed to crunch the numbers on 100 million cases of a particular type from across the globe at once. Disease is always orderly we just have a hard time recognizing the patterns.

But there’s a less obvious thing here that I’ve been getting pretty insanely stoked about for the last few days as well. I don’t think we have to work on the macro stuff for data to be incredibly helpful and important to us moving forward in a way it was never really able to be in the past, and rather than ruminating on the potential endlessly I decided to send over two examples of what I mean.

Meet The Nutrient Density Chart. This thing is fucking sick. The guy who made it spent 7 years crunching numbers from nutritional research all over the globe, and in the process created the best functional nutrition chart that’s ever been made (at least as far as I can tell). Imagine caring about the food pyramid after looking through this lmao. It’d be amazing for him to build an API for this and let nutrition and health apps leverage his work (for money). This data set matched up with a system that knows your specific health requirements would create the dopest healthy eating/dieting/etc plan ever. What goes into our bodies has the most to do with how we feel and function, and a deep dive into what our natural foods actually contain is a tremendously valuable undertaking. I always thought we already knew all of this stuff, but based on some stuff I saw on this project that seems not to be the case and I’m incredibly grateful he dug in.

Lodged Out continues to be one of my favorite companies ever, and that’s partially for the dataset it’s gathered. Bobbilee is probably the most knowledgeable person in the U.S. on top shelf retreat centers, bungalows, cabins, lodges, bed and breakfasts, and any other structure in North America that helps you actually unplug and restore. And she’s the perfect example of why human experience is always going to beat the value prop of information without connection. There aren’t many people who will travel and stay somewhere before recommending it, and building a database that way is painstaking enough to ensure that the end result is bulletproof. It’s amazing to me that the best service for planning your next retreat is built on the experiences and subject matter expertise of someone who just cares a lot about you getting off your phone.

These two came to mind because I think each of us walks around in incredibly interesting and valuable sets of data each day without knowing it, either because we may not know what it is we actually love or care about, or we may think it doesn’t matter or isn’t something we can make money doing. And while I don’t know the best way to surface or use each particular grouping of day to day data, I know that someone probably has an idea or two for it or is sitting somewhere wishing someone else did. I don’t mean this in a Mr Rogers geewillickers sort of way, I just mention it because I think this space of tiny masteries and niche obsessions is going to get insanely cool and huge and you very much know enough about something to get in on it. That’s all for now, work ate my brain today and I’m gonna go for a walk with my dogs. See you all tomorrow.