Welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Michael Copeland. Big data is evolving. It's moving from the sole domain of the high priests of data science to something that practically every organization, big and small, and every group within that organization can get its hands on. So what happens now? The implications of the democratization of big data are bigger than just big,

says Pratt Moway, CEO and founder of Kizena. Implication of big data, cloud, making it really

democratic, is access to everyone, flattening of the organization, collaborative culture,

and ultimately faster decision-making.

And it's not just the corporate world that will benefit, he adds.

Having access to big data tools will change how all kinds of organizations,

including government agencies and other social services, operate and solve their particular

problems.

You know, like in New York City, I think this was New Year's Eve,

and they collected statistics on random gunfire,

and they used that data to predict where they should deploy police

so that they could ensure safety, right? And what they realized is that

they drastically cut down on random gunfire, but they needed fewer police actually to be deployed.

So you can actually cut costs, increase safety, all because you're smart about, you know,

collecting data.

Joining Pratt on the pod to describe this changing world of big data in the cloud is also A16

's Peter Levine.

If every company and every organization is becoming a data-driven company, he says, it makes

sense to start to put that data to work.

This not only democratizes the use of big data, it democratizes the organizations that use big data,

such that it's not limited to only the Fortune 2000 who have the capabilities to set up these

large data centers.

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