Debunking the myths of Big Data

Despite the media hype about big data, the sad reality is that no one actually truly understands it, writes Sheji Ho in Tech in Asia

Harvard Business Review calls it a “management revolution”. McKinsey released a whopping 156 page report touting it as “the next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity.” Palantir, a start-up that used it to help the US government track down Osama Bin Laden, is now one of the hottest companies in Silicon Valley valued at $20 billion based on their latest funding round. 
 

Despite all the media hype about big data, the sad reality is that no one actually truly understands it.
 

Mythbusters: Debunking Big Data myths

Big Data requires an expensive enterprise platform

The biggest lie in big data is that it’s complicated and tech-heavy. It’s also the primary reason why companies fail to adopt big data. The notion that big data requires a tech-savvy professional puts off a lot of people and prevents them from taking initial baby steps towards working with data in their organisations. On the other hand, there are those that focus too much on technology for technology’s sake. Big data platforms are a means to achieve business goals, not an end in itself.

Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist who founded Paypal and Palantir, argues against over-emphasising technology.

In his bestseller 'Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future', Thiel says, “we’ve let ourselves become enchanted by big data only because we exoticize technology. We’re impressed with small feats accomplished by computers alone but we ignore big achievements from complementarity because the human contribution makes them less uncanny.”

Only until people see through this smokescreen of big data complexity created by what we’d like to call the “Big Data-Industrial Complex” – the sum of companies with three-letter acronym names that peddle big data technology products – we’ll be able to move on towards addressing the real challenges of big data.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.