"Data systems fail even when they run smoothly: a warning"

"We've built incredible data systems. But we've forgotten how to trust them." As data products become embedded in core business operations, a dangerous assumption has taken hold: if the pipeline runs without errors, the data must be correct. It's not. I see this pattern repeatedly with clients, green checkmarks across dashboards while millions flow through systems built on subtly corrupted data. A successful run tells you the code executed. It doesn't tell you whether last Tuesday's revenue spike was real or a duplicate load. The problem is about to get worse. As we layer AI onto these systems, the distance between "it ran" and "it's right" will only widen. Graph - Michael Segner, 2023