Big Data: How It Affects Our Livelihood

Charlie Rose interviewed last night Larry Fink, the Chairman and CEO of Blackrock, the largest asset management firm in the world which administrates 3.5 trillions dollars.Yes, trillions.

Larry Fink, CEO and Chairman of Blackrock and one of the great minds from Wall Street

Mr. Fink, an UCLA alumni, is one of the most lucid voices I have ever heard.  I share with you what  I humbly learned.
Big Companies executives fear Big Data more than cyber-attacks
  • The markets in America reflect a lot of fear. We are bombarded with information that we can not make sense out of it. We can't decide whether this  Big Data information  is good or is bad.
  • As a result every CEO, government decision maker handling money only invests short term.  Some CEO's buy back shares to invest the cash in government bonds at 2% interest rate. Companies sit on lots of cash, too afraid to spend it. 
  • Banks have tons of money, they sit in the vaults without making loans. The banks want to make loans, but say someone who qualified for a loan in 2007, does no longer qualify. The companies who qualify, they do not need any loans as they have tons of cash already.
  • There is no growth. There are no jobs, companies re-organize, because by saving money they can live with smaller revenues and still show a profit. As there is no growth, the government deficit increases because we pay no taxes on the growth that did not happen.
  • This is vicious circle that we in North America must break, Mr. Fink says we are already energy self-sufficient in oil and gas, if we combine how technology dramatically increased the output in Mexico, US and Canada.

Mr Fink talked about many other topics, but I will stop here.

Based on his diagnostic of the situation - and he is the most qualified in the world to unlock where the illness is hiding - we must eliminate the fear of Big Data. Here are some quotes:
Big data is NOT about watching employees if they perform or not. or a Big Brother terrorizing  tool  This is a waste of time and a narrow vision.

What Big Data ,Machine Learning, data scientists and mathematicians must reach is a sufficient transparency, that will give any CEO and government official the confidence to make a decision.Big data is for the CEO  like a pair of prescription glasses just invented, empowering them to really see how make big money longer term,

I looked at Google Flu Trends Can I know whether I will get the flu or not, if I have had a flu shot? Do I know the probability in my area? Depending on what I need, this ingenious tool does not work of the shelf.

The way we process, promote and offer big data today is not useful enough. We are drown in oceans of big data,. We need to sail on top of it..

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