The Test Set by Posit

A Posit podcast for data science junkies, anomaly hunters, and those who play outside the confidence interval. Hosted by Michael Chow, with co-hosts Wes McKinney & Hadley Wickham.

The Test Set by Posit is a technology podcast hosted by Posit, PBC, with 28 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Posit, PBC hosts The Test Set by Posit, a technology show with 28 episodes published.

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  Episode #28

  Let the Agent Cook — with Trevor Manz

  Aug 10, 20261h 11mS1

  Trevor Manz went from measuring plant apertures by hand in a wet lab to building the notebook that lets coding agents take the wheel. The creator of anywidget and founding engineer at marimo ( marimo.io/pair ) popped into The Test Set to spill on reactive notebooks, why marimo pair threw out every MCP tool but one, and what agents really want out of a data environment. This conversation also features a jacket bouncer, a hidden Python API, and Michael's slow-motion war with the word "marimo." What's inside: Cell order doesn't matter in a reactive Python notebook Wet-lab pipettes and Harvard's visualization group, via Raspberry Pi The problem with building beautiful tools nobody actually uses The reason marimo pair deleted every agent tool but one Code mode: the hidden API humans aren't supposed to touch What happens when you ship the API your LLM hallucinated

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  Episode #27

  The Answer Was Never Us — with Leilani Battle

  Jul 27, 20261h 14mS1

  Leilani Battle studies how software shapes what we see and believe. The University of Washington professor and co-director of the UW Interactive Data Lab talks with Michael, Hadley, and Wes about an experiment that manipulated people using nothing but loading speed, and why AI models don't seem to recommend charts the way the community that studies charts actually does. Other highlights: rationality's blind spots and a thorough disc golf origin story. What's inside: Loading spinners that quietly change what people find AI models that don't recommend charts like humans do The blurry line between databases and human factors A behavior-change experiment for building fairer models Rationality's role in producing unethical outcomes Disc golf origin story A vegan pancake recipe

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  Episode #26

  Curiosity, duty, and existential dread — with Joe Cheng

  Jul 13, 20261h 6mS1

  Joe Cheng is the CTO of Posit and the creator of Shiny. He joins Michael and Hadley to talk about why he almost walked away from AI work entirely over ethics concerns and what it takes to lead a team that didn't necessarily choose you. Plus, why saying yes to everyone is a worse strategy than it sounds. Bonus: Hadley calls out Joe's people-pleasing in real time. What's inside: Joe's 2012 self-doubt spiral that accidentally created Shiny Why Joe almost quit working on AI entirely The "loaded guns" problem with releasing AI tools Hadley's blunt leadership style vs. Joe's people-pleasing Nobody actually wanted to make Joe CTO? Joe's take on curiosity, duty, and fear as motivators

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  Episode #25

  Confidently Incorrect — with Caitlin Colgrove

  Jun 29, 20261 hourS1

  <p>Caitlin Colgrove is the CTO of Hex, the data workspace for building and sharing data projects using SQL and Python that somehow counts a Sweetgreen chef as a power user. She joins Michael, Hadley, and Isabel to talk about what AI agents actually get wrong in data work (it's not the hallucinations, it's supreme overconfidence), why data teams aren't going anywhere, and how she thinks about building products for humans and agents at the same time.</p><p><b>What's inside</b></p>What Hex's Context Studio does, and why it's a data team's new jobMore code is now...

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  Episode #25

  Confidently Incorrect — with Caitlin Colgrove

  Jun 29, 20261 hourS1

  Caitlin Colgrove is the CTO of Hex, the data workspace for building and sharing data projects using SQL and Python that somehow counts a Sweetgreen chef as a power user. She joins Michael, Hadley, and Isabel to talk about what AI agents actually get wrong in data work (it's not the hallucinations, it's supreme overconfidence), why data teams aren't going anywhere, and how she thinks about building products for humans and agents at the same time. What's inside What Hex's Context Studio does, and why it's a data team's new job More code is now written in Hex by agents than by humans "My job is to vouch for the correctness of the answer" — redefining the data team The vibe-coded CEO PR is coming for your data team (if it hasn’t already) Soulsborne games as couple's therapy, aka, the Elden Ring co-op report

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