Summary

Joe Reis systematically dissects the recurring 'X is dead' trope in the data and tech industry, identifying six logical fallacies—false dichotomy, equivocation, straw man, category confusion, survivorship bias, and recency bias—that underpin these declarations. He argues that technologies rarely die; instead, functions persist while implementations evolve, and the real dynamic is accumulation rather than replacement. He closes by reframing the question away from 'is X dead?' toward more useful ones about automation, commoditization, and shifting abstraction boundaries.

Key Insight

The 'X is dead' framing confuses implementations with the functions they perform—functions persist on a slow clock while implementations evolve quickly, so the right questions are about what's being automated, commoditized, or repositioned, not whether a technology has a pulse.

Spicy Quotes (click to share)

• 8

  Excel is the dark matter of the business universe, and everyone pretends it isn't there while it quietly holds everything together.

• 7

  You can't escape the data model. Every data system has a physical implementation of a data model. The data model is the gravity you operate in. You're welcome to argue that gravity is overrated, but I wouldn't test the theory off a cliff.

• 9

  Attention is scarce, and nuance travels like shit through an algorithm.

• 4

  Technologies change constantly. The names of things might change. The functions they serve change on a much slower clock.

• 7

  You can automate the work, push it into another layer, hide it behind an abstraction, or rename it in a press release. You haven't made it disappear.

Tone

analytical, satirical