The Motley Fool talks with Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith, one of Forbes' "Most Promising CEOs Under 35." Ryan's online data collection and analysis platform has enjoyed meteoric growth and success in its quest to "help companies be right."
A full transcript follows the video.
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Brendan Byrnes: Taking kind of a 30,000-foot view, big data era is here. How do you see it evolving over the next 5-10 years or so?
Ryan Smith: It's a question I get all the time. What does big data mean to you? I've sat on a couple of panels where they're discussing big data and everyone's describing it differently.
I think that the big data ... it's a problem. I don't think for many people it's the terabytes of data that people are worried about. It's more, not the depth but the breadth.
Now, there are companies that are worried about the depth of it, but most people I've talked to, it's more around, "We've got so much of it. How do we interpret it? How do we make it actionable?" That's the problem we're solving.
I believe in getting data fast. If I were to make an argument it would be that the most important data in your company -- or the stuff that you need -- is the data you don't have, which is, "What's the name of the new cruise ship?" "What should I do with this product?" because that's not sitting there.
How do you get it quickly, then how do you get that and make it actionable and have it in one spot that can integrate with all your other data initiatives? That's the problem that we're solving.
