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Airbnb Is Running Its Own Internal University To Teach Data Science (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the inside-job dept.

In an effort to fill the demand for trained data scientists, Airbnb will be running its own university-style program, complete with a custom course-numbering system. Since traditional online programs like Coursera and Udacity weren't getting the job done because they weren't tailored to Airbnb's internal data and tools, the company "decided to design a bunch of courses of its own around three levels of instruction for different employee needs," reports TechCrunch. From the report: 100-level classes on data-informed decision making have been designed to be applicable to all teams, including human resources and business development. Middle-tier classes on SQL and Superset have enabled some non-technical employees to take on roles as project managers, and more intensive courses on Python and machine learning have helped engineers brush up on necessary skills for projects. Since launching the program in Q3 2016, Airbnb has seen the weekly active users of its internal data science tools rise from 30 to 45 percent. A total of 500 Airbnb employees have taken at least one class -- and Airbnb has yet to expand the program to all 22 of its offices.

15 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. Call me ignorant but.. by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    What is 'data science' ?

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    1. Re:Call me ignorant but.. by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

      What is 'data science' ?

      How to leverage "Big Data" to drive sales?

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    2. Re:Call me ignorant but.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Here's an example: What are the most popular programming languages today, and which ones are 'hot' (gaining traction)?

      If you were given that assignment (and your answer couldn't be a link to someone else's analysis), think of the steps you'd have to go through to come up with the answer, particularly if the results weren't merely for entertainment and trolling. Let's say the assignment came from Tim O'Reilly so he could figure out what books to publish over the next year. But you don't have the time or money to commission a survey of programmers, and you couldn't find results of any such survey on the web. You found plenty of sources of raw, transaction-level data (github commits, stackoverflow posts, etc). though.

      That's data science.

    3. Re:Call me ignorant but.. by Jzanu · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Basically it is a new name for statistics done by computer scientists who don't understand sampling or any theory for the models they are applying. That means most real requirements of those models aren't addressed unless a statistician later looks over their work. There are some add-ons however, and things like cross-validation while logical extensions of the underlying models are typically done with computational tools. The focus is typically on web scrapping with poor consideration for the types of errors that exist, and a large part of faith based belief in a fake census style approach to obtaining meaning from whatever data is gathered.

    4. Re:Call me ignorant but.. by ark1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      "A data scientist is a statistician who lives in San Francisco"

    5. Re:Call me ignorant but.. by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What is 'data science' ?

      Statistics when your sample size is your population.

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      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    6. Re:Call me ignorant but.. by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      I guess I don't understand what a company like Air BnB would want with specialists like that. I thought it would be up to the house owners to figure out what the demographics are.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    7. Re:Call me ignorant but.. by doom · · Score: 1

      Data Science is a collection of highly scientific techniques for convincing companies your ads are totally worth buying. The truly advanced forms of Data Science are capable of convincing companies that their impression that they're losing money on your ads is completely mistaken.

    8. Re:Call me ignorant but.. by hipp5 · · Score: 1

      I guess I don't understand what a company like Air BnB would want with specialists like that. I thought it would be up to the house owners to figure out what the demographics are.

      AirBnB makes their money from getting people into rooms. Yes, they could leave the science to homeowners, but it's not like most homeowners are going to be particularly skilled at that field (or have access to larger data sources). So it's in AirBnB's interest to do the science.

    9. Re:Call me ignorant but.. by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      What happens when AirBnB wants to increase their profit margin without letting either party know? They'll have to obscure how much gets paid by the customer and how much the owner gets.

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      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  2. Finally by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    The cozy duopoly of DeVry, Trump-U and Harvard will broken!

    (At first I typed dupology. If it was a word it'd be appropriate)

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  3. There used to be a name for this sort of program.. by 3ryon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wow, the IT world has changed so much that a company investing in training its employees makes the front page of Slashdot.

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    Kind thoughts do not change the world
  4. Job Training by twistedcubic · · Score: 1

    They're so disturbed by the idea of on-the-job training they don't even realize they're doing it.

    Wow! We have courses to train our employees how to use our tools and data! How revolutionary! This is some real 21st century shit!

  5. Re:"Training" their employees? What visionaries!! by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    That's unfair. You missed out "wrong gender".

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  6. University? No by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    Just no. Stop calling it that. It isn't.

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    Just another day in Paradise