On black holes, blackjack, and data storytelling

When you type “Data science is the new …” into Google, although the search engine doesn’t return “rock ‘n’ roll”, its top two suggestions are “oil” and “investment banking”, two of the most desirable, profit-making enterprises in the history of advanced capitalism. In 2012, a landmark article in the Harvard Business Review dubbed data science “the sexiest job of the 21st century”.