Raw data doesn't spark joy

Raw data doesn't spark joy

From Standard Deviation Podcast by Juliana Jackson, Simo Ahava

March 8, 2026 · 53 min · Season 5 · Episode 2

About this episode

Juliana and Simo discuss data sovereignty in Europe, the AI hype cycle, and interview Johan van de Werken about the GA4 Data Form project.

In this episode, Juliana and Simo kick things off with a candid conversation about data sovereignty in Europe. Why the EU's reliance on US cloud infrastructure is becoming a real business risk, and what tools and trends are emerging to address it. They also take a look at the AI hype cycle, questioning whether vibe-coded startups and agent-based social networks are genuinely innovative or just noise. Johan van de Werken joins them in this episode to walk through the origin and vision of GA4 Data Form, an open-source project that transforms messy raw GA4 BigQuery exports into clean, analysis-ready tables with minimal SQL knowledge required. Johan shares how the project evolved from a community contribution into a bootstrapped EU-based business, what the free vs. premium tiers offer, and where the roadmap is heading (Google Ads, Search Console, and beyond). Whether you're a marketer just getting started with BigQuery or a seasoned analytics engineer, this episode will change how you think about your data pipeline.

People in this episode

Hosts: Juliana Jackson, Simo Ahava

Guest: Johan van de Werken

Topics covered

  • data sovereignty
  • cloud infrastructure
  • AI hype cycle
  • analytics
  • BigQuery
  • open-source projects

Keywords

  • data sovereignty
  • cloud infrastructure
  • AI
  • BigQuery
  • GA4 Data Form
  • open-source
  • analytics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: EU, GA4 Data Form, Google Ads, Search Console

Places: Europe, US

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