2. Apple has a very large Product Marketing team who do extensive quantitive and qualitative research on what products they should make, features should be delivered etc. This is the same for Microsoft, Facebook etc. I worked at Apple and each team will have a Product Owner/Program Manager assigned who decides what is done where as Engineers decide how it is done.
3. Data Scientists aren't solely responsible for releasing more iPhone models or how many ads to show. Those sort of decisions are cross-functional involving Finance, Product, Marketing, Strategy etc.
4. Data Scientists are basically engineers. They largely do what they are told to do by the "business". So not sure why you seem to think they are root of all evil.
I think you’re missing the forest for the trees in my comment. I’m not really criticizing Data Science, the job function, but the field in general and the obsession over it.
Your last point kind of weighs in on a point I didn’t quite get to; that data can be found to reinforce any decision. If business wants to do X, they will have the data scientists prove to them that X is good. Data can be a huge force of tyranny in this way, this is where my disdain for the field comes from.
2. Apple has a very large Product Marketing team who do extensive quantitive and qualitative research on what products they should make, features should be delivered etc. This is the same for Microsoft, Facebook etc. I worked at Apple and each team will have a Product Owner/Program Manager assigned who decides what is done where as Engineers decide how it is done.
3. Data Scientists aren't solely responsible for releasing more iPhone models or how many ads to show. Those sort of decisions are cross-functional involving Finance, Product, Marketing, Strategy etc.
4. Data Scientists are basically engineers. They largely do what they are told to do by the "business". So not sure why you seem to think they are root of all evil.