Pelayo Arbués
@pelayoarbues.com
Head of Data Science at idealista.com | Film photographer | Ph.D. in Economics | Sharing my digital garden at pelayoarbues.com | Working full remote from the North of Spain
Just finished reading 3 Millones de Viviendas by @jorgegalindo.bsky.social. One of the sharpest takes on Spain’s housing crisis I’ve seen. Data, history, and a tough question: what kind of country do we want to build? www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/Tres-M... #realestate
October 8, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Just finished reading 3 Millones de Viviendas by @jorgegalindo.bsky.social. One of the sharpest takes on Spain’s housing crisis I’ve seen. Data, history, and a tough question: what kind of country do we want to build? www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/Tres-M... #realestate
Context engineering is the new AI buzzword. And here we go again: www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/Contex...
September 23, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Context engineering is the new AI buzzword. And here we go again: www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/Contex...
500 days reviewing highlights on @readwise.bsky.social!!!
May 20, 2025 at 8:18 PM
500 days reviewing highlights on @readwise.bsky.social!!!
I just shared a learning path guide for software developers looking to infuse AI into their products, tailored specifically to your needs, interests, and how deep you'd like to dive.
www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/AI-Lea...
www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/AI-Lea...
May 20, 2025 at 7:49 PM
I just shared a learning path guide for software developers looking to infuse AI into their products, tailored specifically to your needs, interests, and how deep you'd like to dive.
www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/AI-Lea...
www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/AI-Lea...
When we don’t know someone well, we tend to project intentions onto them, casting them as a character in a play they themselves are unaware exists.
April 12, 2025 at 7:17 PM
When we don’t know someone well, we tend to project intentions onto them, casting them as a character in a play they themselves are unaware exists.
Why software engineers should learn a bit of data science www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/Why-So... #databs
April 1, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Why software engineers should learn a bit of data science www.pelayoarbues.com/notes/Why-So... #databs
In simple terms, the purpose of data is to give you a causal model of your business in your head. If reality changes, the figures in your business should show it. At which point you get to update your knowledge.
April 1, 2025 at 7:46 PM
In simple terms, the purpose of data is to give you a causal model of your business in your head. If reality changes, the figures in your business should show it. At which point you get to update your knowledge.
Coaching is no longer a specialty; you cannot be a good manager without being a good coach. The path to success in a fast- moving, highly competitive, technology- driven business world is to form high- performing teams and give them the resources and freedom to do great things.
March 25, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Coaching is no longer a specialty; you cannot be a good manager without being a good coach. The path to success in a fast- moving, highly competitive, technology- driven business world is to form high- performing teams and give them the resources and freedom to do great things.
When leaders take steps to protect their own interests, particularly when those steps are taken at the expense of others, they send a message to everyone else that it is okay to do the same.
March 24, 2025 at 8:14 PM
When leaders take steps to protect their own interests, particularly when those steps are taken at the expense of others, they send a message to everyone else that it is okay to do the same.
To maintain the core of your product there are usually one or two things that have to stay still while everything else spins and changes around them. And that’s a useful constraint. You need some constraints to force you to dig deep and get creative.
March 17, 2025 at 8:13 PM
To maintain the core of your product there are usually one or two things that have to stay still while everything else spins and changes around them. And that’s a useful constraint. You need some constraints to force you to dig deep and get creative.
Yes, leadership is about vision. But leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted
March 15, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Yes, leadership is about vision. But leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted
If people only comply, we can’t expect people to take responsibility for their actions. The chain of command is for orders, not information. Responsibility is not doing as we are told, that’s obedience. Responsibility is doing what is right.
March 14, 2025 at 9:35 PM
If people only comply, we can’t expect people to take responsibility for their actions. The chain of command is for orders, not information. Responsibility is not doing as we are told, that’s obedience. Responsibility is doing what is right.
The push for commercial control of AI capability is dangerous. Naomi Klein, who coined the term “shock doctrine” as “the brutal tactic of using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock… to push through radical pro-corporate measures”
March 13, 2025 at 10:32 PM
The push for commercial control of AI capability is dangerous. Naomi Klein, who coined the term “shock doctrine” as “the brutal tactic of using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock… to push through radical pro-corporate measures”
Having two different pipelines to process your data is a common cause for bugs in ML production. One cause for bugs is when the changes in one pipeline aren’t correctly replicated in the other, leading to two pipelines extracting two different sets of features.
March 12, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Having two different pipelines to process your data is a common cause for bugs in ML production. One cause for bugs is when the changes in one pipeline aren’t correctly replicated in the other, leading to two pipelines extracting two different sets of features.
Every three to six months, audit your meetings. Are they useful? Are the right people involved? Do they achieve their purpose, and are they worth the time? Could more be accomplished asynchronously? Consider polling participants or having a neutral person do so.
March 9, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Every three to six months, audit your meetings. Are they useful? Are the right people involved? Do they achieve their purpose, and are they worth the time? Could more be accomplished asynchronously? Consider polling participants or having a neutral person do so.
Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.
March 3, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.
Make sure your candidates know that you’re excited about them. I first encountered this idea reading Rands’s “Wanted” article, 4 and he does an excellent job of covering it there. The remarkable thing is how few companies and teams do this intentionally.
March 3, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Make sure your candidates know that you’re excited about them. I first encountered this idea reading Rands’s “Wanted” article, 4 and he does an excellent job of covering it there. The remarkable thing is how few companies and teams do this intentionally.
Self-awareness has three components: understanding your underlying value system, identifying your innate preferences—your work style and decision-making tendencies—and being clear about your own skills and capability gaps.
February 24, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Self-awareness has three components: understanding your underlying value system, identifying your innate preferences—your work style and decision-making tendencies—and being clear about your own skills and capability gaps.
To write something, you have to do things, collect ideas, process them, put words on the page, structure them, edit them, rewrite them, and publish them to your site — and that’s all for one article. Then, there’s the emotional challenges: writer’s block, imposter syndrome (...)
February 23, 2025 at 9:09 PM
To write something, you have to do things, collect ideas, process them, put words on the page, structure them, edit them, rewrite them, and publish them to your site — and that’s all for one article. Then, there’s the emotional challenges: writer’s block, imposter syndrome (...)
"Any given executive is almost always uncannily good at one way of consuming information. They feel most comfortable consuming data in that particular way, and the communication systems surrounding them are optimized to communicate with them in that one way." By @lethain.com
February 19, 2025 at 10:07 PM
"Any given executive is almost always uncannily good at one way of consuming information. They feel most comfortable consuming data in that particular way, and the communication systems surrounding them are optimized to communicate with them in that one way." By @lethain.com
I would argue operational clarity is exactly the opportunity many data teams have been looking for. So many leaders we speak to say something like “We can do so much more.” Adding operational clarity is something undeniably valuable that data folks are uniquely positioned to do well.
February 18, 2025 at 9:58 PM
I would argue operational clarity is exactly the opportunity many data teams have been looking for. So many leaders we speak to say something like “We can do so much more.” Adding operational clarity is something undeniably valuable that data folks are uniquely positioned to do well.
Better products, services and experiences are usually the result of the employees who invented, innovated or supplied them. As soon as people are put second on the priority list, differentiation gives way to commoditization. And when that happens, innovation declines (...)
February 14, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Better products, services and experiences are usually the result of the employees who invented, innovated or supplied them. As soon as people are put second on the priority list, differentiation gives way to commoditization. And when that happens, innovation declines (...)
I once read somewhere on the internet: deploying is easy if you ignore all the hard parts
February 12, 2025 at 8:48 PM
I once read somewhere on the internet: deploying is easy if you ignore all the hard parts
Being able to set ego aside and be ruthlessly critical of yourself and your division is hard. It’s not just about where you have gaps today but also about what you’ll need in the next three to five years.
February 12, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Being able to set ego aside and be ruthlessly critical of yourself and your division is hard. It’s not just about where you have gaps today but also about what you’ll need in the next three to five years.
"You can’t manage what you can’t measure” is a maxim that is taught and believed by many in both the business and education sectors. But in fact, the phrase is ridiculous. A large portion of what we manage can’t be measured, and not realizing this has unintended consequences
February 8, 2025 at 10:20 PM
"You can’t manage what you can’t measure” is a maxim that is taught and believed by many in both the business and education sectors. But in fact, the phrase is ridiculous. A large portion of what we manage can’t be measured, and not realizing this has unintended consequences