Randy Au
Randy Au writes the weekly Counting Stuff newsletter, which covers topics in data science, quantitative UX Research, with occasional excursions into other fun nerdy topics. He’s been working close to 20 years in the data/product building space and has seen some things.
There’s been a new post every Tuesday morning since 2020. There are also posts for paid subscribers every other Thursday (or so).
Randy can be found on
Work & Speaking
Check out my Talks & Projects page for a list of recent conference talks and classes I’ve taught.
Hobby Highlights: Gem Cutting
I have a tendency to take hobbies to absurd lengths. Currently, that involves facetting gemstones and man-made crystals.
- Making shiny rocks from man-made crystals - A deep dive into the process of turning industrial materials into jewelry-grade gems.
Influential Articles
Selected “Top Posts” from the Counting Stuff archives:
- Data Cleaning is Analysis - Why the “80% cleaning” trope is misleading.
- The data is probably wrong - A guide to healthy skepticism.
- How to count things correctly - The fundamental challenge of data work.
You can find the full collection of Top Posts here.
Join a Discord for data folk to have fun
Approaching Significance is a Discord for data folk to hang out in, with the explicit goal of having roughly 50/50 split between data conversations and non-data fun conversations like hobbies, cute pets, and food. The primary rule is we don’t allow jerks and trolls.
Come join and meet all the friendly people there.
Supporting the newsletter
The newsletter has a free post every Tuesday. Every 2-3 Thursdays there’ll be a post for paid subscribers. There’s other ways to support my work if you do not want to subscribe.
- Become a paid subscriber for as low as $5/mo, click “Subscribe & support” in the corner
- A one-time donation/tip
- Buy some swag