The Insight Economy challenges the assumptions driving how organizations collect, manage, and extract value from data. Ruben Verborgh, a professor of computer science, introduces a framework where value comes not from accumulating data but from streaming insights—paralleling the shift from physical media distribution to on-demand content delivery infrastructure. The book examines mismatches between technological, legal, and economic ideals in current data and AI practices.

Through real-world use cases and concrete examples, the book maps the intersection of technology, law, and economics to show where current data and AI strategies fail and how to redesign them. Rather than prescribing additional tools, Verborgh offers a structural rethinking of data approaches that aligns business incentives with societal values, equipping listeners with a practical framework for building data strategies that are technically and economically sound. Listeners will also find:

• A reframing of data and AI through classical economics, replacing extraction with exchange and a zero-sum game with sustainable mutual benefit
• Analysis of how Big Data assumptions create conflicts between technological capability, legal compliance, and economic sustainability
• A detailed comparison of data hoarding versus insight streaming
• An insider's account of the open Web's tense relationship with app stores and platforms, and what this historical pattern predicts for the AI era