Meet Denise K.
Gosnell, PhD
Graph Theorist | Decision Architect | Brilliant Misfit
My path wasn't exactly linear.
I started as a teacher (got literally run over by high schoolers and had scissors thrown at me—different story), pivoted to computer science where I got laughed at on day one for not knowing how a terminal worked, and somehow ended up earning my PhD as an NSF Fellow.
In a graph theory class, my professor drew dots and lines on the board—a connect-the-dots pattern—and explained that you could represent relationships this way instead of cramming everything into spreadsheets.
My whole body got goosebumps.
"You mean you can represent life this way?"
That became my intellectual home: graph theory, the mathematics of connections. It's how Netflix knows what you want to watch, how Snapchat maps your social world, how fraud detection systems spot the bad actors.
For fifteen years, I translated this pattern recognition into systems that touch millions of lives daily.
I authored The Practitioner's Guide to Graph Data, earned multiple patents, and built some of the largest graph applications in the world. I climbed from individual contributor to Chief Data Officer, learning to navigate both scrappy startups and massive corporations.
On paper, I was at the top of my game.
In reality, being really good at seeing patterns becomes torture when you're stuck in places where the loudest ego always wins.
Meeting after meeting, company after company, I watched the same tragedy unfold. Brilliant teams making terrible decisions because they trusted internal opinions over external evidence. The person with the strongest personality would too often dominate the room.
It all came to a head during a routine work call.
I was discussing how we failed to deliver on a customer issue—again—when my right leg just went numb. Not tingly. Completely numb.
That physical breakdown forced a reckoning I'd been avoiding. The stress had literally disabled me. All that career success meant nothing if I couldn't walk.
[I write about this experience in my latest book, Tech Confidential]
But sometimes, rock bottom is the solid foundation you need to rebuild on. During my recovery, I had time to process what I'd actually developed over all those years. It wasn't just technical expertise—it was this weird ability to see patterns others missed, ask questions that cut straight to the heart of problems, and help teams move from "everything is confusing" to "oh, now I see what we need to do.
That's when Data-Driven Intuition crystallized.
DDI is what I discovered by surviving fifteen years of watching smart people make decisions badly, then figuring out how to do it better. The method works because it honors both human wisdom and external reality.
This dichotomy is fundamental to what I believe. I’ve built DDI because I believe it’s time to change the way the tech industry operates. You shouldn't have to choose between trusting your instincts and making data-driven decisions. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your humanity to succeed in tech. And you definitely shouldn't have to figure it all out alone while pretending you have all the answers.
I help founders combine the pattern recognition that lives in their gut with external evidence that keeps them honest. We move past ego-driven team debates to focus on what actually matters: building something that serves real people in the real world.
This work energizes me because every founder I help creates ripple effects I couldn't achieve alone. When you stop second-guessing yourself and start building with confidence, you create better products, healthier teams, and more sustainable companies.
That's how we change tech culture: one clear decision at a time.
If that resonates with you, we should talk.