The Everyday Brief · Issue #07
The 20% of SQL that does 80% of the work
Plus: AI agents that run the whole data-science pipeline, Africa's first applied AI lab opens in Accra, and a funded accelerator with a deadline.
July 12, 2026
Welcome to the first Everyday Brief — six things, sixty seconds, every Tuesday.
Practical AI and data science for people who build. Everything on the site is free to read. No paywall, ever.
Cheat sheet of the week
The 20% of SQL that does 80% of the work.
Most analysts use a fraction of SQL to answer most business questions. Master `SELECT`, `WHERE`, `GROUP BY`, `JOIN`, and `HAVING` — genuinely master them — and you can handle the overwhelming majority of real work. Everything else is refinement.
Save this one before your next interview.
One practical tip
Get the latest row per group — the pattern you'll reuse forever.
"Most recent order per customer." "Latest status per ticket." It comes up constantly, and most people reach for a messy subquery. Use a window function instead:
`select from ( select , row_number() over (partition by user_id order by created_at desc) as rn from events ) t where rn = 1;`
Change `desc` to `asc` and you get the first row per group instead. One pattern, two jobs.
Worth reading
6 research papers every data scientist should read in 2026.
The through-line is unsettling and worth sitting with: AI agents are moving from assisting with data science to running it — defining the problem, writing the pipeline, producing the report. Whatever you think of that, you should know what's actually in these papers rather than the headlines about them.
Africa AI
Africa's first applied AI lab is opening in Accra.
Announced at Google Cloud's first Africa Summit (Johannesburg, 1 July), run jointly by the Google AI Futures Fund and Google Research — pairing local founders with researchers and giving early access to frontier models.
For context on the moment: African startups raised $1.44B in the first half of 2026. The infrastructure is arriving. The question is who gets to build on it.
One opportunity
Google for Startups Accelerator — Africa, 2026 cohort.
Applications open 21 July. Equity-free funding plus AI-focused mentorship for 15 companies. If you're building something, or you know someone who is — this is the one to move on.
Closing question
Which SQL clause took you longest to truly understand? Hit reply — I read every one.