Max provides some amazing insights into the why and how of caret, an R package he created. He also discusses his book on Applied Predictive Modeling which he co-authored with Kjell Johnson, including details on how he set out to write the book he wished he would have had. As a special bonus, Max also describes Quinlan’s C5.0, an alternate “forest of decision trees” algorithm, the secrets of which were hidden behind commercial licensing for years – and which has recently been ported and made available to the R ecosystem. Whether you are a beginner just getting your feet wet with R and predictive modeling, or a seasoned data scientist, this interview has something for everyone.