Apache Iceberg is an open-source protocol used by companies like Netflix for storing large amounts of data in a flexible manner, without the need for complex schema migrations. It supports versioning and time travel features that are essential for many use cases. Hex provides a powerful interface to work with Iceberg tables, enabling teams to create interactive reports and collaborate on data engineering tasks, data science, and machine learning. This combination allows users to have control over their data while using managed notebooks for analytics and data science.