Christophe Préaud and Florian Fauvarque presented techniques for optimizing Spark performance through proper dataset partitioning and caching. They discussed how to tune the number of partitions for reading, writing, and transformations like joins. Storage levels like MEMORY_ONLY and MEMORY_AND_DISK were explained for caching datasets. Profiling tools like Babar were also mentioned for analyzing Spark applications. The presentation aimed to help optimize slot usage and reduce job runtimes.