Show Notes
What happens when finance, sales and product each compute revenue their own way? The episode opens on a board meeting where three presenters defend three different quarterly numbers, and argues that the cost is not bad data but frozen decisions while teams re-litigate whose spreadsheet counts. Finance recognizes revenue on fulfillment, sales on signature, product on ship date, and each team's bonus depends on its version.
You come away with a build sequence for a semantic layer: inventory the 12 to 15 metrics that appear in board decks and budget fights, lock each to one written formula with finance and sales signing off together, then choose tooling. The discussion weighs a dbt Labs vendor claim against MIT Sloan Management Review's work on trust in shared numbers, and covers churn, customer acquisition cost, and the CDO's refereeing role.
0:00 Three revenue numbers in one board deck 0:47 Why finance, sales and product disagree 1:24 What a semantic layer actually is 2:03 Inventory metrics and lock the formulas 2:40 dbt Labs claims and the trust problem 3:20 Shipping five metrics before committee kills it
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