In this episode we talked with Alekejes Plotnikovs who spent 15 years at Microsoft building their data capabilities and has just published a book on his data journey at Microsoft. The book is a collection of stories and insights for data professionals. In the conversation, Aleksejs discusses his career at Microsoft, the challenges they faced in data management, and the evolution of their data platform. He also shares the journey of creating a multi-billion dollar data business within Microsoft and provides advice for data teams in similar situations. The conversation explores the journey of data management at Microsoft and the importance of balancing centralization and decentralization. It emphasizes the need to enable stakeholders to operate with data themselves and the role of change management in this process. The conversation also discusses the different states of data management maturity and provides advice based on each state. The highest maturity stage is when leadership uses data live and understands where the data is and how it is protected. The strategic data dilemma is highlighted as the need to find balance in outsourcing, federation vs centralization, and skill sets.