In an episode of the "Monday Morning Data Chat" podcast titled "Improving the Modern Data Stack," hosts Matt Housley and Joe Reis discuss with Gleb Mezhanskiy, CEO of Datafold, the challenges and solutions in data management and engineering. They highlight common issues such as applying data to business logic, change management, and data quality across different company sizes, emphasizing that smaller companies struggle with budgets and expertise while larger ones face political challenges. The conversation explores how technology and collaboration can reconcile differing data interpretations and improve the modern data stack, with practices from software engineering and DevOps being gradually adopted in data engineering. They also discuss the potential and challenges of data contracts, noting the difficulty in establishing cross-tool agreements and the importance of robust change management practices to address data inconsistencies. Ultimately, the focus is on enhancing workflows, understanding metric changes, and ensuring effective automation before implementing model contracts.