What's your favorite part of the book that everybody should know about?

I'll start there.

I'm sure we have different perspectives on this.

I think the biggest point, semantics and semantic web have been around, I think we just celebrated this 25th year anniversary actually this year.

And to Zach's point, this is not something new.

And what makes this exciting and why now the biggest driver being AI is that a lot of traditional data side of the world, the structured data.

There is also a concept of the semantic layer, which we call the metrics layer, which is very different from what we're talking about.

You know, do you have a corporate or just a general definition of data?

Yeah.

Yeah, well, I would say, like, I think the aha moment for me was, I think the first graph project we did was 2015, just over a decade ago, around that time frame.

Before that, Zach was a taxonomist by trade.

So there is the taxonomy work that we have been supporting as part of this connection.

And right around 2020, so between that time, a lot of the organizations that came to us were asking for, we have a search problem or we have a data dashboard problem.

Right around 2020, that ask started shifting to we have a semantics problem or a graph problem, right? It was articulated even from C-level executives.

And another interesting aspect of it is before this ask for help or support with semantics came from marketing or learning and development or, you know, the content side of the world.

So I don't know who wants to answer this one, but I would like you to unfold how you define a semantic layer and why.

Uh, tell the folks a little bit more about what you're doing these days.

Thank you, Larry.

Thanks for having me.

Um, I'm happy to be here and have been looking forward to this conversation.

Um, that's a very kind introduction, so I appreciate that.

So maybe a good way to, uh, to start would be a little bit, uh, from the journey, uh, you know, over the, without dating myself, I'll say I've been in this space to- close to 20 years at this point, and, uh, it's been not a direct or linear path, uh, given how, you know, things are evo- evolving.

But, uh, the short version of it is, started in, in, um, uh, working within software engineering and applications for data, uh, and information, uh, in that space, uh, which led to me joining Enterprise Knowledge, uh, after I met the co-founders, uh, about a decade ago.

Yeah.