FinOps Teams Are Making This One Critical Mistake
Tue Jan 27 2026
In this episode of the FinOps Weekly podcast, Victor is joined by Frank from Coblan to discuss a major shift in how companies manage cloud costs. They dive into why traditional "bottom-up" FinOps often fails and how a "top-down" strategy can lead to better results.
Frank explains that asking engineers to fix things without a clear strategy is a common mistake. Instead, leadership should set the vision and constraints, allowing technical teams to work effectively within a defined "sandbox."
Key topics covered in this episode:
Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up: Why FinOps teams should look to leadership for priorities rather than relying solely on automated tool recommendations [03:55].
Context is Everything: Why raw numbers like "46%" or "$300,000" are useless without understanding the business goals and profit margins behind them [19:54].
The Power of Constraints: How setting clear technical limits can actually free developers to be more creative and productive [15:59].
Speaking the Language of Finance: A real-world example of how translating cloud terms (like Reserved Instances) into financial concepts can win over a CFO [11:12].
Actionable Advice: The importance of reading your company's strategy reports and working with Product Owners to get FinOps tasks into the official backlog [50:01].
If you want to move beyond just "chasing savings" and start driving real business value through your cloud strategy, this conversation provides the roadmap.
Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNsEYhUvsB0
Chapters
(00:00:00) - Top Down Finops(00:00:43) - Franc Contrepoix(00:02:35) - Top-Down Finops vs Bottom Down Finops(00:08:01) - CFO: We're in a Cloud Bubble(00:10:31) - Questions about Reserved Installs(00:13:15) - WSJDLive: The Process of Cascading Rules(00:13:49) - Constraints in the Software Development Process(00:18:15) - Context is everything in data visualization(00:25:12) - The Context of Decision Making(00:29:31) - The cloud and its risks(00:32:41) - One of the good things of cloud(00:36:18) - Common Mistakes in the Cloud Financial Data(00:41:20) - Finance & IT: The Need for Collaboration Tools(00:47:58) - Top-down vs bottom-up(00:51:30) - Promotion for Managers
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In this episode of the FinOps Weekly podcast, Victor is joined by Frank from Coblan to discuss a major shift in how companies manage cloud costs. They dive into why traditional "bottom-up" FinOps often fails and how a "top-down" strategy can lead to better results. Frank explains that asking engineers to fix things without a clear strategy is a common mistake. Instead, leadership should set the vision and constraints, allowing technical teams to work effectively within a defined "sandbox." Key topics covered in this episode: Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up: Why FinOps teams should look to leadership for priorities rather than relying solely on automated tool recommendations [03:55]. Context is Everything: Why raw numbers like "46%" or "$300,000" are useless without understanding the business goals and profit margins behind them [19:54]. The Power of Constraints: How setting clear technical limits can actually free developers to be more creative and productive [15:59]. Speaking the Language of Finance: A real-world example of how translating cloud terms (like Reserved Instances) into financial concepts can win over a CFO [11:12]. Actionable Advice: The importance of reading your company's strategy reports and working with Product Owners to get FinOps tasks into the official backlog [50:01]. If you want to move beyond just "chasing savings" and start driving real business value through your cloud strategy, this conversation provides the roadmap. Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNsEYhUvsB0 Chapters (00:00:00) - Top Down Finops(00:00:43) - Franc Contrepoix(00:02:35) - Top-Down Finops vs Bottom Down Finops(00:08:01) - CFO: We're in a Cloud Bubble(00:10:31) - Questions about Reserved Installs(00:13:15) - WSJDLive: The Process of Cascading Rules(00:13:49) - Constraints in the Software Development Process(00:18:15) - Context is everything in data visualization(00:25:12) - The Context of Decision Making(00:29:31) - The cloud and its risks(00:32:41) - One of the good things of cloud(00:36:18) - Common Mistakes in the Cloud Financial Data(00:41:20) - Finance & IT: The Need for Collaboration Tools(00:47:58) - Top-down vs bottom-up(00:51:30) - Promotion for Managers