Run the Numbers

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ Gustafson sits down with Sam Jacobs, Founder and CEO of Pavilion, the global community for GTM leaders. Sam shares how getting fired multiple times as a CRO led him to build a business rooted in belonging — one that monetized members first, prioritized intimacy over growth, and turned a Slack group into a multimillion-dollar company. He and CJ unpack the mech...

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ Gustafson sits down with Teddy Collins, EVP of Finance at SeatGeek, who helped scale the company from its first in-house finance hire to a tech-forward finance team powering one of the most dynamic businesses in live events. Teddy shares what it was like leading finance through the pandemic when live events went dark overnight, how that period reshaped his ap...

Gross margins, GPUs, and the future of finance — this one’s for the metrics nerds. CJ sits down with Sarah Wang, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, to talk about what happens when the traditional SaaS playbook collides with AI. Sarah shares how legacy benchmarks like payback period and burn multiple start to break down in a world where compute, not headcount, drives costs. She explains why sk...

Check out Mostly Growth and get episodes early. Available on all platforms. * YouTube * Spotify * Apple In this episode, CJ Gustafson, Kyle Poyar, and Ben Hillman dive into the concept of “sloponomics”—a tongue-in-cheek look at the overwhelming flood of mediocre AI-generated content and what it means for creators, startups, and investors. They discuss how unique voices and genuine creativity will...

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Michael Stanisz, Partner at Revenue Management Labs, the person companies call when their pricing model stops making sense. For decades, software pricing was predictable: sell more seats, add more margin. But with AI, every usage prompt has a real cost, and the old economics no longer hold. CJ and Michael dive into what happens when your produc...

In this episode, CJ sits down with Brandon Sullivan, CFO at 2X, to unpack one of the most enduring tensions in business — the uneasy relationship between finance and marketing. From the myth of clean ROI to the chaos of martech spend, Brandon explains why measuring marketing impact is far harder than most CFOs think, and how spreadsheet logic can lead to bad decisions. He shares what it’s like to...

Check out Mostly Growth and get episodes early. Available on all platforms. * YouTube * Spotify * Apple In this episode of Mostly Growth, CJ Gustafson, Kyle Poyar, and Ben Hillman dive into the question on everyone’s mind: are we in an AI bubble? What starts as a lighthearted riff on the U.S. Postal Service launching a podcast quickly spirals into a sharp, funny breakdown of today’s AI hype cycle...

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ Gustafson sits down with Ivan Makarov, Operating Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and former VP of Finance at Webflow, to explore what it takes to build a finance function from scratch inside a fast-growing startup. Ivan shares lessons from the trenches—how to decide between outsourcing and hiring in-house, what makes a great first finance hire, and why early-s...

In this episode, CJ sits down with Joe Floyd, General Partner at Emergence Capital, for a candid conversation about the venture landscape reshaped by AI. They unpack how acqui-hires are rewriting the social contract between founders and investors, why AI engineers are commanding “boy band money,” and how SaaS playbooks are being torn up and rebuilt in real time. Joe explains the economics of AI-na...

Check out Mostly Growth and get episodes early. Available on all platforms. * YouTube * Spotify * Apple Conference season is back, and CJ and Kyle are swapping stories from the stage—how to nail a keynote, whether conferences are worth the money, and why your walkout song matters more than you think. From there, they dig into a new a16z report revealing where AI startups are actually spending thei...

Private markets are swelling, public markets are shrinking, and the line between the two has never been blurrier. In this episode, CJ sits down with Scott Voss, Managing Partner at HarbourVest, to make sense of what’s happening across venture, private equity, credit, and secondaries. Scott explains why companies like SpaceX and OpenAI are now valued alongside public giants, how the surge in take-p...

Rama Katkar has helped steer some of the most iconic companies in tech through moments of scale and transformation. Now CFO at Notion and formerly a finance leader at Instacart and Credit Karma, she joins CJ to unpack what it means to build a modern finance function inside a product-led growth company. They discuss how to design finance for velocity without losing discipline, the art of forecastin...

Check out Mostly Growth and get episodes early. Available on all platforms. * YouTube * Spotify * Apple AI may be rewriting the playbook for growth, but it’s also leaving behind some of the old startup gospel. CJ and Kyle (with Ben jumping in) dig into what happens when the “rules” no longer fit — from dead frameworks and disappearing SEO traffic to board members quietly checking out. Is T2D3 Dead...

The IPO market may be slowing down, but the discipline of operating like a public company has never been more important. In this episode, CJ is joined by Chad Gold, CFO of FullStory and veteran operator with previous stints at G2, SalesLoft, and Rubicon, to discuss how capital markets and financing strategies are shifting in real time. Chad explains why more companies are staying private longer, h...

Check out Mostly Growth and get episodes early. Available on all platforms. * YouTube * Spotify * Apple AI may be changing how we work, but it’s also changing how we interact with software — and not always for the better. CJ and Kyle Poyar dig into the growing pains of product design, IPOs in weird markets, and the unexpectedly depressing world of startup networking. * Navan IPO : Why a $613M comp...

In the early days of a startup, forecasting isn’t about nailing the numbers, it’s about setting the course. In this episode, the world’s most interesting CFO describes the art of “Cowboy forecasting” and how this back-of-the-envelope model can be far more valuable than a complex simulation. Kevin Drost started his career as a musician and talent scout for Sony before becoming the chief strategy of...

In a world increasingly dominated by software and automation, how vital are human relationships in banking and finance? In this episode, CJ sits down with Meghan McKenna, founder of Females in Finance (FIF) and a seasoned banker with experience at JPMorgan, HSBC, and Stifel, to explore how trusted connections continue to drive success. As a community builder and banker, Meghan has a unique perspec...

AI was supposed to make software cheaper and companies more efficient. Instead, costs are exploding, CFOs are getting squeezed, and founders are pushing their teams harder than ever. CJ and Kyle Poyar dig into the economics behind AI, usage-based pricing, and what all of this means for SaaS growth. * Usage-Based Credits: Why they’re supposed to save SaaS margins but often trap customers in bad dea...

The venture capital landscape is evolving, and a founder’s choice of fund size and partner could make or break their business. In this episode, CJ sits down with Kyle Harrison, General Partner at Contrary and writer of the Substack Investing 101, to make sense of the changing incentives and power dynamics in the field of venture capital. He explains how capital agglomerators and cottage keepers ar...

Facebook is undermonetized, TikTok poses an existential threat to Amazon, and ChatGPT has probably already captured most of Google’s high-value users. These are the opinions of today's guest, a venture capitalist deeply embedded in consumer networks and social product investing. In this episode, CJ chats with Turner Novak, the Founder and Managing Partner of Banana Capital, host of The Peel podcas...

It used to be that if you built a good company, showed solid growth, and had decent unit economics, you could go public. But today? The bar has been raised—big time. Let’s take a trip through the last ~15 years of tech IPOs to put today’s market into context and zoom in on the most recent companies to go public. * 2010’s: $100M is the Bar * 2021: The Year of the Mega IPOs * 2022-2023: The IPO Free...

Is it too soon to leverage agentic automation to drive AI transformation, streamline workflows, and boost productivity in finance? And how do you calculate the ROI of AI? Today’s guest runs a high-functioning finance team at a company that's at the forefront of AI, where bonuses are tied to AI adoption. In this episode, CJ interviews Hitesh Ramani, Deputy CFO and Chief Accounting Officer at UiPath...

How do founders and finance leaders prepare for the sale of their company when the other side of the negotiating table does this every day? In this episode, CJ interviews David Siegel, Partner at Grellas Shah LLP, a Silicon Valley law firm that guides some of the biggest names in tech through their most significant raises and exits. David shares insights from countless deals, revealing what it rea...

How do finance leaders enable growth while fostering a culture of partnership, positivity, and saying yes? In this episode, CJ interviews Ed Park, Head of FP&A at Facebook during its explosive hypergrowth years, Head of Finance and Internal Operations at Asana, the current CFO of Daffy, and a “glass-half-full” finance leader. Ed shares stories about working at Facebook in the early days, how he br...

Premji Invest is an investment firm that backs some of the biggest names in the CFO and enterprise tech stack, including Anaplan, Zuora, Coupa, and Looker. In this episode, CJ is joined by Sandesh Patnam, the firm’s Managing Partner, to discuss their approach to investing and the future of CFO tech. Sandesh talks about the evergreen nature of Premji’s investment model and explains how this permane...