Run the Numbers

Check out Mostly Growth and get episodes early. Available on all platforms.

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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 stand out in an AI-saturated landscape, the economic parallels between modern content creation and startup growth, and the tricky dynamics of building sustainable momentum in a world of noise. The trio also unpack the “$10K MRR” meme, pricing psychology, and the difference between chasing vanity metrics and building lasting value. With humor and real-world insight, they explore how AI, distribution, and early-stage investment are reshaping what success looks like in tech and media.

Timestamps:

00:00 Preview and Intro

00:35 Being Mean to AI and Early Banter

02:05 When You’re Rude to AI: The Penn State Study

04:57 Sponsor – Metronome

06:02 The Rise of AI-Generated “Slop” Content

07:15 The Creator “Haves and Have-Nots”

09:00 Losing Credit to AI Models

11:20 Feeding the Beast: 400 Posts Later

13:13 “Slop Talk” and Human-Made Slop

14:27 The $10K MRR Meme and Startup Momentum

15:49 Pricing Psychology and Product Traction

17:42 Hunting Mice, Buffalo, and Elephants

20:19 Venture Funds, Bubbles, and Ecosystem Investing

23:39 When Startups Invest in Startups

26:25 Slack, Lattice, and the Platform Play

30:39 Wrapping Up and Late-Night Insights

33:12 The Hemingway Story and CJ’s No-Instagram Lifestyle

36:10 Electric Boats, Group Discounts, and Sign-Off

Episodes Referenced:

Slop Talk (coming soon)

⁠https://www.youtube.com/slackerstuff⁠

Why Only 2% of Startups Make It

When startups burn cash faster than they learn | Ivan Makarov:⁠

996 Culture, Exploding AI Bills & SaaS Chaos⁠

Links:

⁠https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/study-proves-being-rude-to-ai-chatbots-gets-better-results-than-being-nice-3269895/⁠

⁠https://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_02.phtml⁠

⁠https://futurism.com/altman-please-thanks-chatgpt⁠

⁠https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/over-50-percent-internet-ai-slop⁠

⁠https://www.axios.com/2025/10/14/ai-generated-writing-humans⁠

⁠https://www.economist.com/business/2025/10/16/sloponomics-who-wins-and-loses-in-the-ai-content-flood⁠

⁠https://x.com/madhuraaa_/status/1978390720881819884⁠

⁠https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/eat-what-you-kill⁠

⁠https://christophjanz.blogspot.com/2014/10/five-ways-to-build-100-million-business.html⁠

⁠https://www.growthunhinged.com/p/how-to-build-your-early-gtm-strategy⁠

⁠https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/startups-investing-in-startups-peak-bubble-behavior⁠

⁠https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/10/10/are-barefoot-shoes-good-for-runners⁠

⁠https://x.com/ivanomaksf/status/1978852000298320068?s=46⁠

⁠https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/uber-offers-drivers-extra-pay-to-perform-tasks-that-train-ai-7116401/⁠

⁠https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/is-ltv-to-cac-the-nickelback-of-metrics⁠

⁠https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/final-2024-25-network-tv-ratings-tracker-high-potential-1236312223/⁠

⁠https://christophjanz.blogspot.com/2014/10/five-ways-to-build-100-million-business.html⁠

⁠https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ben-horowitz-hires-jensen-vercel-starts-venture-fund⁠

⁠https://www.instagram.com/chasemytail/

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Metronome

You just launched your new AI product. The new pricing page looks great. But behind it? Last-minute glue code, messy spreadsheets, and running ad-hoc queries to figure out what to bill. Customers get invoices they can’t understand. Engineers are chasing billing bugs. Finance can’t close the books.

With Metronome, you hand it all off to the real-time billing infrastructure that just works—reliable, flexible, and built to grow with you. We turn raw usage events into accurate invoices, give customers bills they actually understand, and keep every team in sync in real time.

Whether you’re launching usage-based pricing, managing enterprise contracts, or rolling out new AI services, Metronome does the heavy lifting so you can focus on your product, not your billing.

That’s why some of the fastest-growing companies in the world, like OpenAI and Anthropic, run their billing on Metronome.

Visit metronome.com to learn more.

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 product looks like software but behaves like infrastructure, how pricing power erodes as features become free, and why value-based pricing might not be as customer-friendly as it sounds. They also explore the chaos of real-world pricing: from Microsoft cloning your startup to measuring ROI when your product’s impact is undeniable but hard to prove; all wrapped in sharp insights and a few “we still run this on DOS” war stories.

—

LINKS:

Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-stanisz-27418a28

Revenue Management Labs: https://revenueml.com/

CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222

Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

—

RELATED EPISODES:

“Anything new needs to have AI core to its offering”: Amy Butte, How Navan Is Redefining Finance Ops

From Credit Karma to Notion: CFO Rama Katkar on Leading Finance Through Every Growth Stage

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:00) Preview and Intro

(00:02:23) Sponsor – Rillet, Fidelity Private Shares, and Mercury

(00:05:27) The new economics of AI pricing

(00:07:51) When variable costs replace software margins

(00:10:30) The fall of 80% SaaS margins

(00:13:23) From premium feature to table stakes

(00:15:07) Sponsor – RightRev, Tipalti, and Aleph

(00:19:12) Spotting a feature before it becomes a commodity

(00:23:31) The real cost of switching and why stickiness matters

(00:27:46) The rise of AI white labeling

(00:30:03) Outcome-based pricing — altruism or strategy?

(00:34:22) Rewarding throughput and avoiding “tollbooth” pricing

(00:36:29) Measuring usage and why telemetry matters

(00:40:49) What makes a value exchange credible

(00:44:14) Cost avoidance vs. revenue gain

(00:46:02) The stages of pricing maturity

(00:49:49) Why startups see what big companies can’t

(00:52:09) When hype meets hard costs in AI

(00:55:17) When customers refuse to leave on-prem

(01:03:29) Credits and Sign-Off

—

SPONSORS:

Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it’s faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics

Fidelity Private Shares is the all-in-one equity management platform that keeps your cap table clean, your data room organized, and your equity story clear—so you never risk losing a fundraising round over messy records. Schedule a demo at https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com and mention Mostly Metrics to get 20% off.

Mercury is business banking built for builders, giving founders and finance pros a financial stack that actually works together. From sending wires to tracking balances and approving payments, Mercury makes it simple to scale without friction. Join the 200,000+ entrepreneurs who trust Mercury and apply online in minutes at https://www.mercury.com

RightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.

Tipalti automates the entire payables process—from onboarding suppliers to executing global payouts—helping finance teams save time, eliminate costly errors, and scale confidently across 200+ countries and 120 currencies. More than 5,000 businesses already trust Tipalti to manage payments with built-in security and tax compliance. Visit https://www.tipalti.com/runthenumbers to learn more.

Aleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run

#RunTheNumbersPodcast #PricingStrategy #SaaSModels #AIPricing #B2BRevenue

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 run finance inside a 1,200-person marketing org, why cutting too deep in downturns can backfire, and what it takes to actually bridge the gap between teams that speak different languages. Along the way, he reveals lessons from scaling 2X across time zones, building global reporting rhythms, and redefining how finance and marketing can finally pull in the same direction.

—

LINKS:

Brandon Sullivan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonsullivan2x/

2X: https://2x.marketing/

CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222

Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

—

RELATED EPISODES:

From Facebook’s Hypergrowth to Daffy’s Disruption: A CFO’s Playbook for Saying Yes

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:00) Preview and Intro

(00:02:28) Sponsor – Aleph | Rillet | Fidelity Private Shares

(00:05:55) Behind Enemy Lines: Finance Meets Marketing

(00:07:00) Why CFOs and CMOs Clash

(00:08:12) The Myth of Marketing ROI

(00:10:19) Why Marketing Is So Hard to Measure

(00:11:23) The Single Source of Truth Problem

(00:15:29) Sponsor – Mercury | RightRev | Tipalti

(00:19:35) The Three Buckets of Marketing Spend

(00:21:26) The Long-Term Cost of Cutting Program Spend

(00:23:27) How AI and ChatGPT Are Changing Marketing Attribution

(00:25:43) Building a Modern Finance Team

(00:27:55) The First-Time CFO Learning Curve

(00:31:05) From Solo Operator to Scaled Finance Org

(00:32:41) Why Weekly Reporting Beats Monthly Reviews

(00:40:10) Working with Private Equity Partners

(00:43:43) The Founding Story of 2X

(00:48:12) Running a Global Team Across Time Zones

(00:54:00) Long-Ass Lightning Round

(00:57:00) Advice to Younger Self

(00:58:58) Finance Stack and Craziest Expense Story

(00:59:58) Credits and Sign-Off

—

SPONSORS:

Aleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run

Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it’s faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics

Fidelity Private Shares is the all-in-one equity management platform that keeps your cap table clean, your data room organized, and your equity story clear—so you never risk losing a fundraising round over messy records. Schedule a demo at https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com and mention Mostly Metrics to get 20% off.

Mercury is business banking built for builders, giving founders and finance pros a financial stack that actually works together. From sending wires to tracking balances and approving payments, Mercury makes it simple to scale without friction. Join the 200,000+ entrepreneurs who trust Mercury and apply online in minutes at https://www.mercury.com

RightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.

Tipalti automates the entire payables process—from onboarding suppliers to executing global payouts—helping finance teams save time, eliminate costly errors, and scale confidently across 200+ countries and 120 currencies. More than 5,000 businesses already trust Tipalti to manage payments with built-in security and tax compliance. Visit https://www.tipalti.com/runthenumbers to learn more.

#RunTheNumbersPodcast #FinanceVsMarketing #CFOInsights #MarketingROI #BusinessStrategy

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 — from Nvidia, OpenAI, and AMD trading money and GPUs in a trillion-dollar feedback loop, to startups burning cash chasing “AI-powered” everything. The trio share real examples of when AI helps and when it backfires (including one newsletter that totally tanked), debate whether companies are over-optimizing for automation, and laugh through the absurdity of the hype while grounding it in practical insights on product, finance, and growth.

Timestamps:

00:00 Preview and Intro

00:14 Are We in an AI Bubble?

00:44 The AI Feedback Loop: Nvidia, OpenAI, and AMD

01:00 Perplexity, We Caught You (Again)

02:18 The USPS Podcast and the End of Original Ideas

04:24 How the Team Actually Uses AI at Work

06:07 CJ’s DIY Dunning Saga

08:38 When Automation Goes Too Far

10:49 The Perplexity Gaslight Moment

13:27 AI vs. AI: Outsmarting Resume Screeners

16:09 What Recruiters Really Think of AI Resumes

17:17 The Chief of Staff Hiring Story

19:15 Is AI Adoption Already Slowing Down?

22:42 The “Crossing the Chasm” Moment for AI Tools

26:22 Bundling AI Like Streaming Services

28:49 Everyone’s Paying Everyone: The Circular AI Economy

31:15 Betting Big on AGI and Data Centers

34:09 The Margin: AI Erotica and Peak Absurdity

35:23 OpenAI’s Token Leaderboard and Other Blunders

41:43 What Kyle Tried This Week: Building an AI Agent

44:52 Wrap-Up and Outro

Episodes Referenced:

5,762 Job Applications. Zero Offers.

Episodes Referenced:

5,762 Job Applications. Zero Offers.

Why Only 2% of Startups Make It

The War for Talent is just getting started | Joe Floyd

Links:

https://usps-mailin-it.simplecast.com/

https://i.imgflip.com/a92oy5.jpg

https://tabs.inc/webinar/tabs-agent

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/business/ai-chatbot-prompts-resumes.html?_bhlid=1b5906cdc6781a738a150d9c32f846ebf11fc318

https://substack.com/home/post/p-175615945

https://ramp.com/data/ai-index?utm_source=econlab.substack.com

https://medium.com/@samuelvandeth/crossing-the-chasm-162802d1cf27

https://x.com/TrungTPhan/status/1922669292929024017/photo/1

https://x.com/zerohedge/status/1977902195472322620?s=42

https://topline.beehiiv.com/p/the-era-of-haves-and-have-nots

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2qv58yl5o

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cj-gustafson-13140948_imagine-getting-called-into-your-cfos-office-activity-7381681514532458496-NOqa/

https://fortune.com/2025/10/01/red-lobster-ceo-damola-adamolekun-comeback-plan-bankruptcy/

https://fortune.com/2024/11/13/red-lobster-ceo-damola-adamolekun-says-endless-shrimp-is-never-coming-back/#

https://www.relay.app/

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Metronome

You just launched your new AI product. The new pricing page looks great. But behind it? Last-minute glue code, messy spreadsheets, and running ad-hoc queries to figure out what to bill. Customers get invoices they can’t understand. Engineers are chasing billing bugs. Finance can’t close the books.

With Metronome, you hand it all off to the real-time billing infrastructure that just works—reliable, flexible, and built to grow with you. We turn raw usage events into accurate invoices, give customers bills they actually understand, and keep every team in sync in real time.

Whether you’re launching usage-based pricing, managing enterprise contracts, or rolling out new AI services, Metronome does the heavy lifting so you can focus on your product, not your billing.

That’s why some of the fastest-growing companies in the world, like OpenAI and Anthropic, run their billing on Metronome.

Visit metronome.com to learn more.

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-stage companies often run out of cash before they run out of ideas. He also dives into fundraising pitfalls, audit readiness, and the tools that make up a modern finance stack. Beyond the spreadsheets, Ivan opens up about the shift from operator to venture partner, the value of helping founders avoid his past mistakes, and what makes an offsite actually work.

—

LINKS:

Ivan Makarov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivansmakarov/

Andreessen Horowitz: https://a16z.com/

CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222

Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

—

RELATED EPISODES:

Webflow’s VP Finance Ivan Makarov on Understanding Startup Equity:

Portfolio Operations: This Is What You Actually Have To Do To Make Sure a Company Is Successful:

Brex COO/CFO Michael Tannenbaum on Taking Risks

996 Culture, Exploding AI Bills & SaaS Chaos

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:00) Preview, Intro

(00:01:18) Meet Ivan Makarov of Andreessen Horowitz & Episode Setup

(00:02:39) Sponsor – Tipalti | Aleph | Rillet

(00:06:51) From Webflow to Andreessen: Becoming an Operating Partner

(00:09:19) When and Why Founders Hire Their First Finance Leader

(00:12:52) Hiring Early in Complex or Regulated Industries

(00:13:58) The First Finance Hire in 2025 vs. 2015

(00:15:46) Sponsor – Fidelity Private Shares | Mercury | RightRev

(00:19:02) The Many Hats of Finance Leaders & The Rise of RevOps

(00:24:55) What Founders Look For: Startup DNA and Work Ethic

(00:26:05) Grind Culture, Return to Office, and New Expectations

(00:28:20) From BizOps to RevOps: How Finance Roles Are Evolving

(00:31:57) The First 12 Months of a Finance Leader’s Playbook

(00:35:05) Choosing Audit Partners and Avoiding Hidden Costs

(00:36:32) Why Startups Really Fail — Running Out of Cash

(00:39:16) Cash Controls, Banking Diversification, and Fraud Prevention

(00:43:48) Fundraising Red Flags: Metrics, Definitions, and Diligence

(00:47:50) 409A Valuations, Equity Clarity & Candidate Questions

(00:50:09) The Modern Finance Tech Stack & Gen 3 Tools

(00:55:05) AI’s Impact: Replacing Labor, Not People

(01:00:00) Offsites, Team Building & The Future of Finance Leadership

(01:02:28) Wrapping Up: Reflections, Gratitude & Closing Credits

—

SPONSORS:

Tipalti automates the entire payables process—from onboarding suppliers to executing global payouts—helping finance teams save time, eliminate costly errors, and scale confidently across 200+ countries and 120 currencies. More than 5,000 businesses already trust Tipalti to manage payments with built-in security and tax compliance. Visit https://www.tipalti.com/runthenumbers to learn more.

Aleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run

Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it’s faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics

Fidelity Private Shares is the all-in-one equity management platform that keeps your cap table clean, your data room organized, and your equity story clear—so you never risk losing a fundraising round over messy records. Schedule a demo at https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com and mention Mostly Metrics to get 20% off.

Mercury is business banking built for builders, giving founders and finance pros a financial stack that actually works together. From sending wires to tracking balances and approving payments, Mercury makes it simple to scale without friction. Join the 200,000+ entrepreneurs who trust Mercury and apply online in minutes at https://www.mercury.com

RightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.

#RunTheNumbersPodcast #StartupFinance #VentureCapital #CFOInsights #Leadership

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-native startups — from circular capital flows to model-provider costs — and explores whether the next trillion-dollar private company could come from this new wave. Along the way, they discuss valuation frenzy, headcount discipline, and why curiosity might be the most valuable skill in tech today.

—

LINKS:

Joe Floyd on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefloyd/

HarbourVest Partners:

https://www.emcap.com/

CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222

Mostly metrics:

https://www.mostlymetrics.com

RELATED EPISODES:

Why Fundraising Has Slowed Down: Insights from Emergence Capital’s Benchmarking Report:

From Credit Karma to Notion: CFO Rama Katkar on Leading Finance Through Every Growth Stage:

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:00) Preview and Intro

(00:00:54) Opening and Episode Overview

(00:02:53) Sponsor – RightRev | Tipalti | Aleph

(00:07:07) Back to the Office and Startup Pace in San Francisco

(00:08:40) AI Tooling Experiments and the Risk of Short-Term Hype

(00:10:19) Building Stickier AI Products and Competing in Crowded Markets

(00:12:27) SaaS Moats, Product-Market Fit, and the AI Shift

(00:14:00) How Productivity Platforms Use AI To Stay Sticky

(00:15:58) Continuous Authentication and the Next Wave of Security Tech

(00:16:36) Sponsor – Rillet | Fidelity Private Shares | Mercury

(00:19:54) Acqui-Hires, the Social Contract, and the War for AI Talent

(00:22:42) Stock-Based Comp and the Economics of Attracting Engineers

(00:24:39) The New Go-to-Market Playbook and Curiosity as a Superpower

(00:27:59) AI’s Impact on Sales, Forecasting, and Buyer Behavior

(00:29:11) Coding Agents, Headcount Reduction, and the Future of Engineering

(00:32:21) Building Defensible IP and Competing in the LLM Ecosystem

(00:34:34) AI ROI, Payback Periods, and the Search for Efficiency

(00:37:17) Valuations, Fund Cycles, and the Venture Market Reset

(00:40:20) The Circular Flow of AI Capital and Infrastructure Overbuild

(00:45:37) AI Pricing Models, Platform Wars, and Open Source Futures

(00:50:02) The Race to the First $1 Trillion Private Company

(00:51:09) Credits and Outro

—

SPONSORS:

Fidelity Private Shares is the all-in-one equity management platform that keeps your cap table clean, your data room organized, and your equity story clear—so you never risk losing a fundraising round over messy records. Schedule a demo at https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com and mention Mostly Metrics to get 20% off.

Mercury is business banking built for builders, giving founders and finance pros a financial stack that actually works together. From sending wires to tracking balances and approving payments, Mercury makes it simple to scale without friction. Join the 200,000+ entrepreneurs who trust Mercury and apply online in minutes at https://www.mercury.com

RightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.

Tipalti automates the entire payables process—from onboarding suppliers to executing global payouts—helping finance teams save time, eliminate costly errors, and scale confidently across 200+ countries and 120 currencies. More than 5,000 businesses already trust Tipalti to manage payments with built-in security and tax compliance. Visit https://www.tipalti.com/runthenumbers to learn more.

Aleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run

Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it’s faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics

#RunTheNumbersPodcast #VentureCapital #ArtificialIntelligence #StartupStrategy #FutureOfWork

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 their dollars, and CJ shares results from his summer survey showing that CFOs talk a big game about measuring AI ROI—but nobody knows how to do it. The crew also unpacks how SaaS companies like Slack are bundling AI into their products and hiking prices, before spiraling into a late-night “potentially reliable” rabbit hole featuring a Soviet pole vaulter, beat-and-raise forecasting, and J. Edgar Hoover. They close with lessons on pricing in the real world (yes, Amsterdam’s architecture is involved) and one experiment CJ tried this week.

Timestamps:

00:00 Preview and Intro

02:03 Walkout Songs & Kicking Off Conference Season

04:12 Sponsored Segment — Metronome

05:16 How To Give a Great Keynote and Not Bore the Room

11:16 Are Conferences Worth the Money

16:02 What AI Companies Are Actually Paying For — The a16z Report

21:56 Summer Survey Results: The Elusive ROI of AI

23:56 Why No One Knows How To Measure ROI on AI

29:38 SaaS Companies Forcing AI — Bundling, Pricing, and Pushback

35:32 A Potentially Reliable Thing I Read at 2 AM

36:02 Soviet Pole Vaulter, Beat-and-Raise Forecasting & Hoover’s Borders

41:02 Pricing in the Real World — Lessons from Amsterdam’s Skinny Houses

44:37 Something I Tried This Week — Fixyer

Episodes Referenced: ⁠Are You Bad at LinkedIn… or Is the Algorithm Lying?⁠

⁠Why Founders Are Posting Sad Dinners⁠

Links:

⁠

⁠

⁠

https://www.getmobly.com/⁠

⁠https://a16z.com/the-ai-application-spending-report-where-startup-dollars-really-go/⁠

⁠https://www.growthunhinged.com/p/how-to-nail-your-next-big-talk⁠

⁠https://www.leahtharin.com/p/113-vincent-pierri-how-to-deal-with⁠

⁠https://www.freepik.com/⁠

⁠https://cluely.com/⁠

⁠https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/it-was-the-summer-of-25⁠

⁠https://www.crescendo.ai/⁠

⁠https://www.linkedin.com/posts/justintropic_slack-just-raised-prices-125-by-forcing-activity-7379132597009870848-XI6N/⁠

⁠https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/what-a-soviet-era-pole-vaulter-can-teach-us-about-beating-and-raising⁠

⁠https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/03/archives/j-edgar-hoover-made-the-fbi-formidable-with-politics-publicity-and.html⁠

⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/73vh2j/til_that_the_dutch_government_once_enforced_a_tax/⁠

⁠https://www.clearspaceliving.com/blog/why-dutch-stairs-are-so-steep/⁠

⁠https://mjwrightnz.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/amsterdams-taxing-narrow-houses/⁠

⁠https://www.fyxer.com/

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Metronome

You just launched your new AI product. The new pricing page looks great. But behind it? Last-minute glue code, messy spreadsheets, and running ad-hoc queries to figure out what to bill. Customers get invoices they can’t understand. Engineers are chasing billing bugs. Finance can’t close the books.

With Metronome, you hand it all off to the real-time billing infrastructure that just works—reliable, flexible, and built to grow with you. We turn raw usage events into accurate invoices, give customers bills they actually understand, and keep every team in sync in real time.

Whether you’re launching usage-based pricing, managing enterprise contracts, or rolling out new AI services, Metronome does the heavy lifting so you can focus on your product, not your billing.

That’s why some of the fastest-growing companies in the world, like OpenAI and Anthropic, run their billing on Metronome.

Visit metronome.com to learn more.

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-privates is reshaping corporate strategy, and what happens when the quarterly earnings pressure disappears. They dive into the rise of GP-led deals, the evolving role of private credit as the “third voice in the room,” and why liquidity—not scarcity—will define this cycle. Scott also breaks down the growing appeal of evergreen and permanent capital structures, plus what AI mega-deals signal about the next phase of private investing.

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LINKS:

Scott Voss on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-voss-b91b94/

HarbourVest Partners: https://www.harbourvest.com

CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222

Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

RELATED EPISODES:

Secondaries, Continuation Vehicles, and Sidecar Funds: Private Equity with HarbourVest’s Scott Voss -

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:00) Preview and Intro

(00:02:49) Sponsor – Mercury | RightRev | Tipalti

(00:06:43) Opening Conversation

(00:07:23) The Blurring Line Between Public and Private

(00:09:36) The Rise of Mega Venture

(00:11:20) The First $10 Trillion Company

(00:12:28) The Shrinking Public Markets

(00:13:09) Take-Private Playbook

(00:14:04) Why Companies Go Private

(00:16:00) Sponsor – Aleph | Rillet | Fidelity Private Shares

(00:19:21) Efficiency and Exits

(00:23:15) Liquidity in Private Markets

(00:24:01) Secondaries and GP-Led Deals

(00:27:14) Yale and the Secondary Market

(00:29:09) Innovation and the Rise of GP-to-GP Trades

(00:30:16) Liquidity Cycles and Interest Rates

(00:33:18) The Third Voice in the Room – Private Credit

(00:34:44) Private Credit and GP-Led Deals

(00:36:02) Interest Rates and Deal Spreads

(00:37:15) The Major Players in Private Credit

(00:38:09) Regulation and Risk

(00:39:25) Private Credit vs. Traditional Lending

(00:40:33) Evergreen and Permanent Capital

(00:45:57) Expanding Access to Private Markets

(00:47:03) Understanding the Cap Table

(00:47:44) AI Deals and Consolidation

(00:50:00) The Evolution of AI and Blockchain

(00:53:20) Funding Innovation and Risk

(00:55:28) Lessons From Investing

(00:55:39) Nostalgia and Life Phases

(00:57:06) Nostalgia and the 1990s

(00:59:21) Learn, Earn, and Return

(01:00:45) Talking Nostalgia at Dinners

(01:01:27) Summer Surfing

(01:02:25) Wrap-Up and Closing

—

SPONSORS:

Fidelity Private Shares is the all-in-one equity management platform that keeps your cap table clean, your data room organized, and your equity story clear—so you never risk losing a fundraising round over messy records. Schedule a demo at https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com and mention Mostly Metrics to get 20% off.

Mercury is business banking built for builders, giving founders and finance pros a financial stack that actually works together. From sending wires to tracking balances and approving payments, Mercury makes it simple to scale without friction. Join the 200,000+ entrepreneurs who trust Mercury and apply online in minutes at https://www.mercury.com

RightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.

Tipalti automates the entire payables process—from onboarding suppliers to executing global payouts—helping finance teams save time, eliminate costly errors, and scale confidently across 200+ countries and 120 currencies. More than 5,000 businesses already trust Tipalti to manage payments with built-in security and tax compliance. Visit https://www.tipalti.com/runthenumbers to learn more.

Aleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run

Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it’s faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics

#RunTheNumbersPodcast #PrivateMarkets #VentureCapital #TakePrivate #FinanceLeadership

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 forecasting when virality drives your business, and why Notion’s path to profitability looks different from its peers. Rama also shares lessons from scaling Credit Karma through its $8.1B acquisition by Intuit, what she learned about IPO readiness at Instacart, and how finance leaders can balance ambition with realism in uncertain markets.

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LINKS:

Rama Katkar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramakatkar/

Notion: https://www.notion.so/

CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222

Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

RELATED EPISODES:

“Let’s Just See What Breaks” — Intuit’s CFO on Being a Disruptor When You’re Already the Incumbent—

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview – Credit Karma, Instacart, and the Road to Notion

(00:01:14) Welcome & Episode Overview – Rama Katkar, CFO of Notion

(00:02:22) Sponsor – Fidelity Private Shares | Mercury | RightRev

(00:06:10) Interview Begins – From Dinner Conversations to Notion’s Pricing Evolution

(00:09:20) Early Launch of Notion AI and Add-On Pricing

(00:12:40) Community-Led Growth and Notion’s Viral Flywheel

(00:14:38) Sponsor – Tipalti | Aleph | Rillet

(00:18:39) Who Adopts Notion First? Product, Design, and Engineering

(00:20:32) Turning Free Users Into Paid Teams

(00:22:09) Why Notion Added an Enterprise Sales Motion

(00:26:29) The CFO’s Long Game: Balancing Free Users and Cost

(00:30:44) How Notion Experiments With AI Pricing

(00:32:42) Rama’s Three-Part Framework for Forecasting

(00:36:38) Why Notion Plans on a Six-Month Cadence

(00:40:56) Transition – From Forecasting to M&A: Credit Karma’s Wild Ride

(00:41:31) Selling Credit Karma During the Pandemic and DOJ Review

(00:44:04) Closing the Deal With Intuit

(00:49:47) Why the Org Chart Is the Most Important M&A Slide

(00:52:08) The Long-Ass Lightning Round

(00:56:45) Career Advice to Her Younger Self – Context Over Calculation

—

SPONSORS:

Fidelity Private Shares is the all-in-one equity management platform that keeps your cap table clean, your data room organized, and your equity story clear—so you never risk losing a fundraising round over messy records. Schedule a demo at https://www.fidelityprivateshares.com and mention Mostly Metrics to get 20% off.

Mercury is business banking built for builders, giving founders and finance pros a financial stack that actually works together. From sending wires to tracking balances and approving payments, Mercury makes it simple to scale without friction. Join the 200,000+ entrepreneurs who trust Mercury and apply online in minutes at https://www.mercury.com

RightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.

Tipalti automates the entire payables process—from onboarding suppliers to executing global payouts—helping finance teams save time, eliminate costly errors, and scale confidently across 200+ countries and 120 currencies. More than 5,000 businesses already trust Tipalti to manage payments with built-in security and tax compliance. Visit https://www.tipalti.com/runthenumbers to learn more.

Aleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run

Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it’s faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics

#CFOInsights #StartupFinance #NotionHQ #ProductLedGrowth #RunTheNumbersPodcast

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? Did AI Kill It? The “triple-triple-double-double-double” path to $100M ARR worked in the old SaaS world. But what happens when AI companies blow past $100M in less than a year — often with questionable margins and pass-through revenue?

SEO Down 20–40%: Is AEO the Savior? Google traffic is tanking. ChatGPT is rewriting recommendations. Is “AI Engine Optimization” the new growth channel, or just SEO with a different wrapper?

The Brutal Tech Job Market CS grads face unemployment rates double those of art history majors. With 5,000+ applications going nowhere, does anyone get hired without networking or Loom videos anymore?

Is Your Board Quiet Quitting? When growth slows and AI isn’t your story, some VCs go ghost. From missing intros to pushing for M&A, boards are quietly exiting stage left.

Business Blunders

* Hospital Bed LinkedIn Photos: Hustle so hard you end up in the ER (and still post about it).

* The @Company Non-Tag: Execs copy-paste updates but forget to actually tag anyone. Peak passive-aggressive LinkedIn.

* Ramp’s Y-Axis Crime: A 0.4% bump in weekend meals turned into a chart that looked like the apocalypse. Two burritos never looked so big.

Pricing in the Real World: Bob’s Barricades It’s not Bob, it’s Happy — and he’s quietly running a barricade rental empire. Fifty cents per cone, thousands per site, tens of millions a year. The most Florida business model you’ve ever heard.

Something We Tried This Week Kyle runs a test with Typeform — what worked, what didn’t, and what it says about the state of survey tools today.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Metronome

You just launched your new AI product. The new pricing page looks great. But behind it? Last-minute glue code, messy spreadsheets, and running ad-hoc queries to figure out what to bill. Customers get invoices they can’t understand. Engineers are chasing billing bugs. Finance can’t close the books.

With Metronome, you hand it all off to the real-time billing infrastructure that just works—reliable, flexible, and built to grow with you. We turn raw usage events into accurate invoices, give customers bills they actually understand, and keep every team in sync in real time.

Whether you’re launching usage-based pricing, managing enterprise contracts, or rolling out new AI services, Metronome does the heavy lifting so you can focus on your product, not your billing.

That’s why some of the fastest-growing companies in the world, like OpenAI and Anthropic, run their billing on Metronome.

Visit metronome.com to learn more.