Run the Numbers

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, Zoom went from steady growth to hyperscale almost overnight, even generating a backlog of a million tickets. Sarah Riley was a finance leader in the company at the time. She joins CJ to talk about what she learned from the experience and how it impacted her in her current role as CFO of dbt Labs. She also explains the influence of Helmer’s Seven Powers framework on her strategic decisions. The discussion covers how Sarah’s evolved pricing models, and helped bring product-led and sales-led growth together into a single go-to-market strategy at dbt Labs. She breaks down how she uses big systems thinking to build out a finance org, how to create healthy off-ramps for pilots, and what’s actually okay to break when “moving fast and breaking stuff”. She also touches on the current use cases for AI in finance and for turning your team from “doers to reviewers”.

—

LINKS:

Sarah Riley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahjriley/

dbt Labs:

https://www.getdbt.com

7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy:

https://7powers.com/

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

Mostly metrics:

http://mostlymetrics.com

RELATED EPISODES:

Wasted Capital and Where to Find It: The CFO’s Guide to Spoilage Levers Leakages:

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:18) Sponsor – Pulley | Navan | NetSuite

(05:53) Being at Zoom at the Start of the Pandemic

(10:14) Challenges Caused by the Influx of Customers

(14:06) Takeaways From Sarah’s Time at Zoom: M&A and Build Versus Buy

(15:49) Sponsor – Planful | Tabs | Rippling Spend

(19:38) Taking Advantage of Your High Share Price for M&A

(20:56) What dbt Labs Does

(24:27) Pricing Evolutions at dbt Labs: Freemium and Open-Source

(27:51) Seat-Based, Usage-Based, Hybrid, or Outcome-Based Pricing

(30:27) Pros and Cons of a Free Component

(32:17) Finance and Sales in dbt’s Evolving Go-to-Market Strategy

(34:09) The Evolution of dbt Labs’ ICP

(35:09) The Helmer 7 Powers Framework

(40:39) Being a Big Systems Thinker While Building a Finance Org

(44:16) Moving and Iterating Quickly: Creating Healthy Off-Ramps for Pilots

(46:19) What You Can and Can’t Break When “Moving Fast and Breaking Stuff”

(47:32) The Current State of AI and Use Cases in Finance

(51:20) Long-Ass Lightning Round: Boundary Definition

(52:08) Advice to Younger Self

(52:56) Finance Software Stack

(55:20) Craziest Expense Story

—

SPONSORS:

Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: pulley.com/mostlymetrics.

Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that helps finance teams streamline reconciliation, enforce policies automatically, and gain real-time visibility. It connects to your existing cards and makes closing the books faster and smarter. Visit navan.com/Runthenumbers for your demo.

NetSuite is an AI-powered business management suite, encompassing ERP/Financials, CRM, and ecommerce for more than 41,000 customers. If you're looking for an ERP, head to https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning.

Planful’s financial planning software can transform your FP&A function. Built for speed, accuracy, and confidence, you’ll be planning your way to success and have time left over to actually put it to work. Find out more at www.planful.com/metrics.

Tabs is a platform that brings all of your revenue-facing data and workflows - billing, AR, payments, rev rec, and reporting - onto a single system so you can automate and be more flexible. Find out more at: tabs.inc/metrics.

Rippling Spend is a spend management software that gives you complete visibility and automated policy controls across every type of spend, saving you time and money. Get a demo to see how much time your org would save at rippling.com/metrics.

#hypergrowth #7Powers #FinanceStrategy #bigsystemsthinking #GoToMarketStrategy

We’re heading towards a world where Google not only stops sending us traffic, but uses our own content against us.

In today’s podcast we discuss how Google’s incorporation of AI summaries into search is changing the shape of the search funnel. For those responsible for making resource allocation bets across their companies to drive new users, this is a fundamental shift.

How are you preparing for it? And what are we seeing? Tune in.

Run the Numbers is brought to you by Zenskar.

Zenskar is an AI-powered order-to-cash platform that automates billing, revenue recognition, and SaaS reporting — no spreadsheets, no engineering required. Built for modern B2B companies, Zenskar supports any pricing model: subscriptions, usage-based, or complex custom contracts.

Step into the future of finance today. Visit zenskar.com/rtn and book a demo!

Referenced:

* Link to The Rebooting newsletter

* Link to The Rebooting Podcast “Google Zero” episode

Want a Run the Numbers or Mostly Metrics custom Yeti Mug? They’re dope.

Share mostlymetrics.com in a Slack of Teams channel with +25 members, screenshot it, and email it to me at [email protected]

I’ll hook you up.

In this episode, Alex Immerman, partner at Andreessen Horowitz, joins CJ to discuss the CFO role and how it's changing in the era of AI. He explains what the components of a company’s AI agenda the CFO should own, how and where it should be leveraged in an organization, and why, if you’re preparing to go public, AI needs to be mentioned in your S-1. He breaks down how the financial landscape differs greatly between AI-native SaaS companies and traditional B2B SaaS companies in terms of retention curves and gross margins, and how this relates to the ever-important LTV to CAC metric. As someone who has worked with prominent CFOs and interviewed many for a16z’s portfolio companies, Alex also describes the qualities of a great CFO, and shares his favorite interview question, before discussing CFOs, CEO, and board dynamics.

—

LINKS:

Alex Immerman on X (@aleximm): https://x.com/aleximm

Alex Immerman on a16z: https://a16z.com/author/alex-immerman

Alex Immerman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/immerman

Andreessen Horowitz:

https://a16z.com

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

Mostly metrics:

http://mostlymetrics.com

RELATED EPISODES:

So You’re Looking for a “Strategic” CFO? Bloomerang’s Steve Isom on What That Really Means:

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:19) Sponsor – Navan | NetSuite | Planful

(05:52) What Separates Good CFOs From Great Ones

(11:56) Questions Alex Asks When Interviewing CFOs for Portfolio Companies

(15:17) How CFOs Should Engage With Investors During the Hiring Process

(17:22) Sponsor – Tabs | Rippling Spend | Pulley

(22:22) What a Great CFO-Investor Relationship Looks Like

(24:46) The CFO-CEO-Board Dynamic

(28:27) How the Role of a CFO Is Changing in the Era of AI

(31:41) AI-Native Company Versus Incumbent for Finance Category Leader

(33:49) Components of a Company’s AI Agenda That the CFO Should Own

(38:39) Why the LTV to CAC Metric Is So Important to Investors

(41:13) LTV to CAC by Sector

(42:41) The Importance of Gross Margin Adjusting Your CAC Payback

(43:21 Retention and Churn Patterns in AI-Native Companies

(45:23) Gross Margin in AI-Native Companies Versus Traditional B2B SaaS

(50:11) What It Takes To Be a Public Company-Ready CFO Today

(53:58) How IPO Expectations for the CFO Have Shifted in the Past Few Years

(55:05) Wrap

—

SPONSORS:

Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that helps finance teams streamline reconciliation, enforce policies automatically, and gain real-time visibility. It connects to your existing cards and makes closing the books faster and smarter. Visit navan.com/Runthenumbers for your demo.

NetSuite is an AI-powered business management suite, encompassing ERP/Financials, CRM, and ecommerce for more than 41,000 customers. If you're looking for an ERP, head to https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning.

Planful’s financial planning software can transform your FP&A function. Built for speed, accuracy, and confidence, you’ll be planning your way to success and have time left over to actually put it to work. Find out more at www.planful.com/metrics.

Tabs is a platform that brings all of your revenue-facing data and workflows - billing, AR, payments, rev rec, and reporting - onto a single system so you can automate and be more flexible. Find out more at: tabs.inc/metrics.

Rippling Spend is a spend management software that gives you complete visibility and automated policy controls across every type of spend, saving you time and money. Get a demo to see how much time your org would save at rippling.com/metrics.

Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: pulley.com/mostlymetrics.

#AINativeSaaS #a16z #CFO #LTVtoCAC #AIinSaaS

If you work for a software company, odds are that people make up 80-90% of your business’s costs. Today’s guest argues that in order to effectively manage a company’s greatest asset, the CFO should be heavily involved in shaping the company culture. Bill Tole is the CFO of TrustRadius, a trusted platform where tech buyers find real reviews. He is skilled in creating structures around ambition and breaks down how TrustRadius creates and implements Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). He explains how they differ from KPIs, why they fail, and how to set aggressive but achievable goals. He discusses the Rule of 40 and why it’s essential for the rest of the company to understand it. Bill also shares how CFOs can influence culture from a finance perspective and why a lack of failure is a cause for concern.

—

LINKS:

Bill Tole on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-tole-0a99789/

TrustRadius:

https://www.trustradius.com/

15Five:

https://www.15five.com/

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

Mostly metrics:

http://mostlymetrics.com

RELATED EPISODES:

Less but Better: Miro’s Justin Coulombe on the Power of Strategic Divestment in SaaS:

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:15) Sponsor – NetSuite | Planful | Tabs

(06:00) TrustRadius’s Business Model

(09:20) OKRs at TrustRadius and Finance’s Role in Them

(14:07) Finance’s Role in Asking the Stupid Questions

(15:58) Sponsor – Rippling Spend | Pulley | Navan

(20:10) How To Set Aggressive but Achievable Goals

(23:19) The Ideal Number of OKRs

(24:21) Leaving Room for Failing or Innovating

(25:57) OKR Derivatives at Department Level

(27:36) Why OKRs Fail

(28:55) Rewriting or Killing Off an OKR Mid-Way

(29:51) Where To Track Your OKRs

(32:03) Applying the Rule of 40

(34:39) Educating the Org on the Rule of 40

(37:34) EBITDA Versus Free Cash Flow for Calculating Rule of 40

(39:24) The CFO As the Culture Leader

(43:21) Using Money To Change the Culture in a Positive Way

(45:42) Mistakes CFO’s Make When It Comes to Culture

(47:06) Long-Ass Lightning Round: Why Failure Is Okay

(51:41) Advice to Younger Self

(53:44) Finance Software Stack

(55:12) The State of SaaS Fragmentation or SaaS Sprawl

(57:28) Craziest Expense Story

—

SPONSORS:

NetSuite is an AI-powered business management suite, encompassing ERP/Financials, CRM, and ecommerce for more than 41,000 customers. If you're looking for an ERP, head to https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning.

Planful’s financial planning software can transform your FP&A function. Built for speed, accuracy, and confidence, you’ll be planning your way to success and have time left over to actually put it to work. Find out more at www.planful.com/metrics.

Tabs is a platform that brings all of your revenue-facing data and workflows - billing, AR, payments, rev rec, and reporting - onto a single system so you can automate and be more flexible. Find out more at: tabs.inc/metrics.

Rippling Spend is a spend management software that gives you complete visibility and automated policy controls across every type of spend, saving you time and money. Get a demo to see how much time your org would save at rippling.com/metrics.

Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: pulley.com/mostlymetrics.

Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that helps finance teams streamline reconciliation, enforce policies automatically, and gain real-time visibility. It connects to your existing cards and makes closing the books faster and smarter. Visit navan.com/Runthenumbers for your demo.

#failure #companyculture #OKR #KPI #Ruleof40

This one’s for anyone who’s ever mistaken SaaS metrics for gospel. I sit down (ok, dine out) with two CFOs—one from a dating app, the other from an HVAC parts company—and come away questioning the whole tech-is-king narrative.

Turns out, the guy replacing dirty rugs in Georgia public schools pulled in $22 million last year. And no, he doesn’t have a Substack.

In this episode:

* A billion-dollar business that makes… bolts

* SaaS dreams vs. rug-cleaning realities

* The myth of “build it once, sell it forever”

* Why R&D is just COGS in a costume

* A gentle roast of hustle culture and spreadsheet empires

This is a reminder that while tech has its perks, the world is full of quiet, profitable businesses that don’t require churn curves or pitch decks. Sometimes, the best margins come with dirt under the fingernails.

Run the Numbers is brought to you by Zenskar.

Zenskar is an AI-powered order-to-cash platform that automates billing, revenue recognition, and SaaS reporting — no spreadsheets, no engineering required. Built for modern B2B companies, Zenskar supports any pricing model: subscriptions, usage-based, or complex custom contracts.

Step into the future of finance today. Visit zenskar.com/rtn and book a demo!

When PagerDuty went public in 2019, it was generating just $100 million in annual revenue which made it relatively small for a SaaS IPO. One of the main motivations for this was that visibility into the company’s financials would inspire customer trust. In this episode, CJ speaks with Howard Wilson, PagerDuty’s CFO, who shares the unique challenges of going public as a small company, how the landscape has changed since then, and how to approach an IPO when you don’t have the experts you need in-house. As a former chief commercial officer, Howard brings unique insights into the role of a CFO. He discusses the importance of building a finance team with customer awareness, how he uses customer usage patterns to challenge traditional SaaS metrics, and how to uncover the unexpected pathways that customers take to reach your business. He also talks about the complexities of the “beat and raise" forecast, how market volatility creates opportunity, and breaks down his framework for mapping out potential investment areas.

—

LINKS:

Howard Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardwilson01/

PagerDuty:

https://www.pagerduty.com/

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

Mostly metrics:

http://mostlymetrics.com

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:08) Sponsor – Planful | Tabs | Rippling Spend

(06:01) Earnings Calls and Being a Public Company CFO

(11:14) How the Bar for Going Public Has Changed Since 2019

(14:04) How Going Public Affects Customer Trust

(15:50) Sponsor – Pulley | Navan | NetSuite

(19:34) Approaching the IPO Process Without the Necessary Experts In-House

(21:47) Using Advisors To Fill Functional Gaps in Small Companies

(24:38) The IPO Tech Stack for Small Companies

(25:44) The Complexities of the “Beat and Raise” Forecast

(28:33) How Market Volatility Creates Opportunity

(34:37) How Experience as a Chief Commercial Officer Makes a Better CFO

(38:16) A Framework for Mapping Out Potential Investment Areas

(44:08) Customer Awareness in Your Finance Organisation

(47:47) Customer Usage Patterns Versus Traditional SaaS Metrics

(52:16) The Unexpected Pathways Customers Take To Reach Your Business

(57:54) Long-Ass Lightning Round: A Learning Mindset

(59:22) Advice to Younger Self: Don’t Stay in Your Lane

(01:01:24) Finance Software Stack

(01:02:57) Craziest Expense Story

—

SPONSORS:

Planful’s financial planning software can transform your FP&A function. Built for speed, accuracy, and confidence, you’ll be planning your way to success and have time left over to actually put it to work. Find out more at www.planful.com/metrics.

Tabs is a platform that brings all of your revenue-facing data and workflows - billing, AR, payments, rev rec, and reporting - onto a single system so you can automate and be more flexible. Find out more at: tabs.inc/metrics.

Rippling Spend is a spend management software that gives you complete visibility and automated policy controls across every type of spend, saving you time and money. Get a demo to see how much time your org would save at rippling.com/metrics.

Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: pulley.com/mostlymetrics.

Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that helps finance teams streamline reconciliation, enforce policies automatically, and gain real-time visibility. It connects to your existing cards and makes closing the books faster and smarter. Visit navan.com/Runthenumbers for your demo.

NetSuite is an AI-powered business management suite, encompassing ERP/Financials, CRM, and ecommerce for more than 41,000 customers. If you're looking for an ERP, head to https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning.

#goingpublic #SaaSIPO #CustomerTrust #CustomerAwareness #PagerDuty

How do you know when a company is ready to go public? And what do you do to prepare for this? Chirag Shah, CFO of Motive and former CFO of Kong and Cornerstone OnDemand, joins CJ to share insights from his experience of scaling businesses from $30 million to nearly $1 billion and tripling ARR. He talks about taking companies public and how he helped take one private again in a $5.2 billion deal. In this episode, he explains what signals indicate that a company is ready to accelerate its growth, the art and science of building sales capacity, and how to balance efficiency and growth in hypergrowth mode. He also covers how to achieve a great valuation without a strong performance, the biggest headache on the road to IPO, and whether you should IPO in the first place or remain private.

—

LINKS:

Chirag Shah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chirag-shah-787b1b20/

Motive:

https://gomotive.com/

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

Mostly metrics:

http://mostlymetrics.com

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:11) Sponsor – Tabs | Rippling Spend | Pulley

(06:25) Personal Product Market Fit: Preparing Companies for IPOs

(10:34) How Being a General Manager Made Chirag a Better CFO

(15:02) Sponsor – Navan | NetSuite | Planful

(18:11) Asking Better Questions in Finance

(20:08) Signals That a Company Is Ready To Accelerate Its Growth

(25:10) The Art and Science of Building Sales Capacity

(28:35) The Dangers of Adding Too Many Sales Reps

(33:22) Determining the Numbers of Recruiters and Sales Manager Interviews

(35:03) How To Garner a Great Valuation Without a Strong Performance

(37:18) The Sweet Spot for Earnings Guidance

(41:22) The Biggest Headache on the Road to IPO

(44:03) Underappreciated Challenges of Being a Public SaaS Company

(46:42) Taking Cornerstone OnDemand Public and Then Private Again

(50:17) IPO or Stay Private: Advice for CFOs

(52:15) Optimizing for Public Company Holders Versus Private Equity Investors

(55:05) Balancing Efficiency and Growth in Hypergrowth Mode

(58:34) Long-Ass Lightning Round: Preparation for Being a CFO

(01:01:34) Advice to Younger Self

(01:04:04) Finance Software Stack

(01:05:01) Craziest Expense Story

—

SPONSORS:

Tabs is a platform that brings all of your revenue-facing data and workflows - billing, AR, payments, rev rec, and reporting - onto a single system so you can automate and be more flexible. Find out more at: tabs.inc/metrics.

Rippling Spend is a spend management software that gives you complete visibility and automated policy controls across every type of spend, saving you time and money. Get a demo to see how much time your org would save at rippling.com/metrics.

Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: pulley.com/mostlymetrics.

Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that helps finance teams streamline reconciliation, enforce policies automatically, and gain real-time visibility. It connects to your existing cards and makes closing the books faster and smarter. Visit navan.com/Runthenumbers for your demo.

NetSuite is an AI-powered business management suite, encompassing ERP/Financials, CRM, and ecommerce for more than 41,000 customers. If you're looking for an ERP, head to https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning.

Planful’s financial planning software can transform your FP&A function. Built for speed, accuracy, and confidence, you’ll be planning your way to success and have time left over to actually put it to work. Find out more at www.planful.com/metrics.

#scaling #goingpublic #hypergrowth #IPO #PrivateVersusPublic

The tables are turned: CJ is interviewed by Lilly Wyden, host of the Shared Narratives podcast, to talk about the intersection of tech, finance, and writing.

We discuss:

* How I found a CFO job via my newsletter

* The power of owning specific patches of real estate on the internet

* If big Substack writers will have talent agents someday

* How the memeification of finance has made the industry more fun and approachable

* Whether I would ever write about corporate gossip or finance junk food

* What types of products I might launch in the future, and more.

Subscribe to Lilly’s podcast: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/67dc51a1f48da98092cff738

And subscribe to her Substack where you can also get her pod

https://sharednarratives.substack.com/

Run the Numbers is brought to you by Zenskar.

Zenskar is an AI-powered order-to-cash platform that automates billing, revenue recognition, and SaaS reporting — no spreadsheets, no engineering required. Built for modern B2B companies, Zenskar supports any pricing model: subscriptions, usage-based, or complex custom contracts.

Step into the future of finance today. Visit zenskar.com/rtn and book a demo!

How can finance leaders identify where their capital is silently going to waste and where it can be better used to drive growth? In this episode, CJ interviews Russell Lester, the CFO of Tropic, where capital allocation is both the product and the mission. Russell introduces the concept of “spoilage”, deployed capital that fails to deliver its intended value. He also talks about “levers”, positive actions that force multiply your efforts, and “leakages”, headwinds or detractors that sap momentum. Russell believes it is the job of the CFO (or “Chief Alignment Officer”) to proactively go looking for these levers and leakages. He then explains how he uses his "center of the table" framework to redeploy the freed-up capital to fuel growth. Russell also covers how to address misalignment, what helicopter skills are and why you need them, what a data safari is and why you should take one daily, and why every CFO needs a spend management tool.

—

LINKS:

Russell Lester on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russell-lester-aa98463/

Tropic:

https://www.tropicapp.io/

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

Mostly metrics:

http://mostlymetrics.com

RELATED EPISODES:

The Roadshow, the IPO Process, and Ringing That Bell, With CFO Amanda Whalen of Klaviyo.

CFO Jenny Decker Unveils Top Frameworks Used at Front.

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:34) Sponsor – Rippling Spend | Pulley | Navan

(06:18) The Business of Star Wars

(08:33) The Concept of “Spoilage” in Business

(10:27) How To Identify Spoiled Capital

(15:10) Spoilage Caused by Strategy Drift

(16:25) Sponsor – NetSuite | Planful | Tabs

(20:06) What Are “Levers and Leakages”

(21:40) Identifying Levers

(25:52) Identifying Leakages

(26:37) The Center-of-Table Framework for Budgeting

(31:03) The CFO As “Chief Alignment Officer”

(33:06) How To Address Misalignment

(34:57) What Alignment Looks Like in a Founder-Led Business

(35:54) What Helicopter Skills Are and Why You Need Them

(38:07) Data Safaris and Curiosity as a Secret Weapon

(42:54) Aligning Data and Defining Metrics

(45:08) Using Tropic for Capital Allocation Decisions

(48:13) Spend Management: Cutting Costs Versus Driving Growth

(51:08) Why Every CFO Needs a Spend Management Tool

(52:59) Long-Ass Lightning Round: Alignment With Investors

(55:13) Auto-Renewals: Good or Bad

(56:25) Advice to Younger Self

(57:08) Finance Software Stack

(57:57) Craziest Expense Story

—

SPONSORS:

Rippling Spend is a spend management software that gives you complete visibility and automated policy controls across every type of spend, saving you time and money. Get a demo to see how much time your org would save at rippling.com/metrics.

Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: pulley.com/mostlymetrics.

Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that helps finance teams streamline reconciliation, enforce policies automatically, and gain real-time visibility. It connects to your existing cards and makes closing the books faster and smarter. Visit navan.com/Runthenumbers for your demo.

NetSuite is an AI-powered business management suite, encompassing ERP/Financials, CRM, and ecommerce for more than 41,000 customers. If you're looking for an ERP, head to https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning.

Planful’s financial planning software can transform your FP&A function. Built for speed, accuracy, and confidence, you’ll be planning your way to success and have time left over to actually put it to work. Find out more at www.planful.com/metrics.

Tabs is a platform that brings all of your revenue-facing data and workflows - billing, AR, payments, rev rec, and reporting - onto a single system so you can automate and be more flexible. Find out more at: tabs.inc/metrics.

#capitalallocation #spendmanagement #capitalspoilage #centerofthetableframework #spendmanagementtool

Is it true that founders should still own 50% of a company after a Series A fundraising round? Is 10% ownership at IPO a win or a loss? This episode delves into the topic of dilution, breaking down how much of your company you should sell at each stage, how to approach employee and advisor equity, and what employees should know about equity before taking a job. To answer these questions is Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta, and someone with a strong read on where the private tech market is headed. He and CJ also discuss when the best time to join a startup is and which cities outside of New York and San Francisco are desirable for people in this space. Peter shares insight into the state of the markets in 2025: What is happening with bridge rounds and down rounds, the odds of making it from seed to Series A, and the most telling statistic: AI funding.

—

LINKS:

Peter Walker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterjameswalker/

Carta:

https://carta.com/

Carta’s Founder Ownership Report 2025: https://carta.com/data/founder-ownership/

Carta’s published data reports: carta.com/data

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

Mostly metrics:

http://mostlymetrics.com

—

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:33) Sponsor – Pulley | Tropic | NetSuite

(07:17) Head of Insights at Carta

(09:32) The Users of Carta

(12:20) Multiplayer Finance and Serving Both Sides

(16:24) Sponsor – Planful | Tabs | Rippling Spend

(20:15) Dilution: How Much Ownership You Should Give Up at Each Stage

(23:02) What SAFEs Are

(24:31) The Median Amount of Ownership for a Founding Team After the Series A

(26:21) Should You Still Own 50% of the Company After Series A

(27:18) Is 10% Ownership for a Founder at IPO Normal?

(30:41) The Other Form of Dilution: Employee Equity Grants

(34:25) What Employees Should Know About Equity Before Taking a Job

(37:51) Why Equity Is Not Money

(38:54) ISOs Versus RSUs

(40:43) The Best and Worst Risk-Adjusted Time To Join a Startup

(44:48) Remuneration by Location in Private Tech

(47:39) Equity Comp by Location

(48:43) Advisor Equity by Stage

(51:28) Bridge Rounds Versus Down Rounds in the Last 6–12 Months

(55:36) Survival Rates From Seed to Series A to Series B

(57:36) The Best Time of Year To Fundraise

(59:05) The Typical Age of a Startup When It’s Acquired or It Exits

(01:03:19) The State of the Market in 2025: AI Funding

(01:06:18) Wrap

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