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How Does Figma Rehearse Investment Memos With AI? · a16z

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The New CFO: How AI Is Rewriting the Finance Function | Figma CFO Praveer Melwani

AI is moving finance from reconciling what happened last month to helping decide what the business should do next. Figma CFO Praveer Melwani argues that the best finance teams are becoming builders themselves, automating repetitive work so they can spend more time understanding customers, running experiments, and shaping strategy. Praveer joins a16z’s…

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Notes

  1. Why Does Figma's CFO Check Data Every Day? at 6:54

    Praveer Melwani views data and having access to it as the key unlock for running his day, on a daily rhythm and sometimes more often than that. Full answer

  2. How Does Figma Rehearse Investment Memos With AI? at 13:06

    Praveer Melwani says people with finance backgrounds created a unique personality for each leader and packaged each one as a set of skills. Full answer

  3. Who Should Take a Finance AI Prototype Into Production? at 22:33

    Praveer Melwani wants finance specialists to invent the tools and leave production to a chief information officer group. Full answer

  4. Why Does Accounting Help Figma Data Scientists? at 25:22

    Praveer Melwani says a couple of the data scientists devoted to finance at Figma come from accounting backgrounds, and their grasp of the work is what enables… Full answer

  5. What Does Figma's CFO Pitch to New Recruits? at 31:34

    Praveer Melwani has started pitching access to technology when he recruits. Full answer

  6. How Do AI Agents Speed Up Finance Research? at 35:44

    Praveer Melwani says tools should hand over the first draft of what changed, the first set of expectations, and the first thread to pull. Full answer

  7. Why Does Figma's CFO Still Use Excel? at 40:31

    Praveer Melwani says Excel is not under threat. Full answer

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