Run the Numbers (CJ Gustafson)

27 episodes scanned. 4% of ad slots promote the show's own products.

Recent Episodes

1. Token Series Part 3 | Who’s Footing the Bill for AI?

   Nov 3, 2026

   CJ and guest Ali Hussain discuss who is absorbing the cost of AI, arguing that venture-subsidized AI pricing is now being passed through to customers. They cover hybrid commit models, tiered pricing, credits, overage revenue leakage, and how agentic commerce may affect deal speed and billing. Hussain cites Tabs usage data showing the share of its users passing token costs to customers rising from under 10% to 33%.

2. The Hierarchy of Metrics BS: How Investors Spot Fake Numbers | Brian Neider

   Nov 2, 2026

   Brian Neider, a managing director at Lead Edge Capital and author of the "Hierarchy of Metrics Bullshit" essay, discusses how investors spot misleading metrics, from token usage to downloads. The conversation covers the difference between a good company and a good investment, aggressive EBITDA add-backs, and how AI affects software defensibility. He also describes Lead Edge's portfolio examples RenTrak, Clearwater Analytics, and Electric, and recounts delivering an oversized check to Duo Security.

3. Anthropic's Historic IPO Has Arrived | S1 Breakdown

   Oct 27, 2026

   CJ, host of the Run the Numbers podcast, walks through Anthropic's S-1 filing ahead of its IPO. He covers revenue growth, the reported 900% net revenue retention, compute costs, gross margin, GAAP and adjusted profitability, and the five-class share structure. He also discusses the risk factors, executive pay, and how the roughly $2 trillion valuation compares to other recent IPOs.

4. Why Databricks’ Sid Kumar is Always Planning

   Oct 26, 2026

   Sid Kumar, SVP of Go to Market Strategy and Planning at Databricks, returns to the show to discuss how consumption-based pricing changes sales organizations, customer success, and commission design. He covers his career across perpetual, cloud, SaaS, and consumption models at CA Technologies, AWS, HubSpot, and Databricks. The conversation also addresses how AI is changing capacity planning and why he favors continuous planning over annual planning.

5. Oklo CFO on Leading Through Deepwater Horizon | Craig Bealmear

   Oct 22, 2026

   CFO Craig Bealmear discusses his move from nearly 30 years at BP and Renewable Energy Group into nuclear power at Oklo, which is building liquid-metal fast reactors and a vertically integrated fuel and isotope business. The conversation covers raising billions of dollars before meaningful revenue, why cash management matters more than the P&L for a capital-intensive developer, and how he plans finance hiring two to three years ahead. He also reflects on leading through the Deepwater Horizon crisis at BP in 2010. The episode was recorded live at Brex Mode in Chicago.

6. Token Series Part 2 | How Much AI is Too Much?

   Oct 20, 2026

   Ali Hussain of Tabs joins CJ for Part 2 of the Token Series to discuss how much AI is appropriate in finance. They cover why finance may be the most AI-forward function after product and engineering, how MCP became finance's "ChatGPT moment," and why headless agents need guardrails. The conversation also addresses governance, where finance teams should start with AI, and why deterministic application layers and buy-versus-build decisions still matter.

7. Brex's CFO on the Weekend SVB Collapsed | Erica Dorfman

   Oct 19, 2026

   Erica Dorfman, CFO of Brex, traces her path from capital markets at SoFi through product leadership to the CFO seat. The conversation covers Brex's decision to move away from lending, how the company handled the SVB collapse while managing both a crisis and a business opportunity, and how she has reinvented her teams as the company scaled. It also touches on finance team structure, meeting culture, and her early career.

8. Former Netflix CFO Breaks Down Return on Compute | Jim Cook

   Oct 15, 2026

   Jim Cook, a multi-time CFO who previously held finance roles at Intuit, Netflix, and Mozilla and now coaches finance leaders through Benchboard, joins CJ to discuss "return on compute" as a metric for finance teams. The conversation covers surprise AI bills and their parallels to early cloud cost overruns, approaches to budgeting for tokens, and how CFOs can communicate influence and lead with a point of view. It also touches on Cook's five-dimension framework for assessing a CFO.

9. Inside the Food52 Bankruptcy | Heidi Robinson

   Oct 12, 2026

   Former Food52 CFO and COO Heidi Robinson describes joining the company in October as a turnaround CFO, only to discover within weeks that it was in far deeper distress than expected. She covers delivering that news as the newest executive, a lender's sudden cash sweep, emergency layoffs, the decision to file for Chapter 11 in December, and the stalking horse bid and auction that split the company's three brands among buyers. The conversation also covers the roles of restructuring lawyers, financial advisors, and creditors, and how proceeds are distributed.

10. Robinhood's CFO on Refounding & the Art of Capital Allocation | Shiv Verma

    Oct 8, 2026

    CFO Shiv Verma joins the Run the Numbers podcast to discuss Robinhood's 2022 "refounding," including a reorganization into general manager units, a roughly 40% headcount reduction, and a shift to directly responsible individuals in place of committees. He explains how Robinhood uses NPS data, the personal headcount and marketing-dollar approvals he makes, and the finance team's embedded "business partner" model. The conversation also covers capital allocation principles such as no loss leaders and avoiding variable costs, along with the monthly and quarterly forecasting cadence, his early career with the Oakland A's, and the finance software stack.