00:08:59 · Ivan Makarov, Praveer Melwani
[00:08:59] S2: How do you interview for that? [00:09:00] S0: It's interesting. Right now, I'm hiring for VP finance, and the case study part of the process for me is so, so sacred. I wanna both test for, like, how are you using the tools available to you? So, yes, I fully expect folks to... I don't give them a lot of information as part of this case study. We're a public company, I get the benefit of a lot of data out there. But how you actually piece those puzzle pieces together in a way that actually makes sense, the model output makes sense. You have the ability not just to go and create that output, but you truly understand how it works. So then I focus the case study conversation on have you really, really understood the structure that you've created? Have you molded it in a way where you've tested what are the highest... What are the pieces of that model that are the the most sensitive to any change? Do you have a strong intuition on how the business is actually working using the tool that you've created? And then, like we were just talking about, can you effectively communicate that? Because, yes, I think anyone can go and create, like, a model sitting in... Pick your favorite LM. You can go and do that really easily. But are you using it as an effective tool that, like, actually is enabling you to think? I think you don't wanna outsource your thinking today. Like, I think you wanna use AI as a tool to help you and empower you, but it's really, really critical to still be that thinker.
00:10:11 · Seema Amble
[00:10:11] S1: Yeah. A lot of what you're describing applies to a good hire with or without AI. I think if anything, AI just you need more of the the accountability and thoroughness to know that the thinking is there behind it as as you receive a work product. Let's drive in a little bit on... Or to understand what you've automated, and we can talk a little about what we've been seeing with portfolio companies. But maybe walk us through a couple of workflows at Figma that you've automated. And how did you decide what to focus on, and what did you what did you do to automate them?
00:10:44 · Praveer Melwani
[00:10:44] S0: Yeah. I... You know, they're so broad and so I... You know, maybe I could pick a few that to me have been fun to see. I think I think we've, like, moved really quickly even over the last over the last year to say, you know, how do I go and try to coach people to embrace new tools and new ways of working to now one where I feel like I'm constantly being, like, hit in the face with a lot of these really cool ideas. We do a segment at the company All Hands. You know, All Hands is called Figma Nation where we show folks how others have built with AI, and consistently our team shows up as a team that's there. So it's things with, you know, Kajal and our credit and collections team. He's gone and rebuilt his entire workflow, everything from invoice tracking, cash collections, making sure that we can reconcile everything to NetSuite, he's done it in a way where it's like a homegrown system where, you know, it's tied to the various systems that we use. It then has freed him up to say, okay, well, I can go and continue to drive down my days receivable by focusing on the things that really matter and then focusing on what are the other sort of tedious tasks that I can go and build automation for. And so he's then gone and say, well, I can go and, like, rebuild the way that I wanna run our credit checks, and I can go and stitch together the datasets in interesting ways that allow me not to have to go in... You know, manually go in... Into them, and it's a singular way where he can now go to anyone to to say, hey. Go and leverage the tools that I've created to to to go and really drive and drive change there. On our on our corp dev team, it's it's been really fun to see, like, how they, you know, both will, you know, can you vibe code a product is one of the one of the checks that we use in diligence now, which is actually really fun to see. Like, how how deep is your moat? How how interesting is the technology there? And I think, you know, everyone should be able
00:12:32 · Seema Amble, Praveer Melwani, Ivan Makarov
[00:12:32] S1: to You'll try to recreate the product. Wow. Okay. [00:12:34] S0: Yeah. And you can act... I mean, I think our team's gotten really damn good at at some of this, and so you can get through some of the, you know, is this a real thing? Is it not? Like, how how difficult is it or not? And, you know, there's obviously nuances to to a whole bunch of these ideas, but it gives you, like, a solid intuition there. [00:12:48] S1: And before, would you have had to go to the product team to do that part of the diligence? [00:12:53] S0: Yeah. I mean, we still partner with the product team, but you can take a lot more of, hey. This is what I've built. This is what I've seen, and it builds a lot of credibility there. Our [00:13:01] S2: I can deposit on that. Those are some of the corp dev people. Right? Not product people. [00:13:06] S0: Yeah. [00:13:06] S2: Their finance background. Right?
00:13:06 · Ivan Makarov, Praveer Melwani, Seema Amble
[00:13:06] S2: Their finance background. Right? [00:13:08] S0: Yeah. Fascinating. Yeah. Totally. And they... We're, like, a very document oriented culture, so they write investment memos. They write, you know, m and a memos, whatever it may be. And, you know, amongst them, the end the end readers or the the the the folks that are digesting it are gonna be folks on our leadership team or other product leaders. And, you know, more often than not, there are themes, there are similar questions, there there are ways that we all as leaders tend to have a way of looking at problems. And what's what's been interesting is they've gone and created unique personalities for each of us as leaders as, you know, a set of skills that they can go and run their investment memos by to actually improve the process. [00:13:48] S1: You have, like, an investment committee that exists, like, interaction between all of them
00:13:48 · Seema Amble, Praveer Melwani
[00:13:48] S1: You have, like, an investment committee that exists, like, interaction between all of them [00:13:52] S0: through the whole Exactly. So so that's exactly what they'll end up demoing. Or rather, they'll they'll sit there kinda going back and forth and saying, okay. This is what Praveer would say, and this is what Dylan would say, and this is what, like, you know, Sean would say, our CRO. And so you you kinda get a... You get you get, like, the the areas of the document that you either want to go and plus up, do more diligence on, what are common sets of feedback that I need to go and make sure I ask the questions over, and then it reduces the cycle time that we're all sitting together on. So, you know, there's a lot of these areas where, you know, we're both feeling like it's a tool that helps you augment, it's this tool that helps you go and replace workflow, and then it's this tool that helps you seek to understand and learn. And I'm constantly surprised at how quickly we've been able to riff on things, and for me it's actually put me in this really optimistic spot of saying like, I'm gonna... I I think we're gonna be able to attract and build the world's best finance organization because so much of what people want is the ability to learn and feel like they're being invested in and surrounded by people that wanna go and, you know, become the best at their craft. And as much as I can do to go and effect and enable that change, the better I think we're gonna be able to go at retaining and growing and grooming that talent over time too.