Lessons
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Analyzing Palantir’s Accounting: What Michael Burry Sees in the Data
I spend a significant amount of time staring at financial statements. Usually, the story they tell is boring. Revenue goes up, expenses go up, margins stay flat. But when lines on a graph that should move together start running in opposite directions, I pay attention. That is exactly what is happening with Palantir, and it…
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The Tipping Point: What 1,005 Auditors Said About AI
Is AI just a shiny object we talk about at conferences, or is it actually doing the work? I’ve been asking this question a lot lately. To get a real answer, I dug into the data from the newly published IDC InfoBrief, “The Future of Audit and Accounting in the AI Era” (February 2026). I…
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Leading Through Change: Why Managers Are the Single Biggest Factor in Retention
When I was at PwC, I noticed a distinct pattern in who stayed and who left. I knew plenty of smart people who quit simply because they were stuck with a specific manager or partner. On the flip side, I consider myself successful largely because I was fortunate enough to be matched with leaders who…
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From Scorekeeper to Strategist: The New CFO Mandate for 2026
For a long time, the CFO was the person you avoided in the hallway if you wanted to spend money. They were the scorekeepers, the gatekeepers, and frankly, the “no” machine. Their job was historical—looking backward at what happened to ensure the books balanced. But I’ve been digging into the latest course release on the…
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Mastering OKRs: How to Measure What Matters (and Why Your Goals Usually Fail)
Let’s be honest. Most annual goal-setting exercises are a waste of time. You write down a vague intention in January, bury it in a spreadsheet, and then scramble to justify your existence in December. I first picked up John Doerr’s Measure What Matters a few years back on the recommendation of some partners at PWC. It didn’t…
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The AI Intensity Paradox: Why Tools Are Making Us Work Harder
We were promised a vacation. The narrative around AI has always been about automation. The idea was that these tools would handle the drudgery—the boring data entry, the repetitive emails—and leave us with more time for high-value creative work. Or better yet, just more time off. I wanted to believe that. But lately, I’ve noticed…
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Why AI Can’t Replace Experts (Yet): Word vs. World Models
I keep seeing the headlines. You have probably seen them too. They claim accountants, lawyers, and coders will be obsolete in a year. If you ask a startup founder, they look at an AI-generated legal memo and say, “This is perfect. Lawyers are done.” If you ask a lawyer, they look at the same memo…
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Accrual’s $75M Bet: Can AI Finally Fix Accounting Workflows?
My mom worked in accounting back when ledgers were actual paper books. She likes to remind me how manual everything was. We moved to spreadsheets and then to cloud software, but let’s be honest: I still spend a massive amount of my day moving data from Point A to Point B. We talk about automation…
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AI Is Your New Study Buddy: Testing ChatGPT, Gemini, and NotebookLM
I was reading a New York Times article recently where they asked eight different AI experts—scientists and researchers—where they thought the technology would be in five years. They disagreed on a lot, but they all agreed on one specific area that is about to get disrupted: Education. We usually think about this in terms of high schoolers…
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Stop The Spreadsheet Dump: Mastering the 60-Second CFO Brief
I remember early in my career spending days building the “perfect” financial model. It had tabs upon tabs of data, intricate formulas, and perfect formatting. I sent it up the chain, expecting applause. Instead? I got a confused email asking, “What am I looking at?” I realized then that data without a narrative isn’t an…