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  • šŸ¤ One-on-one Interview Series: Courtland Showerman, CFO of Quora

šŸ¤ One-on-one Interview Series: Courtland Showerman, CFO of Quora

Q&A with the CFO behind one of the most interesting social platforms on the internet...

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One-on-one withā€¦

The robots are comingā€¦

But what does it all mean for finance? Change is certain. But what? And how fast?

In the first two parts of this series we heard from two leaders right at the apex of what AI means for finance:

Both of these business have AI in their bloodstream. And so does todayā€™s guest, Courtland Showerman, CFO of Quora.

You are probably familiar with Quora, the popular social media platform known for its Q&A format.

But well known is that Quora has its own AI tool; ā€˜Poe.ā€™ Poe offers access to some of the most powerful chatbots in one streamlined platform.

Courtland is using it internally to simplify his personal workflows and developing his own custom bot to summarize competitor earnings calls.

As Quora's CFO since its early days (2014), he also has an interesting personal story.

Letā€™s start there.

Letā€™s learn about Courtlandā€™s path to CFOā€¦

Courtland

Source: Quora

Secret CFO (SCFO): Please could you give an overview of your path to CFO?

Courtland Showerman: My journey to CFO followed a common trajectory: a business undergraduate degree, an MBA, and over four years at a Big 4 accounting firm. Post-Big 4, I deliberately chose Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) to broaden my financial expertise. While accounting provides historical insight, FP&A offers a forward-looking perspective, giving me a comprehensive view of business operations.

Relocating to Silicon Valley, I gravitated towards startups. The startup ecosystem's rapid growth, dynamic pace, and opportunities for early-career impact aligned perfectly with my professional aspirations. This environment proved to be an ideal fit for my skills and ambitions.

SCFO: You had a few years in the Big 4 (KPMG) in audit at the start of your career. Looking back, how valuable were those years given the path youā€™ve been on since?

Courtland: My tenure at a Big 4 firm was invaluable. As a young professional, I relished the travel opportunities and forged a robust network of fellow accountants that has proven beneficial throughout my career.

A standout advantage of Big 4 employment was the accelerated path to management. Within two years, I found myself leading a small team and shouldering responsibility for their outcomes. This intensive management training was bolstered by a built-in support system of peers facing similar challenges and mentors who had recently navigated the same terrain.

SCFO: What can up-and-coming finance pros learn from your path?

Courtland: The key takeaway is that there's no universal blueprint for success. My journey was guided by interests rather than a preconceived master plan. My advice? Prioritize making a meaningful impact, and career advancement will naturally follow.

SCFO: You have been with Quora since 2014, so from a very early stage. What advice do you have for start-up CFOs on how to lead an accounting and finance team through the stages of growth?

Courtland: Optimize your team's efficiency through automation and streamlined processes. If a task can't scale to 10x volume without excessive manual effort, redesign it. However, don't hesitate to hire when necessary. In startups, justifying a new accountant over an engineer can be challenging from an ROI perspective. But remember, an understaffed finance team risks misstatements and poor resource allocation, potentially jeopardizing the entire company. Strike a balance: stay lean, but not at the cost of effectiveness.

How AI will change accounting and financeā€¦

SCFO: What stage do you think we are at with AI? Is there real substance to the hype? What has changed?

Courtland: I'll preface my answer with full transparency: I'm involved with Poe, an LLM model aggregator for consumers, so my perspective might be colored. That said, I believe AI's impact will surpass even that of the internet.

Rewind to the dot-com bubble. Investors poured money into virtually any company with a web presence. While premature for many, these early ideas eventually materialized into successful ventures years later ā€“ think Pets.com evolving into Chewy, Webvan into Instacart, and Broadcast.com paving the way for YouTube. The internet traversed the hype cycle over about two decades. 

AI, I predict, will blaze through this cycle at warp speed. Remarkably, we seem to have already hit the trough of disillusionment, a mere 12ā€“18 months after ChatGPT's late 2022 debut. Investment analysts are scrutinizing the disconnect between the colossal capital influx into generative AI and the tangible revenue it's generating. This shift marks a transition from unbridled enthusiasm to pragmatic skepticism.

Now the question is: "How does this translate into practical value?"

Time expectations

SCFO: Quora has an AI product, Poe - can you talk more about it, and how it is influencing the strategy of your business?

Courtland: Poe is a chatbot platform on Quora that allows users to interact with AI-powered bots from third parties like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Poe represents a unique phenomenon within Quora: a nascent venture nested within an established startup ecosystem. It effectively operates as a Series A or B startup, yet benefits from the infrastructure of its mature parent company. We must simultaneously support Poe's rapid growth trajectory while maintaining Quora's established financial frameworks.

For Quora, the mature social media platform, we face market expectations of profitability. This drives a disciplined approach to operations and financial management, anchored by a tiered profitability framework with short-, medium-, and long-term targets.

SCFO: How does having a startup nested inside a mature business affect your funding strategy?

Courtland: Poe operates in the nascent, high-growth AI industry where the market exhibits a higher tolerance for cash burn. However, this doesn't equate to unchecked spending. Our strategy involves calculated investments aimed at eliminating growth bottlenecks. The goal is to scale revenues at a pace that will eventually overtake expenses, leading to a sustainable business model.

SCFO: And how about the backend, what role is Poe (and other AI tools) playing in simplifying the back office of Quora? Are you able to attribute any direct cost savings to AI in your business to date?

Courtland: While AI hasn't yet significantly penetrated our core processes or controls at Quora, its impact on personal workflows is already profound. Our existing high level of automation sets a formidable bar for new tools. However, AI's influence on individual productivity is undeniable. I leverage Poe to distill earnings calls, finance podcasts, and articles, exponentially increasing my information intake. It also serves as a writing assistant and an on-demand consultant.

This consultant function is particularly intriguing. I pose specific technical accounting queries or scenario-based questions to the AI. While I never accept its output as gospel due to potential hallucinations and model limitations, it's an invaluable tool for guiding further research or sparking novel ideas.

SCFO: How does that horizon change as you move into the medium and long term?

Courtland: Forecasting AI's future is challenging, butā€¦ one potential outcome is the rise of personalized SaaS solutions. Instead of one-size-fits-all approaches, we may see tailored solutions built by non-technical employees for their specific companies. Or imagine a CFO with a McKinsey-caliber consultant perpetually available on their smartphone. Or an infinite number of virtual salespeople communicating with customers (or their AI agents) for potential sales. In the long term, this technology will impact every corner of every business just like the internet did. 

SCFO: Are you using AI in your accounting function today? Are you well-automated already? How do you think about the bar for meriting investment in AI in accounting/close processes?

Courtland: Our accounting function currently operates without AI-specific tools, largely due to our longstanding commitment to automation. We've cultivated a highly efficient system over time, which has effectively pre-empted the need for many AI solutions currently on the market.

However, this stance doesn't stem from skepticism towards AI, but rather from the high benchmark set by our existing processes. For finance teams in earlier stages of their automation journey or those grappling with manual processes, I would strongly advocate exploring AI tools. These solutions could offer significant efficiency gains and error reduction for less mature systems.

Our approach underscores it's not about embracing every new tool, but rather about critically assessing where emerging technologies can add tangible value.

SCFO: What tools are you using? Are you using Poe internally? Is it modified by your engineers? Or is what you are using available to anyone?

Courtland: Poe has become an integral part of my daily workflow, significantly enhancing my efficiency across various tasks. Its versatility shines in multiple use cases:

  1. Distilling earnings reports into key insights

  2. Refining email composition

  3. Facilitating idea generation and strategy brainstorming

  4. Extracting concise tl;dr takeaways from lengthy analyses

I've leveraged both official bots and my own custom creations to address specific needs. While I'm still in the early stages of experimenting with more technical bots, the potential for further productivity gains is evident.

Poe's impact on my work underscores the transformative power of AI in streamlining information processing and decision-making. As I continue to explore its capabilities, I anticipate uncovering even more innovative applications to enhance our financial operations.

SCFO: Distilling earnings reports using AI!? Thatā€™s exciting. Tell me moreā€¦

Courtland: Distilling earnings reports is one of my favorite use cases:

  1. Executive team briefings: I generate concise summaries of peer companies and industry performance, highlighting key metrics such as revenue, growth, EPS, and stock performance. This provides our leadership with a quick, comprehensive overview of the competitive landscape.

  2. Virtual analyst simulation: I use AI to simulate an analyst's perspective, posing questions to a hypothetical management team. While I don't take these AI-generated responses as fact, they often provide thought-provoking insights or flag areas that warrant further investigation.

  3. Personal investment research: This approach has increased the number of companies I can effectively research each quarter, broadening my understanding of various sectors and potential investment opportunities.

To implement this, I've created custom bots on Poe tailored to these specific use cases. However, even using the official web search bot can provide substantial value. The process is straightforward:

  1. Download the earnings call transcript and latest financial statements

  2. Upload these documents to the AI bot

  3. Request a summary

  4. Ask follow up questions

This method has revolutionized how I process financial information, allowing for deeper, more efficient analysis across a broader range of companies. For CFOs looking to enhance their analytical capabilities and decision-making processes, I highly recommend exploring this AI-assisted approach.

SCFO: Where do you see the greatest opportunities to use AI within accounting & finance more broadly?

Court: Envision a future where finance professionals can swiftly create custom automation solutions, predictive models, and decision-support systems without relying on engineers or external vendors. This self-sufficiency could lead to:

  1. Hyper-personalized workflow optimizations

  2. Rapid prototyping and deployment of financial tools

  3. Real-time adaptation to regulatory changes

  4. Enhanced data analytics capabilities accessible to all team members

This evolution will not only boost efficiency but also foster a culture of innovation within finance departments. It will redefine roles, pushing finance professionals to become hybrid experts in both finance and technology.

SCFO: What advice would you have for CFOs who understand the importance of AI but donā€™t know where to start?

Courtland: Embrace AI personally: Start small by incorporating AI into daily tasks like email composition or article summarization. Then, integrate it into a specific process, such as tracking peer companies' earnings reports. Use AI to distill key points and generate insightful questions.

Designate an AI champion: Identify the team member most technically inclined or passionate about AI. Task them with monitoring developments in the field. Institute quarterly lunch-and-learn sessions where this champion can showcase new tools, demonstrate practical applications, and share their own AI use cases. This regular exposure will keep your entire team informed and spark innovative ideas for leveraging AI in finance.

SCFO: What advice would you have for finance professionals at the start of their careers? How do they capitalize on the opportunities AI brings?

Courtland: Position yourself as your company's AI expert. Immerse yourself in AI technology, continually expanding your knowledge and applying it across diverse areas of the business. Be proactive in demonstrating AI's potential:

  1. When HR needs logos, generate options using AI and share them

  2. Highlight how AI slashed a certain process or workflow in half

  3. Stay ahead of the curve on finance-specific AI tools. When colleagues mention a new tool, be ready to share your insights from prior exploration.

By consistently showcasing AI's impact, you'll naturally become the go-to resource for AI integration.

SCFO: How do you think AI changes the risks around fraud? Are you having to make any adjustments within Quora to manage the risk of payment fraud on the platform?

Courtland: We're rapidly approachingā€”if not already inā€”a world where the authenticity of voices on phone calls can no longer be taken for granted. This means fostering a culture of healthy skepticism where team members feel empowered to question unusual requests or communications. If something feels off, it likely is, and this instinct should be respected and acted upon.

Normalizing the practice of double-checking is crucial. There should be no shame or hesitation in verifying the legitimacy of requests, even when they appear to come from superiors. This extra step of confirmation could be the difference between thwarting a sophisticated fraud attempt and falling victim to it.

Leaning on traditional accounting controls becomes more important than ever. Implementing dual authorization protocols, especially for transactions involving the transfer of money or sensitive information out of the company, provides an additional layer of security against fraudulent activities.

Staying vigilant about communication patterns is also key. If your boss typically doesn't communicate via text, a sudden text message should immediately raise red flags. Being attuned to these nuances in communication styles can help identify potential impersonation attempts.

As we navigate this new landscape of AI-enabled deception, maintaining a balance between efficiency and security is crucial. While these measures may seem cumbersome at times, they are necessary safeguards in an era where technology can be wielded to create incredibly convincing fraudulent scenarios.

Summarizingā€¦

It was great to speak to a CFO who is using AI tools every day. Courtland is right at the cutting edge of the technology, and Iā€™ve already begun working some of his use cases into my own routines.

After my call with Courtland I had to check out his earnings call process for myself. Full disclosure, I hadnā€™t heard of Quoraā€™s AI tool Poe before our discussion.

I asked Poe to review the earnings call transcript for Nvidia and summarize anything that was mentioned on the earnings call but not covered in the earnings release. 

Poe

Pretty damn cool.

I will often listen to earnings calls of competitors and customers (or read the transcript) just to catch the 2 or 3 valuable nuggets that were not covered in the publication. This is normally the juicy stuff, i.e. things that the CEO/CFO say, but donā€™t want to write down.

What was a 2-hour job 7 or 8 times a quarter, just became 5 minutes.

I didnā€™t ask it to snip the audio extract from the earnings call and link it in the summary, but Iā€™m starting to get a sense of where this is all heading.

And how it will help me be a better CFO.

A huge thank you to Courtland and the Quora team for making time for the interview. And thanks to Ramp for making this series possible.

Weā€™ll be back late this week with the final of four ā€˜One-on-oneā€™ interviews diving deep into the future of AI in finance.

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