“Let’s Just See What Breaks” — Intuit’s CFO on Being a Disruptor When You’re Already the Incumbent
Run the Numbers
Intro
This chapter explores how Intuit evolved under its CFO by embracing innovation and self-disruption, moving beyond traditional practices. It highlights the importance of risk-taking, effective capital allocation, and storytelling in finance to navigate a fast-changing market.
How do you keep innovating and disrupting when you’re already the incumbent? And how do you prevent a $200B+ company from becoming slow and complacent? In this episode, CJ is joined by Sandeep Aujla, CFO of Intuit, who shares how one of the world’s largest software companies continues to operate with the agility of a startup. With QuickBooks, TurboTax, Credit Karma, and MailChimp all falling in the Intuit family tree, serving both consumers and businesses, Sandeep breaks down the company’s platform strategy, explains how he tells a unified story across these product lines, and describes how he prioritizes capital allocation. He also talks about Intuit’s efforts to leverage AI to improve internal efficiencies, insights into the ideal CFO-CTO relationship, tactics for saying no, the benefits of letting stuff break, and how finance helped uncover a major growth opportunity for Intuit in the mid-market. The conversation touches on the company’s 25 golden metrics, why leap years and the Super Bowl affect revenue, and the lesson Sandeep learned from a $2 coffee.
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LINKS:
Sandeep Aujla: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aujla/
Intuit:
https://www.intuit.com/
CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222
Mostly metrics:
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TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00) Preview and Intro
(02:30) Sponsor – Pulley | Brex | Aleph
(07:11) Sandeep’s Career Journey at Intuit
(09:41) The Stigma Around CFOs and Seriousness
(11:01) Being the Disruptor When You’re Already the Incumbent
(14:04) Intuit: Software, Payments, or Services Company?
(15:21) Sponsor – RightRev | Navan | NetSuite |
(19:00) The Intuit Family Tree
(20:14) Cross-Platform Network Effects
(21:54) Telling a Unified Story Across Multiple Product Lines
(25:24) How Finance Discovered a Mid-Market Growth Opportunity
(28:56) Reducing Churn by Keeping Customers on Platform
(31:04) How Small Businesses Are Evolving To Leverage Tech and AI
(34:11) How Sandeep Prioritises Capital Allocation
(37:17) Tactics for Saying No Gracefully as a CFO
(39:39) The Benefits of Letting Stuff Break
(43:10) Reinvesting Across the Business: Consumer Versus Business
(45:36) The CFO-CTO Relationship in the Age of AI
(49:45) Tracking Intuit’s Target for Internal AI Efficiency
(52:06) Surprising Usage Patterns: Leap Years, Game of Thrones, etc
(53:15) The Different Use Cases for AI Internally
(55:48) The 25 Golden Metrics That Matter
(58:45) Leap Years and Other Surprising Things That Impact the Business
(1:00:04) Long-Ass Lightning Round: A Deadline Mistake
(1:02:04) Advice to Younger Self
(1:03:48) Finance Software Stack
(1:04:36) A Bonus Question: Printed Notes
(1:05:17) Craziest Expense Story
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#platformbusiness #innovation #disruption #CapitalAllocation, #FinancialSoftware
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