How AI Is Turning Figma’s Finance Team Into Builders
Figma CFO Praveer Melwani joins a16z partners to explain how AI is turning finance staff into builders, from automated collections to AI-reviewed memos, and why he still hires for curiosity and independent thinking.
The gist
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Melwani hires for curiosity and data fluency, using a case study to test whether candidates truly understand AI-built models rather than outsourcing their thinking.
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His credit and collections lead rebuilt invoice tracking, cash collection and NetSuite reconciliation using ChatGPT agents, while corporate development vibe codes target products during diligence.
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Melwani says AI work needs careful review, and in a travel expense analysis 95% of the challenge was getting the data in the right spot.
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He wants a central CIO team to turn scattered homegrown tools into shared platforms, and says flat complexity would mean fewer staff within a year.
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Melwani calls Excel his love language for building intuition, and an a16z partner advises companies to start any automation effort with data integrity.
"We've also seen folks sitting within some of the workflow automation pieces and building skills around agents using ChatGPT, and so that's how some of the credit and collections pieces were being built."
▶ Play at 15:37160 creators recommend it, including John Coogan, Riley Brown, and Peter Yang.
See all on the ChatGPT page"Is Excel under threat? No. It's like my love language, dude... You use it to build intuition... Similarly, I think about that with Excel. It's the way I build trust, the way I build understanding. There may be something better in the future, but for me, I think it'd be really,..."
▶ Play at 40:37
a16z uses it
"I also grew up in Excel and I still use Excel to organize my thoughts. If I'm trying to run an analysis... it's just even the spatial organization of it."
▶ Play at 41:378 creators recommend it, including The Game w/ Alex Hormozi, Riley Brown, and Codie Sanchez.
See all on the Excel pageWhat they recommend · 3 picks
"Is Excel under threat? No. It's like my love language, dude... You use it to build intuition... Similarly, I think about that with Excel. It's the way I build trust, the way I b..."
"We've also seen folks sitting within some of the workflow automation pieces and building skills around agents using ChatGPT, and so that's how some of the credit and collections..."
"I also grew up in Excel and I still use Excel to organize my thoughts. If I'm trying to run an analysis... it's just even the spatial organization of it."
Praveer Melwani
2 picks · guest
"Is Excel under threat? No. It's like my love language, dude... You use it to build intuition... Similarly, I think about that with Excel. It's the way I build trust, the way I b..."
"We've also seen folks sitting within some of the workflow automation pieces and building skills around agents using ChatGPT, and so that's how some of the credit and collections..."
a16z
1 pick · host
"I also grew up in Excel and I still use Excel to organize my thoughts. If I'm trying to run an analysis... it's just even the spatial organization of it."
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