I’m Leaving Google Cloud. Here Are the 12 Hard-Earned Rules That Changed How I Lead.
By Devon Coombs, CPA, MBA
After five intense years inside one of the fastest-growing orgs in tech, I’m wrapping up my time at Google Cloud. Before logging out for the last time, I took a moment to reflect, not on KPIs or job titles, but on what actually moved the needle. What helped us scale. What slowed us down. What made the meaningful days stand out from the ones that blurred into back-to-back video calls. From that reflection, I distilled 12 rules, hard-earned lessons I’m carrying into my next chapter. These aren’t theories, they’re real, practical rules you can use today.
In this longer-than-usual piece, I’ll walk through:
Why I joined Google Cloud
Why I’m leaving
What’s next (joining Principal Consulting Group and Teaching at Ohlone College and Kennedy High School)
The 12 rules I’m carrying with me: shaped by real stories, real tension, and the people who made them possible
I've learned more from the caliber, curiosity, and generosity of the people here than from any of the hundreds of books on leadership, business, or finance I’ve read.
These lessons were created in the real tension between growth and profitability, speed and quality, as well as creativity and structure. Whether you're in finance, ops, or leadership, my hope is these lessons help you avoid a few bruises, grow your team faster, and focus on what really matters: outcomes over optics.
Or at the very least, give you a reason to pause between pings and think, “This Devon guy might care a little too much, but he’s not wrong.”
Joining Google Cloud - Proving Grounds, COVID, and Fatherhood
I joined Google Cloud just a few months after my daughter was born. It was an unexpected pivot in my career.
At the time, I was thriving at Effectus Group, a fast-growing consulting firm I’d joined after Deloitte. I dove headfirst into IPOs, technical accounting implementations, M&A, system design, and all kinds of funky equity structures. I genuinely loved the work, the people, and the pace. Life was busy, but stable. The path forward was clear.
Then COVID hit.
I was a new dad, raising a family in a small Bay Area condo. And like many of you, I started rethinking everything. Big tech wasn’t the plan. I thought I’d make partner at the firm, then slowly shift into full-time teaching, giving back through public high schools and community colleges. That felt like the most direct way to make a difference.
But the partnership opportunity came sooner than expected. I had the chance to co-create a firm with two exceptional colleagues I deeply respected. And yet, I hesitated. (Stay tuned: they show up again later in the story.)
I didn’t want to just build something. I wanted to lead it.
If I was going to help shape a firm, I needed to know I could operate at the highest level, adding value not just as a technician, but as a true executive business partner. And even though I’d led major projects and delivered big wins, I couldn’t shake the question: Could I have done it better? What would it look like if I learned from the very best in the world?
I needed to go deeper. To test myself. To become more of an expert. Then, the week after my daughter was born, Google Cloud called.
The idea of joining a startup inside a giant felt too aligned to ignore. A chance to build something real, operate at global scale, and stretch myself at a new altitude.
And if I’m honest, part of me needed to know:
Could I perform at the highest levels of business?
Could I carry weight in rooms full of McKinsey and BCG alumni?
Google only hired the best. It was statistically harder to get into than Stanford. And the best of the best at Google were going to Google Cloud to help set the stage for the next leap in enterprise tech.
What I found there was rare: five years of nonstop learning, stretch, and growth.
From Startup Within a Giant… to Segment-Defining Leader
When I joined, Google Cloud was still fighting for visibility inside Alphabet. It was early, scrappy, and chaotic, in all the best ways. The Accounting Deal Desk didn’t exist yet, so a few of us jumped in and built it from scratch. We shaped technical policy, untangled accounting ops, and “thrived in ambiguity” in ways that are only fun in hindsight.
Here’s what that looked like: one of my earliest projects was a backlog tracker we hacked together in a sprint while waiting for “the real tool.” It’s still live.
That’s the paradox of scale: sometimes, the workaround becomes the system.
Over the next five years, Cloud evolved from an under-the-radar product into a segment-defining business. What started as late-night patchwork became global infrastructure. Reviews that once lived in spreadsheets became formal checkpoints for AI, M&A, and partnership deals.
But the growth of Google Cloud was fueled by the people behind it, teams stretching daily to support what felt like the world’s fastest-growing startup. Despite the perks, many left within a year due to the relentless pace and pressure. For the longest time the Google Cloud controllership team couldn't break the average tenure of "one year" mark. Those who stayed were paid in education and experience more than equity.
In those five years, I was fortunate to rotate through nearly a role a year: Deals Desk Lead, Strategic Partnerships & AI Deals Manager, Marketplace Controller, and Chief of Staff for Cloud Controllership. With the help of my teams, I stood up policy frameworks for new programs, advised on tens of billions of dollars in transactions, spun off teams for high-growth product launches, and helped build the infrastructure for Cloud Marketplace’s shift from MoR to agency.
From the outside, people assume Alphabet moves slowly. But inside Google Cloud, we moved at startup speed, just at planetary scale. It felt like a rocket in mid-flight, with structure being built around the engines.
I’ve worked in early-stage firms. I was employee twenty-something at Effectus. I’ve helped startups through their first audits, acquisitions, and IPOs. But I’ll say this with total clarity: Google Cloud was the most intense, demanding, and professionally formative experience of my life.
If you’ve lasted more than a few years in that machine, you’ve earned my respect. You built real executive muscle: resilience, judgment, systems thinking, and leadership under fire. And to everyone I worked with, whether your name shows up below or not, thank you. You taught me more than I ever imagined.
Why I’m Leaving (and What’s Next)
Google Cloud is maturing. And I’m grateful to have played a small part in that journey, to help shape the systems, strategy, and people behind one of the most transformative businesses in tech.
But I’m a builder by nature, and it’s time to build again, with people who do the same.
Five years ago, I passed on the chance to co-found a firm with two exceptional leaders, Ryan Volk and Aaron Einhorn . Not because I didn’t believe in them, but because I knew I still had more to learn. I wanted to test myself at scale, under pressure, surrounded by some of the brightest minds in the world. Now that I’ve done that, it’s time to take those lessons back to the place that started it all.
That firm, Principal Consulting Group (PCG), has become everything I hoped it would be:
A values-driven consultancy focused on real outcomes
A team of 30+ top-tier professionals, backed by a powerful network
A culture that blends curiosity, clarity, and actual joy in the work
A mindset that leverages AI not to protect margins, but to create more value
What’s Next: Strategic Work at PCG
This month, I’m joining PCG as Director and Strategic Advisor, focused on Partnership Strategy and Enterprise Transformation for finance leaders: CFOs, CAOs, Controllers, and operators navigating complexity at scale. If you're navigating complexity, M&A, AI transformation, audits, system design, IPOs or other strategic offerings: PCG was built for you.
In my first engagement, I’m honored to serve as Strategic Advisor to the Chief Accounting Officer at RealPage, Inc., supporting high-impact initiatives in technical accounting, strategic transactions, and leadership. I’m especially excited to partner again with Mark Flournoy, CPA, a passionate, forward-thinking leader I’ve long respected.
What’s Next: Teaching, Podcasting, Writing, and Giving Back
I’m also returning to the classroom, teaching part-time at Kennedy High School and Ohlone College. My mission is to equip the next generation of students, first-gen professionals, and emerging leaders with FANG-quality, practical knowledge, delivered in the most relevant, accessible ways possible.
And finally, I’m continuing this newsletter and the podcast, Ambition Aligned, to reflect, share, and grow alongside those building lives and businesses that matter.
It’s been a wild, rewarding ride. And I’m just getting started.
If you’re building something meaningful and need a strategic advisor, fractional finance leader, or operator who brings calm to chaos, clarity to complexity, and momentum to what matters, I’m back in the arena. Let’s talk.
And this time, I’m not doing it alone. I’m bringing a team I trust at PCG, who can help scale everything I once dreamed of into something far bigger than I could’ve built alone.
And Finally… The 12 Rules of Finance Leadership
Each of these lessons was shaped by the people I had the privilege to work alongside. In the sections that follow, I’ll highlight a few of them, because:
The most meaningful destinations in your career aren’t titles or companies: they’re people.
Build Leaders, Not Puppets: Don’t train people to escalate, train them to think. Delegation without decision-making authority creates dependency, not leadership.
Don’t Let Systems Become Bigger Problems Than the Ones They’re Meant to Solve: If your process is slower than the decision it supports, it’s time to kill it or redesign it.
Don’t Say No - Educate and Offer Alternatives: Saying “no” shuts down trust. Explaining why not, and offering what could work, builds influence.
Scope Is for Projects, Not for People: People grow when they stretch. Don’t confine them to job descriptions. Empower them to solve real problems.
If You Do Something More Than Twice, Build a Process, or Stop Doing It: Repeat tasks signal either inefficiency or a system waiting to be built. Automate or eliminate.
If You See Something Broken, Fix It: The best teams don't wait for permission. Ownership is earned by action, not title.
Learn from Bad Examples: Some of your best mentors will be the ones who showed you exactly what not to do.
High-Performance Teams Don’t Rely on High Performers Alone: High performance gets you started, but a team of high performers will fall into a natural hierarchy, which results in churn and career dissatisfaction. Organizations need to attract all types of people to scale.
Always Choose People Over Processes: The right process should enable people, not replace them. If collaboration is clunky, fix the communication, not just the workflow.
If It’s Hard and Everyone Is Avoiding It, It’s Probably Worth Doing: The highest-leverage work is often the work everyone is silently avoiding. Find the friction and lean in.
You Don’t Need the Title to Do the Job: Leadership, ownership, and value creation are earned through action. If you want the job, don’t wait for the title to start doing it.
Lead Like an Athlete, Not Like a Machine: Sustainable high performance means knowing when to sprint, when to recover, and how to make progress through downtime.
For the rest of this newsletter, I’ll be doing a deep dive on the first three rules. I originally planned to publish all 12 at once, but somewhere around page ten, I realized I was writing a book, not a newsletter. So instead, I’ll be breaking this series up, three rules at a time, to make it more digestible and valuable for you.
If you find this helpful, I’ll keep going, and once the full set is done, I’ll release a free downloadable PDF with all 12, plus reflection prompts and bonus content. Let me know what resonates, or what you’d add.
Rule 1: Build Leaders, Not Puppets
The best leaders don’t create followers. They create more leaders.
The most meaningful wins at Google Cloud weren’t tied to dashboards, deals closed, or headcount. They came through people, watching others step into real leadership. Not by following a script, but by owning something bigger than a task or title.
People like Julia Shen, Joshua Kagami, CPA, Grant, Cliff Klett CPA, MBA. (SSgt) , Colleen Brennan, Brian Chou, and Eduardo Gamboa, each with different strengths, who stepped up in the moments that mattered. Each brought their own strength and drive. No one handed them influence: they built it, earned it, and used it to lift others. Leading them, and watching them grow into leaders in their own right, was by far the most meaningful experience of my time at Google.
I’m grateful they let me lead in a style that, frankly, felt a little unconventional, one I picked up from listening to every episode of the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast and reading dozens of leadership books along the way. At its core, it’s servant leadership: lead by serving, by removing roadblocks, adding value, and never extracting output.
It might sound counterintuitive, but here’s what it looked like in practice. On most calls, after a quick personal check-in, I’d start with: “How can I be most valuable for you today?” Or “What can I take off your plate, or how can I unblock the road ahead?”
And I’d end with: “What’s a project you’d be excited to jump into if you had the time?” Or “What was most valuable for you from this call?”
These weren’t calls where I asked for favors. They were spaces where I invited creativity, ownership, and contribution. The result? The team consistently brought better ideas, more energy, and more strategic solutions than I could have ever assigned. All because they were trusted to lead with their strengths.
And by doing this, they went beyond just executing. They were shaping strategy, guiding teams, training hundreds, and becoming trusted voices in domains most people don’t even know exist. And the crazy thing is what made it work wasn’t hierarchy, it was trust. Authority is earned from your team, not your title. Many of these people reached out to me for my leadership or help when I wasn't their direct manager. The trust was built in simple ways: they were given space to think, permission to fail, and support that showed up in quiet ways, like remembering birthdays, or being present when things got tough.
My north star was simple: build a team that doesn’t need me, but values my input, because I add value to them, not the other way around.
You don’t lead results. You lead people, and they drive everything else.
And the best leaders aren’t followed; they’re remembered, for helping others become more than they thought possible.
Why It Matters
If your team’s success depends on your constant presence, you haven’t built leadership, you’ve built dependency. And dependency doesn’t scale. If your team is focused on executing processes, but not growing as people, you’re capping their potential, and your own. But when your influence shows up in rooms you’re no longer in: that's when you've truly stepped into leadership.
I’m leaving Google not because every project is done, but because I know the people I worked with are ready to lead, on their own terms, in ways that are better, sharper, and more expansive than I ever could have done alone. Because they were supported, challenged, and free to become the best versions of themselves.
Great leaders don’t hoard talent. They multiply it.
Actionable Move
This week, ask your team one of these questions:
“What’s one decision you’d like full ownership of that I might still be holding?”
Or, if trust is still growing: “What’s one thing I, this team, or this org are doing that makes it harder for you to trust or perform at your best?”
Then step back. Let them lead.
Remember: leadership isn’t about steering, or even being a backseat driver. It’s about casting a clear vision, empowering your team to take the wheel, and meeting them at the destination. And more importantly, it’s about them knowing you’re only one call away if the road gets rough.
To all the future (and current) leaders I had the privilege to work with, whether your name was called out or not, thank you. You made this chapter unforgettable.
Rule 2: Don’t Let Systems Become Bigger Problems Than the Ones They’re Meant to Solve
Complexity kills velocity. And velocity is non-negotiable in any growing business.
If your process takes more than three slides to explain, it’s already broken. I’ve lost count of how many times someone looked at a project I led and said: “There’s no way that actually worked; companies this size are way too complex.” But that’s exactly why it worked. I refused to make it complicated.
One of my earliest projects at Google Cloud was building a backlog tracker with the Financial Transformation team. We didn’t launch a new system. We built a Google Sheet.
I rolled up my sleeves, validated every formula, mapped every source, and made sure it was simple enough that cross-functional leaders could understand and use it on day one. That tracker ended up becoming the foundation for backlog reporting for years, not because it was flashy, but because it was right-sized, user-friendly, and trusted.
That same mindset carried into standing up governance around CFO and CAO forums, capacity planning, collectability, marketplace launches, and deal structuring. Each time, I came back to two questions:
Am I solving the real problem?
Is this the simplest way to do it?
Before building a dashboard or requesting an engineering resource, I’d ask:
Could this just be a roundtable?
Could that roundtable have fewer people?
Could it be a 1:1 with the decision-maker?
Could it just be a single email or Slack message?
I always aimed to create the simplest effective solution to the most complex problems, and do it fast. Simple doesn’t mean basic. It means effective. To be clear, these processes often involved hundreds of people across 10+ teams within Alphabet Inc.. The complexity was real. But complex problems don’t require complex solutions.
Good systems don’t need a 30-page explainer. They onboard fast, scale cleanly, and they don’t require a full-time team just to interpret them.
The real work is rarely glamorous. It’s sitting with the data, talking to the people who actually run the process, and translating what you learn into something anyone can act on. Most of the time, I found projects were made complicated because someone didn’t fully understand them, and didn’t want to spend the time untangling the mess or documenting the truth.
We confuse system design with sophistication.
The best systems usually feel like common sense, after someone did the hard work of making them that way.
Why It Matters
It’s said people resist change. That’s only half true. People resist confusion, irrelevance, being left out, or being forced to learn something bloated that only improves performance by 1% and takes six months to adopt.
Nobody complains when change actually helps them. Promotions. Simpler workflows. More time and less frustration. Those changes don’t need a “change management” plan.
From this, it’s important for all leaders to realize:
You don’t mandate adoption. You earn it.
By solving problems people actually care about, in ways they can use on day one.
And to be clear: Sometimes your systems problem is actually a people problem. People often avoid the hard work, so they rope others in by adding process, padding decks, and making things bigger than they need to be. If you’ve got ten people in a room debating headcount to solve a basic problem, you don’t have a system issue, you have a people issue. And no system can fix that until you remove the real bottleneck.
Actionable Move
Before launching any system, do this:
Run a 3-user feedback loop with a consultant. Don’t pitch, just listen. Ask what’s actually broken, and what they’d do to fix it, or if it even needs a fix at all. You’ll learn the most from the people close to it. I find bringing a consultant or trusted advisor / leader in the room is helpful here, as many people will tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear, if you show you are too excited for change and they get worried about your perception.
Ask this question: “Could three sharp people fix this in a shared doc, a Slack thread, and a weekly sync?” If the answer is yes? Don’t launch a system, instead, empower the people to fix the process, while keeping it simple enough to scale.
Gratitude Thank you to Christina, Herki Anto, CPA, Paul Stark, Raj Mudaliar, CPA, Denis Morentsov 🇺🇦, Graeme Gilmour, Emilio Diaz Dominguez, Cliona Murphy Catino, and so many others on the systems, finance, and engineering side who helped me learn this lesson. You showed me we didn’t need more dashboards, we just needed the right people in the right room, solving the right problem.
Rule 3: Don’t Say No; Educate and Offer Alternatives
No one trusts a narc, and they definitely won’t collaborate with one.
If you want to be influential, don’t just enforce rules, teach the game and offer smarter plays. That’s how they arrive at the strategic yes: offering advice and building influence without compromising integrity
When I first joined Google Cloud, I ended up on late-night deal calls with some of the sharpest sales and corp dev operators I’d ever worked with. People often ask, “What did you actually do as an accountant?” I’ll tell you, a lot more than I ever would have expected.
I had leaders like Oliver Parker, David Greenberg, Granville Valentine and Adam Walsh calling me directly, not because I had the final say or was a deal blocker, but because I helped them make better decisions.
They’d ask:
What does this term mean for revenue recognition?
How will this impact backlog and financial reporting?
Can we restructure the deal to meet the customer’s ask without creating chaos downstream?
How can you help us and the customer get to yes?
What are you seeing as best practices on other deals in other contracts, or from other industries?
They didn’t need a “yes” or “no.” They needed clarity, advice, best practices, and options. If a structure pushed the limits of what was technically allowed, I never said: “We can’t.”
I said:
Here are five ways we might get there.
Here’s the tradeoff for each.
Here’s what’s compliant, and how I recommend addressing the risk.
That’s what I call The Strategic Yes. It’s how you earn trust, not by blocking deals or lording your CPA over people’s heads, but by solving for what matters without breaking what you’re hired to protect.
The best sales organizations in the world need the breathing room to sell, while the best finance professionals find ways to give them the support they need to run at high velocity and creativity without flying too close to the sun.
Over time, I found myself in live negotiations. Sales leaders would pull me in at a moment’s notice, and we were having fun. They were calling because I helped get deals done safely and quickly, and I had become a true partner, not just an approval machine.
I also made it a goal to turn any advice or learning we had from a deal into scalable learnings for the organization: playbooks, trainings, wikis, you name it. And this helped the organization speak the same language across sales, product, pricing, and finance.
The epitome of this for me was when Kyle J. Jessen, a senior sales leader, invited me to give a keynote at a national sales offsite. Not about revenue policy or a deal but about my story. That moment made it clear: I wasn't just supporting deals, I was shaping the room. I might be one of the only accountants in Google history to keynote a sales offsite, not because I said no, but because I learned how to say "yes", strategically. That’s what made the difference.
Why It Matters
If you want to be in the room where strategy happens, don’t just tell people what they can’t do. Help them get where they need to go, while protecting and educating on what matters. That’s the balance and where trust is built.
Finance should act less like the Department of Defense, and more like the Department of Education.
That’s how we become a multiplier, help companies scale, and how we can best collaborate without the business losing its edge.
Actionable Move
This month, ask to shadow or join a live customer call or sales deal review. Practice removing “no” from your vocabulary. Replace it with: “Yes, and here’s how we can make it work. But if you move forward as-is, here’s the impact, and what we’d need to do to scale or mitigate.”
The System: The Strategic Yes
A simple mindset shift with real impact:
Never say “no” in isolation. Always offer at least 2 creative or unique compliant paths forward.
Explain tradeoffs clearly. Revenue, margin, reporting, compensation, audit risk, customer satisfaction, and scalability: speak in their language.
Write it down. Turn repeat questions into playbooks. Train others on the “why” and scale frameworks.
Be an Upstream Advisor. Don’t wait for a term sheet to hit your desk, get involved earlier and help shape the deal. The Goldilocks moment is often sooner than you think, as deals often form primarily through initial discussions and planning, not in the drafting room.
And remember:
Don’t police: Partner. Teach. Elevate.
Thank you to Hans Chan, Jim Daly, David, Kyle, Oliver, Adam, Granville, and the other leaders who gave me a seat at the table and taught me that trust isn’t earned by guarding the gate, it’s built by walking through it with the team.
Until Next Time
This is the first in a multi-part series. Each post will unpack 2–3 rules in depth, with stories, examples, and actionable moves you can use with your team.
If you’re scaling through complexity, M&A, audits, AI, IPOs, and want clarity without slowing down, that’s where I thrive. Let’s talk.
