The 10 Laws of Finance: Official Launch
The story and teaching resources behind the book, with its official launch trailer. An August 2026 publication update.
Ideas for the classroom and the work ahead
Think more clearly about finance, AI, and your career.
Essays and practical perspectives shaped by teaching at Santa Clara University and working across accounting, finance, and technology. Browse articles from this site, Substack, and the Financial Executives Journal. Search an original or alternate publication title.
53 articles
Search by topic, title, or keyword.My Book Is Finally Available for Preorder
An archived August 2026 announcement about the book’s origins and the financial education it sets out to offer.
How I Used AI to Build a Financial Reporting Package in Under an Hour
A practical walkthrough of preparing a financial reporting package with AI, including source material, assumptions, and professional review.
Using Agentic Tools: Best Practices
A framework for planning AI work, supplying context, setting governance boundaries, and reviewing the result.
How Does the Founder Shape the Financial Reality of a Startup?
Explore the founder as a startup’s first asset and connect founder characteristics to entrepreneurial finance decisions.
Before You Advise a Founder, Diagnose the Game
A practitioner framework for matching advice to founder context, built on the Founder Archetype Matrix and three diagnostic questions.
Founder Archetype Self-Assessment Survey
A 36-question interactive diagnostic that maps you across five dimensions and generates a tailored archetype with specific guidance. Takes 10 minutes.
The AI Landscape, Distilled: Key Updates (April 2026) and What to Do Next
An April 2026 snapshot of AI platforms and their implications for finance workflows. Read as a dated industry perspective.
Claude Cowork and Skill Packs for Finance
A practitioner's guide to Claude Cowork and Skill Packs. How AI-powered workflows are transforming financial close, reconciliation, and reporting.
Claude Can Now Build Visuals Mid-Conversation
Anthropic shipped a feature this week that sounds incremental but isn't: Claude can now generate interactive visualizations directly inside the chat window.
I Asked 150 Finance Students What They Want From AI. They Rejected All of It.
I asked 150 finance students what they wanted from AI, and they turned all of it down. What they asked for instead, and what I built from it.
Your AI Strategy Is Backwards
Every finance leader I talk to asks the same question first: "What AI tools should we buy?" That's the wrong question and it's costing you months of progress.
Is the AI Boom Built on Funny Money?
Circular deals, trillion-dollar commitments, and depreciation assumptions. How the money behind the AI buildout is structured, and what investors should watch.
Happy Holidays, Grateful for 2025, and Looking Ahead
Reflections on 2025. Gratitude for the community, lessons learned, and what's ahead for AI, finance, and building a life with purpose.
The Hidden Accounting Risks Shaping the AI Economy
The three largest areas of technical accounting risk in the AI economy. Revenue recognition, capitalization, and impairment. And what CFOs need to know.
The Truth About Where You Are
A candid look at where you really are in your career, finances, and life. And why radical honesty about your starting point is the first step to growth.
The Strategic Compass for Automation
A practical framework for CFOs, CAOs, and operators building AI-enabled organizations.
The AI Re-Org: Stop Buying Tools
Why buying AI tools without redesigning your organization is a recipe for failure. A framework for the structural changes AI actually demands.
Did the EU Just Erase Your RPO? Not So Fast.
Unpacking the EU's new regulation and its real impact on remaining performance obligations (RPO). What CFOs and revenue accountants need to know.
What I've Been Building Since Google
An update on what I've been building since leaving Google. Consulting, teaching, AI strategy work, and resources for finance leaders navigating change.
A CEO's Breakthrough Framework
How an immigrant CEO turned his "chip on his shoulder" into a career. And why he had to let it go to build a life worth living.
Scaling Without Losing What Makes You Great
Five years ago, I turned down the chance to help co-found a consulting firm. Not because I didn't believe in the people. I did. But I wasn't ready.
Rule #10: If Everyone Is Avoiding It, Do It
What polar bear guards, AI readiness, and culture-fit calls have in common. The work everyone is avoiding is often the work worth doing.
Is Your Biggest Partnership Deal a Time Bomb?
I've seen it happen more times than I can count. A high-growth company signs a massive, multi-year distribution deal. The press release goes out.
The Secret Weapon of High Achievers
In the relentless pursuit of career goals, it's easy to fall into the trap of constantly doing more, striving harder, and pushing through burnout.
Build a Deals Desk: Finance's Missing Function
Why a Deals Desk is the missing high-leverage function in most finance orgs. And how to build one that drives revenue, enables velocity, and protects margin.
Human-in-the-Loop AI: Why Robots Still Need Us
Why AI won't replace the human judgment layer in finance, and why your org chart is about to flip. Real case studies from enterprise AI deployments.
Tax Strategies for High Earners and Owners
Most high earners don't have a tax problem. They have a lifestyle design problem they didn't know they signed up for.
She Built a SaaS Accountants Actually Love
How Claire Tsukuda built a SaaS company accountants actually love. Without the title, degree, or VC backing. A masterclass in scrappy entrepreneurship.
Leaving Google Cloud: 12 Hard-Earned Rules
After five years at Google Cloud, 12 hard-earned rules on leadership, ambition, deal-making, and building a career with purpose in Big Tech.
AI Is Writing Our Future (But Not Long Division)
Why AI is reshaping how we create, communicate, and lead in finance, but still can't handle basic math. What that means for the future of your team.
What Nurses Taught Me About Lasting Leadership
What nurses taught a CPA about sustainable leadership, burnout prevention, and building careers that last. Lessons every finance leader needs to hear.
Accounting Is an Adventure in Truth and Creativity
A conversation with Blake Oliver on why accounting is more creative than people think, and how the profession is being reshaped by AI and technology.
Use AI Before It Replaces Your Workflows
How AI is transforming accounting workflows and what finance professionals need to do now to stay ahead of automation before it reshapes their roles.
Your RSUs Won't Tuck Your Kids In
A CPA's guide to spotting the precise moment time outperforms money. And why smart companies should care about the human cost of compensation.
You Don't Need $3 Million. You Need a Runway.
Why financial freedom might be 5 years away, not 30. How to build leverage, extend your runway, and create optionality without millions in the bank.
Track Everything: Manage Your Life Like a CFO
You're not broke. You're bleeding. You just haven't slowed down long enough to see it.
Zeal, Alignment, and Energy: Rethinking Success
Authenticity compounds and misalignment drains. Zeal, alignment, and energy as a sharper test of success than optimization and achievement.
From Broke to Boardroom: Lessons from My Car
My leadership training did not come from books. It came from living in my car. What sustained pressure teaches about leading with intention.
3 Steps to a Dream Job Later in Your Career
Brutally honest career advice from hundreds of conversations with executives, coaches, and Big Tech professionals on making bold moves at any stage.
Avoid Burnout by Choosing Your Life First
Outwardly successful and inwardly drained? How to design the life first and the career second, before burnout makes the choice for you.
Breaking Free from Career Stagnation
Many high performers feel trapped in golden handcuffs, a career that pays well but no longer excites them. How to break free and own your growth.
The RISE Again Job Hunting Playbook
A four-step method for a focused job search, written after going from sleeping in my car to leading finance initiatives at Google Cloud.
Why Betting on Yourself Is the Smartest Move
Why I walked away from a six-figure partnership with equity and bonuses attached, and how to judge when betting on yourself is worth the risk.
Meta's Layoffs and the Cost of Misalignment
After Meta let go of over 4,000 employees, including high performers, how to use LinkedIn to actually help, and what misalignment costs.
Rock Bottom Was My Foundation
An excerpt from The 10 Laws of Finance, out now on Amazon. In 2010 I was $10,000 in debt and homeless, and why that turned out to be a foundation rather than an ending.
If You're Going to Drink, Drink in the Morning
Let's be honest. The Monday after the Super Bowl is practically a national holiday of regret.
The Career Mistakes I Wish I Knew at 21
Homeless at 21 after my first business collapsed. The career mistakes that cost me years, and what I would tell anyone starting over today.
Break the Cycle: Rewire Your Brain for Growth
Career moves and money habits feel rational. Often they trace back to subconscious imprints. How to spot yours and rewire the pattern behind them.
Why Resume Spamming Won't Land You a Job
Why blindly applying to hundreds of jobs is a losing strategy. And the targeted approach that actually works in tech, finance, and beyond.
Unlocking Resilience Through Faults and Values
How to align your personality, faults, and core values into a personal operating system for resilience, better decisions, and intentional growth.
The Resilience Pyramid
A layered model for building resilience on purpose, so productivity metrics stop crowding out the parts of life that actually drive fulfillment.
Lessons from My First (Failed) Business
At 18 I leased a North Hollywood recording studio and lost two years of savings. What that first failed business taught me about running one.