Finance. Careers. Work with purpose.
What does a good career actually look like? Meet the finance leaders, accountants, founders, and coaches working through that question. Conversations about money, technology, leadership, and the choices behind the résumé.
Devon Coombs, CPA, MBAAssistant Teaching Professor of Finance and Faculty Director of Real Estate Finance, Santa Clara University
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AI is changing how companies think about revenue, pricing, and cost in real time. Devon and Angela work through the accounting problems behind rapid AI feature launches, consumption-based pricing, and why traditional revenue recognition rules are getting harder to apply.
Episode 24 · July 10, 2026 · 47 min · with Angela
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24 episodes
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AI is changing how companies think about revenue, pricing, and cost in real time. Devon and Angela work through the accounting problems behind rapid AI feature launches, consumption-based pricing, and why traditional revenue recognition rules are getting harder to apply.
A lecture on the time value of money, from the five variables to the retirement math they drive. Devon uses his own decision to sell $200,000 of Google stock to pay off a 3% mortgage, forfeiting the upside when the stock later tripled, to show what opportunity cost really costs.
Alula went from public accounting to founding Edge Consulting Labs, where he works on blockchain in business operations and AI-driven tools. He and Devon, college friends, cover the evolution and misconceptions of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin's scarcity model, and Edge Flow, a blockchain-based inventory management tool.
Jotham grew up in the Philippines with a chip on his shoulder, broke through as a CPA, then built and led a technology company. A health crisis forced him to re-evaluate everything, and he talks about using a custom ChatGPT to manage his recovery and about trading relentless accomplishment for what matters.
Ryan Volk and Aaron Einhorn left traditional accounting careers to launch Principal Consulting Group, an advisory firm that puts culture and trust ahead of transactions. They explain hiring slow and firing fast, expanding from technical accounting into data analytics without losing quality, and the leadership lessons that came with growth.
Melissa has navigated billion-dollar transformations in tech, from shrink-wrapped software to global cloud infrastructure and AI, and has run a marathon on a floating sheet of ice with polar bear guards. She connects endurance sport to leading global teams and shares advice for CFOs on risk and understanding a business beyond the numbers.
Kelsie Neibel hit severe burnout more than once in a high-performing sales career that ran through Deloitte and Goldman Sachs. She explains the science-backed methods she used to rewire her thinking, the T-chart method for replacing a scarcity mindset, and how she changed her relationship with money.
Shane Clark left 75-hour weeks at a large accounting firm to join his father's tax practice in Los Angeles and build a family-centered business. He and Devon cover tax strategies for high earners, the benefits of owning a business, and the practical steps that stop lifestyle creep.
Claire went from Deloitte to BlackLine to a startup before founding Kipsy, a software company built for accountants. She talks about leading with a customer-first mindset, finding the right co-founder, the role of mentors, and the challenges she pushed through to get the company where it is.
Nickolaus Violin launched a flexible workspace business and nearly lost it to real estate deals gone wrong, difficult landlords, and delayed permits. He talks candidly about trust and betrayal in partnerships, why a handshake is never enough, and where optimism turns into delusion for a founder.
Ray Sang, a former Revenue Director at Elastic and Deal Controller at Google, is building Inkwise, an AI writing platform for professionals in law, accounting, and finance. He explains why most AI-generated memos and contracts are flawed, what professional-grade drafting with AI should look like, and drafts a real ASC 606 memo live.
Sara Fung was denied stress leave and gaslit by her workplace before she walked away from a toxic healthcare system. She built a business from scratch, started The Gritty Nurse podcast, and reached number one on Canada's bestseller lists while raising kids and recovering from burnout.
Blake Oliver, CPA, founder of Earmark and host of the most listened-to accounting podcast, joins Devon to talk about the crisis of trust in the profession: secret timesheets, burnout built into the system, CPE that no longer teaches, and revenue recognition games. They also talk about what it would take to fix it.
Nina and Harton left careers at Google and Big 4 firms to build TABot, an AI co-pilot for technical accountants. They explain how fine-tuned models save hours in audit and memo preparation, how they dealt with hallucinations in accounting work, and what it takes to run a lean startup in a regulated space.
Most promotions come with a lie: that you are ready. Executive coach Kent Frazier explains why top performers fail upward into roles they were never trained for, the invisible shift from contributor to leader, and the 90-day playbook every new leader should follow.
Ravi Prakash arrived in the United States with no money and no family, lost his eyesight, and went on to lead digital transformation programs at Salesforce and write Safar, a book on resilience and self-mastery. He talks about leading when the odds are stacked against you and why joy has to come before money.
Vladimir Baranov coaches technical founders, including YC-backed teams, through the leadership problems that stall companies. He explains why brilliant engineers cap their own growth, how AI is misused as a crutch instead of a coach, and what breaks when a team reaches 10, 50, or 100 people.
Larry Jacobson spent 15 years as a technical hiring manager at companies like Snap and Amazon before becoming an executive coach. He and Devon go through job search strategy for experienced professionals: the resume, the LinkedIn profile, networking that works, and how to handle interview questions.
Nadia leads data analytics at Google and came through a period of mental health struggles during COVID-19 by finding her purpose. She shares the practices that got her there: listening to her own voice, reflection and journaling, and bringing her full self to work.
Eric Nehrlich hit rock bottom after years of 100-hour weeks at Google and rebuilt his career around his values. He talks about the moment he realized he had a choice, the discipline of saying no, and how experimenting with different paths led him to coaching.
Shannon McCullar commanded in high-stakes environments before becoming an executive coach. He argues that leadership is influence, trust, and empowerment rather than rank or control, and explains why leaders who rescue their teams set them up to fail.
Dr. Laura Aziz has led more than 3,000 coaching sessions with executives who hit a plateau. She explains why competence alone stops working at a certain level, the blind spots that hold professionals back, and how to communicate with real executive presence.
Chirag Panjikar spent 20 years leading digital transformation and supply chain modernization, including teams of more than 250 people. His conclusion after all of it is that people and trust matter more than any technology, and he explains how to build that trust when a team does not believe in its leadership.
Limor Bergman coaches women in tech and engineering through self-doubt and into senior leadership. She walks through her own move from software engineering to executive coaching, the golden handcuffs that kept her in place for years, and why waiting for permission is the most common career mistake she sees.
What the show digs into
Guest kit
An episode only works for a guest if it is easy to point people to. Each episode page carries everything below; the show boilerplate and the brand assets are the same for all of them.
01
Every episode has its own page on devoncoombs.com with the video, your name and role, a link to your site, a summary, and the takeaways. It does not move and it does not expire.
02
The full conversation on the Ambition, Aligned channel, for people who would rather watch there.
03
One paragraph you can paste into LinkedIn, a newsletter, or your site, with a copy button on your episode page.
04
The 1280 by 720 episode thumbnail, linked from your episode page, sized for a LinkedIn post or a website card.
05
The boilerplate below, plus transparent logos, the palette, and headshots of Devon on the media kit page, so your introduction of the show is accurate the first time.
Ambition, Aligned is the interview show from Devon Coombs, CPA, MBA, an Assistant Teaching Professor of Finance at Santa Clara University and former Google Cloud finance leader: unfiltered conversations with finance professionals, CPAs, and founders on careers, money, leadership, and the future of the profession. Every episode is at devoncoombs.com/podcast.
Logos, palette, and headshots: the media kit.
Be a guest
Finance professionals, CPAs, founders, and operators with a story that has a turn in it: a career rebuilt after burnout, a firm built around people, a product made for accountants, a deal that taught an expensive lesson. A big title is not required. A real story and a point of view are.
A recorded video conversation, remote or in Devon's Bay Area studio, usually 35 to 65 minutes. It is published on YouTube and gets its own page here, with the guest kit above.
Who you are, where people can see your work, and the two or three things a listener would take away. Producers and publicists are welcome to pitch on a guest's behalf.
A tool, a number worth knowing, and what it means for your money or your business. From Devon Coombs, CPA, MBA. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
