[freddealmeida]

Most solid firms, like my own, have strong financial controls, a CFO, and a board with strong oversight. Absolutely never had a problem.

If you are going to build a startup, build a board, get your finances in control and very transparent to investors.

Fraud will never be gone but you can ensure your firm will never be accused of it.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Most solid firms, like my own, have strong financial controls, a CFO, and a board with strong oversight

One of my takeaways from the chaos surrounding SVB’s collapse is that Silicon Valley is starved of CFOs. Part of this is due to the anti-MBA high horse that was in vogue in tech post financial crisis. Part, frankly, is VCs wanting to be the only financial brains in the house. (Guess who loves promoting the MBA myths? Despite being staffed by MBAs?)

[nikanj]

If you have the financial aptitude to become a CFO, would you rather eat ramen in a flophouse or make proper money in an investment bank?

[JumpCrisscross]

> would you rather eat ramen in a flophouse or make proper money in an investment bank

Not a real choice. Ramen-stage start-ups don’t need CFOs. And investment banks don’t hire CFO types.

The real choice is between a growth-stage company and private-equity sponsored company. In summary, do you want to be compensated for your risk in cash or ownership?

[robocat]

The last CFO I dealt with had a weird balancing act: a conservative accountancy background but now involved in juggling risks and the job needed a fairly optimistic outlook.

CEOs seem to be expected to be optimistic and over-confident - and perhaps rewarded for that too.

[FreakLegion]

I'd join successful startups planning to IPO within a few years and be the one to take them public. Look at the background of Stripe's current CFO for an example. He did Aruba Networks, Palo Alto Networks, Confluent, and soon Stripe.

[conductr]

As a CFO, VCs definitely don’t like other financial brains and they’re generally miserable to work with has been my experience

Their problem is they want the financials to track to their financial models despite their entire investment thesis being an opportunistic wonderland of assumptions. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have met someone’s imaginary return threshold.

[DonHopkins]

It requires a great MBA to successfully perpetrate fraud! ;)

[JumpCrisscross]

Right. This is the nonsense I’m referring to.

Silicon Valley VC convinced technical folk that we are better than those MBAs and don’t need no suits or whatever. That leads to stupid financial decision making on an operating level, e.g. companies keeping hundreds of millions in a checking account, which is great if that account is your liability. It also keeps the VCs the smartest financial minds in the room. (I don’t have an MBA.)

[spondylosaurus]

The startup I worked at whose CEO got arrested for fraud also happens to be a startup that didn't have a CFO. (Or, as he explained it at the time, whose CEO was also the CFO... but c'mon, lol.)