There are two different directions for AI in finance, says Didi Gurfinkel, Co-Founder and CEO of Datarails.
You can use AI to extend your hands.
Or, your brain.
He says: ”Using AI to extend your hands involves automating processes, making everything faster, reducing headcount shortening time to deliver, which is amazing. But it’s not a life changer. In this situation maybe you can reduce the gap between 10 employees to five employees but this will not be what will save your business or ultimately make it successful.
“The more interesting part is to look at AI as an extension to your brain. Here, I think this is a life changer. Letting the CFO or the FP&A manager have a tool that can be like an extension to the FP&A brain. If you take your analysis or approach to analyze your business, the AI can run it at scale with all your historical data, internal data and external data.”
In this episode Didi Gurfinkel talks about setting up Datarails, the FP&A the AI-powered Financial Planning and Analysis platform for Excel users and the multiple challenges and learnings along the way.
He reveals:
- Starting his career at CISCO the biggest IT company in the world (“I imagined that everything will be automated end of month – I was wrong”)
- Setting up Datarails in 2015 and the challenges of getting traction for an initial concept of “connecting organizational spreadsheets into one centralized database”
- Four years of trying (and How he finally found product market fit)
- Understanding the power of Excel as core to finance allowed us to focus on finance
- How FP&A use cases are the classic consolidation challenge because every, every FP&A process starts from collecting data from multiple sources in different structures, different shapes, and different systems.
- Our capability to transform semi-structured data into structured data landed a very strong competitive edge,
- Our “SaaS wake up call” – how we learnt to grow at the same pace with 50% less expenses
- AI is either an extension of your head vs AI as an extension of your brain and why the latter is the real game-changer
- From a good CFO to an amazing CFO with AI
- My expectations as a CEO from my finance team
- Why ChatGPT is amazing at text but the challenges come with replicating this with accurate numbers
- My favorite Excel function
- Surprising fact you wouldn’t know about me
Follow Didi Gurfinkel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/didigurfinkel/
Full Transcript
Paul Barnhurst:
Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A Today, I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy. FP&A Today is brought to you by Datarails, the financial planning and analysis platform for Excel users. Every week we welcome a leader from the world of financial planning and analysis. Today we have a special guest that I’m delighted to introduce. We have the CEO of Datarails with us Didi Gurfinkel. Welcome to the show.
Didi Gurfinkel:
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Paul Barnhurst:
Well, we’re really excited to have you. Well, let me just start by giving a little bit of an introduction, and then I’ll give you an opportunity to tell us more about yourself and your background. So he is coming to us from Israel. He is the co-founder and CEO of Datarails. He earned his bachelor’s in computer science and an MBA. And so, as I mentioned, we’re thrilled to have him. Why don’t we start with you telling us a little bit about yourself and your background.
Didi Gurfinkel:
Thank you for, uh, having me, and it’s a pleasure to, uh, to join your, uh, fantastic, uh, podcast. I started my career as a software engineer. Actually, I started at a very early age of 11th grade. I studied, uh, computer science, and I started to work in a, as a software engineer in a gaming company. And for 10 years, I developed a software and then I moved to a more management positions. Um, started as a COO in, in a mid-size company. And then this company acquired by Cisco. And I served as a GM general manager atCisco here in, uh, Tel Aviv, in Israel, uh, manage a business unit of, uh, 200 to 50, uh, uh, people.
Paul Barnhurst:
Thanks, appre appreciate learning that. And then from there was your next opportunity to be, did you become CEO of datarails? Was that kind of the next
Didi Gurfinkel:
Step? And then I started the, in 2015, I started Datarails together with my, uh, uh, co-founders, Eyal and Oded, we founded Datarails.
Paul Barnhurst:
Great. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that story, kind of how it came about, you know, a little bit about that Datarails journey. We’d love to hear, you know, the background to that story.
Didi Gurfinkel:
So, everything started in Cisco. I envisioned Cisco as the biggest IT company in the world that everything will be automated end of month. You click on a button and you see all the data populated, graph charts. And the reality was, we had a set of spreadsheets, um, a lot of manual work, uh, spreadsheets go back and forth between my subsidiary and the headquarters in California. And at some point I thought about a different, uh, maybe concept or a different angle to try and solve the, what we call the Excel Hell problem. And instead of the traditional typical angle to, to solve this problem by replacing Excel-based processes with vertical SaaS solutions, I came with the concept to try and let the organization keep using spreadsheets and keep using Excel, but try to transform the Excel from being a personal tool into an enterprise application. And my idea was to connect the organization as spreadsheets into one centralized database, and to develop the, the capability, the algorithm, to take the Excel data and transform it from a semi-structured data into a structured data in a structured database. And that was the idea. And we started Datarails with a very, very wide vision without even a specific use case or specific vertical. But let’s offer a platform to connect all the organizational spreadsheets into one centralized database.
Paul Barnhurst:
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. And I, you know, I’ve heard a little bit of this story before and I think it’s great. So how did you come to the conclusion that finance was the right vertical for this tool? How did it, you know, go from being kind of a general purpose? We’re here to make, you know, excel an enterprise application, as you mentioned to this is really an enterprise application for FP&A. How did that come about?
Didi Gurfinkel:
So it was a, a long journey. Um, three, four years of looking for a product market fit from a very wide solution offering. Try from selling to a large banks, financial institutions, insurance companies, all these giants that use spreadsheets all over and try to find a use case that can be repetitive, that can be scalable. We tried different approaches, and today it looks like that it makes a lot of sense, but it took us like a year or two to identify and to convince that the way finance people look at Excel is totally different from the way other business users look at Excel. Finance people love Excel. They see it as a essential tool, kind of the operational system, you can say a canvas, you can say, uh, a the, uh, even kind of a skill that every finance people needs to have in order to succeed.
So the finance department was the first focus or the first, the first pivot from the organizational tool to a financial tool. And once we identified the finance department, the FP&A use cases are the classic or the, the, the, the, classic consolidation challenge. Because every, every FP&A process starts from collecting data from multiple sources in different structure, different shapes, different systems. And here our capability to transform semi-structured data into structured data and came up with a very strong competitive edge, very strong capability that enables us to take manual processes and automate them in a very short time. So FP&A was the additional focus that we performed and the, the last pivot that we’ve done in, in the beginning of 2020. And since then, we are succeeding and growing ata very, very high, high pace and becoming one of the, the leaders in thismarket.
Paul Barnhurst:
Thank, thank you for sharing that. And you know, I’m not surprised to hear you say finance views excel different than the other parts of the business, right? Is the saying goes, you’ll have to pry it out of our cold dead hands, as some people say. You know, Excel. Yeah. Seems to be the, uh, the definite tool of choice for the average finance professional. And as you mentioned, there’s a lot of those challenges because it’s not great at consolidating data, it’s not great at serving as an enterprise tool collaboration, many of the things that finance needs to do. But at the same time, it’s great for modeling and it meets a of needs for that analysis. So bringing something that marries that and brings that together is really important. And I think, you know, it’s an interesting journey. You mentioned the five years of finding product market fit, kind of starting in 20 15, 20 20 really getting turned to FP&A. And it sounds like today you’re seeing a lot of growth and you’ve seen a lot of adoption in the marketplace. How is kind of data rails being received and how’s the, uh, kind of that growth journey going at this point?
Didi Gurfinkel:
We, since we started to sell to the FP&A solution, and we focus on, uh, small, medium businesses, um, companies between 50 employees, once you have some level of complexity in your financial department until 500 or maybe 1000 employees, this is our spot. We speak directly with the CFO or the decision maker. And the promising is to take all the models, templates, all the processes that you have today, and first automate the processes and save a lot of time, a lot of mistakes, and make everything automated. This is one second, the ability to analyze the data, because now everything is in our database. So we, you, you can analyze the data in a way that you couldn’t do it with just spreadsheet, because now we have database beneath these spreadsheets. So analyze and visualization, you can share the data.
So we actually provide a full product offering with automation analysis and visualization that everything is built around your existing models and existing processes. This promise is very appealing. So we are able to sell the product and to grow in a, in a very, very impressive way, regardless of the, uh, situation in, uh, you know, the covid, uh, not covid, the, economy, the, like we sell in different prices, different, uh, price structure. The product market fit is super, super strong. Um, and we are growing, um, in, in, in, in, in double figures every year. Um, and we continue to invest a lot, a lot in the technology, in the growth growth itself. And we are adding, we are not, uh, uh, stay with what we have. We are adding more and more capability focusing now, and probably we’ll talk about it later, about the world road map. Okay. The, the, the ai or specifically the gen ai. And that we believe is the, the next phase, the next thing in, in, in the, the business, uh, software at all. But in the CFO software and tools, we believe that it’s a, it’s a, a, a game changer.
Paul Barnhurst:
Great. And yes, we’ll definitely get to AI here in a minute and talk a little bit more about that is it’s transformed our world over the last year to really see it become mainstream. I mean, it’s been out there for years, but we’ve seen that mainstream adoption at a level we’ve never seen before. But before I jump there, I just wanna ask kind of one more question. Obviously, it sounds like one of the biggest challenges you face as a company is finding that product market fit. It took several years, and I imagine there were some real challenges during that. But what are some of the other challenges you faced after finding product market fit? What are maybe some of the biggest challenges you faced as you’ve tried to scale the company,
Didi Gurfinkel:
The biggest challenge that we hit was, uh, efficiency in, uh, end of, uh, 22 together with, uh, the entire SaaS world we wake up in the morning and, uh, we understood that it’s great that we sell like crazy. We increase our top line in an amazing pace, but we burn too much money.
It, it sounds like, uh, like ridiculous. But that was the, the situation. I mean, we had a, a mindset of grow at all costs, and we had to shift the entire company mindset to keep the same pace, but to do it with 50% of the budget. And it was a journey of 9 to 12 months in each department from marketing, sales, product R&D that every department in the company change dramatically. And we have succeeded. Now we are growing at the, almost at the same pace with 50% of the expense, which is, you know, it, it makes me look at the past years and say, what have we done? But it’s been, but, uh, but now we are, we, we, we succeeded to improve the unit economics dramatically and to be much more efficient. And it makes a lot of sense.
Paul Barnhurst:
Well, you know, as I’ve often heard it said, necessity is the mother of innovation, right?
Didi Gurfinkel:
Exactly. So true.
Paul Barnhurst:
It was be be innovative or run outta cash when all of a sudden all the money dried up.
Didi Gurfinkel:
Exactly. Exactly.
Paul Barnhurst:
So any, any insights or lessons you could share, particularly for our finance audience from that journey, you know, how can they support companies that are going through that? Because that’s not going away. I think we’ve kind of shifted mindsets now, and we’ll continue to see that in the future of the importance of balancing cost with growth versus that mentality we had when money was free of, you know, grow at any cost. Right? So any advice you’d offer to our finance audience of how they can support the business if they’re going through that transition, that journey?
Didi Gurfinkel:
The advice that I’m going to, to share is relevant for tech founders that’s leading a SAA companies Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But I think we tend to follow benchmarks and KPIs to think of the world from the investors or the potential investors point of view. And it bring you, brings you to, to the wrong, sometimes to the wrong path. Because if you start to think about your business as a business, forget about benchmarks, just look at the business, the unit economics. Does it make sense? Can you take what you have today, put it in a spreadsheet and see how it goes to the a hundred million ARR 1billion ARR? It makes sense to you. So it makes sense regardless of benchmark. I think this is, um, the, the, the shift in the mindset that we did and helps us to, to, to, uh, make the right decisions and fix piece by piece, part by part with this mindset. And then the, the entire organization shifted to the right direction.
Paul Barnhurst:
Got it. Appreciate that. So if I heard that right, it sounds like sometimes just stepping back, you know, ignoring the benchmarks and all things, looking at the unit economics, looking at the business and say, is this scalable at these numbers? And how do we do that? And focusing on the, the true business measures, not the investors, not the benchmark, not the metrics, but kind of true to who you are and how you would scale it. Is that what I’m hearing?
Didi Gurfinkel:
Exactly.
Paul Barnhurst:
You know what it is. Like 13 different spreadsheets emailed out to 23 different budget holders, multiple iterations, version control errors, back and forth updates. You never really feel in control of the consolidation and collection process. Yep. I’ve been there. Stop. Breathe.
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Great. I think that makes a lot of sense. So thank you for sharing that. So now I wanna get into a subject that I’m sure everybody, you know, is excited to hear about AI right? We’ve all seen it over the last year. So can you share your thoughts on how you see AI impacting the office of finance, the office of the CFO?
Didi Gurfinkel:
Yeah. I, I, I look at the AI or we mix AI and Gen AI, but let’s call it AI <laugh>. Sure. I look at it as two different approaches or two different directions. It’s like the, the hands and the brain. You can use AI to extend your hands, okay. To, uh, like, uh, to, to have more employees or by automating processes, by, making things faster by, uh, reducing head count shortening time to deliver, which is amazing, right? We use it a lot internally in Datarails. It’s amazing. But it’s not a life changer if you have a, if your business is good and you have a good business plan. So the, the gap between 10 employees in the financial department to 2 employees or five employees, this is not what will save your business or will make it successful.
The other part is to look at AI as an extension to your brain. And here, I think this is a life changer to let the CFO or the FP&A manager to have a tool that can be like an extension to the FP&A brain take the same, let’s say, analysis or the approach that you, you, you, you try to, um, to analyze your, your, your, your business. But let the, the, the AI to run it in, in a scale with all your historical data, with all your, uh, with the, all your, the dimension in your organization with all the, sometimes the data can be internal data in the company, but can be external data. For example, in the, in the, the tools that we developed in Datarails, the, the, the ai. Look at, for example, your customer base.
Okay? Let’s say that, uh, it’s very common that you see 20% of your customers responsible for 80% of your revenue, right? Let’s say that from this 20% of your customers, something interesting happened for this company you see in the news, they had some, uh, good news, bad news, something happened from currency, from, I don’t know disease in China, I don’t know, whatever. And you as the C four, the FP name manager, you cannot hold and process all this data. You can use this data, you can direct the machine, but you cannot run all this endless information. And AI can take and can be the thismultiplier that can take a, a good CFO and make them the amazing CFO with a, with this, uh, capability. And I think this is a life changer. This is a game changer that can, can change the industry, can change the way CFO works. Um, and, and this is the, the, this is the direction and the, the, the path that we take that let’s, uh, products.
Paul Barnhurst:
So let, let’s unpack that a little bit. Can you talk about, you know, how you’re implementing that vision at Datarails? What are you doing in the way of AI and how are you thinking about, you know, incorporating it in your product?
Didi Gurfinkel:
We look at, um, as I said, we do not look, or we do not, um, use AI for the productivity part in the product. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, we let the product run the automation, the consolidation, generating the reports, everything Datarails knows how to do it before and after the AI. This is, we don’t need the AI for that. Sure. But once the data is consolidated, the reports are ready. Now this is the, the time that the CFO i is consuming the results, right? The CFO look at the data, and I, we try to improvise the conversation between the CFO and the FP&A manager. By the end of the month, the manager get into the room of the, the CFO and the cfo. Okay, tell me what happened this month? Anything interesting? Should we change anything? Something relevant that I need to know that happened in the finance department, maybe in the operational side of the organization, maybe something that happens in the business world that they should be aware of, right? These are the type of the question that the CFO ask, the FP&A manager and the FP&A manager should provide. And this is exactly what we build. We already providing very interesting capability, but we, uh, we, we invest a lot of, of manpower and brainpower in this direction to make it the perfect, we call it the virtual FP&A assistant that can answer exactly these questions.
Paul Barnhurst:
Thankyou, thank you for sharing that. And, you know, I think a virtual assistant is a good term for it. I’ve heard some people refer to some of those type of things as almost like a, an intern or, you know, a junior analyst. You still sometimes have to validate things, but it gets a lot of the work done for you. It gives you good insights and gets you started on that journey and really can make things a lot easier. And so I appreciate you sharing that. I, I’m curious, you know, your take, how do you as a CEO look at your finance and FP&A department? Like, what, what do you want from them? What’s, what’s your expectations?
Didi Gurfinkel:
So first we use Datarails in Datarails. So, uh, <laugh>, um, so the FP&A experience the same experience that our thousands of customer that use the system. First, the basic, ask from the FP&A department is to have the data accurate, organized, consolidated, and ready to, this is one, I mean, before that you cannot do anything.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yep.
Didi Gurfinkel:
Second, I want my ritual, uh, information. I want every day to see this every week, to see that, every month, to see that. And we, I want my dashboard and above that, I want the exceptions. I want to know what going in the wrong direction, but to, to know it on time, once it started, before it’s getting something that it’s already a problem. I want to know before the problem is arrived. I want to know if something happened behind the scenes. I can see that the revenue is going up, but maybe something changed, not only in the, the, the, the revenue, the, the, the, the total, but something happened under the hood. Maybe the customer territory can be maybe the industries. If there is any trend that I’m missing to make sure that I’m not missing something, that at the end of the year, I will look back and see we missed that. And the way we develop data rails, we also use it, of course, in datarails. So if, if something happened in data rails and, and, and in, in the company and the Datarails product couldn’t, um, couldn’t, uh, identify or let me know ahead of thehuman FP&A. So I know that we need to improve more and more parts in the, in the product. So my ideal, uh, um, ideal results is that I get the push from Datarails that I need to pay attention to this or to that.
Paul Barnhurst:
Got it. Yeah. It’s great that you used it internally, and it gives you that opportunity to see, you know, how customers use it, right? As you’re using yourself and how to push that. And obviously, as you mentioned, you wanna see all your financial reports. The, the baseline is those table stakes of hey, getting the historicals, right? So then we can predict going forward. I, I’m curious, you know, what advice would you offer to, you know, finance professionals, CFOs, that are listening, you know, if they wanna start implementing AI and not, you know, not just in necessarily in an FP&A tool, but just in general, how, how should finance be thinking about implementing ai, you know, within their functions as a whole? Any, any thoughts there or advice you’d offer?
Didi Gurfinkel:
I think that to look at AI, because we know that we are in a very early stage of this revolution, I think that everyone needs to look at AI not as today, but to look at the 2026 or 2025 and plan the path to get there with the right tools, the right, uh, uh, technology that can get you to the real core of the AI revolution, two or three years, uh, away. And I think that for the CFO today, it’s pretty confusing today. It’s a, i I can imagine that the CFO goes to the, I don’t know, some conference from Ernst & Young, PWC. They go to a conference and they hear AI, Gen AI, and, but they go back to their companies and they, and they have the day to very, very manual details, numbers, spreadsheet, spreadsheets. So there is no, no connection. And I think this is what stands behind your question, right? This is no connection and, and you cannot do the revolution in, in one day, but you can think of the, the path, and now you need to choose the right partners or the right technology stacks that will take you in the right approach. This is what I, uh, because what we have today is very, very, very impressive. It’s just the beginning
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. That’s what’s amazing is to think, Hey, you know, we’re at the beginning of this journey in that they’ll, we’ll be doing things in a couple years that we haven’t even thought of yet today. You know, I, I think we really, you know, we’ll continue to push the envelope and see real, real leaps and bounds. I mean, if you just think, you know, when chat GPT came out with 3.5 and everybody’s getting examples of all kind of the mistakes it’s made, how much progress it’s made to today with adding code interpreter, you know, adding the internet, adding images into it, you can take photos and being more accurate. And, you know, that’s only gonna increase with more time, more data, more focus, more, you know, investment. So I agree with you at the beginning of the journey, and I think every CCFO needs to chart out their path. They need to think about what makes sense, what’s that journey look like? How do I, you know, benefit my team with the resources I have. So, appreciate that. So this next section we have, we like to call this the Get to Know You section. And it’s just a couple questions to help us get to know you a little bit better and kind of have a little fun. So the first one here is, what is something interesting or unique about you that not many people know?
Didi Gurfinkel:
I think that the, the most interesting thing maybe is the, I, I dropped out of a school at the10th grade.
Paul Barnhurst:
Oh,
Didi Gurfinkel:
Wow. I was a computer nerd. I was, I alwa I wanted to docoding <laugh>. So I left, uh, school and I continue by myself. Um, so, uh, maybe this can be, uh, an in interesting point to the all the kids that are having get troubles and can’t find themselves in schools and in, uh, some, uh, with the, all the discipline and, uh, school is just, uh, is just a phase. Everything is possible.
Paul Barnhurst:
Uh, great advice there. So I’m curious, I’m gonna ask a follow-up question here. What was the first coding language you learned?
Didi Gurfinkel:
It was, uh, basic. Basic. It was with the numbers 10, 20, 30, 40. It was each line has, uh, had a number and then, uh, Pascal, and then C++.
Paul Barnhurst:
That, that makes sense. My daughter does, uh, she’s 10 and she goes to a coding class, you know, they start with scratch and she’s been enjoying learning the basics of coding. So I think it’s definitely a valuable skill, you know, and it’s one that I think, you know, it’s good for everybody to know, at least the basics. So this next one is a fun one. We like to ask everybody, if you could meet one person in the world, dead or alive, who would you want to meet and why?
Didi Gurfinkel:
This is a, a tough question because there are many, you know, areas or many topics one for sure is, uh, this guy, uh, Michael Jordan, I don’t know if you can see the picture,
Paul Barnhurst:
I, I can, we talked about that one earlier. Why Michael Jordan?
Didi Gurfinkel:
I think that, uh, he was an exceptional in the way he competes, the way he competed. It was exceptional. He sees, he, he saw nothing else but winning. And I, I’m not saying this is the way to perform and this is the way, but it’s something to, I don’t know if it’s to admire, but it’s something to see how far can you get with the right mindset. So this is, this is Michael Jordan. If you and I, I, I really like, or, or admire people that with a vision that you look in retrospective and think how the hell they, they knew how they had this courage and this visionary it and this capability to think ahead. So maybe the, the first prime Minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, this is one person that you can say how, how he was such brave and such a long-term visionary to think about how to build the foundation of this successful, uh, uh, country as we are today with all the, the things that you, you look retrospectively and think, wow, this is amazing.
Paul Barnhurst:
There are definitely people like that. Like you said, you know, first prime minister of Israel, you know, Michael Jordan obviously going six and oh, you know, winning six titles, never losing in the finals, winning the MVP every time. I mean, those are amazing accomplishments, you know, amazing athlete. And I wish it would’ve been four and two being a jazz fan. But I do have to appreciate his greatness. So, you know, I won’t hold it against you that you like Michael Jordan. He is, I think he’s the greatest NBA player of all time and an amazing winner. He is. He was truly amazing to watch. So I will totally agree with you there. So this next one, this is a fun one ’cause we, you know, they talk about generative AI. We like to ask people, and what’s the last thing they either Googled, looked up on YouTube, you know, or used generative ai, what’s the last thing you asked it? And in particular, if it’s related to finance, that’d be great, but if not, you can give us a different area. But the last thing either Googled looked up on YouTube or used generative AI to answer.
Didi Gurfinkel:
So I took all the questions that you gave me ahead and I put it in chat GPT and ask what will be the perfect answer for these questions.
Paul Barnhurst:
You know, I’m joking. I had actually, I had a guest do that. It was pretty funny ’cause we, we had a discussion about budget and he asked chat, GPT to write all the things you consider in a budget, and he sent it to me. And the answer was actually pretty good. So kind of speaking to that, yeah,
Didi Gurfinkel:
I,
Paul Barnhurst:
We laughed about it.
Didi Gurfinkel:
Yeah. JG PT is amazing and for, uh, for people like me that English is the, the second language. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and I, I required, you know, to, to sometimes to send emails and convey messages that should be, uh, uh, sometimes, um, um, deep and complicated. So, so I use, instead of translating text, I use chat GPT to translate and improve, which is amazing. I use it 10 times a day at least.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. I use it quite a bit to, uh, summarize transcripts like, you know, our conversation here. It’s like I can go listen to it again for 40 minutes in two months when I need to post about it. Or I can ask chat GPT to summarize it, kind of re help refresh my memory, look at a few things and, you know, edit the post versus having to start from scratch every time. So it’s, it saves so much time. It’s great at those type of things. Summarizing data
Didi Gurfinkel:
ChatGPT is amazing with text. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> amazing. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. And the challenge challenges to take these capabilities and transform it to numbers, which is a different story, a different story. And, and this is part of, uh, the reason I think that you don’t see many companies like Datarails that were able to, uh, productize ChatGPT open AI capabilities in the product is because the challenge to take large language models and use it in finance in numbers, when you need to be accurate, the determinacy, this is something that it’s, uh, it’s very challenging.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah. So I know dealing with numbers and chat GPT is a real challenge versus processing text. You know, I know that’s been one of the, I I’ve asked it enough finance questions. I know that that’s where, uh, you know, if I have a finance thing, if it’s using code interpreter, I trust it a lot more that it’s just returning an answer from the, you know, the language model.
Didi Gurfinkel:
Yeah.
Paul Barnhurst:
I, I, I agree with you a hundred percent there. So this last one, this is a favorite question of ours. We’ve done this since episode one. I think it’s the only question we’ve asked in pretty much every episode. Favorite Excel function or favorite thing about Excel?
Didi Gurfinkel:
Pivot, a hundred percent Pivot. I pivot everything. I pivot everything. And I, my, my, my, uh, hobby is to teach people to use, uh, a pivot but not tech people to, show it to, you know, like the, uh, people outside of the tech, how to use Pivot and to see the surprise and the amazement in, in, in, in their face. This is, uh, this is, I think this is amazing to, to, to bring the, the, this strong analysis capability to everyone. This is something that, Microsoft did so well.
Paul Barnhurst:
Yeah, the pivot table. I can’t even begin to think how many hours I’ve spent using a pivot table. And I still remember the first time I was trying to figure it out, I was sticking like, tech stuff in the values. I had no idea how to use it. And I’m like, what’s the benefit of this? But then once I actually figured out how to use it, it’s like, oh, wow, this is really cool. And you know, today I’m like super excited. About a month ago Microsoft announced it’s in beta. They haven’t released it, but they have, they’ve now created a pivot by function and a group by function. So you can create that same, you know, with dynamic arrays, you can basically create dynamic pivot tables. You don’t even have to run it through a pivot table if you don’t want to, right? And there’s some benefits of why you do both, but it’s just exciting to see, you know, more and more ways to analyze your data within Excel. I’m excited for the continued development that comes. And yeah, I’m a huge user of Pivot Tables, so I can appreciate that answer. So, last question here before we let you go. You know, if someone wants to get ahold of you or maybe learn more about you, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Didi Gurfinkel:
Come play Basketball with me, <laugh>,
Paul Barnhurst:
If you wanna meet ’em, ask ’em to where to join the basketball game, the pickup game.
So, well, you know, really appreciate you carving out some time for us today and getting the opportunity to chat with you and just learn a little bit more of the backstory. And, you know, we wish Data rails the best of luck as they continue to grow and scale the company. We know this is a market where people have a lot of options and, you know, it’s always a challenge to constantly trying to grow and innovate. So we look forward to, you know, continued progress to best serve FP&A professionals. ’cause you know, we all need as much help as we can and having an, having an important and the right fp and a tool is important for us. So thanks for being one of those that serves the marketplace. Appreciate it.
Didi Gurfinkel:
Thank you for inviting me and, uh, it was great to be here.