Count Me In at SuiteWorld 25 - Featuring Evan Goldberg
Hey, guys. Look where we're at here at Sweet World, 2025 in Las Vegas. We are excited to share some new episodes with you that we recorded here live in Sweet World in Las Vegas talking about AI and innovation and what CFOs can do to be better leaders in this organization. So we're so excited to have you here, so stay tuned for some great episodes. Well Evan, thank you so much for coming on the Count Me In podcast.
Adam Larson:We're excited to be here at SuiteWorld to talk chatting with you, and I wanted to kind of start a conversation. You started NetSuite twenty seven years ago. Did you ever imagine that it would become like the number one cloud ERP?
Evan Goldberg:Yeah, I would say I imagined it, but there's a lot of hard work and toil and innovation that stands between that wish and the actual fulfillment.
Adam Larson:Of course. Yeah, because it's when you're what kind of what inspired you to kind of get into this space to do that?
Evan Goldberg:Right. So, well, I ran another startup before NetSuite, and we didn't succeed at our vision. We did work similarly hard. And one of the things I came to realize is that if you're an entrepreneur or were an entrepreneur back in 1998, there weren't a lot of great tools to help you manage your company, and you had to kinda cobble a bunch of stuff together, and you never could get sort of an integrated view of what was happening in your business. So that's what inspired me to say I'd like to solve that problem for entrepreneurs.
Evan Goldberg:And I like to say that NetSuite was a company designed by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs. I started it with Larry Ellison, obviously a incredibly successful entrepreneur himself.
Adam Larson:Definitely. Was there a certain point in time that you realized that NetSuite was going to be ahead of its time, that it was going that direction?
Evan Goldberg:Well, when I first saw it, I mean, we went from using QuickBooks for the very small number of months until we had kind of the basics of NetSuite accounting up and running. And then we uploaded our our QuickBooks file. And when I saw it in the browser that I you know, and I think I was at my in my home at the time, that I could get those key metrics about my business anytime, anywhere. I was like, yeah, this is gonna work.
Adam Larson:Yeah. And it seems like that because when you talk to other people who use the software, they seem to have that same feeling, like it grows that that NetSuite scales with you.
Evan Goldberg:Absolutely. I mean, that's certainly what we built it for, knowing that our customers are themselves fast growing companies. We were a fast growing company, so we, you know, we were using our own technology to help us grow, and that that their companies change rapidly, their systems need to adapt and scale with them, be able to handle not just increased volume, but increased complexity, and that they need it to be flexible, that they need to be able to themselves adapt the system for their particular unique business processes and what makes them special as a company.
Adam Larson:Definitely. So you made some pretty big announcements yesterday at the keynote. What would you how would you describe what makes this moment different with this announcement? Well,
Evan Goldberg:you know, we've certainly all seen the power of these AI tools over the past few years. And I I I do think it has some similarity to when the Internet first sort of, you know, took the world by storm in '90 1994, 1995. And at first, people were like, wow. I can get information out so, so easily. It took a few years for it to really start to impact the business world in more like exchange of information and storage of information, and and that's certainly where NetSuite kicked in.
Evan Goldberg:So I think there's something similar happening now with AI, where at first, you know, it was really neat to see all the things you could do. You could ask it questions about things you were interested in and get instant answers. Now we're seeing more of how can it participate in, you know, business. How can it be come part of the sort of whole ecosystem of running your business? And and so so many of the announcements that have come here at SuiteWorld have been about the that idea that it can become sort of a partner in your business, both, you know, inside NetSuite as a user and also, you know, using these tools outside NetSuite and having it be able to exchange business information and utilize that business information.
Evan Goldberg:And so we demonstrated it, you know, obviously to the crowd yesterday and and today, but I was also just out on the show floor, and we're show you know, we're showing it in action. Customers are coming up and and asking questions to ask Oracle and checking out these technologies that are that are real, that are happening now. So it's a really exciting time.
Adam Larson:One thing you said yesterday, was like, ask Oracle as a a was a jet engine, not a copilot. Mhmm. And maybe you could talk about what what does that mean for business leaders when they're working with this AI?
Evan Goldberg:Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that they there there's obviously going to be some change management because people are gonna have to go from how they're used to interacting with business applications, and much of that is gonna continue to work. But I think as they see how easy it is to be able to just ask questions and get answers, I think that's, you know, it's going to be a natural transition. I mean, the approach that has worked for humans for literally hundreds of thousands of years. Just, you know, say what you want and hopefully get what you want.
Adam Larson:Yeah, definitely. So how do you balance innovation at an Oracle NetSuite, especially when you have to speed, you have to build all these things so quickly, but also keep trust with Accounting and finance professionals are very skeptical people. They really want to know the details.
Evan Goldberg:Right. It's not a coincidence that one of the first features we released that used AI is financial exception management. And now we're showing sort of the already the second generation of that here at SweetWorld to show, you know, even more types of exceptions that it outside of just sort of your GL entries, but then other types of transactions that it can look for anomalies. But so interestingly, like, that's what we knew was sort of the first thing. It's like, let's just see if it can dive into your data and bring back exceptions with the human in the loop.
Evan Goldberg:You get to look at it and see whether this is the right thing. And if we can sort of win over accounting and finance professionals with that, and they start to trust that, maybe they'll trust some of the other workflows that we're really starting to automate towards this autonomous close, autonomous accounting, as we were talking about, just making it much easier to get your job done so you can focus on those really more strategic initiatives to help your company.
Adam Larson:So let's talk about an autonomous close. It's something that, I mean, at IMA we have slots of webinars, people talking about the best way to close, close fastly.
Evan Goldberg:Right.
Adam Larson:You know, some organizations say the continuous close. What is it about the autonomous
Evan Goldberg:close? Yeah, mean, I think a continuous close is a good way of looking at it also. It's just this idea that many of these things that you do after the end of the period, with the help of AI and with the help of some of the tools like NetSuite, you can get them done sooner. You can get them done in a pro form a way so that even in the middle of the month or the middle of the quarter, you get an accurate picture of the state of the business. So if you have to make decisions based on your current financial position and based on your projections, you can do that with confidence.
Evan Goldberg:And again, a lot of what happens at the end of the period is there's a kind of set routine to do it. It requires a lot of communication. Well, AI is good at both of those things and can do it twenty four seven, three three six five. So I think, you know, it's a combination of the power of AI along with, you know, the evolving, I guess you'd say almost culture of companies that are just, you know, want to operate always in real time on the best possible information they can have.
Adam Larson:Well, and that's going to change whole mindsets of organizations. And what is that going to look like? What skills are tomorrow's leaders are going to need?
Evan Goldberg:That's a great question. And I think that everybody is thinking about what does my job look like in the age of AIs and, you know, what do I where should I be focused? I do think, obviously, everybody that's coming here at Sweet World is getting a big step forward because they're getting to see in action, like right there in the demo grounds, what it's gonna look like to be able to query and get answers right in real time about your financial information, your financial position, and how the next generation of sort of anomaly detection is gonna work. So certainly, I'd encourage everybody that's, you know, using NetSuite in a finance role to become familiar with these technologies so you can sort of hit the ground running when they hit in in, you know, in the coming months and years.
Adam Larson:So what about when somebody is, like, a small and medium sized business, and they see such a big organization like OrkornetSuite? Is this system for them as well?
Evan Goldberg:I mean, I think one of the most exciting prospects for AI is it's gonna make it even easier to implement NetSuite. It's gonna make it even easier to use NetSuite built in to ask Oracle, which is our, you know, sort of conversational centerpiece. It is sort of the jet engine, as I said. But as part of that is what we call NetSuite Expert that helps you figure out how to configure NetSuite, how to do things in NetSuite. This is all about making companies that have limited resources, where you have people doing 10 different jobs at once, be able to get further faster with NetSuite, you know, without necessarily taking training, without, know, going and learning, you know, complex workflows.
Evan Goldberg:It can both tell you how to do it and ultimately do it for you. So I think actually AI is going to make Oracle NetSuite way more accessible to companies at every stage of the evolution.
Adam Larson:Yeah, because I talk to CFOs for smaller organizations and they have to wear so many different hats, and so when you're talking about that, it seems like this is like the perfect kind of solution for them.
Evan Goldberg:Right, I mean they can, and know, and just in terms of bringing people into your finance organization and having them come up to speed quickly, this is what it's all about. Right? They can become productive very quickly. And this is AI that knows your company already, and it knows your configurations, and it knows how you do things. That's the whole idea of really building NetSuite ultimately around this AI, around, Ask Oracle.
Evan Goldberg:And so that someone coming in, not only can they learn to use NetSuite very quickly, but the way that it use they use NetSuite with Ask Oracle is going to be attuned to how you've set up your NetSuite, how things operate in your company. And again, just rapid time to value for new people is something that small companies really want and need, because they just got to, you know, they need everybody to hit the ground running, and this is going to be part of that solution.
Adam Larson:Well, in the way you're building it, I like how there's a knowledge base, because a lot times people worry about, with AI, the hallucinations, incorrect information. But if you're building it on the information for your organization, it works better.
Evan Goldberg:Certainly. And trust and transparency are two absolutely critical elements of NetSuite Next, that you can see where every number comes from, what's behind it. But these models, these large language models, they're not perfect, obviously. And so one of the things that we wanna do is make sure that we're getting very rapid feedback from our customers. We're gonna have a multi month preview period where everybody can try it in their accounts, and so that's gonna give us an ability to tune it even better than we've done sort of in the labs, once it's sort of out in the field.
Adam Larson:Yeah. Definitely. So you've been leading Oracle for or NetSuite for almost three decades now. What kind of excites you about what's happening next?
Evan Goldberg:I mean, this is the most exciting time for technology since the Internet and in many ways more exciting. I had an aborted trip to graduate school for AI back in the early nineteen nineties. And, you know, the as we all know, looking back, the the the technology was not ready for prime time. But it got me so excited because I've always been in software to help people accomplish their daily tasks more easily. And it's just it's been obvious for a long time that if we could actually get these things to be practical and scalable, these neural nets and now these large language models and transformer architecture, that we were going to be able to make it much easier for people to accomplish their daily tasks.
Evan Goldberg:And that's what everybody wants out of software, and there's, you know, there's sort of a no better time, to be in software. I do think it is ultimately gonna be more of the Internet was great, connected people. It was the kind of, you know, infrastructure on which we were able to build NetSuite, obviously. But I think this is ultimately going to be more impactful in terms of people's ability to get more work done faster, more effectively, more accurately, and be able to do what they truly want to do in building their business, which is focus on their customers, their products, their services, and not necessarily on some of the nuts and bolts that are necessary and important, but take up a lot of time.
Adam Larson:So what about the next generation of accounting and finance professionals? What would you say to them to get ready to come into this new workforce?
Evan Goldberg:Right. And as I mentioned, I think, obviously, how these tools are using AI and becoming proficient with that. You know, people talk about things like prompt engineering. I mean, that's not what we're aiming people to be doing with NetSuite. We are aiming for them to be able to ask the question the same way you'd ask to a knowledgeable colleague.
Evan Goldberg:Like, you don't do prompt I mean, it is true sometimes you do have to ask questions a little bit differently when you're talking to different people, but mostly, you ask your questions in a natural way, and you get your answer back in a natural way. So in that regard, I don't think that's as much what finance professionals should be looking at. Of course, they still need the skills that they've always had because, know, you need to be able to understand when the system explains to you how it's doing things, need to understand the principles just as well as it does so that you can feel confident. We're gonna do everything to make you feel confident. But those skills are certainly, absolutely, continue to be applicable.
Evan Goldberg:But I think that up leveling to more strategic discussions means learning more about the strategy behind, sort of behind the numbers. What are strategic ways you can use your skills to help? Ultimately, everybody who's in an accounting or finance department wants to make the business run better, wants to make the business achieve its goals more quickly. And there are obviously lots of strategic ways to do that with the limited resources that every business has. That's where I think people should be thinking about applying their applying their expertise.
Evan Goldberg:How do we strategically use the financial resources we have to reach our goals faster? And that's a lot better thing to be thinking about and working on than trying to track down some error in a GL entry.
Adam Larson:Very true. So let's say somebody's listening to this conversation. They're an entrepreneur. They want to get going. They want to be a startup founder, kind of like you were.
Adam Larson:What advice would you give to them to build something that lasts?
Evan Goldberg:That's a great question. And there's always that balance when you're building a company between wanting to get your product or service to market and wanting to get out there fast and then wanting to build something that's scalable. And you really have to be you have to do sort of both at the same time. You have to, like, be building the boat as you're sailing it, so to speak. So that's, I think, the the the it's a tricky balance to get right.
Evan Goldberg:But in the long run, as long as you keep that North Star in mind and you have that vision of where things are gonna go, I think you can get you you can get a good balance. And you'll make some mistakes, you'll do some things in a short term way that you wish you'd thought more long term. You'll spend more time on something thinking about the long term. I wish we'd gotten this feature or this capability or closed this customer or whatever it is more quickly. But keeping those sort of two sides of the equation always in your head, and each time just trying to make the best possible decision you can about how to balance the fear, what they call, like the fierce urgency of now with building something sustainable that will last.
Evan Goldberg:As long as you know that both of those, I think entrepreneurs make really good decisions. I feel like we went through the whole journey that so many entrepreneurs do, and fortunately, I think we were good enough that we're still here today twenty seven years later.
Adam Larson:Yeah, that's great. Because it's it's it's it's also about building a good foundation. I kind of was listening to some of the keynotes yesterday and some of the their stories is they need you need to build things with you that are scalable, kind of like Absolutely. With, like, the way NetSuite can kind of grow people with that scalability. And so it's interesting trying to make those decisions to lay that foundation, and I'm sure that's a hard hard decision
Evan Goldberg:to Right. You know, it's actually what we think about in NetSuite is obviously we want it to be very approachable and usable, and all these AI features are gonna make that true. But we also want it to be solid and scalable and be able to handle your company from very small to very big. So so we're thinking about those trade offs between, obviously, ease of use and power. And, again, I think we don't always get that balance exactly right.
Evan Goldberg:Then we adjust and we fix it. But I think overall, you know, the 43,000 plus customers, we've been able to get a great balance for a really exciting set of companies that, like, as we're seeing here at Sweet World, are doing incredible things in their, whatever their world is.
Adam Larson:Well, Evan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was great chatting with you today.
Evan Goldberg:So great to be here. Thank you.
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