Salesforce Paid $2.1 Billion for His Company: Meet the CFO Who Made it Happen

**CJ Gustafson** (0:00)
I love this. Control your destiny. What does that mean?

**Jake Kornreich** (0:03)
Controlling your destiny means doing things only because you want to do them, not because you have to. In a company context, that means having the right performance, having the capital, having the strategic plan in place so that you're not forced into a financing or a sale or doing anything from a position of weakness. I don't know if you're a Silicon Valley fan. Oh, huge. You might remember the scene when they're talking about revenue, and Russ Hanneman comes in and he says, we can't show revenue.

**CJ Gustafson** (0:30)
If you show revenue, people will ask how much and it will never be enough.

**Jake Kornreich** (0:33)
It's satire, but I think we smirk about it because we know there's a bit of a kernel of truth in that in many ways.

**CJ Gustafson** (0:38)
Triangulate your way to success.

**Jake Kornreich** (0:40)
They only take snapshots of your business. They don't see the whole movie playing out. Ultimately, you are the one operating your business, not your board.

**CJ Gustafson** (0:49)
You've told me that you're actually an operator and a leader more than a CFO.

**Jake Kornreich** (0:53)
Once you're on the leadership team, your job is to help the company win however best you can. And sometimes that means going deep in your lane. Sometimes it means having a point of view on product or go to market people strategy.
You need enough humility to know what you know, but the confidence to be able to speak about any of that.

**CJ Gustafson** (1:12)
Is this thing on?

**Jake Kornreich** (1:15)
Yesterday's price is not today's price.

**CJ Gustafson** (1:27)
Welcome back to another very special episode of Run the Numbers. This is the third episode we recorded at the New York Stock Exchange. I didn't take a single bathroom break. This interview is with Jake Kornreich, the CFO of CoLab. Prior to CoLab, Jake was the CFO of Own, which sold to Salesforce for $2.1 billion.
This guy had quite the come up. He started as chief of staff at Own, worked his way up to the CFO seat, and sold the company for multiple billions of dollars. He takes us through his six-part framework for selling Own to Salesforce. It goes something like this. Control your own destiny.
Share price equals entertainment into the day you sell. I love that one. Discipline execution makes preparation a breeze. You get paid for performance, not stories. Triangulate your way to success in stakeholder communication. All this and more. And if you want, afterwards, check out my deep dive on a CFO Explains, the Stock Exchange. Jake, thank you so much for joining me at the New York Stock Exchange.

**Jake Kornreich** (2:23)
Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

**CJ Gustafson** (2:25)
A lot of marble to build this place.

**Jake Kornreich** (2:26)
They don't build them like this anymore, that's for sure.

**CJ Gustafson** (2:28)
So I want to start off with some quick hitters here. Do you remember the first stock you ever bought?

**Jake Kornreich** (2:32)
The first stock I bought was Amazon. I was day trading it in the back of a classroom, I think during a lecture my freshman year of college, like not my finest moment back then. It was books and Madden every year. I had no idea it would turn into what it turned into.

**CJ Gustafson** (2:47)
Do you think you still own that chair or that stock?

**Jake Kornreich** (2:50)
If I had, I don't know if we'd still be sitting here.

**CJ Gustafson** (2:52)
When you think of companies ringing the bell and IPO, I mean, we got the balcony behind us. We were asking before, how many people can they fit up there? They can fit up to 15 people. Do any companies come to mind?

**Jake Kornreich** (3:04)
I actually used to live about three blocks away from here on Liberty Street. Back and forth every day to the subway for work, I'd look down the street and I'd see the facade, the columns that we've all seen, this beautiful temple of American capitalism. I just think to myself, man, I would love to ring the bell there one day, actually earn the right to do that. And it's still something that motivates me today.

**CJ Gustafson** (3:25)
Yeah, I can't believe they even let me in the building. Do you think the benefits of going public are the same as they used to be?

**Jake Kornreich** (3:31)
I think the benefits are still the same, liquidity, brand, currency, accountability. And I think accountability ultimately makes you a better company. You start running the risk of the market dictating how you wanna run your business and that becomes a very fine line that can be challenging to learn how to walk properly. It's a good point.