Legacy Data, Lean Startups, and the Real Reason Stanford Students Walked Out on Google

Legacy Data, Lean Startups, and the Real Reason Stanford Students Walked Out on Google

When hundreds of Stanford students walked out on Google's CEO at commencement, most people filed it under "campus drama." Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri see it differently. In this episode of This Week in Accounting AI, the Wiss hosts unpack what that walkout signals about generational fear, why AI company leaders keep doubling down on job-displacement narratives that serve shareholders more than workers, and why the most admired companies deploying AI right now are focused on making their products better, not just cutting headcount. They also get into the stark differences between legacy businesses, SaaS companies, and AI-native startups, a 100-year-old client building an entirely new product from proprietary data, CEOs using Claude for FP&A; (and what they're missing), and why changing your mind frequently right now is the smartest thing you can do. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

KKR, Baker Tilly, and the Wealth Transfer Nobody's Talking About — What PE Consolidation Really Means for Accountants

56% of CFOs say they've adopted AI. Only 7% say they're getting a return on it. This week, Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri open with that Gartner data, and make the case that most finance leaders aren't just underperforming on AI, they're measuring the wrong thing entirely. Speed to close is not the same as speed to the information that runs a business. From there, they get into the week's PE headlines: Anchin's acquisition by Baker Tilly and KKR's investment into Crowe. Paul breaks down what actually happens in these deals, the wealth transfer, the loss of accountant agency, and the disappearance of a career path the profession has relied on for decades. The episode ends where it started: with a question about what accounting actually is. Transactional, or relational? Paul's answer is clear. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

AI Native Accounting Is The Three-Point Line - And Most CFOs are Still Playing Post-Up Ball

Paul Peterson and Matt Barbieri just returned from four weeks on the road — BDO's firm conference in Vegas, an investor summit in San Francisco, Boston Tech Week, and NYC Tech Week — and the takeaway is stark: the gap between accounting firms embracing AI and those waiting it out is widening fast. In this episode of This Week in Accounting AI, they break down what they saw across all four stops, unpack the Rillet vs. Artifact debate (AI-native ERP vs. agnostic intelligence layer), and get into why most CFOs can't answer the most basic question about their own close process. They also cover agent stickiness, why most AI agents die after the first build, how to think about designing AI usage vs. just experimenting, and why Paul's NBA three-point-line analogy may be the clearest frame yet for what AI-native accounting actually means for competitive advantage. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

The ERP Is Broken by Design — And Accountants Are Paying the Price | ft. Adam Riches, Netgain CEO

Netgain CEO Adam Riches joins Paul Peterson to expose why ERP systems deprioritized accounting decades ago — and why CFOs are still paying the price. They cover the history of accounting as a competitive advantage (from the Medici to Carnegie to the IBM mainframe era), how the spreadsheet became a 40-year Band-Aid, and what modern accounting infrastructure actually needs to look like. Adam breaks down Netgain's three-layer close framework (cash, simple accrual, GAAP), the case for rules over AI in bank reconciliation, Benford analysis for anomaly detection, and why AI risks repeating the same mistake as ERP if the profession isn't deliberate. A must-listen for CFOs, controllers, and finance leaders navigating the next wave of accounting technology. This Week in Accounting AI is produced by Wiss, an AI-optimized CPA and advisory firm serving privately-held and venture-backed businesses.

Power, Gatekeeping & Control in Accounting - And How Al Is About to Break It Open

In episode 12, Paul and Matt get into the uncomfortable truth about accounting departments: too many of them are held hostage by a single person who has turned a process into a black box. From the controller who "bamboozles" leadership to the commissions guy who made Friday bagels a bigger priority than payroll, Paul and Matt unpack how power and control became baked into the profession, starting with the 150-hour rule, and why AI is about to flatten it. They also dig into service as a lost art, why accountants were never supposed to be schedule-preparers, and Paul's vision of accountants as storytellers and business leaders inside the companies they serve.