CoreWeave CFO Nitin Agrawal joins Run the Numbers to unpack the finance engine behind one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure companies on the planet. CJ and Nitin dive into what it takes to build financial discipline in an environment where business models are being invented in real time, discussing the company’s 700% growth last year and massive first-quarter performance as a newly public company. They cover capex strategy, securitizing GPUs, managing billion-dollar revenue backlogs, and structuring incentives for hyperscale deals, all while keeping investors grounded and servers running at full tilt. If you want a front-row seat to finance in the AI arms race, this episode delivers.

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LINKS:

Nitin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nitin-agrawal-cloudcfo/

Company: https://www.coreweave.com/

CJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/

Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 Preview and Intro

00:02:54 Sponsors – Tipalti | Aleph | Fidelity Private Shares

00:06:12 Interview Begins: Scaling CoreWeave

00:06:52 CoreWeave’s Pivot From Crypto to AI

00:11:41 Why CoreWeave Is Uniquely Positioned to Lead AI Infrastructure

00:13:32 Hiring for Both Scrappiness and Scale

00:16:01 Post-IPO Whirlwind: Acquisitions, Debt Raises, and 10-Year Deals

00:16:43 Sponsors – Sage Intacct | Mercury | RightRev

00:20:13 Managing Investor Expectations With Radical Transparency

00:22:39 Doubling Active Power in Six Months

00:25:19 Risk-Balanced Capital Deployment: Power First, GPUs Second

00:27:12 Financing GPUs With Delayed-Draw Facilities

00:29:38 CoreWeave Rated Platinum for GPU Cluster Performance

00:32:25 Compute as the Bottleneck for AI Growth

00:33:47 Explaining Revenue Backlog Shape & Timing

00:35:06 The Strength of Reserved Instance Contracts

00:36:07 Giving Tight but Honest Guidance

00:40:26 How Mega-Deals Require C-Suite Participation

00:42:19 Tackling Revenue Concentration Through Diversification

00:44:05 Building an AI-Only Cloud, Not a General-Purpose Cloud

00:46:27 Capital Markets Muscle: Raising Billions at Speed

00:47:47 Accounting Complexity in a Business With No Precedent

00:49:33 Even the CFO Must Unlearn Old Cloud Assumptions

00:51:29 Scaling Public-Company Processes in 90-Day Cycles

00:54:42 The Couch Fire vs. House Fire Framework

00:57:17 Balancing Risk Mitigation With Opportunity Seeking

01:00:30 No Downtime for ERP Changes During Hypergrowth

01:02:33 Why the Team Stays Energized Despite the Chaos

#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFOInsights #Hypergrowth #AIInfrastructure #FinanceStrategy

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cjgustafson.substack.com

$1B AI Finance: How CoreWeave’s CFO Built a Rocket Ship | Nitin Agrawal

Run the Numbers