David Eckstein is the CFO of Legora, one of the world’s fastest-growing enterprise software companies, which grew from $1 million to $100 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in just 18 months.

David reflects on his parents’ divorce, graduating from college in three years, and realising at 22 that he was “living someone else’s life” before leaving investment banking for Silicon Valley.

Vidit and David explore his journey through Box, OpenDNS, Menlo Security and Vanta to Legora; helping sell OpenDNS to Cisco; investing in more than 100 startups; and how 16 years of relationships helped Legora attract $1.5 billion in investor demand and raise a $600 million Series D.

They also discuss the changing role of the CFO, AI economics and token spend, how to diligence a startup before joining, lessons from exceptional founders, Legora’s extraordinary growth, and David’s philosophy of loyalty and giving more than he takes.

Please enjoy exploring your curiosity.

________

00:00:00 Meet David Eckstein
00:05:00 Why Loyalty Drives Everything
00:13:00 The Obsession With Permanence
00:23:00 “I Was Living Someone Else’s Life”
00:28:00 How Relationships Helped Raise $600M
00:38:00 The New Economics of AI
00:45:00 Lessons From Four Hypergrowth Companies
00:55:00 Why He Bet His Career on Legora
01:05:00 What Makes Legora Special
01:12:00 The Hardest 25 Days of His Life
01:15:00 Give More Than You Take
01:21:00 Rapid Fire

________

Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com

Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG, Vanta, Allens, Macquarie Capital, City of Sydney and more.

Show notes and more episodes here

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram

Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here

Contact us via our website

________

The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world’s most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW.

Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths), Michael Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), David Haber (a16z Partner), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Limieux (CTO, Shopify and Atlassian), Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Mark Suster (Partner, Upfront Ventures), Niki Scevak (Partner, Blackbird), Craig Tiley (CEO, USA Tennis), Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel), Paul Bassat (Partner, Square Peg), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Sam Sicilia (CIO, Hostplus), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Tim Doyle (CEO, Eucalyptus), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Xero), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica), Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador/High Commissioner to India), Vivek Bhatia (CEO, MUFG), Cristina Cordova (COO, Linear) and more.

#264 David Eckstein: Legora's CFO on Living Someone Else's Life, AI Economics and Raising $500M in 45 Days

The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

#264 David Eckstein: Legora's CFO on Living Someone Else's Life, AI Economics and Raising $500M in 45 Days