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First Round CapitalFigma’s CFO on going public, AI, and working alongside Dylan Field | Praveer Melwani
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EPISODE INFO
- Released
- May 14, 2026
- Duration
- 43m
- Channel
- First Round Capital
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
In this latest episode of Executive Function, Brett sits down with Praveer Melwani, CFO at Figma. Praveer joined Figma in 2017 as the company's first business operations and finance hire—when the team was around 30 people and not yet charging for the product—and stepped into the CFO seat in 2022, helping to lead the company’s IPO in 2025. In today’s conversation, Praveer breaks down the step functions that took him from IC to CFO, why Figma started acting like a public company three years before IPO, and how AI is rewriting capital allocation and the CFO job itself. In today's episode, we discuss:
- What separates a world-class finance leader from a traffic-cop CFO
- How Praveer went from Figma's first biz ops hire to CFO of a public company in nine years
- Why Figma started acting like a public company three years before its IPO
- What Praveer has learned working alongside Dylan Field for nine years
- Why Figma intentionally cut its 90% gross margin to invest in AI
References:
- Adobe: https://www.adobe.com
- Brendan Mulligan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanmulligan
- Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com
- Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com
- Dylan Field: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanfield/
- Fidelity: https://www.fidelity.com
- Figma: https://www.figma.com
- GIC: https://www.gic.com.sg
- NerdWallet: https://www.nerdwallet.com
- Shaunt Voskanian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shauntvoskanian/
Where to find Praveer:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/praveer-melwani Where to find Brett:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
Where to find First Round Capital:
- Website: https://firstround.com/
- First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
- This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 02:13 From banking to Dropbox to Figma 04:14 The phase shift when Figma's COO left 05:36 Hiring leaders in functions you don't understand 07:18 Selling the exec team on AI consumption pricing 09:48 Using Claude Code to learn new things as CFO 11:36 Building an internal board of peer CFOs 13:52 Inside Figma's CFO job description 16:38 What separates good CFOs from world-class CFOs 18:42 Capital allocation and risk in a post-ChatGPT world 21:45 Why Praveer wants to take more bets 24:32 How AI is materially changing the CFO role 25:36 The nine-year working relationship with Dylan Field 29:12 How deeply in the details should a CFO be? 31:47 What Dropbox taught Praveer about building strong teams 33:24 Praveer’s first-principles test for hiring VPs 38:47 Why Figma acted like a public company in 2022
SPEAKERS
Brett Berson
hostPartner at First Round Capital and interviewer/host for First Round conversations.
Praveer Melwani
guestCFO of Figma, previously in investment banking and at Dropbox, focused on scaling finance and operating cadence.
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of First Round Capital, featuring Brett Berson and Praveer Melwani, Figma’s CFO on going public, AI, and working alongside Dylan Field | Praveer Melwani explores Figma’s CFO on scaling, AI pricing, and public-company readiness Praveer Melwani attributed his progression at Figma to timing, supportive leadership, and being candid about gaps while continuously learning through experts, experimentation, and questioning.
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