Pigment AI Agents Help Finance Teams Control Runaway Token Spending
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Big companies are blowing through AI budgets. CFOs are under pressure. Pigment co-founder Eléonore Crespo wants to help. "It's going to be a big topic for everyone, and it goes beyond just understanding your costs," she says. Founded in Paris in 2019 by Crespo and her co-CEO Romain Niccoli, @gopigment builds AI agents to help finance teams break free from spreadsheets for their planning. Anthropic, Coca-Cola, Notion, Uber and Unilever are all customers. And increasingly, they're turning to Pigment to manage runaway token and model spend. On our new episode of The Upstarts Podcast, Crespo share how building in Paris helps Pigment compete at the AI talent "buffet"; how a culture of “unreasonable hospitality” helps it win, from cookies to late-night WhatsApp messages; and how careful communication can help a co-CEO setup actually work. Plus, she shares her Upstart Moment: closing a key exec hire, with an in-person assist from the actor Tom Cruise. This season is presented by @Rippling. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:18 What Pigment does, and who it helps 06:06 Seeing Google’s spreadsheet problem first-hand 10:05 Finding a co-founder, CIA style, and a product, Ferrari style 15:49 Cookies, WhatsApp and “unreasonable hospitality” as strategy 18:56 How to make startup co-CEOS work 24:00 Building in Paris versus the Bay Area’s talent "buffet” 30:11 How AI agents change CFO and analyst jobs 34:05 Bringing AI token spending under control 39:02 How Tom Cruise helped close Pigment’s CRO
Big companies are blowing through AI budgets. CFOs are under pressure. Pigment co-founder Eléonore Crespo wants to help. "It's going to be a big topic for everyone, and it goes beyond just understanding your costs," she says. Founded in Paris in 2019 by Crespo and her co-CEO Romain Niccoli, @gopigment builds AI agents to help finance teams break free from spreadsheets for their planning. Anthropic, Coca-Cola, Notion, Uber and Unilever are all customers. And increasingly, they're turning to Pigment to manage runaway token and model spend. On our new episode of The Upstarts Podcast, Crespo share how building in Paris helps Pigment compete at the AI talent "buffet"; how a culture of “unreasonable hospitality” helps it win, from cookies to late-night WhatsApp messages; and how careful communication can help a co-CEO setup actually work. Plus, she shares her Upstart Moment: closing a key exec hire, with an in-person assist from the actor Tom Cruise. This season is presented by @Rippling. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:18 What Pigment does, and who it helps 06:06 Seeing Google’s spreadsheet problem first-hand 10:05 Finding a co-founder, CIA style, and a product, Ferrari style 15:49 Cookies, WhatsApp and “unreasonable hospitality” as strategy 18:56 How to make startup co-CEOS work 24:00 Building in Paris versus the Bay Area’s talent "buffet” 30:11 How AI agents change CFO and analyst jobs 34:05 Bringing AI token spending under control 39:02 How Tom Cruise helped close Pigment’s CRO