We've got a new star on our executive team, Kyle Alisharan, who is joining us as CFO.

Want to learn more about Kyle and what he'll be doing at Replit? Read on!

kyle

In your own words, who are you?

I was an engineer with a finance background who drew the short straw at my first company, so I ended up moonlighting as the Finance guy. Over time I came to love it, partly because I got to go deep on something not a lot of folks go deep on at start-ups, and partly because I saw it unlock a lot of growth for us. That took a while but led to a few good things (bootstrapping, recap, acquisitions, and eventually an IPO), so that became my lane over a decade of work. I didn't realize it at the time but that formative experience was, as Amjad put it, "Finance on hard mode". Since then I've been the 0 to 1 CFO at several companies going from first Finance employee through building the team, multiple fundraising rounds, and refining the business model to a liquidity event. When I'm not doing that, I'm chasing my kids around (2 little girls) or finding an excuse to be outside.

What will you be doing at Replit?

All things Finance (accounting, control, financial planning and analysis, capital strategy, why doesn't my corporate credit card work, etc). Not all myself of course. We are building the team now...

What were you doing before you joined us?

Right before, I was angel investing, consulting, and generally enjoying being a former CFO. I didn't plan to go back to full time. Then I met Amjad and the team and got excited about the company, so here I am.

What made you want to join Replit?

I think we have an opportunity to build a generationally significant company that creates tremendous value for a community larger than just our shareholders. I think our platform gives motivated users the skills, community, and tools to potentially change the trajectory of their lives, regardless of where they live in the world, or what kind of computer or development tools they can afford. At the limit, in addition to being a huge business opportunity, that is a large lever to use on big scary problems, like wealth inequality or the gender education gap. I'm not the only one who thinks this. It's already happening. I want to help scale it. These kinds of opportunities don’t come along often, so I jumped on it. And my daughters think it's cool.

What are you most excited to accomplish at Replit?

We want to bring the next billion coders online. The first and second order effects of that are massive, almost hard to comprehend. My piece of that mission is making sure we have the capital, operational control, and financial incentive alignment so all stakeholders, the community, our users, employees, vendors and shareholders all get there together.

What is your favorite repl?

This is so stereotypical for the finance guy to say, but I find myself playing the investing / stock picking games a lot. That and the KaJam winners, which floor me. Many of them are better, higher quality and more compelling than what a team with a budget, beefy machines and pro tools could build just a few years ago. Now, because of Replit, they were built and deployed for free, in a browser, on almost any kind of machine (they could have been built on a phone!). That is just amazing to me.

Where can users find you online?

You can find me LinkedIn and on Replit at @WxKalisharan.