A Developer Toolkit for FP&A Professionals and Various Musings with Microsoft MVP Jordan Goldmeier

I'm a VBA expert. All right, I planted my flag on it. The VBA is old and we need to stop using it.

What should replace VBA in Excel? Should there be another language or what's your opinion?

That's a great question. Today's guest is Jordan Goldmeier, analytics expert, Microsoft MVP and author of DataSmart. He opens up about his journey and makes bold claims about the future of Excel, VBA and modern data workflows.

Favorite Excel feature, Mergent Center. I knew that you were going to say that.

In my tool, we're going to have a big ass merchant center button and to make everything run, you have to click it and it's just going to turn your whole spreadsheet into one giant merchant Center Cell with AI about 2014, I decided I wanted to start my own company. Well, as all entrepreneurs do, I made a lot of mistakes and I had to get a job back at work at about 2018. Got divorced. Then I got laid off. I got this call from my grandmother and it was the last call. She was telling me that, you know, she had cancer and it was going to take her and the bank. Then I had to go into work and fix this problem. Right after receiving that call, I went to the bathroom and locked myself in a stall and just like the music started playing. This was at a WeWork in Brooklyn. It was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Under pressure, I just broke down, man. I remember crying and thinking like, what is my life? What happened?

Welcome back to another episode of FP&A unlocked. Are you tired of being seen as just a spreadsheet person while others get a seat at the table? Well, then, welcome to FP and I Unlock where finance meets strategy. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, the FPA guy. Each week we bring you conversations and practical advice from thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners. Together, we'll uncover the strategies and experiences that separate good FP&A professionals from great ones, helping you elevate your career and drive strategic impact. Speaking of strategic impact, our title sponsor for FPA Unlocked is Campfire, the ERP that's helping modern finance teams close fast and scale faster. So today's guest I'm thrilled to have on the show. I had him on FP&A today three and a half years ago now. He was the first guest I ever interviewed. Jordan Goldmeier, welcome.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here once again with you, Paul. Now, three and a half years later and what, 300 some interviews later. Is that right?

Yes. It's 300 podcast interviews and another 50 shows. I've probably been on so done this a few times now. Hopefully I'll be a little crisper than last time. You're happy. I think you were in New York last time as well. Just different apartment.

Yes, I was in New York last time. I am living in Lisbon now. But I do travel a lot, and so my work outside of Excel has brought me here.

I thought all your work was inside Excel.

No, as it turns out, I'm a multifaceted individual. And I don't just do Excel. I do events. Some of those events are for Excel people and AI people, but I also do events just in general to meet people, to meet new people and expand my network. And I had one here in New York City.

Yeah, no, I know you've lived there for several years. So why don't we start, tell our audience a little bit about your background, kind of what you've done, what you're doing today, kind of your career story. Give us a little bit of the Jordan overview.

Okay, so where did I start? I think we did this last time on your first interview. And I would say that I started as an auditor. I mean, my real story is that I started coding when I was 10. I checked out some books at the library because I always thought, how do you get a computer to do something? And I learned how to code just by reading those books. At the time, I didn't have a way to code them up. So I just thought about it. Well, fast forward a few years. I enter into college and it's after the dot com boom, and my dad says to me, you know, you should really become an accountant, because look what happened during the dot com boom for programmers. So I went his route and I studied accounting, but I still loved programming. And I would. I think I got a minor in computer science anyway. And it's funny because I did really well in those classes. In the accounting classes, I got Cs. So I graduate and I think, okay, I'm going to become an auditor. So I was an auditor for the Air Force, and I wasn't good at auditing, but they had all these old macros and nobody had updated them in years. And so because I'm a coder, I went through and updated them. And then I realized that there was this formula language behind Excel, which I had maybe just a little bit of experience with. And to be honest with you, I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but when I was in college, I Had friends helping me out with the formulas because I didn't pay attention in class. I'm like a B lookup. What the hell is that? What is this stuff about? Absolute and relative references. Okay, well, when I was on the job, I picked it up very quickly because I still have a coding mind. And I was looking at my future in the accounting profession and I thought, God, this is so boring. I couldn't do this. Like, the Excel part was fun, but reading regulations on the weekends. I was working for the Air Force and I thought, God, this is just like. I mean, I remember they gave me a stack of things to read and I just zoned out for hours. I didn't know how people did it. Okay. So I realized that was not the job for me, but I was. I had learned on the job how to code in Excel. And so I looked online and I saw all these people paying a lot of money for Excel developers. So I thought, okay, I'll go do that. And that's what I did. And I ended up in this research department also for the Air Force. If you work in Dayton, Ohio, you probably work for the Air Force.

Yeah, I was going to say, I know that's a big Air Force base, so that doesn't surprise me.

Yes. So they were doing a lot of this really complicated stuff in operations research. And this was maybe at the dawn of big data. So this was before we started really aggregating those huge amounts of data and trying to figure out what to do with it. So we didn't have data science as a discipline yet. So during this time I learned all these mathematical things that, you know, they tried to teach me in school, but I didn't get it because I'm more of a self learner. Like, you know, I taught myself to code, so I had to learn it on the job. It's not like with a test, you can run it a hundred times and then see where you failed. You know, you really get one shot. So I did that for a while and that really, I started just getting into like what Excel can do and pushing the boundaries on top of the fact that the people in these departments were running these financial projects, but they didn't have a finance background. So I came in with this accounting and finance background and I was able to actually solve all these other problems. So I did that for a while. My old boss there. So I had a boss there, he went and started his own company. So I worked with him for a while. And then about 2014, I decided I wanted to start my Own company. So I did that for about a year and realized, well, as all entrepreneurs do, I made a lot of mistakes, and I had to get a job back at work. So I started doing more of the same. More analytics, more data science, more coding in other platforms. And then at about 2018, I got divorced. Then I got laid off. And then I remember, because I got laid off, they called me up to say, you know, you're not really doing any work. And I'm like, well, you know, I just got divorced. And I mean, that just started, like, two weeks ago. I. I'm trying to deal with all that. And they're like, well, we're gonna. You know, you need to get in here and fix X, Y, and Z. And I remember this so clearly because I went in to go. They were like, you got to get here now. So I remember it would take me an hour and a half to actually get there. I was working in New York, and so I decided to call an Uber. And then as I was waiting for the Uber, I got this call from my grandmother. And it was, you know, the last call, she was telling me that, you know, she had cancer and it was going to take her, and that was it. And I told her I was getting divorced. And, you know, she said a lot of very positive things. But then I had to go into work and fix this problem right after receiving that call. And I remember I went in. I couldn't get it working. And then finally, I was like, I'm just going home. But before that, I went to the bathroom and locked myself in a stall, and just, like, the music started playing. This was at a WeWork in Brooklyn. It was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Under pressure. Everyone has to listen to me to sing that off key. And I just. I just broke down, man. Like, that Under Pressure song. And I just. I remember crying and thinking, like, what is my life? What happened? I went back home and thought, you know, I can't even work anymore. So I told them I wanted to leave earlier than we even planned, and I was out of there. I was out of my job in a week. And the next day, I woke up after. No job, no wife anymore. You know, my grandmother had passed by this point, and I just thought, okay, I'm starting my business up again. So that was 2018, and I started a consulting. Really. I just did anything like consulting training you could pay me for Excel, and I did it. Okay. So I did that up until the pandemic, and then the pandemic happened and everything canceled. People didn't have money, my live in person trainings canceled, and I was back to where I was before. Broke as hell, looking through my couch cushions for change, smoking cigarettes for dinner. So I, you know, eating ramen so I, I could suppress my appetite. And, and I had also hurt my back. So it's almost like the, I was reliving the pain again of the like catastrophic cascading unluck of bad luck that happened before. And at that moment I realized I need to change everything. So I pushed all my training online. I decided that I wanted to travel more and that became the impetus to move to Lisbon. And then, you know, I just moved everything to become passive core sales and started working with clients who I only liked. And that seemed like that was the ticket to traction. And so I built a company around training people how to do things in Excel that they want to do but don't know how to do, how to automate things. And I focus purely on the market instead of just what I wanted to build anymore. And that really, I think, brings us to this day. So this is my life now. I build training courses mainly for LinkedIn and I have other vendors who sell them. I've also written multiple books on Excel and data science. And so I travel a lot. I spent the last two years kind of taking a break, doing other businesses, other things. And it brings me to this point, talking to you, Paul. And I think you know what I'm working on now. So I think that, I think I spent like 10 minutes on that, but that is the rundown.

I appreciate all the backstory and appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing some of those difficult times, because I think sometimes people think, oh, hey, here's this Microsoft mvp. He's running his own business, everything must be fabulous, and he's rich. Not that you ever get that impression from people, right, Jordan?

I mean, it's funny because out on the outside, when I was an outsider, I thought it was like that. But now on the inside, I talk to you, I talk to others. There are real struggles that happen behind the scenes. And this is not just me. It's not just being an entrepreneur. If you're an everyday worker working, you know, I know many of your audience work in FP&A, which is a big vertical I support these days. You know, it's very easy to come in and show people how to do something in Excel. And then you always have that person who asks this question, well, how do I get people to change their minds? Or can you look at my code and tell me what's wrong, you know, because those are the real struggles that happen behind the scenes. And I don't ever have good answers for that, except to say it's not as it appears.

I totally agree. Especially the first one. Right. How do you get people to change their minds? Like, well, nobody in my company's taking initiative or automating things, or how do I get them to desire to be, to upskill? And the reality is, right, you can lead a horse to modern, but you can't make them drink. As the saying goes, there's only so much you can do, and so that can be frustrating. And then the second is, yeah, look at code. And sometimes it's an easy thing. Oh, yeah, I can help you. The other times you're like, I don't even understand what you're trying to do. Yeah, I know.

That happens so much now. We were talking about this earlier, right? When someone says, look at my DAX code, I'm like, I don't know Dax. I mean, I know it enough to be dangerous, but I don't know it.

Know it. Yeah, I know the basics. I mean, but it's now, it's been years. I haven't written any since I started my business. I was writing it some before, but very mostly basic stuff. I wrote a, you know, a few, I call them intermediate type stuff for one job. I have Marco Russo's book over there, and I mean to through it, but, you know, reading a book and actually doing it are two different things. Is there?

Yes, I can explain Dax. Like, I can teach it. I can teach, calculate and some of these things, but, you know, in terms of these very complicated DAX functions, I think the learning curve is so steep and I just don't have enough exposure on projects that use it that I would have it top of mind every single day. And if I'm being realistic with you, as I said, I focused on my market niche. My market niche is a Excel. So it's not like I can't teach Power bi. I've taught it for MBA programs, but, you know, I'm just not an expert in it. So I can tell you how it thinks and what it does, but they, you know, all these special functions that they have in it, it's just like, it doesn't even. It just doesn't even excite me. Like, that's the worst part about it. It's just like I'm just like.

I heard it described to me once, if SQL and Excel had a baby.

It'D be Dax Yes. But a baby they didn't love. That's so mean.

So it's a redheaded stepchild. Not that. Yeah. Not that either of us are red. One of us has red hair or anything.

Yeah. And one of us does, right? No hair and red hair. Yeah. I think last time you interviewed me, I also had like long flowing locks. But, you know, I started balding and while everyone's always very nice about, ah, you can't tell. I'm just like, you know, forget it, I don't care anymore. I'm in my buzz.

What can you do? I fortunately, the balding part, I'm pretty fortunate on all my grandparents had a good head of hair in their 70s and 80s and my dad still does, so. So I'm knocking on wood that I keep a good full head of hair. But you got to go with what you have. It's different for all of us.

You have a wicked beard. I think that that is fair to say.

I have fun with my beard. Somebody the other day laugh at this on LinkedIn, said that I need to do a poll to who had a better beard, me or James Harden. And I just laugh. Well, I'm giving it to James Harden. He has the handle, the beard, so he wins.

Well, I think within our community, you are the beard king.

I do think LinkedIn Finance, I definitely have to be in the top three.

Well, you heard it here, everyone. If you want to get ahead in FP&A, you need to figure out how to monetize your beard.

That's coming next. FP&A beard products. The FP&A guy's Beard ball. Just wait. I expect you to order some. Jordan.

Yes, definitely.

All right, before we get into the project you're working on today, we'll get there in a minute, which I think will be interesting. Your FP and A audience. You've written several books. Maybe talk a little bit about some of the books you've written, what audience they're for, why you like to write books. A little bit about your.

I'll give you the behind the scenes too. So in about 2010, when I was still working for the Air Force, there is this one guy and he had written what was considered like the best book on Excel development for operations research. So the department I was working in and I saw him speak in Texas and you know, to his credit, like, he did a lot with Solver and he pushed a lot of things forward. But he was an older guy and what he was building was very dated and I was looking at the stuff Chandu was talking about the stuff I was doing and I thought, God, there's gotta be a better way. I mean, this is just like, I can't believe that there's 200 people in this audience and this is what we're teaching. And so that really bothered me as a young person in my 20s, and I thought, you know what, I need to start sharing with the world. I can sit here and complain. So I started the Option Explicit VBA blog. For those of you familiar with Visual Basic for applications, the macro coding language behind Excel, Option Explicit is a command you can put in there that will force you to declare your variables. And it doesn't happen by default. You have to make it available. And I only bring that up because it bothered me that it doesn't happen by default because every other language is typed like you should. You got to declare your variables and Option Explicit. It requires that to do it. And so I thought to myself, like, that is the better way. And they're not even teaching that, they're not even coding it right. So that's why I named the vlog that, looking back, just anyone who wants to start a business, if you name something esoteric and specific, you will only attract a fraction of the people who could be part of it. So I started blogging on there and I started really testing a lot of stuff in Excel that nobody else was testing and really thinking about it using my computer science background rather than accounting background, and the idea of just recording macros and going from there. So starting from like a code first sense. And that really connected me with Chandu. And then I started working with him, not like, directly, but just like through blogs and stuff like that, participating more. And so ideas I got from him and from others. There was Excel Hero back then, Dick Luceco was doing Daily Dose of Excel. And so I started blogging and I just wanted to be like one of them, right? And then I had this corpus of writing that I put together and I was reading all these books on Excel, my favorite being Professional Excel Development first edition, not the second edition. So that was my favorite book. And I thought to myself, I could write a book, you know. So then I pitched a book idea to O'Reilly. They weren't really into it. And I waited a whole year again and I went and refined the concept and I thought, okay, I'm in dashboards, I'm going to look at my bookshelf. Who are most of my books? Like, what's the publisher for most books on my bookshelf? And was a Press. So I pitched it to them and they said yes. Like 20 something year old getting a book deal. I was like, this is incredible. I remember it happened on my birthday that they said yes. So I started writing this book.

Spend the entire royalties you got from the book on your birthday.

I wish I was too reserved back then, I would say. So I got this book deal and it was supposed to take nine months, and it took like three and a half years. Okay. They almost pulled it twice because I had every problem you could have. Writer's block, being afraid. What's it called? Imposter syndrome. You know, I had to be perfect, had to be this. So I have written a lot though, because it was like a big book. And so they said, okay, well, let's spin out a smaller book in the media in the, like, intermediate. So we spun out a smaller book called Advanced Excel Essentials from nine Chapters from the big book. So that was my first book coming out. And that book did pretty well. A lot of it took a lot of the ideas that I had and put them together. Got a lot of great feedback from MVPs. I finally finished the bigger book, Dashboards for Excel. Chandu helped me get it across the finish line. And that book just is huge. It has some of this. It has some of the same chapters as the smaller ones. So some people didn't love that. And it had a lot of charts in it, but was printed in black and white. So that was like all my ideas. That book does not review as well. Turns out people like smaller, thinner focused ideas. Okay, so then I thought, I want to write another book. But I had told my wife, my then wife, if I write another book, if I have another idea of writing another book within this next year, I. You need to promise to punch me in the face. Okay? So she reminded me of that multiple times now.

Did she ever actually punch you in the face? I'm kidding.

Not for that.

All right, we won't go there.

So then, you know, life went on, and I thought, I'll never write a book again. And do, do, do. We're gonna fast forward, okay? My buddy and I, a guy who I'd worked with at the Air Force and re. It like when I did the Excel stuff, he was a math whiz, okay? He got a. He ended up getting a PhD in math and stats. And we've been friends ever since. We spent years just like practicing explaining tough concepts to each other and just like unpacking it because we think that's a great skill to have. And it helped us both as instructors. And so he kept talking about a book, like, for 10 years, what that we should write together. And I have a certain point, like a. Early on that 10th year, okay, I said to him, it's time to shit or get off the pot. Like, you either are doing this or not. So he kind of put together a first draft. And then this was like the first draft of the chapter came to me, like, chapter one, which you need to send a chapter one in when you do a book proposal. So he sent it to me and I remember just kind of editing it a little bit. My plane lands. This is like February 28, 2020, okay? And then the next day, or like somewhere around there, the next week, shutdowns, like massive shutdowns are happening. All my contracts cancel. And I say to him, we were just like in mild conversations with the publisher, I say to him, like, I am do or die. Like, I need this book advanced because I need money. So I tell, I basically tell that to Wiley, like, you guys need to close this week. And that's what they did. So that was a book purely on data science, on how to think about data science problems.

That. The Data Head book.

Yeah, it's a data head book. There's no code in it, there's a little math, but we keep it to a minimum. So it's just 10 years of us talking about these tough math concepts that usually require, you know, linear algebra.

I think I have it on my shelf. Let's see.

Yeah, you should go grab it. Ah, great book. My favorite book. So, yep, there it is again. Thin book. People really liked it. It's being used in universities, it's being passed around corporate offices. So it's definitely my best book.

Your pages, Thin book. You did good on that one.

Yep, it's my best book. Most reviews on Amazon, great reviews. And it's my best selling book by far. So then after that, I decided I wanted to write another book. And there's only a few people who know data science in Excel. And there's a book that combines both of these called Data Smart. And we actually mention it in the Datahead book. And so I pitched Wiley on writing the second edition for that. I did that. We knit in color, made many improvements to it. That book does all right. You know, it kind of came out. Books don't really do what they used to do because you have publishers like Pact who can put out books a lot more quickly and can prefer online ebooks versus traditional publishers. And I think that just the emergence of Online courses, like, they just don't go like they used to do. But that Datahead book, I can go to Union Square and find it in Barnes and Noble, which I do all the time, and then there's always a new one there. And I tell them that I want to sign it because I'm the author, and sometimes they're skeptical and make me show my id, which I love, because they're like, oh, wow, I thought you were full of. I'm allowed to.

Next time I'm in Union Square, I'm gonna go see if there's a sign one there, because I don't think this one song. I mean, I. I might have to bring it to Vegas. Jordan.

Oh, you should. I'll sign it for you.

Not only my first guest, but I can also now have a signed book from him.

Yes, true. So I would say, like, two books are very niche. Okay. One real quick story. Okay. I know. Before we go into it, the dashboards for Excel book. Keep that in mind. So first time you interviewed me, I don't know if I had, like, laid out my plans yet to go to Lisbon, but certainly it was bonking around in my head. The real estate market was hot when I was trying to move to Lisbon, 2022, and there were four people, like, apartment after apartment saying, no, already booked. So we found an apartment with we being me and the broker, and the owners wanted to interview me. I'm still in New York. They're in Lisbon. I hadn't even gotten to see it yet. And they said on the call, the wife of the couple said to me, I read your book. I was like, my book? I was like, you read my book on Excel? She's like, yeah, I work in an IT department. And because she read that book, because they. It's like they knew me, I got the apartment. So I remember you telling this story.

I think I read it on LinkedIn. It wasn't in the podcast, but I do remember hearing this.

Yeah, crazy world. Crazy. What a coincidence. So go write a book, get an apartment.

All right, I'm gonna write a book. I don't need an apartment.

I have a house. But hopefully I'll get something else.

Maybe a new car.

Yeah, definitely.

All right, sweet. I'll tell the publisher that Jordan said I'll be able to get a new car from this book. And now a brief message from our sponsor, Campfire. Build a best in class AI native ERP designed for modern finance and accounting teams. With Campfire, you can automate revenue, streamline your close and centralize accounting all in one unified platform. And now they've hosted Finance Forward, a first of its kind AI summit in San Francisco. They brought together the sharpest minds in finance and operations, all focused on how to actually use AI to move the needle. You don't even have to travel to learn the tactical skills to put your team ahead. You can stream the whole thing on demand, totally free, anytime after the event. So if you're ready to get tactical about AI and finance, head to Campfire AI and register for the on demand content for free. That's Campfire, where finance teams go to think forward. All right, so that's great. So I want to talk about, you know, obviously, FP and A professionals. We've talked the finance and the accounting side. You all know we use Excel a ton. We dabble in data quite a bit sometimes. The data science area. I wish there had been a data science program. When I did my grad school, I did a Master of Science in Information Management. Now it's a data analytics program.

And I'm like, I would have really.

Liked that to go with my mba.

But, you know, that's how it works, right?

So tell me what you're up to now. I know you've done a ton of Excel, you're through training different things, but you've been working on a project you and I had talked a little bit about earlier today. But why don't you describe a little bit of what you're up to?

Okay, so I'm actually working on two projects. I told you about one of them, and I hinted at the other one. So we're going to talk about the first one, which is, you know, I have a good life now. So I. I live in Lisbon. I get to travel a lot, I work from my laptop, but I don't have the stress as I used to have. And many people would love that. And some people are going to just kill me for saying this, but I like. And all my traveling and all the work I've been doing, I feel like I've been leaving my potential on the table. Or to put it differently, I'm bored, okay? Like, I don't have to take a vacation anymore because I live in Lisbon. So, like, my life is a vacation. And so a lot of people would. Would want what I have. But what I really have is a lot of free time and free brain space. And so I've been thinking over the last two years the things I want to work on, and I've tried a lot of different things. The other project that I'LL tell you about after. This is my running events, but I decided that I want to get into startups. So we'll see if in the end this thing I'm working on, if I choose to make it more of a lifestyle business like I have now, or if I actually go grind again and, you know, eat Robin for dinner and look for my. Look through change for my couch if I'm ready to go back to that life. But the, the idea behind this project is actually so similar to what I described in 2010. A lot of you are using Excel and by your own admission, you will say to me and say to Paul, I know what a powerful tool it is and I only know like 10% of it. And you know, the thing is, are we going to learn advanced stuff like Vlookup? That's my favorite. All right. Now the problem is like Vlookup was deprecated. Not deprecated, but like replaced. I mean it should be deprecated. Like in 2019, XLOOKUP came out. So that was six years ago.

7. Can you believe that?

No, I can't. For the amount of people I'm teaching it, it's shocking. So Power Query. When did Power query come out?

2012, I think.

Yeah, right. Like I was going to guess 2010 somewhere in there. I was, I asked you, like I was quizzing you, but I was actually hoping you would know because I don't. But it was like I was going to say 2010 somewhere around there.

Yeah, it came out first and then it was added into Excel a couple of years later.

Right. And is it fair to say that you are still teaching people how to use Power Query?

Most people I talk to don't even. I've never used it for Power Query.

What? Yeah, right. And so I'm stuck in this space that I was in 2010 when the world has moved on, right, from how we code. And yet Excel is this 40 year old thing, which is good. I mean, I'm not complaining. I'm 40, you know, we still got it. But I'm not as good of a coder as it were as the young people who are doing it now. And Excel is not the platform that it was 40 years ago when it was just top of its game. I mean, this. I think I'm going to quote a book I never read, but I think that this is the quintessential innovators dilemma. Okay, so like this thing, or maybe I'm wrong on that. You guys can write into Paul, you can handle that.

Paul, take Jordan's complaints and send them to Lisbon. I need a free trip.

Yeah, right, okay. But the basic idea here is that I am building a tool much like VS Code in Cursor, if any of you have used Cursor for Excel. So it's not just like taking AI and putting it on the front end of Excel that lets you insert a chart, which I always think is funny, because that's what they think is the hardest thing that we need AI to do, but rather create a power coder type tool that sits on the back end and lets you treat your Excel files as a finance tech stack. Which means that you could go and refactor is what we would say, encoding, rename things in those files very quickly. And we would do this not with VBA, because VBA was basically deprecated in 1999 based off of Visual Basic 6.0, which nobody uses anymore unless they have to. I mean, it's cobol effectively. It's going to let you go through and make changes to those Excel files very quickly. Do things like inserting M code directly into the. Like into those Excel files as well. It's going to have a front end environment that is basically stripped of all the formatting things you don't need and allow you to input formulas in ways that Excel won't let you do right now. So in any modern coding environment, there's something called linting, which is like you type in the code and then it squiggles if you put something in wrong. All right? This does not happen in Excel. In Excel, if you have a malformed formula, it's just going to say, hey, check your parentheses, right? Or it's going to generate a very hard to understand value error or something like that. So you're constantly going through and thinking about what is the problem. So I'm trying to develop a Excel developer environment, as we call, like an integrated developmental environment that lets you actually do a lot of, like a lot of the things you do in Excel on one file at a time and multiple files at a time, and also treating formulas, M code and the back end things like code. And I just want to make this so clear because I think a lot of people don't really, like, they can't wrap their minds around what I'm about to say. I'm a VBA expert, all right? I planted my flag on it, but VBA is old and we need to stop using it. So I wish it was dead. It's a zombie, like. And I have to deal with the fact that I'M good at it and I know it so well and I've just pushed it to its limits and everyone wants me to keep doing it and I hate using it anymore because it's not a real language. I mean, it's just not. Like what, like, I think if I had to pick like an air, like a. What are they? An heir apparent or a sole successor of the person who's doing a lot of things that I did before, Patrick Simbarsky. Now he's doing a lot of great stuff, but he's even smart enough, like, if he wanted to, to move on. And I'm not trying to say that like he should. Like, I'm not. No judgment because he's brilliant guy. But the thing is that it doesn't do it for me anymore because there's Python now and even the Python integration, Excel is like. I mean, you're building these things that render on top of Excel, so it's not the way it could be useful. So there are finance teams out there because someone out there is going to be like, well, I don't really need that. Who listens to your audience. And I agree with you. Okay, but there, there's 1 to 3% of the 750 million users of Excel are power users. They are shimming things together through VS code and Python and other services online, through their coding experiences to put it all together. And I am going to give them a tool that's going to concentrate all that and make their life a lot easier and give them the things that they wish existed in Excel. And I know that there's a market about this because I just posted a picture of this to my LinkedIn and I got tons of feedback and people were like, whoa, yes. So that is what I'm building.

I like that you use the IDE or kind of developer toolkit. Couple questions. We're going to have a little fun with this.

All right, let's go.

What should replace VBA in Excel? I know they've done JavaScripts, they've done Python.

Yep.

Power Query. Should there be another language? Or what's your opinion?

If you think about.

Right. We all know deprecating VBA is not an overnight project whenever Microsoft decides to do it. We know it's an older language, but we know it's still heavily used. You're in charge. Ignore everybody who's using it. If you could replace it, you have something you would replace it in. Not your toolkit, but just inside Excel.

Microsoft has released Office scripts and they do a lot of the Stuff that VBA used to do ish. I mean VBA gave you a lot more like exterior access to Windows, which is a bad thing today, but was a good thing back then. So Office Scripts is what I would say is the future. And I think that that like they're starting to put a lot of energy behind that. So I think that that is what could replace it today. But if you're asking me.

I agree off the scripts kind of combined with our automation. They're putting enough a number of things together to try to replace it, in my opinion. But what would you do? You're in charge. You are with Excel now. You just inherited Excel and it's all.

It'S your baby Python, like VBA and Python have a lot in common. So I think people don't realize that because they think of Python as being an advanced language. But Python was really written as the VBA replacement for so many things, not just for this, because Python does it all and it's just built in a way that combines some of the best features of other languages.

If you're in charge for a day, Python's going to replace vba. You're seeing Office Scripts taking most of that. Obviously there's other things right now from.

Microsoft get a lot and the cool thing is like you can write in Python and then have it compile to Office script code. So you can write it in Python and then it compiles the Office script code. If I'm in charge, that doesn't happen. Python just gets directly to Excel. The problem is that Excel is built on this old library. Like it's built with these things called com, like components, component object model. So I, it does integrate a lot of new stuff. But I also think that like even Power Query, I can't say this 100% for sure, but I think it was built on the old Windows like foundation layer. So it's not built anything new is like that. You see, that's really nice. And on Windows or Mac is usually built in Chromium. It's built using the like Google Stack even, you know. Did you know Microsoft Edge is built on Chromium? Like it's built on a Google Chrome technology?

I think I had heard it was built on Chrome. I do remember hearing that and I was like interesting. Chromium, yes.

Yeah. Like, I mean I think that just the nature of, of Excel makes it hard to just jam something in. Which is why we have these like add ins that appear as a different pane that uses a website. Right. And a website can can be built on Chromium. If you just wanted to add ChatGPT into power query, I think, but can't say for certain. But just looking at it, the structure of the windows that they use would not easily allow that, which is why it's not there and why they're not updating it a whole lot. So this is what my tool is meant to build.

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That's a great question. So the way I look at Excel is like the way I look at a browser. So in a browser you can view things and you can also develop in a browser. But if you really wanted to do an app that lives in a browser, an app being like a software as a service type thing. So if you're Airbnb, you don't develop in the browser, you develop outside of it because that allows you to do a lot more. You're not restrained by the environment and you can inject other languages and other codes that can actually make it more functional on the front end.

I can get behind that because, you know, it's interesting. I watch and I see all these agent tools coming out for Excel. Long list. Some are going, hey, we're going to build our own spreadsheet, some to start with their own spreadsheet and then realize, oh, everybody's using Excel. I really should add this to Excel. And so many different approaches. So I always like to get different opinions from people because everybody looks at it a little different.

Right.

We've all been hearing the demise of Excel since you started your career. I'm guessing every new app is an Excel killer. The recent with AI, Excel is dead. And I kind of laugh, and I don't know if you've played much with the agents, but what I find is you actually need to know Excel better, not less, because the agents don't think like a human. They're often coding, they're often using more complex solutions than we typically use. It's been really fascinating to watch, and so you have to know really well to understand it. And I find it kind of ironic that everybody's saying it's going to die, but what we're seeing right now with the agents, not so much. You're obviously not your tool that you're coming with, but with these agents, you almost have to know Excel better. It's a fascinating dichotomy.

Yes, I agree with you. You actually have to know Excel to know what you want to ask the agents. I think the, the biggest problem with the agents right now is that they are restrictive. So, first of all, if you work in the enclosed Excel ecosystem, again, another reason why not to do it. In Excel, there's only certain things you're allowed to do because from that add in pane, Microsoft doesn't want you changing other things. Right? So you, as far as I know, you can't change a menu like in the ribbon. You have to do that via xml. But I could be wrong about on that because I'm not an Office scripts expert. But what most of these have done is they've gone out and they've tried to identify the main workflows and build around that. So you have a tool that can read in PDFs that pops in the side, but that's what it does. You have another tool that can summarize your data because they assume that you're an idiot and you have to highlight it and say, oh, number. I mean, copilot's the same way it looks at your data. It's like, oh, 67 may be an anomaly because everything else is 30. But if you have a chart, you already know that.

Okay?

Like, you don't need a tool to tell you that. And it doesn't even mean anything to call something an anomaly. All right, rant aside, the fact of the matter is, yes, okay, you can have it create a chart for you, and you can have it do formulas, which you're saying is like a really good point that you should know Excel if you're pumping in those formulas. But to me, like, it's still in the enclosed Excel ecosystem. So Microsoft by default has limited the things that they want to allow you to do with it. And this, I think, is just the problem with the entire set, because if you want it to tell you anything about your data, you got to highlight the data and then it pulls that in to its model and, you know, adds some other stuff to the payload, sends it off to the LLM and the LLM runs some generic thing. It's learned over, you know, 10 years and Reddit and Google Articles to figure out how to craft a sentence. And it can figure out, okay, well, 67 is the greatest one. But the thing that I'm doing differently, that is meant for them to think about is that I'm going to run it, that my AI is actually going to be run on the back end the XML that describes the files. So in a certain sense, scaffold the files based off of how your workplace keeps them. So if you're, you have a company and you have 100 financial models could actually go and learn the underlying scaffolding. Not reading the cell and saying, oh, I should probably pick up Bold, I should probably pick up a border here, but rather looking at the XML that describes it in that sense, it writes it like a book.

Thank you for sharing that. So, kind of question I'll have for you. We talked a little bit about your tool. You know, obviously FP and A and the finance audience, having done accounting, if you could, before you move on to your second idea, because I know you had a second idea, I want to get there. If you could offer one piece of advice to the average FP and a professional, you've trained enough to know what I mean by kind of average, right? You've Talked about the 1 to 3% as it relates to Excel. What advice would you give them, the.

Average FP and a professional? I would just say that you should not take the status quo of not knowing how to use these tools. I mean, it's just enough people coming up and saying, oh, I. I mean, I know they're making small talk and that some of this is BS, but people say, oh, I only use 10%. But I know if I knew a lot more, I could use it a lot more. Well, I mean, why I don't live my life by that. Like, I mean, I just, if there's something I need to learn, I go out and learn it and that's how I've always been. So I think that if there's something you're struggling with, and it's not just, I want to learn it, to learn it, but rather like, I know it can solve my problem, like power query, like formulas, you should go out and do that. You should not take it for yourself to accept that you're not going to learn it or that it's too hard, or you have to wait for Paul to come in and do a boot camp for two days. Because that's not going to be like, the bootcamps are great, but it's not going to be enough because then you have to go out and figure out how to use it. So you can learn a lot there and retain about 20 to 30% of it. I'm not saying about you, this I just think is in general of live teaching. Or you can, like, identify the things you need to learn, and then you can make sure that you're learning those things. And if Paul comes in, you can make sure to ask him about it. Like, I think that the big problem here is that we keep teaching Excel horizontally, right? So there's beginner, intermediate, advanced. People at home who are listening to this can't see that I'm like, drawing this out with my hands. But really the way a video.

If you want to see Jordan play.

With his hands, yes. But the. The bigger way that we become experts in things is vertically, right? So if you imagine everyone at home, you have first layer of a rectangle is beginner, second layer is intermediate, third layer is advanced. If you then put a vertical. Slice a vertical rectangle in that, and it slices out a piece of beginner, intermediate, advanced, right? That is what you really need to learn. That's. I know that was a long answer for FP and a people, but if you want to become good at something that is, that's how to do it. So, like, you don't want to go bracked. I don't know if this depth is the right word, but you want to go vertical. Because I think this is a big problem, because everyone's just like, begin. He took a beginner Excel course today, Paul. They would teach you how to put a header and a footer on your Excel file. Like, as if in the last 20 years, kids didn't learn how to do that, Right? And if you took an intermediate one, they might show you formulas. As if, like, we aren't all coders in our own way, using things like slack and discord, you know? So it's just like, the. A lot of the younger people are already, like, have already infused how to use these things in their daily work. They've already used Google sheets for organization. And so you need to figure out for yourself what you need to learn and then go and learn it and not rely on other people to tell you how to do it.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of dated training that isn't necessarily applicable. Like, you said, you might use 20, 30% of it. And so there's definitely something to be said for learning yourself. Not to say training isn't good, but it only goes so far. Just like book learning only goes so far. You gotta. You gotta use multiple methods. It's not a. Rarely does somebody learn all with one method.

Yes. And, you know, it's just like books, podcasts, YouTube, definitely. Like, I'm not actually.

Podcast is the only way you need to learn as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, exactly.

Only three. You only need three.

You only need three podcasts.

I'm kidding. Keep going.

No, I mean, it's just like, I have friends who are like, oh, did you read this book? Did you read that book? I'm like, yeah, I finished it already. Like, I don't know. I. There's like, well, or just in these entrepreneurial circles and new people, which. What are your favorite books to read? It's like, read them all. Like, what are you talking about? Don't. It's not one book. It's all of the books. Like, you have favorites. But anyone who wants to learn something looks at everything. And for the people out there, like, yes, I could give you my favorite YouTubers. And of course, Paul is my favorite podcaster of all time. The one and only, very best. But listen to all of them and figure out what works for you. I mean, someone could give you the advice, but the lived experience defines what's better. So when it comes to FP and A, okay, you could learn Anaplan, you could learn Data Rails, you could learn Excel, or you could literally dip your toe in every single one of them and then figure out the ones you like and then become experts and sharpen on the ones you really enjoy.

Thank you. Appreciate that answer. All right, we're gonna do something fun here at the end, but before we get to that, what's the other project you're working on? You mentioned two. Yes.

Okay, so astute observers, if you follow me on Instagram and you follow me somewhat on LinkedIn, I actually have an events company that I run, so I create events for Picol, the original Events were just very small ones in Lisbon, just meeting other founders. And I do this not to make money, although some of them do make money and some of them lose a little bit of money. Most of them are designed to break even. So I do this just to meet other entrepreneurs or whatever thing that I'm interested in. So I started with founders dinners in tech and finance in Lisbon. And when I felt like I got good momentum at that, I had 10 people show up at one. It was great dinner, great reviews. I decided I want to do something harder. So then I did a comedy show for tech people in lisbon. I got 50 people to show up to that. And then I wanted to build something for my Excel influencer friends to come in and Mastermind with me. And so what I did is I, I got funding and I brought them all in for a five day Mastermind event in Lisbon. And we. And it was great. I met a whole bunch of people. There were some people who I never even met before. I just seen them online. Jess Ramos, big data energy. Delia, who is tech unicorn on Instagram, as well as Emma Chipper, Excel dictionary. Your average finance bro. I don't want to say his. His real name because he likes to go by his.

Yeah, I know who you're talking about. Your average finance bro.

Yeah, your average finance bro because he goes by his character. And then we also had Katrina from Ms. Excel Esports who I'm going to actually go see in Las Vegas here soon. So. And actually those people who I mentioned, I introduced them to Katrina. I know she had a relationship with some of them, but now they're actually coming in too. So is this trip. I helped a lot of other people out. I got to meet people who I always wanted to meet. Great time in Lisbon. And I worked with sponsors on this one for the first time. Okay. So then the, the next event I had was an art show because I'd never done art shows before. So I had, I had like a 50, 60 people turn out to an art show. I got local artists in Lisbon to come and show their work. I even introduced people and sold a piece of art. And the best part about this is that a half hour before it was over, I announced a surprise. Which was it was my 40th birthday.

I figured you were going to have something in Excel that you'd built.

Hell no. I don't want to be known as the Excel guy for everything.

Okay.

So then I came here to New York and I ran an event at a high end restaurant and we invited people in Fashion and beauty, as well as tech and finance. So this is my first time. Like, we had a bunch of models there. I'd never done any work with models before. And we also had a lot of people who were just in that industry, and so I got to meet a lot of them. And I met someone who worked for nasdaq. She helps do the closing bell for Nasdaq, and she invited me to go watch the closing bell ceremony behind the scenes, which I did a couple of days ago. So this is why I do networking. I think maybe this is something else to tell everyone. The power of networking is significant, but the major thing you need to know about networking is you can't rely on other people's networking events. Gotta create your own container. So you could start small. Just invite the people you like out to do something that you all enjoy. But networking is really the key to success in life.

There's huge value in networking. I only have one problem. You said I have to invite the people I like.

Yes.

That means I have to like somebody. No, I'm.

Yeah, right, you do. But, like, that's important because so many people go to networking events, and they're like, I don't like being here, and I stand in the back and I'll talk to anyone. Yeah, because you don't like any of them. No offense, but, like, maybe you're just not friends with them and you're not interested in the things they have to say, and you don't have the same.

It's a really valid point.

Yeah. So how do you. So instead of, like, people like, well, what networking events do you go to? And it's true that I go to others, but I go there to judge them, you know, like to see what they're doing wrong so I can make my own. So the answer, of course, is to make your own networking event, to create your own container defined by the rules that you want, and bring in the people you like in that value of doing that goes so much farther.

All right, so Jordan's advice today. Kill vba, don't use others to do your networking events. All right?

Yes.

So we're gonna. We're gonna do two things today. We'll take five, 10 minutes here. Have a little bit of fun. The first is I'm gonna ask you a couple quick questions on different subjects. Some Excel, maybe a little personal. Just looking for a quick answer. First one is because I know you have one favorite Excel joke.

What comes after an Excel joke?

I don't know.

What? A sequel.

Sequel. All right. I Like that one. Favorite Excel function.

I like Filter. I mean, I use filter so much.

Filter is a great one. Favorite Excel feature.

Merge and center.

I knew you were going to say that. I want to say, well done.

I will never back off of that one. In fact, in my tool we're going to have a big ass merchant center button and to make everything run, you have to click it and it's just going to turn your whole spreadsheet into one giant merchant center cell with AI.

Favorite chart, Favorite graph that you like.

I mean, you can't go wrong with like a regular line chart, you know, I like line charts because time series data. I mean, I love time series data.

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what are you eating?

You know the answer.

I knew that was coming. Hot dogs.

Exactly.

If you're at home and you got to watch the video to see his hot dog.

Yeah. If you're at home, I have a hot dog tattoo.

If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what book you're reading?

Profit First.

Profit first. Nice. Favorite movie? The Game.

The one with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn.

Favorite advice you've ever received or best advice, whatever you want to call it.

Just don't think you can't do stuff. I mean, I remember I talked to an accountant way back before, like when I was just getting my business going in 2019 and I was still like, had that imposter syndrome. And he was like, because he had his own business too and he was just like, you gotta take all that stuff and just forget it. It doesn't matter. So all those things that say you can't do something, don't try, you know, I mean, I do some like, networking, coaching for some guys and you know, I remember I told one guy, I was like, you need to surround yourself with positivity. Like you just need to just overload on it. And I know some people out there are like, well, I don't want to become one of those annoyingly positive people. Okay, Well, I mean some of those people have problems and you shouldn't listen to them. But I think in general, like, yeah, I mean, some of them are just covering up a major insecurity. It's just like very Jungian, you know, it's just like the things they can't accept are being projected out to mask an underlying sense of, of lack. But I think actually most of the successful people I've met are just not. They don't complain. I mean, they rant, but they don't get obsessed. They surround themselves with positive people who push them forward and they are themselves very positive. They don't, like, dump on bad ideas just to do it. They may have feedback about why it won't work, but they don't take their negativity and put it on you. I mean, I'll just. Just as a prime example, I was helping an entrepreneur. I was like, you can't be taking Venmo in cash app. Like, you're a real business. Oh, I don't want to give people my bank details because they might steal it. Not give people out there, but actually give it to, like, Stripe, you know, and just like that idea, I can't wrap my mind around, like, I don't know her background and why she feels that way. But this is the type of stuff that holds you back so that negativity. I can't go to the gym because of X, Y and Z. Alternatively, I have to go to the gym because I have to look like everyone else. Like this type of stuff. You just got to take it out back and give it the Lassie treatment because, like, it will not serve you in life.

You and Kristi Gnome. Oh, wait, did I say that out loud? All right, so we're going to try a second section. I do this on one of my other shows, but I've never tried this on FPA Unlocked. So you're my first. As we were chatting here, I asked AI, so I'm even going to give the prompt. I said use the web to research. Actually accidentally wrote reach, but it figured out research somehow. I auto corrected it. Jordan Goldmeier to come up with 25 personal and unique questions for a podcast. So I did some research. I can see a bunch of different things. The six steps, the questions. It said, based on my research, here are 25 personal and unique questions for a podcast with Jordan Goldmeier. So you got two options. I can use the random number generator to pick a number, or you could pick a number between 1 and 25. We're going to ask you that question. We're going to run through a couple of these.

Okay. 16.

16. And I don't even know. I've only glanced at a couple of these. I don't even know what 16 is. All right, here we go. It's under the section. First we'll give the section Excel Data Science and Microsoft MVP is the section.

Okay.

You co hosted Excel tv, which brought personality entertainment to spreadsheets. How do you make something as boring in quotes as Excel genuinely engaging? And what does that teach us about communication in technical fields.

Oh, that's a great question. Because that was what we were trying to solve to do that. So the way you do it is, first of all, you don't make it about Excel tutorials. Like, we had a tip section, but I made sure it was last. And then the other thing is you bring on people who have interesting personalities. So we always had a theme for a show, and we brought someone on who was part of that theme, and we went in with the idea that everyone is interesting and has something interesting to share. So just as you talked about my history, we didn't talk about how to do X, Y, and Z in Excel as the main point. We talked about, like, what is your background? What did you learn? I think we always had a theme like, most embarrassing things that happen in Excel or most. Or, you know, we always had something where people could bring up their own personal stories. So, you know, get to the human.

Yeah, no, 100% with you. And I know we've definitely tried to do that some in this interview, and you've shared some of the human side of you. All right, pick another number or I'll use the random number generator.

6. 6.

So this is under the section EMT and service, what I called it.

You served. Knows everything about me.

Yeah, it's. It's pretty impressive. You should see all of them. But you served as a volunteer EMT in New York City during the COVID 19 pandemic while running a business and teaching. What drove you to put yourself in harm's way during one of the most intense public health crisis in modern history?

I mean, I became an EMT because, you know, I was in Brooklyn. And yeah, I'll just be. I'll just be direct on this podcast. I don't care. You know, I was in Brooklyn. I was in an apartment where I was the only white guy. And like, you know, I felt like I was part of this community and I wanted to give back in a way that wasn't just like lip service. So I decided to become an emt, but I still wanted to have my own business. So I was just a volunteer. And I was volunteering for a while, and then a pandemic happened and it was all hands on deck. And like, I just. That was my job, you know, like, that's what I signed up for. Even though it was fun as a. I was a volunteer. You don't do, like, do a whole lot. You deal with a lot of drunk people and, you know, you take the boo boos and Stuff that FDNY doesn't want, but then suddenly everyone needed to be there. And I just reminded myself this is why I signed up. So that's why I did it. And why I did the other things at the same time is because I needed the money.

I needed to sign up. I figured on the, on the other one, you know, we all need money, we gotta live. Let's do one more. Pick one more number.

Let's go with 22.

22. So this is under the section defense, corporate and high stakes work. So they titled it. All right. When you were working on site in Kabul, did you work in Kabul?

Yeah, I was there. I was in Kabul for a minute, yeah.

With international security forces. What was the experience like and how did it shape your understanding of the real world consequences of data analysis?

Real world consequences?

Yeah, I was reading that and I'm.

Like, I don't know, I thought you were to say of war or something like that.

I know, so. But the way they worded that, I'm just reading the questions, I didn't make them.

Yeah, I mean, this is like one of the funny things. I built this Excel model that was used by NATO training mission and then I went over into theater to present it. What was it like on the ground? I would say, you know what, however you feel about America's. I don't know what the word is like, I want to say more in Afghanistan, but like involvement, political, however you feel about that. I would say that the people there who I worked with in the international security forces really cared. I mean, they were not bad people. They really wanted to make an improvement in the lives of the people there. And they really believed in the idea of data helping them drive this. So, you know, I didn't. I went over there not knowing any idea what to think. It was a cool experience. They gave me a flak jacket. I stayed on base at the airport and I just like met a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds because it's an international forest and saw what it was like over in Afghanistan at that time. And I would say that it was then and still is now very important for these organizations to use data to solve these problems. It's not the only thing, but it really helps support smart decision making.

I think we'll end there. I. I could keep going. There's lots of questions. I've learned a few things about your reading through some of these. But thank you so much for joining me, Jordan. It's always a pleasure to chat. I hope our audience enjoys this fun, unconventional episode where we just made up the questions as we go, you came with the answers, and we had a good time.

Yeah. Wait, so this isn't what it's usually like?

It's not. I usually have a little more scripted and a little more FP and A talk. This is a little heavier Excel than normal, but that's why I brought you on. I see.

I see. Well, you didn't ask me my favorite finance joke.

Fine. What's your favorite finance joke? Jordan?

Why should you not give an FPA person a gift?

Why?

Why? Because they always ask for the present value.

I knew that was coming. All right, I'll tell you my favorite one since we're on jokes. What's the difference between an accountant and an fpa?

Professional accountants can deduct jokes made at their expense.

It's a good one, but no. When accountants get creative, they go to jail. When FP and a professional get creative, they get promoted.

That's true.

Yeah, pretty much. All right, any. Anything else we need to cover? Any other fun things you want to tell our audience?

I just would say to my FP and A friends and loved ones, just go out and keep doing analytics and financing.

All right? Keep budgeting, keep financing. To our beloved listeners, have a wonderful day, and thanks again, Jordan. That's it for Today's episode of FP&A Unlocked. If you enjoy FP&A Unlocked, please take a moment to leave a five star rating and review. It's the best way to support the FP&A guy and help more FP&A professionals discover the show. Remember, you can earn CPE credit for this episode by visiting ir, downloading the app, and completing the quiz. If you need continuing education credits for the FPAC certification, complete the quiz and reach out to me directly. Thanks for listening. I'm Paul Barnhurst, the FP and A Guy, and I'll see you next time.