STRATEGY

Illustration: Shannon May, Photo: Will Evans, Adobe Stock

Fans of tasty carbs, rejoice: Bagels are having a moment.

It’s a “bagel chain frenzy,” Nation’s Restaurant News declared a few months ago. Chains like TikTok-famous PopUp Bagels, which boasts celebrity investors like Paul Rudd and Michael Phelps, and Bagels & Co., which went viral for its Oreo bagels and Cookie Monster schmears, are expanding. New York stalwart H&H Bagels began franchising in 2024 and as of April, had 19 locations in five states and deals signed for another 100, according to Franchise Times.

What does Will Evans, CFO of Bagel Brands, the company that owns Einstein Bros. and Bruegger’s Bagels, think of all the trendy competitors cropping up? “We love that people are thinking about bagels,” he told CFO Brew.

In fact, Einstein Bros. plans to capitalize on the craze. Earlier this year, the chain announced a goal of opening 300 shops in the next three years, which would bring it to well over 1,000 locations by 2030.

Einstein Bros. is choosing to grow in “white space.”—CV

      

Sponsored By Anrok

Starting Jan. 1, California and Colorado will tax SaaS and other prewritten software. Neither has done it before, and the change touches nearly every software company selling there, and there.

If you’re in finance or tax, the clock’s already running. Registration takes time, and so does getting your billing in shape.

But don’t stress too much. Anrok’s tax specialists are hosting a 30-minute session on the new tax laws. Learn what each law covers and what stays exempt.

Plus, find out whether your business crosses the thresholds that trigger registration and the steps to take before the deadline.

Stick around after for Tax Hours: 15–30 minutes of live Q&A with no slides. So bring your toughest questions. It happens on Oct. 21 at 10am PT.

Register for the session today.

FINANCIAL STRATEGY

Alexsl/Getty Images

Ask Claude where AI tools can help with capital allocation, and Anthropic’s LLM says it can read 10-Ks and other research, build and stress-test discounted cash flow models, lay out options, play devil’s advocate, and calculate the per-calorie cost efficiency of donuts vs. bagels. Ahem, sorry, that last one was us trying to stretch our team meeting eats budget. But you get the picture.

“Think of it as a fast, well-read analyst who can do a first pass, challenge your thinking, and catch mistakes,” Claude said in its response.

That sounds good, but Claude also warned that it “shouldn’t have final say.”

CFOs are being asked to incorporate AI into as many areas of the business as possible, but some functions are more AI-ready than others. Capital allocation decision-making could be one of those finance settings where CFOs aren’t yet ready to trust AI.

According to Esker’s 2026 Global Finance AI Trust Index, fielded in August, 24% of 338 finance leaders across the US, Canada, UK, EU, and Australia said they’re prioritizing AI investment in capital allocation in the next year. But that was behind planning and forecasting (51%), financial reporting (42%), liquidity and cash flow management (39%), and invoice processing (30%), according to the business process automation company.

“AI can give you advice like any consultant will give you advice,” one CFO says.—DL

      

Sponsored By Outreach

Don’t get left behind. Most organizations can’t scale AI beyond pilots because their data’s built across disconnected tools + systems. According to Gartner, 75% of high-growth companies will have consolidated to integrated RevOps platforms in 2026, bringing a new competitive edge. Outreach consolidates four to six disconnected point tools into one agentic AI revenue platform, enabling capabilities that fragmented systems can’t deliver. Learn how.

JOB INTERVIEWS

Getty Images

To be (someone who brings an iced coffee to a job interview), or not to be…that is the question.

A fierce debate about job interview etiquette took the internet by storm last month, when Caitlin Wehniainen, a corporate recruiter, posted a TikTok warning job seekers against a habit she’s observed among her Gen Z candidates: bringing iced coffee to job interviews.

“Don’t show up with iced coffee or the iced latte,” she said. “Save that for well before the interview or after the interview. Go and get one, but don’t, like, waltz into your interview all casual with an iced coffee.”

Candidates have a short period of time to make an impression on prospective employers, and having iced coffee in hand can be distracting, unprofessional, or as if the applicant is treating the job interview as another item on their list of errands, she explained.

Iced coffee could be “a sweaty, slurpy distraction, and a measure of a candidate’s social aptitude,” HR Brew reports.—PM

      

Level up your career with these resources from our sponsors!

market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat. $50 billion. That’s OpenAI’s annualized revenue, $18 billion less than what it previously reported. The prior figure, $68 billion, included gross revenue from OpenAI’s partners and was reportedly shared to help investors make a more direct comparison with Anthropic. (CNBC)

Quote. “If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants…Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers.”—Vice President JD Vance, on why the Trump administration suspended Microsoft and other companies from a green card program (Associated Press)

Read. How a personal AI agent shared a CEO’s banking information on Slack. (WSJ)

^{*A message from our sponsor.}