Intuit’s CEO steps down, Sage downgraded by Deutsche Bank, Thomson Reuters shows up to the dance, and Xero’s big mistake

Summary: David shares the big news that Brad Smith is stepping down from the CEO role at Intuit after 11 years guiding the transformation of Intuit from a U.S.-centric desktop-based software company to a global cloud platform. David is also himself departing Intuit after twenty-one years! What’s next? For now, just lots of relaxation and Madden football on the PlayStation. Blake shares the news that Deutsche Bank has downgraded Sage Group to a “sell” rating, citing the threat of key competitors Xero and Intuit to its core mid-market business. In other big software company news, Thomson Reuters has debuted its own cloud accounting app for small businesses. Welcome to the show, Thomson Reuters! Then, Blake and David discuss claims from an investor that Xero could become a $100b global tech giant company — the same investor who also says that Xero made a huge error by coming to the U.S. before taking over Europe. Finally, Blake will be in NYC on September 13 for a panel discussion for accountants and controllers on Best Practices for the Month-End Close hosted by Stack Overflow and FloQast. Don’t miss it!