This is Planet Money from NPR.
Welcome back to Planet Money, summer School MbA edition.
Today, I should point out our business school's latin motto.
It's carved over the archway here on campus, sine mathematica, which means, I.
There will be no math, I promise.
Even though today's episode is about accounting.
No, no, no, don't turn us off.
Give us a chance to make our pitch.
Accounting is usually the first class that an MBA student takes.
They come in with dreams of becoming billionaires, and then there they are, sitting in a lecture hall counting widgets or figuring out whether their inventory should be last in, first out, or first in, first out.
The life of FIFA conundrum is a struggle, but inside any accounting class is a revolutionary way of thinking, not just about a business, but about the world.
A universe where all the forces are in balance.
Good and evil, yin and yang, assets and liabilities.
It's a beautiful thing, a view that I know is shared by our professor for today's class.
Emil Shahada is a professor of accounting at NYU Stern School of Business.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Glad to be here.
We should make it clear that accounting is so much more than taxes and numbers.
Like, accounting is something that not only every business uses, but every person uses.