Professor of finance at NYU Stern; teaches valuation and corporate finance in public
Their own site or channelEvery cell in a DCF is a claim about future cash or about its risk; if you cannot say which, the cell should not be there.
The first DCF question in any interview, and whenever a model has grown so large that nobody can say what it is for.
From Session 3: Intrinsic and DCF Valuation — Laying the Groundwork · Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern)
Answer accretion with arithmetic and value with evidence, and never let the first stand in for the second.
Any M&A interview, any accretion-dilution question, and any board case where accretion is offered as the reason to proceed.
From Session 25: Acquisition, a Value Destroyer? · Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern)
A forecast is a story written in numbers; if a row cannot be said as a sentence about the business, it should not be in the model.
Building or defending a DCF, writing a stock pitch, or reviewing someone else's model.
From Narrative and Numbers · Aswath Damodaran
The right amount of debt minimises the blended cost of capital; the maximum a lender will provide is a different and larger number.
LBO and leveraged finance questions on how much debt a deal can carry, and corporate finance questions on capital structure.
From Session 18: Optimum Capital Structure — The Cost of Capital Approach · Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern)
Treat stock compensation as a cost of doing business; either deduct it from cash flow or count the dilution, and never ignore it twice.
Any technology company valuation, any adjusted EBITDA reconciliation, and the interview question about non-cash charges.
From Session 5: Accounting Inconsistencies · Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern)
A synergy is a change in cash flow, growth or risk; value it as one, and only then compare it with the premium being paid.
M&A interviews that ask how to value synergies, and any deal where the premium is justified by them.
From Session 12: Acquisition Ornaments — Synergy, Control & Complexity · Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern)
Check what share of the value is terminal and what multiple the terminal assumptions imply; those two checks catch most broken DCFs.
Any DCF review, any interview follow-up on the terminal growth rate, and any model where the answer seems too sensitive to the last year.
From Session 9: Terminal Value · Aswath Damodaran (NYU Stern)