Narrative and Numbers: The Value of Stories in Business (Columbia Business School Publishing)

by Aswath Damodaran

the world divides us into storytellers and number crunchers, and once divided, we stay in our preferred habitats. The numbers people seek out numbers classes in school, go on to numbers disciplines in college (engineering, physical sciences, accounting), and over time lose their capacity for storytelling. The storytellers populate the social science classes in school and then burnish their skills by becoming history, literature, philosophy, and psychology majors.

As I have wrestled with valuation questions, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that a valuation that is not backed up by a story is both soulless and untrustworthy and that we remember stories better than spreadsheets.

Good quote