An Intellectual Orgasm

Term 3 introduced many of us here to the world of Corporate Finance. Although I had heard of some of this jargon before, I was never aware of a discipline called Corporate Finance. A major aspect of teaching is the way a subject matter is delivered. Although many of my batchmates with a financial background will disagree with me, Prof.Bhagwan Chowdhry, UCLA, exposed us to CFIN in a truly unparalleled style. While he had to skim over a few really deep topics, I got to understand that the subject was really profound. While I'm not going to delve into all topics that he taught, I want to record some of the wittiest moments in my blog. Some call his jokes playboy stuff but everyone surely enjoyed his wit in class.

On the adverse selection problem...To a girl in my class(TL), Do you agree that guys at ISB range from sleazeballs to nice guys. She said yes. So on an average guys at ISB are jerks. She said yes again. So 'coz you consider the average guy to be a jerk, you don't get the guys above the average jerk(the nice ones) and you are stuck with the sleazeballs. She couldn't do anything but nod in approval.

On Arbitrage opportunity, Situation in a party. You are a guy, like many around, who has never had any luck with women. And all of a sudden, a beautiful young lady walks up to you and says, "Mein tumhare bachey ki ma banna chahti hoon - I wanna become the mother of your child". Can you believe it?...The catch is there is no free lunch.

On private valuation, I'm reading a book and my wife calls me to do the dishes. I ask her if she knows my billing rate. But she says that I'm just reading a book and not consulting right now. But the reason I'm reading the book is because I value the book more than consulting. But I still ended up doing the dishes 'coz she threatened no sex tonight.

Talking about benefits of going public he says, Human beings fornicate and read newspapers.

And talking about the costs of going public, Good or bad somebody will sue you

On signaling, he said something to this effect, I have my head tonsured to signal that I'm macho :-)

On underpricing in an IPO, The common investor gets too many lemons and too few peaches. Underpricing is the sweetener

On VCs, Venture capitalists are like your father-in-law

Finally his advice to us, Even though I look very young, I'm actually old enough to give advice :-). Use the GEO principle to decide who to work for or who to recruit. GEO is Generous, enthusiastic and optimistic.

This guy is truly a gem. Given a chance I would do CFIN again from the start and I think most of my classmates will agree too.