Speaker 1: Guess what, mango, what's that? Well, So, I don't think
Speaker 1: we've talked about Bennett Surf on this show before, but
Speaker 1: you know who Surf is, right, Yeah, he's the co
Speaker 1: founder of Random House. He's kind of a legend and
Speaker 1: there are so many great stories about him. But one
Speaker 1: of my favorites has to do with a conversation and
Speaker 1: a bet that he had with Dr Seuss. So they
Speaker 1: were having this argument about how many unique words you
Speaker 1: needed to tell a really good story, and so Surf
Speaker 1: made this bet with Dr SEUs for fifty bucks that
Speaker 1: he couldn't write a book with fifty words or less. So,
Speaker 1: of course Dr SEUs proved him wrong, and he wrote green,
Speaker 1: eggs and ham. Yeah, so I've got a bet. I
Speaker 1: knew that story. But um, one thing I learned when
Speaker 1: we were doing our Doctor SEUs episode was that forty
Speaker 1: nine of those words that he used actually were only
Speaker 1: one syllable long, like fox and bode and eggs and could.
Speaker 1: But the only word he used that was longer than
Speaker 1: one syllable was the word anywhere. But but I'm curious
Speaker 1: what did Dr Seuss do with all that cash? Apparently nothing,
Speaker 1: because I don't think Surf ever paid him, just kind
Speaker 1: of figured, you know, the royalties on doctors, who's his
Speaker 1: best selling book, We're probably winnings enough. And he's got
Speaker 1: a good point on that one. I'm sure he made
Speaker 1: a ton of money from those books. But there was
Speaker 1: one thing I didn't realize. Surf actually went to school
Speaker 1: for accounting. And so today's Nine Things is all about
Speaker 1: our favorite accountants. And if it wasn't for an accountant,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have green Eggs in ham So let's dive in. Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and is always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 1: man guest Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass just
Speaker 1: organizing his collection of vintage Turbo tax cd ROMs. Have
Speaker 1: you ever seen that many ms? Certainly within the last
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty years, I haven't seen that many CD ROMs
Speaker 1: in one place. But that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1: So mego, we're doing a show today all about account
Speaker 1: its Huh. Yeah. I mean you could say it's an
Speaker 1: honor of tax season finally being over. But the real
Speaker 1: reason I thought we do a show on this is
Speaker 1: because I wanted to dedicate a show to our friend
Speaker 1: and accountant Lisa Vant, who's uh, I know, your longtime
Speaker 1: family friend. Yes, she actually advised Mental Flaws in the
Speaker 1: early days, helped you out so many times when you
Speaker 1: were waiting tables and I was teaching on the side
Speaker 1: and everything we were trying to do to get Mental
Speaker 1: Flaws started. And I'll never forget the first time we
Speaker 1: sat down with tax forms and things like that, and
Speaker 1: we both looked at each other like how does this?
Speaker 1: And this many years later, we still look at each
Speaker 1: other like how does this work? But it's baffling. That's right,
Speaker 1: That's right. Lisa has been there for so many times.
Speaker 1: So you know we've we've already talked about our favorite
Speaker 1: account and now but let's talk about some ridiculous accounting
Speaker 1: and account a story. So where do you want to
Speaker 1: start today? So I want to talk about the Oakland days.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm not a huge baseball fan, but
Speaker 1: I I've read this story on now I know that
Speaker 1: I love and it's about their accounting department. So in
Speaker 1: the counting team at the A's was confused because they
Speaker 1: had this million dollars surplus, like they were checking their
Speaker 1: books and re checking their numbers, and they were kind
Speaker 1: of freaking out because they couldn't figure out why they
Speaker 1: had an extra million dollars around. And it turns out
Speaker 1: that it was because of Ricky Henderson. So apparently before
Speaker 1: the season, he'd gotten a contract for twelve million dollars
Speaker 1: with a million dollars to be paid up front. So
Speaker 1: he framed his million dollar check and actually never deposited. No,
Speaker 1: Apparently he wanted it up on the wall so he
Speaker 1: could see it every day and it would make them happy.
Speaker 1: But when the accounts finally figured it out, they asked
Speaker 1: him to make a copy of that check and deposit
Speaker 1: the million dollar check, which I guess he eventually agreed to.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love that he had to be convinced
Speaker 1: to deposit a million dollars. I think that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good son. You have a little more money than you
Speaker 1: really need. Well, here's the person who actually kind of
Speaker 1: looks like an account but I never realized was trained
Speaker 1: to be on And that's comedian Bob Newhart. Did you
Speaker 1: know this? According to an interview, he said, I didn't
Speaker 1: say to myself, oh, here's a great void to fill.
Speaker 1: I'll be a balding X accountant who specializes in low
Speaker 1: key humor. That's just simply what I was, so it
Speaker 1: was natural for me to be that way. I should
Speaker 1: really love Bob Newhart and I can kind of see
Speaker 1: him being a lovable accountant. Well, apparently he wasn't very
Speaker 1: good at it. I'm sure he was lovable, but not
Speaker 1: good at the craft. And he said they're always seemed
Speaker 1: to be shortages in the accounts he was working on,
Speaker 1: and he even would chip in from his own pocket
Speaker 1: just to balance the books. And his philosophy was apparently
Speaker 1: close enough is good enough. Yeah, I don't think that's
Speaker 1: a motto at many accounting schools. So so, speaking of
Speaker 1: accountants who actually chipped in their own money, have you
Speaker 1: ever heard of Bert Padell? No, so, I've never heard
Speaker 1: him in either, but apparently he's name checked in a
Speaker 1: lot of rap albums. He's mentioned like by Biggie and
Speaker 1: Run d m C and To Leave Quilly. And actually
Speaker 1: only found out about him through this article in New
Speaker 1: York mag Apparently, when Sean Puffy Combs was just starting
Speaker 1: out and without a job, he made an introduction to
Speaker 1: Clive Davis for him. You know Clive Davis is that
Speaker 1: legendary music producer, and uh he's also a little like
Speaker 1: Bob Newir and that he fronted Puffy some money so
Speaker 1: that he could stay in his new house as he
Speaker 1: was figuring out his business. But you know, the more
Speaker 1: I read about him, Padel seemed like more and more
Speaker 1: of an amazing person. So I'm just gonna give you
Speaker 1: some highlights. He actually started out as a bat boy
Speaker 1: for the Yankees, and uh, as a kid, he was
Speaker 1: this promising baseball player. In fact, he said he was
Speaker 1: DiMaggio's bat boy teammate and then his business manager after
Speaker 1: an injury stalled his career. But uh, he had this
Speaker 1: amazing reputation just for being super honest and uh he
Speaker 1: was someone who could get you out of gems and
Speaker 1: really help you focus your business. So over the years
Speaker 1: he moved from like DiMaggio to helping people like Pink,
Speaker 1: Floyd jeth Or Tull, a bunch of other bands, and
Speaker 1: uh and then when Russell Simmons started his business, he
Speaker 1: actually recruited Padel to work with him. So they're all
Speaker 1: these stories of the years of like Padel helping artists
Speaker 1: get their money back, and uh, you know, he actually
Speaker 1: Um turned his office into an early we work for
Speaker 1: young hip hop artists and entrepreneurs like he He'd let
Speaker 1: them work there for free and use his conference rooms
Speaker 1: and whatever. But my favorite part is that one of
Speaker 1: the artists he worked with said that for twenty eight years,
Speaker 1: Bert would call him up early on his birthday and
Speaker 1: sing him Happy Birthday. And he did this for everyone
Speaker 1: he loved and believed in. Wow, that's pretty sweet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: According to this book The Um, the History of Business
Speaker 1: of Hip Hop, as people were exploiting these young artists,
Speaker 1: he was like the person who everyone trusted, and he's
Speaker 1: known as the guy who helped artists get their money right.
Speaker 1: You know, one thing I hadn't thought about in a
Speaker 1: while was that even villains need accountants, which is what
Speaker 1: makes the Accountant story and that that's the book written
Speaker 1: by Pablo Escobar's brother and chief accountant, Roberto, so interesting.
Speaker 1: So the book is filled with all sorts of crazy details,
Speaker 1: you know, from the ingenious methods the cartel used to
Speaker 1: move that much cocaine across international lines. I was reading
Speaker 1: about this. They used to fill airplane tires with coke,
Speaker 1: then they'd figure out how to liquefy it. So it
Speaker 1: was coming across and bottles of cooking oil and hayne
Speaker 1: and whatever else. And you know, then they figured out
Speaker 1: how to embed it in plastic I mean, the science
Speaker 1: just nuts. But and I know, back in our Rats
Speaker 1: episode we talked about how Escobar spent I think it
Speaker 1: was like a month on rubber bands, just want all
Speaker 1: that cash together. And you know, the Rats used to
Speaker 1: eat like ten per cent of the profits, just nibbling
Speaker 1: away at the cash in these warehouses. But there were
Speaker 1: a few other things that I didn't know about. The
Speaker 1: accounting team. So Escobar's brother managed an accounting team of
Speaker 1: ten people to oversee this cash, and you kind of
Speaker 1: forget that at the height of his reign, Escobar controlled
Speaker 1: eighty percent of the cocaine market. Forbes actually had him
Speaker 1: listed as the seventh richest person in the world, with
Speaker 1: a personal fortune of over twenty five billion dollars. But
Speaker 1: all that money became such a problem that they started
Speaker 1: filling warehouses with the cash, than ranch buildings, than buried plots,
Speaker 1: and actually started storing in the walls of anybody they knew,
Speaker 1: And eventually they just started buying submarines and planes in
Speaker 1: all cash d because they knew they could use them
Speaker 1: and you know, in the fleets to ship their product.
Speaker 1: It's just crazy. That's insanity. And it's almost more amazing
Speaker 1: that there were only ten people doing all this accounting,
Speaker 1: you know, for that much money. It's kind of crazy. Anyway,
Speaker 1: here's a quick one that's the opposite of Escobars badass accountant.
Speaker 1: Did you know that Kenny g was also an accountant?
Speaker 1: So you know, we both like music. I don't think
Speaker 1: either of us or Kenny g aficionados or Kenneth Bruce
Speaker 1: gorelick aficionados if you go call him by his full name,
Speaker 1: but I am kind of fascinated by him. Apparently he
Speaker 1: was five Beta Kappa in school and graduated Magna come
Speaker 1: Loud from University of Washington in accounting, and you know,
Speaker 1: those skills helped him manage his money as he was
Speaker 1: just starting out and then pick a really good financial
Speaker 1: manager when he had more money coming in. But one
Speaker 1: of the things I like about him is that he
Speaker 1: actually holds the record for holding a note the longest
Speaker 1: on the saxophone, and he did it for forty five minutes. No,
Speaker 1: that's not possible. Minutes. Yeah, so I didn't think so either.
Speaker 1: I guess he uses this technique called circular breathing. Use
Speaker 1: your cheeks as a bellows and then push out air
Speaker 1: as you're breathing in through your nostrils. I I don't
Speaker 1: know if you saw that amazing ten minute freestyle from
Speaker 1: the Roots and see Terek Trotter. Uh yeah, he was
Speaker 1: just like spitting lyrics NonStop for ten minutes, and apparently
Speaker 1: he used circular breathing just to keep his voice at
Speaker 1: the same pitch and not run out of breath as
Speaker 1: he was talking. You know, I like that there are
Speaker 1: all these would be accountants who ended up doing other
Speaker 1: amazing things. You've got Robert Plant, Eddie Iszard. I mean,
Speaker 1: they all dropped out, but it's a pretty fun list
Speaker 1: to look at. I know, I love thinking about people
Speaker 1: who are almost things like priests or chaplain's like uh
Speaker 1: Michael Moore, John Green, Al Gore, Casanova. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know how Casanova didn't last Divinity school. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense that actually there was there was
Speaker 1: one other on the account in front. Mick Jagger was
Speaker 1: supposed to be an account and he's supposedly great at math.
Speaker 1: He was enrolled at the you know, very prestigious London
Speaker 1: School of Economics and then dropped out a year or
Speaker 1: two into it just to pursue music. I guess he
Speaker 1: had pretty good reason to do that. It's pretty fascinating
Speaker 1: to read about. Yeah, I mean I've actually heard that
Speaker 1: he's super frugal. Yeah, there's this story I think it
Speaker 1: was in two and this was in Germany, and he
Speaker 1: made this massive crowd wait like half an hour because
Speaker 1: he wanted to count receipts and make sure that they
Speaker 1: all matched up with the money that he was making
Speaker 1: that night. Apparently he'd been stiffed on tour before. And
Speaker 1: also there's this story that he used to negotiate really
Speaker 1: really low deals on everything from house whereas the escorts,
Speaker 1: and as one newspaper put it, he doesn't like paying,
Speaker 1: but he especially doesn't like being overcharged. Well, we've got
Speaker 1: two more account stories for you, but first a quick break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're discussing the
Speaker 1: tales of accounting and accounts. So, ango, what's your last
Speaker 1: fact of the day. Well, I found this amazing story
Speaker 1: of this mathematician who's named Yatang Jiong. I think he
Speaker 1: also goes by Tom But he grew up during the
Speaker 1: Cultural Revolution in China when academics were really suppressed and
Speaker 1: and he had to work fields and and then he
Speaker 1: um eventually goes to school for math and gets a PhD.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, he's this mild mannered guy who
Speaker 1: can't get a job. Like he works at a subway
Speaker 1: as a sandwich artist. He uh, he delivers Chinese food.
Speaker 1: He actually has to sleep in his car along the way.
Speaker 1: He starts using his skills as an accountant to make
Speaker 1: a little bit more money, and finally he works his
Speaker 1: way up to this very low level teaching job at
Speaker 1: the University of New Hampshire where he teaches intro to calculus.
Speaker 1: And in fact, he's like so low level that his
Speaker 1: bio on the school's website doesn't have a profile pick
Speaker 1: of him like the rest of the professors there. But
Speaker 1: the reason I think he's fascinating and you will too,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, is that he quietly, at the age of
Speaker 1: fifty seven or something so submits his math paper that
Speaker 1: just blows the math world away. So the math gets
Speaker 1: ahead of me here. But basically, there was this ancient
Speaker 1: theory that Dave back to Greece that they're an infinite
Speaker 1: number of prime numbers that are separated by two. So
Speaker 1: if you think about numbers like three and five or
Speaker 1: forty one and forty three one like along the number
Speaker 1: lined ideas that you can find an infinite number of these.
Speaker 1: But Jan proved that there are actually an infinite number
Speaker 1: of prime numbers separated by seventy million. I know, I
Speaker 1: I don't know why seventy million, but he's gonna ask
Speaker 1: why seventy millions and no idea. But he uses something
Speaker 1: called um bounded Gaffs conjecture, and according to Boston dot Com,
Speaker 1: it's the first time anyone proved that they're an infinite
Speaker 1: number of primes separated by an actual number. So this
Speaker 1: just up ends the math world, right, Like he wins
Speaker 1: at MacArthur Genius Prize and all this other stuff. But
Speaker 1: the thing that really blows me away is that he
Speaker 1: never actually uses a computer to do any of this.
Speaker 1: He just thinks the stuff up and works it out
Speaker 1: with a pencil and paper, And the only time he
Speaker 1: used a computer in this entire process was to type
Speaker 1: up the paper to submit it. And he also forgets
Speaker 1: to him his hair and his wife has to remind
Speaker 1: him before he takes photos. I just I just love him.
Speaker 1: He's extra little fact there. Although I probably would have
Speaker 1: predicted that anybody that was able to figure that out
Speaker 1: about the seventy million gap might not comb their hair.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I say that, but I just did.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I'm gonna end this with a really
Speaker 1: simple story that's from accounting history, and it's a guy
Speaker 1: named Luca Paccioli. And there are records of accountants before Luca.
Speaker 1: You know, the Mesopotamians kept records of taxes on sheep,
Speaker 1: and supposedly they invented the idea of receipts. But Luca
Speaker 1: is interesting because he was a friar in medieval Italy
Speaker 1: and he's the person who convinced society to use ledgers.
Speaker 1: So apparently he said that a person shouldn't go to
Speaker 1: sleep at night until their debits and their credits are equal,
Speaker 1: so basically keeping a balanced book. And he's remembered as
Speaker 1: the father of accounting. But just the fact that our
Speaker 1: pal Lisa has balanced our books and allowed us to
Speaker 1: go to sleep so soundly every night, or you know,
Speaker 1: at least on the nights that we weren't pulling on
Speaker 1: that seems like reason enough to include it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think instead of choosing a winner this week, let's just
Speaker 1: leave it at that. That sounds good to me. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for listening. We'll be back
Speaker 1: with a full length episode tomorrow. H