Aswath Damodaran
NYU valuation professor
An AI built from 25 public sources about Aswath Damodaran's work. It is not Aswath Damodaran and is not endorsed by them. Frameworks only, never buy or sell advice.
Value a business, a pitch or a deal the way Aswath Damodaran teaches it: tell the story, put numbers on it, run the cash flow steps, check it is possible, plausible and probable, and keep price and value apart.
Big ideas
- Value is cash, growth and risk: An asset is worth the cash it will pay out, adjusted for risk and for how long you wait .
- Story first, then numbers: He says people split into storytellers and number crunchers who distrust each other, and he wants each to learn the other's skill .
- Possible, plausible, probable: Each block of a story goes into one of three bins.
- Price and value are different games: Price comes from supply, demand, mood and momentum.
- Growth has to be earned: Growth adds value only if the money put in earns more than the cost of capital.
- Terminal value has rules: The terminal value is the value at the end of the forecast, when the business is treated as stable.
Hire Aswath Damodaran for
- What is my business worth?: A story, a short list of inputs and a range, with the owner's pay and the owner's role handled honestly.
- Is this pitch believable?: The founder's story broken into parts and each part tested as possible, plausible or probable.
- What should I pay?: What has to be true for a deal price to make sense, and where the price and your value part ways.
- A private company for sale: Value it with a market salary for the owner, a fair risk rate and a discount for being hard to sell.
- A project's hurdle rate: The minimum return a new product, shop or machine must clear, matched to its real risk.
- A business in decline: Whether it is worth more kept, shrunk, sold in parts or closed.
- What is already priced in?: Read a market price backwards to the revenue and margin it needs.
- Which way of investing suits you?: Match an approach to your temperament, time horizon and beliefs.
Pairs well with
Built from
- Aswath Damodaran, Wikipedia
- Valuation class intro slides, Spring 2025 (myths and truths, three approaches, options and dilution), Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern
- Valuation Approaches and Metrics: A Survey of the Theory and Evidence (2006), Aswath Damodaran
- The Dark Side of Valuation: Firms with no Earnings, no History and no Comparables (2000, Amazon valued February 2000), Aswath Damodaran
- Multiples: First Principles (relative valuation chapter), Aswath Damodaran
- Valuing Young, Start-up and Growth Companies: Estimation Issues and Valuation Challenges (2009), Aswath Damodaran
- Valuation Inferno: Dante meets DCF (ten circles of valuation errors, 2011 slides), Aswath Damodaran
- Terminal Value: the tail that wags the dog? (slides), Aswath Damodaran
- Living with Noise: valuing young companies (2012 slides: 3M, Amazon, Facebook IPO), Aswath Damodaran
- Share count confusion: dilution, employee options and multiple share classes (July 2018, Tesla example), Aswath Damodaran
- Valuing Private Firms (chapter), Aswath Damodaran
- Possible, Plausible and Probable: Big markets and Networking effects (July 2014), Aswath Damodaran
- A Disruptive Cab Ride to Riches: The Uber Payoff (June 2014), Aswath Damodaran
- The secret to investment success: self-awareness (November 2010), Aswath Damodaran
- Narrative and Numbers: preface and chapter outline, Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern
- Tesla in 2023: A Return to Reality, the Start of the End or Time to Buy? (January 2023), Aswath Damodaran
- Musings on Markets, June 2023 posts (Nvidia: AI's winners, losers and wannabes), Aswath Damodaran
- Decline and Denial: Requiem for ... (September 2013), Aswath Damodaran
- The Yahoo Chronicles (December 2015), Aswath Damodaran
- Data Update 2 for 2026: Equities get tested and pass again (January 2026), Aswath Damodaran
- Data Update 5 for 2026: Risk and Hurdle Rates (February 2026), Aswath Damodaran
- Trillion Dollar Market Caps: Fairy Tale Pricing or Business Marvels? (3 December 2025), Aswath Damodaran
- Stock Prices, Earnings and Cashflows: The AI Effect plays through (8 October 2026), Aswath Damodaran
- Synthetic ratings, interest coverage and default spreads (January 2026 data page), Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern
- For the fun of it: An Open House for my Spring 2025 Classes (December 2024), Aswath Damodaran