Building Structured Financial Models from Chaos With Brian Vaddan

The modeler is not only what you do, it's also kind of the way people think about problems. But it's much easier if you have that teach you how to work within yourself or how to work within power bi how to work within dax. If you have no coordination, don't be a carpenter. You will break all your fingers. The way you display the depth of your intellect to me is not the complexity in the formula that you build, but how you take the compact formula and simplify it into a manner that anyone with just a basic understanding can understand. What is the measure of your Internet? Will AI bold my models? The answer, I believe, is yes. Will they build in completely? The answer, I believe is no. Never stop learning and don't quench that intellectual curiosity that will make your modeling experience and career so much.

Welcome to Financial Modelers Corner, where we discuss the art and science of financial modeling with your host, Paul Barnhurst. Financial Modelers Corner is sponsored by Financial Modeling Institute. Welcome to Financial Modeler's Corner. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst. This is a podcast where we talk all about the art and science of financial modeling with distinguished financial modelers from around the globe. The Financial Modeler's Corner podcast is brought to you by Financial Modeling Institute. FMI offers the most respected accreditations in financial modeling. I'm excited to welcome to the show Brian Vadim, but, Brian, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Really excited to have you, Brian. Excited to talk about financial modeling and get to nerd out with somebody. So we're going to talk about some of the differences between modeling as a skill set and a discipline. But before we get there, I have the first question I ask every guest and I know you have your story. Tell me that horror story. What's the worst financial model you've ever seen?

Yeah, it's the one that still wakes me up in cold sweats at night. I remember it very distinctly. I started at EY and I was very, very new into the process. And as part of a large review was, you know, with the larger team, we had a model. We tend to do model builds and model reviews. And part of our process was reviewing a very large model that had been within the company for a long period of time, as these things tend to do. And, you know, there's lots of work bolted on on top of this. And I had never in my life, in all my experiences in financial modeling, investment banking, come across a model that was 104 megs as a starting point. I didn't even know Excel could open something as big as that. That was a whole host of nightmares in one box. And it was years and years, as I'd said, of one person's ideas stacked on top of another. And I think I probably spent about two to three weeks being entirely lost. It's like walking in a forest with no compass, no map, no Google, no gps. It might as well have been on a foreign planet. And just spending in days and days just wading through the detail. And I'll never forget that it's taught me so many lessons of how I would do things, how I wouldn't do things. And it's very much the principle of treat others like you'd want them to treat you. Well, give others a model like you'd want them to give it to you. Same principle. So exactly the same thing.

I think that's going to be my new golden rule of modeling. Give on to others as you want them to give on to you.

Absolutely, I will.

I'm going to put that out on LinkedIn and I'll credit Brian for that one. So you'll see it coming soon. I love that when you said size. I once had a model. I wouldn't call it a model, I would call it database with some files that were used from some calculations. I use the term model loosely, but it was 2 gigabytes in Excel. The person's like, it doesn't take too long to open on my gaming laptop or gigabyte. And I was just like, no, this is just so wrong on so many levels.

I'm always inclined to deal with situations where I get the guys who are not working in the modeling team to open the model. And if it opens on your laptop, then we're good. If it doesn't open your laptop and only opens on mine, well, we've got a problem just starting there, you know?

Exactly. Because, you know, they might have 32 gig Excel or they have 8 gig of memory or whatever. And so like, hey, if they can use it on their machine, then it's been designed to a size that should work on just about anybody's versus, does it just work on mine? Because I have a ton of memory and a really fast computer. That's a good rule of thumb. I hadn't thought of it that way, but that makes a lot of sense. I like that one. So why don't you take a minute, Brian, and just tell our audience about yourself, your background, kind of how you ended up where you're at today.

My background has primarily been in investment banking. I started in Structured finance. I then went into financial engineering, then into structured derivatives and asset sales and structuring. And I then sort of took a little bit of a left turn in my career and did education for a good while. I worked in an education organization primarily focused, as you would imagine, on investment banking education. And then about five years ago, I joined the EY financial modeling team and yeah, I guess found my calling. And because of that, you know, I feel a good appreciation of the difference between Excel and modeling being an addendum to your role as opposed to being your primary role. And. And what the differences I see between that as being. So I guess as with many sort of modelers and Accountant. Accountant in South Africa, I'm a chartered accountant. I've also done the three levels of the CFA exam and in that find a bit of a passion for math. So I went off and studied some pure and applied mathematics too. And I've technically found it really augments my modeling and the structure and thought processes that come with that have been very beneficial to me. So that's kind of a little bit of who I am when I'm not in front of my computer. I'm probably in front of my gaming console if I'm not in front of my gaming console with my daughter, because it's a wonderful bonding exercise. Yeah, I'm on the mat and I'm. I'm doing jiu jitsu or I'm playing padlocks, kind of on those two things.

Love it. So sounds like, enjoy the video games, Jiu jitsu, have the family to spend time with. Big math guy. I can cfa. I did level one. I didn't do the rest of it, but I can definitely a lot of math in that one. All right, so there was something you said in there that I wanted to ask you. You mentioned kind of, you know, building the model and understanding discipline. And a thought came to mind. Describe the difference between someone who's. What I would call. How you would think of this as a spreadsheet or. Right. They use a spreadsheet versus a modeler. How would you separate those two? We're going to go a little bit and build on this, but I'd get your thoughts. How do you kind of separate someone who maybe is great in Excel and they're a spreadsheet or versus somebody who's a modeler.

I guess the easiest way for me to describe it is the difference between somebody who sketches on paper and someone who's an architect or someone who has a hammer and someone who's an actual Carpenter. You know, that's the fundamental differences between those things. You know, I guess that old adage of standing in a garage doesn't make you a car. Those types of principles. So a lot of the roles that I've been involved in up till this point required a quantitative expression of an idea. And typically that would involve doing it in a spreadsheet or doing it in some form of program that had its output in a spreadsheet. But the purpose of my role was not to build a model. It was to provide funding or to raise a deal or to create a structured product within the context of my modeling role. My job is to build the model now, always with the question in mind. And I think oftentimes the difference between a spreadsheet and a modeler is not just the tools that you work with. It's about how you think about a problem and how you break that problem up into its component parts. You know, I love the business analysis lifecycle that the Gridlines team use and the levels that you typically find in your career as you move through that lifecycle. Right. I think that's. Those are primary distinctions. A modeler is not only what you do. It's also kind of the way people think about problems. There's certain similar characteristics that you'd often find with even within personality types that modelers kind of share. It's not exclusive. I mean, you know, just like any other skill set, you can learn it. I can learn to play the piano, but without a certain degree of acumen for the space, I'm probably not going to become a concert pianist. So there's a degree of drive and a degree of passion for knowledge in this space that distinguishes you and. And sets you apart. And it's kind of a pursuit of your passion also. Right. I spend time in this space because I guess if I was entirely independently wealthy and I didn't have to work, this is probably still what I do.

That's when you know you love it when you mentioned you know, piano. So I took a couple years of piano lessons, but I had such a bad ear when I started one time, I was playing one note off on the entire song. And I didn't realize it till my roommate pointed it out. So that tells you how bad my ear was. I've. I'll never be a concert pianist. Did I get to the point where I could play some basic songs? Sure. And I could still sit down and I know all the notes versus my wife. She could sit down every night.

Is composing music okay?

Right. She has perfect Pitch as does my daughter. Like, my daughter will call out if somebody. They miss an obscure flat in a song, she'll pick it out.

Oh, wow.

And she'll let them know, which is kind of funny because she's, you know, she's a moderately autistic, so she's very frank in what she shares.

Okay, okay, okay.

Like, you missed that. And they're like, how did you even know that nobody else would have picked that up.

I use that analogy particularly because I'm tone deaf.

I'm like, okay, we're on the same page then, you and I.

The song that I hear in my head, what comes out of my mouth, no relationship to each other whatsoever.

Well, we're on the same page then. Well, going back to the. The modeling. So we've talked a little bit of kind of that different spreadsheet or I want to get a little bit more into modeling as a discipline. But before I get there, I'd love to get your thoughts. What's necessary. What are the skills that great financial modelers had? You mentioned how often you see them kind of similar personalities, you know, in some ways cut from the same cloth. But if you were a list two, two or three things that you think great modelers need to have, what would those be?

What I have noticed and works really well within my team, I guess it's. This is probably a more personal viewpoint. I guess everyone will probably have a different perspective on what those particular characteristics are. But I would say the ones that have, I guess, more of a trend basis being fairly common across the guys have done well in our team. Is one, intellectual curiosity. You must be curious about the things that you're working with and you must be willing to sort of pursue it and see how do you put this together and if you pull it apart, what does it look like? And two, positive and a negative and almost obsessive nature of wanting to solve a problem. Drive and desire and belief that there is an answer and go find an answer. I guess the last part I would say is, is the ability to take chaos and make a little bit of structure out of it. You must be willing to do that. One of the things I tell the guys in my space, because we're quite industry agnostic, but more than that, we're question agnostic. Right. We walk into a space, we don't know the industry necessarily as well as the client. We don't even know what the question is. And sometimes we need to work out the question with the client. And it may not have initially been the right Question. And that's quite an iterative process. But there's a tearing that comes with that learning. There's a discomfort, there's a not knowing where you are and being willing to wade and be willing to be lost for a little while and having a very strong belief that I can take the chaos in the space and bring order, and that order is genuinely then expressed in the spreadsheet. But that willingness to bring order and to be uncomfortable is, I found that, quite necessary. There's a lot of people don't enjoy that. They prefer being a little bit more comfortable. They prefer that they're learning, coming with a little less intensity and a bit more in a stable, structured manner. And that's great. You know, we've had guys in our team that have done that, have gone on to be in spaces that are more suited to that style of learning.

You know, there's a couple of things I love that you said there. One, I love that you didn't start with, hey, Excel, three statement models. You know, the typical things that we have to learn. You started more with traits and kind of abilities or willingness as those keys to being a good model. You, you have that intellectual curiosity. You're willing to keep asking why and dig into things. Then you said you're almost obsessive, which is a pro and a con to having to solve it to get to that answer, to finding out the solution. And then the third I really liked is being able to bring structure out of chaos. You're not going to always have all the data you need. Sometimes you're modeling something that's never been done before and you're dealing with somebody that doesn't think like a modeler at all. Yeah, it's kind of that mad scientist is just throwing ideas out and you're like, okay, how do I take these ideas and actually put a model that I can have any level of trust in, that they can have any comfort and provides value. So I really, I think that was a great, great way to get people thinking about at a deeper level, what's really required. The rest is things you can just learn, so to speak. I can learn, I can learn the basics of Excel, I can learn three statement. I can learn accounting, can learn visualization, but I need to be willing to dig deeper in certain areas. That's kind of what I'm hearing. Is that a good summary of what you said there?

Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's a great summary. You know, I guess the tools within the space are kind of what Augments your ability or augments your willingness to work in that space. But it's very difficult for me to teach you to be willing to work within chaos and to bring order. That's a part. Yes. You can learn over time. It's much easier if you have that for me to teach you how to work within Excel or how to work within Power bi. How to work within Dax. Those are tools, right. If you have no coordination, don't be a carpenter. You will break all your fingers. Right, let's just kind of start there. You know, and there's been points in time where guys come into our team and you know, we've said you're a wonderful person and you're going to do really well in your career, but it's not going to be in this space. Right. Just because, you know, it's some of those crashes you see. And, you know, oftentimes, you know, you probably belong and you fit well into another space. And by, by doing this, you're kind of robbing yourself of the joy you're going to get from working in the other space. And then there's also guys who come into our team who display these types of characteristics that do really well in it. You know, I think it's. There's a degree of self knowledge behind that also.

Yeah, great point. There are definitely people that they may be fabulous, that just this isn't the right career for them. And then there are people that, you know, they may not thrive under chaos, but they may be comfortable with it. And so they can be a good modeler because they enjoy all the other aspects. Because. Right. We never get the unicorn that does everything perfectly. And if we do, they never want to work for us anyway. Right. Either can't afford them or they don't want to work with us.

It's a principle of if you know how to make gold, you make the gold inside it. Or do you tell someone else how to make gold? You probably make the golden sell it.

Right, Exactly. Good analogy. I like that one. So I think we've covered that. Where I want to go next is how do you see the difference? I think there's a lot of people have the skill sets to build models, but being able to build a model is different than doing it as a core discipline, as your primary job, to be all around models. So kind of how do you differentiate the two of somebody who we talked about the spreadsheet or. But going a little further, like, I worked in FP&A and I built plenty of models, but I'm not sure I would say I'm ready to do modeling as a, as my core full time discipline in the sense of there's a lot of review, there's consistency, there's team, there's more that goes to it than just being able to build a good model. So maybe talk a little bit of kind of that difference and then a little of your transition because I. It sounds like you started with a lot of quantitative inputs in a spreadsheet to kind of building some models to eventually it becoming your discipline. So talk a little bit about that.

So to go back, the analogy I used when we started and said the difference between someone who draws and sketches it and someone was an architect, one of the primary differences is you'll do it for someone else, right? So when I built a lot of the initial models, you know, within the earlier part of my career, it was for me it was to derive an answer that I needed to a question that was asked of me. The, you know, it was just about the answer. It wasn't about the process of how I needed to get there, nor did it need to be recogn. Neither did it need to used by someone else or understood by someone else. That's fine. So if I draw my drawing, I know what my drawing looks like, I know what it represents. No one else may see it, you know, considering how well I draw. But if I'm an architect, I'm actually building this, I'm drawing this so someone else can take those plans and implement it. Right. And what goes into that? The spatial geometry, the understanding of three dimensions and tracking it into two, the precise measurements that go behind it.

The.

That doesn't come from casually sketching on a Sunday. That comes from a deep analysis and understanding of that discipline. And that for me is the primary difference between someone who's a spreadsheet builder and has a knack for building spreadsheets and someone who has modeling as a discipline and a job, most of the time you're doing it so that someone else can understand it, right? It's the difference between writing in your journal and publishing a book.

I love that analogy. And I would say I'm starting to get more and more where I build models so others can understand it more toward that discipline. But I totally. That's a great analogy. When you first start so many of us, whether we're building a budget for ourself or just trying to get an answer for a boss, you know, it's not going to go beyond just maybe sharing it with one person and kind of figuring out that answer, and you move on. Versus. Now, I got to be disciplined enough that if I leave tomorrow, someone can pick this up, I can share it with others, others can update it. Like, the architect understands everything well enough that he can handle those plans to someone else and they can build the house versus somebody who just tried to figure out how to build something on the weekend, I go out and put the shed together. Yep. It has four walls and a roof. Okay, well, you're not an architect.

And, and within that construct and because of that. So you have to use the writing as an analogy. You want to learn how to write in a manner that communicates your thoughts. Right. So let's assume that you're writing in English as, as. As a starting point, because that's my home language. You can't use the syntax and grammar that you deem to be appropriate. Right. There's a certain syntax in grammar so that when you read it, it means something. Right. So that's why standards are important, because they make your work communicable. They make your work easy for someone else to understand. But when you start out and you. All these wonderful formulas that are phenomenally long and complicated and you give yourself that high five and you walk away and you think, that's great. The poet schmo that has to come subsequent to that and actually update that and decompose the thoughts that you are. You've worked in. He's reading in English. Right. You've written in Cyrillic. It's so rough, you're almost reading backwards and he's reading forwards. That's where the intersection and for me, the greatest benefit of standards comes in. It takes you from being a shed builder in your analogy, to being someone who's an architect who can give their plans across, who's got a standardized way of doing it as part of an association, a body of people who do things in a particular manner and are subject to academic rigor.

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You know, one of the things I say to my guys quite frequently, and I've got a really bright bunch of guys who work in as part of our general team, is the way you display the depth of your intellect to me is not the complexity in the formula that you build, but how you take that complex formula and simplify it into a manner that anyone with just a basic understanding can understand. That is the measure of your intellect. When you can take something that complex and explain it in easily, easy to understand, communicable words, that's, you know, that's really, for me, what fundamental role that I play is I take complexity, and from the complexity, I bring order and I bring simplicity. Now, it doesn't mean that there isn't rigor behind it. And, you know, there are certain things that no matter how much you simplify them, they're always a little bit complicated. When you put all of the simple, complex, simple steps together, it doesn't mean we detract from that. But that's my objective. My objective is that when you look at my model, you look at this and go, I could have built this. You don't know the thought process that went behind it. And the amount of times I'll bang my head against the wall. But when you look at it, you go, this is so simple.

I think I want to inherit your models, not the one you mentioned at the beginning. One of my favorite quotes is, simple is hard, complex is easy. You know, speaks to that whole idea of what you're talking about. It's often easier to write that complex formula than to spend all the time of, how do I tear it apart in a way that even the junior modeler can understand it? And it's something I constantly struggle with because it's easy. Okay, I know how to write a complex model or a complex formula. I'm just going to do it here because I don't want to spend the time to figure out how to make it really easy.

Yep, yep, sure. And I mean, you know, I know people don't necessarily always see it this way, but modeling, by its nature, is an incredibly creative exercise. And modelers are often quite attached to what we build. Rightly or wrong, we sew. Half the time I say to my guys, what you build is not who you are. It's simply an expression of what you do. But we get so attached to what we build. And sometimes with some of the things you write right, when you put them in a bit more opaque manner, you put your crazy out there, but not everyone can decode it. But when you do it simply, your crazy is out there for the whole world to see, and you've made yourself a lot more transparent. So it's sometimes that willingness to kind of put yourself out there, because simply communicable ideas are easy for people to criticize. They are because the output is quite straightforward and you can understand it quite simply. And therefore, you know, sometimes people make things a bit more complex, because the more complex you make it look, the more right you have to be wrong. That's a good way of saying it. It's okay to be wrong with things that complicated, not okay to be wrong when things are simple. That's often what people sort of think. But if you get sort of the concept, the simpler you make it, the more subject to criticism your work is.

I'd never thought of it that way. I'm going to have to give that some thought. I mean, on the surface it makes sense to me, but I'm going to spend some time thinking about that one. I like how you said that the more simple you make it, the more open you are to criticism, which I think in a lot of ways is true. That that's a really kind of profound way to think about it. I hadn't thought of it quite that way, but I like that. But I also loved how you got to remind people, because I've been there. This is my baby. You're attacking me. No, I'm saying the model has opportunities to improve. We as modelers can be territorial, as can all people we care about. What if we're passionate about what we do, we care. And therefore sometimes we're going to take it personal, even if ideally we never should.

And I think it's a deeply, especially if you passionate about what you do. You know, it's putting your artwork out for the world to see and our canvas just happens to be excelled. That's the only difference. It's still an expression of, of how we think and, and you know, the sum total of our experiences. But it's like criticizing an artist's work and saying don't feel bad about this. You know, it's. It's a challenge. Right.

And if you notice, it's why we, I start every show saying we talk all about the art and science of financial modeling like that. It's not one or the other, it's a combination of the two. And I think the difference between us in some ways, like we said that, you know, a spreadsheet or, and a modeler kind of getting that discipline is if all you have is the art, you're not a modeler. Yeah, the science helps bring the structure and the rules around it. The art allows expression and creativity and helps you get to simple and you know, think of solutions that you might not be able to otherwise, but you need to do that within constraints to ensure that it can be used again. That there's value to what you end up with versus a standalone one off that nobody's ever going to look at again.

100%. And I mean a scientific process has both inductive and deductive reasoning in the process. Right. So taking a concept and simplifying it, this Math will never. 100% approximately. So you're trying to get a real life problem into a mathematical problem and then into a spreadsheet problem because those are different steps, those are actually different skills. And because it will never approximate life, they are going to be points where you need to apply inductive reasoning. So there are going to be points where you need to use your intuition. There are going to be points where you need to make inferences on the data that you have, but all the dots are not connected. But you do that within the constraint of a scientific methodology and process. You don't sort of. While we start at every particular point and trace every thread, that's not the way you work.

You mean you don't just throw darts at a dartboard and hope one of them's right.

Sometimes it feels like that, though, at 2:00' clock in the morning, there are.

Times when you feel like you're guessing and trying to get there. We've all been there. I want to ask one more question here. Kind of going in a little different direction before I move into a couple standard questions and we move on to rapid fire. Fire. So the question I want to ask is you've obviously gone from, like you said, kind of just building for yourself to building for others to managing a team. Now you also, not only do you help make sure there's consistency across the team, but you review models, you audit models. How do the skills need to change? How do you go from that modeler to being the one that's kind of helping manage that team and reviewing and auditing? What did you have to learn along the way? Maybe just a little advice there of that journey.

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, the skill sets are almost iterative. Right. So what I like to do with guys who join our team is that we train you in the basic processes of how you build a model. We train you in our methodology. Obviously, you know, it's a methodology and a process that's constantly evolving as the modeling construct in the world is constantly evolving. Right. And once we've trained you and you understand how to build models and you've built a few, then we will look at review. So with review, you're looking at the lens of someone who knows how to do it. When we look at a review process, we also have a specific methodology that we follow and we'll go through an entire model. And with the model review process, it's really so incredibly helpful. And it augments your bold process because you get to see how other modelers think of things and it's a great way to add value to our clients in that particular sphere. So when we look at a model, we look at a model from two lenses, a top down and a bottom up approach. A top down approach would be, have you pulled all your formulas correctly? Have you have, you know, all the formulas appropriate for the math that you're trying to solve? Top down approaches, where you're starting with the variables. I, I work with SMBs quite frequently. One of the things that entrepreneurs are always saying to me, Brian, the one thing we can say to you is the numbers are wrong, the forecasts are wrong, they're never going to happen. So what's the point of even building a model to Begin with, we might as well just run with the process and see where it takes us. And yes, there are certain processes that have a lot of room for divergence and a lot of room for error. My starting point when I'm speaking to those guys is saying the purpose of the model in your construct and your style of thinking is not initially to give you the right answers. It's to help you think about the relationships between the variables in your business. It codifies that and forces you to sit down and think about that. And so when we are reviewing a model, we are starting with our understanding of the business, our understanding of the transaction, what are the variables and how should they behave and relate to each other. And that's a different skill than building a model. Right between building a model you're starting and you define those variables. So there's a kind of an intersection. But at the same time, when you're reading a model, you're starting by saying, what do I understand these variables to be and how should they relate to each other? Then you go back to model building. So the process is quite iterative in one learns from the other, and the better builder you become, the better reviewer you will be, and vice versa. That's kind of the way we see it. And I guess the second part of your question is, how do you transition from being a financial modeler to taking care of a team of financial modelers with a great deal of difficulty and a lot of willingness to let go? Because I guess there's things that you accumulate over time, and there's a bit of skills that you build over time. And there's a part of it that kind of wants to go into the process and just do it yourself. You've done it, I'll change it. This is a better way to do it. I know I've made them. I've made the mistake before. That type of thinking is disempowering, and it's not scalable. It's disempowering to the guys that you're working with. You'll never be able to do all the work that you need to do to run a team. And that's been one of the hardest transitions for me. It's moving from being the one who's fundamentally marked in the technical detail. My input with them ensures that the quality of the output is what we expect it to be. And that's been a very hard transition for me and one that I'm still living through. I don't know the answers to those questions. I'm still working through that.

I appreciate it. I think it's a hard transition for everybody. Whether it's modeling any kind of management where you have to let go and help teach and recognize there's different approaches. Right. You have to recognize the art side of things. You got to teach them the science, but you got to recognize the art. Yeah. I think the letting go, as you mentioned there, is probably one of the hardest things. And accepting that everybody has their own way and how do I help guide them and be successful? Knowing that some of the things they do may drive me crazy, but it's not important. And then there's ones where it's in. It is important. You're like, okay, how do we have this conversation?

Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Sure. 100.

All right, we're going to move to the rapid fire section. I'm going to add one question here that's new that we're going to start with versus our normal. So I'm going to mix it up a little bit right now. What is the number one Excel shortcut you can't live without?

It's an odd one. Alt eil.

What does that one do? I don't. I don't know that one.

And you typically shouldn't if you are a very stringent financial model. Copies left.

Oh, okay. That makes sense. Alrighty. We're gonna go through the rest of these just to remember to level set as we go through all the others. No, it depends. You get 15 seconds at the end. You can elaborate. Circular or no circular references in models?

No circular references.

VBA or no? Vba.

Vba.

Do you prefer a horizontal or vertical model?

Financial Horizontal data? Vertical.

Okay, fine. Excel Dynamic Arrays. Yes or no?

Yes. Absolutely. Yes.

Workbook links. External workbook links. Yes or no?

No.

Yeah. You don't even have to say. Just. You're shaking your head. I could tell what the answer is. Named ranges. Yes or no?

Yes.

Do you follow a formal standards like smart or fast or one of those that are out there for your modeling?

Yes.

Will Excel ever die?

Not in my lifetime it won't.

I've had some answer. Yes, but just please don't happen in my life. Will AI ever build the models for us?

Yes. Okay. Well, yeah.

Should we use sheet cell protection in our models? Yes or no?

Yes.

Do you believe financial models are the number one corporate decision making tool?

No.

What is.

I'd say it's more political role.

Spoken like somebody who's had a lot of politics in their career. And the last one here. What is your lookup function of Choice, choose vlookup, Index Match, xlookup or something not on the list.

It's going to be Index Match.

Not not surprised. Now, is it Index Match or do you use Index X Match now?

So my preference now is Index X Match. I guess it's the bigger one. The go to is xlookup, but for functionality it's the Index Match.

Fair enough. I get it. I know there's some things that you can do with two indexes in a row and some things you can't do with xlookup. So I know some people will stick with the Index match. All right, so that rapid fire. Are there any of those questions you want to elaborate on your answer about? Sure.

So the question around VBA or no VBA and named ranges or no named ranges. I've yet to meet someone who says yes to the VBA and no to the named ranges. That's making your life very difficult, to be honest with you. So they, they kind of pair up. The second part, will AI build our models? The answer, I believe is yes. Will they build in completely? The answer, I believe is no. Because there's always going to be a degree of human intervention to tweak the process. But man, the day that AI really gets there and I've seen some pieces of technology that are, are getting there quite quickly, where you simply take the ask and you pop out an Excel with all of the standards in place, with all of the admin done, that just makes my heart sing because there's so many parts of what we do that is kind of administrative. Right. Like getting the right formats and etc. You know, those types of things that, that are very mechanical and a machine should do that 100%. Yeah. And we have a lot of software automation that does that. But there's still a bit of human input required. If I can add something to add, just here you go, go and build that piece and I'll do the 10% higher, you know, higher order thinking. Absolutely. And then specifically around the horizontal and vertical question. I think that's a good question. I started in structured finance using vertical modeling. I think there are not many people I've met in my career that can conceptualize timing flags vertically. Very few people I've met that can understand the timing flag vertically, very few. But when it comes to data modeling and database construct, I think horizontal modeling or spreadsheet style, Excel, where you've got a time series is pretty inefficient.

Yeah, all makes sense. Thank you for elaborating there. I appreciate it. Have one more question and then we're going to go ahead and wrap up. So if you could offer one piece of advice to our audience today that would help them be a better financial modeler. If you could only pick one, what would it be? What would be that one piece of advice?

Never stop learning. And don't quench that intellectual curiosity that will make your modeling experience in Korea so much richer and so much more rewarding.

Have a growth mindset. Never stop learning. Love it. I. I figured you were going to go with intellectual curiosity. That's where I thought you would go. I can usually get a pretty good idea by the end of the interview how they'll answer that question. Yeah, I've done about 150 of these now, so I'm starting to get the hang of it. So I've thoroughly enjoyed having you on the show. What we'll do is we'll put your LinkedIn in the show notes. I'm assuming that's the best way, if somebody wants to get a hold of you, is reach out on LinkedIn. You know, this show will come out in a couple weeks, so thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you spending some of your Friday evening on the phone with some guy who wants to nerd out. So thank you. And you have a great evening. Brian, you too.

Thank you so much for having me. And it's an absolute pleasure.

It's.

It's not a chore when you're talking about what you love to do.

Yeah, no, I hear you. I love doing these interviews, so it's a lot of fun. So thanks.

Great. Thank you. Have a great weekend.

You too. Enjoy your weekend.

Bye. Bye.

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