9 Incredible Stories about Accountants! (Yes, Accountants.)

a bet that he had with Dr Seuss. So they were having this argument about how many unique words you needed to tell a really good story, and so Surf made this bet with Dr SEUs for fifty bucks that he couldn't write a book with fifty words or less. So, of course Dr SEUs proved him wrong, and he wrote green, eggs and ham. Yeah, so I've got a bet. I

knew that story. But um, one thing I learned when we were doing our Doctor SEUs episode was that forty nine of those words that he used actually were only one syllable long, like fox and bode and eggs and could. But the only word he used that was longer than one syllable was the word anywhere. But but I'm curious what did Dr Seuss do with all that cash? Apparently nothing, because I don't think Surf ever paid him, just kind of figured, you know, the royalties on doctors, who's his

best selling book, We're probably winnings enough. And he's got a good point on that one. I'm sure he made a ton of money from those books. But there was one thing I didn't realize. Surf actually went to school for accounting. And so today's Nine Things is all about our favorite accountants. And if it wasn't for an accountant, we wouldn't have green Eggs in ham So let's dive in. Hey,

their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass just organizing his collection of vintage Turbo tax cd ROMs. Have you ever seen that many ms? Certainly within the last fifteen twenty years, I haven't seen that many CD ROMs in one place. But that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. So mego, we're doing a show today all about account

its Huh. Yeah. I mean you could say it's an honor of tax season finally being over. But the real reason I thought we do a show on this is because I wanted to dedicate a show to our friend and accountant Lisa Vant, who's uh, I know, your longtime family friend. Yes, she actually advised Mental Flaws in the early days, helped you out so many times when you were waiting tables and I was teaching on the side and everything we were trying to do to get Mental

Flaws started. And I'll never forget the first time we sat down with tax forms and things like that, and we both looked at each other like how does this? And this many years later, we still look at each other like how does this work? But it's baffling. That's right, That's right. Lisa has been there for so many times. So you know we've we've already talked about our favorite account and now but let's talk about some ridiculous accounting and account a story. So where do you want to

start today? So I want to talk about the Oakland days. And you know, I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I I've read this story on now I know that I love and it's about their accounting department. So in the counting team at the A's was confused because they had this million dollars surplus, like they were checking their books and re checking their numbers, and they were kind of freaking out because they couldn't figure out why they had an extra million dollars around. And it turns out

that it was because of Ricky Henderson. So apparently before the season, he'd gotten a contract for twelve million dollars with a million dollars to be paid up front. So he framed his million dollar check and actually never deposited. No, Apparently he wanted it up on the wall so he could see it every day and it would make them happy.

But when the accounts finally figured it out, they asked him to make a copy of that check and deposit the million dollar check, which I guess he eventually agreed to. I mean, I love that he had to be convinced to deposit a million dollars. I think that's a pretty good son. You have a little more money than you really need. Well, here's the person who actually kind of looks like an account but I never realized was trained to be on And that's comedian Bob Newhart. Did you

know this? According to an interview, he said, I didn't say to myself, oh, here's a great void to fill. I'll be a balding X accountant who specializes in low key humor. That's just simply what I was, so it was natural for me to be that way. I should really love Bob Newhart and I can kind of see him being a lovable accountant. Well, apparently he wasn't very good at it. I'm sure he was lovable, but not

good at the craft. And he said they're always seemed to be shortages in the accounts he was working on, and he even would chip in from his own pocket just to balance the books. And his philosophy was apparently close enough is good enough. Yeah, I don't think that's a motto at many accounting schools. So so, speaking of accountants who actually chipped in their own money, have you ever heard of Bert Padell? No, so, I've never heard him in either, but apparently he's name checked in a

lot of rap albums. He's mentioned like by Biggie and Run d m C and To Leave Quilly. And actually only found out about him through this article in New York mag Apparently, when Sean Puffy Combs was just starting out and without a job, he made an introduction to Clive Davis for him. You know Clive Davis is that legendary music producer, and uh he's also a little like Bob Newir and that he fronted Puffy some money so that he could stay in his new house as he

was figuring out his business. But you know, the more I read about him, Padel seemed like more and more of an amazing person. So I'm just gonna give you some highlights. He actually started out as a bat boy for the Yankees, and uh, as a kid, he was this promising baseball player. In fact, he said he was DiMaggio's bat boy teammate and then his business manager after

an injury stalled his career. But uh, he had this amazing reputation just for being super honest and uh he was someone who could get you out of gems and really help you focus your business. So over the years he moved from like DiMaggio to helping people like Pink, Floyd jeth Or Tull, a bunch of other bands, and uh and then when Russell Simmons started his business, he

actually recruited Padel to work with him. So they're all these stories of the years of like Padel helping artists get their money back, and uh, you know, he actually Um turned his office into an early we work for young hip hop artists and entrepreneurs like he He'd let them work there for free and use his conference rooms and whatever. But my favorite part is that one of the artists he worked with said that for twenty eight years, Bert would call him up early on his birthday and

sing him Happy Birthday. And he did this for everyone he loved and believed in. Wow, that's pretty sweet. Yeah. According to this book The Um, the History of Business of Hip Hop, as people were exploiting these young artists, he was like the person who everyone trusted, and he's known as the guy who helped artists get their money right.

You know, one thing I hadn't thought about in a while was that even villains need accountants, which is what makes the Accountant story and that that's the book written by Pablo Escobar's brother and chief accountant, Roberto, so interesting. So the book is filled with all sorts of crazy details, you know, from the ingenious methods the cartel used to move that much cocaine across international lines. I was reading about this. They used to fill airplane tires with coke,

then they'd figure out how to liquefy it. So it was coming across and bottles of cooking oil and hayne and whatever else. And you know, then they figured out how to embed it in plastic I mean, the science just nuts. But and I know, back in our Rats episode we talked about how Escobar spent I think it was like a month on rubber bands, just want all that cash together. And you know, the Rats used to eat like ten per cent of the profits, just nibbling

away at the cash in these warehouses. But there were a few other things that I didn't know about. The accounting team. So Escobar's brother managed an accounting team of ten people to oversee this cash, and you kind of forget that at the height of his reign, Escobar controlled eighty percent of the cocaine market. Forbes actually had him listed as the seventh richest person in the world, with

a personal fortune of over twenty five billion dollars. But all that money became such a problem that they started filling warehouses with the cash, than ranch buildings, than buried plots, and actually started storing in the walls of anybody they knew, And eventually they just started buying submarines and planes in all cash d because they knew they could use them and you know, in the fleets to ship their product.

It's just crazy. That's insanity. And it's almost more amazing that there were only ten people doing all this accounting, you know, for that much money. It's kind of crazy. Anyway, here's a quick one that's the opposite of Escobars badass accountant. Did you know that Kenny g was also an accountant? So you know, we both like music. I don't think either of us or Kenny g aficionados or Kenneth Bruce gorelick aficionados if you go call him by his full name,

but I am kind of fascinated by him. Apparently he was five Beta Kappa in school and graduated Magna come Loud from University of Washington in accounting, and you know, those skills helped him manage his money as he was just starting out and then pick a really good financial manager when he had more money coming in. But one of the things I like about him is that he actually holds the record for holding a note the longest on the saxophone, and he did it for forty five minutes. No,

that's not possible. Minutes. Yeah, so I didn't think so either. I guess he uses this technique called circular breathing. Use your cheeks as a bellows and then push out air as you're breathing in through your nostrils. I I don't know if you saw that amazing ten minute freestyle from the Roots and see Terek Trotter. Uh yeah, he was just like spitting lyrics NonStop for ten minutes, and apparently he used circular breathing just to keep his voice at the same pitch and not run out of breath as

he was talking. You know, I like that there are all these would be accountants who ended up doing other amazing things. You've got Robert Plant, Eddie Iszard. I mean, they all dropped out, but it's a pretty fun list to look at. I know, I love thinking about people who are almost things like priests or chaplain's like uh Michael Moore, John Green, Al Gore, Casanova. You know, I don't know how Casanova didn't last Divinity school. It just doesn't make any sense that actually there was there was

one other on the account in front. Mick Jagger was supposed to be an account and he's supposedly great at math. He was enrolled at the you know, very prestigious London School of Economics and then dropped out a year or two into it just to pursue music. I guess he had pretty good reason to do that. It's pretty fascinating to read about. Yeah, I mean I've actually heard that

he's super frugal. Yeah, there's this story I think it was in two and this was in Germany, and he made this massive crowd wait like half an hour because he wanted to count receipts and make sure that they all matched up with the money that he was making that night. Apparently he'd been stiffed on tour before. And also there's this story that he used to negotiate really really low deals on everything from house whereas the escorts, and as one newspaper put it, he doesn't like paying,

but he especially doesn't like being overcharged. Well, we've got two more account stories for you, but first a quick break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're discussing the tales of accounting and accounts. So, ango, what's your last fact of the day. Well, I found this amazing story

of this mathematician who's named Yatang Jiong. I think he also goes by Tom But he grew up during the Cultural Revolution in China when academics were really suppressed and and he had to work fields and and then he um eventually goes to school for math and gets a PhD. But for some reason, he's this mild mannered guy who can't get a job. Like he works at a subway as a sandwich artist. He uh, he delivers Chinese food. He actually has to sleep in his car along the way.

He starts using his skills as an accountant to make a little bit more money, and finally he works his way up to this very low level teaching job at the University of New Hampshire where he teaches intro to calculus. And in fact, he's like so low level that his bio on the school's website doesn't have a profile pick

of him like the rest of the professors there. But the reason I think he's fascinating and you will too, I'm sure, is that he quietly, at the age of fifty seven or something so submits his math paper that just blows the math world away. So the math gets ahead of me here. But basically, there was this ancient theory that Dave back to Greece that they're an infinite

number of prime numbers that are separated by two. So if you think about numbers like three and five or forty one and forty three one like along the number lined ideas that you can find an infinite number of these. But Jan proved that there are actually an infinite number of prime numbers separated by seventy million. I know, I I don't know why seventy million, but he's gonna ask

why seventy millions and no idea. But he uses something called um bounded Gaffs conjecture, and according to Boston dot Com, it's the first time anyone proved that they're an infinite number of primes separated by an actual number. So this just up ends the math world, right, Like he wins at MacArthur Genius Prize and all this other stuff. But the thing that really blows me away is that he never actually uses a computer to do any of this.

He just thinks the stuff up and works it out with a pencil and paper, And the only time he used a computer in this entire process was to type up the paper to submit it. And he also forgets to him his hair and his wife has to remind him before he takes photos. I just I just love him. He's extra little fact there. Although I probably would have predicted that anybody that was able to figure that out about the seventy million gap might not comb their hair.

I don't know why I say that, but I just did. All right, Well, I'm gonna end this with a really simple story that's from accounting history, and it's a guy named Luca Paccioli. And there are records of accountants before Luca. You know, the Mesopotamians kept records of taxes on sheep, and supposedly they invented the idea of receipts. But Luca is interesting because he was a friar in medieval Italy and he's the person who convinced society to use ledgers.

So apparently he said that a person shouldn't go to sleep at night until their debits and their credits are equal, so basically keeping a balanced book. And he's remembered as the father of accounting. But just the fact that our pal Lisa has balanced our books and allowed us to go to sleep so soundly every night, or you know, at least on the nights that we weren't pulling on that seems like reason enough to include it. Yeah, I think instead of choosing a winner this week, let's just

leave it at that. That sounds good to me. Well, thank you guys so much for listening. We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow. H