The Friday Lowdown ⬇️

If you're new around here, every day or so I share the 4-5 best accounting insights I saw in the past 24 hours.

I scroll. so you don't have to.

🤯 WTF of the Day

Deloitte is killing classic consulting job titles.

No more clean ladder of analyst → consultant → manager. That whole pyramid? Being quietly retired.

Instead, Deloitte wants hyper-specific titles like “Software Engineer III” or “Senior Consultant, Functional Transformation,” plus internal level codes like L45 and L55. Oh, and a new senior group just called “Leaders.” That’s it. Very startup-core.

Nothing about pay or day-to-day work changes. This is mostly a relabeling exercise.

The old consulting model only worked because junior people did tons of manual stuff. Research. Slides. Models. Data cleanup. Now AI does a lot of that faster and cheaper.

So titles like “analyst” or “consultant” don’t really explain what someone actually does anymore.

Deloitte wants titles that say what skill you bring not where you sit in the ladder. Think “software,” “strategy,” “transformation,” not “year 2 consultant.”

It’s also easier to sell clients. “Software Engineer III” sounds clearer than “Senior Consultant.”

🍿 What’s poppin in accounting

The SEC Is Quietly Neutering the Audit Police

The SEC just cut the PCAOB’s budget by about 10%. They also slashed the fees companies pay to fund it and cut the pay of its leaders almost in half.

Official reason: efficiency and public service. Real reason: less regulation.

The PCAOB was created after Enron so auditors wouldn’t lie and blow up companies again. Now it still exists, but with less money, fewer people, and way less bite. When budgets get cut, enforcement is usually the first thing to go. Fewer inspections. Fewer penalties. More “we’ll look into it.”

Last Time the Market Was This Expensive, Investors Waited 14 Years to Break Even

In 1999, the S&P 500 peaked. Then it took 14 years to gradually recover by 2013.

Today? Goldman Sachs sounds crazy forecasting 3% returns for 2024 to 2034.

But we’re currently seeing the highest price for the S&P 500 compared to earnings since the dot-com boom.

So, maybe that’s why they’re not alone; Vanguard projects about 5%.

In fact, now just about everything seems priced near all time highs. Equities, gold, crypto, etc.

But billionaires have long diversified a slice of their portfolios with one asset class that is poised to rebound.

It’s post war and contemporary art.

Sounds crazy, but over 70,000 investors have followed suit since 2019—with Masterworks.

You can invest in shares of artworks featuring Banksy, Basquiat, Picasso, and more.

24 exits later, results speak for themselves: net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8%.*

My subscribers can skip the waitlist.

Skip waitlist

_{*Investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd.}

🕵️‍♂️ The Audit

Are you an outlier or the industry standard? Vote in our new weekly pulse check, and we’ll share the results next issue.

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 📊 Weekly Trend Chart

Netflix made $1.5 billion from ads last year.

That sounds huge. It’s not.

Netflix made $45 billion total. Ads were 3% of that. Basically a rounding error.

Even better: when you break it down, Netflix makes about 40 cents per user per month from ads. If you only count people on the ad plan, it’s roughly $1 a month.

So yeah, ads grew fast. They more than doubled. Cool.
But this isn’t an ad business yet.

Netflix is still a subscription company that added commercials, not YouTube with prestige TV. Ads are a side hustle for now.

#😂 Meme of the Day

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