Why Damodaran Teaches
Damodaran has long made his full NYU Stern curriculum publicly available, and his spring open house post is a useful reminder of what's out there for practitioners who want to sharpen fundamentals without enrolling in a degree program.
His stated motivations for teaching are worth noting because they shape how the materials are structured: he enjoys the performance aspect of lecturing, finds meaning in moving students from confusion to clarity, and values the autonomy the job affords. The curriculum reflects those priorities — it is narrative-driven, relentlessly practical, and unafraid to pick fights with conventional wisdom.
The Teaching Approach
Damodaran describes himself as an old-fashioned lecturer. The emphasis is on:
- A unifying narrative that ties each session to the next
- Reasoning over rote — why the method works, not just how to run it
- Real-world relevance through current examples
- Direct answers, including when the answer is "we don't know"
The Class Catalog
Four core classes form the backbone:
- Corporate Finance. First principles of running a business. Built for anyone making resource allocation, financing, or payout decisions — not just finance specialists.
- Valuation. Tools and techniques for pricing and valuing assets. The standard reference for appraisers, analysts, portfolio managers, and business owners.
- Investment Philosophies. A survey of investment approaches so practitioners can match strategy to their own risk profile and temperament.
- Corporate Life Cycle. How businesses age, what changes at each stage, and what that means for valuation, investing, and management.
Supplementary classes on accounting, statistics, and foundations of finance fill in prerequisites for practitioners coming from non-finance backgrounds.
The Books
The classes are self-contained, but Damodaran has written extensively for those who prefer the long-form format:
- Applied Corporate Finance
- Investment Valuation
- Investment Philosophies
- The Corporate Life Cycle
- Corporate Finance
- Little Book of Valuation
- Investment Management
- Strategic Risk Taking
- The Dark Side of Valuation
- Investment Fables
- Damodaran on Valuation
- Narrative and Numbers
His industry data tables are also free to download and remain one of the most-used reference datasets in the profession.
Pathways Through the Material
Damodaran offers pathway guidance depending on the student's goal:
- Business owners gravitate toward corporate finance and life cycle
- Appraisers and valuation analysts start with valuation and add corporate finance for context
- Active investment managers benefit most from investment philosophies plus valuation
- Generalists can take all four as a complete curriculum
He also runs class-specific WhatsApp discussion groups, which extend the course beyond pure video consumption.
On Why It's Free
Damodaran explicitly rejects an altruism frame. He shares the material because he enjoys having a large audience and believes knowledge should flow forward. His request to students is simple: pass what you learn on to someone else.
Bottom Line
For practitioners who want structured, free, senior-level education in corporate finance and valuation, Damodaran's curriculum is still the best resource available. The four core classes form a full working toolkit, and the data tables alone justify the bookmark.