While some surveys would have us accounting types believe we’re seen as more sexy these days, others are not so easily fooled. The VC world seems to hate us with a vengeance. Especially the Big Four. Brad Feld, one of the smartest VCs around lobs a cluster bomb at us when he says:
Accounting is the only profession that doesn’t care if their processes negatively impact your business, what your opinion of them is, or whether or not you are a happy customer. They know there aren’t many of them, you have to get an audit, and you’ll shut up and like it. If you have to turn your operations upside down to comply with their desires, that’s your problem, because you are a captive audience. The only other profession that might be close would be the customer service representatives of most major airlines (excluding – of course – Southwest.)
Brad has plenty of other choice views. Only for the masochists among my audience.
He could have added: ‘The Big Four don’t have an ethical bone amongst the lot of them.’ But he didn’t.
However, Brad may be off the mark on this. There are plenty of accountants to go around. Some might argue there are too many. The trouble is, most of them have been educated by the Big Four. So you end up with a perpetuation of head in the sand, outdated, irrelevant attitudes. Which is great for the 1% crowd.
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