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Business Essentials for Executives

Module 3 · Portfolio Sample

Reading the Financial Story

A 15-lesson module teaching business executives how to read an income statement the way a systems thinker reads a machine — not as a report, but as a set of clues about what comes next.

Module 3 of 8
Duration 3h 10m
Lessons 15 total
Featured Instructor Ray Dalio
Formats Video, reading, AI exercise, discussion, project
A note on this sample

What you’re looking at

This is a portfolio sample I built while applying for the Learning Experience Designer role at MasterClass. Module 3 sits inside a larger course concept I sketched called Business Essentials for Executives — designed for mid-career leaders who can read a headline number but feel lost when someone starts talking about operating leverage or earnings quality.

The goal of Module 3 specifically is to move learners from reading an income statement to interrogating one. Ray Dalio’s framing of the company as a machine runs through every lesson as a connective metaphor. Each lesson introduces a new analytical lens, with explicit callbacks to earlier concepts and forward-pointers to later ones — so the module reads as one continuous argument rather than fifteen separate topics.

Six lessons are fully designed below and live for you to click through. The remaining nine are structured but not built out — I’ve shown them so you can see the full narrative arc and pedagogical variety I planned for the module.

Module Overview

Fully designed
Concept only
01
Video Lesson

The Machine: How a Company WorksLive

6 min·Ray Dalio
02
Reading

The Three Financial Statements: A SystemLive

8 min
03
Reading

The Income Statement: Structure & ComponentsLive

10 min
04
Video Lesson

Revenue: Price × QuantityLive

8 min·Ray Dalio
05
Reading

Costs: The Structure of FragilityLive

10 min
06
AI Exercise

Using AI to Decode Revenue & CostsLive

25 min·Interactive
07
Reading

Accrual vs. Cash: Timing & Reality

10 min
08
Reading

Margins: Signals of Power and Pressure

12 min
09
Video Lesson

Cycles: Where Are We?

8 min·Ray Dalio
10
Reading

Earnings vs. Reality: What’s True?

12 min
11
Discussion

Spot the Warning Signs

20 min
12
Reading

Stress Testing the Machine

8 min
13
Case Study

How Apple Makes Its Money

15 min
14
Project

The Executive’s P&L Challenge

30 min
15
Reading

The Story Behind the Numbers

5 min