The 'Big Four' consulting firms specialize in accounting

The 'Big Three' and 'Big Four' consulting firms have grown more similar in recent years

The “Big Three” consulting firms—McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company—and the “Big Four”—Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG, and EY—actually have a lot in common these days. But it wasn’t always that way.

The Big Three consulting firms are McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company

Some also refer to this group as “MBB.” As a nearly century-old company that’s well known for its prestige, McKinsey has some famous alumni—including Chelsea Clinton and Sheryl Sandberg. The other two consulting firms in the Big Three have employed some famous faces over the years, too.

Consulting firms are known for their relatively high starting salaries

The “Big Three” and the “Big Four” consulting firms especially are known for high pay. Top firms often offer entry-level salaries well over $100K per year.

Consulting encompasses a wide range of expertise—from management and tech, to finance and PR

At their core, consultants—whether independent or part of firms—help organizations solve problems, refine processes, and achieve goals.

'The Firm' is a book about the influence of top consulting firm McKinsey

The author argues that consulting firms are so valuable to the companies that hire them because the clients don’t have to take the blame for any changes the consulting firm decides to make within the organization.

Governments are arguably very dependent on consulting firms like McKinsey and Deloitte

This podcast episode discusses the consultancy industry’s rise and how these firms make billions of dollars, even amid significant scandals.

Modern consulting traces its roots to 1886

Arthur D. Little Inc. was the first management consulting firm. Starting as a chemical analysis lab, the firm evolved to play pivotal roles in projects like developing the NASDAQ system and supporting Apollo 11.

How Standard Oil created Chevron and ExxonMobil

Standard Oil was eventually ordered to separate into 34 different entities, and over the following years, those 34 companies merged into what is now called the “Big Four” in the oil industry.

The original 'four horsemen' of tech were Intel, Dell, Microsoft, and Cisco

These companies became known as the "four horsemen of tech" for the influence the companies had both on other businesses and investors in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The expansion of internet infrastructure throughout the 1990s and the dot-com bubble lifted these companies to incredible heights.

The K-pop industry's Big Four are facing declining stock prices

The major players of the K-pop industry—SM, JYP, YG, and HYBE—are publicly listed companies. Despite huge financial successes, these corporations have recently dealt with plunging stock prices, losing between 29% and 56% of their market cap by late 2024. While there’s no one reason for the recent devaluation, there are signs of slowing enthusiasm and less action from the major players—BTS and Blackpink.

Learn more about the four main market structures

In modern economic theory, there are four main market structures. Under each market structure, firms (or businesses) have differing levels of competition and reach different levels of price efficiency based on the consumer's willingness to pay for a product or service.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts was the world's largest private equity firm as of 2025

Headquartered in New York City, KKR raised more than $117B between 2020 and 2024. KKR is credited for pioneering the leveraged buyout strategy for private equity in the 1970s and now owns nearly 300 companies.

Finance is among the most popular specializations for MBA students

MBA specializations allow students to concentrate on a specific field during their studies. Other popular concentrations include marketing, entrepreneurship, and consulting. Learn more about MBA specializations in this article.

The three major credit bureaus were created in the mid-1900s to sort local credit reporting into national databases

In the 1800s, credit bureaus went into business to help lenders make decisions. But today's three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, didn't become the industry leaders they are today until the 20th century, around the same time FICO was founded.

Four popular budgeting strategies

While budgeting is an individualized process, there are a few tried-and-true budgeting methods people interested in saving money or paying down debt tend to use. These methods include the envelope method—where people budget for things like rent, savings, and food by putting cash in various physical envelopes—the 50/20/30 method, and others. Read about four popular budgeting strategies in this article.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Many investment bankers work on IPOs

When a company undertakes an IPO, investment banks often buy many of the organization’s shares directly from the company, in order to sell the shares on the stock market. The bank stands to profit after marking up the shares.

The shadow banking system is a group of intermediaries that operate outside of normal banking regulations

The nonbank financial intermediaries that make up the shadow banking system legally provide services that are similar to those of traditional commercial banks. Although the term isn't used as often as it once was, private credit firms are technically part of the shadow banking system, as are hedge funds, payday lenders, buy now, pay later companies, and more.

Breaking down the golf world's 4 'major' tournaments

The PGA Tour features over 30 tournaments per year, but none are as important as the four majors: the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open, and the Open Championship. This Golf Monthly article dives into each major and the courses it is played on, including the traditions each weekend brings to the Tour.

Principals are important pieces of F1 teams

In the Big Four American sports, teams have a head coach to lead the team and a general manager to run the business side. In Formula 1, they have a team principal, who speaks publicly on behalf of the team, manages the team's personnel, and engages with F1's governing body.

A 'large-cap' company has a market capitalization of more than $10B

The S&P 500 is primarily composed of large-cap companies. The idea is that the index provides a big-picture view of the economy by assessing the performance of many of the largest public companies across different industries. The median market capitalization of companies listed on the S&P 500 is around $40B.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

The money behind Eurovision

Countries pay to take part in Eurovision, with the biggest economies—Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain, also known as the Big Five—paying the most. That unequal entry fee is not entirely for charity's sake: The Big Five countries are guaranteed spots in Eurovision's finals.

American Express caters its business to wealthy cardholders

American Express cards charge high annual fees, but also offer significant rewards and credits. It's just one way the company targets affluent customers who spend higher dollar amounts per transaction and tend to have more transactions than the average cardholder. This strategy decreases the company's risk, since it actually offers credit instead of just acting as a card network.

The Bretton Woods conference in 1944 created the foundations of the modern global economy

In July 1944, 44 nations gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to create a new postwar economic order. The conference led to the creation of the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development—now known as the World Bank.

The origin of the 'barbershop quartet'

Barbershop is subgenre of acapella, limited to four singers who all play highly specific roles. If you see a particularly inspired quartet, you might even see them in old-timey barber dress, a nod to style's origin: the British barbershop. This brief explainer from Mental Floss breaks down the strange story behind the form and how it traveled overseas to become the music we know today.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

The EPA partners with other countries to strengthen environmental protection

Through bilateral programs on every continent, the EPA shares American environmental expertise with developing nations and economies in transition. These partnerships support air and water protection, chemical safety, and pollution control, while advancing US environmental priorities abroad.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Three Ebola species are responsible for most large outbreaks of the disease, yet the only approved Ebola vaccine is known to work against just one of them.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.