Wildly complicated gadgets designed to do very simple tasks was the specialty of Rube Goldberg, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Presenters on a recent webinar noted that the process to estimate the cost of capital has come to resemble one of Goldberg’s contraptions. This complexity means that the risk of making errors has increased greatly, they note. The process has become too much of a “black box” of applied mathematics that takes judgment out of the process. But it doesn’t have to be that way, say Dr. Michael Crain (Florida Atlantic University) and Ronald Seigneur (Seigneur Gustafson LLP), who conducted the webinar. They demonstrated BVR’s Cost of Capital Professional platform, which is designed to bring simplicity and flexibility back to the process. That is, the platform provides the raw materials that practitioners can use along with their professional judgment to shape the final result. Crain and Seigneur are two of the individuals involved in the development of the new platform. To access a recording of the free webinar, go to the Cost of Capital Professional webpage and click on “Free Webinar & Demo.”