Hey there, it's Stephen Dovner from Freakonomics Radio, and I am busting into this

Economics of Everyday Things episode to tell you that we are doing a live Freakonomics radio show

in Los Angeles on February 13th, and I hope you'll join us. Guests will include Ari Emanuel,

the CEO of the Sports and Entertainment

Firm Endeavor, the filmmaker R.J. Cutler, and the Freakonomics Radio house band, led by

Luis Guerra.

For tickets, go to Freakonomics.com slash live shows.

A portion of our ticket sales will go to Wildfire Relief relief efforts. Again, that's freethonomics.com

slash live shows February 13th in LA. I hope to see you there.

Every fall, kids across America take part in a strange ritual.

In the middle of a school day, they're corralled into a gym or cafeteria,

organized into lines, and photographed one by one.

This is done by a for-profit photography firm that charges top dollar for eight by tens and

wallet-sized prints.

For the parents of these kids, it's an annual tradition.

And for the companies that take all the pictures, it's a lucrative one.

You walk into a school, you've got 500 kids organized in 25 different classes.

Teachers need to get them in and out very quickly.

It is mass chaos.

But if you can deliver, you can generate a very profitable business.

That's Ken Murphy. He's the CEO of LifeTouch, the largest

school photography firm in America. The company photographs 30 million students each school year,

...