The Smartest Guys in the Room

Trixie

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The Smartest Guys in the Room : The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron (Paperback)
by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind

So I finally read this book, I have not seen the documentary released in 2005. This was an incredibly well-written book. It held my interest, although it took me longer than usual to read (partly just because it is so complicated in terms of all the accounting issues going on and the large cast of characters). I guess I was rather out of it when the whole Enron thing was going on, so I found this book to be truly insightful. It shows how things got stickier and stickier, and provides a lot of detail. I think the knowledge I obtained by reading this will help me understand the upcoming trial.

Here's a review I found on Amazon.com:

From Publishers Weekly
Fortune reporter McLean's article in early 2001 questioning Enron's high valuation was cited by many as an early harbinger of the company's downfall, but she refrains from tooting her own horn, admitting that the article "barely scratched the surface" of what was wrong at America's seventh-largest corporation. The story of its plunge into bankruptcy (co-written with magazine colleague Elkind) barely touches upon the personal flamboyances highlighted in earlier Enron books, focusing instead on the shady finances and the corporate culture that made them possible. Former CEO Jeff Skilling gets much of the blame for hiring people who constantly played by their own rules, creating a "deeply dysfunctional workplace" where "financial deception became almost inevitable," but specific accountability for the underhanded transactions is passed on to others, primarily chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, whose financial conflicts of interest are recounted in exacting detail. (Skilling seems to have cooperated extensively with the authors, though clearly not to universal advantage.) A companywide sense of entitlement, particularly at the top executive levels, comes under close scrutiny, although the extravagant habits of those like Ken Lay, while blatant, are presented without fanfare. The real detail is saved for transactions like the deals that led to the California energy crisis and a 1986 scandal, mirroring the problems faced a decade later, that left the company "less than worthless" until a last-minute rescue. The book's sober financial analysis supplements that of Mimi Swartz's Power Failure, while offering additional perspectives that flesh out the details of the Enron story.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
 
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