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The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron

Average customer rating:

Case Study of Corruption on Steroids
Five and a half years I worked for Enron
Candid and comprehensive insight into Enron
Well writen and provides clear background on the case
Simply The Best

The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
Bethany McLean , and Peter Elkind
Manufacturer: Portfolio Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Den of Thieves
Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

ASIN: 1591840538
Release Date: 2004-09-28

Amazon.com

Like its subject, The Smartest Guys in the Room is ambitious, grand in scope, and ruthless in its dealings. Unlike Enron, the Texas-based energy giant that has come to represent the post-millennium collapse of 1990s go-go corporate culture, it's also ultimately successful. Penned by Fortune scribes Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, the 400-page-plus chronicle of the scandal digs deep inside the numbers while, wisely, maintaining focus on the "smart guys" deep-frying the books. The likes of paternal but disengaged CEO Ken Lay (dubbed "Kenny Boy" by George W. Bush, one of many prominent public figures with whom he rubbed shoulders), cutthroat man-behind-the-curtain Jeff Skilling, and ethically blind numbers whiz Andy Fastow vividly come to life as they make a mockery of conventional accounting practices and grow increasingly arrogant and bind to their collective hubris. They're not a likable lot, and the writers find it difficult to suppress their astonishment and revulsion with the crew who rapidly went from golden boys and girls of the financial world to pariahs when the bill finally came due. The authors' unrepressed sarcasms are more than often unnecessarily given the scope of the outrage. Enron's leading lights were or a time celebrated for their ability to concoct nearly unfathomable business schemes to hide mounting shortfalls and keeping track on their machinations can be a chore, but, by sticking hard to the story behind the fall, McLean and Elkind have reported and written the definitive account of the Enron debacle. --Steven Stolder

Book Description

Just as Watergate was the defining political story of its time, so Enron is the biggest business story of our time. And just as All the President's Men was the one Watergate book that gave readers the full story, with all the drama and nuance, The Smartest Guys in the Room is the one book you have to read to understand this amazing business saga. And the critics agree:
“This book is right up there with Den of Thieves and Barbarians at the Gate. . . . Those who want to learn what happened here, you don't have to read anything but this.” —James Cramer, CNBC

“The best book about the Enron debacle to date. . . . Based on hundreds of interviews and fresh details, McLean and Elkind masterfully weave together the many strands of the Enron story. They shine in their characterizations of Enron's often incompetent executives.” —Wendy Zellner, BusinessWeek

“News junkies and mystery lovers who enjoy financial scandals will devour this multilayered book. . . . The Smartest Guys in the Room will rival other models of the genre, including James Stewart's Den of Thieves. . . . The authors write with power and finesse. Their prose is effortless, like a sprinter floating down the track. . . . The character sketches of former chairman Kenneth Lay, former CEO Jeff Skilling and ex-chief financial officer Andrew Fastow are masterful.” — Edward Iwata, USA Today

“Powerful and shocking. . . . succeed[s] in opening a disturbing window into both the company and the era . . . filled with fascinating characters and anecdotes.” —Jonathan A. Knee, The New York Times Book Review

“The Smartest Guys in the Room is utterly professional, readable and—even though you know what's coming—highly entertaining.” —Daniel Gross, The Washington Post

“Meticulously reported and compelling . . . a cautionary tale about highfliers who weren't as clever as they thought.” —David Koeppel, Entertainment Weekly

Customer Reviews:

Case Study of Corruption on Steroids.......2007-06-05

I purchased this book after having watched the movie of the same name. The book is a very detailed and meticulous recounting of the rampant greed and corruption that was Enron. What you come to discover is that through highly-technical accounting schemes and tricks Enron turned itself into a seeming juggernaut of a business from just a staid old pipeline company. Enron really thought that the free market enabled it to do anything and trade any kind of commodity from weather derivatives to paper pulp, oil, and broadband. What you come to find out in this book though is that they never really had a way to deliver what they kept promising Wall Street.

Enron was a big house of cards all propped up by their stock price. Once that dropped, all hell broke loose. The company was obsessed with the stock price, posting it in elevators and encouraging employees to invest as much of their 401K monies into it as possible. They even created elaborate hedge funds that were based on the stock staying above certain levels. In order to keep the stock at lofty levels they lied and used "creative" accounting to fool Wall Street.

The real reveal in reading this book however is that Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay really have a vast number of compatriots to join them as teh villians here. Andy Fastow, now the government stoolie, was arguably worse than both Lay and Skilling. And yet, thanks to his cooperation, he gets far less jail time.

This book is a slow read, and not for the half-hearted. For the vast majority you are really better off watching the film.

Five and a half years I worked for Enron.......2007-05-31

Just cause you went to college and wear a suit people think you know what you are doing...

Candid and comprehensive insight into Enron.......2007-05-18

Enron's fame and fall both were sensational. Although most of us have heard of this incredible tale of corporate greed and grandiose, our knowledge of Enron's story will remain incomplete without reading this astoundingly insightful book on the rise and fall of Enron Corp.

Smartest Guys in the Room provides a chronological, comprehensive, consistent, clear and complete account of the way Ken Lay presided over the building of a company whose sole goal was to become the preeminent player in the field of energy regardless of which side of ethics was it on. His vision and dreams got a new boost with the advent of Jeffry Skilling who in no time took Enron up on the path of growth and glory - even though much or most of it was by the innovative use of mark-to- market accounting. Skilling's vision to build the most innovative company in the world was based on the strategy to hire the smartest guys and provide them all resources to make the target growth happen at any cost. The drive to achieve the goals at any cost more often than not relied upon less than fair means, and upon creative accounting duly supported by an accounting firm no less capable and reputed than Arthur Andersen.

Every greedy rise has a generous fall and Enron's was as spectacular and scandalous as it gets. The insight and detail that Smartest Guys in the Room provides is almost breathtaking. It (sadly) stops as soon as Enron enters chapter 11 (that eventually became Chapter 7) bankruptcy. The untold story thereafter is much less exciting. Apart from that possible appendix Smartest Guys in the Room is indeed as comprehensive, and as candid as a book can be.

A must read for any person who wishes to know about Enron.

Well writen and provides clear background on the case.......2007-03-22

McLean and Elkind did a wonderful job in preparing this book. Using a chronological method, the reader is able to follow through the case from the beginning. The backgrounds of the situations, conditions and persons involved with the case are well explained. After reading this book I am now understand what is actualy the enron case all about, how did they do it and why it happened. This is really important to someone who has interest in the internal control - internal audit area.

Simply The Best.......2007-03-09

This is one of the most interesting books I ever read. The writers did a great job presenting Enron's scandal as both a story and providing the reader with the economics and financial issues behind the fraud that took place. It is simple, easy to understand and very exciting. I was initially quite reluctant of buying the book because I had no idea what Enron was. I only knew it was an American energy related company that popped up once or twice on BBC back in 2001 with little details presented. The only comment I would like to state is related to the main concept of Market Markup Accounting practiced by Enron, it was not very easy to understand although the writers did try to simplify it those who are not Accountants would find it hard to understand. Another issue is Enron's practices were they compliant with the GAAP standards, the writers discussed this very briefly but didn't answer the main question, was the accounting method used accepted by GAAP? Setting that aside this is a lovely book full of information so simple and reading it was great fun I found it hard to put the book down. Yes buy it.

Average customer rating:

Incredibly boring
Insightful!
Read in conjunction with Smith/Emshwiller
Solid
A "fair and balanced" treatment that can cure insomnia

Enron: The Rise and Fall
Loren Fox
Manufacturer: Amazon Remainders Account
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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What Went Wrong at Enron: Everyone's Guide to the Largest Bankruptcy in U.S. History
Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron
Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider
Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron

ASIN: B000F3UQT2

Book Description

"I'd say you were a carnival barker, except that wouldn't be fair tocarnival barkers. A carnie will at least tell you up front that he's running a shell game. You, Mr. Lay, were running what purported to be the seventh largest corporation in America."-Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) to Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, Senate Commerce Science & Transportation's Subcommittee, Hearing on Enron, 2/12/02
The speed of Enron's rise and fall is truly astonishing and perhaps the single most important story of corporate failure in the twenty-first century. In Enron investigative journalist Loren Fox promises readers nothing short of the most compelling and insightful investigation into Enron's meteoric ascent-regarded by Wall Street and the media as the epitome of innovation-and its spectacular fall from grace. In a lively and authoritative manner, Fox discusses how the biggest corporate bankruptcy in American business history happened, why for so long no one (except for an enlightened few) saw it coming, and what its impact will be on financial markets, the U.S. economy, U.S. energy policy, and the public for years to come. With access to many company insiders, Fox's intriguing account of this corporate debacle also provides an overview of the corporate culture and business model that led to Enron's high-flying success and disastrous failure. The story of Enron is one that will reverberate in global financial and energy markets as well as in criminal and civil courts for years to come. Rife with all the elements of a classic thriller-scandal, dishonest accounting, personal greed, questionable campaign contributions, suicide-Enron captures the essence of a company that went too far too fast.

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Customer Reviews:

Incredibly boring .......2006-01-09

Loren Fox's account of the Enron debacle is one of the more boring written on what was a fascinating story of greed and corporate immorality. I have read three books regarding the downfall of Enron (The Smartest Guys in the Room and Anatomy of Greed being the others), and this was the most difficult read of the three, by far.

First, Fox's account reads more like a Harvard Business School case study than anything else. For some, this may be attractive, but explaining forwards, swaps and various other derivatives over three pages isn't the most exciting reading one can do. It is valuable if you really want to dig into Enron's beginnings with "asset light" philosophy, but one really only needs this level of detail if they are delving into the corporate world of derivatives and trading. For the rest of us, it is uneccessary and quite boring. Given the time Enron: The Rise and Fall was written (shortly after the bankruptcy), it is insightful. Also given that it was written before The Smartest Guys in the Room was released, it was at one time probably the best of the bunch. Now that other information has been released via congressional hearings and other written accounts, the information provided by Fox reads like a textbook.

Another problem is that Fox misses much of the personality of the executives and other employees of Enron. He admitedly has little to go by other than written records at that time, and has little more than detailed accounts of Enron's activities to show for it. While important to describe in detail how Enron evolved into the company it became, he misses the personalities behind the evolution. For instance, the corporate structure was such that people from every division within the company clashed at every turn. This is a mere mention in Fox's account, whereas in The Smartest Guys in the Room, this is an important part of the Enron downfall. Also, the California debacle is mentioned briefly in The Rise and Fall, but without the detail that the other story gives. What is just as important about the rise and (if not more importantly) the fall of Enron, are the egomaniacal personalities behind the company. These personalities are not described in nearly enough detail in The Rise and Fall, leaving the story bland and lacking.

What is left is a textbook story of Enron that leaves out much of the drama of the real Enron. While I appreciate that Fox avoided some of the Hollywood, daytime television aspects of Enron (unlike The Smartest Guys in the Room or Anatomy of Greed) to merely sell books, much of this aspect of the Enron story is important to the overall tale of "The Rise and Fall." Unfortunately, it is missing in Fox's book.

Insightful!.......2004-08-31

Enron's story seems to have happened all at once. There was a big company with a stock price shooting for the stars and, then, suddenly there was a massive fraud, and the two things came so close together it was like hearing the explosion from a fireworks display after you've seen the light in the sky. Loren Fox's account was one of the first books about Enron and remains one of the best. The author is a skillful, diligent reporter who managed to get the story first and get it right, although Enron did not authorize his book or cooperate with him. His discussion of the company's complex, illegal accounting maneuvers is thorough and, if not quite clear, certainly complete. The book was written during the relatively early stages of the legal proceedings against the architects of the Enron fraud, so a lot of the material uncovered by Justice Department and SEC investigators was not yet available. The demerit of this is that Fox was not able to include much that is now common knowledge about Enron. However, we find that there is an advantage as well: Fox was not excessively guided or directed by common knowledge and conventional wisdom, but instead carved his own path through the thicket of Enron's weird and instructive history.

Read in conjunction with Smith/Emshwiller.......2004-01-20

This book, plus "24 Days," together tell you everything you need to know about the fall of Enron. This one covers the "rise" better, that one covers the "fall."

What one ought to take away from both books is the realization that, despite the failure and indeed despite the evident criminality, Enron (as Fox says in his epilogue), "wasn't a complete hoax. The company deserved admiration for its early forays into trading gas and electricity, and for its plunge into the innovative financing of energy projects. It out-maneuvered the old-line energy companies to expand the use of derivatives in the energy industry. This introduced new ways of managing risk, which lowered the costs of energy-related transactions for an array of businesses."

Another reviewer has said that the Fox book is a cure for insomnia. The fact is that if you need to have material on Enron MADE interesting for you by dramatic presentation, by a well-shaped narative flow, then you may have trouble with Fox, simply because he lets the material speak for itself.

Sometimes it speaks in ambiguous tones.

Solid.......2003-09-27

Good, solid background on the history of Enron and its missteps. If you're interested in one stop shopping for an understanding of Enron the corporation from start to finish, this is the best out there so far.

A "fair and balanced" treatment that can cure insomnia.......2003-09-18

I've read several Enron books, from Cruver's poor product to Lynn Brewer's silly treatise, and I have to say that this one is probably more accurate and balanced than any of the others, but..... it's a real snorefest. Any author that can take a fascinating story like this and put a reader to sleep with it is not really overachieving in my view.

I guess Fox couldn't get anyone significant to talk to him and maybe that held him back some, but it didn't keep Cruver and Brewer and Swartz from producing more entertaining stuff in their efforts which were similarly unencumbered by input from people who were really making it happen. Oh well, he produced a "fair and balanced" treatment that just might help you with that insomnia thing.

Average customer rating:

Enron: The Rise and Fall

Manufacturer: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0641649193

Product Description

"I'd say you were a carnival barker, except that wouldn't be fair tocarnival barkers. A carnie will at least tell you up front that he's running a shell game. You, Mr. Lay, were running what purported to be the seventh largest corporation in America."-Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) to Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, Senate Commerce Science & Transportation's Subcommittee, Hearing on Enron, 2/12/02 The speed of Enron's rise and fall is truly astonishing and perhaps the single most important story of corporate failure in the twenty-first century. In Enron investigative journalist Loren Fox promises readers nothing short of the most compelling and insightful investigation into Enron's meteoric ascent-regarded by Wall Street and the media as the epitome of innovation-and its spectacular fall from grace. In a lively and authoritative manner, Fox discusses how the biggest corporate bankruptcy in American business history happened, why for so long no one (except for an enlightened few) saw it coming, and what its impact will be on financial markets, the U.S. economy, U.S. energy policy, and the public for years to come. With access to many company insiders, Fox's intriguing account of this corporate debacle also provides an overview of the corporate culture and business model that led to Enron's high-flying success and disastrous failure. The story of Enron is one that will reverberate in global financial and energy markets as well as in criminal and civil courts for years to come. Rife with all the elements of a classic thriller-scandal, dishonest accounting, personal greed, questionable campaign contributions, suicide-Enron captures the essence of a company that went too far too fast.

Innovation corrupted: The rise and fall of Enron (Working paper / Division of Research, Harvard Business School)

Average customer rating:

Innovation corrupted: The rise and fall of Enron (Working paper / Division of Research, Harvard Business School)
Malcolm S Salter
Manufacturer: Division of Research, Harvard Business School
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006RYB66

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