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

From Barnes & Noble

Enron, that microcosm of American corporate misdeeds, continues to captivate us. Not since Watergate has a scandal reverberated through so many books. In The Smartest Guys in the Room, Bethany McLean, the first journalist to "out" the story in a major national publication, and eagle-eyed investigative reporter Peter Elkind endow the unfolding story with the gathering tension of a well-turned novel. Their rendering of boardroom feuds and bookkeeping trickery casts vivid light on the strong personalities involved.

From the Publisher

Until the Spring of 2001, The Houston energy giant Enron epitomized the triumph of the new economy. Feared by rivals, worshiped by investors, Enron seemingly could do no wrong. Its profits rose every quarter; its stock price surged ever upward; its leaders were hailed as visionaries. Then a young Fortune writer named Bethany McLean wrote an article posing a simple question -- How, exactly, does Enron make its money? -- and the company's house of cards began to collapse. Though other business scandals would follow, none has had the shattering effect of Enron's bankruptcy, which caused Americans to lose faith in a system that rewarded top insiders with millions of dollars while small investors, including many Enron employees, lost everything. Despite enormous media coverage of Enron, the definitive story of its astonishing rise and fall comes alive for the first time in this gripping narrative by McLean and her Fortune colleague Peter Elkind. Drawing on a wide range of private documents and well-placed sources, many of them exclusive, McLean and Elkind lead you behind closed doors and deep into Enron's past, to pierce the veil of secrecy that has surrounded the company's inner workings and corrupt culture.

The Smartest Guys in the Room is fundamentally a human drama -- of people drunk on their own success, people so ambitious, so certain of their own brilliance, so fueled by greed and hubris that they believed they could fool the world. The book explores the motives, thoughts, and secret fears of a fascinating array of characters. No matter how much (or how little) you already know about Enron, the revelations in The Smartest Guys in the Room will shock you. You'll witness the astonishing extent to which Enron's business was an illusion. You'll meet the enigmatic Enron executive who seemed interested in only two things: money and strip clubs. You'll learn the truth about the California power crisis. You'll see how much Wall Street knew about Enron's shenanigans and why the Street chose to look the other way. You'll learn the dirty secrets that Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and J. P. Morgan Chase have kept out of the headlines to this day. Just as Watergate was the defining political story of our 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.

The New York Times

The portrait of the narcissistic culture fostered by Enron's president, Kenneth Lay, since the mid-1980's is so vivid that the reader is amazed but not really shocked when the boom of the late 90's provides the spark that ultimately engulfs the entire enterprise in flames. — Jonathan A. Knee

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. (Oct. 13) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Take your chances: this study is embargoed. Fortune writer McLean's "Is Enron Overpriced?" shows she had doubts about Enron way back in March 2001. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

The biggest and most shocking business story of our time is the Enron debacle, and Fortune's senior writers Bethany Mclean and Peter Elkind have dug up the full story of the players and the plays that created the scandal of the century. The Smartest Guys in the Room details the rise and fall of the Enron empire as well as its cast of intriguing characters in a gripping narrative that is based on a wide range of private documents and exclusive sources. Copyright © 2003 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Product Details

• ISBN: 0641697716
  
• ISBN-13: 9780641697715
• Format: Hardcover, 320pp
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
• Pub. Date: October 2003
• Edition Description: Bargain

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents