Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind
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(Hardcover)
- Pub. Date: October 2003
- 464pp
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: October 2003
- Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
- Format: Hardcover, 464pp
- ISBN-13: 9781591840084
- ISBN: 1591840082
Synopsis
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 isutterly 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
Annotation
Staff Favorite of 2003
The Fortune journalists who first broke the story reveal the devastating truth about the swift and shocking collapse of Enron. Their definitive portraits of the scandal's key players -- unsparingly rendered in all their drunken hubris, unrelenting ambition, and self-destructive greed -- as well as a masterful revelation of the company's innermost workings, make this book fully deserving of the broad critical acclaim it has garnered.
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
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind are Fortune senior writers. McLean is a former investment banking analyst for Goldman Sachs. Her March 2001 article in Fortune, "Is Enron Overpriced?," was the first in a national publication to openly question the company's dealings. Elkind, an award-winning investigative reporter, is the author of The Death Shift.
Customer Reviews
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this book should be a warningby rsaluck
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November 14, 2009: First of all, this book is a must read for everyone, particularly politicians and all CEOs of businesses. This is a clear example of what has gone wrong in the business world (and then some). I knew Enron had engaged in fraudulent and highly unethical business practices. However, i had no idea to the extent in which the management team at Enron abused ethics, the law, morality and everything else. I am not even sure what the goal was here. Nobody seemed to be happy in the book despite the money they made and the "status" that they achieved. And it is not just the management team to blame. The SEC, the FERC, the accountants, the attorneys and wall street all created this monster. Perhaps this was a prelude to the the recent scandals, which are the most prolific we have ever seen. The unfolding of events at Enron should have been a warning sign that something was/is truly wrong. There is no doubt in my mind that Enron was no different than a Mafia style boiler room operation. In any event, this shows how dangerous it is to let business run unregulated and unchecked. The goal of business cant just be to make money. It has to be more than that i hope. There has to be some modicum of respect for the law, for ethics and for each other. The way they treated each other and conducted even their personal lives was appalling. All the money in the world is not worth that legacy.
The book is very well written and incredibly engaging and riveting. The story of Enron is truly shocking and the authors did a fine job in recounting this sad tale. I think that this is a must read for everyone--no wonder Buffett recommended this. It is sad that this could have happened on our watch.Packed with Knowledge!by Anonymous
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August 03, 2004: Enron is, of course, old news by now. The company went bankrupt in 2001, and its spectacular collapse was merely the first of a series of notorious corporate scandals. Most of the story Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind tell in their book has already appeared in newspaper and magazine accounts and in other, rush-to-publish books that hit the market during or shortly after the events described. However, these authors have assembled what may be the single most comprehensive, detailed account and written it like an anecdote-rich, lively business-based novel. We do wish they had included a timeline and a list of sources, since they have had the benefit of being able to draw on all of that other work, on indictments and on testimony before courts and Congress, but their account is engrossing and complete. If you read just one book on the Enron scandal, we believe this may be the book to read.
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