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Books : Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of EnronIn association with Amazon.comby: Robert Bryce  List Price: $18.50 Amazon.com's Price: $16.65 You Save: $1.85 (10%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 333.790973 EAN: 9781586482015 ISBN: 1586482017 Label: PublicAffairs Manufacturer: PublicAffairs Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 440 Publication Date: January 07, 2004 Publisher: PublicAffairs Release Date: January 06, 2004 Studio: PublicAffairs Sales Rank: 495874 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: After the shocking collapse of Enron in fall, 2001 came an equally shocking series of disclosures about how America's seventh-largest company had destroyed itself. There were unethical deals, offshore accounts, and accounting irregularities. There were Wall Street analysts who seemed to have been asleep on the job. There were the lies top executives told so that they could line their own pockets while workers and shareholders lost billions. But after all these disclosures, the question remains: Why? Why did a thriving, innovative company with rock-solid cash flow and reliable earnings suddenly flame out in a maelstrom of corruption, fraud and skulduggery? The answer, Texas business journalist Robert Bryce reveals in this incisive and entertaining book, is that bad business practices begin with human beings. Pipe Dreams traces Enron's astounding transformation from a small regional gas pipeline company into an energy Goliath...and then tracks step-by-step, business decision by business decision, extra-marital affair by extra-marital affair, how, when and why the culture of Enron began to go rotten, and who was responsible. The story of Enron's fall isn't just a story about accounting procedures; it's a story about people. Bryce tells that story with all the personality, passion, humor, and inside dope you'd hope for, and the result is an un-putdownable read in the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Predators' Ball. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Ultimate Organizational Culture PieceI've used this book at the undergraduate and graduate level to stimulate class discussion about ethics and organizational culture. Student reaction has been excellent. Rating:  - The Foward by Molly Ivans should be a clueThe fact that an alleged business book has a forward by Molly Ivans lets you know that this book will be more political and slanted than others. I could care less about politics which is why I found this book so dissapointing. Despite the fact that Enron thrived under the Clinton era, Bryce seems obsessed with slamming Bush. So instead of information on the actual causes of the Enron debacle we have endless Bush bashing which for even non Bush fans (like myself) ruins the whole reason for reading ... Read More Rating:  - Entertaining But Unnecessarily BiasedThis is a highly readable account of some of the highlights of the Enron collapse. The author provides a very easy-to-understand account of the financial manipulation of the company's books. In an attemtp to make the book popular and available to a wider audience, the analysis seems to be *very* superficial. In some cases, the critical comments the author makes of some of Enron's employees ignore the fact of the way the business world works. For example, there is a constant drible about Enron's political ... Read More Rating:  - Brazos49 is RightJust finished reading this and was disappointed to the point of deciding to write a non-positive review. I expected to see piles of glowing reviews and be that lone dissenter, but I was pleased to see Brazos49's review. He is right on the money - and even in tune with some sideline players, whereas I echo his statements from the position of a total outsider. Yes, it was a quick light read - fun at times - but there was no meat, no real explanation, clearly no understanding of finance and real business by the ... Read More Rating:  - Uber-Execucrats Get StompedOut of many books available on the Enron travesty, this one probably offers the most bang for the buck with its fast-moving and incredibly informative structure. Bryce has sufficient skills as an investigative journalist and provides a healthy mix of history, finance, and politics, allowing the general reader to understand what happened with that ridiculous corporate house of cards at Enron. Bryce's main theory is that the company was done in by a lack of hard cash, as just about all of its revenues were long ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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