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Books : Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of EnronIn association with Amazon.com List Price: $26.95 Amazon.com's Price: $6.99 You Save: $19.96 (74%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverFormat: Bargain Price Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 464 Publication Date: October 13, 2003 Sales Rank: 7839 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: What went wrong with American business at the end of the 20th century? Until the spring of 2001, Enron epitomized the triumph of the New Economy. Feared by rivals, worshipped by investors, Enron seemingly could do no wrong. Its profits rose every year; its stock price surged ever upward; its leaders were hailed as visionaries. Then a young Fortune writer, Bethany McLean, wrote an article posing a simple question how, exactly, does Enron make its money? Within a year Enron was facing humiliation and bankruptcy, the largest in US history, which caused Americans to lose faith in a system that rewarded top insiders with millions of dollars, while small investors lost everything. It was revealed that Enron was a company whose business was an illusion, an illusion that Wall Street was willing to accept even though they knew what the real truth was. This book - fully updated for the paperback - tells the extraordinary story of Enron's fall. Amazon.com Review: 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 Average Rating:
 Rating:  - The Crooked EThis book is about a reality so different from my own, I use it as escapism. Although the transactions described are Byzantine, the book nevertheless holds the reader's attention for over 400 pp. Events are presented roughly chronologically; the characters and information accrue like an approaching balloon note; some questions are answered only after the reader has had time to stew. Tension mounts as the house of cards gets impossibly higher! Rating:  - Lehman brothers: Chapt 11Actually read this a few months back but thought I'd pen this short review on the day Lehman brothers filed for Chapt 11, Merril Lynch bought for a bargain by BOA, and AIG "restructuring" (ie throwing everything it can overboard). But, I hear you cry, what does Enron have to do with merchant banks? Well if you read this excellent book, you'll find that by the end of its existence Enron was essentially a merchant bank. It traded risk (and made some handsome profits doing so). The original hard infrastructure ... Read More Rating: - Advanced accounting shenanigans don't create valueVery well researched account of the rise and downfall of Enron. It chronicles the start and the ultimate demise of this company, which never really had a great business model - (sorry Jeff Skilling). It is amazing that so many "smart" people did not understand basic business skills and the simple difference between economic and accounting gains. Jeff Skilling, a former McKinsey partner, should have stayed with the consulting firm where theory is safely differentiated from real world. Skillings' first mistake ... Read More Rating: - Corporate arrogance gone amokWhen one reads 'The Smartest Guys In The Room' there is one question that keeps recurring. How did no-one at Enron foresee the company's grizzly demise. The folly of mark to market accounting was reason enoough to expect certain problems, but the endless treadmill that Enron placed itself on concerning the stock price made those problems an inevitability. Although Elkind and Mclean portray the story well, they really don't have to do much with the material to make a fantastic story of the blistering ... Read More Rating: - Fascinating bio of Enron for the layman, though a bit over-dramatizedThis is probably the best corporate bio of Enron you'll find, at least for now. Very readable, the pages turn quick and it never gets boring. Some of the technical accounting details were beyond me, but it wasn't difficult to understand the bottom line: These schemes were illicitly lining a few pockets with massive amounts of cash. The amount of work that went into this account is mind boggling. I can't imagine the hours of conducting interviews and poring through complex legal and accounting documents ... Read More Browse for similar items by category: 
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