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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
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From 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. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product details
Series: later printing
Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover; First Printing edition (October 13, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591840082
ISBN-13: 978-1591840084
Product Dimensions:
6.5 x 1.4 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
Average Customer Review:
4.5 out of 5 stars
329 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#60,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
I've had this book on my shelf for about 10 years, but for some reason I'd never gotten around to reading it. Perhaps it was because I'd read Kurt Eichenwald's "Conspiracy of Fools" and may have felt that nothing could surpass that. Given the passage of time I can't say which is better, but this is an amazing book, possibly made even more amazing by the passage of time itself and the fact that I didn't replace this copy with the 10th anniversary edition.If this had been fiction, it likely would have been criticized for lacking credibility -- how could any company become the "evil empire" that seems to have been Enron? Of course, it's not fiction, and even if one assumes that the authors may have exaggerated or left out some facts that might have made the villains look less evil, it's still a "credibly incredible" book.The book demonstrates the authors' intelligence, diligence and writing ability. There are a few passages that one might argue are too detailed, but for the most part I felt that the detailed explanations were helpful and even if they hadn't been the book is eminently readable and compelling. If you like this sort of book, this is a must-read; even if you don't, it's pretty damn good.
This account of the fall of Enron should be required reading for business students and in ethics courses. If you ever wondered how excessive greed and unethical behavior on this scale could happen without someone opening their mouth, I invite you to read this book to see just how easy it was for those operating in grey areas to manipulate data and facts to reap huge profits while convincing themselves and others that they “technically “ weren’t doing anything wrong.From the book:“The larger message was that the wealth and power enjoyed by those at the top of the heap in corporate America demand no sense of broader responsibility. To accept those arguments is to embrace the notion that ethical behavior requires nothing more than avoiding the explicitly illegal, that refusing to see the bad things happening in front of you makes you innocent, and that telling the truth is the same thing as making sure that no one can prove you lied.â€
I found the title of this book to be quite ironic, yet appropriate. Only ‘smart guys’ could pull off such a scandal such as the Enron fiasco, but you then have to ask yourself “How can SMART guys also be so blindly stupid?†If one were to truly believe CEO Jeff Skilling when he said that he never felt he was doing anything immoral, yet always thought he was acting in the best interests of Enron, how could that same person believe him when he abruptly resigns from the company months before its epic bankruptcy while cashing in $60 million of his stock options?As authors McLean and Elkind tell us, the simple answer is greed. Even if you don’t believe in God nor the Bible, you have to give the author of the Good Book credit when he tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil.The ironic thing is that the Enron story is so complex, that even the most prudent financial experts in the industry had a hard time deciphering the deception. Let’s be honest, the average layman gets a bit lost when reading things such as a company’s balance sheet or a 10k report, so when the financial experts kept telling everyone how great Enron was and that they were the visionary for the future, why would anyone doubt it? Even the employees (sadly) were so convinced of the positive spin, that they had the bulk of their 401k savings invested in their own company.It was ironic that the co-author of the book (Bethany McLean) first started the ripples by throwing a small stone in the pond with an article in Fortune Magazine titled “Is Enron Overpriced?†It was all downhill for the energy mogul from there.Unfortunately, the same reason why people never could (nor can now) really understand the complex financial irregularities of the company, is the same reason why this book falters a bit. The authors spend well over half of this book going over the ill-gotten deals that Enron procured in immense financial detail. Many of the chapters read like a 30-page financial statement. In other words, if you have a PhD in Finance, you might find the bulk of the material in the book readable, but for the rest of us, it’s just too much, and we get lost. I found myself skimming over many of the chapters describing the many endeavors that the company embarked on with the simple task of masquerading the fact that they weren’t actually making any money.The chapters I found more interesting were the ones where the authors were describing some of the key players at the top of the Enron food chain, and how their misguided morals influenced not only how they did business, but how they lived their personal lives as well. It’s seems as though most of the senior players had gotten a divorce at some point while they were raking in millions, and I lost track of all of the illicit romantic affairs going on between the key players. It’s also fascinating (yet not surprising) to read about how most of the top-level employees hated each other, and the immeasurable amount of backstabbing that went on amongst the leaders.The book I read was a ’10-year anniversary’ edition, and the authors discuss in the coda that, sadly, things in the business world haven’t changed as much as they probably should in lieu of the Enron scandal. As long as there is greed, there will always be corruption. In that sense, the Enron story should be a model for companies everywhere. Fortunately, I would say that more and more companies are embracing a culture of teamwork and truly being more philanthropic, but there are still companies out there that advocate that, in order to be successful, you have to step on everyone else’s neck to get to the top – even if that neck belongs to someone else in the company. Such was the culture that Skilling and his minions encouraged.A fascinating, yet depressing story. Good, but overall, I would have liked more personability and less minutia around the many complex financial dealings.
This is a very informative story about the operation within Enron. It identifies some creative methods of making a company look financially good when it has little cash or assets to support that position. The writers appear to me to be unbiased. They point out that a lot of the financial operations started out legal, but as time went on the executives shifted toward an illegal method. They thought that they were really "the smartest guys in the room" and nobody would ever untangle the web of finances they created. It is amazing how many high level people, including presidents of the United States bought into the story.If you have an accounting background, you will understand the story better than the average reader. I am an engineer, but I was able to understand the manipulations enough to enjoy reading it. As a result of this scandal, many new regulations were put into effect that are now costing all of us money as the companies must follow them and the government must monitor them.
This is supposed to be the preeminent book on Enron and it's pretty good. It covers the greed, conflicting company policies, incredibly poor management, and willing ignorance both of the principal executives and upper level employees. It's no surprise the company failed and took alot of innocent (and some not so innocent) employees down with it. What I wanted to read and didn't were lower level employee stories of their transition from pride to discouragement and more about the widespread collateral damage the company caused. It's a good, well written, and informative read and if you are interested in Enron you will enjoy it, but it was rushed to print and needs a post collapse update by its authors.
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