In The Smartest Guys In The Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind present a detailed narrative of the choices and events that led to destruction of Enron in 2001. McLean and Elkind took an investigative approach to expose the truth, lies and drama behind one of the biggest financial scandals of our time.
The book is journalistic by nature, but is intended to draw readers into the drama and personalities of the Enron executives rather than simply provide the facts or a chronological timeline of the scandal. The book exposes the motives, fears, and inherent greed of the Enron key players and provides insight into the decisions that caused the financial crisis.
The massive amount of research and interviews conducted throughout the writing process allowed the authors to develop a cohesive narrative of the corrupt culture and inner workings of the company. The Enron scandal was complicated, and it fooled a lot of very experienced Wall Street and financial investors, but the authors are effective in making the mechanics of the scandal simple and captivating.
The chapters focus primarily on the arrogance, and brilliance, of the key players and the games they played that destroyed their company. The authors use metaphors and summaries of business analysis to make each individual’s actions and mistakes as easy to understand as possible.
The book begins with Ken Lay’s initial venture into the Houston natural gas business and continues to chronicle the growth of Enron into the energy giant it became. The book focuses on Lay, Jeff Skilling, Rebecca Mark, Andy Fastow, Ken Rice and Cliff Baxter who were all key figures associated with the scandal. Each individual had played a separate part in Enron’s fall, and each gets a special spotlight from the authors. The book ends with Enron’s declaration of bankruptcy and does not address any of the media or legal fallouts of the scandal.
The Smartest Guys In The Room is an informative and entertaining account of one of the greatest business crisis scandals of the century. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding more about Enron, or business and financial scandals in general, but the book has little application to instructions in crisis communications, as it does not address the crisis management strategies of the company after the scandal broke.
Sarah Maner
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
The book is journalistic by nature, but is intended to draw readers into the drama and personalities of the Enron executives rather than simply provide the facts or a chronological timeline of the scandal. The book exposes the motives, fears, and inherent greed of the Enron key players and provides insight into the decisions that caused the financial crisis.
The massive amount of research and interviews conducted throughout the writing process allowed the authors to develop a cohesive narrative of the corrupt culture and inner workings of the company. The Enron scandal was complicated, and it fooled a lot of very experienced Wall Street and financial investors, but the authors are effective in making the mechanics of the scandal simple and captivating.
The chapters focus primarily on the arrogance, and brilliance, of the key players and the games they played that destroyed their company. The authors use metaphors and summaries of business analysis to make each individual’s actions and mistakes as easy to understand as possible.
The book begins with Ken Lay’s initial venture into the Houston natural gas business and continues to chronicle the growth of Enron into the energy giant it became. The book focuses on Lay, Jeff Skilling, Rebecca Mark, Andy Fastow, Ken Rice and Cliff Baxter who were all key figures associated with the scandal. Each individual had played a separate part in Enron’s fall, and each gets a special spotlight from the authors. The book ends with Enron’s declaration of bankruptcy and does not address any of the media or legal fallouts of the scandal.
The Smartest Guys In The Room is an informative and entertaining account of one of the greatest business crisis scandals of the century. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding more about Enron, or business and financial scandals in general, but the book has little application to instructions in crisis communications, as it does not address the crisis management strategies of the company after the scandal broke.
Sarah Maner
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill