The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind

The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron

by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind

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Business & FinanceCrime & Justice

Enron's business was largely an illusion, and a lot of smart people were paid well not to look closely. McLean started with a simple question in 2001: was the stock overpriced? She and Elkind trace how mark-to-market accounting and off-book entities turned imagined future profits into today's earnings.

Core ideas
  • The illusion: Not a single theft, but a culture that let future profits count as present earnings.
  • The people: Lay's absence, Skilling's arrogance and Fastow's self-dealing drove it. These weren't abstract market forces.
  • The enablers: Andersen, the banks, the rating agencies and the analysts all went along.
Published2003
Pages440
ISBN9781591840534
ReadJul 2026

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