Library/Business & Economics/The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron

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

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

Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind

McLean and Elkind show how financial engineering, weak oversight, and a culture of arrogance turned Enron into a case study in corporate fraud.

What stuck

  • Complexity can be used to hide weakness just as easily as to create value.
  • A culture that prizes cleverness over truth eventually starts lying to itself.