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Holistic Guidance - The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
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List Price: $16.00
Our Price: $10.88
Your Save: $ 5.12 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Portfolio Trade
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.790973
EAN: 9781591840534
ISBN: 1591840538
Label: Portfolio Trade
Manufacturer: Portfolio Trade
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 464
Publication Date: 2004-09-28
Publisher: Portfolio Trade
Release Date: 2004-09-28
Studio: Portfolio Trade
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Editorial Reviews:
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Just as Watergate was the defining political story of its time, so Enron is the biggest business story of our time. And just as All the President’s Men was the one Watergate book that gave readers the full story, with all the drama and nuance, The Smartest Guys in the Room is the one book you have to read to understand this amazing business saga. And the critics agree:
“This book is right up there with Den of Thieves and Barbarians at the Gate. . . . Those who want to learn what happened here, you don’t have to read anything but this.” —James Cramer, CNBC
“The best book about the Enron debacle to date. . . . Based on hundreds of interviews and fresh details, McLean and Elkind masterfully weave together the many strands of the Enron story. They shine in their characterizations of Enron’s often incompetent executives.” —Wendy Zellner, BusinessWeek
“News junkies and mystery lovers who enjoy financial scandals will devour this multilayered book. . . . The Smartest Guys in the Room will rival other models of the genre, including James Stewart’s Den of Thieves. . . . The authors write with power and finesse. Their prose is effortless, like a sprinter floating down the track. . . . The character sketches of former chairman Kenneth Lay, former CEO Jeff Skilling and ex-chief financial officer Andrew Fastow are masterful.” — Edward Iwata, USA Today
“Powerful and shocking. . . . succeed[s] in opening a disturbing window into both the company and the era . . . filled with fascinating characters and anecdotes.” —Jonathan A. Knee, The New York Times Book Review
“The Smartest Guys in the Room is utterly professional, readable and—even though you know what’s coming—highly entertaining.” —Daniel Gross, The Washington Post
“Meticulously reported and compelling . . . a cautionary tale about highfliers who weren’t as clever as they thought.” —David Koeppel, Entertainment Weekly
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Advanced accounting shenanigans don't create value
Comment: Very 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 was not understanding his own limitations first and foremost. He breaks out a bottle of champagne to celebrate SEC's acceptance of a change in Enron's accounting system. Accounting does not create value - it does not appear that many Enron executives (especially Skillings who should have known better) understood this.
McLean and Elkind do a nice job presenting some of the schemes and scams that Enron executives used to make themselves look good to investors, analysts, bankers and the general public. There are some scams that I had a hard time following, but the reader will grasp the general idea behind them. In light of recent accounting scandals, this is an important book to read for any investors and the public in general. Unfortunately the book ends around summer of 2002 and we do not find out what happens to some of the key characters. My interest was sparked enough that I researched some of the more recent findings after reading the book. Despite its difficulty to read at times I highly recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Corporate arrogance gone amok
Comment: When 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 story with which Enron rose and the calamitous pace at which it fell. The Enron tale is one of brash arrogance in almost every possible facet of a business, allied to a stubborn refusal to accept the economic reality even when it is staring you in the face. The real shame about the whole mess is that these were bright guys and this was potentially a great company. All they had to do was have a little common sense and regular business accumen and they could have been on to a real winner here.
I would ultimately say to everyone that has an interest in business or the financial markets, however slight, that this book is a thumping good read and is worth some money ouot of anyone's pocket.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fascinating bio of Enron for the layman, though a bit over-dramatized
Comment: This 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 to understand what happened over Enron's 15-20 years of existence.
However, as with most journalistic novels like this, you need to be careful to not be influenced by the slant of the prose. I wouldn't say that this account is neutral enough to be good for a "historical" perspective. It was written to sell first, inform second. There are countless statements throughout that could be construed as overly opinionated and even unfair to some of the players.
This is the story of Enron for the layman, not for an MBA student performing a case study on the company. If you're an interested layman like me, do yourself a favor and read it!
Customer Rating:
Summary: intelligence is overrated
Comment: An interesting story of how a corporate belief in hiring intelligent people, or at least people who boast they are intelligent, leads to hubris and eventual ruin.
When everything finally collapses, no one is responsible and no one did anything wrong. A telling tail of how smart people can convince themselves of things better than they can convince the world.
What might Enron have done differently? The authors feel that Enron's use of "mark to market" accounting (booking the entire profits long term deal up front, based on a model of the future; the company is then supposed to adjust their revenues as time passes and the model is tested) was largely responsible for losses that Enron then hid.
The length, at 400 pages, is imposing but goes by quickly. However, the authors took the unusual step of listing all the players with their role, which really helps with getting all the names straight.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Guise Indeed
Comment: I still wonder if the title is supposed to be a play on the homonym "Smartest guise in the room."
The authors step meticulously through the company's existence from the promising and fruitful beginnings of its energy operations to it's ultimate demise as America's largest bankruptcy with $10s of billions of debt.
The most enlightening aspects of the Enron saga are the personalities and personal journeys of each of the key players behind Enron's existence. I think it's fair to say, in general, that most successful people in business are either 1) Brilliant, 2)Incredibly charismatic, or 3)Fortunate benefactors of nepotism. The founder (Ken Lay) wasn't very business smart, but had a good idea and was amazingly charismatic and quickly roped in his crack team.
The reader very quickly sees what happens when incredibly intelligent people are put together towards a common goal in an atmosphere of amoral adherence to the "letter of the law". The operation was legitimately making money hand over fist the first year or so...but quickly after that, all "profits" were merely the magic of clever accounting.
This is a story of brilliance turned to hubris and invincibility but yet no accountability. I think the theme of the epilogue "Is anybody to blame?" sums up well the personalities of the key players involved. Everyone felt as though they had done nothing wrong. It's almost impossible to pinpoint when any laws had actually been broken...the regime was one continual exploitation of loopholes and gray areas.
The tale is truly terrifying in a very real sense. It's amazing to think that one of the worst businesses in American history was heralded as stable and as a "good buy" by many Wall Street analysts even up until the day before it imploded and ruined thousands of people's lives as well as the bottom line in some of the world's largest banks. It's amazing that brilliant accountants and relentlessly charismatic leaders can do more to bolster the stock of a company than actual legitimate earnings.
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