
Power Failure
The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron
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Narrado por:
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Karen White
“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment.
“Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode....
Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America.
Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s.
At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles.
The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums.
Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are:
- CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture
- Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool
- Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company
- Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets
An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades - Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker - as one of the cautionary tales of our times.
©2003 MiMi Swartz (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















Reseñas de la Crítica
"Paints the most detailed portrait yet of the company's ambitious executives and toxic culture." (BusinessWeek)
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A worthwhile addition to my Enron library
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It is shocking and at the same time incredibly interesting to go into depth in this true story which left so many without retirement due to few extremely greedy ignorant persons,like Ken Lay and wife,shopping so much in Franch, that most of the staff flying on ,,one of the ,, Enrons privat jet,had to take commercial airliner back home.(What a shame).
Power Failure
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Fascinating story
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A window into Corporate America
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Unless you are really really hooked on Enron...
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Enron still facinates
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Brian, I note that you gave the book just one star stating that it contained errors of fact.
Whilst I respect your viewpoint; unless you can actually back it up with fact, then your review that could have been really useful, is in fact, worthless.
If there are factual errors, tell us what they are. Are you talking about some major financial details being incorrectly reported? If so, what should they be and why.
For all we know, you might just be talking about that Ken Lay got for Christmas in 1981.
You clearly posted that the book has errors. If so:
1. What ARE the errors you are speaking of? If there are too many to list, just provide us with the top five mistakes, for example.
2. Tell us why you are correct in your views, and convince us to believe you by providing at least some basic factual back up and how the issue should have been reported.
3. Once I have this - I am listening big time.
4. What frustrates me is that you spend 3 minutes posting some flippant and unqualified statements which may have an impact on either its author reader. These feedback reviews are critical to most of us. Yes, it is our right to state our opinion (and thank goodness for it), but without a constructive and informed argument, your words are worse than useless; even if you have some valid points.
Absolutely Spellbinding.
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Good book, narator is a bit annoying
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A Truly Compelling Look at Greed and Arrogance
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Wild Ride
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