The Smartest Guys in the Room

The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron

By: Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

Length: 20 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

What went wrong with American business at the end of the 20th century?

Until the spring of 2001, Enron epitomised the triumph of the New Economy. Feared by rivals, worshipped by investors, Enron seemingly could do no wrong. Its profits rose every year; its stock price surged ever upward; its leaders were hailed as visionaries. 

Then a young Fortune writer, Bethany McLean, wrote an article posing a simple question - how, exactly, does Enron make its money? 

Within a year Enron was facing humiliation and bankruptcy, the largest in US history, which caused Americans to lose faith in a system that rewarded top insiders with millions of dollars, while small investors lost everything. It was revealed that Enron was a company whose business was an illusion, an illusion that Wall Street was willing to accept even though they knew what the real truth was. This book tells the extraordinary story of Enron's fall.

©2020 Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind (P)2020 Penguin Audio

An excellent summary of a complicated collapse

A very enjoyable story explaining the collapse of Enron. A failure if controls across the board. Those who were
Everyone was prepared to look the other - as long as there was money to be made.

Immeasurable greed and swaggering lust for power

Well written and well read. Shocking to hear of the extent to which Enron took everyone for a ride.

If you wanted a deep understanding, avoid

For many years, I’ve been intrigued by the collapse of large companies and Enron was definitely at the top of my interests. However, this book certainly did not help with my intrigue.

The book was more of a chronological commentary of what happened, but didn’t necessarily explain why or how. It doesn’t delve into understanding why Mark to Market Accounting was the issue, the relevance of the funds Fastow had created and it felt more like a Jeff Skilling biography than anything else.

It’s a let down in that respect, I found plenty of resources online that helped explain why and how, this book didn’t.

A testament to greed

A fascinating expose of the biggest bankruptcy in US history. The accounting frauds are well explained, and were inevitably discovered. A great book , which was well read.

A story well told

I was worried about the size of the audiobook but was impressed by the authors ability to keep the whole thing very interesting and not dwell into describing carpet colours for hours

An excellent listen

A story well worth telling, well told. It’s a long listen - it needs to be to do justice to the many facets of who and what went wrong at Enron. However, Dennis Boutsikaris’s delightfully dry, slightly arch performance suits the text perfectly and kept me listening as the story unfolded. It’s just a slight shame that the audiobook isn’t synced with the Kindle edition.

Eye opening

To read how the 90s turned good honest men/women into greedy self absorbed money piranhas.

Well written, great narration & easy to follow. Found some of the explanations of particular trades & codes a little bit daunting as it’s an area not familiar with & more time in the actual employee who suffered- but in the whole recommended

incredibly interesting but also too long

the the book is truly interesting read. however staying at 20 hours long it is also definitely definitely too long. it goes unnecessarily into a level of details that may be of interest to just a tiny niche. all in all though it is a book that I would strongly recommend to read

Very interesting

Great book however there does seem to be an incongruous skip at (I think ch13)

Long winded

Incredible detail, could be told in fewer words, loses the listeners attention. Attention to detail is incredible.

Great listen

Very detailed story that led to the demise of enron. Explanation was very clear and the audio form was good (no graphs or tables needed). Narration was good too. Some can argue the book described too many different characters.