The Smartest Guys in the Room
by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
Enron's rise and collapse: mark-to-market accounting, the off-balance-sheet partnerships, the culture of rank-and-yank, and the executives who believed their own story. Long, detailed and definitive.
Read it if…
you want the full anatomy of a corporate collapse.
See the book →
Skip it if…
you want brevity.
Try instead: Andrew Carnegie →
Three things you will actually use
- Complexity hides fraud.
- Culture of winning at all costs costs everything.
- Ask what the business actually does.
Do this first
Read the chapters on Andy Fastow's partnerships.
Our verdict
Enron, anatomised.
See the book →
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