Capture Conspiracy Of Fools (PART 2 OF 2) Showcased By Kurt Eichenwald In Electronic Format

is a long book almostpages but an easy read, Everyone knows the story of Enron from the anecdotes, and I've read a few other books on the subject, but this is by far the best and most complete.
It does a great job of tracing how some minor decisions years earlier to use marktomarket accounting, to form offbalancesheet entities that really weren't, managed by Andy Fastow, who probably shouldn't have been managing a McDonalds led to it's ultimate collapse.


The "Conspiracy of Fools" title is fitting while Fastow and a few others committed massively illegal acts, much of the other players including Lay and Skilling are portrayed primarily as incompetent they didn't bother to find out what was really going on.
The book also highlights a few other people, especially Jeff McMahon who sounded warnings about the behaviors and were ignored.


There are a number of lessons from this book, but the biggest is probably that you should read anything you sign.
If Shakespeare was alive, he would have stolen this Conspiracy of Fools's plot and written a play: The Tragical Death of Enron.
It's got it all.

An aging ruler must choose his successor a boring, responsible guy or an exciting, dashing, brilliant risk taker.
He chooses the risk taker, But although his successor is exciting and bold, he lacks the inner strength and moral compass to guide the kingdom.
Things quickly start to go wrong, so he chooses a clever man to look after the kingdom's money one he knows will cheat and lie for him.
But in the end, the clever man cheats and lies for himself, and the new leader, full of hubris, is brought down by his inability to face his own failure.
The kingdom ends up in ruins, the risk taker is imprisoned, the old ruler dies broken and shamed, and the thief walks away with millions.


It's a great story, and all true, The whole book was remarkably well done, I've never read a non fiction book that feels like a great fiction narrative,

I believe this story should be mandatory for every MBA student's graduation, For the nonbusiness nerds, it is still a fascinating look at the inner workings of corporate greed to an extreme level.
Very well written. A corporate culture of greed, a focus on fast profits, a few bad eggs, and a ridiculous lack of board, executive, and accounting oversight combined to turn Enron into a catastrophic failure.


The most interesting thing for me was that a few Enron employees were aware of what was happening, but either didn't want to speak up, or spoke up and were ignored sometimes repeatedly.


While I was reading, I wondered whether the shenanigans would have been exposed earlier if data was made available to all Enron employees for scrutiny, and a process was in place for employees to take up concerns.
The alternative structure which led to Enron's downfall was a system of trust between Enron and Andersen who audited but also consulted for Enron, and Enron's execs and board.
The Andersen guys faced pressure to let some of Enron's accounting misdeeds slip by for fear of jeopardizing huge consulting revenue.
And the board would rubberstamp crooked deals because the execs had signed off on them,

All in all, a worthwhile read, . . the first two or three hundred pages were interesting, and at times dry, but the last two hundred pages flew by.
Not as boring as I thought it was going to be! The beginning was a little slow, but really necessary to set the scene.
Theres A LOT that went on that eventually led to the bankruptcy and its such an insane story.
If you need me, Ill be on an Enron/financial crimes deep dive for the next week.
I can't believe how many pages I slogged through for absolutely no reason, What a waste ofperfectly good pieces of paper,

First of all, let me say that I generally mistrust nonfiction books that have so much dialog, particularly when it stretches back into thes.
Seriously, did everyone involved have such photographic memories, And, while

Eichenwald does a whole thing at the beginning about what is and isn't true to life, it still felt weird.
Not, however, as weird as the many comments along the lines of: "X was quietly repulsed by Y chewing with his mouth open".
Are you kidding me Eichenwald so obviously aches to be the John Grisham of nonfiction, But nonfiction isn't Grisham, things aren't that cliched in real life, and Grisham is an awful writer anyway.


But here is the real bad stuff: most of the time, sources are anonymous, To be expected in this kind of book, perhaps, but sorta unnerving when the author basically takes the stand that both CEO Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were both just crappy supervisors who, when it came down to it, didn't ask the right questions of Andy Fastow, wicked and evil villain of the piece who, by the way, may have been smart enough to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, but was actually a pretty dull bulb himself.


I don't know, I feel like I did learn some stuff about the Enron fall, and the actual mechanics of the kind of accounting and deals that led to the disaster, but I question Eichenwald's notions of motivation.
Moreover, I found it odd how totally Eichenwald failed to put the whole Enron scandal in ANY broader context.
The way the book was written, it really seemed as if the company was operating in a vacuum without any sort of connection to other businesses except those, like Arthur Andersen, who were directly implicated or to the country as a whole.
It also seemed strange that so many people were so outraged by Andy Fastow and the Enron schemes but really never opened their mouths.


Less a case of forest for the trees as "Couldn't see the Sahara for that two or three grains of sand you kept staring at crosswise.
"

Very disappointing and very odd, By far the best 'behind the scenes' look at what was a very public and heavily reported event.
Reading this was like watching a NASCAR race where you know there will be a wreck, you're just not sure when.
The early chapters set the stage perfectly, A company that was far more lucky than skilled, filled with executives who had far more confidence than talent, doing transactions they were never meant to do.
By the middle of the book, I was astonished at how deep the criminal activities and outright arrogance had penetrated throughout the company.
By the final chapters, I was simply appalled at the blatant ignorance of leadership and the complete disregard for basic financial controls in a company that had already collapsed several months, perhaps even a few years, before anyone at the firm began to grasp that something was wrong.
A great example of the extent that corporations placed profits and growth above everything else during the turbulent years of the rise and fall of the dot com business world.
signed by author Enron is not just a story about numbers, it's a human tragedy,

I read this book with my mouth wide open, I am not the smartest cookie in the tub but I could not fathom how so many people allowed so many crimes to happen.
Enron didn't just end with the ending of a business, it TRANSFORMED accounting laws and practices, It absolutely changed America's perception of our homegrown companies,

Captivating, absolutely fascinating story, This book was beyond throughly written, I had watched a few documentaries about Enron but none of them touched the NUMEROUS causes of Enron's crash like this book did.
At times, the author tried to pinpoint which mistake led to the inevitable downfall of the company but that is an impossible task.
Kurt also tried to find the main perpetrator behind Enron's demise and while many will debate that Andy Fastow is that person, I'd have to disagree.
There isn't one Enron executive who is clean, I knew how the story was going to turn out and I was still captivated, Great book. You may have heard of the collapse of Enron, a massive energy conglomerate that went bankrupt in the early's.
There have been several books, articles and documentaries that covered the event, This book by Kurt Eichenwald not only provides the most authoritative behindthescenes look at what unfolded, but is also one of the best business books written in the lastyears.


This book most reminded me of Too Big to Fail, another great book that covered a subsequent event, the financial crisis of.
If you liked that book, you will love this one as well, The book is written like a narrative story and always keeps the reader interested however, you do need to know a little bit about investing or finance so it will be a bit tougher than the usual book.
The author does a good job fleshing out many of the key characters and does a good job of presenting a balanced view of them there wasn't just one bad guy but a bunch of them and it's never obvious if what one is doing is unethical or illegal.


Eichenwald has spent a considerable amount of time on the research behind the events and does an admirable job piecing together all the disparate and highly complex financial actions carried out by the numerous characters.
It's almost like a business detective story,

I think this is one of the best narrativestyle business books written in the lastyears.
Given the subject with complex financial transactions and confusing organizational structure and numerous characters, the book might be a little more difficult for those not familiar with finance, investing, or the energy business.
Nevertheless, I would recommend it to all with an interest in business history, Those into investing should definitely read this book or others like it to get a feel for what can, and does, happen at companieseven one repeatedly ranked by Fortune as the most innovative company in America.
I first heard about Enron around when it happened circa, Back then, it didn't mean anything to me, yet I somehow remembered,years later, I decided to learn more and got this book,

It's gripping.

It reads like a novel, There is mystery, drama and action all surprising to find in a book about a corporate accounting scandal.
It's quite long, but very readable, It was tricky to keep track of the huge cast of characters, but that's with real events.
I don't know how accurate vs, embellished it is, but it feels real, On the negative side, there is a lot of accounting/economics/business terminology, but it's understandable if you're focused.


Overall, it did really feel like a conspiracy of fools, The outcome of all the crime and negligence felt predictable and at the end, I couldn't help but wonder how the executives really let it happen.
Very thorough, detailed, and insightful view into the players and actions at Enron and Anderson, “This, then, is more than the tale of one companys fall from grace, It is, at its base, the story of a wrenching period of economic and political tumult as revealed through a single corporate scandal.
It is a portrait of an America in upheaval at the turn of the twentyfirst century, a country torn between its worship of fast money and its zeal for truth, between greed and highmindedness, between Wall Street and Main Street.
Ultimately, it is the story of the untold damage wreaked by a nations follya folly that, in time, we are all but certain to see again.
”

This book chronicles the rise and fall of Enron, the American energy company headquartered in Houston, that declared bankruptcy in late.
It centers on the actions of the companys executives, board of directors, and management, It also portrays the downfall of auditing giant Arthur Andersen, I know people who were impacted by the companys implosion, I always wondered what, specifically, had happened, This book provides the answers,

It is wellwritten in a series of vignettes focused on the key players, I have to give the author credit for making a book about accounting, finance, and consulting into a riveting pageturner.
I think it helps to have a background in one or more of these disciplines to fully appreciate the details, but anyone can spot the greed, hubris, incompetence, and blind trust that led, ultimately, to the ignominious downfall and huge losses of jobs, pensions, and investments.


“Ultimately, it was Enrons tragedy to be filled with people smart enough to know how to maneuver around the rules, but not wise enough to understand why the rules had been written in the first place.
”.