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Title: Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron by Robert Bryce, Molly Ivins ISBN: 1-58648-138-X Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (33 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Dumb as a Box of Hammers
Comment: The Enron books are coming out now, perhaps as fast as stock options granted to key executives at Enron. I expect some of these books will contain mind numbing financial details attempting to explain in very technical terms JEDI, Chewco, "roll-ups" "swaps" and "mark to market" accounting. This is not that book. With Molly Ivins providing an introduction, Pipe Dreams is a primer on ego, greed and ambition reminiscent of James B. Stewart's infamous summary of Michael Milken's shenanigans in Den of Thieves.
While the players have changed the hubris has not. The tops of many corporations continue to be littered with individuals whose first mantra is "What's in it for me?" With the 1990's stock market providing an unlimited supply of investor cash, Bryce describes a new breed of Enron executives with their prestigious MBA's in hand, who ultimately overlooked the simplest of economic realities, you can't spend more than you make, at least not forever. The real story of Enron begins with the departure of Richard Kinder. Kinder, a stickler for detail and results, imposed a financial discipline on Enron which required every senior manager manage costs and results. At the time Enron is basically a pipeline company with a steady positive cash flow. Enron is a real money maker, but in the eyes of a certain Harvard Business School alum, Jeffrey Skilling, just a bit boring.
At its core this is ultimately a story about Jeffrey Skilling. Skilling, a McKinsey consultant with a Harvard Business School pedigree, is described in Bryce's book as the "Smartest son of ... I ever knew." A guru of new economics where the deal is more important than cash flow, Skilling ultimately proved to be financially "dumb as a box of hammers."
Bryce understandably cannot resist the temptation to inject more than a few editorial barbs into this work, perhaps because the actions of the players were so outrageous. In the end, this book will make you mad, no matter what your politics.
The book is written in an easy reading, chronological and conversational style. The 51 individual chapters are relatively short, focused on particular subjects and easy to follow. Unfortunately, while excellent, this book emphasizes only the main Enron management players; a disengaged and out of touch Ken Lay, a beguiling and ostentatious Rebecca Mark intent on making her deals regardless of the economics, an ambitious, too smart and financially undisciplined Jeffrey Skilling and a scheming Andy Fastow. For the most part the book ignores meaningful insights into the individual actions (or inactions) of the auditors and the Board of Directors which when the lawsuits and federal prosecution dust settle should provide additional fodder for a needed sequel.
Perhaps Bryce's most intriguing anecdote is the story of an Enron employee with a graduate degree from the University of Oklahoma. From my perspective here in Dallas, if Oklahoma ain't Texas it is mighty close. And when it comes to the energy bidness those folks in Massachusetts generally don't know their bottom from a dry hole. However, because she had a degree from OU instead of that other school, she was ostracized and condemned to the lower levels of Enron management. Sadly she was probably a lot better manager than the Harvard box of hammers.
Rating: 5
Summary: Getting the Wrongs Right
Comment: The great challenge of journalism is to take important information and make it interesting enough for people to read. Unfortunately, daily reporting rarely has the time or resources to write the kinds of stories that might have impact. And there are two few reporters who have the skills to make us interested, much less motivate us to push for change.
Fortunately, Robert Bryce as a full complement of abilities and he has deployed them skillfully in his book, "Pipe Dreams." Bryce has done what neither daily journalism nor the government has been able to accomplish: tell the true story of what went wrong at Enron. And he does it brilliantly.
Bryce drew upon 200 interviews to get the story of mighty Enron's collapse. Everyone who reads the papers or watches the network news knows that there are many things wrong with business and politics. "Pipe Dreams" will be your first chance to learn exactly how corrupted our economy and our democracy have become. Getting the big picture and getting it right is accomplishment enough. But Bryce has given the story a narrative engine that makes it move like a novel. He'll get criticized for being gossipy and breezy in some of his writing. But take out the anecdotes about the people who wrecked Enron and you would have another academic deconstruct of a business that failed. And the story of Enron is so much more that that.
Bryce gets the reader from the beginning when he takes you to an overcrowded job fair with a long time Enron employee. She can't find work. But the people who ruined her company and cost her a job, Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, Andrew Fastow, Rebecca Mark, are all living the lives of multi-millionaires after selling their stock before the collapse. Greed and ambition have long been popular sins in oil town Houston, but Enron execs gave them new dimensions. Self-indulgence also became their favorite past time.
...Bryce has grabbed it all, spread it out on the table for us all to see and shake our heads at. Read it. Get your friends to read it. And then get mad. And do something about it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great reporting by Robert Bryce
Comment: The victory of Pipe Dreams lies in its readability. As US prosecutors have explained in their dogged attempts to nail down a case against Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, "If WorldCom was arithmetic, then Enron is advanced calculus." Despite the inherent complexity of Enron's downfall (derivatives, SPEs, mark-to-market accounting, and 'pre-paids' all figure heavily here), Robert Bryce tells a compelling, gripping tale.
Bryce's reporting mixes the personalities (all the main ones are covered here - Skilling, Lay, Rebecca Mark, Ken Rice, Lou Pai, Andy Fastow, Michael Kopper, etc.) and the financial details. Bryce's mastery is he gives you a flavor for shady dealings like Fastow-created partnerships such as the now notorious LJM1 and LJM2. He explains their intent, references a chart that speaks to their inherent complexity, winks at the reader (hey, he says, obfuscation was the point here), and then points to their fatal flaws (e.g., Fastow sitting on both sides of the table, financial solvency based upon a constantly-rising stock price, etc.)
Bryce is a reporter that can interweave facts like that with delicious stories of Rebecca Mark's high dollar globetrotting, replete with obscene private plane trips - often flying her, alone, to far-flung locales - and wonderfully evocative stories of her making speeches to water works executives...and dramatically flinging off her full-length sable coat as she ascends to the stage. Well, any hack writer can't pull that off. Pipe Dreams is a combination of good old-fashioned reporting (200+ interviews) and great writing chops. In short, it's a great read.
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Title: Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron by SHERRON WATKINS, MIMI SWARTZ ISBN: 0385507879 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind ISBN: 1591840082 Publisher: Portfolio Pub. Date: 13 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider by Brian Cruver ISBN: 0786710934 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Enron: The Rise and Fall by Loren Fox ISBN: 0471237604 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 20 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: 24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies that Destroyed Faith in Corporate America by Rebecca Smith, John R. Emshwiller ISBN: 0060520736 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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