Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider

Abstract

Brian Cruver was a firsthand witness to the disturbing, surreal, and hilarious moments of Enrons long dance with death. When he first entered Enrons office complex, the Death Star, he was the epitome of the Enron employee: young, brash, sporting a shiny new MBA, and obscenely overpaid. From his first day, however, when he was told that some colleagues hadnt really wanted to see him hired, he found himself in the middle of a venal greed machine whose story unfolded with all the absurdity and frustration of a tale by Kafka crossed with Tulipomania and Liars Poker. While Cruvers book examines the accounting tricks, the insider stock tradesand in a special section, how the grossly lucrative fraudulent partnerships were structured and fundedit also describes everyday life as an Enroniancocky wheeling and dealing, the sex n keg party on the trade floor, casual conversations at the shredder, and the insidious group-think that made Enron employees unquestioningly accept propaganda spoon-fed them by Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and others, such as Tom White, then Vice-Chairman of Enron Energy Services, now Secretary of the Army under George W. Bush. Part of a team with rare double access to both external customers and internal systems, Cruver reveals the twisted reality behind the worlds perception of Enron as one of the worlds great corporations. Demonstrating a clear understanding of how business issues intertwines with human foibles, Cruver exposes Enrons flaws in an entertaining way all readers can understand. A portrait of the author as a young Enronian, Anatomy of Greed reveals the sting of reality, humility, and pain felt by a man whose idols turned out to be fools and scoundrels, and wholearned that there is more to life than stock options. Soon to be a TV/film drama, this is a gonzo chronicle that goes behind the scenes to chart the decline and fall of the world's weirdest and richest business cult.

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