Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron

By Sherron Watkins, Mimi Swartz, MIMI SWARTZ - SHERRON WATKINS

Book Overview

"They're still trying to hide the weenie," thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company's creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. "Don't assume that there is a smoking gun."
Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode...

Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be "The World's Leading Company," and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America.

Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company's meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay's and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron's money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush's election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron's praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company's leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron's fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums.

Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider's perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron's "outside face," who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron's high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron's mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron's international division, who was Skilling's sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron's deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron's finance department into a "profit center," creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron's "profits," while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets

An unprecedented chronicle of Enron's shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades - Barbarians at the Gate and Liar's Poker - as one of the cautionary tales of our times.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 076791368X
• ISBN13: 9780767913683
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

"Believe it or not" types

This is the story of a company managed by smart, very smart people. There is no guarantee that smart people are honest. The best part of the book is that it comes from someone who was a part of this smart team, not so smart to reach the top, but was smart enough to be at the right places to know the whole story. Sherron Watkins not only knows the story well but also narrates it at the same pace and excitement of a fast track company. Had Enron published this book, it would have made money trading on the manuscript before it had reached the press. It would have booked a few million dollars in profit from sale of future editions using the "mark to market" route. Some smart executive who had thought of this brilliant idea would have walked away with a fat bonus even before the first copy of the book had left the printing press. This was Enron.What started as a successful company that transported gas, ends up trading in everything it can lay its hands on. Its accounting innovations are nothing short of manipulations of elephantine proportions, carried out with blessings of the now defunct audit firm. No one bothered as long as money flowed in, into the right pockets. " You can't fool all the people all the time", but this story ends when almost all the people who invested in Enron end up as fools. This is the story of a company that once boasted of becoming "The World's greatest company". Well, this is not a story.

A Must Read if you have Investments

April 23, 2003I?m just finished ?Power Failure? the inside story of Enron?s failure. The book is by Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins of Enron fame. It is a very well written and entertaining: I was pleasantly surprised. Sherron was a key part in the rise and later fall of ?Enron?.Sherron actually ran some of the ?Off-Balance-Sheet? for Andy Fastnow. The book brought up lots pertinent history of ?Corporate America?s? use of ?Off-Balance-Sheet? stuff and other revenue recognition policies and how the accounting firms aided and abetted. The book gave rise to one important question, how was it able to happen: it?s evident that there is more fraud to be discovered. It?s my opinion that this book will be included in the other now famous period pieces like: ?Where are the Customers' Yachts?? By Fred Schwed, ?The Great Crash? by John Kenneth Galbraith and?Reminiscences of a Stock Operator? by Edwin Lefevre What happened at Enron reminds me of a ?Tom Clancy ?book, lots of movement and bad people.

A whistle-blower tells the fascinating story of Enron

Imagine the life of Sherron Watkins: a posh job with one of the most successful energy companies in the world, all of the amenities that come with wining-and-dining important contacts while negotiating deals worth millions --- and a nagging suspicion that something within the company you're working for isn't quite right. There were thousands of Enron employees, all with the same upward mobility and satisfying salaries that Sherron Watkins possessed. So what set Watkins apart from them? It was the fact that she was willing to risk sacrificing it all to expose the corrupt practices that had made Enron so profitable.In POWER FAILURE, the entire history of Enron is explored, from its inception in 1985 to its demise in 2001. Written by Mimi Swartz with assistance from whistle-blower Sherron Watkins, this book will take the reader on a journey that includes Enron's earliest successes and failures, the super-charged management conferences, the politically incorrect Enron trading floors and the Senate Hearing Room's investigation and subsequent trial.But POWER FAILURE is much more than just an expose on a corrupt corporation. It also provides a frightening view on what the big-business atmosphere has become. The story of Enron shows how delicate the balance of politics, money and business practices is, and how thin the line between legal and illegal can be.Swartz and Watkins effectively tell the story of Enron without a hint of tabloid exploitation. And with all the exploitations that occurred within Enron, that's nothing short of a miracle. They give an accurate, honest perspective on all of the events that took place in the history of the corporation and portray the characters of Enron without bias. That's not to say that there's no negative statements made about people throughout the book --- just that they're given in a diplomatic manner. The book is written in an informative yet entertaining manner, complete with entertaining sidebars and humorous anecdotes to keep the reader's attention. And they have included plenty of pictures to point out just who the evildoers are. This is a must read for business people, tax evaders, anyone who plans to cheat the system, or the average Joe who wants to know what really happened at Enron. --- Reviewed by Melissa Brown

Well worth the money!

This books looks at the personalities and people behind the events instead of the business details. The business details are old news and Swartz has done a terrific job of bringing out the human dimension to the company and the people involved.The writing style made me interested in the people and their behavior, not the details of the deals. It forced me to into a little self examination around what I would have done if employed at Enron.And