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Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald - 5 stars - My Review

“This, then, is more than the tale of one company’s 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 twenty-first century, a country torn between its worship of fast money and its zeal for truth, between greed and high-mindedness, between Wall Street and Main Street. Ultimately, it is the story of the untold damage wreaked by a nation’s folly—a 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 2001. It centers on the actions of the company’s executives, board of directors, and management. It also portrays the downfall of auditing giant Arthur Andersen. I know people who were impacted by the company’s implosion. I always wondered what, specifically, had happened. This book provides the answers.

It is well-written 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 page-turner. 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 Enron’s 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.”