Enron: 90s Inc.

In the summer of 2001, I was talking to a family friend who worked as an accountant at one of the Big Five. As I did with every single adult I knew at the time, I asked him for stock tips. “E-N-E. Enron.” I don’t think he told me what business they were in, but he assured me the company was doing great.

I read the 10-K, and convinced myself it was some weird combination of boring (power plants, gas pipelines?) and complicated (what’s the deal with all those weird joint ventures? How does the trading business even work?) so I dropped it.[1] But I kept paying attention to Enron, to see if the stock tip would pan out after all.

Obviously, things turned out differently. Enron blew such a big hole in the corporate establishment that the Big Five became the Big Four.

Once the books started coming out, I read them all: Pipe Dreams, Conspiracy of Fools, Power Failure, and Smartest Guys in the Room. The last was the best, and, after I saw a story about Jeff Skilling’s release from prison, I reread it.

Anyone who has looked at their old high school yearbook knows that whatever feels new now will look dated soon, and Enron is no different. At the time, it was fresh! Exciting! Futuristic!

And today, everything they did is so 90s.