The Smartest Guys in the Room Book

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Ken Lay was a sympathetic figure for the first half of his career. skilling is this perfectly formed character of like HBS gone McKinsey, gone energy executive gone fraudster. We are so far from the primary source here that this is like some kind of weird sport pontification and I think we should stop. It's okay in this case because we're talking about Enron here.

The FTX fraud has dominated headlines now for weeks, during which we’ve debated if and how Acquired could uniquely add to the conversation. Then we realized there was an angle so perfect that we had to drop everything and enter Acquired research overdrive: Enron. Travel back with us to the granddaddy fraud of them all, 2001’s then-largest bankruptcy in US history and the impetus for the famous Sarbanes-Oxley Act. So much of Enron’s history parallels FTX that the uncanniness is almost unbelievable — right down to the same CEO running the two bankruptcies. Sit back and enjoy this crazy tale of villainy, greed, and the nature of humans and money. Maybe just don’t take notes on this one…

If you want more Acquired, you can follow our public LP Show feed here in the podcast player of your choice (including Spotify!).

Sponsors:
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
Crusoe: https://bit.ly/acquiredcrusoe

Links:

Carveouts!:

‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.