The Smartest Guys in the Room
"Just as Watergate was the defining story of its time, so Enron is the biggest business story of our time. And just as All the President's Men was the one Watergate book that gave readers the full story, with all the drama and nuance, The Smartest Guys in the Room is the one book you have to read to understand this business saga."--BOOK JACKET.
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Building on Bethany McLean's Fortune piece that first asked how Enron made money, she and co-author Peter Elkind track the Houston energy giant from Ken Lay's pipeline mergers, through Jeff Skilling's mark-to-market trading, to the 2001 bankruptcy that wiped out twenty thousand jobs.
Yes. The Smartest Guys in the Room is Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind's nonfiction account of the rise and fall of Enron. McLean was the Fortune reporter who first questioned the company's financials before its collapse.
Yes. Alex Gibney directed a 2005 documentary based on the book. The documentary uses interviews and footage from the period to depict the Enron collapse.
The Smartest Guys in the Room was written by Bethany McLean, published in 2003 by VIKING.
The Smartest Guys in the Room is 464 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Smartest Guys in the Room takes most readers 7 to 10 hours to finish.
The Smartest Guys in the Room is a standalone novel by Bethany McLean, not part of a series.
The Smartest Guys in the Room is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.