Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider [Hardcover]

Brian Cruver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2002

Brian Cruver was a firsthand witness to the disturbing, surreal, and hilarious moments of Enron’s long dance with death. When he first entered Enron’s office complex, “the Death Star,” he was the epitome of the Enron employee: young, brash, sporting a shiny new MBA, and obscenely overpaid. From his first day, however, when he was told that some colleagues hadn’t really wanted to see him hired, he found himself in the middle of a venal greed machine whose story unfolded with all the absurdity and frustration of a tale by Kafka crossed with Tulipomania and Liar’s Poker. While Cruver’s book examines the accounting tricks, the insider stock trades—and in a special section, how the grossly lucrative fraudulent partnerships were structured and funded—it also describes everyday life as an Enronian—cocky wheeling and dealing, the sex ’n keg party on the trade floor, casual conversations at the shredder, and the insidious group-think that made Enron employees unquestioningly accept propaganda spoon-fed them by Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and others, such as Tom White, then Vice-Chairman of Enron Energy Services, now Secretary of the Army under George W. Bush. Part of a team with rare “double” access to both external customers and internal systems, Cruver reveals the twisted reality behind the world’s perception of Enron as one of the world’s great corporations. Demonstrating a clear understanding of how business issues intertwines with human foibles, Cruver exposes Enron’s flaws in an entertaining way all readers can understand. A portrait of the author as a young Enronian, Anatomy of Greed reveals the sting of reality, humility, and pain felt by a man whose idols turned out to be fools and scoundrels, and who learned that there is more to life than stock options. Soon to be a TV/film drama, this is a gonzo chronicle that goes behind the scenes to chart the decline and fall of the world's weirdest and richest business cult.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Having received his MBA degree in 1999, Cruver was hired by Enron in late March 2001 to be part of a bankruptcy-trading group. Through Cruver, we see how a typical Enron employee viewed the company's dramatic collapse. He talks about the initial concerns when CEO Jeff Skilling resigned, worries of layoffs as new falsifications of financial statements came to light, and the idle days of going to work after most operations had ceased. Although expressing resentment at the millions made by top executives, he writes with a wry sense of humor. He tells how, even after he was fired, Enron accidentally kept paying him for months. He also recounts that when he was first hired, some employees jokingly referred to Enron as the "Crooked E," supposedly because of its slanted-E logo. The book's title is deceptive in that the author was an insider only in the sense that he worked for Enron. Except for one unidentified source, most of the book's information about Enron's fraudulent accounting practices came from public sources. Still, because Cruver's fast-paced book puts a human face on the many employees hurt by the Enron and similar scandals, it is recommended for most business collections.
Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Cruver was hired as a senior manager at Enron in March 2001 to develop products and markets for bankruptcy risk management, a complex commodity concept that the company invented. During his tenure there, Enron stock plunged from $61 a share to mere pennies as the stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. He got close enough to sources at the top to understand the complicated web of partnership arrangements that kept huge debts off the books while lining the pockets of top Enron executives. Cruver details how from his first days at Death Star (the unofficial nickname for the giant Enron complex), he witnessed a surreal corporate culture that hired and fired ruthlessly in search of the best and brightest, especially those who could keep their mouths shut about bad news. The company had evolved from a simple natural-gas provider to a complex entity that traded in abstract commodities while holding virtually no real assets. This house of cards eventually came tumbling down, beginning with the resignation of CEO Jeff Skilling and ending in bankruptcy, layoffs and the well-known public scandal that followed. Cruver succeeds in making sense of the whole mess while also generating sympathy for the hapless employees. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 366 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (July 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786710934
• ISBN-13: 978-0786710935
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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