The Smartest Guys in the Room

I have been eating up coverage of the trial of former Enron executives Jeff Skilling and Kenneth "Kenny-Boy" Lay. I happen to think it will be a travesty of justice if these guys aren't found guilty.

Enron is fascinating to me (and maybe just me) because of the sheer complexity of its business. I highly recommend reading Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron. It is a long and detailed account of the company. From it I glean the following:

1. Enron promoted an environment of hostile internal competition, which created some of the biggest assholes on the planet.
2. Enron was the epitome of the arrogant corporation.
3. Jeff Skilling is/was the embodiment of the arrogant corporation. (Read any of the excerpts of his testimony - he's argumentative and combative with the prosecuting attorney, for crying out loud. Show some damn respect for the court, Jeff!) He always thought he was smarter that anyone else in the room.
4. Enron's business model was, perhaps purposely so, extremely complex, so much so that many of the so-called neutral analysts could not comprehend what was really going on. Of course none of the analysts would admit this, so instead they touted Enron's business model as a model of the future corporation.
5. Enron had extremely cozy relationships with investment banks, who both funded Enron investments and provided "independent" analysis to the market. Legislation has since remedied these arrangements, but...
6. Enron acted unethically whenever it wasn't completely obvious that said act was not illegal. In other words, where other companies would avoid something because that act was a "gray area" legally, Enron would do it just because it was a gray area.

I guess it's too late to make this a short posting, so I'll just stop here with this conclusion of mine: Skilling and Lay are either incompetent or lying. They contend that CFO Andrew Fastow pulled all the financial shenanigans right under their nose without their consent. If that's true, they are guilty of incompetence (gross negligence, really) and guilty as charged. If they were complicit in the shenanigans, they are guilty as charged. I don't know why they're even fighting it. Those two guys should be forced to hunt down each investor and do a My Name is Earl good deed to make up for this mess. Whoa! What a great idea for a reality TV show. Watch Skilling and Lay make it up to each former Enron investor. And if the ratings suck, we can still throw them in jail.