Enron - the anatomy of greed

What happens when you happen to read the wrong book of the company despite the reviews of the book being similar. As expected, disaster.

A book was suggested to me sometime back by a good friend of mine, whose review can be taken for granted. The book he told was "The Smartest Guys in the room: The amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron". I was at Landmark a week back searching for some good books. However, the collection was pretty disappointing as despite such a large bookstore, he did not have any of the books that I wanted. I stumbled on this book "Enron : Anatomy of Greed" and mistook this book for the other one. A couple of quick checks gave not that bad reviews of the book. Amazon.com gave 4.5 for the smartest guy and 3.5 for anatomy of greed. Hence, I mistook this book for the other one.

Now, that I had purchased the book, I had to finish it as it was pretty expensive (INR 500). The book actually turned to be a disaster and a waste of a week for a few reasons. One this book is about a person, who was at Enron in the final stages of the company and how he felt in those few months he stayed there. It is neither insightful nor is it entertaining by any stretch of imagination.

One does feel sorry for the author to be in a dying company but barring this, I dont know what the author expects the reader to make out of this book of him or the company. Being part of a newly formed division, he is not able to add any insights to the functioning of the old company, which probably would have helped the readers with the fall. It talks of greed, but somehow, I dont think it did not show the greed part that well. Greed, was largely restricted to the ESOPs/bonus given.

Frankly, I dont know what to say more of this book. I shall see if I can get the other book. Skip this book...