Anatomy of Greed

Young, brash, sporting a shiny new MBA, and obscenely overpaid, Brian Cruver epitomized the Enron employee when he first entered the company's Houston office; and from day one he found himself a cog in the wheel of a venal greed machine. For the next nine months, he would witness firsthand the now-infamous corporate tragedy that he relates in these ruthlessly honest, often hilarious, and frequently disturbing pages. Here are the accounting tricks, insider stock trades, grossly lucrative fraudulent partnerships, and death dance to bankruptcy. Equally revealing, though, are Cruver's descriptions of everyday life at Enron: the cocky wheeling and dealing, intraoffice relationships, casual conversations at the shredder, and the insidious group-think that committed Enronians to the propaganda of flawed executives like Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andy Fastow. Out of their wreckage, Cruver has fashioned an arresting and cautionary morality tale for our time. Anatomy of Greed was the basis for the CBS-TV movie The Crooked E: a behind-the-scenes chronicle of the last days in the strange life of one of the world's richest, riskiest, and most corrupt corporations. Eight pages of telling photographs are included.