Would ENRON Even Be That Bad by Today's Standards?

To learn for free on Brilliant, go to http://www.brilliant.org/howhistoryworks. Brilliant’s also given our viewers 20% off an annual Premium subscription, which gives you unlimited daily access to everything on Brilliant. ----- Sign up for my FREE newsletter! - https://www.compoundeddaily.com/ ------ #history #business #enron Link To Our Other Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/HowMoneyWorks Written By: Sam Video Created By: Svibe Multimedia Studio Editor: Cardan Media Gatherer: Andrea Rivas Footage Courtesy of: Getty Images Music Provided By: Epidemic Sound 📩 Business Inquiries ➡️ [email protected] ---- Sources McLean, B. & Elkind, P., 2003. The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron. New York: Portfolio. Cruver, B., 2002. Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider. New York: Avalon. Bryce, R., 2002. Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron. New York: PublicAffairs. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-09-22/private-equity-firms-fundraising-stumbles-after-high-flying-era https://acquirersmultiple.com/2021/09/the-mark-to-market-fallacy-in-private-equity/ https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/23/sam-altman-openais-850-billion-in-planned-buildouts-bubble-concern.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2005/11/05/prosecutors-link-enron-fall-to-1987-scandal/1cc9a9d0-0a88-43f9-8d11-16972f2e9a87/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-09-25/openai-searches-for-ways-to-finance-trillion-dollar-ai-plan https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-09-22/private-equity-firms-fundraising-stumbles-after-high-flying-era http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/belco-oil-gas-corp-history/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-10/coreweave-crwv-insiders-sold-1-billion-of-stock-in-q3-as-ai-rich-cash-out https://archive.org/details/conspiracyoffool00kurt/mode/2up https://archive.today/20230809203009/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/31/business/corporate-conduct-close-links-merrill-banker-had-many-direct-ties-to-enron.html https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merger-led-to-the-737-max-crisis ----- even been considered that bad by today's standards? The headline story that you are probably familiar with is that; the business started out as a moderately successful energy company, but when compounding profits became harder and harder to come by, they resorted to progressively more desperate fraudulent activities to keep the party going as long as they could. They had convinced the world that they were the smartest men in the room, made impressive (but willfully reckless) projections about their future performance, created complex deal networks that made revenue look far better than it actually was, the reality is that, today ENRON is synonymous with corporate greed and corruption, and more than two decades on, it has radically reshaped the way that business is conducted… BUT… In the years since, there have been plenty of larger and more brazen examples of outright fraud, many of which went largely unpunished and unremembered.