Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room (37 of 51)

Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room

In the early 60's Stanley Milgram tried to figure out what characteristics there were of evil people.
Was there an evil strain or could normal people do really bad things?
And so he set up this experiment.
In the experiment he had an actor playing an experimental subject and a real experimental subject.
Want to step right in here and have a seat?
They went into this room and he had an experimenter say, 'we're going to see if mild electric shocks will help people memorize lists.
Incorrect...
You'll now get a shock of 75 volts.
Soft air.
He kind of did some yelling in there.

The Milgram Experiment has a lot to say about Enron because I think people lost their sense of morality.
Like Milgram, once you accepted the idea that behaving inhumanly was okay, you could do anything.
And the shocks increased with the number of mistakes that they made.
I can't stand the pain!
Let me out of here!
He can't stand it.
I'm not going to kill that man.
The subject, the real subject is begging the scientist-looking person to stop too.
And the scientist only says 'the experiment requires that you continue.
Please continue.
Go on, please.
You accept all responsibility?
The responsibility is mine, correct.
Please go on.
In a way, Skilling was almost like the guy telling those people below him it was okay to up the power.
California's Electric Utilities may have to pull the plug on millions of customers.
It 's the fucking coolest thing I've done in a long time.
Holy fuck, yes.
You gotta love the west.
Oh.
During the height of Wednesday's blackout, fire crews had to free people trapped in elevators.