Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room (45 of 51)

Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room

Behind Fastow's partnerships were enormous guarantees of Enron's stock.
Fastow had gambled Enron's future on the hope that its stock would never fall.
My first reaction was that I should warn Ken Lay.
The day after Skilling left, I sent this one page anonymous letter.
But within a week I was meeting with Ken Lay.
I identified myself in the hopes of really making my point that Enron really needed to address this situation.
Companies rarely get away with cooking the books.
But when they do survive, it's when they come clean.
Not when they're exposed from the outside.
Ms.Watkins, I went through...
Ms.Watkins did not talk to me, Senator.

Well, Ms.Watkins said Clifford Baxter told her that he met with you repeatedly to express his concern.
Cliff and Andy have had a...
they didn't like each other.
They had a very strained personal relationship and Cliff's issue had nothing to do with the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the transactions I mentioned Cliff Baxter in these memos.
And I remember I made the comment to him, 'you're one of the good guys, you know, you're one of the people fighting against this.
And it'd be alright.' And he said, 'oh I don't think it's going to be alright for any of us involved.' When I started working on the book with Sherron, I was interested in writing about a whistleblower.
People don't really appreciate what she did and the bravery that it took in that company.
Andy Fastow would not have put his hands in the Enron candy jar without an explicit or implicit approval to do so by Mr.Skilling.
I can't for the life of me see what basis she would have for suggesting that I would know some...
I mean, how would she know that? And I don't see that it's at all inconsistent that there would be some things that I don't know if some people purposely kept me from knowing some things I felt like I was one lone voice within Enron saying, 'look, we've...
we've committed horrible fraud.' And of course all hell broke loose.
Within six short weeks Enron was spinning out of control.