Book Description
Brian Cruver first entered the "Death Star," Enron's office complex, in March 2001. He was twenty-nine years old, an eager MBA ready to cash in as a new hire with one of America's most highly valued companies. But, from his first day - when his new boss warned him, "there was a mix-up in the hiring process," but that it was "no big deal...just think of it like you're adopted" -
to his last, when he and his colleagues were given thirty minutes to leave the building, Cruver found himself enmeshed in a business cult that each day grew only more bizarre.
With dark humor and page-turning momentum, Cruver lays out firsthand: the giddy group-think nurtured by Enron's leadership, whose incessant cheerleading for the company's stock price rendered many Enronians unable to believe that they were routinely being spoon-fed lies; the "rank and yank" peer review process that fostered horse-trading among managers over which employees would be given poor evaluations; the traders who made dubious deals to ensure their own lucrative bonuses; and the sinister designs and funding of Enron's fraudulent off-the-books partnerships. As Cruver probes the sleazy escapades that Enron executives milked for personal gain, he introduces us, up close and personal, to such storied figures as Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andy Fastow, along with other important Enron personalities like Rebecca Mark; Lou Pai; Thomas White, George W. Bush's Secretary of the Army; Joe Sutton; the "Mr. Blue", a disillusioned Enron executive; and Cruver's trading floor neighbor, a machine he christened "Sherman the Shredder" - who was always working overtime.
Cruver's day-by-day chronicle, which includes a running stock ticker to show the trajectory of Enron's collapse, is instantly reminiscent of such bestsellers as Liar's Poker and Barbarians at the Gate. Told in a fresh, empathetic voice, Anatomy of Greed is brimming with grist for political pundits and comic relief for victims of corporate collateral damage. It is also the personal story of a young executive, a Houston native, whose dream job and dream company crashed around him in an avalanche of lies and greed. From the wreckage, this newly hardened veteran of the corporate wars has written a cautionary tale that our leaders must heed - or imperil us all to future disasters.
Customer Reviews:
The inside reality of the crooked E.......2007-04-23
Most readers will know that Enron was once the 7th largest company in the world. The same readers will know that its corporate collapse destroyed many lives. Those of us fortunate enough to be observing from afar wondered why, and how this could happen.
There are a number of lessons to be learned from reading this book. The first, perhaps, is that corporate values are only words that need to be given meaning through congruent corporate actions. There was nothing wrong with Enron's actual stated corporate values : 'Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence'. The corporate culture was simultaneously fatally flawed yet deeply attractive on a number of levels to ambitious recruits. The frenetic activity and apparent corporate energy served to mask a great many flaws in accounting, accountability and risk management.
Brian Cruver worked in Enron during its last year. His book is well worth reading by those with an interest in business ethics as well as those who need to be reminded of the consequence of failure of risk management.
Hihgly recommended.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
View from the ranks.......2006-12-12
Cruver worked on the trading floor as part of a new business group at Enron and his account in "Anatomy of Greed", built around his firsthand experience, offers a look at the company from within the ranks. This is combined with personal elements of his life, with reflections on corporate responsibility, employee relationships, and company policy. The result has something for everyone: those curious about Enron, involved in debates about what corporate ethics, or just interested in the financial slight of hand played by the buisness.
Cruver begins by describing how he came to work for Enron. We are also given an introduction to how work was structured at Enron and a look at the infamous "rank and yank" employee review system.
Cruver avoids most technical details on the financial wrong doings. A minor complaint is that Cruver doesn't go deeper into the financials. To really understand the nuts and bolts of Enron's version of Off Balance Sheet Accounting I suggest Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald. If you are still curious about how it works read Hidden Financial Risk: Understanding Off Balance Sheet Accounting by J. Edward Ketz.
The failure of Enron left over 4,000 people without jobs, and wiped out employee savings and pensions. The company ended up owing over $65 billion dollars. And Ken Lay, as chief executive office, a man once admired, was charged with fraud by federal prosecutors.
Enron is nicely laid out and has obviously been carefully edited.
Great insight to a high-profile, compelling story!.......2006-10-14
I thought Mr. Cruver did a spectacular job bringing an insider's perspective to this story. Nice work.
A well put together book!.......2006-08-04
Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down. Not only is Cruver's writing crisp and concise, but the book has a wide range of emotions to help you feel engaged throughout. It is scary, funny and sad all rolled into one reading experience. I watched Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and felt that didn't compare to reading this book. It's weird, you almost feel as if you are Cruver's friend, even if you have never met him based on the intimacy of this book. In all, a great read!
Fascinating on Many Different Levels.......2006-06-11
Unfortunately the title, Anatomy of Greed, does not give the correct impression of what the book is about. It is not the anatomy of anything. This is not a dissection of the motivations and events that led to the collapse of Enron. Rather it is a personal story of a low-level Enron employee framed by the public events of the end of Enron.
I found Anatomy of Greed to be riveting. It is interesting on many different levels. This is the story of the author's time working for Enron in Houston just before and during the meltdown. Cruver is a young man recently out of business school and thrilled to be working for Enron. A job at Enron is an immediate source of prestige and honor (and money), but soon Cruver realizes much to his horror and amazement that Enron is imploding. At first there are hints in the air, then a rapidly cascading series of disasters.
I found Cruver's changing attitudes and the entire story of the unfolding of the Enron debacle to be utterly gripping. Cruver was merely a munchkin who never personally knew Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, or the other witches, wizards, and warlocks of Enron. There are no stunning new revelations in this book, but there many levels of interest. Cruver tells what it was like on a day-to-day basis to be working for Enron on the trading floors. And what it was like to be in the bunkers as Enron was falling. Cruver also relates the responses of other munchkins. (One exception: Cruver was friends with one Enron higher up--a much older man who is described as a "family friend." He is called "Mr Blue" in the book. Cruver describes several conversations with Mr Blue which give a very negative slant on the events.) There is the constant refrain of emails and phone calls from Cruver's friends (often starting with "Hey, dooood...") who are working in the financial industry. So the reader gets the perspective of outsiders to Enron but insiders in the investment industry in New York on the dramatic news of Enron's demise as it unfolds.
There are many other aspects of the book that make it entertaining and enlightening. Cruver is an interesting guy who is perfectly normal but just a bit cynical and self-deprecating. I enjoyed his wry, but down-to-earth, humor. Also surprisingly Cruver is no Enron basher. He loved working for Enron and admired Enron in many ways. I got the sense that he was more heartbroken than angry by the revelations of fraud and deceit among the executives. Here he had his dream job with a top company, a bright, even glorious future, and unbelievably it all starts to dissolve around him. What a story of disappointment! Cruver and his fellow munchkins at Enron were no more greedy than the rest of us, and one cannot help sympathizing with their plight as they are caught in a morass that they did not create and do not even understand. I was especially absorbed by the way Cruver is able to capture the intensity, excitement, and anguish of working for Enron in its last year leading up to bankruptcy and his life in the months after.
Although there are no new exciting tidbits about the Enron bankruptcy in this story, I did learn many things that I had not known before, or had forgotten. This book is informative, entertaining, and absorbing. I don't know of anything else like this about the Enron story. This book must be read (or listened to) by anyone interested in the Enron story.
I listened to the CD which is very well narrated and well produced.
Book Description
In the 1970s, Pierre Berton and his family recreated the trip down the Yukon made by his father, Francis George Berton, in 1898. This compelling story of the later journey is a valentine from son to father, a magical tale of a family adrift, and a poetic exploration of the region’s rich history. In experiencing this great wilderness, Berton and his family discover their deep connection to nature — and each other.
Average customer rating:
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Drifting;: Being the author's account of his voyages in dooryards, alleys, bayous, millraces, swamps, sumps, rivers, creeks, canals, lakes, bays & open ... Mystic, Noank, and Westerly, Rhode Island
Stephen Jones
Manufacturer: MacMillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
 Look Inside Sports Books
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ASIN: B0006CKDTK |
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Among Concert Artists like Paul Althouse, Elsie Baker, Judson House, Florence Macbeth, John McCormack, John Charles Thomas and others, they have introduced and sung with great success the songs composed by Clara Edwards. From pensive songs of love or longing to charming serenades, Clara Edwards has been unusually and consistently successful. Other songs she has written include: After, Awake Beloved, Can this be Summer, Clementine, Come love the long day closes, The eastern Heavens are all aglow, Every One Sang, the Fisher's Window, Lonesome, Love came to Me, Morning Serenade, O Magic Night of Love, Out of the Dusk, Sometimes at Close of Day, To Stars and You, When Jesus Walked on Galilee, A Yesterday.
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Drifting down the St. Lawrence,
Willis N Bugbee
Manufacturer: Fleming H. Revell Co
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Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: B00086IKX0 |
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Drifting the River
Mart Baldwin
Manufacturer: Vivisphere Publishing
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1892323591 |
Book Description
In this collection of tales, tied together with the filament of his life, Mart Baldwin hooks us with rolicking fishing and hunting adventures from the Outer Banks in North Carolina to the Coosa River in Alabama. Baldwin paints a vivid picture of a pre-technology age South that has for the most part faded away.
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- Longwinded
- guide for the true film buff!
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Facets Movie Lovers Video Guide
Manufacturer: Academy Chicago Publishers
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0897334515 |
Customer Reviews:
Longwinded.......2003-01-04
If you're like me you just need all the movies in list format with a rating of 1 to 5 stars. The films in this book are not even reviewed(!) and there's WAY too many long, drawn out passages about each one. If I liked reading I wouldn't be so into film!
guide for the true film buff!.......2000-03-26
facets movie guide is the difinitive guide for those seeking the best, the worst, the most avant garde in film of the past or present. their catagories provide insight into the minds that went into this compilation and gives the buff a place to start on a wild search for films of every description. rental and purchase information abounds as does their own service.
a valuable companion to movie renting and purchase!
Book Description
Nothing has generated more controversy in the social sciences than the turn toward culture, variously known as the linguistic turn, culturalism, or postmodernism. This book examines the impact of the cultural turn on two prominent social science disciplines, history and sociology, and proposes new directions in the theory and practice of historical research.
The editors provide an introduction analyzing the origins and implications of the cultural turn and its postmodernist critiques of knowledge. Essays by leading historians and historical sociologists reflect on the uses of cultural theories and show both their promise and their limitations. The afterword by Hayden White provides an assessment of the trend toward culturalism by one its most influential proponents.
Beyond the Cultural Turn offers fresh theoretical readings of the most persistent issues created by the cultural turn and provocative empirical studies focusing on diverse social practices, the uses of narrative, and the body and self as critical junctures where culture and society intersect.
Customer Reviews:
One great section out of three.......2003-06-26
This is a nice little tool, and remarkably useful even for D&D products several generations down the road. Easily the most relevant section today is "Book III: Adventure Cookbook," which is a fun brainstorming tool for getting adventure and campaign ideas flowing. The DM rolls dice for theme, setting, villain and various plot points, and the results, although random, often amount to the beginnings of a promising adventure. The charts and forms in the first two books are a little overcomplicated for my taste, but they could still generally be used with third-generation-era D&D. Note that there is basically nothing here on overall world-design. Included is a module with some fun ideas.
Ingenious!.......2002-11-18
I stumbled upon this thing years ago in the bargain bin of a gaming store in Oslo, Norway and it has scince been THE single most used TSR product I've ever owned.
I've been among the organizers of a local gaming Con, RegnCon, for 10 years, and this baby has enabled me to make and run adventures when there just didn't seem to be enough time to get it done. The strength of the product lies in that it formalizes a lot of the things a good DM/module designer is aware of, or should be aware of if he/she wasn't organizing 1000 other things at the same time.
It's also easy to adapt to any other system, and I've used it for Cyberpunk, WoD and Warhammer FRP as well as for DnD. Just remember not to feel too restricted by your initial results. Buy this, roll the dice and feel the ideas flowing!
Ideal time-saver for DMs in need of organization.......2000-05-02
This is one of the best products ever put out by TSR. Harold Johnson and Aaron Allston created a near-perfect system to streamline the adventure creating process. Starting with just a few ideas, you can turn out a quick, dramatic, original and uniquely detailed adventure, incorporating ideas you never thought of before, using an ultra-fast layout system that's very similar to planning out a complicated novel. If you write your own adventures, or just modify modules to fit perfectly into your own campaign, you need this set! Includes a long-forgotten module, laid out in the format so you can see how it's done. Perfect!
A couple good ideas, but overall not very worthwhile.......2000-04-21
There were a few good ideas in here, but they also had a lot of junk and old-school, grimtoothesque random murder of players for no apparent reason, weak design material.
Book Description
Designed for the one-term introduction to business statistics course with a college algebra prerequisite, this text places emphasis on data and the common techniques and methods used to analyze them in business. It introduces concepts using practical examples and illustrates them with computer output from MINITAB, Systat, Execustat, Microsoft® Excel and other software packages. Review problems requiring students to use previously learned concepts also appear throughout to promote understanding of the relationships among statistical methods.
Customer Reviews:
Great books.......2007-04-11
Nothing really special, you have to buy it if your course require it.
Books:
- At Home in the Vineyard: Cultivating a Winery, an Industry, and a Life
- Bad Boy Ballmer: The Man Who Rules Microsoft
- Beer for Pete's Sake: The Wicked Adventures of a Brewing Maverick
- Ben & Jerry's: The Inside Scoop: How Two Real Guys Built a Business with a Social Conscience and a Sense of Humor
- Bernard M. Baruch: The Adventures of a Wall Street Legend (Trailblazers, Rediscovering the Pioneers of Business)
- Best Face Forward: Why Companies Must Improve Their Service Interfaces With Customers
- Boy Wonder of Wall Street: The Life and Times of Financier Eddie Gilbert
- Business as Unusual: The Triumph of Anita Roddick
- Changing the Rules: Adventures of a Wall Street Maverick
- Charging Ahead: The Growth and Regulation of Payment Card Markets
Books Index
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