Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider » (Unabridged)

Brian Cruver was a senior manager at Enron until the collapse, then was among 4500 workers laid off on December 3, 2001 - the day after Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He lives in Houston with his wife.

Brian Cruver was a firsthand witness to the disturbing, surreal, and hilarious moments of Enron’s long dance with death. When he first entered Enron’s office complex, “the Death Star,” he was the epitome of the Enron employee: young, brash, sporting a shiny new MBA, and obscenely overpaid. From his first day, however, when he was told that some colleagues hadn’t really wanted to see him hired, he found himself in the middle of a venal greed machine whose story unfolded with all the absurdity and frustration of a tale by Kafka crossed with Tulipomania and Liar’s Poker. While Cruver’s book examines the accounting tricks, the insider stock trades—and in a special section, how the grossly lucrative fraudulent partnerships were structured and funded—it also describes everyday life as an Enronian—cocky wheeling and dealing, the sex ’n keg party on the trade floor, casual conversations at the shredder, and the insidious group-think that made Enron employees unquestioningly accept propaganda spoon-fed them by Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and others, such as Tom White, then Vice-Chairman of Enron Energy Services, now Secretary of the Army under George W. Bush. Part of a team with rare “double” access to both external customers and internal systems, Cruver reveals the twisted reality behind the world’s perception of Enron as one of the world’s great corporations. Demonstrating a clear understanding of how business issues intertwines with human foibles, Cruver exposes Enron’s flaws in an entertaining way all readers can understand. A portrait of the author as a young Enronian, Anatomy of Greedreveals the sting of reality, humility, and pain felt by a man whose idols turned out to be fools and scoundrels, and who learned that there is more to life than stock options. Soon to be a TV/film drama, this is a gonzo chronicle that goes behind the scenes to chart the decline and fall of the world's weirdest and richest business cult.

Library Journal

Having received his MBA degree in 1999, Cruver was hired by Enron in late March 2001 to be part of a bankruptcy-trading group. Through Cruver, we see how a typical Enron employee viewed the company's dramatic collapse. He talks about the initial concerns when CEO Jeff Skilling resigned, worries of layoffs as new falsifications of financial statements came to light, and the idle days of going to work after most operations had ceased. Although expressing resentment at the millions made by top executives, he writes with a wry sense of humor. He tells how, even after he was fired, Enron accidentally kept paying him for months. He also recounts that when he was first hired, some employees jokingly referred to Enron as the "Crooked E," supposedly because of its slanted-E logo. The book's title is deceptive in that the author was an insider only in the sense that he worked for Enron. Except for one unidentified source, most of the book's information about Enron's fraudulent accounting practices came from public sources. Still, because Cruver's fast-paced book puts a human face on the many employees hurt by the Enron and similar scandals, it is recommended for most business collections.-Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.