Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a movie that totally surprised me. I expected to see shocking things about the company but I was still blown away by what I saw. The people in this company, especially at it’s head, where unbelievably immoral. The sad thing is I think society is partly to blame for this. For example, you always hear about the “American Dream” where a bunch of guys make it big and make tons of money. This idealized vision needs to change and be injected with morality at its cornerstone. The ends do not justify the means. I’m sure all of these guys thought they were living the American Dream but at the expense of putting others through a living hell (their own employees included).
I think a good book to read after this would be Small Giants. It proves that big isn’t always better and those companies who choose to stay small do so to retain their culture and values which they often know could possibly get lost along the way to becoming big. As the book subtitle suggests, its about choosing to be great instead of big.
