Summary of Book 3

Enron and Ken Lay: An American Tragedy

M & M Scrivener Press

(Forthcoming: 2010)

Literally dozens of books, and many more essays, have been published about the Enron collapse. In fact, Enron has become the most described event in the history of business.

Book 3 will take the best of those efforts, add a new layer of documentation and insight, and present the entire Enron saga in an essentialized, nuts-and-bolts form. This is not a tell-all book but what-is-really-important book. It is a company history in the Harvard Business School style, and it is also a human interest story of how men can reach so high yet fall so far.

To date, the Enron oeuvre has focused on the company’s life just before the bankruptcy—or from 1997 through 2001. There is limited description of Enron’s rise and maturation between 1984 and 1996 outside of one episode (an oil trading scandal back in 1986). There is also little character development of such key figures as Richard Kinder, Jeff Skilling, and, of course, Ken Lay.

Book 3 details the long sequence of events that make the Enron debacle understandable. Key insights from important speeches by Ken Lay, copies of which reside exclusively with the author, will be used to this end.

Book 3 book does not stop with Enron’s fall, however. There is a chapter on the intellectual, political, and industry reaction to Enron’s bankruptcy. There is a chapter on the Enron trials with particular detail about Ken Lay—his emotional state, his trial strategy and its execution, and his sudden death (from heart disease, which he kept secret).

The whole story will reveal Lay’s life as one of the greatest rags-to-riches-to-rags sagas in U.S. history—a true American tragedy.

Of particular importance, I will provide the answer to what I have called the Ken Lay Paradox, which I define as follows

: How can a man so seemingly intelligent, well-educated, and experienced; religious, moral, and law abiding; kind, civic, and philanthropic—with long training as a top corporate manager—preside over the greatest business fraud and debacle in corporate history?

I am able to answer this only by combining my many years of studying the man with a sound philosophical framework that gets to the why behind the why of Ken Lay.

The final chapter will go over the lessons of the whole Enron affair, which has important implications for best business practices, corporate governance, and public policy.

Audience

A shelf-full of Enron books have collectively sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Enron movies—two already, with another rumored to be on the way—have been watched by many more people. It is a story that will live in history. The present book has the potential to find an immediate audience and also have a very long shelf life.

The book will interest several audiences:

• Trilogy admirers, who have enjoyed Book 1 and/or Book 2
• Enron aficionados, who have become enthralled with the company through popular books and movies
• Former Enron employees (30,000+), who want an account, written by one of their own, that will finally enable them to understand the full tragedy of their father-figure-gone-sour, Ken Lay
• Business professors who are interested in Enron as a case study of boom-to-bust and political capitalism in action
• Conservatives, Libertarians, and Objectivists, who will find strong evidence in favor of their philosophical worldviews
• Mainstream intellectuals interested in business and society, who may decide to give free-market capitalism another look

Of all the Enron books, Smartest Guys in the Room (McLean and Elkind) is the best, containing riveting information of what was really going on inside the company. But that book, lacking a worldview, can only “let the stories speak for themselves.” Also, the book missed some systemic deceit (which provides, in my opinion, a “smoking gun” on Jeff Skilling in particular). Finally, only my book covers the trials and complete demise of Ken Lay.

Book 3 of the trilogy will cover events through 2008.

Working Outline

Enron and Ken Lay: An American Tragedy

Prologue

Part I: Enron Corp

Chapter 1: The New Houston Natural Gas (1984/85)

Chapter 2: HNG/InterNorth (1985/86)

Chapter 3: Challenge and Crisis (1986–87)

Chapter 4: Recovery (1988–89)

Chapter 5: Natural Gas Major (1990–96)

Chapter 6: Manipulation and Collapse (1997–2001)

Part II: Aftermath & Future

Chapter 7: Reaction and Adjustment

Chapter 8: Trials & Tribulations

Chapter 9: The Lessons of History

Appendices