This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Your online activity creates tons and tons of data, and that data is valuable.

Entire sectors of the economy are built on this principle.

But there is one data set that has proven to be so incredibly valuable because it was

available for free for anyone to use, and this data was gathered during the investigation

of a crime.

This is the story of the Enron emails that were collected as the government was building

the case to prosecute the company that became the poster child for corporate crime.

But since then, these emails have helped create new technologies, fight terrorism, and

added to our understanding of how we communicate.

It's an incredible story, and when I heard it on business insiders brought to you by podcast,

formerly called Household Name, I was like, damn, I wish we reported that.

And since they did such a silly job, I thought we just present their story to you.

It is fascinating you're going to love it.

To guide you through this twisted tale of crime and data, here's Dan Bobgoth.

Imagine you're working for a big company, like say number seven on the Fortune 500 list.

Oh, and it's around the year 2000. There's no Facebook, no Gmail.

We're not thinking that much about privacy.

And then the company you work for goes bust in spectacular fashion.

Well, it was the corporate fraud case that since shockwaves across Houston and the entire

country, the fall of Enron.

Congressional hearings begin this morning in the Enron investigation.

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