Enron, Ep 3: The Fixer and the Whistleblowers

Bad Bets

The Wall Street Journal

News, Business, True Crime

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Enron's stock price rose astronomically in the late '90s, buoyed by investor confidence in former CEO Jeffrey Skilling-and by earnings reports that seemed to show Enron's profits growing by leaps and bounds. But as we now know, those numbers were engineered by a man named Andy Fastow, Enron's chief financial officer at the time. In this episode, we take a look at Mr. Fastow and hear from the whistleblowers who exposed him and Enron's financial engineering.John Emshwiller is the host of this season of Bad Bets. The original reporting on which this season is based was done by him and Rebecca Smith. Bad Bets is a production of The Wall Street Journal. This season was produced in collaboration with Neon Hum Media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Bad Benz, a podcast from the Wall Street Journal that unravels big
0:06.6	business dramas that have had a big impact on our world.
0:10.2	This first season chronicles the collapse of Enron.
0:13.2	I'm John M. Schweiler.
0:15.4	By the time former CEO Jeff Schilling left Enron in August 2001, he transformed it from
0:21.2	a sleepy energy company to a corporate trailblazer.
0:25.0	He was the face of Enron's success, and throughout the 1990s, the rising stock
0:29.8	price was a reflection of investors' confidence in his brilliant ideas and his bravado.
0:35.2	But their faith was also fueled by the numbers.
0:38.6	Earnings reports had seemed to tell an unmistakable story.
0:42.4	Enron's profits were growing by leaps and bounds.
0:45.8	In this episode, we're going to take a close look at the man behind the curtain, the guy
0:50.8	who engineered those numbers, and the people who decided to expose him.
0:56.8	Stay with us.
0:58.8	Amazon delivers diabolical entertainment like The Royes, included with Prime.
1:03.8	Don't you worry, Daddy's home.
1:05.8	Tweet the family by the latest cinema release.
1:08.8	Spider-Man across the spider-verse.
1:10.8	This is unbelievable.
1:12.8	And enjoy Special Ops Lioness with a free trial of Paramount Plus.
1:16.8	You need to remember what you're fighting for.
1:19.8	Whatever you're into, it's right here on Prime Video.
	...

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