UNTIL THE SPRING OF 2001,THE HOUSTON energy giant Enron epitomized the triumph of the new economy. Feared by rivals, worshiped by investors,Enron seemingly could do no wrong, its profits rose every quarter; its stock price surged ever upward; its leaders were hailed as visionaries.

Then a young Fortune writer named Bethany McLean wrote an article posing a simple question--How, exactly, does Enron make its money?--and the company's house of cards began to collapse. Though other business scandals would follow, none has had the shattering effect of Enron's bankruptcy, which caused Americans to lose faith in a system that rewarded top insiders with millions of dollars while small investors,including many Enron employees, lost everything.

Despite enormous media coverage of Enron, the definitive story of its astonishing rise and fall comes alive for the first time in this gripping narrative by McLean and her Fortune colleague Peter Elkind.Drawing on a wide range of private documents and well-placed sources, many of them exclusive, McLean and Elkind lead you behind closed doors and deep into Enron's past, to picrcc the vcil of secrecy that has surrounded the company's inner workings and corrupt culture.

The Smartest Guys in the Room is fundamentally a human drama--of people drunk on their own success, people so ambitious, so certain of their own brilliance, so fueled by greed and hubris that they believed they could fool the world. The book explores the motives, thoughts, and secret fears of a fascinating array of characters, including:Ken Lay, the genial but clueless CEO who reveled  in the trappings of his office but ducked the responsibilities.From the earliest days of Enron, his weakness allowed greedy lieutenants to run amok.

Authors' Notes and Acknowledgments

Cast of Characters

Our Values

Introduction

CHAPTER

1. Lunch on a Silver Platter

2. "Please Keep Making Us Millions"

3. "We Were the Apostles"

4. The First Prima Donna

5. Guys with Spikes

6. The Empress of Energy

7. The 15 Percent Solution

8. A Recipe for Disaster

9. The Klieg-Light Syndrome

10. The Hotel Kenneth-Lay-a

11. Andy Fastow's Secrets

12. The Big Enchilada

13. "An Unnatural Act"

14. The Beating Heart of Enron

15. Everybody Loves Enron

16. When Pigs Could Fly

17. Gaming California

18. Bandwidth Hog

19. "AskWhy, Asshole"

20. "I Want to Resign"

21. The $45 Million Question

22. "We Have No Cash!"

EPILOGUE: Isn't Anybody Sorry?