Rating: 
Summary: Unshed the truth
Review: (Im actually 14 but i couldn't set up and account) My viewpoints on this book come from a very different angle then most reviews. I am only in 8th grader and the author of this book is the husband of my cousin. Im probably about 40 pages from the end and am actually enjoying the book. Some things go over my head, but I find it very interesting to see what actually happened. I think it's cool to see what it was like for someone who wasn't involved in all the lying and what it was like to be part of the company. I have learned a lot so far from reading this book and I highly recommend it to everyone else. P.S. If you carefully read the title, it is very clever, get it the Unshredded truth
Rating: 
Summary: A good read but no analysis
Review: A good 'first hand' account but it goes nowhere near a serious analysis of what was going on at Enron. It is also a bit to 'frat house' for me - but as I said it is supposed to be a 'first hand' account of a the ordinary worker in Enron and it has achieved that.
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Summary: Welcome to the Death Star
Review: ANATOMY OF GREED by Cruver offers what purports to be an "insider view" of Enron. What you get are jejune views of a 30 year-old mid-level MBA. Cruver never questions, for instance, the larger structural evils that helped Enron puff itself up into the "7th largest company in the world." In fact, he has the usual set of assumptions of toilers in the financial vineyard, e.g., the belief that markets always create value, that the free market system represents the best of all possible worlds, and that those who profit most from it most it are the smartest people in the world. But though his view is limited, he's still aware enough to see the irony in his trying to sell the product he's been recruited to help create -- bankruptcy insurance. He's also aware enough to see that much of the Enron edifice was built on propagandistic techniques. For instance, he notes the multilevel parking lot with Orwellian business slogans on each of the 12 floors, the elevators broadcasting short video pep talks from "The Building Guy" -- an actor in a yellow hard hat -- who constantly informed employees of the greatness of Enron. He also senses fairly early on that not all is right in Enronland. For instance, on his first day of work he is told by his boss that other members of his team are not all that pleased that he's been brought on board -- a technique apparently designed to make him unsure of himself, to make him work all the harder to fit in. He also experiences Skilling's brutal review process, called colloqially "rank and yank," in which 15 percent of employees were consigned to a humiliating twilight existence during which they sat in vast antechamber waiting to be "reassigned." This process forced this unfortunate group to "interview" for positions within the company with a "5" (Enron's scarlet letter denoting the lowest rank) emblazoned across the top of their resume. This creation of an underclass as a spur and a goad to productivity is perhaps one of the most chilling expressions of the vicious, vainglorious culture created by Lay, Skilling and their lieutenants. The details, in other words, are the best part of this book. Readers must provide the deeper interpretation of their meaning. Cruver, to be fair, does to some extent try to do so. The problem is that he attempts to do so through format and style. So although you sense his dismay with the excesses and viciousness at Enron, you must supply the outrage. In one of the best passages of the book, Cruver tells us that he kept trading Enron stock until the bitter end. He was still hypnotized by the financial fantasy that Enron had created around itself. He was not alone. Four or five stock brokerages -- those whose parent companies had lent millions of dollars -- maintained "strong buy" recommendations until the end also. Masters of illusion were Lay and Skilling. Masters of the dark side of capitalism. With a kind of chilling prescience the Enron headquarters was dubbed the "Death Star" by Enron employees. The offshore partnerships created by Andy Fastow and Michael Kopper were given names out of Star Wars, too: Chewco (Chewbacca), JED1 (Jedi). Those at the top wanted the world to believe they were the Jedi knights of the new global fiancial markets. Slashing through regulations with their fat donations to politicians of all stripes (donation were correlated to results by mathematical models), sitting on the legislative committees with oilmen like Cheney, they had clearly convinced themselves that their crusade would triumph with the end of regulated markets, or, better yet, markets that they could co-design with their willing partners in the Senate, House and White House. But, of course, Cruver implies, they were agents of the dark side, the Darth Vaders (Death Invaders), whose unbridled greed killed people in developing nations (pipeline explosions, destruction of rainforests, etc. ), corrupted governments, and whose dark work threw thousands of people out of work at Enron, and the companies caught in their vortex. This is clearly a tale of epic scope, of overweening pride, of vanity, of grasping, greedy men and women who employed the free market ideology, an ideology backed up with big cynical donations to cynical politicians to enrich themselves at the expense of everything they touched. That Cruver isn't up to telling it is not his fault. He produces instead a kind of memoir, a episodic glimpse of a corrupt culture by someone schooled in business school in the unquestioned virtues of capitalism. This, of course, is a common failing of MBA programs. Of course no social science can honestly question the object of its study -- to do so would put them out of business, or at least stop the flow of donations from graduates. It's indicative of the failings of this kind of education is that Cruver still believes that working at Enron made him "smarter." He means smarter in an instrumental bureaucratic financial way, of course, which is how smart is defined in business school. This is why the larger story is mostly lost upon him. As he thinks back on his experience, Cruver clearly misses the powerful rush of playing in the same sandbox as Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. In fact, he even wrote his Master's Thesis about Enron and he tells us that working at Enron for a year made him smarter about finance than all his MBA training and his previous experience put together. In the MBA epistemic in which he is schooled and in which it is believed (and can be proven with statistics) that everything is a transaction of some kind or another, it is laudable that he does catch glimpses of the larger corruption of the structure in which he so desperately wanted to succeed. We'll have to wait until someone like DeLillo tells us the real story. UNDERWORLD and WHITE NOISE, in the post-Enron world, can only be seen as good starts.
Rating: 
Summary: Great fun
Review: Anatomy of Greed is a fascinating and fast-paced inside look at Enron. Cruver strikes me as both honest and well informed, both from his personal experience and from many interviews conducted for the book. The book is grimly hilarious, and likely to be appreciated for many years to come as a true picture of Enron's last days from the inside. It is a wonderfully readable book. The timeline has occasional look-backs at earlier events (events that preceded Cruver's employment at Enron) that may require a second glance at dates, but the dates are all identified, so this does not detract from the book. I enjoyed this thoroughly and recommend it highly for those fascinated by the business environment and follies of the last several years.
Rating: 
Summary: Anatomy of Greed
Review: As a former Enron employee, I was excited to hear that an insider was about to proclaim the truth about what went on inside Enron. Unfortunately, this book misses the mark--by no fault of his own but because he simply was not with the company long enough (9 months). By the time Cruver arrived at Enron, the wheels on the wagon were already falling off. Cruver was not a Trader but a marketing specialist / product developer which is very different. I'm still waiting for The Book, one written by a real insider. Although well written, it is more filler than substance (e.g. the Cow Parade) and by the way Skilling didn't quit because of Teeside.
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Summary: Better than being there!
Review: As an investment professional covering energy stocks I am intamately familiar with the Enron story, from it's humble beginnings in the mid 1980's to it's specatcular blowout late last year. "Anatomy of Greed" was right on the money in describing this horrible /fantastic meltdown and Cruver's insights and humor make this story educational, accessible, and entertaining for just about anyone. I have met some of the personalities in question (Lay, Skilling, etc.) and his characterizations were spot on. Likewise, his descriptions of the events that brought down the house of cards were simple enough for the lay person (sorry, bad pun!) to understand but thorough enough to see what really happened. You really get a feel for what it was like to be at Enron on the front lines while the company went from a new economy titan to the butt of late night talk show jokes. Though his time there was short, his is an invaluable perspective that outside journalists have not, nor will never be able to match. On top of which, some of the anecdotes he shares made me laugh out loud.
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Summary: Enron¿s Cultural Milieu Shunned Unpleasant Truths
Review: Brian Cruver was a relatively minor figure employed by Enron less than a year before its bankruptcy. In many respects, "Anatomy of Greed" is no more than a full length feature article that got published as a hardback. Still, it serves a purpose by showing us that many lower level employees were well aware that Enron was a disaster waiting to happen. Cruver may wish to emphasis the duplicity and questionable ethics of Enron's top brass. He, however, perhaps unintentionally shows that there was plenty of blame to go around. Rarely did anyone dare to jeopardize their ride on the gravy train even when sensing a crash was imminent. Lying to oneself--and occasionally to others--was an easier price to pay. None of the people Cruver writes about are mentally challenged [people]. Virtually all have earned advanced degrees and attended elite universities. The warning signs were obvious for those who preferred reality over fantasy. Nevertheless, greed has a way of turning extremely bright people into blundering fools. Ambitious projects, Cruver points out, continued to be funded long after ample evidence indicated that they should be shut down. The Enron social milieu encouraged behavior similar to a casino gambler who risks his life savings hoping to get incredibly lucky. Enron publicly advocated high moral standards. In actual practice, these rules were cynically ignored. Hard work and talent were not enough to keep one employed. Cruver quotes the mysterious Mr. Blue "the rule was always no bad news." The latter requirement was nonnegotiable and took priority over everything else. Thinking clearly and objectively would only place you into harm's way. The immediate goal of higher stock prices and bonuses were all that mattered. Let somebody else worry about tomorrow. Should you go out of your way to read "Anatomy of Greed?" The answer is yes if you are searching for a few added insights to more fully understand the Enron enigma. There's just enough here to make it worth while.
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Summary: First Enron Casualty to Get Revenge!
Review: Brian Cruver was an expendable middle manager in one of Enron's flimsy business ventures, and got laid off when the company went into its infamous bankruptcy. So in this book we get an antidote to the far more common news accounts of Enron that have focused on the plight of ripped-off stockholders or the criminal actions of the executives. In this very readable and unexpectedly funny book, Cruver describes the collapse of the company from the point of view of hapless employees who only knew a little about what was going on, but couldn't do anything about it as they were too far away from the real power. We also get great insights into the plight of the thousands of laid off employees who had to comprehend the debacle they had witnessed, and try to shake off their reputation as former "Enronians." As a sort-of insider, Cruver has unique insights into the bizarre Enron corporate culture that demanded profits at the expense of ethics or even common sense. Cruver theorizes that the root of this evil was the company's ridiculous peer-review process, in which getting a favorable rating meant keeping your job, and the rating was tied to your generation of profits above all else. Thus every single employee was under immense pressure to inflate profit reports, ignore bad news, and crush all their co-workers. This went all the way to the top, as executives went to the extremes of unethical behavior to increase "shareholder" value. Executives also saw the whole company as a way to enrich themselves, through shady business ventures, partnerships with non-existent companies and entities, and a brazen disregard for accounting rules. Thus we have a group of greedy and power-hungry execs who forgot that they were running a real business with employees, customers, and vendors as they gluttonized themselves. Cruver does a great job describing the basics of Enron's disastrous accounting shenanigans, that made the company artificially prosperous before collapsing like a house of cards, without losing the reader in technical jargon. He also aptly describes the intense hatred that employees developed for execs like Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andy Fastow, who all got extremely wealthy by essentially stealing from the public market and shafting their employees. Cruver has relieved his unemployment with this highly readable book that provides many keen insights, with a dryly sarcastic humor, into the Enron disaster that you probably won't find elsewhere. I understand that a movie will now be made from this book. Looks like Cruver has himself a fresh new career.
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Summary: Story of an Enron insider
Review: Cruver had a short, but exciting tenure with Enron. His insider story is easy to read, humorous, and worth reading. His details of the shenanigans of the Enron bigwigs demonstrates more than the news headlines did, that those people were really the scum of the earth. With total disregard for anyone, and with collecting their individual bonuses as their only goals, these people destroyed lives, and even took action that directly lead to loss of human life. This book destroys any sympathy that the reader might have held for former Enron executives.
Rating: 
Summary: Mostly the fantasy of a "know-nothing employee"
Review: Cruver obviously wrote this book to cash in on the Enron story. That much is clear. The problem was that he wasn't with the company very long, he wasn't in an upper management position, he did not have access to secret data, and he didn't have any friends in the corporate boardroom. He was basically one step above the janitorial staff. So what does he do? He culls stories from the media. He throws in some rumors. And worst of all, he makes stuff up. For example, he makes accusations against Secretary of the Army Thomas White. All of which is a lie because Secretary White has testified before a Senate committee with documentation to support him and the Senators were completely satisfied with his role in Enron as being completely cleared without any wrong-doing. What Cruver does with his book is utter sleaze. There is nothing to respect about his efforts since he lies and creates people who never existed in real life just to try and pad his book. Then, CBS made a TV show about his book and went even further into the realm of fantasy making up all sorts of ridiculous untruths and half-truths throughout the show. To add to the ridiculousness, they even hired Mike Farrell to play Kenneth Lay!! That's like hiring Rush Limbaugh to play Ted Kennedy!! The TV show and the book are merely a hit piece against President Bush and the Republicans in Congress even though the Clinton Administration was heavily involved with Enron and the scams that went on do so under the watch of the Clinton people. No where will you find Cruver or the TV show telling you any of this. Like I said, this is just a poorly written book by someone that had very little knowledge about what went on in the REAL Enron and his desperation to capitalize on the scandal, made up a bunch of half-truths and lies. Don't waste your time.
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