“Free donuts in the foyer”: The Enron scandal retold

You probably know the story. In 2001 Enron – then one of the largest companies in the world – collapsed after it was found to be using illegal accounting tricks to hide massive debts and fake huge profits.

But what was it actually like to work there?

James and Charles apply a Wankernomics lens to one of the world’s biggest ever corporate scandals, unpacking the company values, analysing the office culture and reading the actual emails that were sent around the office at the time of the collapse.

What they ultimately discover is a corporation that, on the surface, is much like any other, with all-staff emails about free donuts in the foyer, over-enthusiastic interns trying to impress the boss, and a set of ‘organisational values’ that are farcically detached from the actual conduct of the company.

Warning: this episode contains buzzwords and other corporate bullsh*ttery that could be offensive to some listeners.

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