Delete Everything, Cancel the Party
In October 2001, Enron ordered the destruction of its emails. Six weeks later, it canceled the holiday party. The emails survived. The party didn't.
Collapse
10 entries
D
E
Everything Is Fine
Between August and November 2001, Ken Lay sent a series of all-company emails assuring 20,000 employees that Enron had never been stronger. The stock went from $36 to $0.26.
G
Gallows Humor
An Arthur Andersen auditor joked about shredding documents three days before the DOJ opened its investigation. He was trying to schedule lunch.
L
Lay It on the Line
In August 2001, Ken Lay asked 20,000 employees to tell him the truth. Over 4,000 did. He published their answers, promised to fix everything, and the company collapsed 61 days later.
Life During the Collapse
Four emails from Enron's final weeks that have nothing to do with fraud and everything to do with being human while the building falls down.
T
The Big E: Fantasy Football During Bankruptcy
From 1999 to 2001, a group of Enron traders ran a fantasy football league through CBS SportsLine.com. The company collapsed. The league did not.
The Enron Stock Price Collapse
Enron's stock price fell from its all-time high of $90.75 in August 2000 to $0.26 by November 30, 2001 -- a 99.7% decline over 16 months that destroyed $70 billion in market capitalization, wiped out $2.1 billion in employee pension plans, and eliminated 5,600 jobs.
The Good Ones
Before the fraud, before the hearings, before the shredding -- there were people who mentored junior staff, thanked their bosses, and held each other up as the building came down. The kindness is what makes the rest of it unbearable.
The HYDA Index
For three weeks in November 2001, an Enron attorney in Portland tracked the company's collapse by watching crows on the Willamette River.
The True Believers
As Enron collapsed in late 2001, a handful of employees wrote to Ken Lay not to rage or demand severance, but to say thank you. Their letters are the saddest documents in the archive.