Ten years later, insiders press a different view of Enron

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/story/2011-12-03/enron-10-years-later/51592092/1

by rickdale • 15 years ago

15 17 15 years ago

barrkel2• 15 years ago

One demonstration from 1999 narrated by Yeager appears to show an early concept of cloud computing, in which a user could access online applications or "apps" through an Enron network

A user accessing applications via a network is an innovation in 1999? Try 30 years earlier with Telnet, and probably many other examples.

And yet another presentation from 2000 includes a demonstration of an on-demand movie service similar to those available on most cable TV systems today

The Wikipedia article on VoD cites existing commercial services already having launched in 1998.

I don't doubt that there were a lot of smart people at Enron; but whether they were ultimately producing value is in doubt. These examples don't seem to provide much evidence.

tptacek6• 15 years ago

I guess I take your point, but "cloud computing" today is very much not the same thing as "cloud computing" in '00. To build a streaming testbed network in '00, we had to buy physical colocations in data centers around the world, and we were a tiny company.

Everything has precedent in something else, but that doesn't make everything a CICS mainframe.

Retric2• 15 years ago

Sure, but the super computer crowd had long separated most of the physical hardware and even data center that something runs on in 00. Compared to that even EC2 is still a crappy service that forces you to micromanage things. There are plenty of awesome services are built on top of EC2, but 'modern' cloud computing infrastructure still sucks from both a cost and stability standpoint.

barrkel2• 15 years ago

I understand what you're saying, but I don't think you're suggesting that Enron had 2011-style cloud computing in 2000.

mmahemoff• 15 years ago

True, this was hardly revolutionary in 1999. The difference today is apps can be used by consumers and SMBs via the public internet, because most of them now have fast, always-on, connections.

But in 1999, enterprises could already use apps on their intranets; Enron was not alone here.

(And what's up with "apps" in quote marks? Online applications would do fine, it's not like Enron invented the App Store!)

brown9-2• 15 years ago

What a shock that those with a reputation to protect or untarnish would wish to push an alternate narrative.

dbfclark• 15 years ago

For me, the key problem here is that these are very peripheral insiders indeed. Here's my company's study of the Enron corpus:

http://blog.lumino.so/2011/11/07/enron-evil-versus-football/

Just look at all that orange at the top of the first image: that's traders talking to each other about trades. Energy trading is what the company was about, not the tiny internet company that they may have spawned or the HR department. Those people don't deserve to have had their reputations ruined by the fraudulent hedge fund blowup and C-suite malfeasance, but that doesn't mean their parochial views are the correct overall view.

tptacek6• 15 years ago

I had a funded streaming media startup from '99-'01. We built overlay multicast software --- the kind of middleware code that Enron is accused not to have had to back up their CDN.

What I can add to this thread is, Enron very much was talked about in '00 as a real CDN player. Not just in our own internal meetings, but in bizdev discussion with other large media and CDN companies.

That doesn't mean Enron-the-company wasn't a giant fraud (EBS was a tiny portion of Enron as a whole), but I plausible the idea that some senior guy at EBS could truly believe Enron was a legitimate enterprise.

stfu• 15 years ago

Very interesting story. Even so many of the tales might be misrepresented it is still fascinating how winners and looser try to construct different narratives of the same "facts".

tptacek6• 15 years ago

This narrative is probably orthogonal to the corruption narrative.

spodek• 15 years ago

The former Enron people in the article claim the company had great, hardworking people in it and ready-to-implement software.

I see no inherent contradiction between a company having fraudulent, criminal leadership and hardworking, well-meaning people in it. Nor in a company having sellable products and a bankrupt business plan to implement it.

I doubt anyone has any problems acknowledging Enron had tens of thousands of well-meaning, hardworking employees, ignorant of the disaster its decision-makers were fomenting. Everyone knew the company had salt-of-the-earth employees among the criminals -- they were the ones who lost their retirements.

The article didn't change my opinion of Enron.

tptacek6• 15 years ago

It's USA Today. I think this is a story that began its life as a hook ("let's find someone to stick up for the worst corporation ever") and backfilled it with whatever crap they could find.

I didn't flag it because personally I find it interesting that the worst corporation ever also tried to start a CDN that many people in the industry found credible at the time. But it's a terrible news story nonetheless.

shareme• 15 years ago

you know the only bad thing about Enron?

A top accounting firm got destroyed for nothing..

andrewfelix• 15 years ago

"...a small but increasingly vocal group of ex-Enron employees" This 'group' consists of two people who's reputation is tied to Enron's demise.

Most of the people reading this article will have seen the thoroughly researched 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room'. I don't think anyone who's seen that documentary is going to be swayed by a couple of consultants crying foul.

Ten years later, insiders press a different view of Enron

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