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person1970–

Bethany McLean

Disciplines:
journalism
finance
writing
enron

Summary

American financial journalist — co-author of The Smartest Guys in the Room (on Enron) and Shaky Ground (on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) — whose 2001 Fortune article questioning Enron's earnings was the first published questioning of Enron's accounting, triggering the collapse.

Core Contribution

Creates the model for financial fraud investigation in long-form journalism — The Smartest Guys in the Room (with Peter Elkind) is the definitive account of the Enron fraud and is studied in business schools as the model of how corporate fraud is enabled by culture, incentives, and auditor failure.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Published the first article questioning whether Enron was overvalued while Enron was still considered the most admired company in America — she called Jeffrey Skilling and asked him to explain how Enron actually made money; his answer was 'you don't get it' and he called her a bitch; the article triggered the investigation that produced the collapse
  • Her Goldman Sachs training makes her financial journalism more technically accurate than most business journalism — she can read a balance sheet as well as the sources she is investigating, which is unusual for a journalist who covers financial fraud

Notable Works & Achievements

The Smartest Guys in the Room

All the Devils Are Here

Shaky Ground

Historical Influences

Michael Lewis Wall Street financial analysis

Intellectual Lineage

Midland, MichiganWilliams College Goldman Sachs Fortune Vanity Fair and others

Contemporaries & Peers

Peter ElkindMichael Lewis Andrew Ross Sorkin

Minds Influenced

Financial investigative journalism

Intellectual Posterity

The Smartest Guys in the Room Bethany McLean as financial fraud journalistFirst Enron questioning article

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