Movie Review: Enron – The Smartest Guys in the Room

Very rarely do I actually ever review movies. Ok this is actually the first time I’ve formally written a movie review. Enron: The Smarest Guys in the Room simply struck some cords as being extremely relevant and hitting on my deep engrained moral and ethical principles. It was simply appalling to see the level of deceit and corruption that was going on in this company for an extended period of time. What was most troubling was the fact that these people honestly believed from the bottom of their soul that what they were doing was ok and that they were smart enough to make everything work at the end of the day.

I’m sure pretty much everyone has heard the Enron epic story of collapse? This movie does a fantastic job of documenting the process from the beginning to the end. The stories of the California energy crisis struck me as specifically malicious and just evil! I was sucked in wanting to know what else lead to this collapse, what other steps down this road lead to destruction. What lessons can I learn from their mistakes? One obvious question that we can always be asking is something that most five year olds are notorious for… “Ask why?” Don’t be afraid to ask the tough questions and tackle the right problems because it is the right thing to do.

Maybe what ties me up is the proclaimed intent that the guys at Enron were a bunch of brainiacs attempting to change the way that the world does business and do it in such a way that helps them make a little money off the top. In many ways the work that we are doing at HubSpot is trying to change the way that people market and do business in the 21st century. I absolutely love what I do and the difference that I make in my clients business. When I get on the phone with a client and see their progress and see it is obviously going in the right direction with leads coming in and web traffic reporting month over month increases it makes the long hours all worth it. Looking at the Enron story I’m that much sure that what we are doing is the right thing because instead of wrapping our company up in vales of mystery our whole process is to teach small to medium sized business to be more transparent and build relationships with clients and potential clients through the power of the social web and blogging. This unheard of level of transparency allows potential clients to see that we are all in fact real people with real problems and that most of all we really care.

At the end of the day making a quick buck doesn’t provide happiness, it is the meaningful relationships that you make with people that are the road to happiness. Money doesn’t buy happiness, money buys pleasure. There is a very important distinction to make there. So if you enjoy documentaries and business than I would highly encourage that you watch this movie. Hey it’s on the Netflix instant watch list if that helps! In this tough economic environment it’s not too far of a stretch to blame a lot of these issues on the same sort of people that were behind Enron. So after watching ask yourself. What sort of positive difference can you make today? We are after all only given one day at a time.