32 Quotes by Bethany McLean

The tale of Enron is a story of human weakness, of hubris and greed and rampant self-delusion; of ambition run amok; of a grand experiment in the deregulated world; of a business model that didn’t work; and of smart people who believed their next gamble would cover their last disaster – and who couldn’t admit they were wrong.

Never, ever do the easy wrong instead of the harder right.

The last and most painful irony is that the two longtime rival armies in the securitization market – the investment banks and the GSEs – would end up magnifying each other’s sins rather than keeping each other in check.

McKinsey partners tend to be designers of ditches, not diggers of ditches. When it comes to executing their lofty theories, well, consultants lean toward leaving those messy realities to the companies themselves.

He once gave a speech advising anyone who wanted to complete a power project to “get all the lawyers in one room, then shoot ’em – in the mouth, because it’s impossible to miss.