," detailing the rise and fall of healthcare startup Theranos, certainly reminds us of its truth.
Instances of corporate deceit and fraud like this aren't new. When power and money are at stake, people often trade in their consciences for more immediately gratifying rewards — and face the consequences when their elaborate schemes spiral out of control. "Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron" by Bethany McLean and Peter ElkindLike its subject,"The Smartest Guys in the Room" is ambitious, grand in scope, and ruthless in its dealings. Unlike Enron, the Texas-based energy giant that has come to represent the post-millennium collapse of 1990s go-go corporate culture, it's also ultimately successful.
The FIFA case began small, boosted by an IRS agent's review of an American soccer official's tax returns. But that humble investigation eventually led to a huge worldwide corruption scandal that crossed continents and reached the highest levels of the soccer's world governing body in Switzerland. In 2011, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything — drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons — free of the government's watchful eye.
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019) | Official Trailer ... via YouTube