Bad Bets

Introducing Bad Bets, a new podcast series from The Wall Street Journal that unravels big-business dramas that have had a big impact on our world. We begin with the Enron saga. In the 1990s, the U.S. energy company was a darling of Wall Street. But after the Journal uncovered monumental corporate fraud at Enron, the company quickly descended into bankruptcy, compromising tens of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Now, on the 20th anniversary of Enron's collapse, this story is as relevant as ever. This season on 'Bad Bets', Journal reporters John Emshwiller and Rebecca Smith talk to key players who witnessed Enron's downfall from the inside, including a whistleblower who speaks on the record for the first time.

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Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was arguably the face of Enron's meteoric rise in the 1990s. He took a sleepy energy company and turned it into one of the most innovative corporations in the world. By the end, Enron had its fingers in all kinds of projects - including America's nascent broadband networks. In this episode, how Skilling's rise set the stage for Enron's fall.
John Emshwiller is the host of this season of Bad Bets. He and Rebecca Smith did the original reporting on which this season is based. Bad Bets is a production of The Wall Street Journal. This season was produced in collaboration with Neon Hum Media.

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Enron's stock price rose astronomically in the late '90s, buoyed by investor confidence in former CEO Jeffrey Skilling-and by earnings reports that seemed to show Enron's profits growing by leaps and bounds. But as we now know, those numbers were engineered by a man named Andy Fastow, Enron's chief financial officer at the time. In this episode, we take a look at Mr. Fastow and hear from the whistleblowers who exposed him and Enron's financial engineering.
John Emshwiller is the host of this season of Bad Bets. The original reporting on which this season is based was done by him and Rebecca Smith. Bad Bets is a production of The Wall Street Journal. This season was produced in collaboration with Neon Hum Media.

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The biggest problem for Enron wasn't that former CEO Jeffrey Skilling suddenly quit, or that former CFO Andy Fastow was enriching himself. It was that Enron's success was dependent on an image that was partly a facade. After Wall Street Journal reporters pulled back the curtain, it all came tumbling down. In this episode, how Enron fell from Wall Street darling to bankruptcy in just a matter of weeks.
Questions about the making of Bad Bets? Join John Emshwiller and Rebecca Smith for a live Q&A on Thursday, November 4th at 2 p.m. EST. Sign up at wsj.com/live-qa. We'd love to hear from you.
John Emshwiller hosts. The original reporting on which this season is based was done by him and Rebecca Smith. Bad Bets is a production of The Wall Street Journal. This season was produced in collaboration with Neon Hum Media.

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Enron CEO Ken Lay was practically the company's founding father. But when federal authorities began investigating Enron after its collapse, prosecutors had a hard time connecting Lay to anything illegal - and Lay himself insisted that he was innocent. Until: prosecutor John Hueston joined the team, two years into the investigation. In this episode, how the Enron Task Force built its case against Lay.

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