Enron worked out very badly for investors and average employees, but it was a great place to be a senior manager, some of whom are now among the wealthiest Americans (e.g., Lou Pi walked away with $250 million and become the second largest landowner in Colorado).

Have public company Boards learned any lesson from Enron? A March 31, 2008 article [sadly not online] about Stan O’Neal, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, suggests not.

The Board at Merrill Lynch Enronized their company by promising to pay Stan O’Neal roughly $50 million per year if he made some numbers look good.