The movie Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room was a great movie full of examples of unethical behavior with Enron having an unethical corporate culture. The film chronicles the rise and fall of Enron, one of the most corrupt companies this country has ever seen. Enron began as a promising energy company with a vision of doing good that quickly soured when top executives broke down the company by stealing millions of dollars from people. One reason for Enron's downfall was the deregulation of electricity markets which fueled the greed of Enron officials. They were the ones who transformed Enron from a traditional energy company into an energy intermediary. While watching the film, the first example of unethical behavior I noticed was the scandal involving the oil markets. This scandal occurred early in Enron's history with a couple of traders betting on the oil markets. This has contributed to consistent profits for the company. They would then divert the money to offshore accounts with fake books. When this scandal was made public, Ken Lay (Kenny boy) denied having any knowledge of the corruption. It was obvious that Lay was lying through his teeth about traders betting on Enron's reserves. It was difficult for me to watch it since I know Lay's story very well. Lay is a brother of Beta Theta Pi, the same fraternity I also belong to. While our brothers are all held to very high standards of integrity and trust, Ken Lay did not live by these values. He had been president of his respective chapter and it just goes to show that anyone can be corrupt. Enron then began using an accounting scandal known as mark-to-market accounting which allowed Enron to predict potential profits. half the paper…is now sold for “pennies”. People like Skilling and Lay had temporarily escaped with everyone's money. Because of the Enron scandal, we now have laws like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to prevent a similar event from happening again. As a result of SOX, senior executives now had to individually certify the accuracy of financial data. It also toughened penalties for financial fraud. So what did we learn from Enron? Every company has duties to all its stakeholders, not just its shareholders. At Enron, executives made unethical and illegal decisions. For a business to thrive, it all starts at the top. A strong leader has the vision and ability to take the company where everyone wants to go. They must be able to provide the foundation for people to achieve this goal. This will result in a healthy corporate culture that Enron did not have.