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Comment by Flammy | Hacker News Reader

I've heard pieces of this story, so thank you for the history and summary.

I suspect what you say is true, this is a 'black mark'. Working for Uber? Maybe if you are in upper management, would it be a similar "black mark" but even then, are you going to blame every C_O for their scandals? Probably not all. As for the 98% of employees? I doubt working for Uber will seriously impact their next job (and much less all following jobs).

Just think, today we don't hold it against middle management or individual contributors who happened to be employed at Enron at the wrong time...

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I worked with a dude that got laid off in the whole Enron fallout. Everything was normal Friday when they left for the weekend. Monday morning, they found a box of personal items where their desks used to be.

He had some trouble finding a job afterwards, and wound up working at a call center (where I met him). Seems folks didn't want to take the chance that he just might have been in on it, nor did they want to un-train a toxic culture out of him. Really was a shame as the dude was a joy to work with.

Just think, today we don't hold it against middle management or individual contributors who happened to be employed at Enron at the wrong time...

Do you have enough knowledge of recruitment in the energy sector to make that remark?

Actually after Enron was exposed, most former employees head a very difficult time getting hired. It was a major black mark, made worse by the fact that many employees had significant savings in Enron stock.

This really depended on what their role was. Many star traders or analysts were able to get re-hired almost immediately or start their own firms without a problem. Here's an example:

https://books.google.com/books?id=qwDFL2xIX4kC&pg=PA88&lpg=P...

That's a pretty good book, btw...

Why would you lump these two together? I'm genuinely curious.

Is it not obvious? They're practically identical in every respect, right down to corporate culture, grandiosity and being propped up on a titanic and imaginary valuation which is all that empowers them to carry out their activities.

I don't see much similarity except ridiculous valuation and the consequent financial threat level between a company that used to be normal, developed an infection of criminal behaviour on the part of a small group and collapsed because of epic law-preaking, and a company that began as a hugely funded startup, behaves badly from day 1, appears to be openly run by assholes for assholes, and hasn't broken the law on a catastrophic scale yet.

> hasn't broken the law on a catastrophic scale yet

Debatable?

Enron and Parmalat vaporized billions of stock value; that's what I call catastrophic scale. Note that on paper Uber is even bigger.

Having worked in the energy industry, the traders previously from Enron were some of the most sought after in the world since they basically invented many of the markets from the ground up and could get shit done. Not sure how the accountants fared, though...

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