In a flurry of initiatives, he has propelled Enron into trading wholesale power on the Internet, into Web sales of electricity to retail consumers, and even into Internet trading of bandwidth. As well as reaping first-mover advantage, his firm often brings impressive partners to such risky ventures. Its foray into retail electricity, for example, is with AOL and IBM, while Compaq and Sun Microsystems are helping to build the private infrastructure to trade bandwidth. The response from investors has been astonishment, followed by praise. Enron's share price has rocketed far faster than those of other energy companies.
Analysts continue to gush.
I n sum, the Enron tale is every bit as remarkable as it seems. Mr Lay's response to these questions is revealing. This is odd, for the blunderbuss approach to innovation that is intrinsic to such an opportunistic firm as Enron is bound to produce a few failures. After ducking the question several times, Mr Lay eventually talks about such miscues as the firm's botched entry into the Californian retail market for electricity and a costly blunder involving North Sea gas some years ago. But his grudging replies, which tend to blame regulators, leave one wondering if he ever learns from such mistakes.