In a decade of corporate makeovers, few firms could match Enron when it came to reinvention. Little more than a week after the roaring nineties came to an end, Enron was at it again, using its annual analysts meeting on January 11, 2000, to trumpet a new “Broadband strategy.” a rapt audience of two hundred analysts and institutional investors listened to Enron’s latest rendition of a story that Wall Street loved—the saga of a company transforming itself—this time into a bona fide New Economy firm. Enron executives proclaimed that its new proprietary software would allow it to become “the world’s largest buyer and seller of bandwidth” and “the world’s largest provider of premium broadband delivery services.”

In truth, Enron had yet to solve the formidable technical problems involved, and the markets for neither broadband nor digital content were wanting for suppliers. However, it did have some high-powered business . . .