In the fall of the year 2000, there just happened to be a decision point when they asked me to become Chief Executive Officer of the company. It was a time when, as you remember, we were starting to have some real problems in the California energy markets.
Meaning of the quote
This quote is from American criminal Jeffrey Skilling, who was the CEO of a company in the year 2000. At that time, there were serious problems with the energy market in California, and Skilling was asked to become the company's CEO. He seems to suggest that becoming the CEO was just a coincidence, even though the company was facing major issues in the California energy market.
About Jeffrey Skilling
Jeffrey Skilling was the CEO of Enron during the company’s collapse. He was convicted of federal felony charges related to the Enron scandal and sentenced to 24 years in prison, which was later reduced to 14 years after a deal with the Department of Justice. Skilling served 12 years in prison and was released in 2019.
More quotes from Jeffrey Skilling
I think we had made some tremendous progress in the six months before I left.
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Are the things that now, in retrospect, with what I’ve seen happen to my company, would I have done some things differently? I think – I think we all would do – we would do a number of things differently.
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In the fall of the year 2000, there just happened to be a decision point when they asked me to become Chief Executive Officer of the company. It was a time when, as you remember, we were starting to have some real problems in the California energy markets.
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I sold some shares, but on a net basis, significantly increased my ownership.
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Well, as we built the business in the 1990’s, as I said, I enjoyed that.
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We built that into a wholesale business that became, really, one of the largest companies in the United States. We had success in building new markets, opening markets for competition, and that takes a personal toll.
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Well, actually, I had been working as a consultant to former companies of Enron, or predecessor companies of Enron and, so, I joined in 1990 to really start our wholesale merchant business.
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The indictment, in a lot of ways, that was the turning point.
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