An executive named Bill Butler used to stalk the floor with an eight-foot-long black bullwhip in hand, jokingly threatening traders who didn’t seem to be spending enough time on the phone. Their esprit was such that the traders took great pleasure in outsmarting other parts of Enron, and they didn’t show much mercy for one another, either. “If you showed any weakness, the antibodies would attack,” says a former trader. “Life at Enron,” says another, “was the purest form of balls-out guerrilla warfare.”
