Why Enron Executive Ken Lay is My Business Mentor

By: Ben Jordan
Submitted: 2007-01-17 15:33:42
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Every entrepreneur should have a business mentor—someone who’s been through everything that they’re going through and can share their wisdom. Whether he knows it or not, my business mentor is none other than former Enron Executive Ken Lay. For many, he might not make the most obvious choice of a mentor, with his track record of lying, cheating, and stealing his way to success, but that is precisely why this choice is so appealing to me.

As his first duty as my business mentor, Ken (Mr. Lay to the rest of you) can grow my social network. This guy knows everybody—likely because he’s paid most of them off at one point or another. He can introduce me to people who will come in handy when I need to get out of felony conspiracy charges. This is just one of the many valuable aspects of our business mentoring relationship.

I can trust Ken to be my business mentor, because he knows that if he makes one false move the government will be on him like white on rice. Much like the old saying that the safest time to fly is the day after a crash, I feel like the safest day to have Ken as my business mentor is right after a huge financial scandal that covers the television, newspaper and radio waves for years, and gets used as water cooler fodder even now.

Furthermore, he’ll be my business mentor for free—unlike many online services that try to charge for business mentoring services, Ken just got away with the biggest scandal in business history. Thus, he doesn’t really need my money, because we all know that he has a few million stashed in a bank somewhere overseas. I get a free business mentor, and he gets to pretend that he’s still somebody special—it’s a true symbiotic relationship.

But, one of the most important reasons that I choose Ken as my business mentor: he’s already made every mistake in the book, so I can utilize his expertise in steering me away from potential business disasters—like billion-dollar financial scandals, or particularly “creative” bookkeeping practices. Also, as my business mentor—should the need arise, Ken can point me in the direction of a good lawyer to get me out of any particularly sticky situations.

Since Ken doesn’t have anything better to do right now than be my business mentor, I can’t see any reason why he’d decline the request. After all, it’s not like he’ll ever be hired at another company worth a hill of beans, so be may as well use his spare time to promote entrepreneurship in the global community. By being my business mentor, Ken can pay off his debt to society, one lie at a time, all the while keeping me from heading to prison.

So, it’s easy to see why Ken Lay makes the best business mentor ever—I don’t even see any other choices. So, over the course of our business mentoring relationship, I’ll expect him to help me with some creative math, then help me to tuck that creative math away where no pesky FBI agents can find it. Like I said—a true symbiotic relationship.

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