How software developed from Enron’s emails could help prevent the next Enron

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Emails from within Enron were released online in 2003. These emails became an essential data set for machine learning researchers and helped to develop products like Siri and Gmail’s smart compose.
KeenCorp, a Dutch company, has developed software that reads all internal company emails to provide metrics about employee morale. The software was tested and developed with the Enron emails, and analyzes changes in tone and word choice.
Andy Fastow, Enron’s ex-CFO, is an investor and consultant for KeenCorp. He believes the software would have prevented Enron’s collapse, and could help stop the next big corporate corruption scandal.
To hear the full story of how Enron’s email’s have changed machine learning, subscribe to Business Insider’s podcast "Household Name."

Andy Fastow, Enron’s ex-CFO, wants to prevent the next Enron.

Yes, you heard that right. Nearly 20 years after the energy firm collapsed after being involved in one of the biggest accounting frauds in history, Fastow is an investor and consultant for data analytics company KeenCorp. The Dutch firm has created software that analyzes word choice and tone in emails sent by employees. The goal is to notice changes in morale which may pose a risk to the company.

Fastow spoke with Business Insider’s podcast "Household Name" about how a trove of Enron’s emails, including his own, brought him to KeenCorp.

The story begins in 2003, after Fastow was indicted by a federal grand jury a year prior and before he pled guilty to two counts of wire and securities fraud in 2004. The Federal Energy Regulation Committee (FERC) released over 500,000 emails sent by the 150 top people at Enron. The emails were collected during an investigation into energy market manipulation. FERC had begun to trawl through the emails but they couldn’t read through such a large number of emails, according to ex-regulator Pat Wood. They thought that ordinary people would look through the emails for more evidence of wrongdoing, but they were instead purchased and catalogued by researchers.

The emails, known as the Enron Corpus, remain one of the largest public databases of real emails available. The Corpus was used for groundbreaking research into machine learning, email filtering, and gender bias as well as an early training ground for products like Siri and Gmail’s smart compose.

Fastow had been giving speeches about the pitfalls of corporate corruption since leaving prison in 2011, when the Corpus made its way back into his life. Andy Fastow told "Household Name" how a 2016 speech in Amsterdam connected him with KeenCorp.

KeenCorp had used the Corpus to train its software, but its algorithm had one problem: its metric showed increasing tension at Enron as it unraveled, but there was also an earlier, unexplained rise that the software couldn’t explain.

"And the problem was they couldn’t explain why it had happened," said Fastow. "And I looked at it and I asked them the dates of the movement in the data and these dates corresponded exactly with the approval of the structured finance deal that I put in place, that I was responsible for, that ultimately became the focus of the Wall Street Journal and the SEC 30 months later."

He told "Household Name" that he originally had privacy concerns about KeenCorp, but saw that its positive impact on the workplace outweighed his concerns. Fastow joined KeenCorp as an investor and a consultant shortly afterwards. KeenCorp now has multiple large clients, according to Fastow, including companies within construction, finance, data management and online retail .

Fastow is convinced that KeenCorp could prevent another Enron in the future.

"If they had seen this KeenCorp the next day … I believe the board would have reconsidered their decision," said Fastow. "And history would have been very different if they had reconsidered that decision."

Listen to the full story of the Enron Corpus on "Household Name."

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