YouSaid · the spoken record

Anthony Scilipoti

lines on the record: 109
first: 2025-10-28
most recent: 2025-10-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“The limitations The limitations are your hired to be a independent, to give your independent opinion and attest that the financial statements present fairly in all material respects in accordance with some set of accounting standards and or standards associated with a contract, for example. And the challenge is time because you have to do this quickly. Pressures on costs. And essentially think about it this way. It's like I tell you, look, I just prepared my report card. I got an A. I now hand it to you and say, look, it's an A. And if you say that it's an A, I'll pay you X amount of money. So look at your situation. You come back and say, well, it's actually not an A. It's kind of a B plus. How much am I paying you again?”
2025-10-28 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so it was found in the courts upon appeal that Arthur Anderson was not guilty, but that was way after the fact because Arthur Anderson was brought to its knees and it was over. I became a scapegoat for everything wrong with accounting at the time and look change needed to happen. Arthur Anderson was around the world all the partners were folded into the other firms.”
2025-10-28 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, if it wasn't on the balance sheet then investors and wouldn't have noticed that there was not enough assets perhaps to cover. And why the implication to our Arthur Anderson, which I think is important, and then it's near and dear to my heart, is, you know, the auditors at Arthur Anderson that we're working on the file, they ended up signing off on all these things. Well, when essentially the proverbial hit the fan, all of a sudden they were asking questions and the regulator asked for the working papers of the auditor, the papers of which they would support the audit work, and they knew, perhaps that they didn't do enough work, so they shredded the documents. So all of a sudden they became guilty because of their actions.”
2025-10-28 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The accounting rules were such that these numbers were not included on the liabilities they were just in the notes, and so all of a sudden, so people weren't paying attention because nobody reads the notes. And so then all of a sudden things started to happen. There was a change in movement in commodity prices. Okay, this is now we're dealing with the dot-com. There was a lot of changes that happened in the economy. We had a recession in the early 2000s, right? And so that led to a lot of movements in commodity prices. That triggered the derivatives. Surprise, surprise. They can't make the payments. It's done.”
2025-10-28 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They essentially had a number of off balance sheet exposures, so they would enter into derivative type contracts where there were tied to an energy price, for example, or even the company's own stock price, and it'd be like, this debt only comes due if the stock price falls to X. This debt only comes due or this derivative transaction we'd entered into and Ron was an energy trader. So if the price of electricity in kilowatt hours rises to a certain amount, well then their disbet is no longer due. If it falls to this level, then they have to pay some counterparty. And so those were those risks were essentially off balance sheet. So those were not sitting on the company's liabilities. They were all contingent. And at the time.”
2025-10-28 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was not on the Enron file I left Arthur Anderson in nineteen ninety seven, couldn't even spell Enron at the time, and it's a very sad thing what happened.”
2025-10-28 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“examined a CPA exam at the time. And I said, you know, I'd like to work with you. And he said, well, you get your CA work done and then we'll think about it. And that's what I did. And so then I tutelaged under him for some four years. And that really made it happen.”
2025-10-28 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was an accountant, and I was working at Arthur Anderson, doing the normal audit sort of preparatory work, and I found it unfulfilling because the work I would do I would find interesting or concerns with the accounting or otherwise and the clients, it didn't end up ending anywhere. So what ended up happening was there was some due diligence work to do where we could do actually look at transactions, companies calling us to say, you know, we want to spin out this business or we want to make this acquisition. And then I asked, put my hand up, said, listen, can I do that sort of work? And then I started doing it and I loved it. I saw some huge fulfillment. And then it's all about people you meet. I met a gentleman named Mal Rosen and he was head of accounting at York University and he was a forensic accountant. He had his own practice. He taught us to pass the Yufi at the”
2025-10-28 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I hate calling things bubbles, but I think we're in a period of extreme euphoria where you read and speak to investors and they say that the numbers don't matter and the financial statements no longer matter because this is changing the world. I say, well, I've seen this before. You know, I saw that Nortel was changing the world and Lucent and Cisco and 360 networks. They were building out the infrastructure of the internet, but we're using today. But those companies don't exist anymore.”
2025-10-28 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source