Generally speaking, the decisions made by the leadership of this company are mostly very bad. They have a bad effect on both the employees and the business. I'm curious what is the reason why they continuously make such poor moves? Incompetence? Something else?
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When your life is going nowhere, you gotta just whine about the same old thing over and over. Nothing else happening in your life.
First, we don’t have leaders, we have managers. You don’t get to the top in Corp America by being the smartest person in the room or the most capable, you get there through connections and privilege. Think of it like a monarchy. Running the business and having great ideas isn’t high on that list. Social skills and being in favor with the upper echelons is what matters. Make no mistake, they view you as a peasant and don’t care what any of us think. You could put a potato in the C spots at most companies and do better. As George Carlin said, it’s a big club and you ain’t in it. All the boards are made up of the same folks, the ceo from this company and that, then that ceo is on your board. Of course they are going to rubber stamp whatever. It’s a highly incestuous relationship. Once you understand that, just ignore the folks at the top and you’ll do much better. They are id--ts, just privileged id--ts. Unfortunately they have the ability to ruin lives.
Why post this? It says nothing.
why are we continuing to cry over spilt milk. Time to move one and put that failed M&A strategy behind us. It's a new day for this Telco company that delivers connectivity via fiber and wireless.
No original ideas. We follow what other companies do, and most of the time, it takes so long to copy others, we’re always playing catch up.
ATT is a company that only knows how to "lead from behind!" Sure, T had Bell Labs and were inventors, but when it comes to bringing to market the innovations, T either has to bring others into the fray or wait until another company brings new technology to market to see if it's worth the investment! Not very cutting edge, just a follower!
Keep on whining.
The underlying reason is that management were all raised in a monopoly environment and had never had to compete. They have no Entreprenurial spirit and for all their talk of customer focus they only used their monopoly power to try and buy market share within their existing markets and then in an attempt at new market entry. If the Baby Bells started within a competitive market environment, they would have started with different people and would have different people running ATT and VZ now. Name one major new product or advanced technology that AT&T has brought to market since divestiture - they are users of technology (starting with switches designed and manufactured by others, never wanted any part of Lucent or Bell Labs to any extent). Simple greed brought down the company to where it is now.
The short answer is leadership can get away with many more sc--w ups , because of the trio-poly that is the US telecom market . The massive recurring cash cow that is telecom and a captive market means a lot of debt can be accommodated and a lot of corporate malfeasance.
On the other hand, look at T-Mobile. They have done quite well doing the opposite of T and Vz. The issue for T is they have always been top heavy in the mgmt ranks. The spending for unnecessary and incompetent leadership throughout the company has cost the company too much over the years.
I always think of the younger folks starting out in the company. They don't realize it today, but in time they will realize the company will not be there for them in the long run. For those with pensions, it was worth it. Without the pension there's no point in continuing the journey here.
Incompetence and insider trading
This is old news / opinions.
They may have similar debt but one has few of the assets ( part of the debt is spectrum) from the debt the incurred while the other does.
They are not qualified to be in the position they are in. Take for example Stankey and Stephenson, neither is qualified to run a successful lemonade stand, let alone be CEO of a telecom company. There is no downside and no consequence for poor decision making in telecom be it Verizon or at&t. Both companies are carrying way too much debt, again, due to poor decision making. It's difficult at best trying to run any business without debt, the combined debt of Verizon and at&t is $267B. These companies would do well to replace the leadership at both companies. Both get a big F for failing to manage these companies with integrity.