Stank keeps talking about being a “market-based company,” but the market has already delivered its verdict, and it is absolutely brutal.
Just look at the scoreboard.
AT&T’s market cap today is around $180B.
Netflix, a company AT&T once thought it could compete with through the WarnerMedia empire, is sitting around $430B+. Netflix is worth more than double AT&T. That alone tells you everything about which company the market believes in.
And when you look at how we got here, it’s even worse.
AT&T bought Time Warner for roughly $85B, swallowed billions more in debt, tried to play Hollywood, mismanaged the integration, then spun it off in 2022 into Warner Bros Discovery wiping out over 50 of billion in value.
WBD stock fell as low as $7.50, and even now AT&T stock at roughly $25.46 is trading below WBD’s $25.80.
An $85B asset turned into a fraction of its worth, and now WBD is being shopped to Netflix for double compared to the sale and divestiture price.
Billions burned.
A strategic failure so large business schools literally teach it.
And the company has spent the last five years trying to claw its way back to where it was BEFORE all these “visionary decisions.”
So when Stankey and the leadership team brag about “market-based” strategy, it’s a joke the actual market doesn’t find funny. Wall Street sees right through it. Investors have no confidence. Employees have no confidence. The stock has gone nowhere during his tenure, and the company’s major bets have been disasters.
If AT&T truly wants to operate like a modern, market-led company, then start acting like one beginning with ending his latest “visionary decision” - the outdated RTO obsession that adds cost, crushes morale, pushes out top talent, and delivers zero measurable business benefit. Wait too long and you’ll never recover from that too.
Real market-based companies reduce overhead, increase flexibility, retain talent, and innovate.
AT&T is doing the opposite and the market has priced that in loud and clear.
Leadership can keep talking about culture, presence, and “the plan,” but the numbers don’t lie.
The strategy isn’t working.
And the market knows it.
And so do we.