Dan foolishly believes A.I. will magically fix everything wrong with Verizon.
The only question is how much damage will he do before he leaves?
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AI is not a shortcut. It requires strong domain expertise and the discipline to use it well, both of which take time and energy. With a 50% cut over the past few years, the knowledge base is largely gone, yet execution-level leadership has not changed. Under these circumstances, AI will not help and nothing will improve. Leadership hans and Shankar
should have transitioned at least two years ago.
The reason for buying Frontier is to re expand Verizon’s wireline footprint something the company should never have sold off in the first place.
Under Lowell McAdam and Hans Vestberg Verizon put nearly all of its eggs in one basket wireless. While wireless is a strong business it is also highly competitive capital intensive and margin pressured.
Walking away from wireline reduced diversification and long term stability. Re entering wireline through Frontier is an acknowledgment that the strategy was flawed and that a balanced network portfolio matters.
They (Execs) keep making the decisions (bad ones) and company keeps falling. Then they want to fix it by eliminating the people who are doing everything they have been asked to and more. How does that make sense? If we got rid of everyone at basking ridge we would be instantly profitable and would have less bad moves. Double win.
It’s a big risk to count on AI to turn around verizon. It was a big risk to launch mm wave 5G and it didn’t work as planned and made things financially worse . C suite needs to stick with what we know for sure and quit the risk. We don’t have that vision
@c2 yes, Frontier is a good example. Sell it for 10B, buy it back 10 years later for double the price. They have to cut the 13k employees just to stay even with the 12k+ employees coming back. There will be more cuts to get to a negative number next year for it to make sense. Stay viligent and prepare
A lot of the incompetents kept their job and saved their incompetent buddies, a lot of what happened was talented people were kicked in their a$$ mostly without any kind of thank you or acknowledgement.
vz deserves what it will get, the amount of lost talent can't be replaced and any company that tries to cut headcount costs to raise the stock price is in a death spiral.
Over spending on stupid shi$ over the years; think AOL, yahoo, etc is the real problem, that debt will continue to be an anchor. Buying frontier? yep, let's buy one of the shittiest networks out there and claim it will allow for the magical "bundle/stickiness" these jokers keep talking about.
I’ve been with Wireline for 28 years as a tech in New England. Nobody wants to see anyone get laid off—but the level of incompetence in this company has become staggering.
Over the years, people have been promoted who shouldn’t even be here, never mind in leadership roles. The result is a culture with no accountability, declining customer service, and leadership more focused on optics and “corporate initiatives” than doing the actual job. Volunteering company time looks good on paper, but it doesn’t fix networks or serve customers.
These cuts, while painful, were long overdue. The company needs to be saved from the poor decisions made over the last 15 years.
The reality is the wireless network needs serious investment. Verizon has taken on massive debt from bad bets—Vodafone, Yahoo, and other distractions that never aligned with the core business.
Cutting the dividend isn’t an option. It’s the only thing holding the stock together. Dan didn’t make these cuts lightly—he had to. Raising capital and cutting costs were the last real levers left to pull to get this company back on track.
It’s working great so far. The stock is down 7% in the last 3 months. Employees are scrappy. Customers are delighted. And we are the best company in the world at applied AI which will lead us to riches with convergence. Sam Hammock was right to say Watch this space we’re just getting started! Our c suite visionaries delight us.
He is sadly mistaken. 3 more years of this bag
OP, ask ChatGPT.
Hans used 5G as a distraction. Dan is using AI. We are not privy to the real plan. All that is known is that we are losing subscribers and eliminating headcount. Where that leads us is speculative unless you are on the BOD.
Well the first round of TracFone layoffs and employees being replaced by the Visible circus cost the company over 8 million dollars. This was primarily due to 2 clueless leaders that have since been moved to other departments where they can cause less damage.