#advicetomanagement

Zayo signed a major contract with Mastec. Lord help us.

Watch and learn

https://youtu.be/5nbeGkLRSa8

My first move as pretend AT&T CEO would be pretty simple:

Stop chasing “transformational” nonsense and run the company like a telecom company. Wireless. Fiber. Business services. Network reliability. Customer service. Debt reduction. That’s it.

No media empire. No satellite TV fantasy. No “synergy” PowerPoint garbage. No paying billions for assets and then selling/spinning them off later at a loss.

The basic plan would be:

1. Aggressively pay down debt instead of trying to look clever.
2. Keep investing in fiber, because that actually fits AT&T’s core strengths.
3. Protect the network craft workforce, because contractors and outsourcing can save money short term but can wreck service quality.
4. Simplify management layers, because AT&T has always seemed ridiculously top-heavy.
5. Stop abusing loyal customers with confusing promotions that reward switchers more than longtime customers.
6. Make executive compensation depend on long-term debt reduction, free cash flow, network quality, and employee retention, not just stock-price optics.

And yeah, I’d probably cancel half the consultant contracts in the first week.

But the hostile takeover part might be tough. AT&T’s market cap is massive, and I’m currently a little light on the tens of billions needed to pull that off. Also, I suspect the board would object to my official turnaround slogan: “Stop Doing D-mb Sh*t.”

Although I’m no longer with Centene, I still care deeply about its mission and the people working to achieve it. That’s why I’m taking the time to write this.

One pattern I’ve seen across large organizations is the belief that the next framework, consulting engagement, or AI initiative will unlock better execution. Those things all have value. They bring fresh ideas, experience, and structure. But none of them can replace organizational clarity.

When priorities change faster than results can be measured, it becomes difficult to know what actually worked. Strategies get replaced before they can be fairly evaluated, and organizations end up changing multiple variables at the same time. At that point, you’re no longer learning from the strategy. You’re learning from the interruption.

From the individual contributor’s perspective, people stop asking, “Is this the right direction?” and start asking, ”How long until this changes again?” Eventually they stop optimizing for outcomes and start optimizing for adaptability. That’s not resistance to change. It’s a rational response to uncertainty.

The same challenge applies to outside consultants. They can bring experience, structure, and proven approaches, but they can’t create clarity where it doesn’t already exist. If priorities, success measures, and strategic direction continue to shift, even great recommendations struggle because the organization is still redefining the problem they were brought in to solve.

Landing the plane…

If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be this.

Create the conditions for success before looking for the next solution.

Define what success looks like.

Decide how you’ll measure it.

Give your managers and teams enough stability to execute.

Give the strategy enough time to produce meaningful results.

Then let the data, not the calendar, tell you what needs to change next.

Frameworks matter.

Technology matters.

Consultants matter.

• Employees matter most.*

Every reorganization, every strategy shift, and every new operating model is experienced by people who care deeply about the mission and genuinely want to do great work. When people lose confidence that today’s priority will still matter tomorrow, the organization loses something much harder to rebuild than a process. It loses trust.

To everyone still there, don’t lose sight of why you chose this work in the first place. Your knowledge, your compassion, and your commitment to members still matter. Those things don’t disappear because the organization is going through change.

I sincerely hope Centene succeeds. The mission is too important, and there are too many good people working every day to make a difference. My hope for leadership is simple: create the clarity, stability, and trust that allows those people to do what they’ve always wanted to do…serve members, support one another, and do their best work.

✌️

• AI helped me tighten the writing. The observations, opinions, and experiences are my own.*

3 weeks ago they warned of $140+ oil. Now we sit at $70.

Billionaire Michael Dell's "generous" donation to children's investment accounts is just another front in the deep state's war on self-reliance, and I have the conspiracy theories to prove it.
In a shocking turn of events that has absolutely nothing to do with the deep state’s insidious plot to indoctrinate our youth, billionaire Michael Dell has announced a $6.25 billion “donation” to fund so-called “Trump Accounts” for children. Coincidence? I think not. Let’s break this down, folks—because if you’re not questioning this, you’re already asleep at the wheel.

First off, “Trump Accounts”? Really? That’s what they’re calling them now? I’m sure the name is just a happy accident and not at all a calculated move to make conservatives warm up to what is clearly a socialist wealth redistribution scheme. $250 per kid? That’s barely enough to buy a single share of GameStop, and we all know the elites don’t want your kids learning about the free market. They’d rather they grow up dependent on government handouts—or in this case, billionaire handouts.

And let’s talk about the income cutoff: $150,000. That’s suspiciously specific. Why not $149,999? Because they needed a round number to hide the fact that this is really about tracking families. Mark my words, this is just another way for the globalists to catalog who’s “middle class” and who’s not. Next thing you know, they’ll be implanting microchips in these accounts—wait, actually, that’s probably already in the fine print.

But here’s the real kicker: 80% of Texas ZIP codes qualify. EIGHTY PERCENT. Folks, that’s not generosity—that’s an admission that the economy is rigged. If 80% of families are making under $150,000, then who’s hoarding all the money? Oh right, the same people “donating” it back to us like some kind of twisted charity tax write-off. Wake up, sheeple!

And of course, the urban elites in Austin, Dallas, and Houston are mostly excluded. Convenient, isn’t it? The very cities where the tech overlords and government puppets live get to opt out of their own socialist experiment. Meanwhile, the rest of Texas gets a measly $250 per kid—probably in digital currency so they can phase out cash and control your spending.

This isn’t philanthropy. This is conditioning. They’re training the next generation to rely on handouts instead of hard work. And by the time these kids grow up, they’ll be so used to government (or billionaire) intervention that they won’t even question it. Well, I’m questioning it. And you should too. Because if there’s one thing the elites hate, it’s people who can still think for themselves. Stay vigilant, patriots. The tofu-pushing deep state is always watching.

Laptops in the company still have attuids assigned to their computer name. Use ADUC or the PowerShell activedirectory module to search for computers belonging to anyone in your leadership chain. Once you find their computer, you'll want to perform a ping on their computer name, followed by nslookup to see which domain controller they are connected to. It will tell you if they are connected to VPN and are therefore not in the office.

Subsequently, make a PowerShell script that automates this whole process, and now you have a way to track RTO compliance of executives. You can run it every 20 minutes to track who is doing less than 8 hours in the office.

Once you find someone, lodge a complaint with HR indicating that you believe they are violating RTO policy.

As a fresh grad. when I joined CDC design Verification (DV) , team used to have a great, merit based culture where technical decision were driven by logic and data.
Recently, a leadership change at the top for DV ruined this dynamic. The top lead lacks a technical verif. background, makes unilateral decisions, and pushes aggressive deadlines just for his upper visibility and no techincal contribution for him.
We went from a collaborative team to a strict "no questions asked" environment.
Feeling highly demotivated and could sense the same with my peers and leads.
need advise - is it worth speaking about this to the lead? is this kind of one man pushing his view normal across Qualcomm or is it a major red flag and i should start looking outside QCOM?

https://presentofcoding.substack.com/p/please-switch-to-python

Stata can’t. SAS can’t. SPSS can’t. MATLAB’s answer is “call Python from MATLAB.”

even where these tools have some capability, it requires calling Python, or expensive licenses, or both.

I’ve rarely met anyone who learned Python or R after switching from Stata or SAS and said, “I wish I were still working in those.”

Probably the only way out of this mess is to make FOSS illegal or legally cripple its usage within the country and, if possible, around the globe. There are movements afoot…

One upper management leader once mentioned that competitors (Cadence) were more efficient. A few colleagues who once worked at Cadence also said the same. Why? Have our leaders thought about the underlying reason, or they know the answer but they can't change since such reform will damage their own benefits?

Last week my tram was told that they are monitoring our AI usage and those that are not using it at are risk. We were shown a dashboard that tracks general ChatGPT usage and Codex usage.

This week an email comes out instructing us on the proper use of AI, which model to select based on usage cost.

So wait, you want us to use it but in the same breath you are worried about the usage cost?

Id--ts

I have a PhD for 20 years now and most of my papers are in AI. I worked for 5 years at Fiserv as a product director before I left! This lady keeps referring to AI, but she is simply talking about workflow and automation. This is not AI. Can someone please educated her? Is she just another Gibbons?

Listen to the Bloomberg Talks interview with Dan. They literally ask him what changes will average customer see that will make an impact and Dan literally couldn’t answer. Totally embarrassing- it’s so CLEAR he has NO PLAN for any real changes. Just AI, AI, AI. Literally no plan at all!!!

The Existential Threat -- what is Verizon's strategic plan or more importantly an imminent plan to diffuse the potential diminishing of the wireless market share??

The products, service plans, rendered by SpaceX and Amazon -- technologically satellite internet??

Mr. Schulman you are a friend of Elon's so we-ponize to create powerful combinations!!!

To make the most effective use of AI, you pretty much have to be an expert in the domain you are working so you can write effective prompts AND AI must have enough relevant information in order to provide quality output. There is a lot of info in telecom that cannot reasonably be put into AI (confidential info, or spread across many emails, and across many documents (each containing PPI), etc.). For example, take a cell site design: To use AI you would need to upload many plots from Atoll, upload traffic usage and drive data (if available), upload maps, upload ongoing surrounding project info and their status', etc.. You would also need to tell AI what you want as far as standard equipment (and that is always changing and has dependencies), and on and on it goes. The list of things AI needs in order to provide quality output goes on and on, depending on the domain and the intricacies of the required output. The end user also must be knowledgeable enough to recognize garbage.

If you are a non-tech type (not intending an insult here), and you took some of the AI courses available from Google (and probably other AI vendors), you have seen some pretty powerful stuff. AI can do some amazing things. Yes, AI can summarize data. AI can create graphics, videos and audio output. AI can tie together data and create powerful dashboards. AI can write code. AI does all of this much faster than humans. Those AI courses leave the user thinking AI can do most anything. Those AI courses also inspire users to want to buy the creator's product (AI subscriptions). That is intentional! Google, and other AI vendors want to make money on their products. They are not going to talk much about the pitfalls of their products.

Taking those courses is like watching a very long, well produced commercial. If you are a tech type, you may be familiar with at least some of the inner workings of AI and understand it really is a probability machine (really A LOT of little probability machines). It takes in data, creates relationships amongst that data based on probabilities it "learned" from training data. Some of the magic is taken way, but it is a good thing to understand in order to make better use of the tool.

Dan Schulman's educational background is in economics and he has an MBA. Guessing other C-suiters' educational backgrounds are similar. AI works well for economics. You can upload many disparate spreadsheets and as long as there is some semblance that the data in each sheet can be correlated with data in the other sheets, AI will handle it like the Harlem Globetrotters handle a basketball. I am sure Dan was drooling at the mouth when AI vendors showed him what they could do for VZ. But, give AI a bunch of data without concrete direction, and design requests that could have many tradeoffs that are not seen until design time, it will provide output that is not concrete. There will be a lot of garbage output.

To best use AI, yes, you can use conversational prompts, but, you must be very precise. Think of training your dog or you child:). Dogs and children do not understand the concept of "sometimes." You must think like a programmer and tell AI exactly what you want. The issue with more complex problems is that exactly what we want is not known until we get deeper into the design. We have not seen all of the dependencies and tradeoffs until we get deeper into the analysis. By the time we get that far into it, it is faster to just do the task ourselves rather than try to put all of that info into AI.

https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/exclusive-ousted-bp-chair-met-activist-shareholder-elliott/

Don't know about you, but AM is growing on me. The company needs someone who is willing to give it a kick up the **.

On Monday, June 1st, Copilot moves to token-based billing with major adjustments to token-cost multipliers. Some models will cost 60x more per token than others. Most of what users would call the "useful" models will become exceedingly expensive in comparison to the others.

Guess I’m finally going to start using AI as much as Sandeep has begged for.

Get ready to open your wallets, you d-mb fu--ing ghouls.

In bewilders me how Humana gets away with the extreme various ways they try to manipulate investors instead of simply focusing on the mission of providing better (and more cost effective) strategies and services to its members.

I believe, in an attempt to raise investor expectations as to the stock price and earnings per share, they manipulate the stock price by buying back their own stock, have other corporations to temporarily buy their stock, and probably (possibly) pay off financial new’s journalists and financial analyst pundits to say they believe Humana’s future stock will raise to such and such.

I just hope the investors and potential investors are wise and discerning enough to not take news articles and temporary stock price spikes at face value. But instead do some digging and exhaustive research analysis of their own.

It is my belief that Humana, and Medicare Advantage, are treading water, buying time, with the knowledge that the good business days are numbered and the end is only a couple to a few years out (maybe five years, at most).

If Humana truly has in mimd a goal to have the corporation to be successful, then I strongly suggest they do an across the board evaluation of all persons within the roles of Director, Associate Director, Manager, and perhaps even Vice Presidents of segments.

My suggestion is to fire all those that were hired many years ago in the past (and also recently) who are Cronies, Nepo Babies, and DEI hires.

Then, replace them with persons with the actual education degree for that field, that have the experience and training and past track record, and are fully capable of producing actual effective results that assist the company in reaching its strategic goals.

The Ruckus-to-Belden sale has all the smell of a polished used-car pitch: shiny numbers, big promises, and just enough spin to make the buyer believe they were getting a prize.

In my view, Chuck and the Carlyle playbook were not about building a great company or a great product. They were about packaging the story, dressing up the numbers, and extracting value before someone else had to live with the consequences.

Best used-wasel-car salesman energy.

poor ba----ds.....

GN&T has too many incompetent and wasteful people in leadership positions. I don’t think Accenture has the know how or the perseverance to sort this situation out. More than likely, they’ll end up throwing out the baby with the bath water!

TL;DR : Nike needs to make more desirable products again and get them in front of more people by focusing on a few big hits and not over-relying on its own stores.

Nike should prioritize restoring brand heat and product distinctiveness while rebalancing its channel mix. The shift toward direct to consumer has supported margins but reduced marketplace visibility. I would recommend sharper segmentation of distribution, reinvesting in key wholesale partners for reach, while elevating owned channels for premium storytelling and data. In parallel, focus the innovation pipeline on fewer, bigger product bets across core categories, reducing complexity and improving speed to market. Growth will come from concentrating demand around iconic, high velocity products rather than expanding assortment.

This likely requires a simpler operating model with clearer priorities and faster decision making. That includes reducing organizational complexity, aligning incentives around end to end category performance, and empowering teams closer to the consumer to act with speed. There is also an opportunity to improve demand forecasting, merchandising discipline, and supply chain responsiveness to increase precision without adding overhead. Cost discipline matters, but primarily as an enabler of speed, creativity, and execution rather than the goal itself.

Thoughts?

Why does this company continue to treat cyber security like an afterthought? Incident after incident, no lessons learned. Hire actual professionals rather than these afterthought staff!

This stupid company is always organic meaning, all the Execs are long timers (CEO, CTO, CFO..), so they have the same narrow minded mentality.
The company needs some people from outside who have vision and know how to do business. The current mo--ns do not fit for their positions and will only get worse...

Scientists have published a groundbreaking report where they studied the smoothest brain on the planet, belonging to AT&T CTO Jeremy Legg.

“It’s insane, we’ve never seen zero synaptic activity in a human ever”, one scientist said, “we’re honestly not even sure how he’s alive.”

“We’ve long thought humans evolved from apes, but we thought it was a one way street you know, we never thought humans could DEVOLVE from apes, until we met Jeremy.”

According to the report, Mr. Legg has less neural activity than Kanzi, the world’s smartest ape. The discovery of Mr. Legg has led to the funding of more ground breaking studies, “this opens up the opportunity to study how the Neanderthals actually communicated and thought”.

In response to the report, Jeremy Legg gave a statement to our newsroom intern, “AI is se-y, Azure is se-y, data centers are not se-y. This reporter is REALLY se-y.”

Since managing committee doesn't seem to want to listen to employees, maybe some bad press would actually catch their attention a bit more. Not sure how many Minneapolis news stations aren't owned by a conglomerate that would bury the story though.

To write a Charlie Scharf earnings call commentary, and co-pilot nailed it.

Replace Senior Management with ai, they're all just a bunch of group thinking robots anyway

—Ensure they are putting in 8 hour days, 40 hour work weeks
—Ensure they are doing more than just attending (unnecessary for them) all day back to back meetings and not any real work
—Ensure they are not favoring some of their employees while harming others. Giving growth projects to some while starving work for others that work for them (unfairly).
—Make sure they are not just protecting their own careers but not their staff
—Check and see if they were the cause of pushing out some excellent employees within the last couple of years that had excellent work ethic.
—Check to see if they stood up for employees being pushed out that asked (even begged) for their leader’s intercession and advocacy but those same leaders would not lift one finger or one word to help.
—If these Directors and Associate Directors are not properly doing their jobs , then cut them loose!

There is a fundamental disconnect between Dan’s stated ambition around AI-led transformation and the behavior being driven by current leadership.

Leaders are not just failing to prioritize upskilling—they are actively deprioritizing and, in many cases, dismissing learning initiatives as non-essential.
Immediate operational demands are consistently positioned above capability building, effectively preventing employees from investing in AI and future-ready skills.

I want to provide this feedback. Where can I provide that?

Well the reality of living off a questionable net adds 4Q/25 is setting in.

Zero change in execution, integration of Frontier and DEI Directors/VPs to execute will continue to drive Vz stock South.

Hiring MBAs to create a theoretical strategy vs meritocracy of employee based results will ensure Vz being aquired in 2-3 years!

Lack of a strong Vz Executive bench and Board all but says " aquire my assets". What

Serious question: What advice would you give to a very capable employee who isn’t one of the anointed ones (not in a leadership development program and not part of a good old boy network and who spends their time getting work done and has no patience for schmoozing) but who decides they want to tough it out at Verizon. Is it a hopeless situation?

And Oracle is tops

https://youtu.be/a1Vd85ilWiI

I was not surprised by this statement on yesterday’s call. This begs the question, then WHY are those people sitting up there collecting checks? Alfonso also said there were too many people involved in the process. Too many people running reports and not enough execution. Again, why are they sitting there. None of them can do what we ask the front line to do today. Great leaders lead from the trenches not from the conference room.

She gave word salad on what they want to do without a plan how to achieve it.
Just BS without any weightage..

Really liked D. Gold answer that he wants to focus on “how”.. everyone always talk about what.

Target leadership need to realize as a publicly traded company they are continuing to harm their external stakeholders and investors despite the changes that perceive will fix the issues.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2026-02-27/targets-management-under-fire-as-investors-agitate-for-change

Replace the first levels with AI.

I received an M rating, and people are telling me it’s bad? . I’m the smartest person on my team and my “boss” is an unqualified Saudi woman. I’ve emailed her boss and told him as much, but I don’t know if that will help? To those of you considering coming here, be mindful they prioritize their own despite how much value you may add.

OpenAI's Altman says world 'urgently' needs AI regulation https://share.google/B1jHOswL7EwmG2pAX

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/unitedhealth-ceo-privately-invested-in-potential-competitors-wall-street-journal/