I'll start by saying I have always been fond of Sampath - super smart, great communicator, really understands the business and the industry, and by all accounts a genuinely nice and kind and thoughtful person.
But that said, I also think that he set many things in motion that led Verizon to this position. Both on the business side and then on the consumer side, he set up large, broad leadership org structures, with lots and lots of SVPs. And then I think that in turn led those teams to create broad teams. And once that org bloat starts, it's hard to undo it. I wonder in hindsight if creating these large SVP teams was a mistake.
Just one person's theory.