Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

They are excellent. That's why they get the big bucks.

Both have under performed and should be replaced, period.

Some people say that the background of CEO and CFO does not matter. Well why are we paying them tens of millions per year in total compensation to talk in buzzwords if they cannot perform basic tasks such as determining whether a merger is beneficial to AT&T?

Good CEOs and CFOs with a Finance background should be able to perform ROI (Return on Investment) calculations in the first hour of merger negotiations. Accounting is a different field from Finance since Accounting deals with Bookkeeping, familiarity with tax laws and tax preparation whereas Finance deals with NPV and ROI calculations, and business cases. When a CFO does not have a Finance background, he will never know whether his group’s financial analysis is correct.

Shouldn’t AT&T be hiring “the cream of the crop” for its CEO and CFO when the company is paying top dollar?

A different CEO and CFO could possibly have prevented AT&T’s missteps but we’ll never know for sure.

@1prp+166IDx6X Tho post speaks volumes about att.

High school education here. Knocking down $115k annually not including my bonus. I usually get an individual bonus as well. Have the past 4 years. Almost 35 years. I’ll be here until they run me off. I like diamonds and expensive cars. Call me what you will but I’ve socked away a fortune while working at this place. They can’t make a rule I can’t follow. I give them 40 hours a week and they pay me. I’m good with it. I’ll keep on showing up as long as they pay me. It’s a means to an end for me. It’s not my life. Nobody or nothing owns me. I serve one master and it ain’t AT&T.

Stnky doesn't need a technology or engineering degree. He knows more about technology and engineering than any of us, even the engineers!

Mr. McElfresh is also quite the “get your hands dirty“ radio/electronics experimenter. So was his dad - a long time Bell employee.

Does it matter go look how many people in it don’t have an it degree.

To the person saying Jobs just a "Song and Dance" man. Totally false. He wasn't an engineer, but he was incredibly intelligent - AND, he was actually passionate about the products that his company developed. It's no accident that he was wildly successful starting Apple, and Pixar, and again with Apple after returning (when it was on the brink of bankruptcy). What's funny is that it was people like RandyStank that nearly pushed Apple into bankruptcy - running the business to maximize near-term profits instead of making something customers will love. As another poster said, make your customers happy and the balance sheet will take care of itself.

lol. Woz backed the IIGS, and was nowhere around when Jobs turned Apple from a bankrupt company that was about to be acquired by Sun into the world's most valuable company.

“The 'C' students run the world.” – Harry S Truman

The issue today is that most of Business in America is run by folks from the Accounting side of the house. Accountants typically (not always, but more often in my experience than not) focus on managing the metrics. What they don't understand is that if you properly manage the Business, the metrics take care of themselves.

I have a BSEE and an MBA but stayed on the technology side because why would I want to manage spreadsheets all day?

@eco+166IDx6X : Jobs was not a brilliant leader. He was a song-and-dance man propped up by enough people who knew what they were doing (like Woz) so that he could do his act and take the credit.

Other than a black turtleneck he did nothing different than the guys who used to sell miracle cures from the back of a wagon 150 years ago. Only Jobs didn't have to go town-to-town and do his schtick in front of a few dozen – he had technology let him do his salesman act in front of thousands at a time.

CEOs today don't need to know anything about the businesses. All they need to know is how to read numbers: profits, losses, margins, projections. The reason is that CEOs are now basically nothing but agents for investors - particularly the big dollar investors. Their only concern is maximizing share value. Building a business, understanding potential problems, or grasping technical needs is no longer important.

A perfect example is Boeing and the 737 Max fiasco, Boeing used to be run by CEOs who came up through the ranks and knew aviation. Then in the 90's or so they brought in people who didn't know an aileron from a door handle to run things. The result is that they prioritized choices based on cost and projected profits. So when engineers brought up concerns about the Max, the execs didn't consider the technical aspects of any of it, just whether it made financial sense to press on.

How did that turn out again?

Now nothing T does has the same potential impact of a couple of planeloads of people crashing, but in terms of business it's the exact same thing. Stinkhole doesn't know anything about tech or entertainment, but his arrogance tells him he knows more than the experts. And, just like we're now seeing with a president who claims to know more than the generals, this attitude is having some very real consequences.

But hey, this is America now. Actual knowledge, experience, and understanding aren't important any more.

If you're still worried about degrees after finishing university, it almost always means you haven't accomplished anything of note since.

Steve Jobs was a college drop out, so what’s your point? He went on to establish and lead the most successful technology company in human history.

You don’t need a technical background to run a successful company. In fact, my experience with technical leaders is they tend to get too hands on with the details, trying to flex their tech muscles, rather than allowing their experts to do their jobs. You need to know people, be a visionary and be business smart. You need to be able to make educated decisions about where your business is headed within the market that it exists. Bottom line, you need to be able to choose the right people and give them the tools to allow them to grow and do what they do best. That’s what a good leader is.

You may have issues with our leaders, the decisions they make or their other qualities, but I can assure you, lack of formal technical education is not one of them.

Randall was groomed for the Job by Whitacare. Stanky was groomed for the job by Randall. As long as they have the right people working for them they are good. Most CEO's know nothing of the guts of the business they run as they run the business, not the technical portion.

McElfresh would probably be much better for T all around. His biggest problem right now is the fact he has to be Stank's puppet or risk retaliation.

Get Stank out of the way and promote Jeffy and things would likely be better for all. At least it seems like McElfresh "gets it" but he's too restricted and restrained in the current environment.

Did you also notice Randall's degreee is not from Harvard, Yale or Princeton? So should we expect more from a degree from OU?

Jeff McElfresh has a BSEE and an MBA.