Pick your side. Who did better? Who caused less damage? Or, Edward Whitacre?
17 replies (most recent on top)
Whitacre built up the company … the other two lumnuts broke this place down quicker than whack a mole !
First hand story from a PacBell veteran. When SBC acquired PacBell, Whitacre went to San Ramon, PacBell's HQ, to meet emplooyees. When questioned why drastic cuts are made, he said "because we brought you!"
Southwestern Bell Telephone or SBC or the new at&t has been a wreck since the January 1984 divestiture. Whitacre & Pope made bad decisions and blamed the workforce and they never missed a raise while workers never received one. When the company did well the workers still did not receive raises while Whitacre & Pope did. Wh-t/Pope blamed others for their mistakes and took credit when they did nothing. Stephenson & Stankey have consistently made bad decisions resulting in layoffs, poor stock performance, and worker apathy. The new at&t is a disaster and will only improve when real leadership if found and hired and that includes a real board of directors. This company is a Hot Mess.
You forgot about C. Michael Armstrong, who purchased Media One for $63.5 billion in 2000, then sold it to Comcast for $44 billion a year later, a nearly $20 billion loss. Then he jumped ship and left AT&T to be the CEO of his new company that he stole.
Like choosing between Sy-----s and Gonorrhea. Which would you rather have?
Whitacre was the best, and started as a lineman. He bought AT&T primarily for the network and national b2b sales. He bought Bell South so they could control 100% of the wireless business (Cingular--previously 50% SBC, and 50% BS). He was actually such a great leader/CEO, that Obama had him takeover GM during the post 2008 great recession when banks/insurers/auto makers were about to go under without "too big to fail" rescues.
All the heavy lifting was done by the time Stephenson took over. RS is responsible for the failed TMo acquisition (I saw this happening as soon as it was announced because it was proposed under a democratic presidency). All the previous telecom mergers/acq happened during the Bush II years. Stephenson also did the terrible DTV and TW purchases; and the worst move was having Stankey run Warner Media...
Should be pick your poison, not pick your side!
whoever was responsible for buying cnn is the winner!
they are all good at being bad. if ratty stayed, he would have acquired sears and jcpenney.
Whitacre started the dying business thing pursuing LD while the emergence of cell phones was making that business irrelevant.
Both are equal. Both losers, and an absolute disgrace to AT&T.
Truly the same.
RS was the worst. Look at the debt, outstanding shares compared to our competitors, morale in the company and lack of vision.
The jury is still out on JS. We will see what happens in the next few years.
The real culprit in all the terrible decisions is the BoD. Nothing happens without their blessing.
Carl Icahn recently said there are too many bad BoDs with bad CEOs. T should be included in that list.
Stan Sigman and John Stupka were the best leaders this company has known. Both Whitacare appointee's . Stan did the Iphone deal. John started and built the wireless business and was world renowned for his work in wireless. Randy and John just follow the money.
Ok, I will say slightly positive thing. Yeah, I know - not like me!
Ratty was better in that he did make ONE and only one good decision when he signed up with Apple to get an exclusive on the Iphone back in the day. That was his ONLY good decision. Everything else, including most notably his wasting of $100B by overpaying for failed mergers and then ruining the acquired companies, as normal for Toxic-T more than made up for the one positive decision he made. He also was more polished than the Stink - and never appeared in a video wearing pajamas!
Notebaert did the most damage when he sold Ameritech to SBC.
They are from the same mold. Both were mentored by Whitacre!!! All three did not have any constraints placed on them by the Board of Directors.
Basically the same person!
They even order the same meal when trying to impress at Dallas National! Pathetic