Stankey cost the company $100+ billion over his career.
Here are the smart business decisions he made:
Bought DirectTV for $67 billion in 2015
Bought WarnerMedia for $108 billion in 2018
Sold WarnerMedia for $43 billion in 2022
Sold DirectTV for $26 billion in 2025
Net loss over these deals is $106 billion
Here is what we should have bought:
T-Mobile in 2015 for $45 billion in 2015
Level 3 Communications for $34 billion in 2016
CenturyLink for $55 billion in 2016
DISH Network for $35 billion in 2017
Net valuation gain would be $182 billion for AT&T.
This would have moved AT&T’s spot on the Fortune 100 to the top 10 and position us alongside companies like Alphabet and Microsoft. Current we are ranked 32. Our employee headcount would have increased to 240,000 instead of the current 133,000 and the 80,000 target. AT&T would have likely be the #1 U.S. wireless carrier instead of being #3 behind T-Mobile and Verizon. Our share price would have been roughly $45 instead of $22.
Stankey talks a big game. He says that our #1 priority is fiber investment and convergence. That he wants to make AT&T market based. But he never tells you what AT&T could or should have been if he and Randall did not ruin it. When confronted with any serious question at a town hall he deflects with “convergence” or “fiber investment”.
I have been in Texas my whole life and I know a con when I see one. We call that “big hat no cattle”.