John's always got a turnaround coming around the corner:
Yeah, so we tried and failed to acquire TMob, but just you wait till we milk sweet cash from DirecTV.
That's not going so well, but hey—lets get us a media property like Comcast and transform the industry! Ya with me? Five minutes episodes of GoT! Our management expertise lording over the HBO creatives so they'll be making the margins I think they should make, not the paltry sums expected by their milquetoast Hollywood market managers. Whadda they know about real business, Bellhead style, anyway?
Well anyhoo, guys, that didn't work out, so how about a PIVOT? Focus on telecomm. Communications is what we know, so we'll take a haircut—I'll even sit for one in a town hall!—and get out of the media business. Forget what I said last quarter, cause now... NOW... we're turning the corner.
Say what? Cash flow? Oh yeah, just some billing issues last quarter and first quarter is always tight. That why for Q2 we promised four billion and delivered—uhhh, well, nevermind that!
Cash flow you say? CASH FLOW it is, then, brother! LOOK at all these inefficient slackers we've tolerated all this time! Yeah, sure, we invented the virtual office and we even still sell it still, but do you think I can trust those people? I can't even tolerate people sitting down in my meetings, much less sitting in the comfort of their own home offices working at crazy hours. Look, we've got beautiful real estate and I'll even throw in "amenities" (whatever those are)… so listen, howz about this: we can drop 15% of our most experienced, longest tenured, highest paid labor and do it without getting near EEO or DEI violations. I've got a plan...that'll make your EBITDA zooom. This book...this plan!... is all that I need...it's how to succeed!
[How the Board or our institutional shareholders continue to retain this guy is as much a mystery as Charlie Brown holding the ball for Lucy.]