My vote goes to Stephenson.
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Dave Dorman. Original AT&T could have been what AWS is now, but he bungled it.
Of the new company
Stephenson without doubt. Ed Whitacre handed over a viable business that Stephenson should have been able to lead to success, but RS was apparently more concerned with his ego and didn’t want to be the guy running Ed’s company, he wanted to keep acquiring like Whitacre did to show he was better. But he wasn’t.
At some point in the future a class will be taught using Stephenson and Stankey as the prime examples of failure to lead.
Wait, Randy tried to acquire T-Mobile? That would have been great. What happened?
Randy for sure. I view Stanley as an extension for Randy so all the same really .
Randall Stephenson. It started with his attempt to acquire T-Mobile and AT&T has never recovered from this disaster. John Stankey inherited this mess when Randall left. I’m pretty sure Stankey was Randall’s right hand man in this failed attempt. It’s been one bad decision after another with these two. Unfortunately it hasn’t affected them. I’m waiting for the day that it does!
I blame Elon Musk. He is bringing us down.
Randall the Vandal. Two words - Digital Life. Failure.
Randall
Randell. Easy answer. T-Mobile, Time-Warner, Direct TV - all really bad decisions. AT&T Comcast was a bad idea too but that was from Armstrong. Spectrum was given to T-Mobile as part of the poison pill. The BOD should have been cut years ago. Anyway, Randell is the worst CEO of the century. There won't be any campuses or buildings named after him.
50%/50% R&S.
“JTS since he was in charge of corporate strategy that took us down the media path.”
Will often wonder whose decisions those actually were. RS came saying we are now a wireless company. However most of failures seems to be trying to follow the legacy of Whitacre. Become the biggest and baddest company on the block by adding all of those companies we didn’t understand and know how to run. Or the failed Uverse experiment. The government basically told us they wouldn’t let us take out the competition. To achieve Whitacre results bad choices were made. If only a portion of the debt we took on had of been spent on spectrum, etc. we would be in a much better position right now.
Stank-eye
Randy was the worst because even after he punched us in the stomach he spent 12 months after he resigned forcing us to kiss him.
Neither. It’s the BOD. Totally negligent in their oversight.
Ratty is #2 and Stink is #1 on the CEO Wall of Shame.
Bottom line: The both S U C K but at least Ratty was a human being and looked and acted like a CEO whereas the Stink is clearly a mentally ill megalomaniac that is not human and only want to inflict maximum suffering on employees, shareholders and customers.
That could go either way. Stephenson was the CEO during all the bad moves, but Stankey was his executor / right-hand man with him.
JTS since he was in charge of corporate strategy that took us down the media path.