Waves with Wireless Nerd
Join me for a weekly look into what's making waves in tech and the wireless industry! What's new? What's now? What's next?
Waves with Wireless Nerd
Navigating Wi-Fi, Spectrum Politics, and Corporate Reshaping in Today's Tech Landscape
Ever wonder what happens when you need to provide Wi-Fi for half a million surfing fans? Drew Lentz returns to the Waves Podcast after an exhilarating stint deploying 27 access points at the World Surf League's US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach. Between coordinating connectivity for food trucks, security teams, merchants, and celebrity appearances, the wireless challenges were as massive as the waves.
The regulatory landscape is shifting dramatically with the repeal of Executive Order 14036, eliminating broadband "nutrition labels" and allowing landlords to once again make exclusive deals with internet service providers. This development raises serious questions about consumer choice in multi-dwelling units and transparency in internet service marketing. Meanwhile, the spectrum wars continue as industry leaders suggest pivoting from contested CBRS bands to the 4 GHz range for future 6G deployment—highlighting the "use it or lose it" reality of valuable frequency allocations.
Corporate reshuffling continues to transform the wireless industry. Amphenol's $10.5 billion acquisition of CommScope's Connectivity and Cable Solutions unit leaves Ruckus Wireless as one of CommScope's few remaining major assets. For Ruckus employees who've weathered multiple ownership changes, the question looms: will they become more strategically important or face another sale within the next two years?
Perhaps most thought-provoking is AT&T CEO John Stanky's recent memo to employees, which Drew unpacks in detail. The message signals a fundamental shift from tenure-based loyalty to a culture rewarding capability, contribution, and commitment. Stanky's statement that "if you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more" encapsulates the existential challenge facing legacy companies in rapidly evolving industries.
Drew closes with an important reminder about workplace culture: celebrate your wins and share your successes, but do so in a way that acknowledges the team effort behind them. After all, no one will be a stronger advocate for your accomplishments than you—just make sure you're lifting others as you rise.
Don't miss upcoming industry events including WLPC Prague in October and Meter Up in San Francisco this November. Have thoughts on the AT&T memo or your own Wi-Fi deployment stories? Drop Drew a message and join the conversation!
Thanks to our sponsors: Helium & meter Networks!
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Good afternoon everybody. It's Drew Lentz, the Wireless Nerd. Today is August 18th. Welcome to the Waves Podcast. What's new? What's now? What's next? What's happening in the Wi-Fi industry? Ah enough, radio voice. I've missed you. I've missed you people, I've missed you crowd.
Speaker 1:It has been a heck of a last couple of weeks. Oh, my goodness. So much is happening and so what I started doing is cutting all these little pieces of content, since I wasn't here at home sitting down with the bright lights and all the fun stuff and trying to figure out how to get my camera to work. I've been out of town, I've been on some incredible journeys, some incredible trips over the last couple of weeks and it was just a great way to wrap up summer and to start just man, you know, I had a really great opportunity to go and supply all of the Wi-Fi with Eero at the World Surf League competition, the US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, california. Spent two weeks out there deploying Wi-Fi 27 access points covering, you know, anticipated crowd of about 450, 500,000 people. People came through, thousands of people per day were there. It was this huge undertaking where where we had, you know, a bunch of point of sale and a bunch of merchant and a bunch of guest wi-fi and a bunch of staff wi-fi and a bunch of surfer athlete wi-fi, and in the middle of all that you had 12 food trucks. And then you had, you know, this deal that we did with amazon prime video for surf girls international, where they came in and did a screening of their latest thing that they have put together, their show that they have put together, and then you had, like, security and celebrities and all it was just nuts man, it was totally nuts. And then every night, handel's Ice Cream Shout out to Handel's Ice Cream for keeping me sane A couple of Mai Tais at Duke's and some Handel's Ice Cream. Your boy's good to go. Anyway, that was happening. And then back and forth with a lot of really cool projects. You'll see some of the stuff coming up about, some of the things I've had the opportunity to work on last couple of weeks, but it's been really, really great. Spent a lot of time in las vegas, heading out to vegas again on thursday. So I'll be out there thursday through tuesday. Uh, if you're in the vegas area, you want to come see what I'm working on. Give me a shout out and you can come by and check it out. It's a lot of fun, a lot of really cool stuff.
Speaker 1:So I tried to fix my face with lighting If you're watching the webcast. My son told me that my eyes looked weird, so I had to fix my lighting and I realized that my camera settings were all wrong. So it took me a minute here to dial everything in. But, alas, here it is. So if you're watching, I hope it looks better. Let me know, give me some feedback. You know, I know this is largely consumed over podcasts, like traditional audio podcasts. So if you're not watching the video, don't even care, don't worry about it. You don't have to look at the face. It's even better for you.
Speaker 1:Anyway, there is a lot going on in the wireless space, a lot going on in the Wi-Fi space right now, and I've tried to keep up with everything that's happening. And at the end of summer it seems like a lot of companies weren't doing a lot. You know a lot of big motions that were moving, but then all of a sudden I don't know where little things happen. You know like acquisitions and sell-offs of, you know, spinoffs of different companies and new products popping up and you know, and then new events being announced. So there's a lot happening in the space and I think what I do want to lead off with if it's not sold out already I don't think it's sold out already and that is WLPC.
Speaker 1:Prague is happening in October in Prague and it's a wireless LAN professional conference and it's over in Europe and it's going to be tremendous. And there are some incredible sessions that are happening, um at at that event and lots of great speakers that are going to be there, just tremendous speakers that are going to be there. And I'm going to look up real quick and make sure it's still set, but, um, uh, registration for that is now open, so you can go and and jump in. You can, you know, be a, be a part of it. It's going to be a just. It's going to be a just, it's going to be great. And it's always really cool because then you have WLPC coming up afterwards in February, and what's neat about Prague is that you get to see a sneak peek of a lot of the things that are happening or that are going to be presented.
Speaker 1:It's not always the same content, but sometimes there's some things that are pretty similar right there. So let's see. If I switch over to my screens here, you can see. Give me a second, let me look at this, make sure my audio is still working. So if I look at the screen here, whoa, look at this Register. Now let's see, is registration still open? As I click on this, I'm eating up a ton of capacity because I changed a little streamer thing. Yep, it looks good. It looks good. It looks like registration is still open. So if you go to WLPC, thewlpccom, you can find out information about the Prague, czech Republic 802.11 Guitar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wlpc Valencia happening in September for the Spanish-speaking audience. That one's going to be pretty awesome. Muy bueno, muy bien, it's gonna be fantastico. So, if you happen I feel like B was a butt head uh, if you happen to be over, uh, in that area, if you want to attend something that's Spanish speaking, don't forget about WLPC Valencia happening in September also. So that's going down. And then, uh, what else is happening? Oh man, something I'm really looking forward to is meter up. This is happening in 2025. If you go to metercom, slash meter up, you can see that November 18, 2025 in San Francisco, 155 Ninth Street, you can come. That's a new location. I don't think it's the same one that they did it at last year, but this is gonna be pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:A couple of you know, small, low-key uh keynote speakers uh, satya nadela, sanjay bizwas, uh, kate johnson and and, of course, at neil very cool um, you know, when you get, when you get someone who's the the one of the co-founders of maraki, and now with samsara who's in there, and then obviously, uh, mr Nadella from Microsoft, and then dude, and then Lumen, it's like this is great. I mean, last year it was really cool. They had one of the founders of Cloudflare on the stage and that was really neat and it was a really good question and answer a lot of back and forth. Maybe I ask too many questions. It tends to happen. I tend to chime in. This year I will not be chiming in as much as I was last year, unless, of course, something happens to come up and I just want to ask a question. However, they might muzzle me, so that's okay.
Speaker 1:Either way, meterup is going to be pretty neat. Early bird tickets are $3.49, and in four days that goes up to $4.49. So if you want to join this, it's going to be really neat. It will be in San Francisco November 18th and it's going to be a great way to see what's happening and what METER's vision of the future is with what they're doing. So this is more of a vendor conference than I don't know. I don't know I don't know if it's more of a vendor conference or not. A vendor is putting of technology, the future of networking, what that means. So that's going to be pretty awesome. If you get a chance, go make it up for that. Now, those are two big events, obviously. Ces is right around the corner, which is going to be cool. Amazon re -events right around the corner.
Speaker 1:The shows that I'm going to be at. I'm going to be at those. I'm going to be at some restaurant shows. I'm going to be at some other fun stuff. Man, I got to go to the Texas Restaurant Association show this year and it was so awesome. It was so awesome. I don't know if I talked about that on the last pod or not, but, man, texas Restaurant Association was just so cool and if I talked about it I apologize. It was just such a great opportunity to meet with people that were business owners and restaurateurs and people who are out there changing the way that we eat and that we interact with restaurants and what's coming down for them and what they're looking forward to. And it's just an incredible industry right now and there's so much change and innovation happening that it was really cool to be a part of that.
Speaker 1:So if you're in that space, if you're in the retail technology space, the restaurant technology space, pay close attention. You got mertek coming up, you've got the mertek show coming up, you've got a lot of people are talking about, you know, inclusion, the restaurant technology network at rtn, so lots of things happening there. And then right on the heels of ces coming in january which, dude, it's only five months away. Right is NRF, national Retail Show, so NRF in Vegas, I'm sorry, in New York. Dude, that's the killer month. Right, you start off at CES in January in Vegas and then you flip over and you do NRF in New York the next week. So it happens. But if you're looking for some shows to go to, those are the shows to attend. If not, obviously I'll be talking about some of the things that we see there, some of the things that are going on at those individual shows. So let me get into some of the content that I've been reading about, that I've been keeping up with, that I wanted to share with you the loyal listener, here comes the old school radio. Good afternoon, loyal listeners.
Speaker 1:Trump reverses Biden's big tech and broadband oversight order. I'm going to start off with this one, because this is the repeal of exec with executive order 14 036 drops federal push on net neutrality, broadband price transfer, transparency and merger oversight. Um, I'm not going to harp on net neutrality rules and and that, but what I will say, that I so so, so short lived was the broadband like nutritional information labels that showed you this is your broadband plan and here's what you can expect to get. Let me see if I can bring up a picture of those. And those are. Those are now that that part was repealed, and so what that means is, you know, I don't know what it means here, I'm sharing on the screen right there. So if you'd see it, it, if you've purchased broadband, you're supposed to see one of these on your broadband package or on your, on your 5g package or whatever. And so now this, since that's been repealed, this is, I guess, not required anymore. But you know, did people find any value in this? I guess, first of all, is all is the question? Second of all, is it going to be missed? I don't know, but I saw this and I was like man. Well, that again that was kind of short lived. So broadband nutrition labels are now gone, or the requirement for them is now gone because their appeal of executive order 14 036.
Speaker 1:Now the big news with that is obviously with net neutrality. And what's happening with with net neutrality, here we go. We'll show you the screen here. Obviously, uh, jennifer, over at drew's broadband breakfast, the other drew, the drew from broadband breakfast. Does it just such a great job keeping up with all of the like. If you care about the way that the government's interacting with our industry, go to broadband breakfast and keep up with what they do. They do an incredible job covering everything that's happening. So this one with the repeal it talks about stricter antitrust reviews to mergers in broadband cable and big tech. So that's going to get knocked out. Also, direct to FCC to restore net neutrality rules. Adopt broadband nutrition labels and prevent IS oh, this is the big one, this was the big one, right here. Broadband nutrition labels and prevent is oh, this is the big one, this was the big one, right here.
Speaker 1:This executive order prevented isps from making exclusive deals with landlords to lock out competitors. Okay, so that's the big one, right? That's the thing that that people are talking about with this, and what that means is essentially, if you live in an apartment complex, you had freedom of choice with what you could get as far as internet access inside your property, because the cables and the you know, everything that's run into your apartment are the property of the, of the apartment complex you know, or the housing unit or the you know, whatever it is, wherever you live. But now with this, this, the the landlord can make an exclusive deal, for example, with provider xyz, and say, hey, give me a deal so that I can resell it to everyone who lives here, and then the people who live here have to consume it through me. And that was lifted, giving you choice on what you could do. But now this prevents ISP. Now the preventative component is gone. So what was preventing ISPs from making exclusive deals to lockout competitors has now been changed, and so the wording is that now ISPs are no longer prevented from making exclusive deals with landlords to lockout competitors. So that's the rub with that. That's the rub with Executive Order 14-036 being removed. So just want to bring that to your attention in case you live in an apartment or in case you own a broadband service provider and now you have a hunting license to go do this stuff, um, another one.
Speaker 1:So so, listen, I covered this one. I, I, I saw this and I decided that I was going to make a little short video about it because I thought it was funny. And so what we've got here is uh is an entitled neighbor demands that he stops using your Wi-Fi because it's distracting her plants. So I made a whole little short video about this because I thought it was interesting and I really wanted to test out VO from Google.
Speaker 1:Whole bunch of colorful personalities, and one of them is a lady in her late 50s who came in and insisted that the wi-fi from the neighbor was affecting the the vibrational energy of her succulents. She pointed to a drawing which looked like a sad jellyfish and she said the signal beamed directly through the shared wall and bombarded their plants non-stop. According to her, the plants were spiritually wilting because they thought the wi-fi was sunlight, but it wasn't the best part. There was no light. It was a dark hallway with no natural light and she claimed they had been fine until this. Uh, this person got a new modem and said either turn off your wi-fi every night between 10 and 6 um, and there's no second option right there, apparently, the rest hours, uh oh, or move her, or let her share my Wi-Fi and move the router into her unit so she could regulate the signal properly.
Speaker 1:So what I did is I broke down in my little video that you can see. I broke down what the power of a Wi-Fi device is and I had my own way of doing it. But if you ever want to hear someone do it, you should listen to Keith Parsons talk about the amount of energy that is coming out of an access point and how that compares to other objects. He was my inspiration for doing what I did and I used bigger examples, but his is awesome, it's totally awesome. The example that I used was it's the same output powers in nightlight and then at long distances.
Speaker 1:If you have an FM radio station that's broadcasting at 100,000 watts, then over time, the inverse square law, thank you. You know YouTube user who's like hey, don't forget about that. You know, even at 300 miles, you get down to one watt if you're 300 miles away from a 100,000 watt FM transmitter. So if FM transmissions aren't affecting your succulents, I don't know that Wi-Fi will be. But I saw that and sometimes education is important. So let's see, that was months ago. I wonder if there was any resolution to that. That was three months ago and I don't know if there's any follow-up, so I'll leave it to you. Fine internet. Go look it up on Reddit. Entitled Neighbor Demands. I stopped using my Wi-Fi because it's follow-up, so I'll leave it to you. Fine internet, go look it up on reddit. Entitled neighbor demands. I stopped using my wi-fi because it's distracting her plants. That's under r slash entitled people. Anyway. That was one of the things that I found was funny. Funny enough to me for me to make a little video about it.
Speaker 1:Um, in other news, fun news um kuiper satellites. So the space race is getting crazier, but it's actually getting cooler. At the same time, I guess A little friendlier. Spacex launches the fourth batch of Project Kuiper satellites, so we're that much closer to seeing another constellation out there. And it was SpaceX actually that launched these for Amazon. So SpaceX successfully launched 24 additional low-Earth orbit satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper on Monday. The KF-02 mission launched from Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida this was a week ago on a Falcon 9 rocket, bringing Kuiper's broadband constellation to more than 100 satellites in orbit Triple digits now, folks. Spacex there was a thank you that came out from Amazon saying thank you to SpaceX for the second of three launches together. So one more to go on there. That's great. The constellation is being built faster and it'll give people more alternatives when it comes to satellite low earth orbiting satellite Something else that was up, so I had to dig into this one a little bit.
Speaker 1:When there was a big shift, change in politics and all that, one of the things that came up at the FCC was this idea of delete, delete, delete, and it was a way that people could go through, or the FCC commission could go through and find old, archaic rules that affected nothing, but we're just taking up space, and so this happened in March. This started let's see if I can open up the shared screen right here. So FCC opens and delete, delete, delete, dock it. Chairman Carr launches massive deregulation initiative. So that was the big press release. Right it was. We're going to go through and we're going to take out all the bad things that are not needed there and we're going to go through a whole deregulation process. And so what I was excited about TBH, afk, lmao what I was excited about was hoping that there was something in there, not necessarily for Wi-Fi I don't think that there was much that could be in there for Wi-Fi but for low power FM, low power FM radio stations.
Speaker 1:I was hoping that I could find something in there. Alas, there wasn't much. Because what delete delete delete affected was it was 71 rule provisions, 98 rules and requirements, 12 pages, over 5,000 words from the FCC rule book, all around part 73. Okay, so nothing in amateur radio, because it was parts 15 and 97. It was all part 73 for radio broadcast services.
Speaker 1:But what happened with LPFM? Not a lot. They were told that they don't have to have these monitoring devices that monitor the output power of the FM signal that's being transmitted and then be able to report that back. So basically they said hey, if you're an LPFM provider, we're going to trust that you're broadcasting as much power, as little power as you're supposed to. It's not a lot. There's not a lot of power in LPFM. It's 50 watts, I think, or 10 watts. It's not a lot, but it's 50 times a Wi-Fi access point. How about that? Tie those lot. But it's 50 times a wi-fi access point. How about that? Tie those, tie those back together. So not a lot there. But what it does for lpfm is the changes are viewed as a net positive for lpfm operators because they reduce regulatory burden without adding new restrictions. So small wins, take, take the baby wins. Take the baby wins if you can. What else is happening in spectrum? This comment says cbrs is.
Speaker 1:So five years ago Federated Wireless the chairman of Federated Wireless is saying hey, you know, there's been a lot of talk about repurposing the bands in 365, 35, moving them away, getting rid of the capability for people to use those CBRS bands. And there was one article that I read that said the best way that we can fight against that is to use it. So for anyone who's looking at deploying this, I would totally recommend that you start using CBRS right now. It's the whole use it or lose it mentality. But the CEO of Federated Wireless says let's look at 4 gigahertz. 4 gigahertz is favored. It's attractive for 6G because it's free of legacy commercial services. The current DoD radars and tactical systems in the band are well understood. The propagation characteristics are generally similar to the c-band, with a contiguous 500 megahertz of available spectrum according to federated. The 4 to 4.4 to 4.94 gig band represents the best opportunity for us carriers to spread their rf wings and steer clear of the types of us dod pitfalls that are rampant in the three gigahertz band.
Speaker 1:So fierce network has a really good write-up on this. I've just given you the highlights, but if you care to read the rest of it Monica, eleven, eleven, eleven, is it Eleven? One of these days someone's going to write me. I'm like Drew, you're pronouncing these names totally wrong. That's okay. No offense, I'm not trying to offend. I just have never met you, monica, so I don't know how to pronounce your name, but you did a great job writing this whole thing up for Fierce Network. So if you're looking at the screen, there's your name. However you want to pronounce it, you know that's what it is. So this is from four days ago and there's a whole write up here about why we should look at four gigahertz, as you know from the words of the mouth of the person from Federated Wireless, yad Tarazi. Anyway, I thought that that was interesting because I've never seen that spectrum being used. So maybe there's a good opportunity to use that spectrum. What else? Okay, here's something that came up Amphenol to buy CommScope. Well, hold on, amphenol to buy CommScope unit in a $10.5 billion broadband connectivity deal.
Speaker 1:Now lots of questions, right, because we've all seen ruckus go from A to B to C to D and it's dude. It's like watching one of your childhood friends whose parents get divorced and then remarried and then divorced, and then the stepdad and then the stepmom and then moving in with them and then across the country, and then you know childhood trauma. Insert childhood trauma here. We've all watched that happen, man. And so it's like dag yo, to quote uh homestar runner um tough, tough to watch it and it was like, oh god, they sold them again. What now? Well, the good news is they didn't sell them again. The bad news is they didn't sell them again. Listen to this breakdown courtesy of me researching stuff and then using ai to try and make it sound like I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Amphenol announced a $10.5 billion all-cash deal to acquire Comscope's Connectivity and Cable Solutions Unit. So we're only talking about Comscope's Connectivity and Cable Solutions Unit, its largest transaction yet. It wanted to bolster its foothold in US wireless infrastructure and fiber optic markets. It's expected to close the first half of 2026. And it comes after Amphenol's earlier purchase of Comscope's mobile network and DAS business. So now they've got Comscope's mobile networks, they've got Comscope's DAS business and they've got Comscope's connectivity and cable solutions unit, right.
Speaker 1:So everyone's like that's ruckus, it's not ruckus, it's not ruckus, it's all of the other things except for ruckus. For now nothing changes operationally for ruckus customers or partners, but the corporate reshaping means that ruckus is one of the few major assets left at Comscope. This makes it either more strategically important or more likely to be sold in the next 12 to 24 months, depending on how comscope plays it. The 10.5 billion dollar sale covers comscope's connectivity and cable solutions, not their networking, intelligent cellular or ruckus wireless business unit. So it's cable fiber connectors. Obviously that makes way more sense going to amphinol, right, um, but not their networking intelligent cellular or Ruckus Wireless. So over the past few years CommScope has been selling off non-core assets. Mobile network and DAS sold to Amphenol, ccs also went to Amphenol and that leaves Ruckus with enterprise switching and cloud and wireless and a few smaller networking segments as the main pieces.
Speaker 1:So what does that mean? What does that mean for the future of ruckus? That's like. That's like. That's like your step parents just got divorced and then you're stuck with one of them and then you don't know if they're gonna leave or not, or get remarried, and then you gotta go live with your aunt. I don't know. I don't know that's a terrible way of explaining it, but it's just man, it's just watching ruckus go through one thing after another after another.
Speaker 1:But what I will say is that the people who work at ruckus you know, obviously that's that's changed. There's been some, there's been some changing and some shifting there. But the people who've been there for a long time and the product that they make, um, I don't want to say it hasn't phased them, because they have. I mean, obviously it has. But it's, it's not a bad product. It's still one of the top Wi-Fi products, top networking products in the industry, still better than a whole lot of other stuff that's out there. Oh God I mean. But you know the trauma's got to be kind of rough on the team over there.
Speaker 1:So shout out to all the friends at Ruckus and all the peeps at Ruckus Just stay the course, my friends, and if not, the job market is wide open right now there. Just stay the course, my friends, and if not, the job market is wide open right now. There's lots of people hiring for tremendous things that are going on. There's been some really cool moves in the last couple of weeks. My friend, ava, moved over to Meter, which is kind of neat to see, so you'll probably see her at Meter Up. Hopefully you'll see her at Meter Up. There's been some shifts in the industry, people moving around. There's also been some really cool things where I've seen people that are celebrating 10-year anniversaries at the places that they work and five-year anniversaries at the places that they work, and it's really neat to see that, especially in the times that we're in right now.
Speaker 1:I didn't even mean to do this, but that's the perfect segue to something that I did want to talk about, which is the John Stanky memo. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about with the John Stanky memo, that's okay. It's kind of difficult to find and Business Insider has it behind a really fat paywall, and not that I don't like Business Insider. I suggest you go subscribe to them if you want to read this. I just don't subscribe to them, but I found it in the original Yahoo post, so so here's the dilly the CEO of AT&T busts out this memo and this is after he did the return to office thing.
Speaker 1:So he posts, he pops up this memo and he says, hey, we're all going to come back to the office and then they do this, this score, they they test all the employees or they send out a survey to all the employees to find out if they're happy. Um, at AT&T and I forgot what the official name of it is here. Let me see if I can find it real quick, cause, dude, this was everywhere. It's a test case for leaders. It says it's a blunt memo, it was called a bold. It was, it has been called a bold statement, but it was meant to be like an, I believe, an employee satisfaction survey and so 73% of the people took it and it represented, and it represented, a huge chunk of the company.
Speaker 1:But there's been some serious heat for what this dude saying, right, for what? For what John Stanky saying? And I, dude, I don't know this guy, but I I have my own thoughts about the memo and I'm not going to share them. I'll I'll, maybe I'll share them after, but I want to read some of the things that he wrote in here, because the headlines, if you just look up John Stanky Memo, ceo of AT&T AT&T just made official Workplace loyalty is dead. His recent employee survey sent a lengthy memo to all the employees what his memo did right, what his memo did wrong. His blunt memo is a test case for leadership. There was a lot. If I share my screen you can see, dude, it's just a lot, it's everywhere. People are talking all about this thing. Now what does it say? I'm glad you asked.
Speaker 1:There are a couple of key things that I wanted to highlight that he said in here, and this goes right back into if you talk about loyalty, if you talk about workplace loyalty and you talk about the people who used to be able to go get a job at the post office or get a job at you know, at AT&T, for example, or Sears, or you know IBM or whatever, it is where there were these expectations that if you got a job there, you could always have a job there, these expectations that if you got a job there, you could always have a job there. This memo basically turned around and said that's not how we're doing things anymore, and then it outlined a lot of interesting points. The AT&T CEO sent a strong message to employees in this memo, stating, quote we run a dynamic, customer-facing business tackling large-scale, challenging initiatives. If the requirements dictated by this dynamic do not align to your personal desires. You have every right to find a career opportunity that is suitable to your aspirations and needs. Okay, that was the opening one Ready. That said, if a self-directed, virtual or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish. All right, a lot there that I don't disagree with. Okay, oh, tough, tough call, right, but maybe that's because I'm old school. Mark says he's late. Hello, mark, you joined at the perfect time.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about John Stanky's memo from the CEO of AT&T, and I love this. I had a whole conversation with my wife about this, about what he said, and read the commas appropriately If a self-directed, virtual or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish. So here's what I'm seeing right, and don't take me wrong. I'm not talking about anybody in specific. I'm not talking about who I work with, who I work for, who I work beside, who I have worked for. I'm just talking about overall when I talk to my friends that are employed and in the workforce A difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish. That's the part to me that stands out, because what you're seeing now is post COVID. You're seeing companies that want to buckle down and they want to get back to work and they want their companies to be successful and they want to be able to push ahead and innovate and do incredibly creative things and build new products.
Speaker 1:If you couple that with what's happening, honestly, in the United States dude I've got the news playing right in front of me, because every day it's something different you don't know what the future of any of this is. You don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. You don't know what it's going to bring to the business landscape. You don't know what it's going to bring to wireless. You don't know what it's going to bring in the form of a letter to the DOJ saying that your company shouldn't merge, like there's so many what ifs that are happening right now that if you own a company, if you work for a company, they're sitting here probably freaking out going. Dude, we got to buckle down and we got to start. Just make it really good product, and we got to get good at it and we've got to get innovative and creative and dominant again. And, dude, look around, look at what's happening in the industry. I mean, this is like I've been talking about for months I feel like years now. Look at some of the companies that have kind of fallen back on their heels and been happy. When the wheat's high they say right, so they've been out there and the wheat's been high and no one's been worried about it. All of a sudden, you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. You don't know, you have no idea what's going to happen to your organization or what external effect is going to happen. So these companies are sitting there trying to figure out how do we get our shit together, how do we focus on being a good company again, and a lot of that is coming back to the office.
Speaker 1:I've been working remote like my whole career almost, and I absolutely cherish the time that I get to go spend with coworkers, not because it's cool to see them, which it is, not because they've got a great snack section, because they do, but because what happens in the eight hours that I spend in the office, or 10 or 12 or whatever. It is the time that I get to spend interacting with coworkers. I get so much more accomplished. I get things done that you can't do over a phone call, and I know you feel the same way, because it's just the way that it is. I haven't met a single person who's worked remotely who's been like dude, I hate going to the office, I never get anything done. That is like absolutely not true. So much work gets done. So the return to office thing yeah, dude, I totally get it. I totally get it. It's like for people who got it and now it's being taken away from them. Yeah, when I took the job that I have right now, I had to face the decision of do I want to move to go get this job? Do I need to be in a physical location to get this? And before I did anything, I was like am I going to commit to being in an office full time because of RTO? That's happening everywhere. The answer is yes. By the way, I'm totally down, but you have to be willing to do that.
Speaker 1:And that part of the memo that stands out to me is where he says you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish. Yeah, dude, they're trying to buckle down. It's AT&T, bro, like. Talk about relevance. I mean, this is like Kodak. Right now Everyone's running around saying Kodak is going out of business and Kodak's like we're not quite dead yet. It's these behemoth companies that used to be beasts in the industry. There's networking companies that used to be beasts in the industry that everyone's taking a bite out of them right now. And could that be solved by getting people back in the office and by doing things? I don't know, but it's difficult to accomplish without everyone there. And I get the counterpoint of sometimes you're more productive or different roles are more productive when they're not in there. Totally, totally understand that.
Speaker 1:But what he said, I think he said very well. If a self-directed, virtual or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and your life challenges that's the part that stands out to me. If that's what you're trying to go for, then this is not the right place for you. There's plenty of jobs elsewhere. So I like the way that he said that it was strong, but I think it made sense. So does this mean that there isn't room for emergency or special circumstances? Of course not. We will always try to support that which cannot be planned for or that which needs to be deliberately planned for, and I expect any leader to manage their organization accordingly. Got it so, trying to be open up there.
Speaker 1:Now, the memo didn't explicitly ask AT&T employees to come back to the office, but that's kind of inferred. It's kind of inferred in there, but this is the part that really got a lot of people right. He described the company's transition as a shift away from some elements including quote loyalty, tenure and conformance with the associated compensation to a more market-based culture focusing on rewarding capability, contribution and commitment. So this isn't your dad's AT&T, right? Isn't that how they say it? This is not your parents' AT&T. This is rewarding people for their commitment, for their capability and their contribution, not just rewarding them because they've been there the longest.
Speaker 1:I mean, commitment and loyalty is great, but what is loyalty without contribution? And I think that that's the big question that we all have to ask ourselves in our roles. We can be as loyal as we want to be, but are we actually contributing? Or we can contribute as much as we can, but are we actually doing it for the brand. Are we actually doing it for the company?
Speaker 1:And so looking at this differently is you know you can see where they're going with it, but what does that say to us? What does it say to you? Right, the loyal listener? What does it say to you? Are you in your job and you're just expecting loyalty and tenure right, because you've been there, so you're always going to be there? Or are you constantly looking for being better at your job and being more capable and contributing more, while also being committed to it? You know, I was taught real early on the best thing that you can do is work yourself out of a job. Always try and find someone to work yourself out of a job. If there's someone who needs some help, help them. Give them everything that you have possibly learned, because that's the only way you're gonna grow. You're not gonna grow by holding on to everything that you know and that you've learned. You're only gonna grow by being uncomfortable by person in the room. You're going to only grow by listening and by learning and by advancing. And so when you think about these old organizations, it's a sign of the times for them, he says.
Speaker 1:I know change like this can be difficult and be unsettling for some. However, as General Eric Shinseki so eloquently stated this is such a great quote. You ready for this? If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more. Bam Bam, way to not be irrelevant. At&t Strong words, I wonder you know. In six months, I wonder where this is going to leave them. Committing to adjusting your own behaviors and actions without looking to your right or looking to your left or above to see what everybody else is doing?
Speaker 1:This one, this one, is super, super important, especially when I was part of the meta layoffs and I looked at I was on the chat when they were laying all of us off by chat, whatever sign of the times. Also Sitting there and watching people comment like you can't take my job, I'm doing my job, this is my job. You can't take my cell, I'm doing my job, this is my job. You can't take my cell phone, it's my cell phone. They're like, no, it's company cell phone. Watching people were like, yeah, but this guy did that and this guy did this and this person did that, and trying to blame other people for the shortcomings of either their role or their organization or their department or whatever. It was watching all that infighting that started and not seeing a lot of the generation that was being released. You know, and even you know it wasn't just one generation, was a bunch of us. But watching people just start to immediately start to point fingers was kind of crazy.
Speaker 1:And so, homeboy, over here from at&t, listen to this one. You ready for it? He says. A favorite quote by w clement stone comes to mind so many fail because they don't get started. Please jump in and avoid the human tendency to blame the neighbors for the problems in the neighborhood. Wow, lots of, lots of strong words there. He's like take accountability, take responsibility. You are, you are what your actions are, you know, and and if you can be capable and you can contribute and you can make a commitment, then this is a place for you to work. And if not, and you don't want to contribute the way that they need you to, then have a nice day, man. Anyway, lots of stuff that's happening there. And again, that's not just wireless, right, at&t wireless, whatever, that's how I tie it all in, but just from a workplace perspective thing, I thought that that was that. That was fascinating.
Speaker 1:Um, before I leave, there's one thing that I do want to talk about, which, again having great conversations with my wife. We have a podcast also that we might be starting back up, so we have these random conversations and then we record. You know, one of the things that I learned at Metta that I love, that, I love, love, love is the idea that no one will be a big promoter for you as you will. No one will be your brightest light except for you. So take a minute to talk about who you are and what you do, and don't be ashamed to celebrate your wins, not just for yourself and not just on LinkedIn. This is what social media is for. Celebrate what you're doing, celebrate what your wins are, celebrate what your failures are, if you want to, but also internally in your jobs. Don't be scared to celebrate who you are and what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And I want to say that because a lot of times, people do some really incredible stuff, but they don't take the time to tell their teammates the exceptional things that they do. They don't take a moment to stop and take pictures of what they're doing or videos and say y'all, I'm going to post this up on Slack, check this out, look what I just did. This is incredible and it's a great opportunity to share that, but also make sure that when you share that, you're sharing that with love, first right. You're sharing that by saying look at what I get to do for our company with our product as we do it. Don't share it like this is what I got to do because I'm the best right, or this is what I got to do because I'm so smart, you know.
Speaker 1:Be very cognizant of the fact that if you do share those wins or those losses, that sometimes people will take them to heart and they'll be like yeah, well it's. You know, it was a team effort, bro, and I try very diligently to make sure that I include everyone in in my celebrations, because I love to celebrate stuff. I love to go take pictures and video and celebrate everything that we do and Pat's on the back for everyone that's out there. But I wanted to just bring that up because I don't know if everybody does that. And at Meadow, one of the things that I post, the way that I post it, because that's the same stuff that I would share internally I'd be like look at what I did, obviously with a little bit more technical detail, but don't be scared to share those things, because I love seeing them.
Speaker 1:I love getting on LinkedIn and seeing the incredible stuff that people get to do and they get to celebrate themselves and talk about what they're doing, and not in a way that's like that's like you know, uh, center of the universe way, like totally you know, like a self-promoter, like, oh, I'm the best, no man. Like talk about what you're doing but, more importantly, talk about how that affects everyone and everyone that helped you get there. So that's my challenge to you over the next week um, talk about some of your wins. Go, talk about your wins and don't be scared to talk about them. You don't look like a self-absorbed asshole when you do it. You look like you're proud of what you do. But it's all in the tone, because you can look like that if you don't frame your tone properly.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I have taken up your ears long enough today, but I appreciate you listening. I hope to see you at some of the events that are coming up. I've got a week where, again this week, I'm out in Vegas and then after that I'm going to be doing some stuff in Orlando and then I might actually go to the Portola Music Festival for my birthday. That's kind of still up in the air, I might be out there enjoying that. It's Moby, underworld the Prodigy, the Chemical Brothers, oh my God, at one place and one time, in San Francisco's uh, september 19th through 21st. Maybe I'll see out there anyway. Um, I appreciate you listening. Thanks for listening and I will see y'all next week. Take care, see ya Any second, I'll stop.
