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The Search for Telecom's Next Visionaries
Monday, May 20, 2002
The Staff of the Net Economy

Why telecom visionaries are harder to find today:
"[Bill] Gates is entrepreneurial, and IBM, even though it's huge and vast, is more entrepreneurial than any U.S. telco I can think of. That's critical. In terms of being visionary and moving markets, you have to have that entrepreneurial spirit within the company. You have to look from the outside in at why you're not winning. The problem with the telcos is that they look from the inside out all the time."
-- David Hayden, founder and Executive Chairman, Critical Path

Who has the foresight and the wisdom to lead the telecom industry out of its depression? We ask some of telecom's biggest names -- and get some surprising answers.

Five years ago, finding a telecom visionary wasn't very hard. Guys like Mike Armstrong, Bernie Ebbers and Joe Nacchio were wowing Wall Street and racking up huge personal fortunes. They were labeled visionaries -- leaders with keen insight into what the future of telecom would bring. Perhaps more importantly, they had the power and financial backing to make it happen.

But they didn't. Ebbers is out as president and CEO at WorldCom, left only with a ceremonial "chairman emeritus" title and about $365 million in loans to repay. Armstrong M&A'd AT&T into a clunking dinosaur that he is now dismantling. And while Nacchio still has a nominal chance to bring his vision to fruition, many observers think it's going to take a miracle for him just to survive as chairman and CEO of Qwest Communications International.

What the '90s visionaries saw when they gazed into their crystal ball was optical fiber all the way to the home, 500 channels of video and movies on demand and, of course, ubiquitous broadband access. So far, those visions remain a mirage. What's real are the vast piles of debt accumulated in pursuit of those dreams -- or at least in pursuit of the riches they promised.

"People had their vision blinded by how wealthy they could become or how big their companies could become," says Allan Tumolillo, COO at Probe Research. "Suddenly, running a company was only about creating shareholder value. CEOs needed to know more about the financial side than the business itself. Now, the leaders don't know what is going on within the core of their business enough to be visionaries."

Today, finding a telecom industry visionary isn't easy. In fact, if there is a consensus on who can shine a leading light into telecom's future, it is that such a person does not exist.

* How They See It
Industry leaders offer their thoughts on telecom's vision thing



* How They See It (continued)
Why telecom visionaries are harder to find today

* How They See It (continued)
Where the next visionaries will come from

* How They See It (continued)
The need for visionaries

* How They See It (continued)
Random thoughts on visionary choices

* Visions of Visionaries
Who got the votes



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2002 © The Net Economy.

Dan