Acquired Season 2, Episode 8: T-Mobile / Sprint
May 21, 2018
Dive into the thrilling merger saga of T-Mobile and Sprint, filled with competitive drama and strategic moves. Discover Craig McCaw's inspiring journey, overcoming personal loss to revolutionize telecommunications. Learn how T-Mobile disrupted the market, challenging giants like AT&T and Verizon with innovative strategies. Explore Sprint's unique evolution from railroads to wireless, as well as the intense bidding war that reshaped its destiny. This episode reveals the intricate dance of power, competition, and resilience in the telecom industry.
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Craig McCaw's Telecom Rise
- Craig McCaw inherited a small cable business after his father's sudden death and rebuilt it into a major empire by the mid-1980s.
- He then pivoted early into the wireless cellular industry, winning spectrum in lotteries and buying more to build McCaw Cellular, the largest cell company before AT&T acquired it.
Origins of T-Mobile USA
- John Stanton and Teresa Gillespie, early McCaw Cellular executives, left to start Western Wireless, eventually creating T-Mobile USA.
- They bought rural spectrum licenses and grew the business, selling VoiceStream to Deutsche Telekom in 2001 for $35 billion, launching T-Mobile USA.
John Legere's Bold Turnaround
- John Legere took over T-Mobile in 2012 and embraced customer outrage by personally listening to angry service calls.
- At CES 2013, he broke from corporate norms rocking a pink T-shirt and rolled-up sleeves, firing shots at AT&T and disrupting industry convention with his bold public persona.