We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. (Photo by: David A.Grogan/CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images) How much is T-Mobile's success down to one man? We may find out pretty soon. The Wall Street Journal reported today that T-Mobile CEO John Legere is being courted to run WeWork, which means he would bail out of T-Mobile just as it completes its merger with Sprint—or maybe even before. This isn't totally out of the blue. WeWork is majority-owned by Softbank, which owns Sprint, and since WeWork's erratic founder Adam Neumann was ousted, it's been run by Marcelo Claure, the former Sprint CEO with whom Legere started his merger journey. Much of the argument in favor of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger is around the combined company staying a "maverick"—a tough competitor that would keep prices down and wouldn't rest on its laurels. The presence of a reliable maverick would differentiate the US from other three-competitor markets like Canada, where the big players generally moved in lockstep on price until tweaked by a combination of more vigorous smaller competitors and an upcoming government review of cell phone pricing. T-Mobile hasn't always been a maverick. Under its previous CEO, Philip Humm, the company was a fourth-place player, behind its competitors on subscribers and network, which struggled through a failed merger with AT&T. Legere's "Un-carrier" approach, starting in 2013, grabbed Americans' imaginations with a series of plan changes and aggressive marketing that turned around perceptions of the company. So this rumor really shows how regulators need to cut through any promises based on how T-Mobile has been led, or how it's performed based on its leadership. Legere has created a dynamic organization that would probably just go on competing hard for the sake of it. But it's not always going to be Legere's organization. Steve Jobs Wouldn't Have Let This Happen Tech-world CEOs definitely make a difference. I would argue that Steve Jobs' Apple was more aggressive at introducing new product lines, and more concerned with fit and finish, than Tim Cook's Apple has been; Cook operates the company as less of a maverick. Steve Ballmer's Microsoft was all over the place, with semi-independent divisions and a lack of central focus that caused the company to lose the mobile race. Satya Nadella's calm hand has brought "One Microsoft" together as a cloud leader. Speaking of mobile, because that's my area, Mark Hurd's HP took an aggressive step into mobile with the purchase of Palm and its webOS in 2009; I remember seeing his plan for "WebOS Everywhere," which was squandered under the disastrous leader Leo Apotheker. This merger has even higher stakes for American consumers, because it's so hard to enter the mobile carrier space right now. Part of the T-Mobile/Sprint deal tries to prop up Dish as an emerging fourth carrier—and Dish is only promising to cover 70 percent of the US population by 2023. Do We Feel Lucky? When I asked T-Mobile's executive team about Legere's potential departure, T-Mobile COO Mike Sievert, Legere's likely successor, says T-Mobile's maverick status is "a strategy any team would pursue with this set of assets." He's saying it's structural, not personality-based. "We've got this massive stadium and it's mostly empty. Any management team would fill that stadium up, take their customers and generate revenues," he says. Legere, for his part, points at the culture he installed. "The culture is not about me, or Mike, or [CTO] Neville [Ray]. The new T-Mobile's culture and plans are deep and committed, and a part of who we are." But Legere also reminded me that the government is promising "serious penalties" if T-Mobile strays from the maverick path it's promising. Multichannel News says the penalties are around buildout requirements, not about prices or data caps, and they could add up to $2 billion. If T-Mobile really intends to keep prices down and provide an unlimited service that puts AT&T and Verizon on notice long after Legere is gone, then its execs shouldn't worry about the government putting big dollar signs into any merger agreement to ensure those things. With 15 state lawsuits still on the docket, the states should demand some major concessions with some serious penalties indeed, if they can't rely on Legere at the helm.
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We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. (Photo by: David A.Grogan/CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images) How much is T-Mobile's success down to one man? We may find out pretty soon. The Wall Street Journal reported today that T-Mobile CEO John Legere is being courted to run WeWork, which means he would bail out of T-Mobile just as it completes its merger with Sprint—or maybe even before. This isn't totally out of the blue. WeWork is majority-owned by Softbank, which owns Sprint, and since WeWork's erratic founder Adam Neumann was ousted, it's been run by Marcelo Claure, the former Sprint CEO with whom Legere started his merger journey. Much of the argument in favor of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger is around the combined company staying a "maverick"—a tough competitor that would keep prices down and wouldn't rest on its laurels. The presence of a reliable maverick would differentiate the US from other three-competitor markets like Canada, where the big players generally moved in lockstep on price until tweaked by a combination of more vigorous smaller competitors and an upcoming government review of cell phone pricing. T-Mobile hasn't always been a maverick. Under its previous CEO, Philip Humm, the company was a fourth-place player, behind its competitors on subscribers and network, which struggled through a failed merger with AT&T. Legere's "Un-carrier" approach, starting in 2013, grabbed Americans' imaginations with a series of plan changes and aggressive marketing that turned around perceptions of the company. So this rumor really shows how regulators need to cut through any promises based on how T-Mobile has been led, or how it's performed based on its leadership. Legere has created a dynamic organization that would probably just go on competing hard for the sake of it. But it's not always going to be Legere's organization. Steve Jobs Wouldn't Have Let This Happen Tech-world CEOs definitely make a difference. I would argue that Steve Jobs' Apple was more aggressive at introducing new product lines, and more concerned with fit and finish, than Tim Cook's Apple has been; Cook operates the company as less of a maverick. Steve Ballmer's Microsoft was all over the place, with semi-independent divisions and a lack of central focus that caused the company to lose the mobile race. Satya Nadella's calm hand has brought "One Microsoft" together as a cloud leader. Speaking of mobile, because that's my area, Mark Hurd's HP took an aggressive step into mobile with the purchase of Palm and its webOS in 2009; I remember seeing his plan for "WebOS Everywhere," which was squandered under the disastrous leader Leo Apotheker. This merger has even higher stakes for American consumers, because it's so hard to enter the mobile carrier space right now. Part of the T-Mobile/Sprint deal tries to prop up Dish as an emerging fourth carrier—and Dish is only promising to cover 70 percent of the US population by 2023. Do We Feel Lucky? When I asked T-Mobile's executive team about Legere's potential departure, T-Mobile COO Mike Sievert, Legere's likely successor, says T-Mobile's maverick status is "a strategy any team would pursue with this set of assets." He's saying it's structural, not personality-based. "We've got this massive stadium and it's mostly empty. Any management team would fill that stadium up, take their customers and generate revenues," he says. Legere, for his part, points at the culture he installed. "The culture is not about me, or Mike, or [CTO] Neville [Ray]. The new T-Mobile's culture and plans are deep and committed, and a part of who we are." But Legere also reminded me that the government is promising "serious penalties" if T-Mobile strays from the maverick path it's promising. Multichannel News says the penalties are around buildout requirements, not about prices or data caps, and they could add up to $2 billion. If T-Mobile really intends to keep prices down and provide an unlimited service that puts AT&T and Verizon on notice long after Legere is gone, then its execs shouldn't worry about the government putting big dollar signs into any merger agreement to ensure those things. With 15 state lawsuits still on the docket, the states should demand some major concessions with some serious penalties indeed, if they can't rely on Legere at the helm.