The seesaw that is the stock market had a down week with the Fab Five losing $211 billion and the Telco Top Five losing $5 billion. The last time the Fab Five dipped below $2 trillion in value created was in mid-October (!). The Telco Top Five are within a few billion dollars of their low point for the year (recorded in early November) and have been aided by the increasingly strong odds of a price war in wireless.
Speaking of wireless, Verizon began the process of shedding 13,000 employees this week, disclosing that 20% of non-union (including management) positions were eliminated (see USA Today article here). If the estimate in the article of 70,000 non-union employees is accurate, then unionized layoffs will be minimal.
The impact of a one-time reduction in management could be meaningful. On one hand, there are fewer “checkers” (or “checkers of checkers” very common in larger companies) but this also means that several past priorities could be meaningfully neutered. Product management, engineering, operations all need to realign. The result will be a few weeks of disarray as the remaining employees determine “who does what.” It’s a shock to the system at a time when Verizon needs to remain focused on fulfilling demands from customers.
Our guess (only that) is that the following three areas were impacted the most:
- Network engineering and (field) operations
- Verizon Business (product, sales, sales support, service etc.)
- Finance
The last area is particularly surprising given Verizon’s Finance competence. Fewer employees drives the need for fewer checkers. Budgets are largely complete for 2026, and POs are in process for many if not most large projects. Our other thought is that Verizon sought to make retirements as easy as possible for as many as possible.
Meanwhile, AT&T continues to plug along, announcing last week that they had already deployed the Echostar spectrum on a leased basis while they await purchase approval from the FCC. Years of network upgrades enabled the quick turnup. We think that AT&T is quietly taking wireless share from Verizon and broadband share from cable.
Finally, if you are looking for a decent audiobook to ease your holiday travel, consider Andrew Ross Sorkin’s recent release of 1929. We are through about half of it (you can cover several chapters on a commute to and from Cedar Rapids) and find the level of writing and research to be outstanding.
iPhone file is below. Please send comments and questions to [email protected]. iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max availability post will be out later on Sunday.
