Customer Reviews

End of the Line: The Rise and Fall of AT&T

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I managed to finish this book because the story is captivating, but the book definitely is not. The analysis is superficial, and Cayley clearly runs out of new things to say so she ends up repeating the same things over and over and over again. As one example, she mentions AT&T strong balance sheet (pre-Armstrong) a half dozen times, and even gets it wrong - on one page, she says AT&T long-term debt was $126 billion; elsewhere she says $12 billion. Her description of the personalities involved is likewise superficial and repetitive. She mentions Armstrongs "Big Blue way of looking at things" at least a dozen times (I am not exaggerating). There's even a entire discussion (regarding negotiations with Time Warner Cable) that is given in its entirety twice (pp. 189 and 190).

Another serious complaint is that the language of the book is inappropriately informal for the subject matter, even downright vulgar in a couple of places. Her very poor writing style just adds to the book's generally sloppy impression. This impression is not aided by the careless errors that pepper the book (e.g., referring to Microsoft as a cable giant). Didn't anybody edit this thing before it hit the shelves?

Most annoying of all is the approach of following parallel lines to that fateful summer of 2000, then backing up to follow another line of thought. It seems to be an attempt to highten the drama, but it fails miserably. A chronological order would have made the story much more interesting as well as making it much easier for the reader to figure out what went wrong with AT&T and perhaps learn something from the book. But perhpas this is just as well as Cauley's research would not have been up to this task.

I bought this book expecting some new insights, but there was nothing in here one wouldn't already know from reading the Wall Street Journal as the collapse was happening. Cauley simply did not do any homework or dig beneath the surface in the least. Overall, a very weak effort. I give it a low C or high D mark.

I am (still) a current employee of AT&T. I am on the 'front-line' which is all the way at the bottom of the totem pole as a customer service rep in consumer long distance. I started working at AT&T in February of 1997 and everything that Leslie Cauley wrote in this novel-happened!!! I kept nodding my head at every turn of the page and remembering everything that happened. I decided to work for the company because of its name and in my 8 years I can't believe what has happened and how quickly it has deteriorated. Thank you Leslie Cauley for writing a book that the public (and customers) can read how fudged up Corporate America really is!!!! With the SBC merger Ms. Cauley can write a sequel to this book and hopefully call it "A New Era: The Triumphant Return of AT&T"

David Isenberg wrote a paper called "Rise of the Stupid Network" that describes an obvious future in early 1990 communications. Any book on AT&T of that period must discuss these Bell Labs predictions.

Relevant terms including Packet Switching verses Circuit Switching, the Death of Distance, and the Last Mile were the future for communications and for AT&T. Packet switching would obsolete those multi-million AT&T switches. Death of Distance meant a long distance call from New York to Washington costs no more than a call from New York to Australia. - a stunning relevation of that time with serious consequences for AT&T's entire future. The Last Mile was a bottleneck that would restrict access to maybe 97% of the installed fiber optic backbone, restrict computer use, and result in a Federal 1996 Communications law to break the stifling of technology (including a stifled 1981 technology called ADSL).

"The Rise and Fall of AT&T" must discuss this. Instead it discusses personalities, pettiness, and speculations of corporate executives who (if the book was insightful) had little grasp - no idea - of basic industry technologies. Decisions such as buying two cable companies without learning that the infrastructure was defective should have at least been discussed. Who did not have a clue? Gross technical mismanagement by AT&T corporate executives was that flagrant and is not discussed by Cauley. Instead Cauley's book discusses how they felt.

Somehow the AT&T story is only about infighting among personalities as if that was important. The book ignores gross technical ignorance by AT&T management who had little if any technology grasp. Some of that ignorance is mentioned as if a peripheral story rather than a story about why AT&T created so little innovation.

I would have expected a fiasco involving the famous AT&T Unix to have at least been mentioned as a perfect example of stifled innovation; an example of why AT&T was repeatedly foundering. Or AT&T's complete failure in PCs. Almost no internet products. Critical facts that demonstrated why AT&T was failing were repeatedly avoided - often never even once mentioned. Even a massive and wrongheaded engineering effort to create "TrueVoice Plus" was ignored.

Why would a company spend $billions for cable companies only to discover much later that those cables - the hardware - would not support a technology? Why does Leslie Cauley not discuss this obvious technical stupidity at highest levels in AT&T management? A book that discusses AT&T top management completely ignores technology ignorance that beset most if not every AT&T top executive? Appreciate technical frustration that confronted David Isenberg, demonstrated in his famous paper, and ignored in Cauley's book.

I found Cauley's book deceptive if not naive because it does not address fundamental reasons for AT&T's repeated fiascos and resulting demise. AT&T quashed or fumbled innovation after innovation. This book hardly mentions any of this. Would you buy a cable company for billions of dollars when the entire cable network must be replaced? We should expect Cauley to identify who in AT&T had no idea and yet spent that money anyway. Instead, the book discusses who did not like whom, who was angry, and when they finally realized that they were going bankrupt. I was completely disappointed by no useful facts from Leslie Cauley.

I had previously purchased this book when it first came out. I was recently reading it for a second time and bought 2 additional copies for friends. As a retired AT&T management employee with over 30 years of service, I felt like the author's account of the characters and events leading up to the fall of AT&T was totally believable and accurate. Looking back and having retired before the collapse, I can now very well see how it happened. Although it makes me sad and angry each time I read it, this book is a very informative no holds barred account of just how bad management, tremendous egos, poor decisions, selfish competing agendas and ineffective communications brought down one of America's greatest companies.

For such a serious subject with grave impact on many shareholders, the author is far too flippant and cavalier. Having read the earlier Brooks book, this carry forward is nowhere near the same quality of verse.

Some factual innaccuracies that could have easily been corroborated however also some interesting material on the very brief Walters reign.

Not of the same caliber as Ms. Cauley's "Optical Illusions", but a good read nonetheless. If you're not part of the the turbulent telecom industry, this is not your cup of tea. A few innaccuracies here and there, but over all it's got the story correct.

As a retired AT&T employee, I found this book very gripping in describing the downfall of this great company.

To me, the infighting, big egos, reckless decisions and irrational decisions made during the Internet mania of the late 90's makes it clear what happened.

Anyone wanting to know what caused the downfall of AT&T should read this book.

Well written and a fast page turner to see what happens next.

The book hinges on the fact that AT&T's core business, long-distance service, had seen it's best days gone, and therefore serves as the poignant backdrop for most of the book. However, Leslie does not provide any strong argument or analysis as to what AT&T's senior management did incorrectly. Specifically AT&T's board and Goldman advisors had supported every [mis-]step of the turn around endeavour. It seems like AT&T fell as a victim of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, basically trying to shift away from a long-distance business while doing it at the END of one of the biggest booms in history, that of the internet.

Leslie Cauley's "The End of the Line" is that rare thing -- a business book that reads like a novel.

Ms. Cauley shrewdly shapes her narrative around the two things readers care about, namely, plot and character. You couldn't find a much better plot. One of the world's greatest companies, one that truly made a difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of people, is faced with difficult, fundamental choices. Through an escalating series of stupendous blunders and poor decisions, the company chooses badly and seals its doom. Even though you know the outcome, you keep wanting to know what happens on the next page. That's a credit to the liveliness of Ms. Cauley's writing.

The plot is good, but the characters are even better. Ms. Cauley creates some wonderfully detailed sketches of the senior executives at the heart of this drama. These men emerge as extraordinarily complex and compelling figures who are anything but the sterotypically one-dimensional man in the gray flannel suit.

Most compelling of all, perhaps, is C. Michael Armstrong, who was brought in to save AT&T and ends up presiding over its death. He ultimately reminds one of King Lear, howling on the heath at the utter whimsy and injustice of the universe.

Even if you never worked at AT&T, as I did for twenty years, you will enjoy this utterly fascinating and ultimately sad book.

I thought that Leslie did a wonderful job escribing the events and underlying issues that led to the decline of AT&T. Leslie describes both the events and personalities that contributed to the demise of AT&T. It is facinating to think about the fact that a national icon was driven into a state of insolvency in just a matter of about 12 months. In addition, I thought that the description of Mike Armstrong was elucidating. Some other books on the subject have excused him in spite of the fact that he was at the wheel when this all happened.

The book flows well and is a fairly easy read.

This is absolutely a must read from a management case study perspective and retrospective on the telecom bubble.