GOOGLE: I appreciate your willingness to meet with me, but you’ll be well rewarded for your time. Facing him at the far end of the table is Harry Bates Thayer, who served as President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in the early 1920s, dressed impeccably in a finely tailored suit. Google, wearing the casual attire of the 21st century. At a podium at the head of the table stands Mr. Around it are seated a dozen senior managers in the business attire of that era. Setting: A boardroom in a 1920s style of corporate opulence-with wood paneling, leather chairs, and an imposing mahogany table taking up most of the length of the room. Let’s call this visitor from the future “Mister Google.” So just imagine a time traveling venture capitalist going back one hundred years to present a “Google” type strategy to AT&T’s senior management. Today’s tech titans would manage a monopoly of that scale very differently. But Silicon Valley folks would laugh at their naïve approach. The folks at AT&T thought they were smart. ![]() ![]() On some phones you could even see the words molded into the equipment: “BELL SYSTEM PROPERTY-NOT FOR SALE.” As far back as 1907, the president of the company had made his strategy clear when he announced the motto of “one policy, one system, universal service.” The company’s dominance was so extreme, that even the phones in people’s homes were owned by AT&T, and merely leased or lent to users. Almost the entire network fell under the control of a single corporation, the American Telegraph and Telephone Company (or AT&T), which was somehow allowed to maintain its monopoly until the Department of Justice forced a breakup of the business in the 1980s.īut for most of its history, AT&T had almost total control of telecommunications in the US. A hundred years ago, 15 million telephones were in use in the United States-but that number would more than double by the end of the decade.
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