At his first companywide meeting after becoming Verizon’s CEO in October 2025, Dan Schulman dispensed with the usual corporate pleasantries. Speaking without notes or slides, he delivered a message that employees of the telecommunications giant weren’t used to hearing from the top: Verizon had surrendered market share to AT&T, -T-Mobile, and lower-cost providers, and its sprawling bureaucracy had become a problem. The company was losing badly. And, he warned, layoffs were coming.
It was a stark introduction to a new leader who, until recently, had been watching the deterioration unfold from a seat on Verizon’s board. Then 67, he had left an idyllic retirement in Montana to roll up his sleeves and fix it.
