Verizon's defining moves.
The defining strategic moves at Verizon — each one explained and grounded in the record.
The Money Machine · Business Model
Verizon Won the Network 35 Times Running. Then It Tried to Be Google.
Verizon has won J.D. Power's network-quality crown 35 straight times since 2003. So why did it spend ~$8.88B buying AOL and Yahoo, write off $4.6B in 18 months, and sell the wreckage at a ~$4B net loss?
8 min
The Money Machine · Business Model
Verizon Sells the Best Network in America. The Receipts Only Half Agree.
Verizon's whole model is a premium price for a premium network. But the independent scorecards say AT&T won overall in 2H 2024 and T-Mobile owns 5G availability at ~92% to Verizon's 64.5%. The premium is real - it's just narrower than the marketing.
7 min
The Adjacency Bet · Adjacency Expansion
Verizon Bought a Media Empire to Sell Ads. It Couldn't Use the One Thing It Owned.
Verizon spent roughly $8.9 billion buying AOL and Yahoo to challenge Google and Facebook in digital ads. Eighteen months after the merger, it wrote down $4.6 billion. The empire was real. The data that was supposed to power it never showed up.
7 min
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
Verizon Bought AOL and Yahoo to Beat Google. It Was Dead on Arrival.
Verizon spent roughly $9 billion assembling Oath from AOL and Yahoo, then took a $4.6 billion goodwill writedown within 18 months. The story isn't that the content was tired. It's that the thesis underneath was impossible from day one.
7 min