Building the Bell System

Contrary to its gentle image of later years, created largely through one of the great public relations machines in corporate history, Ma Bell in its first few decades was close to a public menace—a ruthless, rapacious, grasping “Bell Octopus,” as its enemies would describe it to the press. “The Bell Company has had a monopoly more profitable and mo

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Let’s assume for a moment, though, that between the two sales, Paramount walks away with $4.5 billion in cash. Paramount has $13.5 billion of net debt, as of March 31. If Bakish decided to use the $4.5 billion in cash from the sales of S&S and BET to pay down that debt—always a good use of cash—Paramount would still have $9 billion in debt. On ... See more

The Vail strategy, in short, would measure the company’s progress “in decades instead of years.”15 Vail also saw it as necessary to merge the idea of technological leadership with a broad civic vision. His publicity department had come up with a slogan that was meant to rally its public image, but Vail himself soon adopted it as the company’s core

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