A Glimpse into the Future of AT&T's Wireless Connectivity with Andre Fuetsch, CTO of AT&T

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:00) Hello, my friends. Today we have a very special episode with past podcast guest Mike, founder and CTO of Tealium, hosting Andre, the CTO of AT&T and president of AT&T Labs. And they discuss the future of wireless network technology, how we're moving towards a world where everything with a power source will have connectivity, and the benefits of being a patent-minded technologist. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO podcast. Here we go.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:35) This is the Modern CTO podcast.

(Mike Anderson at 00:00:46) Well, Andre, it's an absolute pleasure to meet you. I don't know if you've done a Modern CTO podcast before, but I was fortunate enough to do one with Joel in the past. And I must have done okay because they've asked me to come back and sit in. And so I'm very excited to be chatting with you. So let's dig right in.

(Mike Anderson at 00:01:11) You're the president of AT&T Labs and you're the CTO. Very, very impressive. You're in Dallas, Texas. I assume it's probably a little toasty out there right now.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:01:22) That's right. It's quite warm, but depending on where you are on the coast, I've heard it's even warmer. So, you know, gosh, I hope folks have air conditioning. That's all I gotta say.

(Mike Anderson at 00:01:38) All right. Well, so we've never met. So are you okay with me doing a really quick introduction of myself just so you can understand a little bit more about me? Because I think we have a really interesting combination here. So my name is Mike Anderson.

(Mike Anderson at 00:01:52) I'm the founder and CTO of a company called Tealium, and we are a customer data platform provider, and we help companies organize their data. We deal with tremendous event volumes, and, again, we try to get companies to understand their customers by understanding the data signals that come in. What's interesting about this discussion today is the polarity between the two of us. My company has 600 employees compared to the 230,000 that you have at AT&T, and I oversee maybe about 180 engineers.

(Mike Anderson at 00:02:28) Meanwhile, you oversee about 32,000 engineers. So am I correct in my numbers so far?

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:02:34) Yeah. Well, my team's actually a bit smaller than that, than 32,000, but it is several thousand engineers and researchers. But yeah, it's a pretty large group of amazing, talented people. And it's really an honor to be at the helm of this amazing company.

(Mike Anderson at 00:02:57) It's, I mean, there are companies that we count on to actually truly innovate, and AT&T is one of those that we look and say these are companies that we continually expect them to make technology better over the years, and you're right at the helm. When I heard that I was interviewing you and I looked at the size of the company and the size of your staff and your education at Berkeley and Stanford, I thought to myself, thank God we can do some video editing on this because I'm probably gonna get a little nervous. But let's go into it. So you've been at AT&T now for nine years. Tell me a little bit about the journey from Berkeley to AT&T.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:03:38) Actually, it's 26 years I've been here. Wow. So, yeah, it's been quite a journey. I started out actually at Pacific Bell and their technology labs.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:03:54) And without going through the whole history of AT&T, the breakup, and then AT&T, how it sort of kinda recombined, it is an amalgamation of many different companies. But I'll talk a bit more about AT&T Labs and the organization I run now and what this amazing organization has done. You know, AT&T Labs is over 145 years old, and it was started and founded by Alexander Graham Bell. And so, as you noted, a lot of great technologies have come out of the labs over this very long legacy. And, of course, communications has always been the foundation of what the labs has been about.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:04:47) And innovation is really the forefront of what we aspire to be. To kind of quantify how much innovation comes out of the labs, we actually generate five patents every business day. And when you look at that across the industry and all the other players that are generating innovation, typically use patents as a pretty good measure. You know, we rank number two in the telecom industry for new innovations in our patent portfolio. We're also ranked number six in the world when it comes to AI, artificial intelligence, and a lot of the great work that we've generated.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:05:33) So these are just a couple of the different ingredients that really make this organization and this team. And it's really, I need to emphasize team and people because that's what it's really about. You know, we always love to talk about the technology and that's great. But I always say what makes technology great isn't the technology. It's great people around the technology.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:06:04) And so that's what AT&T Labs is all about.

(Mike Anderson at 00:06:08) I think now what we've seen in the last several years, especially with cloud computing and the power that's come on, I wholeheartedly agree with you. A lot of these challenges we have today are no longer technology challenges. They're really people challenges. Like, who do we have that can truly put together something that can appease the customer and really has value and innovates and shines new technology capabilities? You know, again, the contrast between our companies, I was never a patent-minded technologist, but I had a patent attorney who was our chief legal counsel who just wouldn't leave me alone until I started going down this patent journey.

(Mike Anderson at 00:06:50) And so it's not five patents a day, but we have, you know, I think it's good for companies to set a goal. We have a goal of one patent per quarter that we try to file. And it's just amazing how you figure out a way to just hit that number when you set it as a goal. It just, and again, that's the power of people. But I think it's a great, I think IP and patents are aspirations that all technology leaders should be pushing down their organizations to go for.

(Mike Anderson at 00:07:22) And I think it sort of liberates engineers sometimes because a lot of engineers don't come out of the school thinking about being patent-minded individuals. And it is something that's very valuable to the longevity of a company, especially somebody like AT&T Labs whose sole job has been to innovate for, you know, fifteen decades almost.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:07:43) That's right. Yeah. And look, as you said, it's really important to, you know, you want to, when you're talking about capturing intellectual property, it's really about two things. One is protecting your intellectual property. Right?

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:07:57) And so that's why you want to go out and patent it and make sure that it is novel and protected. But two, you also want to monetize it. And so that's what we do as well. So part of my responsibilities is I have our intellectual property division that reports into me.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:08:16) So I'm actually responsible for P&L, and we generate every year, I'd say a couple hundred million dollars in business on the licensing, the selling, the trademarking of our various intellectual property and patents. So it's a really important part of the business and to any technologists out there, like yourself and how you're being advised by your counsel, you want to get out there and protect as much of it as you can.

(Mike Anderson at 00:08:52) Yeah. What has been some technology that you've been really interested in recently?

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:08:56) Well, there's so much going on. I mean, it really depends on what part of the horizon you want to look at. And then I'll, you know, I'll start with way out in the horizon of what's really interesting. You know, our core business is really about connectivity, connecting people and their lives together.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:09:16) And obviously, over the tenure of this company, you know, it started off with telegraphs and telephones and voice connectivity. It's obviously evolved to video connectivity, but it's more than just connecting humans together. As we know, as we especially go into the new decade here, it's gonna be more and more about connecting the machines in our lives, right, that we interact with. And so when we talk about connectivity, you have to talk about, okay, well, what are the real technology enablers behind that? And, of course, you hear a lot about 5G.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:09:58) You know, 5G is a wireless technology. But what's interesting about wireless or cellular technology, if you look at all the bits and bytes that go across a particular network, actually wireless is a small portion of it. The majority of the bits and bytes go across a broadband network, and typically, that broadband network is served by a fiber-based network. So AT&T is all about 5G and fiber. That's what we're focused on.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:10:33) Now as you move out on the horizon here, you say, well, what's gonna happen? What's beyond 5G, you know, 6G? What is 6G? I won't get too much into that. But, you know, what about connectivity in general?

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:10:47) And I would tell you, it's really all about how do you most efficiently get bits through the air and onto fiber. I mean, that's basically the essence of it all. And it turns out the most economic way to move bits around is really through fiber. And so fiber-based technologies are very interesting to us and how they evolve. And as we've been very vocal out in the market, we believe getting fiber all the way to your home or to your business is really what you want as the end state.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:11:27) Because once you get that fiber optic cable, that medium in place, then it's just the, you know, you can evolve the optics and the electronics that are on either ends of that medium. And as we all know, nothing really goes faster than the speed of light, so you pretty much future-proof your home if you can get fiber connectivity all the way in. Now once you're in the house, then you want to probably be as wireless as possible. So that's when you get into Wi-Fi and 5G.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:12:02) And those are basically two very capable technologies. 5G has a lot more security and control than Wi-Fi does, so we're obviously bullish on more 5G connectivity. But certainly we accommodate Wi-Fi as well. As that evolves into the future, it's gonna, you know, think about how everything in your home is becoming more and more connected. So right now, you may have a home, you may have a smart speaker or two, and certainly you've got your tablet or laptop connected.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:12:41) But you're gonna quickly see here in the next few years more and more of your appliances, more and more of consumer electronics are gonna have wireless interfaces. You already see it with television sets, TV displays, and such. And I'll predict, you know, in the near future, pretty much anything that has a power source will likely have some sort of wireless interface to it for connectivity. I joke around with my nine-year-old that his toothbrush, although he already has a connected toothbrush, but his fork at some point will also be connected. And yeah.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:13:21) And I think that's gonna, you know, open up really interesting new use cases for the future. The last point I kind of make is, so, you know, what's really driving a lot of this? So I talked a bit about connectivity and technology there. The two other things that are emerging that are really interesting, I would tell you. One is artificial intelligence.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:13:45) You hear a lot about that. I think AI, you know, used appropriately can really enhance our lives and help us get through the day-to-day on many different levels. And then the other big technology that's evolving and emerging is quantum computing. Now it's not really there in a commercial context and, you know, in a mass market sort of way. Right now, it's gonna take some time.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:14:15) But there's some really interesting progress and breakthroughs that have happened recently that are going to make quantum computing more of a reality sooner than later. And that's gonna be really fascinating because that's just gonna open up all kinds of new capabilities and frankly solve, I think, a lot of problems and issues, probably will create some new ones. But all of these kinds of technologies, I can tell you, are gonna have a big impact in our lives sooner or later.

(Mike Anderson at 00:14:56) Yeah. I completely agree. You see the world moving towards more of a subscription-based service type economy as the devices become more and more connected. I talked to people about the idea that it's not gonna be very far off where just buying something like a refrigerator warranty is gonna be something of the past where instead you'll buy some sort of subscription service that says my refrigerator's connected. You guys monitor it, run it against AI machine learning models.

(Mike Anderson at 00:15:26) You guys start to be able to predict when my thermostat is gonna go out. And instead of it breaking down and me having to call and schedule a repair meeting with you, you guys will come out in advance and say, hey, Mike, your refrigerator thermostat is just about to go. We're here to replace it so that you have no downtime with your refrigerator whatsoever. And I think where we are is we're becoming a race of people that just want to have no downtime ever.

(Mike Anderson at 00:15:53) You know? I see people that get frustrated when Wi-Fi on a plane is too slow, and you think, like, this wasn't a thing a couple years ago, and you're kind of upset that it's not working very well. Just be thankful that we have it. So that's where, you know, that's where you and I get applause, but at the same time, we get scowls when the innovations that we're creating don't quite work perfectly the way that we want to. But, again, it's a beautiful time to be alive and to be into technology.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:16:24) That's right. I mean, you said it well. I mean, you know, time, it, everything is all about how do I better optimize my time? How do I get, make the time I have in this particular context or experience more engaging? And I think that's where a lot of this network technology can help.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:16:46) You know, just to add on to your refrigerator example, I mean, it's more than just, you know, monitoring, hey, when is your refrigerator gonna break down? It's also, hey, what's in the refrigerator? Yeah. Yeah.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:17:03) Can you tell me, and even order for me when milk is low or I need, you know, I'm on my last couple eggs or whatever? How do you make my life, take all this sort of mundane or the tedious chores out of my life, get that out of the way, and just have all that stuff just show up, and I don't even have to worry about restocking the refrigerator. It just sort of automatically happens.

(Mike Anderson at 00:17:30) Yeah. No expired milk. Right? Somebody let me know. Yeah.

(Mike Anderson at 00:17:35) No. Exactly. And there's just a lot of automation that could be put in place that can just take away these mundane details that are really seemingly important, but can fortunately be handled by technology and smart devices. And there's a tremendous economy to be born out of all of this. So when did you first get interested in technology? Let's go way, way, way, way, way back.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:18:00) Okay. Well, for me, it actually happened probably in the fifth, sixth grade. I got really interested in electronics and computers. I was very fortunate. I had some friends and some of their parents that were involved in some of the early days of computing.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:18:19) And so I got exposure. I grew up in the Bay Area. So, and my family was in academia, so I got exposed to this stuff probably at a fairly young age. And then I remember the first computer I bought myself. It was a tiny little machine, the Timex Sinclair 2000, and that was one of the earliest machines I started programming on. And that's what really got me interested in engineering and technology and computers and electronics.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:18:56) And then the, you know, the rest is history.

(Mike Anderson at 00:19:00) I mean, it's been a long career at AT&T. I mean, you've literally gone from when wireless was probably not a thing, or at least back to the old days of broadband modems and those people that really can date themselves by saying they know what that was. But 3G, 4G, 5G, AT&T has to have changed dramatically over the last two and a half decades. What are some of the big changes that you've seen that you think would be interesting to the listeners?

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:19:34) Well, yeah, there's a lot of things have changed. Now what's interesting is, you know, technology changes. Some of it changes very quickly, some of it not so quickly. The thing that doesn't change very much are people, right?

(Mike Anderson at 00:19:51) Yeah.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:19:52) And in a way, that's been kind of the constant. And what makes those technology changes, the ones that work really well, is really when you have really great people that can identify and react and act and even think ahead to get us in the best possible position for technology. I'll tell you, at AT&T Labs, we've gone through many, many different transformations. Probably the biggest transformations we've gone through of recent is from transforming from a hardware-based network to a much more software-based network. And, you know, no surprise, over the last couple of decades, software has really been eating the world, right, to coin a phrase that's been out there.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:20:45) And, you know, the network is no different. Yes, there's a lot of physicality and hardware associated with the network. But in terms of how that all works and how it's orchestrated and the connectivity and such, a lot of that has been transformed more into software. And also, you know, with the whole compute industry of what's been going on, and you've seen this with the cloud players, the hyperscalers, there's been this whole transformation of how do you create a highly reliable, resilient application on not so resilient, reliable hardware.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:21:32) And you can actually do that with software. And so we've been able to take advantage of the growth and transformation in the cloud space of taking fairly commoditized, cheap and inexpensive compute infrastructure and turn that into very highly reliable systems on top to provide the connectivity services that you expect to work every waking hour, minute, second of your life. And with many of our customers, it's down to milliseconds. You know, we have to be there all the time, and downtime is not an option.

(Mike Anderson at 00:22:24) No. It's interesting because you hear the same themes. The same themes play out historically when you go back to the days of RAID 5 and just a bunch of disks, and you think that, yeah, you can take older hardware and put software on top of it that monitors and says, "Okay, you're running healthy. I'm going to use you. As soon as you're not running healthy, you're out of here, and I'm going to move on to another piece of hardware that's healthy. And I'm going to let somebody know so they can come in and repair it." But it is. I probably hear that "software is eating the world," I probably hear that about four times a week, whether it be through VCs or my own CEO. It's a brilliant phrase, and it's lasted the test of time because it is where we're going. I have a note here that says we might eventually not need smartphones. Is that accurate? Talk to me about this because I would love that.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:23:26) Yeah. So, you know, we touched a bit about the future here and where things are going. And I'll tell you, one technology that's evolving quickly and that's very exciting is augmented reality. So, you know, think about virtual reality, sort of putting on these big clunky goggles and being able to play a game or navigate through a particular experience. And then you have augmented reality, which is more like wearing glasses, but you're viewing sort of an augmentation to the physical world you're already part of.

(Mike Anderson at 00:24:07) Yeah.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:24:08) When you think about where this technology is going, it's just getting better and better by the day, and you think about augmented reality glasses of the future. They're going to get very light, easy to wear, and I think become very quickly socially acceptable to wear these glasses. And these are going to become like little virtual assistants. So as you're walking down the street, it's going to tell you, "Hey, here's a coffee shop you might not be aware of that's right around the corner," or kind of help you navigate through everyday life. Well, those glasses are going to have connectivity to work.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:24:53) And so it's natural to assume that, hey, maybe these become the next new smartphone of the future. So I think it's a very probable reality in the near future that we will be using alternative devices such as AR glasses to do all of this sort of interactivity that right now we're glued to the smartphone on today. Now, you know, I'm not making a proclamation here that the smartphone is dead by any means, but I am saying that I think the way these interfaces that we've been accustomed to are definitely going to transform into different types of form factors. And I think a lot of those you can see right on the bridge of your nose or, they even say, even contact lenses in the future.

(Mike Anderson at 00:25:55) Yeah. That's a funny story going back to Google Glass. I had one of my engineers years ago show up at the office with Google Glass and he wore them around, and he took a lot of heat. A lot of people said, "You look kind of like an idiot." And he wore them anyway, and people still gave him crap about it. Then one day, the CEO walked down into the engineering bullpen and said, "Are those Google Glass?" And he said, "Yeah." And he said, "That's awesome. I'm so pleased that you chose to try out some of the new technology. You can expense it. Talium is going to pay for that for you." And now the rest of the engineers are looking around like, "Man, I should have bought some of those." But I do agree with you. You know, I see just from a safety perspective, you see so many times people walking down the street with their phone right in front of them, and I had thought, you know, when I was looking at Google Maps and I was holding it up in front of my face, that the camera needed to show me that there's someone walking right into me at the time and alert me that someone's going to be coming up in the next three or four seconds that I may bump into. But there's a lot of imagination out there. And, again, we go back to people. There's a lot of imagination out there, and technology is not the bottleneck anymore. It's really the art of the possible and the art of the imagination.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:27:16) Absolutely. And look, you know, the way we interact with each other, think about some of the archaic mediums we use, like the QWERTY keyboard. I mean, that thing was developed, I don't know, 150 years ago. And that really has become kind of a bottleneck, if you will, in terms of how we interact. And once you can kind of free ourselves from that, and, of course, you know, voice has been a big part of that. And, of course, video is becoming more of it and how we interact and convey information. You know, we're also even looking at technology of sensors that can tap into thought waves and gesture control. And I think a lot of these types of areas are going to evolve here quickly to allow us to kind of break some of these old, traditional, archaic interfaces up and allow us to communicate at a much faster, higher pace. And it's going to be exciting what that opens up.

(Mike Anderson at 00:28:36) Yeah. It's probably with better articulation and better clarity as well, that I'll be able to say more in a crisper fashion with doing a lot less work, which means I can have a lot more conversations going simultaneously, which definitely has to be challenging in a role that you have. There have to be at least a hundred things going on at any given time that you could peer into and see what the status is. And so that's the kind of world that we're going to where there's just a tremendous amount of stuff going on. So as much as we can have technology reduce that so we could focus on the really important ones that really need more of the human intervention, I think that, whether we like it or not, I mean, I would say you don't have to get up there and say, "Hey, I'm not proclaiming this is going to happen." It is going to happen. I mean, we know that it's going to happen. It's already come so far. It's going to go to where they're just going to have to, rather than have to put a big bulky phone into your pocket, just some way that I can get the power of the phone into my just natural human workflow.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:29:46) That's right. That's right. And we're seeing it already manifest itself in different ways. So, of course, we all have our smartphone that we can't live without. I mean, if you think about it, this smartphone I'm holding up here, I don't think this smartphone is ever more than two feet away from me. Maybe when I take a shower or something, but it's pretty much on the nightstand or it's in my pocket, right?

(Mike Anderson at 00:30:08) Yeah.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:30:08) But it's more than now just the smartphone. Right? I've got a connected watch now. I've got connected earpods that I use. And then more and more, of course, when I get in my car, as I'm walking into my kitchen, I actually have a connected espresso machine. I don't know why, but I just have one. But all of these things, that's what it's all about is connectivity. Now, how do you manage that? You know, as you said, "Gosh, how do I become more productive, more efficient, but also filter out all the noise that this is generating?"

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:31:04) And, also, I would tell you, how do you do this in a way where I can secure my own privacy and I don't have to worry about is someone listening in? Am I exposing my data to, you know, some strange user group out in Eastern Europe or, you know, how do I control all of this? And I think this is part of the challenge we at AT&T here are working on to not just provide fast, reliable, but secure connections for our customers that they can feel confident that we're protecting them, and we're looking out after them so that they don't have to.

(Mike Anderson at 00:31:57) Yeah. Even the, you know, I mean, you talked about all the different devices, the watches and the AirPods and things like that. Now you've got, I've got my credit cards magnetted to the back of my phone now as well with that new capability. But to your point about the secure communication, it's about having that high level of secure communication. But then back to that software piece, then there's a lot of personal preference. There's a lot of configurability in that too with all the opt-ins and opt-outs and GDPR and CCPA and things of that nature. And that's the other, it's not just the technology as a whole, but it's how the technology connects to the consumer experience. And it has to have these days a lot of configurability. Some people like dark interfaces. Some people like light interfaces. So, again, software vendors, they have to build both and let people choose. And there are going to be a lot of people that just want to opt out. There's going to be a lot of people that want to opt in and some people that want to be more selective. And so that's the variability in there that you can provide a very secure platform. And then you have to provide that sort of convenience, configuration capability on top of it so people can say, "Hey, look. I'm going to wear these glasses around, but I don't want to see ads. I don't want to know about every single restaurant that I could possibly enjoy. I just am looking for a coffee place. So filter all that noise out for me because I didn't want this experience to be just show me everything that I could possibly have access to right now. It's only show me what I'm really interested in."

(Mike Anderson at 00:33:30) Even, you know, again, you and I could go nuts on this and do a 19-hour podcast. But as we get into ML and AI, you know that I drink coffee around 9:15. So if I'm walking around at 9:15, show me where the nearest coffee place is because that's what I want in my experience. You may drink coffee at 8:05. I drink it at 9:15, and the software just sort of adjusts for that. That's the opportunity guys like you and I have to take down, a lot of innovation in the next 10 to 20 years.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:34:10) That's right. And so, you know, how do you do this in a safe, ethical way? You know, how do you offer these kinds of capabilities and control, visibility and control to partners and providers that are in your sort of ecosystem that you trust, right? Ultimately, this comes down to these trusting relationships and connections that you want to share these types of experiences with because maybe you don't want to share your coffee activity with just everybody because you're fearful of being bombarded by every possible coffee ad out there. But then again, you know, how do you make sure that you're not somehow impairing yourself or only to just coffee experience? Because maybe you need to start getting into tea or you've got to get into something else. So, you know, how do you manage all of this? So that's, I think, a big part of what we're trying to figure out for customers is give them that visibility and control in their lives so that they can, one, manage all the noise that's out there, but not, you know, shelter them too much from new potential engaging experiences that they might be interested in.

(Mike Anderson at 00:35:46) Yeah. No. It's exactly right. All right. Let's jump to COVID. I imagine you probably already had a pretty sizable remote workforce, but talk to me about COVID and what that did to you guys from a remote engineering perspective.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:35:58) Yeah. I mean, certainly, like every, I think, every business out there, I mean, everyone was impacted by COVID. But, you know, when the first sort of stay-at-home orders came out, you know, last March, 2020 March, that is. Everyone, you know, I mean, who would have foreseen this pandemic, right? But, of course, you know, being, and I'll answer your question in two ways. One is sort of how we reacted at work within the labs, but then I'll also talk a bit about the network, what happened with the network.

(Mike Anderson at 00:36:36) Yeah.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:36:37) So, you know, from an employee standpoint, I mean, it really, it was business as usual. I mean, we're a very distributed organization across not just the US, but the world. We have teams in Europe, in the Middle East, Mexico. And so, and of course, we're very distributed across the US. And, you know, in this day and age using video conferencing and all these tools that were now, you know, commonplace now, I mean, nothing really changed. So we were able to be productive and continue with a lot of work.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:37:15) Now there's a lot of things that in our labs, testing facilities where you physically have to be there to move cables and technology around. And some of that, we had to readjust and take the appropriate precautions and safety measures to continue that work. But all of that got sorted out fairly easily and smoothly. Now let me talk a bit about the network. So it was pretty amazing to see how well the network responded.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:37:53) As you can imagine, when they were shutting down flights coming in from Asia and Europe into the U.S., and everyone had to stay home. And, of course, what did everybody do? They just got on to their broadband networks. Right?

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:38:11) So we saw this tremendous surge. In fact, just within the first month of March there of the COVID pandemic, we saw an increase in traffic across our network within the first several weeks, a spike that typically we would see over a year, pre-COVID. And in fact, last year, all of 2020, when we looked at the traffic demand across our backbone network, we saw over a 50% increase in traffic. And several things drove that, obviously. People working from home, schooling, learning from home, just entertaining themselves from home. All of that drove that demand. Also, we saw in the latter half of the year of 2020 some other interesting events. One, there was the new iPhone that came out. Well, a lot of people just went out and wanted the new 5G iPhone, and that drove a lot of activity. Now you're probably asking, well, wait a minute. That's on the wireless network. How does that, what does that have to do with the broadband network? Well, keep in mind that about 80% of the traffic your smartphone generates actually traverses over a Wi-Fi broadband connected network versus a cellular network. So the majority of traffic actually goes across a broadband network. So we saw all of this.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:39:54) And, of course, what was interesting too, we had the election and a lot of social media activity going on. That drove a lot of usage on the network. And then also what was very interesting, and you can see this within the consumer electronics industry, a lot of TVs and displays were sold in the fourth quarter. And, of course, if you're gonna go out and buy a new TV, you're not gonna get the old high-def TV. You're gonna get a 4K TV. Right? So now people are now streaming more and more 4K content. In fact, on our network today, of all the bits and bytes that we carry across the AT&T network, and it's almost about 500 petabytes a day now, about half, 50% are actually video bits and bytes. Okay? So our network, as you can imagine, we engineer and design it around a lot of heavy video traffic.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:40:58) And so all of that, we just saw this tidal wave hit last year. The good news is our network, because a lot of it is very software defined now, we were very agile and able to quickly react and spin up and instantiate new capacity as we needed it. And we did it without missing a beat. And so we're really proud of all the engineers across the AT&T network that made that possible to cope with COVID.

(Mike Anderson at 00:41:39) It's, you know, it really is often something that is underappreciated, particularly in the engineering realms that you put in place all these auto-scaling routines and you sort of prepare for the worst. And you just hope that nobody notices any downtime. And then that's kind of the act. Like, no news is good news in this engineering infrastructure realm. But it probably has been very gratifying for the engineers at AT&T to see that they put these things in place hoping for the worst, hoping for massive scale, and hoping for something that big was gonna hit, and then something big hit, and the stuff worked. Right? I mean, it's a very proud moment for an engineer to know, like, wow. We really scaled. And when you guys take it down to connections per second and bytes per second, it's mind-blowing because I know some of the number. I mean, I know what a petabyte is, so I know what those kind of numbers mean. And, yeah, that stuff's impressive at parties. I can tell you that much.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:42:42) Yeah. Very techie parties.

(Mike Anderson at 00:42:45) You're right.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:42:47) And only techie parties.

(Mike Anderson at 00:42:50) Only techie parties. Yeah. For my company, we became a remote-first company very, very quickly. We were constantly surveying our engineers and asking them who wanted to come back into the office, and employees are happier right now. And this has forced us to stress and exercise some new muscles around connectivity. I think it's forced people to be a little bit more patient and to understand the difference between synchronous needs and asynchronous needs and not just be like, hey, Andre, I just asked you this question a minute ago, and you haven't replied to me. Can you reply now? Like, yeah. But, Mike, you don't need an answer for this for a couple days, so I'm not gonna get back to you right away. And so the asynchronous nature of communication, I think, has flourished a bit. And I'm probably speculating to say that your employees are happier, but, man, I'll tell you mine are a lot happier, and they feel a lot calmer. They feel a lot more relaxed. And our efficiency metrics are through the roof, and you can't just deny that people are happier when they're more calm and more comfortable, and they feel like they're more in control. So I think it's been a good thing for some of the industries. Industries like ours that are technology-based and data-based, I think they've sort of reinforced a lot of the things that we've put in place.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:44:10) Absolutely. Look. This has given our folks a lot of great flexibility, especially when you're, because we're such a distributed company and we serve the entire U.S., we've got folks that, maybe they're school-age children couldn't go back to school. They had to continue with remote learning and with child care and all of that. I mean, all of this, we gave them a lot of flexibility to make those scenarios, those situations work. And I can tell you, we created some new norms here. So some folks we've realized, hey, we don't really need them in the office. If they need to work from home, that's fine. So we have different designations of virtual workers, flex workers, and in-office workers. And, of course, in our business, AT&T, we have a really critical, important field base of employees that have to be out there to physically manage the network. And so those things you can't really virtualize. Right? When a fiber breaks, you actually need somebody to go out and repair it. Can't virtualize that. But a lot of things even in call centers and things, we've introduced different modes of working to give those employees some more flexibility to get their jobs done as well.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:45:38) So, yeah, we learned a tremendous amount through this experience as has everyone, I would say. Right? And, of course, it doesn't hurt to have a connectivity technology company underneath us to help better serve our employees as well as our customers.

(Mike Anderson at 00:46:01) Yeah. No. It definitely reinforces your value prop. And it probably looks like a very bright future going forward because we all, as humans, absolutely need the services of companies like AT&T to live life going into the future. There's just no question. As a small company, we have a little bit more of a challenge around diversity and inclusion because we just don't have the numbers. You know, I know that AT&T is a big supporter of the LGBT+ community, and they have been for a long, long time. How has AT&T been supportive of diversity and inclusion? And then how do you maintain that support in this maybe less, I would say, less human interaction, more virtual interaction type world? Is that something you guys have seen? Is it not a challenge, or is it something that you guys focus on? Well, I know it's a helium, and I'm sorry, I ask long questions. We have to work very hard for it because we're a smaller company, and so I think you have some luxuries. But still, I look to companies like AT&T for things that I can learn around diversity and inclusion.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:47:07) Yeah. No. I'm glad you brought it up. Diversity and inclusion is really a high priority here at AT&T across the board. If you think about, you mentioned at the beginning, 230,000 employees we represent, not just within the U.S., but even worldwide. And then you look at our customer base, the hundreds of millions of customers we serve. And we need to make sure that we are representing their interests, their needs, as best possible. And you can only do that by having a very diverse approach and platform to how we face off with customers and of course our employees. So when it comes to, especially in the technology space at the labs, and this is something I'm really proud of, we have a very diverse workforce. I'm really proud when I look across the engineering teams, you look at how many people we have from different countries, immigrants, you know, this is what America is all about. The diversity we have with the different skill sets is really amazing. And we're doing lots of things to improve, to make people feel more comfortable no matter where they come from, who they are, where, if they're transitioning or whatever they may be, we want everyone to feel comfortable at the workplace. And it's no different at the labs as well. And so I'll tell you, I'm really proud of the company and the social positions we've taken with our platforms, the outreach we've done to our communities, a very diverse set of communities we serve, of course, but also the employee resource groups that we also support internally within the company.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:49:24) It's just, you know, there's no tolerance for hate. I mean, this is about, you know, we're better together. And I'm very proud of our leadership and the principles of this company and everything we do to promote us becoming being better as one than apart.

(Mike Anderson at 00:49:50) It's absolutely right. It's a team effort. It's a team win. And people oftentimes don't realize how much farther we can go when we collaborate and when we work together. But on that, I know we're coming up close to time, so I wanna get to probably my last question, and I'll make it a quick one. You're obviously a very bright guy. You're a very talented guy. You're a very important guy in the world today with the innovation-leading efforts that you make. As there are more CTOs that are looking out here that are hoping someday to have a job like yours and to have the kind of responsibility and the team size that yours. Talk to me a little bit about your personal approach to leadership and what small company CTOs and startup CTOs can learn from a guy like you that's been in the industry a long time and has really made an amazing career out of technology.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:50:44) Yeah. Look. There's, I certainly don't have the best recipe for success here, I'm sure, but I can give you a couple insights that I've found through my career that I think have been helpful. You know, what's really important for CTOs obviously is not just the practical execution of how do you get this product out and generating the outcome you want. You've gotta have vision. And it's setting a vision out there that people can understand what it is, and then you help them connect the dots to how you get there. So that's really important I found is setting goals out there and measurable goals for people to understand and then relating that to the various work teams that are part of what it's gonna take to get there. Another thing I've learned is don't underestimate the power of making a goal public. And when you go out and say, hey. We're gonna do do something like we did here at AT&T, and that was to transform our network, 75% of our network from a hardware-based to a software-based network. We actually said that publicly. Now it was really scary at the time doing it because I was like, gee, I'm not quite sure how we're gonna get there. But when you do something like that and publicly commit yourself, it has this gravitas effect that really helps align everyone on, okay. Now we know what the goal is. We can't put the goal on the back door of the closet here and open it up now and then and look at it. No. Everyone knows, and we're all gonna achieve it together. So I tell you the power of making your goals public and sharing it are really important. The last thing I would tell you for CTOs, and this is again not, nothing I described here is about technology because it's as I said from the beginning, this is more about people. Make sure you surround yourself with really smart people, but also diverse. And I don't mean, I mean diversity of thought, but also people that look and think differently than you do. Okay? Because that brings an incredible power to your team. And, also, foster an environment of transparency and, of course, accountability, but also foster an environment where you allow dissent. That means dissenting views. And say, well, okay. What do you think about that? And, wow, that's an interesting point. Now it may not be something that you're gonna change the whole company direction on an objecting viewpoint, but it's something you need to to learn and address and understand. And I think that's what makes will make CTOs better leaders, better thinkers, and produce better outcomes. So I'd give you those kind of insights there for CTOs that, aspiring CTOs that are out there looking to move up.

(Mike Anderson at 00:54:17) I totally agree. Burn the ships is a good strategy. And, you know, again, the world we live in today, the more data you have, the better off you're gonna be. And that's where even to get out there and talk to customers and to get directly involved with the chief customer officer and the customer success organization, it just means that you're bringing in more data. And that's guys like us, we just bring in all the data, and then we just try to make the most educated decision off of all that data. And so, yeah, you're right. Don't limit the data just to the way that you think, the way that people around you that either think the exactly the same way that you do or are even afraid to dissent. Right? Because that's a common problem in a lot of organizations where people look and say, oh, man. Andre is the man. I don't agree with him on this opinion or this plan, but I don't have the guts to to stand up to him. That is not making us a better business. So then you have to trust that you can handle it if you could get shot down because you're a pretty smart guy, and I'm imagining that you are gonna have a lot of right answers a lot of the time. But I agree. I think that's the world that we live in. And as we start to see more companies that are more global companies, that's even a bigger challenge because it's not just North American philosophy. Now it's German philosophy and Chinese philosophy and all these other countries that are very different than we are here. So first, absolutely, a pleasure. I mean, I hope we get to talk again.

(Mike Anderson at 00:55:47) I hope if I'm ever out in the Texas area that you'll let me buy you dinner or buy you a drink or something, because this has been fantastic, and I really enjoy talking with other CTOs and hearing what they have to say. So thank you. Thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for indulging me. This has been an absolute pleasure, and I think, honestly, this is gonna be a fantastic podcast because you've got a lot of wonderful gems that you laid out here before us.

(Mike Anderson at 00:56:16) And so, Andre, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure. Any wrap-up words you wanna say? Go Bucks. Anything like that?

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:56:24) No. Look, I really enjoyed it, Mike, and thank you for the time. It's great to speak with you, and I hope the audience, like you said, found some nuggets in this, some gems that they can take away. All I'm asking is everyone, hey, stay safe out there. You know, it's great to see the world's opening back up in certain places. It's where obviously this pandemic is not over with by any means, but it's really great to see some parts of the world getting back to somewhat of a normal state, and I hope it, I'm hopeful it continues for the entire globe here. So I appreciate the time. Great meeting you.

(Andre Fuetsch at 00:57:08) Thank you, Mike.

(Joel Beasley at 00:57:11) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email: [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.