John Stanton’s birthday is coming up soon. And he’s not too thrilled about it.
“I turn 65 at the end of the month, which is kind of pissing me off,” Stanton said last week during a virtual event hosted by Madrona Venture Group. “I have no desire to slow down, much less stop what I’m doing. I love what I’m doing.”
The wireless industry veteran is certainly keeping busy these days as CEO and chairman of the Seattle Mariners, a position he took on in 2016 following decades of leadership roles at VoiceStream Wireless (the predecessor of the modern day T-Mobile), Clearwire Corp, McCaw Cellular, and Western Wireless.
Stanton chatted with Madrona Managing Director Hope Cochran on Friday about a bevy of topics, including his thoughts on the T-Mobile-Sprint merger, how the Mariners are implementing COVID-19 safety measures, leadership advice, and insights from his experience as a board member at Microsoft and Costco.
Read on for quick takeaways from the conversation (edited for brevity and clarity):
On Microsoft permanently closing stores and the future of retail
“You have to rethink the whole role of retail. Microsoft realized that even as they grew their brick and mortar footprint for retail, they saw a continued rise of buying online. And you have to ask the question. I don’t think that’s a question that will burden Costco. But for a lot of companies, I think that that their retail space will become an issue and I think that that change is permanent. It’s not clear that all of us are going back to the malls and that trend was obviously apparent before the pandemic. But I think it’s been accelerated by a couple years now and you’re going to see continued changes.”
On the Mariners and COVID safety protocols
“I’ve talked to folks at Microsoft and Costco about some of the lessons that we’ve learned in terms of how to implement the programs ranging from testing to tracing to cleaning and the steps you have to take in order to ensure your workplace is safe. We want to be a shining star on the way things can work and how we can all get the society back to work.”
On the T-Mobile-Sprint merger
“There are a lot of disadvantages that the T-Mobile business has [in regard to] the AT&T and Verizon businesses. But the one huge advantage they have besides people, which is subjective, is the spectrum position. The 2.5 GHz spectrum creates an opportunity and a clear open running field for the combined T-Mobile-Sprint business to really take a lead in 5G and in all of the services that will be associated with that spectrum.”
On telecom consolidation
“The consolidation really represents a great accomplishment for the industry. For the most part, we now have a very strong industry structure with three strong players, each having their own strategy and strength. And it’s been an exciting transition from a fragmented industry — what I used to call the jigsaw puzzle that the FCC created — to three strong, powerful businesses.”
On holding company boards accountable for diversity
“This doesn’t work for every organization, but having metrics for the business that include diversity and inclusion as a part of not only the qualitative but quantitative evaluation of executives is important. Every executive at Microsoft has a dashboard that they can look at not only where they are statically with respect to representation, but the progress they’ve made. That factors into their compensation and it factors into the compensation of the senior leadership team at Microsoft as well. …I fundamentally believe that you can’t hold people accountable unless you set a goal, talk about it, and tie some rewards to it.”
On leadership advice during the pandemic
“You need to be thoughtful and intentional. It’s easy to forget things during the pandemic when you’re working at home, with respect to people in particular. Establishing goals, giving people feedback, making sure that those people feel encouraged and supported. And you need to communicate more and all the time. When things are going badly, a CEO needs to get his or her butt out of the chair and walk around and see people and have those informal interactions. It’s obviously harder to do that during a pandemic. My partner at the Mariners makes a point of calling his direct reports and randomly calling other people in the organization on a regular basis. That enables him to keep his finger on the pulse of what’s going on.”
On supporting nonprofits right now
“A lot of nonprofits are being starved right now of capital. It’s really hard. Both Year Up and IHME have that need (Stanton is on the board of both organizations). I’m not making a commercial for them, but the notion of supporting nonprofits is something we can’t lose, particularly those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to continue to work during the pandemic.”
