John Legere instructs Sprint CEO to “Stay in the kiddie pool” [VIDEO]
Oh snap! We figured T-Mobile CEO John Legere would eventually fire back at Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure after Claure called Un-Carrier “bullshit,” but we were still taken aback by the edgy CEO’s response.
That response aired on CNBC this morning shortly after the company announced that roaming is now completely free when traveling in Mexico and Canada. So what did Mr. Legere have to say? Why, you can take a gander yourself:
But if you can’t happen to press play right now, Legere first responded to a question about whether T-Mobile has surpassed Sprint by saying “the yellow school bus is in the back.” We’re sure that yellow school bus is a direct shot at Sprint’s affection for the color, and it can’t please Marcelo Claure that his company’s image is being likened to one of the most goofy looking vehicles in existence.
What’s more is that he says his company is going into the big boy parts of the pool known as the deep end, and Claure — not Sprint, but Claure himself — should “stay in the kiddie pool.”
Those words are sure to cut deep, but we never expected John Legere to hold his tongue in all this. If that wasn’t enough, he suggested he wouldn’t be surprised if Claure’s Tweets were the result of a drink or two (or three), suggesting that the late time stamps on the Tweets (which were more around 10PM Eastern opposed to the 2AM time stamp Legere falsely claimed) were a bit odd.
Fast forward a bit, and the topic came to Legere’s unusual marketing tactics and his mannerisms as a CEO. He wasn’t apologetic about his brash image or whether he thought he was “degrading” the CEO position by doing what he does, and we’re damn glad for it. We dig the fact that Legere acts like one of the guys,” even if it is questionably unnatural.
And it’s not like the CEO doesn’t have good reason to feel confident about his company’s moves and performance. Just this morning they announced the addition of 2.1 million net customers in Q2 2015, which is a 41% increase year-over-year and their 9th consecutive quarter adding more than 1 million.
What’s more is that they’re only just getting started with their latest round of Un-Carrier announcements. There’s another one coming next week, and we’re expecting the company to have AMPED announcements for all 9 Un-Carrier features by the time it’s all said and done. The momentum is real, and whether or not Sprint wants to believe it T-Mobile is making some serious waves in the wireless industry right now.