Last year was a big year for Zeitz. He oversaw Ziply’s fourth acquisition in an 18-month span, launched a new edge-out strategy, joined the Board of US Telecom and delivered fiber to the home using a new soft-surface placement technique to communities that couldn’t get the technology using traditional methods. In 2024, Zeitz’s and Ziply’s mantra will be growth, organically and through fiber builds; simplification, to improve both customer and employee experiences; and expansion, through edge-outs to new geographic areas.
Was Charter’s Disney deal precedent setting? Not really. It was an opportunity to break up the programmer’s forced bundles and instead a much smaller change was made.
Favorite way to de-stress? Walk my puppy!
Fast food guilty pleasure: Shake Shack cheeseburger
The last thing A.I. got wrong was… Oh, AI is just starting to get things wrong. It will get a lot right and a lot wrong. AI will be a massive change as it gets used to automating many functions or parts of functions and may become the dominant way we interact with all kinds of companies. It’s not hard to see a near future where any contact in our daily lives to a company will not be through a human but rather through AI.
Business speak phrase or buzzword I find most annoying: BAU—business as usual. I believe where there is a way, there’s a better way. Constant improvement.
Biggest takeaway from the Hollywood strikes? People think the business model and industry change shouldn’t impact them, but it will impact us all. We all have an obligation to ourselves to evolve and adapt.
What’s your position on Stanley cups (not the NHL kind)? I sure hope the preponderance of swag is something different this year.
My prediction for the $42 billion BEAD program: Fewer locations will be built than expected. Prevailing wage, buy America and other rules will add 30%+ to a normal build cost.
Do you personally still have a traditional cable video package? The only thing I watch live is sports and I watch much less sports than I used to watch. I have been streaming video for several years and like to change what I subscribe to periodically.
TV series everyone should binge: Shetland
Book, movie or TV series that greatly influenced my leadership style: John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success.
Summer Olympics event you most want to see in person? Basketball.