Carrie Charles (00:01.196)
Thanks for joining me today on Let's Get Digital. I'm so glad you're here. We have a really, really cool episode I have with me today, who I consider a friend in the industry. I have known this man, I believe, for 11 years since I've been in the industry. And I want to introduce to you today Bernard Borgui.

He is the founder and CEO of Connected Infra Group. He is also one of the most respected leaders in the wireless industry and he has helped build companies like Global Tower Partners and Vertical Bridge. We are gonna hear so much more today. We're gonna hear about the tower industry, about wireless and all about the amazing company that he's building and what he's up to right now. So Bernard, thank you for joining me. I'm so excited about this episode.

Bernard Borghei (00:53.538)
Good morning. Thanks for inviting me. Glad to be connected with you again. Looking forward to this conversation.

Carrie Charles (00:59.778)
So I wanna start with you and your story. You have been in the wireless infrastructure, building the wireless infrastructure industry. Has it been three decades?

Bernard Borghei (01:12.174)
Yeah, 33 years going into it this year.

Carrie Charles (01:15.112)
my gosh, okay, so I wanna know, you know, how did you, let's go way back, how did you even start and how did you stay passionate all these years? Cause I know you are still on fire.

Bernard Borghei (01:27.662)
No, I appreciate it. Yeah, I grew up in this industry. I was a young guy and a young kid when I took my first job here. So it's one of those things that fate has in store for you, Kerry, because it was the end of the spring semester of my senior year at Villanova Engineering School.

And I had one more semester to graduate. I was going to graduate at the fall semester. And so was working on my senior project in the hallways. Everybody was gone home. And Comcast made a phone call to the chairman of the electrical engineering department. They said, hey, we need an intern for our wireless team in Kinga, Prussia outside of Philadelphia, which is not too far from where Villa Nova is.

I was actually doing my senior projects on solid states and electric vehicles because I thought that was the future. I had never even paid attention to digital communication. So they came out, saw me in the lab and he's like, what are you doing here? I said, working on my senior project. He said, you want to go make some money this summer, work on cellular phones. And I'm like, what the heck are those? And he's like, no, it's really interesting. he's like, a resume and go to this office tomorrow for an interview. And literally that was

I showed up at the Comcast offices in King of Prussia, had no idea what cellular was. Comcast was the A side of the analog operator in Philadelphia. And I think the B side was Bell Atlantic, which is now Verizon. So I show up and they look at my resume and they're like, what do you know about an industry? I'm like, nothing. I've taken digital processing and digital communications and all the physics and stuff, but I've been working on electric vehicles.

No, that's not a problem. We just need an intern for the summer. That was it. I started working.

Bernard Borghei (03:24.25)
And I really got into it. And when fall came around and I was going back to take my last three classes, the Dave Zilka, who is another executive in this industry who has been around for a long time. He now I think is the COO of Carolina West. He came up to me. He was our director in Comcast. He said, you know, the team likes you. If you want to come part time while you're taking your classes, I'm happy to keep you on. And if you finish the semester and you get your engineering degree, I'll hire you as an RF.

F engineer to work on this system. I was like, perfect, I have a job. So I did it and never looked back. So I've been in this industry since the analog days. worked on deploying amps to N amps, which is when we went from like 10 kilohertz of bandwidth to 30 kilohertz on an analog system. And we thought we had arrived back then, right? And look at us now. So that's, that's how I got into it. Worked for Comcast, work for Bell Atlantic Mobile Services when PCF

licenses were issued. I went to Sacramento. I wanted to learn GSM because back then GSM was the hardest thing to, you know, in the U.S. We had this holy war between, you know, between George Schmid who was pushing GSM and Qualcomm that was pushing CDMA. And I was like, I want to go with GSM because the Europeans were deploying it too. From there,

George Smith actually came and took over Omnipoint and recruited me back from Sacramento to Philadelphia. And that's when I got into management. He gave me my first management job. He and Steve Boyle made me RF engineering manager for Philly. And Philly back then was the fifth largest MTA in the country. So there I learned about management and started learning about budgets and network expansions and all that stuff. We launched Omnipoint and

met a lot of great people throughout that process. And that was around the same time that Alex Gilman and, you know, Jeff Ginsburg and Mark Gansi started their first company called Apex, which was a rooftop management company. And I was one of their early clients because I needed to deploy sites around Philadelphia. Zoning was horrible. Not that it's that much better these days.

Carrie Charles (05:41.564)
haha

Bernard Borghei (05:42.755)
But back then it was even worse. And so I wanted to get on rooftops and there's a Marriott at the Philly airport that was the only place we could put antennas on to cover the airport. So Alex and I worked together to get that rooftop under their management so then I could sign the lease and deploy. And our friendship started from that point on.

And we went through a lot of journey together, helped each other. He helped me get introduced to the Triton PCS team. I worked for Triton PCS. And then I went to Europe. I worked for Western Wireless International in Dublin, Ireland, building a GSM network there. Moved to London. I ran Europe, Middle East, and Africa for a company that was called WFI. It was one of the early services companies in our industry that went public.

Around the same time, Alex exited Apex and came to London at the same time. We did some work together. so our friendship and partnership grew. long story short, a couple of stops here and there with true position and some satellite work.

I was in an office working in Washington DC and Alex called me. He said, hey, Mark has this tower company called Global Tower Partners. He just got Blackstone to sell it to Macquarie and he has thoughts and ideas about dabbling the size of the company. He needs people who can help him run it. I'm like, sounds good. And he's like, okay, well, I'll you in Florida in like two weeks. I'm like, what?

Carrie Charles (07:16.023)
That sounds like him.

Bernard Borghei (07:19.946)
So I showed up, met with everybody, learned what they wanted to do. And I was like, you know what, why not? Of course, I got a lot of looks from my wife moving from Philly, Dublin, London, back to Washington. And then we were going to Florida. She kept saying, funny enough, she's like, you keep moving south. So guess Puerto Rico and something else is next.

Carrie Charles (07:21.312)
Yeah.

Bernard Borghei (07:41.783)
We came here in 2009 in South Florida and fortunately we've been here. But that was the start of the infrastructure side. We had a great run as partners in Global Tower Partners, sold that to American Tower in 2013. And then a few of us came back, Mike Belsky, Mark Kensey, Alex Gelman and I. Mark went to establish Digital Bridge and the other three of us started Vertical Bridge and brought on a lot of great partners to help us build the team, raised a billion dollars

of equity and all that. you know, the rest became history. Once again, you know, it's now but 12, 13 years into it. Very cold, which is doing great. Largest privately held telecom company. I was there for the first eight, eight and a half years. And in our last transaction or sort of exit with CDPQ and Digital Bridge sort of took out the existing investors. I also exited and started to sort of look around to

spread my own wings. in a couple of stops here and there, I realized that I needed to have to create a culture where I could be comfortable with rather than just, you know, work trying to work for somebody else and

That's really why in January I launched the Connected Infra Group. I met with Ryan Lupin and his team at Pepper Tree. We're culturally investment wise on the same page, a very supportive team, and we managed to get to a good place. They committed a billion dollars to the business model and the idea, and I'm super excited. So yeah, I've been doing this for 33 years, but there's never a dull moment in this

industry. So for me, it's not hard to get up every morning and be motivated. I love building teams. I really love building companies and watch them grow. I'm fortunate enough that after all these years, I have enough friends in the industry that I can choose who I want to work with. So I'm really excited about the partners that are joining our team. And I still very strongly believe in our industry. I think we are absolutely, you know, the

Bernard Borghei (09:56.201)
critical part of our economy, the future economy, the digital economy. And, you know, I can't wait to see what the next 10 years or so will be and looking forward to be a part of it.

Carrie Charles (10:07.23)
Let's go, let's get inspired in this episode, Bernard, I'm ready. I wanna hear about Connected Infra Group and I wanna hear about your vision, just tell me all about it.

Bernard Borghei (10:10.734)
Right.

Bernard Borghei (10:15.502)
Mm-hmm.

Bernard Borghei (10:20.184)
Sure. So we're starting, once again, focusing on the tower space to begin with. The idea is that we're going to acquire portfolios that are available and look to have the opportunity to become a built-to-suit partner where it makes sense for us, for the carriers. And there's plenty of subcategories within those sort of segments of acquisition and build. There are small sales, there are mid-sales that are becoming more popular.

is the macro sites as well. And for me, that's one critical pillar to stabilize the company, the platform, and be able to put all of our collective 30-some years of experience and evaluate some of the adjacencies that are developing. A lot of people have gone into fiber in building data centers, and now we're here constantly talking about power generation and power delivery systems.

like that. I'm very carefully studying what some of these adjacencies could mean to a new platform like us. I do believe that as we mature our tower business, we'll have the flexibility to expand into some of these other things. A few of these adjacencies are going through some transitions, like in building segment for me is one that has had some ups and downs.

the property owner pay model, whether that's going to really be sustainable, how much you can grow it. And some companies have done well, some companies are trying to figure it out. And then this whole power generation on the data center side, which I firmly believe that the need is there and the opportunities are there. But we're talking about deploying a lot of capital upfront for a very long payback period. The underwriting and the investment thesis was

something like that is way different than building a tower portfolio. So I'm looking at some of those things. I believe I have at least another 18 to 24 months of doing what I need to do to stabilize and put connected in front of sort of growth projectory with the tower business, which allows my partners and I to educate ourselves about where some of these other opportunities are heading and which ones would make sense for us to start looking into.

Carrie Charles (12:49.114)
So let's look back a bit at where the tower industry was and where it is today. And just tell us a little bit about that evolution so we can really understand the transformation and where we sit right now.

Bernard Borghei (13:05.854)
From a business standpoint, obviously, it's a more mature business. You know, when we were working in GTP or even in Vertical Bridge, I share a story. I don't think it's anything confidential anymore, but it goes to show the entrepreneurship spirit that we all had in Vertical Bridge. Most people don't know that

the executives in vertical bridge, earlier team that was there, let's call it month, I don't know, four or five, maybe month, six or seven. We agreed to buy iHeart Media's assets before we even had our equity raised and our board settled. But we were like, and we negotiated that in Aspen.

Carrie Charles (13:53.802)
I love it.

Bernard Borghei (14:00.36)
at the restaurant when Mark was hosting a group of investors and he and Alex were telling Dan Maronburg, Bob Page and I what they're thinking and we're like, this is how the model looks and this is what they're saying. And they were entertaining the investors and Bob Dan and I were going into the hallway in front of the bathroom in the restaurant and having $900 million negotiations with IHOP.

in his towel and we did it and we never look back. We got a little bit dirty looks next morning when the investors came in town and they said, you did what? We're not, it's really good. We're gonna lease it up trustless and it worked and it worked. it's one of the things that Mark always said, look, you gotta invest with conviction. So we had conviction that we could make it work. So those type of opportunities

aren't there necessarily. You're not going to get 900 tower opportunities every day. But there's still plenty of portfolios to transact. They're good quality portfolios. And so it makes the environment more competitive and it's driven the private multiples high. And I think when you compare it to what's been happening to the stock prices of the publicly traded companies in our segment.

You know, it's really not jiving. know, they're obviously have been penalized for everything that's happening in the macro economy, but the private multiples have sustained themselves at historically high levels. So from a business standpoint, tar business today is more competitive. Private deals are more expensive. But I believe that

What we've also seen is the reliance of public on everyday usage of wireless networks continues to drive the need for densification, the need for expansion, and also it, you know, everyday further cements the criticality of this infrastructure in our everyday lives, whether it's our private businesses to our...

Bernard Borghei (16:24.354)
Homeland security to everything that we do. These broadband networks are really critical infrastructure. that's the part that I remain very excited and confident about, that our carrier clients are really in a good business segment. Their services that they're offering are improving every day and are needed, know, critically by everybody.

Carrie Charles (16:26.166)
you

Bernard Borghei (16:50.772)
And so those of us in the infrastructure side that support them and enable them to connect their subscribers, we play a critical role to help them as well. So I think we've seen the entire infrastructure business with the convergence of data centers and fiber and towers become even more and more critical to our economy and everyday life.

But we've also seen that acquisitions and opportunities have become a lot more competitive.

Carrie Charles (17:23.2)
So let's look in the future even further because the demand for data has just exploded. It's gonna continue to explode. It's like the gold rush right now. There's so much excitement around it. But let's go even further in the future. What does the next phase of wireless infrastructure look like as networks struggle to keep up with that demand?

Bernard Borghei (17:47.715)
Yeah, you know, I don't think there's one thing for sure.

We have not yet seen a report or a forecast that says we're even close to plateauing at our growth when it comes to usage of data and the stress that these networks continue to feel every day from the usage that all of us put on them. So that part is there, the growth is there. What is going to really be the next phase of evolution? We've got 6G standards coming in, we've got AI impact obviously, we haven't even felt

the true impact of AI on the RAN side of the wireless networks, right? Everything is being done on the core side, you know, in the data centers and things like that. But, you know, this is where, you know, we both were at the Metra Connect and there was a lot of conversation, excitement about investment in data centers, which I don't deny it. But I think I mentioned to you, I said at the end of the day, all those AI apps still have to go through the RAN to get downloaded on your mobile.

and be able for you use it as you move around with your handset. So the tower segment specifically in my view is yet to enjoy the benefits of the deployments of AI and the sort of the rush, as you said, the gold rush of getting AI deployed. So as far as what's really coming in the future, I think you're going to see really the convergence sort of take full shape where, you know,

So the lines of distinguishing infrastructure assets could even become even more blur. Now we're beginning to see finally that edge computing is getting some legs under it. I deployed one of the first edge data centers probably six years ago for Vertical Bridge in a partnership with a gentleman named Doug Riker who was at that time getting financed by

Bernard Borghei (19:53.053)
my sister company, Data Bank. And I went to a rural sites in Georgia and deployed an edge data center for a Walmart store that did not want to have its point of sale traffic travel from two hours outside of Atlanta to a data center in Atlanta. They heard about this and they asked us if we could prove the concept. And we had a site there at that shopping center when Walmart was with plenty of compound space. So we actually deployed it and back

then the Calend team came and videoed us, interviewed us and showed the inside of the data center. It wasn't really just a shelter that we had outfitted to be a data center. And that was it. And then after that, the business really didn't come around because 5G wasn't ready, the applications weren't ready. AI was nowhere at the scale that it is today. But now that concept is what everybody's beginning to sort

bring to fruition. You hear everybody talking about edge deployment, you know, close to the end user. We knew the theory. We knew the standard. We knew the concept and we knew it was going to come to fruition. It needed time. We needed six years for the industry to mature and for the need to be there to make the investment work. you're going to see that, you know, lines of towered edge data centers, know, data center, hyperscale, regional, all those things get even closer

and closer. And I wouldn't be surprised to say that sizable tower companies today will end up owning data centers.

and those type of infrastructures as part of their portfolio. The same way that I would say I wouldn't be surprised if a hyper-scale data center operator ends up acquiring a a tower portfolio, you know, just to become a true infrastructure platform. And we also have the satellite business that has made a lot of progress to improve their sort of limitations. know, eight years, nine years ago, we were all saying,

Bernard Borghei (22:06.192)
latency is not good, the bandwidth is not good, quality is not good. But they've made a lot of improvements and you see the carriers are beginning to have more confidence offering the satellite services in extreme rural areas. They're still not as competitive as they need to be in suburban and dense environments. so you got, you know, wouldn't be surprised to see a satellite sort of provider to look to have a terrestrial network to sort of

complete that equation for them. So there's a lot of possibilities. We'll see what the 6G standard will sort of dictate or let's say enable rather than dictate enable for the industry. And let's see how far the AI movement will push further stress on all of these networks and we'll react and we'll adopt and we'll accommodate.

Carrie Charles (22:58.423)
So would you say that towers are being overlooked by investors right now? And if so, what are they getting wrong? I know that you are bullish around, know, we're still in the growth phase. I mean, what are your thoughts there from an investment standpoint?

Bernard Borghei (23:13.678)
So I mean it's not for me to say any investors getting anything wrong. They're all very smart experienced people. But what I would say is that you know it's it's natural.

to see that the towers are a bit more mature of an industry. And so as a segment matures up, the barrier to entry gets harder and more difficult. And then you have all these data center conversations with the explosion of AI and now the power generation. If you're an investor, you have funds of six, seven, eight, nine billion dollars, and you're looking at deploying

couple of billion dollars just to build a power station. And you've got the long-term horizon of investing for 12, 15, 17 years for your payback. That's now attractive because you get to deploy a lot of your capital and your returns are almost guaranteed because what I'm hearing is the clients for the data center operators are willing to sign long-term non-cancellable leases in order to have access to the

the power generation and power delivery sort of stations as well. So I think that is what is driving. It's easier and more opportunity for people to penetrate and invest in the data center business. But by no means do I look at that as if the towers are not important, critical, attractive and still growth oriented. know, are there some people who may be chasing the new shiny object?

Perhaps, but I think experienced investors sort of realize the timing and where they can come in to invest their capital. And you have really.

Bernard Borghei (25:09.364)
well-established institutional investors like Pepper Tree, like Digital Bridge, who still have a lot of their capital invested in a lot of different tower infrastructures. I have sister companies with Pepper Tree, with Everest and TowerCo. Vertical Bridge is owned still by Digital Bridge and CDPQ. You're not hearing Mark Ganzee talking about exiting Vertical Bridge, even though he's made the deal with Softbank because of the growth in AI.

established experienced investors still fully recognize the value of the tower sector.

Carrie Charles (25:45.955)
and Connected Infra Group is a perfect example of that. Yes. So let's switch gears a little bit. want to talk, I you've scaled and managed so many companies and you've led thousands of people. What are some of the leadership lessons that you've learned about, you know, growing and scaling companies?

Bernard Borghei (25:50.53)
Thank you. Appreciate it.

Carrie Charles (26:13.622)
you know, let's focus on leadership, then we're gonna go into culture next, because I wanna have a whole other question for you on culture.

Bernard Borghei (26:20.492)
Yeah. Look, it's actually interesting that you posed the question that way because I have a difficulty separating culture from leadership. I don't think one can exist in lieu of the other.

Carrie Charles (26:33.982)
I love it. Okay. Yeah.

Bernard Borghei (26:35.054)
I'm honest. And, you know, it's just how I was brought up in this industry. One of the things and I, you know, I'm involved with Villanova's engineering school, I believe in giving back. And so and I do give some lectures. And, and I know sometimes when I'm talking about these things, the kids are focused on passing the grade and moving on, they want to graduate. And yet here I am trying to give them 30 some years of lessons learned. But even if a little bit of it sinks in, I

think, unless I've done my job. The thing about culture and leadership is you learn not just by watching successful people do what they do right, but you also learn from their mistakes, okay, and how they recover from their mistakes. And it's also okay to look at someone you admire and say, you know, I don't

necessarily like the way he or she handled that scenario.

And if I'm ever in that scenario, in that circumstance, I'm going to handle it differently. I think that's the advantage of working for good leaders in your career, because you learn from the good and what you also don't subscribe to. So I've had the pleasure of working for some of the very well-established people in this industry. know, again, my early days with George Schmidt, who's a legend, and how he really managed to get

OmniPoint rolling and be one of the first people to deploy GSM in the US and how he sort of stood up for bringing GSM into the US and, you know, sort of forcing the conversation between the CDMA camp and the GSM camp and making sure that the US industry wasn't going to fall behind. And there was a lot of private conversations that at that point he led young managers like I sit in those meetings and hear

Bernard Borghei (28:37.908)
what he and Gary Cucci were talking about strategizing. And then, you know, I work, you know, for people at Triton PCS, Mike Collagher, Steve Skinner, you know, they were great people in fundraising, strategizing, and they always opened the door for me to sit and listen and

When I had a question, they answered it. When I had a thought, they listened. And then obviously getting to know Alex Gilman and Mark Ganzee, great friends, you know, taught me a lot. You know, I was a young guy too. I would get frustrated. I would have my moments, ups and downs. And one of the things I learned, you know, from Alex was how to always step back.

and bring things down, slow it down, and don't know where to react. Just take your time to make the decision. And then how...

individually handling yourself that way, but also leading your teams and your companies, that leads to the culture. I think people who come to work with you want to see somebody who's confident in his or her vision and is willing to put the time into it. I always have said to my teams, I will never ask you to work harder than I'm willing to work myself. OK, I don't subscribe to the executive cliche of

I'm at the 30,000 feet and just give me the high level. I don't. I get into the details every day. I roll up my sleeve with the rest of my team. I want to know what they know. And I want to know how they do what they're doing because if I don't understand it, I can't help them get better. People talk about efficiency or process improvement. How can you do that if you don't know what your people go through? And how do you know what your people go through if you want to keep yourself over here?

Bernard Borghei (30:31.606)
For me, the first lesson about leadership and culture is leave your ego at home. Be part of the team. Be one with your team and let everybody know that they can come to you with their thoughts and ideas. They can talk to you about anything. And you know, just this open door cliche, if it's a cliche, it'll show.

If it's truly what you live by, your companies will grow. If people have confidence, they can come to you and talk to you about things, their ideas, their thoughts, their concerns, their challenges. That's when you can solve it. know, another thing I always say is that I can't solve it if I don't know about it. So don't be shy. Say it. If there is a concern or issue, bring it up. So for me, leadership is obviously leading by example. Do what you say you're going to do for your people.

Do what you say you're going to do for your clients and do what you say you're going to do for your investors. And if you can't be upfront and explain why. So at least they don't think that you just said something that you had no intention of delivering. Things change in the business environment. Sometimes you want to do it and you can't. Open conversation is the best thing. You put the facts on the table. People are professional adults. They understand that. And then, know, walk in the walk, right?

Don't be the general who yells forward from the rear. Be up there with your team and you know, put the hours in, put the time in and show that respect, honesty, confidence and skills are appreciated. So it's one of those things you and I can talk about for hours honestly. But for me, I don't care if you have the most talented people, the best processes and technology.

and the most supportive investors and unlimited funds. If you don't have the right culture within your company, you're not going to succeed. You may make money, but I guarantee you, you've a lot on the table by not having the right culture.

Carrie Charles (32:38.784)
Drop the mic. That was the whole thing. You just said it, Bernard. That was fantastic. You've been with companies from inception all the way through to where they grew very large. So.

Bernard Borghei (32:40.674)
Yeah.

Carrie Charles (32:57.728)
How do you, and actually you're getting ready to do it again. So you have this culture in the beginning and typically it's, what a great feeling, right? I mean, it's a blast in the beginning. And then how do you, I don't think maintain is maybe not even the right word, but how do you grow that culture? Does it transform? How do you keep everything awesome as it grows, right? Really big.

Bernard Borghei (33:26.446)
And I think there should be some sort of a case study, some sort of a research on this, because it is a great question that you bring up. We all have seen great companies start with fantastic cultures. And somehow growth starts eating away at the culture. My experience has been there's few factors that play into that. One is

the more you hire, right? If you don't take time during the hiring process to make sure that you're selecting individuals who are a good fit for that culture.

And now your team goes from 50 to 100, you know, so now you have less time as a leader to get to all 100. So if you're hiring new people who are not really a good fit for that culture, that's when you start losing some touch. The other part of it is selecting and hiring step one.

You have to commit time to invest your time with the new people. Tell them what the history of this company is, why it's been successful, how culture has played such a critical role in making it successful, and get them to understand and buy in into that culture. If you just hire them and, know, thank God I've offloaded my accounting team, they got the analysts they needed, right? And you don't really spend time to teach them the culture, but they're not

to learn it. It's not their fault either. They're going to find their own way to survive and be successful and that's how your culture falls apart. The other thing that I've seen is succession planning.

Bernard Borghei (35:12.238)
you know, executives and founders transition out. But sometimes there's not enough time given or enough consideration given that who replaces them has the same culture or at least appreciation for the existing culture. And, you know, we've heard executives coming in, I'm going to build my own team. I'm going to put my fingerprints over that. And, you know, if you're talking about technical improvements, if you're talking

about process improvements, I understand that. If you're inherited in a culture that's hurting and suffering and needs sort of rejuvenation, I understand that.

But if you come in with the idea that I'm not even going to care about what's been here, I'm just going to do what I think needs to happen. I think that break also hurts the culture. And from that moment that you break and the founders exit and the new executives come in and there's not that appreciation for the existing culture, that's when larger companies really lose their, what I would say their soul. And you start hearing that a lot of people who've been there for a long time,

They come up to you and they're like, it's not the same anymore. And it's just a job now. And it hurts. It hurts because when you're founder of something, it's within your DNA for the rest of your life and your career. So you never want to hear anything like that. You want to hear it.

It's still great, it's still good, and that's what you really want. But I think some of those decision making process as the companies grow is why culture gets diminished or changed not always for better.

Carrie Charles (36:56.256)
So Bernard, there's been so many layoffs in our industry lately. mean, waves of layoffs in the wireless industry. And people are saying it's slow, something's wrong.

It's AI. I mean, what are, in your opinion, I know we may not have all the answers, but in your opinion, what are some of the reasons behind these layoffs and what does this tell us about where the industry's headed?

Bernard Borghei (37:26.648)
Sure.

Look, it's never easy for you and I to see our colleagues on LinkedIn announcing that they've been let go and they're looking for opportunities. It's just not a good feeling. I don't wish that on anybody who works honestly and hard for their employer. So I hope we turn this around quickly. There's multiple thoughts that I have on this and I couldn't tell you exactly which one is the accurate or the leading cause. You hear from the carry

that the capital deployment for this year and even going into next year is remaining pretty strong and the activity is there. So you have that, but you still see them going through layoffs. So there's a couple of things that's happening. I don't believe it's all AI driven. I know we'd love to jump on AI as a way of sort of diminishing roles. There is some of that. I could see that with the intelligence that's in the networks today, maybe you don't need as many.

optimization engineers and as many, you know, sort of core network engineers because AI is doing a lot of that.

I grant you that there is some AI impact there. But we're still talking about thousands of people getting laid off. So there's a lot of outsourcing that's happening by the carriers. So they may not need as much internal staff to do what they were doing because now they're relying on partners. And you would think that if that's the case, then the partners should be growing and they should be absorbing the people who are coming out from the carrier community. And I'm hearing that that is happening.

Bernard Borghei (39:04.162)
with some of the more established service providers. The other thing that I'm wondering about is we are finally about to have a spectrum auction next year.

Historically, the carriers have to watch their spending leading a year or so into an auction because the auctions are expensive. They're going to spend billions of dollars to acquire this spectrum. And it's been a long time since the US had an spectrum auctioned off. So you're forced to invest in your network to keep up from the competitive standpoint and from the demand that's being generated every day. You're looking at this billions of dollars

of a spectrum auction that's critical for your competitiveness and the health of your network coming down. So you have to prepare for that. And you're coming right off the heels of deploying billions of dollars getting 5G and 5G advanced deployed. And as soon as you're done with your spectrum, you're looking at a 6G standard coming up. There's a lot of capital.

deployment coming in, whether it's buying the spectrum or finishing the 5G and the 6G stuff comes in. So I think what you're seeing is that the carriers are probably optimizing expenses, getting ready for some of the investments they have to make. I don't look at it as a weakness in our segment. I think we continue to see quarterly results by the carriers being very good. And the public tower companies have done well.

restructuring with the fiber and the small cell segments going away. But the results of the publicly traded companies in our segments are still pretty healthy. So maybe I'm wishful thinking, because I always believe you have to be positive. And I'm just thinking that what you see over here, unfortunately, just cost optimization for the anticipation of the expenditure that's coming down the road.

Bernard Borghei (41:12.1)
and not so much weakness in the job market. And hopefully, these are a lot of experienced people that have been impacted with this layoff. So I hope my company starts growing fast enough that I can absorb all the good ones. And I'm sure that we're gonna see a lot of these people getting reabsorbed back in the industry soon enough.

Carrie Charles (41:31.317)
And you know what's interesting, Bernard, just in the last two weeks, we've gotten busier on the wireless side for staffing. So we've had more inquiries just in the last two weeks than I've seen in months. So that's also a good indication and very much in line with what you said. So let's speed up the movie. What is the 10-year vision of Connected Infra Group?

Bernard Borghei (41:46.562)
That's great.

Bernard Borghei (42:00.035)
So look, somebody asked me.

Is this your last hooray? What's the timeline? And I told them, said, look, I'll tell you another thing I've learned from all the companies we started. If you start a company with an exit date in mind, you're not going to be successful. You got to come in every day, put your sweat into it, put your time into it and run it to build a good business. And whatever the outcome will be at the right time, it'll come. Right. So I couldn't tell you if this is a six year, seven year, 10 year or 20 year run.

I would love to be able to say that 10 years from now, we're one of the premier infrastructure platforms around in this industry. And that 10 years from now, I'm going to be working with Pepper Tree on a succession plan for somebody else to come and run this and grow it beyond me. I'm not looking for an exit, you know, personally, I'm looking to build a company that's going to be sustained, grow, and be a decent partner for our

clients and our sort of vendors and investors. And 10 years from now, my energy level is not where it needs to be. I will gladly hand the baton to somebody else. But my goal is that 10 years from now, we're rocking and rolling and growing, and a new generation of executives come in to take over.

Carrie Charles (43:25.418)
so much wisdom in this episode, Bernard. You are such an inspiration. I love our conversations and I truly appreciate you coming on the show. I know that everybody listening to this will be so inspired. So thank you. I'll talk to you soon.

Bernard Borghei (43:40.526)
Thank so much for inviting me. I really enjoyed it. Okay.

Carrie Charles (43:45.981)
Alright, that was incredible. my gosh don't