In this episode of Boss Files, I have not been exposed in depth to many industries that are

adverse and reluctant to change as much as a media industry. It's just, it's a very slow-moving

industry. AT&T CEO Randall Stevenson, how he's transforming a telecommunications giant into a

modern media company following the merger

with Time Warner. Plus, his fierce defense of the free press. I personally think that there is

nothing more important to our constitutional form of government than freedom of the press. The full

weight and resources of AT&T will be committed to protecting First Amendment rights wherever our people operates.

Also, what AT&T's $180 billion debt load will mean for investing in the business

and the critical question of protecting customers' privacy.

I sat down with him at AT&T's relevance conference in Santa Barbara.

I should note AT&T owns Warner Media, which owns CNN. Good morning, everyone. I hope you're having a good morning. I woke up at 4.30. Me too. You too. You too. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having me. It's good to have you. Good to be here. So for those of you who don't know, Randall's first job in 1982 at AT&T, the year I was born.

Do you know what it was?

I do know what it was.

You didn't have to add that last part.

Seriously, you were born in 82?

Seriously, boss.

Night shifts, the night shift changing magnetic tape on mainframe computers.

Do you even know what a magnetic tape is?

Not really.

So that was his job.

And then when AT&T proposed buying my company, Time Warner, when the merger was announced,

the Wall Street Journal headline read, Meet America's least likely media mogul. Took offense to that. Yeah, I understand that. They were talking about you. Now you are a media mogul. You've never run a movie studio before. You've never run a television network before. You've never run a news network before. And now you're running all of them.

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