Chasing McCaw

Craig McCaw is the consummate entrepreneur. The services his companies conjure seem disconnected, but everything fits together. If Teledesic is McCaw's cloud, Nextlink is the kernel of things - a facilities-based CLEC and much more. Nextlink's perceived competitors are not other CLECs. To Nextlink, there is a camaraderie with the others, allies in battle. Nextlink's reliability dies if incumbents misconnect them. The company is getting better and bigger, with networks powered by Nortel, Tellabs, Lucent, and Positron. Like other McCaw ventures, regional operations are independent, even separate legal entities. People who work for Nextlink are supposed to be loyal and excited, no matter where they are on the corporate ladder. A McCaw formula is that an opportunity is tapped, and a frantic pace follows. However, everyone associated with the effort is handed fulfilling fragments.