That's kinda Legere's schtick. He's abrasive and trollish and it's really pretty hilarious to watch, because he has a lot of fun at AT&T's expense.

He needs to stand out from the noise. Don't confuse the persona he's articulating with the person.

He's doing a damn fine job, for what it's worth.

From what I see he has been the CEO for a little over 2 years.

In business, 2 years is not a long time at all.

My personal opinion is it's unprofessional and not appropriate language. (I can see by the downvotes that others don't agree).

If you are an entertainer that's one thing and you can be outrageous so you stand out (but you probably wouldn't even in all entertainment venues). [1] But you also don't want to come across as a lose canon either. In business people need to feel they can trust you and one of the things they look for is a certain amount of conformity to accepted standards.

Maybe this example will make sense. You meet the woman of your dreams. You want to marry her. You would die if you lost her. It's that important. You meet her father and grandfather. How will you behave? Will you watch what you say a bit? Or will you act the same way as with your fraternity brothers or friends when you are just hanging out?

[1] And yes I can definitely see the PR value of what he is doing.

The reason you are being downvoted, hopefully, is because you sound like a fool. You use the word unprofessional like it's a bad thing. You talk about how you wouldn't hire someone if they spoke like this CEO. All of those things raise red flags with me. How do you expect to be taken seriously when you care about things that don't matter?

You throw around that phrase "in business" a lot. Guess what, TMobile is "in business". They do lots of business. So it works.

Sorry if the profanity bothers you. I consider the anti-consumer stance of other telecom CEOs to be more profane.

Substance > Formality, and so far TMobile has been delivering.

"They do lots of business. So it works."

It works? For how long? The person using the language has been at tmobile for +-2 years.

Tmobile has been around for way longer than that, right and before that afaik a public facing person didn't use that languag.

Add to that the fact that the rest of the traditional business world (not talking about startups) doesn't use that language.

I actually found it refreshing, especially that remark about how much the mobile telecom industry blows.

I use language like that in certain settings as well. But not in business. And not in a college interview.

Now if I was going to hire you for a big freelance project and you used language like that over the phone while I was asking you some questions it would definitely change my confidence in hiring you.

That's a bit circular. You care because you've decided that it's important and believe others should believe the same. But, it doesn't materially have anything to do with anything.

A candidate is not inherently less capable of doing the job simply because of their language unless, of course, their job is to please people who care about language.

Personally, I appreciate a person who says what he thinks, and I think we see painfully little of this in the business world.

>Now if I was going to hire you for a big freelance project and you used language like that over the phone while I was asking you some questions it would definitely change my confidence in hiring you.

And that would make rethink working for you.

What's the problem with the language?

I personally like the language, but I've never been one to adjust my vernacular to desires/expectations of others.

His schtick is being edgy. It's the direction that T-Mobile has taken. What else would you do if you were dead last -- be humble?