A MESSAGE FROM OUR CEO
Layoffs Update
Jan 17, 2026
·
2 min readHans 'Verizon-inator' Vestberg
CEO at Verizon
Hans sent the following email to Verizon employees earlier today.
Greetings, Fellow Verizoids!
I'm sorry to say that due to some unfortunate circumstances, Verizon has to let go of 15% of its employees. I know this is an incredibly difficult situation, and I sympathize with all of you. Unfortunately, the main cause of this layoff are the homeless people.
I take full responsibility for this, and I vow to you, my fellow Verizoids, that this won't happen again.
You may be wondering how the homeless people caused this. The answer lies in a recent experiment: I decided to hire homeless people in order to make our customer support department more customer-centric. Unfortunately, this resulted in a huge number of complaints, as the homeless people appeared to have no to very little customer service experience. As a result, customer acquisition dropped by 15%, leading to our current predicament.
I take full responsibility for this, and I vow to you, my fellow Verizoids, that this won't happen again.
We must now look to the future and accept the change. Let's be sure to remain resilient and continue to strive for success.
Sincerely,
Hans 'Verizon-inator' Vestberg
Related Stories
INSIGHT
Verizon: What the Fax?!
By Hans 'Verizon-inator' Vestberg
TRENDS
Gigapixel Connectivity: Is This the Future?
By Hans 'Verizon-inator' Vestberg