My bachelor's is in math and physics, and my doctorate is from Cornell in physics. So that meant making a transition from theoretical physics into the telecom lab at Bell Labs. There was a logical segue between the way you approach problems in physics and with problems in the lab. The first graduate degree, the masters, is not there to teach you material. It teaches you to think critically and that's a key skill we need in any technology industry. People are not just turning a crank and answering a problem. They are thinking critically. Also as a technologist you need to learn about business, as well, since you deal with business matters.

The hardest part is ensuring you are building consensus, or support, for what you are proposing, because there are always other points of view. There's also always tension between what is right strategically in the long run and hard to do in the short run because of finances and economics.

Actually, the recession has not been frustrating for Qwest. As a company we have grown revenue in the business space, and revenue in the consumer and wholesale part was as planned. The wholesale channel business is focused on making margins, since revenue is easy to get, but we want to make sure it's profitable. Qwest has flourished if anything in this economy. It's an opportunity that's probably true for all telecom. There are challenges facing the service industry in telecom, yes, and some companies are diminishing a bit, but it's not the same as some other industries where the bottom has been hit.

I've said it many times, that being CTO has got to be the coolest job you can get. It's hard to imagine a job where you influence strategy while working on technical problems. You sit with suppliers and customers and you are on the cutting edge of problems in the industry. For a person with a science and engineering background you love those things. You joke at times that you wouldn't take pay because it's fun.

We have structural challenges around how to provide broadband access and broadband speeds for consumers in a portable fashion.