Two Decades in Telecom: Lessons That Compound

Technology Cycles Are Long

When I started, 2G was state of the art. I've now worked through 3G, 4G, and into 5G. Each generation took roughly a decade to mature. Each was proclaimed as revolutionary. Each delivered meaningful improvement on a slower timeline than predicted.

The lesson: technology hype runs fast; deployment runs slow. The gap between announcement and mainstream adoption is measured in years. Products that win are built for the long arc, not the news cycle.

Relationships Outlast Companies

Over twenty years, I've watched companies merge, split, rebrand, and disappear. Products I built no longer exist. Organizational structures have been redesigned multiple times.

What persists? Relationships. The engineer I collaborated with at one company became a customer at another. The partner from an old integration became an advocate for a new product. The industry is smaller than it seems, and reputation compounds.

Invest in relationships independent of organizational boundaries. They're the most durable asset you build.

Fundamentals Beat Fads

Every few years, a new framework or methodology promises to transform how products are built. Some contribute lasting value. Most fade. Meanwhile, the fundamentals remain unchanged:

Domain Expertise Compounds

Generalist PMs can move between industries. Specialists can go deep. Both approaches work. But domain expertise in telecom—understanding protocols, standards, customer operations, regulatory dynamics—takes years to build and creates compounding value.

The first year, you're learning basics. By year five, you see patterns others miss. By year ten, you have intuition that would take others years to develop. By year twenty, you understand the industry at a level that informs strategy, not just execution.

This depth isn't transferable. It's also not replicable. That's what makes it valuable.

Change Is Constant, Even in Slow Industries

Telecom moves slower than consumer tech. But it does move. Technologies evolve. Business models shift. New players emerge. What worked five years ago might not work today.

Staying relevant requires continuous learning. Not chasing every trend—but understanding which changes are structural and adapting accordingly.

The Takeaway

A long career in one industry isn't about staying still. It's about going deeper while the landscape shifts around you. The lessons that matter most are the ones that take years to learn and prove their value across multiple cycles.

Patience, relationships, fundamentals, and depth. These compound.