My interaction with my followers on social media has become a phenomenon, and that's hardcore work every day! I have carpal tunnel from typing on my device.

On my very first day at T-Mobile, I demanded that every time I spoke publicly to the company, all employees across the country would be invited to watch. I faced legal and all that crap, but ultimately we were able to figure it out. We record it, too, so if somebody can't leave the sales floor, they can watch it later. Another thing I did very early on is give every employee stock, which we continue to do. So every time I speak to them I speak way over some of their heads.

Part of my role at T-Mobile is the ability to just be myself, because I'm 58 years old and I've done very well, and I don't need to fight my way up the hierarchy with my suit and hair anymore.

I've given my email address to all 3,000 T-Mobile stores. Serious customer escalations come directly to me. Customers get a kick out of me responding to them, and the employees do, too.

We did start with a simple manifesto, as we called it, which was a description of what we were about, and it was the Un-carrier. It was about finding and solving customer pain points in an attempt to fix a stupid, broken, arrogant industry. It was something we felt passionate about. It was our goal to make changes and have the industry make the same ones.

I tell employee of T-Mobile, "Listen, if some of this doesn't make sense to you, what should make sense is the reason I'm telling you - I respect you as an owner and as a partner and I'm going to tell you this all the time. Feel free to tune out."

When I used to live in Asia, they used to say, "If you're going to sing karaoke, you want to go after the worst singer." And I'd be coming in Deutsche Telekom after the worst singer.