hese shares, Hindery would have to either stay at AT&T until June 2003 or have himself terminated without cause. Since, as a practical Tough Calls matter, "cause" was essentially limited to conviction of a felony, the path that Hindery would take was not difficult to figure out. In fact, Armstrong and Hindery had been increasingly at odds in the past few months, and most of us had concluded that Hindery was actually try- ing to get fired. Like Zeglis, Hindery had begun openly criticizing Armstrong, complaining about his long meetings and his tendency to micromanage. Then, in June 1999, without consulting Armstrong, he agreed to distribute NBC digital television services, a pact that had wide-ranging implications for the company. The Federal Communications Com- mission's "must carry" rules require cable companies to carry broad- casters' local analog signals for free, but there are no regulations covering their new digital signals. Armstrong thought that he-and even the board of directors-should have had a voice in settling the issue with the nation's leading television network. I don't know if Armstrong spoke to Hindery about it, but I was told to warn my PR team in Denver that we needed advance notice of such major an- nouncements. Then, in late September, Armstrong was surprised to find Hindery quoted in the pages of the Wall Street Journal as endorsing merger talks between Motorola and General Instrument.4 TCI-now AT&T- was General Instrument's largest customer. But more troubling, TCI had acquired warrants for General Instrument shares when it essen- tially standardized on GI's set-top boxes. Those warrants had gone to Liberty Media, which was now General Instrument's biggest share- owner. The Journal story said that AT&T was soon expected to an- nounce the purchase of as many as two million additional cable TV set-top boxes from General Instrument and one million cable mo- dems from Motorola, in a deal valued at about $1 billion. Armstrong smelled a rat. Although Hindery would later say that he had memos pro