g shareowner value." It was about saving the company. And while it Credibility Breaks All Ties wasn't his first choice, he had come to believe that selling AT&T Broadband at the right price would give the rest of the company its best shot at surviving. By December, Armstrong and the board had come to agree with him. AT&T's directors had met no less than seven- teen times, either in person or by telephone, in the four months since Comcast had launched its unsolicited offer. Noski had conducted the auction to wring the most value out of the interested bidders in the shortest period of time. And Comcast's offer, valued at $73.3 billion on the day the board considered it, was truly breathtaking. As personally unappealing as it may have been, the AT&T directors took the path that they believed presented the least risk to the overall company's survival. They weren't swayed by pundits, editorialists, or popular opinion. But even if at that point the directors thought that Gerry Levin would wake up one morning aching to buy out AT&T's interest in Time Warner Entertainment, allowing AT&T Broadband to go it alone, the board simply did not have the credibility to do anything but sell. In the court of public opinion, the winner is not the one who spins the best tale or generates the most ink or even is on the side of all that's righteous and pure; it's the one whom the public trusts. Comcast made its offer a referendum on AT&T's management of the cable business. Its argument came down to "look at their margins, look at ours, and decide which of us you want running the company." The numbers were astounding: Comcast had profit margins of more than 40 percent, whereas AT&T Broadband's were barely 20 percent. Comcast had convinced everyone that AT&T's cable properties were badly managed. That conventional wisdom soon began appearing in commentaries and even editorials. As early in the process as July 16, before the AT&T board had even formally considered Comcast's proposal, Barron's ran an editorial entitled "Armstrong's Folly" 