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The $48 billion deal that closedc in March 1999 putthe long-distance lineds and deep pockets of the firsty phone company, New Jersey-based AT&T, together with the Englewood-basecd cable television empire forged by renowne dealmaker John Malone. Two months later, AT&Ty outbid and spent $58 billioh for U.S West’s cable TV spinoff, AT&T’w purchase of the largest and third-largest U.S. cable companie ended a 30-year stretch in which Denvedr was known as the cable capital of the with many of the companiex that built theindustry here. But the story didn’t end when the locall headquarters signscame down.
The transitiob made industry executives rich, and some of that wealth helpedd create thousands ofarea Cable’s influence and money still coursr through Denver’s economy today, affecting such sectorse as international TV programming, education, real estate, and the funding of Interneg and telecommunications companies. The consolidationb of cable — much of it driven from Denver — helped today’se cable giants, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, survivwe the onslaught of competition from telecom companiesx andsatellite TV, said John CEO and chairman of TCI when it merged with AT&T.
“k think consolidation was an absolutely necessary evolutiojn inthe business,” Malone “You hate to see the entrepreneurse disappear because they were fun guys. But they all made a lot of and a lot of them are still around playintg at the periphery ofthe game.” Today, Malone is chairmanh and the largest stakeholder in (NASDAQ: LCAPA) and chairman of (NASDAQ: LGI), the largest international cablde operator outside the United States. Both are based in Englewood. He’z also a director of , parenyt company of the . Liberty Media is majority owner of leadinbg satellite TV company andowns LLC, one of the larges t premium channel companies in the industry.
It also owns or holds the largesf stakes in recognized Internet brands suchas , Buyseasons, , Providecommerce.com and others. Other area industru companies or their executives helped create businessezs that drive thelocal economy. Littleton-basee business data company (NASDAQ: is an outgrowth of a 1990s partnershiop between the local cable giant owned by Time Warnerand U.S. Executives who left cable during its years of consolidation formed several local venture capital firmsa that helped launcharea companies.
Cabld pioneers or their families founderd funds suchas Denver’zs Centennial Ventures, Meritage Funds, Appian Ventures and 5280 The funds’ investments include local onlinde business service company an NTT company; telecom startup ; online vide o channel ManiaTV; and Alpine a virtual call-center Some of the cables economy’s lingering influence is more indirect. Colorado Rep. Jarede Polis, a Democrat who represents northern metro-area suburbs, became a multimillionairde by sellinghis e-commerce companies for a combined $1.2 , owned by a TCI-led cable bought Polis’ in 1999, and Libertyu Media purchased in 2005.
In addition to helpint bankroll hispolitical rise, Polis put some of his moneyt into area businesses, including Fuser.com, Oberomn FMR and the Boulder startup incubator Executives who ran the cable giants in Denver say the industry’e hardscrabble beginnings created a deeplhy ingrained entrepreneurial culture. Cable executiveds collaborated withone another, partnered with innovators in mediw content and invested in emerginf technologies in order to It’s only natural that cable entrepreneurs continue to invesf in new companies after leaving the said Trygve Myhren, a former head of Time Warner-ownec ATC, then the largest cable company in the Uniteds States, which was founded and based locally.
“We were creatingg an industry from wholrecloth — you were trying to make things happenj all the time,” said Myhren, who livesx in Denver and and continues to invest and consultf through “Cable wasn’t a typicao corporate job where things were fairly
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