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Kathleen Johnson

President & Chief Executive Officer, Lumen

Search every verified Kathleen Johnson interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Lumen Technologies CEO Kate Johnson appeared on The Washington Post’s Building America podcast on August 5, 2026, to discuss the company’s pivot from traditional telecom to AI infrastructure. She described legacy networks as inadequate for AI’s demands, stating they are “not big enough, fast enough, smart enough, or secure enough” and that AI requires the ability to move data from anywhere and send insights anywhere. Johnson also framed AI as a matter of national security, calling for a national framework that balances speed with local rights and values, while noting bipartisan support for such governance and the importance of public-private partnerships. During the conversation, Johnson addressed local backlash to AI infrastructure, such as a data center moratorium in New York, saying such resistance is “to be expected” and not a source of fear. She emphasized the need for speed and clarity in building out the full infrastructure stack, describing the effort as an “innovation race.” Johnson also cited Warren Buffett as an inspiration, praising his focus on culture, integrity, and long-term value creation rooted in people.

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Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“AI is a matter of national security and we have to think through what's the right balance of getting a national framework that can help us go fast but still respect, you know, sort of the the local rights and and values. And um that's that's complicated.”

“Legacy networks, they're just not big enough, fast enough, smart enough, or secure enough to support the needs of AI. AI has to have the ability to call data in from anywhere, process it, and then send its insights to anywhere.”

“We were laden with debt, $21 billion of debt ... we took the company from 21 billion of debt down to 12 billion of debt by saying we're going to focus on the enterprise business and sell off our fiber to the home, and then we did $13 billion worth of deals with the hyperscalers to connect their data centers.”

“The very first hard decision that started, you know, two days before I got there because it was a part of our agreement was to cut the dividend.”

“We inked 13 billion dollars of private connectivity fabric deals with the biggest technology companies in the world. Secondly, we sold our consumer fiber to the home business to AT&T.”

“The one thing that we've got to be cautious about with ABS and it doesn't mean that it's a no is that what is ABS? You're basically selling EBITDA dreams on your assets, which by default means those assets now become less flexible. And if you get underneath the transaction with AT&T, there's a number of different reasons, but a key reason why we sold from the edge of the neighborhood into the neighborhood and kept th”

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