Mondays and Wednesdays
Three times the pay, once. Now fruit and nuts, twice a week.
John Linton paid his Colombo staff three times the going rate, hired graduates, and published their degrees on the company website so customers could check. Superloop bought his company in 2021. Its latest Colombo job ads ask for school leavers, mention no salary, and set out the snack roster. His last post came down to four words. It's the people, stupid. Superloop, on the evidence, thinks it is the fruit and nuts.
Superloop Limited was given three working days and a 5pm deadline on Monday 2 November to respond in writing. It said nothing. John Linton managed a blog post every working day for four and a half years, while Superloop could not manage one email in three days. The offer stands.
The Witness
As set out in Distress, Converted, Superloop's Sri Lankan staff were told in March that a temporary mechanism was no longer necessary.
That piece dealt in exchange rates.
This one deals in a man.
The Colombo office Superloop runs today was not built by Superloop. It was built by John Linton, founder of Exetel, who died in February 2012.
He wrote a blog. Every working day, for four and a half years, about 700 words a time. Some 1,650 posts. A good number of them were about Colombo.
He was the most outspoken man in Australian telecommunications, and it was not close. He called Exetel's relationship with Telstra a marriage from hell. He called the NBN an election winning sound bite. He published his hate mail and answered it.
He was also, it turns out, the most thorough employment disclosure document the industry has ever had.
His philosophy fitted in five words. He wrote them on the last morning of his life.
"It's the people - stupid."
Superloop bought his people. This is what he said they were worth.
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Linton’s Musings
John Linton co-founded Exetel and called it his last attempt at delivering some value to the country. Then he wrote about it almost every day for four and a half years, under his own name: more than 1,600 posts. He published his hate mail and answered it. He sold terabyte plans and admitted he and his wife had never used a gigabyte in a month. He took the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to the Federal Court. When Telstra put defaults on Exetel’s credit file, he made it apologise in The Australian. In 2008 he bought TPG at ten cents. He wrote that he would never sell Exetel. Nine years after he died, Superloop bought it. His version was dated, signed and published that day.
“Unaudited has been reading my father’s blog.”James Linton, CEO of Yomojo, and John’s son
