These firms offer fiber-optic transmission services for broadcast and cable networks, and other communications services for business customers.
I truly believe that this decline in the firm's moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.
"I truly believe that this decline in the firm's moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival," Mr. Smith wrote.
("We're going into the lion's den," Ryan said). A bright idea came from a new employee, James Cape, who had just joined them from a high-frequency-trading firm: Coil the fiber.
Mr. Smith's claim of a "decline in the firm's moral fiber," in particular, has inspired debates from a number of former Goldman Sachs employees and other financial services workers contacted by DealBook.
Earlier this year, it was Greg Smith, a former executive director at Goldman Sachs, who was so angered by "the decline in the firm's moral fiber" he made sure to get his resignation letter published on the New York Times' op-ed page, complete with such details of how his fellow employees referred to clients they were planning to fleece as "muppets".
The day after Ackerman's retirement announcement, Corning said it would invest an additional $450 million to expand its Concord, N.C., optical-fiber plant, allowing the firm to increase its fiber manufacturing capacity rate by at least 25% per year through 2004.
Mr. Beebe listed the manhattan, the first recipe in his book, as a morning drink, to be drunk before noon "because of its unrivaled tonic qualities as a restorative and element for firming the moral fiber".
All the fiber firms face the same hurdle.
Meanwhile, company trustees battle to keep the firm's Continental 25,000km fiber network running until the end of the month, forcing its 100,000 European business clients into a race against the wire.
