In 1966 J. Elroy McCaw sold one of his cable television holdings in Centralia, Washington to his three sons, including Craig who was 16 years old at the time.

Craig took an increasingly central role in the development of McCaw Communications, and by the early 1980s had grown the company from 2,000 subscribers to about $5 million in annual revenue.

Intrigued, McCaw found that the licenses for cellular spectrum were being sold at $4.50 per "pop", meaning he could build a base for future subscribers for very low cost.

[1] At this point McCaw's focus turned from dealing licenses to servicing the network, signing up customers in what was now a maturing technology on the cusp of explosive growth.

[1] In 1994 the marriage of the two companies was consummated when AT&T purchased the rest of McCaw Cellular for $11.5 billion, at that time the second largest merger in US history, second only to the RJR Nabisco takeover documented in Barbarians at the Gate.

As a result of the merger, Craig McCaw became one of AT&T's largest shareholders, but he refused to sit on the Board of Directors because he couldn't stand long meetings.