See the manifesto T-Mobile's CEO used to take the company from struggling to the fastest-growing carrier in the US

John Moore/Getty Images

T-Mobile US CEO John Legere speaks at an Un-carrier event in 2013.

When John Legere was offered an interview with the CEO of Deutsche Telekom in 2011 to discuss leading its struggling American mobile carrier, T-Mobile US, he found it "laughable and really not something I'd do," he told Business Insider in a recent interview.

He had just sold the previous company he led for 10 years, Global Crossing Limited, in a $3 billion sale to Level 3, and gotten divorced in the same month. It was a strange time in his life, he said.

Legere said he agreed to an interview for the T-Mobile CEO opening only because the headhunter was his good friend. When he sat down with Deutsche Telekom CEO René Obermann, he told Obermann there was only one way the company could fail in the United States: "Do exactly what you're doing - nothing."

Legere took the job in 2012." On the very first day at T-Mobile, I remember sitting there, and as I was doing interviews I thought about this company becoming the complete opposite of the other carriers in this industry, becoming the 'Un-carrier,'" Legere told Business Insider, referring to his signature initiative. "The manifesto followed."

He laid out a plan for how T-Mobile would reinvent itself and make waves in the industry. In his four years as CEO, Legere has taken T-Mobile US public, more than doubled its customer count, and overtaken Sprint as the third largest carrier in the country.

The following document is the slightly refined version of the original manifesto Legere and his team worked on in early 2013, ahead of the first Un-carrier launch in March, which eliminated traditional service contracts. You'll see that the company was already planning other initiatives, including its latest, which is the move to a single unlimited data/text/calling plan for all customers.

T-Mobile