Billionaire Philip Anschutz founded Qwest to lay fiber-optic cable along his railroad right of ways. Nacchio signed on as CEO in January 1997, six months before the company went public. Qwest took over U.S. West in 1999, a gutsy move which put AT&T veteran Nacchio on the cover of Forbes. Qwest stock traded as high as $60 in 2000, then sank to $2 in 2002, the year Nacchio resigned. In 2004, without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Qwest paid $250 million to settle Securities & Exchange Commission charges that it had fraudulently recognized over $3.8 billion in revenue between 1999 and 2002. CenturyLink acquired Qwest in a stock transaction in 2011.