Steve Case on Startup Entrepreneurship

a resume, but he didn't stop there. Uh. He basically set up a foundation, joined the giving pledge and became very active in both policy and entrepreneurship. Revolution is the outgrowth of his family office that does everything from seed

to venture to growth investing. Uh. He was instrumental in getting a number of very positive policy actions passed over the past decade, and now he is taking his act on the road and revealing too much of America, how much energy and entrepreneurship there is away from the big money centers like New York and San Francisco, in the heartland of America, and his new book rise with the

rest describes that experience. I found this conversation to be fascinating and if you are at all interested in technology, venture, startups entrepreneurship, I suspect you will also so, with no further ADO, my conversation with Steve Case. I've interviewed a number of people from revolution. I've spoken to your wife about the case foundation. But let's talk about your background.

Your your entrepreneurial career really begins in when you co found America Online, which turned out to be the first Internet company to go public. Uh, tell us a little bit about the founding of a o L. where did this idea come from and what was that experience like? Well, it was an interesting journey. I actually stumbled onto the idea the Internet in U Nineteen seventy. I was a

senior in college. I was hearing about these things called video tex and teletext, interactive TV, and the thing in Minitel in France and Prestel and UK, all these interactive service I was really intrigued and I read a book by Alvin Toffler, the futurists called the third wave, and he basically was talking about this coming kind of electronic frontier, electronic cottage, and I was I was smitten, I was mesmerized. So I knew I wanted to do that. When I

graduated from college in Nineteen Eighty. UH, there were no internet companies to go to work for because it was more of an idea. Uh, and venture capital's back then weren't backing, you know, twenty one year olds coming out of college. So I decided to work for some big companies,

for all, procter and gamble and then Pepsico. Then moved to the Washington D C area to join a startup that failed, but thankfully two of the people I met there, Jim Kimsey and Mark Saraff and I co founded America Online in the in the in the back then only three percent of people are online and those three percent we're only on an hour a week. So it's still

pretty early days in terms of the Internet. But really believe that someday the Internet would be pervasive, that it would be a mainstream phenomenon, and we set out to try to get America Online. Yeah, this this Internet thing is going to be big one day. I think. I think you you were early in that assessment. So I was going to ask you why such a something, so

fundamental block and tackling is access. But really the answer is there was no access back then, or other than mainframes at universities in the Department of Defense Very few people in the real world had. Actually, when we started, it was it was the Internet was restricted to government agencies and educational institutions. Actually was illegal for businesses or consumers to be on the Internet. In a few years later,

Congress passed the telecom actor commercialize the Internet. Uh So, when we were getting started we had to create sort of this parallel world, our own kind of email systems, our own, you know, kind of servers, because we couldn't connect to the UH, the Internet. But we knew it was only a matter of time before those worlds would would blur together, merge together. Uh. And in our early days we really just tried to figure out, like many startups,

how to get noticed. They a lie. Was Frankly harder because we were in the northern Virginia area outside of Washington D C. There was no venture capital, you know, there. We had to raise money from other places. Uh. People would reluctant to leave a big company to go to a small company. There are a lot of challenges that we face. Frankly, helps inspire some of the work we're now doing with the rise of the rest. How do

we back entrepreneurs and places outside of Silicon Valley. I think my own experience building a o l in in one of those forgotten places, left behind places that people don't think of as startup, you know, kind of hubs, kind of helped inform some of that that work and it and it took us a while. The the eventually, in the mid nineties, the Internet became more of a

mainstream phenomenon. Hit a tipping point, but for the better part of a decade it was it was a struggle or a couple of times we almost hit the wall. Had to go through some layoffs. It was not obvious to most people that the Internet would ever be something more than a niche kind of hobbyist kind of phenomenon. Even with public it was uh, you know, we raised a whopping ten million dollars in our I P o. The value of the company that day was seventy million dollars. Basically,

nobody knew or cared what we were doing. You know, nobody really was that interested at the time and the Internet, we had been at it for coming on a decade. It had only a couple hundred thousand customers. Uh. But thankfully the next decade things really accelerated in terms of the growth of the company and growth in the evaluation,

things like that. But it's also, I think, a lesson for me I try to carry into the work we now do with revolution that sometimes revolutions happen in evolutionary ways. It's it's it's not an overnight success. There's a a slog before finally you build some momentum, and that was my experience with the well, the first decade was hard and slow. The second decade really you know, things really took off. So was d c just a coincidence of where you have to be located, or was that lack

of Um legislative permission part of the reason? You had to locate close to Congress and push that forward? So they basically allowed the rest of us to get online. Now the reason I moved to D C was more of an accident. There was interesting company. I thought it

was interesting company. They joined three that had a service called game line and at the time you might recall this, some of your listeners may not, but the very few people had home computers, but a lot of people had Atari game machines and so the idea of this product, as you plugged the game cartridge that had a communications capability a modem built in and you could download videogain's almost like having an in home arc, like a Netflix

for for videos. So it's a modem and it looked like but you also you had a ad a phone connection, and so I thought this was a great way to kind of enter that world that I've been reading about and wanting to get into. But unfortunately, just as the product came to market, the whole Atari game market blew up and retailers didn't want any new products and suddenly

things were looking pretty, pretty, pretty desperate. So that but that's why I moved to the area and then because I was already there and these two people I mentioned were also part of that company. You know, the three of us, you know, kind of CO founded America Online brought some of the team from that previous company with us.

So it was accidental to be there, but it turned out to be an advantage because, as you say, one of the things that we had to spend a lot of time in the early days of the Internet was public policy, getting the regulations right, commercializing Internet, getting things right for e commerce, trying to keep the Internet safe for kids, things like that, and being in the in the WASHINGT D C area proved to be important and, frankly, it's proven to be important again now as we're investing,

because policy is becoming much more of a front and center issue for more and more companies and health tech, sports tech, food and egg these are these are sectors where there's some regulations and entrepreneurs need to understand that, investors need to understand that. So I think we kind of have a kind of bit of Home Court advantage being located in Washington d C uh and having a front row seat in terms of understanding how Congress works.

And you know, things happened, which I think bodes well for this next phase of innovation where policy is is much more central. We're definitely going to talk about the jobs act and some of the public service you've done, but I want to stick with a O. L is the first Internet company to go public. Subsequently runs up eleven thousand six hundred and six. Not Too Shabby. Tell us what your experience was like being at the helm

of a company as it as it went public? Well, the early days we're still a little slow, but then finally in the ninety seven, things really took off and our growth dramatically accelerated. Went from a couple hundred thousand customers to tens of millions of customers at market. Kappa mentioned when we went public of seventy million at a peak. Eight years later a hundred sixty billion dollars. So it

really was quite a ride. And we went from having less than to our employees when we went public to eight years later having ten thousand employees and then we emerged with Time Warner or something. It was ninety thousand employees.

So it was it was quite a you know, kind of a rocket ship and I recognized as I the company was scaling, I as the leader, as a CEO, needed to constantly rethink what my job should be, what I should focus on, constantly re rejigger things with the team, building the team for the business we'd have a couple of years from now, not from the business we had today or certainly the business we had in the in

the past. So it was it was a rapid pace of of learning a lot in terms of being a public company growing, you know, so so rapidly, and also I recognized, because a o well was at the time the leader in the United States, that I had a role to play in not just running a company but being sort of an evangelist for the medium and advocate for the medium and try to weigh in on policy issues to try to make sure that the Internet really had a chance to flourish. You mentioned the a well

Time Warner merger. At the time it was the largest merger in history and somehow you guys a o l shareholders ended up with a majority of the stock and the Time Warner was arguably a much larger, more established company. What was that process like of negotiations? Did you approach them? Did they come to you? Tell us how how that came about? Well, it came about because a o L had been growing rapidly and was a leader in what was then called the dial up era, the narrow band era,

where you were connecting your computers to phone lines. But we needed a path to broadband and the Best Path was cable system which had high speed access. And so strategically it was a real value in emerging with Time Warner. And we also believed as the Internet evolved and you had higher speed, you have more multimedia content and having some of the brands that the Warner Brothers studios and Warner Music and CNN and HBO and so forth, all

part of this company would would advantage us. And similarly, Time Warner was a great company, been built through acquisitions over more than half a century, but they didn't really have a viable path to digital. They were trying a bunch of things, none of them worked out particularly well. So we both had a strategic need to come to other and also, frankly, from an all standpoint, are representing our shareholders. We recognized there was some value and diversification.

Our stock had run up quite significantly and owning a share of a business that had a more diversified mix of things would make sense. So I did approach Jerry Levin, as the it was the CEO of Time Warner at the time, and basically said strategically, I think it makes a lot of sense if we put these companies together. We have an opportunity to really kind of lead in the future and in a lot of different ways, streaming

and and and so forth. Um and and within the first minute or two of my my little pitch I said, and I'd be willing to step aside a CEO to allow you to be CEO The combined company, because I believe in this, in this idea, and that's what happened. Eventually. It took us a little while to put a deal together, but we didn't finally took a little while to get it approved, but finally it did get approved and I

did step down as a CEO. So there's a theme I keep noticing, and lots of the things you've done, whether it was a well or the Time Warner merger, and we'll talk about revolution in a bit, but everything you seem to do seems to be both innovative and highly disruptive. Is this by design? Was that just a happy accident? Well, we're kind to say that. I like to, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs, to pick battles worth fighting, kind of mountains worth climbing. You know, I

don't you know if it's easy. Uh, it's not that interesting. And in fact, what I get motivated by it. Again, this is true with many entrepreneurs. If, as somebody says, it can't be done, okay, let's you know, game on, we're gonna yeah, I I in the early days of the Internet, people say it can't be done. The Internet was never going to be a mainstream phenomenon. A decade ago, when we started working on rise arrest and said innovation is gonna happen all of the country, not just in

Silicon Valley. Most people thought it was kind of laughable. They didn't think that was really likely to happen. No, thankfully some of those views are are changing. But I think picking those challenges that that really, I think, have a positive impact on in the world and even though they are hard and in most cases, maybe in all cases, take ten, twenty years to achieve your your your goal. Uh. Those are the you know, the battles I like fighting,

really quite quite intriguing. So let's talk about revolution. What is it? How did it begin? When did it start? Well, began a few years after I stepped down as CEO of a well and let's try. I figure out what my next act was going to be and rather than start a company again, I thought I'd start an investment firm that could back the next generation of of of entrepreneurs. Initially was started in two thousand five and it was

called revolution, but it was just my capital. UH, at littlewer a decade ago we decided to open up to outside capital. So we have institutional investors across the platform. Now we have, you know, kind of three basic groups. One is revolution growth, which is our later stage, you know fund. We also have revolution ventures and more recently, about five years ago, we launched the rise of the

rest seed funds. So now we're able to back entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey, whether it's really just a really early stage where they just need to see the seed funding, whether it's the next phase where they're starting to grow in the adventure funding, or if they're really starting to scale Um and need you need growth funding.

That's really what revolutions about. And the other two things that make I think, interesting versus maybe other firms in the country, and we talked about a little bit earlier, but because we're based in Washington D C and because we've been working on policy issues for nearly four decades and we think the next wave of innovation policy is going to be front and center and in Revolution we're trying to position as the leading investment firm in the

country that's focused on on on policy. And the second is I think we've been unusually focused on place. With the rise of the rest. We've now made two investments

a hundred different cities. We've done these bus tours all across the country and even the reason I wrote the book on rise the rest is there's remarkable things happening all of their country, remarkable new companies being built, cities being renewed and revitalized, but most people aren't paying attention to it and I really wanted to tell those stories.

And that's been a growing focus of revolution to as investment firm with outside investors at the seed, venture and growth stage, but with particular focus on policy and on place. And we're going to talk about place in a moment. But just to put this in a little context, revolution has already had some big successes. Sweet Greens obviously a big hit. Draft kings another one. Uh. Do those date back to when it was a family office or was that seed or venture type investment? Those? Those are both

growth stage investments. So we were the first, first institutional investors in in uh, in sweet green, probably seven or eight years ago. UH, draft kings probably five or six years ago. Also clear that you know the biometric company a lot of the recently or recently company in Chicago called tempests as used, has got a big data precision medicine to help people who are diagnosed with cancer. So your DC base, which has to give you a slightly

different perspective from the folks in Silicon Valley. Before we start talking about the rest of the country, what advantages do you find being at the heart of the policy making apparatus in the United States? Well, our office, the Revolution Office, is a few blocks from the White House, not too far from the Capitol, and just having lived there now for a few decades and having a number of people involved in the firm who have been steeped

in in policy work for government. One of the CO founders of Revolution Fifteen years ago as Ron Klain, who is now President Biden's chief of staff, John Delaney, joined us. Some more recently started two companies went public. That was in Congress and ran for president. So we've got some people that really understand policy and we've got a location that I think is interesting and, as I said, if you think about the way I look at the Internet

is the first wave was getting over online. We talked about those early days of a well, went from an idea that nobody cared about this suddenly everybody needed to be connect and you had to, you know, build those on ramps, build all those servers out, build all that infrastructure,

and that was the first twenty years or so. The last twenty years has really been the second wave, which has been about building on top of the Internet, building APPs and software and services on top of the Internet, facebook, Google, things like that. The third wave is when the Internet meets the real world and that means you're starting to deal with some of the most important aspects of our lives. How do we stay healthy? What do we eat? How do we learn? How do we invest? How do we

move around in terms of transportation? And what's interesting about those businesses, uh, is they tend to be regulated, you know, because they're so important there there tends to be public policy focus on on those. So innovators need to understand it's a little bit different as in this third wave, uh, and that understanding the policy framework, both in terms of the go to market strategy and also what policies could

get changed. The opened up, open up new opportunities. That when some of the health care legislation passed more in a decade ago, that opened up things like to care advantage. That created an enormous investment opportunities. More recently, just the summer, there was legislation, including around climates it's going to create enormous opportunities to invest in that, in that in that sector. We saw one of our companies, draft kings, that we

talked about earlier. There was a change actually Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to make different rules around, you know, essentially betting. That opened up a big opportunity and actually

accelerated the growth of draftings. So policy can can you know, kind of be a strategic advantage for companies in this third wave and being in Washington, D C and having that kind of connectivity, I think that perspective in a lot of relationships with people on both sides of the aisle, I think gives revolution a unique platform and we're able to help the entrepreneurs Rey back in ways that other

venture capitalists typically can. So you grow up in Hawaii, you end up relocating to D c. What led to the idea? Hey, there's a massive amount of innovation and Energy and entrepreneurship in between New York and Silicon Valley. How did you find your way to saying let's figure out a way to reach these folks, get them funded and give them a boost to launch their businesses? Well, the triggering event. I was asked a little over a decade ago to share a White House initiative called Startup

America Partnership. That was, you know, launched with President Obama, and that got me traveling around the country because it

was really trying to promote regional entrepreneurship. This is at the time when unemployment was high and there was a recognition that one way to deal with that was to create new jobs and one way to create new jobs to create new companies, uh, and so that led to a focus on regional entrepreneurship and as I traveled more and looked at more of the data, I found it surprising, almost shocking, uh, that even though these new companies are the major job Creator, uh, most of the venture capital

to back these new companies is just in a few places. You know, of venture capital over the last decade has gone to just three states, California, New York and Massachusetts. So it even worse than three eight. It's really three cities, San Francisco, New York and Bulls. Yeah, within those states it's overwhelmingly three cities, as you said. So as a result, a lot of people in different parts of the country

it felt like they have to be there. If they if they're not there, they really don't have a shot at raising the capital they need to start our scale a company. That's led to sort of a brain drain and lots of parts of the country people kind of leave and and and how do you slow that brain drain? How do you create a boomerang of people returning? How do you create more jobs in these communities all around the country so there is more hope and around the

you know, the future? And so that really led to launching about eight years ago, rise the rest, which initially started as bus tour we went to places like Detroit and Pittsburgh and and then we went, you know, Minneapolis, Denver, you know, kind of you know, forty four cities so far, really all over the country to see firsthand what was happening there. And we did this with a big red bus that got a lot of attention and we had

pitch competitions. We invite in each city. We invited people to join us, uh, and that gave us another, you know, kind of Lens into what was happening. And then we really doubled down about five years ago when we launched the rise of the rest seat fund and we decided to do things a little differently there rather than the first few years it was just my capital. But we decided to you know, kind of ask some of the most prominent entrepreneurs and investors in the country to join

us as lps in this fund. And so we have about thirty five people, entrepreneurs like Jeff bezos and Howard Schultz and, uh Tory Birch and Sarah Blakeley and and venture capitalists like John Dor and Jim Bryer, and private equity investors like Henry Kravis and David Rubinstein, Hedge Fund people like, you know, Ray Daly. A really an amazing

group of it's an amazing group of people. Are Honored to have them as as our partners in this and we set out to find these entrepreneurs and and we said we're going to try to build a fund that really can generate top tier returns, which is the best way to drive more capital from the coast to other

parts of the country. And it's working. And the reason to write the book, Uh, is to really tell those stories and and really kind of put some, you know, a spotlight on some of these cities that are showing remarkable momentum and some of these entrepreneurs in those cities that we call the sort of surprising places, that it's not Selcon Valley, Not New York, and it's not Boston, it's it's Richmond, Virginia, where a company like temperate pack

is for the innovative and sustainable packaging, or Chattanooga, where a company freight waves is doing some interesting things. Interesting where in the Bloomberg offices today for this they're building essentially a Bloomberg data platform for the trucking and logistics industry, because some of the biggest trucking companies are based in

in Chattanooga. Or Company in Indianapolis called one twenty water that's focused on helping initially consumers, but then cities, you know, kind of you test their water and make sure that after the flat water crisis, there was a lot of concern about that. Are In Baltimore, Maryland's company catalyte using AI to identify undiscovered kind of talent that people have, for for coding, and some of the people who have gone through this this program end up making two or

three times more than they had before. I remember one the UPS truck driver. Nobody when he was growing up told him he could be a coder. He's kind of like to determine they had a talented for coding until he's making substantially more that he was making before. So these are the kind of stories we're seeing all across the country and cities that that would surprise you and I think it's the reason to write the book and I wanted to tell those stories. I think most people

reading the book will be surprised by the story. Is surprised by the company, is surprised by the cities and and have a have a slightly more optimistic view of the future of America because of what's bubbling all across the country. So so tell us a little bit about what these bus tours are like. When this big red coach rolls into a small town and says, okay, we're gonna hold a bake off for the best startup technology,

whatever it happens to be. What is that like and what is the reaction of the locals like to this? It's very positive. I think for them it's a signal that somebody's paying attention to signal that things are, you know, turning up in terms of new new possibilities. And we used the bus. It's probably uh, you know, kind of a visual a giant get people's attention and you know, you remember a few years ago, sixty minutes the story.

I think it probably that the optics of that, you know, sort of the Americana Road trip bus dynamics, is part of it, but there's a more strategic reason for it. So we actually use the bus as a rolling convening platform. We bring people together from different parts of the you know,

the community. The mayor often joined us, or a senator or the university president or a CEOS of big companies, as well as obviously the entrepreneurs starting these these these these new companies, and we're trying to connect people and

create more of a collaborative startup community there. And we also invite people from other places to join us, either investors from the coast or people from larger companies to join us on the bus so they can see firsthand what's what's what's happening, as well as obviously inviting media, about local media and national media and as our way to learn what's happening, identify promising companies to to invest in, but also to try to showcase the best of what

each of these cities and in the process if you take a step back showcase the best of America, not just what's happening on the coast, but what's happening all across the country. I would think that with all the focus on New York, Boston and especially Silicon Valley, there are some enormous inefficiencies and lots of great ideas and either underfunded or undervalued. Startups in the in the heartlands, are are being, or at least were being, neglected until

you shine a line on them. Yeah, and it's as we still a lot of work to do, but it's starting to change. I think the last few years people have seen some real significant successes. Even a company I write about in the book called a male chimp based in Atlanta had acquired for twelve billion dollars. It was actually bootstrapped. There was no venture capital, in part because they weren't able to raise venture capital and they started more in a decade ago in Atlantic and most people

weren't really investing in cities like uh like Atlanta. As investors seem more and more of those success stories in places all across the country. It's opened their eyes to the potential and their starting to pay more attention. They're still overwhelmingly investing in their own backyards. If they're sitting in San Francisco, most of their investments are in Silicon Valley. But at least they're a little more open minded about

it and, frankly, the pandemic has been helpful. On that show, you don't want to, you know, make light of all the tragedies of the pandemic. overlining force people to think outside of listen. If you're stuck at home and you're talking to an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter if they're down the street or three thousand miles. Exactly that, if you're doing a pitch meeting on zoom, what differences that make

where they are. That was that was helpful. The other thing that's been helpful is for a lot of people the pandemic was sort of a opportunity to take a step back and reassess their their lives, and some people have decided to shift how they live and how they work and where they live and where they work, and the whole idea of more remote work, hybrid work has become a real phenomenon and that is helping these rise

of the rest cities that we've seen. Some people who grew up in different parts of the country or went to you know college and different parts of the country and had gone to the coast, typically typically Silicon Valley uh, decided, doing the pandemic, to move back and once they're there, even though they usually start working, continuing to work for the company they had been working for, just doing it remotely, they realized there's remarkable things happening in the startup communities

in those cities and some of them are now starting to leave those big companies to join some of those small companies, some of them starting to think about starting their own companies in these communities. So I think the tipping point for the rise of the rest really was with the pandemic and we'll see an acceleration over the next decade. And it goes back to what I said earlier.

But for me, these these these these these journeys, these these battles I'm fighting, whether it be the early days of the internet or, more recently, leveling the playing field with with rides. The rest have a certain, you know, dynamic to them, which is the first ten years it's a slog uh, and the second ten years things really kind of take off. We saw that with the Internet we're beginning to see glimmers of that with the rise of the rest. So hopefully this book will help accelerate

the whole movement. So so let's talk about some of the cities that you've gone to. After New York, Boston and Silicon Valley, Um, what is the next largest tier? What do you think is the fastest growing cities and what cities surprised you the most? For whatever reason, it happened to a car? That's a tough question for two reasons. One is, uh, it's not just a few cities, it's a few dozens right, so it's hard. It's hard to just pick a few and the second it's a little

bit like asking apparent who their favorite child is. You know, that's what you say, but we know you have a favorite. But so let me ask the easier question. What surprised you the most when you were out and about in a hundred different cities? Well, each of the cities there's something they're similar and some things they are different. What's what's similar is what's happened is in the last particularly decade,

more attention got focused on startups. Even even the government leaders, mayors and governors for decades economic development was basically getting a big company to move their headquarters, big company to open a factory, and the recognition more recently was no, the real way to do that in a sustainable, efficient way is actually to launch new companies, some of which would fail, because that's the nature, but some of which would succeed and be maybe the fortune companies of tomorrow,

and then kind of creating more of that collaboration in the in the community. More that sense of possibility in the community has been a really a key ingredient that we've been watching building over this over the past decade. But the other aspect I think is interesting is there are some cities that really it's not just a lower cost of living or lower lower cost of operations, which is which is a motivator for some, or family reasons or lifestyle reasons to be in a particular city, which

is a motivator or some. There are more and more cities where there really is an advantage to be in those cities versus being in, say, San Francisco or New York. Take could take healthcare, but the healthcare really is going to require systems level change really revolutionize how we think

about our our health that's going to require partnership. Some of the key partners you need in in the healthcare space or big hospitals like Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or Cleveland Clinic in Ohio or Johns Hopkins in Maryland or M D Anderson and Texas. Being close to them probably increases your odds of establishing partnerships with them. So that dynamic is critical. Another example is in a company we

backed in in northwest Arkansas, Fayetteville, called Acre trader. Basically it's a platform to invest in farmland and the founder, Cardamola, actually was in San Francisco and said if I'M gonna start a company that's going to basically be this platform for farmland, I should be where the farmers are. That's a good way to build, you know, kind of trust and and and scale up the platform, and he's done very well raise a large round or scaling quite rapidly.

I am familiar with Acre trader and had no idea that you guys had anything to do with that and it's a wonderful rise of the restory because again, even though Carter Malla I had left that area to go to San Francisco, he returned and some of that. I'm sure it was for family reasons, but most of it was for strategic reasons. Acre trader is more successful in in Arkansas than if it had been in, you know state, in California or New York, and we're seeing that happen

and more and more of these these cities. But in terms of the one city I would point out because it's an amazing story, it's even I lead off the book with it, is a story of Detroit. You know, people don't really focused on this, but if you think about Detroit a hundred years ago, essentially was Silicon Valley. It was the most innovative city in the country when the automobile was the hot technology of the day. A hundred years ago silicon valley was fruit orchards. They weren't

growing startups, they weren't growing fruit. Apple is called apple for a reason. And so, yeah, Detroit was rocking and rolling that the car revolution. For a couple of decades. People wanted to be part of that. Moved to Detroit. Houses were being built, schools were being built. You know,

was really rocking and rolling. And then, you know, about fifty years ago things turned and they lost sixty of their population and the year before we rolled in with our rise of the rest bus, the city of Detroit went bankrupt. What had been Silicon Valley went bankrupt. That's

the bad news. The good news is a vibrant startup culture, particularly in the downtown Detroit area, and we backed companies like Shinola and stock acts and others that are in Detroit, with the backing of a great entrepreneur and Gilbert, a strong mayor. Foundations like Krusky all worked together to say we need to rebuild Detroit and we're gonna do it on the back of backing new companies startups in Detroit. So now Detroit's, you know, kind of back on on

the on the rise and doing some phenomenal things. The other city we visited on that first rise rest bus tour was Pittsburgh. I think about Pittsburgh. It really powered the industrial revolution. It was the steel capital and and a hundred years ago it was rock and rolling. And then, you know, I lost some of that, you know, kind of a lead, but reinvented itself in the last couple

of decades. Have a great university there, Carnegie Mellon, and big focused on robotics, for example, and as a result of backing new companies since up, like due lingo, the language APP started spun out of Carnegie Mellon, started in Pittsburgh. It's seeing the arise again. But this is this is really the story of dozens of cities. I think if you fast forward ten or twenty years, it's more, as I said earlier, more optimistic view of America that will

have a more inclusive innovation economy. Won't just be a few people in a few places. It will be a much more broader based UH innovation economy which I think will result in the create some more jobs and more parts of the country, which might even create more of a of an opportunity to knit together a very divided country that's obviously divided in many respects, but one way is sort of a opportunity gap. There's some people doing really well, a lot of people struggling and feeling left behind.

How do we create some of the jobs of the future, even some of the industries of the future in these in these cities all across America? You raise an interesting policy question. Whenever I see, you know, a groundbreaking where some giant company comes in with all these tax abatements, we sort with Fox con in Wisconsin turned out to be a bust. We see it every time some billionaires stadium gets paid for by taxpayers. The math never seems

to work out. But it sounds like what you're saying here is if we stop trying to do these giant let's bring a big company and to save the factory town and if that company leaves the town is toast. Let's create an entire different model of startups, small companies, build that whole ecosystem. That has a much better chance of success for that region and success for the country.

The interesting thing about this economic development battle where different states are fighting with each other over over the same, you know, existing companies. It's sort of zero sum for America. Yeah, they're just throwing money at it to get you leave here to go there. It doesn't really help the country. And so, and you say, often those investments do not pay off for those particular cities or those particular states. So it's way better to focus on the new companies.

And we saw an interesting dynamic a few years ago when Amazon launched its second headquarters, you know, and they basically say create a second headquarters and create tens of thousands jobs in that second headquarters, uh and, you know, let us know if you're interested in this. You know, coming and two D thirty different cities all pitched, uh, to to get Amazon to, you know, to come. Ultimately decided actually in northern Virginia, not too far from where

we started. All is where they decided to kind of plant their flag. But then, you know, the Nice thing about it was those two or thirty cities had to come together, had to make a joint pitch, had to figure out what their strengths were, to really highlight what some of the weaknesses were that they could they could

focus on. And where we're seeing is sort of a continuing effect to that that many of these cities, you know, are now focused on these new companies, focused on backing, you know, the startups, saying we don't really want to do that fighting again to get Amazon. How do we create the next Amazon in our communities? That's resulting in a pivot to focus on new companies, on startups, in cities all across America. So let's let's dig a little

deeper into revolution. First is, is there a favorite sector or industry or size that revolution likes? or it doesn't matter if it's an interesting idea with a chance for success it interests you. But they said there's two key planks of our strategy. One is policy in the other is place. So on the policy side we tend to focus on the industries where there is a policy, you kind of component. So I mentioned a health tech company called the tempest. I mentioned temper pack which in the

sustainable kind of packaging business, clear the biometric company. Those are their policy issues and usually partner issues associate with that. But agricultural culture would fit into that, sports tech would would fit into that. So there there are many sectors that fit into that, but they generally most of the theme that generally drives most of our efforts are around policy and then, of course, with our ride the rest seed fund, that is very place based and in sector agnostic.

And one of the interesting things we learned late last year we did a joint report with pitchbook and there are two data points that I thought were striking and even surprising to me, I've been working on this for a decade. The first was in the last decade four hundred new regional venture firms were started up and they're typically focusing on that early seed and kind of venture stage. And the other data point was there's a six hundred percent increase in venture capital going to these rides of

rest cities. So the things we've been talking about the decade we're starting to see progress. New Venture firms starting, more capital flowing, but we think things will really accelerating in in in the next decade. We're just trying to make sure revolution we're positioned to really be the leader around place and use even the book that to to make the case for why other investors should be investing in these other cities, not just in the usual places

like San Francisco and New York, in Boston. So so revolution brings a lot more to the table than just cap at all. There's a lot of value air coming absolutely no. At the beginning we make an investment, that's the start of the process of working with a company, whether it be introducing them to new partnerships or helping them recruit people their management team or there their boards are,

helping them navigate sometimes complicated policy issues. There's lots of things we try to do to really help these companies scale, help them achieve their their full potential. Quite quite intriguing. Coming up we continue our conversation with Steve Case, chair and CEO of revolution, discussing his new book, the rise of the rest, how entrepreneurs in surprising places are building the new American dream. I'm Barry ridholts. You're listening to

masters in business on Bloomberg radio. I'm Barry rihults. You're listening to masters in business on Bloomberg radio. My extra special guest this week is Steve Case. He is the chairman and CEO of revolution, as well as one of the three co founders of America Online. He is also chair of the case foundation and the Smithsonian. He is the author of a new book, the rise of the rest, how entrepreneurs and surprising places are building the new American dream.

That is out this week. So so let's talk about the book. What, first of all, what motivates you? As someone who's written a book, I know how much work goes into it. What motivated you to sit down and say, yeah, I'M gonna put all this down on paper? I thought I had to write the book. I spent most of the decade traveling the country, meeting entreprenurs, visiting dozens of cities, seeing remarkable things happening that were most people are unaware of, and so I just felt like I have a choice.

I had to write this book. I had to tell these stories there there. I had to profile some of these entrepreneurs, talk about what they're doing with with their companies, showcase some of these rising cities in terms of what they're doing to really create, you know, kind of a renew their communities, create more opportunity, more jobs, things like that. Uh So, what? It was not really a choice. I just felt compelled to write this this book. What was

the response from the various entrepreneurs? When you say to somebody, Hey, I'm going to feature you as a chapter in this new book? Are People excited about it? Of course, of course. I think they, particularly entrepreneurs in these rise of the rest cities, tend to feel uh, lonely, a little left out. They don't have the at least. Yeah, we're working on this, obviously, but don't have quite the attention that you have if

you're an entrepreneur place like Silicon Valley. Uh So, even when we've rolled into town with our rise of rest bus, you just have pitch competitions where entrepreneurs can be on stage. That allows them to talk up what they're doing and get people in their communities to better understand where they're doing and believe in what they're they're doing. And similarly

with the with the book. Everybody we talked to with it was was honored, obviously, to being included the book and appreciative of the fact that we're really championing their stories trying to do what we can to help them scale into being kind of significant companies that can change the world, create significant value for the investor, to create, you know, hopefully, thousands of jobs and the process kind of lift up their particular communities and strengthened America in

terms of having, you know, kind of a more inclusive economy. To tell us about these pitch competitions. How Long Does each entrepreneur get? What are they allowed to bring? What are some of those uh pitches like? How how do you how do they vary from one to one? Well, when we decided to do a road trip, we planned this for more than six months in advance, so we have an advanced team that's going to the cities. We try to understand what who should we visit in the cities?

What startup to do, like a bus startup crawl with with. You know, we might have a lunch and and uh, you know, pitch invent a lot of different things to really kind of get people together. But for the pitch competition specifically, we basically say we're coming to tower do this pitch competition and we generally get about a hundred people applying to pitch and then our team sorts through that and picks the best eight or ten to be on stage. Then we actually hire a pitch coach to

help them work on their pitch. We really want to help them, where they win or not, we're trying to help them be positioned for, uh, for a success. So they each get you three minutes or so to pitch and then a couple of minutes of questions following that, uh, and then we, we judges, spend some time reviewing which one should win and and then we make a decision

of which one we're going to invest in. Sometimes we actually invest in more than one because we're just struck by the, you know, the power of some of those uh, some of those ideas. So so, just a quick digression. So we have a VC fund that just focuses on financial technology because of of my day job, and we just had this giant conference out in, of all places, Huntington Beach in so cal, and one of the things we did was an exact that exact thing, a pitch competition.

It was five minutes per entrepreneur and I think we ended up going with ten people out of well over a hundred applications. But the idea of a pitch coach, because some of the pitches were fantastic, some were a little rough around the edges. The idea of a pitch coaches is really um intriguing. How did people respond to that? Um, someone coming in and saying, Hey, you only have three or four minutes, here's what you need to focus on.

It was super helpful and obviously these companies have been done pitches before, but they are never done, in most cases, of pitch at this at this state kind a level, with this kind of audience. And so getting it actually

came to as we had a partnership with Google. They haven't it should have called Google for startups, and we were doing some joint things with them and they were doing a pitch competition where they invited some of the entrepreneurs that we helped select from all around the country to come pitch at Google headquarters in Silicon Valley and as part of that they used a pitch coach. So we then embraced that idea and ever since we've had

a pitch coach as well. But no, it's it's a can really result in, uh, the entrepreneurs telling a much more compelling story and and it benefits them long after we leave town. They have a Crisper, more compelling pitch for the next time they're meeting with a prospective investor or customer or partner. Data is wonderful, but sometimes it's all about the narrative, isn't it exactly. No, storytelling is a lot of what this is about. You have to

captivate people, UH, everybody. Everybody has to be selling. If you're trying to hire somebody, you're selling. If you're trying to get investors, you're you're selling, if you're if you're trying to get media attention, you're selling, if you're obviously you're trying to get customers, you're you're, you're, you're selling. And everybody can be coached to be better at what they're what they're trying to you know, to sell really interesting.

You know you you said something earlier that I let sneak by, but I got to bring it back up. The jobs act, passed under the Obama Administration, Um, and the investing opportunities act. Not only were you involved in helping to create that policy, you were instrumental in getting that past. So first, tell us a little bit about that experience. In second, what has that meant for startups

and funding of new companies and entrepreneurs? Well, the job at passed just about a decade ago and broad bypartisans support. It's called jump starting our business startups act and it was basically updating the rules of securities laws in places thineteen thirty three. So this one just pre Internet. This is pre television and it needed a little bit of an update and it allowed things like crowdfunding. It had created an on ramp for young companies to go public.

We're called emerging growth companies. That field more I P O s. It was really about giving more entrepreneurs more access to capital. would be the early stage or the later stage, with the with the goal of having more companies start and scale and create more jobs. And so that's really why it was called the you know, the the jobs act, and and it was. It was great.

I worked on the President Obama's jobs and competitives council and there was a little subcommittee focused particularly on entrepreneurship. I work with Cheryl Sandberg facebook and John Dor the venture capitalist, Clara Perkins to help fund, you know, figure out what some of the policies would be that would create a more fertile startup environment all across the country,

and the jobs act was part of that. So so, what do you think the direct result of that legislation, in that policy update has been in the decade you've been traveling around the country and looking at at startups? I think crowdfunding has been helpful to a number of companies to otherwise wouldn't have had access to capitol, would

never have gotten started up. And they're more companies have gone public in the last decade because of the jobs act making a little easier for these emergent companies to go public. I keep finding these when I'm searching for something. I keep finding these funny little products like Oh, that looks really interesting. I've never seen anything like that. You

Click through and and as often as not it's a crowdfunding. Hey, give us enough money to help get this product launched and you get a product, but not necessarily any equity ownership. Is that? Is that the future for very specialized, niche

products as opposed to broad company startups? Yeah, the crowdfunding really started with some platforms like kickstarter, where exactly what you're saying that if you people offer a particular product, usually before it would even be manufactured, and get some pre or or is, it will allow them to have the capital then go build out, you know, the product, and that worked for a number of companies. Some of those products then end up getting launched more broadly or

they raising capital more broadly. But there also has been more and more companies that are using crowdfunding to raise equity capital to help fund the companies, as we can do both, not just the product but you're actually a small investor in the startup. Exactly, really, really quite Um, quite fascinating. So let's circle back to two thousand. The time ornery O l deal goes through, you set up a family office and from that you really start to

expand into a lot of different public service and philanthropy. Um, you mentioned the National Advisory Council on Innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as President Obama's council on jobs and competitiveness. Tell us a little bit about when you go from a nimble startup to a big merger to the govern them in. What's the trade off? How difficult is it to move the ball down the field? Well, I think it's it's difficult for sure, which is why I do it only on the side. It's sort of my my

my moonlighting, my side hustle. My main event is focused on investment companies through revolution, but I do think it's important to make sure that, you know, I do at least everything I can to make sure America remains the most innovative entreprene nation. I do think it's important to try to, as we discussed around rise to rest, create a more inclusive innovation economy that brings along more people

and more places. And while most of that and most of my time has spent on working with those entrepreneurs as an investor and mentor, I do think it's important to make sure we have the right policy framework in place that creates as much opportunity as possible for as many entrepreneurs as possible, as many places in America as as possible. So that led to the work around the National Advisory Council on Innovation Entrepreneurship more than a decade ago. Actually.

The current Secretary Commerce, Gina Romando, we started it, recently asked me to Co share it again, so I agreed to do that. And we're focused particularly on identifying some of the industries of the future where America really needs to lead and supporting this effort around regional hubs, including some of the legislation that passed recently a fund more regional innovation around the around the country, so it is

a less silicon valley. What's the big change in the decade that has ensued from the last time you were involved with this policy or this panel to today? Well, some of the initial focus was on this access to capital side, which led to things like the you know, the job Jag. Now it's, I think, a little more of focused on access to opportunity, which ties in with the work we're doing around rise the rest. How do you create a uh, you know, level the playing fields

so everybody, everywhere has a shot the American dream? That's really what it's all about and and trying to create more of that investment. Uh. It's also it's striking to me, because I've been doing this now for a while. As you think about that early days of the Internet, we talked about a well being in northern Virginia outside Washing d C. actually a number of the companies that were pivotal in that first wave we're all across the country.

It was not so much about Silicon Valley. For example, UH IBM S PC operations were in Boca Raton, Florida. Hump to serve a major online service. Time was in Columbus Ohio. Hayes, the Communications Modem Company, was in Atlanta, Georgia. SPRENT, another communications company, was in Kansas City. Dell was in Austin. Microsoft actually started Albuquerque before moving to to U to Seattle. So that first wave of innovation the Internet was regionally distributed.

It was only the second way, when it became about you know, software, that silicon valley rose to prominence. I think in the third way we can redistribute again and have innovation in different parts of the country and that's part of the focus of on on the on the policy.

So I just do what I can to bring that Entrepreneurial Lens at Investor Lens Uh to the policy makers, doing it in a very kind of bipartisan you know kind of way, working with Republicans and Democrats, trying to figure out what is the right, you know, kind of policy going forward. But it's easier to do, you know, based on your question, you know it is challenging to

deal with these things. Sometimes it does feel like you're trying to, you know, move a mountain, but doing it, you know, occasionally on the side would be is it works for me. I have great respect for the people who are willing to jump into it full time. I think that's not my thing. It's tough. You you mentioned the subcommittee on Entrepreneurship. Tell us a little bit about their work and what have they accomplished? Well, that was, I think, pivotal in terms of creating the framework and

also the momentum around things like the jobs act. And the way we did that is we actually asked an outside consulting firm, it was a McKenzie uh to do look at all of the the ideas have been put on table, legislation that been introducing Congress, think tanks and others that would create a more entrepreneurial ecosystem all across, you know, the country and the number of things were identified and we just kind of whacked away working on

identifying what the what, which policy would have the you know, the biggest impact, and I think we did make progress and in lots of different areas. One area we did recommend that we spend more time on that we didn't make progress on, but hopefully still will, will be immigration reform. How do we make sure we remain a magnet for people around the world who want to come here and

and star our companies here and create jobs here? And how do we make it easier for people, a common people who come for universities, you know, education, how a little easier for them to stay? Uh. So, you know, we can continue to lead, to lead, to charge and and continue to be that, you know, that win what's now a global battle for talent. So that one area that was a strong recommendation of that the jobs council a decade ago. That that has not yet happened but

hopefully will in the future. In the US there's a labor shortage at just about every level Um of the employment spectrum, entry level work, farm work, all the way up to very senior technology people. What can we do to bring in the best in the brightest from the rest of the world we've got to pass legislation. Came close to summer. There's some legislation called the startup visa that essentially would make it easier for entrepreneurs who are

going to it was it was not get done. It was part of some broader legislation but ultimately did not get the time. And I recognize that immigration is complicated and really emotional and become very political because there's various facets of of Immigration and securing the board or things like that. But on the specific issue of how do we get people from all around the world who have ideas and want to start companies, how to make sure those companies are started here and the jobs, you know,

therefore created here as opposed to created elsewhere? And we have seen in the last couple of decades globalization of innovation and the globalization of venture capital. Uh years ago, over of Global Venture Capital has invested in the United States.

Now it's under so other countries have figured out that sort of the secret sauce that sort of powered the American story is is entrepreneurship and venture capitalists is part of that and I even in this new book on Rise Arrest, talk about the need to to focus on immigration reform, focused on backing uh founders from from all over the world and starting those companies. And I say it's obviously the key messages. They don't have to be

in Silicon Valley and New York or Boston. They could be in many other cities around the country and that's what we're trying to promote. Let's talk a little bit about some of your philanthropic work. You join the giving pledge in tell us what that experience was like. I've heard some pretty amusing stories about working with Bill Gates and and that Um process. Well, obviously known Bill Gates for decades. We were vigorous competitors in the in the

late nineties. Oh and I was running a o l but it was great to become partners around, you know, things around philanthropy, including the giving pledge and and Uh London. Gates and and also Warren Buffett known for quite some time. And so when they approached my wife Jean and I when they were getting as started, was over a decade ago, we were initially uh a little uh reluctant to be that public about what we're doing philanthropically. We've always done

things in a somewhat a quieter way. But we decided to join because we thought maybe it'd lead others to making a commitment to giving the majority of their wealth away, but also we thought we could learn from others and and you know, you know, to learn how to be smarter about the philanthropic investments we we made. I think

that's been the case. There's been a number of meetings of the giving pledgers on specific topics and also kind of annual meetings, and I think everybody that's part of the giving pledges is a little bit wiser because of their network that's been created among the people have made that commitment. So so let's talk a little bit about the metrics of giving. Go Back Twenty, thirty years and the question was sort of like advertising. You know some of its effective, you just don't know which half is.

How do you think about tracking, analyzing and determining if you're moving the needle when you're making a specific donation? Well, first of all I should say my wife, Jeane, has has led the case foundations since we started at twenty five years. I've been focusing more on the investment side.

She's been focusing more on the philanthropic side. So she gets all the all the all the credit, but I think we and others have gotten much more, uh, precise in terms of trying to understand the impact of the philanthropic investments we're making. What what is the what are

the key metrics that should be tracked there? And we uh are physically gene leading the foundation has has brought a little bit of that venture capital mentality to it and rather than just pick one thing you invest in, we picked several things and and cycle them through it at various times. Right now, primary focus of gene is on National Geographic Society, which he is the chair of.

I've spending time as the chair of the Smithsonian institution, including how to move it into more of a digital future. So those are a couple of areas of focus. But we found it. You can bring some of your business experience to the philanthropic sector. You just have to recognize it's it's different. But one thing that is similar across both of them is the value of partnerships. There's an African proverb we both loved that if you want to go quickly, you can go alone, but if you want

to go far you must go together. So a lot of what we do with the philanthropic efforts around building partnerships. A lot of what we do with revolution and also rise the rest of around building partnerships, so that you know, idea of collaboration and going far together is one of the concerts across all our our work. So you mentioned the Smithsonian Um. I'M A fan. The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum and Research Complex. What led you

to that? As earning particular interest in science, history technology, how did you get involved with them? I was asked over a decade ago to join what they called the board of regents and then where recently became the chair of it. And I, like many people, have seen the

wonders of the Smithsonian. I remember even when I was, I guess I was eighteen, I came to Washington and Uh and it thought the Smithsonian for the first time and experienced some of the wonders of it was inspired to do a number of different things because of it.

So I wanted to make a contribution to kind of take the Smithsonian into the future, build on it's it's legacy over hundred seventy five years around increasing and diffusing knowledge, UH and add to it a digital components that you know, we we've been working on what we call the virtual Smithsonian.

Rather than just assume that you'RE gonna fly to Washington Sea visit the National Mall and visit our nineteen museums, we want to come to you and so we want the Smithsonian to be in every home and every classroom and embracing a lot of partnerships, embracing a lot of technologies to to do that. Spirit of St Louis is hanging. That's my vivid recollection as a kid going through it

and it's just stayed with me for for forever. And we have probably know we have two air and space museums, one on the National Mall One out by Dallas Airport. The one National Mall has been closed for most of the past year. It's under reconstruction. It was it was opened in nineteen seventy six and we're going to reopen it actually next month, uh, and part of it is

being reimagined to be the bezos learning center. The largest philanthropic gift in the Smithsonian's history is from J Bezos, a two million dollar gift to the Smithsonian to build out that air and Space Museum. Really, really quite fascinating. Um, you mentioned partnerships. What did you bring from your a o l experience to philanthropy? How much of that foundational, you know, building a business, ramping it up, taking a public, merging it? How does that apply to a very different

part of of the world? Well, again, my wife Jeane gets been taking the lead here, but from my prism it's how do you identify problems need to be solved and then bring a both an entrepreneural perspective in terms of what new things might get started, as well as a kind of almost like growth investing perspective what existing organizations might get scaled and we've done work on both sides, made investments to scale up existing organizations like habitat humanity

or Special Olympics, which we were, at the timing, the largest, you know, kind of givers to this goes back a couple of decades, as well as launching some initiatives ourselves, including a digital divide initiative over twenty years ago to try to get computer technology centers installed in different neighborhoods and that didn't otherwise have access to it, with partnerships with with a lot of people that made that possible.

So it's a mix of identifying some of these uh problems that need to be solved and figuring out some of them are kind of like using the investing mentality, or I think we make seed investments in to get them started. Some of them also are backing existing organizations and giving them the growth level investments that really scale up faster. You mentioned digital divide. I don't recall which

legislation it might have been. The infrastructure bill um now builds out broadband to pretty much every corner of the country. How big of a digital divide is it? Is it rich versus poor, or is it urban versus rural? Tell us a little bit about what the digital divide looks like. It's both and and the digital divide we're focused on twenty plus years ago was just getting people connected to the Internet, getting computers into the classrooms and community centers

and some level of connectivity. As we've seen with the pandemic, that connectivity, particularly broadband connectivity, is much more important and it's not much harder to not just learn but just function in life without that broadband connectivity. And and your question is both. There are different parts of the country that definitely have, you know, slow, in some cases non existent internet connectivity. Uh and so those areas are are

disadvantage in this legist ation will help help there. And obviously, even in big cities there are parts of the communities that don't have access to high speed as well. So it become a more of a utility that that, you know, everybody needs to make sure they can, you know, kind of compete in this world and and and participate. Uh and increasingly health care is using telemedicine. Increasingly education is

using tell of learning. It's it's not just about the ability to, you know, get news or by products, it's also the ability to do some of the most fundamental aspects of our lives. So ubiquitous connectivity is important. You talk a lot about leveling the playing field. That's an expression. You mentioned in terms of access to capital. You mentioned in access to networks, access to Internet and broadband. Why is that so important to you? It's actually something that's

sort of and part of everything. Are Almost everything I've involved in. To me, the excitement, the passion in those early days of the Internet. I'm talking about the eighties when we were just getting started, in the nineties when the Internet was scaling, because I really believe the Internet

would make the world a better place. The Internet would give people access to information, education, commerce, you know, community that they otherwise wouldn't wouldn't have uh, and also would level the playing field that right now, in the earlier those early days, are on the news side, there are only a few news networks like CBS and ABC and and and so forth, or maybe if you were wealthy,

you might have owned the local newspaper. There weren't really opportunities for most people's voices to be heard, and so I really felt that the Internet could help create more of those voices and level a plank field and, as you say, the effort in the last decade around rise the rest, even the reason I wrote this, this book on rise the rest, is I'm again trying to level the plank field create more opportunity for more people and more places, and it's just it's just something that drives me.

How do you make sure that everybody has a, you know, kind of a fair shot? The outcomes are going to be different, but the opera two NAYS, if for everybody, should should be be much better than they have been. You mentioned access to information. There's a line from either the book or or something you wrote about the book. A hundred years ago the amount of information people would encounter in their lifetime was the same as a daily

edition of The New York Times. That that's just astonishing. Yeah, it's been an acceleration of that and I recognize there's also now some unintended consequences. Almost a glut of information and and a lot of issues around you know, what is, you know, news and what is fact and so forth, and even in the social media space there have been some you know, some challenges. So all these things have

some pluses and some minuses. The questions, I think for societies, how do you maximize the benefits and and minimize some of the risks, really quite interesting. My last question before we get to our favorites is a little bit of a curveball. You're born and raised in Hawaii but then relocate at Washington D C. That seems like the worst weather trade I've ever seen. D C is Humid and and in Hawaii is just delightful. What was it like

leaving that behind? Well, I love Hawaii's born and raised there. Both my parents were born and raised there's our family goes back over a hundred years and of investments there and a family there, uh, and to try to get

back as often, I say, as they can. But for me I really wanted to pursue a different path than staying there, which led going to college in Massachusetts and working in Ohio, then working in Kansas and then for the last few decades in the Virginia, you know, kind of a D C area, Um, and I think that journey, including growing up in in Hawaii, it's before starting a company and starting a well in Virginia, I think also informs my my my views around the rise of the rest.

I think it's part of the reason I'm so passionate about trying to create more opportunity for more people in more places. And when I grew up in Whi, I remember, uh, the early days. This would have been a US the seventies. Uh. We get television shows a week late, which you know it was. There was a satellite technology and not advanced the point where they could beam them, so we would get them the tape sent over. So you basically you

had a friend on the mainland. You can find out what's going to happen on the television show this week because it already happened on the television show there last week just you know, it was a little bit, you know, kind of off the you know, the beaten path, I guess. And starting a L in in Um the Tyson's Corner Virginia area. It was also off the beaten paths I

mentioned before. It was harder to get going there. I think that's why I'm so passionate now about, you know, creating opportunity for entrepreneurs all across the country, backing them in cities all across the country, and why I decided to write the book to tell those stories, uh, and and give people more of a sense of what's happening out there and more of a sense of what's happening, uh, what could be happening all across America in the future.

Who would have guessed why? You was that formative to to the worlds of entrepreneurship and and venture? All right, so let's up to our favorite questions that we ask all of our guests, starting with tell us what kept you entertained during the pandemic. What were you watching or or listening to? We watched, not a lot of things. I we're not big television watchers, but we definitely watched

more more during the pandemic. I think one that I remember we watched uh that I recalled, particularly given what's happened recently in the the last few weeks with the death of the Queen, was the crown, which that was was fabulous. More recently, I mentioned my wife as the chair of

the National Geographic Society. They have a partnership with Disney, what's called National Geographic Partners UH and, as a results, have a big presence on Disney plus and there's a new series just came out in the last couple of months called America the beautiful. That's really spectacular. Haven't watched that. You should. I watched Um, what was it earth at night on National Geographic on Disney, and some of it is just astonishing photography. I'll take a look at America

the beautiful. Um. Tell us about your mentors who helped to shape your career. I think there are different people at different stages. In the early days, I think I really did learn a lot from my parents around kind of taking a long view, working hard, trying to be

humble about how you approach things. I got a lot of experience and mentoring at some of the big companies I worked for, like procter and gamble and since then they have a great, great training program in the early days of a o L, I learned a lot from co founders Jim Kimsey and Mark Seraph, we were both quite a bit older than I was, and from our

venture capitalists. I learned a lot from from being able to work with those venture capitalist and getting their perspective on on scaling businesses, which I think helped me as a CEO of a wall and also certainly helped now as as an investor at at revolution. So I, like a lot of people, uh, kind of curious and like to bump into people and ideas and kind of a sponge for for different perspectives. Uh. Let's talk about books. What are some of your favorites and what are you

reading right now? Reading Right now actually a book called be actually interest to folks who listen to you, called how to invest, by David Rubinstein. Your book just came out and it's gonna be fun and a couple of weeks we're going to do a joint thing in the Economic Club in Washington D C where he's going to interview me about my book rise. The rest, I'm gonna interview him about his book how to invest. So that

should be uh fun doing the pandemic. My favorite book was a gentleman in Moscow, this great novel by Amor toles. It was really quite, quite fascinating. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college graduate who is interested in a career in either technology, entrepreneurship or invest in? Well, a couple of things I'd say. First of all, again part of the reason I wrote the book on rise rest. Don't assume that you have to be in Silicon Valley or you're going to be on the you know, the

B team, the junior varsity. What's now happening all across the country is really extraordinary and that will accelerate over the next decade. So decide what city you want to live in and you can think of it for personal reasons or for a strategic reason, based on the industry you most care about. Uh, and maybe at Silicon Valley, but increasingly won't be. There will be many parts of the country that you should consider living in. Zecond would

be to always remain curious. You know that there's I've learned a lot from you know, sometimes by Serendipity, just being in the right place at the right time, bumping into somebody listening to something, reading something, and that helps inform your your your your perspective on things. And a final one is certainly it's my experience with the building a wall on the Internet more recently, what we've been doing with rise. The rest is this, you know, kind

of idea of revolutions happening in evolutionary ways. You have to take a long term view. You have to be persistent there. Sometimes in the entrepreneur world world, people focus too much on the the overnight successes of Mark Zuckerberg and his dorm room coming up with facebook and you know, a year later it's a global phenomena. A year later is,

you know, the billionaire kind of thing. That's super rare and most of these things take take a while and really are going to be two steps forward, one step back, a lot of near death experiences and if you really care about it, you keep fighting. And our final question. What do you know about the world of startups, Venture Entrepreneurship Technology today that you wish you knew back in when you were first launching America Online? I would say

we've covered some of this. The importance of partnerships. That that the almost everything I've done that's had a real impact in the world. It's about partnerships. And so how do you identify opportunities for collaboration that can you know, that can really allow things to you know, to scale, uh and, and you know that's one of the key things. The second would be it seems so basic, almost so obvious, but it's true. At the end of the day it

all comes down to people. The people you work with, UH and the people you partner with are going to result in success or failure. And it's not about you. Entrepreneurship as a team sport. How do you assemble kind of the Dream Team of people would bring different perspective but work together well in a in a team? Uh and everything I've I've that's had success in my life, including all and more recently, well done with rides rest.

We've had the right team. The things that have been struggles, including the merger with a Long Time Warner, which obviously was a disappointment, we didn't have the people's side right. We didn't have the right people focused on the right priorities working together in the right way. So just a reminder to me that you have to constantly take a step back and make sure you really have the people's side front and center. We have been speaking with Steve Case,

chairman and CEO of revolution. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and check out any of our previous four hundred or so that we've done over the past eight years. You can find those at Itunes, spotify, wherever you feed your podcast fix. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at M Ib podcast at Bloomberg Dot net. Follow me on twitter at Rit halts. Sign up from my daily reading list at RIT HALTS DOT com. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack

team who helps put these conversations together each week. Justin Milner is my audio engineer, Paris Walden is my producer, Sean Russo is my head of research. Attica Val Bron is our project manager. I'm Barry ridholds. You've been listening to masters in business on Bloomberg Radioa