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Steve Case: Persevere in “The Third Wave” – Love Your Work, Episode 25
Steve Case was the founder and CEO of AOL – America Online. Many of you probably chuckle when you see someone with an email address that ends in AOL.com, but for me and many millions of others, AOL was our first contact with the Internet.
Steve has a new book out called The Third Wave. The premise is that the first wave of the internet was building the infrastructure – things like getting computers with modems into people’s homes, and getting them on the internet, the second wave was software-focused – things like Facebook, and now that we have all of that built out, it’s time to change more entrenched industries like Healthcare, Food, and Government.
Steve stresses that perseverance is going to be critical in the Third Wave, which is something for all of you Lean Startup practitioners to consider: you can’t necessarily abandon your idea because you don’t get traction right away. You’ll also have to form partnerships – sometimes with big, entrenched organizations that are slow-moving. So, opportunities to create something world-changing by just writing a few lines of code are becoming scarce.
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I really enjoyed the book – especially the parts about the early days of AOL. AOL had a huge impact in the 90’s, and I remember flipping through channels and seeing Steve on CNN giving some kind of Senate testimony. I don’t remember what exactly he said, I just remember thinking it was really next-level stuff to my 17-year-old brain. It was the first time I had any awareness of how entrepreneurs and technology shape culture and shape humanity.
I hadn’t realized before reading the book that it took AOL about a decade to really get traction, so it was interesting to hear those stories of the perseverance that is going to be so critical in the Third Wave.
I think Steve’s theories about the Third Wave make a ton of sense. Thanks to having infrastructure, we had a good decade or so where our world was reinvented by software, but now there are big challenges in changing slower-moving industries. Even if you’re a solopreneur like me, even if you’re an employee for life, and you don’t have interest in disrupting entrenched industries, it’s important to think about these larger trends and how they effect the world around you, and your relevance.
If you’ve been wondering: should you make your bed?, Steve (a billionaire, mind you), shatters the myth that you should.
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Show Notes
- Steve’s Twitter
- The Third Wave (Book)
- The Third Wave (Website)
- Revolution (Steve’s venture firm)
- The Case Foundation
- Rise of the Rest
Transcript
David Kadavy 00:12: This is love your work, on this show we need people who have come to success by their own definition. I’m David Kadavy best selling author and entrepreneur. Today’s guest as far as I’m concerned practically invented the Internet, Steve Case. Steve Case was the founder and C.E.O. of A.O.L. or America Online. Now many of you probably chuckle when you see someone with an e-mail address that ends in A.O.L.com But for me and many millions of others, A.O.L. was our first contact with the Internet. I mean I remember being a kid in Nebraska connecting to the Internet on dial up, tying up the phone line and just this rush of being able to chat with somebody that’s like in Virginia or something and you know before that, the only people I really had contact with were who lived in my neighbourhood or who I went to school with or who was in my Saturday morning bowling league and suddenly I was connected to the whole world it was such an incredible experience. Now Steve has a new book out called The Third Wave. The promise is that the first wave of the Internet was building the infrastructure. Things like getting computers with modems in people’s homes getting them on the Internet with things like A.O.L. and there was the second wave. That was a software focused on build things like Facebook and Yelp and things like that and now we have all that built out it’s time to change the more entrenched industries like health care, food and government that’s the third wave. Now Steve stresses that perseverance is going to be critical in the third wave which is something for all of you learning startup practitioners to consider you can’t necessarily abandon your idea because you just didn’t get attraction right away. You also have to form partnerships sometimes with big entrenched organisations that are slow moving so opportunities to create something world changing by just writing a few lines of code those are becoming a lot more scarce. And I really enjoyed the book especially the parts about the early days of A.O.L. A.O.L. had a huge impact in the ninety’s and I remember flipping through channels and seeing Steve on C.N.N. giving some kind of a Senate testimony and I don’t remember exactly what he said but I just remember thinking that wow this is really next level stuff at least so it was to my seventeen year old brain. It was the first time I had you know any awareness of how entrepreneurs’ and technology really shape culture and shape humanity. And I had realized before reading the book that A.O.L. took about a decade to really get attraction so it was fascinating to read those stories with the perseverance that they used to get there and that is going to be critical in the third wave. And I think Steve’s theories about the third wave make a ton of sense thanks to having infrastructure we have a good, we had like a good decade or so where our world was reinvented by software very rapidly but now there are some really big challenges and in changing really slower moving industries and even if you’re so pretty more like me you know if you’re an employee for life even if you don’t have interest in disrupting entrenched industries through you know V.C. scale companies and such it’s important to think about these larger trends and how they affect the world around you and how they affect your relevance in that world. It was a huge honour to interview Steve Case he was one of those big guest that I didn’t want to tell you about until I had it recorded but you know here it is things are really picking up here at love your work by the way on our twenty fifth episode I guess that’s our silver episode I have Jeff going’s author of The Art of War coming up and Tucker Max from booking a box coming up soon so. Subscribe on iTunes so you don’t miss those and while you’re at it write a review. And here is Steve Case. This episode is brought to you by treehouse take your career to the next level learn from over one thousand videos created by experts teachers on web design, coding, business and much more practice what you’ve learned through quizzes and interactive KO challenges claim your fourteen day free trial at Kadavy.net/treehouse you’ll be supporting the show.
And here is Steve Case the former C.E.O. of A.O.L. and the author of The Third Wave. Steve Can you tell us what the third wave is?
Steve Case 4:58: well the third wave really is the next wave of innovation around the Internet and around technology and how it will impact our lives and there’s opportunities that is really going to disrupt the big industries of the economy but just to set it up just as as a backdrop the first wave of the Internet was really building it and getting everybody connected to it kind of building beyond RAM’s when we started A.O.L. for example in 1985 so thirty-one years ago only three percent of people were connected and only connect to one hour a week. So you know getting America online getting the world online was really the work of A.O.L., many other companies in that first wave you know went from got to 1985 nobody was connected to 2000 everybody was connected which then kind of set the path for the second wave was the last fifteen years or so which is really been building apps and services on top of the Internet so it’s sort of like Google Apps like you know Twitter and Facebook and ways and snapchat and so forth those are really been the apple Centre of innovation has been in the second wave and that was kind of opportunities will continue but you know third wave really will start integrating the Internet and things like healthcare and education and transportation and energy and even food and in a way that will really you know create big opportunities for the innovators and challenge some of the incumbents but there is no road a book I think this third wave will require a different mind set and require a different playbook than the the the second wave did.
David Kadavy 6:31: So back in 1996 when I was a high school kid in Nebraska, tying up the phone line using dial up getting on A.O.L. and getting e-mails from the mayor of A.O.L. Steve Case that was the first wave.
Steve Case 6:48: Correct correct, We were we were just trying to you know although I know it sounds a little crazy now, even people listening to this because the Internet is now kind of part of everyday life. You know we witness the early days there’s just a lot of work to get to stand up to you know a lot of how do you build networks and software and the servers and create the content and drive the adoption of it knows that at first wave it was mostly about P.C.’s mostly about people connecting through phone lines as you mentioned and you know it was a lot of work to really make that happen I used to joke that A.O.L. was sort of a ten year in the making overnight success one time we really you know kind of were visible in the mid ninety’s people thought we came out of nowhere but in reality we’ve been working at it for a decade kind of build the you know build the company and build the the Internet is really a platform.
David Kadavy 7:39: Yeah and that was something that I noticed in your book which is I hadn’t realized how much work and how much perseverance It took for you to make A.O.L happen I mean you started like you said in 1985, think you were in fourth quantum computing services. Something else…
Steve Case 7:57: we started in 1985 so we didn’t have much venture capital we were only able to raise about a million dollars of venture capital we decided to partner with other companies so we created centrally private label or white label services where Commodore and Apple ball and Tandy and and I.B.M. and it wasn’t till about 1990 that we really launched America Online which became A.O.L a sort of our own you know service and so those first five years or so it really was just a lot of blocking and tackling to form these partnerships and launch these services really leveraging other people’s brands other people’s distribution and then we were able to stand on our own two feet and with with America Online and when we launched that in you know around 1990.
David Kadavy 8:45: Oh sorry I thought that you were adding a number at the end of the 1990
Steve Case 8:51: That was the year we got it where we could watch that as it’s our own … independent brand but in retrospect the reason it took so long and that there really took a decade is it’s time I was doing I was in my mid twenty’s at the time so I just thought the idea was obvious everybody would get connected and yet it took us as a surprise it took so long it was such a slog but in retrospect it’s easier to see because back then most people didn’t have P.C.’s and most people that had P.C.’s didn’t have modems to connect most of the people who had modems and pc’s you know couldn’t afford the ten dollars an hour it often cost to be connected you know it was a kind of a hassle and hard to get connected and there wasn’t much to do when you did get connected so you know it just took us a decade to kind of make it easier to use a more useful and more fun and more affordable so it really was kind of ready for prime time ready for more of a mainstream you know kind of audience and that was one of the lessons I learned that, in that first wave sometimes revolutions happen in more evolutionary ways and sometimes you just need you know perseverance to stick with it because some of the some of these challenges on these opportunities are harder and take time and you kind of have to keep at it.
David Kadavy 10:02: Yeah I was amazed at some of the people that you were surrounded by for example the story about the fellow who was trying to start through Atari something where you could dial up and download games and play the games on the Atari through a phone line and this was in you know early eighty’s or something like that basically..
Steve Case 10:25: A very innovative you know basically go back then most of the Net P.C. is a lot of people who had those Atari game machines His idea was to create a sense of what looked like a game Atari game Hartree but it actually was a communications blog so you could plug it into your phone line and then be able to turn it into more of a two way terminal and be able to download games a little bit like Netflix is now for movies that way that’s what it really in vision thirty five years ago with this product called the you know game line so there are a lot of you know a lot of that and ended up not succeeding because just as that product was coming to market the interest in Atari games machine kind of plummeted so the company kind of was suddenly and kind of free for all. But that was an example of one of the pioneering attempts early on you know essentially create this digital age create this what we now think it was the Internet age by by figuring out ways to kind of enter the market with the devices that were popular at the time.
David Kadavy 11:19: I also really enjoyed the stories about making a well accessible. I mean you had like these different services that you would come up with before but it took many years to finally come up with this idea of America Online and having the voice of you know welcome you’ve got mail and and all of that and it sounded like you had learned a lot from working at Procter and Gamble and Pizza Hot before in terms of understanding how to make something approachable to a consumer can you talk about that a little bit.
Steve Case 11:51: Sure I think they’re both great experiences and I graduated from college in 1980 and at the time I actually wanted to pursue the Internet and read a book while I was in college by album Topher called The Third Wave same name as as my book I was really mesmerized by his vision for the future essentially outlining back then what we now think of as the internet but when I graduated 1980 there really weren’t any Internet companies to go to and there wasn’t much of a startup culture back then so that’s why I decided to work for some big companies for a while so I worked for a couple years at Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati and then for a year at Pizza which at the time was a division of the Pepsi Co I learned a lot of both companies and I was there a short time one of the things i did learn at P and G was was how they used market research to really understand consumer preferences and how they also used things like sampling of products to get people to try the products so if you know they’re launching a new shampoo for example and have little packets of shampoo that they might bundle with newspapers or send you by mail and that inspired us years later when we were trying to accelerate the growth of A.O.L we distribute free trial disk to make it easy for people to you know try the service so with time that was a lesson I learnt from P and G and one lesson I learned from pizza was how do you keep things simple and focus on convenience so that they really were focused on trying to be kind of a mainstream brand like get something like five thousand pizza at a time most of the chefs were sixteen/seventeen year old kids who didn’t have a lot of experience, culinary skills it was a how do you make create things that they could be distributed broadly and available broadly. So there are different lessons and one thing we focused back then on again is the early eighty’s a pizza was focused time on delivery of course now most of the pizza places do have delivery but back then it was sort of a nobel new concept so the convenience and that simplicity the pizza focused on the, sampling the marketing efforts and the P and G focused on were helpful as I then moved on to my entrepreneurial journey as a as a co-founder of A.O.L. few years later in 1985.
David Kadavy 14:02: So this is a little bit of a tangent I’m very curious you were director of new pizza development correct right. And so were there examples of pizza ideas that you came up with that you had trouble getting the last trains employees to be able to actually execute?
Steve Case 14:20: There is a part of what I was doing was because we believe that the innovation wasn’t just going to be in our test kitchen which happened to be in Wichita Kansas but there were were you know tens of thousands of independent pizza places all around the country and some of them likely had some innovative products so I thought should we hit the road or learn from what’s happening out there so I spell out time travel around. I often would find something that in a particular city was interesting but then to figure out a way to replicate that in five thousand places with untrained chefs, You know was definitely a challenge and so most of the things that we thought were good ideas ended up not really fitting with the you know the Pizza Hot model.
David Kadavy 15:03: Its so interesting so you know you building the first wave, if I can credit you with that I know there are other people involved but I mean you would have to argue that you had a pretty big influence and that you were using the skills that you had from working in these larger organisations, working at scale, working on making products approachable to consumers and you know once that first wave was over it just like opened up the floodgates for the second wave where now, you’ve got people starting companies in their dorm rooms and having multi-million dollar valuations practically overnight and such but now that you’ve got that infrastructure, you’ve got more people, everybody is on the Internet and that second wave has come. Now it’s going to be the hard slog again a little bit in this third wave it sounds like…
Steve Case 15:56: Yeah, and yeah I think there are, first of all there were a lot of people who were part of that first wave and contributed to making the App both within A.O.L. as well as many other companies that were critically parts of that. Really hundreds of companies were part of that first wave and that’s why partnership is all important. And you know the second wave there were a lot of overnight successes like you know the see a kind of dorm room start up of a Facebook or a snapchat that’s not to say that wasn’t challenging them or in some cases it was you know a longer slog but there were certainly many examples of overnight successes in the second wave and I do think that will be rare in the third wave I think if you’re really trying to revolutionize a sector like health care, it’s not just about the app, it’s also about how you integrate that technology and you know hospitals and if you really want to change you know kind of education, it’s not just about you know the kind of learning you can do on your tablet it’s also about how you work with teachers in classrooms to create a more active, engaged, personalized, adaptive approach to learning that’s really more for each kid betting on their learning preferences and styles and so forth so I think it’s going to require more perseverance, I think it’s going to require more partnerships and it’s going to require more engagement on policy what I call the book the three piece because most of these sectors are regulated and to dealing with the regulations even if though it’s challenging and frustrating and sometimes for innovators is going to become much more important so I just think that’s why I decided to write the book I think that the mindset and the playbook needs to be different from the you know in the Third Wave different from the second wave but have some similarities to the first wave. Those three P’s around partnership and policy and perseverance really were critical in the first wave not as critical in the second wave, it will be critical again in the third wave.
David Kadavy 17:47: Now I can’t help but think, as I think about trying to create innovation in healthcare and education in food that some of those industries are very entrenched. There’s maybe, or government for example as well that it just can be really hard to get them to cooperate. There’s to be cultural clash if you’re an entrepreneur trying to play nice with…
Steve Case 18:14: That’s true. It’s going to be hard there will be a culture clash it will be frustrating but I think the successful innovators in the Third Wave will figure that out. By the way it’s going to require you know both sides, the dance in part of my argument of the book is you know the entrepreneurs of startups will need to figure out ways to partner with the larger organizations and the companies or non-profits or or what have you to really have significant impact in these in the sectors. But it’s also incumbent on the larger companies to partner with the entrepreneurs a lot of innovations are going to happen outside their companies outside their you know their industries and they need to understand that, and they need to be the companies that are there are successful now well will continue to be successful only if they adopt a new strategy around innovation and try to build almost a network around their company recognizing that while they ensure having smart people working for him, a lot more smart people aren’t working for him, they’re working for somebody else and they need to figure out some way to tap into that energy in those ideas so that is I guess why partnership is going to be you know so critical in the third wave, it’s going to be critical for the entrepreneurs and it could be critical for the larger companies. The one’s that figure that out and do that, well I think will be the winners in the third wave that will require a little different skill set because the second wave was because it was mostly about the software mostly about the app, it was mostly about engineering and coding and that will continue to be important in the third wave but some of the people skills I think get to really build relationships to forge partnerships to engage with governments on policy issues and those skills will come more important as well in the third wave and what I really argue for is diverse change in the third wave to bring different perspectives, different world views, different competency, different credibility to really kind of you know give somebody ideas in the third wave real momentum and kind of left off.
David Kadavy 20:07: When you talk about partnerships I can’t help but think about a power, a story that was powerful to me in the book where you talked about that you went and rented up an apartment in San Francisco and visit the Apple campus every day for like six months to try to form a partnership with them right early before A.O.L. was A.O.L. Right?
Steve Case 20:32: Right. And yes we thought that Apple was a critical, you know kind of potential partner we identified them as the most important partner and said we are going to establish a partnership with Apple to create a joint service which we had it calling apple personal edition. That would be a game changer for our company and so even though we were based in Washington D.C. As you say I didn’t sense the move out and I didn’t think it was goi ng to be for six months you know, but it ended up being for six months. I showed up at Apple every day and kept talking to different groups and trying to you know kind of weasel my way into the company and figure out somebody there who could say yes that you know could agree to a partnership and you talk to different groups and some said no, many said no, but finally one said yes which is the customer support group and we agreed to create a service that would focus on providing online customer support there be more efficient to them than just people making phone calls to them. And in addition to that we had some other services. So that was you know we finally had a breakthrough we finally found a group within Apple that liked the idea and was willing to you know to partner with us but it took a lot of time and we just, I just flew out there for a couple days we never would have had that partnership required really making it a priority and sticking with it and persevering till finally we got somebody to say Yes.
David Kadavy 21:50: Were there any particular characteristics that you were able to define on how you could figure out who within the company was willing to play nice, and partner with you as you explore that might work in the third wave as well?
Steve Case 22:06: Sure I think there are a couple of agents that serve you know one was kind of going to school on the company and the different divisions and trying to understand what some of the challenges they’re dealing with were, some of the opportunities they might be interested might be. Kind of putting yourself in their shoes and trying to understand how they might be thinking and that then makes it easier to craft a patch around a partnership because it’s likelier to resonate with them if it’s in sync with their way their thinking and so you know required some research talking a bunch of people to try to understand what different groups might be you know motivated by interest and then to move by it. And the second was really the issue of persistence of just saying I’m not taking no for an answer and if somebody in some groups aid No ask him to introduce me to somebody else in some other group and you know eventually find a place that you know a person or group that was you know willing to you know say yes I think the first was kind of a little bit of a research aspect, little bit of an empathy aspect, a little bit of just kind of going to school understand how they might be different groups within a company, might be thinking and the other was kind of persevering and finally figured finding out some path to you know to a yes and those skills are going to become important and more important in the end of story wave because I don’t think it’s going to be easy if you have an idea for revolutionizing health care to you know get a meeting with the right person at the Cleveland Clinic or the United Health Group or other folks and you know it’s going to be hard and yet figure out some way to break in, some way to you know get some attention, get some notice, and get some you know build some credibility and I think it won’t be easy if you get in, it won’t be easy to form a partnership, it won’t be easy to execute against the partnership, won’t be easy to keep both sides happy. But you know if you have the right skill set and the right perseverance and your structure is something that can be a win win kind of relationship then you have a real shot.
David Kadavy 24:11: And I’ve got to wonder how did you get security clearance to wander around apple every day.
Steve Case 24:17: Well it was really two phases. The first phase, the first month or two I would just basically go there and register you know every day as a guest and you know somebody else I was you know trying to be based on you know some of what somebody had suggested and after a little while I think they got tired of that and so by accident I got to convince somebody to get me a consultant badge so I then could enter on my own and I you know kind of found an empty cubicle and sort of you know park myself there.
David Kadavy 24:47: wandered around the hallway.
Steve Case 24:49: And for a couple months you know a little bit wandering around the hallways. You know maybe I suspect the, like they know, the Apple security is much more intense these days but they were you know flexible a little more flexible back then.
David Kadavy 25:04: Yeah and it sounds like one of, you know like the killer app of A.O.L. was community that really getting, That’s one of the reasons why you succeeded over Compuserve or Prodigy, was A.O.L was approachable and you built a community there. And so it’s kind of like power to the people kind of thing. What sort of element might that sort of thing play in the third wave in getting these more entrenched industries to change?
Steve Case 25;36: Well I think there’s a group that I think, there are several aspects, I think the key thing we did better than most others back then was partnerships that we had hundreds of partnerships with medications companies, the hardware company and software companies, and content companies and commerce companies and you know a lot of different partnerships and we would not have been a success without the partnership is why I focus on that theme in the third wave the second was trying to make it really easy, we know the Internet back then was hard threatening and frustrating and expensive and a little scary and so we were really trying to kind of make it really easy to use and useful and fun and affordable but the third as you mentioned was way better earlier on, really on day one that the killer app on the internet was people. It was what we called community so we focused on things like people connection with the chat rooms and instant messaging which we created embodied of us which we created things that that were ways to people to stay connected to people they already knew friends family but also to connect to people they don’t know but would be interested in knowing cause they had some kind of shared interest around sports or stamps or whatever it might be and so that community focus really was sort of the heart and soul of our efforts at A.O.L. It turned out that really was the heart and soul of the internet, it was sort of you know was the killer app, it was almost the soul of the Internet, was was was was people interaction. You know we call that community it’s called social and social networks would be Facebook or others or are building on some of those ideas around people, those ideas around community. So you know it was really I think we broke through in part because of the partnerships in part because the focus on simplicity really making it ready for prime time in part because of the focus on people and community as well as in part because of the willingness to persevere and stick with it for you know really a decade before we finally broke through.
David Kadavy 27:28: And I have a few questions and we’re running out of time here. So I have a few questions that I kind of ask all the guests that I’d like to run through. But first off what’s the biggest compromise that you’ve had to make to get where you are.
Steve Case 27:42: Good question I think probably the biggest compromise was when we decided it made sense strategically to merge A.O.L with a larger company and we had it merging with Time Warner to enable that deal to go forward I agreed to step down as C.E.O. And so kind of stepping aside from the, you know from A.O.L and from you know something that I helped the birth. You know was you know kind of a compromise that was necessary in order for that merger to happen and we concluded that merger because A.O.L. had gone from a seventy million dollar value when we went public in 1992 to hundred sixty billion dollars value eight years later that it did make sense to emerge a larger company that would give us a more diversified mix of businesses so going to go was right strategically but it was a compromise in terms of you know my willingness to go to you know kind of step aside.
David Kadavy 28:35: And centre saying that kind of some of the problems that happened with that merger where people and maybe culture clashes and such and those are some of the very most difficult impediments in the third wave as well.
Steve Case 28:50: Oh absolutely that’s one of the lessons I learned obviously the hard way, and that’s why I devoted a probably the longest chapter in the book to some of the lessons learned around the merger which essentially as you say, it was around you know people and culture. The idea the merger made since the execution didn’t and I love this Thomas Edison. You know quote which I reference a lot which is “vision without execution is hallucination”. So it’s one thing to say as we did you know fifteen sixteen years ago announced the merger of A.O.L and Time Warner that we’re going to lead the way on digital music remember this is you know five plus years before Apple even launched the iPod and the digital music and it’s you know our company because A.O.L. was the largest Internet platform and Time Warner owned Time Warner Cable largest broadband system in and Warner Music the largest music company. How could that company not lead the wave and digital music but the reality is it didn’t because it was unable to work together, was unable to build bridges across those different divisions they really all operated autonomously and that wasn’t around people and culture and that lesson around the importance to not just have the idea not just have the vision but have the execution which requires the right people in the right places working together in the right ways is one of the key lessons and I think it’s going to become more critical in the in the third wave. These are tough challenges, some of the sectors that are ripe for disruption and It’s why it’s going to require this different mindset.
David Kadavy 30:11: And in the, from the Department of non sequiturs do you make your bed?
Steve Case 30:19: Do I make my bed.
David Kadavy 30:20: Yeah.
Steve Case 30:21: Oh right I’m in a hotel room and it’s on maid so I guess the answer, sometimes I do and sometimes I do not.
David Kadavy 30:27: OK it’s not a ritual for you. That’s some sort of a habit that you have. Now do you have a final message for any of our listeners?
Steve Case 30:36: I think my the closing message would be I think this third wave you know creates all kinds of interesting opportunities but also it’s going to create some challenges S.-S. Not just true for companies, that’s true for each of us as individuals, each of us as citizens even the nature of work itself has changed alot there’s some research success. Thirty four percent of people now feel like they’re part of the freelance economy and so as you think about this third wave, it’s not just about what the technology might enable or what some of the entrepreneurs and big you know there are a part of you know kind of well funded startups might be focusing on what some of the big companies incumbents might be focused on is how each of us as individuals you know kind of chooses to live our lives and going to pursue our dreams and I was inspired when I read that album Top their book that third wave when I was a senior in college in 1980 I just hope others out there might be similarly inspired to think about the future in a different way by reading my you know my book the you know the third wave because the hope here as in the goal of it was not just to write a book for entrepreneurs or even for business people but for people who just want to have a sense of where the world was going and have a little bit more about more clarity regarding what options they might have been and hopefully, you know take some of that inside, take some of that you know understanding to make a different set of decisions that will position them better for the next ten or twenty years and also position their families to be better off ten or twenty years from now.
David Kadavy 32:06: And for all those listeners out there for whom your message resonates which I’m sure there will be many where can they find more of you in your message?
Steve Case 32:14: Well we do have a site about the book called Third Wave Book.com and there’s several other sites that are available one is Revolution.com which is our investment company, another is Case Foundation.org which talks about our phone tropic work and getting around entrepreneurship and finally we have a site called Rise of rest.com We believe one of the great opportunities in the third wave is regional entrepreneurship but you know they are actually not going to just be in places like Silicon Valley in New York City it could be all across the country indeed all across the world so far we have a whole initiative around we call rise of rest to support entrepreneurs and you know all across the country and cities that are really showing remarkable, you know momentum around and around start ups.
David Kadavy 32:56: Thank you so much for coming on and talking about the third wave today and also before you go I have to sincerely thank you so much for starting A.O.L. and getting me on the Internet and I’m sure this is true for so many people out there for as an isolated kid in Nebraska to be able to connect with people all over the world and to make my first web page and all these things it was really powerful for me.
Steve Case 33:18: Let’s grab it to our goal, there was to kind of level the playing field so everybody you know had access it was sort of what we call that democratizing access to information and by making the internet available everywhere now our focus is really democratizing access to entrepreneurship and opportunity and putting initiatives like the rise of rest in places like Nebraska like Lincolnor so I mean great momentum but it’s our place like the mall in Madison and Detroit and Nashville and many other you know Richmond Charles to many great great cities in this country are building up as entrepreneurial zones and that’s going to accelerate as this rest rises and accelerate as the third wave breaks.
David Kadavy 33:53: Well you know actually because of that infrastructure is there I’m able to make this call to you from Colombia. South America right now.
Steve Case 34:02: That’s exactly the point that you know you started in Nebraska and connected through you know relatively slow dial up now you are able to connect to all over the world and now you’re already kind of able to certainly be your own media brand because that opportunity was enabled by the Internet.
David Kadavy 34:23: Great thanks so much. Do you ever buy anything from Amazon. If you do I think you might want to take the love your work listener survey. I want to hear what you think about the show and I’m giving away an Amazon gift card to one lucky respondent maybe it’s going to be you. The survey is only four questions long you take the survey at Kadavy.net/survey do it before 11:59seconds PM G.M.T. on Wednesday. May 18 2006, what am trying to say is before midnight on Wednesday May 18 G.M.T. time take the survey there for a chance to win the Amazon gift card that’s Kadavy.net/survey. Thank you and before I go I got to ask do you like books? If you do I love to send you my books recommendations about ninety percent of them will be nonfiction on subjects spanning from biographies to neuroscience just go to Kadavy.net/reading sign up and you’ll get my first set of book recommendations right away you’ll be supporting the show if you buy any of those books through the links in the email. This has been love your work and I’m David Kadavy the theme music for the show is seeing you performed by The Album Leaf courtesy of suburb records, love your work production, love Kadavy. Thank you.
