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PC Magazine - May 13, 2013 - On a windy Mother's Day under "Carolina-blue skies," former co-founder and CEO of AOL Steve Case stressed the importance of entrepreneurship to this year's graduating class of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Case highlighted what he calls the three P's: people, passion, and perseverance. The ability to succeed largely depends on the people you work with and for, he said. Passion is critical among those people, he explained, relaying his personal story of how, despite widespread doubt about the potential of the Internet at the beginning of the 90s, "there was something in the idea of a digital revolution that really captivated me." So with that passion, Case co-founded American Online at a time when only three percent of people were online, and for just one hour per week. But with thethird "P," perseverance, AOL grew from less than 200,000 customers in 1992 to more than 20 million customers by 2000.
Forbes - May 14, 2013 - One of the hardest things for emerging leaders to learn is how to let go. Steve Case, a founder of AOL AOL -1.47% and now CEO of an investment firm, was originally like that. He said he believed it was necessary for him not only to work hard but to appear that he was working hard, too. Fortunately a co-founder of AOL, Jim Kimsey, set him straight. “The objective,” as Case told Adam Bryant of the New York Times, “should not be looking busy, but actually creating a process that allows great things to happen in a way that you can be less involved.”
Daily Tar Heel - May 12, 2013 - In his address, Case presented his keys to success, crediting the accomplishments of AOLto what he calls the 3 P’s – people, passion and perseverance.“I hope you’ll remember those three key attributes,” he said. “And constantly reassess your own lives — and your own choices — to be sure you’re working with and for the best possible team of people, you’re rabidly passionate about whatever path you choose, and you have the perseverance to stick with it through the tough times so you can be there when things finally break through.”
UNC News - May 12, 2013 - Steve Case, co-founder of America Online and chair of the Case Foundation and chairman and CEO of Revolution, urged the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s newest graduates to be attackers, not defenders, as the new leaders of what always has been “a startup nation.” “The attackers are the people with bold, innovative ideas, who are trying to disrupt the status quo, and usher in a better way,” said Case. “We need to think out of the box, and be curious, and be willing to take risks.”
Financial Times - May 12, 2013 - Growing up in Atlanta, Ted Turner, the founder of cable news network CNN, was a huge influence. He revolutionised the television industry and ultimately the news business. Similarly, I will always admire Steve Case, the American businessman, for helping to connect people via the internet at America Online. AOL pioneered email and fundamentally changed the way people interact with one another and for the better in my view. It is truly a small world thanks to electronic mail and its offspring, social networking. Both Turner and Case also care deeply about public policy and have made their mark at the intersection of government and business. I admire that they have been able to be both successful in business and make a contribution to civil society.
The Herald Sun - May 12, 2013 - He made a big splash near the end of his speech when he asked the more than 35,000 people gathered in Kenan Stadium to stand for a photograph that he took then tweeted while still at the microphone. Case then asked everyone to retweet the photo using hashtag #UNC so it would travel around the world. “That way we can let our friends down the street at Duke know that UNC is taking over the world,” Case said. In a speech extolling the virtues of entrepreneurship, Case said he’s found that the world is divided into attackers and defenders.
Fast Company - May 9, 2013 - Looking back on it, Case says withdrawal from day-to-day managing was "perceived as arrogance or maybe indifference." If he would have focused on building relationships through the company, he says, he could have created more trust and more alignment. But back then, Case thought that building relationships would have undermined execution--though the opposite is true: company connectedness predicts success. That, Case says, is his core lesson: “you’ve got to focus on (people) to understand what’s going on, what the context is and make sure you get people aligned around the right priorities ... it came down to poor execution of what I thought was a good idea, and that was largely attributable to people and relationships and resentments and pride and egos.”
The Atlantic - May 7, 2013 - In November 2011, five days after Groupon went public in the largest Internet IPO sinceGoogle, I profiled a Washington, D.C., investment firm founded by Steve Case called Revolution. Case, the founder of America Online, told me that when he started the new firm in 2003, he wanted to get back to"attacking" legacy industries. When I profiled the company, I found that most of the "attack" strategies fit snugly in the category of "sharing." One year after he started Revolution, the firm had acquired a vacation-home sharing company. A few years later, it invested in and helped to build Zipcar, the largest car-sharing company in the U.S. It then backed LivingSocial, an online social commerce company whose explosive growth made it something like "the next Groupon."………. Today I spoke with Ted Leonsis, the co-CEO of Groupon and a partner at Revolution Growth, and Steve Griffith, the former CEO of Zipcar, at New York Ideas, a conference hosted by The Atlantic. I said that I saw the sharing economy as powered by two engines. The first, mobile accessthat encourages peer-to-peer sharing, will keep growing. The second, a weak...
Soapbox Cincinnati - May 7, 2013 - AOL Co-Founder Steve Case has a great perspective on the country's vast and varied startup world. Now chairman of Startup America and CEO of Revolution, a venture capital fund based in Washington, D.C., Case wrote a February blog post for the Wall Street Journal describing what he's dubbed the "rise of the rest." "I'm convinced that we’re beginning to see a regional 'rise of the rest' as cities like Washington D.C., Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, Raleigh, Cleveland, Detroit and many others experience unprecedented growth in startups," says Case.
MSNBC - May 5, 2013 - Immigration reform isn’t just a hot-button policy issue to AOL co-founder Steve Case–it’s “a global battle for talent,” he says. Now chairman and CEO of the venture capital firm Revolution, Case told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Friday that he’s optimistic about the chance of passage on Capitol Hill, and called this “the best environment for passing immigration reform we’ve had in a decade.”
New York Daily News - May 2, 2013 - The Milken Institute’s Global Conference wound down Wednesday night at the Beverly Hilton hotel, where power players including Michael Milken, Bill Gates, Tony Blair, AOL chairman Steve Case and L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had gathered for five days of panel discussions,performances and receptions designed to solve all the world’s problems.
MSNBC - May 3, 2013 - Now chairman and CEO of the venture capital firm Revolution, Case told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Friday that he’s optimistic about the chance of passage on Capitol Hill, and called this “the best environment for passing immigration reform we’ve had in a decade.