Steve Case Quotations

You have to get along with people, but you also have to recognize that the strength of a team is different people with different perspectives and different personalities.

It's stunning to me what kind of an impact even one person can have if they have the right passion, perspective and are able to align the interest of a great team.

My father and his brothers were all lawyers, so I think that the expectation was probably for me to grow up to be an attorney, but it never really fascinated me that much. I was more interested in building things.

I had an older brother who passed away recently, an older sister and a younger brother.

And so the idea was, well maybe you can take an Atari video game machine, where people plug in a game cartridge, and plug in a modem, and tie that into a telephone, and essentially turn that game in the machine into an interactive terminal.

I was not an outstanding student. I did a reasonable amount of work. I got generally good - pretty good grades, but I was not that passionate about getting straight A's.

For better or worse, that is true with any new innovation, certainly any new technological innovation. There's many good things that come out of it, but also some bad things. All you can do is try to maximize the good stuff and minimize the bad stuff.

Nowadays people seem to switch schools, either because they have to, and certain schools only serve certain grades, or because they move to a different place or have some particular interest, but I was in the same school for 13 years

If you're doing something new you've got to have a vision. You've got to have a perspective. You've got to have some north star you're aiming for, and you just believe somehow you'll get there, which kind of gets to the passion point.

I do think that a general liberal arts education is very important, particularly in an uncertain changing world

And I'd say one of the great lessons I've learned over the past couple of decades, from a management perspective, is that really when you come down to it, it really is all about people and all about leadership.

I think it took us nine years to get one million subscribers to AOL, and then in the next nine years we went from one million to 35 million.

So you have to force yourself out of a comfort zone and really try to figure out what are the key ingredients, the key skill sets, the key perspectives that are necessary, and then figure out a way to attract the very best people to fill those particular roles.

Most of the people who had PCs did not have modems and could not use those PCs as communicating devices. They really were using them for spreadsheets or word processing or storing recipes or playing games or what have you.

Five or ten years ago, when it was clear the Internet was becoming a mainstream phenomenon, it was equally clear that a lot of people were being left out and could be left behind

I continue to have a special pride and passion for AOL, and I strongly believe that AOL - once the leading Internet company in the world - can return to its past greatness

From a relatively early age I got interested in business

My father still is a lawyer, and my mom was a teacher and then later a career counselor

Nobody should have to be a systems integrator to make a convergence network work in their home

And what we did with this new company in 1985 is we did start focusing on PCs instead of video game machines, because we learned the hard lesson about bringing a product to market in a consumer world where it's very expensive to build a brand and get distribution and so forth.

One of the problems with computers, particularly for the older people, is they were befuddled by them, and the computers have gotten better. They have gotten easier to use. They have gotten less expensive. The software interfaces have made things a lot more accessible

I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii

So my degree was in political science, which I think was - the closest I could come to marketing is politics.

So we believed that strategic alliances and partnerships were critical, and we did that for five years.

We don't want to turn the TV into a computer.

I enjoyed high school and college, and I think I learned a lot, but that was not really my focus. My focus was on trying to figure out what businesses to start

lead the convergence of the media, entertainment, communications and Internet industries.

So I think relatively early on I probably was on a path to be more of an entrepreneur, and I think everybody in my family kind of sensed that.

From a pure technical standpoint, it does look like Microsoft may win this one,

Jon's hiring represents an important step forward for America Online and the entire company,

I strongly believe that AOL - once the leading Internet company in the world - can return to its past greatness. Over the past few months, I have been pleased to see a renewed focus on AOL at Time Warner, and the emergence of so many strategic alternatives.

Over the past twenty years, innovative entrepreneurs have been working to build a new class of companies that strive to do good as well as doing well. The success of companies like Whole Foods has demonstrated that ideas that once seemed on the margins are now becoming mainstream -- as consumers strive to make better choices, seek to do business with companies they respect, and buy products and services that promote a more balanced and sustainable lifestyle.

I think it's now clear to everybody the Internet has arrived and everybody is talking about how to reinvent their businesses to take advantage of e-commerce, ... While many companies talk about this opportunity, no company is better positioned to take advantage of this situation than AOL.

When I saw it, I really thought it could be more of a lifestyle brand, much like Nike.

We've learned the market functions a little differently in Europe.

We share with Sun a vision for the future in which consumers will be able to access America Online brands anywhere, at any time, and from any device, and we believe that with this alliance, we can make this happen more quickly.

We are highly confident we will get all the necessary approvals to close this deal in the fall.

We regret the inconvenience this may have caused our customers, and we will work to ensure that the problem does not reoccur,

We want to take it from a place in Arizona to a resort destination in many locations. Urban wellness centers in even more locations and a whole variety of products and services, so that it is a part of everyday life, not just a part of something you do once or twice a year.

Couple that with their distribution (OS) muscle, then Netscape clearly has an uphill battle.

We do not intend to limit content diversity on any of our systems. If we limit content, if we do not promote a diversity of voices ... then consumers will waste no time migrating to other Internet and media services.

And when I was 24, I think, I moved to Washington, D.C., and started focusing on interactive services, and that's really what I then did for 20 years.

We don't want to suddenly mess around with people's normal viewing habits and force them to do interactive things. Above all, we want to expand the viewer's experience, either through a very simple directory or by providing additional information to the program that's currently showing.

We all share the goal of protecting children. Unfortunately, Congress passed this law without understanding the many technological tools available and under development that empower parents, rather than the government, to determine what their children receive on the Internet.

Coca-Cola's legacy dates back more than a hundred years, whereas the AOL brand is barely a decade old, but today Coca-Cola and AOL are two of the most recognized and powerful consumer brands in the world, ... We look forward to helping Coca-Cola use the online medium to extend its legacy into this new Internet century.

This has been a record-breaking year for America Online, and we finished on a strong note with this quarter's performance, ... Just four years after becoming the only Internet company with $1 billion in annual revenues, we are now posting $1 billion in annual profits.

Our expanding membership and surging usage confirm that consumers want the content, services, features and ease of use that are uniquely AOL,

There's no question that we're on the eve of an explosion in consumers' move to wireless and how they use interactive devices.

In some cases it's just a phrase, but in some cases it's extensive, ... You try to keep the idea but change the wording around; the writing becomes horrifically bad.

In some cases it's just a phrase, but in some cases it's extensive. You try to keep the idea but change the wording around; the writing becomes horrifically bad.

As we strive to build Revolution into an iconic brand like Virgin, one that stands for the build-to-last values of a company like Berkshire Hathaway, we need a first-rate communications executive and are delighted to welcome Brad.

By acquiring Netscape and working with Sun to provide winning e-commerce solutions, we will be able to both broaden and deepen our relationships with business partners who need this additional level of infrastructure support, and to provide more value and convenience for Internet consumers,

After graduating from high school I went to college in Massachusetts - Williams College, a small liberal arts school which I really enjoyed.

The bottom line is despite this tragedy and the resulting economic affects our unique mix of assets give us confidence that we can generate strong earnings growth next year and into the future.

It's still a problem, and there's always going to be some divide when there's some economic disparity or technological disparity.

We went from one million to 20 million subscribers in the past five years. That's great, but a billion people watch CNN.

It's about building partnerships. If we view this industry as just about AOL, phones, PCs, and TVs, we'll be in trouble.

It's another avenue that students have to get out and meet other people, and get away from the normal academic environment.

I believe an independent AOL would move more quickly and create more value for shareholders.

Car-sharing is poised for explosive growth, as it enables consumers to save on the expense and hassle of car ownership, while reducing traffic and pollution.

You shouldn't focus on why you can't do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.

In the end, a vision without the ability to execute it is probably a hallucination.

All great ideas start as weird ideas. What now seems obvious, early on, is not obvious to anybody.

I was a better builder than a manager. I'd rather focus on maximizing the opportunities swinging for the fences than minimizing the risk with bunts and singles.

You can be entrepreneurial even if you don’t want to be in business. You can be a social entrepreneur focused on the not-for-profit sector. You can be an agriculture entrepreneur if you want to change how people think about farming. You can be a policy entrepreneur if you want to go into government. The idea of an entrepreneur is really thinking out of the box and taking risks and stepping up to major challenges.

You're not just trying to do something marginally, incrementally better. You're doing something that is a fundamental paradigm shift, that will have exponential impact. That means it's harder to do, but ultimately, if it's successful, the impact it has is far greater.

It's not about how to get started; it's about how to get noticed.

Frankly, I like new things. I feel like I made a contribution to building a more interactive world. And I'm proud of that.

I like ... what I characterize as more built-to-last ideas rather than built-to-flip ideas.

It's silly for me to raise expectations too much, but I think I'm right on the basic trend, which is shifting power to consumers.

I think what people love about the Steve Jobs story is not just the track record at Apple, but that comeback story, that he was thrown out of Apple, came back and built the company even greater. And that perseverance is so important in terms of entrepreneurship. And nobody is a better role model for that, for all entrepreneurs all over the world than Steve Jobs.

If you can build a company and make money, great. But eventually, my intention is to give all my money away. I told my kids that. [Wealth] is not particularly helpful to kids. It's almost a burden. It's better to allow them to do their own thing and have their own successes.

If you believe that some day it's going to happen, some day it probably will happen. You just have to make sure you're there when it's happening, and ideally you're at the front of the parade, and the principle beneficiary of when it happens.

One of the biggest challenges we had in the first decade was not that many people had personal computers. There weren't that many people to sell to, and it was hard to identify them.

There are lots of cycles to markets - boom and bust - and also in perceptions of people. The conventional wisdom of Steve Case as genius or fool was highly cyclical. The truth was always in the middle.

If you really got the right people, and you've got them working together as a team, whether it's in business, whether it's in science, whether it's in politics, you can make a big difference.

I think the support of the other team at AOL and everybody's really shared passion and belief about this and - saying that some day everybody was going to be on line.

Think about this: It was illegal for most people to connect to the internet before 1992.

At AOL, we thought the killer app was people

Steve Jobs always believed that you didn't want to do focus groups or research and ask people what they wanted. You wanted to create products that they didn't know they wanted yet and they would fall in love with. And I think that was part of the magic of his design philosophy.

In the entrepreneurial world, when you launch a company, you have a particular idea, a particular product, a particular service, almost always you pivot, you shift. The market reacts to your initial idea. You make some adjustments. It's only after making a few adjustments that you see the success.

Bill sees and understands the possibilities of a connected world and has the expertise and the experience to help make it a reality, ... As more and more consumers want to take their connectivity with them beyond the desktop, Bill's vision will be critical in charting the company's future course and delivering on the promise of AOL Anywhere.

When I was trying to popularize the concept of the Internet - ten or 15 years ago - I came up with this concept of "the 5 Cs." Services needed to have content, context, community, commerce, and connectivity. After that, when I was trying to think of what the key management principles were to build into the culture, I started talking about the Ps. The P's were things like passion, perseverance, perspective and people. I think the people aspect is really the most important one.

In less than a year Revolution has gone from being a concept to a reality, with three rapidly growing sector companies, overseeing a dozen acquired firms that collectively employ more than 2,500 people. But we're just scratching the surface in terms of the potential to build Revolution into a new kind of company that gives consumers more choice, control and convenience in the important aspects of their lives.

We need that same mentality in philanthropy, trying things, taking risks, recognizing the first try, maybe the second try, maybe the third try won't work. But if you stay at it and you're learning, you're talking to others, and you're learning together, eventually you'll break through and see the kind of impact you were hoping for.

I'm not sure I knew what an entrepreneur was when I was ten, but I knew that starting little businesses and trying to sell greeting cards or newspapers door-to-door or just vending machine kind of thing is.. there's just something very intriguing to me about that.

We lose money on signing up the customers where there's some marketing costs associated with giving them a free month. It doesn't much matter whether you make a little bit or lose a little bit.. as you well know, because you lose a ton on every copy of The Washington Post (newspaper).

At Revolution Health Group we will put consumers back at the center of the system by giving them more choice, control and convenience.. while building the first comprehensive, consumer-driven health care company.

I'm probably never going to be satisfied with anything we do. I think there's always the possibility of doing better. And I'd say we're doing better than we were a year ago, in terms of delivery and quality of service, but nowhere near what we should be doing .

I do think actually in this case the government does get credit for funding some of the basic research.

Keep your eye on the prize and focus on your mission. Remember what you’re trying to do, what your value is, why it’s important, and at the same time, change course and direction. If the market’s telling you different things how are you going to adjust to that?

The resources you happen to accumulate, what do you do with them? You can spend the money and buy some houses or whatever, and people do some of that and that's fine. You can give the money to other people, your family, but usually when you do that you screw them up and it ends up counterproductive. Or, you take those resources and reinvest them in things that you believe in, and that could be reinvesting in a philanthropic cause.

Because I do think - not just in building AOL - but just the world in which we live is a very confusing, rapidly changing world where technology has accelerated.

The only way to continue to have a robust economy is to out-innovate other nations.

What I have figured out is that I can predict the future. I just can't predict when.

The pace of change and the threat of disruption creates tremendous opportunities...

It's stunning to me what kind of an impact even one person can have

If you don't have both of them working together in a complementary, cohesive way, you're not going to be successful.

Today, National Geographic has a membership side with a magazine and some television side, and they generate about a billion dollars in revenue, and they're profitable. And so at the end of the year they have some bottom line profit which they can then reinvest, because they're running it as a not-for-profit in charitable endeavors.

The real magic in National Geographic isn't how much money they have left at the end of the year. It's the fact that through their overall focus they are reaching hundreds of millions of people and educating people about the world. It just happens to be done in a business-oriented kind of way that is more sustainable.