0:02

This is mesters in business

0:04

with very results, on Bloomberg

0:06

radio this

0:09

week on the podcast. What can I say?

0:11

Another great conversation with an

0:14

extra special guest, Steve

0:16

Case. It really is legendary

0:18

in everything from

0:21

putting America Online, full

0:23

pun intended, uh, to being

0:26

the first Internet company to go public,

0:28

the largest merger in history with a l

0:31

Time Warner. And you would think

0:33

that's enough of a resume, but he didn't stop

0:35

there. Uh. He basically

0:38

set up a foundation, joined

0:40

the giving pledge and became very active

0:42

in both policy and entrepreneurship.

0:46

Revolution is the

0:48

outgrowth of his family office

0:50

that does everything from seed

0:52

to venture to growth

0:55

investing. Uh. He was instrumental

0:57

in getting a number of very positive

1:00

policy actions passed

1:02

over the past decade, and now

1:04

he is taking his act on the road

1:07

and revealing too much

1:09

of America, how much energy and entrepreneurship

1:11

there is away from the big

1:14

money centers like New York and San Francisco,

1:16

in the heartland of America, and his

1:18

new book rise with the rest describes

1:21

that experience. I found this

1:23

conversation to be fascinating and if you are at

1:25

all interested in technology,

1:28

venture, startups entrepreneurship, I

1:30

suspect you will also so, with

1:32

no further ADO, my conversation

1:35

with Steve Case. I've interviewed a number

1:37

of people from revolution. I've spoken

1:39

to your wife about the case foundation. But

1:42

let's talk about your background.

1:44

Your your entrepreneurial career really

1:47

begins in when you co

1:49

found America Online, which

1:51

turned out to be the first Internet company

1:54

to go public. Uh, tell us

1:56

a little bit about the founding of a

1:58

o L. where did this idea come from and what

2:00

was that experience like? Well,

2:02

it was an interesting journey. I actually

2:05

stumbled onto the idea the Internet in

2:07

U Nineteen seventy.

2:09

I was a senior in college. I

2:11

was hearing about these things called video

2:13

tex and teletext, interactive TV,

2:16

and the thing in Minitel in France and Prestel

2:18

and UK, all these interactive service I

2:20

was really intrigued and I read a book by Alvin

2:23

Toffler, the futurists called the third

2:25

wave, and he basically was talking about

2:27

this coming kind of electronic frontier,

2:29

electronic cottage, and I was I was smitten,

2:31

I was mesmerized. So I knew I wanted to do that. When

2:33

I graduated from college in Nineteen Eighty. UH,

2:36

there were no internet companies to go to work for because it

2:38

was more of an idea. Uh, and venture

2:41

capital's back then weren't backing, you know, twenty

2:43

one year olds coming out of college. So

2:45

I decided to work for some big companies, for all, procter

2:47

and gamble and then Pepsico. Then moved

2:49

to the Washington D C area to join a startup

2:52

that failed, but thankfully two

2:54

of the people I met there, Jim Kimsey and Mark

2:56

Saraff and I co founded America Online

2:58

in the in the in

3:01

the back then only three percent of people

3:03

are online and those three percent we're

3:05

only on an hour a week. So it's

3:07

still pretty early days in terms of the Internet.

3:09

But really believe that someday the Internet would be

3:12

pervasive, that it would be a mainstream phenomenon,

3:14

and we set out to try to get America Online.

3:17

Yeah, this this Internet thing is going to be big one

3:19

day. I think. I think you you

3:21

were early in that assessment. So

3:23

I was going to ask you why such a

3:26

something, so fundamental block

3:28

and tackling is access. But really

3:30

the answer is there was no access back then,

3:33

or other than mainframes at universities

3:35

in the Department of Defense Very few

3:37

people in the real world had. Actually,

3:40

when we started, it was it was the

3:42

Internet was restricted to government agencies

3:44

and educational institutions. Actually was illegal

3:47

for businesses or consumers to be on

3:49

the Internet. In a few years

3:51

later, Congress passed the telecom actor

3:54

commercialize the Internet. Uh So,

3:56

when we were getting started we had to create sort of

3:58

this parallel world, our own kind of email

4:00

systems, our own, you know, kind of servers, because

4:02

we couldn't connect to the UH, the Internet.

4:04

But we knew it was only a matter of time before those

4:06

worlds would would blur together, merge

4:08

together. Uh. And in our early days we

4:10

really just tried to figure out, like many startups, how

4:13

to get noticed. They a lie. Was Frankly harder

4:15

because we were in the northern Virginia area

4:17

outside of Washington D C. There was no venture

4:19

capital, you know, there. We had to raise money from other

4:21

places. Uh. People would reluctant

4:24

to leave a big company to go to a small company.

4:27

There are a lot of challenges that we face. Frankly, helps

4:29

inspire some of the work we're now doing with the rise

4:31

of the rest. How do we back entrepreneurs and places

4:33

outside of Silicon Valley. I think my own

4:35

experience building a o l in in one

4:38

of those forgotten places, left behind

4:40

places that people don't think of as startup,

4:43

you know, kind of hubs, kind of helped inform

4:45

some of that that work and it and it took us a

4:47

while. The the eventually, in the mid

4:49

nineties, the Internet became more of a

4:51

mainstream phenomenon. Hit a tipping point, but

4:54

for the better part of a decade it was it was a struggle

4:56

or a couple of times we almost hit the wall. Had

4:58

to go through some layoffs. It was not obvious

5:01

to most people that the Internet would ever

5:03

be something more than a niche kind of hobbyist

5:05

kind of phenomenon. Even with public

5:09

it was uh, you know, we

5:11

raised a whopping ten million dollars

5:13

in our I P o. The value of the company that day was

5:16

seventy million dollars. Basically,

5:18

nobody knew or cared what we were doing. You know, nobody

5:20

really was that interested at the time and the Internet,

5:23

we had been at it for coming on a decade.

5:25

It had only a couple hundred thousand customers.

5:27

Uh. But thankfully the next decade things really

5:29

accelerated in terms of the growth of the

5:31

company and growth in the evaluation, things like

5:33

that. But it's also, I think, a lesson for me I

5:36

try to carry into the work we now do with revolution

5:38

that sometimes revolutions happen

5:40

in evolutionary ways. It's it's it's not

5:42

an overnight success. There's a a

5:45

slog before finally you build some momentum,

5:47

and that was my experience with the well, the first decade

5:49

was hard and slow. The second decade really

5:52

you know, things really took off. So was d c

5:54

just a coincidence of where you have to be

5:56

located, or was that lack of

5:59

Um legislative

6:01

permission part of the reason? You had

6:03

to locate close to Congress and push

6:06

that forward? So they

6:08

basically allowed the rest of us to get online.

6:11

Now the reason I moved to D C was more

6:13

of an accident. There was interesting

6:15

company. I thought it was interesting company. They joined

6:18

three that had a service called game

6:20

line and at the time you might recall

6:22

this, some of your listeners may not, but the very

6:25

few people had home computers, but a lot of people

6:27

had Atari game machines and so the idea of

6:29

this product, as you plugged the

6:31

game cartridge that had a communications

6:33

capability a modem built in and you could download

6:35

videogain's almost like having an in home arc, like

6:38

a Netflix for for videos. So it's a modem

6:40

and it looked like but

6:42

you also you had a ad a phone connection, and so I

6:44

thought this was a great way to kind of enter that world

6:46

that I've been reading about and wanting to get into.

6:49

But unfortunately, just as the product came to

6:51

market, the whole Atari game market

6:53

blew up and retailers didn't

6:56

want any new products and suddenly things

6:58

were looking pretty, pretty, pretty desperate.

7:01

So that but that's why I moved to the area and then because

7:03

I was already there and these two people I

7:05

mentioned were also part of that company. You

7:07

know, the three of us, you know, kind of CO founded America

7:09

Online brought some of the team from that previous

7:11

company with us. So it was accidental

7:14

to be there, but it turned out to be an

7:16

advantage because, as you say, one

7:18

of the things that we had to spend a lot of time in the early

7:20

days of the Internet was public policy,

7:23

getting the regulations right, commercializing

7:25

Internet, getting things right for e commerce,

7:27

trying to keep the Internet safe for kids, things like

7:29

that, and being in the in the WASHINGT

7:31

D C area proved to be important and, frankly, it's

7:33

proven to be important again now as we're investing,

7:36

because policy is becoming much more of

7:38

a front and center issue for more and more companies

7:40

and health tech, sports tech, food and egg

7:43

these are these are sectors where there's some regulations

7:45

and entrepreneurs need to understand that, investors

7:48

need to understand that. So I think we kind of have a

7:51

kind of bit of Home Court advantage being located

7:53

in Washington d C uh and having a front

7:55

row seat in terms of understanding how Congress

7:58

works. And you know, things happened, which I

8:00

think bodes well for this next phase of

8:02

innovation where policy is is much

8:04

more central. We're definitely going to talk

8:06

about the jobs act and some of the public

8:09

service you've done, but I want to

8:11

stick with a O. L

8:13

is the first Internet company to go public.

8:16

Subsequently runs up eleven thousand

8:18

six hundred and six. Not

8:20

Too Shabby. Tell us what your

8:22

experience was like being at the helm

8:24

of a company as it as it went public? Well,

8:27

the early days we're still a little slow, but

8:29

then finally in the ninety

8:32

seven, things really took off and our

8:35

growth dramatically accelerated. Went from

8:37

a couple hundred thousand customers to tens

8:39

of millions of customers at market. Kappa

8:41

mentioned when we went public of seventy million at a

8:44

peak. Eight years later a hundred sixty

8:46

billion dollars. So it really was

8:48

quite a ride. And we went from having less

8:51

than to our employees when we went public to eight

8:53

years later having ten thousand employees and

8:55

then we emerged with Time Warner or something. It was ninety

8:57

thousand employees. So it was it was quite a

9:00

you know, kind of a rocket ship and I recognized

9:02

as I the company was scaling, I

9:04

as the leader, as a CEO, needed

9:06

to constantly rethink what my job

9:08

should be, what I should focus on, constantly

9:11

re rejigger things with the team, building

9:13

the team for the business we'd have a couple of years

9:15

from now, not from the business we had today or certainly

9:17

the business we had in the in the past. So

9:20

it was it was a rapid pace

9:22

of of learning a lot in terms of

9:24

being a public company growing, you know, so

9:27

so rapidly, and also I recognized,

9:29

because a o well was at the time

9:31

the leader in the United States, that I had

9:33

a role to play in not just running

9:36

a company but being sort of an

9:38

evangelist for the medium and advocate

9:40

for the medium and try to weigh in

9:42

on policy issues to try to make

9:44

sure that the Internet really had a chance to

9:47

flourish. You mentioned the a well Time

9:49

Warner merger. At the time it was

9:51

the largest merger in history and

9:54

somehow you guys a o l

9:56

shareholders ended up with a majority

9:59

of the stock and the Time Warner was arguably

10:01

a much larger, more established company.

10:04

What was that process like of negotiations?

10:06

Did you approach them? Did they come to you? Tell

10:08

us how how that came about? Well, it came

10:11

about because a o L had been growing

10:13

rapidly and was a leader in what was

10:15

then called the dial up era,

10:17

the narrow band era, where you were connecting

10:19

your computers to phone lines. But we

10:21

needed a path to broadband and the

10:23

Best Path was cable system which had high

10:26

speed access. And so strategically

10:29

it was a real value in emerging with Time

10:31

Warner. And we also believed as the

10:33

Internet evolved and you had higher

10:35

speed, you have more multimedia content

10:37

and having some of the brands that the Warner Brothers

10:40

studios and Warner Music and CNN

10:42

and HBO and so forth, all part of

10:44

this company would would advantage us. And similarly,

10:47

Time Warner was a great company, been built through acquisitions

10:50

over more than half a century, but they didn't

10:52

really have a viable path to digital. They

10:54

were trying a bunch of things, none of them worked out

10:56

particularly well. So we both had a strategic

10:59

need to come to other and also, frankly,

11:01

from an all standpoint, are representing

11:03

our shareholders. We recognized there was

11:06

some value and diversification. Our stock

11:08

had run up quite significantly and owning

11:11

a share of

11:13

a business that had a more diversified mix

11:15

of things would make sense. So I did approach

11:17

Jerry Levin, as the it was the CEO of

11:20

Time Warner at the time, and basically said strategically,

11:22

I think it makes a lot of sense if we put these companies

11:24

together. We have an opportunity to really kind of lead

11:27

in the future and in a lot of different ways, streaming

11:29

and and and so forth. Um and

11:31

and within the first minute or two of my

11:34

my little pitch I said, and I'd

11:36

be willing to step aside a CEO to allow

11:38

you to be CEO The combined company, because I believe

11:40

in this, in this idea, and that's what happened. Eventually. It took

11:43

us a little while to put a deal together, but

11:45

we didn't finally took a little while to get it approved,

11:48

but finally it did get approved and I did step

11:50

down as a CEO. So there's

11:52

a theme I keep noticing, and lots

11:54

of the things you've done, whether it

11:56

was a well or the Time Warner merger,

11:59

and we'll talk about revolution in a

12:01

bit, but everything you seem

12:03

to do seems to be both innovative

12:05

and highly disruptive. Is this

12:08

by design? Was that just a happy

12:10

accident? Well, we're kind to

12:12

say that. I like to,

12:16

and I think a lot of entrepreneurs, to pick battles worth

12:18

fighting, kind of mountains worth climbing. You know, I

12:20

don't you know if it's easy. Uh, it's

12:22

not that interesting. And in fact,

12:25

what I get motivated by it. Again,

12:27

this is true with many entrepreneurs. If, as somebody says,

12:30

it can't be done, okay,

12:32

let's you know, game on, we're gonna yeah,

12:35

I I in the early days of the

12:37

Internet, people say it can't be done. The Internet was

12:39

never going to be a mainstream phenomenon.

12:41

A decade ago, when we started working on rise

12:44

arrest and said innovation is gonna happen all of the

12:46

country, not just in Silicon Valley. Most people

12:48

thought it was kind of laughable. They didn't think that was really

12:51

likely to happen. No, thankfully

12:53

some of those views are are changing. But

12:55

I think picking those challenges that that really,

12:58

I think, have a positive impact on in

13:00

the world and even though they are hard

13:02

and in most cases, maybe in

13:05

all cases, take ten, twenty years to

13:07

achieve your your your goal. Uh.

13:09

Those are the you know, the battles

13:12

I like fighting, really quite quite

13:14

intriguing. So let's talk about

13:16

revolution. What is it? How

13:18

did it begin? When did it start? Well,

13:20

began a few years after I stepped down

13:22

as CEO of a well and let's try. I figure

13:25

out what my next act was going to be

13:27

and rather than start a company

13:29

again, I thought I'd

13:31

start an investment firm that could back

13:33

the next generation of of of

13:35

entrepreneurs. Initially was

13:37

started in two thousand five

13:40

and it was called revolution, but it

13:42

was just my capital. UH, at

13:44

littlewer a decade ago we decided to open up

13:46

to outside capital. So we have institutional

13:48

investors across the platform. Now

13:51

we have, you know, kind of three basic groups.

13:54

One is revolution growth, which is our later

13:56

stage, you know fund. We

13:58

also have revolution ventures and

14:00

more recently, about five years ago, we launched

14:02

the rise of the rest seed funds. So now we're able

14:04

to back entrepreneurs at every stage of

14:06

their journey, whether it's really just a really

14:08

early stage where they just need to see the seed funding,

14:11

whether it's the next phase where they're starting to grow

14:14

in the adventure funding, or if they're really

14:16

starting to scale Um and need you

14:18

need growth funding. That's really what revolutions about.

14:20

And the other two things that make I think, interesting

14:22

versus maybe other firms in the country,

14:25

and we talked about a little bit earlier, but because

14:27

we're based in Washington D C and because we've

14:29

been working on policy issues for nearly

14:32

four decades and we think the next

14:34

wave of innovation policy is going to be

14:36

front and center and in Revolution

14:38

we're trying to position as the leading investment firm

14:40

in the country that's focused on on on policy.

14:43

And the second is I think we've been unusually

14:46

focused on place. With the rise of

14:48

the rest. We've now made two investments a hundred

14:50

different cities. We've done these bus tours all across

14:52

the country and even the reason I wrote

14:54

the book on rise the rest is there's remarkable

14:56

things happening all of their country, remarkable

14:59

new companies being built, cities being renewed

15:01

and revitalized, but most people

15:03

aren't paying attention to it and I really wanted to tell

15:05

those stories. And that's been a growing

15:07

focus of revolution to as investment

15:10

firm with outside investors at

15:12

the seed, venture and growth stage, but

15:14

with particular focus on policy and

15:16

on place. And we're going to talk

15:18

about place in a moment. But just to put this in

15:20

a little context, revolution

15:23

has already had some big successes. Sweet

15:25

Greens obviously a big hit. Draft

15:28

kings another one. Uh.

15:30

Do those date back to when it was a family

15:32

office or was that seed or

15:35

venture type investment? Those? Those are both

15:37

growth stage investments. So we were the first,

15:39

first institutional investors in in uh,

15:42

in sweet green, probably seven or eight years ago.

15:44

UH, draft kings probably five or six years

15:47

ago. Also clear that you know the biometric

15:49

company a lot of the

15:53

recently or recently company in Chicago

15:55

called tempests as used, has got a big data

15:58

precision medicine to help people who are diagnosed

16:00

with cancer. So your DC base,

16:02

which has to give you a slightly different perspective

16:05

from the folks in Silicon Valley.

16:07

Before we start talking about the rest of the

16:09

country, what advantages

16:11

do you find being at the heart

16:13

of the policy making apparatus in the United

16:15

States? Well, our office, the Revolution

16:18

Office, is a few blocks from the White House, not too far from

16:20

the Capitol, and just having

16:22

lived there now for a few decades and having a number

16:24

of people involved in the firm who have been steeped

16:27

in in policy work for government. One

16:30

of the CO founders of Revolution Fifteen

16:32

years ago as Ron Klain, who is now President

16:34

Biden's chief of staff, John Delaney,

16:37

joined us. Some more recently started two companies

16:39

went public. That was in Congress and ran for president.

16:41

So we've got some people that really understand

16:44

policy and we've got a location that I think

16:46

is interesting and, as I said, if

16:48

you think about the way I look at the Internet

16:51

is the first wave was getting

16:53

over online. We talked about those early days of

16:55

a well, went from an idea that nobody

16:57

cared about this suddenly everybody needed to be connect

17:00

and you had to, you know, build those on ramps,

17:02

build all those servers out, build all that infrastructure,

17:04

and that was the first twenty years or

17:06

so. The last twenty years has really

17:09

been the second wave, which has been about building

17:11

on top of the Internet, building APPs and software

17:13

and services on top of the Internet, facebook, Google,

17:16

things like that. The third wave

17:18

is when the Internet meets the real world and

17:20

that means you're starting to deal with some of the most important

17:23

aspects of our lives. How do we stay healthy?

17:25

What do we eat? How do we learn? How do we invest?

17:27

How do we move around in terms of transportation?

17:30

And what's interesting about those businesses,

17:32

uh, is they tend to be regulated, you know, because

17:35

they're so important there there tends to be

17:37

public policy focus on on those.

17:39

So innovators need to

17:41

understand it's a little bit different as in

17:43

this third wave, uh, and that understanding

17:46

the policy framework, both in terms of the go

17:48

to market strategy and also what policies

17:50

could get changed. The opened up, open up

17:52

new opportunities. That when some

17:55

of the health care legislation passed more in a decade

17:58

ago, that opened up things like to care

18:00

advantage. That created an enormous investment opportunities.

18:02

More recently, just the summer, there was legislation,

18:05

including around climates it's going to create

18:07

enormous opportunities to invest in that,

18:09

in that in that sector. We saw one of our companies,

18:12

draft kings, that we talked about earlier. There

18:14

was a change actually Supreme Court ruling that allowed

18:16

states to make different rules around, you

18:18

know, essentially betting. That opened up

18:20

a big opportunity and actually accelerated

18:23

the growth of draftings. So policy

18:25

can can you know, kind of be a strategic

18:27

advantage for companies in this third wave

18:29

and being in Washington, D C and having

18:31

that kind of connectivity, I think that

18:34

perspective in a lot of relationships with people

18:36

on both sides of the aisle, I think

18:38

gives revolution a unique platform

18:41

and we're able to help the entrepreneurs Rey

18:43

back in ways that other venture capitalists

18:45

typically can. So you grow up in Hawaii,

18:48

you end up relocating to D

18:51

c. What led to the idea?

18:54

Hey, there's a massive amount of

18:57

innovation and Energy and entrepreneurship

19:00

in between New York and Silicon

19:02

Valley. How did you find your way to saying

19:04

let's figure out a way to reach these folks, get

19:07

them funded and give them a boost

19:09

to launch their businesses? Well, the triggering event.

19:11

I was asked a little over a decade ago

19:13

to share a White House initiative

19:15

called Startup America Partnership. That

19:17

was, you know, launched with President

19:19

Obama, and that got me traveling around

19:21

the country because it was really trying to promote regional

19:24

entrepreneurship. This is at the time when unemployment

19:26

was high and there was a recognition that one way to deal

19:28

with that was to create new jobs and one way to

19:31

create new jobs to create new companies, uh,

19:33

and so that led to a focus on

19:35

regional entrepreneurship and as I

19:37

traveled more and looked at more of the data,

19:39

I found it surprising, almost shocking,

19:42

uh, that even though these new companies

19:44

are the major job Creator, uh, most

19:47

of the venture capital to back these new companies

19:49

is just in a few places. You know, of

19:52

venture capital over the last decade has gone to just

19:54

three states, California, New

19:57

York and Massachusetts. So it even

19:59

worse than three eight. It's really three cities,

20:01

San Francisco, New York and Bulls.

20:03

Yeah, within those states it's overwhelmingly

20:05

three cities, as you said. So as a result, a

20:08

lot of people in different parts of the country it felt like they

20:10

have to be there. If they if they're not there, they really

20:12

don't have a shot at raising the

20:14

capital they need to start our scale a company.

20:17

That's led to sort of a brain drain and lots of parts

20:19

of the country people kind of leave and and

20:21

and how do you slow that brain drain? How do you create

20:23

a boomerang of people returning? How do you create

20:26

more jobs in these communities

20:28

all around the country so there is more hope and

20:30

around the you know, the future? And

20:33

so that really led to launching about eight years

20:35

ago, rise the rest, which initially

20:37

started as bus tour we went to places

20:39

like Detroit and Pittsburgh and

20:41

and then we went, you know, Minneapolis, Denver,

20:44

you know, kind of you know, forty four cities

20:46

so far, really all over the country to

20:48

see firsthand what was happening there. And we did

20:50

this with a big red bus that got a lot

20:52

of attention and we had pitch competitions. We

20:55

invite in each city. We invited people to join us,

20:57

uh, and that gave us another, you know, kind of Lens

20:59

into what was happening. And then we really doubled down

21:01

about five years ago when we launched the rise

21:04

of the rest seat fund and we

21:06

decided to do things a little differently there rather

21:08

than the first few years it was just my capital.

21:11

But we decided to you know, kind of ask some of the

21:13

most prominent entrepreneurs and

21:15

investors in the country to join us as lps

21:18

in this fund. And so we have about thirty five

21:20

people, entrepreneurs like Jeff bezos

21:22

and Howard Schultz and, uh

21:24

Tory Birch and Sarah Blakeley and

21:27

and venture capitalists like John Dor

21:29

and Jim Bryer, and private equity

21:31

investors like Henry Kravis and

21:33

David Rubinstein, Hedge Fund people like, you

21:35

know, Ray Daly. A really an amazing group of it's

21:38

an amazing group of people. Are Honored to have them

21:41

as as our partners in this and we set

21:43

out to find these entrepreneurs and

21:45

and we said we're going to try to build a

21:47

fund that really can generate top tier

21:49

returns, which is the best way to drive more capital

21:52

from the coast to other parts of the country. And it's

21:54

working. And the reason to write the book,

21:56

Uh, is to really tell those stories

21:58

and and really kind of put some, you know,

22:00

a spotlight on some of these cities that are showing

22:02

remarkable momentum and some of these entrepreneurs

22:05

in those cities that we call the sort

22:07

of surprising places, that it's not Selcon Valley,

22:09

Not New York, and it's not Boston, it's

22:11

it's Richmond, Virginia, where a company like temperate

22:14

pack is for the innovative and sustainable

22:16

packaging, or Chattanooga, where

22:18

a company freight waves is doing some interesting

22:20

things. Interesting where in the Bloomberg offices

22:22

today for this they're building essentially a

22:24

Bloomberg data platform for the trucking and

22:26

logistics industry, because some of the biggest trucking

22:29

companies are based in in Chattanooga.

22:31

Or Company in Indianapolis called

22:33

one twenty water that's focused on helping

22:36

initially consumers, but then cities, you know, kind

22:38

of you test their water and make sure that after

22:40

the flat water crisis, there was a lot of concern

22:42

about that. Are In Baltimore, Maryland's company

22:44

catalyte using AI to identify

22:48

undiscovered kind of talent that people

22:50

have, for for coding, and some of the people

22:52

who have gone through this this program end up

22:54

making two or three times more than they had before.

22:56

I remember one the UPS truck driver. Nobody

22:59

when he was growing up told him he could be a coder.

23:01

He's kind of like to determine they

23:03

had a talented for coding until he's

23:05

making substantially more that he was making before.

23:07

So these are the kind of stories we're

23:09

seeing all across the country and cities that

23:11

that would surprise you and I think it's

23:14

the reason to write the book and I wanted to tell those stories.

23:16

I think most people reading the book will be surprised

23:18

by the story. Is surprised by the company, is surprised

23:20

by the cities and and have a have

23:23

a slightly more optimistic view of the future

23:25

of America because of what's bubbling all across the

23:27

country. So so tell us a little bit about

23:29

what these bus tours are like. When this

23:32

big red coach rolls

23:34

into a small town and says, okay,

23:37

we're gonna hold a bake

23:39

off for the best startup

23:42

technology, whatever it happens to be. What

23:45

is that like and what is the reaction

23:48

of the locals like to this? It's

23:50

very positive. I think for them it's a signal that

23:52

somebody's paying attention to signal that things

23:54

are, you know, turning up in terms of new

23:57

new possibilities. And we used the bus.

23:59

It's probably uh, you know,

24:01

kind of a visual a giant

24:04

get people's attention and you know, you remember a few years

24:06

ago, sixty minutes the story. I think it probably

24:08

that the optics of that, you know, sort of the

24:10

Americana Road trip bus dynamics,

24:13

is part of it, but there's a more strategic

24:15

reason for it. So we actually use the bus

24:17

as a rolling convening

24:20

platform. We bring people together from

24:22

different parts of the you know, the community. The mayor

24:24

often joined us, or a senator or the university

24:27

president or a CEOS of big companies, as

24:29

well as obviously the entrepreneurs starting

24:31

these these these these new companies, and we're

24:33

trying to connect people and create more

24:35

of a collaborative startup community

24:37

there. And we also invite people from other places

24:40

to join us, either investors from the coast

24:42

or people from larger companies

24:44

to join us on the bus so they can

24:46

see firsthand what's what's what's happening,

24:48

as well as obviously inviting media, about local

24:51

media and national media and as our

24:53

way to learn what's happening, identify promising

24:55

companies to to invest in, but also

24:58

to try to showcase the best of what each

25:00

of these cities and in the process if you take

25:02

a step back showcase the best of America,

25:05

not just what's happening on the coast, but what's

25:07

happening all across the country. I would

25:09

think that with all the focus on New York,

25:11

Boston and especially Silicon

25:13

Valley, there are some enormous inefficiencies

25:17

and lots of great ideas and

25:19

either underfunded or undervalued.

25:22

Startups in the in the heartlands, are

25:25

are being, or at least were being, neglected

25:27

until you shine a line on them. Yeah, and

25:29

it's as we still a lot of work to do, but it's starting

25:31

to change. I think the last few years people have seen

25:34

some real significant successes.

25:36

Even a company I write about in the book called

25:38

a male chimp based in Atlanta had

25:40

acquired for twelve billion dollars. It was actually

25:42

bootstrapped. There was no venture capital, in part because

25:45

they weren't able to raise venture capital and they started

25:47

more in a decade ago in Atlantic and

25:49

most people weren't really investing in cities

25:51

like uh like Atlanta. As investors

25:53

seem more and more of those success stories

25:56

in places all across the country. It's opened

25:58

their eyes to the potential and their starting

26:00

to pay more attention. They're still overwhelmingly

26:03

investing in their own backyards. If they're sitting

26:05

in San Francisco, most of their investments are in

26:07

Silicon Valley. But at least they're a little more open minded

26:09

about it and, frankly, the pandemic has been helpful.

26:12

On that show, you don't want to, you know, make

26:14

light of all the tragedies of the pandemic. overlining

26:17

force people to think outside of

26:20

listen. If you're stuck at home and you're

26:22

talking to an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter if they're

26:24

down the street or three thousand miles. Exactly

26:26

that, if you're doing a pitch meeting on zoom, what

26:28

differences that make where they are. That was that

26:30

was helpful. The other thing that's been helpful is for a

26:32

lot of people the pandemic was sort of

26:35

a opportunity to take a step

26:37

back and reassess their their lives, and

26:39

some people have decided to shift how they

26:41

live and how they work and where they live and where they

26:43

work, and the whole idea of more remote work, hybrid

26:46

work has become a real phenomenon

26:48

and that is helping these rise of the rest

26:50

cities that we've seen. Some people who grew

26:52

up in different parts of the country or went to you know

26:54

college and different parts of the country and

26:57

had gone to the coast, typically typically

26:59

Silicon Valley uh, decided, doing

27:01

the pandemic, to move back and once they're

27:03

there, even though they usually start working,

27:06

continuing to work for the company they had been working

27:08

for, just doing it remotely, they realized there's

27:10

remarkable things happening in the startup

27:12

communities in those cities and some of them are now

27:14

starting to leave those big companies to join some of

27:16

those small companies, some of them starting to think about

27:18

starting their own companies in these communities. So I

27:20

think the tipping point for the

27:22

rise of the rest really was with the pandemic

27:25

and we'll see an acceleration over

27:27

the next decade. And it goes back to what I said earlier. But for

27:29

me, these these these these these

27:31

journeys, these these battles I'm fighting, whether

27:34

it be the early days of the internet or, more

27:36

recently, leveling the playing field with

27:38

with rides. The rest have a certain,

27:40

you know, dynamic to them, which is the

27:42

first ten years it's a slog

27:45

uh, and the second ten years things really

27:47

kind of take off. We saw that with the Internet

27:49

we're beginning to see glimmers of that with

27:51

the rise of the rest. So hopefully this book

27:53

will help accelerate the whole movement.

27:55

So so let's talk about some of the cities

27:58

that you've gone to. After

28:01

New York, Boston and Silicon Valley,

28:04

Um, what is the next largest

28:06

tier? What do you think is the fastest growing

28:09

cities and what cities surprised

28:11

you the most? For whatever reason,

28:14

it happened to a car? That's a

28:16

tough question for two reasons. One is, uh,

28:18

it's not just a few cities, it's a few dozens

28:20

right, so it's hard. It's hard to just pick a few and the second

28:23

it's a little bit like asking apparent who

28:25

their favorite child is. You know,

28:31

that's what you say, but we know you have a favorite.

28:33

But so let me ask the easier question. What

28:36

surprised you the most when

28:38

you were out and about in a hundred different

28:40

cities? Well, each of the cities

28:42

there's something they're similar and some things they are different. What's

28:45

what's similar is what's happened is in the last

28:47

particularly decade, more

28:49

attention got focused on startups.

28:51

Even even the government leaders, mayors

28:54

and governors for decades economic

28:56

development was basically getting a big company

28:59

to move their headquarters, big company to open a

29:01

factory, and the recognition more recently

29:03

was no, the real way to do that in a sustainable,

29:05

efficient way is actually to launch new

29:08

companies, some of which would fail, because that's

29:10

the nature, but some of which would

29:12

succeed and be maybe the fortune companies

29:14

of tomorrow, and then kind of creating more of

29:16

that collaboration in the in the community.

29:18

More that sense of possibility in

29:21

the community has been a really

29:23

a key ingredient that we've been watching

29:26

building over this over the past

29:28

decade. But the other aspect I think is

29:30

interesting is there are some cities that

29:33

really it's not just a lower cost

29:35

of living or lower lower cost of operations,

29:37

which is which is a motivator for some, or

29:40

family reasons or lifestyle reasons to

29:42

be in a particular city, which is a motivator or some.

29:44

There are more and more cities where there really is an advantage

29:47

to be in those cities versus being in, say, San

29:49

Francisco or New York. Take could take healthcare,

29:51

but the healthcare really is going to require systems

29:53

level change really revolutionize how

29:55

we think about our our health that's

29:58

going to require partnership. Some

30:01

of the key partners you need in in

30:03

the healthcare space or big hospitals like

30:05

Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or Cleveland

30:07

Clinic in Ohio or Johns Hopkins

30:09

in Maryland or M D Anderson and Texas.

30:12

Being close to them probably increases your odds

30:14

of establishing partnerships with

30:16

them. So that dynamic is critical.

30:19

Another example is in a company we backed in

30:21

in northwest Arkansas, Fayetteville, called

30:23

Acre trader. Basically it's a

30:25

platform to invest in farmland and

30:28

the founder, Cardamola, actually was in

30:30

San Francisco and said if I'M gonna start

30:32

a company that's going to basically be this platform

30:34

for farmland, I should be where the farmers are. That's

30:36

a good way to build, you know, kind of trust and

30:38

and and scale up the platform, and he's done very

30:41

well raise a large

30:43

round or scaling quite rapidly. I am familiar

30:45

with Acre trader and had no idea that you guys

30:47

had anything to do with that and it's a wonderful rise

30:50

of the restory because again, even though

30:52

Carter Malla I had left that area

30:54

to go to San Francisco, he returned and

30:57

some of that. I'm sure it was for family reasons,

30:59

but most of it was for strategic reasons.

31:01

Acre trader is more successful in in

31:04

Arkansas than if it had been in, you know state,

31:06

in California or New York, and we're seeing that

31:08

happen and more and more of these these cities.

31:10

But in terms of the one city I would point

31:13

out because it's an amazing story, it's even

31:15

I lead off the book with it, is a story

31:17

of Detroit. You know, people don't really

31:19

focused on this, but if you think about Detroit

31:22

a hundred years ago, essentially was

31:24

Silicon Valley. It was the most innovative

31:26

city in the country when the automobile

31:29

was the hot technology of the day. A hundred

31:31

years ago silicon valley was fruit

31:33

orchards. They weren't growing startups,

31:35

they weren't growing fruit. Apple

31:37

is called apple for a reason. And so,

31:39

yeah, Detroit was rocking and rolling that the

31:42

car revolution. For a couple of decades. People

31:44

wanted to be part of that. Moved to Detroit. Houses

31:46

were being built, schools were being built. You

31:48

know, was really rocking and rolling. And then,

31:50

you know, about fifty years ago things turned

31:53

and they lost sixty of their

31:55

population and

31:57

the year before we rolled in with our rise

31:59

of the rest bus, the city of Detroit went

32:02

bankrupt. What had been Silicon

32:04

Valley went bankrupt. That's

32:07

the bad news. The good news is

32:09

a vibrant startup culture, particularly

32:11

in the downtown Detroit area, and

32:13

we backed companies like Shinola and

32:16

stock acts and others that are in Detroit,

32:18

with the backing of a great entrepreneur and Gilbert,

32:21

a strong mayor. Foundations like Krusky

32:24

all worked together to say we need to rebuild

32:26

Detroit and we're gonna do it on the back of backing

32:29

new companies startups in Detroit. So

32:31

now Detroit's, you know, kind of back on on

32:33

the on the rise and doing some phenomenal

32:35

things. The other city we visited on that first rise

32:37

rest bus tour was Pittsburgh.

32:39

I think about Pittsburgh. It really

32:41

powered the industrial revolution. It was the steel

32:44

capital and and a hundred years ago it was rock

32:46

and rolling. And then, you know, I lost some of

32:48

that, you know, kind of a lead, but reinvented

32:51

itself in the last couple of decades. Have a great

32:53

university there, Carnegie Mellon, and big

32:55

focused on robotics, for example, and

32:57

as a result of backing new companies since

33:00

up, like due lingo, the language APP

33:02

started spun out of Carnegie Mellon, started

33:04

in Pittsburgh. It's seeing the arise

33:07

again. But this is this is really the story

33:09

of dozens of cities. I think if you fast forward

33:11

ten or twenty years, it's more, as

33:13

I said earlier, more optimistic view of

33:16

America that will have a more inclusive

33:18

innovation economy. Won't just be a few

33:20

people in a few places. It will be a much

33:22

more broader based UH innovation

33:25

economy which I think will result in the create some

33:27

more jobs and more parts of the country, which might even

33:29

create more of a of an opportunity

33:31

to knit together a very divided country

33:34

that's obviously divided in many respects,

33:36

but one way is sort of a opportunity

33:38

gap. There's some people doing really well, a lot of people

33:40

struggling and feeling left behind. How

33:43

do we create some of the jobs of the future, even

33:45

some of the industries of the future in these

33:47

in these cities all across America? You

33:49

raise an interesting policy question.

33:52

Whenever I see, you know, a

33:54

groundbreaking where some giant company

33:57

comes in with all these tax abatements,

34:01

we sort with Fox con in Wisconsin

34:03

turned out to be a bust. We see it every

34:05

time some billionaires stadium

34:08

gets paid for by taxpayers.

34:11

The math never seems to work out. But

34:13

it sounds like what you're saying

34:16

here is if we stop trying to do

34:18

these giant let's bring a big company

34:20

and to save the factory town and if

34:22

that company leaves the town is toast.

34:25

Let's create an entire different model of

34:27

startups, small companies, build

34:29

that whole ecosystem. That

34:31

has a much better chance of success

34:34

for that region and

34:37

success for the country. The interesting thing about

34:39

this economic development battle where

34:41

different states are fighting with each other over

34:43

over the same, you know, existing companies.

34:46

It's sort of zero sum for America.

34:48

Yeah, they're just throwing money at it to get

34:50

you leave here to go there. It doesn't

34:52

really help the country. And so, and

34:55

you say, often those investments do

34:57

not pay off for those particular cities or those

34:59

particular states. So it's way better to

35:01

focus on the new companies. And we saw an

35:03

interesting dynamic a few years ago when

35:05

Amazon launched its second

35:08

headquarters, you know, and

35:10

they basically say create a second headquarters

35:12

and create tens of thousands jobs in that second headquarters,

35:15

uh and, you know, let us know if you're interested

35:17

in this. You know, coming and two D thirty

35:19

different cities all pitched, uh,

35:21

to to get Amazon to, you know, to come.

35:24

Ultimately decided actually in northern Virginia,

35:26

not too far from where we started. All

35:28

is where they decided to kind of plant their

35:30

flag. But then, you know, the

35:33

Nice thing about it was those two or thirty cities

35:36

had to come together, had to

35:38

make a joint pitch, had to figure out what

35:40

their strengths were, to really highlight what some

35:42

of the weaknesses were that they could they could focus

35:44

on. And where we're seeing is sort

35:46

of a continuing effect to that

35:48

that many of these cities, you know, are now

35:51

focused on these new companies, focused on backing,

35:53

you know, the startups, saying we don't really

35:55

want to do that fighting again to get Amazon.

35:58

How do we create the next Amazon in our communities?

36:01

That's resulting in a pivot to focus

36:03

on new companies, on startups, in

36:06

cities all across America. So let's let's

36:08

dig a little deeper into revolution. First

36:11

is, is there a favorite sector

36:13

or industry or size that revolution

36:16

likes? or it doesn't matter if it's an interesting

36:18

idea with a chance for success it

36:20

interests you. But they said there's two key planks

36:23

of our strategy. One is policy in the other

36:25

is place. So on the policy side we tend

36:27

to focus on the industries where there is a

36:29

policy, you kind of component. So

36:32

I mentioned a health tech company called the

36:34

tempest. I mentioned temper pack which

36:36

in the sustainable kind of packaging business,

36:38

clear the biometric company.

36:41

Those are their policy issues and usually partner

36:43

issues associate with that. But agricultural

36:46

culture would fit into that, sports tech would would

36:48

fit into that. So there there are many sectors

36:51

that fit into that, but they generally most of the theme

36:53

that generally drives most of our efforts

36:56

are around policy and then, of

36:58

course, with our ride the rest seed fund, that is very place

37:00

based and in sector agnostic. And

37:02

one of the interesting things we learned

37:04

late last year we did a joint report with pitchbook

37:07

and there are two data points that I thought were striking

37:09

and even surprising to me, I've been working on this for a

37:11

decade. The first was in the last

37:14

decade four hundred new

37:17

regional venture firms were started up and

37:20

they're typically focusing on that early seed

37:22

and kind of venture stage. And

37:24

the other data point was there's a six hundred percent

37:27

increase in venture capital going to these rides

37:29

of rest cities. So the things we've been talking about the

37:31

decade we're starting to see progress. New Venture

37:33

firms starting, more capital flowing,

37:36

but we think things will really accelerating in

37:38

in in the next decade. We're just trying to make sure revolution

37:41

we're positioned to really be the leader around

37:44

place and use even the book

37:46

that to to make the case

37:49

for why other investors should be

37:51

investing in these other cities, not just in

37:53

the usual places like San Francisco and New

37:55

York, in Boston. So so revolution brings

37:57

a lot more to the table than just

37:59

cap at all. There's a lot of value air coming absolutely

38:02

no. At the beginning we make

38:04

an investment, that's the start of

38:06

the process of working with a company, whether it be

38:08

introducing them to new partnerships

38:10

or helping them recruit people their management team

38:12

or there their boards are, helping them navigate

38:15

sometimes complicated policy issues.

38:17

There's lots of things we try to do to really

38:19

help these companies scale, help them achieve their

38:21

their full potential. Quite quite

38:23

intriguing. Coming up we continue

38:25

our conversation with Steve Case, chair

38:28

and CEO of revolution, discussing

38:31

his new book, the rise of the rest, how

38:33

entrepreneurs in surprising places are

38:36

building the new American dream.

38:38

I'm Barry ridholts. You're listening to

38:40

masters in business on Bloomberg

38:42

radio. I'm Barry rihults. You're listening

38:45

to masters in business on Bloomberg radio.

38:47

My extra special guest this week

38:49

is Steve Case. He is the chairman

38:52

and CEO of revolution, as

38:54

well as one of the three co founders

38:56

of America Online. He is

38:58

also chair of the case foundation

39:00

and the Smithsonian. He is the

39:02

author of a new book, the rise

39:05

of the rest, how entrepreneurs and surprising

39:07

places are building the new American

39:10

dream. That is out this week. So

39:13

so let's talk about the book. What, first

39:15

of all, what motivates you? As someone who's

39:17

written a book, I know how much work goes into it.

39:19

What motivated you to sit down and say, yeah,

39:21

I'M gonna put all this down on paper? I

39:24

thought I had to write the book. I spent most of the decade

39:27

traveling the country, meeting entreprenurs,

39:29

visiting dozens of cities, seeing remarkable

39:31

things happening that were most

39:34

people are unaware of, and so

39:36

I just felt like I have a choice.

39:38

I had to write this book. I had to tell these stories

39:40

there there. I had to profile

39:42

some of these entrepreneurs, talk about what they're doing

39:44

with with their companies, showcase

39:47

some of these rising cities in terms of what

39:49

they're doing to really create, you know, kind of a

39:51

renew their communities, create more opportunity,

39:53

more jobs, things like that. Uh So,

39:56

what? It was not really a choice. I just felt

39:58

compelled to write this

40:00

this book. What was the response from

40:02

the various entrepreneurs? When you say to somebody,

40:05

Hey, I'm going to feature you as a chapter in

40:07

this new book? Are People excited

40:10

about it? Of course, of course. I think they,

40:12

particularly entrepreneurs in these rise of the rest

40:14

cities, tend to feel uh,

40:17

lonely, a little left out. They don't have the at

40:20

least. Yeah, we're working on this, obviously, but don't have quite

40:22

the attention that you have if you're an entrepreneur place

40:25

like Silicon Valley. Uh So, even

40:27

when we've rolled into town with our rise

40:29

of rest bus, you just have pitch competitions

40:31

where entrepreneurs can be on stage. That allows

40:34

them to talk up what they're doing and get

40:36

people in their communities to better understand

40:38

where they're doing and believe in what they're they're doing.

40:40

And similarly with the with the book.

40:43

Everybody we talked to with it was was honored,

40:45

obviously, to being included the book and appreciative

40:47

of the fact that we're really championing their stories

40:50

trying to do what we can to help them scale

40:52

into being kind of significant companies

40:54

that can change the world, create significant

40:56

value for the investor, to create, you know, hopefully,

40:59

thousands of jobs and the process

41:01

kind of lift up their particular communities

41:03

and strengthened America in terms

41:05

of having, you know, kind of a more inclusive

41:08

economy. To tell us about these pitch

41:10

competitions. How Long Does each

41:12

entrepreneur get? What are they allowed to bring?

41:15

What are some of those uh pitches like? How

41:17

how do you how do they vary from one

41:19

to one? Well, when we decided

41:22

to do a road trip, we planned

41:24

this for more than six months in advance, so we have

41:26

an advanced team that's going to the cities. We try

41:28

to understand what who should we visit in the

41:30

cities? What startup to do, like a bus startup

41:33

crawl with with. You know, we might

41:35

have a lunch and and uh, you know, pitch

41:38

invent a lot of different things to really kind of get

41:40

people together. But for the pitch competition specifically,

41:43

we basically say we're coming to tower do this pitch

41:45

competition and we generally get about a hundred people

41:47

applying to pitch and then our team sorts through

41:50

that and picks the best eight or ten to be on stage.

41:52

Then we actually hire a pitch coach to help them work

41:55

on their pitch. We really want to help them, where

41:57

they win or not, we're trying to help them be positioned

41:59

for, uh, for a success.

42:01

So they each get you three minutes or so to

42:04

pitch and then a couple of minutes of questions

42:06

following that, uh, and then we, we

42:09

judges, spend some time reviewing

42:11

which one should win and and then we

42:13

make a decision of which one we're going to invest

42:15

in. Sometimes we actually invest in more than one because

42:17

we're just struck by the, you know, the power of

42:19

some of those uh, some of those ideas. So

42:22

so, just a quick digression. So

42:24

we have a VC fund that

42:26

just focuses on financial technology

42:29

because of of my day job, and

42:31

we just had this giant conference out in,

42:33

of all places, Huntington Beach in

42:36

so cal, and one of the things we did

42:39

was an exact that exact thing, a

42:41

pitch competition. It was five

42:43

minutes per entrepreneur and I think

42:45

we ended up going with ten people

42:48

out of well over a hundred applications.

42:51

But the idea of a pitch coach, because

42:53

some of the pitches were fantastic, some

42:55

were a little rough around the edges. The idea

42:58

of a pitch coaches is really um

43:00

intriguing. How did people

43:03

respond to that? Um,

43:05

someone coming in and saying, Hey, you only

43:07

have three or four minutes, here's what you need

43:09

to focus on. It was super helpful and obviously

43:12

these companies have been done pitches

43:15

before, but they are never done, in most cases,

43:17

of pitch at this at this state kind a level,

43:19

with this kind of audience. And so getting it

43:21

actually came to as we had a partnership with Google. They

43:23

haven't it should have called Google for startups, and

43:26

we were doing some joint things with them and they were doing

43:28

a pitch competition where they invited

43:30

some of the entrepreneurs that we helped select

43:32

from all around the country to come pitch at Google

43:34

headquarters in Silicon Valley and as part

43:36

of that they used a pitch coach.

43:38

So we then embraced that idea and ever

43:41

since we've had a pitch coach as well. But no,

43:43

it's it's a can really result

43:45

in, uh, the entrepreneurs telling a

43:47

much more compelling story and

43:49

and it benefits them long after we leave

43:51

town. They have a Crisper, more

43:54

compelling pitch for the next time they're

43:56

meeting with a prospective investor or customer

43:58

or partner. Data is wonderful, but

44:00

sometimes it's all about the narrative, isn't it

44:03

exactly. No, storytelling is a lot of what

44:05

this is about. You have to captivate people, UH,

44:07

everybody. Everybody has to be selling. If

44:09

you're trying to hire somebody, you're selling. If you're trying

44:12

to get investors, you're

44:14

you're selling, if you're if you're trying to get media attention,

44:16

you're selling, if you're obviously you're trying to get

44:18

customers, you're you're, you're, you're selling. And everybody

44:21

can be coached to be better at

44:23

what they're what they're trying to you know, to sell

44:26

really interesting. You know you you said something earlier

44:29

that I let sneak by, but I got to bring it

44:31

back up. The jobs act,

44:33

passed under the Obama Administration,

44:36

Um, and the investing opportunities act.

44:38

Not only were you involved in helping

44:41

to create that policy, you were instrumental

44:44

in getting that past. So first,

44:46

tell us a little bit about that experience. In second,

44:49

what has that meant for startups

44:52

and funding of new companies and entrepreneurs?

44:55

Well, the job at passed just about a decade

44:57

ago and broad bypartisans support.

44:59

It's called jump starting our business startups

45:02

act and it was basically updating the

45:04

rules of securities laws in places thineteen

45:06

thirty three. So this one just pre Internet.

45:08

This is pre television and it needed a little bit of

45:10

an update and it allowed things like

45:12

crowdfunding. It had created an on

45:15

ramp for young companies to go public. We're called

45:17

emerging growth companies. That field more I

45:19

P O s. It was really about giving more

45:21

entrepreneurs more access to capital. would

45:23

be the early stage or the later stage, with

45:26

the with the goal of having more companies start

45:28

and scale and create more jobs. And so that's

45:30

really why it was called the you know, the the

45:32

jobs act, and and it was. It was great. I

45:34

worked on the President Obama's

45:37

jobs and competitives council and there was a little

45:39

subcommittee focused particularly on entrepreneurship.

45:42

I work with Cheryl Sandberg facebook

45:44

and John Dor the venture capitalist,

45:46

Clara Perkins to help fund, you

45:48

know, figure out what some of the policies would be that

45:50

would create a more fertile startup environment

45:53

all across the country, and the jobs act

45:55

was part of that. So so, what do you think the

45:57

direct result of that legislation,

45:59

in that policy update has

46:01

been in the decade you've been traveling around the

46:03

country and looking at at startups? I

46:05

think crowdfunding has been helpful to a number of companies

46:08

to otherwise wouldn't have had access to capitol,

46:10

would never have gotten started up. And they're more companies

46:12

have gone public in the last decade because of

46:14

the jobs act making a little easier for

46:17

these emergent companies to go public.

46:19

I keep finding these when I'm searching

46:22

for something. I keep finding these funny

46:24

little products like Oh, that looks

46:26

really interesting. I've never seen anything like that. You

46:29

Click through and and as often

46:31

as not it's a crowdfunding.

46:34

Hey, give us enough money to help

46:36

get this product launched and you get a product,

46:39

but not necessarily any equity ownership.

46:42

Is that? Is that the future for very

46:44

specialized, niche products

46:46

as opposed to broad company

46:48

startups? Yeah, the crowdfunding really started

46:50

with some platforms like kickstarter, where

46:53

exactly what you're saying that if you people offer

46:55

a particular product, usually before it would even

46:57

be manufactured, and get some pre or

47:00

or is, it will allow them to have the capital then

47:02

go build out, you know, the product, and

47:04

that worked for a number of companies. Some of those

47:06

products then end up getting launched more broadly

47:09

or they raising capital more broadly.

47:11

But there also has been more and more companies that

47:13

are using crowdfunding to raise

47:16

equity capital to help fund the companies,

47:18

as we can do both, not just the product but you're

47:21

actually a small investor in the

47:23

startup. Exactly, really, really quite

47:26

Um, quite fascinating.

47:29

So let's circle back to two

47:31

thousand. The time ornery O l deal

47:33

goes through, you set up a family

47:35

office and from that you really start

47:38

to expand into a lot of

47:40

different public service and

47:42

philanthropy. Um, you

47:45

mentioned the National Advisory Council

47:47

on Innovation and entrepreneurship, as

47:49

well as President Obama's council on jobs

47:52

and competitiveness. Tell us a little

47:54

bit about when you go from a

47:56

nimble startup to a big

47:58

merger to the govern them in. What's

48:01

the trade off? How difficult is it

48:03

to move the ball down the field? Well,

48:05

I think it's it's difficult for sure, which is

48:08

why I do it only on the side. It's sort

48:10

of my my my moonlighting,

48:12

my side hustle. My main event is focused

48:14

on investment companies through

48:16

revolution, but I do think it's important

48:19

to make sure that, you know, I

48:21

do at least everything I can to make sure America

48:23

remains the most innovative entreprene nation.

48:26

I do think it's important to try to, as

48:28

we discussed around rise to rest, create a more inclusive

48:31

innovation economy that brings along more people

48:33

and more places. And while most of

48:35

that and most of my time has spent on working

48:38

with those entrepreneurs as an investor and

48:40

mentor, I do think it's important to make sure

48:42

we have the right policy framework in place that

48:45

creates as much opportunity as possible

48:47

for as many entrepreneurs as possible, as

48:49

many places in America as as possible.

48:52

So that led to the work around the National

48:54

Advisory Council on Innovation Entrepreneurship

48:57

more than a decade ago. Actually. The current

48:59

Secretary Commerce, Gina Romando,

49:01

we started it, recently asked me to Co share

49:04

it again, so I agreed to do that. And

49:06

we're focused particularly on identifying

49:08

some of the industries of the future where America really

49:10

needs to lead and supporting this effort

49:12

around regional hubs, including some of the

49:15

legislation that passed recently a fund more

49:17

regional innovation around the around the country,

49:19

so it is a less silicon valley.

49:21

What's the big change in the decade

49:23

that has ensued from the last time

49:25

you were involved with this policy

49:28

or this panel to today? Well,

49:30

some of the initial focus was on this access

49:32

to capital side, which led to things like the you

49:35

know, the job Jag. Now it's, I think, a little more of focused

49:37

on access to opportunity, which

49:39

ties in with the work we're doing around rise the

49:41

rest. How do you create a uh, you know, level

49:43

the playing fields so everybody, everywhere has a shot the American

49:45

dream? That's really what it's all about and and

49:48

trying to create more of that investment.

49:50

Uh. It's also it's striking to me, because I've

49:53

been doing this now for a while. As you think about

49:55

that early days of the Internet,

49:57

we talked about a well being in northern Virginia

49:59

outside Washing d C. actually

50:01

a number of the companies that were pivotal

50:04

in that first wave we're all across

50:06

the country. It was not so much about Silicon

50:08

Valley. For example, UH

50:11

IBM S PC operations were in Boca Raton,

50:13

Florida. Hump to serve a major online

50:15

service. Time was in Columbus Ohio.

50:18

Hayes, the Communications Modem Company,

50:20

was in Atlanta, Georgia. SPRENT, another

50:22

communications company, was in Kansas

50:25

City. Dell was in Austin. Microsoft

50:27

actually started Albuquerque before

50:30

moving to to U to Seattle. So that

50:32

first wave of innovation the Internet

50:34

was regionally distributed. It was only the second

50:36

way, when it became about you know, software, that

50:38

silicon valley rose to prominence. I

50:40

think in the third way we can redistribute again

50:43

and have innovation in different parts of the country

50:45

and that's part of the focus of on

50:47

on the on the policy. So I just do what

50:49

I can to bring that Entrepreneurial Lens at

50:51

Investor Lens Uh to the policy

50:54

makers, doing it in a very kind of bipartisan

50:56

you know kind of way, working with Republicans

50:58

and Democrats, trying to figure out what is the right, you

51:00

know, kind of policy going forward. But

51:04

it's easier to do, you know, based

51:06

on your question, you know it is challenging to deal with these

51:08

things. Sometimes it does feel like you're trying to, you

51:11

know, move a mountain, but doing it, you

51:13

know, occasionally on the side would be is

51:16

it works for me. I have great respect

51:18

for the people who are willing to jump into it full time.

51:20

I think that's not my thing. It's

51:22

tough. You you mentioned the subcommittee on Entrepreneurship.

51:26

Tell us a little bit about their work and

51:28

what have they accomplished? Well, that was, I

51:30

think, pivotal in terms of creating the framework

51:32

and also the momentum around things

51:35

like the jobs act. And the way we did that is we actually

51:37

asked an outside consulting firm, it was a McKenzie

51:40

uh to do look at all of the

51:42

the ideas have been put on table, legislation

51:45

that been introducing Congress, think tanks

51:47

and others that would create a more

51:50

entrepreneurial ecosystem all across, you

51:52

know, the country and the number of things were identified

51:54

and we just kind of whacked away working on identifying

51:57

what the what, which policy would have

51:59

the you know, the biggest impact, and I think

52:01

we did make progress and in lots of different areas.

52:03

One area we did recommend that we spend

52:06

more time on that we didn't make progress on, but

52:08

hopefully still will, will be immigration

52:10

reform. How do we make sure we remain a

52:12

magnet for people around the world who want

52:14

to come here and and star our companies here

52:16

and create jobs here? And how do we make it easier

52:18

for people, a common people who come for universities,

52:21

you know, education, how a little easier for them to

52:23

stay? Uh. So, you know, we can

52:25

continue to lead, to lead, to charge

52:27

and and continue to be that, you know, that

52:29

win what's now a global battle for talent. So

52:31

that one area that was a strong recommendation

52:34

of that the jobs council

52:36

a decade ago. That that has not yet happened

52:38

but hopefully will in the future. In the US

52:40

there's a labor shortage at just about

52:43

every level Um of

52:45

the employment spectrum, entry

52:47

level work, farm

52:50

work, all the way up to very senior technology

52:52

people. What can we do to

52:54

bring in the best in the brightest from the rest of the world

52:57

we've got to pass legislation. Came close

52:59

to summer. There's some legislation called

53:02

the startup visa that essentially would make it

53:04

easier for entrepreneurs who are going to it

53:07

was it was not get done. It was

53:09

part of some broader legislation

53:11

but ultimately did not get the time. And

53:13

I recognize that immigration is complicated

53:16

and really emotional and become very political

53:18

because there's various facets of of Immigration

53:21

and securing the board or things like that. But

53:24

on the specific issue of how do we get

53:26

people from all around the world who have ideas

53:29

and want to start companies, how

53:31

to make sure those companies are started here and the

53:33

jobs, you know, therefore created here as

53:35

opposed to created elsewhere? And we have seen

53:37

in the last couple of decades globalization

53:41

of innovation and the globalization of venture

53:43

capital. Uh years

53:45

ago, over of Global Venture

53:48

Capital has invested in the United States. Now it's under

53:50

so other countries have figured out that sort of the secret

53:53

sauce that sort of powered the American

53:55

story is is entrepreneurship

53:57

and venture capitalists is part of that and I

54:00

even in this new book on Rise Arrest,

54:02

talk about the need to to focus

54:04

on immigration reform, focused on backing

54:07

uh founders from from all over the

54:09

world and starting those companies. And

54:11

I say it's obviously the key messages. They don't

54:13

have to be in Silicon Valley and New York or Boston.

54:15

They could be in many other cities around

54:17

the country and that's what we're trying to promote. Let's

54:20

talk a little bit about some of your philanthropic

54:23

work. You join the giving pledge

54:25

in tell us what

54:27

that experience was like. I've heard some pretty

54:30

amusing stories about

54:32

working with Bill Gates and and that

54:35

Um process. Well, obviously

54:38

known Bill Gates for decades. We were vigorous

54:41

competitors in the in the late nineties.

54:43

Oh and I was running a o l but

54:46

it was great to become partners around, you know,

54:48

things around philanthropy, including the giving pledge

54:50

and and Uh London.

54:52

Gates and and also Warren Buffett

54:54

known for quite some time. And so when they approached

54:56

my wife Jean and I when they were getting

54:58

as started, was over a decade ago, we

55:01

were initially uh a little

55:03

uh reluctant to be that

55:05

public about what we're doing philanthropically.

55:08

We've always done things in a somewhat a quieter

55:10

way. But we decided to join because

55:12

we thought maybe it'd lead others to making a commitment

55:14

to giving the majority of their wealth away,

55:16

but also we thought we could learn from others and

55:19

and you know, you know, to learn how to be smarter about

55:21

the philanthropic investments

55:23

we we made. I think that's been the case. There's been a number

55:25

of meetings of the giving pledgers

55:28

on specific topics and also kind of annual

55:31

meetings, and I think everybody that's

55:33

part of the giving pledges is a little

55:35

bit wiser because of their network

55:37

that's been created among the people

55:40

have made that commitment. So so let's talk

55:42

a little bit about the metrics of

55:44

giving. Go Back Twenty, thirty

55:47

years and the question was

55:49

sort of like advertising. You

55:51

know some of its effective, you just don't know which

55:53

half is. How do you think about

55:56

tracking, analyzing and determining

56:00

if you're moving the needle when you're

56:02

making a specific donation? Well, first

56:04

of all I should say my wife, Jeane, has has

56:06

led the case foundations since we started

56:08

at twenty five years. I've been focusing

56:10

more on the investment side. She's been focusing

56:13

more on the philanthropic side. So she gets all the

56:15

all the all the credit, but I think we and others

56:17

have gotten much more, uh, precise

56:19

in terms of trying to understand the impact

56:21

of the philanthropic investments we're

56:24

making. What what is the what are the key

56:26

metrics that should be tracked there?

56:29

And we uh are physically gene

56:31

leading the foundation has has brought a little

56:33

bit of that venture capital mentality to it

56:35

and rather than just pick one thing you invest in,

56:38

we picked several things and and cycle them

56:40

through it at various times. Right now, primary

56:43

focus of gene is on

56:45

National Geographic Society, which he is the chair

56:48

of. I've spending time

56:50

as the chair of the Smithsonian institution, including

56:52

how to move it into more of a digital

56:55

future. So those are a couple of areas

56:57

of focus. But we found

56:59

it. You can bring some

57:01

of your business experience

57:03

to the philanthropic sector. You just have to recognize

57:06

it's it's different. But one thing

57:08

that is similar across both of them is the

57:10

value of partnerships. There's an African proverb

57:13

we both loved that if you want to go quickly,

57:15

you can go alone, but if you want to go far you must

57:17

go together. So a lot of what we do with

57:19

the philanthropic efforts around building partnerships.

57:22

A lot of what we do with revolution and also

57:25

rise the rest of around building partnerships,

57:27

so that you know, idea of collaboration

57:30

and going far together is

57:32

one of the concerts across all our our work.

57:35

So you mentioned the Smithsonian Um.

57:37

I'M A fan. The Smithsonian Institution

57:40

is the world's largest museum and Research

57:42

Complex. What led

57:45

you to that? As earning particular interest in

57:47

science, history technology, how

57:49

did you get involved with them? I was asked over

57:51

a decade ago to join what

57:53

they called the board of regents and then where

57:55

recently became the chair of it. And I,

57:58

like many people, have seen

58:00

the wonders of the Smithsonian. I remember even

58:02

when I was, I guess I was eighteen,

58:07

I came to Washington

58:09

and Uh and it thought the

58:12

Smithsonian for the first time and experienced

58:14

some of the wonders of it was inspired to do

58:16

a number of different things because of it. So I wanted

58:18

to make a contribution to kind

58:20

of take the Smithsonian into the future, build

58:22

on it's it's legacy over hundred seventy

58:24

five years around increasing and diffusing

58:27

knowledge, UH and add to it

58:30

a digital components that you know, we we've

58:32

been working on what we call the virtual Smithsonian.

58:35

Rather than just assume that you'RE gonna fly to Washington

58:37

Sea visit the National Mall and visit our nineteen

58:39

museums, we want to come to you and

58:42

so we want the Smithsonian to be in every home and

58:44

every classroom and embracing a lot of partnerships,

58:46

embracing a lot of technologies to to do that.

58:49

Spirit of St Louis is hanging. That's

58:51

my vivid recollection as a kid

58:54

going through it and it's just stayed with me

58:57

for for forever. And we have probably

58:59

know we have two air and space museums, one

59:01

on the National Mall One out by Dallas Airport.

59:03

The one National Mall has been closed for most

59:05

of the past year. It's under reconstruction.

59:08

It was it was opened in

59:10

nineteen seventy six and we're going to reopen

59:13

it actually next month, uh, and

59:15

part of it is being reimagined to be the

59:17

bezos learning center. The largest philanthropic

59:20

gift in the Smithsonian's history is from J Bezos,

59:22

a two million dollar gift to the Smithsonian

59:24

to build out that air and Space Museum.

59:27

Really, really quite fascinating. Um,

59:31

you mentioned partnerships. What

59:33

did you bring from your a o l experience

59:36

to philanthropy? How much of

59:39

that foundational, you

59:41

know, building a business, ramping

59:43

it up, taking a public, merging it? How

59:46

does that apply to a very

59:48

different part of of

59:50

the world? Well, again, my wife Jeane

59:53

gets been taking the lead here, but from

59:56

my prism it's how do you identify

59:59

problems need to be solved and

1:00:01

then bring a both

1:00:04

an entrepreneural perspective in terms of what new

1:00:06

things might get started, as

1:00:08

well as a kind of almost like growth

1:00:10

investing perspective what existing organizations

1:00:13

might get scaled and we've done work

1:00:16

on both sides, made investments to scale

1:00:18

up existing organizations like habitat

1:00:21

humanity or Special Olympics, which we were, at

1:00:23

the timing, the largest, you know, kind of givers

1:00:25

to this goes back a couple of decades, as

1:00:27

well as launching some initiatives ourselves,

1:00:29

including a digital divide initiative

1:00:31

over twenty years ago to try

1:00:34

to get computer technology centers installed

1:00:36

in different neighborhoods and that didn't otherwise

1:00:38

have access to it, with partnerships with

1:00:40

with a lot of people that made that possible.

1:00:43

So it's a mix of identifying some of

1:00:45

these uh problems that need to be

1:00:47

solved and figuring out some of them are kind

1:00:49

of like using the investing mentality,

1:00:51

or I think we make seed investments in to get

1:00:54

them started. Some of them also are backing

1:00:56

existing organizations and giving

1:00:58

them the growth level investments

1:01:01

that really scale up faster. You mentioned

1:01:03

digital divide. I don't recall which

1:01:05

legislation it might have

1:01:07

been. The infrastructure bill um

1:01:10

now builds out broadband

1:01:12

to pretty much every corner of the country.

1:01:15

How big of a digital divide is

1:01:17

it? Is it rich versus

1:01:19

poor, or is it urban versus rural?

1:01:22

Tell us a little bit about what the digital divide

1:01:24

looks like. It's both and and the digital divide

1:01:26

we're focused on twenty plus years

1:01:29

ago was just getting

1:01:31

people connected to the Internet, getting computers

1:01:33

into the classrooms and community

1:01:36

centers and some level of connectivity. As

1:01:38

we've seen with the pandemic, that connectivity,

1:01:40

particularly broadband connectivity, is much

1:01:42

more important and it's not much harder to

1:01:45

not just learn but just function in life without

1:01:47

that broadband connectivity. And and your

1:01:49

question is both. There are different parts of the country

1:01:51

that definitely have, you know, slow,

1:01:54

in some cases non existent internet connectivity.

1:01:57

Uh and so those areas are are disadvantage

1:01:59

in this legist ation will help help

1:02:01

there. And obviously, even in big cities there are parts

1:02:03

of the communities that don't

1:02:06

have access to high speed as

1:02:08

well. So it become a more of a utility

1:02:10

that that, you know, everybody needs to make sure they

1:02:13

can, you know, kind of compete in

1:02:15

this world and and and participate.

1:02:17

Uh and increasingly health care is using

1:02:20

telemedicine. Increasingly education

1:02:23

is using tell of learning. It's it's

1:02:25

not just about the ability to, you know, get

1:02:27

news or by products, it's also the

1:02:29

ability to do some of the most fundamental aspects

1:02:31

of our lives. So ubiquitous connectivity

1:02:33

is important. You talk a lot about

1:02:36

leveling the playing field. That's an expression.

1:02:39

You mentioned in terms of access to capital.

1:02:41

You mentioned in access to networks, access

1:02:44

to Internet and broadband. Why

1:02:46

is that so important to you? It's actually

1:02:49

something that's sort of and

1:02:52

part of everything. Are Almost everything I've involved

1:02:54

in. To me, the excitement,

1:02:57

the passion in those early days of the Internet.

1:02:59

I'm talking about the eighties when we were just

1:03:01

getting started, in the nineties when the Internet was

1:03:03

scaling, because I really believe the

1:03:05

Internet would make the world a

1:03:07

better place. The Internet would give people

1:03:09

access to information, education,

1:03:12

commerce, you know, community that they otherwise

1:03:15

wouldn't wouldn't have uh, and also

1:03:17

would level the playing field that right now,

1:03:19

in the earlier those early days, are on the

1:03:21

news side, there are only a few news networks

1:03:24

like CBS and ABC and

1:03:26

and and so forth, or maybe

1:03:28

if you were wealthy, you might have owned the local

1:03:31

newspaper. There weren't really opportunities

1:03:33

for most people's voices to be heard, and so

1:03:35

I really felt that the Internet could help create

1:03:38

more of those voices and level a plank field

1:03:40

and, as you say, the effort in the last decade

1:03:43

around rise the rest, even the reason I wrote

1:03:45

this, this book on rise the rest, is I'm again trying

1:03:47

to level the plank field create more opportunity

1:03:49

for more people and more places, and it's just it's

1:03:51

just something that drives me. How do

1:03:54

you make sure that everybody has

1:03:56

a, you know, kind of a fair shot? The outcomes

1:03:58

are going to be different, but the opera two NAYS, if

1:04:00

for everybody, should should be be

1:04:03

much better than they have been. You mentioned access

1:04:06

to information. There's a line from either

1:04:08

the book or or something you wrote about

1:04:11

the book. A hundred years ago

1:04:13

the amount of information people would encounter

1:04:16

in their lifetime was the

1:04:18

same as a daily edition

1:04:20

of The New York Times. That that's just astonishing.

1:04:24

Yeah, it's been an acceleration of that and I recognize

1:04:26

there's also now some unintended

1:04:28

consequences. Almost a glut of information

1:04:31

and and a lot of issues around you

1:04:33

know, what is, you know, news and

1:04:35

what is fact and so forth, and even

1:04:38

in the social media space there have been some you

1:04:40

know, some challenges. So all these things

1:04:42

have some pluses and some minuses. The questions,

1:04:44

I think for societies, how do you maximize

1:04:46

the benefits and and minimize some of the

1:04:48

risks, really quite interesting.

1:04:51

My last question before we get to our

1:04:53

favorites is a little bit of a

1:04:55

curveball. You're born and

1:04:57

raised in Hawaii but then relocate

1:05:00

at Washington D C. That seems like the

1:05:02

worst weather trade I've

1:05:04

ever seen. D C is Humid and

1:05:06

and in Hawaii is just delightful. What

1:05:09

was it like leaving that behind? Well,

1:05:11

I love Hawaii's born and raised there. Both my parents

1:05:14

were born and raised there's our family goes back over

1:05:16

a hundred years and of investments there

1:05:18

and a family there, uh, and to try

1:05:20

to get back as often, I say, as they

1:05:22

can. But for me I really

1:05:25

wanted to pursue a different

1:05:27

path than staying there, which led going

1:05:29

to college in Massachusetts and working in Ohio,

1:05:31

then working in Kansas and then for the last

1:05:34

few decades in the Virginia, you know, kind

1:05:36

of a D C area, Um,

1:05:38

and I think that journey, including growing up in

1:05:41

in Hawaii, it's before starting

1:05:43

a company and starting a well in Virginia,

1:05:45

I think also informs my my my views

1:05:48

around the rise of the rest. I think it's part of the reason I'm

1:05:50

so passionate about trying to create

1:05:52

more opportunity for more people in more

1:05:54

places. And when I grew up in Whi, I remember, uh,

1:05:57

the early days. This would have been a

1:06:00

US the seventies. Uh. We get television

1:06:02

shows a week late, which you

1:06:04

know it was. There was a satellite technology

1:06:06

and not advanced the point where they could beam them,

1:06:08

so we would get them the tape sent over.

1:06:12

So you basically

1:06:15

you had a friend on the mainland. You can find out what's going

1:06:17

to happen on the television show this week because it already

1:06:19

happened on the television show there last week just

1:06:22

you know, it was a little bit, you know, kind of off the you

1:06:24

know, the beaten path, I guess. And

1:06:26

starting a L in in Um the

1:06:29

Tyson's Corner Virginia area. It was also

1:06:31

off the beaten paths I mentioned before. It was harder

1:06:33

to get going there. I think that's why I'm so passionate

1:06:35

now about, you know, creating opportunity

1:06:37

for entrepreneurs all across the country, backing them

1:06:40

in cities all across the country, and why I

1:06:42

decided to write the book to tell those stories, uh,

1:06:44

and and give people more of a sense of

1:06:46

what's happening out there and more of a sense of

1:06:48

what's happening, uh, what could be happening

1:06:51

all across America in the future. Who would

1:06:53

have guessed why? You was that formative to

1:06:55

to the worlds of entrepreneurship and

1:06:58

and venture? All right, so let's up

1:07:00

to our favorite questions that we ask

1:07:02

all of our guests, starting with tell

1:07:04

us what kept you entertained

1:07:07

during the pandemic. What were you watching

1:07:10

or or listening to? We

1:07:12

watched, not a lot of things. I we're not big television

1:07:14

watchers, but we definitely watched more

1:07:16

more during the pandemic. I think

1:07:19

one that I remember we watched uh

1:07:22

that I recalled, particularly given what's

1:07:25

happened recently in the the last few weeks with the death

1:07:27

of the Queen, was the crown, which that was was fabulous.

1:07:30

More recently, I mentioned my wife as the chair

1:07:33

of the National Geographic Society. They have a partnership

1:07:35

with Disney, what's called National Geographic Partners

1:07:38

UH and, as a results, have a big presence

1:07:40

on Disney plus and there's a new series just came

1:07:42

out in the last couple of months called America the beautiful.

1:07:45

That's really spectacular. Haven't watched

1:07:47

that. You should. I watched Um,

1:07:50

what was it earth at night on National

1:07:52

Geographic on Disney, and some of it

1:07:54

is just astonishing photography.

1:07:57

I'll take a look at America the beautiful. Um.

1:08:00

Tell us about your mentors who helped to shape

1:08:02

your career. I think there are different people at

1:08:04

different stages. In the early days, I think I really did

1:08:06

learn a lot from my parents around kind

1:08:08

of taking a long view, working hard, trying

1:08:11

to be humble about how you approach things.

1:08:14

I got a lot of experience and mentoring at some of the

1:08:16

big companies I worked for, like procter and gamble

1:08:18

and since then they have a great, great training program

1:08:21

in the early days of a o L, I learned

1:08:23

a lot from co founders Jim Kimsey

1:08:25

and Mark Seraph, we were both quite a bit older than I was,

1:08:28

and from our venture capitalists. I learned a lot from

1:08:30

from being able to work with those venture capitalist

1:08:32

and getting their perspective on on scaling

1:08:34

businesses, which I think helped me as a

1:08:37

CEO of a wall and also certainly helped now

1:08:39

as as an investor at at

1:08:41

revolution. So I, like a lot of people,

1:08:44

uh, kind of curious and like

1:08:47

to bump into people and ideas and kind of

1:08:49

a sponge for for different

1:08:51

perspectives. Uh. Let's talk about

1:08:53

books. What are some of your favorites and what are you

1:08:55

reading right now? Reading Right now

1:08:57

actually a book called be actually interest

1:09:00

to folks who listen to you, called how

1:09:02

to invest, by David Rubinstein. Your

1:09:04

book just came out and it's gonna be fun

1:09:06

and a couple of weeks we're going to do a joint thing

1:09:08

in the Economic Club in Washington D C where

1:09:11

he's going to interview me about my book rise.

1:09:13

The rest, I'm gonna interview him about his book

1:09:15

how to invest. So that should be uh fun doing

1:09:18

the pandemic. My favorite book was a gentleman

1:09:20

in Moscow, this great novel by Amor

1:09:22

toles. It was really quite, quite fascinating.

1:09:24

What sort of advice would you give to a recent

1:09:27

college graduate who is interested

1:09:29

in a career in either technology,

1:09:32

entrepreneurship or invest in? Well,

1:09:34

a couple of things I'd say. First of all, again

1:09:36

part of the reason I wrote the book on rise rest. Don't

1:09:38

assume that you have to be in Silicon Valley

1:09:41

or you're going to be on the you know, the B team,

1:09:43

the junior varsity. What's now happening all across

1:09:45

the country is really extraordinary and that will accelerate

1:09:47

over the next decade. So decide what

1:09:50

city you want to live in and you

1:09:52

can think of it for personal reasons

1:09:54

or for a strategic reason, based on the industry

1:09:56

you most care about. Uh, and maybe

1:09:58

at Silicon Valley, but increasingly

1:10:01

won't be. There will be many parts of the country that you

1:10:03

should consider living in. Zecond

1:10:05

would be to always remain curious.

1:10:07

You know that there's I've learned a lot

1:10:10

from you know, sometimes by Serendipity,

1:10:12

just being in the right place at the right time, bumping into

1:10:14

somebody listening to something, reading something,

1:10:16

and that helps inform your your your your

1:10:19

perspective on things. And a final one

1:10:21

is certainly it's my experience with the building

1:10:23

a wall on the Internet more recently, what we've been doing

1:10:25

with rise. The rest is this, you know, kind

1:10:28

of idea of revolutions

1:10:30

happening in evolutionary ways. You have to take a

1:10:32

long term view. You have to be persistent

1:10:35

there. Sometimes in the entrepreneur world

1:10:37

world, people focus too much on the

1:10:40

the overnight successes of Mark Zuckerberg

1:10:42

and his dorm room coming up with facebook

1:10:44

and you know, a year later it's a global phenomena.

1:10:46

A year later is, you know, the billionaire kind of

1:10:48

thing. That's super rare and most of

1:10:50

these things take take a while and

1:10:53

really are going to be two steps forward,

1:10:55

one step back, a lot of near death

1:10:57

experiences and if you really care about it,

1:11:00

you keep fighting. And our final

1:11:02

question. What do you know about the world

1:11:04

of startups, Venture Entrepreneurship

1:11:07

Technology today that you

1:11:09

wish you knew back in when

1:11:12

you were first launching America

1:11:14

Online? I would

1:11:16

say we've covered some of this. The importance

1:11:18

of partnerships. That that the

1:11:21

almost everything I've done that's had a real

1:11:23

impact in the world. It's about partnerships.

1:11:25

And so how do you identify opportunities

1:11:28

for collaboration that can you know, that can

1:11:30

really allow things to you know, to

1:11:32

scale, uh and, and you know

1:11:34

that's one of the key things. The second would be

1:11:37

it seems so basic, almost so obvious,

1:11:39

but it's true. At the end of the day it all

1:11:41

comes down to people. The people you

1:11:44

work with, UH and the people you

1:11:46

partner with are going to result

1:11:48

in success or failure. And it's

1:11:50

not about you. Entrepreneurship as a team sport.

1:11:53

How do you assemble kind of the Dream Team

1:11:55

of people would bring different perspective

1:11:57

but work together well in a in a team?

1:12:00

Uh and everything I've I've that's

1:12:02

had success in my life, including

1:12:04

all and more recently, well done with rides rest.

1:12:07

We've had the right team. The things that have been

1:12:09

struggles, including the merger with a Long

1:12:11

Time Warner, which obviously was a disappointment,

1:12:13

we didn't have the people's side right. We didn't have

1:12:15

the right people focused on the right priorities working

1:12:17

together in the right way. So just a reminder

1:12:20

to me that you have to constantly take a step back

1:12:22

and make sure you really have the

1:12:24

people's side front and center. We have been

1:12:27

speaking with Steve Case, chairman

1:12:29

and CEO of revolution. If

1:12:32

you enjoy this conversation, be

1:12:34

sure and check out any of our previous

1:12:36

four hundred or so that we've done over

1:12:38

the past eight years. You can find those

1:12:40

at Itunes, spotify, wherever

1:12:43

you feed your podcast fix.

1:12:45

We love your comments, feedback and suggestions

1:12:48

right to us at M Ib podcast

1:12:50

at Bloomberg Dot net. Follow me

1:12:52

on twitter at Rit halts. Sign up

1:12:54

from my daily reading list at RIT

1:12:56

HALTS DOT com. I would be

1:12:59

remiss if I did not thank the crack team who

1:13:01

helps put these conversations together

1:13:03

each week. Justin Milner is

1:13:05

my audio engineer, Paris Walden

1:13:07

is my producer, Sean Russo

1:13:09

is my head of research. Attica

1:13:12

Val Bron is our project manager. I'm

1:13:15

Barry ridholds. You've been listening to

1:13:17

masters in business on Bloomberg

1:13:19

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