Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, the next
Speaker 1: guest a well known investor, innovator and author, Steve Cases,
Speaker 1: of course, the co founder of America Online, chairman as
Speaker 1: well and CEO of Revolution. His investment firm, It's backs
Speaker 1: all kinds of entrepreneurs at every stage of their development.
Speaker 1: His roughly one billion dollars investments in some growth stage
Speaker 1: companies you may know them Sweet Green, Draft, Kings, Clear
Speaker 1: and more. And he's got a new book out. The
Speaker 1: book is called Rise of the Rest, How entrepreneurs in
Speaker 1: surprising places are building the new American dream. Where pleased
Speaker 1: to have Steve with us this afternoon the Bloomberg Interactive
Speaker 1: Broker Studio. Steve, It's good to see you. You know,
Speaker 1: I was commenting to Carol a little earlier that I said,
Speaker 1: you know, every time I've interviewed you, basically from ten
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty, you were on a bush. And this
Speaker 1: is the this is the second time I've gotten to
Speaker 1: interview you where you haven't actually been on a bus.
Speaker 1: This book is about the bus tour. Yeah, it really
Speaker 1: doesn't mean being a better part of a decade traveling
Speaker 1: around the country trying to see what's happening in terms
Speaker 1: of innovation entrepreneurship in different parts of the country, meeting
Speaker 1: hundreds of entrepreneurs, visiting dozens of cities, now making investments
Speaker 1: in about a hundred cities. I was just so fascinated
Speaker 1: about what I saw and so frankly encouraged by what
Speaker 1: I saw. I said, I have to tell the story.
Speaker 1: I have to share these stories. And that's what led
Speaker 1: me to write the book, trying to really kind of
Speaker 1: help people understand what's happening, not just in a few
Speaker 1: places like Silicon Valley, but all over the country, which
Speaker 1: I think boats well for the next phase of innovation
Speaker 1: in this country. What are we missing by ignoring what's
Speaker 1: going on in the heart of the country, Steve Well
Speaker 1: A bunch of things. First of all, some of the
Speaker 1: biggest industries up for grabs in this next way, what
Speaker 1: I called the Internet third wave, like healthcare, some of
Speaker 1: the expertise you need, some of the partnerships you need
Speaker 1: are in the middle country. Mayo Clinic in Minnesota is important,
Speaker 1: Cleveland Clinic and Ohio is important. M Danders in Texas
Speaker 1: is important also for some industries, like the trucking and
Speaker 1: logistics industry, getting people who understand that business and are
Speaker 1: in those communities are important. Of the stories I talked
Speaker 1: about in Chattanooga is his company called Freight Waves kind
Speaker 1: of does Bloomberg for trucking and logistics. Well, guess what
Speaker 1: I didn't know. Still, we visited with our bus. But uh,
Speaker 1: some of the biggest trucking companies in America are based
Speaker 1: in Chattanooga, So it actually better place to be for
Speaker 1: that business than than New York City or another one
Speaker 1: acre trader in northwest Arkansas and Fayetteville. The founder actually
Speaker 1: was working a head fund in San Francisco, decided to
Speaker 1: move to Arkansas because his business called is basically a
Speaker 1: platform to invest in farmland, and you need to get
Speaker 1: farmers to put their farms on the platform. Well, he
Speaker 1: thought it'd be better to be closer to the farmers
Speaker 1: and therefore in Arkansas. So a lot of these stories
Speaker 1: that that I think surprised people. It certainly surprised me,
Speaker 1: and I think people reading the book will will be
Speaker 1: equally surprised by how many things are happening in how
Speaker 1: many different places, most of which he's never visited. It's
Speaker 1: not just the eastern West. You know what's funny, Steve is.
Speaker 1: Twenty four hours ago, Andrew Ginther, the mayor of Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 1: was sitting in the seat that you're sitting in right now,
Speaker 1: and he was basically saying the same thing, and he
Speaker 1: talked about the acceleration of what happened been during the
Speaker 1: pandemic and the way that people moved away from the
Speaker 1: coast to other parts of the country because they were
Speaker 1: able to work remotely. You've been doing this and looking
Speaker 1: at this for what the better part of a decade
Speaker 1: at this point, Um, How did the pandemic change the
Speaker 1: way that people thought about geographies when it came to innovation. Well,
Speaker 1: you're right, it was bubbling for most of the last decade.
Speaker 1: Every year, every time we did another tour, we would
Speaker 1: see more progress in more places. But the pandemic was
Speaker 1: a tipping point. It really was sort of when people
Speaker 1: took a step back and said where do I want
Speaker 1: to live and how do I want to live, and
Speaker 1: how do I want to work and kind of remote work,
Speaker 1: hybrid work, things like that led to some people decided
Speaker 1: to move someplace else and instead of just being in
Speaker 1: San Francisco, just being in New York or just being
Speaker 1: in Boston, which have been the historical, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of tech hubs. A lot of people moved to other
Speaker 1: parts of the country, and attracting that talent is critical
Speaker 1: to fuel those start up communities. Interestingly, over the last
Speaker 1: several decades, we've seen a brain train in this country.
Speaker 1: Most people in Silicon Valley over people in Selicon Valley
Speaker 1: are from someplace else. They didn't grow up there, that
Speaker 1: they didn't go to school there from someplace else. Uh,
Speaker 1: they went there because that's where the opportunity was, that's
Speaker 1: where the capital was. And I we're seeing a slow
Speaker 1: slowing of that brain drain of people leaving in different
Speaker 1: parts of the country and a little bit of a
Speaker 1: boomerang of people returning. In Columbus is a great example,
Speaker 1: a lot of moment in there. I feel like too,
Speaker 1: what we think about what's going on in the middle
Speaker 1: the country. I feel like that when I travel or
Speaker 1: re travel and we get to something other beyond the
Speaker 1: East and West coast, like we just get a different
Speaker 1: point of view, a different perspective. We talk about stress,
Speaker 1: the importance of diversity of in terms of ideas. How
Speaker 1: have you come across that totally entrepreneur at the core,
Speaker 1: see a problem they think should get solved, and start
Speaker 1: a company to solve that problem. And you're only gonna
Speaker 1: see problems based on your experience, and that will include
Speaker 1: where you're living, in the communities that you're interacting with.
Speaker 1: And a great example in the book as an Indianapolis,
Speaker 1: there's a mom and the suburb of Indianapolis that the
Speaker 1: number of years ago was concerned about water quality. This
Speaker 1: is after the Flint, Michigan water crisis. Funts not that
Speaker 1: far from from where she was. He said, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of worried that, you know, maybe my kids are drinking
Speaker 1: unsaved water. So she called the water utility, so I
Speaker 1: want to get my water tested. They said, we don't
Speaker 1: do that for consumers, and if you we could make
Speaker 1: an exception, but it costs you like three or four
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. You thought that was crazy. So she started
Speaker 1: a company called One Tent Water to test people's water,
Speaker 1: initially as just for consumers. Now she's actually selling that
Speaker 1: capability to cities, including San Francisco, to test their water.
Speaker 1: She would not have had that experience unless she happened
Speaker 1: to be there and happened to bump into that problem.
Speaker 1: And that's again this you know, the dozens of the
Speaker 1: stories in the book are people like that. They just
Speaker 1: saw something and said I'm gonna do something about it,
Speaker 1: and they did it from where they were. They didn't
Speaker 1: feel like because they weren't in one of the startup pubs,
Speaker 1: they couldn't really take a shot. Tim and knows, I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with shark take right now. And it does have
Speaker 1: that quality of what you guys have done, You've done competition,
Speaker 1: and it just amazes meets people like that, either something
Speaker 1: happens to a family member, just something in their walk
Speaker 1: of life, and they're just like, we can figure out
Speaker 1: a solution to this, and there it goes. And one
Speaker 1: of my favorite examples is in Chicago, Er k Lefkowski
Speaker 1: started a company called Tempest. And the reason he started
Speaker 1: that was about seven years ago his wife was diagnosed
Speaker 1: with breast cancer and they talked a lot of people
Speaker 1: different hospitals and kept getting different opinions. So, as you know,
Speaker 1: wife's life was hanging in the balance and different people
Speaker 1: were saying you should do different things. He said, well,
Speaker 1: this is kind of a data problem. You need to
Speaker 1: be more precise and what exactly is going on with
Speaker 1: her situation and therefore what would be the best possible
Speaker 1: therapy to help her. And that company now has gone
Speaker 1: to hire more than a thousand people out of data
Speaker 1: sciences coming out of University Illinois, rates billion dollars. It's
Speaker 1: a really great company and it would would not never
Speaker 1: have happened if Eric didn't have a life that was
Speaker 1: struggling with with this disease and was getting differing opinions.
Speaker 1: So this really is the story of entrepreneurship. It just
Speaker 1: partly to write the book is the stories for too
Speaker 1: long has been limited to a few places in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk. There's a celebrated tech entrepreneur. They
Speaker 1: should be celebrated, but we need to also celebrate the
Speaker 1: entrepreneur all over the country that also are doing things
Speaker 1: in new ways. I mean, how about about your story
Speaker 1: starting a O. Well, you didn't start that in New
Speaker 1: York or San Francisco. Yeah, we were outside of Washingt
Speaker 1: d C. In northern Virginia. It was it was not
Speaker 1: by any stretch of startup pub There's no venture capital
Speaker 1: there as hard to get people from big companies to
Speaker 1: join the little little startup company. So it was a struggle.
Speaker 1: I think that helps inform my thinking around the rise
Speaker 1: to rest and maybe passion to make it easier for
Speaker 1: the next generation of entrepreneurs wherever they are in the
Speaker 1: in the country. But for the first decade it was
Speaker 1: it was a struggle and a couple of times we
Speaker 1: almost didn't make it. Finally we we broke through, and
Speaker 1: obviously it end up being a successful company. But many,
Speaker 1: many entrepreneurs in many parts of the country would never
Speaker 1: take that first step to start a company, or if
Speaker 1: they did, they wouldn't real able to raise the capital
Speaker 1: to to make it, you know, go of it, or
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to hire the talent. We've got to
Speaker 1: change that, otherwise we're gonna have a even more divided
Speaker 1: country and probably run the risk of losing what it's
Speaker 1: now a global battle around innovation entrepreneurship UF seats at
Speaker 1: the table where you can help change that. I mean,
Speaker 1: what is it that needs to be changed. Is it
Speaker 1: something to do with incentives from the government in is
Speaker 1: it something that the private sector needs to do and
Speaker 1: wake up? I mean, what is it that needs to
Speaker 1: change that? There's more acknowledgement, most maybe resources going to this.
Speaker 1: Mostly I think the private sector. There are some things
Speaker 1: the government has done and and and then some other
Speaker 1: things government should do. Government. Decade ago I worked on
Speaker 1: the Jobs Act, legalized crowd funding, which helped to create
Speaker 1: some opportunities to raise capital. Just this summer, the Legislation
Speaker 1: of Hips and Science Act included UH funding of about
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars for regional hubs, which will help support
Speaker 1: the Rise of the Rest. So there are some things
Speaker 1: that happen at a national level, you know, the local
Speaker 1: and state level that I think are important, but ultimately
Speaker 1: it's it's the people standing up saying I'm gonna create
Speaker 1: a company. There's some something I want to do, some
Speaker 1: problem I want to solve them and create a company,
Speaker 1: and then getting investors to back that company. One encouraging
Speaker 1: data point, and we got this data the last year
Speaker 1: from a partnership Rise arrested with Pitchbook. In the last decade,
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred new venture capital firms were started in the
Speaker 1: Rise of the Rest cities, meaning outside of San Francists,
Speaker 1: outside of New York, outside of Boston. That bodes well
Speaker 1: for this next chapter because having some of that local
Speaker 1: capital is really helpful to these entrepreneurs. Why is that happening.
Speaker 1: Are people just acknowledging what's going on in some of
Speaker 1: these hubs, or it's hard to compete on the coasts
Speaker 1: for a bunch of factors. But but the core is
Speaker 1: people recognize this next phase of innovation is going to
Speaker 1: be a little different than some of the cities around
Speaker 1: the country that weren't really part of the innovation eCOM
Speaker 1: in the last you know, a couple of decades, are
Speaker 1: well positioned and therefore there's great opportunities to back those companies,
Speaker 1: and investors want to capitalize on that, so that that's
Speaker 1: the main factor. It also helps that we're starting to
Speaker 1: see some real breakout successes. Company like mail Chimp was
Speaker 1: acquired in land A last year for twelve billion dollars.
Speaker 1: Through many there's there are a lot of these companding
Speaker 1: companies that are starting to scale around the country to
Speaker 1: go public or be acquired pretty pretty significant evaluations, which
Speaker 1: lead the investors say, huh, maybe maybe I should be
Speaker 1: paying more attention to some of these other places. Somebody
Speaker 1: out there is making a lot of money. Maybe I
Speaker 1: should do a little less and have a little more diversification.
Speaker 1: I have all my eggs in the Silicon Valley basket,
Speaker 1: have other investments around the country. Are wealth funds in general?
Speaker 1: Like Tim and I talked to so many different wealth
Speaker 1: managers and I feel like so much of their investments
Speaker 1: is looking for kind of some of these startups. Does
Speaker 1: that help fuel the momentum that's going on where it
Speaker 1: might be too pricey for them to get in on
Speaker 1: some of the deals that are typically led by some
Speaker 1: of the coastal firms, if you will, Is that part
Speaker 1: of it? I think it could be part of it.
Speaker 1: But a lot of the capital UH is still invested
Speaker 1: in funds and as a directly in companies, So getting
Speaker 1: more funds started in more places I think is is
Speaker 1: the best solution as a company's scale. Some of the
Speaker 1: investors in those funds also look for co investment opportunities
Speaker 1: in some of those companies, and we're starting to see
Speaker 1: more of that. But anything we can do to get
Speaker 1: more capital in the hands, the more entrepreneurs, and more
Speaker 1: places I think is supportive of this overall rise of
Speaker 1: the rest effort will also help in these communities create
Speaker 1: more jobs and an opportunity which also at least in
Speaker 1: a small way well could help United very divided country.
Speaker 1: Part of that divide, not all of it, but part
Speaker 1: of that is this opportunity gap where some people are
Speaker 1: doing well and a lot of people feel left out
Speaker 1: and left behind. How do we give those people more
Speaker 1: of a shot at the American dream. It's funny that
Speaker 1: you say that because we're talking with the author of
Speaker 1: a new book ATHLETs about the Proud Boys and just
Speaker 1: how they're predominantly white men in the United States were
Speaker 1: just so angry and feel like that they've been left behind. UH.
Speaker 1: And you look at some of the statistics, and when
Speaker 1: we talk about wealth creation, we know that there have
Speaker 1: been a lot of individuals left behind. And it goes
Speaker 1: back to even the core thesis of the Rise of
Speaker 1: the Rest book. If if seventy five percent venture capital
Speaker 1: goes to three states, which is what's happened over the
Speaker 1: last decade, UH, and a lot of other states are
Speaker 1: including big ones Texas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan. These are one
Speaker 1: or two percent um, then there's fewer new companies started,
Speaker 1: fewer new jobs being created. And some of the disruption
Speaker 1: on the coast place like Silicon Valley is actually because
Speaker 1: of automation productivity is actually destroying jobs in many of
Speaker 1: these communities. That's inevitable. It's gonna happen because of a
Speaker 1: new innovation. Hundred years ago of us worked on farms.
Speaker 1: Now it's two percent. That's because technology allowed you grow
Speaker 1: more food with fewer people, which is a good thing
Speaker 1: if you're trying to efficiently feed the world. The difference, though,
Speaker 1: is we followed that by backing new companies that created
Speaker 1: new jobs. And that's what we've missed out on, and
Speaker 1: that's what we have to address, and that's why I
Speaker 1: wrote the book. Hopefully that will lead more people to
Speaker 1: be inspired to start companies, more investors inspired to back
Speaker 1: those companies, more mayors and governors uh and focused on
Speaker 1: supporting those companies, and you'll see these startup pubs not
Speaker 1: just in one or two cities, but in dozens of cities.
Speaker 1: That's really what I think will happen. So, Steve, let's
Speaker 1: say a recent graduate or somebody in college right now
Speaker 1: is listening to this interview, and for years, recent college
Speaker 1: graduates have been told to you know, go west, go east,
Speaker 1: go to the big cities. That's where the opportunity is.
Speaker 1: Give us the top three places where you think this
Speaker 1: college graduate should consider to move. Well, I'm reluctant to
Speaker 1: pick cities because it's a little bit like asking who's
Speaker 1: your favorite child. Now be forty three, a hundred different
Speaker 1: cities we've invested in the course, we're championing all of them.
Speaker 1: But I think that's the simple answer. Depends what they
Speaker 1: want to do. It depends what industry they want to disrupt.
Speaker 1: But rather than presume they have to go someplace else,
Speaker 1: maybe they can stay where they are. We've seen the
Speaker 1: data in the last few years. It's been encouraging that
Speaker 1: graduates from say Carnegie Mellon, which a great university in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: A decade ago, most went to the coast. Now more
Speaker 1: are staying in Pittsburgh. We're also seeing that in an
Speaker 1: University of Michigan is also a great university. Many great
Speaker 1: universities around the country. So rather than presume once you
Speaker 1: graduate you have to leave, the opportunity is better somewhere else.
Speaker 1: The grass is greener somewhere else. Look at your own backyard.
Speaker 1: Chances are there are things happening that you can be
Speaker 1: part of that doesn't require you. If you choose to move,
Speaker 1: you know, so be it, but don't presume you have
Speaker 1: to move. That's what's changed in the last decade. I
Speaker 1: think anybody reading this book would would see that that's
Speaker 1: really happening everywhere. Well, in reading your book and just
Speaker 1: looking over it, it's you had said, it's not just
Speaker 1: about great ideas, and I'm just wondering, what is it
Speaker 1: as you travel around the country and travel through the heartline,
Speaker 1: what is it that says okay, that has potential, or
Speaker 1: that individual has potential, or that idea has potential. Well,
Speaker 1: some of it the ideas we're looking for are taking
Speaker 1: on some of the big aspects of our lives, big
Speaker 1: industries with a with a better way to do it,
Speaker 1: some some some new idea that is just a, you know,
Speaker 1: a better path forward. So that innovative idea is important.
Speaker 1: What's also important, though, is the team you assemble around
Speaker 1: the idea. Sometimes we celebrate the entrepreneur too much, and
Speaker 1: it's really a team sport. How do you get the
Speaker 1: right team? So we look at who else is on
Speaker 1: their team, and we look at for at least early
Speaker 1: evidence at this at the early siege stage, that there's
Speaker 1: sort of this product market fit. There actually is some
Speaker 1: enthusiasm about that that that idea. So there's a mix
Speaker 1: of factors, but it starts with having a big idea,
Speaker 1: but then having the team and and and a strategy
Speaker 1: to really capitalize on that idea. Give us an idea
Speaker 1: of um, I don't know something that you passed on
Speaker 1: in the process of this that has turned out to
Speaker 1: be really successful that you look back and say, I
Speaker 1: wish that was one we would have invested. Well, we've
Speaker 1: tasked on a lot of things, and not not just
Speaker 1: with rides. The rest. I'm not sure we want to
Speaker 1: do pitch competitions. There's about a hundred applicants in every
Speaker 1: city can end up pitching. We then invest in one.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we go back and invest in somebody, somebody that
Speaker 1: didn't win. I'll give you one example in Atlanta, company
Speaker 1: called Hermius was sort of one of the runners up,
Speaker 1: but we were quite taken with it. And basically it's
Speaker 1: a company focused on building Mack five engines and then
Speaker 1: jet jet planes. The air Force is now a customers
Speaker 1: have gone to raise significant capital, including from some some
Speaker 1: coastal investors. So even though we initially said no, and
Speaker 1: we turned around a month later and said we actually whoops,
Speaker 1: we want to get in, and so we did end
Speaker 1: up investing in that company. You know. One of the
Speaker 1: things I mean, I love talking with it with individuals
Speaker 1: like yourself who are in the VC space or in
Speaker 1: the investment space, and and just looking at kind of
Speaker 1: what are the trends and ideas that I don't know
Speaker 1: whether it's five years from now, ten years from now,
Speaker 1: or twenty years where you make the investment today and
Speaker 1: it's to be a big part of the world. How
Speaker 1: should we be thinking about that? What kind of catches
Speaker 1: your interest when you think about I think it is
Speaker 1: the most important aspects of our lives, which I think
Speaker 1: I think I wrote the book previous book, the Third Wave.
Speaker 1: It talked about the first wave getting everybody online. The
Speaker 1: second wave was soft on top of the Internet. The
Speaker 1: third wave was going to be the Internet meeting the
Speaker 1: real world. That's the phase we're now in. So are
Speaker 1: talked about head things like healthcare of food and agriculture, transportation,
Speaker 1: financial services, a lot of different things that that are
Speaker 1: being reimagined. So that's the first place to focus. And
Speaker 1: then recognize that some of the partners you need, some
Speaker 1: the expertise you need is not on the coast it
Speaker 1: is in these different parts of the country and either
Speaker 1: start there or or or move there to really capitalize
Speaker 1: on that expertise. There's a lot of examples of people
Speaker 1: deciding to move. One actually, if somebody who started in
Speaker 1: New York City a company called temper back weed backed.
Speaker 1: It's focused on sustainable packaging style foams terrible for the environment,
Speaker 1: but people have to keep stuff cold, whether it's food
Speaker 1: companies or farmer companies. They created a better packaging, uh,
Speaker 1: and they moved to Richmond, Virginia to launch that company.
Speaker 1: And just a few months ago Goldman Sachs led a
Speaker 1: hundred forty million dollar around to that company in Richmond, Virginia.
Speaker 1: So that's an example of looking for a better way
Speaker 1: and then saying even though they were in New York
Speaker 1: or the Acre Trader founder was in San Francisco, saying,
Speaker 1: is that the best place for me to launch that company?
Speaker 1: And more and more situations we're finding that's not the
Speaker 1: right answer, and entrepreneurs are going to other places too,
Speaker 1: and that's why the rise of the rest is accelerating.
Speaker 1: One word I didn't hear come out of your mouth
Speaker 1: yet has been crypto, and the reason I thought of
Speaker 1: it is because you talked about the first wave in
Speaker 1: the second wave, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: might hear that and think, okay, well, Web one, a
Speaker 1: oll Web two applications. On top of that, access to
Speaker 1: the Internet, Facebook, Phase three, Wave three, Web three, crypto,
Speaker 1: in the metaverse. It's interesting that you define that third
Speaker 1: wave as being something that's real, something that's physical, where
Speaker 1: the Internet actually meets the real world, not necessarily us
Speaker 1: being transformed into this sort of virtual world. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of interesting bubbling in
Speaker 1: Web three, which has become a rather large and very
Speaker 1: basket of things running from you know, crypto, bitcoin, blockchain,
Speaker 1: n f t S, metaverse, a lot of different things. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of those will end up scaling and being pretty significant.
Speaker 1: Others will end up not having the attraction that people thought,
Speaker 1: which is always the case when there's there's new technologies. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I can relate particularly the metaverse point, because we
Speaker 1: launched the first graphical uh kind of multiplayer game, kind
Speaker 1: of a metaverse, a virtual world over thirty years ago
Speaker 1: in partnership with Lucasfilm thirty five years ago. It's called
Speaker 1: Lucasfilm's Habitat was for common or sixty four computers and
Speaker 1: three bod motives and basically are walking around living in
Speaker 1: I totally know what they don't know. But but the
Speaker 1: point is that things like the metaverse are evolutions of
Speaker 1: things that were started earlier, which is again always the
Speaker 1: way it is. So I think there's some really interesting
Speaker 1: things bubbling in that space. I think that is a
Speaker 1: real focused now on what are the things that really
Speaker 1: are going to scale and how do you simplify some
Speaker 1: of these A lot of people are confused by the
Speaker 1: varied options. So when it comes to something like the metaverse,
Speaker 1: is it that we really don't quite know what it is.
Speaker 1: So it's hard to really make maybe a smart calculation
Speaker 1: or thought in terms of the impact on a longer term. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a mix of thing. Some of the use cases
Speaker 1: so far they've gotten traction or obviously in the gaming space,
Speaker 1: and that can be pretty compelling. We're also seeing I'm
Speaker 1: the chair of the Smithsonian, my wife Jane and chairs
Speaker 1: and National Geographic Society. There's something tomorrow from that g
Speaker 1: O and the Case Impact Network tomorrow on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: And uh so we we are, we are, you know,
Speaker 1: we there are some things there that are are helpful
Speaker 1: as well. And there have been also some office applications
Speaker 1: trying to create virtual meetings that are much more compelling,
Speaker 1: much more immersive than than Zoom has been. So there
Speaker 1: are a lot of things that are interesting that are bubbling,
Speaker 1: but and the technology is advancing, you know, pretty pretty significantly,
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of people still feel there's
Speaker 1: a little more work to do to have those breakout,
Speaker 1: you know, killer applications and the technologies that allow you
Speaker 1: to participate in these virtual worlds without sometimes getting motion sick.
Speaker 1: For example. Yeah, exactly, we're talking to you on a
Speaker 1: day where the S and P five you know, hit
Speaker 1: a new low, back at levels last seen in November,
Speaker 1: down close for the year. Give us the macro view
Speaker 1: when you look out of the landscape and what you're
Speaker 1: seeing right now as far as opportunity and are you
Speaker 1: concerned in an environment like this now? I was more
Speaker 1: concerned a year ago and valuation struck me as at
Speaker 1: unsustainable levels. We actually our revolution growth funds slowed the
Speaker 1: pace of new investments and accelerate the pace of essentially
Speaker 1: monetizing similar existing best when we just thought after a
Speaker 1: thirteen year bowl market, things were a little bit out
Speaker 1: of hand, So I'm not surprised by the at least
Speaker 1: personally by the reset. The dynamic that I've seen now
Speaker 1: play out several times is when there is an economic
Speaker 1: some economic pressure, big companies tend to move from offense
Speaker 1: to defense. They look for cost cuts. Often the first
Speaker 1: things to get cut are some of their long term
Speaker 1: innovation projects. What that then means is instead of those
Speaker 1: big companies investing in those new companies, startups can basically
Speaker 1: have more kind of of an opportunity to challenge some
Speaker 1: of the incumbents. So I think this could lead to
Speaker 1: a flourishing of entrepreneurship and a lot of different different sectors. Uh,
Speaker 1: We're just trying to make sure those are that's done
Speaker 1: in a much more inclusive way, so rise the rest
Speaker 1: cities and companies really are the ones that can get
Speaker 1: access to capital and can can challenge those those those
Speaker 1: big incumbents we're talking with, Steve Case. When you talk
Speaker 1: about flourishing, I also do think about geopolitical and you
Speaker 1: know the war in Ukraine and how we're thinking how
Speaker 1: we have to speed up the move to alternative energy
Speaker 1: ultimately because Europe in particularly just getting crushed. How do
Speaker 1: you think about it and how that it impacts maybe
Speaker 1: where you want to invest, particularly climate change energy, which
Speaker 1: are going through some major disruptions right now. Climate is
Speaker 1: is is shifted over the last couple of decades from
Speaker 1: being a problem to solve to being an opportunity to seize.
Speaker 1: Everybody Now not everybody, almost everybody acknowledges there's a real
Speaker 1: threat there. But rather than just tell people what they
Speaker 1: shouldn't do, what's happened in the last few years is
Speaker 1: a lot of entrepreneurs have launched new companies to really
Speaker 1: deal with it in a much more significant kind of way.
Speaker 1: So there's a acceleration of investment and what we call
Speaker 1: climate tech. Uh that will accelerate further because some of
Speaker 1: the legislation that passed Congress just in the last few months,
Speaker 1: particularly the built into this Inflation Reduction Act. They are
Speaker 1: or A with some funding around climate as well as
Speaker 1: some of the funding and the CHIPS Act around Regional hubs.
Speaker 1: Those I think both opportunities for an acceleration of more
Speaker 1: investment in innovative solutions to deal with the climate challenge.
Speaker 1: And some of the companies I mentioned, like temper Pack,
Speaker 1: are angles on that that are really trying to create
Speaker 1: a more sustainable future. So I think it's it's there's
Speaker 1: now a rush for both entrepreci to start companies and
Speaker 1: investors to back companies because they realize this is one
Speaker 1: of the great industries of the future. Twenty seconds. What
Speaker 1: should we ask your wife? What we asked Gene. Uh,
Speaker 1: She just came off of retreat in Africa with the
Speaker 1: National Geographic Board and Botswana, the first time I think
Speaker 1: the Board had ever done a retreat in a hundred
Speaker 1: thirty five year old organization, so she might have some
Speaker 1: thoughts on that. And also, you launched about a year
Speaker 1: ago the Case Impact Network and a newsletter which I'm
Speaker 1: sure she'll talk about this trying to inform particularly young
Speaker 1: millennial investors about things that might they might be fine helpful. Well,
Speaker 1: looking forward to that, and we were still looking forward
Speaker 1: to sitting down with you. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for such an in depth conversation. Maybe we can get
Speaker 1: the two of you at some point. All right, let's
Speaker 1: do it. Steve Case, of course, co founder of America Online,
Speaker 1: chairman CEO of Revolution, his new book Rise at the Rest,
Speaker 1: How entrepreneurs in surprising places are building the new American
Speaker 1: Dream this is Bloomberg,