Speaker 1: This is mesters in business with very results, on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: radio this week on the podcast. What can I say?
Speaker 1: Another great conversation with an extra special guest, Steve Case.
Speaker 1: It really is legendary in everything from putting America Online,
Speaker 1: full pun intended, uh, to being the first Internet company
Speaker 1: to go public, the largest merger in history with a
Speaker 1: l Time Warner. And you would think that's enough of
Speaker 1: a resume, but he didn't stop there. Uh. He basically
Speaker 1: set up a foundation, joined the giving pledge and became
Speaker 1: very active in both policy and entrepreneurship. Revolution is the
Speaker 1: outgrowth of his family office that does everything from seed
Speaker 1: to venture to growth investing. Uh. He was instrumental in
Speaker 1: getting a number of very positive policy actions passed over
Speaker 1: the past decade, and now he is taking his act
Speaker 1: on the road and revealing too much of America, how
Speaker 1: much energy and entrepreneurship there is away from the big
Speaker 1: money centers like New York and San Francisco, in the
Speaker 1: heartland of America, and his new book rise with the
Speaker 1: rest describes that experience. I found this conversation to be
Speaker 1: fascinating and if you are at all interested in technology, venture,
Speaker 1: startups entrepreneurship, I suspect you will also so, with no
Speaker 1: further ADO, my conversation with Steve Case. I've interviewed a
Speaker 1: number of people from revolution. I've spoken to your wife
Speaker 1: about the case foundation. But let's talk about your background.
Speaker 1: Your your entrepreneurial career really begins in when you co
Speaker 1: found America Online, which turned out to be the first
Speaker 1: Internet company to go public. Uh, tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about the founding of a o L. where did
Speaker 1: this idea come from and what was that experience like? Well,
Speaker 1: it was an interesting journey. I actually stumbled onto the
Speaker 1: idea the Internet in U Nineteen seventy. I was a
Speaker 1: senior in college. I was hearing about these things called
Speaker 1: video tex and teletext, interactive TV, and the thing in
Speaker 1: Minitel in France and Prestel and UK, all these interactive
Speaker 1: service I was really intrigued and I read a book
Speaker 1: by Alvin Toffler, the futurists called the third wave, and
Speaker 1: he basically was talking about this coming kind of electronic frontier,
Speaker 1: electronic cottage, and I was I was smitten, I was mesmerized.
Speaker 1: So I knew I wanted to do that. When I
Speaker 1: graduated from college in Nineteen Eighty. UH, there were no
Speaker 1: internet companies to go to work for because it was
Speaker 1: more of an idea. Uh, and venture capital's back then
Speaker 1: weren't backing, you know, twenty one year olds coming out
Speaker 1: of college. So I decided to work for some big companies,
Speaker 1: for all, procter and gamble and then Pepsico. Then moved
Speaker 1: to the Washington D C area to join a startup
Speaker 1: that failed, but thankfully two of the people I met there,
Speaker 1: Jim Kimsey and Mark Saraff and I co founded America
Speaker 1: Online in the in the in the back then only
Speaker 1: three percent of people are online and those three percent
Speaker 1: we're only on an hour a week. So it's still
Speaker 1: pretty early days in terms of the Internet. But really
Speaker 1: believe that someday the Internet would be pervasive, that it
Speaker 1: would be a mainstream phenomenon, and we set out to
Speaker 1: try to get America Online. Yeah, this this Internet thing
Speaker 1: is going to be big one day. I think. I
Speaker 1: think you you were early in that assessment. So I
Speaker 1: was going to ask you why such a something, so
Speaker 1: fundamental block and tackling is access. But really the answer
Speaker 1: is there was no access back then, or other than
Speaker 1: mainframes at universities in the Department of Defense Very few
Speaker 1: people in the real world had. Actually, when we started,
Speaker 1: it was it was the Internet was restricted to government
Speaker 1: agencies and educational institutions. Actually was illegal for businesses or
Speaker 1: consumers to be on the Internet. In a few years later,
Speaker 1: Congress passed the telecom actor commercialize the Internet. Uh So,
Speaker 1: when we were getting started we had to create sort
Speaker 1: of this parallel world, our own kind of email systems,
Speaker 1: our own, you know, kind of servers, because we couldn't
Speaker 1: connect to the UH, the Internet. But we knew it
Speaker 1: was only a matter of time before those worlds would
Speaker 1: would blur together, merge together. Uh. And in our early
Speaker 1: days we really just tried to figure out, like many startups,
Speaker 1: how to get noticed. They a lie. Was Frankly harder
Speaker 1: because we were in the northern Virginia area outside of
Speaker 1: Washington D C. There was no venture capital, you know, there.
Speaker 1: We had to raise money from other places. Uh. People
Speaker 1: would reluctant to leave a big company to go to
Speaker 1: a small company. There are a lot of challenges that
Speaker 1: we face. Frankly, helps inspire some of the work we're
Speaker 1: now doing with the rise of the rest. How do
Speaker 1: we back entrepreneurs and places outside of Silicon Valley. I
Speaker 1: think my own experience building a o l in in
Speaker 1: one of those forgotten places, left behind places that people
Speaker 1: don't think of as startup, you know, kind of hubs,
Speaker 1: kind of helped inform some of that that work and
Speaker 1: it and it took us a while. The the eventually,
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties, the Internet became more of a
Speaker 1: mainstream phenomenon. Hit a tipping point, but for the better
Speaker 1: part of a decade it was it was a struggle
Speaker 1: or a couple of times we almost hit the wall.
Speaker 1: Had to go through some layoffs. It was not obvious
Speaker 1: to most people that the Internet would ever be something
Speaker 1: more than a niche kind of hobbyist kind of phenomenon.
Speaker 1: Even with public it was uh, you know, we raised
Speaker 1: a whopping ten million dollars in our I P o.
Speaker 1: The value of the company that day was seventy million dollars. Basically,
Speaker 1: nobody knew or cared what we were doing. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody really was that interested at the time and the Internet,
Speaker 1: we had been at it for coming on a decade.
Speaker 1: It had only a couple hundred thousand customers. Uh. But
Speaker 1: thankfully the next decade things really accelerated in terms of
Speaker 1: the growth of the company and growth in the evaluation,
Speaker 1: things like that. But it's also, I think, a lesson
Speaker 1: for me I try to carry into the work we
Speaker 1: now do with revolution that sometimes revolutions happen in evolutionary ways.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's not an overnight success. There's a a
Speaker 1: slog before finally you build some momentum, and that was
Speaker 1: my experience with the well, the first decade was hard
Speaker 1: and slow. The second decade really you know, things really
Speaker 1: took off. So was d c just a coincidence of
Speaker 1: where you have to be located, or was that lack
Speaker 1: of Um legislative permission part of the reason? You had
Speaker 1: to locate close to Congress and push that forward? So
Speaker 1: they basically allowed the rest of us to get online.
Speaker 1: Now the reason I moved to D C was more
Speaker 1: of an accident. There was interesting company. I thought it
Speaker 1: was interesting company. They joined three that had a service
Speaker 1: called game line and at the time you might recall this,
Speaker 1: some of your listeners may not, but the very few
Speaker 1: people had home computers, but a lot of people had
Speaker 1: Atari game machines and so the idea of this product,
Speaker 1: as you plugged the game cartridge that had a communications
Speaker 1: capability a modem built in and you could download videogain's
Speaker 1: almost like having an in home arc, like a Netflix
Speaker 1: for for videos. So it's a modem and it looked
Speaker 1: like but you also you had a ad a phone connection,
Speaker 1: and so I thought this was a great way to
Speaker 1: kind of enter that world that I've been reading about
Speaker 1: and wanting to get into. But unfortunately, just as the
Speaker 1: product came to market, the whole Atari game market blew
Speaker 1: up and retailers didn't want any new products and suddenly
Speaker 1: things were looking pretty, pretty, pretty desperate. So that but
Speaker 1: that's why I moved to the area and then because
Speaker 1: I was already there and these two people I mentioned
Speaker 1: were also part of that company. You know, the three
Speaker 1: of us, you know, kind of CO founded America Online
Speaker 1: brought some of the team from that previous company with us.
Speaker 1: So it was accidental to be there, but it turned
Speaker 1: out to be an advantage because, as you say, one
Speaker 1: of the things that we had to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time in the early days of the Internet was
Speaker 1: public policy, getting the regulations right, commercializing Internet, getting things
Speaker 1: right for e commerce, trying to keep the Internet safe
Speaker 1: for kids, things like that, and being in the in
Speaker 1: the WASHINGT D C area proved to be important and, frankly,
Speaker 1: it's proven to be important again now as we're investing,
Speaker 1: because policy is becoming much more of a front and
Speaker 1: center issue for more and more companies and health tech,
Speaker 1: sports tech, food and egg these are these are sectors
Speaker 1: where there's some regulations and entrepreneurs need to understand that,
Speaker 1: investors need to understand that. So I think we kind
Speaker 1: of have a kind of bit of Home Court advantage
Speaker 1: being located in Washington d C uh and having a
Speaker 1: front row seat in terms of understanding how Congress works.
Speaker 1: And you know, things happened, which I think bodes well
Speaker 1: for this next phase of innovation where policy is is
Speaker 1: much more central. We're definitely going to talk about the
Speaker 1: jobs act and some of the public service you've done,
Speaker 1: but I want to stick with a O. L is
Speaker 1: the first Internet company to go public. Subsequently runs up
Speaker 1: eleven thousand six hundred and six. Not Too Shabby. Tell
Speaker 1: us what your experience was like being at the helm
Speaker 1: of a company as it as it went public? Well,
Speaker 1: the early days we're still a little slow, but then
Speaker 1: finally in the ninety seven, things really took off and
Speaker 1: our growth dramatically accelerated. Went from a couple hundred thousand
Speaker 1: customers to tens of millions of customers at market. Kappa
Speaker 1: mentioned when we went public of seventy million at a peak.
Speaker 1: Eight years later a hundred sixty billion dollars. So it
Speaker 1: really was quite a ride. And we went from having
Speaker 1: less than to our employees when we went public to
Speaker 1: eight years later having ten thousand employees and then we
Speaker 1: emerged with Time Warner or something. It was ninety thousand employees.
Speaker 1: So it was it was quite a you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a rocket ship and I recognized as I the
Speaker 1: company was scaling, I as the leader, as a CEO,
Speaker 1: needed to constantly rethink what my job should be, what
Speaker 1: I should focus on, constantly re rejigger things with the team,
Speaker 1: building the team for the business we'd have a couple
Speaker 1: of years from now, not from the business we had
Speaker 1: today or certainly the business we had in the in
Speaker 1: the past. So it was it was a rapid pace
Speaker 1: of of learning a lot in terms of being a
Speaker 1: public company growing, you know, so so rapidly, and also
Speaker 1: I recognized, because a o well was at the time
Speaker 1: the leader in the United States, that I had a
Speaker 1: role to play in not just running a company but
Speaker 1: being sort of an evangelist for the medium and advocate
Speaker 1: for the medium and try to weigh in on policy
Speaker 1: issues to try to make sure that the Internet really
Speaker 1: had a chance to flourish. You mentioned the a well
Speaker 1: Time Warner merger. At the time it was the largest
Speaker 1: merger in history and somehow you guys a o l
Speaker 1: shareholders ended up with a majority of the stock and
Speaker 1: the Time Warner was arguably a much larger, more established company.
Speaker 1: What was that process like of negotiations? Did you approach them?
Speaker 1: Did they come to you? Tell us how how that
Speaker 1: came about? Well, it came about because a o L
Speaker 1: had been growing rapidly and was a leader in what
Speaker 1: was then called the dial up era, the narrow band era,
Speaker 1: where you were connecting your computers to phone lines. But
Speaker 1: we needed a path to broadband and the Best Path
Speaker 1: was cable system which had high speed access. And so
Speaker 1: strategically it was a real value in emerging with Time Warner.
Speaker 1: And we also believed as the Internet evolved and you
Speaker 1: had higher speed, you have more multimedia content and having
Speaker 1: some of the brands that the Warner Brothers studios and
Speaker 1: Warner Music and CNN and HBO and so forth, all
Speaker 1: part of this company would would advantage us. And similarly,
Speaker 1: Time Warner was a great company, been built through acquisitions
Speaker 1: over more than half a century, but they didn't really
Speaker 1: have a viable path to digital. They were trying a
Speaker 1: bunch of things, none of them worked out particularly well.
Speaker 1: So we both had a strategic need to come to
Speaker 1: other and also, frankly, from an all standpoint, are representing
Speaker 1: our shareholders. We recognized there was some value and diversification.
Speaker 1: Our stock had run up quite significantly and owning a
Speaker 1: share of a business that had a more diversified mix
Speaker 1: of things would make sense. So I did approach Jerry Levin,
Speaker 1: as the it was the CEO of Time Warner at
Speaker 1: the time, and basically said strategically, I think it makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense if we put these companies together.
Speaker 1: We have an opportunity to really kind of lead in
Speaker 1: the future and in a lot of different ways, streaming
Speaker 1: and and and so forth. Um and and within the
Speaker 1: first minute or two of my my little pitch I said,
Speaker 1: and I'd be willing to step aside a CEO to
Speaker 1: allow you to be CEO The combined company, because I
Speaker 1: believe in this, in this idea, and that's what happened. Eventually.
Speaker 1: It took us a little while to put a deal together,
Speaker 1: but we didn't finally took a little while to get
Speaker 1: it approved, but finally it did get approved and I
Speaker 1: did step down as a CEO. So there's a theme
Speaker 1: I keep noticing, and lots of the things you've done,
Speaker 1: whether it was a well or the Time Warner merger,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about revolution in a bit, but everything
Speaker 1: you seem to do seems to be both innovative and
Speaker 1: highly disruptive. Is this by design? Was that just a
Speaker 1: happy accident? Well, we're kind to say that. I like to,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of entrepreneurs, to pick battles
Speaker 1: worth fighting, kind of mountains worth climbing. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't you know if it's easy. Uh, it's not that interesting.
Speaker 1: And in fact, what I get motivated by it. Again,
Speaker 1: this is true with many entrepreneurs. If, as somebody says,
Speaker 1: it can't be done, okay, let's you know, game on,
Speaker 1: we're gonna yeah, I I in the early days of
Speaker 1: the Internet, people say it can't be done. The Internet
Speaker 1: was never going to be a mainstream phenomenon. A decade ago,
Speaker 1: when we started working on rise arrest and said innovation
Speaker 1: is gonna happen all of the country, not just in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. Most people thought it was kind of laughable.
Speaker 1: They didn't think that was really likely to happen. No,
Speaker 1: thankfully some of those views are are changing. But I
Speaker 1: think picking those challenges that that really, I think, have
Speaker 1: a positive impact on in the world and even though
Speaker 1: they are hard and in most cases, maybe in all cases,
Speaker 1: take ten, twenty years to achieve your your your goal. Uh.
Speaker 1: Those are the you know, the battles I like fighting,
Speaker 1: really quite quite intriguing. So let's talk about revolution. What
Speaker 1: is it? How did it begin? When did it start? Well,
Speaker 1: began a few years after I stepped down as CEO
Speaker 1: of a well and let's try. I figure out what
Speaker 1: my next act was going to be and rather than
Speaker 1: start a company again, I thought I'd start an investment
Speaker 1: firm that could back the next generation of of of entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1: Initially was started in two thousand five and it was
Speaker 1: called revolution, but it was just my capital. UH, at
Speaker 1: littlewer a decade ago we decided to open up to
Speaker 1: outside capital. So we have institutional investors across the platform.
Speaker 1: Now we have, you know, kind of three basic groups.
Speaker 1: One is revolution growth, which is our later stage, you
Speaker 1: know fund. We also have revolution ventures and more recently,
Speaker 1: about five years ago, we launched the rise of the
Speaker 1: rest seed funds. So now we're able to back entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: at every stage of their journey, whether it's really just
Speaker 1: a really early stage where they just need to see
Speaker 1: the seed funding, whether it's the next phase where they're
Speaker 1: starting to grow in the adventure funding, or if they're
Speaker 1: really starting to scale Um and need you need growth funding.
Speaker 1: That's really what revolutions about. And the other two things
Speaker 1: that make I think, interesting versus maybe other firms in
Speaker 1: the country, and we talked about a little bit earlier,
Speaker 1: but because we're based in Washington D C and because
Speaker 1: we've been working on policy issues for nearly four decades
Speaker 1: and we think the next wave of innovation policy is
Speaker 1: going to be front and center and in Revolution we're
Speaker 1: trying to position as the leading investment firm in the
Speaker 1: country that's focused on on on policy. And the second
Speaker 1: is I think we've been unusually focused on place. With
Speaker 1: the rise of the rest. We've now made two investments
Speaker 1: a hundred different cities. We've done these bus tours all
Speaker 1: across the country and even the reason I wrote the
Speaker 1: book on rise the rest is there's remarkable things happening
Speaker 1: all of their country, remarkable new companies being built, cities
Speaker 1: being renewed and revitalized, but most people aren't paying attention
Speaker 1: to it and I really wanted to tell those stories.
Speaker 1: And that's been a growing focus of revolution to as
Speaker 1: investment firm with outside investors at the seed, venture and
Speaker 1: growth stage, but with particular focus on policy and on place.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about place in a moment.
Speaker 1: But just to put this in a little context, revolution
Speaker 1: has already had some big successes. Sweet Greens obviously a
Speaker 1: big hit. Draft kings another one. Uh. Do those date
Speaker 1: back to when it was a family office or was
Speaker 1: that seed or venture type investment? Those? Those are both
Speaker 1: growth stage investments. So we were the first, first institutional
Speaker 1: investors in in uh, in sweet green, probably seven or
Speaker 1: eight years ago. UH, draft kings probably five or six
Speaker 1: years ago. Also clear that you know the biometric company
Speaker 1: a lot of the recently or recently company in Chicago
Speaker 1: called tempests as used, has got a big data precision
Speaker 1: medicine to help people who are diagnosed with cancer. So
Speaker 1: your DC base, which has to give you a slightly
Speaker 1: different perspective from the folks in Silicon Valley. Before we
Speaker 1: start talking about the rest of the country, what advantages
Speaker 1: do you find being at the heart of the policy
Speaker 1: making apparatus in the United States? Well, our office, the
Speaker 1: Revolution Office, is a few blocks from the White House,
Speaker 1: not too far from the Capitol, and just having lived
Speaker 1: there now for a few decades and having a number
Speaker 1: of people involved in the firm who have been steeped
Speaker 1: in in policy work for government. One of the CO
Speaker 1: founders of Revolution Fifteen years ago as Ron Klain, who
Speaker 1: is now President Biden's chief of staff, John Delaney, joined us.
Speaker 1: Some more recently started two companies went public. That was
Speaker 1: in Congress and ran for president. So we've got some
Speaker 1: people that really understand policy and we've got a location
Speaker 1: that I think is interesting and, as I said, if
Speaker 1: you think about the way I look at the Internet
Speaker 1: is the first wave was getting over online. We talked
Speaker 1: about those early days of a well, went from an
Speaker 1: idea that nobody cared about this suddenly everybody needed to
Speaker 1: be connect and you had to, you know, build those
Speaker 1: on ramps, build all those servers out, build all that infrastructure,
Speaker 1: and that was the first twenty years or so. The
Speaker 1: last twenty years has really been the second wave, which
Speaker 1: has been about building on top of the Internet, building
Speaker 1: APPs and software and services on top of the Internet, facebook, Google,
Speaker 1: things like that. The third wave is when the Internet
Speaker 1: meets the real world and that means you're starting to
Speaker 1: deal with some of the most important aspects of our lives.
Speaker 1: How do we stay healthy? What do we eat? How
Speaker 1: do we learn? How do we invest? How do we
Speaker 1: move around in terms of transportation? And what's interesting about
Speaker 1: those businesses, uh, is they tend to be regulated, you know,
Speaker 1: because they're so important there there tends to be public
Speaker 1: policy focus on on those. So innovators need to understand
Speaker 1: it's a little bit different as in this third wave, uh,
Speaker 1: and that understanding the policy framework, both in terms of
Speaker 1: the go to market strategy and also what policies could
Speaker 1: get changed. The opened up, open up new opportunities. That
Speaker 1: when some of the health care legislation passed more in
Speaker 1: a decade ago, that opened up things like to care advantage.
Speaker 1: That created an enormous investment opportunities. More recently, just the summer,
Speaker 1: there was legislation, including around climates it's going to create
Speaker 1: enormous opportunities to invest in that, in that in that sector.
Speaker 1: We saw one of our companies, draft kings, that we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier. There was a change actually Supreme Court
Speaker 1: ruling that allowed states to make different rules around, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially betting. That opened up a big opportunity and actually
Speaker 1: accelerated the growth of draftings. So policy can can you know,
Speaker 1: kind of be a strategic advantage for companies in this
Speaker 1: third wave and being in Washington, D C and having
Speaker 1: that kind of connectivity, I think that perspective in a
Speaker 1: lot of relationships with people on both sides of the aisle,
Speaker 1: I think gives revolution a unique platform and we're able
Speaker 1: to help the entrepreneurs Rey back in ways that other
Speaker 1: venture capitalists typically can. So you grow up in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: you end up relocating to D c. What led to
Speaker 1: the idea? Hey, there's a massive amount of innovation and
Speaker 1: Energy and entrepreneurship in between New York and Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: How did you find your way to saying let's figure
Speaker 1: out a way to reach these folks, get them funded
Speaker 1: and give them a boost to launch their businesses? Well,
Speaker 1: the triggering event. I was asked a little over a
Speaker 1: decade ago to share a White House initiative called Startup
Speaker 1: America Partnership. That was, you know, launched with President Obama,
Speaker 1: and that got me traveling around the country because it
Speaker 1: was really trying to promote regional entrepreneurship. This is at
Speaker 1: the time when unemployment was high and there was a
Speaker 1: recognition that one way to deal with that was to
Speaker 1: create new jobs and one way to create new jobs
Speaker 1: to create new companies, uh, and so that led to
Speaker 1: a focus on regional entrepreneurship and as I traveled more
Speaker 1: and looked at more of the data, I found it surprising,
Speaker 1: almost shocking, uh, that even though these new companies are
Speaker 1: the major job Creator, uh, most of the venture capital
Speaker 1: to back these new companies is just in a few places.
Speaker 1: You know, of venture capital over the last decade has
Speaker 1: gone to just three states, California, New York and Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: So it even worse than three eight. It's really three cities,
Speaker 1: San Francisco, New York and Bulls. Yeah, within those states
Speaker 1: it's overwhelmingly three cities, as you said. So as a result,
Speaker 1: a lot of people in different parts of the country
Speaker 1: it felt like they have to be there. If they
Speaker 1: if they're not there, they really don't have a shot
Speaker 1: at raising the capital they need to start our scale
Speaker 1: a company. That's led to sort of a brain drain
Speaker 1: and lots of parts of the country people kind of
Speaker 1: leave and and and how do you slow that brain drain?
Speaker 1: How do you create a boomerang of people returning? How
Speaker 1: do you create more jobs in these communities all around
Speaker 1: the country so there is more hope and around the
Speaker 1: you know, the future? And so that really led to
Speaker 1: launching about eight years ago, rise the rest, which initially
Speaker 1: started as bus tour we went to places like Detroit
Speaker 1: and Pittsburgh and and then we went, you know, Minneapolis, Denver,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of you know, forty four cities so far,
Speaker 1: really all over the country to see firsthand what was
Speaker 1: happening there. And we did this with a big red
Speaker 1: bus that got a lot of attention and we had
Speaker 1: pitch competitions. We invite in each city. We invited people
Speaker 1: to join us, uh, and that gave us another, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of Lens into what was happening. And then we
Speaker 1: really doubled down about five years ago when we launched
Speaker 1: the rise of the rest seat fund and we decided
Speaker 1: to do things a little differently there rather than the
Speaker 1: first few years it was just my capital. But we
Speaker 1: decided to you know, kind of ask some of the
Speaker 1: most prominent entrepreneurs and investors in the country to join
Speaker 1: us as lps in this fund. And so we have
Speaker 1: about thirty five people, entrepreneurs like Jeff bezos and Howard
Speaker 1: Schultz and, uh Tory Birch and Sarah Blakeley and and
Speaker 1: venture capitalists like John Dor and Jim Bryer, and private
Speaker 1: equity investors like Henry Kravis and David Rubinstein, Hedge Fund
Speaker 1: people like, you know, Ray Daly. A really an amazing
Speaker 1: group of it's an amazing group of people. Are Honored
Speaker 1: to have them as as our partners in this and
Speaker 1: we set out to find these entrepreneurs and and we
Speaker 1: said we're going to try to build a fund that
Speaker 1: really can generate top tier returns, which is the best
Speaker 1: way to drive more capital from the coast to other
Speaker 1: parts of the country. And it's working. And the reason
Speaker 1: to write the book, Uh, is to really tell those
Speaker 1: stories and and really kind of put some, you know,
Speaker 1: a spotlight on some of these cities that are showing
Speaker 1: remarkable momentum and some of these entrepreneurs in those cities
Speaker 1: that we call the sort of surprising places, that it's
Speaker 1: not Selcon Valley, Not New York, and it's not Boston,
Speaker 1: it's it's Richmond, Virginia, where a company like temperate pack
Speaker 1: is for the innovative and sustainable packaging, or Chattanooga, where
Speaker 1: a company freight waves is doing some interesting things. Interesting
Speaker 1: where in the Bloomberg offices today for this they're building
Speaker 1: essentially a Bloomberg data platform for the trucking and logistics industry,
Speaker 1: because some of the biggest trucking companies are based in
Speaker 1: in Chattanooga. Or Company in Indianapolis called one twenty water
Speaker 1: that's focused on helping initially consumers, but then cities, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of you test their water and make sure that
Speaker 1: after the flat water crisis, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: concern about that. Are In Baltimore, Maryland's company catalyte using
Speaker 1: AI to identify undiscovered kind of talent that people have,
Speaker 1: for for coding, and some of the people who have
Speaker 1: gone through this this program end up making two or
Speaker 1: three times more than they had before. I remember one
Speaker 1: the UPS truck driver. Nobody when he was growing up
Speaker 1: told him he could be a coder. He's kind of
Speaker 1: like to determine they had a talented for coding until
Speaker 1: he's making substantially more that he was making before. So
Speaker 1: these are the kind of stories we're seeing all across
Speaker 1: the country and cities that that would surprise you and
Speaker 1: I think it's the reason to write the book and
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell those stories. I think most people
Speaker 1: reading the book will be surprised by the story. Is
Speaker 1: surprised by the company, is surprised by the cities and
Speaker 1: and have a have a slightly more optimistic view of
Speaker 1: the future of America because of what's bubbling all across
Speaker 1: the country. So so tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: what these bus tours are like. When this big red
Speaker 1: coach rolls into a small town and says, okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna hold a bake off for the best startup technology,
Speaker 1: whatever it happens to be. What is that like and
Speaker 1: what is the reaction of the locals like to this?
Speaker 1: It's very positive. I think for them it's a signal
Speaker 1: that somebody's paying attention to signal that things are, you know,
Speaker 1: turning up in terms of new new possibilities. And we
Speaker 1: used the bus. It's probably uh, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a visual a giant get people's attention and you know,
Speaker 1: you remember a few years ago, sixty minutes the story.
Speaker 1: I think it probably that the optics of that, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the Americana Road trip bus dynamics, is part
Speaker 1: of it, but there's a more strategic reason for it.
Speaker 1: So we actually use the bus as a rolling convening platform.
Speaker 1: We bring people together from different parts of the you know,
Speaker 1: the community. The mayor often joined us, or a senator
Speaker 1: or the university president or a CEOS of big companies,
Speaker 1: as well as obviously the entrepreneurs starting these these these
Speaker 1: these new companies, and we're trying to connect people and
Speaker 1: create more of a collaborative startup community there. And we
Speaker 1: also invite people from other places to join us, either
Speaker 1: investors from the coast or people from larger companies to
Speaker 1: join us on the bus so they can see firsthand
Speaker 1: what's what's what's happening, as well as obviously inviting media,
Speaker 1: about local media and national media and as our way
Speaker 1: to learn what's happening, identify promising companies to to invest in,
Speaker 1: but also to try to showcase the best of what
Speaker 1: each of these cities and in the process if you
Speaker 1: take a step back showcase the best of America, not
Speaker 1: just what's happening on the coast, but what's happening all
Speaker 1: across the country. I would think that with all the
Speaker 1: focus on New York, Boston and especially Silicon Valley, there
Speaker 1: are some enormous inefficiencies and lots of great ideas and
Speaker 1: either underfunded or undervalued. Startups in the in the heartlands,
Speaker 1: are are being, or at least were being, neglected until
Speaker 1: you shine a line on them. Yeah, and it's as
Speaker 1: we still a lot of work to do, but it's
Speaker 1: starting to change. I think the last few years people
Speaker 1: have seen some real significant successes. Even a company I
Speaker 1: write about in the book called a male chimp based
Speaker 1: in Atlanta had acquired for twelve billion dollars. It was
Speaker 1: actually bootstrapped. There was no venture capital, in part because
Speaker 1: they weren't able to raise venture capital and they started
Speaker 1: more in a decade ago in Atlantic and most people
Speaker 1: weren't really investing in cities like uh like Atlanta. As
Speaker 1: investors seem more and more of those success stories in
Speaker 1: places all across the country. It's opened their eyes to
Speaker 1: the potential and their starting to pay more attention. They're
Speaker 1: still overwhelmingly investing in their own backyards. If they're sitting
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, most of their investments are in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: But at least they're a little more open minded about
Speaker 1: it and, frankly, the pandemic has been helpful. On that show,
Speaker 1: you don't want to, you know, make light of all
Speaker 1: the tragedies of the pandemic. overlining force people to think
Speaker 1: outside of listen. If you're stuck at home and you're
Speaker 1: talking to an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter if they're down
Speaker 1: the street or three thousand miles. Exactly that, if you're
Speaker 1: doing a pitch meeting on zoom, what differences that make
Speaker 1: where they are. That was that was helpful. The other
Speaker 1: thing that's been helpful is for a lot of people
Speaker 1: the pandemic was sort of a opportunity to take a
Speaker 1: step back and reassess their their lives, and some people
Speaker 1: have decided to shift how they live and how they
Speaker 1: work and where they live and where they work, and
Speaker 1: the whole idea of more remote work, hybrid work has
Speaker 1: become a real phenomenon and that is helping these rise
Speaker 1: of the rest cities that we've seen. Some people who
Speaker 1: grew up in different parts of the country or went
Speaker 1: to you know college and different parts of the country
Speaker 1: and had gone to the coast, typically typically Silicon Valley uh, decided,
Speaker 1: doing the pandemic, to move back and once they're there,
Speaker 1: even though they usually start working, continuing to work for
Speaker 1: the company they had been working for, just doing it remotely,
Speaker 1: they realized there's remarkable things happening in the startup communities
Speaker 1: in those cities and some of them are now starting
Speaker 1: to leave those big companies to join some of those
Speaker 1: small companies, some of them starting to think about starting
Speaker 1: their own companies in these communities. So I think the
Speaker 1: tipping point for the rise of the rest really was
Speaker 1: with the pandemic and we'll see an acceleration over the
Speaker 1: next decade. And it goes back to what I said earlier.
Speaker 1: But for me, these these these these these journeys, these
Speaker 1: these battles I'm fighting, whether it be the early days
Speaker 1: of the internet or, more recently, leveling the playing field
Speaker 1: with with rides. The rest have a certain, you know,
Speaker 1: dynamic to them, which is the first ten years it's
Speaker 1: a slog uh, and the second ten years things really
Speaker 1: kind of take off. We saw that with the Internet
Speaker 1: we're beginning to see glimmers of that with the rise
Speaker 1: of the rest. So hopefully this book will help accelerate
Speaker 1: the whole movement. So so let's talk about some of
Speaker 1: the cities that you've gone to. After New York, Boston
Speaker 1: and Silicon Valley, Um, what is the next largest tier?
Speaker 1: What do you think is the fastest growing cities and
Speaker 1: what cities surprised you the most? For whatever reason, it
Speaker 1: happened to a car? That's a tough question for two reasons.
Speaker 1: One is, uh, it's not just a few cities, it's
Speaker 1: a few dozens right, so it's hard. It's hard to
Speaker 1: just pick a few and the second it's a little
Speaker 1: bit like asking apparent who their favorite child is. You know,
Speaker 1: that's what you say, but we know you have a favorite.
Speaker 1: But so let me ask the easier question. What surprised
Speaker 1: you the most when you were out and about in
Speaker 1: a hundred different cities? Well, each of the cities there's
Speaker 1: something they're similar and some things they are different. What's
Speaker 1: what's similar is what's happened is in the last particularly decade,
Speaker 1: more attention got focused on startups. Even even the government leaders,
Speaker 1: mayors and governors for decades economic development was basically getting
Speaker 1: a big company to move their headquarters, big company to
Speaker 1: open a factory, and the recognition more recently was no,
Speaker 1: the real way to do that in a sustainable, efficient
Speaker 1: way is actually to launch new companies, some of which
Speaker 1: would fail, because that's the nature, but some of which
Speaker 1: would succeed and be maybe the fortune companies of tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and then kind of creating more of that collaboration in
Speaker 1: the in the community. More that sense of possibility in
Speaker 1: the community has been a really a key ingredient that
Speaker 1: we've been watching building over this over the past decade.
Speaker 1: But the other aspect I think is interesting is there
Speaker 1: are some cities that really it's not just a lower
Speaker 1: cost of living or lower lower cost of operations, which
Speaker 1: is which is a motivator for some, or family reasons
Speaker 1: or lifestyle reasons to be in a particular city, which
Speaker 1: is a motivator or some. There are more and more
Speaker 1: cities where there really is an advantage to be in
Speaker 1: those cities versus being in, say, San Francisco or New York.
Speaker 1: Take could take healthcare, but the healthcare really is going
Speaker 1: to require systems level change really revolutionize how we think
Speaker 1: about our our health that's going to require partnership. Some
Speaker 1: of the key partners you need in in the healthcare
Speaker 1: space or big hospitals like Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or
Speaker 1: Cleveland Clinic in Ohio or Johns Hopkins in Maryland or
Speaker 1: M D Anderson and Texas. Being close to them probably
Speaker 1: increases your odds of establishing partnerships with them. So that
Speaker 1: dynamic is critical. Another example is in a company we
Speaker 1: backed in in northwest Arkansas, Fayetteville, called Acre trader. Basically
Speaker 1: it's a platform to invest in farmland and the founder, Cardamola,
Speaker 1: actually was in San Francisco and said if I'M gonna
Speaker 1: start a company that's going to basically be this platform
Speaker 1: for farmland, I should be where the farmers are. That's
Speaker 1: a good way to build, you know, kind of trust
Speaker 1: and and and scale up the platform, and he's done
Speaker 1: very well raise a large round or scaling quite rapidly.
Speaker 1: I am familiar with Acre trader and had no idea
Speaker 1: that you guys had anything to do with that and
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful rise of the restory because again, even
Speaker 1: though Carter Malla I had left that area to go
Speaker 1: to San Francisco, he returned and some of that. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was for family reasons, but most of it
Speaker 1: was for strategic reasons. Acre trader is more successful in
Speaker 1: in Arkansas than if it had been in, you know state,
Speaker 1: in California or New York, and we're seeing that happen
Speaker 1: and more and more of these these cities. But in
Speaker 1: terms of the one city I would point out because
Speaker 1: it's an amazing story, it's even I lead off the
Speaker 1: book with it, is a story of Detroit. You know,
Speaker 1: people don't really focused on this, but if you think
Speaker 1: about Detroit a hundred years ago, essentially was Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: It was the most innovative city in the country when
Speaker 1: the automobile was the hot technology of the day. A
Speaker 1: hundred years ago silicon valley was fruit orchards. They weren't
Speaker 1: growing startups, they weren't growing fruit. Apple is called apple
Speaker 1: for a reason. And so, yeah, Detroit was rocking and
Speaker 1: rolling that the car revolution. For a couple of decades.
Speaker 1: People wanted to be part of that. Moved to Detroit.
Speaker 1: Houses were being built, schools were being built. You know,
Speaker 1: was really rocking and rolling. And then, you know, about
Speaker 1: fifty years ago things turned and they lost sixty of
Speaker 1: their population and the year before we rolled in with
Speaker 1: our rise of the rest bus, the city of Detroit
Speaker 1: went bankrupt. What had been Silicon Valley went bankrupt. That's
Speaker 1: the bad news. The good news is a vibrant startup culture,
Speaker 1: particularly in the downtown Detroit area, and we backed companies
Speaker 1: like Shinola and stock acts and others that are in Detroit,
Speaker 1: with the backing of a great entrepreneur and Gilbert, a
Speaker 1: strong mayor. Foundations like Krusky all worked together to say
Speaker 1: we need to rebuild Detroit and we're gonna do it
Speaker 1: on the back of backing new companies startups in Detroit.
Speaker 1: So now Detroit's, you know, kind of back on on
Speaker 1: the on the rise and doing some phenomenal things. The
Speaker 1: other city we visited on that first rise rest bus
Speaker 1: tour was Pittsburgh. I think about Pittsburgh. It really powered
Speaker 1: the industrial revolution. It was the steel capital and and
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago it was rock and rolling. And then,
Speaker 1: you know, I lost some of that, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a lead, but reinvented itself in the last couple
Speaker 1: of decades. Have a great university there, Carnegie Mellon, and
Speaker 1: big focused on robotics, for example, and as a result
Speaker 1: of backing new companies since up, like due lingo, the
Speaker 1: language APP started spun out of Carnegie Mellon, started in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: It's seeing the arise again. But this is this is
Speaker 1: really the story of dozens of cities. I think if
Speaker 1: you fast forward ten or twenty years, it's more, as
Speaker 1: I said earlier, more optimistic view of America that will
Speaker 1: have a more inclusive innovation economy. Won't just be a
Speaker 1: few people in a few places. It will be a
Speaker 1: much more broader based UH innovation economy which I think
Speaker 1: will result in the create some more jobs and more
Speaker 1: parts of the country, which might even create more of
Speaker 1: a of an opportunity to knit together a very divided
Speaker 1: country that's obviously divided in many respects, but one way
Speaker 1: is sort of a opportunity gap. There's some people doing
Speaker 1: really well, a lot of people struggling and feeling left behind.
Speaker 1: How do we create some of the jobs of the future,
Speaker 1: even some of the industries of the future in these
Speaker 1: in these cities all across America? You raise an interesting
Speaker 1: policy question. Whenever I see, you know, a groundbreaking where
Speaker 1: some giant company comes in with all these tax abatements,
Speaker 1: we sort with Fox con in Wisconsin turned out to
Speaker 1: be a bust. We see it every time some billionaires
Speaker 1: stadium gets paid for by taxpayers. The math never seems
Speaker 1: to work out. But it sounds like what you're saying
Speaker 1: here is if we stop trying to do these giant
Speaker 1: let's bring a big company and to save the factory
Speaker 1: town and if that company leaves the town is toast.
Speaker 1: Let's create an entire different model of startups, small companies,
Speaker 1: build that whole ecosystem. That has a much better chance
Speaker 1: of success for that region and success for the country.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about this economic development battle where different
Speaker 1: states are fighting with each other over over the same,
Speaker 1: you know, existing companies. It's sort of zero sum for America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just throwing money at it to get you leave
Speaker 1: here to go there. It doesn't really help the country.
Speaker 1: And so, and you say, often those investments do not
Speaker 1: pay off for those particular cities or those particular states.
Speaker 1: So it's way better to focus on the new companies.
Speaker 1: And we saw an interesting dynamic a few years ago
Speaker 1: when Amazon launched its second headquarters, you know, and they
Speaker 1: basically say create a second headquarters and create tens of
Speaker 1: thousands jobs in that second headquarters, uh and, you know,
Speaker 1: let us know if you're interested in this. You know,
Speaker 1: coming and two D thirty different cities all pitched, uh,
Speaker 1: to to get Amazon to, you know, to come. Ultimately
Speaker 1: decided actually in northern Virginia, not too far from where
Speaker 1: we started. All is where they decided to kind of
Speaker 1: plant their flag. But then, you know, the Nice thing
Speaker 1: about it was those two or thirty cities had to
Speaker 1: come together, had to make a joint pitch, had to
Speaker 1: figure out what their strengths were, to really highlight what
Speaker 1: some of the weaknesses were that they could they could
Speaker 1: focus on. And where we're seeing is sort of a
Speaker 1: continuing effect to that that many of these cities, you know,
Speaker 1: are now focused on these new companies, focused on backing,
Speaker 1: you know, the startups, saying we don't really want to
Speaker 1: do that fighting again to get Amazon. How do we
Speaker 1: create the next Amazon in our communities? That's resulting in
Speaker 1: a pivot to focus on new companies, on startups, in
Speaker 1: cities all across America. So let's let's dig a little
Speaker 1: deeper into revolution. First is, is there a favorite sector
Speaker 1: or industry or size that revolution likes? or it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if it's an interesting idea with a chance for
Speaker 1: success it interests you. But they said there's two key
Speaker 1: planks of our strategy. One is policy in the other
Speaker 1: is place. So on the policy side we tend to
Speaker 1: focus on the industries where there is a policy, you
Speaker 1: kind of component. So I mentioned a health tech company
Speaker 1: called the tempest. I mentioned temper pack which in the
Speaker 1: sustainable kind of packaging business, clear the biometric company. Those
Speaker 1: are their policy issues and usually partner issues associate with that.
Speaker 1: But agricultural culture would fit into that, sports tech would
Speaker 1: would fit into that. So there there are many sectors
Speaker 1: that fit into that, but they generally most of the
Speaker 1: theme that generally drives most of our efforts are around
Speaker 1: policy and then, of course, with our ride the rest
Speaker 1: seed fund, that is very place based and in sector agnostic.
Speaker 1: And one of the interesting things we learned late last
Speaker 1: year we did a joint report with pitchbook and there
Speaker 1: are two data points that I thought were striking and
Speaker 1: even surprising to me, I've been working on this for
Speaker 1: a decade. The first was in the last decade four
Speaker 1: hundred new regional venture firms were started up and they're
Speaker 1: typically focusing on that early seed and kind of venture stage.
Speaker 1: And the other data point was there's a six hundred
Speaker 1: percent increase in venture capital going to these rides of
Speaker 1: rest cities. So the things we've been talking about the
Speaker 1: decade we're starting to see progress. New Venture firms starting,
Speaker 1: more capital flowing, but we think things will really accelerating
Speaker 1: in in in the next decade. We're just trying to
Speaker 1: make sure revolution we're positioned to really be the leader
Speaker 1: around place and use even the book that to to
Speaker 1: make the case for why other investors should be investing
Speaker 1: in these other cities, not just in the usual places
Speaker 1: like San Francisco and New York, in Boston. So so
Speaker 1: revolution brings a lot more to the table than just
Speaker 1: cap at all. There's a lot of value air coming
Speaker 1: absolutely no. At the beginning we make an investment, that's
Speaker 1: the start of the process of working with a company,
Speaker 1: whether it be introducing them to new partnerships or helping
Speaker 1: them recruit people their management team or there their boards are,
Speaker 1: helping them navigate sometimes complicated policy issues. There's lots of
Speaker 1: things we try to do to really help these companies scale,
Speaker 1: help them achieve their their full potential. Quite quite intriguing.
Speaker 1: Coming up we continue our conversation with Steve Case, chair
Speaker 1: and CEO of revolution, discussing his new book, the rise
Speaker 1: of the rest, how entrepreneurs in surprising places are building
Speaker 1: the new American dream. I'm Barry ridholts. You're listening to
Speaker 1: masters in business on Bloomberg radio. I'm Barry rihults. You're
Speaker 1: listening to masters in business on Bloomberg radio. My extra
Speaker 1: special guest this week is Steve Case. He is the
Speaker 1: chairman and CEO of revolution, as well as one of
Speaker 1: the three co founders of America Online. He is also
Speaker 1: chair of the case foundation and the Smithsonian. He is
Speaker 1: the author of a new book, the rise of the rest,
Speaker 1: how entrepreneurs and surprising places are building the new American dream.
Speaker 1: That is out this week. So so let's talk about
Speaker 1: the book. What, first of all, what motivates you? As
Speaker 1: someone who's written a book, I know how much work
Speaker 1: goes into it. What motivated you to sit down and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'M gonna put all this down on paper? I thought
Speaker 1: I had to write the book. I spent most of
Speaker 1: the decade traveling the country, meeting entreprenurs, visiting dozens of cities,
Speaker 1: seeing remarkable things happening that were most people are unaware of,
Speaker 1: and so I just felt like I have a choice.
Speaker 1: I had to write this book. I had to tell
Speaker 1: these stories there there. I had to profile some of
Speaker 1: these entrepreneurs, talk about what they're doing with with their companies,
Speaker 1: showcase some of these rising cities in terms of what
Speaker 1: they're doing to really create, you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: renew their communities, create more opportunity, more jobs, things like that.
Speaker 1: Uh So, what? It was not really a choice. I
Speaker 1: just felt compelled to write this this book. What was
Speaker 1: the response from the various entrepreneurs? When you say to somebody, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm going to feature you as a chapter in this
Speaker 1: new book? Are People excited about it? Of course, of course.
Speaker 1: I think they, particularly entrepreneurs in these rise of the
Speaker 1: rest cities, tend to feel uh, lonely, a little left out.
Speaker 1: They don't have the at least. Yeah, we're working on this, obviously,
Speaker 1: but don't have quite the attention that you have if
Speaker 1: you're an entrepreneur place like Silicon Valley. Uh So, even
Speaker 1: when we've rolled into town with our rise of rest bus,
Speaker 1: you just have pitch competitions where entrepreneurs can be on stage.
Speaker 1: That allows them to talk up what they're doing and
Speaker 1: get people in their communities to better understand where they're
Speaker 1: doing and believe in what they're they're doing. And similarly
Speaker 1: with the with the book. Everybody we talked to with
Speaker 1: it was was honored, obviously, to being included the book
Speaker 1: and appreciative of the fact that we're really championing their
Speaker 1: stories trying to do what we can to help them
Speaker 1: scale into being kind of significant companies that can change
Speaker 1: the world, create significant value for the investor, to create,
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully, thousands of jobs and the process kind
Speaker 1: of lift up their particular communities and strengthened America in
Speaker 1: terms of having, you know, kind of a more inclusive economy.
Speaker 1: To tell us about these pitch competitions. How Long Does
Speaker 1: each entrepreneur get? What are they allowed to bring? What
Speaker 1: are some of those uh pitches like? How how do
Speaker 1: you how do they vary from one to one? Well,
Speaker 1: when we decided to do a road trip, we planned
Speaker 1: this for more than six months in advance, so we
Speaker 1: have an advanced team that's going to the cities. We
Speaker 1: try to understand what who should we visit in the cities?
Speaker 1: What startup to do, like a bus startup crawl with with.
Speaker 1: You know, we might have a lunch and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, pitch invent a lot of different things to
Speaker 1: really kind of get people together. But for the pitch
Speaker 1: competition specifically, we basically say we're coming to tower do
Speaker 1: this pitch competition and we generally get about a hundred
Speaker 1: people applying to pitch and then our team sorts through
Speaker 1: that and picks the best eight or ten to be
Speaker 1: on stage. Then we actually hire a pitch coach to
Speaker 1: help them work on their pitch. We really want to
Speaker 1: help them, where they win or not, we're trying to
Speaker 1: help them be positioned for, uh, for a success. So
Speaker 1: they each get you three minutes or so to pitch
Speaker 1: and then a couple of minutes of questions following that, uh,
Speaker 1: and then we, we judges, spend some time reviewing which
Speaker 1: one should win and and then we make a decision
Speaker 1: of which one we're going to invest in. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: actually invest in more than one because we're just struck
Speaker 1: by the, you know, the power of some of those uh,
Speaker 1: some of those ideas. So so, just a quick digression.
Speaker 1: So we have a VC fund that just focuses on
Speaker 1: financial technology because of of my day job, and we
Speaker 1: just had this giant conference out in, of all places,
Speaker 1: Huntington Beach in so cal, and one of the things
Speaker 1: we did was an exact that exact thing, a pitch competition.
Speaker 1: It was five minutes per entrepreneur and I think we
Speaker 1: ended up going with ten people out of well over
Speaker 1: a hundred applications. But the idea of a pitch coach,
Speaker 1: because some of the pitches were fantastic, some were a
Speaker 1: little rough around the edges. The idea of a pitch
Speaker 1: coaches is really um intriguing. How did people respond to that? Um,
Speaker 1: someone coming in and saying, Hey, you only have three
Speaker 1: or four minutes, here's what you need to focus on.
Speaker 1: It was super helpful and obviously these companies have been
Speaker 1: done pitches before, but they are never done, in most cases,
Speaker 1: of pitch at this at this state kind a level,
Speaker 1: with this kind of audience. And so getting it actually
Speaker 1: came to as we had a partnership with Google. They
Speaker 1: haven't it should have called Google for startups, and we
Speaker 1: were doing some joint things with them and they were
Speaker 1: doing a pitch competition where they invited some of the
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs that we helped select from all around the country
Speaker 1: to come pitch at Google headquarters in Silicon Valley and
Speaker 1: as part of that they used a pitch coach. So
Speaker 1: we then embraced that idea and ever since we've had
Speaker 1: a pitch coach as well. But no, it's it's a
Speaker 1: can really result in, uh, the entrepreneurs telling a much
Speaker 1: more compelling story and and it benefits them long after
Speaker 1: we leave town. They have a Crisper, more compelling pitch
Speaker 1: for the next time they're meeting with a prospective investor
Speaker 1: or customer or partner. Data is wonderful, but sometimes it's
Speaker 1: all about the narrative, isn't it exactly. No, storytelling is
Speaker 1: a lot of what this is about. You have to
Speaker 1: captivate people, UH, everybody. Everybody has to be selling. If
Speaker 1: you're trying to hire somebody, you're selling. If you're trying
Speaker 1: to get investors, you're you're selling, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: trying to get media attention, you're selling, if you're obviously
Speaker 1: you're trying to get customers, you're you're, you're, you're selling.
Speaker 1: And everybody can be coached to be better at what
Speaker 1: they're what they're trying to you know, to sell really interesting.
Speaker 1: You know you you said something earlier that I let
Speaker 1: sneak by, but I got to bring it back up.
Speaker 1: The jobs act, passed under the Obama Administration, Um, and
Speaker 1: the investing opportunities act. Not only were you involved in
Speaker 1: helping to create that policy, you were instrumental in getting
Speaker 1: that past. So first, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: that experience. In second, what has that meant for startups
Speaker 1: and funding of new companies and entrepreneurs? Well, the job
Speaker 1: at passed just about a decade ago and broad bypartisans support.
Speaker 1: It's called jump starting our business startups act and it
Speaker 1: was basically updating the rules of securities laws in places
Speaker 1: thineteen thirty three. So this one just pre Internet. This
Speaker 1: is pre television and it needed a little bit of
Speaker 1: an update and it allowed things like crowdfunding. It had
Speaker 1: created an on ramp for young companies to go public.
Speaker 1: We're called emerging growth companies. That field more I P
Speaker 1: O s. It was really about giving more entrepreneurs more
Speaker 1: access to capital. would be the early stage or the
Speaker 1: later stage, with the with the goal of having more
Speaker 1: companies start and scale and create more jobs. And so
Speaker 1: that's really why it was called the you know, the
Speaker 1: the jobs act, and and it was. It was great.
Speaker 1: I worked on the President Obama's jobs and competitives council
Speaker 1: and there was a little subcommittee focused particularly on entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1: I work with Cheryl Sandberg facebook and John Dor the
Speaker 1: venture capitalist, Clara Perkins to help fund, you know, figure
Speaker 1: out what some of the policies would be that would
Speaker 1: create a more fertile startup environment all across the country,
Speaker 1: and the jobs act was part of that. So so,
Speaker 1: what do you think the direct result of that legislation,
Speaker 1: in that policy update has been in the decade you've
Speaker 1: been traveling around the country and looking at at startups?
Speaker 1: I think crowdfunding has been helpful to a number of
Speaker 1: companies to otherwise wouldn't have had access to capitol, would
Speaker 1: never have gotten started up. And they're more companies have
Speaker 1: gone public in the last decade because of the jobs
Speaker 1: act making a little easier for these emergent companies to
Speaker 1: go public. I keep finding these when I'm searching for something.
Speaker 1: I keep finding these funny little products like Oh, that
Speaker 1: looks really interesting. I've never seen anything like that. You
Speaker 1: Click through and and as often as not it's a crowdfunding. Hey,
Speaker 1: give us enough money to help get this product launched
Speaker 1: and you get a product, but not necessarily any equity ownership.
Speaker 1: Is that? Is that the future for very specialized, niche
Speaker 1: products as opposed to broad company startups? Yeah, the crowdfunding
Speaker 1: really started with some platforms like kickstarter, where exactly what
Speaker 1: you're saying that if you people offer a particular product,
Speaker 1: usually before it would even be manufactured, and get some
Speaker 1: pre or or is, it will allow them to have
Speaker 1: the capital then go build out, you know, the product,
Speaker 1: and that worked for a number of companies. Some of
Speaker 1: those products then end up getting launched more broadly or
Speaker 1: they raising capital more broadly. But there also has been
Speaker 1: more and more companies that are using crowdfunding to raise
Speaker 1: equity capital to help fund the companies, as we can
Speaker 1: do both, not just the product but you're actually a
Speaker 1: small investor in the startup. Exactly, really, really quite Um,
Speaker 1: quite fascinating. So let's circle back to two thousand. The
Speaker 1: time ornery O l deal goes through, you set up
Speaker 1: a family office and from that you really start to
Speaker 1: expand into a lot of different public service and philanthropy. Um,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the National Advisory Council on Innovation and entrepreneurship,
Speaker 1: as well as President Obama's council on jobs and competitiveness.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about when you go from
Speaker 1: a nimble startup to a big merger to the govern
Speaker 1: them in. What's the trade off? How difficult is it
Speaker 1: to move the ball down the field? Well, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult for sure, which is why I do
Speaker 1: it only on the side. It's sort of my my
Speaker 1: my moonlighting, my side hustle. My main event is focused
Speaker 1: on investment companies through revolution, but I do think it's
Speaker 1: important to make sure that, you know, I do at
Speaker 1: least everything I can to make sure America remains the
Speaker 1: most innovative entreprene nation. I do think it's important to
Speaker 1: try to, as we discussed around rise to rest, create
Speaker 1: a more inclusive innovation economy that brings along more people
Speaker 1: and more places. And while most of that and most
Speaker 1: of my time has spent on working with those entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: as an investor and mentor, I do think it's important
Speaker 1: to make sure we have the right policy framework in
Speaker 1: place that creates as much opportunity as possible for as
Speaker 1: many entrepreneurs as possible, as many places in America as
Speaker 1: as possible. So that led to the work around the
Speaker 1: National Advisory Council on Innovation Entrepreneurship more than a decade ago. Actually.
Speaker 1: The current Secretary Commerce, Gina Romando, we started it, recently
Speaker 1: asked me to Co share it again, so I agreed
Speaker 1: to do that. And we're focused particularly on identifying some
Speaker 1: of the industries of the future where America really needs
Speaker 1: to lead and supporting this effort around regional hubs, including
Speaker 1: some of the legislation that passed recently a fund more
Speaker 1: regional innovation around the around the country, so it is
Speaker 1: a less silicon valley. What's the big change in the
Speaker 1: decade that has ensued from the last time you were
Speaker 1: involved with this policy or this panel to today? Well,
Speaker 1: some of the initial focus was on this access to
Speaker 1: capital side, which led to things like the you know,
Speaker 1: the job Jag. Now it's, I think, a little more
Speaker 1: of focused on access to opportunity, which ties in with
Speaker 1: the work we're doing around rise the rest. How do
Speaker 1: you create a uh, you know, level the playing fields
Speaker 1: so everybody, everywhere has a shot the American dream? That's
Speaker 1: really what it's all about and and trying to create
Speaker 1: more of that investment. Uh. It's also it's striking to me,
Speaker 1: because I've been doing this now for a while. As
Speaker 1: you think about that early days of the Internet, we
Speaker 1: talked about a well being in northern Virginia outside Washing
Speaker 1: d C. actually a number of the companies that were
Speaker 1: pivotal in that first wave we're all across the country.
Speaker 1: It was not so much about Silicon Valley. For example,
Speaker 1: UH IBM S PC operations were in Boca Raton, Florida.
Speaker 1: Hump to serve a major online service. Time was in
Speaker 1: Columbus Ohio. Hayes, the Communications Modem Company, was in Atlanta, Georgia. SPRENT,
Speaker 1: another communications company, was in Kansas City. Dell was in Austin.
Speaker 1: Microsoft actually started Albuquerque before moving to to U to Seattle.
Speaker 1: So that first wave of innovation the Internet was regionally distributed.
Speaker 1: It was only the second way, when it became about
Speaker 1: you know, software, that silicon valley rose to prominence. I
Speaker 1: think in the third way we can redistribute again and
Speaker 1: have innovation in different parts of the country and that's
Speaker 1: part of the focus of on on the on the policy.
Speaker 1: So I just do what I can to bring that
Speaker 1: Entrepreneurial Lens at Investor Lens Uh to the policy makers,
Speaker 1: doing it in a very kind of bipartisan you know
Speaker 1: kind of way, working with Republicans and Democrats, trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what is the right, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: policy going forward. But it's easier to do, you know,
Speaker 1: based on your question, you know it is challenging to
Speaker 1: deal with these things. Sometimes it does feel like you're
Speaker 1: trying to, you know, move a mountain, but doing it,
Speaker 1: you know, occasionally on the side would be is it
Speaker 1: works for me. I have great respect for the people
Speaker 1: who are willing to jump into it full time. I
Speaker 1: think that's not my thing. It's tough. You you mentioned
Speaker 1: the subcommittee on Entrepreneurship. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: their work and what have they accomplished? Well, that was,
Speaker 1: I think, pivotal in terms of creating the framework and
Speaker 1: also the momentum around things like the jobs act. And
Speaker 1: the way we did that is we actually asked an
Speaker 1: outside consulting firm, it was a McKenzie uh to do
Speaker 1: look at all of the the ideas have been put
Speaker 1: on table, legislation that been introducing Congress, think tanks and
Speaker 1: others that would create a more entrepreneurial ecosystem all across,
Speaker 1: you know, the country and the number of things were
Speaker 1: identified and we just kind of whacked away working on
Speaker 1: identifying what the what, which policy would have the you know,
Speaker 1: the biggest impact, and I think we did make progress
Speaker 1: and in lots of different areas. One area we did
Speaker 1: recommend that we spend more time on that we didn't
Speaker 1: make progress on, but hopefully still will, will be immigration reform.
Speaker 1: How do we make sure we remain a magnet for
Speaker 1: people around the world who want to come here and
Speaker 1: and star our companies here and create jobs here? And
Speaker 1: how do we make it easier for people, a common
Speaker 1: people who come for universities, you know, education, how a
Speaker 1: little easier for them to stay? Uh. So, you know,
Speaker 1: we can continue to lead, to lead, to charge and
Speaker 1: and continue to be that, you know, that win what's
Speaker 1: now a global battle for talent. So that one area
Speaker 1: that was a strong recommendation of that the jobs council
Speaker 1: a decade ago. That that has not yet happened but
Speaker 1: hopefully will in the future. In the US there's a
Speaker 1: labor shortage at just about every level Um of the
Speaker 1: employment spectrum, entry level work, farm work, all the way
Speaker 1: up to very senior technology people. What can we do
Speaker 1: to bring in the best in the brightest from the
Speaker 1: rest of the world we've got to pass legislation. Came
Speaker 1: close to summer. There's some legislation called the startup visa
Speaker 1: that essentially would make it easier for entrepreneurs who are
Speaker 1: going to it was it was not get done. It
Speaker 1: was part of some broader legislation but ultimately did not
Speaker 1: get the time. And I recognize that immigration is complicated
Speaker 1: and really emotional and become very political because there's various
Speaker 1: facets of of Immigration and securing the board or things
Speaker 1: like that. But on the specific issue of how do
Speaker 1: we get people from all around the world who have
Speaker 1: ideas and want to start companies, how to make sure
Speaker 1: those companies are started here and the jobs, you know,
Speaker 1: therefore created here as opposed to created elsewhere? And we
Speaker 1: have seen in the last couple of decades globalization of
Speaker 1: innovation and the globalization of venture capital. Uh years ago,
Speaker 1: over of Global Venture Capital has invested in the United States.
Speaker 1: Now it's under so other countries have figured out that
Speaker 1: sort of the secret sauce that sort of powered the
Speaker 1: American story is is entrepreneurship and venture capitalists is part
Speaker 1: of that and I even in this new book on
Speaker 1: Rise Arrest, talk about the need to to focus on
Speaker 1: immigration reform, focused on backing uh founders from from all
Speaker 1: over the world and starting those companies. And I say
Speaker 1: it's obviously the key messages. They don't have to be
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and New York or Boston. They could
Speaker 1: be in many other cities around the country and that's
Speaker 1: what we're trying to promote. Let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about some of your philanthropic work. You join the giving
Speaker 1: pledge in tell us what that experience was like. I've
Speaker 1: heard some pretty amusing stories about working with Bill Gates
Speaker 1: and and that Um process. Well, obviously known Bill Gates
Speaker 1: for decades. We were vigorous competitors in the in the
Speaker 1: late nineties. Oh and I was running a o l
Speaker 1: but it was great to become partners around, you know,
Speaker 1: things around philanthropy, including the giving pledge and and Uh London.
Speaker 1: Gates and and also Warren Buffett known for quite some time.
Speaker 1: And so when they approached my wife Jean and I
Speaker 1: when they were getting as started, was over a decade ago,
Speaker 1: we were initially uh a little uh reluctant to be
Speaker 1: that public about what we're doing philanthropically. We've always done
Speaker 1: things in a somewhat a quieter way. But we decided
Speaker 1: to join because we thought maybe it'd lead others to
Speaker 1: making a commitment to giving the majority of their wealth away,
Speaker 1: but also we thought we could learn from others and
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, to learn how to be
Speaker 1: smarter about the philanthropic investments we we made. I think
Speaker 1: that's been the case. There's been a number of meetings
Speaker 1: of the giving pledgers on specific topics and also kind
Speaker 1: of annual meetings, and I think everybody that's part of
Speaker 1: the giving pledges is a little bit wiser because of
Speaker 1: their network that's been created among the people have made
Speaker 1: that commitment. So so let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the metrics of giving. Go Back Twenty, thirty years and
Speaker 1: the question was sort of like advertising. You know some
Speaker 1: of its effective, you just don't know which half is.
Speaker 1: How do you think about tracking, analyzing and determining if
Speaker 1: you're moving the needle when you're making a specific donation? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all I should say my wife, Jeane, has
Speaker 1: has led the case foundations since we started at twenty
Speaker 1: five years. I've been focusing more on the investment side.
Speaker 1: She's been focusing more on the philanthropic side. So she
Speaker 1: gets all the all the all the credit, but I
Speaker 1: think we and others have gotten much more, uh, precise
Speaker 1: in terms of trying to understand the impact of the
Speaker 1: philanthropic investments we're making. What what is the what are
Speaker 1: the key metrics that should be tracked there? And we
Speaker 1: uh are physically gene leading the foundation has has brought
Speaker 1: a little bit of that venture capital mentality to it
Speaker 1: and rather than just pick one thing you invest in,
Speaker 1: we picked several things and and cycle them through it
Speaker 1: at various times. Right now, primary focus of gene is
Speaker 1: on National Geographic Society, which he is the chair of.
Speaker 1: I've spending time as the chair of the Smithsonian institution,
Speaker 1: including how to move it into more of a digital future.
Speaker 1: So those are a couple of areas of focus. But
Speaker 1: we found it. You can bring some of your business
Speaker 1: experience to the philanthropic sector. You just have to recognize
Speaker 1: it's it's different. But one thing that is similar across
Speaker 1: both of them is the value of partnerships. There's an
Speaker 1: African proverb we both loved that if you want to
Speaker 1: go quickly, you can go alone, but if you want
Speaker 1: to go far you must go together. So a lot
Speaker 1: of what we do with the philanthropic efforts around building partnerships.
Speaker 1: A lot of what we do with revolution and also
Speaker 1: rise the rest of around building partnerships, so that you know,
Speaker 1: idea of collaboration and going far together is one of
Speaker 1: the concerts across all our our work. So you mentioned
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian Um. I'M A fan. The Smithsonian Institution is
Speaker 1: the world's largest museum and Research Complex. What led you
Speaker 1: to that? As earning particular interest in science, history technology,
Speaker 1: how did you get involved with them? I was asked
Speaker 1: over a decade ago to join what they called the
Speaker 1: board of regents and then where recently became the chair
Speaker 1: of it. And I, like many people, have seen the
Speaker 1: wonders of the Smithsonian. I remember even when I was,
Speaker 1: I guess I was eighteen, I came to Washington and
Speaker 1: Uh and it thought the Smithsonian for the first time
Speaker 1: and experienced some of the wonders of it was inspired
Speaker 1: to do a number of different things because of it.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to make a contribution to kind of
Speaker 1: take the Smithsonian into the future, build on it's it's
Speaker 1: legacy over hundred seventy five years around increasing and diffusing knowledge,
Speaker 1: UH and add to it a digital components that you know,
Speaker 1: we we've been working on what we call the virtual Smithsonian.
Speaker 1: Rather than just assume that you'RE gonna fly to Washington
Speaker 1: Sea visit the National Mall and visit our nineteen museums,
Speaker 1: we want to come to you and so we want
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian to be in every home and every classroom
Speaker 1: and embracing a lot of partnerships, embracing a lot of
Speaker 1: technologies to to do that. Spirit of St Louis is hanging.
Speaker 1: That's my vivid recollection as a kid going through it
Speaker 1: and it's just stayed with me for for forever. And
Speaker 1: we have probably know we have two air and space museums,
Speaker 1: one on the National Mall One out by Dallas Airport.
Speaker 1: The one National Mall has been closed for most of
Speaker 1: the past year. It's under reconstruction. It was it was
Speaker 1: opened in nineteen seventy six and we're going to reopen
Speaker 1: it actually next month, uh, and part of it is
Speaker 1: being reimagined to be the bezos learning center. The largest
Speaker 1: philanthropic gift in the Smithsonian's history is from J Bezos,
Speaker 1: a two million dollar gift to the Smithsonian to build
Speaker 1: out that air and Space Museum. Really, really quite fascinating. Um,
Speaker 1: you mentioned partnerships. What did you bring from your a
Speaker 1: o l experience to philanthropy? How much of that foundational,
Speaker 1: you know, building a business, ramping it up, taking a public,
Speaker 1: merging it? How does that apply to a very different
Speaker 1: part of of the world? Well, again, my wife Jeane
Speaker 1: gets been taking the lead here, but from my prism
Speaker 1: it's how do you identify problems need to be solved
Speaker 1: and then bring a both an entrepreneural perspective in terms
Speaker 1: of what new things might get started, as well as
Speaker 1: a kind of almost like growth investing perspective what existing
Speaker 1: organizations might get scaled and we've done work on both sides,
Speaker 1: made investments to scale up existing organizations like habitat humanity
Speaker 1: or Special Olympics, which we were, at the timing, the largest,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of givers to this goes back a
Speaker 1: couple of decades, as well as launching some initiatives ourselves,
Speaker 1: including a digital divide initiative over twenty years ago to
Speaker 1: try to get computer technology centers installed in different neighborhoods
Speaker 1: and that didn't otherwise have access to it, with partnerships
Speaker 1: with with a lot of people that made that possible.
Speaker 1: So it's a mix of identifying some of these uh
Speaker 1: problems that need to be solved and figuring out some
Speaker 1: of them are kind of like using the investing mentality,
Speaker 1: or I think we make seed investments in to get
Speaker 1: them started. Some of them also are backing existing organizations
Speaker 1: and giving them the growth level investments that really scale
Speaker 1: up faster. You mentioned digital divide. I don't recall which
Speaker 1: legislation it might have been. The infrastructure bill um now
Speaker 1: builds out broadband to pretty much every corner of the country.
Speaker 1: How big of a digital divide is it? Is it
Speaker 1: rich versus poor, or is it urban versus rural? Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about what the digital divide looks like.
Speaker 1: It's both and and the digital divide we're focused on
Speaker 1: twenty plus years ago was just getting people connected to
Speaker 1: the Internet, getting computers into the classrooms and community centers
Speaker 1: and some level of connectivity. As we've seen with the pandemic,
Speaker 1: that connectivity, particularly broadband connectivity, is much more important and
Speaker 1: it's not much harder to not just learn but just
Speaker 1: function in life without that broadband connectivity. And and your
Speaker 1: question is both. There are different parts of the country
Speaker 1: that definitely have, you know, slow, in some cases non
Speaker 1: existent internet connectivity. Uh and so those areas are are
Speaker 1: disadvantage in this legist ation will help help there. And obviously,
Speaker 1: even in big cities there are parts of the communities
Speaker 1: that don't have access to high speed as well. So
Speaker 1: it become a more of a utility that that, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody needs to make sure they can, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of compete in this world and and and participate. Uh
Speaker 1: and increasingly health care is using telemedicine. Increasingly education is
Speaker 1: using tell of learning. It's it's not just about the
Speaker 1: ability to, you know, get news or by products, it's
Speaker 1: also the ability to do some of the most fundamental
Speaker 1: aspects of our lives. So ubiquitous connectivity is important. You
Speaker 1: talk a lot about leveling the playing field. That's an expression.
Speaker 1: You mentioned in terms of access to capital. You mentioned
Speaker 1: in access to networks, access to Internet and broadband. Why
Speaker 1: is that so important to you? It's actually something that's
Speaker 1: sort of and part of everything. Are Almost everything I've
Speaker 1: involved in. To me, the excitement, the passion in those
Speaker 1: early days of the Internet. I'm talking about the eighties
Speaker 1: when we were just getting started, in the nineties when
Speaker 1: the Internet was scaling, because I really believe the Internet
Speaker 1: would make the world a better place. The Internet would
Speaker 1: give people access to information, education, commerce, you know, community
Speaker 1: that they otherwise wouldn't wouldn't have uh, and also would
Speaker 1: level the playing field that right now, in the earlier
Speaker 1: those early days, are on the news side, there are
Speaker 1: only a few news networks like CBS and ABC and
Speaker 1: and and so forth, or maybe if you were wealthy,
Speaker 1: you might have owned the local newspaper. There weren't really
Speaker 1: opportunities for most people's voices to be heard, and so
Speaker 1: I really felt that the Internet could help create more
Speaker 1: of those voices and level a plank field and, as
Speaker 1: you say, the effort in the last decade around rise
Speaker 1: the rest, even the reason I wrote this, this book
Speaker 1: on rise the rest, is I'm again trying to level
Speaker 1: the plank field create more opportunity for more people and
Speaker 1: more places, and it's just it's just something that drives me.
Speaker 1: How do you make sure that everybody has a, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a fair shot? The outcomes are going to
Speaker 1: be different, but the opera two NAYS, if for everybody,
Speaker 1: should should be be much better than they have been.
Speaker 1: You mentioned access to information. There's a line from either
Speaker 1: the book or or something you wrote about the book.
Speaker 1: A hundred years ago the amount of information people would
Speaker 1: encounter in their lifetime was the same as a daily
Speaker 1: edition of The New York Times. That that's just astonishing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been an acceleration of that and I recognize there's
Speaker 1: also now some unintended consequences. Almost a glut of information
Speaker 1: and and a lot of issues around you know, what is,
Speaker 1: you know, news and what is fact and so forth,
Speaker 1: and even in the social media space there have been
Speaker 1: some you know, some challenges. So all these things have
Speaker 1: some pluses and some minuses. The questions, I think for societies,
Speaker 1: how do you maximize the benefits and and minimize some
Speaker 1: of the risks, really quite interesting. My last question before
Speaker 1: we get to our favorites is a little bit of
Speaker 1: a curveball. You're born and raised in Hawaii but then
Speaker 1: relocate at Washington D C. That seems like the worst
Speaker 1: weather trade I've ever seen. D C is Humid and
Speaker 1: and in Hawaii is just delightful. What was it like
Speaker 1: leaving that behind? Well, I love Hawaii's born and raised there.
Speaker 1: Both my parents were born and raised there's our family
Speaker 1: goes back over a hundred years and of investments there
Speaker 1: and a family there, uh, and to try to get
Speaker 1: back as often, I say, as they can. But for
Speaker 1: me I really wanted to pursue a different path than
Speaker 1: staying there, which led going to college in Massachusetts and
Speaker 1: working in Ohio, then working in Kansas and then for
Speaker 1: the last few decades in the Virginia, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a D C area, Um, and I think that journey,
Speaker 1: including growing up in in Hawaii, it's before starting a
Speaker 1: company and starting a well in Virginia, I think also
Speaker 1: informs my my my views around the rise of the rest.
Speaker 1: I think it's part of the reason I'm so passionate
Speaker 1: about trying to create more opportunity for more people in
Speaker 1: more places. And when I grew up in Whi, I remember, uh,
Speaker 1: the early days. This would have been a US the seventies. Uh.
Speaker 1: We get television shows a week late, which you know
Speaker 1: it was. There was a satellite technology and not advanced
Speaker 1: the point where they could beam them, so we would
Speaker 1: get them the tape sent over. So you basically you
Speaker 1: had a friend on the mainland. You can find out
Speaker 1: what's going to happen on the television show this week
Speaker 1: because it already happened on the television show there last
Speaker 1: week just you know, it was a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of off the you know, the beaten path, I guess.
Speaker 1: And starting a L in in Um the Tyson's Corner
Speaker 1: Virginia area. It was also off the beaten paths I
Speaker 1: mentioned before. It was harder to get going there. I
Speaker 1: think that's why I'm so passionate now about, you know,
Speaker 1: creating opportunity for entrepreneurs all across the country, backing them
Speaker 1: in cities all across the country, and why I decided
Speaker 1: to write the book to tell those stories, uh, and
Speaker 1: and give people more of a sense of what's happening
Speaker 1: out there and more of a sense of what's happening, uh,
Speaker 1: what could be happening all across America in the future.
Speaker 1: Who would have guessed why? You was that formative to
Speaker 1: to the worlds of entrepreneurship and and venture? All right,
Speaker 1: so let's up to our favorite questions that we ask
Speaker 1: all of our guests, starting with tell us what kept
Speaker 1: you entertained during the pandemic. What were you watching or
Speaker 1: or listening to? We watched, not a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I we're not big television watchers, but we definitely watched
Speaker 1: more more during the pandemic. I think one that I
Speaker 1: remember we watched uh that I recalled, particularly given what's
Speaker 1: happened recently in the the last few weeks with the death
Speaker 1: of the Queen, was the crown, which that was was fabulous.
Speaker 1: More recently, I mentioned my wife as the chair of
Speaker 1: the National Geographic Society. They have a partnership with Disney,
Speaker 1: what's called National Geographic Partners UH and, as a results,
Speaker 1: have a big presence on Disney plus and there's a
Speaker 1: new series just came out in the last couple of
Speaker 1: months called America the beautiful. That's really spectacular. Haven't watched that.
Speaker 1: You should. I watched Um, what was it earth at
Speaker 1: night on National Geographic on Disney, and some of it
Speaker 1: is just astonishing photography. I'll take a look at America
Speaker 1: the beautiful. Um. Tell us about your mentors who helped
Speaker 1: to shape your career. I think there are different people
Speaker 1: at different stages. In the early days, I think I
Speaker 1: really did learn a lot from my parents around kind
Speaker 1: of taking a long view, working hard, trying to be
Speaker 1: humble about how you approach things. I got a lot
Speaker 1: of experience and mentoring at some of the big companies
Speaker 1: I worked for, like procter and gamble and since then
Speaker 1: they have a great, great training program in the early
Speaker 1: days of a o L, I learned a lot from
Speaker 1: co founders Jim Kimsey and Mark Seraph, we were both
Speaker 1: quite a bit older than I was, and from our
Speaker 1: venture capitalists. I learned a lot from from being able
Speaker 1: to work with those venture capitalist and getting their perspective
Speaker 1: on on scaling businesses, which I think helped me as
Speaker 1: a CEO of a wall and also certainly helped now
Speaker 1: as as an investor at at revolution. So I, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people, uh, kind of curious and like
Speaker 1: to bump into people and ideas and kind of a
Speaker 1: sponge for for different perspectives. Uh. Let's talk about books.
Speaker 1: What are some of your favorites and what are you
Speaker 1: reading right now? Reading Right now actually a book called
Speaker 1: be actually interest to folks who listen to you, called
Speaker 1: how to invest, by David Rubinstein. Your book just came
Speaker 1: out and it's gonna be fun and a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks we're going to do a joint thing in the
Speaker 1: Economic Club in Washington D C where he's going to
Speaker 1: interview me about my book rise. The rest, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: interview him about his book how to invest. So that
Speaker 1: should be uh fun doing the pandemic. My favorite book
Speaker 1: was a gentleman in Moscow, this great novel by Amor toles.
Speaker 1: It was really quite, quite fascinating. What sort of advice
Speaker 1: would you give to a recent college graduate who is
Speaker 1: interested in a career in either technology, entrepreneurship or invest in? Well,
Speaker 1: a couple of things I'd say. First of all, again
Speaker 1: part of the reason I wrote the book on rise rest.
Speaker 1: Don't assume that you have to be in Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: or you're going to be on the you know, the
Speaker 1: B team, the junior varsity. What's now happening all across
Speaker 1: the country is really extraordinary and that will accelerate over
Speaker 1: the next decade. So decide what city you want to
Speaker 1: live in and you can think of it for personal
Speaker 1: reasons or for a strategic reason, based on the industry
Speaker 1: you most care about. Uh, and maybe at Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: but increasingly won't be. There will be many parts of
Speaker 1: the country that you should consider living in. Zecond would
Speaker 1: be to always remain curious. You know that there's I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot from you know, sometimes by Serendipity, just
Speaker 1: being in the right place at the right time, bumping
Speaker 1: into somebody listening to something, reading something, and that helps
Speaker 1: inform your your your your perspective on things. And a
Speaker 1: final one is certainly it's my experience with the building
Speaker 1: a wall on the Internet more recently, what we've been
Speaker 1: doing with rise. The rest is this, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of idea of revolutions happening in evolutionary ways. You have
Speaker 1: to take a long term view. You have to be
Speaker 1: persistent there. Sometimes in the entrepreneur world world, people focus
Speaker 1: too much on the the overnight successes of Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: and his dorm room coming up with facebook and you know,
Speaker 1: a year later it's a global phenomena. A year later is,
Speaker 1: you know, the billionaire kind of thing. That's super rare
Speaker 1: and most of these things take take a while and
Speaker 1: really are going to be two steps forward, one step back,
Speaker 1: a lot of near death experiences and if you really
Speaker 1: care about it, you keep fighting. And our final question.
Speaker 1: What do you know about the world of startups, Venture
Speaker 1: Entrepreneurship Technology today that you wish you knew back in
Speaker 1: when you were first launching America Online? I would say
Speaker 1: we've covered some of this. The importance of partnerships. That
Speaker 1: that the almost everything I've done that's had a real
Speaker 1: impact in the world. It's about partnerships. And so how
Speaker 1: do you identify opportunities for collaboration that can you know,
Speaker 1: that can really allow things to you know, to scale,
Speaker 1: uh and, and you know that's one of the key things.
Speaker 1: The second would be it seems so basic, almost so obvious,
Speaker 1: but it's true. At the end of the day it
Speaker 1: all comes down to people. The people you work with,
Speaker 1: UH and the people you partner with are going to
Speaker 1: result in success or failure. And it's not about you.
Speaker 1: Entrepreneurship as a team sport. How do you assemble kind
Speaker 1: of the Dream Team of people would bring different perspective
Speaker 1: but work together well in a in a team? Uh
Speaker 1: and everything I've I've that's had success in my life,
Speaker 1: including all and more recently, well done with rides rest.
Speaker 1: We've had the right team. The things that have been struggles,
Speaker 1: including the merger with a Long Time Warner, which obviously
Speaker 1: was a disappointment, we didn't have the people's side right.
Speaker 1: We didn't have the right people focused on the right
Speaker 1: priorities working together in the right way. So just a
Speaker 1: reminder to me that you have to constantly take a
Speaker 1: step back and make sure you really have the people's
Speaker 1: side front and center. We have been speaking with Steve Case,
Speaker 1: chairman and CEO of revolution. If you enjoy this conversation,
Speaker 1: be sure and check out any of our previous four
Speaker 1: hundred or so that we've done over the past eight years.
Speaker 1: You can find those at Itunes, spotify, wherever you feed
Speaker 1: your podcast fix. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions
Speaker 1: right to us at M Ib podcast at Bloomberg Dot net.
Speaker 1: Follow me on twitter at Rit halts. Sign up from
Speaker 1: my daily reading list at RIT HALTS DOT com. I
Speaker 1: would be remiss if I did not thank the crack
Speaker 1: team who helps put these conversations together each week. Justin
Speaker 1: Milner is my audio engineer, Paris Walden is my producer,
Speaker 1: Sean Russo is my head of research. Attica Val Bron
Speaker 1: is our project manager. I'm Barry ridholds. You've been listening
Speaker 1: to masters in business on Bloomberg Radioa