Transcripts For CSPAN2 After Words With Steve Case 20160702

You going to retire and going to to do . I marty doing it. I can take of anything i would rather do than travel around tracking down rare books. I enjoy these books that people ask, do you read them . Absolutely. You never know if one of the earlier owners had made an inscription that could substantially increase the value of the book or added interest to the story behind the book. So i will always do this but i never get tired of it. I love sharing stories with old and young and i look forward to every day. Bookshops have been closing in record numbers. National chains are closing down 15 years ago i knew owners of about 300 bookstores. 250 of those have closed just in the past 15 years so its important for these stores to continue to survive. They add character to the local community. Its a place, a Meeting Place for people and they keep history alive. By these bookshops continuing to be in existence. After words is next on booktv. Cofounder steve case speculates on the future the internet and discusses how to navigate the everchanging digital landscape is joined by representatives john delaney at maryland. Host this is going to be a special treat for olive our viewers to talk about your new book, the third wave and you and i have known each other for about 15 years now before i went to congress. We had the opportunity to get to know each other in the private sector so to rupert was to have you here. Guest its an honor for you to do it. You are one of a few people in the congress that understands whats going on in the community so its great to talk about the book that. Host my first question steve is the timing of the book because she went to america on line when it was called Something Different in the 80s. You had a completely different business plan. You reformulated the whole country. Viewers founder and its leader. He led the company through the 90s. He became one of the most Iconic Companies in American History and u. S. A result one of the most iconic entrepreneurs in American History and by any measure one of the great Business People of our generation. Guest maybe we should stop there and call it a day. Host at its peak half of the americans who connect to the internet connected to America Online. It became so popular they made a movie on it with tom hanks before he was tom hanks really. And then time warner and then you one on two continue to be a very successful business person and investor, started a revolution in Investment Fund with 100 Startup Companies including great ones like zipcar , among others so why write the book now . I have to imagine in the days that aol their work people beating down your doors. I had an opportunity to see the book the fork a privilege which was a real trip which. It was like how come he hasnt written a book before so why now . Guest is a great question. Things didnt work out the way they expected but i was not that interested in mmr. I have always been more adjusted in what is happening next in the future or the past. It just wasnt that motivated. It was a few years ago ive been traveling around going around the country and it donned on me that there was this first wave in the second wave in this third wave about to break and it was going to be different and some of the lessons from the first wave would be helpful to the third wave so maybe it was the time to write a book preview is mostly about the future but the great shakespeare quote past is prologue. When it became less about a memoir and less about the past and more about the future and a little bit of a playbook roadmap in terms of whats going to happen in the future and what everybody should do to be part of that future than i became became more interested and i started a few years ago writing it off the non. Host before we get to the substance of the book i want to spend a little bit of time on your background. One of the things i was happy about when i read the book is you didnt want to write a memoir but he gave us a glance into not only your background how you thought about the world as a young person and a young entrepreneur and obviously the aol days in a great story but you are from a wide born and raised in hawaii and up until about eight years ago you were probably one of the most famous people from hawaii and probably up until eight years ago you were probably the most famous person from your high school. Guest i got elbowed aside. President obama, we we are in high school the same time. The Great Schools 175th anniversary. I was a little older. Host even with the dog ears. Guest even with the dog ears. I was a senior in high school when he was a freshman. But it was only when he came to washington as a senator that i reconnected and obviously when he became presently Work Together on the initiative but you are completely right. I was thinking i had a pretty good run and a pretty significant way. Host people were wondering what was in the water back then. Its a great story. Guest even the third wave title. Host you have done some extraordinary things that you have also worked with president bush and he worked with president clinton. I want to come back to that because thats our focus but before you get much further what i liked about your look is when theres a big thing going on and there was nothing bigger than the internet that you could argue its the most important Economic Force certainly a of our time and maybe in history in terms of a pure Economic Force which you not only ushered in the Internet Business model but you also ushered in the internet to peoples homes. What is great about the book is you actually overlay it in an Analytical Framework as to how we should all think about this. You break it down into the first wave come the second wave in the third wave. We should spend some time explaining that these as two people and how you think about that. Guest the first thing was building the internet and building the onramps, the networks and the servers and everything to get people connected. It seems obvious now. When we started in 1985, only 3 of the people were on line and there they were only on line one hour a week. Host was still a very fringy thing and it was a decade before got traction. Most people thought why would anybody want to do that . Host was like a ham radio. Guess who was a quirky thing and in fairness it was a hard thing to do. When you are able to get on line there wasnt much to do. There wasnt much content yet so it took a while before a plan they became ready for primetime but that was the first wave. The second wave the last 15 years was google and facebook and twitter and basically software writing on top of the internet. Host that is created an arm an enormous opportunity for Iconic Companies but the third wave will be fundamentally different which is integrating the internet in a much more seamless and pervasive way in every aspect of our lives. How we stay healthy and how are kids learn and how we think about food or energy or investing money. Fundamental things that have changed a little bit in the first and second way but not that much, the way most people deal with the Health Care System for example and when they get sick and its not as precise. You can order pizza on your phone or watch netflix but the fundamental things around things like health and education have a really change. They are going to change a lot in this third wave but i really think its going to require different mindset for the innovators. Whether it be the start up with a Bigger Companies to understand whats happening. Everybody needs to understand even the definition of work has changed and its changing more in the third wave so its the first wave building the net and on top building the internet and integrating a paralyzed and the process is disrupting the Largest Industries in the country and the world which creates enormous opportunity for people who understand where the puck is going to position themselves. Host a way and away the third way we stop thinking about Technology Companies and start inking about technology as part is every countries of the basic tools we thought existed in business, Technology Becomes that so now aol one of the great things about the book when you took aol public it had heard a million in revenue and it was about 70 million. Now we have got google, apple, facebook, amazon. Collectively these companies are probably worth 2 trillion. Its an extraordinary thing to think about these waves that you talk about. What has really happened but in the third wave what you were seeing is there will be Big Health Care companies and Financial Services companies it will be enabled by technology in ways that we never imagined before. Host in some ways every companies that tech company and even the internet to shifting from being this interesting phenomena to the internet enabled and at some point in the not distant future will be taken for granted. The internet is on a similar path and i think we will know when we get there when we dont have a hyphenated internet. Right now we call it email and sunday well just call it mail. The college ecommerce and sunday well just call it come or spray to think it will take 10 or 20 years to get there but i think we are on that path and the third wave is just the next iteration of the next step for the next wave of taking the idea of the internet and shifting it from being a Quirky Technology thing to being a fundamental part of everyday life. Host one of the things that ive always admired about you is you strike me as being an optimist and he think about the world guest entrepreneurs always have to be optimistic. Host you believe in momentum and when things get going capitalizing on the momentum. There is a lot of debate about the affect technology has to have on our world. Im of the view that its been enormous with positive but when you look at technological innovation and combine it with global interconnection has been a blessing for so many people. But it has put pressure on. Its kind of pressured us in terms of anxiety in our lives and it is heard a lot of middleclass jobs. While we have created new jobs there hasnt been the equilibrium. So when you think about this i know you are an optimist but why are you so positive about where this is going to take is . Guest i completely agree with your sprinkle of Old Technology on anything to solve the problems. Think thats a little naive. There are some problems but how do you maximize the positive and minimize the negative . I think the internet is an enormous force for good empowering people not just this country run the world. Access is available in cuba and is going to be a gamechanger. Host in some ways, and we look at their cars and we think they are behind the times. Guest you have wifi but you dont use your wifi, can i use it to get connected . Last summer we were in africa and kenya and ethiopia and gone and whats happening in the remote villages because of the internet and because of them information around solar and other kinds of technology and its incredibly empowering. Sometimes we are too connected to the good news is we have the ability to get connected and the bad news is sometimes we are hyperconnected and sometimes its helpful to have a facetoface conversation. Its true that technology has created a lot of jobs was also hollowed out a lot of job so how do you figure out ways for innovation in the future to bring everyone along. Uva put together an initiative a couple of years ago around the Small Business and the rapport that came out was ken started saving American Dream . Can this be a force for good and i think the key to that is just as result that internet democratizing access information i think theres an opportunity to democratize access to entrepreneurship and access to opportunity. Sorry buddy feels like they were shot. Right now not everybody does. Some people do feel left out in the retire of the book is to lay out a framework for everybody not just the entrepreneurs and the technologist but for everybody to think about how the world is developing and what it might look like 10 or 15 years and now what are the opportunities for your own kids that might help give you a Brighter Future . Plus who you about health care, education. What are some of the examples in some areas things can be transformed by this third wave in technology that can change your thinking about some of the problems we see . Guest anytime and not the entrepreneur sees a problem they also say they also see an opportunity. For the most part i have talked to a lot of teachers and the way they are teaching is about the same as it was 20 years ago in the way students are learning is the same as it was 20 years ago yet there it bans would send personalized adaptive approaches to learning and all kids dont learn the same way. Some are visual learners are having the systems that can help customize learning can be very important having teachers have more of a sense of whats going on an individual students where they are struggling and where they will need more help. Is one example of the third wave. Thats not just about software, it is also about integrating a so its a culture in partnerships with teachers and with schools and not just about learning in the cloud, and the internet is have had the improve learning in the classroom . Host in health care thereve been Interesting Development there particular and the Wealth Health side. The wearable devices have gotten popular but for the most part the way people manage disease is the same particularly if its a lifethreatening disease. Its not as precise as it is to be. Andy anderson says when they have people come there for second opinions on cancer 25 of the time they change the opinion. There needs to be more data and personalized approaches and technology as part of that solution. Again not just the engineer solving the problems. Partnering with the doctors and hospitals in figuring out ways to knit things together they can usher in an era of health care that has a little bit better outcome and more convenience and help hopefully lower costs. Host that is where you have added to much of the discussion because there are two problems we have when we have these discussions about this and this and the Nonprofit Sector or the government sector or the Public Sector working together. You have people come in from the perspective that the private sector and in the case of technology, that technologists have it all figured out and we are kind of on an island. We know whats best and its somewhat of an insular view of the world. And yet people who come at this from the perspective the government should be doing it. One of the things that i think that has been important about your voice is that its been very balanced. What are the things you talk about the book is how there is a role for government to play and its a positive role but we have to be careful because government clearly can stifle innovation. He can get in the way. Its too bureaucratic and theres just not enough of those balance voices particularly people who have the Business Career you have advocating for that balance so what kind of brought you to that point . Guest d. C. Helps a little bit understanding people and are the reasons im more nonpartisan nonpartisan nonpartisan and working with different people over three decades and getting stuff done. Its also just watching evolution of the internet itself. Silicon valley in particular that i think are arrogant about this. The government screws everything up and regulations are going to slow innovation and sometimes thats true. Obviously there are things that government do that to frustrate innovators and and entrepreneurs whether it be regulations for things like that. Its something that we take seriously but the reality is Silicon Valley would not exist and the internet would not exist without the government. A government funded darpa which is research about the internet. They broke up the phone company ma bell that at least enormous innovation. Congress passed the telecom act that commercializing access to the internet the first where they inject the government said we are sure how its going to work so lets take a hands off approach. So i saw that develop and if you look at some of the great innovations we all take for granted not just things like the internet that gps and weather data, those are funded by the government. Host its amazing that weather. Com gets all of their permission from the government. Its the great marketing genius and you have to tip your hat to them. Ive been in conversations people and they say we dont need the government to be involved. Guest again some people view this book is almost like defending their own government. I get frustrated by government that i think theyre a bunch of things that i let out some of them in the book that we need to take serious. Otherwise we are going to lose our way. So i understand the critics and the cynics and the people who are frustrated. And just in that view but i also think theres the other view which is if you think about important the important aspects of our life like making sure the food or kitsy at school is not going to make them sick for the drugs that her parents take her back was to kill them. And the drone flying over the playground is not going to crash and hurt some kid. The governor wants to provide basic rules of the road and want the government to prove id safety and consistency. The same time they dont want the government to stifle innovation so how do you strike the right balance . More people that have an entrepreneurial background making those decisions whether being congress or the white house. I get frustrated when i hear either the Technology Innovator saying government is irrelevant or the government saying you cant trust the market. Government needs to be more involved. The reality is both of them are portman may need to dance together in a constructive play and listen to each other and respect each other and figure out what that right path forward is. Host in some ways it should be obvious. Most things are very large are bureaucratic and the government is certainly bureaucratic and it can certainly get in the way that theres certain things that are pretty defensible. You touch on that in the book preview layout while acknowledging because i dont want to provide fuel to the fire that people say you are advocating for government in the book because you are really not. You are talking about smart government and on the philanthropic side of your life and we will come back to that because the work that you and jean do is world class full and purpose and well come back to that but would you think really if you could be government to act against a couple of things in thinking about it in the con test context of partisan gridlock which has prevented us from doing anything would be the two or three things that you think are really important for the government to get right to ensure america maintains its competitive advantage . You are a little worried about that. Guest im worried about that. I remind myself that 250 years ago it was just an idea. We are the leader of the free world because we have the content per thats not an accident thats not an accident that we led the way in the Industrial Revolution and we have led the way in the technology revolution. That is a miscarriage to you to continue and other countries figure this out. The secret sauce that being creative around immigration policy figure out ways to create the right kind of investments for the right kind of regulatory environment. Its a global battle we saw 50 years ago the globalization of capital. We saw the globalization of manufacturing and now we see the globalization of bunch of an hour. We have to understand that in to step up. In the chapter talks about a number of things. The work the congress has done with the white house including the jobs act to legalize crowd funding is important. It lit legalized the Playing Field for people to use the internet to raise capital to get started. The fcc put rules in place and theres still some work there but thats a step in the right direction. Another is to make sure particularly this Election Year and i imagine a lot of cspan viewers have strong views on this and the issue of immigration has become hot and politicized and i understand that. We cant remain the dash immigration has many facets but figuring out a path forward to make sure that thats important. Wanted to sample them it in the book which is a sad one is an entrepreneurial from wharton who wanted to stay in the United States but couldnt get that these extended so you basically had to go home and in his case Indiana Company has five thousand employees worth 5 billion. Host history must to build it here. Guest i hear the stories all over the country and then regulations. How do you figure out what the right regulations are to protect people but also enable innovation . There are some regulations that are designed to make it harder for the innovator. Some regulations are designed to protect people and that is good so how do you make sure you take a fresh look at this particularly in a world that is starting to the verge converging to live. Host thats something a lot of people dont understand about regulations. A lot of people think Big Companies were hurt by these regulations. In fact they protect Big Companies. They make it very hard frontrunners to get started. Guest the things i realized when i started doing policy work five or six years ago is that most people around the country and certainly in washington think about business in this monolithic way. Small businesses are very important to businesses businesses that fortune by that companies are very important but the real job growth comes from the startups and each has different interests. All of them generally want less regulation because they want trade or tax repatriation for something. They want to figure out ways to Access Capital and to innovate. They there are different mindsets in terms of the business community. We need to be sensitive about those and create the right environment so we maximize the opportunity to lead. I think its possible and im optimistic about it but i think if people get complacent they will lose their way. The best example is detroit. As they say in the book 75 years ago detroit was Silicon Valley. Detroit was the most innovative city in the country. The car was the hot technology and then it lost its entrepreneurial mojo and a bunch of other things happen and they lost 50 or 60 of its population and it went bankrupt. So its a reminder. Cities like detroit and many others pittsburgh and cincinnati nashville madison, kansas city new orleans postkatrina are showing momentum around startups. Thats what gives me hope for the future but if we get complacent and think americas ice going to this either as entrepreneur and nation and a world that entrepreneurs are globalizing there is risk and that was hard. I wrote the book. As a group they do not actually create a lots of jobs. It is somewhat people call them a gazelle which is a Small Company that gets going and it takes off, aol aol is an extreme example where it 70 billion ever 70,000,000 and a decade later with 160,000,000,000. Thats not the chart extreme example. But in my home state you have under armour, thats a great example. Theyre selling a very unique kind of athletic shirt that people thought was a total niche projects which they thought would be in the corner somewhere. But the founder and ceo, kevin and you and i visited the headquarters, it takes off. Thousands of employees. Guest and those are all across the country. Host and you mentioned the jobs act which you are huge instrumental force for getting past which created a situation where startups and capital. You you have done a lot of work on Immigration Reform for all the reasons you talked about. Used to be there were couple of places they wanted to be. Thats not true anymore. Theres all these fabulous cities around the globe attracting entrepreneurs, capital, freemarket economies, so what did you learn from the experiences as it relates. Our viewers here are with government a lot and caught up in this ideological debate that we are all caught up in the next got something to with the jobs act, we havent gotten it done with Immigration Reform but we move the ball little bit until recently. You have been a big voice around additional money, what have you learned from your experience in trying to get stuff done in congress that is relevant for us to think about. Guest your kind to say that. I was playing a little bit of a role in the jobs act. Ultimately it was the white house and congress who did the work. I was more on the sideline. But what i did learn including the merger with time warner which actually did not work out the way i was hoping, it comes down to people and trust in relationships. I know part of the challenge in washington is people are in their camps and not really talking to each other. That really trusting each other and therefore talking past each other. So figuring out some ways to focus on the facts and reality and in some ways trying to bring together coalitions to get things done is important. I consider myself a nonpartisan kind of centrist which people on both sides sometimes view. Host while you stand for nothing. Guest no will compromise this time has become a bad word, its a good word. Nobody ever gets everything, you think about a way that you can come together and get stuff done. Thats my biased. I respect the fact that you are willing to jump into politics and take the lead on issues. Ive stayed out of politics and is focusing on the policy side. And being deliberately, not even bipartisan, nonpartisan. So lovely both sides will say he actually has an interest in the issues and he cares about the issues and he is Something Interesting to add but he doesnt have a political agenda, he would just wants to get stuff done. I think that is an environment where people listen. I. I think i learned that the hard way because sometimes things i thought were obvious ideas were not happy. I realized it was not about the idea was about the execution. It was a great Thomas Edison quote i mentioned in mentioned in the book, vision without execution is hallucination. Having a good idea, heres a white paper proposal, but if you cant figure out how it gets done it doesnt matter and you cant get it done with less you have coalitions of people who understand the importance of the issue and are willing to come together to figure out a path forward. That to me is the bias i have and i am hopeful that once we get through this election cycle which is been kind of noisy, whoever the next president of the United States is, whatever is on the house side are set aside will be able to sit down and build more of that trust, build that dialogue, allied some issues some issues not just these issues around innovation, although i think it is important because its core jobs and grading more hope all across the country. How do we have that conversation and hopefully in january we will. Host i agree with you. When you look at the hand that we are dealt with as a country it is still the best hand of anyone in the world. And i actually think the economy is doing pretty well. There are couple of things we need to do. Youve touched on the, in immigration, more research, infrastructure, it does take just a few things that i think you get this country growing instead of two, two and half percent, three, three, three and half which makes such a difference. Its everything ever but he cares about. Guest you could see some progress on the unemployment, fiveish percent, the growth the growth rate is a little low, how do you get it to three or four percent, it makes a huge difference in terms of being able to invest in things that matter. But that is not someone running a spreadsheet, that somebody figuring out a way to unleash the next steve jobs or kevin plank or the next whoever who can really create an interesting product or service that strikes a chord and people love it and people are buying it and jobs are being created. Suddenly theres more growth in the economy and more taxes being paid. That is how this works. And there sometimes a disconnect from that reality. To me focus on that core, what is a way that to make sure that we remain the most innovative entrepreneur nation. We really are still this pioneer started nation. That is the mentality is supposed to the complacency that comes with success that leads you to be resting on your lors. Host one of the things youre doing, you have a couple portfolios. You try to position the country and position entrepreneurs to be more successful right. Youre youre doing things of Public Policy, but your views out there. But one of the things interesting what i think youre doing with your rise of the rest kind of tour or effort. So so i want you to talk about that. I think people have largely had a view if you look at the economic success in this country across the last ten or 20 years that it is not only highly concentrated in a small number of people which actually those trends do exist which is driving income inequality, but it is also concentrated geographically. There are certain regions, california, new york, the d. C. Area, to name a few others that have disproportionately benefited from the Economic Growth we have had. A lot of parts of the country are suffering. Some of the things you try to do is find the next steve jobs and steve gates in places around the country that people do not think of as obvious places for entrepreneurship. So talk about what you are doing there and where you see the opportunities. This is the thing that if we actually get this right other communities, even the atlantic magazine had a great cover please by james recently where he went around to 70 different large towns, small cities and when i saw the piece the first thing i did was think of your work because was very optimistic. Did a lot of good things were happening in smaller cities, larger towns around the country that were not obvious. Tell us about what youre doing there with the rise of the rest. Guest the core idea is how do you have Great Companies all of the country. There are Great Companies being built in california, new york, massachusetts and a lot of the Venture Capitalist is going there. 75 of Venture Capital into those three states. Theres a lot of Great Companies being built in the other 47 states. But most the other 47 states. But most of the Media Attention is on Silicon Valley and the investor attention is. Host how much does Silicon Valley get in the pie . Guest about half of all Venture Capital is california and its overwhelming lee northern california. It definitely has the lead. It has done a great job. If you look at the arc of americas history talked earlier about when detroit was Silicon Valley Silicon Valley was apple orchards. These things rise and fall. In the agricultural revolution that was in the middle of the country and their Great Companies in the mill the country in st. Louis, louisville and others they understand agriculture and some of the great interventions around egg and farming the Industrial Revolution was powered by cities like pittsburgh. The steel capital. And they are still good at making stuff. Carnegie mellon has the best robotics program. Even in in her has the driverless car in pittsburgh not in Silicon Valley. So your starting to see examples of this. I think it will accelerate. If we do help figure out how to make it more visible and drive more capital to the entrepreneurs they will create more jobs that will lift up these communities. Its not just about anyone business, anyone entrepreneurs how you create environment where theres innovation and economies more evenly dispersed around the country so people dont feel so left out. They feel like they can be part of this opportunity and related to that is the idea of inclusive entrepreneurship. Host last year 90 of the Venture Capital went to men. 90 . And that does not reflect the demonstration of ideas. If you look at the crowdfunding sites. I never wouldve thought that guest at the core Venture Capital is a little bit of in network and who you know kind of thing. So if you have that access you do and if you dont you know. Thats why i apply out congress for passing crowdfunding because getting it right with the fcc is important. Thats a game changer. The people have an opportunity to have their idea out there and it is the more democratized in terms of more inclusive, i think it bodes well. Peoples colors also disenfranchise. They dont have the same type of opportunities. We need everybodys id on the table and everybody to have a shot at the American Dream. That stems not just from investing entrepreneurs who went from stanford or palo alto or engineers coming out of mit, have done great things and obviously they deserve some support, it is is also people who are former teachers in new orleans were coming up with educational or former farmers in kentucky who understand what needs to change in farming or doctors in the Cleveland Clinic or the mayo clinic word the anderson who have ideas in terms of figuring out a path for around health. Im optimistic that it will be more evenly dispersed in the nation will be more broadly dispersed and it will be a level Playing Field and more inclusive. It has to be. Host part of your thesis around the third wave is that it is now, its the internet of everything. So no matter, we have seen it in the first wave was connecting people in the second wave was social and app and search and things like that. Now it is basically taking every day aspects of our lives, and things that we do not think were technology in their superficial orientation and it is empowering them and changing them. That would argue that like the agriculture industry, which is not by the way headquartered in northern california. It is headquartered in arguably the center of the United States. Montana has tens of thousand phds like st. Louis. They ought to be the people so you touched on this in the book a little bit i i think its an interesting point for policy leaders around the country, they suddenly have a stronger hand than they may have thought because the extent they have Traditional Industries as their economic roots, as those industries transform with big data, interconnection, innovation, etc. They will have a competitive advantage advantage because they know something about the subject matter. Guest if their agile and can think of a way to innovate at just within their company but build the network around their company. An ecosystem. And and connect the entrepreneurs and the ideas on the periphery. So the first wave in the second wave are generally watching on the sidelines. So take for example one of the most successful second Wave Companies would be air b b which came up with a new model for hospitality. It didnt exist ten years ago and if either of us had the idea that we are going to create some platform to rent out an air mattress or on used room, id say that is not going to work. Well it works. And its worth worth 25 million with more than hilton or marriott and they dont have any hotel rooms. So that is the kind of innovation that happened in the second way. Was innovators, the the engineers were creating software and creating a marketplace. The third wave it is going to be a connection with software and technology and other stuff. So figuring out how people are leaders in those core industries, healthcare, energy, transportation, food, things like that they have an advantage if they figure out where the market is going and if they figure out a way to create partnerships with the entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs will need the Big Companies in the third wave. Both will need more government. I understand that entrepreneurs dont want to hear that the government is going to become more important third way but it will be. The sectors are the sectors are regulated in the government is going to have a role in figuring out what are the right rules of the road are. Its a different mindset. Host americans with gray hair or no have a little more of an advantage as entrepreneurs and they did did in the first or second way which was really kind of people in their grudges. Guest the first way because that is again part of wire at the book, some of the dynamics in the first wave run the import the partnership in government policy and the importance of perseverance were not important in the second way but are becoming important in the third way. So the phenomenon the phenomenon in the second wave of the twentysomething dorm which is great successes will be less, and the third way. It probably will be someone a little older, someone understands some of that dynamics in healthcare, farming or education, and it is a balancing act. Then invaders in place will. The innovators in place will tell you one of the benefits of not knowing anything about the industry is that you can ask questions. But in some of the sectors if you do not know anything about teaching, you dont know anything about how doctors are going to practice or how farmers think, and some of the challenges they deal with you are probably not going to get the right answer. The answer will come to people closer to the problem. So merry those two is going to be a real trick in the third way. Be curious enough to not so wedded to the past that you cannot look at things in new ways but bring along people and an understanding of what has happened and the ones who figure that out are going to be big successes in the third way. Host thats an interesting opportunity for the communities. What they should be excited about is sometimes it takes just one company, like i saw what happens because i was in business at the time in the d. C. Area and there will not many entrepreneurs here, and well, does it was a government town. Aol town. Aol comes along and comes a Breakout Company and it really sees the region, few others as well but one or two companies can make a really big difference. In terms of creating an ecosystem. Because people they get these at breakout evaluation were companies go from being with nothing to ten 20 billion and people make a bunch of money and they go off and start its a natural cycle. Guest you seen that in baltimore under armor and its not just the jobs that are created by the company like an aol or under armor because we went from dozens to hundreds of thousands and place it was the tens of thousands, maybe hundreds thousands of other jobs created because of that growth in terms of jobs for people building homes, jobs for people with new restaurants opening in the area. The community is growing its creating jobs throughout the community, not just in the specific startups so how do we unleash that in other parts of the country so people really do have a sense that their community is on the rise as opposed to some of the cities people say you should move away. I think the third wave is a boomerang of talent where people actually want to come back. They want to come back to new orleans and des moines are other cities run the country and they want to raise families there but also want to have opportunity and career opportunity. Because of some of the things that happen in the second wave like crowdfunding and because of the third way will create around partnership i think you will see more of that happening in the third wave which will result in many of the cities weve been struggling a little bit having an opportunity to come back. Host you have this amazing career. But it started, i want to read a short, but i want to refer viewers your essay that you wrote, that you applied to Business School and its okay to say that you are not accepted. Host i was. Guest i was rejected by all. Host this is what you wrote. This is 1980. So that is 26 years ago. So i firmly believe that technological advances in communication are on the verge of significantly altering our way of life. Innovations in telecommunication especially to a systems will result in our Television Sets becoming an information lifeline, newspapers, computers, catalog etc. This will have a drastic a drastic effect on ever tithing as it will changes in the number, ages and working habits of the population. New technologies will fragment the audience and allow advertisers and agencies to escape the rigidity of commercial formats and develop communication forms appropriate for individual advertising and target marketing. Then he finish more portly, the industry must develop executives who have an understanding of the people who live in an Electronic Society and what motivates them and the ability 20 is problems that need to be solved. If you took out a few words in this essay this could have been written by someone today. Host but look what it did for me, i got rejected everywhere. Guest from harvard and stanford. Also i basically wrote a similar tenet cover level with my resume and i think they just thought i was this weird cured with weird ideas. Host anyone who can write that 36 years ago i want to close with getting some of your advice. As how entrepreneurs should think about the world how people in Public Policy should think about the world but before i do that just to show that the world is not as linear as a lot of people think, in other words he read an essay like that you are not immediately accepted into harvard, and you dont immediately start a company like a lot of people do today that is worth 10 billion in four days. So you write this essay out of college you dont get accepted to harvard or stanford, you go to work at Procter Gamble and then you get a job with the title that you say is the best title you have ever heard. Guest executive pizza development at pizza hut. It was a great job. So the last 50 minutes we talked about technology so i traveled around the country and a pizza. But the interesting thing, what i want to to do when i graduated 1980s to that. At the time there was on startup culture. There are not Internet Companies to go to because it did not exist yet. So i had to figure out something to do. P g in cincinnati was a great experience. The way they launched a product and simply samples of shampoo and the idea of spending free gifts for aol i think i still have a few. Host do people come up and want you to do that. Guest i think we may have overdone it. When i realize were bundling a free trial with frozen omaha steaks i said maybe weve gone too far, but it worked. So we kept doing it. That experience and the momentum came apart by the p g experience i think and the pizza was the opposite. The pizza hut was really run by the franchisee so the innovation was happening on the periphery. I thought it would be good. I was only a p g for two years and pizza hut one year before i moved to the d. C. Area i joined the company and i tell the story and it immediately fell. I thought it was the great idea and i be the next big thing and it turned out it missed its mark and thankfully to other people i met there jim and mark became cofounders of aol in 1985. So even there it took us a decade. So one of the stories to me as it requires perseverance. The idea of what i wanted to do, in 1980 the third way which really inspired me which is why i wanted to name i put the same thing. But it took about ten or 15 years before the idea really became real. I think that is meant to be true in the third way. Once revolution a healthcare education it may happen in an evolutionary ways. It will require different mindset. I mention this african proverb. If you want to go quickly you can go along but if you want to go far you must go together. And i think that is going to animate the third way. And i encourage readers and our viewers to read the book because its not only a great story of technology in the future but its also a great story of perseverance because and again, as a friend i was so happy that share that part of your life and did not talk about Public Policy. The the story of you coming to the company, having a bunch of failures including a partnership with apple which you havent dissolved, will they dissolve, they tore up the contract. Guest we had to name it America Online and it became aol. And most people would say that the end of the story. You kinda bet the farm a little bit on apple and they decided not to go through. And theres really even endured about ten years of setback, pioneering pioneering new markets, struggling to raise an ounce of capital that in todays terms are rounding, in terms of what you read about in terms of deals getting done and a certain metal was obviously created in doing that. The book is a a great lesson in leadership and perseverance. It is not always easy. Guest there are some examples of overnight success but most of those are purely revolutionary things take time. I remember meeting, seven or eight years ago Nelson Mandela and i was visiting in his homily said something ill never forget witches always seems impossible until it happens. And then was in a different context but that stayed with me. Some of these challenges including the opportunities theyre going to be hard. Theyre going going to be frustrating and time some people really do think its not quite happen i got a bunch of calls for my parents in front saying what you have a plan b, but i believed in that idea in our team believed in that idea we stuck with it we figured out a way to work through the issues that were holding us back in holding the internet back and eventually broke through. Thats partly why i what brought the book. Think that mindset and those lessons will be helpful by the innovators. Again its not just for the engineers, think Everybody Needs to think about the future in a more optimistic way and how they can think about their own job in a world where there is the definition of work has changed. 34 of the people are now in a freelance economy and millions of people are working for multiple companies in the same day. The gig economy and the flexible economy, the nature of work has changed for this positive and negatives to that. Theyll continue to develop in the third way. How do you position yourself in hiking they used to say when gretzky was great because it and focus on where the puck was he focused on where the puck is going. So maybe you can prepare yourself for the future thats going to unfold in the next ten or 20 years. Host and what are your best piece of advice for young entrepreneurs . You are thinking about entrepreneurs differently, even publicly thought about your own entrepreneurship and desire to start a business which admitted to me. Wanted to start a business and thats what i did. But it is different today. I think fortunately entrepreneurs have much more of a social vision. There is a great convergence between Public Policy, social impact, stewardship and entrepreneurship. You and your wife jean who is amazing, have been leaders in this in your philanthropic arm with social Impact Investing in thinking about investing. You had a great line in the book that entrepreneurship think more about net impact then network or maybe the other way, whatever it was, Something Like that. I thought i was again because the entrepreneurs of our generation, do not necessarily believe thought about it that way. Some day but it was a little more about guest its a big debate and some people think you should just focus on maximizing profit but i know you believe in Impact Investing and it is important having stood sustainability and returning shareholder dividends is important. But purpose is important too. I think the next generation of entrepreneurs is going to be looking for these a purpose driven impact kind of companies and things like healthcare and education lend themselves to that. You see this in young people. They want to do business with people who stand for something more than profit. They want to work for companies who stand for more than profit. So i think in new generation of entrepreneurs that want to change the world with different products and services in prove how her kids learn in the food we eat and things like that will be at the core of it. They also want to have the broader impact and have the broader purpose and thats what excites me about the future of america and the future of entrepreneurship in america. The level Playing Field for everybody have a shot and as with ink about the imports of partnerships and policy, as we lean into the future around the possibility of purpose and Impact Investing, think the brightest days could be had. Im optimistic if we rally together in the Business World works together with government world and they Work Together i think we can figure out a way to make it inclusive server but has a shot at the American Dream i think the third wave could be awesome. Im hopeful it will give people a sense of what might be happening in a playbook for managing this next phase. Host thank you for being here. Im so happy you told your story finally and you have done a lot of things in your life, and thank you for sharing this on cspan. I encourage encourage our viewers to read it, theyll learn more about you the learn about what it means to be an entrepreneur, they will learn about technology and how government and private sector and Nonprofit Community can work Better Together to make our future brighter. Thank you for that. Guest thank you. I shoot it. I appreciate it. Cspan, created by americas state attract Cable Television companies about you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Thank you folks. Thank you for being here