The Third Wave

I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. On my first birthday, Hawaii became the 50th state.

Case Family

My family in Honolulu in 1967: from left, me, my older brother Danny, my father Dan, my mother Carol, my older sister Carin, and my younger brother Jeff.

Suburban Press

When I was attending Williams College in the late 1970s I was the lead singer in a band—but I didn’t sing very well. I decided to switch to the business side.

My first TV interview, on PBS’s Computer Chronicles in 1986. I was 28 years old at the time—and really nervous.

Computer Chronicles, Stewart Cheifet Productions

Our first brand, QuantumLink, launched in 1985 as “the online service that’s easy-to-use, inexpensive, useful and fun.” At the time just 3% of Americans were online, for—on average—only one hour per week.

AOL, Inc.

At what became AOL, our Friday beer blasts were a good way to get a sense of what was on our team’s mind. Here I am with co-founder (and CTO) Marc Seriff, early employee Keith Barron, and co-founder (and founding CEO) Jim Kimsey in 1989.

Amy Arnold

America Online screen, circa 1999. At its peak, AOL handled nearly half of all consumer Internet traffic in the U.S. It was “the Internet and a whole lot more” for most Americans. AOL was, for its time, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube, and Instagram combined.

AOL, Inc.

On Wall Street the day AOL was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. AOL was the first Internet company to go public, raising $11 million at a $70 million valuation in 1992. Eight years later, AOL was worth $160 billion, making it the best performing stock of the decade.

AOL, Inc.

Those AOL disks became an American icon. We distributed hundreds of millions of them in the 1990s to encourage people to try our service. It worked: we grew from 200,000 customers in 1992 to 25 million a decade later.

AOL, Inc.

The first of many magazine covers: AOL was going from being unknown and irrelevant, to central and much talked about. I used to joke that AOL was a “10 years in the making overnight success.”

FORTUNE logo and cover design © Time Inc. FORTUNE and the FORTUNE logo are registered trademarks of Time Inc. used under license. Author photo by Louie Psihoyos; psihoyos.com.

Discussing the constructive role that the Internet could play around protecting children with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton at the White House Conference on Children, Violence & Responsibility in 1999.

David Hume Kennerly

With President Clinton watching a student get online in February 2000. What we all now take for granted was big news back then. The Case Foundation’s PowerUP initiative built 1,000 computer centers in underserved communities to help bridge the digital divide.

AP Photo

Meeting with President George W. Bush and Disney CEO Michael Eisner at the White House. When he was campaigning in 2000, I failed to convince Bush to adopt “open access” for broadband, and that contributed to our decision to later merge with Time Warner. We also considered a merger with Disney, but that idea didn’t go far.

Luke Frazza

After years of battling, AOL and Microsoft announced a truce in 1996. Bill Gates agreed to bundle AOL software with Windows, in exchange for AOL integrating Microsoft’s web browser.

AP Photo/Lacy Atkins

I met Rev. Billy Graham at the TED conference in 1998. We became close friends, and traveled together on many occasions. When Jean and I were married, Graham officiated. Here we are together at the 2000 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award Dinner.

Craig Matthews

Fortune magazine hosted a global CEO forum in China in 1999, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the creation of the People’s Republic of China. Time Warner CEO Jerry Levin chatted with me and my wife Jean at a chilly Beijing event. The seed for the AOL Time Warner merger was planted that week.

Celebrating the announcement of the merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2000 with Jerry Levin and Ted Turner. We were all smiles that day.

Stan Honda

The “victory” shot that I later came to regret. I had agreed to step aside as CEO to enable the merger between AOL and Time Warner to occur. But on the day of the announcement, I wanted to look upbeat. I later regretted this, because it led to the perception I was running AOL Time Warner, not just chairing the board.

Chris Hondros

In 2000, and again in 2001, Vanity Fair named me the most powerful person of the New Establishment, ahead of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and others. The coronation didn’t last long. Two years later, I had fallen off the list completely.

Text: Alan Deutschman; sketch: Peter Stemmler

Riding horses with Ted Turner at his ranch in Montana, a few months after the AOL Time Warner merger. Ted soon turned against me, and lobbied for my resignation as chairman.

Case Family

A celebratory night at the Grammy Awards in 2002, with current Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and former CEO Dick Parsons. The smiles belied the growing frustrations that led to my resignation months later.

Jeff Kravitz

Hugging my brother Dan at the Hambrecht & Quist healthcare conference in 2002. Sadly, he died of brain cancer a few months later. It felt like my worlds were starting to come apart.

Eric Luse, San Francisco Chronicle

The work of The Case Foundation has taken us all over the world. Here I am with my wife Jean in a remote village in Ethiopia in 2005.

Case Foundation

Back at AOL’s Virginia headquarters in 2010, as AOL celebrates its 25th anniversary. It was a long, unpredictable, extraordinary, and sometimes strange ride. Looking back, I’ll always be grateful for the pioneers who believed in the idea of the Internet when most were skeptical.

Russell Hirshon for AOL

Disembarking from Air Force One after flying with President Obama to Cleveland to launch Startup America in 2011.

Larry Downing/Corbis

Huddling with GE CEO Jeff Immelt to discuss entrepreneurship as we wait for President Obama to address the nation at the U.S. Capitol in 2011.

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

Discussing philanthropy with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in 2012 at the Forbes 400 Summit. Warren helped me think through my next act—starting Revolution, an investment company. After duking it out for a decade, it has been a pleasure working with Bill on initiatives such as The Giving Pledge.

Glen Davis/The Forbes Collection

Joining with four senators to announce the bipartisan Startup Act 2.0 in 2012 (from left, Senator Mark Warner, me, and Senators Marco Rubio, Jerry Moran, and Chris Coons).

Getty/Photographer Chip Somodevilla

Watching President Obama sign the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act with Majority Leader Eric Cantor, other members of Congress, and entrepreneurs in the Rose Garden of the White House in 2012. It was a moment to celebrate: both parties came together to pass pro-entrepreneurship legislation.

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Disembarking from Air Force One with President Obama as we spread the “Rise of the Rest” message about regional entrepreneurship.

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

We’ve traversed 4,000 miles and visited 19 U.S. cities by bus as part of our effort to promote regional entrepreneurship. We kicked off the effort in Detroit—a city that was the Silicon Valley of its day, fell on hard times, and is beginning to show signs of a comeback. From left: Entrepreneur Dan Gilbert and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

Revolution

Our Rise of the Rest team celebrates the completion of another bus trip, this time in New Orleans.

Case Foundation

During every Rise of the Rest bus stop, we host a pitch competition for local entrepreneurs. The winner in Pittsburgh receives a $100,000 check from me and fellow judge Franco Harris.

Case Foundation

Discussing the need for immigration reform with President Obama at the White House in 2013. Immigration policy is complex and can be emotionally charged, but we need to come together to pass bipartisan reform so we can continue to win what is now a global battle for talent.

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

My focus in recent years has been on investing in and mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs. Here I am with the founders of Sweetgreen, a fast casual restaurant that is providing healthier options. Revolution invested $40 million, and I joined the board.

Entrepreneur magazine

From Entrepreneur, December 4, 2013, © 2013 Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.

While our Rise of the Rest initiative is focused principally on lifting up entrepreneurial regions within the U.S., we also have visited Africa, the Middle East, and Cuba hoping to spawn startup cultures. Here we are with the Andela fellows in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2015.

Case Foundation

Dinner at the White House in 2014 with President Obama. I attended high school with “Barry” Obama in Hawaii in the mid-1970s. Thirty years later we reconnected when he became a senator and moved to Washington DC.

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

In the past decade my investment firm Revolution has invested in nearly 100 entrepreneurs. We focus those investments on people and ideas that can change the world.