Transcripts For CSPAN2 After Words With Steve Case 20160502

Donald trump is at the 40000foot level. Hes very punchy, concepts, he doesnt necessarily offer a detailed substance behind it but he talks about this is my commitment and im going to do this, you can make this work im gonna win itll be great. People are are responding to that in the primaries. So its interesting to see how that will work out if donald trump is the nominee does he switch to a ground game like is describing going red or does he try to state that 40000foot level and see if he can bring in people through sheer messaging and celebrity status alone. Its an interesting test. And marcys new book, called going read. The 2,000,000 voters who will elect the next president and how conservatives can win. This is book deviancy spent to. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies and brought to you as a Public Public service by your cable or satellite provider. Afterwards is next with book tv, america on my cofounder steve k speculates on the future the internet and discusses how to navigate the everchanging digital landscape. He is he is joined by representative john delaney of maryland. So this is going to be a special treat, steve roller viewers. To talk about your new book. You and i have known each other for about 15 years now and weve had the opportunity to get to know each other in the private sector so its a real privilege to have you here. Its been hugely successful entrepreneur and those in. At my first question is really the timing of this book because you into America Online when it was something different, and the 80s it had a completely a completely different business plan. You reformulated the whole company, your is founder and leader. You lead the company through the 90s and it became one of the most Iconic Companies in American History and you as a result, 11 of the most iconic entrepreneurs in American History and by any measure one of the great businesspeople of our generation. Maybe we should just stop there call it a day. I think i saw somewhere at a speed of americans who connected to the internet connected to America Online. It became so popular it became a movie about it, you got mail starring tom hanks before he was really tom hanks by the way. Then he had a big merger with and then he went on to be a very successful business and you invested in a hundred Startup Companies like zipcar, sweet green and others. So why write the book now . I have to imagine that back in those days with aol there were people beat down the doors. When you first talked about the book i had an opportunity to see it forgot published. I was like how come he has not written a book before . So why now . Its a great thing well the internet with Lessons Learned in what were the lessons from that . I was not that interested in a memoir. Ive always been much more interested in what is happening next, the future of the past so i was not that motivated. It was about two years ago with cities all around the country in understanding what is happening and it dawned on me that there is this first wave and second wave about the break and it was going to be different in some of the lessons from the first wave would be helpful for the third wave so maybe it was now time to write a book, it was mostly about the future but tell some stories of the past because sometimes the past is prologue. So it became less for me about a memoir and more about the future and a little bit of a playbook, roadmap in some respects of whats going to happen in future and what everybody should do to be part of the future. Then it became more interesting. So i started maybe two years ago writing it off and on. So be very good to the substance of the book i might want to spend a little bit of time on your background. One of the things i was was happy about is your friend when i read the book is you did not want to write a memoir but you gave us a little bit of a glimpsed into not only the background, how you thought about the world as a young person, as a young entrepreneur, and obviously the aol days. But you are are from hawaii, born and raised and why. Up until about eight years ago you are probably one of the most famous people from hawaii, and probably up until about eight years ago you are probably the most famous person from your high school. I got elbowed aside. Why dont you. Well president obama and i were in high school at the same time. Its a great school, its 170 fifth anniversary. I was a little older than the president , i still am, even with the dog years. I was a senior in high school when he was a freshman. We actually do not have classes together but i do remember playing basketball a few times. It was only when he came to washington as a senator that we kind of reconnected. Ive easily when he became president we Work Together on some entrepreneurship related, youre completely right. No offense. I was thinking i had a pretty good in hawaii until he came. People are wondering what was in the water. Even a third way title, now we can go back to our roots. You and the president must have a good relationship. You also worked with president bush and president clinton so Public Policy has been a big part of who you are. I want to go back to that because thats our audience. Before i get further what i liked about your book, when theres a big thing going on and theres really nothing bigger than the internet, you could argue it is the most important Economic Force, certainly of our time, maybe in history in terms of pure Economic Force which you not only ushered in the Internet Business model but you also ushered in the internet into peoples homes. Whats great about great about the book is you actually overlay an Analytical Framework as to how we should all think about this. You break it down into the first wave, the second wave, the third way. We should spend some time with you explaining that the sister people and how you think about that. The first wave was building the internet. Building awareness of internet. Building awareness of why he should get connected to the internet. Building on ramps, the software, networks, servers, everything to get people connected. It seems obvious now but when we started in 1985, only 3 of people were online and they were only online one hour per week. So we said we wanted to it took is really a decade before it got traction. Most of that decade people thought why would anybody want to do that, sort of a hobbyist. It was a quirky thing. In fairness back then it was really hard to do, is really expensive to do, but if you were able to get online there is not much to do. Nobody to talk to and not much content. It took a a while before it finally became ready for prime time. But that was building the internet. The second wave is building on top of it like google, facebook, twitter, and the software writing on top of the internet. That is created enormous opportunity and Iconic Companies in that second wave, the third wave is going to be fundamentally different which is going to be integrating the internet and a much more seamless and pervasive ways, in every aspect of our lives. How we we stay healthy, how her kids learn, how is think about food, energy, or investing money. Pretty fundamental things that change a little bit in the first and second ride but not that much the way people deal for a Healthcare System for example is about the same, it said they thought the same form, its not as precise, you can order a pizza on your phone or watch netflix but the fundamental things around things like health and education have not changed. Theyre going to change a lot in this third wave but i think it is going to require different mindsets of for the innovators. Whether its a Startup Entrepreneurs are Bigger Companies to understand what is happening. Everybody i think needs to understand the definition of work is changed and is changing and will change even more in the third wave. The first wave was building the internet, the second was building on top of the internet, the third wave is integrating it in our lives. In the process as some of the largest business and industry in the country and in the world which created enormous opportunity for people who understand where the puck is going and can position themselves. In a way, the third wave we stop thinking of companies as technology companies. We just start thinking about technology as part of every company so the basic tools that we all thought existed in business and Technology Becomes that. So now like aol, one of the great things about the book when you go through when you took aol public it had 30,000,000 in revenues and senate was worth about 70 million. Now, we have google, apple, facebook, amazon, collectively these companies are probably worth 2 trillion. Its an extraordinary thing to think about these waves as you talk about it, what is really happen. But in but in the third wave what youre kind of staying is that there will be big healthcare companies, Big Financial Services companies, that will in be enabled by technology and waves we have not imagined before is that correct. Yes in some ways every company as a tech company. Even the internet internet is shifting from being an interesting phenomenon that are really internet enabled and at some point not the too distant future it will be taking for granted. We talk about electricity enabled, and the internet is on a similar path. I think well know when we get there, when we do not have a hyphenated internet. Hyphenated internet. Right now we call it the email, sometime what colleges male, right now we call it ecommerce sunday well call it commerce. I think itll take another ten or ten or 20 years to get there. I think were on that path. The third wave is just the next step, the next wave of really taking the idea of the internet and shifting it from being a Quirky Technology thing to be in a fundamental part of everyday life. One of the things ive always admired about you to seem to be an optimist. You believe in momentum, when things get going, capitalizing on the moment in. Theres a lot of debate about the Effect Technology has had on our world, im of the view that it has been enormously positive but in truth when you look at technological innovation, you combine it with global, its been a blessing for so many people here but it has put pressure on people. Its pressure pressure in terms of the anxiety in our life of being connected and it is heard a lot of middleclass jobs. Its that we have created new jobs, theres not been quite the equilibrium. So anything about this, i know youre an optimist, but why are you so positive about where this is going to take us . I completely agree their characterization. Im not on the techno optimist camp which says everything as i was positive and spread a little technology on everything it sells every problem. I think thats naive and not constructive. There are some positives, there are some negatives. How do you maximize the positives and minimize the negatives. I do think the internet has been an enormous force for good and empowering people in all around the world. Recently Internet Access available in cuba is going to be a game changer. People have been left out for nearly half a century. In some ways we look at their cars and we think theyre behind in times but in reality,. Will you have a wifi in those you know last summer we were in africa and in kenya, ethiopia and ghana what is happening there particularly in some of the remote villages because of the internet, because of innovation around solar and other kind of energy technologies, its incredibly liberating. But sometimes were to connect to pray the good news is we have the ability to get connected, the bad news is sometimes or hyper connected and sometimes it is good to home down and have a facetoface conversation. It sure technology has created a lot of jobs but it also has as you mentioned how it out a lot of jobs. How do you figure out ways for innovations for the future but bring everybody along . One thing i was proud to be associated about an initiative a few years ago around a Small Business in the report that came out was can start ups save the American Dream . In this be a force for good . I think this key to this is the democritus ties he to democratize access to entrepreneurship and opportunity. So everybody feels like they have a shot. Right now not everybody does. Some people do feel left out. Part of the reason i wrote the book was to lay out a framework for everybody. Not just for the entrepreneurs but for everybody to think about how the world developing and what it might look like ten or 15 years from now and what are some of the opportunities for your own kids that might help give you a brighter future. So you talk about healthcare, education, what are some of the examples, what what are some of the things that could be transformed by technology that can really change how we think about some of the problems . Anytime an entrepreneur sees a problem its an opportunity. In education a lot of things have been done in the last few decades in terms of the for the most part im not a teacher but ive talked to a lot of teachers and i would say the way theyre teaching is about the same that it was 20 years ago. The way students are learning is about the same as it was 20 years ago. There is more advancement about personalize common approaches that not all kids learn the same way. Some are more visual learners, heavenly systems that can help customize the learnings can be very important. Having teachers that more of a sense of whats going on with individual students where they really are struggling and they need more help. That is one example of the third way. Thats not just just about software to about integrating a culture with features and schools, its not just about to learning in the cloud and internet, but how do you improve learning in the class theres interesting developments on the medical side. Fitbits have gotten popular, the way people manage diseases the same way, particularly if its a lifethreatening disease is not as precise as it needs to be when people come there first cancer in particular 25 of time they change their opinion so it needs to be more personalized approaches and technology as part of that. Its not just the engineers, its partnering with the doctors and figuring out ways to put things together to usher in an era of healthcare that is a Better Outcomes more convenient and maybe lowercost. So thats one of the things we think youve added so much to the discussion, theres two problems we have with these discussions would talk about business and the Nonprofit Sector or the government sector working together, you have people come at this debate from the perspective of the private sector like the technologist have it all figured out. Were kind of on an island and we know whats best. It is some what of an insulator view of the world. Then you you people come at it from the perspective and one of the things thats been important is that its been very balanced. One of the things that theres a role for government but you have to be careful because it can stifle innovation. It can can get in the way, its a bureaucratic and theres just not enough of those balance voices, particularly those we have a business crew that you have had, advocating for that balance. So what brought you to that point . Said the fact that weve lived in d. C. For a while . Understanding the people and is part of the reason why am nonpartisan trying to Work Together because ive tried to work with people over three decades and i just want to get stuff done. Its also watching the evolution of the internet itself. Theres folks in Silicon Valley in particular that are kind of arrogant about it. Like the government screws everything up and the regulations are dumb and theres and thats, slow innovation, sometimes thats true. Sometime there things that government does that does frustrate entrepreneurs but its something to take seriously but the reality is Silicon Valley would not exist without the government and the internet would exist without the permit. The government funded darpa which is the research around the internet. Judge greene broke up the phone company that unleashed enormous telecommunication. People forget how big of a deal that was. They for the most part in the first wave of the internet the government said im not quite sure how this cannot work so lets take a handsoff approach, so i saw that develop and if you look at some of the Great Innovation that you take for granted in your life not just things like internet but gps, weather data, those, those are funded by the government. There is a role for government. At some of amazing that weather. Com gets gets all the information from the government. And if your marketing genius you have to tip your head to them. Ive been in conversations with people as a we dont need the government. We dont need that we have weather. Com. But hundreds would suffer. Some people view this book that im defending the government, i get frustrated by the government to. I lay out some things in the book that we need to take seriously, otherwise were going to lose our way, were not guaranteed, i understand the critics who are frustrated, i understand that view, i also think theres the other view that as you think about important aspects of your life like making sure the food our kids eat at school is like when to make them sick or the drugs are parents take are not going to kill them, or even jones fine over the playground is not going to crash and hit her some kind of kid. People want want the government to provide some basic rules of the road. They want some basic safety and consistency. At the same time they dont want the government to overreach and stifle innovation. So how so how do you strike the what right balance . Your work is a good example of that. We need more people with your your entrepreneurial background making those decisions whether it be in congress or the white house. Its important to strike that balance. I get frustrated when i hear either side, either the technologist or innovator same government is irrelevant or government saying you cant trust the market. Government needs to be more involved and stuff, the reality is both are important and they need to dance together in a constructive way, listen and respect each other and figure out the right path forward. In some ways it should be obvious, it most that are very large and bureaucratic and the government assemble certainly not knebel, but a concert link in the way. There are things that the government has to do. So you touch so you touch on that in the book, you say while acknowledging because i dont want to provide fuel to the fire that people say that youre advocating for government in the book but you are really not. You are talking about. Or talk about how government gets in the way. In the philanthropic side of life you get into some of that too, will come back to that. That is your is your other portfolio the work that you and jean to is really worldclass philanthropist. What you think if you could get government to act against a couple of things and thinking about it in the context of the partisan gridlock that has prevented us from doing anything, what would be two or three things that are really important for the government to try to do and get right to ensure that america maintains its competitive advantage as it relates to entrepreneurship. Your little worried about that. I am worried about that. I remind myself that 250 years 50 years ago america itself was a startup. And where the leader of the free world now because we have a leading economy. Thats not an accident. It we read the lead the way and many of the revolutions. We, that does not mean its a guaranteed to continue. In other countries cant figure this out. The secret sauce that sort of animated the american story is innovation entrepreneurship. You see countries being very creative are round immigration policy to get talented ways to create the right kind of investment in the right kind of regulatory environment. It is a global that battle. Its a global battle without 50 years ago, the global battle of capital, we side of manufacturing, now were seeing it with entrepreneurship. We have to understand that. We have to step up and i wrote a chapter on that. I think the work of the congress had done with the white house including the jobs act that legalized crowdfunding is important because it levels the Playing Field for entrepreneurs who do not happen to have money or know people with money. They can use the internet to raise capital and get started. The First Episode of the congress, the fcc put the goals in place there still some work there but thats a step in the right direction. Another is to make sure to understand particularly this Election Year and i think a lot of listeners have a strong views on this that immigration has become hot and politicized. I understand that. But we cannot remain innovative if we do not win the battle for talent. Immigration has many facets but figuring out some path forward to take sure that that is the case is a part. One example i mention of the book which is a sad one, theres an entrepreneur who started a company after graduating from morton, he wanted to stay in the United States but cannot get his visa extended. He had to go home and in this case to india, now that company has 5000 employees and 5,000,000,000 dollars. Dollars. He wanted to do it here. That was his dream. I hear these stories all over other countries. And then regulations, how do you find out what the right regulations are to protect people but also to enable innovation . There are some regulations that are more designed to make it harder for the innovator. Those those are bad. Some regulations are designed to protect people and that is good. So how do you take a fresh look at this in a world that is starting to converge and collide with some of these things coming together. Thats what people dont understand about regulation, someone who is an entrepreneur a few times over, a lot of people think Big Companies are being these regulations. In fact, their quality company. They trade and make it very hard for entrepreneurs to get started and some of these. One of these things i realized is that most people around the country and a washington think about business in this monolithic way. But essentially Small Business, main main street restaurants theyre very important. Business are very important but the real job growth comes from the highgrowth start big business doesnt want trade or tax recreation, which has no interest, they want to figure out ways so theres a different mindsets and we need to be sensitive about that so that we maximize the opportunity, i think its possible im optimistic about it, i think you people get complacent though lose their way, i i think the tragic example is detroit, detroit with Silicon Valley. Detroit was the most innovative area in the country. And then it lost its entrepreneurial mojo and a bunch of things happened and they lost 50 or 60 of it and then it went bankrupt. In Silicon Valley. So. So its a reminder that these things rise and fall, and many other, pittsburgh, madison, kansas city, new orleans which is fighting its way back are showing moment him, thats what gives me hope for the future. If we get complacent, and we think americas just always going to be this pioneering innovation, in a a world that entrepreneurs are globalizing, there is risk. Its a Small Company and it takes off. Thats an extreme example where it 70 million a decade later worth 160 million. Thats. Thats an off the chart extreme example. A Small Company is selling an athletic shirt that people thought was a niche product that they thought would be in the corner somewhere. The founder and ceo kevin planck and you and i visited headquarters when we did your tour, which i want to come back to, you, you know it takes off. Thousands of employees. That was in baltimore. All across the country, under armour stores. What youre doing, you mention the job at, urine instrumental force in getting that, which created a situation where startups happen. Youve done done a lot of work on Immigration Reform. For all the reasons you talked about. Used to be there were a couple places for people wanted to be to start a business and they were largely all in the United States. Thats not true anymore per theres all these fabulous cities around the globe that have free market economies and capital. What did you learn from those experiences as it relates, because a a lot of our viewers follow this and theyre caught up on this ideological debate that were all caught up in and it prevents them from getting done. You actually got something done with the jobs act. We havent gotten anything done on Immigration Reform yet but you moved the ball a little bit until recently and you been very much involved in that debate. You been a big voice around the basic Reason Research which is fabulous what can you learn from your experience trying to get stuff done in congress that is relevant for us to think about question. You are kind to say that. I played a little bit of a role in the jobs act but ultimately it was the white house and congress that did the work. I was more on the sidelines. But i learned a lot including the merger with time warner which didnt work out the way i thought it would. It comes down to people and customer relationships. I think part of the challenge, i know part of the challenge in washington is that is lacking. People are in their camps and not really talking to each other. Theyre not really trusting each other and therefore their talking past each other. Figure out someway to focus on the facts and reality. They need to try to bring together coalition to get things done and thats important. I consider myself a nonpartisan interest and some say they stand for nothing, but i stand for getting stuff done. How do you figure out someway to come together and get something done. Thats just my bias. I think it probably helps that i respect the fact that you are willing to jump into politics and really kinda take the lead on these issues. Ive stayed out of politics, focusing more on the policy side and being deliberately, not even bipartisan but nonpartisan. Good move. Hopefully both sides will say he does have an interest in these issues and he does care about the countrys future. He has something to add on innovative entrepreneurship. He just wants to get stuff done. I think thats an environment where people will listen. I think i learned that the hard way because sometimes things i thought were obvious ideas that were just not happening. I realized it wasnt about the idea, it was about the execution. It was a great, great Thomas Edison quote i mentioned in the book, vision without execution is hallucination. If you cant figure out how to get it done, it doesnt matter. It cant cant get done unless you build coalitions of our people who understand the issue and are willing to come together to figure out a path forward. That is the bias i have. Im hopeful that once we get through this election cycle, whoever the next president is, i hope they can build that dialogue. I think its the core job to build more opportunities for people across the country. We need to have that conversation and hopefully in january we will. I agree with you because when you look at the hand that were dealt as a country, it still still the best hand of anyone in the world. I actually think the economy, in my opinion, is doing a pretty well. There are a couple things we need to do. You touched on immigration and research and infrastructure. It does take just a few things that could get this country going instead of 22 and a half percent or three 1 2 . Its everything everybody cares about. We see some progress on the unemployment. It was 9 and then 5 , the growth rate is still a little low. Low. How do you get it to the point where you can invest in things that matter. Thats not someone running up spreadsheet. That someone who wants to unleash the next jobs are the next kevin planck or the next whoever who can create an interesting product or service that strikes a chord and people love it. Jobs are being created and then suddenly theres growth in the economy and theres more taxes being page paid and thats how this works. Sometimes theres a disconnect from that reality. To me, focusing on the core, what is the way to make sure we remain an innovated nation. We are a pioneering startup nation. Thats the mentality as opposed to the complacency that comes with success that leads you to start resting on your laurels. One of the things youre doing, you have a couple portfolios, you try to position the country and position the entrepreneur. I wouldnt say position the country. While position the country to be more successful, youre focusing on Public Policy and putting your views out there. One of the things i think is interesting is what youre doing with the two were or effort. I want you to talk about that because 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, its not only highly concentrated in a small number of people, which factually, those trends do exist, but its also consecrated concentrated geographically. California, new york, the d. C. Area and a few others that have disproportionately benefited from the growth that we have had. A lot of parts of the country are suffering. One of the things you try to do is find the next steve jobs and a lot of places a round the country that people dont think of our obvious places for entrepreneurship. So talk a little bit about what youre doing they are and where you see the opportunities because this is the thing that, if we get this right, other communities and even the atlantic magazine had a cover piece where he went around to 70 different large towns and small cities and when i saw the piece, the first thing i did was think of your work because its very similar. It was very optimistic. A lot of good things were happening in smaller cities in larger towns around the country that werent obvious. Tell us what youre doing there. The core idea, is how do you build Great Companies all over the country. There are Great Companies being built in california and massachusetts. 75 of Venture Capital went to those three states but theres also Great Companies being developed and the other parts of the states. Most of the intention is on silicone valley. I just think thats wrong. How much do they get of expenditure capital . At least half of it. Its definitely got the lead. Its done a great job. If you look at the arc of americas history, i talked earlier about detroit. When detroit was silicone valley, Silicon Valley was appleorder does. Larger does. These things rise and fall. That was in the middle of the country. There are Great Companies in the middle of the country. Some of the great inventions under ag tech and farming, i guess they they will come from those places, the Industrial Revolution in cities like pittsburgh. The steel capital. Theyre still really good at might making stuff. Carnegie mellon has the best product. Youre starting to see examples of this. I just think it will accelerate. If you do help figure out a way to have more visibility and capital, it will create more jobs that will lift up these communities. Its not just about any one business or anyone entrepreneur. How do you put environments where there is innovation and economy is more evenly dispersed around the country so people dont feel so left out. They feel like they can be part of this opportunity. Related to that is inclusive entrepreneurship. Last year 90 of Venture Capital went to men. 90 . That doesnt reflect. I never wouldve thought that. Theres just a whole host of reasons but Venture Capital is a little bit of a network. So if you went to the school or you have that access, thats why crowdfunding, i have applaud the congress for passing because getting it right with the fcc is so important. That is a game changer in terms of leveling the Playing Field. To give people an opportunity to have their idea out there and its more democratized and more inclusive, i think it bodes well not everyone has the same kind of opportunity. We need to remain an innovative country peered we need everybodys idea on the table and everybody to have a shot at the American Dream. Thats not just for the students coming out of mit, its also people who are former teachers in new orleans were coming up with Educational Software or farmers in kentucky who understand what needs to change in farming or doctors in the Cleveland Clinic or the mayo clinic or m. D. Anderson who have ideas in terms of figuring out a better path forward for health. Im optimistic that it will be more evenly dispersed and it will be a level Playing Field that will be more inclusive. It has to be. Part of your thesis around the third wave is that it is now time for everything. Weve seen the first wave which was connecting people in the second wave was connecting people. Now its basically taking every day aspects of our lives in things that we didnt think were technology and superficial orientation and its empowering them and changing them. That would argue like the argue car troll industry that is not headquartered. Montesano has places in st. Louis. You talk about this in the book a little bit. I think this is an interesting point for policy leaders around the country. They suddenly have a stronger hand than they might have thought because they have Traditional Industries as their economic roots. Those industries transform with data and interconnection etc. They will have a comparative advantage because they actually know something about the subject. If theyre agile. If they can figure out how to innovate not just within but to figure out how to build a network around with an ecosystem. Connect the ideas on the periphery. Youre right the first wave in the second wave, Big Companies were generally watching on the sideline. Take for example one of the most successful second wave company which came up with a new model for hospitality. It didnt exist ten years ago and if someone had pitched us the idea that we will create a platform to rent out in air mattress and an unused room, thats not going to work, but it worked. Now its worth 25 billion, worth more than hilton or marriott and they dont even own any hotel rooms. Thats the kind of innovation that happens in the second wave. Its more the innovators in the engineers that will creating software or marketplace. The third way it will be the connection for software and technology and other stuff. Figuring out if people are leaders in those Core Industries , they have an advantage if they figure out where the markets going and if they figure out a way to create partnerships with the entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs will need them more in the third way and both will need more governance. I understand entrepreneurs dont want to hear that, but it will be because these factors are regulated and the government is going to have a role in figure out what the right rules of the road are. Its just a different mindset. Americans with gray hair or no hair have a little bit of an advantage which is just people in their garages. The first wave is a little different. Again thats part of the reason i wrote the book. Some of that day nine max are around the importance of politics and perseverance and those werent as important but are becoming more important. The phenomenon of the 20 something entrepreneur, which theres some great successes will be less common in the third wave. It probably will be some at a little older. Somebody who understands the dynamics in healthcare or education or whatever. Its a balancing act. The innovators in place will tell you one of the benefits of not knowing anything about an industry is you can ask questions. And some of these sectors, if you dont know anything about teaching, if you dont know anything about how doctors or get a practice, you dont understand anything about how farmers think in some of the challenges they deal with, you probably arent going to get the right answer. The answer will come to people close to the problem. Marrying those two will be one of the real tricks and the third waves. To not be so wedded to the dogma that you cant look at things in new ways but bring along people and an understanding of what happened there and the ones who figured that out are going to be big successes in the third wave. Thats a really interesting opportunity for a lot of these communities. What a lot of them should be excited about is, sometimes it just takes one company. I saw what happened because i was in business at the time in the d. C. Area. There werent many entrepreneurs here. They come along and become this utterly breakout company. They really sees the region and a few others as well, but one or two companies can make a really big difference in terms of creating an ecosystem. People get these breakout evaluations where people go from being worth nothing to being worth 10 20 million. People make a bunch of money and they go out and its a natural cycle. Youve seen this in amazon with and with under armour, that was true. Its not just the jobs created by the company like aol and ann arbor but it was the tens of thousands or hundred thousand other jobs because of that growth in terms of jobs for people building new restaurants in the areas and other things. As the community is growing its creating jobs throughout the community. Not just the start up. 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 where people grow up there and their parents sadly tell them, you should move away because the opportunity is someplace else. I think in the third rate wave, there will be a boomerang where people want to come back to detroit and new orleans. They want to come back to des moines or other cities Rough Country and they want to raise a family a family there but they also opportunities. Because of some of the things that happen in the second wave like crowdfunding, we will see more of that happening in the third wave which will result in many of these cities that have been struggling a little bit having an opportunity to kind of come roaring back. So weve had this amazing career but it started, i want to read, its pretty short but i want to read for our viewers, your essay that you wrote when you applied to business school, and its okay to say you werent accepted. Yeah i didnt work out. I got rejected by every Single School i applied to. This is pretty short but i want to read it. It is what you wrote in 1980. Thats 26 years ago. So i firmly believe. 36 years ago. I firmly believe that technological advances in communication are on the verge of significantly altering our way of life. Changes in twoway communication will result in our televisions becoming an information lifeline. Clearly this will have a drastic effect on advertising as it will changes in the number of ages and working habits of the u. S. Population per the new u. S. Population will fragment the population and allow advertisers to escape the segmented markets. 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 to anticipate the problems that need to be solved. So if you took out a few words in this essay, this could have been written by someone today. But yes it got rejected everywhere you got rejected from harvard and stanford. Also Companies Applied for out of college. I boasted basically wrote a similar cover letter with my resume and i think they just thought i was a weird kid with weird ideas. Anybody who could write that 36 years ago ago is pretty good about seeing around corners. So i want to close with getting some of your advice. How should entrepreneurs think about the world, how should people in Public Policy think about the world question before i do that, just to show that the world is not as linear as a lot of people think, in other words you write an essay like that and youre not immediately accepted to harvard and you dont immediately start a company like a lot of people do today thats 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 you say is the best title you ever heard. Dir. Of new pizza development at pizza hut. It was a great job. I did that for about a year. The last 50 minutes we talked about technology. For that job i traveled around the country and ate pizza. The interesting thing, when i graduated in 1980, i wanted to wanted to do just that. There wasnt a startup culture. There werent Internet Companies to go to because the internet didnt exist. I had a figure out what to do in the meantime. I had a great experience in cincinnati. They launch new products and sent new samples of shampoo and discs for aol. Do you have any of those discs . I think i do. I think a lot of people have them. I think we may have overdone it when i realized we were basically bundling our free trial discs with frozen omaha steaks. Thats when maybe we went a little far. It works. That came apart from the experience and the pizza hut was opposite. Pizza hut was really run by the franchisees so innovation was happening on the periphery. I then moved to the d. C. Area and join a company that immediately failed. I thought it was a great idea and it was can be the next big thing and it turned out that it missed its mark and we became cofounders of aol in 1985. Even. Even there it took us a decade. One of the stories to me is that it requires perseverance. The idea of what i wanted to do, i had a 1980, which really inspired me after reading a book, but thankfully he was kind enough to read it and player provide a blurb for it, but it took about ten or 15 years before the idea really became real. I think thats going to be true going forward. If you really want to revolutionize healthcare or education, its gonna require a different mindset. I mention this african proverb. If you want to go quickly you can go alone but if you want to go far you have to go together. I think thats going to animate the third wave. Thats what i think readers, and i encourage viewers to read the book, its not only a great story of technology in the future, but its also a great story of perseverance because, again, as a friend i was so happy that you shared that party your life and didnt get right to talking about Public Policy. The story of you coming to the company, having a bunch of failures, including a partnership with apple that you had to dissolve, they tore up the contract and we had to rename it America Online which was a crisis that turned out to be an opportunity. Most people wouldve said thats the end of the story. They wouldve said you caught the fall and they decided not to go through that. You endured about ten years of setbacks, pioneering your markets, struggling to struggling to raise amounts of capital that in todays term are rounding errors, in terms of what you read about in terms of deals getting done. A certain model was created in doing that so its a great lesson in leadership and perseverance because its not always easy. I think there are some examples, but most of the truly revolutionary things take a lot of time. I remember meeting Nelson Mandela who happen to be, and he said something i will never forget which is its always impossible until it happens. That stayed with me. Some of these challenges including the opportunities i had. Theyre going to be frustrating times and people are gonna tell you is not to happen. I got a bunch of calls from my parents and friends saying it doesnt seem to be working. Do you have a plan b . I believed in that idea and 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 we broke through. Thats partly why i decided to write this book because i think that mindset and some of those stories and lessons will be helpful for the innovators. Again its not just for the engineers, but the entrepreneurs pit i think Everybody Needs to think about the future in a more optimistic way and think about how they can think about their own job in a world where there is more of a definition, millions of people are working for multiple companies and the nature of work has changed. There some positives and negatives to that that will continue to develop in the third wave. How do you position yourself. In hockey you say Wayne Gretzky is great because he didnt focus on where the puck was pretty focused where was going. Maybe they can position themselves in their career and prepare their family for that future thats going to unfold in the next ten or 15 years. I want you to close with your best piece of advice to young entrepreneurs. One thing that comes across in this book is your thinking about entrepreneurs differently, even probably how you thought about your own entrepreneurship and desire to start a business which , which animated me when i got of the school i said i wanted to start a business and thats what i went and did. It is different today. I think, fortunately entrepreneurs have much more of a social vision. Theres a great convergence between Public Policy, social impact, stewardship and entrepreneurship. You and your wife, whose amazing amazing have been leaders in this with social Impact Investing, you had a great line in the book that entrepreneurs should think more about net impact the network. Or maybe the other way. Whatever way it was. Something like that. Again, the the entrepreneurs of our generation, i dont necessarily believe thought about it that way. Its a big debate as you know in the investment circle. Some say your company should just focus on maximizing profits, but the reason we believe on Impact Investing is that profit is important and sustainability is important. But purpose is important too. The next generation of entrepreneurs is going to be looking for these purpose driven Impact Companies and sectors that are most right for disruption like healthcare and education lend themselves to that. You see this with the millennials and the young people. They want to do business with companies who stand for something more than profit. They want to work for companies who stand for more than profit and they want to invest in companies that stand for more than profit. I think entrepreneurs that want to change the world with new products and services and improve how we learn and how we eat will be at the core of it but they want to have this broader impact, this this broader purpose and thats what excites me about the future of entrepreneurship in america. If we level the Playing Field so everybody has a shot and as we lean into the future around the possibilities of purpose and investing, i think the brightest days could be ahead. Im optimistic if we all rally together in the Business World works together with the government world and the Big Companies Work Together with the Small Companies and everybody figures out a way to make it inclusive so everybody has a shot at the American Dream, i think it could be awesome awesome and im hopeful that this will be given people a sense of what can happen. Thanks for being here. Im so happy you told your story. Finally, youve done a lot of things and it took you a while to write the book. Thank you for joining us. I encourage our viewers to read it. They will learn more about you and learn what it means to be an entrepreneur. The learn whats going on in technology and how the private sector and Nonprofit Community can work Better Together to make our future brighter. Its important work so thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Cspan, created by americas table Cable Televisions and brought to as a Public Service by your able provider. Book tv tapes hundreds of author programs to route the country all year long. Here is a look at some of the events we will be covering this week. On monday we are in new york city at new york university. Oscar martinez talks about the origins of the current violence in el salvador, guatemala and honduras. Staff members of the intercept will discuss the drone where Warfare Program in new york. On thursday meg jacobs recalls Americas Energy crisis of the 1970s. That same evening at the free br