A Case for Steve Case's Third Wave

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A Case for Steve Case’s Third Wave

BY MICHAEL KRAUSS

 michael.krauss@mkt-strat.com

S

hould you read The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future, by Steve Case? A lot of luminaries think you should, and I do, too—except we believe it’s a great book for different reasons.

On the back page of the book, you’ll find laudatory quotes from former secretary of state Colin Powell, GE CEO Jeff Immelt, investment genius Warren Buffet and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. They tell you to pick up this book. You will learn about entrepreneurship and the future of innovation and business.

They’re right. This is a great book. There are many good reasons to delve into The Third Wave. Understanding the future of the internet is the obvious one, but gaining insights to guide your marketing career is the real reason to read this book.

Case is cofounder and CEO of America Online, former chairman of AOL Time Warner and the current chairman and CEO of investment firm Revolution. He articulates a compelling roadmap and describes the “first wave” of the internet (1985 to 1999) when companies such as AOL, IBM, Cisco, Sun and others laid the foundation of the internet. He also discusses the “second wave” of the internet (2000 to 2015): the creation of an application economy and mobile revolution that includes the rise of Google, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook.

In 2016, Case explains, we are entering a “third wave” of the internet, where “ubiquitous connectivity will allow entrepreneurs to transform major, realworld sectors.” In this next wave, says Case, “The internet will be integrated into every part of our lives—how we

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learn, how we heal, how we manage our finances, how we get around, how we work, even what we eat. As the Third Wave gains momentum, every industry leader in every economic sector is at risk of being disrupted.”

Today’s marketers know the stories of Uber and Airbnb—companies that have few physical assets, yet are on their way to becoming the world’s largest taxi and hospitality enterprises thanks to digital technology and the internet. A book on digital disruption is interesting, but not unique.

Case is unquestionably a successful internet entrepreneur and venture investor.

Creating AOL and selling the company to Time Warner—a compelling tale Case retells in the book—certainly qualifies him for a leading position in the pantheon of business leaders and entrepreneurial success stories.

The foreword to The Third Wave is penned by Walter Isaacson, the CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution and of biographies of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger (all great books to read in their own right).

Case is friends with many of our era’s most influential technology and business luminaries. He is one of the elite. Yet his story points out that he is really just like each of us. He emerges from humble beginnings.

His accomplishments make the book relevant to us as marketers, but the real power of this book is this: Any of us could be Steve Case.

Yes, Steve Case is smart. Yes, he is entrepreneurial. He had sales skills and marketing skills, and he is driven. And his book paints a roadmap for any of us who aspire to be the next successful marketerturned-entrepreneur.

Case grew up in Hawaii. At 10 years old, he and his older brother Dan, then 11, established Case Enterprises. “We hoped that no one would notice that we were too young to drive,” jokes Case. “We billed ourselves as an international mailorder company. At one point we became the exclusive distributor for a Swiss watchmaker, though I can’t recall actually selling any watches. Most of our efforts involved knocking on doors and trying to sell greeting cards to our neighbors. Most of our customers were buying what we were selling just to be nice.”

Case went on to study at Williams College where he continued his entrepreneurial ways. “At one point my

Yes, Steve Case is smart. Yes, he is entrepreneurial.

He had sales skills and marketing skills, and he is driven. And his book paints a roadmap for any of us who aspire to be the next successful marketer-turned-entrepreneur.

MICHAEL KRAUSS

marketingmanagement

advisor pulled me aside and suggested I was spending too much time on my entrepreneurial efforts and would regret it,” Case adds. “‘Look at the educational opportunities in front of you,’ I remember him saying. ‘You should immerse yourself in them. Your business

pursuits are distracting, and frankly, they are ill-suited for campus life,’” Case recounts in his book.

Case discovered groundbreaking ideas in the Williams College library. Case stumbled onto futurist Alvin Toffler’s book, also titled The Third Wave.

“It completely transformed the way I thought about the world— and what I imagined for its future,” Case says. “Toffler wrote about a coming global transformation. In his telling, the ‘first wave’ of humanity was the settled agricultural society that was dominant for thousands of years. The ‘second wave’ was the postIndustrial Revolution world, where mass production and distribution transformed how people lived. …

Toffler’s ‘third wave’ was the information age: an electronic global village, where people could access an endless array of services and information, participate in an interactive world and build a community based not on geography but on common interests,” Case says.

“He predicted the world as we know it today. … I wanted to be part of making it happen.”

Case graduated from Williams and took a marketing job at Procter & Gamble. After two years in brand management he landed a role as director of new pizza development for Pizza Hut. Case then moved into technology, and the rest is history.

His book describes how hard work, good luck and sales and marketing savvy enabled the success of AOL. There are vignettes about how the name “America Online” versus “Online America” was chosen. There’s a description of how the memorable phrase, “You’ve got mail,” and the voiceover artist who read those famous words were selected.

Many of us built Kool-Aid stands and sold greeting cards door to door as kids. But Case took it a step further. He identified groundbreaking ideas from a thought leader, Alvin Toffler. He picked up sales and marketing skills at P&G and Pizza Hut, and then he set out on his entrepreneurial quest.

That’s the reason you should read The Third Wave by Steve Case. Even if you don’t get as far or as rich as Steve Case, The Third Wave describes the journey as exciting, challenging and a lot of fun. m MICHAEL KRAUSS is president of Market Strategy Group based in Chicago.

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