I was a better builder than a manager. I'd rather focus on maximizing the opportunities swinging for the fences than minimizing the risk with bunts and singles. Steve Case More Quotes by Steve Case More Quotes From Steve Case The real magic in National Geographic isn't how much money they have left at the end of the year. It's the fact that through their overall focus they are reaching hundreds of millions of people and educating people about the world. It just happens to be done in a business-oriented kind of way that is more sustainable. Steve Case business real years The resources you happen to accumulate, what do you do with them? You can spend the money and buy some houses or whatever, and people do some of that and that's fine. You can give the money to other people, your family, but usually when you do that you screw them up and it ends up counterproductive. Or, you take those resources and reinvest them in things that you believe in, and that could be reinvesting in a philanthropic cause. Steve Case giving believe people I was not an outstanding student. I did a reasonable amount of work. I got generally good - pretty good grades, but I was not that passionate about getting straight A's. Steve Case economy passionate students If you don't have both of them working together in a complementary, cohesive way, you're not going to be successful. Steve Case working-together successful way Today, National Geographic has a membership side with a magazine and some television side, and they generate about a billion dollars in revenue, and they're profitable. And so at the end of the year they have some bottom line profit which they can then reinvest, because they're running it as a not-for-profit in charitable endeavors. Steve Case business running years I'm probably never going to be satisfied with anything we do. I think there's always the possibility of doing better. And I'd say we're doing better than we were a year ago, in terms of delivery and quality of service, but nowhere near what we should be doing . Steve Case ambition years thinking I'm not sure I knew what an entrepreneur was when I was ten, but I knew that starting little businesses and trying to sell greeting cards or newspapers door-to-door or just vending machine kind of thing is.. there's just something very intriguing to me about that. Steve Case entrepreneur business doors I had an older brother who passed away recently, an older sister and a younger brother. Steve Case passed-away sister brother For better or worse, that is true with any new innovation, certainly any new technological innovation. There's many good things that come out of it, but also some bad things. All you can do is try to maximize the good stuff and minimize the bad stuff. Steve Case innovation stuff trying [On swinging for the fences] Ultimately, you have the potential to build a significant business with the potential to have a positive impact on millions of people's lives. Steve Case swinging-for-the-fences impact life-changing And so the idea was, well maybe you can take an Atari video game machine, where people plug in a game cartridge, and plug in a modem, and tie that into a telephone, and essentially turn that game in the machine into an interactive terminal. Steve Case ties games ideas I think the more you have a generalist perspective, I think sometimes the more you can kind of see through the forest and the trees. And when it gets a little bit cloudy, you know, have some sense of, "Well, maybe this might happen or maybe that might happen." So I really am a big believer in liberal arts education. I think it's better - particularly in these kind of uncertain times - to know a little bit about a lot of things as opposed to being expert in one thing. Steve Case education art thinking The Internet will make every enterprise a publisher. Steve Case internet enterprise publishers I do think that people have an obligation to give back but that doesn't necessarily mean that you give back just the traditional way. Maybe there's new ways to give back and make a contribution. I'm looking forward to some mix of philanthropy - maybe through a somewhat different prism - as well as helping entrepreneurs build some significant new businesses. Steve Case mean people thinking The attackers are the people with bold, innovative ideas who are trying to disrupt the status quo and usher in a better way. The defenders are the incumbents who try to defend what they have. We need to bring an attacker mindset to whatever we choose to do. Steve Case people ideas thinking And what we did with this new company in 1985 is we did start focusing on PCs instead of video game machines, because we learned the hard lesson about bringing a product to market in a consumer world where it's very expensive to build a brand and get distribution and so forth. Steve Case machines video games The only way to continue to have a robust economy is to out-innovate other nations. Steve Case robust economy way Bill sees and understands the possibilities of a connected world and has the expertise and the experience to help make it a reality, ... As more and more consumers want to take their connectivity with them beyond the desktop, Bill's vision will be critical in charting the company's future course and delivering on the promise of AOL Anywhere. Steve Case vision reality promise Most of the people who had PCs did not have modems and could not use those PCs as communicating devices. They really were using them for spreadsheets or word processing or storing recipes or playing games or what have you. Steve Case playing-games use people In less than a year Revolution has gone from being a concept to a reality, with three rapidly growing sector companies, overseeing a dozen acquired firms that collectively employ more than 2,500 people. But we're just scratching the surface in terms of the potential to build Revolution into a new kind of company that gives consumers more choice, control and convenience in the important aspects of their lives. Steve Case reality people years
