If you're doing something new you've got to have a vision. You've got to have a perspective. You've got to have some north star you're aiming for, and you just believe somehow you'll get there, which kind of gets to the passion point. Steve Case More Quotes by Steve Case More Quotes From Steve Case If you can build a company and make money, great. But eventually, my intention is to give all my money away. I told my kids that. [Wealth] is not particularly helpful to kids. It's almost a burden. It's better to allow them to do their own thing and have their own successes. Steve Case helpful giving kids In the entrepreneurial world, when you launch a company, you have a particular idea, a particular product, a particular service, almost always you pivot, you shift. The market reacts to your initial idea. You make some adjustments. It's only after making a few adjustments that you see the success. Steve Case entrepreneurial world ideas And I'd say one of the great lessons I've learned over the past couple of decades, from a management perspective, is that really when you come down to it, it really is all about people and all about leadership. Steve Case couple people past If you really got the right people, and you've got them working together as a team, whether it's in business, whether it's in science, whether it's in politics, you can make a big difference. Steve Case differences team people The idea of an entrepreneur is really thinking out of the box and taking risks and stepping up to major challenges. Steve Case entrepreneur ideas thinking When I was trying to popularize the concept of the Internet - ten or 15 years ago - I came up with this concept of "the 5 Cs." Services needed to have content, context, community, commerce, and connectivity. After that, when I was trying to think of what the key management principles were to build into the culture, I started talking about the Ps. The P's were things like passion, perseverance, perspective and people. I think the people aspect is really the most important one. Steve Case perseverance passion business I like ... what I characterize as more built-to-last ideas rather than built-to-flip ideas. Steve Case flip lasts ideas I think what people love about the Steve Jobs story is not just the track record at Apple, but that comeback story, that he was thrown out of Apple, came back and built the company even greater. And that perseverance is so important in terms of entrepreneurship. And nobody is a better role model for that, for all entrepreneurs all over the world than Steve Jobs. Steve Case perseverance jobs thinking We need that same mentality in philanthropy, trying things, taking risks, recognizing the first try, maybe the second try, maybe the third try won't work. But if you stay at it and you're learning, you're talking to others, and you're learning together, eventually you'll break through and see the kind of impact you were hoping for. Steve Case break-through impact talking So we believed that strategic alliances and partnerships were critical, and we did that for five years. Steve Case partnership alliances years One of the biggest challenges we had in the first decade was not that many people had personal computers. There weren't that many people to sell to, and it was hard to identify them. Steve Case challenges people firsts I do think actually in this case the government does get credit for funding some of the basic research. Steve Case government doe thinking My father and his brothers were all lawyers, so I think that the expectation was probably for me to grow up to be an attorney, but it never really fascinated me that much. I was more interested in building things. Steve Case growing-up brother father What I have figured out is that I can predict the future. I just can't predict when. Steve Case i-can So you have to force yourself out of a comfort zone and really try to figure out what are the key ingredients, the key skill sets, the key perspectives that are necessary, and then figure out a way to attract the very best people to fill those particular roles. Steve Case skills keys people When I first got started in the late '70s, early '80s, and first was thinking about the interactive world, I believed so fervently that it was the next big thing, I thought it would happen quickly. Steve Case glowing world thinking We lose money on signing up the customers where there's some marketing costs associated with giving them a free month. It doesn't much matter whether you make a little bit or lose a little bit.. as you well know, because you lose a ton on every copy of The Washington Post (newspaper). Steve Case marketing money giving There are no road signs to help navigate. And, in fact, no one has yet determined which side of the road we're supposed to be on. Steve Case sides helping facts At AOL, we thought the killer app was people Steve Case killers apps people Think about this: It was illegal for most people to connect to the internet before 1992. Steve Case internet people thinking
