Steve Case Quotes

I do think that a general liberal arts education is very important, particularly in an uncertain changing world

Nobody should have to be a systems integrator to make a convergence network work in their home

It's stunning to me what kind of an impact even one person can have if they have the right passion, perspective and are able to align the interest of a great team.

I had an older brother who passed away recently, an older sister and a younger brother.

You shouldn't focus on why you can't do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.

In the end, a vision without the ability to execute it is probably a hallucination.

I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii

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.

All great ideas start as weird ideas. What now seems obvious, early on, is not obvious to anybody.

You have to get along with people, but you also have to recognize that the strength of a team is different people with different perspectives and different personalities.

It's not about how to get started; it's about how to get noticed.

I want to find people who have had to work hard and who have learned from their failures. Perseverance is no guarantee you’ll succeed, but without it, it’s almost guaranteed you won’t.

So we believed that strategic alliances and partnerships were critical, and we did that for five years.

It's stunning to me what kind of an impact even one person can have

I do think actually in this case the government does get credit for funding some of the basic research.

Anything is possible if you put your mind to it and you really work hard.

The only way to continue to have a robust economy is to out-innovate other nations.

So my degree was in political science, which I think was - the closest I could come to marketing is politics.

Five or ten years ago, when it was clear the Internet was becoming a mainstream phenomenon, it was equally clear that a lot of people were being left out and could be left behind

My father still is a lawyer, and my mom was a teacher and then later a career counselor

I like ... what I characterize as more built-to-last ideas rather than built-to-flip ideas.

Because I do think - not just in building AOL - but just the world in which we live is a very confusing, rapidly changing world where technology has accelerated.

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.

The idea of an entrepreneur is really thinking out of the box and taking risks and stepping up to major challenges.

The idea that maybe you don't have to own a car if you only need one occasionally may catch on, just like time-sharing caught on in real estate

I enjoyed high school and college, and I think I learned a lot, but that was not really my focus. My focus was on trying to figure out what businesses to start

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.

Having a great idea is important. But having a great team is also important.

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.

If you don't have both of them working together in a complementary, cohesive way, you're not going to be successful.

[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.

I continue to have a special pride and passion for AOL, and I strongly believe that AOL - once the leading Internet company in the world - can return to its past greatness

What I have figured out is that I can predict the future. I just can't predict when.

Think about this: It was illegal for most people to connect to the internet before 1992.

I think the support of the other team at AOL and everybody's really shared passion and belief about this and - saying that some day everybody was going to be on line.

At AOL, we thought the killer app was people

But the idea that some day people would want to be able to interact and get stock quotes and talk with other people or all these different things, I just believed that was going to happen

From a relatively early age I got interested in business

Disruption is about risk-taking. But then you become a Fortune 500 company, which is about risk mitigation

The Internet will make every enterprise a publisher.

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.

It's silly for me to raise expectations too much, but I think I'm right on the basic trend, which is shifting power to consumers.

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.

Frankly, I like new things. I feel like I made a contribution to building a more interactive world. And I'm proud of that.

You really need to believe that you are on to something important.

I think it took us nine years to get one million subscribers to AOL, and then in the next nine years we went from one million to 35 million.

At the end of the day, the team you build is the company you build.

The pace of change and the threat of disruption creates tremendous opportunities.

I do think that a general liberal arts education is very important, particularly in an uncertain changing world.

My father still is a lawyer, and my mom was a teacher and then later a career counselor.