Steve Case at the Computer History Museum

Posted by: softtechvc

Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL, addressed quite a large audience tonight, interviewed by Walt Mossberg, at the Computer History Museum.

Case was asked about his debuts: he started his career at P&G, then moved on to Pizza Hut, where he was New Pizza Development Director (that's what he said).

He then co-founded AOL, creating one of the largest Internet companies, merging with Time Warner in 2000.

Some of the remarks he made that I found interesting:
- Key to AOL's initial ramp was to convince PC manufacturers to bundle a modem in PCs around 1988, turning personal computers into communication devices. Previously AOL was shipping modem cards and drivers with its application.
- It took 9 years to reach 1M members, and then 9 months to get to 2M. This was at the beginning of the growth of the Internet.
- Introducing flat rate pricing was not a choice, it was an obligation due to the pressure that MSN was imposing. This forced AOL to come up with additional services, driving additional revenues.
- At the same time, the introduction of "all you can eat" pricing led to a huge increase of usage of AOL dialup access, and ultimately to the "busy signal" crisis.
- The company faced the issue of maintaining a "walled garden" vs. providing access to the Internet, and available content and services out "in the open". According to Case, the reason for AOL's growth (to 30M members) was that they did a good job, delivering simplicity and additional value, compared to the competition.
- The AOL Time Warner merger was a good idea, creating an unprecedented Internet/Broadband/Media giant but execution and timing were wrong. And Case reckoned that he and Gerald Levin were probably both the wrong leaders for the combined company. He also took full responsibility for the failure of the merger, apparently for the first time.
- "Out of 20 years spent at AOL, I liked the first 10 years better because I like creating and attacking more than managing and defending".

CNET has an interesting article about the part related to the demise of the AOL Time Warner merger.

More about Steve Case and AOL's story in Kara Swisher's book: aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads, and Made Millions in the War for the Web.

Some pictures of the event: