Steve Case Biography

Steve Case born Stephen McConnell Case is an American entrepreneur, investor, and businessman best known as the former chief executive officer and chairman of America Online (AOL). He joined AOL’s predecessor company, Quantum Computer Services, as a marketing vice-president and became CEO of the company (renamed AOL) in 1991.

He also served on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE). The case was chairman of UP Global, a non-profit organization focused on fostering strong entrepreneurial communities, recently acquired by Techstars.

Steve Case Age

Stephen McConnell Case was born in Honolulu, Hawaii Territory, U.S. on August 21, 1958. He is 61 years as of 2019. His nationality is American and is of white ethnicity.

Steve Case Family

Steve Case was born and brought up in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is the son of Carol an elementary school teacher and Daniel Case. His father, Daniel H. Case, is the founding partner of the Hawaiian law firm of Case Lombardi & Pettit. He has three other siblings Carin, Dan, and Jeff. His brother Dan died from brain cancer at the age of 44 in June 2002.

He graduated from the private Punahou School (Class of 1976) and attended Central Union Church. In 1980, Case graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts with a degree in political science.

Steve Case Wife

Case married Joanne Barker in 1985, whom he had met while attending Williams College. The couple had three children together and later divorced in 1996. Two years later, he married former AOL executive Jean Villanueva in a ceremony officiated by the Rev. Billy Graham in 1998.

Steve Case Career

He worked as an assistant brand manager at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1982 he joined Pizza Hut Inc. in Wichita, Kansas, serving as manager of new pizza marketing.

In January 1983, his more seasoned sibling Dan, an investment banker acquainted him with Bill von Meister, CEO of Control Video Corporation. The organization was advertising an administration called GameLine for the Atari 2600 computer game support that enabled clients to download games through a telephone line and modem.

After that gathering, von Meister enlisted Case as an advertising consultant. Later that year, the organization almost failed and one of its financial specialists, Frank Caufield, got his companion Jim Kimsey as an assembling expert. Case later joined the organization as a full-time showcasing worker.

In 1985 Quantum Computer Services, an online administration organization was established by Jim Kimsey from the leftovers of Control Video. Kimsey moved toward becoming CEO of the recently renamed Quantum Computer Services and procured Case as VP of advertising.

In 1987 he elevated him again to official VP. Kimsey prepped Case to move toward becoming administrator and CEO when Kimsey resigned, and the progress officially occurred in 1991 (CEO) and 1995 (executive).

As part of the changes that gave birth to Quantum, Case changed the company’s strategy, creating an online service called Quantum Link (Q-Link ) for the Commodore 64 in 1985 with programmer (and AOL co-founder) Marc Seriff.

In 1988, Quantum began offering the AppleLink online service for Apple and PC Link for IBM compatible computers. In 1991 he changed the company name to America Online and merged the Apple and PC services under the AOL name; the new service reached 1 million subscribers by 1994, and Q-Link was terminated on October 21 of that year.

In 2005, Case wrote in The Washington Post that “It’s now my view that it would be best to ‘undo’ the merger by splitting Time Warner into several independent companies and allowing AOL to set off on its own path.”

In October 2005, he resigned from the Time-Warner board of directors, to spend more time working on Revolution LLC, an investment firm he founded in April 2005. Revolution and its related funds have invested in more than 40 companies. Revolution has committed to investing a majority of its capital outside Silicon Valley

He is also chairman of the Case Foundation, which he and his wife Jean Case created in 1997. In 2011, Steve and Jean Case were honored as Citizens of the Year by the National Conference on Citizenship and interviewed by Stephanie Strom of The New York Times about their record of service and philanthropic endeavors.

In 2009, Case was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was appointed as a Citizen Regent of the Smithsonian Institution. Steve Case was a co-chair of the Democracy Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. In May 2014, Case received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Georgetown University.

Work with immigration reform

He is an avid advocate for comprehensive immigration reform, arguing that easing restraints on immigration is necessary for America’s future entrepreneurial economy. He particularly emphasizes the impact that reform would have on recent engineering graduates and the tech sector.

Fueled by concern that Donald Trump’s restrictive immigration policies would result in loss of jobs. Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. He made an exception to remaining nonpartisan by endorsing Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidency.

Steve Case Net Worth

Steve is an American self-made entrepreneur with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion dollars. Best known for co-founding America Online (AOL), he is now focused on revolutionizing various service industries through tech integration and entrepreneur philanthropy.

Case is the chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, an investment firm, which has OrderUp, Sweetgreen, Draft Kings, Revolution Foods, Optoro and dozens of other companies in its portfolio. Additionally, he and his wife Jean also head the philanthropic Case Foundation, which fosters entrepreneurship in the US.

Steve Case Twitter

Tweets by SteveCase

Steve Case Interview

”I understand why men feel threatened, but turning back the clock is not the answer”

Today, Case is chairman of the Case Foundation and the chairman and CEO of Revolution, a Washington DC-based investment firm seeking out visionary tech entrepreneurs. Through both organizations, Case seeks to invest in hundreds of organizations focused on leveraging the internet to strengthen society.

Question: Did you actively think about workplace gender inequality prior to the Me Too movement? And what’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from Me Too?

Steve: Absolutely. The management team that helped me start AOL in 1985 and scale it in the 1990s was fairly diverse, and that contributed to our understanding of how to build a mainstream consumer business. Most of our competitors at the time, like CompuServe, had overwhelmingly male subscribers, but AOL had broad appeal, including to women, and that propelled our growth.

As I shifted from running a company to backing entrepreneurs as a venture capitalist, I’ve tried to carry that inclusive mindset forward. Disappointingly, the data on venture capital suggests we have a long way to go; last year, less than 10% of venture capital went to women, and more than 90% to men.

Since the founding of Revolution, my investment firm, we have been focused on backing underrepresented founders. Our Rise of the Rest investment philosophy (backing companies outside of Silicon Valley) was, in part, because we believed that by getting out of the Silicon Valley bubble, we would naturally find more female founders and entrepreneurs of color to fund. This has turned out to be true.

In our last 10 Rise of the Rest pitch competitions, half of the winners were women. We also continue to work on building a diverse team at Revolution. Three of the partners are women, and we have numerous investment professionals who are also women. But that’s just a start; we know we can and must do better.

The Me Too movement has spotlighted how widespread sexual harassment continues to be, and the challenges women continue to face in the workplace. While we like to think we’re making progress as a society, the range of stories that have been told over the past year, from women in every industry, and at all levels of seniority, is evidence of a larger cultural and systemic problem that we all need to address. It has been an important wakeup call.

Question: Do you identify as a feminist? Why or why not? How do you define feminism?

Steve:  I’ve learned that “feminism” means different things to different people. For me, feminism is about advocating that women be treated equally. Of course, that’s the right thing to do. It’s also the smart thing to do. We need everybody on the field, actively participating in every facet of society. We are not going to be able to maintain our lead as the most entrepreneurial nation in the world if half of our population is on the sidelines. We need to be far more inclusive.

Question: What do you do on a daily basis to advance gender equality?

Steve: For the past two decades, I have chaired the Case Foundation (which my wife, Jean, runs as CEO), and a key focus of our work has been on building movements, including leveling the playing field for entrepreneurs—particularly women and founders of color through our inclusive entrepreneurship work.

We’ve supported a number of programs that are directly combating disproportionate funding and under-representation for diverse entrepreneurs. These include digital undivided, a social enterprise that fosters economic growth by empowering African-American and Latina women entrepreneurs; and Jumpstart Inc., a nonprofit whose seed capital Focus Fund is designed to support women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color.

And we launched a Faces of Founders campaign to showcase the robust pipeline of diverse entrepreneurs that exist in this country.

You can get the full story from qz.com