WASHINGTON 鈥� When Steve Case started AOL 31 years ago in Tysons Corner, only three percent of Americans were online, and for an average of an hour a week, he says.
That put him on the ground floor of what he calls the “first wave” of the Internet. Today, it’s difficult to imagine life without the Internet 鈥� it鈥檚 established and pervasive enough to have gone through two more waves.
As chairman and CEO of the D.C.-based investment firm, Case has had a hand in the creation of apps and businesses such as Zipcar and LivingSocial 鈥� what he calls the second wave, along with such ventures as Facebook and Waze.
The third wave is already here, Case told 蜜桃视频app in an interview Friday, and it鈥檚 only going to get bigger.
Case is the author of 鈥淭he Third Wave: An Entrepreneur鈥檚 View of the Future,鈥� and said Friday that that consists of 鈥渋ntegrating the Internet seamlessly throughout other aspects of our lives 鈥� health care, education, transportation, energy, food, things like that.鈥�
Startup companies, Case predicts, will evolve to concentrate 鈥渘ot just on technology, not just on software, not just on apps, but improving important aspects of our lives, like how our kids learn in schools, or how we stay healthy, or get well when we get sick, or how we think about how we think about and manage energy in a smarter kind of way.”
鈥淭hose are pretty important parts of our lives, and pretty significant sectors of the economy,” Case says. “They haven鈥檛 really changed that much in the first and second wave, but will change a lot in the third wave. And that does create opportunities for people who are positioning themselves to benefit from it.鈥�
That said, Case says that the future will rely on successful cooperation between government and the startup companies and entrepreneurs who seek to capitalize on the third wave: 鈥淲e need a more flexible, agile approach to thinking about regulation, and we need much more dialogue between the innovators 鈥� and the policymakers, especially here in Washington. And if we don鈥檛 get that right, we won鈥檛 be able to benefit as much as we could from the third wave.鈥�
That doesn鈥檛 mean a regulation-free paradise, Case said: In the second wave, engineers and developers created apps and Internet-based businesses on their own 鈥斺�� the government wasn鈥檛 really all that involved. The third wave, because it impacts such important [areas] like health and learning and food, there are gonna be regulations, and we need to make sure we strike the right balance with those regulations.鈥�
That means a larger role for the government. 鈥淎nd the folks in Silicon Valley don鈥檛 like to hear that,鈥� Case says, 鈥渂ut the reality is, these are important aspects of our lives, and the government鈥檚 gonna have a seat at the table, so we have to have a constructive dialogue and figure out some way to strike the right balance.鈥�
Case reads from, and signs, 鈥淭he Third Wave鈥� at public events at the following locations in the area:
- The Grand Hyatt DC Hotel, 1000 H Street NW, Washington, on April 12 at 11 a.m.
- 1776, 1133 15th St. NW, Washington, on April 14 at 6:30 p.m.聽
- Barnes and Noble, in Tysons Corner Center, April 15 at 5 p.m.
