Steve Case

The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream

In 2014, Steve Case launched Revolution’s Rise of the Rest, an initiative to accelerate the growth of tech startups across the country. Rise of the Rest is based on a simple idea: cities can be renewed and rise again if they develop a vibrant startup culture. A visionary entrepreneur himself, Case believes that great entrepreneurs can be found anywhere, and can thrive with the proper support and investment. In fact, they’re key to the American DNA. But America needs help keeping its promises, as it is harder today for innovators who live outside the major tech hubs. For most of the past decade, seventy-five percent of venture capital has gone to just three states—California, New York, and Massachusetts—while the forty-seven states making up the rest of the country have been forced to share the remaining twenty-five percent. And it’s even harder for some people no matter where they live. Less than ten percent of venture capital currently goes to female founders, and less than one percent to Black founders. Since new companies—startups—are responsible for net new job creation, it is essential that entrepreneurs everywhere have the opportunity to start and scale companies. Rise of the Rest is about leveling the playing field for everybody, and in the process creating opportunity and jobs for the people and places that have been left behind.

Case will discuss stories of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leadership who are changing the trajectory of cities and towns across the country. He tackles how the pandemic has changed the course of innovation by altering the flow of talent and capital and created new questions around the future of work.

The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future

In his #1 best-selling business book, The Third Wave, Steve Case argues that we’re entering the Third Wave of the internet—a period when entrepreneurs will change the way we live our lives by leveraging new technologies to transform real world sectors like health, education, transportation, energy and food. The First Wave saw AOL and other companies lay the foundation for consumers to connect to the Internet. The Second Wave saw companies like Google and Facebook build on top of the Internet to create search and social networking capabilities, while apps like Snapchat and Instagram leveraged the smartphone revolution to become overnight successes. But, Case predicts, success in the forthcoming Third Wave will require a brand new set of skillsets for CEOs, entrepreneurs, policymakers and ordinary Americans. By looking back at his decision-making during some of the most consequential moments in business history in order to explain the current landscape, Case explains how attendees will need to rethink their relationships with customers, competitors and governments alike, and offers a forward-thinking roadmap for navigating in this new paradigm.