Summary: AOL co-founder Steve Case lives by the African proverb: “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Before there was Facebook or Twitter or Google, there was America Online, the company which once served the functional equivalent of all three combined. During AOL's heyday in the 1990's, the company had over 300 partnerships, including with Apple and Sprint. Those partnerships helped Case's company become the first Internet company to go public and become the best-performing stock of the 1990's dot com boom. The boom ended in 2000, shortly after AOL's stunning $164 billion acquisition of Time Warner. In this episode of Fortune Unfiltered, Case talks openly about went wrong with AOL-Time Warner and why being far removed from Silicon Valley’s startup culture was a key part of the Virginia-based company’s growth into one of the top consumer tech brands in the world.
