The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future by Steve Case (PDF)

Description

The #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller from Steve Case—the co-founder of AOL—presents “a compelling roadmap for the future…that can help us make sense of the technological changes reshaping our economy and the world. A fascinating read” (Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and founder of LeanIn.org).Steve Case—a pioneer who made the Internet part of everyday life—was on the leading edge of a revolution in 1985 when he co-founded AOL, the first Internet company to go public and the most successful business of the 1990s. Back then Case was an entrepreneur in an industry that hadn’t really been invented yet, but he had a sense how dramatically the Internet would transform business and society. In The Third Wave, he uses his insights garnered from nearly four decades of working as an innovator, investor, and businessman to argue the importance of entrepreneurship and to chart a path for future innovators. We are entering, as Case explains, the “Third Wave” of the Internet. 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. Now, Case argues, we’re entering the Third Wave: a period in which entrepreneurs will vastly transform major “real world” sectors such as health, education, transportation, energy, and food—and in the process change the way we live our daily lives. Part memoir, part manifesto, and part playbook for the future, The Third Wave explains the ways in which newly emerging technology companies will have to rethink their relationships with customers, with competitors, and with governments; and offers advice for how entrepreneurs can make winning business decisions and strategies—and how all of us can make sense of this ever-changing digital age.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Steve begins the “Third Wave” with a nod to Alvin Toffler’s book of the same name, which Steve read early in his career. Toffler’s Third Wave described how the Information Revolution would transform society similarly to the Industrial Revolution and the Agricultural Revolution before. (In a nice nod to history, Toffler wrote a blurb at the beginning of this book). What’s remarkable about this book is not that Steve Case predicts THAT the Internet will transform our lives in ways we haven’t seen, but in great detail, he outlines HOW.Steve Case, the founder of AOL who was responsible for the first Internet experience of many people (including me and probably many folks reading this review), outlines his vision of “The Third Wave” of the Internet. The First Wave was what AOL and others did in the 1990s–just getting people online. The Second Wave, the Wave of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and more, created a flurry of people using the Internet to communicate and share information–but when you think about it, Steve says, the Internet has barely begun to transform the way we live our everyday lives. Our food, health care, education, and energy systems are pretty much the same as they were before the Internet–with slightly better information-sharing and communication. In the Third Wave, the Internet will integrate into everything we do.As Steve begins to predict how, he artfully and entertainingly outlines his lessons learned from AOL–successes and failures–as he sees many parallels between the Third Wave and the First Wave (when he and others built AOL). The stories still hold very real applications to entrepreneurs today. Unlike some books that make vaguely interesting predictions but don’t go into detail, Steve then refreshingly and creatively goes into detail of HOW the next wave of the Internet will transform our lives, highlighting the “Rise of the Rest,” how the changing face of the Internet will transform entrepreneurial opportunity outside of hubs that have won the Second Wave such as San Francisco and Boston. If you read the newspaper headlines or listen to any political candidates, you’d think that the economy in most cities in the world is a lost cause, but Steve convincingly portrays a different story. Highlighting startups from New Orleans to Nairobi, the Third Wave illustrates how cities you wouldn’t expect are changing the face of how industries rise and economies grow, and anyone who cares about the future of technology needs to pay attention: the next great innovations in food systems, for example, could be more likely to come from Louisville or St. Louis than they are from San Francisco.The book also outlines the rise and importance of “impact investing,” detailing how as the Internet integrates into our lives, the very nature of technology startups will change from seemingly frivolous apps that help us order food to areas that we have more traditionally thought are the realm of government or nonprofit–the areas that matter most, such as how we educate our kids and how we power our planet. Over the past 30 years, many tech entrepreneurs have been building companies with the sole purpose of creating as much financial value as possible; in the “Third Wave,” we’re starting to see an exponentially increasing group of people seeking to create social value as well.Finally, the book is a bit of a warning: Steve outlines how, after traveling thousands of miles across the country, venture capitalists, politicians, leaders in big corporations, and entrepreneurs alike have no idea how the Internet is about to change. People are building companies and making policy as if the way things work today will go on forever. Take financial services, for instance. Politicians talk about either “breaking up the banks” or regulating them less to ensure economic growth, and large banks spend incredible sums of money protecting advantages of incumbency, but technology startups are already literally breaking the functions of banks–lending, credit scoring, wealth management, payments, and more–into faster, more personalized services that everyday people are jumping on top of. Sectors such as health and energy are ready for similar disruption.So–what do we do in the face of the changing Internet? The final chapters helpfully outline whether you’re in policy, a founder, an investor, or just someone looking to get involved in the next wave of the Internet. One of the best parts of the book is Steve telling his own story, as the Head of Pizza Development for Pizza Hut, hacking his own way into the early circles of people building the Internet in what he calls the “First Wave.” This book is a useful, clear, specific way for people inspired to do the same in the Third Wave.If you’re intrigued with how the Internet will transform our lives over the coming decades, interested in a roadmap for what the changing economy looks like, or just want a great story, pick up this book.

⭐The First and Second Waves reigned from 1985 to 2015, a period mostly of prosperity and innovative technologies. The author foretells of a Third Wave from 2016 to..(?) as the Internet and a new class of entrepreneurs embrace a beckoning utopia of “everything” for the taking.AU CONTRAIRE, dear readers. The environmental, financial, economic and limitless commodity driven economy is exhibiting signs of stress and exhaustion.The First and Second Waves had at their endless disposal a critical resource in abundance: water. The global drought conditions have combined with a never ending growth in humanity to reflect world wide depletion of underground aquifers as agriculture and industrial use intensifies. Rainfall is no longer adequate to replenish aquifers and contaminated water is more in evidence as some wells run dry.Some 20 million Americans become ill every year from water contaminated with parasites, viruses, bacteria and toxins. One in three women alive today will be diagnosed with cancer. Men: one in two.As The First Wave began in the 1980s a huge financial bubble was designed as a vehicle for big banks and hedge funds to leverage investment funds into “derivatives”. Think of speculating on futures markets as side bets where no assets are involved. The Switzerland based Bank for International Settlements reported that derivative trades by December 2007 was $681 Trillion, fifty times the value of the U.S. economy. In 1992 notorious investor George Soros used derivatives to collapse the currencies of Great Britain and Italy in one day. The big derivatives bubble continues unabated, unabashed and unaccountable. Soros and his hedge fund reportedly pocketed a billion dollars in just a day. Ah that First Wave!During the First and Second Waves our legislators passed The Patriot Act and presided over routine government surveillance while privacy and privileges became remnants of our past.As the First and Second Waves evolved we saw national debt rise to $19 trillion. Unfunded municipal pension liabilities and other underfunded debts caused several California cities to declare bankruptcy; large cities such as Detroit and Chicago can never liquidate their decades old obligations, a reflection of gross mismanagement, corruption, incompetence and greed.Prosperity produces nuclear, industrial, agricultural, human and animal waste. These residues are forever in search of a permanent home in the soil, the air, the oceans and waterways. Over the past five years industries have broken water pollution laws more than half a million times from not reporting emissions to dumping chemicals.Idealism is a pivotal issue in several chapters where author Case posits the “business and government want the same thing”. No they do not. Business wants incrementally increased profits; substitute the word power for profits and you have government defined. Governments never produce profits, only losses.The Federal Tax Code is 17000 pages of incomprehensible complexity sleight of hand; an “invisible government’ acting behind the scenes to transfer money from the middle class to unseen hands behind a curtain of secrecy. The Federal Reserve, a privately owned enterprise, is the beneficiary and it continues to this day as the wizard behind monetary policies.According to the Federal Reserve in a 2004 report the wealthiest 1% of Americans held 33.4% of this nation’s wealth; the top 5% held 55.5%. A subset group, of the world’s truly richest keep their names from public scrutiny but it is known that as the most powerful elites they own and control global central banks where monetary policies of nations are conceived and implemented. All of this is just for starters. Why is it important? Because author Case writes of past, present and future events as though they are under the influence of market forces. Free market forces no longer exist but are under (in secrecy) the direction and control of the above mentioned power elites.The Third Wave publication is a one-sided promotion of limitless economic growth as though such a one-way path has no adversities, no consequences. The reality is that economies require energy both in production and as functionaries. Some 100 nuclear facilities in the U.S. are a powerful force in the world’s largest economy but the consequences are dangerous radioactive and other wastes that search in vain for a homestead.Likely that the greatest demand for electrical energy perpetually is from the global internet users whose numbers are in the billions. Populous nations such as India and China rely on coal as the only affordable and reliable source for electricity production. The real issue here becomes environmental degradation. In China 700 million use the Internet.Another issue that is unaddressed by the author’s journey to the Internet of Everything (how we work, what we eat…) is the management of consumer and industrial wastes as manufacturing and consumption growth enters a new phase. Two million tons of electronics are dumped into American landfills every year. Chemical residues eventually find their way into underground aquifers. Under The Third Wave will new landfills always exceed or equal demand and can potable water from aquifers adequately service an endless army of users?Author Cases’ optimistic vision and desire for a future that accelerates current trends may not necessarily have a happy Betty Grable ending.Growth is the theme of The Third Wave driven by people and production all harmonizing in a Nirvana of “Everything” enroute to never-never land. And will we arrive before humanity crowds out more habitats of nature’s wonders under tarmacs, artificial turfs, shopping centers, roads and freeways, chicken and pig farms, military bases, hotels, skyscrapers, apartments…Perhaps someone should write a book.Indubitably.

⭐Pretty disappointing.- It seems he wasn’t clear what the purpose of the book was. It is a half-hearted account of his time at AOL, and throws in some actions towards the end. It does justice to neither.- He neglects the opportunities and risks the climate change presents (only 1 short sentence in the epilogue), which I think is a big miss.- The book is very short; they’ve used some pointless pictures in the middle, a slightly large font and big spaces to make it seem bigger – still only 220ish pages though.- Finally, it is pretty US-centric – that doesn’t mean the teachings aren’t relevant for others, but at points I felt like skipping bits (although I didn’t).I thought the recent books by Yuval Noah Harari, Tapscott and Martin Ford were more insightful.

⭐Good book worth a resd

⭐Offers different perspective, good factual read, good lesson learnt shared

⭐What a captivating story from a pioneer in technology and entrepreneurship. Loved it, couldn’t put it down. Much to learn here.

⭐A MUST read! Read this in 6 hours and could put it down. As a dyslexic is an accomplishment in itself. Very inspiring as an entrepreneur a must as will direct you to look to build the future. Enjoy ; )

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