2005年NPR美国国家公共电台四月-Steve Case Sets Sights on Health Care Ind

At 46, Steve Case has built a career full of superlatives. He founded American Online and turned it into the country's most successful internet service provider, but Case also guided one of the messiest corporate 1 mergers 3 in recent history when AOL joined forces with Time Warner in 2000.That so-called "deal of the century" turned into a financial disaster. By 2003, Case gave up his position as chairman of AOL and walked away from the company. Since then, many wondered what his next move might be. Case is answering that question this week unveiling a new company called Revolution. Case says it's a private holding company that will invest in businesses that focus on wellness, leisure and health care. Case says the health care system is overdue 4 for what he calls disruptive change.

Well, as you know, the health care system is huge. Everybody's sort of mad at it. Consumers really feel like they're not at the center of it, they feel kind of at the periphery 5 of it, they feel like everybody other than them makes the most important decisions in their lives just about their health of themselves and their family members; so, our idea is to put consumers back at the center of the health care system and build businesses around consumers that do give their more choice in control and convenience. For example, if you wake up and you think your kid might have a strep throat right now, there's, the options are either to rush to the emergency room or to call and hopefully get an appointment at a, you know family doctor and then sometime sit around in the waiting room for a few hours. That's not very convenient. We think there're other ways to create uh...more convenient settings, some of the companies that were interested in doing this in Target stores and other places where you can walk in without an appointment and 15, 20 minutes later, you know, walk out knowing what's the deal or whether you need a prescription 6. It's just a much more convenient affordable 7 way for people to access health care or ways to give them more control of their spending. A lot of people use programs like Quicken to track their family finances. Why isn't there an equivalent of Quicken for their families' health care, so there's just a lot of opportunities that we see in the health care system. I'm really trying to revolutionize it by putting consumers back at the center.

You know, many people have tried to change America's health care system. Some of them have tried wholesale 8 change;/ others have tried to tinker around the edge of it. But few people work away and can claim success. How would this be different?

Oh, I understand that and I realize the challenge here is not without risk but I think the opportunity is great, so I recognize it's a difficult problem. I recognize, there is a lot of, you know, large entrenched 9 companies with their own, you know, interest that they'll try to protect but hopefully Revolution will be able to align 10 the interest of consumers, and really get a passionate 11 group of entrepreneurs, really do wanna change the world and build big businesses in the process and that's what we’re gonna try to do with Revolution health.

You're interested in wellness and healthy living . Is this a businessman’s savvy 12 as you look at the nation filled with baby-boomers who're now marching in their twilight 13 years or is this driven by personal experience?

It's both,.I do believe that this is a big business opportunity. Obviously, health care is the largest industry in our country. It's one out of 6 dollars of the GNP .It soon will be one out of 5 dollars, so it's a huge industry and if you do things in a better way, you can build huge businesses. That certainly is part of it. But it is partly based on my personal experiences, just being a parent and dealing 14 with issues like kids being sick, and my brother recently was diagnosed with brain cancer, and then died from brain cancer. And so looking at that process kind of gave me more of, you know, almost an insider’s look at the health care system through the prison of him and his suffering. And some of the inconvenience he / experienced is dealing with ur...his everyday challenges. And so, but I think this is something that resonates with people, almost everybody has some story to tell about somebody in their family dealing with some problem related to health care system.

You, you’ve been called the architect of some say “one of the worst mergers in America”, some say"one of the rockiest mergers”, so whatever they say, the words aren't always kind. Do you feel like you have to prove yourself in some way? Do you feel the weight of history on you shoulder as you go forward?

Well, not really. I, I certainly ..uh…I’m sorry things didn't come out better, for the employees and investors 15. And there's some frustration 16 about that. At the same time I look back on the development of AOL .I am proud of what we and our team built!And even a couple of months after I stepped down in uh..19…2003, the Wall Street journal did a article and rated the best performing stocks of the previous ten years, and AOL was No. 1, more so than Microsoft or Cisco or any other company. So for that 10-year period, we really built something extraordinary and that was even after the merger 2, and after the decline of the stock from the merger. So I think there’s a lot to be proud of and there’re also a lot of lessons to learn, and hopefully I’ll be able to bring some of these lessons to bear as we build Revolution. And a lot of that really is about staying focused on the consumers.

Help me understand exactly what Revolution is.

It’s really a holding company that will have a branded approach to building businesses, So, while some businesses we have will retain their……existing names,in most cases over time we will try to build up the Revolution brand name much as Richard Branson has built the Virgin 17 brand name. But we don't wanna start businesses from scratch. Our preference is to partner with the existing entrepreneurs, and typically buy a control of their companies, so they maintain some interest/ but we have a controlling interest/, which then enables us to take a really long-term view, think about 10,20 year out, not just near this quarter or next quarter, and really try to build us a very successful business. It can have a constructive 18 impact on things like uh…health care. So it really is an approach to building businesses. It is a little bit of a blend between what Branson did with Virgin, what the Warren Buffet 19 has done with Berkshire Hathaway buying businesses and then trying to run them for the long term, not really intending to sell them as some of the buy-out firms do now. They’re buying businesses with the intent…when they buy them to sell them a few years later. When we buy a business , our intent is to keep it for many many years, maybe forever. And we’re just trying to bring that hybrid 20 approach of Virgin and Berkshire Hathaway, to bear on some emerging opportunities particularly in things like health care.

Interesting that you mentioned Branson and Virgin, because he is so much a part of that. His personality is sort of embodies 21 of the company. He jumps out of planes and you see him in his commercials. You’ve always been known as someone who’s a bit quieter, who prefers to step off the stage and work quietlier. Are we gonna see a sort of much more gregarious 22 Steve Case than we’ve seen in the past?

Probably not! And Richard is a friend. I rather respect for him, but I don’t think you’ll see me jumping out of planes anytime soon. And he is braver than I am, and is just more of a showman than I am. I wouldn’t expect Steve Case to suddenly become a , you know, Richard Branson.

Steve Case, thank you so much!
Thank you!
Steve Case. his new business venture, is called Revolution. Steve Case. H’s new business venture, is called Revolution.