#029 Steve Case On Peak Silicon Valley And The Rise Of The Rest

Billionaire investor and tech entrepreneur Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL and now the CEO and Revolution, joins Julia La Roche on episode 29 to discuss his newest book, "The Rise Of The Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream."

In 2014, Case launched Revolution's "Rise of the Rest," an initiative to accelerate the growth of startups based outside of Silicon Valley. Rise of the Rest is based on a simple idea: talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not.

Historically, 75% of venture capital money has flown to three states — California, New York, and Massachusetts, resulting in a "brain drain," where people who grew up in Middle America move to Silicon Valley for opportunities.

Since 2014, Case and the Revolution team have traveled more than 11,000 miles to 43 cities on the Rise of the Rest bus to visit entrepreneurial ecosystems and highlight great companies and entrepreneurs. On each tour, they hit five cities in five days, meeting with startups and elected officials. Rise of the Rest hosts a pitch competition and invests $100,000 in a local startup.

As a result of our tours, Revolution launched two $150 million Rise of the Rest Seed Funds to invest in seed stage companies between the coasts. Rise of The Rest has attracted big-name backers, including John Doerr, Jim Breyer, Henry Kravis, David Rubenstein, Eric Schmidt, Tory Burch, Jeff Bezos, Ray Dalio, Howard Schultz, and many more.

0:00 Intro

0:35 Traveling the U.S. by bus

2:00 American cities on the rise

3:25 Top-tier returns outside of Silicon Valley

8:35 75% of venture capital goes to 3 states

11:46 Peak Silicon Valley?

15:10 The Third Wave of the Internet

17:30 Something is brewing out there

19:30 Dealing with the skepticism

21:28 200 investments in 100 cities

23:05 New venture firms launched outside CA, NY, MA

24:20 Evaluating entrepreneurs

26:30 Startups fuel job growth

29:15 Seeing America by road

30:22 Why is America divided?

33:50 Slowing the brain drain

36:15 The boomerang effect

39:09 America’s success is not guaranteed

41:45 Need for immigration reform

43:11 Early days of the internet

47:47 Director of New Pizza Development

49:24 Advice for the next-gen entrepreneur