BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : SEPTEMBER 27, 1999 ISSUE
COVER STORY -- E.BIZ -- THE E.BIZ 25 Stephen M. Case STEPHEN M. CASE AMERICA ONLINE INC. Position: Chairman and CEO Contribution: Attracted 20 million customers by making logging onto the Internet easy and fun. Everybody else is playing catch-up. Ambition: To make AOL the gateway to e-commerce and one of the world's most valuable companies. A Q&A with Steve Case is available at ebiz.businessweek.com Stephen M. Case is to the Internet what RCA's David Sarnoff was to television. More than any other leader in e-business, the 41-year-old chairman of America Online Inc. (AOL) is responsible for bringing the Internet revolution to the masses. By making online access convenient and entertaining, AOL has attracted 20 million subscribers, making it by far the world's largest Internet access provider. For Case, this is just the beginning. With this potent new medium, he wants to transform the lives of tens of millions of people worldwide--and build a vast cyber empire in the process. Case predicts people everywhere will use their online connections daily to communicate, work, shop, and entertain themselves. ''Instead of viewing the PC as a productivity machine, we've turned it into a communication device,'' says Case. ''It's about...building a sense of community and engaging people.'' His goal, which he dubs the AOL Anywhere strategy, is to make sure that no matter what device or type of service consumers may favor, AOL will remain a trusted, easy-to-use gateway to the Web. The company is working to provide service on the popular handheld Palm computer. It also has teamed up with satellite broadcaster DirecTV to bring AOL to television--still the most popular appliance in the house. Long-term, Case expects his biggest rivals will be goliaths Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and AT&T (T). But by blanketing the landscape--to extend people's everyday lives online--Case thinks AOL could vie with them in the 21st century. ''We have a shot at being the most valued and respected company in the world if we play it right,'' he says. So far, he's playing it impeccably. By Catherine Yang _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS The e.biz 25: Masters of the Web Universe COVER IMAGE: The e.biz 25 Commentary: The Great Equalizer? Not by a Long Shot TABLE: Who's Lagging in the Net Age [empire builders] Jeffrey P. Bezos AMAZON.COM INC. Stephen M. Case AMERICA ONLINE INC. Timothy A. Koogle YAHOO! INC. [the innovators] Louis H. Borders WEBVAN GROUP INC. Jay S. Walker PRICELINE.COM Margaret C. Whitman EBAY INC. Glen Meakem FREE MARKETS ONLINE INC. James H. Clark MYCFO INC. Christos M. Cotsakos E*TRADE GROUP INC. [bankrollers] Masayoshi Son SOFTBANK CORP., JAPAN Robert C. Kagle BENCHMARK CAPITAL Lawton W. Fitt GOLDMAN SACHS & CO. L. John Doerr KLEINER PERKINS CAUFIELD & BYERS   Bernard Arnault LVMH MOET HENNESSY LOUIS VUITTON   [the visionaries] Mary G. Meeker MORGAN STANLEY DEAN WITTER John Hagel III MCKINSEY & CO. William Joy SUN MICROSYSTEMS [the architects] Louis V. Gerstner Jr. IBM CORP. Pehong Chen BROADVISION INC. David C. Peterschmidt INKTOMI INC. Kevin J. O'Connor DOUBLECLICK Ellen M. Hancock EXODUS COMMUNICATIONS [the pace setters] David S. Pottruck CHARLES SCHWAB CORP. John T. Chambers CISCO SYSTEMS Michael S. Dell DELL COMPUTER INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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