Summary of The Third Wave: by Steve Case | Includes Analysis

By Instaread Summaries

Summary of The Third Wave by Steve Case | Includes Analysis 

 

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The Third Wave relates AOL co-founder and former CEO Steve Case’s reflections on his career and the future of the technology industry in America. Part memoir, p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Instaread, Inc
• Release date: May 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781683781394

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Overview

The Third Wave relates AOL co-founder and former CEO Steve Case’s reflections on his career and the future of the technology industry in America. Part memoir, part analysis of the industry, The Third Wave is also a cautionary tale to would-be entrepreneurs who believe the culture of solo founders and tech disruption will always be valued in the future. The book is named for futurist Alvin Toffler’s 1980 text The Third Wave. In Toffler’s text, all of humanity’s past, present, and future can be divided into three waves.

In Case’s Third Wave, the history of the Internet is likewise broken into three waves. In the First Wave, entrepreneurs such as those at AOL had to build the infrastructure of a consumer-facing Internet from the ground up. These early Internet pioneers had to communicate and partner across industries to ensure that the government approved and permitted the proliferation of the Internet into the nation’s homes and businesses. In the Second Wave, entrepreneurs began building products on top of the existing infrastructure established by the First Wave. In this era, startups blossomed, offering a multitude of Internet-connected devices and services to consumers, including Google, Facebook, and mobile