YouSaid · the spoken record

Jean Case

lines on the record: 115
first: 2019-01-30
most recent: 2019-01-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“That's right. And they were started about the same time as the first online service that I worked for. The difference was they were what we used to call a time-sharing business. They had been selling access to their computers to businesses and they were just looking for something to use, make the computers hum at night and get some revenue off of the off hours.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow the vast volumes of knowledge of the world we could equalize access to that is powerful and really I would say both at the source and the G, but really where it came to life was at AOL we were on a mission to democratize access to ideas, information and communication and that's just what we did right”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, go back on. Well, I'll tell you, I really did care about empowering people. I cared about that from a very young age because I knew that my life, the opportunities in my life were made available by people who reached back and helped me. And when I'd come home to my working class neighborhood, I'd see people who were just as smart and just as talented and passionate about things, but what they often lacked was an opportunity or a door opening for them. So I knew if I had had that benefit, I wanted to spend my time trying to give that benefit to others. But you asked a question about what did I see? Because you and I both saw the same potential in this business. You know, my mom is a single mom, had spent two years making monthly payments to buy me a hard copy vote.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was a marketing manager Basically, creating this new online service. And so I moved over to AOL as an officer of the company, part of the executive staff, and never looked back here. I mean, as you know, at its peak, it carried more than 50% of the nation's internet traffic. Yes, it did. I like to say, you know, we got to our first million customers in 1995, and by 1996, we had 5 million. So it was one of these like 10-year uphill climb, but then once it took off, it really took off.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The company was pretty risk averse. They had a really good get going. They were the most valuable company in the world. And I think they really weren't interested in taking a lot of risks. So right about the time this is coming, to be clear to me, I get another call and this is from the company that was going to become AOL. So I ended up going to AOL. My friends thought I was insane, truly nuts. Like they were shrill. What are you doing? Because I had a good giga G. I was on the management track. I'd done the management training that was world renewed. What are you doing?”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because the network and the presence of the military and ARPANET and all of that that was May East is here. Remember? Yeah, I do. I do. So it turns out that a lot of early technology spun out of this area. But anyway, so I was a GE and I figured, oh man, talk about a brand and budgets. This is really going to drive to mainstream at GE. Well, it turns out.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was really an early clunky alt text online service that was delivered at 300 baht. I write about this in the book. The book is not a biography, as you know, but I put vignettes in there. And what's kind of funny about that is, you know, at 300 baht, it would take 40 hours to download one song. So we are talking super early, okay? Well, anyway, GE decided that they wanted to start an online service, so they recruited me to do that. And I was at GE for about three years. How did they find you? And why did they decide to do that? Pretty tiny little industry then. There were maybe a hundred of us all around the United States working on this stuff. So they called and they were down the road. And all of these are outside where we are today, Washington, D.C. and the Burbs. Because”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was that the Office of Personnel Management and Public Affairs. And it was during the Reagan administration, so at that time, a lot of the federal government was shrinking. And so it was kind of a big part of where the action was. So I hop over to this temporary job for the world's nation's first pure play online service. It was called The Source. A lot of people don't remember it. And boy, once I was there, I realized, wow, talk about an opportunity to empower and sort of make equal opportunity.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, said one or two, right? Okay. But what's funny about that is, you know, it's the story of a lot of what are called dropouts. Nobody necessarily intended not to graduate. My career took off, and I always thought I'd go back and finish, but I didn't. All right, so here's what happened. I had this great job working in the Reagan administration, and for me, it was like a dream come true given my background, right? But one day they walk in and they say, the funding for your role, we're going to have a gap of a month or two. You've got to go chill.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wait, wait for it. All right, so I come to DC on this. I haven't graduated from college yet, and I get this appointment in the Reagan administration, which was unbelievable that a young person could have that opportunity. Well, I fully intended to go back and finish my degree, but I never even went back and finished my undergraduate degree. College dropout. I'm a total college. You're Zuckerberg. Total college dropout.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“later became a congressman. And then when he became a congressman, I went to work for him, I went to college at night. That led to an opportunity to bring me to D.C. So here I am thinking I'm going to be a lawyer in the public sector.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm trying to get back to normal. I should say that. Okay. Anyway, but then my parents divorced when I was pretty young and my mom moved us down to South Florida. And the public school system there was not like it was in Illinois. And so she got me enrolled in this private school where I received a full scholarship. And I thought I was going to be a lawyer. So the school arranged for me to intern with the local mayor.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did. I did more than once, actually. Yeah. So, well, my background was I was the youngest of four kids being raised by a single mom. And I really had the opportunity and that experience to see sort of the unequal access to opportunity that people had. I was on a full scholarship at a private school and I'd come home to my mom. And this was where? This was in South Florida. I was raised actually in a small town in Illinois called Normal.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I want to talk about the book, but I want to talk about your background because I think you have a really fascinating journey through tech into what you've been doing today, and it all sort of knits together really well. But I'd love for people to get a sense of how you moved from what you were doing, which is a very traditional job, to the internet, which you were one of the very early people, you're one of the very early women. I mean, there weren't that many. Still aren't enough or at all, not enough at all. So just give people your background because I think it's a really interesting because it goes into the idea of be fearless. You shifted your.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A very old friend. Well, two of us are now very old. We were young when we met. She was a marketing Communications executive in the early days of AOL, but today she's the CEO of the non- She's also the author of a new book, Be Fearless. Welcome to Reco Deco. I'm so thanks, Kara, instead of your irritating husband.”
2019-01-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Early AOL exec Jean Case · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT