Revolution’s Steve Case Says the U.S. Needs to Double Down on Entrepreneurship

 The state of American entrepreneurship holds great promise, but Revolution founder Steve Case reminded lawmakers on Thursday that it’s important for the country to not grow complacent.

The U.S. lays claim to its title as leader of the free world primarily because of its strides in innovation, said Case, who co-founded AOL and later the investment firm Revolution. But during a panel on Capitol Hill examining entrepreneurship, Case told House Entrepreneurial Caucus members that the country shouldn’t take its top spot for granted.

With the advent of artificial intelligence and other evolving technologies, the U.S. risks losing its status to a foreign nation. “How do we make sure that we don’t get cocky and complacent and just assume it’s America’s right to always be the leader of the free world [and] be the most innovative?” he asked.”That could really get us in trouble. How do we double down on entrepreneurship?”

Case was joined on the panel by Victor Hwang, founder and CEO of Right to Start, Whit Ayres, president of North Star Opinion Research, and Inc.’s Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan. Right to Start COO Kim Lane moderated the panel. 

Increasing federal investments in research and development, along with providing intellectual property incentives and creating new federal capital programs, are some routes that Case and other entrepreneurs have recommended to sustain innovation. 

Another? Expand your talent pipelines–which, yes, means hiring remote workers, but also requires more nuanced projects that establish innovation ecosystems across the country that could benefit from federal funding injections. Technology hubs stemming from the Chips and Science Act are a clear example.

The sprouting tech hubs aim to create innovation ecosystems in areas of the country that are often overlooked–and are positioning places like Birmingham, Alabama, to one day become a drug and vaccine development hotspot. Thirty-one locales were selected by the administration to help turbocharge future technologies.

Finding new solutions and problem-solving is the very essence of what leads companies to find themselves on the Inc. 5000, the annual list of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. “There is nothing more exciting than the entrepreneurship that’s happening in your congressional districts right now, and the growth is tremendous,” Haughney Dare-Bryan told lawmakers.

Focusing on the center of the country is core to Case’s work at  Revolution. “Part of the reason we’ve seen a brain drain from many parts of the country where people grow up in Arkansas, Illinois, or someplace else and feel like they have to go to Silicon Valley [is because] they don’t have an ecosystem that allows them to really scale up and access the talent they need and the capital they need,” Case said Thursday.

The past few years have witnessed record levels of entrepreneurship: 17 million people submitted applications to start a new business since President Biden assumed office, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census.

Hwang argues that the number could be higher. He points to a poll, conducted in 2022 by Right to Start, a nonpartisan nonprofit working to expand entrepreneurship, investigating why people interested in becoming founders end up not starting a business. A majority of respondents (76 percent) blamed the challenges with access to capital. Perhaps a less obvious barrier? The fact that government requirements and forms were too confusing for nearly half of the businesses surveyed. Another 47 percent were concerned with parting ways with their health insurance.

But Hwang sees some positives: “entrepreneurship crosses party lines in terms of its appeal.” A lot of that can be seen in state legislatures, but it also signals some hope for a bitterly divided Congress that’s tasked with advancing conditions for the country’s entrepreneurs. 

Luckily, there’s some motivation for politicians, as voters are sweet on policies favoring entrepreneurship.