AOL's case: The Time Warner merger was my fault
WinInfo | at | by Mike
In a rare moment of candor during an appearance this week at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, former AOL CEO Steve Case took blame for the failure that was the AOL/Time Warner merger. "I probably wasn't the right guy to be a chairman of a company with 90,000 employees," he noted. However, Case took some credit for spreading the Internet to non-technical users and instituting innovative Instant Messaging (IM) features. For me, Case will always be remembered for his stiff, Munster-like appearance and his absolute hatred of Microsoft. Like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Case was more business man than technologist, and his hard-edged business acumen was what drove AOL to the top. As for the Time Warner merger, well, at least give him credit for actually doing it: At the time, AOL was riding high on the fortunes of the Internet boom, and it succeeded in snagging an established media conglomerate. Not too shabby.