The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future (22 page)

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Discussing the constructive role that the Internet could play around protecting children with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton at the White House Conference on Children, Violence & Responsibility in 1999.

David Hume Kennerly

With President Clinton watching a student get online in February 2000. What we all now take for granted was big news back then. The Case Foundation’s PowerUP initiative built 1,000 computer centers in underserved communities to help bridge the digital divide.

AP Photo

Meeting with President George W. Bush and Disney CEO Michael Eisner at the White House. When he was campaigning in 2000, I failed to convince Bush to adopt “open access” for broadband, and that contributed to our decision to later merge with Time Warner. We also considered a merger with Disney, but that idea didn’t go far.

Luke Frazza

After years of battling, AOL and Microsoft announced a truce in 1996. Bill Gates agreed to bundle AOL software with Windows, in exchange for AOL integrating Microsoft’s web browser.

AP Photo/Lacy Atkins

I met Rev. Billy Graham at the TED conference in 1998. We became close friends, and traveled together on many occasions. When Jean and I were married, Graham officiated. Here we are together at the 2000 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award Dinner.

Craig Matthews

Fortune
magazine hosted a global CEO forum in China in 1999, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the creation of the People’s Republic of China. Time Warner CEO Jerry Levin chatted with me and my wife Jean at a chilly Beijing event. The seed for the AOL Time Warner merger was planted that week.

Celebrating the announcement of the merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2000 with Jerry Levin and Ted Turner. We were all smiles that day.

Stan Honda

The “victory” shot that I later came to regret. I had agreed to step aside as CEO to enable the merger between AOL and Time Warner to occur. But on the day of the announcement, I wanted to look upbeat. I later regretted this, because it led to the perception I was running AOL Time Warner, not just chairing the board.

Chris Hondros

In 2000, and again in 2001,
Vanity Fair
named me the most powerful person of the New Establishment, ahead of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and others. The coronation didn’t last long. Two years later, I had fallen off the list completely.

Text: Alan Deutschman; sketch: Peter Stemmler

Riding horses with Ted Turner at his ranch in Montana, a few months after the AOL Time Warner merger. Ted soon turned against me, and lobbied for my resignation as chairman.

Case Family

A celebratory night at the Grammy Awards in 2002, with current Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and former CEO Dick Parsons. The smiles belied the growing frustrations that led to my resignation months later.

Jeff Kravitz