Big Shots, Business the AOL Way

AOL is the world's single most successful internet-based company, whether measured by number of customers, annual revenues, or profits. CEO Steve Case is a visionary, a charismatic leader who has taken AOL from obscurity to become the pre-eminent new-media brand in less than 10 years.

In Business the AOL Way, David Stauffer examines this remarkable success story. While it may seem today that AOL has been a prominent name in the new-media world for as long as Apple or Microsoft, AOL in fact had fewer than 200,000 subscribers as recently as 1993. That number increased by a factor of 7,000% over the following five years. Before most executives even knew what the internet was, Steve Case had clearly seen its business potential. And while most of the superstar companies of the dot com world can only tell their investors of profits to come at some indefinite future date, AOL has achieved profitability that many believe can only grown stronger in coming years.