Encourage Entrepreneurs, Get More Jobs: Steve Case
Special to CNBC.com
America must do more to encourage the entrepreneurs who will create the next high-growth companies that will hire more workers, Steve Case told CNBC Wednesday.
The co-founder of AOL and current head of the Startup America Partnership said he is working with President Barak Obama's administration through the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness to do just that.
"What we really have to do as a nation is celebrate these entrepreneurs, give them resources that will enable them to take their companies to the next step, and make sure the public policy framework is in place that will enable them to have the best shot at success," said Case, founder of Revolution LLC, an investment firm.
High-growth doesn't necessarily mean high-tech, and an entrepreneurial "all-star" board announced by the partnership includes representatives of different industries, such as former basketball star Magic Johnson, FedEx Chairman Fred Smith and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank. Smith and Plank, Case said, each started what are now iconic brands in their fields with Small Business Administration loans.
Case called high-growth companies "the main event" in terms of job creation.
"If you look at the business world you have big business, Fortune 500; you have small business, kind of Main Street Mom and Pop...and they're both really important," Case said. "But what's in the center, these high-growth, entrepreneurial companies, that's really the secret sauce in terms of job creation and also the secret sauce in terms of American competitiveness."
He said the jobs council is looking at, among other things, ways of helping more companies go public because "access to capital is an important part of growth," with 90 percent of the job creation coming from companies after they go public.
