How Steve Case became Washington's tech whisperer

By Mike Donovan for The Agenda @ Politico.com, June 8

On a late March afternoon in the marbled caucus room of the U.S. Senate, more than a hundred entrepreneurs from all over the country—Minneapolis, Albuquerque, Cincinnati—stuffed themselves column-to-column for an unusual session. The topic was the promise of technology for America and the perils it poses to a country in which some regions are being left far behind. Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, a first-term Republican, delved into the particulars of a mechanized economy so new that economists don’t know what to call it but is leaving his state hollowed out. “Even as we feed more and more people around the globe,” says Sasse, “it requires less and less labor.” Next up was Ro Khanna, a newly elected Democratic congressman representing Silicon Valley. On paper, he and Sasse share just about no politics. But he was there to talk about exporting the benefits of his district’s booming economy to people in places like, well, Nebraska. “It’s patronizing to suggest they don’t want to be part of the future,” said Khanna.

Everyone here—the politicians, the founders, a healthy helping of Capitol Hill staff—was in the room at the invitation (and in the founders’ case, on the dime of) someone whose name some of the younger participants could be forgiven for otherwise not knowing: America Online founder Steve Case [....]