Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are the ultimate "disrupters" — those upsetting the status quo — "and you'll see more of these things in other parts of our lives," AOL founder Steve Case told
Newsmax TV on Friday.
"No question," Case, 57, who now finances start-up companies through his Washington venture capital firm, told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth. "A year ago, more of the pundits here in D.C. would say neither of them really had much of a chance … because of the use of the Internet.
"On the Sanders side, he raised a lot of money through the Internet," he added. "On the Trump side, Twitter — in particular — was a forum for him to sort of bypass the mainstream media, go directly to people and make sure his message was heard.
"There are a lot of examples of disruption of politics," Case said.
Watch Newsmax TV on
DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Ch. 223 and
Verizon FiOS Ch. 115. Get Newsmax TV on your cable system —
Click Here Now
Case's new book is
"The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future."
The book focuses on "what's going to happen next" — with Case telling Hayworth that "this third wave was going to have a transformative impact on lives changed, how we think about learning and health and food and energy — a lot of important aspects of our lives."
He cited healthcare and education, for instance.
"Most of us deal with the hospitals about the same as it was before. How do we make sure that we have the disruption in that sector? How do we have disruption in education?
"That's going to cut all across our society, whether it be politics or education or health, which is why I decided to write the book, to provide a sense of what's going to happen.
"A lot of people are nervous about what's happening, fearful about what's happening," Case continued. "They worry about the work itself. We've seen the middle class kind of hollowed out and we now have 34 percent of people in this country say they're part of the freelance economy. This is a new concept.
"There's a lot of things changing pretty rapidly — and that will continue to accelerate in this third wave."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.