Case boasted that no company would be better positioned to capitalise on the convergence of media, entertainment and communications.

For AOL, it was a superb deal. Shareholders in the group, which floated eight years earlier and was making profits of $US760 million, ended up with 55 per cent of the merged entity and most of the top jobs.

The deal took Case and AOL to the peak of the mountain. A company founded by a former new-product manager at Pizza Hut in 1985 had in 15 years turned into the dominant partner in one of the world's biggest media concerns at the height of the dotcom boom. It was an extraordinary coup.

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In the next five years there was a headlong plunge from that summit. The group suffered from the collapse in internet advertising while an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into accounting practices at AOL was a more than unwelcome distraction. In 2002, AOL Time Warner took a $US54 billion charge to account for the decline in the value of AOL.

For Case, the reversal in fortunes was especially dramatic, and in May 2003 he stepped down as chairman. Since then, he has kept a low profile.

But he has now broken his silence, talking about why it went wrong for Time Warner and giving his views about a growing range of investments. "Merging the two companies was a great idea," he says. "It was great for AOL shareholders to own 55 per cent of this company, which had far more diversified assets and accelerated AOL's transfer to broadband and Time Warner's transition to digital technology.

"Things got more difficult because of what happened in the market and merger-integration issues. The performance post-merger was not what everyone would have liked. But the fundamental idea for the deal was sound. My recollection is that there was not a lot of negativity around."

Indeed, some of those who follow the company's fortunes believe 46- year-old Case still attracts sympathy, despite the level of opprobrium faced by the merged group after the market collapse and hefty write-downs.

Nina Munk, author of Fools Rush In, a chronicle of the merger, says Case is "remembered well and with some degree of sadness about what was lost". Conversely, she says Levin "would need bodyguards" if he arrived at the company's headquarters. Case, adds Munk, is a largely sympathetic character who was passionate about the deal and what it would do for the AOL business model.

The AOL founder continues to have a strong involvement with Time Warner, but he appears to have fallen out of love with the big-company mentality. "There is less and less time spent (at big businesses) on things that are going to move the company forward."

Case blames the greater regulatory burden and red tape that can tie executives in knots. "Most public companies in most industries have been forced to focus on more inward-looking views and are therefore, by definition, spending less time on the external view. And companies are built and based on external forces.

"Too many companies have focused too much time in the last few years on minimising risk rather than maximising opportunities. They spend too much time with their lawyers and not enough time with engineers and marketeers," Case says.

It is hardly surprising to learn, then, that having stepped back from frontline duties at the media monolith, Case is once again indulging his passion for being creative and building smaller businesses.

Having created one global brand and achieved a net worth of almost $US1 billion -- Forbes magazine estimates Case has amassed a fortune of $US825 million -- it would be easy to imagine him hiding away and spending his time bringing up his five children. Even more so after he has been dubbed with unwanted sobriquets such as "the architect of the worst deal in history".

But the entrepreneurial spirit and creative spark have not deserted Case. He wants to prove he is more than a one-trick pony.

"It's a great time to be an entrepreneur," Case says, warming to one of his favourite investment themes. His optimism has little to do with low interest rates but stems from his broader business philosophy.

"I don't care about interest rates. The driver is that most industries are ripe for disruptive change. Take healthcare, for example. In America, it's totally dysfunctional. So much money is spent on disease care management and less than 5 per cent of its money goes into prevention. It's ripe for change.

"It's hard for big companies to innovate. Everyone knows it. It's likely that some new companies will emerge that are the change agents in the industry. The next decade could be the glory years for entrepreneurs."

For any entrepreneurs who want to give it a go, Case has a few sage words. To succeed, he says, don't follow the conventional wisdom. "Find something you are passionate about and stay with it. There may be a lot of downside before there is any upside, but if you are a believer, then stay the course."

The Case portfolio contains Maui Land & Pineapple, a property developer and pineapple grower, and Miraval, a spa complex in Arizona. "I am interested in the wellness, healthy living space," he says.

Case says his style is different from the scattergun, portfolio approach taken by venture-capital and buyout funds that hope the home runs in their portfolios more than compensate for the duds. It is for this reason that Case is pretty selective in his approach. "I am personally not very comfortable with buyouts. It tends to be a 'buy, tweak, and then flip' model. They buy businesses with predictable cashflows, they try to figure out how to tweak two or three things to better the cashflow, and seven years later they take it public. I want to build a company to last, not to flip it.

"That's a different model. Obviously the people doing (buyouts) are tremendously successful, but given my own interests and having some capability to invest without having to raise a fund, I would rather do a few things big and well, to have control and be able to take a long-term view. That way, if it's unsuccessful, it's my fault."

The business that has Case especially fired up right now is Exclusive Resorts, a "vacation club" company that allows members to have access to a range of luxury holiday homes -- for a fee, of course.

Case describes it as his "flagship" investment although he has recently cut the number of hours he spends on it from 50 to about 25.

He bought into the business in 2003, not long after stepping down as chairman of Time Warner, and last November took majority control -- he owns an 80 per cent stake.

The idea behind Exclusive Resorts is fairly straightforward. Aimed at the impossibly rich, it offers them a (relatively) cheap alternative to buying a deluxe holiday home.

For a $US375,000 ($489,086) joining fee and then an annual subscription of between $US15,000 and $US25,000, members get the use of any of the holiday homes on the company's books. Each of the homes is worth between $US2 million and $US3 million. The fees, Case says, are less than the down-payment on a $US3 million home and members avoid all the hassle and expense of having to maintain a second (or third) property.

The Sunday Times