AOL has been successful in capitalizing on the failures of other Internet startups

AOL was built on the back of the failures of other companies.

And as writer Jean Case, AOL's former leader, wrote in her new book "Be Fearless," the company's ability to pick up where others had left off was simply brilliant .

Earlier in her career, Case worked for The Source, which she describes as "a text-based consumer information utility that featured early versions of e-mail, conferences, and content." While the service was incredibly slow compared to current standards, Case writes that the concept behind it "was a really powerful idea, democratizing access to information and communication".

He just needed the right execution.

After The Source did not take off, Case switched to the company that was to become AOL. It was founded by Steve Case (husband of Jean Case), Marc Seriff and Jim Kinsey, three founders having already experienced their own series of corporate bankruptcies.

The previous version of the company, Quantum Computer Service, had been an Apple partner until so many conflicts prevailed, as Steve Case wrote in his 2016 book, "The Third Wave." From this experience, the founders learned that they wanted to create their own brand and pay for their own marketing.

The QCS service was renamed America Online in 1989.

Read more: Steve Case, co-founder of the billionaire AOL, waited 10 years before realizing that his company was a success

As Jean Case says in the book, AOL had nearly 30 million subscribers at its peak and was the first Internet company to be made public. She writes that Steve Case "has led the team to experiment in areas where our competitors' growth has so far been limited," particularly with respect to pricing and membership programs.

In turn, the technology giants of today have been successful in modeling themselves at least in part on AOL.

Case writes that Facebook, Google and Twitter "have all benefited from the innovations introduced by AOL". She adds, "Innovators can take giant steps or make a big bet by looking at where previous efforts feel short and making full use of the lessons learned from these failures."