Nov 21, 2011

WORLD'S MOST SUCCESSFUL YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS

Who wouldn't like to have a life like these people, who are the lucky few who struck gold at their very ripe young age. Many of those faces on this list must be familiar to you, as you may have used their products in your everyday life one way or the other. Some of them may be totally strangers to you but still you WILL be dropping your jaws once you read about the success they made with simple ideas that solved complex problems. That said, let us begin with our very own Facebook inventor Mark Zuckerberg, who actually, tops the list!


Name: Mark Zuckerberg
Website:Facebook
Age:27
Networth:$17.5 billion.
Zuckerberg began using computers and writing software as a child in middle school. His father taught him Atari BASIC Programming in the 1990s, and later hired software developer David Newman to tutor him privately. Newman calls him a "prodigy," adding that it was "tough to stay ahead of him." Zuckerberg also took a graduate course in the subject at Mercy College near his home while he was still in high school. He enjoyed developing computer programs, especially communication tools and games. In one such program, since his father's dental practice was operated from their home, he built a software program he called "ZuckNet," which allowed all the computers between the house and dental office to communicate by pinging each other. It is considered a "primitive" version of AOL's Instant Messenger, which came out the following year.
The Wikipedia page on Mark Zuckerberg



Name:Andrew Gower
Website:Runescape
Age:28
Networth:$650 Million


Andrew Christopher Gower  is a British video game developer and co-founder of Cambridge-based Jagex Games Studio, the company he founded with Paul Gower and Constant Tedder. He wrote the MMORPG RuneScape with the assistance of his brother, Paul Gower. In December 2010 he left the Jagex board of directors. He no longer has holdings in the company. As of November 2011, he is not listed under the credits for RuneScape. Since leaving Jagex, Gower has founded a new gaming development and consulting company, Fen Research, of which he holds 90% of the shares.
The Wikipedia page on Andrew Gower



Name:Chad Hurley
Website:Youtube
Age:30
Networth:$300 Million
On October 16, 2006, Chen and Hurley sold YouTube to Google, Inc. for $1.65 billion. It was reported in the Wall Street Journal that Chad Hurley's share in the $1.65B sale of Youtube.com was $345.6M at Google's Feb. 7, 2007 closing stock price of $470.01. He received 694,087 Google shares directly and another 41,232 shares in a trust. His other two co-founders Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, received 625,366 shares and 137,443 shares respectively valued at $326.2M and $64.6M. 
The Wikipedia page on Chad Hurley

Name:Blake Ross and David Hyatt
Website:Mozilla
Age:22
Networth:$120 Million
Born in Miami, Florida, Ross created his first website at the age of 10. He began programming while still in middle school and began contributing to Netscape very soon after it was open-sourced. He worked as an intern at Netscape Communications Corporation at the age of 15, while attending high school at Gulliver Preparatory School, from which he graduated in 2003. Later that year, he enrolled at Stanford University, where he is now on a leave of absence to focus on work. He currently resides in nearby Mountain View, California.

Name:Andrew Michael
Website:Fast Hosts
Age:29
Networth:$110 Million
Fasthosts was originally started by Andrew Michael, then aged 17, as part of an A-level school project. It became a limited company in 1999, and launched UKreg in 2000. The company specialised in providing services for small businesses, and in 2002 was listed as the second fastest growing technology company in the United Kingdom by The Sunday Times.
Name:Angelo Sotira
Website:Deviant ART
Age:26
Networth:$75 Million
deviantArt aims to provide a platform for any artist to exhibit and discuss works. Works are organized in a comprehensive category structure, including photography, digital art, traditional art, literature, Flash, filmmaking, skins for applications, operating system customization utilities and others, along with extensive downloadable resources such as tutorials and stock photography. Additional utilities include journals, polls, groups and portfolios.
As of August 2010 the site consists of over 14.5 million members, and over 100 million submissions, and receives around 140,000 submissions per day. In addition, deviantArt users submit over 1.4 million "favorites" and 1.5 million comments daily.
Name:John Vechey
Website:PopCap Games
Age:28
Networth:$60 Million
PopCap Games was founded by John Vechey, Brian Fiete and Jason Kapalka in 2000. They wanted to create games, firstly by learning from other Internet gaming sites. Their first game wasBejeweled, a huge-hit gem-swapping game, which was supported on all major platforms and awarded by Computer Gaming World Hall Of Fame in 2002.
Name:Alexander Levin
Website:Image Shack
Age:23
Networth:$56 Million
ImageShack is a free image hosting website. ImageShack has a subscription service but the majority of its revenue is produced from advertising related to its free image hosting.
Name:Jake Nickell
Website:Threadless
Age:28
Networth:$50 Million

Threadless is a community-centered online apparel store run by skinnyCorp of Chicago, Illinois, since 2000. Co-founders Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart started the company with $1,000 in seed money after entering an Internet t-shirt design contest.
Members of the Threadless community submit t-shirt designs online; the designs are then put to a public vote. A small percentage of submitted designs are selected for printing and sold through an online store. Creators of the winning designs receive a prize of cash and store credit.
Name:Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith
Website:Tagged
Age:28
Networth:$45 Million
Tagged Inc. was co-founded in mid 2004 by entrepreneurs Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith, who wanted to build a "Teen Yahoo or the next MTV". The pair had formerly co-founded internet incubator Jumpstart Technologies, which was later fined $900,000 for alleged violations of the CAN-SPAM Act, then the largest ever penalty for spam.
The Wikipedia Page for Tagged

Name:Matt Mullenweg
Website:WordPress
Age:23
Networth:$40 Million
The Wikipedia Page on Matt.

Name:Kevin Rose
Website:Digg
Age:30
Networth:$31 Million

Even if their ideas may have sparked off as simple ones, they sure have grown into money churning machines and these people had to work their ass off to get there. But more than that, it was their passion that has driven them through their trail of glory.





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