Teen Internet Moguls

Not sure when this was published, but I found it to be an interesting read.
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Teen Internet Moguls
Web-savvy kids are turning their fun and games into million-dollar businesses

When Michael Furdyk and his partners sold their Web site for more than $1 million last spring, Furdyk got a pile of money, gushing publicity--and work-study credits toward his high school degree. Furdyk, now 17, still doesn't have his diploma. But he got enough venture capital for his new startup to lease a spacious office suite and employ 20 staffers--including his father, who just quit his job as an executive at NCR Corp.

Bouncing in his chair, Furdyk stares at his blue laptop, scrolling through reams of e-mails, looking away just long enough to glance down at the caller I.D. screen on his ringing cell phone. All the while, he's rattling on so fast about the virtues of his latest venture, BuyBuddy.com, a comparison-shopping service, that he's almost impossible to understand. He hardly mentions the big-bucks sale of his first dot-com company, MyDesktop.com, an online computer-help service, before launching into his business philosophy. Finally, he breaks into a broad smile as his new secretary appears in his office. ''Cool! Having a receptionist is cool!'' he says.

As Internet entrepreneurs go, Michael Furdyk, dressed in baggy black pants and a gray flannel top, doesn't seem all that unusual these days. But at 17, with a year to go before graduation, he's still really just a kid. Too young to vote, buy a drink, or get a credit card, he's in the improbable position of running a promising business venture, not to mention working as a consultant for Microsoft Corp.

Furdyk is no fluke. A small but growing army of teenaged entrepreneurs is making a bundle online by turning what began as hobbies into money-making ventures. The first generation ever to grow up in front of a computer screen, these teens are working late into the night hatching business plans, hiring employees, and lining up customers. ''Teens are becoming world entrepreneurs,'' says Nicholas Negroponte, founding director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab.

(more)

http://www.gnextinc.com/capitalist/articles/internetmoguls.html

The article is probably from late 1999 or 2000. All traces of copyright date have been wiped. I found no date later than May, 1999.

This kind of article used to be common -- they were written to get people hungry to make lots of money on the Internet. Hundreds of similar articles were written, and drove billions of dollars of dreams.

What happened? Capitalists and techies alike, we got wiped out. Offshoring sent the work overseas to coolie labor shops, and "Professionalism", so-called, made sure that the remaining jobs were turned into protected bailiwicks for the elite.

That's the pattern of Capitalism. A massive base of "stupid capital" is built from a public craze, which is then slaughtered and butchered into prime cuts for our social betters.

Oh, but the dreams we dreamed!

--p!