Special Section
The Next Generation: Emerging Leaders Under 40
Diversity Executive Staff, 05-10-2009
They are all young, but these entrepreneurs and executives have one thing in common: They make and consistently follow their own paths.
Steve Chen, 30
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
YouTube
Sometimes, a little risk — and a lot of luck — can go a long way. Just ask Steve Chen, co-founder and chief technology officer for popular video-sharing Web site YouTube.
Chen took a major gamble when he dropped out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign just a few months shy of graduation to begin a job at PayPal, the online payment service. It turned out to be a fortuitous venture, though, as he met his future business partners and YouTube co-founders while there.
Chen stepped out on a limb again when he and his friends eventually left their jobs to found the Internet start-up in 2005, especially when the business plan seemed almost too simple to work: Users would upload their own videos to a universal site, which would host them — for the most part uncensored — for free. Less than two years later, however, they sold the site to Google for $1.65 billion.
And that was all before his 30th birthday.
Needless to say, Chen’s rise to the top of the corporate ladder has been riddled with a good helping of both gumption and good fortune. And his experience with luck is strangely fitting, considering he still carries with him the memory of a childhood visit to a fortune teller who told him he’d never be financially successful — a recollection that ultimately keeps him grounded.
“That’s kind of stayed with me ever since,” Chen told Time magazine. “We haven’t actually seen any of the money [from the sale of YouTube] yet. I keep thinking there will be some legal complication, or it will fall through somehow!”
Luckily, Chen’s childhood superstition doesn’t stop him from wanting to continue to innovate and tackle new projects.
“You do start wondering, ‘What’s next?’” he has said.
Chen has been named one of the 50 People Who Matter Now by Business 2.0.
– Agatha Gilmore
Christopher M. Chestnut, Esq., 29
Owner
The Chestnut Law Firm LLC
Christopher Chestnut said he was probably writing a business plan at recess. At age 6, he decided to quit playing soccer to work in the family mortuary business. In college, his father had limousines and he contracted with his parent to wash the fleet. Then he set up another contract to lease the limousines for a livery service. He also leased hearses from his father and rented them to other funeral directors within a 200-mile area.
During law school, Chestnut started a real estate holding company.
“The aim was to take a crack house, remove the element and make it a livable place for people of nonsignificant means, people who couldn’t afford the high rent district but still needed a livable home.”
Next came some informal political consulting for a Gainesville mayoral campaign. He helped his brother win a campaign for state legislature and helped put his best friend into play as vice mayor of Tallahassee at age 23.
Now, as the owner of a civil litigation firm based in Florida, with offices in Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami and Gainesville, Chestnut concentrates on plaintiff litigation.
“We represent consumers against insurance companies, sometimes small businesses against larger businesses, victims of wrongful death. We have some hybrid cases, and occasionally we’ll take on a discrimination case. We’re also dabbling in government relations.”
Chestnut started his firm in 2006, the same year then-Sen. Barack Obama named him an emerging leader at the annual legislative conference for the Congressional Black Caucus.
“I saw a need in the community, a void in the market, and I knew a traditional law firm likely would not afford me the opportunity to service clients with the approach I wanted to employ. So I thought, why not? I was accustomed to being an entrepreneur.”
Chestnut serves communities that are traditionally underserved for legal services.
“It’s not so much race or gender; it’s a socioeconomic issue. I don’t believe minorities can’t function if they’re provided an opportunity. Look at our president and our secretary of state. People can perform: It’s the American way.
“But I don’t know if the Barack Obama phenomenon will help diversity or hurt it. I don’t know if it will force people to take a second look at minorities in leadership or if people will hide behind the “we have an African American president — now we’ve arrived. Diversity still is an issue. You have to confront it.
“It’s an issue of cultural and gender stereotypes. You naturally assimilate with those who share your culture, and you will naturally hire and surround yourself with people you are comfortable with. Companies miss out on a lot of opportunities because of culture barriers.”
– Kellye Whitney
Ryan and Ashton Clark, 20
Entrepreneurs
Dynamik Duo Inc.
Twins often are known for sharing a special bond. For Ryan and Ashton Clark, that connection is an entrepreneurial spirit that’s been alive in them both from a very young age. It seems the brothers, both students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), were born to lead their own enterprises, and they’ve already led several.
“I realized at a young age that, if I put my mind to it, I can achieve anything,” Ashton said. “To make a little money while we were growing up, Ryan and I sold lemonade, raked leaves and shoveled snow. We were running our own mini-businesses. We set our own hours and loved it. This was the beginning of our entrepreneurial ventures.
“As juniors in high school several years later, we had a passion for gym shoes. One day we noticed that our peers were just as passionate about footwear as we were. What if we were able to offer the students the same products at an affordable price?”
Thus, LudaKicks, which Ashton said was the first online customized shoe company to offer toll-free phone support, live chat and e-mail support, was born.
That business venture was several months in the making as the twins learned how to develop Web sites in HTML and PHP programming languages. They now run a Web site development and design firm that builds high-quality Web sites for customers, appropriately called Dynamik Duo Inc.
Over the years, they’ve also started 247Mixtapes.com, a subscription-based site that gives members access to music normally offered only as promotional compilation CDs; UTicketIt.com, a ticket vending site for event planners; and WeParkChicago.com, a service that allows people to reserve parking spaces online.
Their roster of businesses also includes View2Play.com, a Web site that offers virtual music lessons for all instruments.
“Currently, my brother and I are working on DynamikApps — DynamikApps.com — which is a Facebook and iPhone applications Web site,” Ashton said. “Our goal is to develop highly useful applications for Internet users.”
