Youth Movement

Michael Furdyk and Jennifer Corriero have many goals. They want to overhaul the education system. They want to make the Internet accessible to more people. They want to figure out what the next generation of knowledge workers is looking to get from technology. And then, if there's time left, they want to stop saying "like" so much. To tackle this last goal, someone they know recently suggested that they purchase clickers to monitor each other's speech. Their methods for achieving their first three goals are slightly more complex.

We live and work in an era of youthful exuberance and unbridled ambition. Yet even by the standards of Internet time, Furdyk and Corriero are younger and more ambitious than most. Furdyk just turned 18; Corriero is now 20. Since March, the pair, who are natives of Toronto, have been headquartered in Redmond, Washington, where they have taken on a six-month consulting project at Microsoft. But the Microsoft gig is only their latest project. Furdyk has already founded or cofounded two startups. In the spring of 1999, he and his partners, also teenagers, sold MyDesktop.com, a collection of computer-information sites, to internet.com Corp. Furdyk's current focus is BuyBuddy.com, a consumer-information and shopping Web site that already has nearly 30 employees -- including Furdyk's own father. Meanwhile, Corriero has facilitated a host of technology-related programs for young people and has served on several youth-advisory councils, including that of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Both of them are regular speakers on the techie-conference circuit. And if that's not enough, they're also busy drumming up support for the project that's dearest to their hearts -- TakingITGlobal, a plan to create centers around the world that would provide access to technology while fostering a sense of community and celebrating cultural differences.

"Things are moving really fast," Corriero says. "But this is our speed. It's almost like we're setting the pace." Indeed, as two of the most visible members of the generation of 88 million young people between the ages of 3 and 23 -- a group referred to, variously, as the Net Generation, Generation Y, and the Echo Boom -- Furdyk and Corriero command the attention of many powerful people and companies. This fact is indisputably impressive. At times, it is also more than a little surreal.

"They're just amazing," says Tammy Morrison, a group product manager in Microsoft's knowledge-worker solutions group, as well as Furdyk and Corriero's supervisor. "Michael has great business intuition and a track record of success. Jennifer is a youth leader. She can understand people and become a leader for her peers."

Morrison refers to Furdyk and Corriero as "the dynamic duo" -- a nod to the fact that although they work well alone, they work better together, balancing out each other's professional and personal strengths. (Indeed, they are so inseparable that they keep both of their Microsoft employee badges on a single cord that they take turns wearing around their necks.) As Corriero puts it, "We do things differently, and we motivate each other. There's a lot of synergy."

Furdyk is more technologically facile and has greater business savvy; Corriero teasingly calls him "Mr., like, Successful." Corriero, whose own nickname is Jenergy, is no slouch herself. At an age when many of her peers are still baby-sitting, she boasts a three-page résumé filled with both corporate and nonprofit work. Corriero is also the more charismatic of the two. Furdyk, who is tall, dark-haired, and slightly gangly, comes off as logical and focused. Given the turn that his life has taken -- one recent trip found him in the town of Whitehorse (population 23,000), in Canada's Yukon Territory, where he had been invited by the Canadian government to speak to all of the local high schools, the college, and the Chamber of Commerce about how the town could capitalize on the Internet and e-commerce -- he is astonishingly unpretentious and low-key. Ultimately, however, it is Corriero who makes the greater impression.

When Corriero is discussing a subject about which she feels passionate -- and there are, it seems, many such subjects -- she speaks loudly and quickly, and for long stretches at a time. When she is truly inspired, she erupts from her seat. "I get very, very excited about things," admits Corriero. "My friend was like, 'Jen, I like being around you. You can make drinking from a glass exciting.' I want to share my attitude with other people."

Corriero has offered tips to Furdyk on how to be more outgoing. At one conference, Furdyk had brought stickers featuring the name of one of his startups. "He wanted to give them out, but he just left them at the booth," Corriero says. "I'm like, 'Mike, if you want people to take the stickers, go up to them.' He assumes that he's making people mad. I assume that people want to talk to me -- that I'm going to brighten their day." Corriero's coaching seems to have done the trick. "Now I'm an Amway salesman," Furdyk jokes.