INC’s 30 under 30

http://www.inc.com/30under30/2007/

SLIDE SHOW http://www.inc.com/multimedia/slideshows/content/30under2007_pagen_1.html

Ben Kaufman, Mophie Sean Belnick, BizChair.com Bo Menkiti, The Menkiti Group Sam Altman, Loopt Katie Kerrigan, Kathryn Kerrigan Byron Myers, Inogen Ali Perry, Inogen Brenton Taylor, Inogen Raj Lahoti, Online Guru Geoff Cook, myYearbook.com Dave Cook, myYearbook.com Catherine Cook, myYearbook.com Brian Taylor, Kernel Season’s Miles Munz, Interview Stream Randy Bitting, Interview Stream

David Levich, Icedoutgear.com Dan Gershon, Icedoutgear.com Eric Liberman, Icedoutgear.com Ben Goldhirsh, GOOD Seth Berkowitz, Insomnia Cookies Alison Barnard, in-jean-ius Will Pearson, Mental Floss Mangesh Hattikudur, Mental Floss Nick Kenner, Just Salad Rob Crespi, Just Salad Hayden Hamilton, GreenPrint Benjamin Sann, BestParking.com Jason Wright, Feed Granola Co. Jason Osborn, Feed Granola Co. Alexis Demko, Lil Bogies

How a 15-year-old’ makes $50,000-to-$70,000-a-month

As previous suitors can attest, that wouldn’t be easy. In March 2006, an associate of MySpace cofounder Brad Greenspan approached Ashley with a bid valued at more than $1.5 million. She passed. Three months later, Greenspan’s people came back with a second offer: $700,000, a car, and her own Internet show with a marketing budget of $2 million.

Sorry, fellas. “I created this from nothing, and I want to see how far I can take it,” Ashley says. “If I wanted to do an Internet show, I could do it on my own. I have the audience.”

Until now, she has maintained a remarkably low profile in the offline world. Her scheduled appearance on the “Totally Wired Teen Superstars” panel at Mashup, a teen-marketing conference in July, was to be her first public-speaking appearance–and her first business trip. An even bigger gig is possible: her own reality-TV show. Rick Sadlowski, a TV production executive in Detroit who worked with Eminem when he was still Marshall Mathers, is eager to pitch the idea to MTV. Ashley is mulling it over.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/girl-power.html

Parent invents bullet proof school bag

It started with the Columbine shooting in 1999. Curran and Mike Pelonzi said that they watched and worried for their own children. They had the idea to hide bulletproof material inside a backpack. They call it defensive action.

“If the kid has a backpack next to them, or under the desk, they can pick it up, the straps act as a handle and it becomes a shield,” Curran said.

It’s much lighter than a 15-pound police vest. After three years of experimenting, the backpacks that were tested by an outside lab ranked threat level two. It stops an assortment of bullets, including 9-millimeter hollow point bullets. The fathers researched school shootings from 1900 to this year.

They will sell for $175, but do the special book bags play upon paranoia when most schools are called safe?

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/13860078/detail.html

Start A School then GET VERY RICH

These days Piccolo is living large – and proud of it. “Only in America,” he says, “can a guy who barely made it through college end up owning a college.” He and his wife, Mary, own three homes, including a ten-acre ranch with a 22,000-square-foot house and a pool in North Scottsdale. Still a car buff, he boasts a collection that includes a Ferrari 360 Spider, a Lamborghini Diablo, and a Bentley GT convertible. He also travels in a Falcon 200 company jet. For their seventh wedding anniversary he surprised his wife with a cherry-red grand piano signed by Elton John. Cost: $100,000. Piccolo says he and his wife also own investment properties in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah; Mary Piccolo manages the portfolio. Piccolo estimates its total value at $20 million.

See http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/06/magazines/fsb/real_estate.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2007080706